Everyone has an opinion about homeschooling: wise or ignorant, creative or restrictive, positive or negative. What are your thoughts?
Andrea Schwartz is a homeschool veteran and hero...graduating two of her three children through high school and launching them into a bright and powerful future. She was the choir and drama director for my daughter last year in a rousing performance of Cinderella. The Chalcedon Foundation recently released her first book, Lessons Learned from Years of Homeschooling: A Christian Mother Shares Her Insights from a Quarter Century of Teaching Her Children.
The title itself is pretty impressive. There are very few things that I can say I've done successfully for a quarter century. Yet, she has literally written the book on homeschooling. When I received Andrea's book a few months ago, I hesitated to read it and here's why...I know that she is convincing, compelling, and passionate about this topic. That's a good thing, but I hesitated because we stopped homeschooling our daughter this year and put her in a private Christian school. The school is wonderful, don't get me wrong, but with any school you take the good and the bad.
When I finally picked up Andrea's book, I felt her passion leap off the page. She is so knowledgable about education and children, but doesn't come across as a know-it-all. It's more like a wise mentor sharing her "lessons learned." I could relate to this because that's how I wrote my book as well. I'm not a know-it-all and don't have it all together, but I've learned a few things that I wanted to share. That's how I felt reading Andrea's book and it was eye-opening.
Now, three months later, I am proud to announce that we are returning to homeschooling. Friday was our daughter's last day in private school and today we begin a new adventure. Our entire family is excited about it...even little Bubbie. We love having our daughter home and the time that we are able to share together as a family. Between after-school sports, youth group, friends, and homework, we always felt rushed to get everything done and found little time to take the family walks that we've enjoyed.
There are many other aspects that influenced our decision, but we are confident that she will continue to blossom and flourish at home. As a former junior high teacher, I also feel capable of giving her the instruction and resources that she needs as well. And she's especially looking forward to focusing more on her artistic gifts and talents: piano, art, writing, theater, and singing. You can see the scrapbook page I made for her on Friday commemorating this new stage in our lives.
Wish us well on our journey and let us know what you think. If you've ever even contemplated homeschooling, read Andrea's book. Each chapter is short and sweet, full of information and inspiration. Here's to making our children a priority...however we choose to educate them.
technorati tags: homeschooling, scrapbooking, digital_scrapbooking, Andrea_Schwartz, Chalcedon_Foundation
