Welcome to Home Education Week at Principled Discovery (March 30-April 5)! Today’s topic is Looking Back.
Share your personal history…before you were a home educator. What was life like? Think about things you miss and things you and your family have gained.
Happy Home Education Week!
As I looked forward to my junior year of college, I faced a difficult question: What do you want to be when you grow up? Up to that point, I had worked to balance my course load to keep my options open. I knew the requirements for majors in German, education, history, political science, linguistics and journalism and made sure that most of the courses I selected would satisfy them. I had already declared and later changed my major twice.
It was then that I realized that the most attractive, if somewhat less than lucrative, profession was that of the career student. I loved college life. (And I lived at home!) I loved the studying, the papers, the late nights at Kinko’s. I thrived on the stress of managing due dates, finals and working full time. I reveled in the nonconformity of being a staunch conservative on a liberal campus. I spent many long hours on Wescoe beach or in the student union discussing politics with communists, socialists, anarchists and libertarians. I loved college life, but I couldn’t figure out how to get anyone to pay me for it. So I became a teacher. Which gave me all of the stress and few of the joys as I wrestled with balancing district demands with the best interests of my students.
Last week, as I pondered those unforeseen turns which brought me from being critical of home education to becoming a home educator, I realized something.
My life now is not so different from what it was back in college when I thought I found what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I love the studying, the lesson planning and the late nights looking for materials. I appreciate the freedom and the challenge which comes from writing my own curriculum. I enjoy the intellectual stimulation of joining in the public discussion of homeschooling through my blog. And, if truth be told, I kind of like the nonconformity of being a home educator in a society which takes sending your child off to school for granted.
There really is only one real difference: when I stumble across an interesting subject, our study does not stop when we close the book before the final exam. That and I don’t have to pay the University of Kansas for any of it.
Activity:
What is a holiday without a card? Hallmark wasn’t able to get the design to production quite quick enough for this year’s event, so I designed my own e-card. And now I offer it to all my readers and guests. Happy Home Education Week! It only takes a few minutes and you, too, can create a personalized e-card to celebrate this special week.
Are you sharing a bit about your life before homeschooling? Leave the link to your post here, and be sure to link to this post to share all the wonderful experiences others have chosen to share with your readers as well. I am looking forward to getting to know you all a little better this week!
The rest of the week’s prompts are listed here, where I will also be archiving these discussions.
[tags]homeschool, homeschooling, home school, home education, Home Education Week[/tags]
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
Happy Home Education Week! I enjoyed reading your post. In college, my mindset was to finish as soon as possible and get started on my career in accounting. After working for six years, I never really expected to be a stay-at-home mom and later a home educator. I also like being a nonconformist in homeschooling and other areas of life.
I never EVER would have thought I’d be a home educator when I had children. Those people were weird and controlling. But I guess life takes you in strange directions, and here I am. Of course, I was only going to have one child, and I was really hoping it would be a boy. Now I have three girls and a boy!
It’s funny–when I was in college I believed all the anti-home school propaganda I was getting from my professors, then my mil had to home school and I started teaching for real and it changed my mind forever.
Thanks!
Thank you, Dana, for this Home Education week. I’m excited and ready to go. We homeschooling Moms are sure blessed in 2008. It must have been hard on those homeschooling pioneers who paved the road for us - they didn’t have blogs, support and activity groups, and all the materials that we have available to us now. I’ll come back again tomorrow.
Great topic, great event! Thanks for getting us all together!
Happy Home Education Week! It’s great to celebrate the freedoms we have. I think I’ll enjoy this week!
Yay! Thanks for hosting this! I’ll be blogging on autism too this week. April is Autism Awareness Month!
Great post and topic. I’m sure this will get some prospective homeschoolers lots to think about.
Great idea, Dana- this is going to be a fun week!
[It was then that I realized that the most attractive, if somewhat less than lucrative, profession was that of the career student] Me too! I couldn’t figure out how to be paid to be a student either ~
This is such a fun idea. My post is up. Thanks for hosting.
Kim
If I ever won the lottery or became independently wealthy I would love the life of a career student.
I could see that in you, Julie.
Me too…but I have to make do with being an amateur student.
I am blessed that my husband makes enough that we don’t really have to worry about money. What little I make from blogging goes to materials for homeschooling so we can get some nice things…like a hotel room for a field trip!
Thank you everyone! I look forward to reading about your former lives. I’m a little jealous of those of you who knew what you wanted to do long before starting homeschooling. I barely agreed to it the day before we started. And I had no clue what I was doing, other than trying to get through a year before signing her up for first grade at the local school.
