Seasons of Learning Part 1

So I mentioned in last week's post that since I buried this blog in 2012, I have taken up the mantle of homeschooling the boys. In 2015, Eli was in 3rd grade, and came home from school in tears more times that I care to count because of the high-pressure testing culture that was becoming the norm in Georgia...3rd grade, y'all. He would get his little nine-year-old self so wound up over "benchmarks" and "milestones" that the only way he could decompress was to melt into a puddle of tears when I picked him up in the afternoons. It was heartbreaking. This sweet, wiggly little boy, who already struggled in math but worked so hard at everything his teachers asked him to do...his spirit was being crushed, and I saw the spark of a love of learning diminish each time he "failed" one of those stupid tests.

And as a teacher? Well, there were rumblings of my pay being tied to my students' performance on high-stakes tests. Which I can appreciate being measured and compensated based on my performance as a teacher, but the tests wouldn't necessarily count for or against the students in any way, shape, or form. So basically my livelihood might depend on whether or not a student chose to take the test seriously or "Christmas tree" the whole thing. Let's face it, teenagers aren't dumb.  They would have figured out if the test didn't count for them, and most of them wouldn't put any effort into something that they knew wasn't real. Now, I don't know if Georgia ever went that route or not, so I'm not saying this is what actually happened. All I know is that the question of how the tests would count for students was floating around in 2015 when I closed my classroom door for the last time.

Now, I'm not against public education at all; society as a whole benefits from an educated public. Kids can still receive a good education in public school if their parents are involved in their academic lives...from my experience, this is normally the number one indicator of academic success.  And many homeschooling families (my family included) are just one lost job away from needing to put the public school system to use. But I am so thankful for the season God has put us in.  Jason and I had been contemplating homeschooling for a year or so.  And I thought we had settled on me teaching one more year (2015-16), so we could pay off some debt. But God...Isn't that just the way He is?  But God...He had other plans.

While out to dinner for our 11th anniversary, Jason told me that I should go ahead and tell my principal that I would not be coming back for the next school year. So all within a month's time, I had broken my contract with the school system, withdrawn the boys from school, spent a small fortune on Amazon for all the books and curriculum I thought I'd need, and raided the library for as many library books on Ancient civilizations as I could possibly find.  We were going to go the classical education route (more on that in another post later), and we were starting from the very beginning (of recorded history).

Among many other things, we studied ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, math, and classifications of living things. We played with magnets and compasses, did nature walks and artist studies, memorized poetry, learned cursive, joined a co-op for P.E. classes, and read books on top of books from children's versions of the Iliad and Odyssey to Little House to A Christmas Carol. My goal for the first year of our homeschooling adventure was to help the boys love school again (which I find sad to say since they were only in 2nd and 4th grades). Look how little they were!

Who doesn't love reading in a box?

The haul from the library.

Inspired by Van Gogh's "Sunflowers"

Doing a unit on birds. Drawing what they saw and finding out names, habitats, and sounds.

We were also able to pack school up and take it to North Carolina in early September. We stayed at my parents' house for a few days while Jason interviewed for a job in Oak Ridge, Tn. and did school in their RV (that was a lot of fun!). The week we were there, my Mammaw passed away, and we got to be there to hold her hand and say our goodbyes. I have the sweetest video of Eli reading Little House in the Big Woods to her; his sweet little voice reading those words to the woman who had actually lived that kind of life...churned her own butter, scalded her own hog, given her own children oranges and peppermint candy for Christmas. That week I realized for the first time why God had brought us to homeschooling in the first place.  Sure, I can give my boys a wonderful, living education and the personal attention they need, but more importantly was the time we were granted.  Time to be present for all of the important moments we would otherwise have missed.  That lesson would be driven home time and time again over the next three and a half years.