originally written in 2004

When asked how long I was homeschooled, I answer: “Forever.” I truly can’t remember a time before homeschooling, because for us, homeschooling was a way of life.

My dad graduated from the public school in the small town where we still live; my mom was a charter member of a Christian school begun by their church. Mom always thought that she’d have to work to convince Dad to send their children to Christian school. But when Aunt Terri, a former teacher, began to homeschool my older cousin, Robert, Papa told Dad and Mom, “You ought to consider homeschooling, too.”

That was more than fifteen years ago, and not only have Robert and I graduated from homeschooling, but so have two of our younger siblings, and the rest are well on their way! Following Papa’s advice to homeschool us was the best decision my parents ever made.

I suppose my official “homeschool” experience began when I learned to read at age three and a half. Mom taught me the simple phonics sounds, and Papa helped me through my first little readers one time when he and Grama were visiting. From then on, Daddy claimed that I had a permanent “growth” on my hand: a book!

A love of reading was the best thing my parents could have taught me. Mom read to us every night, from classics like The Chronicles of Narnia and Little House on the Prairie, but soon I was reading ahead on my own. By first and second grade I was reading Little Women and Anne of Green Gables. The books I read as a child truly shaped me for the rest of my life. I wanted to be a writer like Jo and Laura, I identified with the redheaded Anne (except that as she became my hero, I was glad to have red hair!), and the land of Narnia opened new worlds for my imagination (I pretended I was Queen Lucy). Most of all, those classics encouraged me to keep reading. Looking back, I can see that the books I read were a large part of my education.

Despite my love of reading, the ABeka Language Arts book made 2nd grade the “worst” year of homeschooling. Mom remembers hours spent in our little travel trailer, camped on Daddy’s job, struggling through that book with me. I positively couldn’t get enough creative juices flowing to write a paragraph on the octopus pictured in the book, nor did I understand the purpose or mechanics of diagramming sentences. Mom says that “never in a million years” would she have guessed that I would grow up to become a writer. Of course, I still can’t diagram sentences, but I can write them!

I was twelve years old when my little sister was born. At that point, my education took on a distinct emphasis on “home economics.” I took over most of the cooking, and was soon experimenting with once-a-month-cooking and bread baking. Plus I learned more about burping babies and changing diapers than my mom knew when she got married.

At this point in my life, schoolwork like math and grammar was the last thing I wanted to be doing. I was supposed to be starting 8th grade in 1997, but I wanted to be getting high school credit for my work and just get done, so I skipped 8th grade. That put me in the same grade as my childhood friends and homeschool classmates, Sabine and Janelle.

When I reflect on my high school years, I recall time spent editing the magazine I published, struggling through my Streams of Civilization history book (I never acquired my brother’s love of history!), teaching myself how to create websites, getting a headache reading my science textbook, hours spent cooking and experimenting with recipes, and many tears cried over Saxon Algebra 1. I learned a lot more from life than I did from my textbooks in those years! I guess like Mark Twain,

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

My brother and I never had the desire to attend school. In fact, the worst threat Mom could utter was: “Maybe we should send you to Christian school.” When we heard that, we diagramed those sentences in scared silence! My parents kept homeschooling, even when it was tough, because they loved us enough to care about our education. As Rabbi Daniel Lapin once stated,

“It is never ever possible to impart knowledge without imparting values… Education can never ever be separated from its underlying values. I don’t believe that you can even teach mathematics without betraying underlying values.”

My parents did not abdicate their God-given responsibility to “train up a child in the way he should go”; they personally educated us, instilling Biblical values and inspiring godly virtues that would serve us for a lifetime.

Some feared that our parents sheltered us too much, but like my dad always says, “You don’t put baby tomato plants in the hot sun; you keep them in a greenhouse until they have roots.” To quote Paul Tibberts, born in the 1910′s, pilot of the Enola Gay,

“We were better served, being protected from the kinds of things that kids see now as they’re growing up. By the time we got to the war, we were ready to look the hard side of life right in the face. I do not feel deprived that when I was a boy the entertainment was clean and happy” (from Duty: A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War, by Bob Greene).

My parents “sheltered” us until we were deeply rooted in our faith and convictions, then they let us continue to grow on our own.

By June of 2001, I was done with all of my official schoolwork except for a few math lessons. On June 2, 2001, I joined my childhood friends Sabine Limbeck and Janelle Lonbeck, as well as Janelle’s friend Merissa Thompson, for an official homeschool graduation. We marched up the aisle to “Pomp and Circumstance” (though at the practice my cousin Melissa played the “Bridal March” instead!), our brothers were the Honor Guards, we cried through our speeches, and we walked out to the song “Homeschool Girl.” It was a beautiful finish to our years of homeschooling.

As I look back, three years after graduation, I think of what Einstein said:

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.”

I’ve already forgotten any facts I may have managed to learn from my science book, and algebra will never come easily to me. But the education I received from my parents didn’t just cover the 3 R’s; my homeschool education prepared me for life.

The “Afterwards” of my Homeschool Experience

Growing up, I never planned to go to college. All I’ve ever wanted to be is a wife and mother, and I won’t need a degree for that (if I did, I think I’d already have earned it, helping raise my younger siblings!). Besides, Mom graduated from college six months pregnant with me—I’d already “graduated” once, so why would I need to go again?

After graduating from homeschooling in June 2001, I spent my year very busy at home, very thankful to be done with school. But by the fall of 2002, I needed something to keep myself busy. So my brother and I signed up for a few classes at the local Christian college our parents attended.

The main reason I went to college was because of the writing professor. He was my mom’s professor twenty years ago, so I had grown up hearing about the way Mr. Hills taught writing, and I wanted to learn from him. College Writing I and II taught me a lot about the basics of writing a good paper, then in 2003, I was privileged to be able to take Mr. Hills’ senior-level Advanced Composition class. Our class of thirteen read our papers out loud and editing each other’s work. Between their comments and Mr. Hills’ expertise, my writing improved dramatically.

Besides writing, my brother and I took Old and New Testament Survey, and Speech 101. Though I’d already had a few experiences speaking to groups, speech took on a whole new meaning for me–it became not only a favorite class, but a favorite thing to do. (Our speech professor had also been a classmate of our parents’!)

I learned so much from my college classes, and I considered applying to college full-time after that, but in the end realized that I agreed with the Girl of the Limberlost on college:

“You are in college, and have been always. You are in the school of experience, and it has taught you to think, and given you a heart. …You have been in the college of the Limberlost all your life… Go to work and show people what there is in you!”

Yes, I am done with school, but I will never be done with learning.

(Linking up with YLCF’s “A Peek Into Your Education”)