Education of a Home School Dad

It started out as a grand mission, a noble ambition to raise children who would be spiritually whole, academically competent, relationally compassionate.  We had heard the stories about home-educated National Spelling bee winners, about 1600 SAT scores, about brilliant people in history who learned at home.  We met homeschool graduates and heard their success stories.  We also heard about the horrors of public school curriculum and bureaucracy, the corrupting influence of peers, media, and secular humanism.

So, out of the same desire nearly all parents have — to do what is best for our children — we started on the homeschool adventure.  Eighteen years later, we certainly know more about ourselves, more about parenting, and more about education.  Do I have regrets?  A few.  Do I wish we had done something completely different?  No.  But I have learned that the benefits propounded by well-intentioned home education advocates do not all pan out in that very long haul from kindergarten to high school.  So, while there is much good that can come from parents educating their own children, the process has its own unique pitfalls, particularly when one is wearing the blinders of spectacular expectations that morph into fallacies.  So, what follows is a brief synopsis of those home education notions that have proven in our experience to be more than a desert mirage once we got closer to the destination, yet still considerably less than we had hoped for at the beginning.

Parents Make Better Teachers  

Yes, parents normally have a far greater interest in their own children than a teacher can have.  Parental love is a powerful motivator.  But that does not translate directly into better teaching.  In the early clueless years, especially if starting out with younger children, there is little harm you can do, frankly.  Likewise, there is much that children can learn from nothing more than a little readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic.  In that respect, our early years were blissful.  We discovered a lot of new things, made new friends, bought a lot of curriculum, read so many, many books.  Our children seemed to make reasonable progress.  But as they got older, the gaps in parental teaching skills, both in terms of subject matter knowledge and the ability to communicate it, became more and more apparent.  We had to find other options.  That flexibility is part of the benefit of home educating.  It is also part of the stress of home educating.  You are constantly on the search for solutions to the educational limitations of your home school - that is, your own limits as Mom and Dad being surrogate teachers.

Education Can Be Tailored To Each Child  

The reality is that mastering a single curriculum in a multi-student, multi-grade environment is quite an achievement, particularly when pre-schoolers crawl between the legs of the Teacher Mom while she attempts to educate her school-age children.  Every homeschool family I know has spent significant amounts of money and time on under-utilized curriculum in search for that perfect fit: the self-teaching curriculum.  What ended up happening in our home and many others is that they settled on a curriculum that worked for the parents.  The parents understood it.  Whether it was really best for their children may not have been clear until much further down the road.  As the years unfolded, we did get better at evaluating curriculum and how it fit our children.  But, that still leaves the unbending limit of how much time a parent-teacher can put in to shaping a custom education for each of their offspring.  So, we picked a method and, for the most part, have stuck with it.  As we got smarter, our teaching improved, but it wasn't customized for each child.

The Bible Is A Science Text  

No, I’m sorry to say, it isn’t.  I have friends who have been ostracized for not toeing the line of ‘Young Earth Creationism’.  I myself have had to take a vow of silence on this topic so as to not alienate people whom I otherwise hold in high regard.  I understand that the Bible and its veracity are foundational to the Christian faith.  What I don’t understand is jettisoning ‘love one another’ — which the Bible clearly teaches — for the sake of non-essential positions on the purported scientific framework of Scripture.  Since most of church history leans toward treating the Bible as moral and theological, rather than technical and scientific, I can only attribute this contemporary effort at reconciling ancient writings with modern science as an indicator of ignorance both of science and Scripture.

A Large Family Means Success  

I love my children.  We have more than the average American family.  I love my grand-children.  In fact, the people I get along with best are those from age zero to about four years old.  I don’t know what the ‘right’ answer is about how many children your family should have or my family should have.  All the wailing and hand-wringing about ‘carbon footprint’ hasn’t convinced me that we are in a population epidemic.  But I do know that a subtle worship of fertility in home school circles does two things.  It creates a stratified culture where those who have fewer children are seen as less committed to the mission; those who have followed the plan and have a large brood are expected to handle with a ‘stiff upper lip’ the concomitant financial and relational stress that comes with raising large numbers of children in an urban society and adding in homeschooling on top of it.  The mothers in homeschool families that I know are dreadfully weary.  Most of the time.  And they are heroic.  But I also think they carry a big sense of failure with them because they see the near impossibility of the task, yet have no space to admit it.  In the case of my own treasured wife, I know this is true. 

