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Our Reasons for Homeschooling

March 8, 2005 by Leave a Comment

[This article is in the form of an interview simply because that is how it originated.]

When did you decide to homeschool?
Our daughter was in 4th grade, and our son was in Kindergarten. We first thought about homeschooling in March, decided for sure in April, quietly finished out the school year through early June, and began homeschooling the next September. I spent that summer reading everything I could borrow on homeschooling, took notes to keep after I returned the books/magazines, and basically over-prepared myself.

What convinced you that homeschooling was right for you?
I heard Gregg Harris speak on a local talk radio show. My husband and I attended the weekend seminar he was promoting, and we got enough answers to our questions to decide that homeschooling would remove or reduce most of the problems we were having with public school.

Did you and your spouse agree on the decision to homeschool?
We made our decision together to homeschool, but my husband said he had wanted to homeschool for a couple of years, but did not want to put that burden on me! He was always supportive of our homeschooling efforts, becoming more and more outspoken for homeschooling as we went along.

Did you have to face any objections from family members or friends?
We each told our mothers with great fear and trembling, and let them tell our siblings. My mom swallowed hard and then said that she figured I could handle it. My husband’s mother said she did not see why we had not begun homeschooling a long time before! We told all of our family and friends that we were trying this “for a year, to see how that goes.” I knew from the beginning that there would be no turning back, but saying “for a year” made it less scary, even for me. My sisters secretly told my mom that my kids would “be weird.” (Sorry to disappoint you, but no, my kids are normal.)

What were some of your reasons for wanting to homeschool?
This will be a partial list — my list of reasons to homeschool gets longer every day!

1) Our daughter’s health: she suffered severe headaches that the school nurses denied existed (no fever + no vomiting = not sick). One classroom teacher said she could tell from my daughter’s face the moment a headache began, but the nurse and the principal insisted it was just “school phobia.” (Right — the same student who later earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at age 20.) With homeschooling, if our daughter was not able to do math one day, but could do reading, who would care? She could later make up any missed work without disrupting anyone’s schedule.

2) Public schools (two — we changed schools trying to work things out) were interfering in parental decisions, often superceding our parental authority. Complete disregard of our request to excuse our Kindergartner from the AIDS lesson, after the school had offered to excuse any student whose parents requested it in writing. (Just the existence of a lesson on AIDS for K-students was abhorrent enough.) My daughter had been the only student excused from the AIDS lesson for her class, and she was punished for the absence with extra work in her other subjects. We also learned later that each of our children was taken on school field trips that we were never informed of (without a signed parental consent form). We also dealt with administrators who lied to our children, stole personal property from our child, and refused to allow a sick child access to the telephone to inform us of her illness — forcing the ill child to remain in classes all day. (The child’s academic status was not a consideration: even with her absence-due-to-illness rate as high as one-third of the time, she remained at the top of her class — amazing when you consider #5 below.)

3) Lack of Christian values in public school (even from teachers we personally knew were Christians). The old adage seemed to apply: When in Rome (or the pagan school system), do as the Romans (or the other pagans) do.

4) Severe harassment from other students — I phoned the principal at home one Friday night at 10pm to report the bruising I had just discovered all over my daughter’s body. She had been repeatedly punched and kicked by her desk mate for not giving him the answers in class. The teacher stopped it once, but had merely told him, “Don’t let me catch you hitting her again,” and he made sure the teacher never caught him again.

5) Poor teaching (in the state which has claimed #1 status for years) — my daughter was in 4th grade, read poorly (guessing at words), and struggled in every subject. When she had missed 5 consecutive days of school for an illness, I spoke to the teacher about picking up her missed assignments. The teacher told me there was no homework — the class had not progressed beyond what my daughter had been present for. As it turned out, the teacher spent 10 consecutive class days trying to teach the students to multiply 3 numbers times 3 numbers, failed, gave up, and moved on. The teacher could not do the math herself, and her teacher’s aide also could not do the math — so the students never learned it either. (I had taught it to my daughter in about 2 minutes at home during her illness.) This was not an isolated case: I was personally acquainted with another teacher (special ed.) in the same school system who was required to teach an elementary math class, but freely admitted that her husband paid all the bills and kept the checkbook because she was “horrible at math.”

6) I was very skeptical of one teacher’s “lifestyle choices,” made evident by her boastful reports to her students (9-10 year-olds) of her weekend activities.

7) My son spent most of Kindergarten on the time-out chair because he already knew what the teacher was teaching the other children, and he became bored and restless. He told me a few years later that he thought he was the Principal’s favorite student, since the Principal often removed him from class and took him to the office to talk or let my son accompany him on “rounds” of the building, and they spent a great deal of time together.

