Things I Didn't Know About Homeschooling

It's not always easy for us to talk about it.

You would think that we would be great public speakers, with all of the explaining we have to do. We should just be used to it by now, right? People ask our kids, "what grade are you in?" and our kids respond, "what?" Now we feel like we need to say something. I say, "they're homeschooled" and I spiral into explaining the whole situation, because people are curious. There are lots of questions. 

These are not bad questions. There are no bad questions when it comes to topics you're not familiar with (there's the homeschooler coming out). The problem is simply that I don't know how to answer you. I get nervous and feel like I'm making stuff up. Of course, I'm not making it up. I just don't have a prepared speech and new people have always made me a little nervous until I get to know them. I'm really not very good at this sort of thing. I'm afraid I'm going to say something stupid on accident and this stranger is going to start worrying about the future of my children, being educated by this idiot.

Not to mention, every homeschooling parent is like a spokesperson for homeschooling. I don't want to make a bad impression. I want to improve the public image of homeschooling. But I didn't sign up to be a billboard advertisement for my life choices. It's a tough spot.

It's not always "school at home".

This has got to be the biggest misunderstanding I've encountered. No one I know has had a single negative thing to say about my choice to homeschool (if you don't count my ex-husband... I don't. Besides, he has changed his mind now that he's seen what we've accomplished.) So, that aside, the most awkward situation I run into is people asking things like, "when are your vacations?" or "do you do lessons through the summer?" or "where do you get your materials?"

Six-year-old helping install Linux

We're not just like a standard public school, but at home. And not all homeschools are the same. What works for some definitely does not work for all. And since these are exactly the questions I always feel blind-sided by and nervous about, let me just answer them while I have the time to think about my response.

First - Our vacations are... whenever. Our field trips are, too. Sometimes we might take a day off entirely because the baby is sick, or there's something really neat going on out of town. I have actually worked a lesson about dinosaurs in because I wanted to go to the museum. We scheduled next year really loosely and with built in wiggle room, so we can take a few days off whenever we choose. And when we are doing lessons, it only needs to be a few hours of the day, and we can do it anywhere. So you don't need to schedule anything around us. 

Summer is just another part of the year. We don't have to submit a schedule to the district for anything more than 172 days, averaging 4 instructional hours per day. So I don't. The rest of the year, we are unstructured learners. The kids might take a community center class. I'm always here to feed their curiosity and provide them with information, and they have access to the internet. We still do crafts together, go to the zoo, read, write, draw, and do other random things they're interested in. But we have no standards to meet for the summer.

I get our materials at the same places you shop when your kids go back to school. So far, I get most of our stuff at target. Their worksheets and projects are things I make up or find online. I have no desire to spend ridiculous amounts of money teaching my kids things I can teach them for little if any money.

Our structure is deliberately not strict, and we don't have special materials you can only find at a homeschool store.

It's not always about religion.

When we were putting together our plan for this year, I found myself wondering if religious homeschooling families include their theological teaching intentions in the plan they submit to the district. We're not religious. We didn't choose to opt out of public schooling because of qualms with lack of prayer or creationist teachings. We're doing this because we believe we can do a better job, because we know our kids, personally, as individuals. And, we may have four kids, but we don't have fourteen, or twenty. 

We don't think we're better than you. 

That last point probably made it sound like we do. I don't see anything wrong with sending your kids to public school. I think the problems come when you either can't, or don't try to, choose a good school for your kids, and don't contribute to their education. Pick a private school, public school, weird independent school, homeschool, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you're invested in their education. Even if you have no choice but to send your children to the school nearest your home, and it's awful, I believe you are an excellent parent if you are attempting to fill the holes in their education when they're home with you. 

Homeschool kids are not different. 

I used to think they were all smarter than me. They must have been smarter than me to start with, so their parents decided public school wasn't good enough, or if not... they were certainly smarter than me, now. Obviously, they must have learned much faster than me, since they were able to learn at their own pace. 

Do homeschooled kids start out ahead of others? Sometimes. Not usually. Homeschooled kids come from every different category. Some parents homeschool because their kid has special needs, or social or emotional trouble. In 2003, a survey was conducted that found eighty-three percent of homeschooled students were being homeschooled, at least in part, because their parents were concerned about the negative environment in other schools. (cite)

I homeschool my kids because I feel we can do a better job. In public schools, twins are often pressured to perform equally well, get confused for each other, and get treated as the same person. My twins are just not the same. And I do still strongly believe that working at their own pace has got to be good.