home is school

My son turns 5 in December, a crazy realization. When he was two, Ben and I first started talking about school. It seemed far away then. Now, it’s just around the corner. In a way, it seems our ever-evolving conversation actually hasn’t gone far. It hasn’t really left the house, infact.
When the two of us public school teachers became parents, we began the school conversation with what we didn’t want for our children: public school. Then, before having discovered the limitations of a single-income, moved to our ideal: private classical Christian school. Now, it seems we may be about to settle somewhere in the middle: home school.
When our conversation first began, as I said, we began with what we knew we didn’t want: public school. Let me say that Ben and I are both products of the public school system. We both had positive experiences, and have few regrets about our education. However, becoming teachers in this same system messed with our psyche. We see things differently; things are more political, ambiguously humanistic, agenda-driven. There is the book that Ben picked up from one of his students, so gruesome in content, he tried to get it banned from the middle school library to no avail. There is the ever expanding tangle of testing to the lowest common denominator, and the corresponding “teaching to the test” (meanwhile kids and teachers alike are bored stiff). The complete lack of a framework from which to teach morality, substituted with mumbo-jumbo “character education” fluff. And all in the greatest district in the state, and possibly nation (no I am not being hyperbolic).
Having washed our hands of the “filth” of public school, we set our sights on our ideal, the classical Christian school. We were willing to sell our house, live in an apartment, go into debt, eat Ramen for the next decade, you name it, to get our child into this school for the “academically advanced”. We attended an open house where a class of third-graders sang “This is my Father’s World” from memory, and we were teary-eyed with destiny. This school was counter-cultural, and not ashamed to say so. They valued the classics, and they valued the purity of childhood. Pop culture wasn’t just copied or ignored, it was fought hard against with virtue. This was our dream school. There was just one catch; money. Ten thousand dollars a year for the course of 10 years . . .and this doesn’t include college or other children . . .sigh. We worked our meager budget this way and that, trying to squeeze pennies into dollar bills. We maintained that we wanted to give our child the best education, no matter the cost, but cost seemed to be an unavoidable stumbling block.
Then one day, we had an epiphany. What if “good enough” was good enough? What if giving them a slightly flawed education was better than a perfect one? We began to look into other options.
A growing part of our school discussion had to do with “lifestyle”. Ben kept asking me what kind of lifestyle we wanted to live. For example, I have always loathed the idea of the soccer mom. I would never want the carpool lifestyle associated with soccer, or any other after-school activity for that matter, because I don’t want to be rushing from one thing to another, disjointed, fragmented, and never together in one place as a family. “Busy” is not a word I need to feel important. Part of the reason I love my church so much is the lifestyle it promotes. We worship together as a family, and the cycle of services make our faith a part of our family’s daily life. So, in the context of schooling, what kind of lifestyle do I want for our family? I want us to be together. I want our home to be the center of activity, the place where our kids look forward to being. Not “out there” but “in here”. Practically, that means we will be spending a lot of time at home. Now, don’t get me wrong, I pride myself on being able to get out the door faster, more efficiently, and more frequently with my three children than most mothers of one can. But, whether out or in, the home is where the heart is, so to speak.
A few weeks past, I attended my first homeschool conference. It was a big step for me, as I have not until recently considered homeschooling. Obviously, I’m aware that people do it. I just have never considered it for myself. And this is the reason: I have a picture in my head of the flustered, overworked mother of octuplets, who never gets a break or a shower, and really needs both. Some of the “arguments” against homeschooling - like the socialization myth - are not problematic for me (I’m a socially strong individual!). But this image of the frazzled homeschooling mother is very problematic. A scary conclusion I’m coming to is that I’m going to have to get over myself. I’m beginning to believe that the single most important thing I can do is to nourish the life of my children’s souls. “In places where widespread unbelief or invasive secularism makes real religious growth practically impossible, then the church of the home remains the one place where children can receive authentic religious instruction. Thus there cannot be too great an effort on the part of Christian parents to prepare for this ministry of being their own children’s catechists and carry it out with tireless zeal” ( Pope John Paul II). My children are born into this world, but they are not born for this world. It is my fundamental duty (not the government nor private agencies) to prepare them for the “real world” to come.