Growing up, Sharon Lester truly believed the perfect number of children in any family was two. She even wrote a paper on it in college. Then she had children of her own and her eyes opened to a completely different point of view.Sharon and her husband Bill now have six children ranging in age from 16 years to 17 months and she couldn’t be happier.
“I see children as flowers that are constantly blooming. There is something neat and new about them every day. They are wonderful,” said Sharon.
Sharon chose to be a stay at home mom and, as her children have become school age, she has also become their teacher. She technically home schools Bethany, Will and Daniel, but Hannah and Lauren, ages five and three respectively, are taught age-appropriate basics.
“Sometimes people home school to get away from public school. That’s not why we’re home schooling. I feel it’s more like we’re going to something, a goal that we’re headed toward. I don’t have a problem with public school at all,” said Sharon.
Home schooling gives Sharon the ability to spend enough time on each lesson to make sure her children grasp the concepts and she is able to spend extra time on any part of it that needs more emphasis.
“I think one of the big things is they learn to be independent learners,” said Bill. “That definitely helps when they get to college.”
Sharon “students” are presently working on learning Latin, a language she studied in high school and which she knows will help them on the standardized tests required for them to attend college.
Having a more flexible school schedule also allows the family to take vacations during times when less people will be at the various attractions. One such visit, a trip to Disney World, is a favorite memory for her children.
Will, the second oldest at 13, loves to ride roller coasters and thrill rides, a preference he shares with his mother.
“Will is the one, he’ll ride the scary rides with me,” said Sharon.
For Sharon, though each day is a new challenge between schoolwork, chores around the house and the various activities of childhood, she treasures each moment, but some of her favorites come from the time spent in class.
“One of the things I’d have to say about being the mom and the home school mom is them getting to read. That is just the neatest thing, when the lights come on and they get it. When Daniel understood the silent ‘e’ that was the neatest thing. He was so excited he drew pictures about it,” she said.
Bethany, the oldest at 16, has often been Sharon’s teaching guinea pig where she learns what works and what doesn’t.
“When she finally got long division. Oh my gosh, long division, that is the hardest thing to teach in the world,” said Sharon. “When she got that and she understood, it was just like an angel’s chorus.”
In her spare time, she enjoys writing. From short stories and poems to a novel she is slowly working on, putting her thoughts down on paper is a form of release, one she often has to do in the wee hours when the house is finally quiet.
“I love to write,” said Sharon, adding she often has to slip out of bed to put in a few hours of typing on the computer. “I enjoy it so much I get a rush out of it.”
She also works in the garden with her children, an activity Hannah particularly enjoys.
The family is active in their church at West Park Heights. Bill and Sharon met in Texas where they were each working with youth groups at a camp in Leakey. Two years later they were married there and she joined him in his work with the youth in Mission, Tex.
Their road to Jacksonville took them through several other areas of youth ministries until Bill got his master’s degree and PhD and began to teach. He currently works for Jacksonville State University in the political science and public administration department.
Nathan, the 17-month-old, is the only child born in Alabama. His birth is especially memorable to Sharon because it was the first since her mother passed away in 2006. During Sharon’s other births, her mom would stay with the children while she and Bill were at the hospital. For Nathan, things happened a little differently, but always one to look at the positives, Sharon used the time to bond with her new son.
“Dad had to stay at home with the kids and I stayed up until 2 o’clock in the morning holding him because I got to hog him all to myself,” she said.
