I homeschooled for 12 years and I have had children in the public school system for 5 years. I have had the privilege to be on both sides of the discussion. My perspective has changed a lot in the 14 years that I have had children in school. These are some thoughts on Homeschool vs Public School.

I have been thinking about why there is so much animosity between parents who homeschool versus those who public school. I mean, obviously, we all love our children and we want our children to get an education. So, why do we get so upset or smug or judgmental towards those parents who choose to go about things differently from us?

I think a big part of it is insecurity. For some reason, when someone makes a decision opposite of ours, it makes us question our judgement. If Sally next door, whose kids attend the same public school as my children, suddenly decides that she’s going to homeschool her kids, it makes me question my own decision for keeping my kids in public school. And if you ask her what her reasons are for homeschooling she might say something like: I want more time with my kids, I want to give my kids a “Christian” education instead of the liberal doctrine being taught at public schools, I don’t think public schools are safe, I feel like I have a God-given mandate to teach my own children, the quality of education is horrible and I can do better… Then you really start questioning yourself. You think, Is she right? And the thing is, you don’t agree with her and the whole process of having your decisions questioned makes you feel unsettled and so you react harshly and judgmentally in return.

It goes the other way too. You and Sally have been homeschooling for years and then she decides to put her kids into public school. You ask her why and she says, I am really struggling to be mom and teacher and I decided our relationship would be better if I am simply mom, I’m finding that I don’t have the self-discipline to keep my kids on track with their school work and we’ve gotten so far behind that I’m realizing I’m not up to this task, I am so overwhelmed with everything I have to do that I feel like I’m drowning and something has to give so I’ve decided to give up homeschooling, I really want my children to have some independence from me and a connection with the kids in our neighborhood, I am tired of having every minute of my day tied up with children and I think it would be mentally healthier for me to have a bit of space from them every day. And you listen to Sally and think, is she right? Is it better to put your kids into public school? And you are quite comfortable homeschooling your kids and don’t want to question the status quo and so it’s upsetting when someone makes you question your own decisions. And so you react harshly and judgmentally.

Another problem is that we think everything is right or wrong. We feel like it has to be one or the other. One side has to be correct and the other side has to be incorrect. We can’t conceive that both sides can be correct at the same time. We can’t understand that something that is right for one family is completely wrong for another family. I believe in absolute truth. I don’t think that we all define our own truth. But I also don’t think that absolute truth extends to the smaller details of how we manage our family. As parents, we are all different, coming from different histories, different strengths and weaknesses, and we all have different children. Why do we feel like there is only one prescribed way of schooling our children? The fact that Sally is homeschooling or public schooling has everything to do with Sally and the needs her family is facing at that particular moment in time. It has nothing to do with me and the decisions I have made for my family. Which means that when Sally tells me she’s decided to homeschool, I should be able to get excited for her and have genuine curiosity about her decision and genuine encouragement for her. Or when my fellow homeschooler Sally decides to put her kids in public school I should be able to be happy for her and be supportive of her decision.

I have heard the rhetoric on both sides of the discussion. If you put your children in public school it means that you are a lazy parent who doesn’t care about the spiritual formation of your child. You have bought into the lie and handed your children over to the government so they can  raise your children for you. You are allowing your children to be brainwashed by the system, You are stunting their personal growth and creativity by institutionalizing them. And then the other side. You are not capable or qualified to teach your children everything they need to know. You are isolating them and making them socially awkward. You are not challenging them enough and so they are lazy. You are brainwashing them into your religion and only allowing them to see your side and perspective on life, you are coddling them and they will never be independent capable adults, you are sheltering them from the world and when they grow up they won’t know how to function.

Does any of this sound familiar? Perhaps we could spend more time focusing on the positives. The public school has a lot of dedicated educators who are skilled in their craft and who genuinely care about their charges. On the other hand, a dedicated mom with a good curriculum or even just a pile of good literature can give their kids a very good education. I’m going to pull from some personal experience here. My oldest daughter was homeschooled kindergarten through 8th grade. She attended public high school and graduated as valedictorian of her class. She came into her high school with a very solid foundation and was ahead of most of her peers from day 1. Yay homeschooling! On the other hand I spent 2 years trying to teach one of my kids how to read with very little success. I put him in public school and they put him with a special intervention teacher who got him reading within a couple months. Yay public school!

