Barbara Smith believes that family plays a huge importance in a child’s homeschooling. They feel safe and loved in a space where they are encouraged and supported by their family. This is why more and more families opt to take their children’s education at home.
Importance of teaching family values in homeschooling via iStock.
According to her, parents often have varying concerns as regards traditional school. For some families, they want more religious values in education. Some are concerned with the declining quality of education. Others just feel that children are best educated by their parents.
As we tread into the future, these concerns remain, urging more and more parents to consider home learning.
Barbara Smith and her family via Home Education Foundation.
Together with her husband Craig, they refused to accept this situation as normal. For these reasons, they took it upon themselves to raise and educate their eight children within the safe bounds of their home.
Back then, they were flustered by the number of home-schooled children. At the time, there were less than a hundred of them. They felt like they needed to do something. They began establishing local support groups, publishing resources, organizing conferences, and running several National Christian home education conferences.
These are the very same values and vision that brought them to create The Home Education Foundation in 1998.
The Beauty in Family and Homeschooling
The Home Education Foundation (HEF) aims to handcraft each child into a unique individual, complete with Christian character qualities, a hunger for service to others, academic acumen, a heart for the lost, and a strong Biblical work ethic.
To present, The HEF serves Australian and Kiwi families, by providing them guides, resources, workshops and events.
Read: Redefining Remote Learning and its benefits.
Barbara says that homeschooling drew her big family closer. Her children, now with their own families and living in different parts of the world, also homeschools their children. Even without her husband at her side, she feels that her family has been stronger than ever, despite the distance.
When asked what she sees in the future of homeschooling, she says that there is an even greater need for it today with so many people looking into educating their own children. She keeps going for the future of education and to honor his husband’s legacy.
Get to know more about Barbara Smith on Remote Classroom’s #RemoteLearningSummit2022 this coming January 30-31, 2022, 9 AM to 5 PM. You may read more about it here and register to have access to forums like this one.