8 ) Public school activities (sports, music programs, fund-raisers, etc.) often kept us and our children out late at night on school nights and left the children much too excited to go right to sleep afterwards. How were they supposed to wake up refreshed and ready for school early the next morning? (The relaxed schedule of homeschooling allows you to sleep in when necessary.)

9) The food served at public school was rarely to my daughter’s liking. (Actually, it was also a cause of her headaches.) Taking lunch from home was slightly better, but eating lunch at home while homeschooling is great! (I am happy to report that home-cooked food and careful supervision of her diet brought those nasty headaches into submission.)

10) Security at the school was nearly non-existent. Anyone could enter the building at any time, unnoticed. One morning I dropped off my daughter at the school’s front door, not realizing that school had been postponed due to extreme fog in the rural areas (weather in town was a fine drizzle, not foggy, but all classes were delayed). I was not notified to come back to get my child, and she was not allowed to enter the building before classes actually began for the day, even though staff members were present. She had to stay outside on the playground — unsupervised and in the rain — until school started an hour later (or was it 2 hours?)

11) The (sexual) peer pressure was unbelievable — and I’m talking about 8 and 9 year olds!!!

12) Discipline at the school was non-existent. There was no alternative for “good” students except to put up with the disruptions and harassment from the “bad” students. If a teacher’s verbal admonition had no effect on a disruptive student, there was no recourse.

Do you feel your children missed some things by not attending public school?
Once we decided to begin homeschooling, I was often asked if I felt my children were missing anything by not being in public school. My answer was always a sly smile and an emphatic “YES! They are missing the playground vocabulary, the sexual harassment in the lunchroom on hotdog day, and the physical abuse from little extortionist in the next desk who is not interested in learning anything. And I wouldn’t have it any other way!”

Do you have any regrets about your decision to homeschool?
Only one — that we did not begin homeschooling sooner.

[The follow-up to this story may be found at Start Homeschooling for One Reason, but Continue for Another.]

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Homeschool v. Public School

Should Children Be “Witnesses” in Public School?

March 1, 2005 by 2 Comments

How many times have I heard the arguments? “Homeschooling is a good idea for your family, but we want our children to be ‘salt and light’ in their school.” “Somebody has to stand up for Jesus in the public schools.” “My kids want to witness to their friends about Jesus.”

First, let me say that I am a convert to homeschooling — when I still had an extremist toddler in the house, I could not see any way that I could possibly homeschool. He grew up. He spent Kindergarten in the Time Out corner with the unspoken threat of Ritalin dangling over his head like the Sword of Damocles. Teaching two children sounded easier (for some reason) than the prospect of teaching one while entertaining the other. We became a homeschooling success story.

While the quoted arguments above might make good bumper stickers, they do not convince me. I do have compassion for the souls of children and adults alike, and I do not wish to see anyone spend eternity in hell. However, I also know that American public schools today are not Billy Graham Crusades — if someone is to find personal salvation through Jesus Christ, it will probably not take place during third period history. It could happen, but it would probably be prohibited and both the witnesser and witnessee would end up in detention before they even got a chance to bow their heads for prayer.

Jesus began His own ministry at the age of 30. The men He chose as His closest companions were also adults. Jesus had great concern for children and was eager that they not be burdened beyond what their innocence could handle, but He never suggested that the children’s time would be best spent in evangelistic outreach. I am very outspoken for considering my immediate contacts to be my field of ministry, but I also feel that a child’s best witness is to grow into the most Christ-like adult he can be. “Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52) — and then He set Himself to the work of ministry. (Yes, Jesus did discuss theology with the temple elders at age 12, but that was quite different from His later ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing the multitudes.)

Early in our homeschool journey, we had close friends, a married couple, who were both public school teachers. Their children ranged in age from early elementary to middle school. The middle child was very intrigued by the concept of homeschooling and asked the mother about the possibility of getting an education at home. Mom brushed off the inquiry. As another school year began and that child moved from upper elementary into the middle school environment, the subject came up again. The tender-hearted child was deeply affected by the caustic atmosphere of the new school and proclaimed, “Being at my school is like being in an R-rated movie all day long!” Since the parents preferred PG-rated movies and only rarely allowed the viewing of select PG-13 videos, the child felt that was a legitimate argument for home education. The parents did not agree. While I can only speculate as to the parents’ motivations, the child’s repeated, tearful pleadings to be allowed to homeschool were finally turned down flat with “Don’t ever ask that question again!” This was not a whiny, immature, or troublesome student. This young person volunteered to sit quietly at home, responsibly doing the assigned lessons while the parents worked. Ample opportunities already existed for intermittent parental supervision throughout the day, interaction with other homeschoolers, and church/social engagements. This child was not looking to bail out on an education, just the undesirable situation of the public school. A parent’s insistence that children should be witnesses for Jesus becomes a choked whisper in the R-rated melee of current public schools.

