Bethlehem: a REAL place.

"Here...it's being discussed as something whether 'you believe in' or 'not believe in', and where I come from it's more like, 'It's a fact.'" --Greta Thunberg, Swedish climate activist. Her words resonated with me as I remembered a 4 year old boy from our homeschooling community who asked me about my mother being from the place where Jesus was born. His eyes crinkled with confusion as he enquired, "Did your mom live in a real place, on the real earth? I didn't know that Jesus was from a real place." When did the facts of our world become fairytales, and the historic Jesus become a fiction that we "believe in" or not?

The legacy of a faith built on tangible, living evidence is the one passed on to me as an American-born Christian with a mother who emigrated from Palestine. The facts reported to us began with her memories in the stone courtyard of the Nativity church, where she and her brother used to play marbles with pebbles as children, and where she rang the church bell by hanging from its cord in the steeple. Facts spoke to us of miraculous healings like a mute boy being healed on the spot after visiting a sacred place, and his shouts being heard by a bus full of pilgrims saying, "Mama, I see a dove! I see a dove!" Facts burned into our memory like the Holy Fire that appeared every year on Al Sabt il Noor, The Saturday of the Light, when the Orthodox church brings a miraculous flame out of the empty tomb of Jesus Christ. Facts lived under ground in the Nativity Church where to this day there is a grave full of children's bones, the crypt of the innocent infants who were executed by King Herod when the toddler Jesus became a refugee in Egypt with his mother, Mary, and his father, Joseph.

These facts also grieved violence, like the icon of Mary and Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre that shed tears a short time before the Six Day War broke out in 1967. Today it still hangs in a small chapel there with a streak in the paint that runs from her eye. Facts were why after seeing "The Passion of the Christ" movie with my church group in 2004, my mom was the only dry eye in the house. Afterwards, she confidently challenged, "I don't understand why everyone is so shocked. This is the truth. This is how it was."

Growing up in an American home with a Palestinian parent, this confrontation between things people "believed in" and the "facts" defined my worldview. In 2002, over the month of Easter, the Church of the Nativity "fell under siege" by the Israeli Defense Forces. We cried and prayed as we spoke over the phone with our family who reported tanks on the street in front of their home and body bags being carried away, while the nightly television news spun an entirely different tale. In Bible studies, the Israel of the Old Testament was talked about as the same Israel of today, while to me the Israel of today was one that appeared in post World War II military uniforms with firearms, surrounded families while in their homes, and threatened children as they walked to school. Facts revealed that the Old Testament's Israel shared our Palestinian DNA, as the Holy Land Christians descend from the many people groups of the church of the first century, including the Hebrews, Romans, Arabs and others who received the Holy Spirit during the Pentecost. The stewards of the faith of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the living Son of God are to this day, the Palestinian Christians.

Today, that responsibility is mine. We are the diaspora Palestinian Christians. Regardless of where we live, we carry this legacy of truth-telling, remembrance, and a faith established on historic facts that defined the lives of our ancestors. Being stewards of the facts is all of our responsibility.

Jesus came and dwelt among us.
In a real place. 

May the confidence of that which is real bring joy and hope to you this Advent week and during Christmas this year.

Before you withdraw you're kid from school, read this.

It was a glittery, successful week when I last wrote that holy-grail review of homeschooling. Now, it's reality-check time! Homeschooling has a lot of downsides, and my last post didn't even hint at them.

After a school-related tragedy, when lives are lost and the schools feel especially unsafe, I always hear chatter about homeschooling. "You're so lucky you don't have to send your kids to a place where you don't know that they'll be okay." "If only I could homeschool my kids." Now, I'm seeing ads for bullet-proof backpacks.

I'm devastated for the families who lost their precious children as a result of senseless violence. My teen went back to her public high school after the Parkland, Florida shooting the one year we decided to enroll her in The Institution. It crossed my mind to check that they were using the metal detectors, and yes, I was more worried than usual, but I don't think homeschooling would guarantee my child's safety. Even more importantly, is trying to protect my children a sound reason to choose homeschooling?

Wisdom from a representative at the HSLDA (Home School Legal Defense Association) has guided my thinking on this from the first year we decided to pursue this path. He explained that there are two types of homeschoolers: vision-driven and fear-driven. He opened his speech with a question:

"Who do you see standing in front of you when they turn 18?" 

Parents who were "vision-driven" could answer this with hopes, dreams, and plans for their son or daughter's education and future. "Fear-driven" parents were responding to tragedy, bullying, culture-wars, school system failures or abuse, but they didn't have direction. They were sheltering.

Confession: I started out as "fear-driven". 
Things were going so wrong at school. My older kid was getting a "D" in math because even though she could answer all the questions, she was too distracted to get work done. My younger one was exposed to an emotionally-disturbed child's bullying and it was devastating her self-confidence. Something had to change, but homeschooling was a big pill to swallow. We spent the first year floundering. I loved sitting and drinking hot cocoa on cold mornings watching the school buses and cars with kids passing by. We would read together and study passages and I would make up curriculum as we went. It helped that I had taught high school, but they were 1st and 2nd graders. I didn't know what to do with them!

Everyday is a day that I question myself, including today. There are many days when I want to quit. Every year we ask ourselves again, should we homeschool? We always wonder if we are doing enough, the right stuff, and if this is working for our kids. We fear that they won't get into college or achieve their dreams because we missed something.

Tomorrow is the first day of our homeschool community. My 16 year old will be in a class of three students learning Shakespeare and Formal Logic, Chemistry and U.S. history. She will be taking classes at the community college to bolster her way towards graduation. My almost 15 year old has spent her one week off this summer cleaning out her folders and gathering her courage for a school year of literature, dissections, and hours upon hours of ballet - her chosen career path. I've never been a first-hand witness to young people with such laser-focused commitment. They overwhelm me with their talent, intelligence and thoughtfulness and I have had the chance to watch them bloom before my own eyes.

