Meet Sarah
Every month here at Patterns for Life we highlight an individual homeschool mom through a written interview in order to encourage and inspire our readers. We know it can be helpful to meet — whether virtually or in real life — other mothers who are in the trenches with us here and now, and can relate to our daily struggles and joys.
This month we are pleased to introduce Sarah, a second-generation homeschool mom who has some fabulous insights and observations for us.
1. Tell us about yourself and your family.
1. I am a second generation homeschooler in Washington State where I live with my husband, three daughters (age 16, 14. and 12) and brand new baby boy. I stumbled across Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education when my oldest daughter was just about two years old, and the worldview and ideas made so much sense to me; later we “stumbled” our way into the Orthodox Church and suddenly I once again didn’t look back but dove right in. I believe the two elements that have shaped me are compatible with one another.
In addition to homeschooling, I also serve on the leadership team for Charlotte Mason Northwest, and long to see a flourishing and connected CM community in the Pacific Northwest (www.charlottemasonnw.org). These days if I’m not feeding or changing a baby or reading aloud or teaching math, I’ve probably got my nose in a book or am trying to put a few stitches in a cross stitch project.
2. How long have you been homeschooling and what motivated you to start in the first place?
I have been homeschooling “from the start” as they say. I truly believe education begins so early, and it just looks different with each progressive stage; I started formal lessons ten years ago with my oldest when she turned six. I loved being homeschooled and always hoped to give that gift to my own children. As I myself grew up, I understood how to teach myself or learn things that I wanted to know; I loved the closeness I had with my family, especially my siblings. I loved the rich literature-based learning I had and wanted that for my children — and I wanted to spend all the time with them I could! I had a hard time imagining sending them off to be in someone else’s care all day every day when they were young; and as they got older I have loved the rich and deep connection and conversations we have as we grow together.
3. Describe a typical homeschool day in your home.
This year with a middle schooler and two high schoolers (and now an infant) we typically start the day in “Together Time” at breakfast with Scripture, reading or listening to the story of one of the saints for the day, poetry, foreign language, economics, sentence diagramming, geography, current events — anything I can reasonably group together with the ages I have. Afterward everyone works on math semi-independently, and we separate for individual work, (mostly reading and writing). I typically meet with each of my students for about an hour each day to read aloud together any “challenge” books that might be more difficult for them to read independently, to hear narrations from independent readings, and go over essays or other writing assignments. Somewhere in the middle of the day we try to come together and eat lunch (depending on my energy level with the baby) at which point we might do any of the things I listed that I try to cover in the morning together; I also usually have a purely delightful book I read aloud a little at a time during this period. In the transition times when no one needs me or is ready to meet with me, I try to read any written narrations they have handed in from the previous day – or move over laundry or start dinner, or change a diaper. I have done this long enough to know that in a year our routine may look completely different with ages and stages shifting for each of us. But overall this routine has been consistent the last several years. We also participate in two homeschool co-ops but neither meet every week of the year; one social/elective co-op (not Charlotte Mason) and one small “Riches” co-op which includes things like Art study, Music/Composer study, Nature study and journaling, Plutarch, and Shakespeare. The latter is new this year and is one of our favorite activities of our school.
4. What is your favorite part of homeschooling?
Selfishly, my favorite part might be learning alongside my children and furthering my own education. I have grown, changed, and learned so much over the past ten years, and my thought-life, conversation, interests and perspectives have widened and become so rich — just what I hope for and see occur in my children! For example, before homeschooling I didn’t have a very clear understanding of world history and how the different eras, nations, wars, and cultures all fit together, influencing one another, until I read our history books through as an adult. Now I can trace threads of consequence in really interesting ways throughout world history.
Oh, and the books! Oh the glorious books that have drawn us further up and further in! I can’t skip mentioning them!
5. Does homeschooling affect the way you parent? If so, how?
Homeschooling is parenting; and parenting is educating. Obviously we can (and often should) outsource elements of our children’s education, but at the end of the day, we are ultimately responsible for the education of these young ones the Lord has given us. I have read Charlotte Mason’s second volume, Parents and Children, so many times that the truths and ideas she discusses have become integrated into the fabric of my parenting, and our family life. I love this quote: “Only at home can children be trained in the chivalrous temper of ‘proud submission and dignified obedience’; and if the parents do not inspire and foster deference, reverence, and loyalty, how shall these crowning graces of character thrive in a hard and emulous world?” What a high calling and challenge — to inspire, foster, and teach these crowning graces of character! I try to live this out in my own relationships, demonstrating my own proud submission and dignified obedience to those in authority over me and in turn, expecting this of my children as it pertains to the work I set for them, to their relationships within and outside the family, to their commitments, and to their understanding of the world and the orderly way the Lord has best provided for us to live.
