Do you have to be a teacher?

Issues

2) What made you decide to homeschool?

5) Should you let your teen go to school if he really wants to?

Do you have to be a teacher?

No, you do not have to be a trained, state-certified teacher to home educate. Research has shown that the formal training of parents is not a factor in the achievement level of home-educated students. In fact, many successful private schools do not require their teachers to be state certified in education. More important than formal training is the commitment, concern, and enthusiasm that you can bring to your child's education.

Remember, a parent does not have to "teach" all subjects. There are many outside sources who can share information and skills with your child, including tutors, mentors, and librarians. Additionally, your child can volunteer at many places in the community where learning takes place (science centers, animal shelters, and wildlife centers are a few that come to mind). Special courses are being designed or have already been offered by many community resources. The most important thing is to find out what your child needs and help them locate the materials to learn.

The more you feel it necessary to get her to conform to some program, the more patience you'll need. If you let her lead and you follow as her support network, then you won't be creating situations calling for patience.

What would you rather do:

Walk along beside her, finding delight in her excitement as she explores the world in her own unique way,

Or pull her along some supposedly important path of important information?

Am I smart enough to educate my child?
Well, if you went to school and part of college and you're questioning whether you're smart enough to pass on your knowledge to your daughter, is that a good recommendation for school as a place to learn?

Your child may be doing "well" but what is she doing well at?

Most people think schools are set up as places for kids to get the best education possible. But it isn't true. They were designed to raise the level of education (at a time when the country was inundated with poor uneducated immigrants) of the masses in the cheapest way possible. It's a factory system. One worker (teacher) applying a single process to a room full of product to get them to some uniform state to pass them onto the next worker on the assembly line (the next grade teacher).

Just about any teacher will tell you the best way to learn is one on one, pursuing things in ways that are meaningful to someone. But as much as the good teachers would like to do that, they can't. They don't have time to let each child explore some aspect of what's being taught that interests them or even to pursue one tangent that interests most of the class. They can't keep at the pace of the slowest and at the pace of the fastest. The way the system is set up, prevents them from doing what they know is best. So they just have to make the best of the rather poor system they have.

A few kids learn well by having information poured into their heads. I did well at it and it got me through 4 years of engineering school. But kids who don't learn well that way end up feeling they're dumb or not working up to their potential. Or they just get angry at being told they're not doing well at something they recognize as meaningless so they stop trying.

Some kids are so interested in everything that they put up with the way it's presented. But why should they have to put up with it? Why can't they go get the information themselves in the ways and order that interests them?

Probably the most important "smarts" you need is learning to listen to your daughter to what your daughter is saying in actions as well as words. Sometimes it takes some detective work to get to what she's really trying to communicate.

As an example: if you find yourself in a battle with your daughter over her doing school work, the easy conclusion to come to is that she's the problem. If she'd just cooperate with what you want her to do, you wouldn't have problems. But her anger is her way of communicating that something is wrong. And it helps to turn the situation around and see it from her point of view. How would you feel if your husband forced you to stop doing things that did interest you and do things that he said were important but you couldn't see any value in?

And the second most important "smarts" is wanting to know how to help your daughter be who she is and then going out and learning about it. (Reading here, reading Home Education Magazine, reading at Unschooling.com are great places to start. They both have email lists too.)

The biggest obstacle in our children's learning is often us. We often have a specific agenda in mind that clashes with what our kids are interested and involved with.

I'm especially nervous about math.

Well, that's a huge subject for those of us trapped by school think! Math in school is like memorizing Spanish vocabulary and grammar without ever hearing or using the language. If we were certain rote memorization was the only way to acquire Spanish, we wouldn't trust kids picking it up from using it. And yet Spanish kids do it all the time without even realizing they're learning.

Math, like language is all around us and learning math from living does work because kids learn *how* numbers work not just formulas to plug them into. For instance, school spends a huge amount of time teaching kids how to borrow and carry. And yet how many kids actually understand what they're doing or why? It's just something they have to memorize how to do. But if you work with real numbers in real life (figuring out how much allowance money will be left over after buying something), borrowing and carrying gets done without realizing it, just as we construct sentences properly without thinking about what nouns and verbs and tenses are.

