I have loved doing homeschool for the last 16 years. Thinking about homeschooling started in my high school days, in which a friend at church homeschooled her children. I loved to see how their family interacted. After I married Greg, I brought up the subject of homeschooling. At first he dismissed the idea because the people he knew that had been homeschooled were so awkward. Then he met a family that had been homeschooling and he noticed their family life and apparently changed his thoughts on it without really telling me. So when Jasper was 4 and we experimented with homeschooling preK, I came to the conclusion that Greg was right before and homeschooling is not for me. Then Jasper turns 5 and I'm thinking I need to enroll him in the public school (we were in Vilonia school district at the time). About that time, Greg mentions that we shouldn't do that and we should try homeschooling Kindergarten.
We moved to Conway schools that August that Jasper started Kindergarten and we also had Amethyst who was 8 months old. There began 13 years of homeschooling and adding Emma and Amethyst and Jace as they reached Kindergarten age. We tried a few co-ops and homeschool support groups. We stayed longer with some. We made tons of friends and family-friends that were not in our church, but were homeschooling along with us. We did Bible Bees and Geography Bees. We did dance and baseball and soccer. We did AWANA and 4H and Brownies. We did ok on the social spectrum.
Then Greg gets sick and one year later passes away.
That was Jasper's senior year and Emma's sophomore year. Amethyst was in 7th grade and Jace 4th. Isaiah hadn't started school grades yet. We barely get by. We really had a hard time finishing that year "as you can imagine". We limped along at the co-op, but I wasn't helpful which I tried to be. Everywhere were reminders that while all these family-friends of mine still had their daddies and husbands, I did not. It was just too awkward. I wasn't my usual happy self and folks backed away from me. It seems like. It seems like because I don't remember if homeschool friends did or didn't show up like at my house. They tried to invite me, but when I went I just felt so out of place so I stopped going. I don't remember how my kids did with their studies or if they learned anything; I just don't remember.
Then the next school year came around. Jace would be going into 5th and Isaiah into Kindergarten. It just so happened that my pastor's wife was a half-day Kindergarten teacher and one of the 5th grade teachers was a friend from before Jasper was even born. Then, as I'm praying about what to do, someone anonymously offers to sponsor Jace's way at CCS. He doesn't want to go, though. He has enjoyed the homeschool life (as we all did) and he's afraid of what the other kids will say to him. Finally, I just made him go.
I thought I could continue to homeschool Amethyst and Emma. Amethyst started to get behind as her 8th grade year progressed. Emma had a few classes at the co-op and was keeping up fairly well there, but the school work she was supposed to do at home never got done because I wasn't mental available very often. So we decided that the last year was Emma's second semester of her 10th grade year. This year she's technically in 11th grade.
The cost to go to CCS is very hard to swallow. Putting in both girls was really not considered. Emma begged to be homeschooled, not to be with me, but to continue on the volleyball team. Why? I do not know exactly. She's not their star player or anything and she doesn't hang out with any of the girls there. So this year, I'm only doing a few things with her and the rest she'll make up at Morrilton.
I had some good discussion with Amethyst about going to public school. She would start high school, 9th grade, at a school with 8th and 9th graders, so she would be in the older group. She could do things like JROTC and art and theatre. She would be gone all day :( and she'd have homework--real homework on a computer. She was nervous but felt it was the right way to go. I agreed. This school change plan was working out.
But I wasn't happy about it. I consistently get emails about homeschool life like deadlines to fill out the NOI and how to do math in 7 easy steps and the best books for a 5th grader to read aloud. I had to unsubscribe from most of my homeschool email newsletters. When homeschool related news or ads show up anyway, it makes me sad. That's not my life now. When church leaders say "We're going to pray for teachers this morning, please stand up if you're a teacher." I can't I'm not I couldn't. I couldn't do it. I didn't make it. I feel like a failure. What would Greg have thought about my giving up? Giving up--is that what I did? So I go back and forth as to whether I gave up or I did the best for my kids and that all along this was God's plan.
So Isaiah will never know what kind of teacher I would've been to him, and Jasper and Emma will only know what it is like to graduate as a homeschooler. Jace is having to face middle school peer pressure earlier than his sisters and brother, but it is all going to be ok. Maybe. Hopefully. Lord, help me.
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