How to Evaluate Your Homeschool

The Savvy Educator recommends beginning the homeschooling journey by defining your family’s reasons for homeschooling. (To view the original post on this topic, click here.) If you’re a veteran homeschooler and you’ve never done this, it can benefit you too!

When it comes to evaluating your homeschool program, we recommend revisiting the worldview- or faith-related goals, academic goals, and relationship goals you identified when you determined your purpose for homeschooling. If you are effectively accomplishing those goals, you can consider yourself successful! Give yourself a pat on the back and have a celebration! Chances are, you’ll identify at least a few areas with room for improvement, though. After all, this is challenging! Who could possibly be doing it flawlessly?

Below, you’ll find a number of questions related to each area of focus for homeschoolers. You may want to answer them on a scale of one (almost never) to five (almost always). Feel free to copy and paste the ones that apply to you into your own document and disregard the others. Voila! You’ve created a self-evaluation that can be used once or twice a year for determining the effectiveness of your home school program. It will likely evolve over time as your goals and priorities shift and your children mature.

Worldview- and faith-related goals

_____ Do you follow Christ’s example of consistently spending quiet time in prayer with God, allowing you to be equipped by the Holy Spirit for the important job of homeschooling?

_____ Are you an active, serving member of a biblically strong, evangelical, Christian church, enjoying the benefits of a Christian community - the strength, encouragement, and opportunities to use your gifts in service that it provides?

_____ Are you presently seeking to continue to deepen your relationship with Christ through a Bible study, small group or Sunday school class?

_____ Are you a mentor for your child with Christ-like character?

_____ Do you pray consistently for your child?

_____ Are you characterized by the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control)?

_____ Do you find and take advantage of opportunities to discuss with your child God’s plan of salvation and pray for God to call him or her to follow Him?

_____ Are you implementing biblical parenting at home (including training your child’s heart, teaching the moral reason for choices we make, and helping your child respect, honor, and love others)?

_____ Are you helping your child understand what he is learning and the world around him according to a biblical worldview?

_____ Does your home school help your child develop a focus on the kingdom of God?

Academic goals

_____ Are you passionate and enthusiastic about what you are teaching your children?

_____ Do you demonstrate a solid understanding of the subjects that you teach?

_____ Are you well organized and ready to teach on homeschool days?

_____ Do you avoid outside distractions during homeschooling? (e.g. phone calls, etc.)

_____ Are you using time wisely (modeling good time management skills)?

_____ Do you emphasize to your child the importance of striving for excellence and giving his best effort in all he does? (e.g. turning in work that is neat and complete, reading all instructions before answering questions and following them accurately, answering to the best of his ability, taking ownership of requirements and due dates, etc.)?

_____ Do you encourage your child to develop a love for learning?

_____ Have you set appropriate academic objectives to accomplish with your child during this school year?

_____ Do you have an effective means of assessing progress in attaining those goals?

Relationship and character goals

_____ Do you typically speak in a warm, kind manner to your children?

_____ When firmness is required, do you speak calmly, kindly, and respectfully to your children?

_____ Do you refrain from embarrassing your child in front of his siblings and peers?

_____ Does your discipline at home focus on developing godly character, rather than

on controlling behavior?

_____ Do you require your child to treat peers and teachers with respect and kindness?

_____ Does your child have a clear understanding of the behavior standards expected in your home?

_____ Do you enforce standards and administer appropriate consequences consistently?

_____ Do you see evidence that your child continues to grow in his or her standard of behavior?

_____ Is your child increasingly responsible to hold himself to an appropriate behavior standard, needing fewer reminders and consequences from you as he grows?

_____ Is your older child (fifth-grade and up) characterized by interacting with adults respectfully (giving eye contact, appropriate verbal responses, obedience, etc.)

_____ Is your child increasingly characterized by a sensitivity to others and a desire to meet the needs he sees?

_____ Does your homeschool environment foster a closeness between you and your child?

_____ Are you taking advantage of the opportunities homeschooling affords to better understand and address your child’s interests, passions, hopes, fears, strengths, weaknesses?

_____ Are you handling the conflicts that arise from homeschooling with sensitivity and prayer, taking full advantage of the opportunities they provide to increase faith and build character?

_____ Does your home environment allow your child to preserve a healthy naiveté, or lack of exposure to material that could force him or her out of childhood prematurely?

_____ Do you prayerfully seek God’s direction regarding your child’s readiness for learning about sexuality, drugs, alcohol, abortion, etc. and protect him from information for which he is not yet ready?

_____ Do you carefully monitor the media your child is exposed to and protect him from materials that are immoral, that glorify a non-biblical worldview, or for which he is not yet ready?