To my way of thinking, real life use of numbers for real purposes is the core of math, just as communicating is the core of language. Then there are fun activities to do. There's computer software, games (board, card, dice), video games. Those are sort of like picture books in math terms. It's important to read books to kids. But no one book is important. What's important is that we're reading what the kids enjoy and as much as the kids want.

What are some of the benefits?
Some families feel homeschooling promotes a close family life and that children can continue the learning that they began as a baby in a secure environment. It can allow for the child's personal learning style, and they can progress at their own learning rate. More time can be devoted to the child's interests.

Other families feel they can provide a more challenging curriculum themselves, more up to date books, and better computers. Even staunch supporters of the public schools will admit that there are tremendous benefits to being able to provide direct one-on-one attention to students, and this is much easier to do at home.

What about socialization?
This is probably the most commonly asked question of homeschoolers! (Most of us have come to expect it). Homeschoolers have ample opportunity for social experiences. Besides 4-H, scouts, drama classes, ballet, gymnastics, theater (and more); there are many homeschooling support groups that form special-interest clubs, activities and field trips. (In fact, our children went on more field trips in one year than I did in all 12 years of my schooling!) Studies have even shown that homeschooled children are at least as well-socialized as schoolchildren, and some people believe that homeschoolers have more realistic socialization because of their interaction with people of a variety of ages on a regular basis. This includes both the socializing of friendships and the socialization that is important when cooperating with a group of people.

What do children miss out on? … such things as playground bullying, bomb threats, schools being set on fire, shootings, suicides and the consumption of illegal drugs are, very often, results of both the abusive schooling system we still have in place today and its method of forcing children to associate almost solely with other children for over six hours a day, five days a week, forty weeks a year.
… true socialisation is achieved by living in the real world, learning about human society and the environment by many methods, including associating with people of diverse chronological ages and experience …
… (free children, children who aren't schooled) live in the real world, learning verbal and social skills by absorption and example from caring adults, rather than other children [and] usually have such well developed knowledge of society, its customs and beliefs and such mature verbal communication skills that they are able to relate well to people of all ages, just as we have to in our adult lives.

Perhaps you meant 'playing with other children', rather than 'socialisation'?
Where do schooled children 'play' with other children? Children who are at the very beginning of their incarceration in schools are forced to 'play' with other children in the kindergarten room. 'Lord of the Flies' and 'Gulliver's Travels' were written in response to 'Utopia' and this is the type of 'play' in which the little 'Lilliputians' are forced to participate, in both the kindergarten room and in the 'playground', where, in the 'care' of an inadequate number of teachers (many of whom spend their time on 'playground duty' talking to each other), schooled children of all ages are forced to gather to learn 'playing' techniques from other children. And the remainder of their playing is not during school hours.

Forced association is not socialisation!
Karen Redwood: For some reason, this is the main concern non-Homeschoolers seem to have about homeschooling. They can't put down HS for academic reasons since studies show that homeschoolers do significantly BETTER than PS students on tests regardless of their parents educational level. So they fall back on this "concern".

It is precisely for this reason that I DO homeschool. I wish to have my children be socialized so that they:
- take responsibility for their actions - can relate to all ages in a courteous manner - are not pressured into "lookism", materialism, prococious sexuality, drugs, gangs or violence - See themselves as individuals who control events rather than members of a group and followers to whom things happen - retain a close, mutually respectful relationship with their families - see themselves as important part of the larger society not some warehoused teenager with no role except consumerism.
And what do schools do to "socialize" kids?
- They group them according to age (a completely artificial grouping - when was the last time you only worked with co-workers within a year of your age?).
- Then they expose them to kids who have poor impulse-control and lack empathy because they were damaged by drugs in the womb (otherwise known as sociopaths) who kill each other over a look or because someone was wearing the color red.
- They force the kids who missed a concept to go on at the group pace so that they NEVER catch up
- They force the kids who already learned a concept to wait around wasting their time until the rest of the class catches up
- They group kids in projects so that they can learn to work together totally ignoring the fact that in the work place, your team mates will be accountable for their work output and FIRED if they don't produce. Thus the motivated kids do all the work and the unmotivated kids miss out completely. This is not a realistic reflection of how the "real world" works.
- Allow bullying, harrassment and so on because "kids need to get tough" because they'll face it in the "real world".

