Amy Allen

Please welcome Amy Allen to our Heart of the Matter family!
I swore I was never going to homeschool. In fact, I was one of those parents who said things like “quality versus quantity.” I became a homeschooling convert in a very weird way. During my lunch break, from a job that I loved, I was watching HGTV and saw a lady showing off her homeschooling room. Now the thing you need to realize is that up until this point, I never considered homeschooling. Not once. Until I saw how cool homeschooling rooms could look. And then I started thinking about how cool my homeschool room would look…

I mentioned the idea to my husband. As a joke. And to my great surprise, he said, “I think it’s a great idea,” at which point I starting trying to get out of it because I was definitely NOT serious. “Well,” he said, “just look into it a little more and we can talk about it later.”

Okay. Great idea. I will read every homeschooling book available, and then I can go back to him armed with the knowledge that homeschooling is not for us. At this time, I was the Reference Librarian at our small base library and literally had access to every homeschooling book available, which I then proceeded to read. After probably 2 ½ books, I was hooked. I knew this was what I wanted to do and was filled with a new passion. I couldn’t find a single negative for our family and we decided to go for it.

My wonderful husband and I have been married for seven years. He is in the Air Force and we will soon be moving to Japan, where there appears to be a fabulous homeschool community. We have been homeschooling our daughter Madison, age four, for only about five months, but I have already found so much peace in that decision. Now that I look back, I feel like I have been preparing to be a homeschool mom since I started college. I have a background in education. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s in Educational Technology. I have taught kindergarten, first grade, and fifth grade. I worked as a curriculum development intern for PBS and as a reference librarian. I am so excited about the possibilities of incorporating this background into my own private school.

It is truly amazing how homeschooling can change your life. I thought I would go crazy cooped up in the house with my daughter 24 hours a day, and now I realize how crazy I was to be sending her to daycare and preschool to be raised by someone else. I couldn’t wait for her to start kindergarten so that I could get back to work without feeling guilty, and now I can’t wait for her to start kindergarten because I am so looking forward to being the one who shares that adventure with her.

And how cool is our homeschool room? I am sad to say that we are in transition and don’t currently have one, but you can bet when we get settled in Japan at the end of the summer, I will be happy to share my pictures with you!