“At this point in history,
few of us who are homeschooling our children were homeschooled by
our parents. Instead, we grew up with a certain experience and
vision of what it meant to obtain an education. Was this your
experience?—a teacher at the front of the class;
students in
alphabetical order sitting at desks arranged in tidy lines;
subjects studied according to a textbook committeeÕs selection
of appropriate bits to be memorized, contained strictly within
the boundaries of time enforced by clanging bells; learning
tailored to the ‘average’ (which eliminated most of those
attending) and tested by black and white statements which did
not take into account the fascinating tidbit we discovered in
an at-home coffee table book; twelve years of confinement
lightened by painfully few vacations and holidays, where we
studied not what was necessarily interesting and pertinent,
but what was required by a faceless, nameless educational
guru; the spoken and unspoken pressure placed on those
students
who wanted to answer all of the teacherÕs questions, along
with
the spoken and unspoken pressure placed on those students who
did not understand the teacherÕs questions; the goal being a
diploma rather than a lifelong love and pursuit of learning
with the practical skills to take our place as adults in a
competitive world; and on and on. If so, you are not alone.
Most of us in this homeschooling journey battle the same
narrow
confines—blinders, if you will—in our
concept of education.
“In recognizing the limitation of our personal,
experiential vision of what is possible, it becomes vitally
important that we should examine the broader reality of what it
means to obtain an education. Stop for a moment—Selah—and
consider this: just because others set up institutional schools
in a particular manner does not mean we homeschoolers must blindly
follow their example. Jesus addressed this very phenomenon—new
life, new understanding, new freedom attempting to dwell within
old boundaries—when He said that new wine must not be put into
old wineskins—because they would burst and spill the new wine.
Instead, He told JohnÕs disciples that new wineskins were needed
to preserve the new wine. That is exactly what we have discovered
in our journey: homeschool stuck in the old system chafes and
irritates, while homeschooling in new wineskins flourishes and
sustains and matures.
“What does that mean? How does one accomplish something
so different, so new? Where does one find a new wineskin in
homeschooling? I struggled painfully through several years of
dismal failures, unrelieved boredom, and sharply increased
tension with our children until I finally began to ask the
right questions—not ‘Which curriculum will
give my children a
good education?’ but ‘What does God have
in mind for us and our
children in homeschooling?’ and ‘What does
it mean to be educated?’
and ‘How do we get there from
here???’”
![[Diana Waring - History Alive!]](images/small-dw.gif)
Path #1:
For our answer, continue here.