Everyone Should Do It  

Teaching is hard.  It is not a skill that everyone can develop.  There still are excellent teachers who actually want children to learn and can inspire them to do so.  No doubt, there are issues with the public school system as a whole and with particular public schools.  Private schools are often prohibitively expensive.  But, that simply means that parents need to evaluate the options of the schools available for their children and determine as best as they can what will be the right solution for their family: public school, charter school, private school, home school.

Character Formation Will Be Better  

Character formation of children, when exclusively the domain of the parents, becomes reflective of the strengths and weaknesses of the parents, which may or may not be ‘better’.  Conversely, children with broader exposure to other positive role models and experiences outside the home gain character in ways simply not possible when limited to two people known as parents.  While this precept of home education had children in mind, the challenge of this monumental task certainly is character forming.  For parents.  

Families Should Do Everything Together  

Because, the more you do together as a family, the closer your family relationships will be.  While this sounds good in theory, in reality, the differences can become volatile the more time you spend together.  The sun provides warmth and light.  Focus it through a magnifying glass and it produces smoke and fire.  This is particularly true in the home where the muting effect of public visibility goes away behind the walls of the homeschool castle.  Each one of our children are unique, significantly different from their siblings.  While we are confident that they will remain close to each other into adulthood, it is highly likely that they will, like their parents, form bonds with friends outside the family that will be closer than the relationships they have within the family.

Children Will Become Better Adults

I have seen the anecdotal evidence in homeschool publications.  I have also seen personal examples of people I know.  My un-scientific conclusion is that homeschooling certainly affects how children transition to adulthood.  While sometimes the homeschool greenhouse results in stronger plants once they get out into ‘the wild’ of the larger society, I have also seen homeschoolers wilt when confronted with something far different than they experienced, or take a totally different path than their parents ever envisioned because they never had options before.

Still Miles To Go

I treasure memories of time spent helping my children grow in wisdom and knowledge.  Our children have a shared literary heritage of many wise and delightful works.  I have made deep and dear friendships with other parents on this journey.  I enjoy being closely connected to my children through their years of education.  But, I have learned my limits.  I can look back on moments of despair when I realized I was failing my children in a big way.  I am not a good teacher.  At best, in a certain limited sphere, I am adequate.  I am grateful for where each of my children are today and that they have grown sometimes because of and sometimes in spite of my tutelage.  That, I suppose, is true of parenting as a whole.  I will continue to participate in my children’s education, but I have learned that they do not need to validate my aspirations for their future.  My children answer to a higher call than mine.  Sometimes, that means getting out of the way and letting them hear that call for themselves, perhaps through experiences and voices I would never have anticipated.

A Very Long Day

I was reminded of an episode from my childhood recently while reading aloud “Mary Emma and Company”, the ongoing saga of Ralph Moody that took place about 100 years ago.  The Moody family had just moved from Colorado to Boston, Massachusetts.  On their first day in town, thirteen-year-old Ralph is at a local grocer trying to get a job.  When Ralph tells his prospective employer how many hours a day he would be willing to work, the grocer informs him that the truant officer would not think too highly of that.  Ralph isn’t quite sure what a truant officer is, but he assumes that means he will have to go to school.  When they were living in Colorado and struggling to make ends meet after Ralph’s father died, his mother would let him stay out of school if he had a job earning more than 50 cents a day!  No truant officers came calling.

While recognizing that much good has come from child labor laws and public education, reading Ralph Moody’s story, I am struck by how much he gained from his early exposure to work.  Ralph’s mother wisely struck a balance between making sure Ralph had an education while allowing him to be a resourceful entrepreneur.  Though his formal education in his elementary years was spotty, what Ralph learned in the ‘school of hard knocks’ more than compensated.  I am hard-pressed to think of a book about childhood, fictional or not, historical or contemporary,  where a school boy actually enjoyed being in school.  Rather, it is almost universally portrayed as something to be escaped from.  This makes me wonder why it is that when children are miserable in school, the grown-ups who run the system assume there is something wrong with the child.  As an elementary aged school boy, I experienced that desire to escape on a regular basis.  It wasn’t until about age 11 that I made my first attempt.

