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Homeschooling is such a bizarre endeavor, when you really break it down.
With the help of books, curricula, and online resources, one tries to teach multiple children subjects ranging from Shakespeare's plays to conversational French, ancient Chinese history, to Leonardo's paintings at the Louvre (all things we actually did this morning, before I headed out with my son to mow the yard, unload the dishwasher, and thaw the meat for our dinner!).
How is educating everyone even possible? Especially in the face of endless laundry, sibling squabbles, and dentist appointments?
There are times during our homeschooling year when I stand back a bit amazed. My 8-year-old has waxed poetic about the plot of The Taming of the Shrew on the way home from soccer practice. My 12-year-old shows me a hand drawn map of Asia before she ducks her head in the refrigerator and starts to make her own lunch. I look over to find my son engrossed in yet another novel. I look around, and despite how inadequate I feel in any particular moment, I realize that YES, these young people are really learning.
And then...the VERY next day, mind you, I am sidelined with how little my fourth-grade son knows about serial comma rules. Whoops! We must have forgotten to cover that lesson! Or my second-grade daughter asks me how many days are in the month of May...and I realize that she should have mastered that years ago in kindergarten. What irony! What madness! Are they really learning...or am I irreparably messing up their lives?
This is the bizarre reality of homeschooling! Ups and downs, turns and twists, it makes for a very wild ride!
But I recently heard, from an older and more experienced homeschooling friend, that what we are doing as homeschooling families is building our children a hammock.
Sure, there will be holes. (I'd argue that ANY school system/curricula has holes in it, my friend!)
But will our hammocks be able to support them and hold them up for life?
I think YES.
My children will have many, many years after their childhood years spent at home to fill in all those gaps and holes, on their own timetable, according to their own interests and desires.
I can model that for them today, as I reach for a Jane Austen novel I've never read until now (in my forties!).
I can encourage them.
I can inspire.
I can walk confidently in the path my Father has hewn out for my family and me.
I won't let those holes get me down, but I'll realize that all the while, they will serve as an integral part of the net that will serve to hold my children up, giving them areas to learn and explore down the road.
For, don't we all as God's children, always have a lot to learn?!
"Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way." Psalm 25:8-9
**Hey homeschoolers! To learn more about the myth of a gap-free education, check out this article: 5 Myths of Educational Gaps to Reject for Homeschoolers
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