What a crock! If someone threatens to hit you (or does hit you) when you are an adult THEY ARE ARRESTED. When someone steals your lunch money, THEY ARE ARRESTED. Not only that, we adults choose our friend from people who are civilized. The people with whom we work have the self-discipline required for decent social interaction or they are fired. We don't have to subject our children to these horrible conditions in order to ready them for a "real world".

Bottom line: The school world is a completely unrealistic place that brings kids down to the lowest common denominator.
P.S. If they are not convinced, then have them read, "Reviving Ophelia". This is a book on teenage girls by a psychiatrist. She doesn't ever mention homeschooling but indicts the schools as "sick" and blames them for the problems of depression, anorexia, low self-esteem that her patients (from otherwise normal loving families) experienced. She says in it that even the best of families cannot combat the effects of the constant harrassment, sexual stereotyping and appearance judgement that occurs in the schools.

Do I need a curriculum? What method do I use?
Some families use a packaged curriculum, while others do not. There are many commercial curricula and textbooks available for homeschoolers, or you can create your own curriculum. If you want to have available the typical course of study in the public schools, you can sometimes obtain a scope and sequence chart for a small fee from the same office you obtain the assurance of consent form.

Homeschooling does not have to be expensive. A great source of learning material can be found in your local public library. Homeschooling support groups often have a group library from which you may borrow material. There are even sources within the community that sell used materials.

Tips on curricula

As for curricula ... there's a saying: Bring the child home, not the school. Did you need a curriculum before he began school? Or did you just live life and he learned. In fact he learned effortlessly what schools spend two years at and mostly fail: a foreign (to him at the time!) language. So comparing schoolish methods and natural learning, which is more effective?

Help him be who his is and learn about what interests him. Think of yourself as his facilitator rather than his teachers. Walk next to him -- as you did before he began school -- as he explores. Help him reach what he asks for but isn't quite tall enough for.

As for reading.

1) Reading is a very difficult thing to learn in a classroom setting. All the kids need to be working on and getting the same concepts at the same time. And if they aren't ready for the concepts they need to work on them to store them away for when they are ready.

But people don't learn that way. They learn "out of order". (Though of course there is no real order, except in school where learning must be done assembly line fashion.) If you think about the path he took to learn English, it probably matched no one else's. He didn't necessarily do one syllable words first and move onto two syllable. He began with what interested him, regardless of "level". My daughter could say "pachycephalosaurus" before she could pronounce her name properly ;-) By schoolish methods she would have been made to practice her name before moving onto more "advanced" and "difficult" stuff.

The problem in school is that the curriculum is designed around 4th graders being independent readers so the *schools* need kids reading by then. The kids don't necessarily need it for themselves. (Some do and they would have learned to read anyway. Some don't and will learn to read later.)

2) Learning to read is as natural as learning to speak. If it's joyful, useful (to *them*), and they're developmentally ready, they'll read. Read to him. (*If* he wants you to of course, otherwise it isn't joyful! :-) He may need to move around or play while you do so but that's okay.) Listen to books on tape in the car. Make sure he has access to writing materials. Make sure he has print material that *he* needs *for himself* like gaming guides, magazines on his favorite sport or activity.

As for math.

