We have big changes this year.  Abbie is off to high school.  Public high school.  And I’m ok with that.  I’m actually glad.  I wish that we had a group of homeschooled kids who wanted to get together to take the kinds of classes she’s taking at school, but we don’t.  And so off she goes.  I’m relieved to not have to think about upper level sciences and math.  Or French.  And she’ll be great there. 

She’s also gone on an independence kick and let us know that she really wanted the downstairs homeschool room as her bedroom.  Yes, you heard that right – she asked for my homeschool room.  And I sacrificed for the greater good.  The room is now empty and painted purple.  She moves her furniture in on Thursday.  The contents of my homeschool room have been redistributed.  We’ll have a “library” in the rec room downstairs while most of our day to day supplies will be in cupboards on the main floor.  This is going to take some getting used to.

On a completely positive note, we’re doing Tapestry of Grace at co-op.  This has been an answer to prayer for me.  I have loved doing Tapestry of Grace at home, but having a group of kids for history and lit discussions is going to be amazing.  I’m also excited about the opportunity to have a hands-on projects class.  And the kids at co-op are fabulous – we’ve got an incredible group of people pooling their talents to create memorable learning opportunities for the kids.  I can’t wait for co-op to start.

This is going to be a great year.

But, I also find rest when they’re here.  A break once or twice a year is more than enough for me.  I don’t need a regular girls’ night out or a vacation without my kids.  It’s not because I’m a saint or some kind of super mom or anything, either.  I think there are two reasons for this.

The first is that their best hours, when they’re most awake and alert and fun to be around, are the hours that we spend at home together.  It’s not fair, really.  Most parents have a couple of hours in the morning while everyone is getting up and getting ready for school and then they get a few hours at the end of the day – when the kids are tired and need to be driven to soccer practice and fed dinner and bathed and then put to bed so they can get up early and be out of the house on time for another day.

Instead, I’m home with mine.  The second reason hit me one day last week while I stirred the rhubarb I was stewing.  Aidan, Charlie, and Jacob were sitting up at the table nearby and I moved between the rhubarb and the children; giving a stir here, helping with a math question there, talking about when we should go for a swim, getting my coffee ready for the history discussion that Abbie and I had planned.  I breathed in the peace of knowing that I was right where I was meant to be – home – living and learning with my children.  Sure, there are days when they drive me crazy, but for the most part our days are good.

God called me to disciple my children.  He called me to teach them about Him when we rise and when we sit and when we walk along the way.  If my children spent the majority of their waking hours – their best hours – in school, the opportunity I have for discipleship would be greatly diminished.  I’m thankful for the time I have with them – the unhurried, restful time that we have together because it’s the time that gives me the opportunity to speak God’s truth into their lives. 

And I think that God knows how weak I am.  He knows that if I only had early mornings and the time between school letting out and bedtime (with the parade of tasks that need to be done after the kids get home from school) that I wouldn’t have the patience to invest in discipleship.  I’d be more concerned with getting everyone where they need to go on time, with making sure everyone remembered to bring their music books or their sparring gear, with packing snacks and lunches and permissions lips.  I know this because it’s what happens when we’re not at home together.  It’s what happens on Sunday mornings when we try to get out the door for church on time.  It’s what happens at the end of our day at home together when we have to get ready to leave for Taekwon-do and piano and whatever else we need to do.  I’m not a patient parent during those times, I’m not a particularly good parent during those times and I’m usually not marvelling at how amazing it is to watch God at work in the lives of my children (although sometimes I’m praying for just a little more patience to get me through the rest of the day). 

I am blessed.  Each and every day that I spend with my children is a gift from God.  Knowing that I’m carrying out God’s purpose for my life, as I invest in the lives of my children, sustains me and gives me the kind of rest that time away from my family can never offer.

*Sniff* I’ve come to my very last year of kindergarten.  My baby turns five in October which means this is it.  In the fall we’ll begin kindergarten and it will be the last time I get to experience the magic of teaching a child to read and watching a whole new world open up. 

Kindergarten is a special year.  This is the beginning.  This is where first steps are taken and I’m so blessed to be able to take Charlie’s hand and walk step by step with him through this very special year.  I want to watch the look of concentration on his face when he tries to sound out a new word, I want to cheer with him the first time he counts to 100 and I want to cuddle with him while we read stories together. 

I’m taking a break from work for this year – partly so I can concentrate on bringing my last child officially into our homeschool day; so I can make his kindergarten year memorable and so that I have time to stop and smell the roses with him. 

Academically, things are pretty simple.  I’ll teach him how to read.  I’ll start working through Right Start math with him at a pace he’s comfortable with.  I’ll work on printing skills using an age appropriate program that I hope will work – he’s a lefty.  And I’ll read to him. 

