Dana Hanley entered college assuming she would likely get married eventually and certain she would have no more than one child. Children, she reasoned, were not to get in the way of her goals which at the time generally centered on fields related to journalism or political science. With the birth of her first child, however, all that changed. Dana discovered something larger than her own goals and yearned for the ability to stay home with her. That wasn’t to be, however. After completing her degrees in education and liberal arts, Dana joined Teach For America, an organization which places college graduates in high need areas to teach for at least two years. That brought her family to deep south Texas. An offer to work as house parents in a Christian group home brought them back north, to eastern Nebraska. And her husband’s commitment to building a more godly family eventually led him to seeking a job that could support his family and finally brought her home where he hoped she would educate their growing family.

Homeschooling? You are nuts. Homeschooling is for over-controlling parents attempting to live their lives through their children. It is for people who place greater importance on spelling bees and academic success than the needs of their children as they force-feed them knowledge at the expense of childhood.

But just as she had needed to hold her first child to realize there was more in life than her own pursuits, she needed to “hold” homeschooling for a spell to realize what it really was about. Now the same curiosity about the world which made declaring a major difficult is satiated as Dana explores the world together with her four children.