1990 January/February issue Part 1

Homeschooling

A reader asks me, as grandmother and outside observer of homeschooled children, to answer her questions. Is any school out of the question for Christians?

1989 January/February issue Part 3

A Child Learns Self-Denial - Part 1

One of the countless blessings of my life is having a daughter who actually asks for my prayers and my advice (and heeds the latter). She phoned from California this morning, describing the difficulties of home-schooling three children in grade six, four, and one, when you also have a four-year-old who is doing nursery school and a two-year-old who, Colleen, who wants to do everything. And on November 19, Evangeline Mary was born, so a nursing baby now claims attention as well. How to give Colleen proper attention and teach her also to occupy herself quietly for what seems to her long periods? Valerie was deeply concerned over whether she was doing all she should for that little one.

I reminded her of the women of the Bible times- while probably not homeschooling her children, an ordinary village women would have been working very hard most of the time, carrying heavy water jars, grinding grain, sweeping, planting, and cooking while tending children. This was true also of the Indians with whom Val grew up. An Indian mother never interrupted her days’ work to sit down with a small child and play or read a story, yet the children were always more or less with her, watching her work, imitating her, learning informally. They had a strong and secure home base, “and so have yours,” I told her. “Don’t worry! You are not doing Colleen an injustice. Quite the contrary. You are giving her wonderful things: a stable home, your presence in that home, a priceless education just in the things she observes.”

1987 July/August issue Part 4

Homeschooling

My daughter Valerie Shepard homeschools three of her five children (the other two are pre-school age). Her son Walter, the oldest, attended kindergarten and first grade before the decision was made to homeschool. Some of you have asked what advantages homeschooling offers, so I asked Val what she has discovered. Here is her answer: