July 31, 2009
Fruit of the Spirit Co-op
Catholic home schooling parents, children gather monthly
By MARY ANN HUGHES (Message staff writer)
This week, dedicated maintenance workers are finishing their summer-long projects in Catholic schools all around southern Indiana. Teachers are hanging students’ names on bulletin boards, and principals are finalizing plans for the first day of school.
There’s another group that’s gearing up for the 2009-2010 school year. It’s the Fruit of the Spirit Co-op, a group of 13 families — all Catholic — who home school their children with a large focus on their faith.
Janice Martin is a parishioner at St. Wendel Church in St. Wendel. She sent her oldest children to school there, but five years ago she made the decision to home school her youngest daughter Alena.
Barbara O’Nan lives in Henderson, Ky., and is a parishioner at Holy Spirit Church in Evansville. She holds a master’s degree in theological studies from St. Meinrad and she currently home schools her three sons, Ethan, Aaron and Brandon.
The two women met about five years ago at a meeting at St. Rupert Church in Red Brush for home schooling families. They stayed in touch, and last year they invited other Catholic home schooling families to meet on a monthly basis at the public library in downtown Evansville.
There are families from Posey, Spencer, Warrick and Vanderburgh counties. “We are the only Catholic group that I know of,” Janice said. “We wanted to get to know one another, and to make it educational.”
Last year at the monthly meetings, the children learned about world geography, then attended noon Mass at nearby Holy Trinity Church, and enjoyed lunch together. During the year, they also went swimming and bowling together, had an All Saints party, and provided entertainment for the residents at the Little Sisters of the Poor Home in Evansville.
Barbara says the gatherings are important, both for the parents and the students. “It’s important to us for our kids to be around other Catholic kids, and I knew I would need the support of other Catholic home schoolers. We can brain storm, and we can ask for help.”
She stresses that she doesn’t want to “put down the Catholic school system,” but chose home schooling because she felt her children “weren’t getting everything they needed. We wanted them to know the Catholic faith.” The school where her two oldest children began — which is located in Kentucky — was “not as traditionally Catholic as we wanted,” she said, adding that parents are the “first educators — and we take that seriously.”
She said she knows “many Catholics who have left the faith because they could not answer questions about the faith. I do not want that for my children.”
Janice agreed, citing her oldest children, who “didn’t know their faith” when they reached their twenties. Because of their experiences, when her youngest daughter was born, she began to consider home schooling.
Barbara said she believes religion classes in Catholic schools explain that “God loves us,” but don’t delve into “what we believe.”
Janice agreed, adding, “We have excellent schools and we have excellent teachers, but teachers didn’t always know the traditional Catholic faith,” such as the “importance of the Mass, daily prayers, saying the rosary and the saints.
“My job is to pass on the faith,” she said, citing a fellow home school mom who once said, ‘It’s not my job to get them to Harvard. It’s my job to get them to heaven.’
“If they don’t know our faith, then I feel like I’ve failed them.”
The group is called the Fruit of the Spirit Co-op “because we are praying to the Holy Spirit first of all,” Barbara said. There are nine fruits of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The group met nine times last year, and studied each gift during its meetings.
Both moms say they have heard the criticism about home schooling, but believe it’s right for their children, and their eyes light up as they share stories about their successes, breakthroughs in science class and watching their children learn Latin.
“You have to be very dedicated to it,” Barbara said. You have to spend a lot of time researching, and you have to put a lot of quality time into it.”
They both believe that the dads play a huge part in the process, and that making the decision to home school is a leap of faith.
Ultimately, they both agree, it’s about the children. “You want them to succeed more than any teacher,” Barbara said.
“You are led to do it,” Janice said.
Barbara agreed. “It’s a calling.”
For additional information about the co-op, contact Janice Martin at Jan_Martin@deaconess.com or Barbara O’Nan at onanchs@yahoo.com.