This one's *really* tough but I can say that my daughter does shamefully little (compared to school) math and yet understands how numbers work. Pencil and paper math is very abstract. Basically kids are being asked to learn to write as they're learning to speak. They really don't have a grasp of numbers before they're being forced to write them down. What *does* 65+47 mean? It doesn't mean anything. (It gets thrown away whether the answer is right or wrong.) But how much do I need to buy two toys that are $65 and $47? does mean something. The answer is very important to the child. (Though the same word problem that doesn't relate to anything physical in the child's world is just as meaningless as 65+47.) And amazingly they don't need to be taught to figure it out. They can make the numbers give them the answer, using what they know and figuring out how numbers work in the process. The answer is self-correcting.

Games. *Not* to get arithmetic practice in, but to use numbers for useful purposes. (If he needs help, help him as much as he needs, even if you think he can do it himself. It's much more powerful for them to realize they could have done that than for us to tell them that ;-) Grocery stores with percents off, unit prices, sales that aren't really sales, nutrition labels, comparisons and so on.

Don't worry if all that seems strange. There's lots of information here. There are articles available from the front page. And there's more at Unschooling.com <http://www.unschooling.com>.

How long should you homeschool?
People who ask this question typically think that parents can homeschool younger kids, but at some point they need to be sent to school for more advanced classes. In actuality, children can be home-educated from birth until they move out of the home. As far as the school system is concerned, there are no restrictions and children K-12 can be educated at home. Of course, each family must decide for itself what works.
But what about school?
But it's normal for children to go to school, isn't it!"
No! It is absolutely abnormal for children to go to school:
It is abnormal for children who have parents to be brought up by strangers - strangers who neither know nor love them.
It is abnormal for children to be brought up surrounded almost entirely by other children - this is not 'socialisation', it is forced association.
It is abnormal for childhood to be rife with illnesses caught through forced association.
It is abnormal for children to be 'classed' by age - every child is unique, each has their very own likes and dislikes, their own talents, their own intellectual capabilities and their own intrinsic manner of utilising them.
It is abnormal for children to be subservient - children have active intelligence and to force subservience upon them can and does cause a very wide range of mental illnesses.

And not only is sending children to school abnormal, the system of schooling children en masse had abnormal foundations.
But schools have changed, haven't they?

No! The system of schooling children en masse remains the same today as it has always been - a system based upon neither fact nor logic but upon ancient and cruelly ignorant philosophies:

'When they first commence their schooling, every child is treated as being absolutely identical intellectually and as having no prior learning experience whatsoever and the schooling program of today, with its relentless repetition and low standards of expectation, does not cater for even those of 'average' mental capacity.

Great damage has been and continues to be, inflicted upon children and therefore upon society, by the philosophies of people who lived in a time when it was believed that babies were born blind.

Children are more easily forced into the schooling mould (an essential component of this brutal, fallacious schooling system) if they are treated as something less than human - subordinates who are, without exception, intellectually identical because they were, supposedly, born with blank minds lacking the ability to think and as they are, "Only," about five years old when they first commence their schooling, haven't begun to develop intellectually - therefore (as it is a popular misconception that most parents, not being schoolteachers, couldn't possibly have, "Taught," their own children anything at all) know absolutely nothing when they first arrive at school.'

The system of schooling children en masse is, in itself, viciously cruel and although there are some schoolteachers who don't deliberately abuse children, in today's schools the bad outnumber the good and the bad, who use shouting and vicious tongue lashings in place of the cane and ruler, not only damage the reputation of all teachers, they cause permanent emotional and psychological damage to every child in their 'class' room.

Schoolteachers receive 'training' which, if you went to school for thirteen years, only exceeds yours by around three years. Their 'training', however, teaches them nothing at all about the child you have had personal experience in nurturing for five or so years. And not one of them - good, bad or indifferent - loves your child.
How will children learn if they don't go to school?

'Schooled children have an absolute maximum of two hours a day to participate in anything even remotely resembling educational matters and those two hours have so many interruptions that time available for learning at schools is actually one hour or less per day - and this short amount of time is shared with about thirty other children. Children who go to school have only two minutes or less per day available to them for tuition on a one to one basis and because some schooled children take up more of teachers' time than others, many children at school have virtually no individual attention whatsoever. Children who learn naturally (as children do before they go to pre-school or school) are usually learning for fourteen or more hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year and have individual attention to their education on a one to one basis whenever it is required. They learn because learning is instinctive in the human race.'

