by Cornelia Oprea
Why do we Homeschool?
It is Holy Week, and like most of us my family is pushing through, attending daily services. Only complication: my husband and I work on average 50 hours a week, and our kids attend public school. By Thursday, my eldest, a second grader, is falling asleep in class. He tells his concerned teacher that he is tired because we have been in church every evening. To which his teacher replied: “Tell your mom school is more important than church.”
Hearing that from my child did something to me. I worked for many years in public education, and encountered numerous children who, for example, attended church till midnight every Wednesday evening. My colleagues and I worked around that, just as we had to work with kids that worked every day after school or took care of their siblings while their parents worked.
While social interactions my kids had at school were not always ideal, or academics were not always pursued in the same way I would have liked, that one interaction between my son and his teacher made me understand that my children were raised by people who did not see the world as I did, and that I had no control over that. We wanted to be free to attend as many church services as possible, without my children suffering the consequences because of our decisions.
The more we paid attention, the more we noticed that it wasn’t just school. In an abundance of care for the social well being of our children and in a very Orthodox approach to life-working to do everything we do to the best of our ability-our family, as well as most families we knew, were in constant conflict between church attendance and children’s activities. From debate, to dance, to martial arts, you name it, our children had other priorities in their daily life that superseded worship. So much so that morning prayers were done in the car, rushing to make it before the last school bell, so much so that we read only the fourth prayer in the evening.
Many years ago, my husband and I attended a workshop at an Orthodox convention, where a representative of the Department of Education of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese went over their findings from a study related to church adherence and its dismal findings. The question most clergy in attendance had was related to competing with children’s activities.
The Alternative
It has been many years since, and this Pascha, we were at Saint Constantine and Elena in Indianapolis. The church is one of the first Romanian churches in America. Dedicated and consecrated in 1911, the church has a majority convert congregation, but also includes fourth-generation members from the original founders. A true vision of the future of Orthodoxy in America.
My children would never have experienced such beauty were it not for homeschooling.
How We Got Here
The words from the Epistle of Barnabas resound: "The way of light, then, is as follows. If anyone desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works." For our family, travel is not just a figure of speech.
The onset of the 2020 lockdown remains etched in our memories—and while most remember the trials, my family cannot be more thankful for the blessings. As my husband devoted tireless hours in a Cancer Research hospital's clinical lab in Houston, grappling with unprecedented challenges, I faced the demands of a new school role in my public educator career of over a decade. Amidst this chaos, our first-grader and third-grader navigated the complexities of virtual learning, offering glimpses into the intricacies of remote education. Amidst the hardships, a silver lining emerged: the opportunity for our family to bond and cherish precious moments together. Daily walks and shared reading moved us to an increased comfort in being able to say farewell to virtual meetings and marked the beginning of a transformative phase.
There is no other way to describe how we were able to transition into our new life but through God’s providence.
My husband’s change in career path and obedience to God in pursuing this new career is a story on its own. And to go into too many details would either give my husband undue credit or trivialize what we perceived as God’s hand working in our lives. Suffice it to say that walking away from our professional identity helped us understand that this life we had created came across as if it was of our own merit. We were walking into a life where whatever step we took, it evidently and unequivocally depended on God.
So, we zealously travel in the path God sets out before us.
Our homeschooling came as a package. My husband travels for work, and the boys and I join him as often as we can.