We’ll likely dip in and out of Five in a Row.  I wouldn’t want him to miss out on exploring the Yangtzee river with Ping, or on smelling the flowers with Ferdinand, or on finding creative solutions to outdated technology with Mike and his steam shovel.  We’ll also join in with the older boys as we all study Ancient Times – beginning with Creation we’ll learn about history up to the year 500 AD.  There will be Jewish feasts, cookie dough maps of Egypt, and temple building to take part in with the older boys.  And more reading.

And that’s just what’s happening at home.  We’ll also continue with violin (private lessons and group with his friends), play dates and possibly some co-op opportunities.  He’s also got Taekwon-do and Italian lessons. 

This is my last year of kindergarten and I’m looking forward to all of the adventures that Charlie and I will have together this year.  I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

This list is a multi-year goal and the exciting part is that it’s a list that Abbie and I will read together.  Well, not together, exactly, but eventually we’ll both read through this list and have the opportunity to discuss the books with each other. 

How fast our kids grow…  She starts grade 10 this fall (more on that later) and although I hope to convince her to take four years to cover high school I’m pretty certain she’ll be done in three.  And then that’s it.  Homeschooling is finished and she’ll take full control of her own education.  And I’ll be left with a shelf full of things I had hoped to make time for.

So, before I cry over my unfulfilled shelf, I thought I’d start making lists.  The first is a list of non-fiction books (or topics if I haven’t found a good book yet).  These are topics that I want to explore and that I feel are important to discuss before Abbie graduates. 

There’s a great thread over at the high school board on TWTM that discusses high school must reads.  That’s where the initial topic list came from and I’ve adapted it to our needs.

Media Awareness – I want her to be aware of how media and advertising can influence our choices and beliefs.  I have an mp3 of a talk on this from a Christian perspective, but I’d also like a book with a focus on advertising.

Education – The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner, Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto

Food – Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

Resources – Canadian Water Politics: Conflicts and Institutions, as well as Carbon Shift: How Peak Oil and the Climate Change will Change Canada (And Our Lives), I’m still looking for one with a more global outlook.

Environment -

Poverty – Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, I’d like to add a book on poverty in Canada.  Abbie’s already reading two books on life in Sudan which do a good job covering poverty in a third world country.

War – War Is… by Marc Aronson, looking for another couple of titles here.

Middle East – Unsettled: The Problem with Loving Israel by Marc Aronson

Taking Action – Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by Alex Harris and Brett Harris – Abbie’s already read this and it has inspired her and her friends to devote a lot of time and energy to raising money for orphans in Sudan.  But…I haven’t read it yet.  Now it’s on the list.

Globalization -

Economics – The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson

Technology – I’d like to find a good book on bioethics.  For starters, we’ve got Discipling this Generation for a Digital World by Greg Bitgood which talks about how fast technology is moving and encourages Christians to be aware of what’s happening and really think through the ramifications of it and our own role in shaping the future.

Leadership – Maybe just a good biography in here? 

That’s it for now.  I guess I’d better get reading; time is running out.

76 (1) All schools and Provincial schools must be conducted on strictly secular and nonsectarian principles.

(2) The highest morality must be inculcated, but no religious dogma or creed is to be – taught in a school or Provincial school.

I’m Ok with that.  I’ll even ignore the goals of public education in BC because I know that I have the choice to homeschool or enroll my kids in a Christian school where the goals and values taught (for over 14,000 hours of my children’s lives) align with our beliefs.

What I can’t ignore is the public system completely ignoring the school act and teaching Aboriginal Ecological Wisdom and Technology. 

“More than any other single concept, the notion of respect for all lifeforms and the land itself is believed to characterize North American indigenous belief systems (Turner et al. 2000). Turner et al. (2000) suggest that at least part of native peoples’ caring for their lands and resources relates directly to the wisdom of acknowledging the spirituality and influential powers in all things, including the earth.” (http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol8/iss1/art2/)

The bottom line is that TEWK is based on Aboriginal spiritual beliefs.  Most notably, that we’re all connected – every rock, tree, animal and human is connected – and they all have a spirit.  That, my friends, sounds like religions dogma to me and definitely does not sound strictly secular.

More worrying, is that “Aboriginal Science” (TEWK) is now being taught in our schools…in science class.  I think it’s great to learn about Aboriginal belief systems in social studies, but not as the foundation for scientific thinking.