There are so many amazing things you can do with homeschooling. I remember when my oldest was 9 and she read about the history of the Marathon. She wrote a play about the first Marathon and then had her little brothers and sisters act it out while she narrated and we videoed the whole thing. She researched clothing from that time and then I gave her a bunch of sheets and she made all the costumes. We got paint and made little signs to put up to help tell the story. She organized the entire thing, I just held the camera. It was an amazing experience. Yay homeschooling!

There are so many amazing opportunities with public school. The middle school in our neighborhood is a Fine Arts magnet school. Every single day the kids attend a fine arts class of their choosing. One of my daughters took a dance class every day while she was there and the other daughter is taking an art class every day. They also offer African Dancing, African Drumming, Band, and a Stem class. Yay public school!

I know that for Christian Homeschoolers, faith is a big deal. I thoroughly enjoyed doing in-depth bible studies with my children, teaching them bible memory songs, and learning about great heroes of the faith. My children are now in Public School. We still do family devotions. I still do bible memory with my children. The amazing thing I have found is learning about application of faith. My children talk to me about struggles they are having with different kids and we talk about how much Jesus loves that particular child and what are ways that we can be loving and kind even when someone else is not acting very lovable. We talk about healthy ways to resolve conflict. We spend time every day praying for the school and the teachers. I do not feel like my children’s faith is being compromised at all.

I could go on for a while, talking about all the positives of both sides. Here’s what I want to suggest though. When you make your decision about how to educate your child, don’t make Fear be the driving force of your decision. I’m afraid of sending my kids out into the world, I’m afraid of having someone else be their teacher, I’m afraid of them being badly influenced. Or, I’m afraid that I don’t have what it takes to teach my child, I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be able to handle that much one-on-one time with my child, I’m afraid that I wouldn’t be able to give them everything they need. Instead just focus on what the needs of your family are at that moment. Right now my child is struggling in a classroom setting and I think having some one-on-one time would really benefit them academically, or our family is in a bad place, maybe taking some time off to reconnect with each other and reset and put some more Bible time in our day would really help us. Maybe we should homeschool. Or maybe you’re homeschooling and you think. Right now I am not at a good place emotionally, maybe I should put my kids in school for a while so I can have some time to renew and restore myself before I have a mental breakdown. Or maybe, my preteen is really having a hard time taking instruction from me right now and our relationship is struggling. Maybe I should put them in school for a while so we can just focus on being parent and child instead of also having the teacher/student thing going on. Maybe we should public school. It is possible to say, I have two choices in front of me, both are good options, but which one meets our needs best?

I want to make one more point. I know that a lot of families feel like God has really led them to homeschool. I think we tend to think that if God has led us in a certain direction, it must be the direction that he wants everyone to go in. I know that I have needed many reminders that just because God led me a certain way does not mean that he’s leading my friend Sally in the same direction. He’s got different jobs for all of us, different areas of influence, different missions, different gifts and talents. We can’t belittle our brothers and sisters simply for following God’s directive for their lives. God asks parents to send their kids to public school too.

In the end my encouragement is to seek God’s will for your family. The Bible says that if we lack wisdom we are to ask him and he will freely give us the wisdom that we need. There are no cookie-cutter methods/plans that work for each family. Ask for wisdom to know which path is right for you and then trust that he will give you all the strength you need to follow that path. And trust that he’s doing the same for your friend Sally.

I saw this meme today. I laughed at first. I live in Knoxville and I happen to live right off of Magnolia. Magnolia is the main street of my neighborhood. I drive up and down Magnolia every day as I take my kids to school and pick them up every afternoon. When I sit on my front porch I have a clear view of Magnolia. I like to sit and watch the cars go by as I daydream about whatever happens to be on my mind.

So, I laughed because I remember when I first moved into this neighborhood and I was a bit spooked by Magnolia. I always drove cautiously, making sure to not be on the road too late at night.

For those of you who aren’t from Knoxville, Magnolia goes through East Knoxville which is a primarily black neighborhood. It’s a poor neighborhood. It’s the “Hood”. Whatever that means. My kids attend all three levels of public schools here and the poverty rate at these schools is in the ninety-something percentile. These schools are pretty segregated. At the elementary school it is somewhere around 96% black, at the high school level it’s around 90%. My children are often the only white child in their class. (I am delighted that my children get to go to school in a multicultural atmosphere, but I’m still perplexed as to why, in 2018, we are still so segregated in where we choose to live that we have schools that are basically all-white and schools that are basically all-black.)

