English: Hi everyone, thank you for joining us at The Lighthouse Today we are talking with Sheri English, a veteran homeschool mom here in Oregon, about how to homeschool high school and just some encouragement and tips in a past podcast episode, we talked with Shelly Wannvig about the details and requirements of homeschooling high school. And today we're going to dig more into the heart behind homeschooling high school and just some tips and encouragement for you. So thank you, Sheri so much for joining us today. We're grateful to have you here to chat about this. Can you just introduce yourself a little bit to us and tell us about your homeschool journey?
Lighthouse: Thank you. Sure. So my name is Sheri English and I am 54 years old. I've been homeschooling for a long time. I have 12 children. My husband and I have been married 34 years this August. We have 12 kids and we've homeschooled all along. Although one of our... Kid number seven actually did go through San Diem Christian private school here in Oregon. But ⁓ we got married in Oregon many years ago and had our first child here and then moved to Kansas City, Missouri where we had several more kids. We ⁓ would have through kid number seven in Kansas City. And so it was there that I started homeschooling. really, ⁓ honestly, Growing up, I wanted to go to college. I wanted to get a music ed degree and I wanted to teach in the public school system. I didn't have any these vision about children or about homeschooling because I didn't even know that existed at that point, right? Back in the 80s. So ⁓ I went to college, ended up getting saved and giving my life to Christ. And He put me on a journey of changing my view about children and marriage and all kinds of things. And so when we got married, I really even want any kids. ⁓ ⁓ has a funny sense of humor, I'd say, ⁓ what he does. And he's taught us so much along the journey. ⁓ he did give us children. ⁓ ⁓ saw ⁓ From the very beginning when I got married, someone had called the college asking for a private flute instructor. And so I went to this family's home who did this thing I'd never heard of called homeschooling. And I was graduating as a senior at Western Oregon University, which was Western Oregon State College back then. And I thought this was quite amazing. They had a bunch of kids. They were all polite. ⁓ I was really... wowed guess you would say about homeschooling and her kids were her oldest kids were in they were either junior high almost high school age and anyway it just left a huge impression on us as young married couple. Yeah, fast forward. got my degree. taught down in the Philomath School District for a year. And during that year, God did a lot in my heart. ⁓ of the things that really confirmed is ⁓ if did have children, ⁓ I not be sending them to public school because of what I saw and what I encountered, even just working that one year. ⁓ God bless us that year. I got pregnant with our first child and I stayed home after that. And we start this journey called homeschooling, which is so natural, right? You're just a mom, you just want to teach your kids anyway. It's totally natural, it doesn't have to be homeschooling, although you really are homeschooling from the very beginning that they're born. So we just kind of eased into it and didn't necessarily know what I was doing really. Didn't we were living in Missouri at that point? And so Deborah was five and I did what I thought you were supposed to do. I got material and anyway, started that journey of homeschooling and in our community back then, so we're talking, you know, 98, 99, maybe 2000, almost to 2000. Internet wasn't too big yet and cell phones weren't too big of a thing yet. And so I actually put an ad in our local paper. We lived in a small community outside of Kansas City. I just put an ad in the paper seeing if there were any other homeschooling parents around and moms who might want to meet with me. I got the okay to meet at a local church in this small community and moms actually showed up. from the end of the paper and soon, I didn't know what I was doing but I was running a support group because ⁓ needed some friends to start this homeschooling journey and ⁓ moms came out from the countryside and came into town to meet and apparently it met a need to be able to meet together. So we started sharing things that was a.
English: Hmm.
Lighthouse: once a month mom's meeting and then out of that was born a co-op where I started teaching music to kids. Older kids than what my kids were. I think Debra was eight at that point and I had kids all the way through high school that I was starting to teach music to and choir and classes. So. We had several kids there in Missouri and continued homeschooling, had a lot of fun. I felt pretty good about that as I had a good support group. I'd started off on a good foot. We got involved with our local state organization there in Missouri. And then in 2005, we moved to Colorado. And for my husband to take a job change, different pastor at a different church that we were gonna be at. ⁓ it was kind of life shattering to some of my kids, especially my oldest, Deborah, was about 11 and it was really hard. ⁓ moving with kids is hard ⁓ ⁓ especially homeschool kids when you just have your little community and ⁓ you don't know anybody. ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ I plugged right into our local homeschool support group there in ⁓ Pueblo West ⁓ made new friends and immediately began teaching music at their co-op. So my kids got plugged in right away. And I didn't leave all the support group meetings there. By that point, you know, I've got our journey in Colorado. By the time we would leave Colorado in 2017, we had 11 kids. And while moving here, some had already graduated. But there, Deborah, so she graduated, our oldest graduated in 2012. And when she was entering high school, I had that overwhelming feeling of I can't do it. I mean, I've been pretty good. Grade school, figured it out, have other kids that I'm homeschooling, it's going pretty good. And then junior high, it's going okay, we got friends, you know, but then, uh-oh, it's high school years, what am I gonna do? I started freaking out. And our pastor's wife at the time,
English: Mm.