Mine’s up! I am going to enjoy reading these responses… thanks for inspiring me to take a walk down memory lane!
What a great idea, Dana. Thanks for putting this together.
I’m loving this idea, Dana…thanks for the prompt! My (not-too-comprehensive) post is up.
I’m enjoying all the posts - thanks for hosting!
Thank you so much, everyone! I am really enjoying the posts so far! And Lori, don’t worry about “comprehensiveness.” I really enjoyed your entry!
I must admit, I didn’t appreciate college days as much as I would appreciate them now. However, I do greatly enjoy studying with my children. It’s just frustrating to find the time! lol Thank you for the card!
Blessings,
Laurie
This is a great idea, thanks for hosting and organizing it. I enjoyed reading your story and agreed with so many of the points you made. I put my post in Mr. Linky. Julie
Ah! I thought this was Monday through Friday. Guess I should look at a calendar once in awhile.
I’ll get it up today hopefully before midnight. I have to scan some pictures. They’ll be good for a laugh!
Thanks for doing this! I can’t wait to read everyone’s entries!
Bev.
I almost left it for Monday through Friday because a lot of people don’t post on Sundays. But you can join in any time, and the linkies will be up for at least a week. (At that point, I may transfer the links directly to the post so y’all can get real links, and so that they don’t fill with spam, which always seems to happen after awhile!)
Thanks for hosting this week! I’ve added my first post. Happy Home Education Week (from another former classroom teacher)!
I wanted to be a full-time student too!
That is definitely a perk to homeschooling - I get to study all the time!
Thank you so much for hosting this. My post is here:
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/andijeane/507524/
~Andrea
I messed up the url on #32. If you can delete that one, it would be great.
Thanks and sorry.
This is such a great idea. Thanks! It’s always so good to look back and be able to put today in perspective.
Mine’s up, but that smiley face follows me everywhere in Mr. Linkey. How did it end up by my name? I don’t even like smileys very much. They seem necessary trying to communicate without any facial expressions, but that one haunts me.
Don’t laugh too hard at our picture. I didn’t write much about life before kids, because the photo expresses our wanderlust pretty well.
Renae, I think it’s a temporary thing that recognizes your IP number or something, and shows the smiley to highlight your entry in the list. There’s no smiley next to anyone else’s name in the list when I view it, but there’s one after mine now!
Dana, thanks for hosting the discussion!
Cheers,
Ruby in Montreal
Thank you everyone! I will look forward to reading the rest later, but right now, it is after 10 and I have to edit my post for tomorrow to get it up. I meant to have it by 9, but totally did not figure in the fact that we weren’t going to be home this evening.
Ruby,
Thanks! I thought I was just looking obnoxious. Often the little things fly by my slow processing brain. My husband thinks it hilarious, while I just feel stupid.
I may have done this wrong. I posted tomorrows post and added my name on the linky for today? I dont know if each of your posts are going to have a linky on them but I guess if they do I will repost my name tomorrow. Sorry about the confusion.
Thanks for doing this. Im looking forward to it.
My daughter once asked me what I did all the time before I was a mom. Now Dana is asking what I did before homeschooling. I can’t remember on either count! Whatever it was, I’m glad I traded up.
Its alright. I was late in getting tomorrow’s up since we were out all evening. You can slip it in tomorrow’s when you see it! Thank you for participating!
I found your Home Education Week right before bed but I snuck a post in. I’ll look forward to reading some others tomorrow.
Great! I am glad you slipped it in there. There is no exact cut off. Some time next week, I’ll convert the linkies to in post links to manage spam, but the links will remain for everyone to come back and check on.
Dana we sound so much alike
I too “love the studying, the lesson planning and the late nights looking for materials. I appreciate the freedom and the challenge which comes from writing my own curriculum” (only for my son of course)
Jen
So excited! You are awesome for doing this!
You are most welcome…I have really enjoyed reading the responses, although I’m a tad behind. I’ll catch up, however.
WOW - - it was like reading my story….except I am a bit of a liberal and I went to Emporia State University (although, I do have a special place in my heart for KU.)
Oh, and I majored in education first - - and then found out that I could not TEACH - - I would have to just deliver whatever the school wanted me to deliver….AND deal with the politics. No thank you.
I changed majors several times - - until I just decided to get a Bachelor’s of Integrated Studies!!
That was great - - thanks for sharing!! : )
Here I am - nearly a week late. What else is new? Gotta do priorities, and then what you can when you can
I will try to do as many of the posts as I can, but first is up anyhow.
Great! I haven’t finished reading all the other entries, yet, so I won’t miss yours!