It’s been twelve years since my first child was born. We lived in Rochester, NY when it was time for her to start kindergarten, and I was afraid to send her off to school away from me, away from our home, out into the big scary world where she might be hurt in some way. That’s how I felt about kindergarten, and I probably would have felt the same way, even if we had lived in a better school district. My first foray into home education was a reaction to the world around me. I was also a frequent listener to conservative talk radio, and I really thought my precious little child would be brainwashed if I sent her to a public school. I had a college education and a strong background in English – really thought I could do an excellent job in everything but math – and Ray was somewhat of a math genius, so we were covered. And really, it went pretty well. We joined a home school group and attended meetings, started reading the literature, attending annual conferences, and participating in plenty of activities so no one could ever say our little pupil was unsocialized. There was some regulation in New York, and I had to turn in paperwork to the school district saying what she would be learning – detailing all of the curriculum I had planned, really, which I believe started in first grade. In NY, the kids had to take standardized tests periodically, too, and they had to achieve a certain level of success in order to remain in a home school. At the time, this really rankled me, but we complied and everything was fine.
After NY, we moved back to Texas. Abilene has many wonderful schools, but we persisted with the home schooling. My sister (a former teacher) and her husband (a teacher) were baffled at our choice, and I think they took it a bit personally that we continued to keep Virginia at home. Perhaps it was more a natural result of my own condescending attitude? The me from those years would certainly annoy the me of today. I was condescending. I was rude. And I thought I knew everything there was to know about educating my child.
This next part is difficult for me to write, because I still have good friends who home school their children. I don’t know that any of them read what I write here, but if so, I hope they can see through my personal disillusionment to the part where I say that home schooling works well for some families.
Somewhere between kindergarten, when we started, and mid-fourth grade, when we stopped for good, I became a home school cult member. I absorbed all of the jargon and reasoning, both the good and the ridiculous, and I did a bit of cramming it down the throats of unbelievers. I said home schooling was the best, the most natural, the only real option for someone who cared about the education of their child.
Here is a sample of some of the reasoning I bought into: It’s unnatural to force your child to sit in a classroom with other children of the same age, because that will never again happen in life. Public school is an unsafe environment. Being around children who use profanity and know about things like sex will negatively influence my child. Teachers with political agendas will convince my child to abandon the politics of our family. School detracts from family time. Children who attend school are more in tune with their peers than with the family, which is bad for the family. Children who attend school are less well behaved than home schooled children. Children at public schools are subject to bullying and should be protected from it until those years are over. Home school provides the freedom to teach religious beliefs as part of school. Home school provides enough freedom to explore the child’s interests more fully, and to learn advanced subjects early if desired. Home schooled children are smarter, better, well mannered, assertive, and extremely well educated. I should provide the absolute best possible for my child, especially in education. My highest priority should be my children. And somehow, finally, if you home school your kids, you love Jesus and your family more.
If you home school your kids and you have not been sold this stuff, then I’m sorry, because I know it must sound offensive. It kind of is, actually, whichever side you’re on. If you’ve never heard any of these reasons before, read any book that promotes home schooling. I promise, it’s all there, though maybe not as bluntly. There is also the general idea that anyone can home school, that it’s really the best option for every family, and if you try harder to arrange your schedule and finances, you can do it and do it well. If you don’t, you’re either ignorant of the facts or you don’t care about depriving your kids. Again, if you home school and this isn’t the way you think, I’m sorry. I definitely encountered this thinking, though, and it eventually turned me off.
The first time we took a break from home schooling, Virginia was in the third grade. Edward was a baby and I was trying to teach her at home while dealing with postpartum depression. It wasn’t going well. For the health of myself and our family, we put her in public school about a month into the school year. I almost had an anxiety attack: would she come home bruised, beaten, and a Democrat? To my great relief, she did not. She was fine. She even liked it, but I continued to struggle with the idea. I had a lot of guilt, because in my mind, I was a failure. We had been learning Latin together, for goodness sake, and now she would be stuck with a bunch of wild kids whose parents probably let them watch R-rated movies, and surely she would grow bored with the dumbed-down things she learned. We were pleasantly surprised.
Still, we took her back out before the end of the year and returned to home schooling. I remember telling the teacher, who we loved (still do), that it wasn’t the school or her class…we just felt like home school was best for our family. We were home schoolers at heart. Well, I was wrong about that, too. She finished third grade and the first semester of fourth at home with me, and I was much better at that point. Right after Christmas when Virginia was in fourth grade, we took our first trip to India (our kids stayed with grandparents). That trip ended any uncertainty on my part about home schooling. I think I even realized this before we got back home – possibly on the actual plane trip. Somewhere in the insanity of trying to do good things, I got caught up founding an orphanage. It was these kids who surrounded us in India, these kids who changed my views on education. When we got home, Virginia was enrolled in public school once again, and she has been in school ever since then. Sure, we had some problems with bullying at one point, but instead of going back to home school, we switched schools and put her in private school.
