Great Article

I read this article on a homeschool forum. I enjoyed it very much. As a warning, it has fantastical elements to it, such as children walking calmly and orderly through the grocery store, wearing nice and even matching outfits. I would be interested in knowing what your children do through the grocery store in hopes that mine aren’t the only ones who run as fast as they can down the aisle, then drop to their knees and see how far they can slide. I would like to say now that they are older it is better, but it is just different. Now is it wrestling or spy games or seeing how fast we can walk. The benefit to them being older is that I don’t have to walk in the same aisle. ha. In their defense, I have very well behaved sons. If I tell them to stop, they will. But we would not look like this family in this article. When I read this, I couldn’t help but think of all the things my sons have tried and done in a store. Now I can laugh! What does your family look like when you grocery shop?

Here is the article- food for thought!

 

Home-schoolers threaten our cultural comfort 
Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:50 pm (PDT) 
*SONNY SCOTT*
 
6/8/2008 9:39:01 AM
 Daily Journal
 
You see them at the grocery, or in a discount store.
 
It’s a big family by today’s standards – “just like stair steps,”
as the old folks say. Freshly scrubbed boys with neatly trimmed hair
and girls with braids, in clean but unfashionable clothes follow mom
through the store as she fills her no-frills shopping list.
 
There’s no begging for gimcracks, no fretting, and no threats
from mom. The older watch the younger, freeing mom to go peacefully
about her task.
 
You are looking at some of the estimated 2 million children being
home schooled in the U.S., and the number is growing. Their
reputation for academic achievement has caused colleges to begin
aggressively recruiting them. Savings to the taxpayers in
instructional costs are conservatively estimated at $4 billion, and
some place the figure as high as $9 billion. When you consider that
these families pay taxes to support public schools, but demand
nothing from them, it seems quite a deal for the public.
 
Home schooling parents are usually better educated than the norm,
and are more likely to attend worship services. Their motives are
many and varied. Some fear contagion from the anti-clericalism,
coarse speech, suggestive behavior and hedonistic values that
characterize secular schools. Others are concerned for their
children’s safety. Some want their children to be challenged beyond
the minimal competencies of the public schools. Concern for a
theistic world view largely permeates the movement.
 
Indications are that home schooling is working well for the kids,
and the parents are pleased with their choice, but the practice is
coming under increasing suspicion, and even official attack, as in
California.
 
Why do we hate (or at least distrust) these people so much?
 
Methinks American middle-class people are uncomfortable around
the home schooled for the same reason the alcoholic is uneasy around
the teetotaler.
 
Their very existence represents a rejection of our values, and an
indictment of our lifestyles. Those families are willing to render
unto Caesar the things that Caesar’s be, but they draw the line at
their 
children. Those of us who have put our trust in the secular state
(and effectively surrendered our children to it) recognize this act
of defiance as a rejection of our values, and we reject them in
return.
 
Just as the jealous Chaldeans schemed to bring the wrath of the
king upon the Hebrew eunuchs, we are happy to sic the state’s
bureaucrats on these “trouble makers.” Their implicit rejection of
America’s most venerated idol, Materialism, (a.k.a. “Individualism”)
spurs us to heat the furnace and feed the lions.
 
Young families must make the decision: Will junior go to day care
and day school, or will mom stay home and raise him? The
rationalizations begin. “A family just can’t make it on one income.”
(Our parents did.) “It just costs so much to raise a child nowadays.”
(Yeah, if you buy brand-name clothing, pre-prepared food, join every
club and activity, and spend half the cost of a house on the
daughter’s wedding, it does.) And so, the decision is made. We give
up the bulk of our waking hours with our children, as well as the
formation of their minds, philosophies, and attitudes, to strangers.
We compensate by getting a boat to take them to the river, a van to
carry them to Little League, a 2,800-square-foot house, an ATV, a
zero-turn Cub Cadet, and a fund to finance a brand-name college
education. And most significantly, we claim “our right” to pursue a
career for our own”self-fulfillment.”
 
Deep down, however, we know that our generation has eaten its
seed corn. We lack the discipline and the vision to deny ourselves in
the hope of something enduring and worthy for our posterity. We are
tired from working extra jobs, and the looming depression threatens
our 401k’s. Credit cards are nearly maxed, and it costs a $100 to
fuel the Suburban. Now the kid is raising hell again, demanding the
latest Play Station as his price for doing his school work … and
there goes that modest young woman in the home-made dress with her
four bright-eyed, well-behaved home-schooled children in tow.
Wouldn’t you just love to wipe that serene look right off her smug
face?
 
