Home schoolers are an odd bunch. You have those that chose to home school so they can challenge their child more than in the school system, and those that chose to home school to reject curriculums and testing.
Some kids are at home because they have emotional or intellectual issues, and some are there because they are involved with music, sports or the arts and don’t have the time for school.
People choose to home school for so many different reasons that I have given up assuming that I will have anything in common with another home schooling parent.
In our family we are ‘unschoolers’ who do not follow a rigorous schedule but do follow grade level supplementary work books. I know home schoolers who do a lot more work than us, and those who do a lot less.
Ultimately, no matter how different the style of home schooling, the results are pretty similar. Home schoolers almost always decide to go to school at some point, they get along really well with their siblings and they are all as smart and capable as they ever were going to be.
Home schooling is actually just an extension of how you parent. In our case we like to give our children the ability to choose. If they don’t want to go to school, they don’t have to, and they can if they want.
Although you might think children would give you mixed messages on this, we have found that they are quite clear. It is either, I am ready, let’s go, or no, I want to be at home.
I have been asked numerous times, by those who are clearly critical of our style, whether going in and out of school is upsetting for the children. I can say unequivocally, it is fine. When our kids say, this year I’d like to go to school, off they go. They have not missed any important information, and they adjust to the schedule and the social scene right away.
The teachers love home schoolers, because they want to be there and they enjoy learning, and the other kids at school could care less whether a kids was home schooled.
How enlightening to discover that the all-important curriculum that drives the poor teacher’s every move is actually just a hodge podge of information that they can pick up in a week!
Our three children are, respectively, in the second year of college, in Grade 9, and the youngest, at home. The child at home loves every second of it, just as the others did.
My utopian vision would be to have a ‘free’ school in my community. The children could go to the school in a casual manner, without the ‘punctuality and attendance’ emphasis so important to the school system at present (and only created to train the next generation to work in factories).
My most severe criticism of the school system is that they treat children like animals or nascent criminals. I believe that if the schools treated children with more respect and dignity, the children would behave better. And if we gave the children more freedom, every single child would be more cooperative and get better results from their studying.
That is my opinion, what is yours?
Notes from a Sinking Isthmus 
“…if the schools treated children with more respect and dignity, the children would behave better. And if if we gave the children more freedom, every single child would be more cooperative and get better results from their studying.”
Absolutely. My own children are challenged by Autism that makes learning in a classroom environment more difficult than the typical child might experience, but that somehow reveals the differences the effectiveness of differing approaches. The teachers who handle my sons as cattle moving through the chute get the least response. Those that address them with the respect they would how another adult get their attention and buy-in. Those that can address them with due consideration and make even a minor modification see the blossom of my sons’ response. Respect and latitude make all the difference in the world.
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I homeschooled both my children up to high school at which point they wanted to experiment with the system, my daughter managed to deal with it, fascinated by the red tape, the bureaucracy and the politics, my son found it unappealing. They both responded to the lack of respect in their own way, my daughter called evreyone by their first names as they did to her, my son marked the tests they gave him eg: this was a pretty good test but some of the questions were repetitive or pointless, this test would have been better if you had asked how we felt about this etc… 6/10…. eventually my daughter made it into higher education where she continues to this day, starting grad school in January, and even my son with a long hiatus to recover from his brief exposure is now in university picking up the classes he needs to apply for the engineering program. It seems school is not so necessary to do well in life, however I believe education is. Mark Twain said I never let school interfere with my education.
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This is a very thought provoking post, Meg. I’ve never homeschooled – mostly because I need to work and don’t have the luxury of being at home. I don’t even know anyone who homeschools their kids. But I think you’ve touched on some valid points about our school system. My 20 year old would definitely agree with much that you wrote. He is always telling me that the school system destroys children.
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Thanks, Jenny. But I have to argue with the word ‘luxury’. I am well aware that some women cannot afford to stay home, and I appreciate their situation. I am also confident that their ‘after school’ schooling is as good as many parents who home school. I am not into setting one parenting style against another, not at all. But most of the home schooling parents I know are making a sacrifice in their careers and in their finances, to stay home. I love to be with my kids but I am not sure I would call it a luxury. A luxury, to me, would be an excellent ‘free’ and collaborative school that lived up to my standards.
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Ha, ha. I wondered about the use of that word.
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