Our Start | Homeschooling By Accident

 

Our journey into homeschooling began because I was believing God for a Christian education for my kids. We were extremely poor. We had one car and lived in a house with no toilet at the time. The closest Christian school was more than 30 minutes away. Even if we had been given scholarships, the car situation made the prospect of a Christian school nearly impossible, but with God all things are possible! When my daughter turned 5, I reluctantly sent her off to the local kindergarten for ½ day sessions, since no answer to my prayer was in sight. She did well there and had a ball.

The next year I thought my oldest son was ready to learn to read, but the woman who taught kindergarten in town was very wise. She told me, “ I don’t care how smart he is. He is 4 ½ and he’s a boy. He will be bouncing off the walls and he’s not coming into my classroom.” Later I realized she was absolutely right, but at the time I got all in a huff and decided to “see what I could do on my own!” I ordered some books through my church which had started a Christian school that year but got my order in late. So, when my daughter went off to 1st grade, all we had were some Highlights magazines and some flash cards I made up on index cards. When his big sis went to school, my son and I sat down for 90 minutes every day to “do school”.

Mary Jo had a fantastic Christian teacher at school, but within a couple of weeks, it became apparent that she was falling behind and would need extra help if she was going to make it. She was the type of kid that needed 14 hours of sleep every day and a nap. She was getting on the school bus at 7am every day and coming home at 4 pm. By the time she got home, she was tired, overstimulated, and crabby. There was no way I could help her. She usually fell asleep by 6. Not to mention the fact that we no longer had any time to learn her Bible verses! By the end of 3 weeks, Spence was starting to read and Mary Jo hadn’t learned a thing.

On a whim, I decided to call an acquaintance whom I had heard through the grapevine was homeschooling. I figured it would cost thousands of dollars to do, but I had to find out what the rules were. She assured me homeschooling was entirely within reach for us so I approached my husband.

A couple of years before that, my husband had driven the school bus. He wasn’t a Christian at the time, but he had seen enough on the bus to cause him great concern so he told me “Go ahead, just don’t get thrown in jail.” (At the time people were getting thrown in jail across the river in Iowa). It wasn't too long before he started saying, “If someone comes to throw us in jail for homeschooling, I'll meet them at the door with a gun!”

At first, I was going to wait until the semester break to pull her out, but by the next week, things had deteriorated so badly that I revised my plans. I would pull her out after the first report card. By the end of the 5th week, I could stand it no longer and withdrew her. Once home, she thrived. Our family peace was restored and she learned to read very quickly.