I'm Selfish

What would possess me, at this stage of my life, to homeschool? The real deal is this. I don't have a stellar education under my belt, I didn't graduate from college with the highest honors, I don't remember ever even taking calculus, and I'm not crazy about Jane Austin. But I am selfish. Let me explain myself.

We had G all signed up and ready for kindergarten. Then one day, during my morning run, I panicked. I broke out in a sweat. I made a decision. Numerous times I had laughed off my husband's suggestions to homeschool, but now, selfishly, I decided to try it. How hard could kindergarten be? I couldn't bear to not spend all day with her; to not know what she was doing for most of her wakening hours.

So here I am, seven years later still being selfish. The real deal is that thanks to my hard-working and supportive husband, I am able to have an early morning run; prepare a healthy breakfast; relearn or more often learn math concepts; draw the systems of human anatomy; parse and diagram sentences; memorize the 72 phonograms in the English language; coach piano and violin; and study the geography of the world. And we spend lots of time reading about history. Why? Because I love it. Selfish.

We are involved with a local Classical Conversations homeschooling community. By using their history curriculum, we have learned a chronological timeline spanning over 160 events from ancient empires to modern times. What works for us is that we concentrate on a certain time period and we record these events as we read about the people that made them happen in a Book of the Centuries. We keep one altogether, so that I get to do one (selfish), and then each of the girls record in their own timeline book. My goal for this year is to be able to narrate the history of the US by recalling, from memory, 24 significant events and the people who made them happen.

So now you know the real deal about why I homeschool. In the words of Henry David Thoreau,
"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of too much life. Be not simply good; be good for something."