- I don’t think it’s right for everyone.
- It’s not the only way to be well-educated.
- I think it’s the right choice for our family.
I wasn't homeschooled. My first real encounter and friendship with a real homeschooler was in my junior year of high school. This was, and is, my dear friend, Adrienne. Now, when you picture a homeschooler, you probably think of a weirdo-highwater-uberreligious kid that is wearing pajamas. Adrienne didn't fit this mold at all! She is very religious (Roman Catholic), and had high morals, but wasn't weird about it. She is one of the best soccer players and runners I know. She is extremely smart, confident, happy, beautiful, and all around just a balanced and wholesome girl. I admire her to this day! It was through her that I came to realize a homeschooler can have friends and do normal things.
My interest for homeschooling began near the end of my high school years, especially after getting to know Adrienne. As I began taking education classes at BYU-I, I always thought in the back of my head, "This is important! This will help me if I ever want to homeschool." I began saving handouts and curricula for that specific purpose. Even while I had my job tutoring at the middle school, there would be free textbooks every once in a while that were up for grabs. I would take whatever I could that could benefit me in some way with my "school-at-home." Stanton recalls me bringing up the subject while we were dating. He never pushed the subject, but figured that I'd come around eventually. Looks like it went the other way and he has now become one of my biggest advocates.
Ok, now, here are our top three reasons why we want to homeschool:
- We feel we will provide a better education.
- We want our children socialized the right way and in the right environment.
- We want more family time.
We can't refute that homeschool is becoming more and more popular. "As the politicians and teachers’ unions debate how to “fix” America’s public schools, one fact seems undisputable: homeschooling is on the rise. According to the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), more than 2 million students—about 3.8 percent of the K-12 population—were being homeschooled in America in 2010. (From Homeschooling: An Overview) (Update 9/4/2013: According to the HSLDA, homeschooling has increased 17% since 2007, and is up to 3.4% of the population. And according to a report in the online journal Education News, "The number of children being homeschooled in America has increased by 75 percent over the past 14 years in all states." While only four percent of all school children nationwide are educated at home, “the number of primary school kids whose parents choose to forgo traditional education is growing seven times faster than the number of kids enrolling in K-12 every year.")
"NHERI President Brian D. Ray, Ph.D., isn’t surprised that home-based education is trending up. “The public perception of public schools does not seem to be improving. I think we are going to see homeschooling continue to grow for the next half decade,” he says. But Ray adds that dissatisfaction with public schools is just one of the “fundamental issues” driving the homeschool movement. Some parents opt to homeschool because they want to spend more time together as a family or because they want to customize their children’s learning experience." (From Homeschooling: An Overview)
Providing a Better Education
"Numerous studies may suggest that homeschooled students on average outperform their peers on standardized tests. Homeschooling Achievement, a compilation of studies published by the Home School Legal Defense Association, supported the academic integrity of homeschooling. This booklet summarized a 1997 study by Ray and the 1999 Rudner study. The Rudner study noted two limitations of its own research: it is not necessarily representative of all homeschoolers and it is not a comparison with other schooling methods. Among the homeschooled students who took the tests, the average homeschooled student outperformed his public school peers by 30 to 37 percentile points across all subjects. The study also indicates that public school performance gaps between minorities and genders were virtually non-existent among the homeschooled students who took the tests." (Homeschool Research)
Lexy Cori, author of the article "Homeschooled Kids Aren't Freaks," says, "Let’s face it, we all know that the public education system is failing rapidly and that the U.S. as a whole in education is falling further and further behind the rest of the world. With the low quality of public education, more and more families are turning to homeschooling their children to give them a level of education unattainable by a traditional classroom. Public education quality does vary by region, but test scores nationally have been declining for decades. Rough estimates place the number of homeschoolers in the U.S. around 2 million now and growing rapidly: the U.S. Department of Education estimates that homeschooling has been growing at a rate of 7% over the last 10 years. In general, the public education system is a bad one, and there are many families who recognize this but cannot afford private institutions for their children. Instead, they turn to homeschooling. There are other reasons for homeschooling as well, including moral and religious reasons and concern about the school environment; for myself, the reason was mainly academic dissatisfaction. The slow pace of a public school classroom is discouraging to students who have a desire to learn, and homeschooling provides the outlet to personalize the academics that you love with an advanced level and pace of learning. This leads to higher testing scores, better time management, and better preparation for the real world."
In a Smithsonian Report citing the development of genius, offered a three-part recipe for high achievement: 1) Much time spent with warm, responsive parents and other adults, 2) Very little time spent with peers, and 3) A great deal of free exploration under parental guidance. Raymond and Dorothy Moore, experts in the field of education, suggest that children need "more of home and less of formal school" "more free exploration with... parents, and fewer limits of classroom and books," and "more old fashioned chores – children working with parents – and less attention to rivalry sports and amusements."
