With the school year fast approaching I thought I'd share a little about why we made the decision to homeschool. Now, I don't look down on people who don't homeschool, these are our reasons. A lot of people believe they need two incomes (more on that in a later post), or just have zero desire to homeschool their children. I think it's a personal decision that should be made by both parents and is best done on a case by case basis. Our main motivating factor is the unnatural environment in which these children are thrust into, followed by curriculum, lack of moral guidance, and lastly the germs.

Think about it, children are forced to spend the school year and 8 hours of the day in a classroom of children that are only their own age, on totally different learning levels, and with only one teacher to sometimes upwards of 30 students. How is that model supposed to succeed? Teachers are stretched thin, students are bored, & well..... it's just a mess. When public schools were created (not that long ago) I don't think that their intention was to have the mess of a school system our country currently has.
In the real world when are you ever going to only interact with people of your own age? The peer pressure that situation creates is ridiculous. Not to mention the germs.... oh, the germs.

We, firmly believe in God, who has conveniently been kicked out of public school for fear of offending someone. Ummm, our country was founded on religious freedom. Where did we loose sight of that? I want my children to grow up with a strong moral compass.

We value a tight knit family unit, we want our children to be each other's best friends. We don't want them to see each other after school for 2 hours, say a few words during dinner, & repeat the next day. We want to RAISE our own children. Not leave it in the hands of strangers.

We believe that no two children are the same and they should not be thrust into an educational one size fits all model. The Lord called us to teach our children. I believe ultimately, weather homeschooled or not it's our job to teach them.

Children need time to use their imagination. People are saying it ALL the time. No one has any imagination or creativity anymore. We don't want to raise robots, who don't push the envelope, who aren't hungry to learn.

We want our children to want to learn. We want them to hunger for knowledge and be able to fend for themselves and seek out the answers to questions they might have. To be self- reliant. Not to just spout out memorized answers to question on standardized tests, that don't really matter to anyone in real life situations. We want them to be forward thinkers, problem solvers, great assets to society as a whole.

Our children are smart and could probably still make it work in public school, but I don't believe they would reach their full potential and burn out at an early age. They are still at the age that they love to learn. I don't want them to loose that. I watched with my own eyes as my oldest lost that. We pulled him out of public school in the middle of 5th grade when I found out he couldn't do multiplication or division, yet they were using calculators. What sense does that make? When he returned to public school in 7th grade I'm happy to report he tested ahead of most of his peers.

My oldest, we'll call him bookworm, will be the only one in public school this year. Our local high school offers college courses during the high school years so we felt that it would be better for him to take those courses now for free since we would have to pay out of pocket otherwise. We also feel that he is at an age that hopefully he knows right from wrong and can think for himself. I pray we are right.

Here is a diagram on some statistics about homeschooling that might surprise you. Homeschooling is growing at a very quick rate. I'm not trying to convert anyone, just trying to give you an idea as to why someone might consider going this route.



Source: TopMastersInEducation.com