Deciding to Homeschool

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It took me years to make this decision. Here’s the background…

Back in 1993, I moved from Romania to the United States on a college scholarship. Some of my classmates had been homeschooled K-12. Their maturity level and quality of social interaction were well above average. Mental note #1.

I read Dr. Raymond Moore’s “Better Late Than Early” for my Education minor. Mental note #2.

In 1999 and in 2001, I worked alongside Dr. Moore himself. I understood a bit more about homeschooling as I watched the tutors at The Moore Foundation counsel with parents over the phone. Mental note #3.

A decade, a wedding, and two children later, I started looking at educational options for my children. My private school of choice was one hour away. Not feasible. Our public school system produces National Merit Scholars, but I felt a tug at my heart about teaching my own. Besides the tug, I felt insecurity and fear that I would not know how to homeschool. I prayed for wisdom and figured that if this were a calling, things would fall into place.

I also decided knowledge would be power, so I got knowledge. I spent hundreds of hours pouring over how-to-homeschool manuals, magazines and blogs, over a period of eighteen months. Kind of like a master’s degree in education, but without the $30,000+ piece of paper called “Diploma.”

What I found was inspiring and liberating. I felt I was home free. Literally. Mental note #4.

My husband and I decided it was worth a try. I am leaving out many details, which I will tackle one at a time in future posts.

This blog is my way of giving back to the cyber space which offered me so much information and asked for nothing in return.

2013 may be the year we start homeschooling officially, but we already have eight years under our belts as parent teachers. How so? I hear you ask. Well, tell me, dear reader, don’t we all teach our children since birth? Every step they take, every word they say, every skill they acquire, they all come with guidance from parents. Not to mention colors, shapes, letters, numbers, animals, manners, Latin… Well, maybe not quite the Latin part yet, but you get my point.

Then, I count each child’s age separately, not cumulatively. Why? Because every child is unique. Every child learns differently. That requires different skills and methods from me as their teacher. My children are three and five as I type. As such, I have 3+5=8 years of experience in preschool. Voilà! Eight years in the trenches, molding and shaping little hands, hearts and heads.

My hope for this blog is that it will become a forum where questions can be asked and answered by people interested in home education.

What about you? How did you decide (not) to homeschool?


No Dress Rehearsal

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Hello there! Thanks for stopping by. I like you already.

This is my blog’s first post. Who am I? What is this blog about?

I am a teacher in a private school that is so exclusive, one must be born into it. You guessed it. I homeschool.

People homeschool for many reasons these days. I homeschool because life does not come with a dress rehearsal. This is it. My children are small only once. I love them and I like them and I want to spend time with them.

In the United States, where I live, school is seven hours a day, which means my children would spend more of their awake time with their teachers and classmates than with me. I’m not OK with that. More on that, in future blog posts.

I created this blog to record our official homeschooling journey from the beginning, as our oldest starts kindergarten this fall.

In this blog, I also plan to:

  • identify the problems a homeschooling mom may face and how to solve them
  • celebrate the joys and the a-ha moments
  • ask questions about homeschooling nuts and bolts and see about the answers
  • share what I find in my research and, maybe, help somebody in the process.

Expect two posts a week, on Monday and Friday (except for launch week, when I post daily in order to hit the cyber ground running). Occasionally though, as things happen and inspiration strikes, I will post on other days of the week as well. So be sure to subscribe via RSS feed or email or follow along through Facebook for fun updates, helpful tips and encouraging words.

Have you ever thought of homeschooling? Please leave me a comment below and…

Happy reading!