Here’s a little quote from the BC Science Integrated Resource Package:

Numerous difficulties arise when trying to incorporate indigenous knowledge and world views into the western science classroom. The participants of the Ministry of Education Aboriginal Science meetings therefore suggest a model involving a parallel process, where Aboriginal and Western understandings exist separately, yet side-by-side and in partnership with one another. Each side is enriched by the contrasting perspective that the other brings to any discussion.”

So now they’re teaching Aboriginal religion in our science classes.  It gets better.  Here’s a quote from an article about the genuises who helped develop Aboriginal religious teaching in our public schools:

“The changes should make science more relevant for aboriginal students who may previously have rejected it because it conflicted with their cultural value systems. “Our goal is to change the way science is taught so that indigenous knowledge has a respected place and children don’t have to deny their identity to study a subject in school,” says Williams.”(http://communications.uvic.ca/edge/aboriginal-science.html)

Does anyone else see the glaring discrimination of one religion for another?  Why is it that we’re respecting the Aboriginal religious beliefs so much that they’re being taught as a respected science alongside Western science while at the same time we’re telling the Christian kids that their beliefs really aren’t based on any knowledge at all.  No, their beliefs aren’t scientific in the least.

I think that our Ministry of Education is on the right track to recognize that some kids will not have their cultural or spiritual values respected in our science classrooms.  However, I think it’s incredibly dangerous to teach one religion as “scientific knowledge” while completely dismissing another religion.  Keep it all out – teach our kids that there is no creator, that the world just happened, that we’re all an accident – go ahead (although that’s a whole other belief system based on faith).  But, don’t teach them that we are all interconnected, that everything on Earth has a spirit that we must respect. 

If you are going to take our kids and teach them religious beliefs as science then for God’s sake teach them that they were created and that God gave them an awesome responsibility on this Earth to be caretakers of his creation.  Could you imagine if a teacher actually taught that in public school? 

The sermon today was about marriage; specifically how we can support and love one another, creating a safe place in our home and our relationship to share and grow together.  Dh, my non-touchy/feely husband kept his arm around me for the entire sermon. 

I kept the kids with me while I finished up some Sunday school accounting, dh returned home on his own.  When we walked in the door we were greeted by cards and a little treat for everyone.  Dh does great cards; special cards.  The kind you keep in the bottom of a drawer.  We’ve been married almost 11 years now and every year we get closer.  At the bottom of the card he gave me today he wrote, “I know God made you for me.” 

We haven’t done much else.  Lunch.  Conversations with the kids.  Dh put up new blinds in the homeschool room.  He took the puppy for a walk with Aidan.  Jacob made me a powerpoint Valentine’s message.  I cleaned up the homeschool room with Abbie and supervised as the boys did a general downstairs clean-up.  I just love being around them, listening to them play, reading to them, talking about things, taking them places.  I am so content at home with them and so grateful to be able to spend these precious years teaching them.

But right now, I sit.  While Aidan and Charlie play Wii and Jacob plays on the lego website and Abbie reads Lord of the Rings while cuddling the puppy, I sit.  With a glass of champagne and a few minutes to spare before we have to go, I sit.  And I think about the infinite greatness of God.

I’m so blessed.  Over the last week or so I’ve been reading about humility and the greatness of God.  Do you want to know how I know there is a God?  It’s because I don’t deserve any of this.  Not a husband who loves me the way dh does.  Not four healthy, happy children.  Not this house or even this champagne.  And all of the things I have been able to do?  All of the things I do now?  Only by the grace of God.  His love is so great and his grace is so huge.  I am humbled by the greatness of God and I can’t comprehend why he would love me, after it all. 

Without Him…  Without Him would we have managed to keep our marriage intact during the hard times?  Without Him would I have given up?  Given in?  Without Him I wouldn’t be the person I am today; I wouldn’t have had my heart and my mind transformed.  I know where I would be right now and I’m beyond grateful that God has rescued me and given me the life I have now.  He saved me.  And so I look around and marvel – are these really my children?  Is that really my husband?  Is this really my life?  A part of me, the part that doubts, the part that remembers, is still waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Because surely, I deserve it.  But even that part is fading, and I don’t wonder about that dropping shoe as often as before.  Because in my heart I know that I am a child of God.  How else could any of this have happened if not for Him? 

So, this Valentine’s Day, I sit.  And I am thankful.  And I am in awe.  And I love.  Thank you, Lord.

I think that things start to fall apart when joy is left out of the planning process.  I’ve experienced that myself.  We had a minor homeschool crisis about six weeks ago.  I wasn’t having any fun.  My thirteen year old daughter was definitely not having any fun – and I was ready to send her off to school.  I even checked the bus routes to see what time she’d have to leave the next morning. 

