Meet Our Thanksgiving Winners                    

“What are you thankful for?”  No doubt you answered that question while sitting around the table this past Thursday.   Global Student Network is thankful for all the great responses to its November contest!  Here are our three winners:

Meet Cynthia Brandon

Cynthia has homeschooled her two children, Noah and Savannah, for the last three years.  Our family spends a lot of time going to different therapy appointments due to Noah having autism.  Therapy time allows me to study and work with Savannah.  Savannah enjoys art and sewing and Noah likes Legos and is fascinated by trees and insects.  Church is a big part of our lives.  We love homeschooling as it allows us the opportunity to spend time together.  I am so thankful I have the ability to teach my children.

For the contest Cynthia, wrote:

I am so thankful I am able to homeschool my two children Savannah, 13 and Noah 11.  We live in a large city so some of our schools are not that great at all.  We tried the public school system and it was not an environment that Noah was comfortable in and could learn.  He has autism, so traditional methods were not effective for him.  He was really struggling just to get through each day so we discussed homeschool.  I quit my job and we pulled him out of school.  BEST THING WE EVER DID FOR HIM!!!! 

The things that the school “could not” teach him he was able to master his goals with 4-6 weeks.  The first week we just “unschooled” him – no books, nothing that remotely reminded him of school.  We have been homeschooling for three years now.  Noah can add, tell time, and he is reading at a 4^th grade level.  He knows his personal information and gets community outing social experiences which are more beneficial than interacting in a classroom.  He gets “real time” social encounters.  We have some sort of therapy five times a week (speech, OT and behavior therapy along with social skills class). 

As for my daughter she is very shy, and she really enjoys being homeschooled.  She is in the 8^th grade and tested at a 10^th grade level last year.  Savannah is very modest and enjoys spending time with her family.  She is great with Noah and helps him with his work.  As I am back in school myself she will help him when needed.  We are not a typical family by any means.  We are an autism family and that makes us pretty AU-some! 

Having the ability to teach my children at home and teach them the way they should be taught is priceless.  I just wish every parent had the option of homeschooling.  That to me is the greatest gift I could give them and I am so thankful for it!! 

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To represent the thankful students we heard from, we chose Mihalis C. 

Mihalis’ hobbies and interests are sailing, archery, cartoon drawing and piano and recorder. He walks dogs for a local dog shelter and is earning some spending money in his spare time by baking cookies and cakes to sell to friends and family.

Why I am thankful for homeschooling by Mihalis (age 10)

• We can travel the world and learn about different places
• I can learn about what I am interested in and at my own pace
• I do not get bossed around by people like I did at school
• We can have fun AND learn
• I can learn on the laptop, iPad and other electronic devices
• We can help other people (our homeschooling schedule includes voluntary and community work)
• I can listen to music while I am learning or anything else that relaxes me as long as I am doing my work too
• Homeschooling does not have to be done at “home”- we do ‘school’ at the park, in the city, on the beach, on the train, plane, car, sail boat, camping, with friends, in the back yard, and occasionally at home J
• Home schooling does not mean sitting at a desk for six hours a day. It can be wrapped in a warm cozy blanket on the sofa with hot chocolate, lying on my bed, on the rug on my bedroom floor, at the dining table, and occasionally at the desk…
• Home schooling allows me to practice my faith without insulting or hurting anyone
• I can watch educational videos and study a particular topic for hours if I am enjoying it – we don’t have a strict schedule
• It can fit in with my family’s work and other obligations – it does not mean Monday to Friday 9:00 – 4:00pm each day
• I do not like math but I get to play math games on the laptop and learn math that way and actually I now enjoy math!
• I can be with my family a lot more than ever before
• I get to tap in to the knowledge and experience of our friends and family (last year a family friend coached me in chess and I taught my 5 year old brother too. This year we are living at a college campus where my dad is studying! So one student is teaching me piano and another student is teaching me cartooning and drawing and I am teaching myself recorder).
• I do not get bullied anymore
• I do not waste all my spare time doing extra homework anymore but I can enjoy the time with my family doing sports, cooking together, playing games, watching movies
• I feel closer to my mum and dad because we spend a lot more time together doing stuff together and I feel part of what is going on
• We get to go to places when everyone is at school so it’s quieter, no queues, sometimes cheaper too when we go off season (off peak).
• No one tells me I am dumb, or average, or have learning difficulties, or that I am weak in subjects. My mum says I have so many strengths and talents and we can’t all be excellent at everything – that’s just not possible.
• I get to have sleepovers and visit friends and have friends over for sleepovers at my house because we don’t have a strict bed time because…ermmmm we don’t have to wake up for the school bus!
• I get to learn how to do other stuff in my home like cook, bake, clean and tidy and use cleaning chemicals safely, occupy my baby sister when she is upset, budget, make and sell stuff to earn pocket money, and all sorts of stuff.  Mum and dad say we work as a team to keep our home clean and tidy and for all of us to have more free time together. They also says it prepares me for life when I am all grown up

Meet Lyndsey P.

Lydnsey says, “This is our first year to homeschool, first and second grade boys! We also have a two year old son. I work full time and we school on the weekends.   My husband owns a gym and seasonal produce stand. We love Jesus and do our best to do Kingdom work.”  Lyndsey P. is the winner of our Kindle Fire contest with the following entry:

Thankfulness . . .  it’s something that is blasted on Facebook profiles and cute homemade goodies this time of year. It’s as common as pumpkin lattes at the coffee shops. However, how does that translate into living, into a posture I take as I live my life and guide my children? Just yesterday, my children and I were filling shoeboxes to send across the world for Christmas. I was explaining to my 6 and 7 year old the importance of giving and being thankful for what we have. Yet, as we filled the boxes, I heard repeatedly “But I want to keep this one.” My heart sank; how do you teach gratefulness? How do you turn a little, selfish heart to think about others?

This is where I am thankful for homeschooling. I have the privilege of being the biggest influence in my children’s lives. They can see the love and attention they get with me, rather than learning the bad words from other kids at school.  I am thankful for the honor of watching my children learn, not just on an educational level, but about life and what kind of person they get to be. I am thankful for the opportunity to guide them and instruct them, to teach them about life in ways that can’t be learned from the public school experience. Our normal isn’t the socially accepted normal. We do school on the weekends and when baby brother naps. I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful for this work. And I trust that my children will be too.

Below are the winners, but because there were so many great entries, Global gave out additional gift cards to eleven others.  No doubt you will be see their words in the future!