Homeschooling: From Burden to Lifestyle
by Charlene Notgrass
In the fall of 1990, our family began to homeschool. At least that's what we thought we were doing. Years later we discovered that what we were really doing was learning how to live. My husband Ray and I had been having serious reservations about public schools. In August we finally made the decision to give homeschooling a try. Our children were going into the first, fourth, and sixth grades. Ray was a minister, so I often had to explain what we were doing. I remember telling people that we would try it for a year and that I didn't think I would ruin them in a year.
It was August, and I had three children to teach. I had a friend who had homeschooled her son in the summer and sent him to public school during the school year (Can you imagine doing that?). She loaned me textbooks for grades 1-6. I hung a bulletin board, made a schedule, and began. We went from 8:00 to 2:30 with a recess period and a lunch break, except on Thursday when we went to a co-op in the afternoon. We had a nice schedule that I could tell anybody about without being afraid, that I could say with the sin of pride - and that was exasperating!
We made some changes the next year, but those two years wore me out. Ray said there had to be an easier way to educate our children than what we were doing. With misgivings, I went to work part-time so we could put them in a Christian school in the fall. Our youngest started having terrible stomachaches. During the next year, we carpooled across town to the school, John played soccer and basketball, Bethany had a paper route, and all three took piano lessons. I worked part-time, Ray got a part-time job, too, and all the children studied to receive good grades.
In the spring, a church in Cookeville, Tennessee recruited Ray to serve as its minister. We were told that Cookeville didn't need Christian schools, because the public schools were great and had Christian teachers. I remember saying (but not believing), "Do you suppose we could send them to school and I could stay home?" I knew better, but I was worn out after the last three years, and I wanted to think it would work. So, we sent our children to public school. I was able to rest and to get us settled into our new home, but almost immediately, John and Mary Evelyn, our oldest and youngest children, began asking to homeschool again. Bethany, who was twelve and in seventh grade, said we would ruin her life if we made her homeschool.
Our new church was much larger than our previous congregations. We were very involved in church programs, including the large, active youth group. John was in high school, but he didn't have as much homework as the two girls, who came home each day, had a snack, did homework, ate dinner, did homework, and went to bed. We decided that they would have to finish what they started and complete the year in public school.
In the spring I began to pray that God would make us all want the same thing. One Saturday in July, Bethany came to us saying that she wanted to homeschool. We were together! Our children were 10, 13, and 15, and this time things would be different. We would relax. We would put first things first. We adopted a family philosophy:
We believe that we should spend our lives praying for and pursuing our goal - that we, our children and their spouses, our grandchildren and their spouses, and every succeeding generation live as Christians on earth and live forever in Heaven with our God and with each other. We want to spend our lives working diligently for the realization of this goal with all the strength He gives us.
We read books aloud and by ourselves. We traveled on a tight budget. The children wrote and acted in their own plays. We used a few textbooks. We studied topics together. We went to plays inexpensively during school-day matinees. The children did volunteer work, studied the Bible diligently, and taught younger children in Bible classes. Ray taught them history. I took art lessons with them. We later began a family business. Through it all, we became best friends.
In time each of the children graduated, and then we adopted a sibling group of two more girls, Liz and Hannah, and another boy, Daniel. We adopted for several reasons. One reason was that after 9 years of homeschooling, I did not want to stop! It was extremely rocky at first, but now we are all reading books aloud and by ourselves, traveling on a tight budget, drawing together . . .
We are continuing our journey from burden to lifestyle.
(Note: Charlene presents a seminar for parents on this theme. We have an audio tape of the presentation available through our company.)