Why not?

WARNING- this is an opinionated, terse, and sometimes "in your face" post. Read with caution.

The other day someone asked me the dreaded question, "Why do you homeschool?" and then gave me two answers to choose from. A little problematic because I don't homeschool my children for just one reason. I homeschool my kids for hundreds of reasons. The longer that I homeschool, the more that I enjoy it and the more reasons that I discover for "why do I homeschool?"

So, for those of you who are interested, here is a short history of my family and schooling. After that, I will dive into some of the reasons that I homeschool. This isn't a treatise in defense of homeschooling or to convince you to homeschool, it is simply a way for me to concretely express some of the thoughts floating around in my homeschool mind.

The pre-History of my homeschooling

For the first five and a half years of my marriage, my husband and I lived in the rural community where he was raised in south central Washington State. Needless to say, it was a hellish five and a half years for me (that is a story for another time). Sadly, this small town had horrible schools. Some of the worst in Washington State. I knew I couldn't send me children to school there, so I tried to do something about it.

First, I talked with my dear friend Tiffany, who is the smartest woman I know-a true Renaissance Woman. She is the only woman I know who is equally comfortable doing Calculus, drama, writing, and computer programing. I scoured her brain for ideas. Tiffany homeschooled some of her kids off and on, and she introduced me to different educational ideas like A Thomas Jefferson Education and the book, The Well Trained Mind. But I wasn't interested in homeschooling, so I listened but negated those ideas because, "I could never homeschool my kids".

Next I learned about doing cooperative homeschooling from Jackie, who had been a part of a coop in another town. I tested the waters and asked other people in the community if they would be interested in a coop, but all of the answers were negative. This also included the idea of starting a private school in this small community, but once again, only negative answers.

What amazes me is that my daughter (my oldest) was still a baby, but even back then, I was concerned about her "proper" education.

From there, I decided to do something about the crappy schools. Miraculously a spot opened up on the local school board and I applied. I was only 27 and I was so confident, cocky really, that I was so much smarter and better educated than those ignorant farmers (wrong). I thought I could teach them something about how to run their community. Imagine my disappointment and anger when I wasn't appointed to that position. But looking back, I don't know that being on that school board would have made much of a difference. I would have been trying to bale out a leaking boat with a spoon.

Thankfully we moved out of the hellish rural community to a larger community only one hour away. In this new town there were PRIVATE SCHOOLS! Excitement welled up in me when I learned of a small private school that was run by a woman in our ward(church congregation). It seemed perfect. I will call it school A.

Two years after entering school A and participating in school A politics, we were kicked out, because my husband questioned the integrity and practices of the "powers that be". We had some great friends and teachers who stood by us and also left the school because of the situation. This little group decided to start their own private school- school B. Yep, in about 3 months, we created a fully functioning and state approved private school B. It was a miracle!

This little school B lasted for one glorious, perfect year, and then it too fell apart. So we "merged" with school A because the previous administrators had left or kindly been shown the door by the school board. It was weird to go back to school A, but my husband and a good friend were on the school board, so I thought that everything was under control. (Do you see the pattern yet?) Guess what, now school A was run by an administrator 10 times worse than the original administration that was there before. Teachers left or were fired, and many students left school A. That was the last year that we participated in private school.

You may ask, what is the point of this abbreviated glance into the pre-history of Christina homeschooling? It is a reflection of part of who I am, i.e. I rarely follow the status quo. Meaning, I like to do my own thing and think my own thoughts. This applies to the my homeschooling pre-history in that I have constantly been searching for something "more" than what traditional schooling has to offer. I found it in homeschooling.

I clearly remember that first day of homeschooling my children two years ago. We started our homeschooling day with the Pledge of Allegiance, a prayer, some scripture reading and a song. As I stood in front of my class of three beautiful children, I remember the Holy Spirit whispering peace, joy, and confidence to my heart. It was my confirmation from God that what I was doing was right for my family.

Why? Just a few reasons and definitely not the entire picture.

-First off, why not? What is the great and powerful entity that stated that conveyor belt, public education is right for everyone? *In the early part of this country's history, there was almost no public education system, and guess what, the literacy rate was higher and the people were better educated. Why? Because education was a blessing, a gift really, a way to better yourself, and it was viewed as a blessing, not an obligation. Oh, and guess where most of those people learned to read and write? Yep, at home.

-One of the biggest reasons for me is something that you can't measure quantitatively- it is called peace. Since homeschooling, our home has become so much more peaceful. The more time I spend with my kids, the more patient I become (but that takes a "breaking in" period). The more time we spend together, the less my kids fight, because they have to get along with each other. My children don't come home at the end of a school day physically and emotionally exhausted. I get to see them at their best. When we are all "worn down", we take "alone time" to recharge ourselves.

Also, I am not running around catering to the schedule of a school. I don't have to put my kids on the bus at 7 am or pick them up at 3 pm from the bus stop. We get to school and do activities when we want. So if we want piano lessons at 9am, we can. If we want to go swimming or play at the park in the middle of the day, we can. This freedom brings peace.

-Each of my children are distinct individuals and as such, they each learn differently. They also have different needs, personalities, and strengths. By homeschooling my children, I don't have to pigeon hole them into a "one size fits all" education model. Instead I get to cater to their strengths and gently work on their weaknesses without destroying their self worth.

- Socialization is a fallacy. If my children grew up in a box with no outside influence, I might be worried. Instead my children are being raised in a loving home where parents try to model proper social interaction. They also meet with other kids and play and interact with them a number of times a week. I have discovered that the "socialization" that many parents want their kids to be involved in is actually delinquent behavior.

This is how I view much of the interaction that parents are so keen to have their children model under the misnomer of "socialization" : girls being sexualized at an early age is socialization, boys acting like pimp rap stars is socialization,bullying is socialization,only thinking what you are told to think is now part of academic socialization,learning bad language is socialization, believing that your parents are stupid and ignorant is socialization, and rebelling against the core values that your family teaches is socialization. You get the picture. I have found very few positive social skills learned in the public school system.

- I believe that the public school systems is like a conveyor belt,producing workers not thinkers or leaders.** In fact, the public school system in the US was strongly influenced by Andrew Carnagie, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford in order to create better factory workers. I see public schools as teaching "what to think" not "how to think". I would much rather my kids learned to use their amazing brains and discover the world through mentored learning than be force feed information that they may never use or need. In other words, I see that homeschooling creates independent thinkers who love to learn.

- The contrived institution of public school leads to emotional abuse and cruelty that usually don't happen to such an extreme in the "real world". No where else will you find a system where a group of people with different talents,strengths, backgrounds, and experiences are lumped together in one group based solely on their age and then expected to all produce the same results.

--My personal experiences in elementary and junior high school were horrible. The cruelty of other kids in the forced prison of a school lead to some humiliating experiences that I still remember. Peer influence did not help me to be a better person, instead it made me unhappy. True friends were nearly non-existent and very few were trustworthy.


Closing thoughts
These are just some of the reasons that I homeschool. Some are reasons that are positive for our family and some are because of the negative things that I see in the "system". Whatever my reasons, schooling should really come down to one reason- is it right for my family? What works for me doesn't work for everyone. As I mentioned earlier, I don't believe in a "one size fits all" model for education. That includes how other families choose to educate their children. That is a decision made within a family, not a decision that should be made for your family by someone else.





Endnotes

*See An Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto pg. 52. The data from 1840 in Connecticut and Massachusetts shows that 93%-100% of the population were literate. In Connecticut, only one in 579 citizens was illiterate.

**See An Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto pgs. 37-48