Monday, April 21, 2014

I am grateful for homeschooling

As the organizer for the Carnival of Homeschooling I try each week to submit a post to the weekly carnival. So far out of 433 I think I’ve missed less than 15 carnivals. Sometimes I find it a challenge to come up with an interesting topic for the weekly post. Today I was riding the train home from work and I started brainstorming about various possible topics related to homeschooling. A couple times the thought came to me about how grateful I was that we were able to homeschool.

I am very grateful that my children didn’t grow up in a pack minded government school where they were taught to give in to the mob. Our oldest three children really don’t care too much about what the crowd wants. Our son has an entertainer personality and will often do things to make people laugh. Since he is only seven I’m not too worried.

I am very grateful that homeschooling allowed our children to learn at their own rate. Our oldest two daughters were very late readers. The reading process didn’t really kick in until they were nine and ten. In public schools with the current rush to make them readers in kindergarten our older daughters could have been labeled failures. Now at 17 and 19 they are constantly reading. It is one of their greatest pleasures.

And I am very grateful that homeschooling allowed my children to spend so much time with each other. They like each other, most of the time. And they are very supportive of each other. One of the things I regret about my public school experience was how it taught me to only hang out with children my own age. I went from spending hours a day with my siblings up until I was ten, to hardly talking to them, for almost ten years. It was such a waste.

Homeschooling has been such a blessing for our family. I am so gratreful.

2 comments:

annette @ A Net In Time said...

homeschooling is, isn't it?

You've given me hope though, that eventually my boy will be an avid reader. His reading is coming along, but man... how I wish he was reading more and faster. :)

Annie Kate said...

Yes, there is much to be grateful for in homeschooling.

Allowing for a slower start is one of them. None of my kids read fluently until at least 8 years of age, but one of them scored a perfect 800 on the reading part of the SAT recently! At a traditional school he would probably have been in trouble both for his energy and his slow start in reading.

And there are so many other wonderful things about homeschooling! Thanks for reminding me.