I've always homeschooled my children. One is a freshman in college, one is freshman in High School and one is in 8th grade. I'm not normal. If you homeschool you likely are not normal either. Does that bother you?
Have you ever noticed others outside of the homeschool movement trying to convince you that you are not normal? Did you fight that idea? "No, really we ARE normal, WE ARE!" Um, no we are not... Let me explain...
The definition of "normal" is "conforming to a standard; usual, typical or expected." Confession: I am totally not THAT! Really, is anyone going for "typical?" People, I've got Geometry theorems, postulates and definitions on my DINING.ROOM.WALL. Not normal!
Over the years we've had the following on covering our walls: maps, timelines , the solar system, booklists, heiroglyphics, Egyptian paper mache masks, and a bunch of other school related things I choose to block out of my memory can't recall. If it puts the right info into the right head, I am all for it!
We've lit things on fire, hooked wires to batteries and zapped ourselves, blew up balloons with all sorts of bubbly mixtures, tried to suck the acid out of batteries with other mixtures, and a host of other crazy things Science related endeavors right on the kitchen counter.
Years ago a friend of mine told me she would never homeschool because she didn't want the Solar System on her wall. At the time I was a smidge hurt. But if I had that same conversation today I would probably laugh my head off and then she would really, REALLY know...
I'm not normal...
Karen, this is a wonderful post. At the same time, I wish(and this is not directed at you, just a general comment) homeschoolers wouldn't make us public school Moms feel like we are harming our children just because we choose to send our kids to public school. While there are a lot of kids/parents/schools in the public system that are pretty "out there", there are still some of us that "do our best". Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteMakes total sense Jen, and I completely agree. We're all just trying to do what God has chosen for our own families. And when we follow God, we can't go wrong. :)
ReplyDeleteI love you for not being normal! :)
ReplyDeleteAnd as a mom who puts her kids on the bus Jen ~ I agree!