As I was saying….I used to be spooked by Magnolia until I got to know the people here, then I realized they were just people. Like me. Once you get to know people, it’s hard to maintain irrational fears.

Ok, back to the meme. After laughing, my second thought was, Man, these people are a bunch of wimps. My high-schoolers walk to school on Magnolia every day. I do not think that this is dangerous. The schools and families here must not think it’s too dangerous either as our high school has a large population of students that walk to school because they live too close to get a bus. I also take walks with my children in our neighborhood. I don’t carry a gun. I have no fears of getting mugged or assaulted. I suppose it happens, but I also suppose that stuff can happen anywhere. I would say the rules of being aware of your surroundings apply whether you live in East or West Knoxville.

My next thought after I processed all that was, why are they picking on my neighborhood? Is it because it’s a black neighborhood and the friends who are posting this are white and they’re just afraid of people who look different than them? Is it because they have completely bought in to the idea that if you are poor and not white then you are probably dangerous?

I think about the long line of cars that I join every morning. People dropping off their kids at school. In the afternoon we’re all back, picking up our kids. These are the cars that are driving down Magnolia in the morning and the afternoon. Parents taking care of their kids. Of course there are the school buses full of kids, picking up and dropping off their charges. Those are driving down Magnolia. There are also all the people who are headed to work. Magnolia heads straight downtown and it’s a well-used commuting route.  And of course the city buses run up and down Magnolia and there are people standing at the bus stops, waiting for the bus so they can get to their jobs. I see them every morning as I take my kids to school. People like Ms Charmaine who leaves her shift at McDonalds and then catches the bus to Kroger to work her second job. I see her standing out at the bus stop every day.

We do have homeless people in our neighborhood. I see them walking down the street as well. Trying to find a place to sit and rest. Heading towards the soup kitchen where my daughter works part time. They’re just people. Sometimes I see some beautiful things. Like the time I was stopped on a cold morning at a stoplight and I saw a woman,  dressed for some kind of office job and she had stopped in front of a homeless woman who was barefoot. The office-type lady had taken off her knee-high boots and was removing her socks and handing them to the barefoot homeless woman. People loving people. I see these things in my neighborhood.

We also have the semi-homeless population. People who are living in the cheap hotels. They don’t want to be on the street but can never scrape together enough money to come up with a down payment on an apartment and so they are stuck renting by the week at the hotel. The hotel over-charges them and so all their money goes to just keeping themselves in the hotel room and they can never save up enough to move out. A very vicious cycle. I see them as they stand outside their hotel rooms, weighed down with the burden of poverty. And my middle class white friends post memes that say, How come those stupid poor people don’t just go get a job and fix all their problems? And I silently steam because how is someone who has no schooling and can only get a job at McDonalds supposed to ever break free of the cycle of poverty when they are paid minimum wage. A wage that is impossible to live on. It is a very rare person who can overcome such obstacles. And those that haven’t overcome, they live in my neighborhood. They’re just regular people, trying to get by.  

We also have a large refugee population, mostly from Africa, who live in the apartments that line Magnolia. These are people that have endured great hardship in their home countries and have somehow made their way to Knoxville and they are starting a new life. They’re putting their kids in school, they’re doing their laundry at the laundromats that line Magnolia. They walk down Magnolia for miles to the nearest grocery store and buy their groceries. Those are the people you’ll see walking along Magnolia.

And then there are people like my neighbors. You might see Mr. Willis driving around in his pickup truck, hauling around a trailer that carries all his lawn-care equipment. He’ll take care of your yard for you: good work at a good price. Mr. Willis graduated from the same high school that my kids attend. If you ask him, he’ll tell you all about how there’s a picture by the gym of the Austin East Basketball Team State Champions and yep, he’s right there in that picture. Then there’s Miss Cassandra. She works down at the hair salon. She helped us out that one time my daughter tried to give herself a haircut. We took her next door and Miss Cassandra  fixed her up nice. Lecturing her the whole time about not playing with scissors. Then there’s the Johnsons. They immigrated from Jamaica years ago. Mr. Johnson is a property manager. His mother lives with them and she always plants a small vegetable garden in their yard. And what about Miss Lucy? She’s an elderly woman who has lived in this neighborhood most of her grown up life. She recently lost her significant other of 40 years. She calls my husband when she’s worried about something on her property. She loves cats.