Lighthouse: They had two kids and she'd homeschooled them through high school. And they went on to college. They were just amazing students. They were really smart, really sweet kids. And she just said to me, she's like, it's no big deal. You're gonna be fine. They're gonna be fine. And so, I don't know, it doesn't sound like it's a lot to say to somebody, but it took a lot of pressure off of me, knowing that, you know, her saying that, you know, God's gonna... take care of you. He's going to be in that. It's not much different than before. And it's just a matter of going on the journey about curriculum and opportunities for your kids. And so ⁓ we went into the high school years and it was good. Debra did great in high school years and so our kids are pretty stair-stepped ⁓ our first few are closer together than our others but ⁓ So she would graduate and then two years later our second one would graduate but then the next year our next kid graduated and then it was two more years, so it's kind like wow so in Colorado we graduated four of our kids before we moved here to Oregon and ⁓
English: Yeah.
Lighthouse: Of course the laws are different in every state regarding homeschooling. But the journey that was really helpful, think, ⁓ thinking back to my oldest kids in ⁓ was plugging them to things that they enjoyed. It's part of the journey of seeing what your child is ⁓ interested in and then helping them go that direction.
English: Right. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you so much for sharing all that. That's really interesting and fascinating, especially to hear about those early years. And you mentioned that it was intimidating at first, the high school years. So if you were to ⁓ talk with other homeschool parents like you are right now, ⁓ as they're entering the homeschool years, or the high school years, what do you think homeschool parents often over complicate when they start to look at high school because I know that I did that at first. So what do you think that homeschool parents over complicate when they start to look at high school?
Lighthouse: They overcomplicate credits and transcripts and all the academic stuff. I don't know why it's the tendency to focus on all of that. I guess that's because that's how we were trained, right? I went through the public school system. In my parents' eyes, the most important thing I could do was my academics. It was more important than chores. I didn't really learn chores very well. I got sent to my room to go do my schoolwork. So I think we're just...
English: Mm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Lighthouse: We want so badly for our kids to succeed. and have the good job or something that we end up focusing on that and that's not really the most important thing. Right? Our job as parents is to, like the Scripture verse says, train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he won't turn from it. I think that's important for our kids to help them see that and go that direction. But parents end up way over emphasizing and worrying about the number of credits and do we have it right? And It's not too hard and everyone can do it. You can homeschool your kids through high school. If you're dedicated and committed and seek out, mean we're not, nobody's perfect, we don't have all the knowledge, but if you can go to places like OCEANetwork and other places where ⁓ can get help, then you'll be fine.
English: So what do you think you would say as far as what you think success looks like in high school? Because it sounds like it shifted. So what did success look like for you during the homeschool high school years?
Lighthouse: So success looks like your child enjoying their education and enjoying learning and starting to figure out who they are. Who are they in God's eyes and who are they in God's family and what skills and talents do they have? It's... That's the success is helping your child see that and then helping them go in that direction. It's so important to make the switch from just being, you know, teacher in the younger years to being more of the coach model and coming alongside your high schooler to encourage them to be their champion, to help them out. They don't know all the places to look. They don't know what to do and yet to come alongside them. Yeah.
English: So how did your role, as the homeschool mom, how did your roles change when your kids started to enter high school? How did that relationship change or your role in their life as far as direct teaching versus coaching and what was that like?
