At Home Learning

WHY WE CHOSE HOME LEARNING

What about socialization?

The biggest reason we didn't send our son to public (or private) school is socialization and specifically, the quality of it. According to John Holt (1981), eminent educator and founder of Growing Without Schooling, a homeschooling newsletter, this is the one motivation for not sending your child to school. Holt contends that nowhere are children more mean-spirited, status-seeking and cruel to each other than within the confines of school. I use the word "confines" because when one feels tied in, they are likely to rebel and take their frustrations out on those around them— who happen to be their peers. It makes me think of the classic tale by William Golding, Lord of the Flies, where all these children are stranded on a deserted island and how they fight each other for power and resources with disastrous results. 

When I examine my values around this issue, one thing is clear: we are the best role models of family values. If I want my child to learn values compatible with the adult he will become, then why send him to a place where most of his time will be spent with people his own age, whose values he will be exposed to for 6 hours a day, every day?

During our homeschooling journey, we were part of a larger network of homeschoolers. This network provided a forum for our concerns, issues and our socialization with other homeschooled children. By connecting with other like-minded people, we grew and learned in our natural environment.

But you can't shelter a child from the "real world"!

Absolutely, and nor did we want to! However, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, co-authors and advocates of homeschooling, explain that a child who spends most of his/her time from an early age with peers, risks becoming peer dependent. This means that they value and find more important what their peer group thinks of them, to the point of feeling that peers are good and anyone else--family, adult, authority--is against them.

I believe that more family influence, not less, is what our society needs today. I also think that school has become a child-sitting service. Might it also be that parents with the tendency to use school as such potentially expect this institution to impart family values? This can spark many counter-arguments, but we know that institutionalizing values does not equate with teaching them, nor even with learning them.

When I see children constantly grouped together, I notice a pervasive peer culture. I see children, too young to know the difference, buying into a popular media culture that exists for capitalist reasons alone. We once attended a four-turning-five-years-old birthday party. Her gifts included posters, tapes and CD's of The Back Street Boys. How does a four-year-old become hooked on a group that is the stuff of teen idols? This same little girl may well abandon dolls for make-up by the age of ten! There is definitely a trend toward our children growing up too fast. I think that the peer culture sustains and supports this. I want our son to experience his childhood for as long as he can, because adulthood and its responsibilities come soon enough.

By staying home, your child won't learn about "differences."

First, homeschooling does not mean "staying home". In fact, home schooled children are in a better position to meet and mix with people of all ages and cultures simply because they have more time to do so. Second, at home we like to focus on sameness. Home schoolers don't know or buy into the segregation that happens in schools— age, sex, racial, class, etc.— they are more likely to see people as equal. As much as schools strive to eliminate sexism, racism and discrimination from the agenda, these happen when children are placed with other children who don't know any better.

An acquaintance once told me how badly other children treated her physically-challenged son at school because "kids are cruel". When we see diversity, be it the panhandler on a city street, a street person foraging for food in a garbage can, we use this as a learning opportunity. These people are not removed from our lives; they are part of it. My son knows why we are giving money to the panhandler and why we are giving part of our picnic lunch to the forager. These opportunities arise regularly as part of life as curriculum (See above link regarding Curriculum Integration).

In the end, school may only pay lip service to what they call equality, hosting the one multicultural day or week of an entire school year, celebrating diversity through merely a window. Not being in school enabled us to up and leave when we wanted to. We like to travel, backpacking off the beaten track in some of the most scenic and culturally diverse lands. Our son joined us on these treks, receiving a more multicultural education than school could ever provide him. He has played in the sand with Dominican boys and hide-and-seek with a Danish girl, all of whom did not speak English. Acceptance was unquestioned and total. This is multicultural education.

School prepares children for the job market.

Often inadequately. Moreover, our society is becoming increasingly global. We are interacting with people across continents, using tools like the internet, television, etc. Global mindedness is openness to other cultures and their customs. One interesting aspect of globalization is that we are no longer competing for jobs with our next-door neighbor, but also with our cross-continent neighbor.

Jobs are no longer secure niches where one receives a handshake and gold watch after 30 years of devoted service. Rather, the current job market mandates people to be entrepreneurial and self-promoting. It is now about offering one's services, not about getting a job with a definite career ladder. The children of today will become job seekers tomorrow, and they will need to be self-sufficient, much the same way we were before industrialization. Working for another person or company is a modern concept. There is a postmodern move back to becoming hunter/gatherers in achieving one's status and wealth.

Our son saw his mom and dad being self-sufficient. After an eleven-year career in electrical engineering, Dad completed an MBA and works for himself as a roofing consultant. Mom works for herself as a consultant/facilitator and writer while teaching adults. In this way, we each modeled self-reliance.

If we wanted our son to become a "good little corporate citizen"—a follower—we would have sent him to school where they manufacture and turn out good little factory workers like widgets on an assembly line. We wanted our son to become a leader who makes decisions on his own behalf, not because the group thinks a certain way. We wanted him to think outside of the box. Natural learning from home makes this possible.

TO CONCLUDE. . . 

There are a host of other valid reasons our family chose home learning. Ultimately it was a lifestyle choice. You certainly have your own reasons. Try the links from this page which may answer your concerns about curriculum, how to home school, going from home learning to higher education, as well as provide you with a host of other practical sites to enrich your family's home learning experience.