By Victoria Mills
Right before I turned 6, my family lived in Durand, Wisconsin. At the time, when a child turned 6, they had to be enrolled in some kind of school. My parents really didn’t want to put me in public school or the church school that was near us because they didn’t think I was ready. A couple of years earlier, my mom had tried to teach me to read, and it hadn’t stuck for some reason. So she enrolled me in homeschool, with the goal of easing into a simple, easy curriculum.
The structure of the “Five in a Row” curriculum revolved around books—which translated well into the rest of our homeschool careers. My sister joined me the next year. If our parents hadn’t read to us every single day before and after school—connecting the things we were learning with the wider knowledge from books—I believe our education would have been much less complete.
After two years, we moved to Japan because my dad was stationed there as an active duty Navy chaplain. Right after we got there, I asked if I could learn to read. Taking the advice from a fellow homeschool mom, my mom started going through the Abeka Handbook for Reading. It literally taught me how to read in a couple weeks. I couldn’t stop.
The next few years were full of Math-U-See (a hands-on math curriculum), My Father’s World (a system of connected curricula including history, science, and social studies) and various other spelling and reading sources.
We joined two homeschool groups in Japan, one in Iwakuni, and one in Yokosuka. They helped with curricula, socialization and activities such as field trips. The memories from those field trips and weekly playtimes are some of my most treasured. In Yokosuka, a couple of the parents started weekly classes that the kids could join and take part in, complete with textbooks, homework, field trips and in-class notes.
During my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I also was homeschooled, however those years weren’t as memorable for me. I think they involved less learning and more learning how to learn, getting into a rhythm and finding how I would navigate boarding academy when I got there.
In all, homeschool benefitted me immeasurably. My personality fits well with self-motivation and quiet learning, both of which were characteristic of our educational environment. I’m so grateful for the opportunities I’ve had.