Lighthouse: So they become much more independent at high school age. You're expecting them to do a lot more. When we started out homeschooling, we had planner sheets for all the kids. And I continued to keep their very basic form. I continued to keep those planner sheets all through high school. And the kids had to write their own planner sheets. But by that point, junior high, high school, they're filling it out themselves. I mean, I'm telling them what they need to do each week. So they've got a plan. So it's really important that your high schooler has a plan, knows the plan, and can work the plan. ⁓ Some of mine have been more self-directed than others, and some need more nudging and encouragement and steering back on track. ⁓ But my role was definitely, like I was saying earlier, to come alongside them more and help just be their coach. not do everything with them, I definitely, there to help them with their math or whatever they would need that they couldn't do. ⁓ But I don't do everything for them anymore, and nor do I teach everything. But it's good for them to be in an environment with other students and other adults as their teacher so that they can learn. ⁓ what it means to respect and follow direction and honor somebody else. So especially important for the boys to have ⁓ other men in their life. Important for their dads to be in their life and have a good relationship with their dad, but then really needing some other male leadership. However that can come about. So the co-ops that we did over the years,
English: Yeah, that makes sense.
Lighthouse: You know, other men weren't really teaching them usually, but my husband taught a lot of co-op classes from geography to Bible education stuff. just, history, he would teach stuff to our kids and then in co-ops he would teach as well. I just think it's important for those boys, they need some male leadership. But yeah, having them go other places is important.
English: Yeah. So how did you intentionally shepherd your teens spiritually during those years? Did it look different than when they were in elementary school and middle school?
Lighthouse: Yeah, I think it did. Elementary school, we sat around and did picture bible together and we'd all read our bible and we'd talk about things and we had bible studies at home in the evenings at different times, family devotions and things. And those still continued even into the high school years where we'd still have the older kids join us for family devotions. It's definitely, I don't know, every kid's different again, right? And each one is different in their spiritual walk. so try to encourage our kids, you know, get them their own Bible. They know a lot about Scripture. My husband was a pastor and so we did lots of training about, they have lots of Bible knowledge, but to make it into their heart is, that's where you want them to go, right? So that they actually own their own faith that they can't. live vicariously through your faith because it's not enough. trying to steer them to God ⁓ through, well, you pray for them all the time, encouraging them to have their own prayer life, to have their own Bible study. We bought our kids' journals because we felt like this is, and some of them didn't use them. But some of them really latched on to the idea of this is a way to get out my emotions my feelings my frustrations and talk to God get to know him in journaling of course to church being part of a fam you know Bible studies and group Yeah All those things are really important.
English: Well, thank you so much, Sheri,
Lighthouse: Thank you. Sure. So my name is Sheri English and I am 54 years old. I've been homeschooling for a long time. I have 12 children. My husband and I have been married 34 years this August. We have 12 kids and we've homeschooled all along. Although one of our... Kid number seven actually did go through San Diem Christian private school here in Oregon. But ⁓ we got married in Oregon many years ago and had our first child here and then moved to Kansas City, Missouri where we had several more kids. We ⁓ would have through kid number seven in Kansas City. And so it was there that I started homeschooling. really, ⁓ honestly, Growing up, I wanted to go to college. I wanted to get a music ed degree and I wanted to teach in the public school system. I didn't have any these vision about children or about homeschooling because I didn't even know that existed at that point, right? Back in the 80s. So ⁓ I went to college, ended up getting saved and giving my life to Christ. And He put me on a journey of changing my view about children and marriage and all kinds of things. And so when we got married, I really even want any kids. ⁓ ⁓ has a funny sense of humor, I'd say, ⁓ what he does. And he's taught us so much along the journey. ⁓ he did give us children. ⁓ ⁓ saw ⁓ From the very beginning when I got married, someone had called the college asking for a private flute instructor. And so I went to this family's home who did this thing I'd never heard of called homeschooling. And I was graduating as a senior at Western Oregon University, which was Western Oregon State College back then. And I thought this was quite amazing. They had a bunch of kids. They were all polite. ⁓ I was really... wowed guess you would say about homeschooling and her kids were her oldest kids were in they were either junior high almost high school age and anyway it just left a huge impression on us as young married couple. Yeah, fast forward. got my degree. taught down in the Philomath School District for a year. And during that year, God did a lot in my heart. ⁓ of the things that really confirmed is ⁓ if did have children, ⁓ I not be sending them to public school because of what I saw and what I encountered, even just working that one year. ⁓ God bless us that year. I got pregnant with our first child and I stayed home after that. And we start this journey called homeschooling, which is so natural, right? You're just a mom, you just want to teach your kids anyway. It's totally natural, it doesn't have to be homeschooling, although you really are homeschooling from the very beginning that they're born. So we just kind of eased into it and didn't necessarily know what I was doing really. Didn't we were living in Missouri at that point? And so Deborah was five and I did what I thought you were supposed to do. I got material and anyway, started that journey of homeschooling and in our community back then, so we're talking, you know, 98, 99, maybe 2000, almost to 2000. Internet wasn't too big yet and cell phones weren't too big of a thing yet. And so I actually put an ad in our local paper. We lived in a small community outside of Kansas City. I just put an ad in the paper seeing if there were any other homeschooling parents around and moms who might want to meet with me. I got the okay to meet at a local church in this small community and moms actually showed up. from the end of the paper and soon, I didn't know what I was doing but I was running a support group because ⁓ needed some friends to start this homeschooling journey and ⁓ moms came out from the countryside and came into town to meet and apparently it met a need to be able to meet together. So we started sharing things that was a.
