Should I HOMESCHOOL? | A Teacher’s Perspective |

hey you guys welcome back or welcome for the first time to my channel if you're new here i'm christina and in today's video i'm going to attempt to answer the question that you probably have if you clicked on this video and that is should i homeschool now if you are new here you may not know that i am a certified teacher i taught public high school english i've taught middle school ela in a private christian school and i also have experience homeschooling all of my kids ages 2 through 14. and so in today's video i want to share with you my perspective as a teacher and try to answer those questions that you might have in a nutshell the way that i've answered this question before is this if home is a healthier safer environment than school then my answer is yes and so i know there's a lot more explanation that many of you may want that goes along with that and that is why i'm filming today's video i've shared parts of this in the past especially in regard to things like socialization and things like that i recently did a video all about my thoughts on socialization as well as some research that i've been doing on socialization as well so if you're specifically focused on socialization then you can after watching this video click the link in the description box below where i talk specifically about socialization i may touch on it a little bit in this video but that is not mainly what this video is about i'm going to try to give you my general perspective as a teacher and a homeschooling mom what i think about this question should i homeschool and so going back to that one-line statement sort of answer that i have that if it is healthier and safer than school then the answer is yes so what do i mean by that what do i not mean by that i do not mean if you are more of an expert than the teachers i do not mean if you are more educated if you are more knowledgeable if you are more experienced if you are more accredited i truly mean if home is a safer healthier more nurturing environment than i believe that is where your children should be i believe this for a variety of reasons i start with the question if you were good enough to take care of your child and train them and raise them and teach them up until five years old why do you no longer have what it takes to lead them and guide them and teach them and parent them the answer is you do have what it takes you have everything that it takes within you to continue parenting your child so as a christian mom i am always first and foremost not even necessarily intentionally but just sort of naturally speaking to christian moms however i still believe this to be true for moms who don't necessarily share the same faith as me for similar reasons in some areas and there may be different reasons and other ones that i can't speak to but i will say that you are the best advocate for your child you are the best teacher for your child you are the best parent for your child if you are healthy and safe and so i know that there are situations that i have to put this out there as a disclaimer where parents are not healthy and safe whether it be in general or whether it be for a season if you are struggling with severe mental health issues if you are struggling with severe trauma if you have an unsafe living situation or you're going through something like that then maybe school is the healthiest safest option for your child and i do believe there are children who are in situations where school is the safer place for them to be or the healthier place for them to be or sort of that safe haven for them to go to and for those students i am so thankful for the teachers and the schools that are there for those children and i would like to obviously believe that i was one of those teachers now i am no longer teaching this is a recent change in our home but i am now a stay-at-home mom who will be homeschooling indefinitely all five of our children all the way through high school and god willing you know i've made other plans and god has changed them but i believe that this is one that he does not intend to change because i believe this is one that he has called me to do with really strong convictions and for a very specific purpose and so i want to touch on some of those as well but back to you being the best parent for your child because this may come as a little bit tough for some parents to hear but if your child is with someone all day every day five days a week 180 days out of the year because that is a typical school year they are parenting them they just are they are influencing them they are giving them their mannerisms their beliefs their perspectives their worldview however intentional or not they're being about it and that is just how we learn as human beings right like we learn from who we're around and so that goes not only for our our children's teachers but whatever other adults that they encounter every day at school as well as their peers if you have any doubt that any one or more of those people do not align with the way you want your child to think or act then school is not the best choice and it really is that simple in a lot of ways and i want to talk about um kind of more of my perspective on a lot of that but then also talk about like how does this become practical and so this video might get a little long i'm going to try not to but i also want to give like a full picture of my perspective and so when it comes to like the peer influence as i mentioned i get into that a lot in the socialization video so i don't want to dive into that a ton i want to talk about some other things oh if you are a christian and thinking about public school a lot things that come up a lot as christian parents i think is this idea of like wanting their children to be a light to be salt and