Is it any wonder we hate her so?
 
Sonny Scott a community columnist, lives on Sparta Road in
Chickasaw County and his e-mail address is sonnyscott@…
 
Obviously, we wouldn’t agree on this post, least of all the stereotype of a homeschool family. That is what made me chuckle. I don’t know many homeschoolers who look like this woman and her children. I do however agree with the references of homeschooling being a choice, and one that has consequences and financial repercussions. It is not without a cost. Sometimes I think people forget that.

Enjoy the day,

Shannon

Pockets of Time for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

                                                          

 

I am SOOOOOO very excited about this Pocket of Time we just released. We changed up the standard format because this book was just screaming CHOCOLATE! Every chapter has a large candy bar to be cut out and colored. There are four labels for every candy bar. On these labels, you will find events that happened within that chapter. Color the border the given color, place the labels on the candybar in the CORRECT order. Every candybar has a golden seal to be placed around the labels to hold in their spot. All mom/teacher has to do is look at the color code of events to know if the reader comprehended and followed the sequence of events. There are pockets to hold sets of candybars. These are so adorable!!! Be sure to use this Pocket of Time product for summer reading or save it for school in September.

Here is what one chapter’s candybar looks like:

What Is A Classic? Part 3

As a reminder, this is not my article. I found this in the back of an old Walmart publication of H.G. Wells’ The War of the World. The author of the article is not named. I have researched and tried to find the author’s name to no avail. I respectfully post this article on FORTUNATELY FOR YOU BOOKS business blog. It is one of the best articles I have read on the subject of what makes a book a classic.

Part 3:

There’s one other reason that the classics have endured as long as they have. In fact, it’s the most important reason of all.

Books become classics, and stay classics, because they tell us something about ourselves. The authors whose worlds are represented in this series (Walmart line of classics) understand the human heart better than most of the writers working today. They might not have experienced the events they’re writing about firsthand, but they have the ability to put themselves in someone else’s place, and somehow convey what that sort of a person is feeling.

Stephen Crane was never a soldier himself. But in The Red Badge of Courage, he used his knowledge of human emotions to convey what it was like to be a green recruit facing enemy guns in a bloody war, praying he’d be strong enough not to turn and run when the battle began, not to disgrace himself in the eyes of his peers.

Although Mary Mapes Dodge was never a wold famous ice skater, she was able to express in Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates how it felt to be a gifted athlete for whom sport mattered more than anything in the world. She understood what it was like to be facing cutthroat competition, to force yourself to go on when your body was crying out for rest.

In Huckelberry Finn, Mark Twain used his writer’s gifts to make the reader feel what it was like to have a cruel and hurtful father, as Huck did, and to want to escape from a harsh existence. And he was able to convey what it was like for Huck’s friend, Jim, a runaway slave, to be hated and punished just because he was different from other people.

In Little Women, Louisa May Alcott was able to express what it was like to be a young woman in the last century, fighting for a place in the world dominated by men. She understood what it was like to have a dream so strong you would risk anything to make it come true, as Jo Marsh did when she decided to become a journalist.

When the world grows too difficult to bear, it’s sometimes helpful to get a bit of perspective, to see how people dealt with life’s problems, and its opportunities, in other times and places. The classics offer fresh view points on the human condition, showing how other people dealt with heartbreak and shame, greed and ambition, anger and terror. While you’re wrapped up in the dreams and fears of a pauper on the streets of sixteenth century London, or an awkward schoolteacher in eighteenth century New Your State, you may find a solution to your own worries and problems. Or, if not, you may at least find an escape from them that gives you time to take a breath and gather the strength to go on.

So the next time you see a book labeled a “classic”, whether it comes from this publisher or another one, you might benefit from taking a second look at it before passing on to the latest packaged series or television spin off. The world you’ll find inside the pages of that book is likely ro be richer, deeper, and more moving than anything else in the bookstore.

The important thing to remember is that it’s your choice, not anyone else’s. By choosing this book, you’ve become part of a process that makes books classics. If this story works for you, as it had for previous generations of readers, if you enjoy it enough to recommend it to your friends- maybe even to your own kids some day- you’ll be part of the chain that caused it to be here for you.

And if it turns out that it’s not to your liking,  you may recommend some newer book that does work for you, a work that stays in print and goes on to become one of the classics of the next century. It’s up to you to decide.

