Show & Tell
Samantha Kelley
Our Trail Guide to Learning
. . . Homeschooling . . . . was never something that I thought I would do,
but one of those things I always secretly wished for.
We are in our fourth year of homeschooling, with our oldest now in high school. Obviously, we
haven’t always homeschooled. It was
never something that I thought I would
do but was one of those things I always
secretly wished for. The only thing that
stopped me from homeschooling was the
stigma that always seemed attached to it
in my mind and the minds of others. I
didn’t want to be weird.
Having six children already raised
enough eyebrows, especially since all of
these children come from one marriage.
Homeschooling only added more questions to the mix.
However, the fear of being “labeled”
vanished as I observed the world of public school through the years. We actually
tried homeschooling very briefly twice
before it stuck for good. What was the
clincher? Time.
We are Christians, and my husband is a
minister; we knew because of our home life
that our children had a solid Biblical foundation. We also knew that they were alert
to the untruth that can be found in a public
school classroom. We were able to talk to
them about their school day and help them
understand what was real and what wasn’t.
We could instill in them everything they
needed to face the world they were in. The
one thing we couldn’t get back was time.
It was so hard to send my children out
each day to spend hours without me. I
had three at home that I spent every wa-
king moment with and three that came
home cranky and loaded with home-
work. The only real moments free to-
gether happened on the weekend, which
went by too quickly. We knew we had to
make a change. Every time I heard the
word homeschool I felt pangs of guilt.
