From The Editors: We are proud to introduce our homeschooling blogger and mom, Sasha Mercer. We at The American Refugees believe that the government is intentionally dumbing down our kids. We believe that our system of government requires an educated populace to survive. Sasha Mercer will be a regular contributor.
Why choose
homeschooling?
People not familiar with the homeschooling community often
conjure up ideas of ultra conservative, Christian families with a minimum of 5
kids when they hear the word homeschoolers, but if they do, they would
certainly not be up to date on the rapidly growing movement that is
homeschooling.
People from all walks
of life choose homeschooling for their children for very different reasons,
often choosing this path for a variety of reasons, not just one. People in the
media and those that do poll taking
don’t particularly like that answer, they want one neat little answer to put us
in a tidy category to label us as A, B, or C but that isn’t reality.
One of America’s
greatest attributes was that its citizens were fiercely individual while being
brought together by a common bond of loving their God, country, and the freedom
they had in both. A change has taken place over the past fifty years that has
slowly stripped this individualism bit by bit until we see ourselves from the
view of the herd. We don’t want to be different, we don’t want to be viewed as
on the “fringe,” we certainly don’t want
to be viewed as “weird” and this is what I strongly believe causes the fear of
homeschooling from those not familiar with it.
The failure of our
public school system to prepare our kids to be successful not only in the
career they choose but also in their personal lives definitely plays a big role
in many parents decisions to homeschool. Often the children start out in the
system to only be brought home at some point in their school career.
Spirituality often plays a factor as well. God, no matter what your faith, is
not welcome in our public schools and when you put God first and foremost in
your life, sending your child to an institution 7 hours a day that says God is
not welcomed there, nor even allowed to be mentioned, this does and SHOULD
cause people to take a serious look at their decision at whom they are
entrusting their child’s education with. But if this was the only case for many
families they could simply send their children to private, parochial schools.
Problem solved! Tuition is high at these schools but financial aid, discounts
for siblings, often make private schools more available to people of a lower
income than many people think. Once again, this is not just the only reason
people choose this for their family.
I personally chose
homeschooling for my children because of many factors, the first two I
discussed came into play tremendously. No institution that doesn’t welcome God
in their halls is welcome to MY children, period. I attended both public and
private schools and got an acceptable education in the private school I
attended, its graduates going on to some of the country’s most prestigious
universities, but while I went through the motions in school, studied,
memorized facts for tests and got good grades, went on to college and repeated
the cycle, there was no fire lit beneath me on any topic. I hated math, I was
bored by history text books, science was sterile and boring, foreign language
and art were just something I needed to take because college admissions and
then a degree required it. College was just as boring as the previous 12 years
of education had been.
It wasn’t until I was
out of college, reading history on my own, studying art, learning a language
because I actually wanted to, did I see the wonder in learning and I knew that
I wanted to give this same excitement and connection to my children. I also
wanted my family to bond and build upon that bond for as long as we were a
connected family unit and they went off to start their own family. In my own
experience, and from what I had seen over the years, spending several hours a
day with non-family members did not help this bond, in fact it actually hurt
it. Friends are important, don’t get me wrong, and seeking the advice and
learning to function with those that aren’t connected by blood is very
important to get out into society as an adult, but very few times do we sit in
a counselor or pastor’s office lamenting on the damaged relationship we’ve had
with a teacher or classmate when we were children. It isn’t friendship issues
that we struggle with come holiday times. Friends, for the most part, come and
go but mom, dad and siblings, will be lifelong relationships.
Religious or not, all
parents want a great relationship with their kids that last a lifetime, too
many families these days are torn apart for various reasons or are just
distanced from each other more than they would like to be on an emotional
level. Home schooling your children keeps your family unit closer together and
builds a stronger bond than a child that leaves the home for several hours a
day, starting at the age of six.
The subject matter
also plays a huge role in parents’ decision to homeschool. The subjects you
study beyond the minimum required topics, have no limit. For art, we don’t just
do an art project, we study the masters that shaped the art world. We take can
look at the museum schedule to plan a field trip and study a particular master
in preparation for it. We can see a program on the history channel about a
certain historical event that piques the interest of your child and you can
take a week to study it further. We should want to teach our children that
learning is exciting and a lifelong endeavor, not something that only serves
the purpose of passing a test and getting good report cards.
If your child is
struggling with a particular math book’s way of teaching (and trust me there
are hundreds, maybe thousands, of different math books out there!) you can find
one that does work. No two children’s learning styles are the same, the chance
that 20 children in the same class, let alone thousands of children in the same
school, will be successful with one particular curriculum, are slim to none.
Instead of blaming the child for his inability to master math, or decide his
learning ability is limited, you can find something that works for that
individual child.
Turn on the news, talk to a teen in high school or just look
at a teen’s Facebook page and you will learn a frightening fact; bullying,
despite all the touchy feely politically correct language we throw at our kids
in the school system, is worse than it has probably ever been. No longer does
the mean girl just whisper about you amongst the popular kids, she spreads her
vile, vicious rumors around social media where it goes directly to her 900
“friends.” But doesn’t my child need to learn to deal with this, isn’t this
socialization? But ask yourself this question; when did you have to “deal” with this at work? The
offender would immediately be fired!
Children do not need to be bullied to learn how to deal with
conflict resolution. I will discuss the “socialization” topic in a future
article because the big “s” word is a 20 page topic in and of itself.
Home schooling is one of the best things you can do for your
children, for a variety of reasons. Our kids belong to US. We, not a school
system, have their best interests at heart, and that is
the foremost reason to choose home schooling.
Written By Sasha Mercer
Homeschooling blogger at www.TheAmericanRefugees.com
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