Never Stop Learning

Over the last couple of weeks I have been taking on a few more responsibilities for The Adventure Letters company, which include social media marketing and reaching beneficiaries of state funded homeschool resources. I am not a born salesman so this has been a learning curve. More like a hairpin turn, really, but learn I have. I have learned quite a few things actually - How many homeschool support groups there are out there (in both my immediate area and in the country at large). I learned how ready and willing other homeschool families are to share any helpful info and, because of that fact, how easy it is to ask for help. I learned that there are many states that offer funding for homeschoolers to access higher quality resources for their kids. The Adventure Letters is proud to be an approved vendor for several of those state programs and we are applying for more! 

When I was a child being homeschooled, the only resource available to my mother, outside of what she could make herself or what our tiny homeschool group could work out together, was the right for our family to take advantage of elective classes offered through the public school. When my own children were young there was a bit more available. Several museums had special programs available to homeschooling families and, of course, weekday admission to many places was reduced. Libraries were (and are) great at knowing what was available for homeschoolers education. There were even homeschool sports leagues!

Today, the things available to the homeschool community are so numerous I couldn’t even begin to list them all. A cursory search will turn up a plethora of options for any type of homeschooling. It was really encouraging to see how full and functional the community is and how readily available help and resources are! I challenge you to do a search of your own and find groups in your community. Who knows, we may even end up in some of the same circles! 

Something else I learned through this addition of responsibilities was that learning, in itself, is a beautiful gift, and it keeps on giving for the entirety of your life. I can’t say I think I will ever be a world class salesman - it is not my passion or my purpose - but I can say it is good to add another ability to my resume. It is good to have acquired a valuable skill set. 

Many years ago I ran a charitable organization that required me to speak in front of people. With a microphone. And an audience. It was terrifying. So I joined a group called ToastMasters. If you have never heard of them, they are a large organization of small groups where people practice speaking in front of the group. All the members are assigned speech topics and a time limit, then each person in the small group takes a turn presenting. I went for months and developed the ability to speak in public.

Never take for granted the gift of learning. We, as homeschoolers, pour our lives into our children’s education, but our own education is also something t be prized and it doesn’t need to stop when we graduate.