Home-school Hangout.

Comment by JaJireh on September 16, 2008 at 2:27am

Hi Joe & Michelle ~

Homeschoolers we are. :) While not in a rut at this time, I do find it invaluable to connect with other homeschooling families. It really brings a level of support and encouragement to the task. So, hello! :)

Comment by Christy on September 17, 2008 at 11:37am

We began our homeschooling journey 2 years ago, when our son was to begin high school and we began to participate in simple church about 5 years ago. We have been so blessed through this journey! I have thought that homeschooling and simple church seemed to go hand in hand, especially as you start to question the institution (whatever form it takes!). It is nice to find others that are connecting the 2 areas. I look forward to being a part of this group!

Comment by Angelica Rivera on September 23, 2008 at 7:51pm

Hello. I'm looking forward to connecting with those who homeschool as well as participate in simple church. I haven't found anyone in my county who does both. I homeschool my two sons, ages 14 and 12. God removed my family from institutional church over five years ago and has been removing an institutional minset from me ever since!

Comment by Dena Brehm on September 26, 2008 at 3:45pm

Hey Y'all!

We've been homeschooling our 8 kids for the past 12 or so years ... since our eldest was in 4th grade... our eldest three spent some time in private and public schools. I came into this kicking and screaming, declaring that I simply cannot wear denim jumpers...! ;)

When baby #8 came along, right before my 45th birthday, I hit the wall, in so many ways, and God led us into unschooling, which has been a much needed blessing for our tribe. We'd been unchurching for about 3 years at that point, allowing God to lead our spiritual journey outside the traditions of man ... and I came to see that I was still imposing man's traditions upon how our children were to learn. I let go (again with some kicking and screaming), and have been learning to trust Jesus to lead their learning, just as He leads every "other" aspect of their lives.

I honestly believe that I'm learning more than they are about this new aspect of our journey...!

I live in a small town (pop 15K) that's comprised of about 40% homeschoolers, so, it's just an acceptable way of life here. The local public schools open their doors and hearts to homeschoolers, allowing us to pick and choose from their classes, if they're of help to our children. My teens enjoy choir, theatre, languages, creative writing, algebra and geometry, coming and going as they please ... they can participate on the sports teams, too ... this is a far cry from the exclusivity we experienced when we lived in the Washington, DC area. Here, there attitude is, "how can we help you to educate your children?" without an agenda to "get them into the system." From there, they bend over backwards to enable all kids to get into the local community college, and then into local universities (3 within commuting distance). I love that God plopped us down in this community, with so many accessible options to enhance our lives.

For us, learning is a lifelong-lifestyle ... and I model it by pursuing my passions with all I've got -- my kids see that, and follow suit.

Shalom, Dena

"The unanswered questions aren't nearly as dangerous as the
unquestioned answers."

"We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking only to
learn that it is God shaking them." - Charles West

Comment by The Boyce family on October 5, 2008 at 9:09am

We are so blessed to be able to join this group. We have homeschooled our children since 1997. Our two older boys are in their second year of college, and we are still homeschooling our youngest. He is 13. We have been invovled with simple church through the Church in the Woods ministry since 2003, but the Lord didn't call us out of corporate church until last month.
sending love and prayers,
Cindy

Comment by Selena on October 5, 2008 at 7:20pm

Thanks for allowing me to be a part of this group. We have homeschool since the Fall of 2005. I have a son Nicolas who will be 9 tomorrow and a daughter Mia who is 7. Looking forward to know all of you. We began house churching last winter.

Comment by Jan Johnson on October 6, 2008 at 8:41am

Hi! Thanks for letting me in on the group. I've been homeschooling my kids for as long as I've had them. They're 13 and 10 now. I've been pretty eclectic in choosing our units of study, but even in that I'm starting to find it a bit suffocating. My older child likes the structure, but my younger one prefers more freedom - don't we all! Our little fellowship here in northeast PA was a semi-traditional church and over the last year we've moved to becoming a house/simple/organic church. Moving in that direction spiritually has made me reconsider how I teach my kids. We're now experimenting with an unschooling approach with my 10 y/o.

Comment by Sean Steckbeck on October 7, 2008 at 5:21pm

I left the institution 3 years ago, unchurched for a year (what I call my IC detox year), and now involved in simple church planting for two years. We have been homeschooling about eight months now.

Here in the Negev Desert of Israel (Beer Sheva), we are a part of a small homeschool network of mostly secular Jewish families. It was very important for us that although we instill morals, integrity, and kingdom principles into our kids that they would not be seperated from Israeli society altogether. We had a choice of trying to get together the believing homeschoolers here in the Negev or to join the unbelieving network. We decided to be leaven in our region and join the unbelieving network, while still discipling our kids at home with the kingdom of heaven and proper morals and discipline and not send them to the local schools (which instill horrible morals). So this solved our problem about influencing our children and not letting the world influence them, but as well keep our kids in society to be leaven and a part of our people (possible their parents are future disciples of Yeshua in our prayers). We love it, we would not join a believing homeschool network for the world (even though we love hanging out with believers)... its just too incredible for our kids and us to learn at the same time how to be leaven of the kingdom in our communities and not let them influence us. How to live out the kingdom of God in this world. I also enjoy and love discipling my kids.

