“Often the people that have the greatest impact on the world are the lopsided ones.”

Those words I heard many years ago at a homeschool convention have helped to shape my opinions about education.

According to author, Madeleine L’Engle, “These are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind for standardization, for the regimentation of us all, or what I like to call making muffins of us, muffins all like every other muffin in the muffin tin.”

Whether it is an overt goal of the public education system, as some would argue, or just an inevitable byproduct of finding expedient methods for instructing and controlling large numbers of children, public school students are being shaped into a mold.

An example of one who could not be made into a muffin, is Fanny Crosby. Blind from the age of six weeks, Fanny went on to become one of the most prolific hymnwriters, writing over 8,000 hymns in her lifetime. While possessing inordinate talent in the area of poetry and songwriting, Fanny failed miserably at math. I don’t know if she ever would have passed today’s proficiency exams.

Can you picture Thomas Edison forced to sit through classes on writing poetry or discussing and analyzing literature?

Homeschooling gives you the freedom to focus on your child’s strengths and areas of interest. You can provide instruction that goes deeper in areas you view as important and beneficial, rather than a smattering of superficial information covering a wide range of subjects.

Someone once said that we are learning less and less about more and more until someday we’ll know nothing about everything.

Don’t let that happen to your children. Find out where their talents and interests lie and dive in!