Don't Tell Me You Could Never Homeschool

One comment I hear quite often after telling people that I homeschool my two children is "I could never homeschool my kids!"  This is usually followed by comments about how they lack patience and would "kill" their children if they tried homeschooling.  Sometimes this is also followed by comments about how they wouldn't know how to homeschool or they aren't qualified to homeschool.
I completely understand that many people do not feel that homeschooling is the right decision for their family.  I think the wonderful thing is that everyone is able to choose for themselves what they feel is best for their child and their family.  Don't, however, say that you can't homeschool.  It just isn't true.

All parents are homeschoolers.  When our children are young, we encourage their first words, we read to them, we hold their hand as they take their first toddling steps.  We point out things in the world around us.  We have conversations with them.  For some reason, though, once a child reaches 5 or 6, we suddenly come to believe that we are no longer qualified to teach them.  That task becomes the purview of certified teachers.  We ignore the fact that these teachers don't really know our children, that we are often unhappy with how our children are taught in school, that the teacher is responsible for teaching 20+ children, and that our children are only in school for about 6 hours per day (much of which is spent lining up, dealing with discipline issues, etc.).  We have been told that school age children should be taught in a school and that only uniquely qualified people can teach.

In college, professors are not required to have any training in teaching.  They are highly educated in their fields, but they have no training in educating others.  As a result, some college professors are wonderful teachers and others are not.  In my experience, I found that the ones who were the best were the ones who were truly interested in their students and took the time to really get to know them as people and then made the material relevant to them.  Isn't that something that parents inherently do?  Why is it that we don't think college professors need any training in education while elementary teachers do? Why is it that many believe that parents aren't as qualified as a college professor to teach?  Parents usually know and understand their children better than anyone else does.  They are uniquely qualified to teach in a way that is meaningful and memorable for their children.

Others have told me that they wouldn't know how to teach or what material to cover.  This was one of my concerns when I first started homeschooling.  I addressed this by purchasing a boxed curriculum package.  I used a curriculum called BookShark.  I ordered it online and the large box arrived at my door a week later.  It included all of the required books and, best of all, a binder containing a day-by-day schedule of exactly what books to read and material to cover.  All I had to do was follow their plan and check off what we completed.   I knew, if we covered the prescribed material, we would have covered everything that my children would have covered in school that year.  I ended up branching off from BookShark and tailoring my own curriculum after a couple of months, but that's another topic for another post.  If you're nervous about covering what is necessary to keep your child on grade level, you can simply buy a curriculum and follow it.

Another concern that I hear even more often is that parents don't believe they are patient enough to homeschool their children.  I'm here to tell you that I am not a very patient person and I have managed to homeschool my children for the last year without incident.  Sure, some days they have tried my patience and I have yelled a bit.  I feel bad about that, but I'm pretty certain I did no irreparable harm.  Homeschooling has been a wonderful voyage of self-discovery for me.  I have learned how to deal with frustration and how to look at the long-range view.  I have learned that, if they are restless, unmotivated, and distracted, we can usually take a break and they will focus better later.  I have learned that flexibility is key and I need to let go of some of my control-freak nature.

I've also learned that one reason parents have such a hard time believing that they could survive homeschooling is that they are currently only with their children after school, on weekends, and during the summer.  After school, most children are at their worst.  They have been confined all day and forced to sit still and focus on boring material for most of the day.  They have been somewhat stressed and bored all day.  After school, they can finally relax and cut loose.  If, they've finished their homework, that is.  That is why homework becomes such a battle.  My daughter was certainly DONE with school work by the time she came home each day last year.  She didn't want to deal with even 30 minutes more sitting still and doing work.  I couldn't blame her.

The struggle you face getting your child to do homework is nothing like homeschooling.  Homework must be done in the evening when a child has already been sitting still and focusing all day at school.  Homework is the obstacle keeping them from relaxing and unwinding at the end of the day.  Most homework is or feels like busy work rather than meaningful learning.  I also found that homework was often confusing even to me.  The directions were often unclear and, since I wasn't the teacher, I didn't know what to tell my daughter to do.  When you are the teacher, you get to decide how the assignments will be completed.  You also get to decide when your child has done enough and you don't have to force them to complete 30 practice math problems because some of the 25 children in her class need extra practice.

