Ask the homeschooler

In My Humble Opinion
1

There’s a GD thread on Homeschooling in California to discuss the political implications of the recent kerfuffle. So this thread is to give a more personal, anecdotal view of homeschooling. Several people have promised to participate.

For myself, I’m a California independent homeschooler; I’m registered as a private school, which means I can choose my own curriculum and am responsible for everything. I have two daughters, 2nd grade and preK, and have homeschooled the oldest since the beginning.

Ask away!

2

Just to add that I’m willing to take on questions directed to a previously homeschooled kid. For my history, I went to a private school for K and 1st, then was homeschooled through graduation. My three younger siblings were homeschooled for their entire primary and secondary education. The youngest is still in high school, the other two are in college at this time.

3

My impression of homeschooling comes from the movie **Jesus Camp ** where they discuss why global warming is false.

This did not give me a good impression of homeschooling.

Is my opinion unwarranted?

4

dangermom, you mentioned in the other thread that one way to legally homeschool in California is to become registered as a private school with the state. Can you talk a little bit about what that entails?

(For those who don’t know, every state has different regulations around homeschooling. My state, Illinois, has basically none. I’m curious to see how other states handle it. IANAHomeschooler yet (unless not sending my 3 year old to preschool counts) but I’m seriously considering my options.)

5

What do you do for socialization? Extra-curricular activities? Field Trips? What kind of tests or standards do you have to meet? How will homeschool grades compare to high school grades when your daughters apply to colleges?

6

I think so. You have seen a film that examines one small slice of the most extreme end of the homeschooler population. Homeschoolers are as diverse as the rest of the country; there are far leftists, far rightists, and a whole lot of people in the middle. People of every race and creed (or lack thereof) homeschool. More and more “normal” people are taking to homeschooling, so it’s becoming more mainstream all the time. It’s not even limited to families with one stay-at-home parent.

7

Lots of time with siblings, church groups, neighbor kids.

We were involved in local home schooling groups, so we had time and field trips with them. I also took piano, gymnastics and voice.

I know this was directed toward dangermom, but I’ll answer anyway. I don’t recall specifics of having to meet state mandated standards (this was in Ohio), but I always did very well on tests. I wasn’t able to get a regular high school diploma but I did get my GED (98th percentile). My younger brother received his undergrad degree with magna cum laude honors and is currently in a masters program.

8

In California, there are three ways to homeschool:

  1. Have a credential or hire a credentialed tutor.

  2. Register with a private or public Independent Study Program (ISP)–these have teachers who meet with you every couple of weeks to monitor your progress, and they give you materials and often money. Public school districts are starting these in droves, since they’re profitable; they get all the ADA money and cost hardly anything to run since you don’t need much of a building.

  3. Register as a private school. This can be done online, takes about 10 minutes, and is free. I record the number of students in my school, what grades I teach, and the names of the principal and vice-principal. The hardest part is coming up with a decent school name. So legally, I am just like any private school; there is no requirement for a credential, I can choose my own curriculum and courses of study, and so on. I like the independence and freedom this gives me. It also gives me all the responsibility–if I screw up and my kid ends up illiterate, I’ve got no one to blame but myself.

9

The homeschooler joke reply goes “Yeah, we’re having problems with that. I really need to find some time to stay home and do the schoolwork.”

There are tons of things for us to do. We have neighbors, friends, and group activities. As a concrete example, here’s what my 7yo does: group dance class 2x/week, group music class 1x/week, homeschool park day 1x/week, constant playtime with friends. (We used to have karate instead of dance but recently switched.) Church on Sundays and the friends that come from there.

We do have frequent field trips. The local college has a great field trip program ($3 a ticket!) and we have been to a bunch of cultural-type things from kung-fu monks to ballet to Celtic fiddle music. We take a lot of field trips relating to our studies; we are currently doing medieval history and have visited a local outfit that produces calligraphic art, been to the local rock expert guy for earth science, the observatory for astronomy, and recently took a week-long trip to Utah, which gave us to opportunity to visit the dinosaur museum and see a lot of great fossils (as well as visiting old friends and seeing pioneer history). Luckily, homeschooling gives us the chance to take many more field trips than PS teachers can afford or manage, and to visit places that are impractical for large groups.

One great advantage of homeschooling is that it’s easier to be out in the world. School work takes less time and we have more time to be out and about and playing. We spent most of Tuesday afternoon at the park with a picnic and a bunch of friends, before my daughter went to go play at another friend’s house after she got home from school.

My 4yo daughter goes to preschool at a friend’s home 4 days/week, if you’re wondering about her.

As a private school, I don’t. When they’re older I’ll have them do the standardized tests, but not before about age 10 because I think it’s a stupid waste of time to do so. In high school, you generally work up a portfolio showing your work, which will include community college classes, tutors, and so on as well as home study. Many colleges now recruit homeschoolers and they have processes to go through. I don’t know if we will go through high school, though I’d like to; it will be time for them to make some of their own decisions by then.

I will expect my daughters to be very well-prepared for college, and to attend decent schools. The academics is a large part of why I’m doing this. People homeschool for different reasons, but academics is one of my biggies.

10

Why do you homeschool? Do you dislike the caliber of all the public and private schools in the area?

11

I’ll admit to being skeptical about homeschooling. Mostly due to ignorance on the subject, so I’m very interested in reading this thread.

My question: Do you need any kind of qualification to register as a private school in CA, or can anyone do it? (My devious 10-year old self would have been all over the idea of registering as a private school in my mom’s name and not telling her, then just ditching regular school every day…)

12

No, it’s not that. I don’t really object to the public schools here, and I’m sure my kids would be quite happy; I’ll send them there if I think that’s best for them. (Though they are pretty crowded, since money is tight right now and they’re trying to make some very deep cuts.)

