We’re rounding home plate on this academic year, and yes, of course learning never stops. My children and myself do, however, take a pause on any sort of text book or workbook or formal type of learning for a couple months before we begin again. This gives them an opportunity to spend time doing other activities, for example, my 17 year old will be adding more hours and days to his work schedule. We have just a few weeks left to “officially” meet the 180 day requirement, though we will have more than 180 days by the time of the penciled in “last day of school”. Why is it penciled in? Because if we are completed before that date, we’re done, so long as we’ve met the law requirements. We won’t, however, go any longer past that date. So May 20th is the slated end of our academic year. The teens will be done with most of their work before that. It’s not a requirement to complete your texts or workbook materials, but I like to get it all done when possible. I’ve also implemented a “year end” science presentation poster project they will have the last few weeks to complete. This was an optional assignment from the Marine Biology course, but they are teenagers and if they decide to go on to more schooling, it could benefit them to work on such a project. The way we’ve chosen to “schedule” time for their work is by my teenagers request. They like to have goals (dates, time) by which to get things done.

Not everyone’s home education program is going to look like mine or like yours. Whatever works for your children and you, is the best method. I’d caution about making it too rigid or too long of a day. You don’t really want nor need to create public school at home. It should be fun, and engaging. I’ve heard a lot of stories about parents who can’t get their children to do any of the assignments they have provided. In that case I’d suggest a different approach. Throw out the schedule and the lesson planner and maybe shelve the text books and work books in favor of hands on learning. Your first year will probably have a lot of kinks to work out until you learn how best your kids learn. I did lesson planning the first year and had a written out time schedule for each class. That was a disaster and overly stressful. But if you and your kids work best that way, by all means, do it. If you like schedules but don’t want to spend time making them, there are publishers that sell curriculum with schedules made for you. That makes it easy and you can follow exactly or loosely. To name a few, there’s Master Books, Apologia, and BJU Press. I have first hand experience with each of them.

My teenagers just returned from a weekend away with their church youth group. There were about 30 teenagers from ages 12-18 along with adult supervisors. A good experience for them and a much needed break for my hard working 17 year old son who’s not had a weekend off since he started working in 2021. I went to my monthly women’s brunch at church. It’s always a good time of fellowship. Even in that loving environment with my sister’s in Christ it can be challenging to talk about homeschooling. That day was no exception. People really lack understanding about what homeschooling is. If you’ve been home educating your children, you know exactly what I am talking about. Use grace when talking to people. You usually get a pretty good sense of where that conversation is going to go when you hear them talking about things they really don’t understand or when you hear them clearly inferring that success means getting into college, or even a “best” college. Some even think that kids can’t do well without public education or will be socially awkward and lonely. These things are misconceptions that homeschooling families have always had to deal with. Even with the growth of homeschool since 2020, the misconceptions mount.

Let me offer my opinions to you and please have an open mind about them. Homeschooling is not easy all the time, but neither is sending your kids to a public or private school. Homeschooling is not keeping your kids in a bubble, or at least I hope you don’t do that. Homeschooling is not the same as cyberschool (which is almost always done via a public school of some sort) or with any organized distance learning school, because you are not educating your children this way, the school program and teachers are. Homeschool is not a way to shelter your children. Homeschool does not mean your kids will be behind their peers (in fact the opposite is almost always true). Homeschool does not mean your children can not, succeed, go to college, or will be “dumb” (sadly, I’ve actually been told this). Homeschool does not mean your kids will lack friends, be alone, and bored. The socialization aspect is the most ridiculous. Public school is not about socializing. Never was, never will be. Homeschooling children have many opportunities to socialize with other children, of all ages, and adults. This is actual socialization that teaches them how to interact with people of all ages. Homeschooling is a sacrifice and more so for some families than others. It might mean one parent quits their job to stay home, or one parent needs to take a different shift so that one is home during the day and one is home at night. Homeschool can happen at any time of the day or night. Home education is an all day every day thing, not 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. You get to decide how and what your kids learn. We only learn with a Christian worldview because anything else would go against our faith in our Creator. Homeschooled children learn valuable skills needed for life. They learn the value of family and in many cases brings them closer with their siblings and parents. This is a good thing.

