I'll confess straight away. Our experiment with home schooling lasted barely two terms. When we started, friends said we were crazy. As our two school-aged children returned to school at Easter, we tended to agree!
How had we been so confident/misguided/smug (to cite just three of the epithets we had either applied to ourselves or were convinced others had used of us)? What had we done to our children, and to ourselves? With tensions running high at home and both of us signed off by the doctor, it seemed clear enough; it had been a mistake.
Don't misunderstand me. I still believe in home education as a legitimate and even admirable option for some families. A Christ-centred curriculum with the opportunity to assume a significant role in shaping our children's worldview in a secular age is a major incentive. The enthusiasm, sincerity and skill with which some are training their children outside the state system have impressed me no end. It's just that in our case it didn't work out.
Warning signs
Others saw warning signs before we did. Of our four children, the eldest (9) has always demanded plenty of additional stimulation. At five, she was already bored in class; at seven, she was almost 'climbing the walls' with frustration. She had been assessed as having a reading age of 13, and was leaping ahead in maths. Yet she was a non-starter when it came to tidying her bedroom or organising her school bag.
Meanwhile our youngest (2) requires repeated daily skin-care, having been born with the rare genetic disorder ichthyosis. During our months teaching at home, she had frequent hospital and doctors' appointments. Health visitors, nurses and a special-needs social worker were regularly on our doorstep. All of which meant that hardly a week went by without some unforeseen interruption.
We began by reading all we could. Entering 'home school' on the Internet yielded copious entries. These ranged from large-scale organisations - mainly North American - to individual families with something to share about their experience. Home schooling is much more common in the US than here.
Eventually, we settled for a mix of 'Christian' materials - including an excellent English language course, worth the effort even with the necessary translation from American idiom. For mathematics, we adopted a mainstream British course (Collins STEPS). This went down well with the LEA Inspector and included plenty of add-on activities.
A conference
Early on, we attended a conference extolling the virtues of teaching at home and the potential horrors of state education. 'Would you entrust the training of your children to humanists, atheists, hedonists . . . ?' We were challenged to consider whether we can really expect to fulfil our responsibilities as Christian parents without taking a much greater control of their schooling.
Maybe it was just me, but I found my attention wandering easily. Were all those children filing out of that minibus from the same family? They were. Was this part of the agenda, I wondered - to produce your own entire class?
Nevertheless, much of what we gleaned impressed us. We were all too aware of what is quickly picked up on the playground. For example, a note passed to our eldest daughter by a friend contained a level of foul language that shocked us.
Insulation or preparation?
So often, home-schoolers are criticised for trying to insulate their families from the 'real world'. However, there is surely a strong case for taking time and trouble to prepare them for the world at large. I find nothing in the Bible or in common sense which indicates that children as young as four or five have the capacity or the experience to do battle with a hostile and increasingly pagan environment. Given the option, I think I would choose to keep ours at home longer, at least until they have sufficient grounding in the faith and have learned how the non-Christian thinks from the perspective of Scripture.
It quickly became obvious to us, however, that we did not have the option. The amount of energy needed simply to keep the home together left us exhausted and defeated. Certainly the LEA Inspector who visited gave us a positive report. Yet soon into the second term, we knew that a return to school was vital for our continued sanity. Next came the challenging task of having one child re-admitted, and starting our second daughter in the Infants. Given the heavy demand on what is a good and popular school, we really do praise God for this provision.
Nine months on, we've had some time to reflect upon our experience. Apart from the inevitable feelings of failure- and a little hurt pride - home schooling still appears a potential option if you have the right resources and family circumstances to start with. It is helpful to have some spare cash to purchase resources and fund educational trips. There is no way the government is likely to offer tax incentives or a proportion of the money given per pupil to schools.
Of the families to which we have spoken, several have excellent support networks. In one instance, there were three home schooling families in one church. They were able to pool resources and give each other a break during the week, as well as benefit from each other's personal expertise.
Centre of gravity
Realistically, the majority will not be able to withdraw our children from school. Many of us would not consider this desirable in any case. Perhaps what we do need to major on is ensuring that the 'centre of gravity' is in the home. Surely what all our children need is a sizeable portion of our time. Time to talk, to explore God's world, to think about the presuppositions of science and ethics and morality of personal decisions. Time to marvel at the clarity and trustworthiness of Scripture, and to be encouraged towards a meaningful commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. In these and other ways, we may surely be able to fulfil our responsibilities without resorting to full-time home schooling.
Recently, a friend telephoned a home schooling family, only to be met by a recorded message: 'I'm sorry, but we cannot come to the telephone at the moment as we are enjoying school time together. Train up a child in the way he should go . . . God bless you, and have a nice day.' Of course, we may cringe. Perhaps they had been reading too many books from across the Atlantic. But maybe a wise use of the answering machine and a reduction in TV/video/ computer use would make for a far more effective use of the time we do have with our children. Could this be the first step to ensuring the centre of gravity in their world is the Christian home?
