Thanks to Carrie and Ms. Tee who commented on my first post about my past. They both found it interesting that I was homeschooled, so I thought I'd talk about that in a little more detail.
My sister and I both loved being homeschooled. Now, I’m not naïve; I do realize that homeschooling is not for everyone. Just in our case, it worked out quite well!
We would do our schoolwork in the mornings (usually), and then have the whole afternoon for fun stuff. I remember learning fractions by helping my mom double or half recipes. I remember my mom countless times telling me to look up a word in the dictionary to figure out how to spell it or what it meant. (By the way, that fostered a lifelong love of the dictionary and using words correctly, even though it drove me crazy at the time!)
A normal week would look like this:
Sunday – church
Monday – homeschool band (when we were a little older)
Tuesday – swimming lessons, in season
Wednesday – evening church
Thursday – co-op with other homeschooled families
Friday and Saturday were let free for impromptu playtimes with friends or special trips downtown or whatnot. You can see that we didn’t suffer from social deprivation in any way!
I loved the days when we’d be going somewhere in the morning, like band or co-op, and we'd pull up to a stoplight next to a school bus full of kids. We would always laugh because they would look at us like, “Why aren’t you in school?” And we were in school!
Homeschooling taught me how to really learn. When I started public school in 9th grade, my natural sciences teacher would keep saying to the students, “You all learned this in 6th grade; why don’t you remember any of it?!” I sat in my seat and thought to myself, “I never learned this specific information before, yet I’m acing (literally) every test!”
Homeschooling gave me a love for learning as well. Even today, I love to study new subjects or go more in depth in my favorite subjects (music, theology, ancient languages, science, etc.).
(I could talk about this forever and ever, so I’d better call it quits here, since I need to finish up making dinner.)
If you are considering homeschooling with your children, I would heartily recommend it!
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3 comments:
I went to public school. But the public schools of the time were great schools. I think I was one of the last to get a really great education out of the system. I graduated in 1974. My brother graduated three years later. The whole system had changed dramatically by then. He did not have the opportunities that I had enjoyed.
When I got to college, I realized that my "big city" public school had better prepared me for college than many of the "small town" schools had prepared some of my classmates. It was a revelation.
I had good teachers, but my fondest memories of school life mostly happened after school - plays and stage crew, football and basketball games, Junior Achievement, newspaper staff, art projects.
It's great to hear that your home school life offered social and learning opportunities outside the classroom, too. I'm glad it worked out so well for you.
Kay,
Thanks for the comment! In no way do I want to knock public schools. When I went to public high school I had many friends who public schooled it the whole way and were brilliant! I had one friend who even got a perfect score on her ACT!
The key, I think, is parental involvement. So many parents today think that the school should "raise" their kids, but that is so not the case!
When I was in high school, I agree with you, some of my fondest memories are from after school activities: marching band, pep band, and pit orchestra for musicals. What fun!
Thanks for the positive memories! I'm a homeschool graduate, now homeschooling my own kids.
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