light to the earth to reach the unbeliever to be light in a dark place and although i feel like most of the time that's well-meaning and maybe sometimes from a place of like defensiveness or putting a wall up and not wanting to have to think further into it i think we have to really be careful with those scriptures regarding children so i don't think that god expects for us to send our children out into the world without us to be salt and light i do believe that as adults we are called to be that but there are also many places in scripture where the bible talks about come out from among them to be set apart to flee from the darkness to flee from evil to submit to god and resist the devil so i don't believe that god is calling our children to be in the world for the majority of their day for the majority of their week their month and their year and their childhood i don't believe he asks that of them i don't believe he asks that of us as parents and so i really want to just challenge you to really seek the lord about that if that is your perspective really seek the lord about it search the scripture ask the holy spirit to soften your heart and reveal to you like is this true this thing that you're holding on to as a reasoning why it's okay or why it is a good idea to send your child to public school this isn't coming from a place of judgment this isn't coming from a place of i know better or i'm choosing better three of my children did go to public school my oldest son went to public school all throughout elementary school and part of middle school my second to youngest son went almost all through elementary school and then my third child went to like part-time preschool which was really a beautiful experience for the most part for her and so i don't want to say it's all negative of course there are positive things that happen in public school of course friendships are made and there are wonderful teachers and there are fun things that they learn and do and so i'm not trying to say that everything about it is negative but i am trying to say that it's not the best choice in my opinion and i believe in god's opinion based on what i have searched the scriptures for and asked god to reveal to me and in my own experience and so if you do not agree with everything that the public school is pushing if you don't agree with their morals and their values then that is not a place that you should be sending your child to every day all day to raise your child no matter how strong their faith is they are not going to be able to withstand the pressures and the cultural norms and the and all of those things that come along with being in that environment as adults it's very hard for us to do that so imagine for a child no matter how strong their faith is and even when it comes to private school it does not mean that every private school christian private school teacher has the same perspectives and worldview as you so yes they may be a believer but are they a spirit-filled believer do they search the scriptures like you do do they have the same values and things that you do just because they're christian doesn't mean you necessarily want them raising and influencing your child and spending more time with your child than you are and so i just want to encourage you that like i think many of them have the best intentions to really feel called and serve the lord and serve families and serve students right however your children i don't believe are meant to navigate all of these different adult personalities and beliefs and probably conflicting beliefs and personalities and character traits and teaching styles and expectations it's very confusing for children especially when you get up into the middle and high school years to like meet all of these different expectations of all of these different teachers and i do believe yes at some point you have to transition your kids to being able to like follow direction and things like that from someone other than yourself because i can already hear the counter arguments and i've heard them before but i don't believe that they need to do that in elementary school in middle school or even in high school right like you can slowly release the range you can do high school co-ops there are a lot of different ways for you to do that in a slow release type of way as opposed to just throwing them into it so that they learn real life right there's a lot of real life learning that happens with homeschool learning life skills learning how to run a home learning how to cook and clean and do laundry and budget and interact with other people with your guidance right like you get to choose who they're around for the most part when you're homeschooling so other than the influence other than the navigating other personalities let's just talk about school in general so for me i don't want my kids sitting at a desk for most of the day with a 20-minute lunch and a 20-minute recess and maybe a 40-minute gym period if it's gym that day maybe with a little art here there a little bit of music i don't want them sitting under fluorescent lighting for the majority of their year so for me when you're homeschooling you can school wherever you want it doesn't need to be at home it doesn't need to look anything like public school or private school that i think is something that maybe a lot of parents don't know if someone hasn't told them that or they don't know people are homeschooled or they haven't seen different styles of homeschooling there are certainly parents who try to recreate the school environment at home there are certainly parents that have a very classical approach to education a very traditional approach to education but that is nowhere reflective of every homeschool parent of every homeschool family and of every possibility there are parents that