Biography
My name is Christine "Chris" Schaeffer. I am a home school mom of three sons, now aged 24, 22 and 15. The two older boys home schooled all the way through elementary, middle and high school and both have successfully finished college, one as an accountant and the other as an elementary school teacher. My youngest is a freshman in high school and is enjoying the incredible opportunities available to home schooled students.
I lived all around the world as a child - my father was a Foreign Service Officer (Diplomat) - I lived in the Soviet Union, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and traveled extensively throughout Europe. As an adult my husband and I lived in Papua New Guinea as Christian missionaries from 1989-1993.
My education has been quite a journey - I attended a wonderful boarding prep school in New England (Northfield Mount Hermon) for high school before matriculating to the US Air Force Academy. I attended the Academy for two years before deciding to leave and then explored Sovietology and Political Science at Boston University before changing majors to nursing. I obtained my ASN/RN in nursing at Middlesex Community College and then completed my BS degree through the the Charter Oak College arm of the University of Connecticut. This seemingly circuitous route to complete my tertiary education led me to learn a lot about myself and about the value of education for its own sake.
I started my work career as a Registered Nurse and actively practiced nursing from 1986 until 1997 - during this time I practiced in hospitals, as a missionary nurse and then finally as a hospice nurse in home practice. I continue to keep my nursing licensure active through camp nursing every summer in Pennsylvania. I became interested in photography as it evolved into its digital era, and in 1999, started my own professional photography business, "Digital Photography". This business has grown and I now have a faithful client base in weddings, mitzvot, and portraiture in the metro DC area.
As I continued to home school my three sons I was asked time and again to offer classes to teach geography. I finally agreed to do so and thus started my third career, this time as a teacher. I developed my own unique style of teaching geography, based on my overseas experiences as well as my love for political science, earth science and current events. The one semester course started for grades 4-8 and was entitled "Junior World Regional Geography". The next class that I developed was a full year class for high school students. This course, World Regional Geography, has become my "signature course". It is a combination of political, physical and world geography, with plenty of earth and environmental science thrown in. I use current events as the backbone, so that the students learn why the various regions of the world as important. I use the questions "What is where? Why is it there? Why do I care?" as the basis to each thing I present to the students. By the end of the course they are capable of analyzing world current events in a mature, balanced manner.
I have added other courses to my Schaeffer Homeschool Cooperative - these include Political Science, Shakespeare, Literature and the Silver Screen, Digital Photography, Advanced Digital Photography and the Bible IN Literature. Descriptions of my current course offerings can be found on my Course Offerings page.
If you would like to email me with specific questions you may do so at [email protected] .
I lived all around the world as a child - my father was a Foreign Service Officer (Diplomat) - I lived in the Soviet Union, Kenya, Saudi Arabia and traveled extensively throughout Europe. As an adult my husband and I lived in Papua New Guinea as Christian missionaries from 1989-1993.
My education has been quite a journey - I attended a wonderful boarding prep school in New England (Northfield Mount Hermon) for high school before matriculating to the US Air Force Academy. I attended the Academy for two years before deciding to leave and then explored Sovietology and Political Science at Boston University before changing majors to nursing. I obtained my ASN/RN in nursing at Middlesex Community College and then completed my BS degree through the the Charter Oak College arm of the University of Connecticut. This seemingly circuitous route to complete my tertiary education led me to learn a lot about myself and about the value of education for its own sake.
I started my work career as a Registered Nurse and actively practiced nursing from 1986 until 1997 - during this time I practiced in hospitals, as a missionary nurse and then finally as a hospice nurse in home practice. I continue to keep my nursing licensure active through camp nursing every summer in Pennsylvania. I became interested in photography as it evolved into its digital era, and in 1999, started my own professional photography business, "Digital Photography". This business has grown and I now have a faithful client base in weddings, mitzvot, and portraiture in the metro DC area.
As I continued to home school my three sons I was asked time and again to offer classes to teach geography. I finally agreed to do so and thus started my third career, this time as a teacher. I developed my own unique style of teaching geography, based on my overseas experiences as well as my love for political science, earth science and current events. The one semester course started for grades 4-8 and was entitled "Junior World Regional Geography". The next class that I developed was a full year class for high school students. This course, World Regional Geography, has become my "signature course". It is a combination of political, physical and world geography, with plenty of earth and environmental science thrown in. I use current events as the backbone, so that the students learn why the various regions of the world as important. I use the questions "What is where? Why is it there? Why do I care?" as the basis to each thing I present to the students. By the end of the course they are capable of analyzing world current events in a mature, balanced manner.
I have added other courses to my Schaeffer Homeschool Cooperative - these include Political Science, Shakespeare, Literature and the Silver Screen, Digital Photography, Advanced Digital Photography and the Bible IN Literature. Descriptions of my current course offerings can be found on my Course Offerings page.
If you would like to email me with specific questions you may do so at [email protected] .