Off-grid Homeschooling

When we decided to home-school our two boys, we were still living in the city.  The school experience was destroying their spirit and the school was also pressuring us to drug our oldest.  When the boys cried because they did not want to go to school, we knew there was huge problems going on.  My wife was also a teachers assistant at the same school, so she had an inside look at what was going on.  We both decided to pull the boys out of the industrial brainwashing system and give our boys a real education.

I then studied the Alberta School Act and discovered that we could teach them the Alberta curriculum or make our own.  For us, it was an easy decision.  We chose our own!  My education regarding the legal system was still very green, so we found a home schooling board that was very flexible and would accommodate our beliefs and goals.  After a few years, we were confident we could do it without registering them each year.  When we moved out onto the land my wife and I decided that the best education we could give them would be to teach them how to provide for the basic necessities of life.  We still taught them to read, write, work with numbers and that sort of thing, but the basics was building earthships, barns, fences, looking after live stock, gardens, greenhouses, electrical, plumbing and other skills that will serve them well in their life.  

We wanted to teach them how to think, not what to think and to have a good work ethic.  I taught them how to look for information on line so that the can explore their own interests rather than us guessing what they may like.    Science was taught by exploring the bush, observing wild live, helping with construction of our infrastructure and doing all the things we experienced while living off the grid.  

I really wanted to make sure that they knew what hard work would teach them that instant gratification will not serve them.  In order to gain the important things in life requires hard work, time, patience and dedication to achieving goals.  I taught our two sons both sides of the fence.  We explore what life is like in the fictional world while they lived life in the real world.  They were exposed to both so that when they got old enough, they could then decide which path to explore.  

We worked hard to give them the right to say no, to explore their own interests, know how to ask questions or where to look for answers.  They know how to think and that is the crowning achievement of their education.  I know that my two sons can do anything they want because they can learn and how to recover and learn from their mistakes!  We made mistakes along the way, but I have complete faith in my two grown men!  I pray that they forgive us for the mistakes we made and that they make the best of their lives.  I now stand as a witness to their journey as they explore life on their own terms.  They will make their own mistakes, but I have faith that they will do so with honour, grace and respect.