 

What is a Classic? Part 2

Starting where I left off:

One proof that classics contain really exciting stories is that contemporary writers “borrow” ideas from classic works all the time when they’re creating new ones. When you see a killer-dinosaur book like Jurassic Park, you can bet that author, Michael Crichton, read, and loved, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost Worldwhen he was a boy. The “Back to the Future” movies might never have been made if filmmaker Bob Zemekis hadn’t enjoyed H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Danielle Steele probably wouldn’t be writing the kind of romances that can tug at your heart strings if she hadn’t read, and cried over, books like Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights when she was younger. And you can be sure that Stephen King learned much of what he knows about terrifying people from the stories of Edgar Allan Poe which scared him when he was a boy.

Another mark of a classic, then, is that it can inspire an entire branch of literature, like Westerns or romances. The mystery novel as we know it wouldn’t exist if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle hadn’t created his master detective Sherlock Holmes. All of those books in the science fiction section might not be there today if it weren’t for the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.

If the classics only offered engrossing entertainment, they’d be well worth your time. But they have a lot more to offer.

To begin with, classics are better written than most other books. This may seem obvious, but it’s worth mentioning. One of the qualities that cause a book to endure decade after decade is that the author put extra care into choosing each word, into creating real, believable characters, into giving them genuine emotions and challenging problems to solve.

You can sense this special attention to the language the minute you begin reading a classic like Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer or Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables. The world you’re reading about is suddenly vivid and compelling and real, as real as the world you live in every day- and sometimes more so.

It’s like the difference between a musician who goes through the motions and one who really knows his stuff, the difference between fat food and fine cuisine. If you’re a serious reader, you can very quickly grow tired of sloppy writing, predictable plots, and cheap literary tricks. The classics guarantee great prose as well as great story telling.

If you’ve ever thought about becoming a writer yourself, as a hobby or even as a career, you can’t find a better place to study writing techniques than in the classics. No writer has described the bone chilling cold of an Arctic night more effectively than Jack London. No one brings the perilous life of the sea or the exotic locales of the Far East to life more vividly than Rudyard Kipling.

You can think of the classics as  time machines that instantly transport you to faraway times and places at the turn of a page. You can travel with Robert Louis Stevenson aboard the pirate ships of the Caribbean in Kidnapped. Race around the world with a daring gambler in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. Witness London devastated by a ruthless Martian invasion in H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.

…….to be continued…….

 

What is a Classic? Part 1

I read this article in the back of an older 2 for $1 book from Walmart- The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. I cannot find who is the author of this article but want to give credit where it is due. This was the best article I have read on what makes a book a classic. It is a rather long article, so I will be dividing it up into parts.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could know whether a book or movie, tape or CD was worthwhile just by looking at it? Imagine what it would be like if every form of entertainment, every work of art, had a special label on it that said ” This is the Good Stuff” a label you could actually trust to tell you: “This is really worth it. This is the best there is.”

Imagine the hours of time you’d save. You’d be browsing in a bookstore or record shop, looking att hte weekend movie ads, considering a concert or play, and you’d see that label and relax, knowing your time wouldn’t be wasted.

There actually is such a label- at least for books. The label is “classic”.

It means “of the highest quality,” or “of enduring interest and value.” You’ve heard the word before, used for everything from soft drinks and sporting events to hairstyles and antique cars. But it’s also used to describe something that’s one of the best examples of its kind, whether its the dialogues of Plato, the music of Mozart, the architecture of the Renaissance, or a cherry-red 1957 Thunderbird convertible.

When book publishers use the word “classic” to describe a book, they really mean it. There’s a kind of honor system operating. They’ve set aside that word solely for books that have passed the test of time, that really are amonf the best works of their kind ever written. The book you’re holding in your hands is one of those books (The War of the Worlds).

Unfortunately, a lot of people think “classice means something else. They think it means “old” or “boring”. As a result, they miss out on some of the most interesting, engaging stories ever told.

It’s not too difficult to figure how this idea got around. First, it’s a fact that a lot of “classics” are “old” in a purely chronological sense. They were written fifty or a hundred and fifty years ago, and some people think a story has to be brand new to be interesting.

Second, some of the people recommending that you read “classics” are the same people who recommend that you brush your teeth, or wear a motorcycle helmet, or save money for the future- things that are good for you, but not all that much fun. So it’s not surprising that people, especially young people, are suspicious when someone tells them that a book that’s required reading in school is actually enjoyable.