Some of the main reasons we were home schooling were challenged by what we saw in India. The kids there attend school longer hours than the kids in Texas, and they are still vitally connected to their parents and families. Instead of our kids being alienated because of school, I now see this as a cultural problem. I don’t think home school will fix it. The idea that I must be wholly dedicated to providing the absolute best for my children seemed absurd when I considered what a little compromise would do. If I sent my child to an institution where people are actually trained to educate, I could be spending more time raising money to support the children at the orphanage. One of the benefits of living there is that the kids get to go to school. Is it better to teach my child Latin and let her learn in the best way for her personality? Or to become an advocate who directs a program that provides an education for dozens of children who would otherwise be beggars? And it was no great sacrifice to send her…after all, it’s free, it’s mandatory, it’s close. They even provide transportation if you don’t live close to school. After seeing the conditions of the street kids in India, an American public education seemed like a downright luxury. I realized I was a bit too focused on myself and my own kids. Why do they need the best of everything? They don’t.
The notion that home school provides the best education is another point of contention. It’s hard to say. I know some home schooling moms and dads who are phenomenal, and their kids are really getting a top notch experience. I know others who are doing their kids a real disservice by teaching them at home. I don’t think everyone should – or could – educate at home, but I don’t think it should be outlawed. Yet, there are problems. Home schoolers don’t want any regulation, because it’s widely seen as government interference, which in my experience, is often a political stance. I’ve also heard home schoolers say that regulation would just mean more work for those home educators who are already doing a good job, and those who are cheating the system and their kids would only ignore the regulations. I used to believe that, but now I’m pro-regulation for home educators. I believe – and remember, I’ve been a home school insider – that there are a few home schoolers who are abusive, rotten parents who aren’t teaching at all, the kind you hear about in the news from time to time who don’t send their kids to school so the teachers won’t see the signs of abuse. This is sick and horrible, but it’s true that those people often use home schooling to hide what they’re doing. No, I don’t think any of them would be honest about any regulation. But…if kids were required to be tested, and the abused kids didn’t show up or failed, hopefully, the bad parents would be caught. However, I think this is a side issue in home schooling. On the other end of the spectrum are the awesome home schooling families. To these people, everything is a learning opportunity, they are dedicated and the parents make sure the kids are learning well. If there is a problem, the parents know how to get help, and they do it. Yes, regulation would be a burden on these people, but I don’t think it can be helped. The majority of home educators, I believe, fall between these two extremes, and they could use some regulation. In this middle group are the parents who try hard, but are not good teachers. There are the parents who teach science using the Bible as a textbook. There are the kids who aren’t learning well and won’t be successful in the real world. There are the frazzled moms who feel like they should be teaching at home, but they can’t spell, or do arithmetic, or really teach anything beyond about sixth grade. But if you’re a die hard member of the home school movement, it can be really hard to admit that it’s not working for your family anymore. It’s hard to eat your words (I know this!). I’ve heard mom-teachers confess about ending a subject early because they were tired of it, or not being diligent about making the student learn the math, or getting sidetracked mid-morning and losing the day of study. I’ve heard groups of home schooling moms laugh over the trials of teaching at home, and how these things happen a lot. I think this is kind of a big deal, and not a good thing.
If you’re one of those fabulous home educators, missing a day here and there is probably something you can work around. But for the majority, I think it’s bad. I remember reading that learning gaps were not necessarily a bad thing. Everyone has a learning gap in some area, the book said. Maybe so. But if you are the sole source of your child’s education, and YOU have a learning gap…shouldn’t that be a concern? It makes more sense to me now to let the math expert teach math, and the science expert teach science, etc. How could I hope to do a better job on my own? I have been most disturbed by home school parents who cannot spell or use good grammar, and I’ve seen quite a few, unfortunately. This skill – reading and writing, using language proficiently, is HUGE. It helps you (or hurts you) in every other subject. What does that mean for your kids if you don’t know sell from sale, or igneous from ingenious? You can’t use apostrophes correctly? Maybe you should consider public school. Just a suggestion. Have you seen the home schooling t-shirts with the names and pictures of famous people, founding fathers, Nobel prize winners, and the like, who were all home schooled? Now think about all of the great people you know and respect…who went to a public school. Yes, until a couple hundred years ago, education at home was the norm. Our founding fathers were educated at home. I hear this as a reason to educate at home…but I sure wouldn’t want to go back to those days. For one thing, some of my dear friends would be enslaved, and for another, the woman as docile housekeeper doesn’t appeal to me. (If you are a KKK member or someone who believes a woman’s place is only in the home, this probably isn’t a blog you’ll identify with…might be a good time to navigate elsewhere.)
There are absolutely instances when home school is the best for a family. There are definitely circumstances where public school doesn’t work out, or where a learning eccentricity needs more attention than a child can get at school, but I don’t think most people home school for those reasons. Every one of the reasons I used to home school has an answer, a flip side, and argument that’s just as strong from the other perspective. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t home school if none of those reasons are valid for you…you can do whatever the heck you want with your kids’ education. I’m just telling you why I got off the home school bandwagon. Let the chips fall where they may.
