Help With Your Mother's Rule is a forum for women who want trouble-shooting
help with their Mother's Rules or about any aspect of the 5 Ps of
the married vocation.Ask Holly: This blog is composed of your questions. Contact me at the address listed on Holly's Helpers page and I will respond. Please share your unique ideas as well. The more ideas and experience we share, the more successful every mother will be in designing her own unique Mother's Rule.
Your question comes from the heart, and that is good. The first thing to consider is what God's Will for your family is... and this is normally understandable by Church teaching re: your vocation and what the circumstances in your life point to.
ReplyDeleteChurch teaching - we are primary educators of our children and are obligated, or better, called to the mission, of educating our children, most especially in faith and morals, but also in interpersonal relationships, social relations, etc. The call to educate is your primary mission as a parent, and so it is not out of place to look at homeschooling - far from it, in our present culture that is so secular and anti-Gospel.
Secondly, circumstantial - you are noticing signs: an older child who is becoming disrespectful, thus upsetting the community of persons and love relationship in your own family; a middle child who struggles in the institutionalized setting; your own heart which senses and discerns the need to address all of this.
I'd say these are very clear signs that you may be called to homeschool.
Another indication is your expertise - a Masters in Education. I too am getting a Masters in Catholic Education right now, and I can share with you my own sense of this -
I believe God needs mothers who are educators to begin to live and study the homeschool vocation, in order to bring the philosophical and technical skill to other mothers through our own experience, as well as to begin to look at the educational issues that the homeschool needs addressed, from a Catholic perspective. A large way that the Lord helps people is by us sharing our experience. But we have to live it, as well as study it - to become real professionals within this humble context - in order to later, help others who are also called.
I believe homeschooling is a new movement of the Holy Spirit and a very necessary mission in today's secular culture. I also believe that , while not everyone is called to homeschool, that many are called - and that for lack of grasp of what to teach, the aims of Catholic education, and how to live and educate in the new 'family setting' of education, many fall away unnecessarily and leave the vocation that God calls them to.
People like you are needed, in my humble opinion, in order to begin to live the vocation and study the vocation and find solutions to the issues in the vocation , in order to eventually bolster and support others in this new work of the Lord. That is my sense here and in my own life. So, to me, your very degree is a serious indication, in union with your other signs, that homeschooling may very well be God's Will for you, and for your family.
Part II
ReplyDeleteONe additional way to totally discern this is to examine homeschooling via internet and literature,and present the case to your husband for further discernment. If the two of you pray on it, and reflect, and let the Lord talk to you, his 'Yes' to homeschooling will be the clincher.
With God, your heart, your children's requests and your husband's OK all on the homeschooling side - how could you place the opinions of others above God and your family's discernment? how could you permit under-confidence (when you are so clearly capable as your degree shows) to undermine God's obvious Will? Remember the 5 loaves and two fish....
The challenge I see you will no doubt undergo, as I have undergone, is to learn to broaden your understanding of education to include all the experiences of life as opposed to just an academic curriculum, and to see education as life, instead of the homogenous classroom. You may struggle to understand multi-level education and how to incorporate your youngest into your homeschool - but these are all things that are possible - merely skills and growth in worldview and paradigm-alteration...
BUt how exciting! This would be a time of great growth for you, not only as a mother and as a person, but as a professional. The Catholic homeschooling movement is going to need trained educators who have lived this new model of Catholic Education in order to help future generations.
From all these things you mention, I suspect you are called to this. It is a challenge I think the Lord may be asking you to consider.
Remember the words of JPII - "Put out into the deep" - reflecting Jesus' call to Peter to set forth on the mission, even when he'd tried and failed at his catch of fish.
Ask the Lord to show you, and to make firm your heart through grace. I believe He will show you and He can remove your trepidation regarding family or friends.
Holly,
ReplyDeleteI wonder if I might tack on a question and ask you to elaborate a bit on this topic. I have been homeschooling our 7 year old for two years. I have jumped from curriculum to curriculum, not being satisfied with any one. Recently, I discovered John Holt and have been reading about unschooling. While, I don't think I can be a total unschooler (given my controlling nature), I am intrigued by creating opportunities where my children can learn in an environment that is naturally motivating for them, but I don't know how to create those opportunities. In addition, I frankly don't know how to find the balance between some standard curriculum and life experience learning. My children greatly prefer the latter.
Because I have not yet found the success that I deem ideal, I often question whether we are called to homeschool. However, much of that is based on fear and I try to remind myself often that God's plan for success often doesn't look like my own.
I wonder if you might have some thoughts on this, and I hope also that your answer may be enlightening to the original poster.
Thank you for your ministry.
Holly, could you please expand on the issues needing to be resolved re. homeschooling? My husband and I are also discerning this and want to go in (if we so decide) with eyes wide open.
ReplyDeleteWe have two in a Catholic school and two little ones and the school is good but we often wonder if it is the best fit for our family on the whole.
Thank you for your ministry. I've been a lurker here, but it and your book have been instruments of grace for me.
I would simply examine the issues that underlie your statement that you "often wonder if it is the best fit...." Why are you thinking this?
ReplyDeleteThis could very well be the first sign that you need to look at this question. From there, pray, let the Spirit guide you, analyze things - examine the purpose of education as taught by the Church, and see if the school meets these needs; and study your options.
It's all about a) the purpose of education and b) your parental sense of what is needed for your children in the context you live in.