Category Archives: reading

as weird as you are: what homeschool really is

Posted on by March 10, 2022

Homeschooling has always been misunderstood, but 2020 didn’t do it any favors and now there’s even more confusion.

The fall of 2020 saw an unprecedented number of families transfer their kids from public and private school to homeschool. And this fall has been the same, for many of the same reasons; even more parents this year want to make the move to homeschool.

as weird as you are: what homeschool really is

It’s a bold, brave choice that requires a family to make significant changes, and it can be overwhelming. That has never changed; the overwhelm has always been there whether it was last year, this year, or sixteen years ago, when we started.

But this year I’ve noticed one difference: Many parents who wish they could get their kids out of public school have washed their hands of homeschooling because they feel like they tried it last year with the forced lockdown, and it was miserable.

So let me clear something up real quick. This is important:

If, because of lockdowns, you were forced into schooling at home, schooling online, or doing a ton of assignments with your kids that their school told you to do, then I hate to break it to you, but…you didn’t homeschool.

I hope that’s a relief to some of you.

Just because your child did assignments at home doesn’t mean it was homeschool.

If they were still registered with another school and doing everything that school told them to do, a repeat of that experience is not what you would be signing up for if you chose to (really) homeschool.

Because homeschool is not checking off a list that someone else assigned you. Homeschool is not hours and hours in front of a screen in zoom meetings or other online classes. Homeschool isn’t just doing the same things you would do at school, but moving the location to your kitchen table (or the couch, or your bed).

Homeschool is none of those things. So if you were given that impression last year and it left a terrible taste in your mouth, I am so sorry. No one can blame you for saying “We tried homeschool last year and we hated it” because we would hate it that way, too.

But we can show you what it really ought to be. And that should give you hope, especially if you wish there was an alternative to the indoctrinating mess that many public schools have become. If you are tired of the CRT and other agendas, the unhealthy mask mandates, the disregard of parental rights, and you want to make school about education again (whoa, what a concept!), let’s talk about what homeschool really is.

And right from the start, I admit that I can’t give you the full picture. Because homeschool is different for everyone, and that is the beauty of it. It is for you and for your kids, not for a predictable system so they will all go in different and come out the same after being squeezed to conform to a mold they may never fit into.

But here are some basic principles:

– We read. A lot. Out loud and quietly, to each other, to younger siblings, to older siblings, to Grandma, to the cats if they will listen. So many books, so little time. When someone’s sick, audiobooks work in a pinch.

– We do stuff: Projects and hikes and visits and crafty things and cooking and watching videos and I can’t even tell you what else. At home and elsewhere, on our own and with others, and we’re not limited to a 7 am to 3 pm schedule.

– We talk to each other, to extended family members and friends, and others. We discuss what we’re reading and learning. We visit people and talk on the phone, and we’re not segregated into only talking with those in our own age group, economic group, neighborhood, or gender.

– We try and fail and change things up, and try again. We’re not stuck with the math program that we hate. We try new language arts programs that might be a better fit. We don’t read the dry textbooks that put you to sleep.

– Our curriculum and schedule work for us, not the other way around. We are not a slave to the checklists and to-do lists (and neither are our kids). We adjust our school schedule to our lives instead of adjusting our lives to our school schedule. A new baby is born, or someone gets sick, or some major catastrophe occurs? We learn about basic skills and caring for each other for a few weeks, and the algebra and language arts can wait. There will be time to pick it up again when things settle down. We are flexible when we need to care for each other, help friends, do a major home repair, or get involved in community projects. So much that needs to be known is never learned in school…but it can be learned in homeschool.

Some of the most important learning is not academic, so don’t be afraid to go there.

So friends, if you want to homeschool this year but don’t think you can for a dozen or more reasons, listen to me:

You will be a terrific teacher for your kid. You’ve already been doing it a long time.

You can teach your kids. Yes, it’s hard sometimes. Yes, you’ll be sanctified. But you can go slow, read the books you want, do the activities you want, partner with friends, take advantage of online resources (they cover every subject or topic you could imagine), and make it your own. Make it for them. Make it for your freedom. Make it for their future.

We have all these preconceived ideas about what school should look like, and we feel like we can’t fit the mold. So, newsflash:

There was never meant to be a mold.

School is supposed to be as weird as you are. Go ahead and quote me on that.

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Need a quick resource for more info? HSLDA has a terrific site right here, with everything you need to know (legal, local, academic, and otherwise) to get started.

the challenge: working through it together

Posted on by February 13, 2023

Every year we choose new books to read (do you do this, too?), but last year we started something different – we did a reading challenge. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it?

But it’s not, really. Just search the internet and you’ll find a hundred variations. Iree joined us and the three of us teamed up together to read 104 books. Two books per week seems like a lot, but between all of us, it seemed doable.

