A Home Schooling Epilogue

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A Home Schooling Epilogue

Every story has an epilogue. It’s not an ending per se, but rather a new beginning. The epilogue to our homeschooling journey is about bridging to the next phase of our son Cristan’s education. Back then when our son was just starting out and we were embarking on this home learning journey, I had so many questions and wished for a crystal ball so I could see into the future. Will we home school for all of his education? Can we do it? Will he want to go to school eventually? How will it all turn out? And how will we bridge to higher learning? We have finally bridged—and not surprisingly, through adult learning! I’ve worked as an adult educator since before Cristan was born, so it was a natural order of things that he’d end up going to an adult education centre to obtain his high school diploma.

For the first hour of Cristan’s graduation ceremony from high school I cried. Our son, almost 18, just graduated from Nova Career Centre, our local adult learning centre. The ceremony was not about me, but about him. Yet deep down, I know that it was about us. It had been a difficult route choosing to swim against the mainstream in keeping our son home for his education all these years. That Cristan finally bridged through adult education and got his high school diploma is very moving for me because we took a journey through the unknown together. While it hasn’t ended, for there will be other graduations and other ceremonious life events to celebrate, it felt as though we were celebrating a family achievement.

We had some wonderful conversations with the great teachers who helped Cristan achieve his high school diploma. Each of them said what a delight it had been to have Cristan in their class. We are so grateful for the many mentors and people along our path as Cristan bridged: the Nova Centre academics coordinator whose keen intuition and years of experience helped place Cristan into the right level of courses, all the teachers in English, French, Math, Sciences and Computers, the guidance counselor who helped Cristan choose his next course of study, and the Eastern Townships School Board Distance Education program that started us on the journey of bridging.

A few years ago, as Cristan was working his way through his adult education courses and achieving very good grades, I discovered something important about this journey: I had no regrets about having home schooled our son all these years—except one: that I second-guessed myself and my convictions that we were doing the right thing in educating Cristan at home.

Cristan now attends CEGEP, where he studies Computer Sciences. The journey unfolds!

If you choose to home educate your child, that day will come when they will need to bridge to something outside the home, be it work or higher learning. It will look different for each unique family, for each unique child. But it will be a triumph. Because of my background as an adult educator, bridging to higher learning through adult education made the most sense to us. You’ll find what works for your family and for your young adult. What is your home schooling Epilogue?

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