Putting homeschool curriculum in its place, pt. 3

(Finding your family identity)

Three years into homeschooling, I’d been closely following the lead of some experienced homeschoolers, but I still felt a little unsure about my own family’s curriculum choices and homeschool identity. To push back against that insecurity, I decided to make a list of things that were unique to just us, the Bells. This is the eclectic mix of a list that I came up with:

2011 - The Bells

• We are the Bells, not another homeschooling family.

• One goal: paying off the car loan.

• We like to read.

• We do ballet.

• Jesus is our center.

• We keep in the house just what we need; we give away what we don’t—we’re vigilant in staying on top of this.

• Another goal: saving $ for new flooring.

• We support our church, Rabbit Room artists, Brent Otey comics, and missionary friends.

• We exercise: run, row, swim, walk, or play at the park.

• We eat healthy food.

***To wrap up this series of blog posts, I wanted to end with the most important tool to keep homeschool curriculum in its place—leaning into your own family identity. This, I think, is the biggest protection against allowing yourself to fall into the temptation to become a slave to your curriculum.

Because if you know who you are, you won’t be influenced to make decisions that pull you into things that you are not.

If you’re with me on that, have you considered what makes your family unique? What are your current goals? What are your highest values?

Our family sometimes did well with keeping things aligned, but other times we had to learn the hard way. My list above was a good start, but it fleshed out and grew more over the years. It would have been helpful to re-evaluate and commit to revising and developing our list on paper each year. I didn’t do that, but I wish I would have.

Thankfully, in spite of that, the “Jesus is our center” value meant that we never veered too far off track or for too long.

But I do believe that the more intentional we are, the more we can save ourselves from needless trouble.

So, I encourage you to go forth and “be smarter than your curriculum”! Consider making a list of your family’s unique traits, goals, and values—and revisit it at least once each year.