If I Can Do This, So Can You!

This post may have the tendency to come across as a bit obnoxious in places, if anyone should happen to misinterpret my intentions. I hope it doesn't. I hope you don't! I really truly mean it as encouragement, and not as a way to toot my own horn (or that of my offspring) surreptitiously.

Often people who meet my kids will remark on how smart they are, and then they'll ask if we homeschool. It's great to receive affirmation that I'm not completely ruining my children, but on the other hand, sometimes I worry about what this does for those people, because then they'll often follow it up with a statement that begins, "Oh, I could never..." And I wonder if they feel genuinely disheartened, the way one might feel if they walked into my house right after I had cleaned it (and I mean RIGHT after - it doesn't last long), instead of walking in on a random moment of a normal day. They might think it always looked that way, and they might wonder at my amazing homemaking skills. In the same way, when they hear that we homeschool, I worry that sometimes they think, "I could never be so...creative, together, organized, teach all those things, etc, etc, etc."

The reality is that some homeschool moms are exceptionally creative. Some moms are organized. Some moms may actually spend a good deal of time teaching subjects directly to their kids. But some are completely on the other end of the spectrum. Many are somewhere in the middle, and that's where we fall - and to be honest, less toward the creative and organized side! Now, I'll just say that our relaxed style of learning may blow up in our faces when high school years roll around (but I don't think it will), so take this all with a grain of salt, but our philosophy is that kids have a natural desire to learn, that it takes more work to stifle that desire than to encourage it. For us, encouraging it simply means making information and experiences available, giving the kids the opportunity to explore both, and trusting that learning will happen. (Yes, in some things I believe they need a nudge and more direction, and sometimes there are special circumstances that mean children will need more intervention than usual. I'm just generalizing here!).


So for anyone who has a mental picture of our detailed daily lesson plans, of hourly schedules, of happy craft time around the kitchen table, or of me knowing what I'm doing as I teach a Latin lesson, dispel those thoughts! It doesn't look anything like school or what a teacher does there (the gift of teaching is for schools, and is a great gift, but it's not necessary at home, thank goodness!). Learning happens, lots of it, but it has almost nothing to do with me! There may be other reasons why you choose not homeschool, but I implore anyone and everyone to cross, "I could never be that...[fill in the blank]" off the list. If I can do this, so can you!