Another homeschool mom took her son to the local high school to enroll him in a foreign language class. They had chosen a specific teacher for his Christian values and felt confident that this would be a controlled exposure to the public school. As she told me the details of their first visit to the school, her face revealed the shock she had felt while walking through the hallways of the building. It seems she had not seen so many pregnant females in one place since her own last session of Lamaze class. She had never considered the fact that modern high schools must include a day care center — not for the employees’ children, but for the students’ children. She had expected to see students carrying backpacks and books, not babies and diaper bags.

I have no doubt that God could or would work through Christian students in a school setting to reach other students. I have the same conviction regarding Christian adults as faculty members. However, the ones that I have personally known do not spend their time and energies sharing their faith in Christ with those around them. If they were removed from their schools, I am not sure anyone would even notice.

When my daughter was in high school and the subject of second-generation homeschooling came up, we were surprised at how many of her homeschooled friends were not intending to homeschool their own children. In praying about it herself, she came across Matthew 22:21, “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Feeling that her future children were to belong to God rather than to the government, she felt this to be Biblical support for her as a future homeschooling parent.

When I first became a Christian, a popular poster read, “Bloom where you’re planted.” My confusion ensued as I heard other new believers discussing where they wanted to be planted. When Jesus spoke His final words to His disciples (Acts 1), He commanded them to remain in Jerusalem until they had received power from the Father. He did not send them out immediately or without training. He had diligently taught them day by day for the past three years. I do not believe we should be sending our children out without sufficient training or without the Father’s blessing. If you feel you are being led by God to engage in ministry as a family to those around you, that is wonderful — but allow your offspring the same consideration Jesus gave to His disciples: they were adults and had extensive training at His side before they assumed individual roles in evangelism.

Expecting young children to stand up as martyrs for Christ in the heathen surroundings of public school is unbiblical. In my experience, the parents who use this rationale are looking for every excuse they can find to avoid the responsibilities of homeschooling. Homeschooling does not have to be difficult, expensive, or isolating. Homeschooling is tremendously rewarding, and the opportunities for focusing on Biblical principles can give your children a foundation in faith that will pay amazing dividends in the years to come.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Homeschool v. Public School, Parenting