We all bought our houses in this neighborhood because it was what we could afford. We work hard, take care of our properties. Go to work every day. If you drive down Magnolia you might see us going about our business, heading to work or the grocery store. You might see our teenagers as they are learning how to drive and heading off to Youth Group functions or maybe to their part-time jobs.

Yes, we have gang members in this neighborhood. But, in my 13 years of driving up and down Magnolia I have never seen any behavior where I could point at a car and say, yep, those are definitely dangerous gang members. And yes, if you are driving late at night you might see prostitutes. If seeing a prostitute scares you then you need to rethink some of your ideas. When I see a prostitute I see an opportunity to pray for someone who is desperate and is desperately in need of rescue. Honestly, it’s not the prostitutes that scare me, it’s the men who prowl around in fancy trucks and pick them up. But, I’d hazard a guess that those men probably come from your neighborhood, not mine.

I hate the fact that I got offended by something on Facebook. It’s so cliche. Everyone is always getting offended about something. I apologize to my friends who posted this meme. I’m not trying to pick on you. I like your memes, they usually make me laugh. This one in particular was more of the Last Straw. I have heard many comments about my neighborhood from my friends and acquaintances, things like, “Yeah, I drove over that way once and it was like Negrotown!” Or, “I never drive in that area, way too dangerous!” or people recounting the time they accidentally drove into my area and how scared they were and how they worked on getting out of there as fast as they could. It occurs to me though, that a lot of fear is grounded in ignorance. Fear of the unknown. So maybe in telling you a bit about Magnolia and my neighborhood, maybe you won’t feel as scared if your GPS directs you to come drive by my house.  

What are the odds? I’ve been thinking about coincidence. You may ask, What made you interested in coincidence? I will tell you:  Waking up in the middle of the night, thirsty, grabbing my cup of water and carefully trying to get a sip while still half-laying down, and then my husband takes that moment to turn over in his sleep and knocks my cup of water and I get a faceful of water…That is what made me think of coincidence. I mean really, what are the odds that he is going to choose that very moment in time to suddenly turn over in his sleep???

As I lay in bed, completely awake, now that I had been dosed with a cup of water, I started thinking about other coincidences, like when I get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and walk into the bathroom and find that a child has already beat me there. Or, when you have a newborn baby that wakes up multiple times a night and then one night the baby sleeps through the entire night! But the toddler is up in the night with a bad dream and the 8 year old is up in the night with a stomach virus. And you just sit there thinking, “Really?”

We can take this out to a wider scope too. What were the chances that we would sign up with a Boy Scout Troupe and the leader has a son named Judah just like you do, and both Judahs are the same age, and share the same birthday. And have the same middle initial.. Or when my husband spent the summer in remote Bethel, Alaska and while there ran into one of his childhood friends from Dexter, Maine. Or my daughter was in a play this summer and then when she went to college one of her co-cast members happened to have the dorm room right next to her. Or, and this one happens a lot, I decide that today I’m going on a low-carb diet and then my daughter shows up with 5 loaves of Panera Bread.

I googled around the internet, curious about Coincidence. I read some interesting articles but they all basically came up with the same conclusion…it’s a mystery. They also came up with some pretty cool stories of people relating Coincidences that happened to them.

Some coincidences I think are God ordained. The other day I was taking a walk with my two little ones. I passed an older woman on the sidewalk who eyed my two toddlers and then paused to launch into a little speech about how she knew all about Those Days, running after kids etc, and now she was a Mamaw and was still running after little kids.. Then she looked at me more carefully, noted my grey hair and tired eyes and said, well, now, you must be a mamaw too. (For those who need interpretation, Mamaw= Grandma). I gulped back any nasty retort that might have popped into my head and instead just smiled and said, No, just an old mom, and went on my way, feeling very depressed…and old. I kept walking and eventually got to the park where we were headed and took the kids to the public bathroom. While we were in there, a young woman came in who looked like she might have had Down Syndrome. She looked at me and the kids and she smiled a big smile and then she said, You are Very Pretty!! I was surprised, but was able to keep my wits about me enough to tell her that she was very pretty too. I went on my way feeling happier, and it occurred to me that God probably had something to do with that encounter, whether you want to call it a coincidence or not.

As I have been writing more about myself I am noticing a trend. I am very quick to point out my faults and failures. I can poke fun at my shortcomings, laugh at all my foibles. But, I have a really hard time saying anything positive about myself. It’s like there is a mental block. I have decided to be curious about that. Am I too afraid of getting prideful if I mention something that I’m good at? Or worse, am I so used to only looking at the negative that I can’t even come up with positive things to say about myself?