Socialization
What about socialization?? Well, what does it mean to you to be "socialized?" Seriously. Think about it. Having good self-esteem? Being able to make friends and talk to other children? "Fitting in" with society?
The socialization myth was born out of a misconception of what it's like to homeschool. Many educators and critics of homeschooling still believe homeschoolers hit the books at 9 a.m., work all day at their kitchen table till 3:00 p.m. or later, and spend their day isolated and alone. This, of course, is ridiculous!
Socialization is meant to prepare children for the real world, which means learning to interact and deal with people of all ages, races, and backgrounds. In this case, homeschooling actually does a better job of this because homeschoolers spend more actual time out in society.
Dr. Raymond Moore, author of over 60 books and articles on human development, has done extensive research on homeschooling and socialization. His book, The Hurried Child, explores that "the idea that children need to be around many other youngsters in order to be 'socialized,' is perhaps the most dangerous and extravagant myth in education and child rearing today." Additionally, children often do not respond well to large groups. They become nervous and overexcited by noise and too many people. Learning becomes difficult. Behavioral problems develop. After analyzing over 8,000 early childhood studies, Dr. Moore concluded that, contrary to popular belief, children are best socialized by parents -- not other children. What kind of socialization occurs when 20 or 30 kids of the same age are placed in a classroom together day after day? Peer pressure is enormous. Kids feel like they need to look and sound and be like everyone else, at the risk of forgetting or never discovering who they really are. This results in rivalry, ridicule, and competition - hardly the environment for healthy socialization.
A homeschooler who interacts with parents and siblings more than with peers displays self-confidence, self-respect, and self-worth. She knows she's a part of a family unit that needs, wants, and depends on her. The result is an independent thinker who isn't influenced by peers and is self-directed in her actions and thoughts.
Many opportunities exist for homeschool families to spread their social wings and meet with other homeschooling (as well as nonhomeschooling) families. There are a myriad of activities that nearly every homeschool family involves themselves with. Religious organizations, sports, scouting, and so on fill children's time and create excellent social opportunities.
John Taylor Gatto found, using the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, "while half of the conventionally schooled children scored at or below the 50th percentile (in self-concept), only 10.3% of the home-schooling children did so." He further stated that "the self-concept of home-schooling children is significantly higher statistically than that of children attending conventional school. This has implications in the areas of academic achievement and socialization which have been found to parallel self-concept. Regarding socialization, Taylor's results would mean that very few home-schooling children are socially deprived. He states that critics who speak out against homeschooling on the basis of social deprivation are actually addressing an area which favors homeschoolers.
In 2003, the National Home Education Research Institute conducted a survey of 7,300 U.S. adults who had been homeschooled (5,000 for more than seven years). Their findings included:
- Homeschool graduates are active and involved in their communities. 71% participate in an ongoing community service activity, like coaching a sports team, volunteering at a school, or working with a church or neighborhood association, compared with 37% of U.S. adults of similar ages from a traditional education background.
- Homeschool graduates are more involved in civic affairs and vote in much higher percentages than their peers. 76% of those surveyed between the ages of 18 and 24 voted within the last five years, compared with only 29% of the corresponding U.S. populace. The numbers are even greater in older age groups, with voting levels not falling below 95%, compared with a high of 53% for the corresponding U.S. populace.
- 58.9% report that they are "very happy" with life, compared with 27.6% for the general U.S. population. 73.2% find life "exciting", compared with 47.3%.
More Family Time
We want to spend more time together, as well as provide our children with more down-/play time. Homeschool allows us flexibility to slow. life. down. It allows us to be together during our "best" parts of the day, usually the morning and early afternoon hours. It's sad to me that most parents in our area miss out on their children from 7am-4pm, and get them back tired, cranky, and hungry.
The majority of my time as a student teacher, and, from what I gather from most teachers, is spent in classroom management, not teaching. Teachers are trying to control 30-40+ kids in one classroom (Recently read an article about 50+ kids in Cache Valley school classrooms). Time-wise, homeschooling is very efficient. With just a few kids, you don't have to worry about getting a whole group of children to cooperate. Kids can work at their own pace. They can get their academics done back-to-back, going straight from subject to subject, which saves time.
As far as down-time, American Journal of Play details not only how much children's play time has declined, but how this lack of play affects emotional development, leading to the rise of anxiety, depression, and problems of attention and self control. (All Work and No Play) Time spent in exploration, reading for enjoyment, and make-believe/pretending is something we value and want to encourage for our kids. Through homeschooling, we feel that this goal will be accomplished.
