Homeschoolers, Help Me!

I saw this cry of help over at Alasandra and the Cats, and because I love Alasandra’s blog, I thought, “How could I resist?”

Long story short, HW over at I’m Just Sayin’ published a post last week in which she expressed some concerns about homeschooling:

I know a few homeschooling families and I think it is a wonderful option. I respect the reasons for which they’ve made that decision. What I don’t respect is the judgmental attitude they have toward those of us who do not home school.

One of the problems HW has with homeschoolers is their attitude to public school, and I just wish I could wave my magic wand over here and ask her not to take homeschoolers’ attitudes about public school as a personal diss on her, because it’s really not.  Many homeschoolers — dare I say almost all — are former public schoolers themselves or have had their kids in public school.  In fact, that may be a central reason why they chose to homeschool in the first place.  Ultimately, though, as I say below, with the exception of a very few people, most of us just try to do the best by our kids — and homeschooling is not necessarily the “best” option for everyone universally throughout time.

In a further act of reasonableness, HW asked this week if the homeschoolers out there could just answer a few questions.  I probably burned up all the available space on her blog’s Comments section, but here were my answers if anyone’s interested:

Thank you so much for asking and being willing to hear and consider the answers of other people. I’ll be glad to answer your questions.

1. What was your motivation for homeschooling?

Primarily, our motivation for homeschooling had to do with the fact that our child was a very early reader who read at the 2nd-grade level by about age two and a half. It became clear that some kind of accommodation was going to be necessary in school, but we weren’t sure if we were going to get any kind of meaningful differentiation or whether we’d get written off as “THOSE parents,” i.e., horrid hothousers.

When we spoke with the assistant principal of the school for which we’re zoned, his attitude was clearly quite condescending — he flippantly said, “Well, if your child is readin’ at the fourth grade level by the time they’re in kindy, we’ll just get the fourth grade books.”

Um. Sure. What will you do when our child hits first grade and is reading fifth grade books? Your school only goes UP to fifth grade.

Naaah — it was clear that they had no real plan and no real intent to differentiate. Rather than beat our heads against a wall trying to get subject acceleration or a grade skip, we just decided to BE the school. Red tape’s easy around our house!

2. Don’t hate me for asking this. How to you handle socialization?

In the course of the week, our child deals with other kids often, actually–at the library, at the gym child care, at our religious service, or through family. We’re also active in a homeschool group that meets once a week for homeschool science, which is a mixture of ages from 7-12.

At the risk of angering some of your readers or you, I think socialization is a problematic issue, but maybe not for the reasons you do. I don’t think it’s a stretch to observe that kids often bully each other or communicate attitudes that are…well, let’s say “problematic.” It’s a problem for everyone, homeschoolers included, but I think it’s exacerbated when they’re with other kids for a huge portion of the day with only one teacher or a teacher and aide to mediate or observe. Teachers can only hear so much and do so much — and that’s not a diss on teachers, just a truth about human beings. I think it’s healthier if kids have some exposure to other kids, but not as much as they do at school, and under more supervised conditions until they’re older and more mature all around.

3. Do you use the public school system for any part of your child’s routine?

No, not really. We may consider high school in a few years, depending on the principal’s willingness to consider having an exceptionally young student.

4. Do your children begin and end school at the same time each day?

It’s not as much “schedule” as it is “routine.” We wake up and eat breakfast and then do most homeschooling stuff in the morning. We’ve found that morning works best for teaching, especially harder-level concepts such as logic or mathematics, and that the afternoon works better for hands-on projects such as science or music. However, some days, we’ll really become interested in pursuing a science topic and leave history until tomorrow, for instance, or we’ll get passes to the museum to see the “Crime Scene Insect” exhibit. It’s routine, but has inherent flexibility.

You asked, “If not, when/how will you transition your children into following a more rigid schedule – awaking at the same time each day so that they can follow a routine outside of the home like for college and work?”

I’m fairly sure that won’t be any more difficult than any other child who’s learning to do the same thing when s/he first goes to kindergarten — and in some other ways, it’ll be easier.

5. How many spelling bees has your child won? Oh, I’m kidding. We all know most of the recent national spelling bee winners have been home schooled children. I just wanted to throw a little funny in there?

Actually, although this makes me look like a candidate for the “A Homeschool Family” video, version 2.0, our child WOULD like to participate in the National Spelling Bee, for real.

6. Do you have a sense of humor? It’s probably a little late for me to ask that but…

*Snort* Hope so!

7. Where do you find your curriculum? Do you shop for it and order it? Do you create your own?

Yes.
Sorry. Just being humorous. Seriously, though, a great deal of the curricula we use has been found through a wonderful company, Rainbow Resources, which is a company that sells an enormous variety of homeschool curricula at substantially reduced cost. Their catalog, with extensive reviews of the materials’ positive and negative traits, is one of the main sources we use for simply finding stuff.

Often, if we’ve been having an issue or problem with an existing curriculum, asking around on the Net has led to some fabulous suggestions. We also use a high school distance education course through a major university for our child’s English/language arts study.

8. Do you have any worries at all about teaching your teenagers the higher level math and sciences?

Yeah, that is a concern — specifically with higher-level math and science. I’m hoping that the HS principal is receptive to an accelerated student, but if s/he is not, we plan to use distance education or private tutoring.

 
9. What bothers you the most about the reputation home schoolers have?

That we’re all fundamentalist Christians who are teaching our kids that dinosaurs were planted in the earth by Satan to trick us into EEEEEVIIIIIL.

What things do you hate to hear people say about you for your choice? I really hope you don’t say that it’s my previous post.

Luckily, I think most of the time, people tend to say negative comments out of my hearing, to be honest.

10. Be honest, do you, at least in your mind sometimes, judge those of us who choose public school? Do you ever think we are making a bad choice for our children? Are you vocal about that disapproval?

I don’t judge the people who choose public school nearly as harshly as I judge public school itself. Full disclosure time: I am also a full-time public school teacher who splits homeschooling duties with my spouse.

I went into teaching because (not surprisingly) I love teaching — and it’s the same reason, among others, that I became a homeschooler: it was a natural extension of my parenting. However, I’ve come to believe that the system itself has serious flaws, and that ultimately, it’s not designed to do the one thing it should be devoted to doing heart and soul: educating all students. Instead, public school has a boilerplate, factory-line mentality that forces too many kids into an intellectual Procrustean bed that’s either too short or too long — and the result is what we see: that they lose interest and motivation, that they don’t see a connection between school and life, and that they don’t care about what they’re learning.

As far as the parents, I think that with only a few rare exceptions, we all want to do well by our kids. Homeschooling isn’t for everyone and it’s not a panacea for the world’s educational ills. I’m first to say that no, not everyone can or should homeschool. For some kids, public school is a godsend — and I’m not just talking about impoverished kids from undereducated families, either. In short, the education needs to fit the child, not the child the education.

11. Is “home school” one word or two? I’ve seen it both ways. With spellcheck, it shows it as ONE word when used as a verb, but two words when used otherwise. Please enlighten me.

I usually say “homeschool.”

Um…that’s it. I look forward to your responses. And if you have any homeschooling friends, send them on over to weigh in.

 I will!

~ by adsoofmelk on July 26, 2008.