Why Homeschool? {Part Four}

Today’s post will be the final one in a series that I have been writing here about the reasons that my husband and I chose homeschooling as the best option for our family.  There are definitely so many reasons that it would take me a long time to cover them, so I touched a little one the ones that were in the forefront of my mind, leading up to our number which is what I am sharing today…

To begin with, I would like to share a little about myself, and what initially and most importantly led me to choose to homeschool my children.  I grew up wanting to be a teacher.  My answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?” (even as a 4 year old, having no experience in a school), was “a teacher.”  When I graduated from high school, I received a scholarship from the local retired teachers association that they gave each year to a student wanting to pursue a career in education.  I completed four years of college, got my degree, and began teaching in the public school.  My professors in college, and my experience with my colleagues in the school, left a bad impression of homeschooling overall.  I did not like it, I did not want it, and I did not “believe” it could be done.  I was against it as much as I could be against it.  That being said, there were others, who had been teaching much longer than I had, who were much more verbal about and stronger in their anti-homeschooling beliefs than I.  I had never met one child who had been homeschooled, yet I was against it.  I had the opportunity to meet some homeschooled children one day…when I met the man who would later become my husband.  I met my future nephew and nieces.  At that time, they  were 5, 9, and 10.  They were the most well-mannered, respectful children that I had ever met, and being a teacher, I had met a lot of children.  They were not anti-social as I expected that they would be.  The 10 year old filled me in on just about the whole 10 years of his life previous to our meeting!  The 9 year old smiled and chatted with me as if she were an adult.  The 5 year old, being a bit shy, smiled her sweet smile, and played just like all other 5 year old girls that I knew at the time.  I was impressed, to say the least.  As my future husband and I got to know one another better, he expressed his desire to have his children (if he were blessed with them in the future) homeschooled.  I was still resistant to the idea, but he told me to “just pray about it.”  I did just that, and through my time with God, He led me to know that this was the right direction for me and my future family, before I even had a family of my own!  My husband and I married and have been blessed with three children.  At present, they are 10, 9, and 7 years old…and I do not regret one day of being here with them, homeschooling them, or the decision I made so long ago.

The picture that I have included in this article is of my son.  It is a little difficult to see, but he is “preaching” from his children’s Bible.  He often “played” preacher, and his message was always about Jonah.  He would say, “God told Jonah to go THIS way, but Jonah went THAT way!”  Had I decided against homeschooling my children, it would have been the same concept as the story of Jonah as my son so simply understood it.  God told me to the homeschooling way.  Any other direction would have been disobedient to His will for me and my family.  My main reason, the most important reason, that I chose to homeschool my children is because God told me to.  I cannot think of a better, more important reason than that.

Here is the links to the other posts in this series:
Why Homeschool?  (Part One)
Why Homeschool?  (Part Two)
Why Homeschool?  (Part Three)