But we quickly discovered that it wasn’t, quite.

the challenge: working through it together

It wasn’t the number of books, but the categories that threw us. And I understand that the point of a challenge is to, well, challenge you, but there was only one slot for “a book you have no interest in” and I own too many books that I actually want to read to bother digging around with so many categories that were on there that I don’t.

So, taking a languid approach to it, we crossed the boring/inapplicable categories off as we went and replaced them with creative ones that were less boring (cough) more to our taste. Because seriously, I value theology and Christian living, but there were SO MANY of them on there, and absolutely nothing on writing, crafts, psychology, ancient history, criminology, or any of the other weird stuff we also really like.

And by the end of the year our list was a mess, but it was much more fun, and yes – we were still challenged.

This year we did it again, but started off with a clean list. We made sure the categories were both realistic and interesting right off the bat. We crowded around the kitchen island, just throwing ideas out there.

A book written by someone you know. A book with a character you’d want to be friends with. A book about a disaster. A book about personal growth. A book Shannon quoted in one of her books. A book of 800 pages or more. A memoir or autobiography. A book by Dickens.

“A book on Napoleonic history,” Vin suggested.

“Uhh…” Iree and I looked at each other.

“Only if you’re going to read it,” she said. (He said he would.)

Cham came in and we asked her for suggestions. And if you don’t know her, you will after hearing her ideas:

“A book about biology…a book on dissecting. Ohh! A book on cadavers!”

Yeah. Well…we only added one of those ideas; I’ll let you guess which.

There’s so much that we don’t know. We’ll read hundreds, thousands, of pages this year, and aside from the people we hang out with and the time we spend in prayer, very few things will influence our growth like these pages. So it’s important to choose good ones, and to enjoy the time spent with them.

I’m not kidding myself; I know I won’t remember most of what I read. I won’t like or agree with everything that I read. But even without remembering all the facts and storylines and characters and historical figures, we will be changed. The pages will leave an impression that wasn’t there last year.

Last year I started reading Plutarch’s Lives alongside Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Several months in, I realized my mistake. I thought they would reinforce each other, but usually I just get more confused as I try to untangle them from each other every week.

But I am learning.

I don’t remember all the individual lives in Plutarch, and I couldn’t tell you the exact timeline in Gibbon. But what I can tell you is an impression of these cultures and times. I can tell you that there were leaders who had wisdom for the ages, including ours. And there were also leaders who were so abhorrent in their depravity and disregard for the lives of others that the horrors they committed are hard to believe.

But they are in the history books. We generally don’t argue with them.

So, quick question, because I have to go there – why do people disbelieve or disregard the horrors we hear about today? Why are we so quick to mock and accuse people of being conspiracy theorists when they share information about celebrities and politicians doing abhorrent things?

Is it because they’re not in the history books yet? Is it because we have no interest in those categories?

Is it because those topics challenge us too much?

Or is it because we are their contemporaries, and their proximity to our own lives makes us uncomfortable? Because if these things are happening in the world we live in (and they are – it takes very little research to discover it, though you’ll have to use a search engine that doesn’t censor to do it, and you absolutely should not do so without being prayed up), then either a) we might be somewhat responsible that they exist, or b) we might need to do something about it so they no longer exist.

And those aren’t good, easy, fun options. It’s much more comfortable to shoot the messenger, lump it all as conspiracy theory and applaud the censorship that silences them, and move along with our noses heads held high.

I’ve heard some people disavow information simply because it didn’t match their personal experience. And I’m grateful they haven’t personally experienced anything that horrific, but our personal experiences do not define or limit the reality of other people experiences. It is arrogant, narcissistic, and foolishly ignorant to act like it does.

We still have so much to learn.

Hear me, friend: Children chained to beds and starved was not in my personal experience until we got involved in adoption.

Children who weighed 24 pounds at age four were not in my personal experience until we started our adoption paperwork. We converted kilos to pounds in astonishment; it had to be a miscalculation. But it wasn’t.

Children who were so neglected that they were only nine pounds at nine years old were not in our personal experience until we got involved with the people who were adopting them.

Our lack of personal experience did not prevent their existence or the abuse. It only proved our ignorance.

Our personal experience is not the epitome of reality. It is arrogant to assume that our x amount of years in any field (professional, personal, or otherwise) qualifies us to deny the reality of someone else’s differing experience, especially when it comes in the form of testimony with evidence and witnesses.

Just because something is so devastating that it is hard to believe, doesn’t mean it isn’t actually true.

And just because you don’t find information about fraud, horrific child abuse, or other crimes perpetrated by the elite on mainstream media (which no longer even attempts to hide how blatant their censorship is) doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It just means they want us to think it doesn’t…and that should lead us to some very important questions about what they have to lose.

There are many things that are hard to believe, but are nevertheless reality, regardless of how uncomfortable they make us feel, or how much we hate those categories.

