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I love the turn from summer to fall. I love the colors, I love it when you can smell fall in the air, I love chilly mornings that require a sweater. And I love school supplies!

The back to school buzz always gets to me. Loved it as a student, found it exciting (and terrifying) as a teacher, and now I am loving reading the homeschool blogs I follow as parents gear up for a new year of schooling. Since AG is still three and our “homeschooling” pretty much consists of getting books from the library and playing Candy Land using Spanish words for the colors ;), I don’t have much to add to the back to school excitement. But, I thought it might be a good time to share why we are planning to homeschool.

I always loved school. I attended two different excellent private Christian schools K-10, and finished my high school years in a well respected public school district. I can honestly say that I enjoyed both, both gave me excellent academic training and extracurricular opportunities, and God used both forms of education to shape and prepare me for the life He had called me to.

My husband also loved school. He attended two different public schools K-12, with one year of Christian schooling his 9th grade year (but that was a missionary kid school in Brazil, and that is a whole different story!) He also excelled academically and thoroughly enjoyed the social circles and extracurricular opportunities these schools offered him.

We had such positive schooling experiences that we had always agreed that we would consider public or private schooling depending on our children, the area we lived in, and what God laid on our hearts. But not homeschooling. No way! Those homeschool kids were weird and they missed out on all the things we loved about school!

Oh, how God has a sense of humor.

Four years ago I was pregnant with AG. I was sitting at my desk doing data entry at work listening to our local Christian radio station. During Focus on the Family, a homeschool family was interviewed. And it changed my life.

This family had such an articulate, well thought through understanding of why they were homeschooling. They knew exactly what they were trying to prepare their kids for, and deliberately chose homeschooling as the best way to disciple their children and prepare them for life in the “real world.” This was the first time that I had really heard a well-reasoned approach to homeschooling other than “keeping your kids out of public school.” The ‘keeping your kids out’ argument never sat well with us – first of all because we both had attended and benefited from public school, and secondly because the goal was avoiding our culture rather than engaging it. If I remember right, the Great Commission wasn’t “go therefore and avoid all sinful people.”

As I listened to this program, I stopped doing my data entry and bowed my head right at my desk, confessing to God how stubbornly opposed I had been to homeschooling and yielding my will – if He called us to homeschool, I was willing to do it. That was not an easy thing to say. Lo and behold, God took that seed of willingness and has grown it – and now I am thoroughly convinced that God is clearly guiding us down the homeschooling path.

This week I’d like to share several reasons why we have chosen to homeschool (this post would be WAAAAYYY too long if I did it all in one!). Now, I want to clearly state that I am quite positive that homeschooling is not for everyone. Don’t read these posts as judgement against you if your family is not homeschooling. Like I have already stated, my husband and I had very positive private and public educational experiences. I know many people who are passionately devoted to teaching in and supporting both types of schools – and praise the Lord that His people are following His call! What I share will be the reasons that we have come to the conclusion that homeschooling is the best choice for us at this time.

To be continued… [This series is four parts - I invite you to read Radical Discipleship, Packing for Ephesus, and Quality Stamped all over it!]

I’d love to hear back from you about your schooling experiences and what you are doing/ plan to do with your kids and why!