{"id":1864,"date":"2011-12-29T15:07:51","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T15:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.janice-campbell.com\/?p=745"},"modified":"2023-12-18T16:10:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T21:10:10","slug":"homeschooling-homesteaders-teaching-self-reliance-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doingwhatmatters.com\/homeschooling-homesteaders-teaching-self-reliance-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"Homeschooling Homesteaders: Teaching Self-Reliance Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m planning to be at the Self-Reliance Expo<\/strong> in Dallas on Februrary 10-11, 2012<\/a>\u00a0to speak on homeschooling and micro-business topics, so I’ve been thinking about self-reliance as it fits into the homeschool world.<\/p>\n

One of the busiest booths in a homeschool conference is usually the booth with wheat grinders and other aids to feeding your family with fresh, wholesome, homemade goodies. Stop beside that booth for a few moments, and you’ll hear moms, dads, and teens, talking about gardening organically, baking, canning and dehydrating, and more.<\/p>\n

Learning to become more self-reliant by\u00a0developing these old-fashioned skills\u00a0is one way many home-school families manage to live well on a single income. As a family becomes more self-reliant, it provides students with a living laboratory for learning that will provide them a head start on life. Although it takes work to reach a comfortable state of self-reliance, there is creativity, comfort, and peace in working with the rhythms of nature.<\/p>\n

What are the skills of self reliance?<\/h3>\n

According to the National Self-Reliance Organization (NSRO), self reliance has three basic parts:<\/p>\n

1. Emergency preparedness<\/strong> in case of job loss, natural disaster, or family emergency. This includes having a garden, generator, water filtration system, and the ability to preserve the food you grow.<\/p>\n

2. <\/strong>Sustainable living<\/strong>, including the practice of frugality and debt-free living, and possibly including alternative energy sources.<\/p>\n

3. <\/strong>Entrepreneurship<\/strong>, including building micro-businesses and multiple streams of income.<\/p>\n

These self-reliance skills used to be conventional wisdom. Just think of your great-grandmother’s pantry, with shining rows of beautifully canned produce and delicious home-baked goodies. Remember visiting great-grandfather’s handy tool shed where he could fix or build almost anything?<\/p>\n

\"Many

In my grandfather’s garden.<\/p><\/div>\n

If your great-grandparents were anything like mine, they combined practical frugality with the skills it took to run a home and family without any of the conveniences we take for granted (running water, indoor plumbing, close grocery stores, refrigeration, to name just a few). Their summer gardens provided meals for the dark, cold months of winter, and they occupied those months with indoor pastimes that helped to make their homes\u00a0cozier\u00a0and more secure.<\/p>\n

Self-reliance didn’t mean that people weren’t trusting God– it simply meant that individual families took the responsibility of looking ahead, anticipating potential dangers, and setting aside resources to care for their families in the event of an emergency. \"\"<\/p>\n

The importance of learning to provide for your family during difficult times was particularly apparent during the Great Depression. That was a hard time for almost everyone, but according to many old-timers who lived through it, self-reliant farm families had one significant advantage over city dwellers \u2014 the ability to produce much of their own food.<\/p>\n

According to an Iowa Pathways article<\/a>, “Almost all farm families raised large gardens with vegetables, and canned fruit from their orchards. They had milk and cream from their dairy cattle. Chickens supplied meat and eggs. They bought flour and sugar in 50-pound sacks and baked their own bread. In some families the farm wife made clothing out of the cloth from flour and feed sacks. They learned how to get by with very little money.”<\/p>\n

It’s not necessary to live on a farm to be more self-reliant.<\/h3>\n

You can accomplish much with an urban homestead. Consider the skills your grandparents had and start learning them, and you’ll be on your way. As a homeschooler, you even have some built-in advantages for becoming self reliant:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You’re already accustomed to looking to the past for wisdom and inspiration.<\/li>\n
  2. You’ve already found that keeping up with the Jones’s is pointless.<\/li>\n
  3. You’re accustomed to taking the road less traveled.<\/li>\n
  4. Homeschooling allows teaching and learning the skills of self-reliance to be a natural part of living.<\/li>\n
  5. You can even grant credit for the homesteading skills your students learn!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    There’s no question that many homeschool families are already living at least a partially self-reliant homestead life. Some of us enjoy just a few aspects of the self-reliant lifestyle such as organic gardening, cooking, and entrepreneurship, while others embrace the whole enchilada.<\/p>\n

    If you weren’t fortunate enough to learn basic homesteading skills when you were growing up, there are an increasing number of resources to help. The award-winning\u00a0Self-Reliance Expo<\/strong><\/a> is one of the major places you can go to learn what you need to know. You’ll learn about:<\/p>\n