But it happens to be true.

To explain why it’s true, it might be helpful to explain how a book becomes a “classic” in the first place. There’s a very simple answer. People keep reading it. People just like you. It’s like a popularity contest, or a public opinion poll, except that it goes on year after year, generation after generation. A book that people are still reading fifty or a hundred and fifty years after it was first published has to have something going for it to keep people interested.

Another reason books become classics is that they are genuinely entertaining. People who take the time to read classics are usually pleasantly surprised to discover just how interesting they really are.

That’s especially ture of the books selscted for this classics program. They deliver as much excitement and entertainment as anything that’s sitting on the “new releases” shelf of the local bookstore.

Imagine what it would be like to be a child, abandoned in the jungles of India, facing certain death from the deadly predators that prowl its paths. Suddenly, when you’re certain you can’t survive another day, you are rescued by a she-wolf who brings you home to her pack, raises you as one of her own, adn teaches you the languages of the forest animals. That’s just one of the stories Rudyard Kipling tells in his Jungle Book.

What if you wer a brilliant scientist who had discovered a secret serum that unlocked the wildest passions of the human soul? Would you take the risk of testing it on yourself, knowing that it might transform you into a hideous, violent monster? That’s one of the questions Robert Louis Stevenson answers in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

What would you do if a lucky punch from a local bully knocked you all the way back to the time of Merlin the Magician? Would you dare to challenge the awesome power of his dark sorcery with stage magic and modern day science? That’s what happens to the hero in Mark Twain’s A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

How would you survive if you found yourself trapped in a deadly, prehistoric world in a hidden cavern at the Earth’s core, menaced by deadly creatures and warlike giants? That’s the problem a band of explorers face in Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth.

These stories don’t sound all that boring, do they?

End of Part 1.

The next article will contain the authors notes on the “marks” of a classic. Just a reminder, this is not my article, but found in the back of an old paperback put out by Walmart years ago. The author of this article is not named, although it was Aerie Books LTD. that did the publishing.

Way Cool

We are almost finished with our convention season. We have one more convention to attend and as it is right here in our hometown of Morgantown, Wv, it makes the trip easy and with little prep work. This will be the state convention and I hope making the move from Charleston to Morgantown means it will be bigger and better. We have enjoyed and learned from every convention we attended this year. We were asked over and over if we had a high school line. We have had many, many talks at our business meetings about this. It seems now is the time to put all our ideas onto paper and develop this line. It is not anything we are throwing together or taking lightly. To develop a line that high schoolers would want and use takes A LOT of consideration and thought. But let me just say, that the idea that did come and is in development (all over my kitchen floor and table) is WAY COOL…..It will take quite some time and trial after trial, print after print, tweak after tweak…….but the skeleton frame I am working with……..WAAAAAAAY COOOOOL….I wish I was in high school again. The first stage of development will deal with timelines for literature. We use Pockets of Time for the elementary level. These just wouldn’t be cool enough for the grades we had in mind. If all works out on paper as I see it in my head, your readers will WANT to get to the next chapter in the book. I love this stage of development. I can’t wait until we have enough to tease you with. We will be planning issue dates soon. Keep checking back every so often. We work fulltime through the summer and have LOADS of new stuff coming out before school starts again.

Blessings,

Shannon

By Design

That seems to have been my mantra for school this year…..by design. I am referring to how God designed our children right from the get go. And how if we would really pay attention, we could see it so clearly in everyday little things, thereby saving us LOADS of frustration and money and time.

Frustration because we try to put information into their little heads in a way that may make sense to us, or worked for us, but by design, is not being filtered correctly.

Money as we spend precious resources on products that appeal to US or that we think will be the best savings because you can use for ALL the kids! Wrong- been there, done that. What works for one does not always work for another. Go ahead and spend the extra money now and get what the child needs because you are going to anyways. Either now or in 6 years after you beat your head against the wall, and I do not mean the proverbial wall.

Time- the obvious. We waste time. Our most precious resource. Don’t fight, resist or deny the way God designed your kids. Study the different ways children learn and retain information. Honestly, the longer I homeschool, the less I know! I am still learning so much about how children learn. I wish I had some years back. Hind sight doesn’t need to be everything. Observe your children.

