Gretchen Reid
Graduated from Homeschooling: 1999
Graduated from High School: 2002
When I was ready to start kindergarten in 1989, my parents were not ready to start homeschooling. They didn’t know much about homeschooling at the time, and with my younger sister and brother to take care of and an undiagnosed illness to combat, my mother had her hands full.
What my parents didn’t know was that, in essence, they already were homeschooling my sister and me. Every day, my mother read countless books to us, and we listened—usually—in enrapt silence, wishing that she would never stop. She took us on walks twice a day, during which we not only got our exercise and vitamin D, but learned how to live safely in a village community and how to appreciate the beauty of everything that God has made. Heidi and I spent hours every day at our “project table,” an old trunk covered with paper, crayons, scissors, glue and many other things. Here, unlimited by the rigid, two-dimensional lines of coloring books, we cut and created to our hearts’ content. An avid baker, Mom always let us help her in the kitchen, and I remember when Heidi made her first little pie at age two.
Nevertheless, my parents sent me to public school for my first few years, and Heidi joined me for kindergarten in 1991. I enjoyed school for the most part, but I was often bored by the slow pace at which we learned. Through the exposure I had had to books from my mother and father and, I believe, natural talent from God, I had figured out how to read when I was four years old. I learned my other subjects quickly and got my worksheets done with plenty of time to spare, so I used to read ahead in my reading book, until my teachers noticed and gave me frivolous fiction books to fill up my time.
By the middle of second grade, my parents felt that they were ready to homeschool, especially as they realized that I was not being challenged in school. So they started getting Heidi and I used to the idea. I remember at the end of second grade when my friend, Christine, asked me who was going to be my third-grade teacher. I explained to her as succinctly as I could that I was going to do school at home next year, so I wouldn’t be seeing her in the fall. Christine was disappointed and didn’t understand, and she asked me something like, “Why don’t you just tell your mom that you don’t want to be homeschooled?” At that point, I didn’t really know what to say. I thought I was sorry to leave my friends, but I knew that the matter wasn’t up to me. And I was rather curious about what it would be like to be homeschooled. I did want to try it.
One day toward the end of that summer, Mom took Heidi and me to the office of Dr. Z—, with each of us lugging a brightly colored plastic crate full of the school books Mom and Dad has picked out for us. I think we were all nervous, but I know that I was. Although we knew of plenty of other homeschoolers from church, we did not know of any in our school district, or how favorable Dr. Z— would be toward us. But God blessed our endeavors and Dr. Z— approved of my parents’ plans. Now the ball was officially in our hands.
September came, and Dad took our first day of school off of work. It was an exciting day, I remember. If there was any doubt in my parents’ mind over whether homeschooling would work, Heidi, my brother, Derek and I were completely oblivious. First, our parents distributed our books in such a happy yet dignified manner that it seemed like Christmas and a solemn ceremony combined. Then we all marched downstairs to have our heights measured and marked on a post in the cellar. Then it was time for our school pictures, and one by one we stood straight and tall and grinned for the camera in front of Mom’s swaying cosmos outside. We spent the rest of the morning covering our books with brown paper bags and drawing beautiful pictures all over them. After all, most of our textbooks had been borrowed from other families.
And we were off! It became a tradition to celebrate the first day of school in this festive manner, and the rest of our days are history. Rarely were any two alike. I have vivid memories of being curled up in our huge, old living room chair, reading my fifty pages a day of the Little House series in fifth grade, and of stretching out on my bed with the cat reading Les Miserables in ninth grade. I remember rocking and daydreaming in my desk chair with the cast-iron base when I should have been working diligently through those tedious hours of “horrid” math, as I used to call it in my earlier years. And I remember realizing how very much I enjoyed algebra in my later years. I remember going to knitting club every Tuesday in a jean skirt and a bun, and I remember pulling on leggings and a sweatshirt to go running with Heidi and Daddy a couple of evenings every week. How many times did Mom hold flashcard contests between Heidi and me? How many Fridays did we pack our lunches, pile into the car, and head
The answer is many. Very many. Every moment my parents poured into teaching us is a testimony to their love for us. But as I progressed into high school, rather than becoming independent enough to “teach myself” as I know others have done, I needed Mom’s help more and more. Dad was working a different job now, and instead of getting home at 4:30 in the evenings with plenty of time to help us with science and P.E., he was now getting home at 8:00 or later. By the time we had eaten dinner and had family worship, it was just about time for bed! Thus, the burden of our schooling lay on Mom. With my new, more difficult classes, she spent most of her teaching time on me, to the neglect of Heidi and Derek.
Mom used to administer the Iowa Tests to us every year, and when I finished ninth grade, by our national percentiles, it was clear that Heidi and I were prospering. But our brother, Derek, had not scored so well. His homeschool story is wonderful and unique in itself; alas, I am not going to take the time to tell it for him. But it was clear that he needed more attention from Mom at this point. Mom and Dad decided to do something else with me.
That “something” was either going to be community college or public high school, where I could take Advanced Placement courses and get college credit, anyway. At this point, it was still early summer, and I although I vaguely knew what my parents had been discussing, I quietly clutched to my hopes that I would recommence homeschooling, as usual, in the fall. But God had other plans, and with my completion of ninth grade, I was completing my formal homeschooling.
Confident that the principles they had impressed upon me I had embraced and made my own, my parents ultimately decided that it was time for me to go back to Babylon. I was loathe to return to the place I had heard so much about. I thought of science teachers indoctrinating the helpless students in their care with the lies of evolution, of English teachers assigning their students books that are not only worthless but bad. And I thought of surreptitious health teachers goading “innocent” teenagers into sex-education sessions, where they cunningly revealed to them some things which should not be concerning the minds of high school students and other things which are so perverted that they should not even be mentioned among adults.
At the same time, I became excited to have a locker and lots of teachers, to sing in a chorus and take art classes. And I was always curious about what went on in those evil health classes, even though I knew that there were things I should not know.
It is not a bad thing to have such a guard up against potential evil. I am thankful that I can say that my experience was, on the whole, a positive one. The faculty worked with my parents admirably and respected their wishes. Almost all my teachers were great at what they did and inspiring on top of that. God sent me plenty of acquaintances and a couple of good friends. I was able to get into some challenging academic and musical programs which not only engaged my mind but also prepared me for college. But when I did have to stand alone, as I found occasion to do over and over, the majority of the time my teachers were sensitive to me and my classmates were at least curious. Sometimes they were argumentative and highly offended. I do not know if any of my classmates were saved through my witness, but I am confident that I was a witness to them, both by speaking to them directly and by my life before them, however faltering both avenues surely were.
Sometimes I feel inferior to the others whose families were able to homeschool them all the way through. But at the bottom of it all, I know that God worked everything in my life out for His own glory and my benefit. I truly am thankful for the experience of public school, and I especially treasure those years that I spent at home. Currently, I am a student at Grove City College in Grove City, PA. (Great school, readers, by the way! You should come for a visit!) I am pursuing a degree in mathematics and certification to teach math to secondary-level students. It’s a goal that my parents and I have agreed should be useful and practical, for I very well may need to support myself in the future. At the same time, I have my own fond dreams of homeschooling my own children some day.
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