And coming to understand that – and working through it together, with respect and love – may be the real challenge we all go through this year.

keep it: the only way we maintain good times for future generations

Posted on by January 18, 2021

Over the last week with few exceptions, I’ve posted nothing on social media except scripture. I haven’t wanted to add to the noise. He has good things to say about this season, and that’s what I’ve wanted to focus on and draw attention to.

keep it: the only way we maintain good times for future generations

It’s been an interesting experiment and a good move for me, sort of like a fast.

Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
    be not envious of wrongdoers!
For they will soon fade like the grass
    and wither like the green herb.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;
    dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

– Psalm 37:1-3

It’s been Psalm 37 all week long. But if you’re paying attention (I know many of you are) you know that really, it’s been Psalm 37 for much longer than that. The events over the last few weeks, and even leading up to election week in November, weren’t huge surprises and they’ve been in the making for a long time.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
    fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
    over the man who carries out evil devices!

Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
    Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.
For the evildoers shall be cut off,
    but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.

– Psalm 37:7-9

On January 6th, we took the day off work and prayed. And then we went to church and prayed. Our pastor talked candidly about the risk of civil war, and I’ve thought many times about how we are facing this blend of civil and revolutionary war – civil because it is among our own countrymen, but revolutionary because of the cause and the nature of it.  But our pastor also talked about the grievous things it could mean for our kids and future grandkids, and I had not fully considered it in that vivid light.

Then one of the elders prayed, and he repented for his generation that allowed so much of this to happen. They were comfortable, he said; things were easy. And they took advantage of it, and the generation that came after took the ease and comfort for granted.

It made me think of this saying that I’ve been hearing a lot over the last year:

Hard times create strong men.

Strong men create good times.

Good times create weak men.

Weak men create hard times.

And it’s so true, I know it is, but surely we must be able to break the cycle. Because if we can’t, everything seems so hopeless – why should we work to create good times if it only results in weak men who ruin it for our great grandchildren?

Or worse, there’s that other argument we hear all too often: Why bother bringing children into the world at all?

But then, the same week, I also read this:

“What sort of world is this to bring them into? That’s another consideration.”

“A very cowardly consideration, dear. A mere shirking of responsibility. It’s a heavy responsibility, of course, a double one, responsibility for the children themselves and responsibility for the world they must live in. But I know of no better incentive for the building of a decent world than the possession of children who must live in the world you’ve built.”

– Elizabeth Goudge, Pilgrim’s Inn

God creates a beautiful, strategic curriculum for our lives: The warnings and repentance, the prayer and the challenge. And I realized again that we are not headed for war; we are already at war.

We always have been. But we lose ground every time we forget it.

What hasn’t changed is that we are occupying the land of a cleanup operation: We are in the middle of a spiritual war in a physical place, and it manifests itself in both ways. We see the spiritual and physical aftermath all around us.

So even when we get back to “good times” – the corruption is revealed, the fraud is overturned, the guilty go to prison (hashtag: we’re gonna need a bigger Gitmo) – we still need to remember that we are at war. We are always at war. Our hearts and culture are the battleground, and never more so when it looks like things are safe and easy.

We are still occupying and stewarding the land, on mission, until He comes.

There are quiet victories and struggles, great sacrifices of self, and noble acts of heroism, in it…done every day in nooks and corners, and in little households, and in men’s and women’s hearts – any one of which might reconcile the sternest man to such a world, and fill him with belief and hope in it, though two-fourths of its people were at war, and another fourth at law; and that’s a bold word.

– Charles Dickens, The Battle of Life

People’s hearts – ours, and those around us – are always and still the battleground. Hearts and identities and relationships will always need wholeness and fullness, in good times and bad, and that is where God wants to stake His claim. We till the soil regardless of the weather and circumstances because strong men create good times, but strong men can also create strong children. And those strong children will continue to inherit the land.

There were still children in the world, and while there were children, men and women would not abandon the struggle to make safe homes to put them in, and while they so struggled there was hope.

– Elizabeth Goudge, Pilgrim’s Inn

When the Constitutional Convention closed in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was leaving Independence Hall when a woman asked him what kind of government they had just designed. His answer was, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

And that is still our challenge today.

Turn away from evil and do good;
    so shall you dwell forever.
For the Lord loves justice;
    he will not forsake his saints.
They are preserved forever,
    but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
The righteous shall inherit the land
    and dwell upon it forever.

– Psalm 37:27-29

In good times or hard times, we are still loving our kids and teaching them. We are still learning more and growing. We are still passing on values and standards and true education. We are still in the Word and abiding in prayer. We cannot let up and grow soft when times are easy, and we cannot let go and become calloused when times are hard.

The only way we do that is to remember that the war is never over – it is always raging in the spiritual battleground. We are not only meant to inherit the land, but to keep it.