Sunday, November 17, 2019

Homeschool- What’s In a Name?

We started homeschooling last year- a culmination of two years in the public school system and for a variety of reasons (more on that later.)


Before finally taking the plunge and starting I did a deep dive into social media to learn all about homeschooling. I like to sit back, observe, list out things that I like, don’t like, things that I think will work, won’t work for our children. Social media gave me an avenue to do just that without stomping on toes. I could scroll through pictures, read captions and posts, and watch videos (I have watched SO many curriculum review videos in the process!) all from a safe distance. It gave me the space to think through, share with Ian, and discuss in length all of the different aspects of homeschooling.

We gently started into homeschool in July of 2018. I did a rolling soft start, with just a few subjects at first, and added in a subject or two a month until Christmastime, when we had it all incorporated. I did this approach because I knew that Grace, them second grade, would have an adjustment from public school to homeschooling, and Sophia, then Kindergarten, would need to adjust to mommy as a teacher instead of just play time.

Lest you think I invented the wheel I will come right out and say that I got this idea from a number of other homeschoolers who recommended it.

Fast forward to the present day.

We are in our second year of homeschooling and loving it. I get a lot of questions about what our days look like, which curriculum we use and why, and how to homeschool with different ages and styles. I wanted to be able to share more about it so I decided to start blogging more about it and started a separate Instagram account that can be solely about what we are doing in our school days, curriculum and resources reviews, and project ideas.

When starting the new IG account I needed a name for it. I had read previously how some states require a family’s homeschool to be named for paperwork and transcript reasons, and always thought it would be interesting to come up with a name. Now, somewhat forced into it by the need for a new handle, I had some thinking to do.

What was something that defined our homeschool?

Literature, history, and the Classical method all came to mind. I had another name pegged but I decided I wanted something that was a little more obvious. I continued to think about the how and why that we homeschool and came to this:

We homeschool deliberately. In every sense of the word. We have deliberately chosen to homeschool, we deliberated over curriculum and styles, and we intentionally set out to raise our children in a home that glorifies God and seeks out truth, goodness, and beauty.

If I can be honest, Deliberate Homeschool, did not sound like a very nice name to me, like calling it a Learning School. A quick google search to find the root of the word deliberate and other possible synonyms and I spotted the word:

Deliberatus: meaning considered in Latin.

Singular Nominative Masculine if you are interested in that sort of thing. I am interested, but not yet informed, so I stared for a long time at declension charts and then decided that I could come back and change it later on if I needed to, ha!

So, that’s it! I love that we attempt to be deliberate in all that we do- in our walk with the Lord, in our marriage, in our parenting, our work and our school, and in our relationships with others. We’ve been that way since the very onset of our dating relationship and it’s a pattern that we see repeated through every life stage so far.

Deliberatus Academy is off to a start and I’m looking forward to sharing more with you!

1 comment:

Callie said...

I love the name! I've always thought the idea of picking a name for your homeschool sounded interesting, but we aren't required to do it here either...maybe I should give it some thought. Can't wait to read more about your homeschooling!