Wow, what a full day!  As I was getting all my kids up and dressed much earlier than usual this morning, I was thinking it felt like getting ready for a bris. Of course that wasn’t the reason we were all up – I needed to get my youngest 4 (except the baby) to my inlaws and get to the place the conference was being held by 8 am with everyone else so we’d be there before anyone checking in.

We started the morning with a general session by Molly B. Koch, a parent educator with over fifty years experience who’s still going strong at 81!  I bought her parenting book and am looking forward to reading it. She has a wealth of experience. 

I wish I could have been in two places at once and heard each of the workshops being given in each time slot because I know I would have gained from every one of them.  Every speaker did a great job and I’m looking forward to listening to the recordings of those I couldn’t be at.  (Making the cds will be the next project.  :))

After the first general session, we had a workshop on different approaches to homeschooling and simultaneously another on the benefits to the family of homeschooling.   After that was a session on socialization and another on teaching Hebrew reading and writing creatively.  After these workshops, Rabbi Menachem Goldberger of Tiferes Yisroel of Baltimore spoke.  Because of his communal position, he has to walk a fine line when participating in our home education conference because of his support of parents who choose to educate their own children – while not being perceived as being anti the school system.  It’s a precarious balance but I believe he succeeded.  He spoke about the importance of recognizing the needs of every child and educating him accordingly, and shared his experience of 20 years of dealing with homeschooled families in his shul.  

After that there was a lunch break for an hour, and though I reserved a lovely ‘eating together’ room for participants to spend time together during the break, since I spoke with Rabbi Goldberger right after his talk and then to a couple of attendees, I didn’t remember to announce the room was available until most of the participants had already left the conference room.  But I think everyone managed to connect during their lunch anyway. 🙂

After lunch we reconvened for three workshop sessions.  I participated in one of the first – the Veterans Panel – along with three other moms.  I think we could have easily gone for two hours instead of one if we had been able to accept all the questions people had.  Right after that I gave a talk on Teaching the Multi-Age Family.  I have to admit that I was very, very tired before the day even started, and before I gave my talk I told my dh that I was concerned about being able to be coherent in my talk because of my exhaustion.  I hope I succeeded; I haven’t listened to the recording of me yet and am not in any rush to do so!  (Do you think it’s fun to listen to yourself?  Instructive maybe, but not fun!)

My two teenage daughters attended my talk though I told them not to waste their time since they know how we homeschool and it would be boring for them.  Interestingly, though, they really enjoyed it.  One told me she never knew there were reasons for why we do what we do, that there was a thought out purpose in various ways I structure our academics; she just accepted that’s the way things are in our house.  So it’s nice that they now appreciate how we homeschool more than they did before attending. 

Then there was a final session before we closed, one on dealing with burnout and the other by my dh on teaching your kids limudei kodesh.   I got a lot of very positive feedback from those who attended the conference and I hope that everyone attending enjoyed themselves as much as I did.  A nice plus was getting to meet three of my until now faceless blog readers (waving hi to Sharon, Yael, and Julie), and realizing that one of them was a Shabbos guest of ours ten years ago when I lived in Israel!  

Someone emailed me tonight the following: “It was a lovely day! Thank you so much for all your efforts and organization which allowed this to happen. I definitely got the feeling that this was something that people NEEDED! A place to go and have questions answered in a relaxed atmosphere.”  And from someone else: “I was able to walk away with some new insights and chizuk. Thank you again for arranging today’s event. It must have taken up a lot of your time. It was a beautiful turnout. I just wish I had more time to speak to all the new faces. They seemed like such a warm, educated, well rounded and intellectually honest group of people.”

My biggest regret, if you want to call it that, is that I couldn’t speak to all the people I wanted to speak to for the time I’d like to have spoken to them for!   I enjoyed every minute with every person; it was really the people who participated as both speakers and attendees who made the day what it was.  My older three kids also really enjoyed it; as a plus, I think it’s valuable for children get involved in helping their community and am glad they had a chance to participate in organizing this with me.

With Hashem’s help I’ll soon decide on a date for next year’s conference so I can reserve the location!

Avivah