I am not crazy. I am not talking to myself. I am a homeschooling mom, and I'm having a parent-teacher interview.
A blast from the past: here's one of the first articles I ever published about homeschooling. It first appeared in Nazareth: A Catholic Family Journal, oh, I'm going to guess 1998. I've had the odd request for this one, and since the now defunct NJ magazine is not archived online, here it is.
A School of Love
“Mom...I just don’t get this.” moans Christine, her
forehead banging despondently on the table. We have started a new unit in math,
and the concept still hasn’t clicked. I glance at the clock: 11:30--time to
make lunch, and we haven’t even begun working on Language Arts. I was hoping
we’d be finished school by noon today. Another shriek comes from the girls’
room. This time it’s Geneva.
“Katherine’s wrecking my house!” I fetch my toddler,
who in turn begins to scream because she’s being banished from Lego Land. The
blue block dispute, still unresolved, comes to blows. Now three children are
crying, and the fourth is asking plaintively who invented school anyway. We
still haven’t started Language Arts. Maybe we’ll do it this afternoon when
Katherine goes down for a nap. If Katherine goes down for a nap.
After lunch, we finish school and Katherine sleeps.
Needing some time alone, I allow the girls to go downstairs and watch a
movie. I brew some tea and collapse into
a chair, burying my nose in the latest issue of Nazareth Journal. But
the un-swept floor, dirty dishes, and baskets of unfolded laundry are burning a
hole in the cover of my magazine. Suddenly I feel so tired...am I getting a
sore throat? (Sigh...this is only Monday).
Is this a typical homeschooling day? Well, yes and no.
No two days are alike at our house—that’s part of the fun. And there are
days when everything runs smoothly: the house stays tidy, meals are planned in
advance (and served on time), the girls get along swimmingly, they do their
chores without complaint, and the schoolwork is completed with something
approaching joy. Those are the resurrection days, but they never come without the crucifixion days. You pray
that the former will outnumber the latter, but you’ve no guarantee that it will
be so.
People often ask why we decided to homeschool (it's a
fair question: sometimes I ask myself the same thing!). Although Dan and I had concerns about some
issues in the schools, I wouldn’t say that we were reacting to anything in particular.
(We didn’t withdraw children from school, but “started from scratch.”) What
drew us to homeschooling was (primarily) witnessing the many positive fruits,
both academic and spiritual, in the lives of homeschooling families we knew. We
also read books on education, and studied Scripture and pertinent Church
documents, which convinced us that this family-centred educational experience
is at the very heart of the life of the Church. We prayed for discernment and
felt that God was asking us to
incorporate homeschooling into the living out of our family spirituality and
mission.
A seminal issue for us was 'time', and how little of
it families seem to share these days. Jobs, school, sports, hobbies, meetings
and committee work can easily swallow up the best hours, days and years of a
family’s life. How can a family stay/pray together if they are never all under
the same roof during their waking hours? We feel that the restoration of the
family and society depend on altering the hectic pace of our lifestyle and refocusing
on hearth and home. Chesterton often wrote that a man's home and family contain
all the adventure he will ever need. Homeschooling is one way that allows
parents and children to spend good quantities of 'quality' time together, and it provides no
shortage of adventure.
We began homeschooling in 1995 (which makes us mere
novices), and we’ve had our share of challenges. Pregnancy, a new baby, and
part-time farming (a three hours’ drive from where we live) have tested our endurance
and resourcefulness. We’ve also dealt
with student/teacher personality conflicts, passive resistance (“Why do I have
to do more schoolwork than Celeste does?”), and anxiety over teaching methods
and curriculum choices. (It can be frustrating when you think you’ve found the
perfect approach or program, and it doesn’t work for your child.)
We've experienced
many benefits as well. It is very rewarding to see the light of understanding
go on in our children’s eyes, and to watch their progress as they learn new
things and take on greater challenges every year. It is beautiful --and
humbling-- to witness their spiritual growth, and to see their childlike love
for Jesus and the Church (I had to smile one evening when 4-year-old Geneva’s
prayer intention was for the “bissops”).