English: Hmm.
Lighthouse: once a month mom's meeting and then out of that was born a co-op where I started teaching music to kids. Older kids than what my kids were. I think Debra was eight at that point and I had kids all the way through high school that I was starting to teach music to and choir and classes. So. We had several kids there in Missouri and continued homeschooling, had a lot of fun. I felt pretty good about that as I had a good support group. I'd started off on a good foot. We got involved with our local state organization there in Missouri. And then in 2005, we moved to Colorado. And for my husband to take a job change, different pastor at a different church that we were gonna be at. ⁓ it was kind of life shattering to some of my kids, especially my oldest, Deborah, was about 11 and it was really hard. ⁓ moving with kids is hard ⁓ ⁓ especially homeschool kids when you just have your little community and ⁓ you don't know anybody. ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ I plugged right into our local homeschool support group there in ⁓ Pueblo West ⁓ made new friends and immediately began teaching music at their co-op. So my kids got plugged in right away. And I didn't leave all the support group meetings there. By that point, you know, I've got our journey in Colorado. By the time we would leave Colorado in 2017, we had 11 kids. And while moving here, some had already graduated. But there, Deborah, so she graduated, our oldest graduated in 2012. And when she was entering high school, I had that overwhelming feeling of I can't do it. I mean, I've been pretty good. Grade school, figured it out, have other kids that I'm homeschooling, it's going pretty good. And then junior high, it's going okay, we got friends, you know, but then, uh-oh, it's high school years, what am I gonna do? I started freaking out. And our pastor's wife at the time,
English: Mm.
Lighthouse: They had two kids and she'd homeschooled them through high school. And they went on to college. They were just amazing students. They were really smart, really sweet kids. And she just said to me, she's like, it's no big deal. You're gonna be fine. They're gonna be fine. And so, I don't know, it doesn't sound like it's a lot to say to somebody, but it took a lot of pressure off of me, knowing that, you know, her saying that, you know, God's gonna... take care of you. He's going to be in that. It's not much different than before. And it's just a matter of going on the journey about curriculum and opportunities for your kids. And so ⁓ we went into the high school years and it was good. Debra did great in high school years and so our kids are pretty stair-stepped ⁓ our first few are closer together than our others but ⁓ So she would graduate and then two years later our second one would graduate but then the next year our next kid graduated and then it was two more years, so it's kind like wow so in Colorado we graduated four of our kids before we moved here to Oregon and ⁓
English: Yeah.
Lighthouse: Of course the laws are different in every state regarding homeschooling. But the journey that was really helpful, think, ⁓ thinking back to my oldest kids in ⁓ was plugging them to things that they enjoyed. It's part of the journey of seeing what your child is ⁓ interested in and then helping them go that direction.
English: Right. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you so much for sharing all that. That's really interesting and fascinating, especially to hear about those early years. And you mentioned that it was intimidating at first, the high school years. So if you were to ⁓ talk with other homeschool parents like you are right now, ⁓ as they're entering the homeschool years, or the high school years, what do you think homeschool parents often over complicate when they start to look at high school because I know that I did that at first. So what do you think that homeschool parents over complicate when they start to look at high school?
