Interview with Heidi

Name: Heidi Butterfly

• How many kids do you have? Three girls (They are all grown up now either YA or SGAs.)

• What do you feel is the most important thing you‘ve passed on to your kids? A strong connection with the Lord and a determination to serve Him and put His will first in their lives.
• What do think made a difference in their training? I took the commission of “What is That in Thy Hand” serious and determined that I would be a 24/7 mother with the vision of teaching and training my children to become disciples. I tried to put what would be best for them first and earnestly tried to prayerfully consider their daily experiences along the lines of how each could be used to help to instill in them the right character and principles. At an early age we would send them to a quite place with the admonition “to hear from the Lord”, whenever they had misbehaved and made a wrong choice and we expected them to get an answer. I believe the fact that we kept our eyes and ears open daily and would not allow seemingly “little things” to go by without “being addressed” really helped them to become personally accountable as they became older.
• As far as their education, I believe that you get out what you put into it. In other words if you invest the time to teach them and find the materials that will help them to learn then you will have students that are learning. You have to put real planning and effort into their studies, especially in the earlier years and if they are having a difficulty in a particular subject, let’s say math, then it is really important to seek out and find what will work in helping them to learn, whether it is a different book, extra outside help, or even videos or computer courses, etc. I believe if you make sure that they learn the basics in their earliest years and especially make sure that you encourage the areas that they have a special interest in, then as they grow older they are more inclined to be self motivated.

• What is your favorite subject to teach and why? I have to say that I really love History. I remember when we started reading through the book of Genesis and decided to introduce the different civilizations as we went. I would go to the Library and find books about Sumer and Egypt and it just really made the Bible come alive. My husband has always said that you can’t truly understand the Bible without learning and including History and I believe that to be quite correct. I also felt that reading Biographical books about the lives of people with wonderful faith and sample also would help to instill good Character qualities in my children as they could learn from the lives of others. I can’t say that they always enjoyed the book reports that I would require them to make from reading these books, though. Ha!

• What method of teaching worked best for you in teaching your kids? As most of us did when starting to home school I wasn’t sure what books to use and sometimes found that what I was using didn’t do the job. I believe though, that the fact that I was willing to search and find whatever books or curriculums that would work for each one of my children individually is what made a big difference. I often ended up with a different publisher for each subject and sometimes even different publishers for each girl. It all depended upon their individual learning style and what their particular need was. I guess it is what I would call “going outside of the box”. As they got older we tried to include studies according to their personal interests. One of my daughters was interested in Shakespeare and so one course she took for High School was a Shakespearean course and she read some of His plays and did reports on them.

• What comes to mind when you think of home schooling? Freedom and diversity. Homeschooling enables us to teach our children without the constraints and limitations so prevalent in the public school system. It gives us the freedom to teach a subject without being bound by a particular book or publisher. A very wise teacher (and mentor of mine) once told me to remember to “use a book without it using you.” In other words have a vision for what you want your child to learn from a book and don’t feel bound to have to finish the entire book. She told me that public school teachers very rarely finish an entire book and that is why the last three chapters are usually the first three chapters of the book for the next year’s grade level. Also, homeschooling gives us the opportunity to cater to the needs of each child on an individual level. I think that the hardest years teaching wise are the elementary years as that is where the input and consistency of the teacher is so necessary in order to form a foundation on which all else is built on. Once a child has finished the junior high level and progressed to the senior high level then actually high school is really the last opportunity to fill in any learning gaps and also a time when individual interests can be met and encouraged. You may have one student who loves Math while another struggles with it. If the one who struggles with it has covered the basics that are required then it wouldn’t be necessary for them to have to take, for example, the more advanced Math courses that the other student would be interested in taking. I think that it is so important to tune into and encourage individual interests and gifts and talents. If we take these various factors into consideration including the basic requirements then I believe that we will have truly educated our children and prepared them for life.

• What is a funny memory you have of your kids growing up? Well, actually, this is a very difficult question to answer. What I may consider funny may not be appreciated by my girls as a funny memory and I think I had best leave this one unanswered. Ha. Now there was the time…….