Common Homeschooling Myths Dispelled

February 24, 2005 by Leave a Comment

1) I could not stand to be with my children all the time. If you cannot stand to be around your own children, something is drastically wrong. Ask yourself why you do not like your children, and then take steps to fix that problem. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, no matter where your children are educated. If you just have not spent much time with your children up to this point, you may expect the transition period to take a little longer, but the more time you spend together, the more you all really get to know each other and come to enjoy each other’s company.
2) I would need a college degree in education to homeschool my children. Thousands of parents all over the world are successfully teaching their own children, without benefit of any higher education themselves. Some parents successfully homeschool who have not even completed high school themselves. Parents can learn right along with their children.
3) I do not know how to teach. Explaining any concept is teaching, so if you have given driving directions, demonstrated proper throwing/batting technique, or shown someone how to change a tire or how to set the table, you have taught. Most new homeschool parents simply do not realize how much teaching experience they already have. If you truly need assistance in explaining the educational material to your students, teacher’s manuals are available for most curricula, and many give step-by-step guides for interacting with young students.
4) I could not teach things I do not know — like calculus or violin. Academic subjects (like calculus) are all explained in the textbooks, so you can learn it right along with your student, and teach it to them if/when they become stumped. (Some adept students may be able to teach themselves higher math by studying the textbook.) Other things (such as music lessons) can be learned from a private teacher, just as any student takes piano lessons from a private teacher.
5) I am too disorganized to homeschool. If you are already able to exist in your home, you are probably able to homeschool. Organization helps, but it can be tackled a little bit at a time as the needs arise. Some families start simply by keeping each child’s books, pencils, and other supplies in a box, and stacking the boxes in an out-of-the-way place during non-school times.
6) I could only teach one child at a time. With practice, it becomes easier to get older children started on their work first, then spend time working with the younger ones. An older child can help a young reader practice while Mom is busy elsewhere. One child may do their daily chores, eat breakfast, shower, or do an easy subject while Mom helps another child with their difficult work. Homeschooling does take teamwork, but in time, you will all learn how to cooperate together.
7) My children will not listen to me. A miraculous transformation takes place the first time Student asks a question and Mom gives the answer: suddenly Mom is viewed as Teacher. (If your children absolutely will not listen to you, refer to Myth #1 — again, this is a serious problem no matter where their education comes from.)
8) My children will not have any friends. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Look at the friends your children currently have and consider if your child would be better off without their influence. The only friends you will lose through homeschooling are the ones you want to give up. You can still play with neighbors, church friends, scouting friends, soccer or Little League or T-ball friends, etc.
9) My children will not learn how to interact with other people. You have no people in your family? You live in a dark cave, 500 miles from your nearest neighbor? You never go to a store or a doctor’s office? What your children will not learn is how to become mindless automatons who cannot do anything without instructions.
10) My children will never leave the house. Homeschool support groups abound for children’s activities, Moms’ support, family potlucks, etc. Field trips can be spontaneous family activities or organized with large groups. Homeschool families have the advantage of taking off “gorgeous days” and doing schoolwork when others have a “snow day.” With trips to the grocery store, Wal-Mart, and play-days at the park, there will be days when you will feel like you are never at home!
11) My children could not go outside during school time. Shopping trips double as consumer math class when you teach a little comparison-shopping to your students. A doctor’s visit becomes a field trip when you ask a few extra questions. All children benefit from outdoor activity or recess. You are just not bound to following public school schedules. (Curious shoppers usually accept the answer “We’ve got a half-day off from school.”)
12) My spouse and I both have to work. “Have to” is not the same as “want to.” Many families today consider “luxuries” to be “necessities.” Take a serious look at where your money is going before you completely close the door on homeschooling. Often the second income is being spent primarily on child care before and after school, a professional wardrobe for the 2nd wage earner, and convenience foods because no one has time to prepare meals. In other cases, responsible older students have been able to do their schoolwork alone during the day, and then discuss the lessons with working Mom & Dad in the evenings. (Single parents have also been able to successfully homeschool through creative scheduling or work-at-home situations.)
13) Homeschooling would take too much of my time. Most of the time in public school classrooms is spent waiting: waiting in lines, waiting for students to be quiet and pay attention, waiting while the teacher deals with 20+ other students, etc. Careful studies have shown that less than 2 hours per day is spent in actual teaching and learning in public school classrooms. Homeschooling eliminates the need for much of those time-wasting activities, allowing homeschool students to complete all the work required for a day in a short period of time. The rest of the day can be spent in personally chosen activities: developing a hobby, working ahead on schoolwork, individual sports and recreation, family activities, household chores, etc.
14) Homeschooling costs a lot of money. Without the peer pressure of public school fashion or extra costs for school trips or school lunches, homeschooling can be quite economical. Some curriculum materials can be used over and over, whether by your own children or resold to other families.
15) Homeschoolers have to be tested each year by the public schools. The laws governing private education vary from state to state. Check with Home School Legal Defense Association (http://www.hslda.org/) for a listing of the laws in your state. Many options are available for compliance with the law, and yearly testing is not always required.
16) Homeschooling only works through the elementary grades. Homeschooling works just as well through high school and college. There are many curriculum options available for homeschooling through the upper grades (even through college).
17) My children could not participate in sports. Many families take advantage of city-sponsored recreational leagues, YMCA/YWCA children’s teams, or dual-enroll their children in the public schools specifically to participate in sports, music classes, foreign language classes, etc. while completing the bulk of their academic work at home. Large homeschool support groups now often organize sports teams and hold their own games and tournaments with other homeschool groups or private schools.
18) My children could not do science experiments at home. Science can be effectively taught at home, even without expensive lab equipment. Some homeschool curriculum suppliers now rent lab equipment. Homeschool families often pool their resources and share equipment and expenses, sometimes teaching cooperative classes together. Community colleges have accepted homeschool high school students into chemistry, physics, and other classes, enabling the student to earn college credit at the same time he is earning high school credit for the same class.
19) Homeschoolers do not get a diploma. Homeschool families may purchase diplomas and diploma covers or design their own diploma on their home computers. (Public school diplomas are also designed on someone’s computer and signed by a person who may not even be a parent or has never spent time with the individual students.)
20) Homeschoolers have to get a GED instead of a diploma. A homeschool high school diploma is valid. A homeschool transcript and ACT or SAT test score are accepted for college admission.
21) Homeschoolers cannot get into college. Colleges now routinely recruit homeschoolers, knowing that they are eager, self-motivated learners (and generally not party animals).
22) Homeschoolers cannot get into military service. All branches of the U.S. military now accept homeschoolers on the same level with high school graduates. Homeschool graduates rank above GED recipients in the military.
23) Homeschoolers never smile. Homeschooling brings out your best, so if your best is smiling, laughing, and having a good time, you will. If, however, frowning with a sour disposition is the best you can muster, well…

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Encouragement for Parents, Homeschool v. Public School, Top 10 (and other) Lists

“Why Aren’t You in SCHOOL?”

