This is Why we Homeschool...

I've been driving by this billboard every week for about 6 months now and it really bugs me. It bugs me so much I stopped to take a picture of it today. For me, this image and slogan raise many questions which lead me to answers that are just downright depressing...

Where are this kid's parents?
Why is it the teenager's responsibility to get his friend to school?
What is that kid going to do once he gets on that bus?
What is that kid going to do once he gets to school?
Why does that kid hate going to school so much in the first place?
Is it really school that kid needs the most right now?

Now, I have to say I have since looked up the websites for the Ad Council and for OperationGraduation.com which are the sponsors of this billboard and they have some not-so-depressing answers to these questions. I was pleasantly surprised and genuinely impressed.

However, the whole thing has made me think through a question I seem to be getting a lot lately..."Why do you homeschool?" I can't even answer this question when I'm asked because the answer seems so complex to me - hard to put into one tidy little phrase that will please the casual - and usually only half-interested - questioner. But the key seems to be in my reaction to this billboard.

First of all we homeschool because we want our children to love learning - and to love learning as a family. It may seem a little pie in the sky but my true hope is that our children never get to the point where only a rope w/a noose on the end will entice them to learn. We have lots of folks here who struggle to learn. They cry, they whine, they panic but their victories are so sweet and we can celebrate them as a family when they come. And I will not give up on their battles, letting them slowly slip through the cracks of frustration, misunderstanding and lack of attention. Our children know that we are on their side and we are on their side to fight the good fight. No retreat, no surrender.

When our kids show up for school in the morning, they haven't just spent the past 3 hours waking before dawn, cramming homework into a backpack, standing at a bus stop with the neighborhood bullies (ok, bad childhood memories there...), riding that bus for 45 minutes and then scrambling to get settled into a classroom just in time to quietly listen to morning announcements read by the 2nd-grader of the day. Nope, not here. Here we get up , get dressed, eat breakfast and crack the books. I've just saved my children at least 2 or 3 wasted hours a day and let them sleep in to a much healthier timeframe for their growing little bodies.

Why doesn't that poor kid on the billboard want to go to school anymore? Because he's never baked a cuneiform tablet in his own oven, mummified a chicken or wrapped himself in a blanket, snuggled up next to his brother (with the appropriate fingers and toes in all the appropriate annoying spots of said brothers personal space, of course) and listened to his mom read Hank the Cowdog or Sugar Creek Gang novels. And because his math lesson and Spelling words aren't punctuated with a rousing game of Lewis and Clark Bingo nor does his math teacher throw chocolate chips at his head just for picking up his pencil and giving the first three problems a whirl.

Let's face it, homeschooling is a lifestyle and it looks so much more attractive to me than the one portrayed on that billboard. I was just discussing with a friend how difficult it would be to send my children to school - on them and me. I can't imagine rousing all those bodies out of bed, slapping together all those lunches, going to IEP meetings, volunteering in 6 different classrooms with a baby on my hip, working my day around the bus schedule and then working out homework for kids who would probably have lots of it because they weren't able to finish most of their work in class.

Our lifestyle is just so much more attractive to me. JT wants to learn how to bake bread. So he'll learn and we'll have fresh bread everyday and he'll have a new hobby - might keep him from picking on his brothers for an hour a week anyway. In the meantime he will have honed his math skills, exercised his executive functioning and gained some much-needed confidence. Maybe I'll have Ben read to his little sisters while I teach JT to bake bread and maybe I'll have Miriam help me teach JT since she learned how to do it last year. All that will work out just fine with Philip keeping an eye on John and David for me. School is a family affair here. I am a strong believer that the family who prays together stays together but I also feel there's something really special about a family culture which encompasses learning together as well.