Have you ever considered…

home schooling? This was the question asked by our friend who was visiting us one afternoon in the summer of 2008. She observed that Rilla was about Kindergarten age (she was turning 5 in a couple months) and was curious to know if we had even heard of such a thing. At this time, we had already decided that she was going to repeat the 4’s class of preschool, because of her “late” birthday. She was enrolled for the fall, but this question had planted the seed in our minds.

Our friend was currently homeschooling 3 of her in Virginia. After having “done the research”, she had decided that Classical Conversations (founded in Virginia 15 years ago by Leigh Bortins) was a good fit. She went on to describe the academic interests of her kids, how enthusiastic they are of learning, the flexibility of their family schedule, the increased socialization among peers of various ages and from different backgrounds, the support group of CC, and generally how pleased she was. By this point, she had been homeschooling for 4 years and was currently the Director of a chapter of Classical Conversations.

It was eye-opening to hear of her experience. Although we had heard of homeschooling, we had not yet been given much insight to one family’s daily schedule and lifestyle . Some time ago, we found the blog of one family who was traveling abroad with their middle-school aged children. They were homeschooling them and traveling the world weeks at a time. Imagine that – exposure to foreign cultures, ideas, landscapes, experiences with your family and learning as you travel the world?! It seemed exciting and unusual to us. But, if we were to have this type of life experience (actually it seemed more like a unique lifestyle) how could we set ourselves up to make this happen? Between a chance encounter with a family’s blog and an enlightening conversation with a friend did our journey begin…

The following summer 2009, we attended an Informational Meeting at the “local” CC chapter in Hamden, CT. Actually, it is the only one in CT, even one of the first in New England! We met several wonderful, kind, like-minded and like-valued families. We considered that homeschooling could be a grand experiment for us. What could happen in one year’s trial? I mean, it’s not like I’d have to teach Rilla rocket science, nor would she be missing out if we didn’t enroll her into the school system. Besides, Max was continuing his final year of preschool 3 days a week which would guarantee one-on-one time to teach Rilla. This circumstance would afford a year’s time to transition into home schooling. And from there, we’d take it one year at a time.