Homeschooling

I was totally unaware of homeschooling before I met Michele.  I watched Michele interactively teach her children to read and then set them at the table with independent school work.  Her children were delightful to be around; I wondered if spending time together homeschooling had something to do with it.  I didn’t even have children yet, but I wanted to learn more.

My husband Ross and I prayerfully considered our schooling options in light of God’s Word to parents about training up their own children.  We considered verses including Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Ephesians 6:1-4, Philippians 4:4-13, and Luke 14:28-33.  We evaluated our God-given roles and the cost of discipling our children this way, and agreed that homeschooling was the best choice for educating our family.

I went to my first Christian home school convention when our first daughter was only one year old.  The first thing I learned at the convention was all the things that homeschooling wasn’t.  It wasn’t secretive or illegal.  It wasn’t made up from scratch with mothers teaching curriculum they scrounged together.  It wasn’t limited to former teachers training genius children.  And it wasn’t for the faint-of-heart.

At later conventions I learned our legal responsibilities and waded through the myriad of curriculum choices to find what worked for our family.  We joined a home school co-op at our church in which we participated for eleven years.  (Now we’re homeschooling through high school on our own.)  We have stayed focused by annually reviewing the Philosophy of Education that Ross and I wrote for our family in 2004 before we started Kindergarten.

The Harper Family’s Philosophy of Education

Our purposes for homeschooling our children, Rachel and Anna, are:

1. To glorify God in all that we do. We will strive to do this by presenting the full gospel of Jesus Christ to our children at every opportunity, by leading godly lives before our children as redeemed sinners, and by addressing their heart issues through biblical training. Our sole source of wisdom is God’s Word, the Bible, which is sufficient to address all of life’s issues.

2. To teach the full range and depth of academic subjects with a Biblical worldview, making the best use of every person’s time and talents, working heartily as unto the Lord, in an attempt to prepare our children to be useful tools of the Lord in this world. We desire to train them to use the academic skills they develop to study and understand God’s Word, the Bible, and the world He created.

3. To enjoy daily time as a family working, playing, worshiping God and loving others and to provide our children with a protected environment in which to learn and grow. We pray that if it is God’s will, He will save Rachel and Anna, that they would enjoy a saving relationship with God and be prepared to effectively present the good news of Jesus Christ to others as God gives them opportunity.

Why We Home School:

– To glorify God in all that we do

       – To teach the full range and depth of academic subjects
with a Biblical worldview

– To enjoy daily time as a family

Read more about Homeschooling in these articles:

• Gratitude at the Milestone
• Count Your Blessings with Your Kids
• How to Make a Gift Bag for the Needy
• Natural Disasters: What Can You Do?
• Life After Homeschooling
• Training Attentive Kids
• Let’s Talk about Santa Claus
• These Are a Few of My Favorite (Homeschooling) Things

What is your homeschooling story?  Are you interested in learning more?  Are you struggling to prioritize God and your husband while homeschooling and need some encouragement?  What Bible verses motivate you to teach your children at home?