by Mindi Popovich-Schneider, Saint Emmelia Ministries Assistant
A few months ago, I wrote about common homeschooling myths. Now, I want to talk about the homeschooling reality, specifically, why we really homeschool.
It’s true that there are a lot of negative reasons–that is, things that we are trying to get away from–but all too often, the positive reasons get overlooked. And that is really a travesty, because these positives are the heart and soul of homeschooling. We’re not running away from other people, diverse opinions, or behaviors that we dislike; we’re actually running towards something. So, here are some positive reasons why we homeschool:
To spend time together: Because we believe that each child is a beautiful being created by God, we genuinely want to spend time with our children and enjoy the things that make them them. We believe that God granted us children as the most important work of our lives. Accordingly, we want to embrace this work as fully as we can, and we can only do that when we are deeply involved in their educations.
To transmit a belief system: This is a myth that does have a kernel of truth in it; it’s just become distorted and popularized as a desire to indoctrinate our kids. In the Garden of Eden, God did not create mindless automatons, but rather reasoning beings who could choose to love Him and know Him. He gave them a solid foundation–clear, explicit rules–and free will to do with that foundation what they would. Just so, we do not want our children to be mindless automatons who never question or think for themselves, but we do want to give them a firm foundation that they may rest upon when it is time for them to exercise their free will. So we keep them protected in a nurturing environment until the foundation is laid and the time for choice has come.
To let kids be kids: In the time that it takes to carefully and intentionally lay a strong foundation for our kids, they get to be kids. All too often, the world forces children to grow up quickly in order to keep up with their peers, whether through inappropriate media, bullying, or other developmentally-unsafe behaviors. Homeschooled kids are allowed to mature and develop at their own pace–not an arrested pace, but simply the timing that is natural to who they are as individual beings. Children can play pretend in the backyard as long as it captures their imagination, or they can start reading Shakespeare the moment his beautiful words catch their hearts without being dragged away from either by their peers or teachers.
To explore anything (and everything): Not only does homeschooling allow children to grow up at their individual pace, but it also allows them to explore different ideas according to their individual interests. When I was a student, I was fascinated by missions work, so my history reading always included biographies of (usually female) missionaries. My husband was enamored of space, so his science reading usually involved at least one book about the cosmos. Now, as adults, I work for a church ministry, and my husband delights in showing our friends’ children how to use the telescope in our living room. Our (wildly different) homeschool educations nurtured these seeds into sweet fruit that we enjoy over and over, in many different ways.
To make room for wonder: All of this exploration gives homeschool families a unique opportunity to approach discovery with intentionality: to learn deeply what a thing is and to marvel at its “whatness”. Whether it is the lives of the saints, the transcendence of a Divine Liturgy, the mystery of a forest, or the joy of a good book, homeschooling gives us the freedom to see what makes things good, and to thank God for them. In my experience, the grind of public school–its busy schedules, standardized testing, and watered-down curriculum–has no interest in wonder, and it is the worse for it.
Taking these reasons together, I would say that the heart of homeschooling is this: a desire to cultivate Beauty in our children’s lives. In fact, I would argue that because of our relationship with God, it is not so much a desire, but an imperative. Because God is the Creator of Beauty, when we teach our children to love Beautiful things and to seek them out, we are teaching them to listen for the things of God and to marvel at His hand in all of Creation.
So while it’s true that we do want to remove unhealthy things from our kids’ lives–nihilism, ugly words and behavior–what’s more important is that we want to fill their lives with good things. We’re not running away or hiding from anything; rather, we are running joyfully towards the Beauty of our Creator.
Why does your family homeschool?