Shema Academy
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 64-7).
Our homeschool journey began when our firstborn was about one year old. We lived in the foothills about 30 minutes outside of Boulder, Colorado. A friend at the time had a son who was entering kindergarten that fall and she commented to me that she was considering homeschooling because didn’t feel comfortable putting him on a bus everyday. I had never heard of homeschooling and the concept intrigued me. My friend eventually opted for private school and drove her son to and from school everyday. As I watched this, I could not imagine spending two hours of my day in a car driving my child back and forth to school. It seemed to conflict with the concept of being a stay-at-home mom and raising our children.
When I first mentioned homeschooling to my husband, he wasn’t so sure. Our son was about two years old at the time and his education wasn’t in the daily thought process – so we thought. Unaware to us, however, we were educating him everyday: teaching him to walk, talk, and what was ‘dangerous’ as we spent months building our dream house.
When my son was about four, there was an article in the local newspaper about the elementary school that he would attend. The article explained how this school had added ‘guided imagery’ to their curriculum. My husband became quite upset. He had been ‘born again’ out of the New Age movement and transcendental meditation. He understood exactly what ‘guided imagery’ implied. Children were being given ‘imaginary friends’ to help them in their lives. These ‘friends’ were nothing more than false gods or demons that would lead them down destructive paths in life. By teaching ‘guided imagery’, educators had become nothing more than diviners and witches whose ‘religious views’ were being funded by the public’s taxes.
He looked at me when he finished the article and said, “Honey, we’re homeschooling.” I could only reply, “Well then, God has to show me how because I know nothing about it.”
As two new fairly new believers (I was about ten years old in the Lord; my husband about seven) we stepped out into a world that was very unknown to us – home educating our children. YHVH is and always has been faithful to me when I sought after Him. Not really knowing this was also His Way, He answered my cry for help – immediately.
The very next day I took my son and little daughter to Vacation Bible School. I dropped them in their classes and sat down in the lobby to read a book. There was another woman in the lobby at a table who had books all over the place. One of the pastors came over to her and asked her what she was studying at the University of Colorado. She said, “I’m not a student. I homeschool my children.”
I could NOT believe my ears. I scooted over to her and began asking her question after question. Two weeks later, at the end of Vacation Bible School, I was armed and ready to begin the greatest blessing I have ever received – teaching and training my own children not only in academics, but giving them a Biblically spiritual foundation that would be with them for the rest of their lives.
©2011, May