When I was in 6th grade, my closest neighborhood friend was Edward Moss.  He was a few months younger than me, which put him in 5th grade.  His older brother Tracy was actually in my class.  There was also a third Moss brother, who by then was in Junior High and had even less appreciation for school.  

It was a time in the school year when the weather was balmy and the memory of summer freedom still fresh.  The Moss boys and I were grousing about school one afternoon when the oldest brother suggested a novel solution: why not just stay home?  To my innocent mind, this was an astounding notion.  How could we NOT go to school?  As it turned out, quite easily.  Although we were not much more than a mile from school, a classic yellow Bluebird school bus wheezed its way to our trailer park every school day, no doubt to ensure that smaller children would make it safely to the hallowed halls of learning.  Still, walking was an option we often used as preferable to the noisy confines of the bus.  

We came up with a deceptively simple plan.  I would meet the Moss brothers at the entrance to the trailer park where the bus stopped.  Of course, there would be other kids gathered there.  We would tell them we were walking to school.  Then, on the way, we would detour into one of our favorite hang-outs — the old cemetery that was just a block or so down the street from the trailer park entrance.

That is just what we did.  It was astoundingly easy.  Once out of eye-shot of the bus stop, we dashed into the cemetery.  Then, we ducked behind a large mausoleum in the middle of the grounds and watched as the bus came and went.

At first, our freedom was glorious.  We wandered around, reading epitaphs, engaged in nonsensical conversation.  While all those other losers were cramped in a hard chair behind a desk, we were breathing deep the fresh air wafting through the old pepper trees and musty marble of the cemetery.  That is, until the oldest Moss boy pulled out a handful of cigarettes from his pocket.  He had snagged them from his Dad’s supply.  Today was to be a day for breaking rules.  So, we all in turn lit up.  I had seen enough public service announcements to know smoking was BAD.  In spite of that, peer pressure was highly effective.  I tried a puff or two.  Even though these were a filtered menthol brand, I can still recall the mint green label, the experience was decidedly un-mint-like.  For a boy prone to asthma and allergies, breathing smoke was a poor fit.  I never tried smoking again.

No, it never was...

That diversion got us to what we assumed must be about lunch time.  None of us had a watch, but the sun was high overhead.  Since our master plan had not gone beyond our initial escape, we had not anticipated such basic needs as food and water.  I had brought a brown bag lunch.  On that particular day, I was the only one so equipped.  Whether we had money or not didn’t matter.  In our present circumstance we couldn’t go anywhere in the public eye.  By the time my meagre lunch was divided among our truant band, it didn’t make much of a meal.  I wasn’t particularly hungry, in any case.  The combination of lurking anxiety about being caught and the after-taste from smoking had effectively dampened my appetite.

Boredom crept in with the oppressive warmth of the afternoon sun, the only possible explanation for what we did next.  We headed out to the street by the trailer park entrance, looking for relief from our monotony.  By the entrance was a rectangular pit in the ground built of cinder blocks and covered by heavy gauge steel plating.  Cut into the steel was a hinged trap door which was conveniently unlocked, but steel plating is heavy.  We managed to pry it up enough to get a grip and, with all of us lifting, got the door open.

Tracy — always good for a reckless endeavor — volunteered to climb down into the pit for a look.  He had just dropped down onto the concrete floor several feet below when someone hissed:  “There’s a car coming out of the park!”

We dropped the door with a thunderous clang, leaving Tracy inside.  The three of us made a mad dash across the street and flung ourselves onto the ground behind scanty cover of brush and rock.  The car creeped up the drive and turned toward town.  Once it passed out of sight, we clambered to our feet, only to see another car coming up the street in our direction.  Again, we waited.  The ground was warm and the smell of dust and sage and sweat began to mingle as we lay there with the sun beating down.  Car number two finally disappeared into the park.