We ended up in that place because my planning had left joy out.  Instead, I had more goals.  I knew that Abbie was academically capable of the work.  I also knew that it fit into our schedule.  And it was good work; worthwhile work.  Work that would prepare her for things to come.  Unfortunately, my view was too narrow.  It was my husband who pointed out the error and steered me towards a solution.  Instead of sending her to school we decided that for six weeks we would radically change everything.  We shelved everything except for math and then supported and encouraged Abbie as she worked on a project.  She spent those weeks writing and researching and now she’s putting everything together in a website.  Beyond all of the school related stuff she learned while completing her project, she was able to experience joy in learning again.  Her excitement was fun to watch.  She has delighted in her project. 

I allowed the boys (9 and 7) to work on their own project during this time.  We did a big unit study on our back yard.  We used photos (many of them were actually taken by Jacob) of animals and birds that live in our yard, they painted, wrote poetry, wrote a story, researched habitats and animal behavior, looked at how God designed each animal to survive in this environment, learned about Christian stewardship of the environment and drew out food chains.  All of this was scrapbooked and best of all…it was fun!  They boys took great joy in their project and you can see the pride and joy on their faces when they show someone their book.  This was a great reminder to me about how simple it really is to approach our homeschooling in a way that cultivates joy.  Having fun and being joyful in our work doesn’t mean that we don’t work hard , it just means I have to be a little more creative.

I don’t want my kids slogging through their school work.  I don’t want my teenager up late every night trying to complete her work.  I don’t want my kids to miss out on the opportunities that time and flexibility have opened up.  And so, as I plan to get back to the rest of our subjects in the new year, I’m making sure that joy is a central component of our studies.  I’m a goal oriented person, so this is hard for me.   I’ve had to sit back in the past six weeks and look at where we’re at academically and where I’d like us to end up by June – and then I ask myself why.  What happens if we don’t finish our math book?  Well, the kids are ahead in math so nothing would actually happen if they didn’t finish their math books.  Nothing.  We could spend the rest of the year playing math games and doing puzzles and they still wouldn’t be behind (“behind” what, anyway?  That’s a whole other conversation).  Just writing down that we could play games for the rest of the year and not finish our math books actually makes my eye twitch.  I’m not sure I could handle that.  But, knowing that we could toss it all and still be just fine gives me a sense of freedom and flexibility.  It means that if an opportunity to go out and do something cool comes up I can jump on it and go – we can enjoy it, without worrying about whether we finished math or not. 

We’ve been able to enjoy a number of opportunities that I probably would not have made time for if we were still following the schedule that we followed for the first six weeks of school.  Abbie has had a couple of significant opportunities open up to her.  She has started volunteering at the museum.  This is a weekly commitment and takes two hours out of a school day.  That’s a big chunk of time and yet, I think it’s going to be more than worth it.  And she loves it.  It’s something she gets excited about doing.  The second opportunity is with Taekwon-do.  Abbie’s a black belt in Taekwon-do and really loves to teach.  Having some extra flexibility means that she has the time to help teach twice a week, train for more hours, and take advantage of other teaching opportunities that pop up during the week.  Her instructor teaches at schools as well and Abbie was able to go with him to an elementary school where she worked with a little girl with special needs.  The look on Abbie’s face as she told me about how she helped the little girl with Taekwon-do was worth every minute we spent away from our school work that morning.  It was even worth the drive from West Kelowna to North Glenmore to pick her up afterwards.  I reminded myself that I would have said no if she had asked to help teach on a school morning back in September or October.  I would have said no.  And Abbie would have completed a lot of subjects that day, but she would have missed out on an experience that taught her more than all of those subjects combined and that allowed her to use her gifts to help others.  And isn’t that the true end goal?  That we learn to use the gifts that God has given us to help others?  

My planning process looks a lot different these days.  Sure, we’re jumping back in to a lot of the same things we were doing in the fall, but it’s with a joyful heart.  We’re changing a few things, cutting back on a few others, and planning assignments and projects that will bring some of the joy back into our school days.  Most importantly, I’m purposely planning in a “do the next thing” way.  That means that I can still plan, but not for specific dates.  And, if an opportunity comes up and we miss an entire day of school (or even just one subject) we can just pick up where we left off the next day and continue on our way without it throwing a wrench into a carefully crafted schedule.

If you’re having trouble finding the joy in homeschooling, my challenge to you is to pick one thing to change in the new year.  Is there a particular subject that just sucks the life out of your homeschool?  Change it.  Turn it upside-down and approach it from another direction.  Do something radical.  And have fun!  Nurture relationships, help your children discover their God given gifts and give them the opportunity to use them.

**This article appeared in the January 2010 issue of the HCOS Newsletter.

I feel much better now.