17 March 2008
Fourth Write
Posted by nate under: edumacation .
In fourth grade I continued home schooling in Medina, Liberia. I was born in Medina, OH so there’s kind of a cool full circle thing going on there. Although since then my circle has spiraled out of control so it’s not as pacifying now as it was then. But at the time being able to tell people that I was born in Medina and currently lived in Medina brought a bit of normalcy to my life. I miss it.
Back in the day there weren’t a lot of home schooling options for missionary kids as far as curriculum was concerned. We went with Abeka out of Pensacola FL. I think its target market was (is?) children of parents who fear things like evolution and sex education, and firmly believe girls should wear dresses and boys should tuck in their shirts. Not really our style, but they were willing to work with missionaries back in an age that didn’t have e-mail or fax machines and depended on an international postal system that could easily take a month to deliver your test scores. And there were huge dinosaurs! We called them Kaypros. It was a magical time to be sure.
Sometimes we learned odd things. Like how to keep bowling scores. Apparently in 1986 there were a lot of bowling allies filled with girls in homemade dresses and boys with handsomely tucked in shirts. We also learned poems. I appreciate that now, and desperately wish €œIf€ by Rudyard Kipling would’ve stuck with me. €œIf you can keep your head while those about you are losing their’s and blaming it on others…€ Who can I blame for not being able to remember these things?
Fourth grade was also the year of American History which seemed oddly foreign to me then and remains a bit of a mystery even now. To her credit my Mom, in an attempt to keep it local, went out and bought Liberian history books as well which I applaud her for now. If I was home schooling my girls, blessed blessings that they are, I’m quite sure the last thing I’d add to my plate would be another subject. No thanks. I’d keep it to the basics and let them google their way through the rest of life’s questions while I hung out in the teacher’s lounge, which would really be our living room. And I’d also start wearing a hair net when I served them lunch. There are many reasons for me not to explore the home schooling option. And for this we can all be thankful.