But there are days when it seems so messed up. Days come when they say and do things that tell me that I screwed them up or that our curriculum has failed. Maybe school would have been just as right and I could have pursued my ambitions and provided a second income. Maybe they would have had opportunities to try studio arts or robotics or make different friends or join a club. Maybe they would have a varsity letter and prom pictures, a valedictorian tassel or at least a real, big commencement ceremony and a grad night.

So, here it is. An honest, 20/20 hindsight about why it isn't the best idea for every family. It's a list of things that we have stumbled over, cried about, and discussed ad nauseam with our homeschool communities. It's the downside of homeschool - the doubts and frustrations we overcome to do what is counter-cultural and non-conforming.

Reason #1: Homeschooling IS your job.

I was warned that one of the hardest parts of homeschooling will be that others will not recognize that you are not free - as in "available" during the day. They will ask if you can hang out, volunteer, work, talk on the phone, go shopping, work out. They will ask if you can visit during the school week, make a trip. The biggest problem is that I didn't accept this fact myself until years into it.

I tried to homeschool while running my own business. I was trying to manage my payed workers, my home, my kids, my clients, products, website, and accounting all the while doing history, science and literature lessons. It has been incredibly difficult for me to "just homeschool". My job description will still say "homemaker". Ultimately, I have had to drop my commitments (and my pride) and take my homeschooling on as a full-time job. Now I have found the joy in it and the opportunity to mend the gaps in my own personal education and enrichment as I learn alongside my students. They deserve and require an undivided commitment. You ARE the school.

Reason #2: Transiency of families in homeschool programs.

People who homeschool often do so for the flexibility which can lead to families coming and going. Whether it is the mobility to uproot and move for job opportunities, because the world is a classroom and they don't stay anchored, homeschooling burnout, the kids want to attend school, health or family crises, and so many more reasons, the dynamic enrollment in the co-ops and group/community programs creates instability for the homeschooler's relationships. There are few groups where a child can grow up together with other kids in a cohort. Making and losing friends every year is only a part of this grief. For the parents, there is always the question of whether or not their child will have a class the next year. Continuity is not guaranteed.

Reason #3: Your house is school.

Clearing our dining room table is a monumental task. We live in a 1925 brick bungalow that has a living room, dining room and small kitchen. I don't have my own office. Everywhere I turn there is a pile of some academic exercise, whether it is a book to read, a computer with a paper in progress, posters and art supplies, or a bin full of science supplies. I could probably organize it all and compartmentalize, but I'm too busy making lesson plans and reading the Latin text. Who has the time to set up a shelf and make bins for my paperwork?

Reason #4: Record-keeping.

I love teaching. I love learning. But paperwork is the bane of my homeschool existence. Documentation requires self-discipline and accountability on the part of the parent. The fantastic thing is that I do the lessons with my students everyday. I read their work. I listen to them think aloud. Assessment is on the spot. I don't have to run scantrons to determine if they have mastered something. I thought this subjective assessment was inaccurate, but the truth is that when my eldest entered school, her performance matched what I had graded on her transcript. In fact, she exceeded my assessment. My insecurities as the teacher made me grade her harder, setting a much higher standard than the school required to earn the "A". But don't audit me for their binders of work and the graded math assignments. It's a mess.

Reason #5: Parent/Child and Teacher/Student burnout.

There are no bells. There is no truancy officer. It's all you. Your alarm clock. Your integrity. November is a bugger. The energy is low, the assignments are hard, the reading is boring, and the weather is cold. Every week you pack the car, fight with the kids, unload your classroom into the meeting location, teach class, reload the car, crash at the end of the day. You wake up on Tuesday knowing that the rest of the week you have to get all the work done in the quiet of home. The refrigerator calls you out of boredom. The sofa is like a magnet for nap time. All the female hormones cycle together. There is drama at the extracurricular activities and nobody can concentrate. Every lesson gets on the nerves of the learner or the teacher. Tears fall and procrastination sets in. Deadlines come and more tears fall. It's all on you.

Reason #6: Algebra.
What can I say? People thought they only had to do this once in life. No offense, math teachers. Everyone's got their thing. Fill-in yours. (Actually, I love algebra. It's Latin that kills me.)

Reason #7: Limited worldview.
Indoctrination is bred in the confines of domesticated humanity. Curricula indoctrinate. Our schools indoctrinate. And yes, our homeschool program indoctrinates. It falls upon the parent to open wide the windows to the world and develop a conscience that transcends the narrow-mindedness of the untraveled, unread soul.

Reason #8: You are your own accountability.

Figure this one out for yourself.

Reason #9: Choosing curriculum.

The volumes with the options for curricula are larger than the largest printed phonebooks of the 1980s. Fate will guide you. But, you will always question it because how can you be an expert in everything? My conscience rests knowing that my job is to equip a lifelong learner, not teach them everything.

Reason #10: Your mother is your only teacher.

When I'm an introvert and my child is an extrovert. Tea is our peacemaker. Truth be told, we have tutors in our homeschool community and co-ops are out there. They are in sports and arts and take classes in other places where they get other leadership influences and teaching styles. However, most of the days of the week, months of the year, years upon years, it's us. We actually like each other most of the time. It works. We have learned to play together, eat together, vacation together, and yes, study together. But there are days. Those are the days when I start searching kayak.com for flights and the kids snapchat their friends in a corner at the back of the house. And then, they get a driver's license, a job, and can ride the train without me. We barely see each other. And in two years, one will likely go off to college and the other to a ballet company.

Anyone can homeschool, but not everyone should. As for me, I don't regret it one bit.