February 8, 2005 by 2 Comments

To leave or not to leave — the house, that is, with your children during “school hours.” Many new homeschooling families wonder if they must cloister themselves at home until that magic hour when the public schools dismiss for the day — and only then could they dare to venture forth. If we truly see education as a non-stop enterprise, then we must also hold that education can and will occur in the marketplace as well as at the dining room table. But how should one respond to the nosy clerk or shopper who snidely asks, “Why aren’t you children in school?”

It has been my experience that a ready answer delivered with confidence will deter most busybodies, while uncertain hesitancy just provokes more questions. Therefore, we began our occasional daytime excursions prepared to deliver a carefully rehearsed response — “We have a half-day off today,” although I do not recall ever actually having to use that particular reply. Some people never asked why my children were not in school — evidently they saw nothing unusual, or they were already used to homeschoolers. The people who did ask us questions either stopped after our first response or continued to question, genuinely curious about homeschooling — which my children and I were only too happy to answer.

I remember reading once about a clerk who asked a child what school he went to. The student replied, “We HOMEschool!” The puzzled clerk repeated “Weehome School? Where’s that?” When my children were asked why they were not in school, they usually spoke up eagerly, proclaiming “WE homeschool!” and offering a further explanation: “This IS school — we’re comparing prices for math class!” Any time we shopped, value was a primary goal, so we were always comparing prices, sizes, and ingredients. We once were threatened by a zealous supermarket assistant manager, who felt our daughter’s in-depth, store-to-store comparison of brands and prices was going too far. My husband asked for the head manager, who then became uniquely interested in our project. We left the store after completing our price survey — with the manager’s apology and a $25 gift certificate, and he happily kept a photocopy of our research of his competitors.

Usually, my children boasted that they had already finished their work for the day and were therefore free to spend the remainder of the day in their choice of pursuits. It is not our fault that the public schools are such an inefficient form of education that it takes them seven hours to complete what we could accomplish in two hours. In our first year, I felt as if we must not be dedicating sufficient time to our lessons because we got them done so quickly. Then I realized that if we were to spend as many hours in session as the public schools did, we would complete our entire school year in only a few weeks or months. A brief analysis of the public school’s daily schedule reveals how much of their time is completely wasted: waiting for the teacher to take attendance and complete other daily records; waiting for quiet so the teacher can give instructions; waiting for the teacher to repeat the instructions to all those who were not listening or could not hear because of the noise made by the others who were not listening; waiting for the other students to complete the lesson so you can move on to the next one; waiting for the teacher to gain control over the discipline-challenged student in the back of the room; waiting for all the students to line up properly to move from Room A to Room B; waiting, waiting, waiting. The time they spend on actual lessons is comparable to our time spent on homeschool lessons.

After the first few years, we outgrew our timidity and began boldly going where no schoolchildren had gone before. I preferred making our trips to the grocery store or Wal-Mart during the day, because there were fewer customers during those hours, and we could do our shopping more efficiently. Our schoolwork could be done any time — we wanted to take advantage of the best hours for our shopping. We confidently marched forth, practically daring people to ask why we were not in school. I began to call those opportunities “speech class” — knowing my children would jump at the chance for on-the-spot experience in public speaking. They were not at all shy when it came to boasting about their homeschool accomplishments, and their confident grasp of language and vocabulary usually left their interviewers astonished and speechless.

Our city’s public library is normally a quiet haven during the afternoons, hosting only a few senior citizens in the reading room. We happened to be there one day when a busload of middle-school children came in, supposedly to work on research projects. The noise level increased so dramatically that my children and I could no longer hear each other without shouting, face to face. The public school students (the ones with all those well-publicized “socialization” skills) ran all over the multi-level building, chasing, teasing, shouting, and generally disrupting everything without doing any actual research. The sole teacher with the large group of students could only be in one area at a time, leaving the bulk of her group unsupervised to wreak havoc and drive off any other daytime patrons. We finally packed up our books and went home; I did not want my children to be accidentally considered part of that rowdy group, and it was no longer an enjoyable place to be. It was no wonder that the librarian in the children’s section was always happy to see my children — they knew how to behave.