I do have a question .... in our unbelieving network, we have homeschoolers and unschoolers as well. I heard many people here mention God has led them into unschooling. Maybe its because of what I have seen among the unbelieving unschoolers here, but it looked like an ungodly concept to me.

The unschoolers here teach their kids to use the restroom in the yard, they provide very little discipline (and believe the kids know how to teach themselves morals), and are mostly unruly kids. Once a five-year old homeschool kid got in a fight with a five year old unschool kid. The parent of the homeschool kid immediately got involved and disciplined their kid, while the unschool parent did nothing and said "this is their dynamic, let them work it out" and let their child continue fighting if he wanted to. When the parent tried to correct the unschool child as well so he would stop hitting his kid (he continued even though the homsechool kid stopped), the unschool parent got offended and walked out and never talked to that parent again.

Here the homeschoolers are not radical with their schedule and the way they teach is through many different means ( nature trips, group dynamics of the network, using the senses, television, books, arts, and all sorts of creative ways, etc.). The main difference between the homeschoolers and the unschoolers is that the homeschoolers believe it is important for the kids to know the basics of education (reading, writing, math, arts, etc.) through any creative means (not just through books and classroom teaching), while the unschoolers think the kids just need to be kids and they can work physical jobs when they are older.

I know from growing up in America the homeschoolers there tend to be alot more radical with schedule and even style of teaching their kids every day through bookwork. Maybe what you guys call unschooling, we in Israel call homeschooling, and what we call unschooling...you call unruly children and irresponsible parents and rebellious hippies?

There is the cultural gap, even in homsechooling/unschooling culture, between Israel and the USA.

Could you guys explain what "unschooling" means to you as opposed to homsechooling?

Do you guys believe like the unschoolers here in Israel that kids just need to be kids without learning any basic education?

Comment by Lori Brown-Appel on October 9, 2008 at 9:52am

Greetings from Western Washington State. We are a homeschooling family with 5 living children, ages 19 and on the mission field, 16, 15, 7 and 4. This year we took the plunge into a parent partner school to take a few classes like Algebra 2, Chemistry and guitar. I am clueless in these subjects. It seems to be working fine but makes actual homechooling harder with the running out to school two days a week.
We have been attending a conventional Church for the past 6 months that has great teaching but lacking the intimate fellowship of believers. I would say very institutional. We are enjoying learning and we feel we are growing but we long for that "real" Christian fellowship.

Comment by Sean Steckbeck on October 11, 2008 at 2:43am

Joe and Michelle,

Sorry I have not gotten back until now. It was Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and I was fasting and in prayer at the synagogue (my wife was an Orthodox Jew before she was saved and still attends synagogue sometimes especially during the holidays).

I will look into the JSOW.... I'm not sure if I know them.
There are many worship ministries all over Israel, most of them somehow associated with IHOP and Kansas City.
I am a graduate of Brownsville Revival School of Ministry and was in these circles many years, but now am in disagreement with the worship emphasis. Many of them are great friends of mine though. The body of Messiah is small here and believers stick together no matter what the emphasis is.

As far as unschooling homeschooling goes, the secular-unbelieving homeschoolers here do discipline their kids and provide borders. Its the unschoolers who do not. My wife says that (for Israel) we are somewhere in between homeschooling and unschooling. We find creative and daily ways to teach our kids without the "classroom" setting- only at home, on the other hand we provide borders and discipline and some sort of schedule. However, we hang out mostly with the homeschoolers because their children are disciplined and do not beat up our children with their parents watching and saying "they are in their element, let them be, let them figure it out." Its just nicer to hang out with the secular homeschoolers than the secular unschoolers. Plus we dont have to pick the poop out of our yard when the homeschoolers come to visit us. We are the only believers in this network, homeschoolers or unschoolers. However, we do consider ourselves for Israel somewhere in between, because we do use creative ways to teach our kids as we live life together. This is to fill the deed of Deuteronomy 7 "shinantam l'bincha"--- teach your children along the way.


Marcy Ellis,

Your approach is very similar to our approach. Thank you for sharing your heart! We strongly believe in influencing and being leaven inside of our community, this is part of the reason we are a part of a unbelieving homeschool/unschool network. We don't want to seperate ourselves from our people.... this is one of the reasons we periodically attend synagogue too. We try to spend 30-30-40 relationally... 30% with unbelievers, 30% of our time with our house congregation fellowships we have planted and discipleship relationships. 40% time as a family.

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