Our Homeschooling Story (Continued)

For all of those reasons, after Christopher completed the fifth grade and Audrey completed the eighth grade, we did not re-enroll them in Christian Liberty. That is a fine program, and certainly met our needs for a few years, but it eventually became so restrictive that it stifled true learning. Audrey's seatwork took longer and longer. She had time for nothing else. She memorized long lists and took tests, and then began the process all over again. She no longer enjoyed learning, and had no time to read for pleasure. I was weary of the long hours of checking work, planning work, and the lack of joy. Math became a contest of wills. I was sure my husband, Cliff (photo at right), would say no to us getting out of the program, but to my delight and amazement, after my sister-in-law and I prayed about it, he said yes. I was on cloud nine as I had just come from a Carole Joy Seid conference when I asked him. She is a truly delightful person. Her conference features teaching world history based on studying literature. The tools she uses are timelines, books, music, and a few videos. After attending her conference, and my husband saying yes to our felt need for change, we felt as though we had been handed the golden key to learning. We felt free to explore topics, not just memorize them for tests, and to prove we "knew" something. For a few months we wallowed in what Marilyn Howshall terms delight-directed learning. We had to be refreshed before we could continue, not in the same vein as before, but a mixture of delightful learning, and yes, some things we just "had to do."

I don't know as yet if I failed in some way, or if Audrey just really hates math. We have tried everything. I have tutored her. Cliff has tutored her. His mom (photo at left), who has a math degree, and was the only girl in her physics class at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, has tutored her. Audrey has made small improvements, and is very bright. Perhaps she is not motivated. We are studying geometry together this summer (1998), but I feel she still has gaps in algebra. We have tapes she has watched from The Teaching Company. We switched from Saxon to Jacobs. She seems content to say, "I don't like math, and I'm not good at it." Perhaps that's true, but I don't really think so. That golden key is yet elusive.