6. What is your least favorite part of homeschooling?
I find it so challenging to manage the constant pull between all the roles I have, especially the struggle to be a home-maker as well as a home-educator. If I could, I would probably like to hire a housekeeper who could come and take some basic tasks off my plate, like cleaning the bathrooms, making my bed and pushing through laundry, or vacuuming (ugh, I hate vacuuming). I actually enjoy schooling my children so much that I would rather invest more time and energy in that role than I am really able to right now.
7. What have you found to be the most humbling aspect of parenting/homeschooling?
It is upsetting to face how short-tempered I am and how quickly I am tempted to treat my children with disdain. My face flushes a little with shame over this habit that has snuck in as my children get older and I think they should be “more capable” than they are in any given moment. This requires frequent repentance and apologies. This answer seems so contrary to the above answer where I said how much I enjoy homeschooling; but somehow both are true. Though in the big picture I can really say I enjoy our days, the planning, the teaching, the reading, in the small moments of math-resistance, or the stamped foot when told they need to do two written narrations each day instead of only one, I am quick to respond with frustration or impatience. Thank the Lord for His mercy and forgiveness and I am grateful to my girls for their repeated forgiveness.
8. Looking back to the beginning of your homeschool journey, what are some things you wish you had known? What would you tell your younger self as she was just starting out?
Don’t worry about the checklists but do work diligently through the plan you have. Trust that oral narration really does progress to written narrations and then to beautiful essays and creative writing when paired with living books, grammar, and copywork. Also, keep praying and watching for community in your homeschooling — and you will be overjoyed when it arrives. Don’t forget to file your Intent to Homeschool paperwork each year, and don’t procrastinate tracking your high schooler’s transcript.
9. How does your faith affect your homeschooling?
I would say it influences every aspect, from our scheduling to the content of our school days! We place a high priority on attending as many church services as we can reasonably do; given the fact that we currently live a half hour out of the nearest town where our church is, this is sometimes difficult especially with a new baby, but we do love to get to one morning Divine Liturgy midweek as well as some evening services. We structure our days around this element of our faith, as well as reading or listening to the life of a saint daily, reading wisdom from church Fathers during our morning time and praying together. We take monthly field trips alongside our church’s school to visit the monastery an hour away and the instruction my girls receive from one of the nuns there is very valuable. On the more personal side, I find that my faith holds me together; I am learning to eradicate anxiety from my heart, to more fully entrust the Lord with my children, myself and our family’s future, and to walk humbly before my children and repent and apologize to them when I fail to respond to them with grace and peace.
10. What are some of your favorite homeschool resources?
Ambleside Online! We have used AO since day 1 of homeschooling and the longer I school, the more confident I am in adjusting the curriculum to meet our family’s specific needs, but overall I still use their resources and curriculum as my guide and I’m so thankful for all the free resources provided there. I am a fairly simple homeschooler, and don’t do a lot of fancy stuff. We use A Humble Place for Artist Study resources, and I love to use Sabbath Mood Homeschool’s science curricula. One resource that I never get enough time to enjoy fully is the archive of Parent’s Review articles (the journal produced by Charlotte Mason and coworkers about education for many years), which are chock-full of ideas, philosophy, practical tips, history and more. You can find many of these on the AO website, and also at www.charlottemasonpoetry.org.
11. What do you consider to be the most rewarding aspect of homeschooling?
Deep relationship formation with people, things, ideas, and books. I love the idea that education is really about forming connections and relationships between things, what Miss Mason calls “the science of relations.” I think it is so exciting and reward to see these form in real time in the hearts and minds of my children!
12. Anything else you’d like to add?
As a second generation homeschooler, I find that I worry less about whether I will “cover everything” or whether there will be holes in my children’s education — of COURSE there will be! There is no such thing as a perfectly comprehensive education, not in a homeschool, public school, charter school, or private school —nowhere! A perfect education would mean we had achieved perfection in our children and they had no more growing or learning to do: not possible! I have found this recognition to be very encouraging for myself, and other homeschoolers I have discussed this with have said it is so freeing to remember that no matter where their children were to be educated, they would have “holes.” We must consider carefully, be thoughtful and diligent, and trust the Lord with the rest! He cares even more deeply about our children’s hearts, souls and minds than even we do!
Thank you, Sarah! I’m right there with you on my favorite part of homeschooling being that I get to learn alongside my children; what a joy!
So much wisdom here, thanks for sharing, Sarah!
I wonder how much misery in education at all levels, K through university, whether public, private, or religious, is just caused by this needless anxiety about “covering everything.” I like Sarah’s response to this dilemma very much.