Seasons and Forests

The Curriculum Forest

Its that time of year again—when homeschool moms everywhere are beginning to think of resources to use for the next year of homeschooling.

Spring or early summer is the time of year is when I receive the most emails and phone calls and the AHE resources fly off the shelf. Families are considering their choices for next year and they want to be ready. It’s also a time for new beginnings and evaluations.

Considering the vast amount of curriculum available to homeschoolers reminds me of looking at a dark, thickly-wooded forest. How do you get through it to the other side without getting gobbled up by salesmen and promoters, hit on the head with textbooks or swamped with choices? When we started our homeschooling adventure 19 years ago the forest was much thinner. In fact, I remember it as more of a desert experience. There were very few resources available, major textbook companies would not even sell to homeschoolers, and at least 98% of the present companies’ now selling curriculums were not even conceived yet.

This thick, dark forest looks lush at first glance, but as you begin to venture into it you find dry sand pits, wet bogs and tangled vines. There are numerous pathways through the forest, a friend or relative might say, “Come, follow me.” The glossy homeschool magazine loudly states “This way is the best.” Then I’m here showing you yet another path titled “True Education.” It’s no wonder that parents are confused, overwhelmed and still searching for the “perfect curriculum.”

The path through this forest is further hindered as the myriad of companies marketing curriculum with colorful advertisements that reach out and slow your progress. The tangled vines of school textbooks that are renamed and sold to unsuspecting homeschoolers or the quickly developed fancy textbook curriculums weave through the forest trying to entangle you with their confusion of student textbooks, teachers manuals, test booklets, and CD-ROM’s. Spider webs of doubt fall across your way and the high cost haunts you behind every tree. The state charter schools lure you with promises of money, classes and computers. The path is littered with the fallen sticks or logs of your past purchases and failures. All along the path there are the bogs of worry and fear.

I’ve been through the forest many times and sometimes I get to thinking that I know the path fairly well; there are still obstacles for me. Yes, I’d love to find the “ideal curriculum” everyone seems to want. I’ve been lured by the advertisements as curriculum companies send me lots of books and resources, and I receive every mailing sent out. I’m not going to discuss choosing curriculum in this visit, I’ve done that several times and those articles are on this AHE website.

I’ve found that the only way through the boggy tangled forest of finding the right curriculum is for us to spend a time or season, (the Bible tells us “there is a season for everything” and I strongly believe there is a season for homeschool mothers to learn). During this time you will be drawing close to Jesus, renewing and developing a relationship with Him, seeking His will in your homeschool and family situation.

Until the rain of the Holy Spirit waters the soil of your heart and leads you on the path through the curriculum forest, any resource you try to teach with will remain dry and unfertile. If you aren’t listening for the voice of God, you can’t hear His voice through the thick forest. If you don’t trust Him, you can’t follow his leading down the path. If you aren’t yielding to His will, you can’t find His plan for your homeschool.

During this season of learning for the homeschool parent, trust God to lead you in all your decisions about learning resources, schedules and extra curricular experiences. The Bible tells us that “A person may plan his own journey BUT the Lord directs his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 You can plan all you want, but the Lord will direct you where He wants you to go, so why not start in His direction to begin with?

God will help you build a good foundation of learning for your family because He has a plan for your family. He says “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9. Isn’t that incredible? God cares enough about us that He has a plan all ready for us. You don’t have to take the time to make up another one!

Don’t be satisfied with what the world happens to offer you; God has something much better in mind for you. “Humans are satisfied with whatever looks good; but God probes for what IS good.” Proverbs 16:2. Ask God for wisdom to see below the packaging to what is really under it all.

Has God shown you what was His will for your family, but you thought that you knew better and went on your own merry way? If so, God is going to bring you back to the plan again and again until you “get” it. So why don’t you just take the time to learn the lesson and then stick with God’s plan? “God led you all the way in the desert these forty years to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands.” Deuteronomy 8:2.

To follow the path that God lays before you requires that you surrender your previous ideas (maybe even those textbooks and lesson plans), your pride (“I know how to do this”) and lay your plans (I’ll buy this and that) down at His feet. Let go of the pretenses and surrender self so we can be free to grasp a hold of God’s hand. When we hold his hand, then, He will equip us, enable us and empower us to educate our children for Him and His kingdom!

May you find a renewed love for God, relationship with Him and peace in your heart as you spend a season with Him learning His path for your family is my prayer for you. ~Judy

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