Last night I joined in on my first ever live chat over at The Canadian Homeschooler. I was on a panel of "experts" trying to answer questions about homeschooling high school here in Canada. Wow huh? Lil' ol' me! It was fun and I hope to be a part of something like that again. Was I nervous? You darn right I was! But Andrea...you've got 13 years of homeschooling under your belt! You're practically an expert! Well yes and no. I have four different children with four different needs and four different ways of learning, which means different ways of teaching. I stumble through lessons, I lose my patience, I'm not always organized, my curriculum does not always fit the child. Is my way right? No...maybe not for you..but yes...FOR US what we're doing and muddling through though, is working most days.
I have to admit I was nervous about last night, because for a split moment I thought we'd all be trying to one up each other on methods of teaching and how to handle the high school years. Silly don't you think? But I've seen that happen and I have heard it happen in the past. Just because one parent believes in classical education, and another parent believes in eclectic, or another parent wants their child to do virtual learning, or one family is traditional, another blended or another fully aligned; does not give anyone the right to judge the other and their means of homeschooling. We are ALL homeschoolers! We are all stumbling through home education day by day, year by year. We are all trying to contribute well rounded, virtuous, future citizens to this world!
Parents are the primary educators of their children. Aren't our end goals relatively the same then? They should be don't you think? We as home-school moms should be supporting each other through the hard days, and celebrating each others triumphs on the good days. Judging each other on what homeschooling theory we believe in? Just not cool. There are days that I wonder if I'm doing my children a dis-service by homeschooling them...no really...on those bad days...So don't you think words of encouragement would be a way to lift a discouraged mom up from the pit of despair no matter what the method or theory of homeschooling is taught?
The reasons for why homeschooling works and why it is good, are endless. We as moms want to awaken and nurture our children's endless curiosity and quest for knowledge. Life is too short to debate which method is the right method of homeschooling. The right method or the right approach is the one that works for your family. Period. And the one common bond that all us moms should strive for and remember no matter where we live?
We're All In This Together.
Girl. I totally agree with you. Every family is different and there is no right way. We don't have all the answers. As long as your spending time teaching your child and you make them believe that learning is fun then we as parents have succeeded. I hated school growing up. I never did my homework and more than half of the time I did not remember what I've learned in school. I turned out ok, at least that's what I think.:) It was not until I went to college that I actually cared about learning. Sometimes I wonder if I'm teaching them all I need to. MY hubby also had no interest in school. However, he is so smart and knows everything about history and the bible. He used to even preach at our church. He also is very great business man. God has blessed us tremendously. So yes education is very important but life skills to us is more important. We are not pushing our children to go to college. We want them to dream big and we truly believe that they will succeed with Gods help and hard work. :)You are totally right that We are in this together whether we homeschool our children or not.
ReplyDeleteLove this! Thankyou! We as moms need to build each other up, not tear one another down.
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