Le resistance (this one's a little personal)

What does homeschooling look like?
Who can homeschool?
Who should homeschool?

For those amongst us who have even accepted the fact that home schooling is a viable and often, preferable way to educate the minds and hearts of our children, there are still prejudices.  After all, we have in our minds the picture of "the homeschooling family."  This often looks like the "traditional" family - dad suits up and heads out to work in the morning, while mommy gets breakfast ready and then settles the children around the dining table ... or, if they're "serious", into little desks and chairs in their SCHOOL AT HOME.  If  mom has any duties outside of the home, they are usually to cart the children to swimming, football, karate, etc. or at church, where the littles are usually in tow.  For those who can picture homeschooling, this is often what it looks like.  To imagine anything beyond this would require a paradigm shift that many think would make their head explode.

What? You're a SINGLE PARENT?!  *You* CAN'T home school!!!
You *do* things OUTSIDE of the home?!
You LEAVE the children with a SITTER?!

I wasn't sure whether to open up this part of the picture to the world just yet, but I realize, there are others who need to know they are not alone.  They CAN. You CAN!  YOU can rise above the naysayers and speakers of doubt and discouragement ... le resistance!!  I hope to share stories of other homeschooling families where the mother is the head of the household.  We do exist. We work HARD, but we make it WORK!!  Yes, I'm just getting started, however, my reality is making it even more important for me to share this journey.  God has placed this on my heart since 2008, when my daughter was 2 years old.  I had actually forgotten how long ago it was until I went into my Amazon wish lists and saw that there was one entitled "Homeschooling" that I started in 2008.  I recognized books that I had ordered, but never read.  That was then.  This is now.  Now, I am HOLDING TIGHT onto the VISION that God has given me for my family, and trusting the process ... LE RESISTANCE!!!

By the way, here are some other blogs of homeschooling single mothers who are just as awesome (if not more) as I am ;-):

Homeschool Oasis

The Single Crunch

Janet's Country Home

Not Consumed

There are several more out there, as well as resources, etc.  A simple Google search will reveal so much.  However, none of them are living out this reality in the Jamaican context.  Our stories must be told as well.  It is for this I have been called.  Are you reading this and are a home schooling single parent in Jamaica?  I would love for you to share your story with my readers.  Click HERE to submit your story.

The World As Our Classroom

The first thought that most conjure up when thinking of a home schooled child, is a makeshift home classroom, with the child working away, never to leave the boundaries of his or her home.  A solitary existence.  However, that is not the reality.  At least, not for the majority of home schooled children.  Instead of their classroom and social interaction being limited, it is, in reality, expanded.  From their bedroom ... TO THE WORLD!!!  Seriously, children in traditional education institutions go on "field trips" maybe once a term.  It is seen as something "out there" ... something set apart from normal and ordinary existence.  Visits to the zoo, aquarium, farm, etc are considered rare chances to participate in experiences that are not considered part of everyday existence.  Volunteering in one's community is a rare occurrence for an institutionalized child because, often, there just isn't enough time.  "School" is all day every day.  One of the things I am so excited about is expanding my daughter's education beyond the four walls of a classroom, whether that classroom is in our home or an educational institution.  Here are some of the things I have planned:

1. Volunteering at a charity of her choice once a month - yes, my daughter is only 7, but I firmly believe our children are never too young to appreciate their responsibility to pour into others with their blessings and gifts
2. Family farming.  A growing awareness of how compromised our food supply is has led me to make different choices in the food I feed my children and myself.  However, it is difficult to get truly organic food in Jamaica, as even when you "buy local", there really is no telling what that farmer put on or in his produce.  This is something we would just not have time to do with her being away from home for much of the day, and my heading to class in the evenings.
3.  Visit a museum/cultural site once a fortnight. Jamaica is rich with cultural  sites, especially with the explosion of "community tourism" or "cultural tourism".  I feel particularly strongly about my daughter knowing her heritage, especially since she has, thus far, spent most of her life living in the United States.
4.  Travel.  So much passes our little ones by while they are stuck in a classroom.  However, let's face it.  Disposable income is often hard to come by when you home school.  By traveling, I simply mean heading out of your neck of the woods and spending some time in someone else's neck of the woods ... even if it's only 2 hours away.  