Since our schedule doesn’t revolve around the typical school day (and
Dan is able to take time off work occasionally), we are able to have family
outings in the afternoons or take day trips out of town. The girls and I
recently set aside Wednesday afternoons for visiting an adopted grandma in a
seniors' care home. Outings like this enrich everyone involved.
Perhaps the most rewarding experience to date has been
preparing Christine for her First Holy Communion. Initially I felt daunted by
the gravity of the task (being chiefly responsible for its undertaking), but we
trusted in God and faithfully followed our chosen catechism. When our
parish priest interviewed Christine prior to her reception of First
Penance and Eucharist, he assured us
that we had done a very good job of preparing her. (We use the Faith
and Life catechism series, which makes the academic side of teaching the
faith relatively easy.)
What I do not find easy is the ‘practical’ side
of passing on the faith (modelling Christianity for my children), yet this is
the most integral component in any Catholic homeschooling program. Not only
must I ‘juggle’ my many roles and
responsibilities (wife, mother, schoolteacher, homemaker, parish volunteer,
writer), but I must do it with peace in my soul and a smile on my face. How do I do it? To continue with my metaphor,
I frequently drop balls on the floor, or
try to shove them in my pockets. (Neglecting to plan meals, putting off my own
dental checkups, or postponing laundry to the weekend when it should be done on
Tuesday are a few examples.) When I
allow my priorities to get shuffled, I’m not as
patient, joyful and loving as I ought to be.
I’m not proud
of my shortcomings, but I think homeschoolers do a disservice when we allow
other people to think that we are “supermoms” who have everything under
control. I am not a supermom. When I
look in the mirror, I don’t see a heart of gold, a will of iron and nerves of
steel: I see feet of clay. When people say to me, “Oh I could never homeschool;
I don’t have it in me”, I tell them I don’t
have it in me either. If I ever
meet a homeschooling mother who does, I’m
going to ask her if I can move in with her for a few years and take notes.
I can't help feeling annoyed, therefore, when others
imply that as a homeschooling mother, I must think pretty highly of myself. I
remember one woman asking me why I homeschool, and before I could draw breath
to reply, she answered herself without skipping a beat, “Oh, I suppose you
think you can do a better job than the teachers at school.” I assured her that very few homeschoolers
start out convinced of their personal superiority to every other living
teacher. Our self-confidence (if any) is rooted in our love for our children,
and in the conviction that we are doing the right thing for our families.
I am sure there are teachers out in the world who are
much better artists and mathematicians than I. But no one loves my children
more than I do; no one has a greater concern for their spiritual life and their
eternal salvation (and I won’t apologise for saying so, whatever reaction it
might elicit from Hillary Clinton and her village). Dan and I see homeschooling as an extension
of our vocation to parenthood, not as an indicator of our talents and
abilities. Our focus is not on ourselves, but on God, our faith and our
families. When it comes to teaching, my attitude is not, “I can do a better job
than they,” but rather, “I can do all things in Christ who is my strength.”
With the
conviction that God’s grace is the single most important ‘teaching resource’ at our disposal, Dan and I
have made cultivating the domestic church our top school priority. That means
being less caught up in academic goals (important though they are), and being
more focused on prayer and the sacraments. We believe that if we put first
things first, the rest will fall into place. It’s a strategy that seems to
work: overall, we have had fewer problems in school this year than in the past,
and we are satisfied with the girls’ progress thus far. The ongoing struggle,
of course, is keeping Christ as the centrepiece and cornerstone of our “school
of love.”
Somehow those darn blue Lego blocks keep getting in
the way.
Copyright 1998 Mariette Ulrich
.
Neat! I got NJ for a year or so. Wonder if I read this story when it first appeared.
ReplyDeleteI think the mag only lasted a few years. I don't even remember now. :(
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