These self-evaluation questions are truly just suggestions, starting points for your own customized tool to help in determining the areas where your home school is hitting the mark and those where there’s room for improvement. Don’t let it be an instrument for bringing guilt or shame. If you identify areas where improvement is needed (maybe even a lot of areas where improvement is needed), don’t let those cause you to become discouraged or to label yourself a failure as a homeschool parent! This is a great danger when completing a self-evaluation of any kind. We have to guard against this from the beginning and approach self-evaluation with a determination to let it motivate us to improve. It’s an opportunity to become more effective on every level and to make the homeschooling experience richer and more enjoyable for all involved. This is a good thing! Make it a tool that works for you, and don’t let it be anything else.

Taking the time to evaluate the effectiveness of your homeschool is just one more indication of your commitment to giving your children your very best. Your pursuit of excellence in homeschooling will pay off! Keep up the great work!

Discipleship-based Parenting: Faith and Works

Being a parent is a wonderful combination of beautiful opportunities and overwhelming responsibilities. As Christian parents we are, first and foremost, concerned with teaching the gospel to our children and pointing them toward Christ. Our children’s salvation is of primary importance and should be our ultimate desire and prayer. But we also have the great privilege, opportunity, and responsibility of teaching our children how they can best glorify God throughout their lives - by living according to his ways.

We want to be careful to teach and model the pursuit of righteousness to honor God for the love and grace he has freely offered us, not to earn anything from him. As we do this, we help them form an understanding of the biggest questions in life, including who they are, what their purpose is, how they should relate to others, and who God is.

In teaching our children to pursue righteousness, are we wrongly emphasizing works in the lives of our kids? No! While it’s vital that we clearly communicate to our kids that we are not saved by our works, it’s also vital that they know that our works demonstrate our living faith to ourselves and to the world.

The book of James explains this in the last part of Chapter 2. He describes faith without works as a “dead” and “useless” faith (v. 17,20). In verse 22, he explains that, for Abraham, "faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works.” In other words, faith and works go hand-in-hand, and neither one is of any value on its own. This concept is so much easier than we have made it. Put simply, true faith CANNOT HELP but express itself in true works.

The Psalmist teaches that there is blessing in walking according to God’s ways. In Psalm 119:1-3, he says, “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord! Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways (ESV)!” As parents, we want these blessings for our children, and our training and discipleship can actually help our children find them.

It can be overwhelming to consider the fact that we have been entrusted with introducing these little ones to the truth of God’s word – the truth of the gospel and how God saves us and the truth of how he wants us to walk with him. It’s a responsibility we should approach with prayerful reverence and diligence, leaning on the powerful grace of God all the way.

Come back for more posts on discipling your children! Also, check out these helpful resources from Savvy.

Accountability - A Homeschooler's Friend

Are you homeschooling successfully?

You may have confidently jumped into homeschooling with a strong desire to take the reins of your children’s education, believing no one is better equipped to guide, facilitate, and direct the development of their hearts, minds, and souls than you are. Though convinced of this as ever, you may still face questions like this from time to time:

- How do I know if I am doing a good job?

- How do I know my children are learning what they need to, that they’ll be equipped

for what lies ahead for them?

- How do I know if my children are falling behind academically or intellectually?

While we homeschoolers treasure our independence, questions like these highlight the value of some accountability as well. In a workplace, accountability is built in to the culture, with workers participating in annual evaluations that provide positive feedback and constructive criticism. In a traditional school, teachers are observed by colleagues who offer guidance on ways to meet objectives and improve on current performance. Without intentionally pursuing it, homeschoolers can find themselves without a good resource in this area.

Homeschoolers have several tools to help with evaluating the effectiveness of their home schools. No single one is the perfect, comprehensive evaluation tool, so the Savvy Educator recommends using a combination of two or more.

1. Curriculum scope and sequence – Even if you’re not using a traditional curriculum, taking a peek at the scope and sequence of one can be helpful, allowing you to compare what you covered (or plan to) with what it covers. You may determine that what you missed is not important for your child. However, you may realize that something you never thought to teach should really be added to your program.

2. Standardized Tests – These can potentially serve as very objective evaluation tools, especially for reading comprehension and math. Often, they provide feedback about the grade level equivalent of your child’s work. If that is the information you’re seeking, these can help! You may also choose a standardized test that gives your child a percentile ranking in different subject areas. This can be helpful for identifying areas of strength or weakness or (for your high schooler) as a guide to your child’s ability to compete with other students for college placement or scholarship funds.

3. Professional Evaluation – A professional educator can evaluate your child’s academic performance by working with him one-on-one, administering tests, or viewing his portfolio of homeschool work and then providing feedback and suggestions. A professional evaluation can be especially helpful if you suspect your child may have a learning glitch or you need more information about specific teaching styles or methods likely to benefit your child.

4. Self-Evaluation – Ultimately, you are accountable to you! Any of the above tools can assist you in achieving your goals and ensuring you are truly giving your best effort as you educate your children. However, a customized self-evaluation that reflects your family’s education values, goals, and objectives may be the most helpful of all.

Visit the Savvy Educator next week for a self-evaluation tool designed to help you determine if your home school is successful according to your own standards. You can make it your own and use it to send you further on the pathway to homeschooling with confidence and assurance that you are an ever-growing, constantly-improving home educator.