But children think that homeschooling is all playtime!

Children are often not used to combining home with learning. This is absolutely normal of children who have attended public school or have had any type of institutionalized education. They may need a break or what some people call "deschooling."
Deschooling is just what it sounds.....taking the "school" out of your children. If I were you I would give my children a season of rest. I know this may sound a little scary.....WHAT? NOT DO ANY SCHOOL???? WON'T THEY FALL BEHIND???? They won't.

Here are some tips:

*Strip back as much as you can from structured academics. They obviously find this boring or else they wouldn't be resisting it so much. *Take this time to observe your children and find out what types of things turn them on to learning. *What are your children's interest? Your daughter wants to do arts and crafts....would she be interested in learning how to draw? Would she be interested in learning about famous artists? Maybe you could take a trip to the library and check out a few books on art, artists, paintings, different art media? She could read them aloud to you. There is a lot of education going on there....research skills, reading, analyzing.

How do I make a kid happy about leaving his friends to Homeschool?
Find a homeschool group you like (or start one) and make a commitment to being involved with them. Make a point of setting up play dates with his school friends. Encourage him to be involved in other activities where he'll be with friends like 4-H, scouts, church, theater, sports--whatever he'd interested in.

What if one spouse is opposed to homeschooling?
Usually when people dig in their heels about something, it's because they're afraid. So you could find out *specifically* what he's afraid of and try tackling those.

If he won't read, won't listen, then there's something deeper going on than just a disagreement about homeschooling. He is, unfortunately, employing the methods parents model for children when there's a conflict between parent and child: the stronger says no and the weaker backs down.

Marriage should be a partnership, not a dictatorship. Even if this is the only instance, it's still wrong. The children are half yours and he doesn't have the right to unilaterally say his way goes. Couple counseling could help him learn to discuss and not dictate.

I was in your shoes two years ago. My husband was very strongly opposed to me homeschooling my seven year old son. We fought about it a lot for two years. I read everything I could get my hands on and tried to get him to read, but he refused to even talk about it. He even threatened to leave if I kept my son home. He is an excellent father and husband. He felt just as strongly about my son going to school and I did about keeping him home. I told him a week before school was to start that if he chose to leave over me homeschooling then we needed to make arrangements, but my job as a mother is to protect my children, and if I wasn't going to be their advocate, who would. He didn't leave, and I have been homeschooling for two years. He still would rather my son attend school, but he knows that I don't back down when it comes to my kids. I wish you luck, I know how hard this is.

What made you decide to homeschool?

** Was there a bad school experience that made you decide?**

It was because of my own experience in school that I thought of homeschooling. I did well in school but was certain there had to be a way to learn that didn't turn interesting things boring.

**Does anyone think school gets worse as kids get older?**

I think it changes. The things that are most destructive about it are different at different ages. In elementary school the damage seems more in the area of how well they measure up to some standard, in middle school it's how well they socially measure up to each other and in high school it's the need to be independent without the trust and means to be independent.

**How do you meet the needs of all your kids with different ages, interests and demands?**

How do you meet their needs on weekends and over the summer? If they're unschooling and therefore learning from life, that doesn't need to change. It helps to have more realistic expectations. An active toddler may dictate where and how long you can take everyone for a while. But it does pass.

Some people have a special basket of stuff for little ones to do when the older ones need some attention. Some people trade off kids with another homeschooling family. Some people hire a homeschooler to play with the kids for an afternoon. Options are limited only by the imaginations

But learning from life doesn't involve as much mom time as sticking to a curriculum so it isn't as difficult as most people imagine it to be. In fact it's much easier than juggling all the demands from the kids's schools and homework and activities!
By Regina <mailto:shan@animas.net> on Saturday, March 30, 2002 - 10:51 pm:

The biggest reason for me is because I love teaching my child. I can't believe she is already five when we are just starting to get to the real fun stuff. Another reason is looking back on my education.

