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A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
-George Bernard Shaw
Today, choosing to stay home with the kids is too often viewed as "a sacrifice." I cannot count the number of people I've run into who've either been puzzled that an adult capable of making it in the workplace (called "the real world") would opt to care for and raise children, or have nodded approvingly, but insisted that they could never do that. Somewhere, we, as a society, have lost track of the fact that children - our children - are worth not just a few minutes of "quality time" and all the money we can afford to throw at their well-being, but are the future. They are the people who will have to unravel the mess that their parents and grandparents will leave behind, and the people who will have to, in some manner, care for us when we're old.
Before we had children, my wife and I agreed that one of us would need to stay home to care for them. When the time came, it was pretty clear that it made the most sense that I be the one to do so. I have never regretted the choice (which is not to say that there have not been moments when I was ready to tear my hair out). And we see the results - our two young boys are very active, energetic fellows; intensely curious, outgoing and often startlingly polite.
Having gone to this effort, it has never been my intention to send them off to preschool. or kindergarten. or to school, at all. I grew up in unusual circumstances, and saw not only a number of different public schools in the USA, but also several overseas, both public and private. Some were good, some not so good, and at least one was good enough to be really memorable. I have spent a lot of time reading about education, and more contemplating my own experiences and what others have to say about it. The verdict ends up pretty damning. Most of what people recall about school is lots of wasted time; time spent moving from class to class, time spent while a class started or wound down, while a teacher tried to get attention, time while you did busy work designed to let the teacher attend to something, or simply time while you were 'elsewhere,' gazing out a window, not interested in what was going on in class, at least not right now. Even the studies that the schools accept suggest that the vast majority of time spent at school is wasted - not spent on education and learning.
Now, many people recognize that there are problems with the schools; it's nothing new, there have been damning reports on the condition and failure of our public schools for several decades now, at least. But even as they grant that schools are an outrageously inefficient and fundamentally incompetent scheme for educating our children, they seek to find other justifications for maintaining them, and for sending all children to them. I will address the common ones in a moment, but first, let me point out that the purpose of schools is to educate. Since they fail at that, and fail badly, we have a serious crisis that needs attention, and redress - now - not in a decade. Children will not get a chance to repair the injury done to them when - - if - - the schools are repaired after they're out of them.
The favored fallback justification for schools is 'socialization,' as in "What about socialization?" or "How are your kids going to get socialized?" There are several answers. The first is, just what do we want from socialization? I believe that the answer is that we want our children to learn to deal well with other people, and to become civil members of the society, capable of participating in it effectively.
What does the public school offer? A mono-culture setting, with children in large groups, generally isolated in very narrow age bands, with only one adult to provide a model. This is a setting guaranteed to make peer pressure all important. Further, it's a setting in which children are, effectively, expected to re-invent the socialization wheel. Their teacher, who has all sorts of other tasks and obligations, tries to keep a lid on, and the kids operate in ways that are natural - they form cliques and groups that are akin to gangs. They sneer at those who are a bit older or younger. They act in ways designed to enhance their stature with their peer group. In retrospect, I wonder why William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" is a must-read in school. Is it because it shows what is really going on in school, without the window dressing? So my second answer is; what the public school offers as 'socialization' is not something I want for any child. I suspect that it is highly toxic both to the individual and to the society at large. My third answer is; in "real life," we deal with people of all ages and sorts, usually in small numbers at a time, and in all kinds of settings.
This is precisely what homeschooling parents provide their children. We visit the store. We visit the library. We go to the museums. We arrange to visit the local firehouse and police station. We find other homeschooling families and arrange to get together, and go places parks; beaches, zoos, and all sorts of businesses and offices that are often quite willing to provide (dare I say it?) educational tours of their facilities. Our kids play, not on a schoolground with a few hundred kids around, but in smaller settings, with a wider age range, and with more adult monitoring and guidance.
Now, there are plenty of other misconceptions about homeschooling. The most common is that almost all homeschooling is done by extreme fundamentalists who are trying to isolate their children from contact with the rest of the society. The truth is that homeschooling parents come from all classes, races, religions and ethnic groups, including working single parents. Some educate for religious reasons. Most do not claim this as their reason for homeschooling. Most point to the two things I have addressed aboveóa desire to see their children well educated, and socialized as human beings.
There is no one form of homeschooling. Methods vary from those who closely follow established curricula, having transported the form of school to home (some very successfully) to those who adhere to a concept called "unschooling," or sometimes, "child-led learning," where the parent provides insights, suggestions and assistance, as needed, but learning is directed by the child's natural interests, desires and curiosity. Radical? It sounds it, but it's really no different from how we treat our young children as they learn to talk, etc. The curiosity is there, as long as we don't crush it out.
My own experience is limited. My eldest is not yet five, though I assist with the education of a friend's eight-year old daughters as well. She is really enjoying learning how to multiply without having to memorize all those dull times' tables (yes, there are all sorts of interesting things out there). However, having opted to try child-led learning, I am finding that it's successful, as long as we don't get too eager and try to push stuff at the kids. Our eldest was sitting at the dinner table the other night, explaining to his little brother how if he had four fishsticks, and ate one, he'd have three. My wife and I looked at each other, and realized that without our making it into a formal lesson, our son had grasped the essentials of subtraction. He also seemed intent on not letting his little brother suffer ignorance as long as we had made him suffer.
Deciding to homeschool is a big deal. Instead of looking at a few years home with the kids, it calls for a commitment of perhaps 20 years. It's also true that it's not a full-time occupation; the older the kids get, the more homeschoolers report that their children have learned how to learn, and the parental role becomes more and more mentoring. Many homeschooling parents have home businesses; some single parents successfully homeschool even with normal jobs.
For those who would like to read more on the subject, I recommend:
Patrick McLaughlin homeschools two boys, two dogs and himself in San Diego County, CA.
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