bbcovert@juno.com

Anyone who has homeschooled for a year or so knows that there is a wrong way to homeschool. Were you aware of this wrong way to homeschool? The wrong way to homeschool is to go against the one and only right way to homeschool!

I’m kidding! However, the sad fact is that many “newbie” homeschoolers feel that there is a right way and a wrong way to homeschool. They enjoy sharing their opinions as if they were facts. When they air these views, most often in a homeschool support group setting, long-timers tend to get offended. Long-time homeschoolers know that there is no one right way to homeschool your children. What works for one family doesn’t work for another. Books that one family hated will be enjoyed by another family. One family may embrace unschooling, while another swears by the Charlotte Mason method, and another prefers unit studies.

There IS a wrong way to homeschool. Perhaps you feel the Holy Spirit prodding you toward a method of teaching that looks time-consuming, so you ignore the prodding and choose something easy. That would be the wrong way to homeschool. On the other hand, perhaps the Holy Spirit is trying to steer you away from a time-consuming curriculum toward something simpler, and you continue homeschooling the way you’ve always done it, even though your children don’t respond well. That would be the wrong way to homeschool. Maybe you keep searching for the “perfect” curricula, and the Holy Spirit has tried to give you peace about the materials you already possess, but you don’t want to “settle,” so you keep on searching, buying, discarding, and searching some more. That would be the wrong way to homeschool.

The answer is simple: the only wrong way to homeschool is to go against God’s will for your family. His plans for each family are different, and therefore we can’t stand before a group and declare any one method right or wrong. What we can do is encourage each other and pray. Pray for daily guidance. Pray for strength and endurance. Pray for help. Pray for each other, that we would all run the race and finish the course that the Lord set before us.

Happy homeschooling!

Copyright 2007 by Brenda B. Covert