I receive a considerable amount of emails asking many of the same type of homeschooling questions. While some responses are quick, others take a few days of consideration before I can respond. The other day, at the end of a thought provoking email exchange, and with some of your comments from my post on learning incentives still percolating, the following question popped into my head.
When it comes to our kids’ education, where does the rubber meet the road?
As in, Jeff and I have been homeschooling our children for years now, but is there a specific point where we will clearly see how their education holds up? Is there a moment when it will register how conditioned they are for life’s race? How will Jeff and I know if we effectively equipped them? Will there be an experience or moment that provides the blessed assurance that “Yes! INDEED! Here’s all the proof we need that we did it right! Drive on, crouton!”
There is such a growing concern for standards and testing–for what? Have we proven ourselves if our children graduate high school or its equivalence with a 4.0 grade point average? Is college the marker? Is it a Bachelor’s, Master’s or Doctorate that proves the overall success of their educational endeavors?
Each question leads to another question until it becomes one of those yes or no flow charts that ultimately circle back to the same starting point, regardless of the answers.
Or maybe we’re asking the wrong questions.
What exactly are we striving toward in the educational choices we make with and for our kids? How do we measure something as personal as how one learns and integrates information into their minds and then applies it? Is the application of that knowledge the truest indicator? Is it even relevant? Or maybe, some application of knowledge is relevant, but no one is expected to retain or apply it all?
Who is the judge?
Us? The kids? Their colleges or universities that accept or deny them? Their future employers?
Do you see how it goes on and on and on until the concept is more of a dissection than an actual discovery?
Does the rubber meet the road when Meredith gets accepted to nursing school or Kenny becomes a mechanical engineer (or whatever else they choose to do)? At that point do Jeff and I get to pat ourselves on the back and say, “Aha! Homeschooling was the best choice for us/them!” Or did the rubber meet the road today when I found a way to explain that quirky rule on negative integers with exponents and Kenny finally understood it. Was I a success then? I know he certainly was a proud young man.
When is learning real? When does it matter? When have we achieved success?
I’m asking a lot of questions, I realize, but it is because I tire of all the definitions of success that we unload on ourselves and each other–directly or indirectly. And yet, at the same time I want to make sure Jeff and I are providing all our kids need to run the race ahead of them.
When considering your kids, where do you believe the rubber meets the road in their education? When, how or where do you think you will nod your head and say, “Yep, there it is…that’s what it was all about!”?
Heather Sanders is a leading homeschooling journalist who inspires homeschooling families to live, love and learn. Married to Jeff, Heather lives in the East Texas Piney Woods where she currently home schools two of her three kids.