free E-book for those considering home education

I just read the most wonderful little e-book. It's called Why You Should Homeschool Your Child: a Public Schoolteacher's Confession by Lisa Preston. It is available, free of cost, to download from www.homeschoolhelper.com If you have ever wondered what a typical day for a modern-day public educator must be like, this book will open your eyes. Pardon my grammar but we ain't talking Mayberry here. Oh, we like to think that the things that happen in large, poorly-funded, inner city schools just don't happen in small, Bible-Belt rural schools....maybe we need to be shaken, not stirred, and shaken hard at that. This book should shake you and then make you think twice before shoving the idea of home education down the garbage disposal.

I love the strength and courage it must have taken for this author to go against the grain, and admit the failings of the public education system. Yet she never bashes the educators and administrators who have tried so hard to make education what it ought to be. In fact, she highly praises her former colleagues for their hard work in that system all these years.

I have a relative in public education. I have never for a second doubted this is her calling in life. I know she will greatly impact the school she works in, as will doubtless others. I feel certain she eats, sleeps, and breathes education. So in that respect, and because I, too, had dreams of being a public school teacher once upon a time, I cannot bash those who give 150% to improving their students' way of life. However, I can and openly will bash the system that places too many children under one teacher's care, that pays teachers way too little, that expects teachers to not only TEACH but spend most of their day being a referee to all the dangers and woes that are carried into today's classrooms. My hats go off to these women and men who daily go into what I consider to be a spiritual, moral, and oftentimes physical battlefield, to try to do what they were called in life to do: educate. How can any education at all take place when you have so many obstacles to overcome? I can see why so many teachers are exhausted and ready to throw in the towel. Thank goodness they are in it because they truly love it, or it might become very difficult to justify remaining in that profession.

Whether you already homeschool, are just curious about it, or are thinking about trying it, this book will open your eyes, fill you with passion for raising up a Godly generation, and call you to act.

Thank you , Ms. Preston, for being brave enough to show us what others perhaps could not. And after 9 years and dreaded high school fast approaching, thank you for renewing my homeschool vision and reminding me of why I do what I do.
-Lynn