Survival Tools of a Foreign Homeschool Mom By Effie Damianidou Hill
1. Faith
Trust and be alert when the Lord speaks
to you and your children. Just before officially beginning schooling at home,
the Lord spoke this following Scripture to me from Psalm 92:12–15: “The
righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the Lord, they
will flourish in the courts of our God.
They will still bear fruit in old age, they
will stay fresh and green, proclaiming,
‘The Lord is upright; he is my Rock, and
there is no wickedness in him” (NIV). I
sensed that the Lord was saying that as
the children were planted in the good
soil of the home, they would flourish
like palm trees. We decided to study
palm trees.
2. Humour (or Humor)
There are many instances when a good
sense of humor will overcome an obstacle. For instance, I was under the impression that I had lost most of my non-American accent—that is, until we did
. . . spelling. Sometimes, one of the children would get a word wrong due to my
pronunciation. I’m a little wiser now. I
no longer use a curriculum where there
are pre-tests. Better that the child sees
the word first!
3. Be Willing to Learn With
Your Kids
Some universal subjects, such as math,
are often taught differently in other
countries. I swallowed my angst and
relearned the American way of adding fractions. No harm done, as long
as the child can successfully do what
is required in the end. In some cases
it worked to our advantage, as I knew
about a shortcut that was not in the
American book.
Some subjects are not universal. I
made this discovery quickly! Consider, for example, American history.
We bought some books and checked
some out from the library, and we had
a special time just reading (and learning together) about how this country
had been founded. I was pleasantly surprised to learn how rich and interesting
it all was.
Then there was phonics. Although
I had learned English at a young age,
the phonics method had not been included in my education. I had visions
of my older two children, who had been
taught to read at the Christian school,
of being Nobel Prize winners in Literature while the third child sat by, forlorn,
because “he was homeschooled from
the beginning and his mother never
managed to teach him to read.”
I’ve traveled the world, I have a master’s degree in French literature, I’ve
studied six languages (and am fluent
in four), but . . . kindergarten phonics
still left me weak in the knees. What on
earth is the difference between a short
and long vowel, I pondered?
I meticulously poured over the A
Beka phonics teacher’s manual. It was
easier than I thought it would be, but
one thing caught me by surprise: how
deeply, deeply satisfying it was to teach
my child to read. My youngest son read
his first sentence to me!
With phonics under my belt, I tackled teaching my son about money. I
wondered why a nickel was actually
worth less than a dime although a nickel was bigger in size. Thankfully, our
first-grader did not question the logic
of this discrepancy. Then there were all
the Presidents on the money! I didn’t
know who they were! Again, the teacher’s manual came to the rescue.
4. Embrace Your Own Culture
Having one or both parents from another culture can really add to the
children’s homeschooling experience.
There is great value in being exposed
to the cultures of other countries. I reminded the children of places we had
traveled and tied it in with their schooling. When we studied the ancient
world, for example, I showed them the
pictures of times when they had played
among ancient Greek ruins, trying to
guess what all of it was.
I also taught them some deeper spiritual truths. No matter where they live
or where they were born (two here, one
overseas) we have this in common: we
are all descendants of Adam in need of
redemption through Jesus’ sacrifice.
Finally, having come to the States in
my twenties I could not base my decision to homeschool on how bad or
good American public schools were. I
had received a stellar public school education overseas. At my school, we began every day with a hymn, prayer, and
reading from God’s Word. But it really
comes down to a Biblical mandate—the
issue is not really about how “good” or
“bad” public schooling is as much as it
is about this question: “Is it really the
government’s (any government’s) job to
educate my child?”
5. Focus on What Matters
I firmly believe that homeschooling is a
means to fulfill the message proclaimed
in Malachi 4:6: “He will turn the hearts
of the fathers to their children, and the
hearts of the children to their fathers”
(NIV). Above all, what I realized is that
whether, as a foreigner, I was tackling
the non-metric system, the faces of
Presidents on bills and coins, the twen-
tieth irregular phonics rule, or the per-
fect curriculum for spelling . . . it did
not really matter. Whether I picked the
perfect curriculum for spelling (and in
this country, there are almost as many
choices for this as there are choices
for cereal!) it did not matter. The very
process of teaching my children myself,
and the bonding of the hearts that takes
place, is what matters. Why? So that we
are all closer as a family? Well, that is a
nice benefit. But more than that, home-
schooling keeps the soil of our precious
children’s hearts more tender and ready
to receive the seeds of the Gospel and
of God’s Word that we impart to them.
May God give all of us grace to “receive
with meekness the implanted word,
which is able to save your souls” (James
1:21, ESV).
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