Let me tell you what I observed this week in math class. Oh, math class. With this unnamed child, I swear I am beating my head against the wall. Not that he can’t get algebra. He is very bright. Gets it. ( we are in Saxon Algebra 1). He questions EVERYTHING…he gets hung up on details. Little things in the word stories that DO NOT MATTER WHATSOEVER SO JUST DO THE PROBLEM….whew…..ok..We have gone past the silly questions like “why does it have to be an x, why can’t it be j?”…that was so last year. Now it is more like…”who sat down and figured this out? Why? didn’t they have jobs?  Can’t I do it this way? see. mom I did it this way and it worked so why won’t it work every-time?” and on and on and on and on. Very good questions. Very creative. I have nurtured him and taught him to question everything. Don’t believe just because someone said it. I am paying for those golden nuggets every day! I am not a math person. I can flub  and act my way through Algebra 2. But I have paid through the nose for the extra teacher solution manuals, I have studied in the late night hours for the next day, I have gone into the bathroom to practice acting confident so they don’t spot weakness (anyone who has four boys understands this!). But I don’t care about this stuff and I don’t know all the answers to the thousands of questions I face everyday.

Which leads to another son who had math class. Show him the formula. Show him what problems go with that formula. Write the formula. Replace the formula with numbers. Solve. Do this. Do that. Done. No questions asked. Done. Done well. Pride in accomplishment.

           

And here is where design comes in: can you tell which one is the United States Marine and which one wants to be a detective more than anything in the world??? Can you see what was already instilled and yes, even installed in them since they were created? I am telling you, this knowledge is the only thing that saves my sanity on a daily basis!!!!

Blessings,

Shannon

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

 

We now have SO many emails and sign ups for our newsletter that we had to go to Constant Contact as our mail distributor. And we are not talking the FREE 100 addresses program. We are talking having to PAY! And we do not mind in the least. We are more than happy to have this wonderful business grow and expand and need to include extra costs in our budget to meet the ever changing needs of our customers. Thank you to all who have forwarded our address and site to your friends. You are the best  advertisement we can have! Keep passing on the site and this blog address. We have a wonderful list of products that will be released this spring. Right now we are working on a unit study for The Secret Garden. We also have many Pockets of Time and Pockets of Copywork coming out. Little House fans should keep a close eye out for our emails. Spiderwick fan? Our collection is complete!! Patricia St. John collector? Keep checking for a release date!

So, congratulations to FFYB for making one more step in reaching more people with reading tools. And thanks to all you who help us water the seeds for a love of reading in your child.

Five Finger Paragraph Success and Reverting Back

When I check the stats on this blog, I see a lot of people do a search on this site for the Five Finger Paragraph article. So I think you may find this interesting. Today was our first BIG writing assignment since our holiday break. We have done some little stuff, but this was an “on your own, three paragraph” paper assignment. I was riding the tails of our previous successes and quite honestly thought this was going to be so wonderful. I taught Jesse our history lesson about the Boston Massacre and The Boston Tea Party. I really thought he would pick the Boston Tea Party for his writing assignment. The phone rang off the hook…my husband broke down in the van and I had to go get him….my time teaching and guiding was limited. I said just do the 5 finger paragraph format and write. An hour later, I saw poor little Jesse with red cheeks, head down on the table, eyes glazed over….looking despondent. And his writing was pathetic. Sorry, honey, I know you read this, but it was. Really.  I had to jump in, erase the math from the chalkboard and help him find 3 simple categories. His first trouble was picking categories too specific. When you pick a category to write about, it needs to be a bit general so that you can write three things about it. He had the subject of the Boston Massacre. Here is the new categories we have:

1. British

2. Angry Mob

3. Dead

Ok, something to work with. Now we need three things about those categories. He had to look at the text from the lesson…under #1 he puts  700 (amount of soldiers sent to Boston), King George , and annoying (what the soldiers were doing to the colonists-harassing women, threatening men, taking colonists job for extra money). The things in parenthesis are things we discussed, not written.  Under #2 he added colonists, Boston Ma. March 5, 1770, and attack a sentry. Then under #3 are the words  5 dead several wounded, 1st African American to die in the Revolution, and rally cry.

After such a long turmoil, we ended there. Tomorrow he will have to put those thoughts into paragraphs and sentences. I got a bit lazy and should have done this with him as it was the first writing after such a long time. It would have been less painful for him. But I am sure tomorrow’s writing will be a success as this format really works. I will post his paper as soon as it is done and he makes his edits.  He had tried to write without this format. This format is really the best and easiest to learn. We are back on track now and tomorrow should be a bit less painful! Let’s hope, huh, Jesse??!!