Weekends and summer are another time when non-homeschooling parents are with their children and are sometimes at their wits end.  Again, this does not reflect how homeschooling would be.  Weekends and summers tend to be unstructured free time.  Personally, I've found that we do much better when there is some structure to our days.  We need a daily plan.  Left to figure it out for themselves, my children usually either spend too much time in front of screens, making me feel guilty, or they endlessly bug me to tell them how to amuse themselves.  When we homeschool, we have a daily plan.  They have certain tasks to complete each day and I usually have some time built in when I can get things done on my own while they are otherwise occupied.  We have time when I am totally focused on them so that, later, they are usually happy to have some time to themselves.

Homeschooling isn't always easy, but it isn't as hard as you might think.  I am not an overly patient person.  I am not specially trained in education.  I am, like nearly all parents, just passionate about ensuring that each of my children has the best childhood and the best educational experience possible.  For me, the best way to do that for my children is through homeschooling.  Others might feel that the best way to do that is to send their children to school.  Either is a fine choice.  Just don't tell me you couldn't homeschool.


Addendum:  I do realize that some people are unable to homeschool because they are required to work long hours and need the childcare provided by school.  I want to be clear that I'm not referring to being unable to homeschool for such reasons.  I just wanted to point out that any parent who really wants to, has the ability to homeschool in terms of patience and qualifications.

Why Did We Decide to Homeschool? (Or, Are You Crazy?)

I started toying with the idea of homeschooling about mid-way through my daughter's first-grade year.  It started with feeling dissatisfied with the education that my daughter was receiving in Catholic school.  Her teacher was fine, but I just felt like her education could have been so much better.  She was coming home from school telling me that it was boring and she didn’t like school.  She said her favorite subject was recess or PE.  She dreaded Mondays and counted down the days to the weekend.  And, she was only in 1^st grade!!  

Homework was another issue.  She brought home very vague homework assignments.  Sometimes I couldn’t even figure out what they wanted.  For one assignment, it had math word problems and the sheet said they should use “problem solving strategies” including acting it out, drawing it, or writing a word sentence.  On the sheet it had the math problem and a small line for writing the answer.  I worked with Claire on all of them and we talked through them, drew pictures on scrap paper, etc.  She wrote the answers on the paper and took it to school, very proud that she had worked hard to figure out the answers.  It came back the next day with a note from the teacher saying “Please re-do and show your work.”  Nowhere on the assignment had it said she needed to show her work!  I was annoyed that she had to re-do something she’d already done and I was even more upset that this made her feel like she had done a bad job even though she had worked very hard and had done everything that was requested in the assignment.  

Homework is another issue I have with traditional school.  I realize they can only fit in so much when they have 25 students in a class and need to teach them all.  But my daughter was DONE with school by the time she came home and she hated doing more school work in the evenings.  I hated the fact that it ended up being another chore crammed into our already busy evenings of after school activities, dinner, baths, bedtime routine, etc.   Also, I think kids need time to just play and be kids and it seemed like there was never time for that during the week once homework was added into the evening plans.  

Another issue I had with homework was the fact that everyone naturally resists that which they are forced to do.  As part of my daughter's homework, she was required to read with us for 10 minutes each night and record the book she read along with our initials.  At the end of each month, she had to turn in her reading form and she was given a reward if she'd read for the required number of days.  Don't get me wrong.  I think reading with children is wonderful and that, in itself, is a great thing to encourage.  What I hated was that requiring them to read for 10 minutes and sign a form proving they had read turned reading into a chore.  On the sheet it said “read for fun,” but on some nights it said “take a break.”  If you are doing something for fun, you shouldn't have to be forced to do it and you shouldn’t want to take a break from it.  

There is a psychological concept that says that when we have to do something or are given extrinsic rewards for doing something, we enjoy it less.  Studies have shown that amateur baseball players often find that they enjoy baseball less once they go pro and are paid to do it, for example.  We already read most nights and having to record and sign off on what we read was annoying.  It turned what had been an enjoyable parent-child bonding time into something required for school that we had to do even when she was too tired or getting to bed too late.  It made it seem like reading wasn't fun so she had to be forced to do it.  

