In May I permanently handed Math and Science over to my husband, Tim. I have wanted him involved from the beginning, and now that he is it’s really hard to let go.

I had reviewed basic arithmetic with the girls for quite sometime. They had just finished turning fractions into decimals the week before. My 11 year old was really into it. She asked me if there was a way to predict how many places over the decimal would repeat just by looking at the numerator and or denominator. I didn’t know and said causally, “Ask Daddy.”

The next day she systematically came up with fractions and charted the results of turning them into decimals. My husband saw the pages and pages of it next to her piano music.

He asked where we left off and I told him. It was his big debut as the math and science guy and I was overwhelmed with a desire to tell him how to do things. I knew I should keep my mouth shut but the inner conflict was killing me. I wanted to go on about which kid is more verbal, which one is better at abstractions, their learning styles, their personalities, their quirks, which math materials were manipulatives, etc. Instead, I listened to...

I recently volunteered in our church nursery to help with an upcoming high attendance day.  However, I warned the staffing coordinator that there was only one teeny-weeny little problem.  I knew with absolute certainty that when the day arrived for me to show up and actually work in the nursery, it could be guaranteed that I will have forgotten. 

This new mom smiled, and said, “Oh I understand.  Isn’t that just awful when you know there’s something you’re supposed to be doing, and it just nags at you and nags at you ... and it takes forever for you to remember it?”   I looked back at her with what I think was a pained expression and said, “Before I homeschooled, that was my experience too.  What you just said?  That was it!  But now...it doesn’t even nag at me.  It’s just gone!” 

It’s not that my brain has become empty.  On the contrary, it’s that it has become overwhelmingly full.  And not full of lovely, high and lofty thoughts such as what powerful symbolism that oil painting is revealing to me....or just how many angels can dance...

We were home schooling when nobody was homeschooling. We started with our firstborn son in his kindergarten year, 1980--81. It started out as a matter of convenience (we didn't like public school but lived a half-hour commute from our church's Christian school) but soon grew into a conviction.

Over three decades later, we have never experienced a moment of doubt as to our choice. That little boy in kindergarten is now a college graduate, a lawyer and a married man with three children, all of whom he and his wife plan on teaching at home. He is also the eldest of our fourteen sons and daughters. His younger siblings, some of whom are also the parents of our 11 grandchildren, are homeschooling as well. Obviously, our children are as pleased as their parents are with the method of education we chose.

Over the years, of course curious people have asked us why we made the decision to begin and continue homeschooling our children. There are many reasons we love it, but for the sake of brevity I'll share a few here.

First, we love having so much time with our children. It hurts us to hear parents talk about how glad they will be when the kids go back...

HOMESCHOOLING: NOT JUST AN EDUCATIONAL OPTION...  

When we begin home-schooling, most of us view homeschooling as one of three options for educating our children – we can choose public school, private school or home school. And we choose homeschooling for a multitude of reasons as the best alternative for our family. It may be that our child needs more one-on-one attention, or that he is being bullied, or that we want to teach academics from a biblical perspective.

Whatever the reason we begin homeschooling, we spend a lot of time focusing on the “schoolish” aspects of education. I even went so far as to pack my children’s lunch and send them out the back door to return via the front door to be welcomed and taught by “Mrs. Karman.” When the bell rang, my children filed into their desks in the schoolroom.

That didn’t last long.

In homeschool support group meetings, we talked about the difference between home school and home education. We realized that, after all, a real education wasn’t dependent on bringing all the trappings of school into the home. Education was:

The...

On April 28th, 2004, the police uncovered a family (father and daughter) deep in the forest in northwest Oregon. Homeless and destitute, the father had opted not to leave his daughter to grow up on the streets. Instead, he took her into the woods, and for four years they lived in a lean-to in the forest. Police were amazed to find the girl clean, healthy, and. . . educated! There in the forest, the father had homeschooled his daughter with nothing but a Bible and a decrepit set of encyclopedias. Officials tested the twelve-year-old and found that she had already achieved a 12th-grade equivalency. Now,ask yourself, how could this be? There was no department of education. No certified teacher. No expensive curriculum. No notice-of-intent to homeschool and no standardized tests. So what was the secret? Police Sgt, Michael Barkley, told reporters, “What was so clear was that their living conditions were unacceptable, but their relationship was a real deep love and caring for each other” (Source www.katu.com).

There are some factors in the education of a child that transcend all others. Because they are so basic and powerful, they eliminate the need for...