Cautiously, we raised our heads and scanned the street closely before dashing across to see about Tracy.  Again, we pried the door up, taking a bit longer since we were missing Tracy’s help, who could barely reach the door from below.  Tracy’s face glowered up at us, dripping with perspiration.  

“What took you so long?  I’m roasting down here!” 

Those were his kinder thoughts. The rest of what he said is unprintable: “#$%&@“ and variants thereof.

We hoisted the apoplectic Tracy out of the hole.  Peering in, I saw a large pipe crossing the length of the pit with a complicated steel contraption bolted in the middle, part of the system providing domestic water and fire protection for the park.  Hardly worth the trip across the street.

The interminable afternoon drug on for another couple of hours.  We wandered around a nearby orange grove for awhile, tossing oranges at each other and eating a few to ease our hunger.  Finally, we heard the bus making its return trip.  We could safely end the extended game of hide-and-seek where apparently nobody was interested in finding us.  My long day was over.  It would be a much longer time before I attempted to skip school again.  

Certainly, I was NO ordinary boy.  But, just what planet I came from is still open to debate.

The Wonder

This time of year is 'Heartbreak Hill' for homeschooling.  Yes, the academic year is a bit over half complete, but strewn along the marathon trail are the well-laid plans of late autumn, now forcibly adjusted to the imperfect mix of teaching and children and curriculum.  So, it was timely that at a recent gathering of our homeschool support group, the topic of discussion was 'encouragement to finish well'.  As the evening went on and different fathers and mothers shared, I had a sense that there was an elusive truth yet to be spoken, one that we needed to hear.

The glaring fact is that while the dads like myself do their best to support the often invisible, overwhelming task, it is the moms who carry the load day in and day out.  More than anything, weariness is the badge of honor which these mothers attempt to conceal.  And so it was fitting that a mother, just as we were about to wrap up the evening, shared these thoughts, as best as I can remember:

I never want to lose the wonder. 

I never want to lose the wonder, the realization of the awesome gift I have been given in my children and the chance to teach them at home.

I get to be the person who listens to my child when they read for first time, to be there for so many first things.

There are mornings I wake up so tired my eyes feel like they have sand in them.

After over 20 years of doing this, you would think I, we -- I could never do this without my husband -- would have it figured out, but I have never felt more slammed than in the past few months.

Some years I don't know if we have gotten a lot of homeschooling accomplished, but we have done a lot of living.

But we serve a good God and He gives us grace.

I have a 4 year old who is discovering so many things for the first time, and a 26-year-old who wants to know how to train their own 2-year-old.  And all the others in between.  The demands of parenting only get more complicated as your children grow.  But we serve a good God.

From eternity, our God chose our children and your children and said "I want this one to be with you, and this one to be with you, and so on."  Because He knew just which family our children needed.

This is my prayer, that I never lose the wonder of the awesome gift God has given me in my children and the privilege of teaching them to know Him.

And that was the truth, the benediction, the Good Word we needed to hear that night.

KINDERGARTEN

Starting school was an adventure.  I was in a class full of strangers, mostly bigger and older than I.  That I was shy and small for my age was compounded by school district policy.  A child who turned five before December 1st of the school year qualified for kindergarten.  My late October birthday meant I was in, but also meant that only those rare individuals born in November were younger than I.  Meanwhile kids with birthdays in December or January were almost a year older.  If I had been in a district where you had to be five to start kindergarten, my pre-adult life may have been vastly different.  Rather than one of the youngest kids throughout my school years, I would have been one of the oldest.  I can say from personal experience that school bullying, so prominent in the chattering media today, existed in schools nearly 50 years ago in essentially the same form.  Not often in kindergarten, but still there.  By temperament, I was inclined towards avoidance rather than confrontation.  There are those rare small people who thrive on taking on the big, bad guys in any context.  Not me.  My skill was to avoid, hide, look small.  I survived.