Teachers were burnt out, underpaid, stressed, and played favorites. I took a teaching job once and found myself favoring certain children. That really scared me as I really hated that as a kid. I couldn't help it though. Some kids just clicked with my personality better. What if my child was one that didn't click with their teacher. Another reason is how the advertisement companies are creeping in to the schools. (Channel One, Coke etc...) Check out Commercial Alert .org or Adbusters. There is some excellent web sites that talk about this sort of thing. Another reason is the obvious. No one cares about my child like I do. And lastly is because so much advice I've been given on this site and others makes so much sense. To work within the natural rhythms of the day like going to the bathroom when you want or resting when your tired or eating when your hungry seem like better learning is bound to take place.

By colleen <mailto:pcmessina@mcn.net>

The biggest reason that I homeschool my kids (10 and 6) is that I just love being with them. I love doing things with them, and knowing "where they are" in all areas. I don't like the idea of them being gone 9 hours a day (which is including the waste-of-time bus ride) and being overly influenced by other kids instead of me. My children have never been to school, so I can't speak from that angle, but I have a feeling I would not like them having to conform as much as I see kids do who go to public school. I also can't stand all the homework they would have-why can't school accomplish what it tries to in those 9 hours without cutting into family time by the demands of homework. That I just don't get. This doesn't mean there aren't challenging times, but overall, I am really happy to have them with me during these formative years!
By Deborah Peasley (Deborahpeasley)
Was there a bad school experience that made you decide?

My bad experiences in school certainly contributed to my decision to homeschool. The cliques, teasing, intimidation, boredom and drill & repetition all added to it.

Both my husband and I had bad experiences in different schools, 11 years apart. He was a jock who couldn't write neatly so was put into remedial reading. The school taught him that he was dumb and his only value was in his athletic ability. I was a tomboy-geek-misfit who was an outcast. I was taught that being smart is not "cool", that people are mean and that if you keep your mouth shut and become invisible you get ridiculed less.

Was it being away from your child?

Again, this contributed to it. My oldest is four, so he's never been to "school". I certainly can't imagine putting him on a bus, waving good-bye and walking away. The whole idea makes me shudder.

Peer pressure?

If you mean the negative effect of school-based peer pressure on children, this certainly is a good argument for homeschooling to me. It wasn't something I considered one of my reasons, though.

If you mean pressure to homeschool, then no. I think many homeschoolers do so against the pressure of family and friends to just go along with the system. Most of us have stories about how our decision was challenged by others.

Does anyone think school gets worse as kids get older?

I think it's equally awful regardless of the child's age.

How do you meet the needs of all your kids with different ages, intrests and demands?

My two boys are only 21 months apart, so I don't have a large difference. I manage that difference the same way we do with anything else from meals to vacations to chores. I find something age-appropriate for each of them.

My older boy helps his brother with some things and both benefit. They both learn about working as a team. My older boy learns the importance of helping others; my younger also learns about how it feels to be helped. Helping reinforces my older son's skills. I believe you never really know how to do something until you can teach/explain it to someone else.

The real answer, though, is I homeschool because I think the school model is the wrong one for my children.

What is homeschooling?

Ask around at your next homeschool conference to compare what people answer when this question pops up: "What does it mean to unschool?" Some will answer that unschooling is homeschooling without using a pre-packaged curriculum. Others will say it's simply the degree of freedom that the parents allow the child in his learning. Still others will say that unschooling defies definition because each child is unique and will go at learning in his own way, in his own time.

Mary Griffith (author of the recent book, The Unschooling Handbook) gave this answer:
"Unschooling means learning what one wants, when one wants, in the way one wants, for one's own reasons. ... choice and control reside with the learner ... She may find outside help in the form of parents, mentors, books, or formal lessons, but SHE is the one making the decisions about how best to proceed. Unschooling is trusting that your children are at least as clever and capable as you are yourself."

