New to homeschool? Wondering if homeschool right for your family? Before you can do anything else, you have to discern if it's the right choice for your family. Here are three questions to ask and a getting started with homeschooling printable free checklist of homeschool help to get you on the right track once you've decided to dive in!
What are your dreams for your kids? I don't mean what do you want them to be when they grow up, but what kind of person do you want them to be? Are you primarily concerned with virtues, values, and character or academics and study skills. It's ok to be concerned with both, but what is the most important to you? The choice between options is so much more than homeschool versus school. What kind of school? A public school, a Catholic school, a Montessori school, a magnet school for the arts or sciences...the list goes on. To make the choice that is best for your family, you have to have an idea of what your goals and dreams are.
What knowledge and skills do they need to reach those dreams? If you decide to homeschool, this question will be key to choosing which curriculum options will be the best fit for your family. If you decide to go the school route, this question will help you decide which school.
How are they going to get those knowledge and skills? I'm going to be very honest with you. Public school in the year 2019 looks nothing like the public school of our childhood. It doesn't even look like the public schools of 15 years ago when I first graduated from school. There are great schools. There are great teachers. And they are all forced to work in a constantly shifting political windstorm that puts political decisions and legislation way ahead of your dreams for your child. Many of them are doing beautiful things, but they are doing it wearing handcuffs.
Answering these questions is made more complicated by what resources you have available locally. Homeschooling has given our family access to a Montessori education that would be otherwise inaccessible due to geography. Homeschool has allowed us to make that Montessori education also a Catholic education.
You can make all sorts of sacrifices and modifications to a curriculum the way we have and you can adjust your daily schedule and routines to accommodate for homeschool, but at the end of the day its really hard to adjust those big picture goals. Start with your dreams and what it will take to reach them. Make your school choice from there, and God will grant you the grace to work with your situation to homeschool (or not) successfully. I can't promise it will be easy, but I do promise it will enrich both yourself, your children, your family, and your community.
4 comments:
These are such important things to consider for parents!
Great questions to ponder! We homeschool, but I kind of separate it into bookwork and real-life learning. We have a few formal subjects we tackle first thing in the morning, then we devote the rest of the day to learning the faith, social/life skills, developing virtue and problem solving skills. Life is basically school haha.
These are great questions! We're a few years away from this decision, but I'll be filing this piece away and pulling it out later!
Such great questions to ask yourself as you try and figure out what's right for your family.
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