Homeschooling Overview

• What is homeschooling?

• What about socialization?

• Who are these homeschoolers?

• Where do you get textbooks?

• Which curriculum is best?

• How can parents teach subjects with which they are unfamiliar?

• What about grade level?

• What about testing?

•  I’ve seen homeschooled kids out in the community during school hours. Why aren’t they busy with school work?

• Can homeschooled students get into college?

• Burnout

 

What is homeschooling?

  Homeschooling is one choice for military family members among various educational opportunities.  Other opportunities are American public schools, DoDD schools operated by the U.S. government, local national schools overseas, and private schools such as parochial schools, Montessori, Waldorf and International schools.

  The big difference between homeschooling and the other options is that the family chooses the type of educational experience it desires.  That choice can range from a purchased curriculum to an apprenticeship to correspondence courses in specialized areas.  The choice depends upon the family’s interests and abilities and can be tailored to fit any unique needs, areas of expertise or special situations such as living overseas.

  Homeschooling can be school-at-home but it isn’t limited to this particular style.  Sometimes school-at-home is perfect for a family while other times a different approach works better.  The family can choose a highly-structured purchased curriculum or design their own.  Less structured purchased curriculums are also available as well as distance-learning schools that allow the family to custom tailor the leaning situation to fulfill specified credit areas.  How a family approaches home education is decided at the most basic level, by the individuals in a family.

  Not only can schooling be tailored to specific interests, but family tradition or religion can be fully integrated into the education. 

What about socialization?

 There seems to be an idea that children who are educated outside a school building are doing nothing but sitting at home, sheltered, secluded and all but sequestered from “society.” This notion, which has almost mythical stature, is just that, a myth. Homeschooled children join scout troops, take classes through local youth services, attend classes at DoDD schools, are active in church groups, volunteer in the community, work summer hire, and, very often, live in a housing area. These children are surrounded by people and they interact with them just as anyone else would.

 Homeschooled children also have a valuable opportunity to regularly interact with people other than their peers thus allowing them to develop social skills that cut across the artificial boundaries imposed by age-graded classes.

 'Homeschooled' is not synonymous with 'cloistered.'
 

Who are these homeschoolers?
Aren’t they mostly religious nuts or back-to-the-earth treehuggers?

 The people homeschooling their children are any kind of people you care to think of. Yes, some people homeschool for religious reasons. Yes, some people homeschool because they believe that our future is dependent upon doing as little harm to our planet as possible. Homeschooling takes place in cities or in the country, in trailer parks or in ranch-style homes, in military housing or on the economy, and is practiced by parents of diverse occupations. There are homeschoolers in all fifty states as well as Switzerland, England, France, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Australia.
The stereotypical image of a homeschooling family is just that, a stereotype. Each family homeschools in its own fashion. If they wish, they may take philosophical direction from an outside source just as anyone in the general population may. The same is true for those people who choose to follow their hearts.

 Guidance and advice on homeschooling is abundant; support groups dedicated to a specific philosophy are also easily found. However, as long as freedom of choice exists, there can be no mandatory, “one-right-way,” technique. Each family chooses according to its collective conscience. 

 As far as demographics go, there are probably similar numbers of “religious nuts” and “environmental tree-huggers” in the general population as there are among homeschoolers. What is a “religious nut?” What is a “tree-hugger?” Your point of view probably determines much of what you see.
 

Where do you get textbooks?

 If you choose to use a purchased curriculum there are many companies that supply packages combining the curriculum, textbooks that fit the curriculum, and teacher support services.  Some companies may supply the services separately. Be aware that even though you are the paying customer, curriculums are usually, within each company, one-size-fits-all; there is no picking and choosing concerning the books used. There are, also, schools that prescribe the areas to be covered and allow the family to choose the materials with which they will fulfill the requirements (from libraries, catalogs, specialty stores, videos, computer programs, tutoring, apprenticing, etc.). Writing to schools that advertise in homeschooling magazines can be a first step in the decision process.

 If you choose not to use a purchased curriculum, you can buy materials, which can be anything from a book on the subject to tools used in that field. An example of this may be a geologist’s pick, mineral and gem field guides, a rock tumbler and display cases for polished specimens for someone who is interested in being a rock hound (the 'subject' would be Geology).

 Specialty magazines and catalogs are an excellent starting point. Look over the information presented, make your choice and write for more information. Good sources besides specialty magazines are catalogs, the library, and, of course, websites.  Many times 'real' books are superior to textbooks because they are the product of a single person who does not need to write books to meet the requirements of the major school textbook markets.

