Looking back with a bit of perspective and clarity, I thank the Lord for His grace and mercy. My home schooling journey began as something we needed to do, something I didn’t feel qualified to do and something I didn’t really want to do. (Ken was the impetus behind it - so I could say he made me do it.)
As we began in the middle of the academic year, we literally ‘brought school home’ including the texts that TobyLauren had been using. (I believe bringing the texts home was a comfort to the superintendent, principal, and teachers who thought we were rather extreme people.) I ‘taught’ Miss TobyLauren in a rather barren manner and her only consolation was that she could teach her 4-year-old brother in a much more noble fashion.......
Slowly we began to “put on” the lifestyle of a family learning together while still clinging to the system’s way; but the real learning happened when the vet came, or grandpa told his stories, or the children heard Ken and me develop our rationale for this “crazy process called home schooling” as we defended ourselves to family, neighbours and friends… virtually everyone. Yet, a new joy began to pervade our family life.
The next stage in the journey began a few years later, when Ken was asked to work for a school board to help form its home school administration—due to the fact that he was not only a home schooler but a certified teacher as well. Our approach grew richer and more meaningful as Ken learned from the families he visited as a facilitator.
Ken and I began to understand the beautiful interweaving of family relationships and development of mind and heart which happens at home. This was a radically different mode of operation than is possible in a system of students and teachers and “conveyor belts”. Hence we began to search for an associate board that would support this kind of learning at home. None was found... so one was created.
Then came the fateful day we opened the door to WISDOM Home Schooling—in our home. As the demands increased, and I needed to raise my own family, we hired my little sister, Helen, to work with us in our office. Poor Helen, I was positive that she would never consider home schooling after witnessing our life. She provided a pair of outside eyes and ears which helped me to recognize that I needed to become better organized, but most of all I needed to “train up” myself. I could “see” the need to shepherd rather than bully; I could “hear” where my manner was a stumbling block to my children. Oh so slowly, the refinement in the fire began, because I loved my children too much to have as their mentor a selfish, impatient, poorly formed creature: I had relied upon the many tangible excuses available to me as a mother, wife, teacher, office staff, farm wife......daughter-in-law, to justify my behaviour, but I could justify no longer. To date, the refinement has taken ten years… with decades more to go.
My very close involvement with the many aspects of WISDOM has seemed both detrimental and beneficial, depending upon my energy at the moment. There have been occasions when I have been desperate for more “space” with my family, but at the same time I recognize how WISDOM has formed us through it’s ministry, its role with the government and most especially through the gift of meeting so many brothers and sisters in Christ.
Our methodology for teaching and learning continues to evolve, and the Lord is gracious in allowing us to hear grads speak of their home school journeys. In most cases the resounding commonality cited for success has been the grads’ formation in the context of their family life, noting that academics and methodology are secondary ingredients.
After this examen I must say that I am content to consider family life with its prayer, work and study to be a laudable means to form my children for the life they are destined to have. He (Ken) may have made me do it, but now I do it for Him (Jesus Christ.)