In my 14 year old’s home-ec course this year she’s read about dating, home maintenance, car care, budgets, being financially responsible, filing taxes (a skill my son learned hands on as he filed his own taxes this year), how to apply for a job, interviewing for a job and how to write a resume. These things were all opportunities to share my first hand knowledge with both teenagers. When I was helping my daughter write her resume as a teenager who’s had no work experience yet, and filling out her achievements and skills, I started to really think about the life skills she’s learned from just “being at home” with her brother and mother. Aside from the text book learning, she’s learned how to manage her time, get projects done with a due date, show up to “work on time” and not complain (sure there is a degree of not liking certain assignments). She’s learned how to think, logically and critically, about anything really. They may not sound like learned skills, but they are. She’s learned about priorities and why they are important. Learned the value of family, the structure of family, the value of hard work, how to manage money, why we volunteer at church, just to name a few things. And these aren’t just for my daughter, but my son also. When we bought a new-used car a few weeks ago, she was there while we test drove, talked with the salesman, paid for the car without financing it and why that was important to us and why whenever possible, that’s how it should be. She may have been bored while there was a lot of waiting and paperwork, but that was a learning experience not everyone gets. Involve your children in these things and use them as opportunities for life long skills they will likely need some day. It doesn’t matter if they are public, cyber or homeschooled.

Even my 17 year old getting one of his wisdom teeth surgically removed was an opportunity for learning. He got to see his x-ray (and mom took a photo with her phone) and the surgeon explained the process to him. We’ve also been bird-watching and have the chance to look up and identify the birds we see visiting as well as identifying the sounds they make. We watch how they interact with each other. Is there anything better than watching God’s creation? The next learning opportunity is going to come by way of switching banks. Moving their money from their savings accounts at one bank and placing them into another and even into a checking account which will create accountability for them when they get debit cards. Don’t take these moments for granted. Every day provides a new opportunity for learning. There are just some things you can’t learn from text books and in my opinion they are the things that are most valuable. Number one, however, always, in this house, is knowing our Savior. Knowing that he has prepared a place for us. Knowing that our God is the creator of all things and that he deserves our praise, every day. Success isn’t about how much money you make, or what college you go to, but to spend eternity with Christ which was made possible because he gave up his life for us. How could we not want to serve him everyday?

Finally, my 17 year old only requires one more English credit to meet the PA home education law graduation requirement. He will complete that, and other courses in the 2022-2023 academic year. His evaluator and myself will sign the transcript and the diploma provided for by the PA Department of Education even though these are not technically needed. I will only use these things when requested, especially when documents just signed by myself are not enough for some places. Plans for after graduation are not clear. I do not press the college issue, but the option is there and I’ve done hours of work to research possible school choices for the degree program he’d be interested in applying to. Now it’s up to him and right now he thinks he is just going to work full time to save up money. He’s doing that quite well already. Loans sound like good ideas to pay for things you feel you need when you can’t afford something outright, but they really should be taken with a plan of paying it off as quick as possible to avoid the amount of interest you pay. Continue saving and pay more than the minimum to get it paid off faster. These are things he’s thinking about and I’m teaching him. Starting out your “adult” life in mass amount of student loan debt is not the best way to go, if you can avoid it. It may be what people consider “normal”, but it’s not actually normal and when you look at what God’s word says, it’s not something you should want to do. I do realize it’s not always possible to avoid debt. I had a mortgage and I’ve had car payments in my past. But we should be wise with how we spend our money and never stop paying our debts, but do strive to get rid of them as quick as possible.

There’s a whole other aspect of higher education that concerns me and that’s the world’s idea of what young adults should learn. There just isn’t one school outside of Christian colleges (and they aren’t all exempt from this) that doesn’t require some kind of course or courses that will end up teaching worldly propaganda and lies far removed from a Christian worldview. Those courses have zero benefit to my teenager. They don’t provide anything he needs in life or for the field of study he’s chosen, which is computer programming. Can anyone explain how gender studies benefits a computer science degree program? What about humanities or something called “nature studies”? Yet these are courses all secular colleges are requiring. Do you think “nature studies” is going to talk about God’s creation of all things? That’s highly unlikley. I know many are thinking, “what’s wrong with humanities”? Plenty. In community college I also was put into that course. How did that help me in my journey toward nursing school? It didn’t. It’s frankly a worldly way to change the way you think. To make you think like men, “philosophical men”, and not what I know to be true from God’s word. Would it have been different if taught from a Christian worldview? Yes, but that’s not happening in any secular college or university. And so I have many reservations about his perusing higher education post highschool. God will show us what is the best course of action. I pray my son listens to the will of God and pray for continued growth in Christ that he may not become part of the world that can only bring death, not life. No matter how badly we might want something it may become a stumbling block if we choose not to listen to the one who knows everything. Some people say that as long as you give them a good foundation sending them off to a secular college isn’t really a big deal. I whole-heartedly disagree and so do statistics. You can’t shelter them, but is sending them to the wolves in their best interest or is there an alternative? Be open-minded. Better yet, be Christ-minded.

(The above are my opinions, except for the truth about Christ paying our sin debt in full on the cross. I don’t condemn anyone for not agreeing with my opinions.)