 

Which curriculum is best?

 In considering homeschooling forget the stereotypes. Some religiously oriented families use the unschooling style, some secularly oriented families find that a highly structured program works best for them. And even if religious families are school-at-homers or the unschoolers are back-to-the-earth hippie types, so what? There are niches in society for everyone. The entire population can’t all be only soldiers, or business people or farmers or artists or truck drivers or opinionated, compulsive packrats who write lists; we need the diversity. This diversity is the warp and woof that makes up the tapestry of the world.

 Remember that, like most things in life, homeschooling is complex. Think of the differences between answers if you asked Galileo to explain “science,” and then asked Newton, and then Einstein, and then Hawking. Think of the contrast between Beethoven’s opinion of “music” and Mick Jagger’s. Who is “right” about “art,” Michelangelo, Picasso or Norman Rockwell? The same is true of homeschooling. Any opinion you get from a homeschooler is that person’s opinion and there are as many opinions as there are homeschoolers. It is like the old story of the blind men and the elephant: one man thought the elephant was like a wall (the elephant’s side), one was convinced it was like a spear (the tusk), the next one perceived a snake (the trunk), his neighbor divined a tree ( the knee); one felt a fan (the ear), the last, a rope (the tail). We all have different experiences and hence, different opinions.

The 'curriculum' that is 'best' is the one that works for you.

 

How can parents teach subjects with which they are unfamiliar?

 Why would they have to? Tutors can be found, books are available, audio and video tapes can be ordered or checked out of the library and schools may allow homeschooled children to enroll in single courses. In the past few years there has been an explosion of information available in learner-friendly form. The range extends from math texts to foreign language tapes to interactive physics CD-ROM programs to history videos.

 Even though some sources are intellectually light-weight, they provide a foot-in-the-door for novices and give them a starting point. This allows the person, child or adult, to gain a basic understanding of an area and then proceed to more technical instruction. Oftentimes parents learn about an area of which they were ignorant and so the homeschooling benefits not only the child but the parent too. This can provide even more common ground for family interaction and discussion.

 

What about grade level?

 Consider an infant learning to speak or walk. Parents are told to allow the child to proceed at its own pace, not to rush, not to worry about a child being either “behind” or “ahead” of its peers. The same is true for other areas of development. We are all individuals and do not grow, physically or intellectually, according to any written plan.   We each grow according to our internal clock, and sometimes we go faster, other times slower.

 For those people who are just plain uncomfortable allowing their children to continue learning in the fashion the children did before they were of school age, one source of information planning is the series of books by Rebecca Rupp titled,  Home Learning Year by Year.  By using books such as Ms. Rupp's as guides you can present what is considered by many people to be “basic knowledge,” while supplementing with outside materials to cover areas of special interest to either the parent or child. These books are available in the library, from catalogs, bookstores, and online.

 A caveat is that if you plan on re-enrolling your children in a public school, perhaps sticking to a boxed curriculum with documentation would ease the transition later on.

 

What about testing?

 Like grade level, testing is a device used by institutions in order to keep tabs on large numbers of children. It is useful to them in quantifying, classifying and labeling since numbers and grades are more easily compared than subjective descriptions of educational progress.

 A parent who is closely involved with a child can tell if a child is having a problem in a particular area and can devote time to solving the problem, if indeed it needs solving at that point. Time and maturity can often be the solution needed for mastery of some concepts. If, however, testing sets your minds at ease, basic skills tests are available. As with other areas, check out the ads in the homeschooling magazines.
 

 I’ve seen homeschooled kids out in the community during school hours. It looks as if they are truant. Why aren’t they busy with school work?

 What makes you think they aren’t? Perhaps on the day you saw them they were on a “field trip” to the commissary. Many homeschooling families use real-world situations for instructional purposes. A trip to the commissary during an uncrowded time might be hands-on training in handling a budget, nutritional instruction or making food purchase decisions. The same could be said of a trip to the PX, substituting clothing budget for food budget. A short hike to the Shopette can combine needed exercise and a breath of fresh air with an experience in handling money. In this way a child uses real money instead of plastic coins and handles real transactions instead of pretend ones.

 Homeschooled children playing on the playground during “school hours” might be having recess or PE and are probably socializing with the other children and not just their age-graded peers. Then again they might just be playing because “school” is held at different hours in their home than is necessary for large groups that need to show up at the same place at the same time in order for teachers to do their jobs.

