Movie & Review: The Homeschool Awakening

As promised, this is my review following the film The Homeschool Awakening.

(my post from 6/14/2022) With apologies for not knowing who, one of our HS4CC families is being featured in this movie. This Christian movie is playing nationwide in Fandango theaters TONIGHT at 7pm (and last night- oops, sorry!). I’m planning to see it tonight and if college credit is discussed, I’ll write a review tomorrow. 😉 https://www.thehomeschoolawakening.com

This is only the second time I’ve seen a “real movie” about homeschooling (I saw Class Dismissed in 2015) so I for sure was very excited to go – my husband was my date. 😉

In my opinion, with the enormous scope of what homeschooling is, what a family does, what a family looks like, and what motivates a family to choose homeschooling…. I’m glad I wasn’t the one trying to capture that in one movie lol! Still, I think the overall message was super positive and very persuasive. I liked that it really minimized the importance of curriculum and emphasized the importance of developing your own goals for your family, since that’s an opinion I share! I also liked that they were deliberate in representing many types of families- all with their own flavors. This was a movie that featured primarily Christian families, who therefore often shared that their faith was part of why they homeschool, as opposed to promoting Christian homeschooling. Therefore, I think anyone of any faith/religion could enjoy the film.

I don’t know for sure, but I think that Teach Them Diligently and Yippee Streaming were probably paid sponsors/advertisers of the film. I really didn’t like the infomercial that followed the movie. Once the movie ended, there was a 10 minute “interview” by Kirk Cameron of the owners of Teach Them Diligently and Yippee. It was clumsy and lasted about 9 minutes too long. The sales pitch was really a buzz kill, I just wanted to get out of there and talk about the film- this was a huge distraction. It felt awkward not to stay for the whole thing, so I did, but you could tell others also wanted to leave.

BUT, I came for the college credit stories! At least one family featured in the film is a HS4CC family, and at least 3 of the families shared (a tiny bit) about how they brought college credit into their homeschool. I didn’t take notes, but remember the basics:

• One boy talked about how he studied independently and took tests for college credit. (AKA credit by exam, likely CLEP)
• One boy earned his bachelor’s from Thomas Edison State University debt free by age 18.
• One girl is earning her associates and bachelor’s now. She hopes to have her master’s in a couple years while she is still a teen.

The college credit aspect wasn’t more than a few minutes in the segment talking about college admissions. I get that homeschool parents really do want to know if their kids can get into college, so I thought that it was a good attempt to include some reassurances. Several families also emphasized that they weren’t pushing their kids into college, which is nice to hear too.

Would I recommend the movie to someone? Yes, but with a disclaimer. My disclaimer is that you’re looking at a highlights reel.

This movie is very happy, very enthusiastic, very warm, full of joy, carefree learning, and easy. In my 27 years of homeschooling, I’ve told people a lot of things, but I ‘ve never *ever* told anyone homeschooling is easy. I love homeschooling, and it’s worth doing, but anyone who undertakes such an important task feels some level of stress and pressure to do it well. So, there’s that.

Also, homeschooling is portrayed as an opportunity for adventure. There were a lot of scenes about travel abroad, outdoor sporting, seeing the country, etc. One family even sold everything they owned to live in an RV, while another was flying glider planes. Seriously, who wouldn’t want to do all that? I want to do all that! Take me! In my experience, homeschooling families can experience more financial strain, especially if they are a 1-income family with many children. I realize I’m generalizing, but I’m just reporting back that *to me* it felt a little like you weren’t giving your kids all the enrichment available if you were just sitting at home. Ex. check out the movie cover art picture above- “The world is your classroom!”

So that’s it! If you missed it, it might be available on a stream service in the future, but if you saw it, what did you think? (comment below)