So ... that's the plan!  Of course, I will be journaling/blogging throughout it all so hopefully you are just as excited as I am!  Please do share with me some of your ideas or things you have done with your children by commenting below!

The Beginning ...

And so life unfolded ... I moved back home ... with two children in tow!  Heading back to my first home, intending to equip myself professionally for a new career path.  Little did I know that I would be equipping myself in so many other ways.

Since returning to Jamaica, I have been challenged as a mother to return to my "mother's heart" in the way I raise my children.  I attribute the term "mother's heart" as what my original intent was for my children when I became a mother ... how I was led to relate to them and raise them.  This means so many things, but for the purposes of this blog, it means educating the hearts of my children, and consequently, their minds.  After a disastrous year of psychosomatic illnesses, assaults on her sense of self, being held back in reading and language and poorly taught in math, my daughter is a survivor who has not completely lost her love of learning.  I cannot even delve into the "mommy guilt" relating to this yet because I'm not done with the "process."  What I will say is that NO ONE is more equipped or more invested in being equipped to education her heart and mind than I am.  I have felt this way since 2008 (I know the year because I discovered an old "homeschooling resources" wish list I had on Amazon).  I have allowed a rigid culture, limited life experience and familial-societal pressure to put another way before God's way in my daughter's life.  My daughter is an incredibly special child.  Her purpose in this life must be nurtured in a way that only the person who knows her best can.  I have determined to follow my heart on this one.  My daughter is a creative spirit, with a visual learning style.  Rote, workbook, drill-n-kill, spiral learning is not how she learns best.  Unfortunately, that is largely the system in Jamaica, in both public and private schools.  She's a dreamer --- she needs to see the big picture!!  She's also highly verbal and devours books.  Instead of being drafted as a quasi-teacher's assistant in classroom of primarily lower reading abilities, she needs to be encouraged to achieve her full potential and attain higher levels of proficiency.  In the institutionalized setting, students are limited to the "grade level" in which they are placed.  There is little to no differentiation in the Jamaican education system, public or private.  You go where you are put and you stay there.  Each subject is taught a particular way to the entire class and you either get it or you don't.  I get it.  The teacher cannot individualize the curriculum for every student in her class.  This is why I am no longer asking any teacher to do so.  I am choosing to do that myself.

I have already met the resistance.  Jamaica is a place where as soon as a child can walk and talk, "dem fi go a school".  Parents look forward to the day they purchase the first school uniform and school bag and books.  It is a rite of passage in a society where education has been a scarce commodity for generations, especially the higher you ascend.  Traditionally, there have been precious few spaces in university, which meant, only the "best" and "brightest" were permitted entry.  The path to get there necessarily (?) started very early ... after all, aren't we taught that the early bird catches the worm?  Our indoctrination has been solid, that's for sure.  Add to that the reality of my maternal family being a long line of educators, one of which told me: "We have a broken system, but you just have to work with it as best as you can."  Sprinkle in the paternal history of using education in the traditional system as the exit for an entire generation out of the mire of rural poverty and, well, the dish just got spicy!  One can imagine, then, the disapproval I met when I announced my intention to homeschool my daughter after a comparatively disastrous first grade year in a private Jamaican school.  I'm sure this past year was wonderful for some of her classmates, but it was simply not a good "fit" for her for a number of reasons.  Truly, no one is to blame ... one size simply does not fit all.

What is interesting, however, is that in other societies where homeschooling tends to be more prevalent, studies repeatedly show that children who are educated outside of a traditional educational institution score higher in standardized tests than their peers in comparable "grade levels."  I put "grade level" in quotes because studies also show that these children tend to rise in grade level younger and faster than their peers.  There really is no denying the benefits of an individualized education, designed to match your learning style, interests and personality.

This journey promises to be interesting, I must say.  My daughter is a spirited child, and when God was handing out patience, I was near the back of the line.  I have little to no moral support in our home which we share with my parents.  I will also be in school part-time while earning an income at odd hours (NO, it's not what you think!!).  However, the clarity that I am experiencing in the process of assessing her in math and language, preparing and planning her curricula for the upcoming year, completing the paperwork, and spending TIME with my daughter as she embraces our journey with me is unparalleled.  I invite you to join with us in this journey.  My hope is that by journaling this experience we can encourage others, share ideas, and open the dialogue about how we can invest in our children in non-traditional ways to produce extraordinary results!!