Homeschoolers aren’t bound by the usual times and places any more than any other free-lance person. Writers don’t keep the same hours as a office workers, musicians aren’t bound to the same schedule as teachers, photographers have different schedules than commanding officers. Homeschoolers can be equated to free-lance students; they control their schedules, their schedules don’t control them.
 

Can homeschooled students get into college?

 Not only can homeschooled students get into college, many of them are actively sought out by colleges themselves. Colleges also advertise in homeschooling magazines

 In 1983 California homeschooler Grant Colfax was admitted to Harvard University. Two of his brothers subsequently followed in his footsteps. His parents tell the story in their books Homeschooling for Excellence and Hard Times in Paradise.

 Alexandra Swann homeschooled her way through elementary school, high school and college all the way to a masters degree by the age of sixteen. Alexandra tells her own story in her book, No Regrets.

 Since these homeschoolers made a noticeable splash in the higher education pool, other home educated students have been accepted around the country. I guess they don’t make the paper anymore because, with their numbers and success, they’re no longer “news;” homeschoolers going to college is no longer remarkable.


Burnout

 One of the most passionately held dreams of many new homeschoolers is that of giving their child or children the best and most comprehensive education possible. The parents see the child studying art and music, going to museums, reading all the classics, mastering math, and having important discussions. The child will grow up to be Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Albert Schweitzer, Pablo Picasso and Beverly Sills all rolled into one; a true Renaissance Child.

As parents we need to keep in mind that Einstein, Curie, Schweitzer, Picasso and Sills were all separate people - nobody was Albert-Marie-Pablo-Beverly Einstein-Curie-Schweitzer-Picasso-Sills. Our kids are new people and they’re their own people. They are themselves, not a composite of others who have gone before. Yes, it is important that they’re given a wide variety of opportunities, but let’s remember not to force unwanted opportunities on them “for their own good.”

 There is an educational fable about all the wild animals getting together to form a school for their children. It was well-intentioned but the curriculum was difficult to devise because of all the competing interests of the different groups. The eagles wanted flying to be paramount but the ducks wanted swimming. The squirrels favored tree climbing while the moles insisted on advanced digging. Running was the choice of the deer but snakes held out for slithering. To address the needs of each group the curriculum covered all these areas. Needless to say the ducks were terrible runners, the squirrels kept sinking, the snakes dug poorly and the moles couldn’t get off the ground. The eagles played hooky on slithering day and just flew away.
The lesson is that we all have different gifts and we should all be able to develop our gifts as we see fit. Parents should guide, support and advise but the vicarious living-through-our-children should be held in check. Like the rest of parenting, its a juggling act while balancing on a moving tightrope.

 Parental burnout occurs when parents try to do too much. Some parents focus on a purchased curriculum that “hits all the milestones” (or benchmarks, depending on your buzzword preference), and “gets it all in.” Many of these programs require strict record keeping, no deviation from the syllabus - at least not if the testing concerns you - and deadlines. This, combined with running a household, meeting the emotional needs of your spouse, meeting the emotional needs of the children, and trying to maintain social obligations all culminates in meltdown. The parent has no more energy to use in getting through the day, they’re wasted. This is when many people quit homeschooling because it’s too much work and they’re right, that kind of homeschooling is too much work.

 Before you get yourself into this predicament, do some homeschooling research. Get the advice, through books and magazines, from those who have been through it. Don’t buy the first program that looks good. Do talk to people at homeschool groups or through networking lists in magazines who have used the program. Be wary of those programs that don’t allow for individual variation, anecdotally they have the worst track record.

 Do explore the various materials available and perhaps put together your own “program.” The benefits here are that you won’t have spent a lot of money so if a certain purchase doesn’t meet your expectations you can stop using it without the guilt associated with not completing a thousand dollar program - another source of burnout. Many people are compelled to complete a program just because they’ve spent the money but does this get them their money “back?” Are they any better off for having completed the program or are they frustrated and angry both at themselves and their children? Do they feel more competent for having disciplined themselves and their kids to do things they didn’t want to? (How do their kids feel about this?) Or do they feel incompetent for not being able to conform to a “nationally known curriculum” that’s obviously been successfully used by “thousands of satisfied customers?” Come on. Don’t believe all the advertising you read. Get some catalogs, talk to people, make up your own mind about what fits your family best. Just as your aren’t raising Albert-Marie-Pablo-Beverly Einstein-Curie-Schweitzer-Picasso-Sills, neither are you raising a Generic Child. One size never fits all so don’t burn yourself out trying to perform an impossibility.