The first day of school. These are my girls running to school in the morning mist. So eager to be educated. Finally, after two months of being denied school attendance, they can enter the machinery again.
So much enthusiasm! As a former homeschooling mother, I feel a bit betrayed.

School vs. education has been my topic for decades. I will not get into all the details now. I don’t feel competent to write a book about my life. Yet 0:). 

What I have always understood is that school does not equal education. Did you know that public education in Central Europe was designed 300 years ago  — to educate illiterate people to a certain level so they can follow instructions and do as they are told? There was no need to teach them to think for themselves and discern. That would have been dangerous for the establishment. It hasn’t changed since. When I learned about homeschooling as a university student, I was overjoyed. It was the perfect answer to my longing to offer real education to my future kids. I studied every possible material on the topic. I read a lot of great books. The best for me are Educating the Wholehearted Child by Sally Clarkson and The Well Trained Mind by Susan Bauer (and her Story of the World series!)

These books offered me a deep insight into what the real education of children should look like. I could not wait to have kids. Fifteen years later, that time had finally come. I trained my tiny girls in puzzles, dominoes, rhymes and fairytales, songs and dances, alphabet and numbers probably from the day they were born. In 2011 we had the opportunity to live in Australia for a year and a half. My two oldest daughters, Dorothy and Elizabeth, attended school there as we wanted them to learn English. It was an excellent primary school in Albert Park, Melbourne.

After we had returned from Australia, I put all my effort and waking hours into homeschooling them. My third daughter, Barbara, was 3 years old, and I had a newborn, Olivia. What a ride! To make the story short, I enjoyed it tremendously. Nevertheless, I had no support from my relatives. Both sets of grandparents did their best to pressure me into putting the kids to school. They blamed me for causing them harm by homeschooling them. The public education was offended by my mistrust of the system. The nearest homeschooling family lived an hour’s drive away from us. I think we were the only homeschooling family in the capital of Slovakia back in 2012! There were approximately 50 homeschooled kids in all of Slovakia then. I had to be the teacher, entertainer, driver, supplier of goods, catering service, sibling violence reconciliation officer, and the tooth fairy. All at the same time.

Nothing was perfect enough as I had imagined it to be. Needless to say, five years later, I burned out. I would have had the brains to put kids to school then, you might have thought. Oh, no. I don’t give up that easily. I continued homeschooling for another long five years. Then I couldn’t do it anymore. I realized I started to avoid my kids! I needed to spend more time alone, doing creative work. I yearned to sing and paint so much that I thought I would explode! My biggest dream had turned almost into a nightmare. I felt such a failure. Defeated, I had to make my precious girls a part of the harmful school system! I was pleasantly surprised by how kind both the staff and most of the kids were at the church school where Barbara and Olivia attend now. Elizabeth attends a bilingual Spanish grammar school and is happy. Dotty attends 8-year grammar school and is not so happy.

Still, my girls are so lovely, clever, and determined. Maybe I did a good job. Anyway, I did the best that I could. We talk a lot and spend time together. I keep encouraging them to pursue their passions and pray for their mission in life to unfold before them. Education continues. And here I am, writing, painting, and singing. I hope I will do well too.

And, by the way. As you have probably guessed, the truth about the picture is that they are running so as not to be late. 🙂