“Stand by the roadways and look. Ask about the ancient paths, ‘Which is the way to what is good?’ Then take it and find rest for yourselves.”
Jeremiah 6:16
My name is Shawn. I am a happily married father of 2, in my eleventh year as a homeschool teacher, with our son in 10th grade and our daughter in 8th grade.
We first considered homeschool when our son was 5-years-old and ready for kindergarten. We did not know at the time that kindergarten is not mandatory in California. So we started looking at the public school we were zoned for. But it clearly was not the right learning environment for our son. So we looked into local private school options, but we were not thrilled about any of their curriculum choices. Even if we had loved the schools, we certainly couldn’t afford the tuition. Next, we explored in-person charter schools and found one we really liked. It was the closest thing locally to the kind of education we wanted for our kids. However, there was a catch: they only accepted new students by lottery. So we fasted and prayed and submitted our son’s name in the new student lottery. Alas, when the day finally came, his name was not called! In fact, his name ended up near the bottom of the waiting list. With that door closed, we became homeschoolers by default.
Maybe a year earlier, I had seen an advertisement online about Classical Conversations. As we were looking into homeschool options, we discovered that there was a community close to us. So we found a Practicum (their free Summer seminars designed to introduce their unique approach to classical education, recruit new families, and refresh the veterans) nearby and registered to attend. So much of their classical vision for education resonated with us. It was what I would later describe as what we never realized we always wanted for our kids. So we took the leap and joined our local CC community and thus were initiated into the world of classical education. I realize now that we had always been homeschoolers, reading to our kids daily and teaching them from their earliest days.
That year (2015/2016) and the year following, I tutored a Foundations for our CC community (elementary age classes). The third year, I directed our community and tutored an Essentials class (4th-6th grade). We loved the people in our community, and I thoroughly enjoyed the students in my class. Nevertheless, I did not exactly enjoy the corporate side of directing nor the now 45-minute drive to where we were meeting, having just bought a house further away. It seemed clear that God was leading us and the other families in our community in different directions. Our community disbanded at the end of that third year. Some went to other CC communities. We did not.
That fourth year (2018/2019), with our son in 3rd grade and our daughter in 1st grade, was the beginning of our wild west homeschool adventure. Our new home was in a rustic and remote California neighborhood. There were no nearby homeschool communities with which to connect. It was just us. And that was just fine. We began to find our own identity as classical Christian homeschoolers. We traded in CC for Claritas and Cross Seven and made use of an eclectic mix of classical and traditional curricular choices.
In the middle of our fifth year (2019/2020), the world closed for business. All our extra-curriculars at the time (gymnastics, dance, and baseball) were cancelled. Though our daily homeschool routine was not majorly disrupted, the isolation did become taxing on us all. Still, one glorious good came off it: since the shutdown, my wife has been working from home (on most days).
Since our sixth year (2020/2021) of homeschooling, as our society became increasingly untethered from history, morality, and reality, we have become more and more convinced that we are on the right path for our family.
Even after ten years of homeschooling, I still find myself reflecting on the meaning and purpose of family, discipleship, and education. Should all families homeschool? What’s the difference between a Christian and a classical worldview? What is the best curriculum for my kids right now? How might we need to adjust our plan as the schoolyear progresses?
Wild West Schoolhouse is my attempt, meager as it is, at being a resource and encouragement to families seeking to disciple and/or educate their kids by cultivating confidence, character, compassion, and courage. Most of the time I’ll land somewhere between philosophical and practical, occasionally pastoral. It’s not my day job, or my side hustle, just a way for me to check in from time to time with the wide world from the wild west. In fact, it seems that over the last few years I mainly just add or edit a bit between school years. Much like our family life and homeschool, it is a work in progress. Nevertheless, may God bless all those who visit and spark a passion for discipleship and good, godly education in your family!
Wisdom is as good as an inheritance
Ecclesiastes 7:11-12, CSB
and an advantage to those who see the sun,
because wisdom is protection as silver is protection;
but the advantage of knowledge
is that wisdom preserves the life of its owner.
Wild West Schoolhouse 