How do we teach our children to stand tall? How do we teach them to live up to the blessings of freedom we have been given simply by being citizens of this great nation? What does any of this have to do with homeschooling?
When we homeschool, we do it to give our children (those people whom we love more than anything in the world) their best opportunity for a good life. To get ourselves to the precipice of homeschooling, many of us must travel through a winding path, unraveling a lifetime of preconceived notions about the dangers of straying from the beaten path of public school. But when we emerge and begin our homeschool journey, children by our side, the light is brighter. The air clearer. And the rewards are beyond all measure.
Standing tall is the first step. Society trains us to follow. Follow what the teacher tells us, don’t have a different point of view. Follow what our elected officials tell us, don’t disagree. Follow what the society, created by those elected officials, itself dictates, don’t speak out. We are trained so thoroughly not to think for ourselves that as individuals we learn to keep our heads down. Don’t stand out. Don’t voice a different point of view. Be part of a committee. A committee at the public school. A committee in your neighborhood. A committee to make a change.
The days of our country’s forefathers are gone. We no longer as a society value individual thought and exceptionalism. We value following. Our elected officials have become bigger than us. Somehow they no longer work to serve us, but the other way around. We are not standing tall as a society, rather everyone stoops as society crumbles around us. Rome is burning and we fear reprisals and recriminations if we speak out at every level: neighborhood, city, state, and nation. And so most do not stand tall.
But homeschooling is standing tall. We are putting all we have on the line for the future. We sacrifice by homeschooling. We give up two-income family life. We take on the costs of education without subsidy of others tax dollars. We spend countless nights studying learning materials so that we can better educate our children. We shelter our children from negative comments by family and outsiders whose negative feelings are fueled by their own insecurities about the paths they have taken but not chosen for themselves. We stand tall by thinking clearly. Always thinking clearly.
And by doing so, we teach our children to think clearly. And to always, always stand tall.
