Are you a committed homeschooling mom like me? If you know me in person, you might not believe I am shy and introverted. There are a lot of days I am simply battered by having to deal with crowds of people at the grocery store or even too many cars on the road. Once I get to know you or a situation, like co-op, I appear to be outgoing but I still go home and am ready to crawl into a quiet corner of my house.
I’m also very bad at saying ‘no,’ but, I’m working on it. I step out of my shell for my kids which I usually don’t regret doing. On almost any given day, I’ll do numerous things outside my comfort zone just to help one or both of my kids.
I have heard so many wonderful things about 4-H and kept trying to find something in the area to get my kids involved in and one day, an excellent homeschool mom tells me, “I’m going to start a 4-H STEM group.” I’m thrilled and volunteer to do anything to help. We try to meet up with the appropriate 4-H people and eventually have a meeting to find out what we can do. I even offered to lead the Senior group (students aged 14-18) because they’re supposed to run this mostly by themselves. Whew!
This was the perfect group for me. It involved at most six students but usually only four with one being my own and all I had to do was find the supplies they needed, do a little prodding and off they go! I could sit back and talk to the other parents there. They had officers and took notes on what they were doing, I kept them up to date in supplies and they had fun building catapults, robotic hands, playing with Lego robotics, learning how robots worked and how to work together as a team.
The next thing I know, it’s part of a co-op! What’s a co-op? How’s this going to change things? Do I have to be more involved?? More people, more hustle, how am I going to do this?? Thankfully, the mom who started 4-H took care of everything. Did I mention she’s amazing?
This co-op turned out to be a fun place to be. Lots of different classes were offered by parents who were looking out for the best interests of their children too. Our motto is “Whatever you’re doing, let’s do it together.” And it really has turned into a good thing for both parties. Some of the classes we want to teach our kids work out better with more kids involved. We get more input and ideas, they’re getting more options. They’re more interested all around AND we can get messy if we want! I even helped out in classes which weren’t my original 4-H class.
While this was going on, another great homeschooling mom said, “What about getting some speech classes from Toastmasters a little closer to home?” I said it sounded interesting and offered to help. (Anything to help my kids, right?) When the Toastmasters class was over, the kids informed us they weren’t ready to stop so we continued. I’m starting to feel a little crazy by now.
Everything was going well, co-op was wonderful, and the speech program was fun, another terrific homeschooling mom asked, “Hey! What about another co-op about 10 minutes from your house? And we could continue doing speech there!” Well, how could I not look into it? Now I’m teaching STEM and Speech at a new co-op.
We can’t forget about what it’s done for my kids! Not only have they had the chance to learn from other teachers and the subjects those parents know and share but my boys have also come out of their shells. They’ve had the chance to meet other kids and make new friends, and some are a little closer to home.
Yes, there are days I’m still ready to crawl in my quiet corner when I get home but I wouldn’t trade sharing my thoughts and learning with these kids for anything. They make it fun for me and I sure hope they’re getting something from me in return. I’m thinking it might be time for me to branch out. Yes, quiet, shy little me might try something new. I couldn’t do it without a lot of help from my fellow homeschooling parents and we’d all love to help anyone else step up to lead a class or two. How does the saying go? “What doesn’t kill you …” I’m not dead yet and that’s how I became a co-op teacher!
