After a lot of ups and downs in my education through third and fourth grade: a huge move that had me changing schools in the middle of the year followed by being put into a Christian school the next year…my parents made the decision to change it up again. Why not? I couldn’t get any more confused than I already was, right? So, why not homeschool?
Actually, I’m pretty sure me-myself-and-I was not the center of those conversations. After all, they had five kids by then. I was ten, so I certainly didn’t know what my parents said as they made that decision. I knew enough to know they knew about homeschooling and I had heard of it, although I didn’t think I knew anyone personally who was homeschooled. It wasn’t something a lot of people did in 1990. Those were the days when the librarians, cashiers, and random people in the same place you were on a school-day morning asked why you were not in school. And when you said, “I’m homeschooled,” you might as well have said, “I have Covid!” and then proceeded to cough on them by the way they looked at you, backed up, and thought you might be contagious. Sometimes it was almost fun.
To be honest, I remember having a lot of thoughts about my parents decision to homeschool. Probably because my education had been a little all over the place anyhow. And I certainly wasn’t going to miss Miss Farrington. I just remember hating have to take tests over the summer to determine which books our new curriculum would send me. I hated it even worse when I failed at grammar and had to spend the summer doing 4thgrade grammar (again) so I could rightly have a 5thgrade book in the fall. After all, those things are very important at that age.
And, so, my next teacher (and my final teacher) was my mom. I don’t know way back in 1990 if my mom thought she would be my teacher until I graduated from high school. I imagine she was just trying to get through 5thgrade with me, 2ndgrade with Katey, and keep three other kids under the age of 4 somehow entertained so we could actually do our schoolwork. If her days were anything like mine, there was complaining to deal with, distractions of all sorts, and lots of time wondering if we were learning a single thing. Homeschooling is not for the faint of heart. If teachers in school think their job is thankless, they should try homeschooling. I mean, at least they get an occasional apple on their desk and a paycheck.
When you’re homeschooled, one year is pretty much like the next. Only in our case, we had a lot of different classrooms. The first one was Katey’s bedroom, but she actually slept in my room so it was available. When we moved to Connecticut the next year, school was done at the dining room table or the table behind the couch in the living room. In Massachusetts, we had a “school room”. That house had so many little random rooms why not have one dedicated to school? Although Daniel had a desk in Dad’s office and I think Sally worked in the dining room. In Texas, it was back to the dining room. Although I would get a desk for my 18thbirthday, so I spent the last couple of months finishing my senior year in my own room.
My mom’s teaching method was consistent: here’s your assignments, come find me if you need help. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the fact that she was probably spending her mornings working with my younger siblings as they learned to read, figured out math, and got use to assignment sheets. For I will say my mornings of being homeschooled are not as hectic as my mornings of actually homeschooling. I could say I was a very focused student so I ignored everything around me. That would be a lie because I’m sure I had many fights with Daniel over whatever he was doing that annoyed me. At the same time, growing up that way has served me well. I continue to astound co-workers at how I can type an email and talk on the phone, or simply work in the midst of chaos. Ah, the things you learn being homeschooled you didn’t even realize!
Like all good homeschool moms, my mom tried to cater to our likes and dislikes. Not that we got out of a basic curriculum, but some of us went further in various directions than others. Unfortunately my former-high-school-math-teacher mom did not have one child who loved math. While she delighted in getting out her dry erase markers and scribbling math problems on the board to explain the steps of solving them, we all complained and shed tears over our algebra books. I excelled in history and grammar. High school history ended up being here’s-a-time-period-go-find-books-read-them-and-report. That was easy. Perhaps I should have hid my grammar skills, though. I was the only one who had to do the grammar book where diagramming one sentence took up a whole sheet of paper – and that was if you wrote small! My real love was writing. Mom tried to find curriculum that would improve those skills but never landed on anything really challenging. I honed my own skills by spending all afternoon scribbling. On the other hand, I hated science with a passion. I’m pretty sure mom released me from that misery after I finished 10thgrade biology not because she thought I was sufficiently educated but because she was tired of arguing with me about it. There will come a day when I shall probably do the same.
In the end, I’m grateful my parents homeschooled me. Not all homeschooled kids will say that. Not all my siblings will say that. But I will. I got a good education. I grew up well rounded and am not psychologically damaged beyond repair. I have a bachelor’s degree, I’m successful in my career, and I even have enough confidence (or stubbornness) to homeschool my own kids. I will always be grateful for the sacrifices my mom made to homeschool me. And, honestly, I wonder almost every morning how she did it! And then pray that I can do it, too!