~Shannon

An Article About Serving After the Children Are Grown

I am over half way through educating my own children. Jake, my 3rd son, is almost done with his sophomore year. Jesse , 4th son, will be in junior high this fall. I have been thinking a lot lately about my years coming without the boys in school. And I have been dreaming: teaching special, fun classes that seem to get lost because I have to do all the formal classes, still buying as much curriculum as I always do because I want to help out other homeschoolers, building a lending library of teaching supplies and books, being a help to moms…..This is all in my heart. Then I read this article by Mary Pride and it said all I had been thinking. I hope to be such a blessing in the coming years. Here is the article I found on the site www.home-school.com

 Older Women Wanted

By Mary Pride
Printed in PHS #40, 2001.

---

Sixteen years ago, I wrote a book called The Way Home. An exposition of Titus 2:3-5, it made these points among others:

• A mother’s role in the home is not socially irrelevant; rather, it is the antidote to socialism
• We depend far too much on credentialed experts for schooling and child training advice
• Homeschooling is biblically sound, and may be necessary in the light of what is happening to the schools
• Children are a blessing

Many young, college-educated women read The Way Home. Like most of my generation, they hardly knew how to boil water (let alone cook) or change a diaper (let alone handle a large family). Convinced by the Bible’s reasoning that motherhood was a ministry to be embraced, they nonetheless felt deeply uncertain about their mothering, homeschooling, and homeworking abilities.

I received hundreds of letters, all saying the same thing:

Titus 2 the Apostle Paul tells the older women to teach the younger women: “To be sober [serious], to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”

Up by Our Bootstraps

The younger women who responded to this call in 1985 found to their distress that few older women were available to serve as mentors and role models. Our parents’ generation had followed the model of a planned family of just a few kids, who were sent to public school. Our own mothers knew nothing about homeschooling; in fact, they were likely to be hostile to the notion. Far from supporting large families, older women in the church were more likely to treat any woman pregnant with her third or fourth child like she was mildly demented. Any women who wanted to stay at home and raise her own kids was automatically treated as a second-class citizen.

But those young women were hardy. They dug in and started learning what they could, where they could. For a while, the newsletter HELP For Growing Families served as a forum where we could all share our questions and answers on child training, family life, and home business. Meanwhile, homeschooling support groups had been forming; court cases were fought to establish our right to homeschool; some of us researched homeschool materials and published how-to books.

Years passed. Our families grew older. The complexion of homeschooling changed. Many more books were published. Credentialed experts began taking an interest in homeschooling and appearing at homeschool conferences. Secular publishers began thinking about the “homeschool market” and how to penetrate it by repositioning their products. Educational software bloomed. The Internet blossomed.

A Farewell to Arms?

And now I’m getting letters like this:

“Years ago I read The Way Home and it changed my life! I’ve had a large family, all of them homeschooled. Your books and publications have been such a big help – thank you! My youngest just graduated homeschool and has been accepted at a good college, and now I want to cancel my subscription, since we are no longer homeschooling.”

When I got the first such letter, I said, “Hmm.” When I got the second, I began to wonder. After a while, I finally figured out what was bothering me. It was not the subscription cancellations – they aren’t exactly a flood, and in fact at first I was trying to convince myself that they were a proof of our success. After all, hadn’t we succeeded in “working ourselves out of a job,” which all along had been our goal?

Here’s what was bothering me. None of those letters said the writer intended to help new homeschooling parents. It sounded like the opposite: “Now that my children are grown, I can forget all about keeping up with homeschooling.” Yet these are the exact same ladies who years ago were writing and calling me, practically in tears, begging me to find them older women who could serve as mentors!

Admittedly, homeschooling is much easier and more socially acceptable now than it was 16 years ago. But that does not mean new homeschooling parents don’t need help. In a way, they need more help, because they are often not as rock-solid in their educational philosophy and reasons for homeschooling as the first generation, whose convictions were forged in the fires of persecution.

You’re Still Needed

If you are one of those “older women” who has been homeschooling for a while, I beg you to consider this. You started homeschooling, not just for the sake of homeschooling, but to serve the Lord. You spent five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years in the school of Hard Knocks learning just what works, just what doesn’t, and what effect it all has on a child’s heart and soul. Your ministry has been certified and approved by the results in the lives of your growing and grown children. Is now the time to drop out of the homeschooling community – just when you are finally able to serve the parents?

You asked where the older women were.

Thou art the woman