A year ago, I drove my mother-in-law to her physical therapy appointment and sat in the waiting area until she was finished. While I was reading my book, a young boy came in with his mother for her appointment, obviously during school hours. He had an apple in one hand, his Bible in the other hand, quietly took a seat near me, and promptly began reading. I broke into a huge grin as I recognized the telltale signs of a homeschooler. No situation is disrupted by a well-mannered child.

Recess was an uncomfortable concept during our first year of homeschooling. I felt (silly me) that we should start by following the “school model” of regularly timed breaks with me present as the adult playground supervisor. I soon realized that this was HOMEschool, not SCHOOL at home. This was, after all, MY home, not a concentration camp. I still lived in America, the nation with the most freedom on the planet, and homeschooling was LEGAL. Public school teachers do not have to prepare the mid-day meal for their students; I did and needed extra time for it. Government schools also take their students on boondoggled field trips all the time, so we should enjoy the same freedom. (After we had left the public school system, I learned from both of my children that they had been on several trips away from the school grounds without my knowledge or permission. So much for parents’ rights.)

I loosened up and allowed my children to take their lunch break at the times that best worked into their schedules, sometimes varying with each day as they finished a subject early or needed a little extra time. I allowed them to play outdoors in our fenced backyard UNsupervised (gasp). I allowed them to take schoolwork outdoors on beautiful days to soak up some natural vitamin D and fresh air. I allowed them to ride their bicycles or rollerblades in front of the nearby middle school, even though the institution’s occupants became quite distracted at the sight. (After a heckling incident during the public school’s outdoor PE class, my son restricted his bicycling to during their classroom times. Years later, a boy began a conversation with my son by saying, “Hey, you’re that kid who used to ride your bike outside my school!”) We took walks together, whenever and wherever we wanted, knowing that even the simple act of walking around the block provided us with educational experiences in observing nature, architecture, or a street repair crew.

Time is the great healer — a little experience will give you the confidence to tackle anything during your homeschool days. Once you recognize that education happens wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you should have no qualms about leaving your home during “school hours.” Let the busybodies ask their questions — and give them more answers than they expected.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Homeschool How-To's, Kinesthetic Learning, Socialization

Where Do I Begin???

December 22, 2004 by Leave a Comment

[co-written by Jenny and Carolyn]

You would like to begin homeschooling. Your children are already in school. How do you begin? Start with a trip through the Home School Legal Defense Association’s website (http://www.hslda.org) to learn what must be done in your area to be in compliance with your state’s laws. Some states require notification before you remove your children from a formal school; some do not. Trust HSLDA as your final authority: public school officials are often woefully ignorant of their state’s laws. Laws and requirements vary from state to state, so do not assume you can do the same thing as your friend’s neighbor’s sister-in-law who lives three states away. HSLDA also has links to homeschool support groups in your state or local region. Find the name of a homeschooling family and call them up — if they do not feel they can answer your questions, ask them to suggest someone else who can. I have spoken to many potential homeschooling families who just needed a little boost in the encouragement department.

The first physical step would be to pull your children from the school system they are in, but truly, you already have started teaching them. Your children have been learning from you from the time when their big eyes first followed you around the room, though they could not even speak or understand you, and it has progressed from there (see Who Taught This Kid to Walk…). Not getting your children up early enough to catch the bus may seem too simple of a way to begin homeschooling, but that is the beauty of home education. You may choose to delay removal from a school system until a semester break or major holiday break, but it often is not necessary. Others (in more drastic circumstances) choose to pull their children out NOW before another day goes by.

From there you can begin with the books that you already have around the house. Literature is a great way to start: read to your children, and have them read to you. Make cookies together and do the math of fractions. Play with water or corn meal and all your measuring utensils. There is no need to freak out and think you need a formal set-up. Relax and enjoy having your family together, and learn from life. Watch an historical video and discuss the parts that interest you. Spend an afternoon at the library. Walk around your local business district and see what you have never noticed before. If you are the only customers in a shop, talking to the owner can result in a fantastic, spontaneous field trip. Visit a local museum or antique shop and ask questions of the proprietor. Later, textbooks or organized lessons can be added, but it is not necessary right away, even if you are starting with a child who is in junior high or high school. You can still allow yourselves to take it easy at first; it helps make the transition less stressful and more enjoyable. Do not worry about desks and art supplies and music lessons until you find a need for them. Cuddling together on the sofa or gathering around the dining table will work just fine for now.

