While I was never homeschooled myself, I grew up as part of a homeschooling family. Our family started homeschooling when my younger sister was in 5th grade, and I was in 7th grade. She had long term health problems, and homeschooling allowed her to take the days off she needed when she was too sick to do school. From that point forward, my parents believed strongly in evaluating where each of their kids were every year to determine what type of school was best for them. At some point, their children have been in public school, multiple private school, half-time school, and full-time, traditional homeschools. They have driven countless hours to multiple schools each day to ensure that each child got the best education possible, and I am forever grateful for their example that there is more than one way to educate a child.

I’m also grateful I got to be involved in the homeschool journeys of my brothers and sisters. Pride never kept my mom from getting the best education she could for her kids. Reading and language arts had always been my strongest subjects, and these were subjects she struggled in. So I became the default English and Literature teacher for a while. I recommended books, graded book reports, and taught the complicated intricacies of English grammar. As my mom put together lesson plans for each nine weeks, I helped organize and schedule everything. Even though I was in school my whole life, I was deeply steeped in homeschooling culture. 

Since Ana Lia was born, homeschooling has been part of our family’s plan, and I had many incredible examples even outside my own family. I was talking to one of my homeschooling friends, and she mentioned the word “unschooling.” I had never heard the term, which surprised me a little because, especially at the time, I would have considered myself well-versed in homeschool lingo. I went home, Googled it, and opened my eyes to a whole new world. Ana Lia wasn’t even a year old yet, but I was so excited to learn about this new-to-me world. It was freedom from all the trappings of the American school system. I was wary at first, but through the lessons of Avital Levy-Schrieber and Pat Larrichia, I started to see a new and different path forward for us. 

As I learned about unschooling, worldschooling, and freeschooling, I explained everything I learned to Afa, and he thought it was all a great idea. His personality is naturally more reserved than mine, truly an understatement if you know either of us, so he was never as excited or enthusiastic about it but always supportive. Growing up, I was an excellent student. I almost always had straight A’s, and I was the valedictorian of my college graduating class, but I was always stressed and overwhelmed with school. My drive for perfection took a huge toll on my mental health – long before I knew what mental health was. Understanding the world of unschooling set me free from the tethers of imposing my need for perfection on my children. 

Unschooling gave my kids years of freedom that I would have otherwise filled with “academics.” California does not mandate kindergarten, so even when Ana Lia turned five, I didn’t feel any rush to complete a homeschool affidavit or to get her enrolled anywhere. However, I had heard of charter schools that provide funds for homeschooling families. I found one in our county and put Ana Lia on the waiting list. It was several months before we were accepted and assigned an Educational Specialist, but again, everything I learned freed me from worry or rush. It would all happen when it happened, and I didn’t need to speed it along at all. 

In November of Ana Lia’s year in kindergarten, we were accepted at our county’s homeschool charter school, and it has been a great experience for us. Once a month, I had a meeting with Ana Lia’s educational specialist, and we discussed what she had been learning and looked through her work samples. This was such an amazing time for me because I could see how we covered so many “school subjects” simply going through our days. I would take pictures of the books we read, activities we did, and the way we lived our lives. At the end of the month, I had so many examples of times that we learned math, science, language arts, and social studies. It was eye-opening how effective unschooling truly is.

As we approached the end of the year, Afa and I began discussing what the upcoming school year would look like. Ana Lia would be in first grade, and Eliam would be in kindergarten. I was still in love with unschooling, but Afa needed the children to have a little more structure to their learning. Having tasted freedom from curriculum, I was hesitant to jump back into something that had caused so much stress in my life, but I also wanted to respect my husband’s request. I began searching for a structured “something” that was recreating the stress of school in my house. Enter: Charlotte Mason.

It was actually the same friend who introduced me to the concept of unschooling that also introduced me to the concept of Charlotte Mason. As I started to read about it, I was amazed at the way it combined all my favorite parts of unschooling with all the benefits of having some structure. The fact that lessons are never more than 20 minutes fit well into our lives because I still have a full time job. Including all sorts of additional subjects, like handicrafts, hymn studies, art studies, and poetry, appealed to my desire to give the kids a broad base of knowledge from which they could develop their own interests. Including living books into every subject as the basis of learning and using narration as the basis of evaluation would keep us out of the counterproductive world of rote memorization. The more I read, the more I knew this was the right direction for us. At least for the moment. 

I found Simply Charlotte Mason, which sounded so perfect for us, because the lessons were already built. However, I was struck by how focused the entire curriculum was on white, male, European authors, artists, and histories. It was so striking that I almost quit before I got started. A little more digging though, and I found Heritage Mom, whose resources fit so well with Simply Charlotte Mason. She has studies that focus on Black authors, artists, and poets. It was exactly what I had been looking for – a diverse addition to the otherwise thriving world of Charlotte Mason curriculum.

For the upcoming year, our plan is to enroll both Ana Lia and Eliam in the charter school and use a Charlotte Mason style of schooling. To keep things simple, we are going to do the same lessons with both of them because they are only a year apart. Afa has already decided that he is going to lead their hymn studies, which excites me to no end. However, if there is one thing I have learned from my mom, it’s that no education decision is permanent. If we try this, and it’s a disaster, we can simply try something else the following year, or semester, or month. I’m not married to these choices or this curriculum. My children are very different from one another, and it will take some time, patience, and practice to figure out what works for them individually. Each family is different. Each child is different. Each year is different. I have no idea what life will look like when Finiasi is old enough for some formal schooling, but we will re-evaluate it then. We are at the very beginning of this journey, and it’s inspiring to consider the many places it could take us.