world school and they travel full-time there are parents that do on-schooling and they don't use curriculum at all it's student-led and they learn through experience there are families that do eclectic style homeschooling where they use some curriculum for certain subjects they do family subjects well maybe they learn one or two or three or most of their subjects together as a family so it doesn't need to be a situation where every student needs to have every subject at their grade level and you're like how would i ever do that that's very overwhelming that is not what we do and it's not probably ever what we will do and so i just want to encourage you that it doesn't need to look like school you don't need to be a certified teacher you don't need to be an expert in every subject or topic i am certainly not you guys and so just because i've been a teacher doesn't mean like oh you're a teacher of course you can homeschool absolutely not a lot of what you learn in school is not just your content area but classroom management a lot of that doesn't apply for homeschooling right and so do i think there are benefits to the fact that i was trained as a teacher and i have experience as a teacher of course but i also think that there are benefits to not having those things and mentalities that you need to like challenge all the time to make sure you're not pushing school values onto your kids when you're not looking to have those specific values so i just want to encourage you that you are able to do this and so if you're asking this question of like can i homeschool i'm also going to touch on in a minute like how do you make that work well i don't think it's actually even possible for us to homeschool i want to touch on that as well but i want to continue along this line of like not sitting at a desk all day not being inside all day you could go a different place every day you could go to the park you can school on your couch on the floor on your front porch in your backyard at the park wherever you want you could go on field trips once a week once a month a couple times a week you could go somewhere different every single day you get to decide that your kid can stand up and read or like my daughter goes on the trapeze in our playroom sometimes while we're reading they'll stretch on the floor like kids are getting in trouble for not being able to sit all day still and quiet i know not every teacher in every classroom expects their the children to sit still and quiet the whole day so i'm not trying to like give these sweeping generalizations but by and large as a teacher i can tell you that there is a lot of the day where your child is expected to sit and be still and be quiet and do their work and be in books sure there's project-based learning sure there are teachers that have them get up and have fun and sing and dance and all of those things but there is a certain amount of like sit still and be quiet and do your work that takes place that's not to say that my kids don't need to sometimes sit still and be quiet and do their work at home because they do but i can say to my kids which i do go out on the trampoline for a little while and we're gonna come back like go out on the trampoline get a snack and then i'll meet you back in here in however long and sometimes when they're having a great time i just let them go and when they get tired out and they're too tired to be like squirrely then we start back up again or maybe we start back up the next day that's what i mean homeschooling gives you so much freedom not just to connect with your kids not just to choose curriculum not to just choose how you approach subjects and from which worldview you approach those subjects but just in every aspect you get to decide you get to have control over those things so sure depending on what state you are in you will have certain requirements that you need to meet but it is not anywhere near as stringent as you may believe like i can speak from one of the strictest highly regulated states in the country and say that we still have a ton of freedom in the way that we homeschool and we are still able to meet the requirements that have asked that are asked of us by the state and so i just want to encourage you if you have that question should i homeschool i am here to tell you i believe yes you should i believe it is the best option like i said with the only disclaimer of like if home isn't a healthy or safe environment for the child and it truly is healthy or safer at school i want to touch on really quick what about well i can't my husband both my husband and i work there's no way we can homeschool i challenge that because of the fact that i've been there and not because i've lived this privileged life where i haven't had to worry about it we've made a lot of sacrifices to be able to homeschool if you followed our journey at all i up until very recently was working full-time my husband has on and off worked full-time and part-time and has traveled and done different things to make it possible for us to be able to like travel for work and different things for shorter and longer periods of time in order for us to make it possible to homeschool and so when i say to you that it is possible i truly believe that and i know people have different situations but i do believe there are ways to get creative about it if it really matters to you and so i want to touch on a couple of those things so maybe you have figured it out and there's absolutely no way my first question would be do you need as many vehicles as you have do you need as expensive at vehicles as you have do you need the biggest house do you need to have the newest iphone do you need to have all of those things maybe you're someone where you're like you know what i do really need to think about those things and maybe you're