Lighthouse: They overcomplicate credits and transcripts and all the academic stuff. I don't know why it's the tendency to focus on all of that. I guess that's because that's how we were trained, right? I went through the public school system. In my parents' eyes, the most important thing I could do was my academics. It was more important than chores. I didn't really learn chores very well. I got sent to my room to go do my schoolwork. So I think we're just...
English: Mm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Lighthouse: We want so badly for our kids to succeed. and have the good job or something that we end up focusing on that and that's not really the most important thing. Right? Our job as parents is to, like the Scripture verse says, train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he won't turn from it. I think that's important for our kids to help them see that and go that direction. But parents end up way over emphasizing and worrying about the number of credits and do we have it right? And It's not too hard and everyone can do it. You can homeschool your kids through high school. If you're dedicated and committed and seek out, mean we're not, nobody's perfect, we don't have all the knowledge, but if you can go to places like OCEANetwork and other places where ⁓ can get help, then you'll be fine.
English: So what do you think you would say as far as what you think success looks like in high school? Because it sounds like it shifted. So what did success look like for you during the homeschool high school years?
Lighthouse: So success looks like your child enjoying their education and enjoying learning and starting to figure out who they are. Who are they in God's eyes and who are they in God's family and what skills and talents do they have? It's... That's the success is helping your child see that and then helping them go in that direction. It's so important to make the switch from just being, you know, teacher in the younger years to being more of the coach model and coming alongside your high schooler to encourage them to be their champion, to help them out. They don't know all the places to look. They don't know what to do and yet to come alongside them. Yeah.
English: So how did your role, as the homeschool mom, how did your roles change when your kids started to enter high school? How did that relationship change or your role in their life as far as direct teaching versus coaching and what was that like?
Lighthouse: So they become much more independent at high school age. You're expecting them to do a lot more. When we started out homeschooling, we had planner sheets for all the kids. And I continued to keep their very basic form. I continued to keep those planner sheets all through high school. And the kids had to write their own planner sheets. But by that point, junior high, high school, they're filling it out themselves. I mean, I'm telling them what they need to do each week. So they've got a plan. So it's really important that your high schooler has a plan, knows the plan, and can work the plan. ⁓ Some of mine have been more self-directed than others, and some need more nudging and encouragement and steering back on track. ⁓ But my role was definitely, like I was saying earlier, to come alongside them more and help just be their coach. not do everything with them, I definitely, there to help them with their math or whatever they would need that they couldn't do. ⁓ But I don't do everything for them anymore, and nor do I teach everything. But it's good for them to be in an environment with other students and other adults as their teacher so that they can learn. ⁓ what it means to respect and follow direction and honor somebody else. So especially important for the boys to have ⁓ other men in their life. Important for their dads to be in their life and have a good relationship with their dad, but then really needing some other male leadership. However that can come about. So the co-ops that we did over the years,
English: Yeah, that makes sense.
Lighthouse: You know, other men weren't really teaching them usually, but my husband taught a lot of co-op classes from geography to Bible education stuff. just, history, he would teach stuff to our kids and then in co-ops he would teach as well. I just think it's important for those boys, they need some male leadership. But yeah, having them go other places is important.
English: Yeah. So how did you intentionally shepherd your teens spiritually during those years? Did it look different than when they were in elementary school and middle school?
Lighthouse: Yeah, I think it did. Elementary school, we sat around and did picture bible together and we'd all read our bible and we'd talk about things and we had bible studies at home in the evenings at different times, family devotions and things. And those still continued even into the high school years where we'd still have the older kids join us for family devotions. It's definitely, I don't know, every kid's different again, right? And each one is different in their spiritual walk. so try to encourage our kids, you know, get them their own Bible. They know a lot about Scripture. My husband was a pastor and so we did lots of training about, they have lots of Bible knowledge, but to make it into their heart is, that's where you want them to go, right? So that they actually own their own faith that they can't. live vicariously through your faith because it's not enough. trying to steer them to God ⁓ through, well, you pray for them all the time, encouraging them to have their own prayer life, to have their own Bible study. We bought our kids' journals because we felt like this is, and some of them didn't use them. But some of them really latched on to the idea of this is a way to get out my emotions my feelings my frustrations and talk to God get to know him in journaling of course to church being part of a fam you know Bible studies and group Yeah All those things are really important.
English: Well, thank you so much, Sheri,