Let’s look at some of the things in which I poke fun of myself.. Housekeeping. I’m not a good housekeeper. I don’t dust. I rarely take care of the piles of clutter that accumulate. Mopping happens when my feet start sticking to the floor. But here’s the thing. I am so much better at keeping house than I was 19 years ago. I am now able to keep a tidy house. Not a clean house, but a tidy one. Considering where I started from, that is amazing. Let’s also look at the fact that I genuinely despise housekeeping. It does not give me happy feelings to clean. I feel like patting myself on the back and getting a sticker every time I clean because I dislike it so much. It’s like watching the kid who hates vegetables to the point of throwing up, eat a big salad every day. I really need to give myself credit for the amount of self-discipline and selflessness I exhibit every time I pick up the broom and start sweeping, or go and wash the dishes. I somehow make myself do the distasteful every day. (Ok, there are the occasional days when I give in to laziness and don’t clean at all, but then I have to pay for it the next day.)

I make fun of myself because I’m not a great cook. But here’s the thing. I am a fast and efficient cook. I can prepare a meal for 12 people in 30 minutes. I am creative. I can take whatever remnants I have in my pantry and fridge and somehow make a meal out of it. I am also a thrifty cook. I can take a very small amount of money and somehow stretch it so that everyone has been fed and no one is hungry. I am not a gourmet, but really, considering I’m feeding 12 people, I do alright.

I make fun of myself because I am absent-minded and not the most observant person on the block. I am rarely going to notice what shoes you are wearing. I’ll probably forget what outfit you were wearing as soon as I’m not looking at you. Forget about me noticing your haircut. But, I do notice people. I notice what kind of mood people are in. I notice who is feeling tense and out of place at a party. I notice what kind of vibes you give off: friendly, uncertain, scared, angry, aloof. I notice these things. I notice people. Just not the outer-layer of the person. I am simply tuned in to a different level of what’s going on.

I make fun of myself because I do not have any of the handyman/handcraft/do-it-yourself-project type skills. Don’t ask me to make things with my hands. But, I can make things with words. I can communicate very well. I’m good at taking thoughts and putting them into words so that other people understand exactly what I mean. I’m good at running interference in my home because I can see where there is a breakdown of communication between two people, and I can help them communicate their thoughts better and thus defuse the situation.

I could probably go on for a while about this. But I do have a point I want to make. I have a feeling that I am not the only person who’s inner-critic speaks a lot louder than their inner-encourager.  No one has ever been as mean to me as I am to myself when I start in on the self-criticisms. Usually I’m not even aware of this inner-critic. It’s just there, part of my thought life. I trip while walking down the sidewalk. My brain says, Well, of course you’d trip, you are so clumsy! You’ve always been so clumsy! You probably looked like an idiot. And I just nod and accept it. Yep, I’m a clumsy idiot.

How do we get this voice to stop? I am hashing this out as I write. I don’t have all the answers. But something comes to mind. When my children are afraid, I always tell them to speak truth over their fears. You’re afraid of the dark? Ok, let’s speak some truth over that. The dark is just absence of light. There is nothing in the dark. It’s just your bedroom. There are no monsters. There are no bad guys. It’s just your bedroom. Truth. It helps with fears. I wonder if truth would help with criticism? Let’s speak truth to that voice. Wait a minute. I’m not a clumsy idiot. There was an unexpected rise in the sidewalk and I wasn’t able to anticipate it and so I tripped. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Tripping does not automatically make me an idiot. It just means I am human and susceptible to the laws of gravity.

I think it’s hard to stop listening to that inner-critic because deep down, we think it’s right. We have not fully grasped truth yet. We still don’t quite believe that we are created in the image of God. We don’t quite believe that we are a unique wonderful person. We don’t quite believe that God loves us in a deep, passionate way that defies understanding. We don’t believe. And it’s easier to listen to that inner-critic than to fight it with truth.

I have for many years now had the belief that if I could ever truly understand the depths of God’s love for me, if I could truly embrace that and live in it fully…I would be invincible. Unstoppable. There would be no boundaries on the things I could do if I could fully live in that truth.

It’s a journey, I’m still reaching for that goal. Maybe the first step though is to stop listening to my inner-critic. Start confronting that voice with some truth. I think it would be a giant step in the right direction.