When you begin to doubt whether you are doing enough, stop to consider how much time your children would be wasting in a classroom while waiting in line, waiting for silence, or waiting for the teacher to finish whatever is going on before they can all move on to the next thing. A lesson that requires 45 minutes for a classroom to do may take only 10 minutes at home with one student. If you have multiple children, you may be able to combine lessons sometimes and save even more time. The entire family can enjoy a video or read-aloud book, and then your students can continue the lesson with assignments appropriate to their ages and abilities (i.e. further research, comparison or analysis of characters, make a costume and re-enact a scene). When my daughter had to read Hamlet for a college class, my son joined her for the video/read-along session and used it for high school literature credit.

It is beneficial and therapeutic to spend time contemplating what things you and your students have learned at home — remembering that we learn much more from life’s experiences than we do from books! Enjoy your time together as a family. From mealtime conversation to family game night, the educational opportunities never stop. Those opportunities were always there, but you were all too exhausted from rushing to keep up with school schedules to take advantage of them.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Homeschool How-To's, Leaving Public School

If You Have Children, You DO Homeschool

December 3, 2004 by Leave a Comment

During my daughter’s last year in public school (4th grade), we were already homeschooling, but we just did not realize it at the time. Recognizing how much I was already teaching her at home made our decision to homeschool much easier.

She had difficulty keeping her mind on the subject at hand and often daydreamed in class when she should have been working on assignments, so I worked with her at home after school to improve her focus. Many concepts that the public school teacher tried to teach were just not grasped by my daughter, so I explained them in as many different ways as I could think of until she understood. It felt really good to be able to impart confidence to my daughter for the things I was teaching her. She did not get personal feedback in the classroom, and that was something she truly needed to keep her going.

It finally became clear to me that I was becoming the primary teacher in my daughter’s education. The teacher at school handed out the assignments, but her attempts at instruction simply were not successful with my child. More and more often, my daughter came home seeking my confirmation of a lesson from school, and many times the lessons were very confusing. The school did not allow students to take textbooks home; for some subjects they did not even have textbooks. Once in a while the concept learned at school was just plain wrong. (There is no polite way to phrase it: wrong is wrong.) The frustration level soared dramatically as I attempted to teach my daughter at home in late afternoons and evenings (when she was tired and I was busy preparing a meal) without benefit of curriculum. Many parents go through this scenario to a greater or lesser degree — Junior needs help, parent tries to help, success is debatable.

Parents, I would like you to reflect for a moment on all the things that you do successfully teach your children. You have probably already read my soapbox speech on how you taught your children to walk, to talk, to dress themselves, to feed themselves, and how to do a myriad of other tasks before they were considered old enough for “formal education.” You imparted all of that knowledge without the aid of printed textbooks, charts, diagrams, or other visual aids. Now I want to look deeper into the realm of what you teach at home without even trying hard. Your children learn their greatest lessons in life just from observing the everyday routines of their parents and other family members.

Language (including choice of slang words), fashion consciousness, manners, the value of money, person-to-person relationships, the importance of extended family members, community involvement, religion, politics, prejudices — these are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of lessons learned at home. Have your children learned to do their own laundry, have they learned to think of others by sharing in the family laundry task, or have they learned to expect someone else to provide them with clean clothing? Apply the same line of questioning to mealtime — is Mom expected to perform all facets of food preparation and clean-up, do family members help Mom, or is it “every man for himself”? Look around your house right now: are there articles of clothing scattered about, draped over every chair; newspapers lying on the floor next to an endless array of toys, game pieces, and miniature cars; or is every room absolutely spotless, not a speck of dust, and no single article out of place? Remember, this is not a spot inspection of your housekeeping ability — this is your personal, private, in-depth analysis of what and how you teach your children.

I am the only member of my extended family who has chosen to homeschool, but I am not the only one who teaches her children. Some children learn that a parent’s career is much more important than the children’s needs. Some children learn that volunteering in the church/community has a much higher priority than spending time with family. Some children are taught to expect the television to be their constant companion and the basis of all their values. Some children are never taught how to entertain themselves without the use of electronic media. These may not be the lessons that parents desire their children to learn, but it may be what they are teaching.