My other concern about homework is the fact that I strongly believe that children of all ages need time for free play.  They need time to play outside, spend time with friends, play with toys or even video games, etc.  The psychologist, Jean Piaget, said that play is the work that children do.  He believed that children learn through play and learn best through play.  In a way, we all do.  Schooling and homework rob children of that time to play.  I’ve heard from friends who have a child in 5^th grade, that homework often takes  their child 3 hours each evening!  That’s excessive especially for 5th grade.  When are they able to play and be kids?  When do they spend quality time with their families and when do they sleep?  If we homeschool, they can get all of their school work done during the day and can relax in the evenings. 

I also didn’t like the fact that my daughter started comparing herself and her abilities unfavorably with her classmates and it started destroying her confidence.  Last year she was a little behind in learning how to read.  Children learn at different paces and she was younger than many of her classmates, so I wasn't concerned.  This started creating problems, however, when she said she hated reading out loud because one of the boys in her class told her she wasn't a good reader.  She got to the point where she didn’t even want to read out loud to my husband or me.   I don't want her to have an unrealistic sense of mastery over everything, but I do want her to feel confident enough to keep learning and keep trying.  I want her to enjoy learning and feel good about the strides she’s making.  Again, my psychology background kicks in here.  I want her to have a sense of self-efficacy, the belief that she can master new skills and that she is competent and capable.  Studies have shown that people with high self-efficacy are more likely to try harder and to choose more challenging courses of study.  I worried that the criticism of her classmates was destroying her confidence.  Incidentally, her reading ability finally kicked into high gear the summer after first grade and she's now reading above grade level.  

I also felt like traditional schooling was destroying her natural sense of curiosity and love of learning.  Before she started first grade, she was so curious about things. She’d find a bug and want to look it up and learn all about it.  She seemed eager to learn how to tell time.   Then, she started first grade and that changed.  She was still somewhat curious, but it seemed like she was starting to get the attitude of only needing to know things for tests or assignments in school.  One incident, in particular, really struck me.  I knew they’d been working on telling time in school, so one evening I was trying to tell her it was time for bed and I asked her what time it was.  I pointed out that the little hand was on the 8 and the big hand was on the 1.  She said, “ we only learned o’clock and thirty and we’re done with time now.”  I informed her that she will never be done with time so she’d better learn the times in between o’clock and thirty!  

I know that this attitude of only needing to learn things or know things for school is a common side-effect of tests and grades.  Over the summer, I volunteered at Girl Scout camp.  The other leaders and I were having a discussion with our group of sixth grade girls.  One of the leaders used a big word and one of the scouts asked what it meant.  The leader defined the word for her.  At that point, another scout said, "No learning!  This is summer and we're out of school!  We will have no learning here!"  I hope that my kids will see learning as something to be enjoyed and something they want to do all the time, not just when it is required for school.  

 

The more I researched homeschooling and thought about it, the more I realized that I could offer the kids so much more in a home school.  Without 24 other children to educate, we can be so much more efficient in our learning.  They don’t have to do busy work while they wait for the other kids to finish assignments.   We use a mastery model where we don’t move on (or at least don’t permanently move on) until they’ve mastered a concept.  In school, they have to move on whether everyone has learned a topic or not.  Some kids just get better grades than others.  For example, my daughter had weekly spelling tests.  Some weeks were busy and we didn’t have time to study the words as much, so her scores on the tests were not as good as other weeks.  Whether she learned them or not, the next week she got a new list of words.  Consequently, there are still words she doesn’t know how to spell.  Now that we're homeschooling, we continue to review words until she learns all of them. 

I know that homeschooling isn't for everyone and I know that many people go through school and turn out happy, productive adults.  Homeschooling was just the choice that made sense for us given all of the points above.  We plan to assess each year to make sure it still makes sense for our family, but, at this point, we're enjoying it too much to even think about going back.  

Outsourcing our children's education

I wrote this post in February of 2015 when we first decided to homeschool our kids.  It helps to explain some of the reasons why we decided to homeschool...  

