Taking a Flying Leap.........

of Faith. After much thought, study and prayer, I have decided to'bring home' my girls this year and home school them. I had wanted to bring all of the kids home, but have decided that this will be a good first step.

I have been pondering the wisdom and benefits of homeschooling for a few months now, especially after reading the blogs of Lara and Montse. They really inspired me to even contemplate this move. A few weeks ago as I was driving to AHS for the uniform swap I was noticing all the homes for sale on the way to school, like I usually do. As I did this I got to thinking that most of these homes were someone's dream home and that to achieve a dream like this, a plan has to be made and followed. I then asked myself what C's and my dream was. It's a pretty simple one, we want a place with a little more land, the ability to raise a few animals if we choose to and garden more. Just try to be as self-sufficient as we can. Unfortunately, we cannot have animals here, so for that dream to happen we have to look elsewhere. Financially, that dream was a long ways off. Later that day, C had me read an article in the newspaper about homeschooling and it was like a light went on in my head and bells started ringing. I thought, "Here is the key to making that dream a reality. If we pull the kids out of school and home school them, we can use what we had been putting out for tuition to finish our addition to our house, sell it and look for another place. And if the kids don't attend AHS, we don't have to try to move closer to the school and we can look anywhere for our 'dream' property. I have also been so unhappy with the way that school, be it public or private, robs my family of 'family-time'. There is so much homework that most of the time we have at home is spent trying to get the kids(nagging) to get it done or doing it and fulfilling Church responsibilities, that precious little time is left for us to do anything together as a family. I struggled with this issue all last year and was not looking forward to the coming year. This will really free up my evenings and the time can be spent doing things that will strengthen our family, which is also a dream of ours.

I approached the kids about it and tried to explain my reasonings and the girls were willing to try, but the boys were unhappy about it. After considering all the benefits they would have to continue at AHS, we decided that it would be fine for them to stay there for this year and we'll revisit the issue again next year. M is really excited about 9th grade there, the German and Ballroom classes and extra-curricular sports that will be offered. F wanted to finish up 8th grade and after going to the Shakespeare Festival with last year's 8th graders, I was loathe to deprive him of the opportunity to do the Shakespeare production. That is something that I cannot replicate at home.

So I've been studying and reading and praying and pondering if this truly is the right thing for us to do. I read a book I've had, entitled "Revealed Educational Principles and the Public Schools" by Jack Monnett. It is basically a historical book about Early Utah and how we came to have public schools. It is full of quotes from the prophets and apostles. They counseled the Saints over and over again not to vote for or utilize 'free' public education. They set up Church schools and tried all they could to educate in the Lord's way, but the Saints would not listen and failed to follow the counsel of the prophets. At the risk of sounding very naive I'm going to tell you that I NEVER knew that the prophets had said this. As I read this book, I gained an understanding that that counsel is still in effect and that it is displeasing to the Lord to abdicate the education of our children to strangers. It is part of my duty and responsibility as a parent to make sure that my children are educated properly. Who knows or understands or loves my children more than I do? Who can teach them better than I can? NO ONE! They are MY stewardship, and I now know that I have to retake the responsibility for that.

I have been pondering my own education, as well as my oldest son's, and I can see things that happened in each of our lives that were damaging to our love of learning. Things that were said or done that made us feel like our thoughts and efforts were worthless. I have been stuggling with having one of my daughters labeled. It hasn't happened yet, but I would not have been surprised to have it happen. She learns at a much slower pace than the teachers think is proper. But she does learn if she can do it in her own time and way. By bringing her home, hopefully I can allow her(and the others) to progress at her own rate and protect them from being labeled or degraded or made to feel worthless.

So, that's my big news. I have literally been consumed with trying to learn all I can so that I can make the best choice for my family and now I'm trying to determine which methodology I think will be most suitable. It's a huge undertaking, but the peace (and excitement) I feel, makes it worthwhile.


*edited to add: This post is merely a story of my own journey to this place. I do not presume to tell people that everyone should home school their kids and I hope that, in turn, others don't presume to tell me that I'm wrong for doing this. Thank goodness we live in a place where we actually have a choice!