From Public School to Homeschool

I am so excited to welcome a wonderful college friend of mine, Ashley, to the blog today. I thought you all would enjoy her story and appreciate her heart as her family embarks on a new journey.

**Please note that this our own personal story and our own personal convictions. It is not my desire to thrust our views on you or make you feel inadequate in your choices. We are just sharing our story!**

The day to day structure of our family is changing. And it is changing in a big way. We are departing on an adventure that I swore we would never do – homeschooling. As a rule, one should never say never or always-I am obviously not a quick learner!

So, why did we say NEVER? I have always been an advocate for the Public School System. My husband and I are both products of Public School. I have a degree in Education and taught in the System for two years prior to staying home with my babies. I always thought that I would return to full time Public School teaching when the kids were old enough. We also felt like our children should be “in the world, but not of it”. We deduced that this means that we should allow them to socialize with non-Christian students and practice sharing our family’s convictions. Our oldest is also a bit of a social butterfly, and we didn’t want to stifle that area of her development by keeping her at home.

Why change then if you feel so strongly about something? The truth is that God showed us that we have no choice. In December 2013, we lost our precious baby, lovingly named by her siblings – Secret Baby. One cannot lose a child (the developmental age matters not) and not be changed by the event. I began to see our life through a new set of lenses. Our daughter was in first grade in Public School. She endured a kindergarten year that is by all accounts less than wonderful. Now let me say that her teachers have been the epitome of pure awesomeness, but the school itself seems to be caught in a vortex that is spiraling out of control. There was a boy in her kindergarten class who dropped the “F” bomb as many times a day as he wanted. There were no repercussions for this behavior. Sure he was removed from the class eventually, but he would often drop The Bomb several more times before he made it out of earshot of my daughter-screaming F-this and F-that down the hall. She was placed in his class again for 1^st grade. My husband and I knew that we couldn’t do it another year. Her innocence was being compromised. She even asked me “Mommy, what does “F” mean”? Try explaining that to a 6 year old. So, we had her moved to a new classroom. Again, amazing teacher, school out of control. Our daughter was only receiving reading instruction 1 time per week because she was above average. Boys were allowed to rub her back while standing in the lunch line. The teacher did what she could, but the administration was unwilling to address these problems. Then, one day I drove by and there were 3 police cars sitting outside her school. WHAT?! A kindergarten student decided to go crazy and destroy the room, flinging books, crayons, chairs, and personal belongings around. It just seemed to be that God was showing me that we were literally sending our Blessing to a war zone every day. She was so concerned with survival in this environment that “witnessing” wasn’t even in her thoughts. And the all-important Socialization was keeping her up at night and breaking her heart because she just wasn’t sure how to “be friends” with people who were nice to her one day and refused to play with her the next.

What then is her purpose in the Public School System?

Around this time my husband and I also started to do some research on Common Core (CC). These are two divisive words. People generally stand on one side of the debate or the other, and they stand strong. I am now one of those people, and please feel free to disagree with me-but you aren’t going to change my opinion! Although I have a background in Education, I have never been one to believe in one size fits all education. I struggled with individualizing education and how that works throughout college and my own teaching experience. I was never a proponent for national standards or standardized tests. I believe that all children are created differently with different aptitudes for different areas. Thus, I was plenty happy to see the idea of No Child Left Behind hit the road. I never dreamed it would be replaced with something like Common Core. My first concern is that Common Core is a set of national standards. They were created by the National Governor’s Association which sets off warning bells in my mind for big government. Common Core seeks to give standards that all students should meet by the time they graduate, which in theory I don’t have a problem with. However, they encourage/force students who are incapable of higher level critical thinking and without upper level cognitive development to attempt to think in multiple step, analytical, higher level thinking. Honestly, I cannot even understand some of the problems that come from CC aligned curriculum choices. And while CC advertises that students will receive more direct and individualized instruction from the state’s adaptation of CC, the truth of the matter is that they receive confusion and feelings of inadequacy or inability when they are unable to perform on standardized tests that are still in place. The illusive student-centered learning or what-is-best-for-the-kid is still missed and we have managed to serve up a big helping of insufficiency to the student’s already weak self-esteem and boost the already heightened idea that government is the be-all-end-all in our society.

What is a God fearing family with shattered convictions to do? The answer is pray. I had begun to plead my case with God when we lost our pregnancy and third child. I felt like God was trying to reveal the fragility of life for my Blessings. He was trying to show me that every day, every hour, every minute, every second of time should be intentional and purposeful in teaching our family’s convictions to my children. So, I prayed God would help my husband to agree. And he did! Now we begin the journey we said we would never do – homeschooling! However, now we are all equally excited!

Our daughter is so excited because she got to CHOOSE her own curriculum. She is still going to study Art and Music and she will begin Spanish studies as well. She is so excited to go to the library to get books for her very own “book basket” every week. My husband and I are excited about the one on one educational opportunities for math, reading, gardening, and cooking. We are ALL excited about a more flexible schedule and more time together!

About Ashely Herrin

Ashely is first and foremost a child of God. She believes that her responsibility is to her husband and two children above any other. She teaches 6^th and 7^th grade history and geography at a local university model school part time and stays home with her children as much as possible. She also assists her husband with his student working with middle and high school girls. Her free time is spent reading Christian Fiction and cooking Paleo meals for her family.