someone who you're like i don't do any of that i'm not materialistic i don't strive for more things and nicer things and big fancy vacations we are truly struggling to make ends meet so i don't see how this is possible do i believe that there's some situations where it truly is impossible i do but i don't think that that's the average i don't think so i think in most cases there are ways to work it out and i'm going to give you a couple examples and i know this is not going to touch on everyone's experience but for example say you figure it out and you're like you know what we have a small humble home we have one vehicle we do not have a lot of credit cards we are not spending a lot of money but we are truly struggling to make ends meet there is no way for one of us to no longer work we have tried to find work that pays more we've tried to have one of us work more than one job so the other one can stay home it is just not possible my first suggestion would be like are there grandparents that are more than happy to watch your children during the day maybe not maybe that's not your situation but maybe you just haven't thought about that possibility where it's like yeah but they're not going to homeschool them well they don't have to so that's kind of the beauty of homeschooling too it doesn't need to be during school hours it certainly does not need to be six to eight hours a day of instruction and it can happen on nights it can happen on weekends it can happen whenever it works for your family like it is truly so customizable and so flexible you could give them independent work where they don't really need much help if any help at all that they do during the day when they're with their grandparents or whoever might watch them during the day and then you give them instruction i've done this where i would teach them the main instruction or do lessons with them when i got out of work and then the next day while i was at work that's when they kind of did their independent study with those things and sometimes they were able to help one another and sometimes they weren't and sometimes they would tell me yeah i wasn't able to do that and i'm like okay well good try and so it definitely is possible if you think outside the box in most situations i'm not going to pretend to say in all situations i know that you can do it because i don't want to say that but i also believe that there are times where you can make sacrifices where one person doesn't work and i know many people who have done this even in a situation where they would never have thought it was possible i am one of them i do believe that god blessed us with a miracle with this job that my my husband was able to get which allowed me to come home full time and i do believe that if you align yourself with the heart of god and i do believe the heart of god is for parents to be able to homeschool their children and you are willing to make the sacrifices that need to be made and move in his timing and submit to what he's asking of you maybe it won't come right away but i do believe it will come i truly did not have the full faith to believe that it was going to happen you guys i'm going to be honest with you my husband did and he not only encouraged me in my faith but believed god for it and did the leg work and the hard work and did not give up until he made it happen so i just want to be an encouragement to you that it is very likely that with prayer and with talking it over with your spouse and with making some changes and some sacrifices and being creative you can make it work if you're already becoming curious if you're already feeling a tug on your heart if you're already looking into it to the point that you clicked on this video today chances are god is moving on your heart to homeschool your children and so i'm here not to cast judgment but to truly be a friend and a cheerleader to say like you can do this there is so much support the homeschooling community is honestly so supportive i'm not going to say that like they're not human like everybody else right but you will find support even if it's just on social media i have found a lot of support on social media both here on youtube and on instagram and have truly made friends with other moms other places in the country and we support one another and you can find homeschool groups and things possibly in your area and so if you have any questions definitely let me know down below there is so much more i can say about why you should homeschool i will be likely sharing very soon in the next couple of weeks how you get started like this is fine and good and i'm totally convinced but how do i get started so be on the lookout for that coming your way very soon but if you have specific questions you can ask them down in the comments below you can also always dm me over on instagram if you're not already following me there you can follow me there at rooted underscore home life i love truly to connect with you guys to help where i can i have so many moms reach out to me asking things about curriculum and schedule and all of the things so i love to talk through those things and help when i can i do not have all the answers i am not pretending to be an expert there are certainly much more experienced homeschool moms than me but i just want to extend that to you if that would help so if you're new here i would love if you'd introduce yourself down in the comments below if you like this video please give it a thumbs up if you're not already subscribed i would love if you'd stick around and i hope to see you soon in one of my next videos until next time stay rooted [Music]

Channel: Rooted HomeLife

Views: 40,695

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Id: aE6oNTFSbKc

Length: 22min 33sec (1353 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 21 2022