I was discussing the pros and cons of homeschooling with my husband who is a manager in a corporate environment.  He pointed out that most people have outsourced their children’s education and, as a result, they feel like it is taken care of and no longer really their responsibility.  I think this analogy makes a lot of sense.

Don’t get me wrong, I think many, if not most, parents are very interested in their children’s education and they try to be involved as much as possible.  I was interested in my daughter’s education too.  I’ve found, though, that most schools do not encourage this involvement.  I usually didn’t even know what my daughter was studying in school until graded papers or homework assignments were sent home.  I was invited to class parties or to read to the class, but parents were never invited to help teach or to sit in on classes to see what and how the kids were learning.  Homework assignments were sent home, but my daughter's school either did not send home directions at all (and expected 6 and 7 year olds to remember the directions) or the directions were unclear.  I often felt like the methods I used to teach her those concepts were different from what was being taught in school.  On more than one occasion, I helped my daughter complete a homework assignment only to have the paper sent back for revisions because it wasn’t completed the way the teacher wanted (even though the answers were all correct).  I didn't feel like a partner in her education at all.  In fact, I felt frustrated at my attempts to help out and become involved.

Part of the problem is our mindset and the mindset of teachers and schools.  This outsourcing mindset is not only accepted, it is encouraged by schools and teachers, although that may be unintentional.  When my children were young and not enrolled in school, I worked with them daily to help them learn their alphabet and shapes, I read to them regularly, and I tried to make everything a learning opportunity.  I was their primary teacher and I took the job very seriously.  Once they were enrolled in school, I tried to become involved at their school.  I joined the PTA only to find that they were mostly concerned with fundraising for the school.  I regularly checked the school and the teacher’s web pages only to find that they didn’t really have much information about what the kids were actually doing or learning in school.  If I acted too concerned or interested I was either seen as a “helicopter parent” or the teacher seemed to think I was questioning her ability to teach.  It appeared that I was supposed to blindly send them to school and allow the teacher to do “her job” of educating my children while I simply paid tuition, asked them what they did each day, and helped with homework assignments.  I had outsourced their education.  It was no longer my job to educate my children.  Even on weekends or during the summer, I was mostly expected to just have fun with them or keep them occupied/entertained. I still read to them daily and tried to engage them in educational activities, but I always had the feeling that I didn't have to worry too much because they'd learn most of what they needed to learn at school.  My teaching was just extra.  

This idea of outsourcing our children’s education does a disservice to both children and parents.  Parents know their children better than any teacher could.  Parents care more about their children than any teacher does.  Parents can also provide more one-on-one attention to their children than a teacher can.  Parents are able to teach concepts more thoroughly and they are able to individualize their approach to the needs of their child.  If parents were seen as partners with teachers, this could greatly benefit children.  

The kind of teaching a parent can do is often more meaningful than what can be offered in a classroom setting.  What if homework weren’t just extra work or busy work to be done at home, but rather concepts for the parents to reinforce through real world experiences?  Parents could reinforce basic math skills by taking a child shopping and talking about how much money they have to spend and how much things cost.  They could reinforce fractions by cooking with a child and showing them how to measure ingredients or slice up a pie.  The possibilities are endless and wouldn’t have to involve sitting with a child and forcing them to do onerous worksheets each night.  

I realize that many parents must work long hours simply to make ends meet and they may have limited time.  What I am proposing would actually help these parents, however.  Instead of having to take time out to sit with a child and attempt to help them with homework pages, the teachers could, instead, ask parents to have children help with household activities such as shopping, cooking, etc.  They could be given instructions on how to turn those activities into learning time.  

I think most people and, especially, most children learn better through experiences.  Homework should not just be more of the same type of work that was done in school.  Homework could be an opportunity for children to experience what they're learning in a hands-on way with the guidance of their parents.  It could be an opportunity to involve parents and give them a window into their child's learning in a fun way.  Homework could actually improve and build the parent-child relationship rather than undermine it by forcing parents to become task masters for boring and repetitive busy work.  

I have chosen to homeschool my children partly because of my philosophical differences with the way they are taught in school.  I believe there are ways that traditional education could be greatly improved, however.  Making homework more interesting and hands-on could go a long way to improving things for children and their parents.