If you are spending every evening with your child, helping him with his school assignments, you might want to consider the benefits of homeschooling. You could continue to do the same amount of teaching, but you could choose when to do the lessons — ideally, choosing times when you are both fresh and not at the end of very frustrating days. You and your child could also decide together what other subject areas would be interesting to explore and how you would like to investigate them. If you have children, you are already homeschooling. You may not be the one teaching long division, world history, or grammatical sentence structure, but you are teaching.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Encouragement for Parents, Family Unity, Leaving Public School

Discouraging Families

November 16, 2004 by Leave a Comment
Oh, give me a home where the school is my own,
Where the students are my own children,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
From my relatives, neighbors, and friends.
Is it really possible to have family members who fully support your desire to homeschool? I do not know. Maybe it is possible — if they already homeschool, too.

Most of the people reading this article are searching for some hope, some light at the end of the tunnel. You are feeling outcast, weighed down under the persecution of loved ones who just do not understand your desire to educate your children in the way you see as best. My words of encouragement may seem insufficient at this point, but I strongly urge you to “Hang in there!” It is rare for relatives to remain devoutly anti-homeschooling for a long time. Usually, family members who see you and your children with any frequency will soon begin to notice positive differences between your children and the average government-schooled children and will begin to alter their attitudes accordingly. However, there may be cases where you will need to limit your time with certain friends or relatives, steering the topics of conversation to less flammable areas, such as politics, money, or religion.

When we decided to homeschool, we only told our parents. We let them tell our siblings. Yes, it was the coward’s way out, but you probably did something just as spineless. My sister told Mom that my children would turn out “weird.” Using my nieces and nephews for the “normal” standard, my children are very weird. Using my standard for “normal,” my nieces and nephews are the weird ones. It did take a few years for everyone to “come around,” but now they all accept our homeschooling efforts — a few relatives even applaud us.

From my own experience, I can say that my children were the best “salesmen” for convincing our reluctant relatives. When we made our appearance at the family holiday dinners, even the most adamant aunts and uncles had to admit that my children did not have antennae sprouting from their heads. My offspring were able to converse intelligently with the adults, relating fantastic details of our latest field trip or interesting experiment, while their non-homeschooled cousins hid in the far reaches of the house, silently transfixed by video games and only grunting monosyllabic responses to any attempts at conversation.

When we were questioned about the schoolwork we were doing, I let my children answer as often as possible. They were perfectly capable of speech; why not let them gain a little experience at being interviewed? My husband and I were always close by to supplement the answer, if needed, but usually our children were able to give competent, first-hand testimony of exactly what they were learning. My son’s favorite question was always, “What grade are you in now?” to which he would smugly respond, “In which subject?” followed by a rapid-fire dissertation of each subject and his corresponding grade level, emphasizing the subjects in which he was ahead of his peers.

When confronted by a nosy, know-it-all friend/neighbor/relative, I was ready with knowledge of the legal requirements for homeschooling in our state and an account of how we were meeting those requirements. (Find the legal specifics for your state at http://www.hslda.org/.) I have yet to meet a parent utilizing the public school system who knew anything about the state’s laws pertaining to education. They usually changed the subject on me once they realized that I probably knew more about their children’s education than they did.

I explained what we were doing for our children’s education. I answered all the (reasonable/legitimate) questions that were fired at us. I knew legal requirements and facts, and I could throw in a few well-placed statistics for good measure. I tried to avoid arguing (not always easy for me), focusing my responses around, “This is what we are doing; you may do what you want to do.” I defended our position, but I learned not to try to recruit. When someone had specific questions about getting into homeschooling (which always seemed to be “for a friend”), they would seek us out, often in a secluded corner and speaking in hushed tones for fear of discovery. (To date, none of our extended family has tried homeschooling.)

A fellow homeschooling mom once told me about her experience at Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. When the meal was over, her children cleared their own dishes from the table and began filling the sink for the clean-up process. Her non-homeschooling siblings accused her of bribing the children ahead of time to do this chore “just to make the rest of us look bad!” Despite insistence that this was the children’s customary routine at home, the offended relatives would not be persuaded.

If you are facing non-supportive family members at this time, the most encouragement I can offer you is my own affirmation that “time will tell.” Find out for yourself exactly what the legalities of home education are in your state, comply with them, and then stand your ground, knowing that you are doing your best to educate your children and that homeschooling will prove itself. Walk away from arguments when necessary, and walk away from potential guilt feelings at the same time. Remember the old folk adage, “the proof is in the pudding” — each individual ingredient may not be tasty by itself, but when combined in proper proportions, the result is delicious. Application to homeschooling: any one lesson or subject may not make a great difference by itself, but over time, your homeschool lessons will combine to make your students into wonderful people. You still may hear occasional grumblings from outsiders, but be assured that those are probably based in jealousy.

Filed Under: Deciding to Homeschool, Family Unity
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