Omega to Alpha

Your last child is in his senior year. Graduation is coming, and you are frantically wrapping up your school year, getting senior photos and invitations ready, party planning, and starting to accumulate what your student needs for life beyond homeschooling. For your student, it may be a job, college, or continuing at home through the local community college. Nevertheless, your life is about to change. Think of it as omega to alpha—ending to beginning.

To understand the beginning, first think about what is changing. If this is your last child to graduate, you will no longer attend co-op classroom days, do any lesson planning, shop for curricula, or schedule field trips. There won’t be any more debate trips or sports competitions. Your friendship circle will change because your friends may still be homeschooling, or they, too, will be finding new pastures. If your child leaves home, you’ll be downsizing your grocery budget, and meal prep will change for the remaining one or two of you. In short, everything about your life is about to change because your central focus has been your family and homeschooling, and it no longer will be. So, what about your continued involvement with homeschooling?

My last child graduated high school in 2014, so I’m now a ten-year retiree. But I haven’t stopped caring about homeschoolers. As I watch our country and schools change, my resolve to support the homeschooling movement has never been stronger. I could have dropped my membership with NCHE and stopped going to the Thrive! Conference. I could have sold all of my books. I could have turned the corner and never really looked back, with the exception of treasured homeschooling memories. That wasn’t my choice then, and it isn’t now. The homeschooling movement is more important to me than ever because I see it as the answer to failures elsewhere in our society, especially in our school systems, which is the supposed training ground for our future employees and leaders!

We need strong students who think critically and can analyze situations to develop new solutions. We need leaders for the future who are well-grounded in our country’s founding principles, understand the importance of our constitutional freedoms, and know how to protect them. We need strong families with solid core principles. We need adults who are willing to be civically involved in communities. Read the research from Dr. Brian Ray at the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI.org). You’ll find statistics showing homeschoolers excel in these areas. I believe homeschooled students will be the leaders of the not-too-distant future because we train them to think, evaluate, research deeply, write well, and know history.

Who has more time and resources to invest in the future of homeschooling? Retired homeschoolers do! We know the ropes and the pressures. We understand the successes and failures in homeschooling from the rear-view mirror of experience. We are the experts who can be the shoulders to stand on for the next generation. It isn’t that we were perfect—no one ever is. But, together, we can make the homeschooling movement even more robust.

I encourage you to stay involved. Teach a class at your local co-op. Start a group of retired homeschoolers to bridge the gap of lost relationships. Mentor homeschoolers in your area. Volunteer with NCHE (https://www.nche.com/partner/serve/) and help us keep the homeschooling movement strong. Come to the Thrive! Conference, either as a volunteer or to soak in talks on communication and family relationships. Trust me! Your family communications and relationships will change as your kids become adults. Give financial support as you feel led to continue the work NCHE does. If you believe strongly in homeschooling like me, your journey there is not over yet. Perhaps the omega-to-alpha means ending your schooling and starting to give what you know to the next homeschooling generation in the hopes that we are making a difference for families, communities, and our nation. Here’s to new beginnings!