What happened to me is that about 5 years ago, I happened to read a bit about homeschooling and got interested in learning a little about it–not with the intent to actually do it, just for interest. I then read a book on classical homeschooling (which is a particular philosophy), and it was like someone had peeked into my brain and laid out my ideal education for me. I was absolutely hooked. I spent the next two years wondering if I could actually do it, and then decided to take the plunge.

That’s how I got started. Now, my reasons are many: we have much more time, we can do a ton of interesting things, my kids can learn at their own pace, and generally I just really like the lifestyle. I really think that the classical method of homeschooling is better academically than what the public schools are doing right now, and I think that my kids will be better prepared for whatever they want to do because of it. (Also–and this isn’t a tiny reason–my oldest has severe food allergies.)

Obviously there are trade-offs. This is like a job and I spend many hours a week on it. I never have enough time to do everything I need to do (running the house, cooking healthy meals, getting enough exercise, pursuing my own interests as much as I would like), and as an introvert I would sometimes kill for a whole day alone. We manage with Quiet Time after lunch and a decent bedtime. But on the whole I think it’s well worth it.

13

I used to be very negative towards homeschooling, mostly due to bad experiences with homeschool groups when I was the education director at a museum. I’ve since met plenty of good, non-froot loopy homeschooling parents on-line, though, which has mellowed me somewhat.

Dangermom, do you see yourself homeschooling your kids through their entire childhood? Is there anything you feel that your children are missing out on by not attending school? How do you ensure your kids get a good grounding in subjects that they (or you!) are not particularly enthused about?

14

Can you describe what one of your typical days looks like?

How do/will you handle it when your kids are learning about subjects that you are not well-versed in?

What is “classical homeschooling”?

Do you feel that homeschooling leads to more personal conflict between you and your kids? Another way to put this is, do you feel that homeschooling has changed your relationship with your kids, and if so, how? (This question is particularly interesting to me because I STRONGLY suspect that if I attempted to homeschool, my children and I would be severely at odds and would wind up hating each other. That’s just my personality, though.)

15

Homeschooling is an idea that intrigues me, although I’ve pretty much figured out that I just don’t have the personality to do it…I’m have a very hard time sticking to any kind of a self-imposed schedule, and tend to be very impulsive about planning my time. I have enough trouble even serving meals on any kind of a regular schedule on the weekends!

This kind of leads me to my question, which is whether you know any “unschoolers,” and what do you think of this as a homeschool movement? I read an article in my local paper about some homeschoolers, and one followed this more free-wheeling approach…it sounded kind of crazy to me. For example, the mom and the 10-year-old were watching Oprah one night (the show is rerun at 11:00 PM here), and the topic was something about nutrition. This got the girl curious, so they went to the library the next day to get books. I was a little concerned about this kid’s schedule…I mean, like I said, I’m not really regimented myself, but keeping a 10 year old up until midnight watching TV doesn’t sound like a great plan! And the education part seemed pretty hit-or-miss…what if the kid’s interests never get around to math? They just never learn it? Personally, I am all for a parent’s right to teach their own kids, but I’m thinking it might be smart to have some sort of standardized curriculum.

Any thoughts on this?

16

One of the concerns about homeschooling that I often hear is about socialization. You mentioned many ways and times that your kids interact with people.

Beyond that, are you at all concerned with the fact that your kids are always around you. They aren’t exposed to long periods of time away from you. Do you worry that they won’t get a chance to make decisions, both good and bad, out on their own?

17

Ack, I hope I can keep up with you folks.

Take a look yourself–here’s the form. Pretty much anyone can do it, but as you can see you’re required to keep certain records, and your 10-yo self would have been in some serious trouble once you were inevitably found out.

18

If that is the only way they plan lessons, then I think it is a very bad idea. But parts of that method can be incorporated.

For example, one year I was all excited about astronomy. Astronomy was not in the planned science curriculum at that time so my mom ordered an astronomy textbook for me, bought a telescope and I learned a lot…because I was really into it. I still learned everything else I needed, but we were free to shift subjects around as needed. In a public school setting that would not have been possible.

19

That’s true, a public school can’t change curriculum around, and that is an advantage overall to homeschooling. Having that be the overarching philosophy is what concerns me.

Come to think of it, I think it’s smart for all parents to help children pursue particular interests outside of the classroom. I think the focus tends to be on sports and other physical activities, but if a child has some academic interest that isn’t in the curriculum at school, that should be encouraged as well.

20

I don’t know. I’ve only been doing it for a few years and I’m not going to promise that I’ll continue forever; we’ll take this on a year-by-year basis. I do think that high school could be really fun, but who knows–and by then they’ll be taking some responsibility for their own choices. If one begs to go to high school, I won’t say no.

Sure, they are missing out on some things. Public school kids are missing out on some things too. There’s no ideal education and no ideal life. I just think that this way, we’re getting more cool experiences and missing out on fewer neat things than we would otherwise.

For the moment, my kid is still enthusiastic about most things. There’s no subject that she really hates (yet) and nothing that I skimp on because I don’t find it interesting enough. I will probably have to fight that temptation later, but our system is pretty methodical and I’m very invested in doing a thorough education. Luckily, my husband and I are very complimentary people, so if I discover that I hate physics in 4th grade, I can get him to do it and he’d be great. One tenet of classical education is that yeah, there is boring stuff and you still have to do it–you’ll probably never enjoy spelling or reciting math facts (or whatever it is), but the price is worth paying because of the enjoyment you will get later when you can write with ease. Keeping the long-term goal (of fluent writing or figuring, etc.) in mind helps you to be firm about doing the boring spelling now.