My Homeschooling Observations

I started this blog with the intention of sharing everything I learned about home schooling when I started educating my daughter at home when she was in eighth grade.  I've not done well at keeping up with the blog, so here's a rundown of some things I've learned:

The only regret that I have is that I didn't start home schooling sooner. I wanted to when my daughter was in second grade, but couldn't convince my husband. It took years of frustration on many levels with both public and private schools (mostly public) to convince him to try home schooling. If you believe in your heart and your mind that homeschooling is right for you, please start researching possibilities now. Don't put it off - even if you decide homeschooling isn't for you, you will learn so much about how children learn and will find great activities for your kids to pursue over summer vacation and after school.

If you do homeschool, your child will likely learn more when you tailor a curriculum that feeds their strengths and provides extra support if needed in weak subjects. Furthermore, without the distractions in today's classroom, the school day is shorter in the grade school years and you'll have time with your child, or your child can pursue free time or other activities. My daughter was able to spend more time with her horse and started working a few hours at that barn when she was 13 (legal for light farm labor). She learned to manage her money and to manage horse, and to communicate well with adults and teens.

People who stereotype homeschool children as being backward in any way are thoroughly misinformed. We participated in some activities with the local home school group like museum tours, zoo classes, plays that mirrored historical events and the like. Not only did both my child and I learn a lot from these activities, but I learned that home schooled kids have manners and respect unparalleled by the general public school student population. The home school field trips were nothing like the ones I chaperoned at the public school.

Unfortunately, I found it difficult to integrate my daughter into the homeschooling social community in my area. While the moms groups were very welcoming to me, I tried to find friends for my daughter to connect with but there seemed to be a suspicion of a child who had spent eight years in public school.  However, my daughter made some friends through a writing class and a science class that she took offered at a church and another homeschool family home, but made no friends with peers in our town. That was a disappointment, but maybe it had to do with the venues of home vs. classroom outside the home. I also suspect that had my daughter been younger, setting up social time would have been easier.

There are tons of home school resources available - so much so that I recommend getting as focused as you can before you search for lessons and materials.  It is amazing that so much advice and full lesson plans and materials are shared across the Internet for this subsection of education.  Not only can you find "home grown" lessons and materials, but packaged solutions are easy to find, although they can be expensive.  I love the concepts behind Tapestry of Grace, which uses a unit study approach to all subjects except math. My friend and colleague, Beverly Hernandez, has been offering homeschool resources and how-to's for over a decade and just started a new web site at Homeschool Journeys. She also has tons of information on About.com Homeschooling. Another terrific resource written by the delightful Robin Montoya is Stone Soup Home School Resources.

Homeschooling properly is incredibly time consuming. I knew that home schooling was a huge commitment that required a lot of time with planning, teaching and record keeping, but I had no idea it would require the time commitment that it did. I've worked from home part-time while my daughter was in school, but once she entered high school I had to make the choice to stop traditional home schooling for two reasons: I did not feel capable of adequately preparing her for college through the high school years since I'd not been homeschooling for long, and we needed my income and I couldn't commit enough time to her higher education while working. Many homeschoolers pull this off very effectively, I did not think I could. Even if I bought her a packaged plan (I tested a few), it would still be so time consuming that it was doubtful that I could work at the same time. My solution was to enroll her in an online charter school through a school district in my state, where she gets the benefits of professional higher-level teaching and the structure of homeschooling without distractions.

Anyone who says homeschooling is a cop out is clueless.  One of my friends considered homeschooling, but decided against it because she said it would be a cop-out (yet she was very supportive of our venture). A retired teacher I know also equated home schooling to copping out, but once I discussed with her all I put into my daughter's home education, she changed her opinion to only some home schoolers copping out. And, I can't deny that I have met home school parents who haven't focused enough on academics (in my opinion). But that would amount to maybe 1% of all the home schoolers I've met in person and online.  Most home school parents are far more invested in their children's education because they are actively providing that education. This is not to say that parents who put their children in public or private school aren't invested, but it takes a special commitment to home school a child. Home schoolers should be respected for the work they do, and the vast majority do not cop out in any way, shape or form.

Online School: A Great Homeschool Option

In my post, Home Schooling Observations, I refer to my daughter's online high school. Here's the scoop:

There are many styles of home schooling and what works for one family won't for another. In many cases, what works for one child won't work for another!

Sometimes the answer is not to provide the education from the parent, and parents who make this choice should not be rejected by or cause any concern among the homeschooling community. I understand that there are many deeply religious people who home school, but not everyone home schools for religious reasons. Although I am a Christian, a prayer minister and a Bible study leader, I took my daughter out of public school purely for academic reasons. My daughter couldn't get adequate help when she needed it (unless I checked in with the teacher to remind them every other week) and the behavior and language that was allowed in the middle school was unacceptable to me. I am sure that just about any other home school parent would do the same.

My daughter's high school is an online charter school, eAchieve Academy (formerly known as IQ Academy), and I have to say that the principal there is amazing.  The academic/guidance counselors have been an excellent resource for course planning and the teachers all offer extra help when needed (and my daughter takes the initiative to ask for it) and give extra kudos when children excel on assignments.

Capable public school teachers are now teaching my daughter, but the drama and inappropriate behavior she witnessed at the bricks and mortar school are all but gone (there's some dram here and there, they are teenagers after all).  She has made many friends through the online school, and she sees some of those friends in person regularly and - like just about every other teen - keeps in touch by texting as I communicated with my friends on the phone "back in the day". Her friends are not only local, but from around the state. Through the online school (which is paid for by my tax dollars and provides a laptop computer and books) my daughter is receiving an A+ in an advanced placement class and she gets extra help in other subjects when needed. She does not "fall through the cracks" as she did in the regular public school.

While we're beyond satisfied with this online charter school, there are private online school options and online/homeschool education options.  Start looking by Googling "online homeschool". If you specifically do not want to use a public online charter school, be on the lookout for those that misrepresent themselves as a regular homeschool option. And, some of these online schools cater to the public school sector as well as homeschoolers, but have to charge tuition to home schoolers. This is one reason why I decided to try IQ/eAchieve, which was formerly powered by K12.com (there's a new plan in place for academics starting next year with greater flexibility). Why pay for K12 when I could get those services through the public school at no fee over and above my tax dollars?

I started this post by saying that not all families or students fit into one homeschooling mold. Online education may not be for you or your child, but I had to mention it because the school my daughter attends is definitely challenging, yet I see her succeeding using this venue.