Gospel Mentoring Changes Everything...even Homeschooling

Written by Gretchen of Gretchen Ronnevik

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When I started homeschooling 8 years ago, I began researching. Like most newbies, I desperately dug for both information and encouragement. Somewhere along the way, I fell down a giant rabbit hole of teaching philosophies. I read homeschooling classics from cover to cover like The Well-Trained Mind, Educating the Whole-Hearted Child, and Dumbing Us Down. And my mind was opened up to a whole new approach to teaching.

Then, I tried applying all of those fancy ideas to my own homeschool. I learned how the special needs of my struggling ones affected my ideals. I learned to keep the main thing the main thing. I learned that while an authority figure like a mom can make a child do something, she can’t teach a heart without trust. My children had to trust me if I wanted to have access to their hearts.

Protecting the White Space

Written by Gretchen of Gretchen Ronnevik

The first days of homeschooling feel empty. I remember feeling like a failure when my daughter went through our daily curriculum in less than 2 hours. I often said, “That can’t be all.” Most homeschoolers will tell you that those early elementary years have very short days, but once they get to the upper grades, they will spend more of the day on schoolwork. We ended up filling our days by taking walks, playing outside, reading lots of stories, and having tea parties. We followed our curiosities and worked on projects that sounded fun.

Confessions of a Homeschool Convert: Meet Gretchen Ronnevik

Written by Gretchen of Gretchen Ronnevik.

Confession

Walking hand in hand on our way to meet our pastor for premarital counseling, my guy and I each carried a little marriage workbook. We had each written under the question: “If you plan on having children, where do you intend to send them to school? Public, private, or homeschool?” the answer:

“1st choice: Public school, because we want our kids to not live in a bubble, but help them learn how to live their faith in the real world. 2nd choice: Private Christian school, but only if necessary and if our child wasn’t thriving in the public schools. 3rd choice: We are against homeschooling.”

3 years earlier, I was in a freshman speech class at Moody Bible Institute, where I gave my first speech: “Why Christians Shouldn’t Homeschool.”