home school



This print came from Ann's post on homeschooling today

 home:  The place where a person lives, a family living together in one place.  (Websters)

school:  a place where children go to learn, the activity or process of learning or teaching. (Websters)

Ann states "Education is the atmosphere we breathe... held by the gravity of our daily habits."

I know the term "homeschool" has a particular meaning in our current culture but when I read Ann's post today about Organizing Head and Heart to Homeschool, I thought how every momma in the world homeschools.  Don't we?

Life lessons, God lessons, family lessons, home life and even academic  lessons all layered together in the atmosphere of our home.  

Once, as a parent, I grasp that my role is not just provider, home manager, meal preparer,  laundress, activity director, {that list does go on and on, doesn't it) but also, {mainly}  one-who-schools, then I look at all those opportunities {challenges} quite differently.   And even move into the proactive approach of planning some lessons, rather than just reacting to life circumstances.

Circling back to Ann's post you really do need to wrap your head and heart around this fact, preparing both for the activity of teaching in our home life.  Does my home have the "atmosphere" conducive to learning, to teaching?   Does my heart?  Does my schedule?

How well would my children learn from a grouchy, stressed teacher, who doesn't have time for them in a chaotic setting and rushed schedule?

Like Ann, I realize, that God has all the strength and wisdom to assist me.  He is doing a corner by corner, reorganization of my heart, mind, home and life.  As each corner falls into its right place, more space, time and peace is freed up...more "atmosphere" develops to encase, protect, nurture and add structure to this great calling:  family and family and family...as each child grows and builds a family of their own and repeats home  school. 

Ann sums it up best: "Atmosphere is the warmth that holds us and grows us and our fragrance can last generations."

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ps. I just thought...for those without little ones in their home...or maybe who even live alone, aren't we all teaching somebody something....in every life our shoulders brush by and every email exchange in cyberspace.   We are schooling something.     That wrinkled hand we squeeze, that harried clerk we smile and whisper a prayer for, that frustrated momma in line speaking too harshly to her children, that postman bored perhaps with his routine (remember Fred?), we can carry an atmosphere that even for a moment or day or lifetime will envelope someone else and teach the heart of Jesus.