MY TEACHER

There was one guiding star in that kindergarten world: my teacher, Miss Stoner.  For the first few days of class, we picked our own spots on the big, square rug that filled the center of the room.  Once I discovered how nice my cute, blond-bobbed teacher was, I wanted to be front and center.  So, I plopped myself as near to her as possible when I sat to start the day.  However, class administration took precedence over student enthusiasm.  Towards the end of that first week, we were arranged alphabetically by last name, which placed me near the back of the class.  By the following Monday, I had forgotten.  A not-yet-five-year-old has more important things to think about over the weekend.  When the bell rang, I dashed in to claim my spot in the front, only to be gently reminded of my assigned seating.  Disconsolately, I trudged to the back row, far away from the reassuring smile.

WHAT I LEARNED

The typical day was simple.  I would usually arrive early enough to catch some swing time on the playground.  At the sound of the bell, 25 or so kids would file into the room and find their name-designated locations on the carpet.  Our teacher would take role.  Then we would do something all morning until nap time.  I don't remember specifics.  Clearly, the intellectual stimulation of kindergarten was not vital to my future scholastic achievement.  Or perhaps I just don't quite understand something the early education experts know.  I vaguely recall sitting in a circle on the rug to listen to a story read by the teacher.  That was nice because once in awhile I would get to sit closer to her than the new standard seating arrangement allowed.  We did a lot with large pieces of paper and crayons, sitting at the tables on our little wood and metal chairs.  Two art projects that year established a trend for my educational experience.  One, a picture of a red-winged blackbird, won first prize at the school exhibit for our grade level.  The other, a picture of my Dad, caused some embarrassment when the teacher pointed out that I had drawn him in a long skirt instead of long pants.  My school years were marked by this combination of scholastic achievement and social awkwardness. 

NAP TIME

I wonder if kindergarten students still nap at school.  That is, as part of the planned curriculum.  Naps were no longer a part of my routine when I started school, so I was perplexed to learn I needed to take a large towel to kindergarten.  The towel was marked so I could identify it and stored in the classroom.  In the early afternoon (after lunch) each child would fetch their towel and jockey for spots on the rug, roll out our towels, and lay down on them.   Two things would happen after I laid my little head to rest.  First, I would watch the legs and feet of my teacher as they moved in and out of my peripheral vision while she patrolled the rug to make sure we were all quiet and still.  The key was to have my eyes closed if she happened to look my way.  Otherwise, I would be subject to a quiet reprimand.  The second event was being roused out of contented slumber by Miss Stoner telling me it was time to go home.

MILK

Another ritual of the kindergarten day was buying a half-pint of milk at lunch.  Part of my daily preparation for school was to make sure I had the requisite nickel in my pocket.  Those milk purchases were important to me.  Days when I didn’t have that nickel threw off my equilibrium as I watched the other kids line up to select their ice-cold wax carton out of the crate.  There was something reassuring about popping the little circular lid off the top of the tall, narrow carton and taking a swig of milk.  It was probably some government dairy subsidy that made the milk available, but my kindergarten mind wasn't bothered with such considerations.

SWINGS

Flying in a swing is one of the great sensations of childhood: a taste of freedom and adventure, within closely defined boundaries.  School provided daily swinging time.  Of course, depending on how you left the swing, it wasn’t always safe.  Once you learned how to swing, the next skill to learn was the flying exit, where instead of dragging your feet and slowing to a stop, you timed your leap from the saddle at some midpoint in your forward swing.  Too early and you are just propelled forward in a staggering walk at ground level with the swing tagging you in the back or head.  Too late and you end up with a vertical exit and hard landing.  If you do it right, you make a nice flying arc and land with your feet moving to the applause of your imaginary audience.  Additionally, I discovered how to swing standing up and ‘bumper battles’ where you and the person in the swing next to you grab onto the support poles on either side and then let fly at each other.

That was the sum of my kindergarten experience: a cute teacher, crayons and paper, story time, milk, and swings.  Though I searched the campus diligently for her the next school year, I never saw Miss Stoner again.  Mom later informed me that she was no longer Miss Stoner, but Mrs. Somebody and had left me to my own devices.  In looking back on my class photo, I was struck by how much my teacher resembled my wife.  In addition to being cute, my wife is also extraordinarily nice, has a great smile, and occasionally sends me to the back row when I get out of line.  Some men marry their mothers, one could say I married my kindergarten teacher.