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Why Home Schooling?

Deciding to home school my son was not an easy choice but it was one of my best decisions. It was also one of the decisions for which I received the most criticism. Friends and family members asked the same thing over and over.. “Why Home schooling”?

My son was half way through fifth grade when I finally got the courage to pull him out of his Private School. Filled with insecurities about my teaching abilities, I chose a Prepackaged DVD curriculum from Abekka to finish off the year. It proved to be a disaster for my son.

I had always known my son would not be attending Public Schools. Not only for the religious reasons but also for my own observations of what Public Schools program into our children and the negative aspects of socialization and peer pressure. I had read several books by Robert Kirosaki of Rich Dad Poor Dad fame and was in total agreement of his assessments of public schools goals of creating more worker bees for the rat race.

By the time my son had reached fourth grade, he had attended four different Private Schools and had more then excelled in each. His grades were excellent and he was testing out at the high school and college level even at the age of nine.

I know many of you will think this odd, but I was worried about all the A’s and 100’s. I wanted to see some B’s and 80’s. School was becoming way to easy for Billy and I could tell he was bored. Learning equals boredom was not what he needed to feel or think.

After several discussions with his school, I asked that he be skipped up a grade but was told that it was against their policy. They felt that “every student must complete every page, every test, every lesson of every grade whether they already knew the material or not“. They acknowledged that Billy was an excellent student and couldn’t understand why I was unhappy with his A+ performance. I pulled him out of school that very day.

We finished up fifth grade using the prepackaged DVD course and then threw everything out and started making it up on our own for the sixth grade. Billy liked math, so I bought a College Alegebra course and we learned Algebra together. For History, we visited the local commerce department and learned all about our little town, then spent the rest of the year learning about racism while watching movies and talking to our African American friends. We went to the library and read books and of course spent time learning the Bible.

At eleven Billy was ready to learn about the Economy so he opened a small booth in a Craft Mall where he learned about wholesale and retail, merchandising, pricing and record-keeping.

His interest in biology led to a microscope and a high school textbook.

Next he studied Internet Marketing, graphic design, took an online course in typing, Microsoft Word, learned Hebrew and Biblical Greek and is now studying Aviation and learning to fly a plane.

By the time he was fourteen, he had completed most of his high school courses but because of state laws had to wait until he was fifteen to take his GED test. Even at fifteen the laws prevented them from giving him his diploma until he turned sixteen.

I’m grateful that the State of Virginia allowed Billy to learn his own way. I’m grateful that Billy has acquired the ability and desire to learn and I’m grateful that home schooling has taught Billy that there are no limits on his potential. And that is Why we Home schooled.