Robin

I am Robin Sampson and I have been homeschooling for 20 years. My husband Ronnie and I are blessed with a “yours, mine, and ours” blended family of eleven children (ages 6 to 34) and thirteen grandchildren (ages 1 to 12). I am actively teaching the two youngest children still at home.

My desire writing for The Heart of the Matter is to be a Titus 2 older woman, sharing insights to encourage younger women to sow seeds of love and wisdom.

…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19.

In the past twenty years, I have tried several curricula, teaching methods, and approaches but the biggest change has been in me, the teacher. When I changed my focus from “doing school” to seeking God, everything else fell into place.

An Overview of Our Homeschool JourneyOur home school journey began with a desire to teach our children God’s word and the necessary academics to prepare them for life. At the time we had four school age children and a toddler. I prayed, set up a schoolroom, chose a curriculum, and planned a schedule. We were well prepared to go forth on our journey. The classroom was equipped with bookshelves, a child size desk for each student, a miniature desk for the toddler, a teacher’s desk, textbooks, pencils, papers, notebooks, and complete with an American flag. Each child had a separate Bible, history, science, math, spelling, and English workbook. School rules were enforced the children were not allowed to talk to each other or me unless they raised their hand. We were “doing school.”

ObstaclesThe journey progressed as planned except for one unexpected obstacle. I, leader of the expedition, was exhausted. I spent each evening planning six subjects for four grade levels. I spent so much time planning school that I did not have time to interact with my children. School became little more than a sticky note on the outside of a textbook or workbook telling each student what pages to accomplish for the day. During the day, I sat at my desk, graded papers and spent countless hours writing scores in miniature boxes in a teacher’s lesson plan book and if I had time answered questions about school work. We were “doing school.”

I was so busy planning, I wasn’t teaching. I redid our schedule, changed from a text book approach to a unit study. This allowed me to teach all Bible, history and science, to all the children at the same time. I worked separately with them on math and language arts. My planning and grading time was drastically cut. The children and I interacted, we read aloud together, worked on projects, and they were really learning.

The children were learning academics but somewhere along the line, probably when I wasn’t seeing things in proportion, I replaced Bible time with math, spelling, or history. A quick evaluation of our school time showed a very limited amount of Bible study. Our curriculum was Christian and we read an occasional Bible verse but we were not spending time in God’s Word. I wasn’t even starting the day praying anymore. We had changed to a better road but somewhere we changed destinations.

One Needful Thing

In the Bible story of Mary and Martha, Martha was very busy with preparations as Mary sat at the feet of Christ. When Martha complained about Mary, Jesus answered and said unto her, “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:40-42.) The lesson is simple: only one thing is necessary.

I purposed to accomplish the “one needful thing” daily by committing to reading the Bible before any academic schoolwork. True wisdom is only available by spending a significant amount of your home school time studying and teaching God’s Word. I set aside strivings and anxieties and purposed to teach my children who Christ is. We began to spend time sitting at His feet and feast at the table of His mercy, forgiveness, and peace. We began to learn the unseen things of God. We began to learn true wisdom. We stopped “doing school” and focused on seeking God.

Publish Post
Heart of Wisdom Publications

After a dozen years of examining different teaching philosophies, learning styles–and most importantly–what God’s word says about teaching children, I wrote The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach. You can read about it at HeartofWisdom.com. See a full list of my publications and download free excerpts here.

I am excited about the seeds of love and wisdom being planted by the insightful ladies here at Heart of the Matter.

Please visit my blogs:

• Heart of Wisdom Blog (encouragement and tips for homeschoolers)
• Blogging 101 (blogging tips for homeschool bloggers)

Blessings,

Robin