It's true that learning belongs to the person who is doing it. You can't force someone to learn something. They have to think for themselves to make the knowledge their own. So what's the big difference between homeschooling and unschooling? In homeschooling the parents make decisions on how to best educate the child, while in unschooling the child somehow makes those decisions for herself.

But, does learning happen best when the child, who has a very limited context of knowledge, has complete control of her education-as in unschooling? Or, is it better for the parents to take the lead and teach their children, i.e., homeschool them? Can parents, who know more about the world and who also love their children, teach their kids without squashing their interest and desire to learn? The answer is a resounding "Yes, they most certainly can."

In education, the goal is not freedom; it's knowledge. The best way to achieve that knowledge and the independent learning it will eventually lead to, is by a reasonably structured method of teaching.

No one is in a better position to teach a child than the parents. Not only do parents have a genuine interest in providing the best possible education for their child, parents can also take into account their child's unique interests, ability, learning style, and daily experiences to build or adapt a curriculum tailored to suit them. Both the child's and the parent's goals for education are met.
Who is in control in this team effort scenario? Ultimately, the parents are. With homeschooling the ultimate control and responsibility for education rests with the parents, not with the child.

There is a big difference in orientation between what's commonly called "relaxed homeschooling" and unschooling, yet many don't make a distinction between the two. Parents who plan and teach without being asked to by the child are homeschoolers, regardless of how school-ish they look or don't look to outsiders. Parents who teach only if the child asks to be taught something, or who routinely point the child in a general direction so that she might find her own answers to "teach herself" are unschoolers. Some of the confusion in terminology arises because there are times during the course of homeschooling when it is appropriate to let the child lead. Just because it makes sense for the child to lead at different stages of learning, it doesn't mean that the parent is unschooling.

Control over the child's education still resides with the parents, not with the child. For example, a very young child who doesn't yet have the attentiveness for "lessons" may do well to follow her own interests, while the parent furnishes materials and guides her. I call this stage the Informal Learning Stage of homeschooling. Parents might teach in a relaxed way by initiating game playing or puzzles to work alongside their young children. They may look for opportunities to teach informally whenever a given situation lends itself. Are these parents unschooling because they aren't following a packaged curriculum? Or because they are watching their young child and noticing how he learns best? No, they are building a structure that works well for the child's age and ability, same as what they'd do throughout the entire homeschooling journey. Even though it might appear very loose and unstructured during the early years, the parents are still in control of their child's education, and hence, they are homeschooling, not unschooling.

Often by the time a child reaches 7 or 8 years (sometimes sooner), she is conceptually ready for more structure. This is the beginning of the second stage in the child's intellectual development which I call the Formal Learning Stage. It is at this point that parents have to make a choice. Will you allow your child to be unschooled and make all her own decisions in regard to her education, only teaching her when and if she asks to be taught something? Or, will you decide in favor of homeschooling and teach her in a more structured, yet flexible manner, where her interests and your goals for her basic education meet in harmony through tutorial instruction? Some parents think that you can have "partial unschooling" where the parent leads and teaches "a little." But you can't have your unschooling cake and eat it, too. Parent-initiated teaching contradicts the fundamental aspect of unschooling: that the child is in control leading and teaching herself.

In unschooling parents may be available to answer questions, to provide materials, and to facilitate learning to match the child's interest, but parents don't teach the child according to what they think the child ought to learn. With unschooling the child decides what, when, and whether she wants to learn. Those who call themselves "partial unschoolers" are parents who, quite sensibly, cannot fully resign themselves to trust their children's supposed innate ability to completely direct their own education. These parents continue to pay lip service to unschooling, since they may not be following a rigidly defined curriculum and want to distinguish themselves from homeschoolers who follow a strict schedule and a "school-ish" curriculum. Instead, so-called "partial unschoolers" teach their children the subjects they think are essential, and still give them as much freedom to pursue their interests as is possible.

Far from denigrating these parents, I salute their common sense. There's a reason why many so-called unschoolers have difficulty "trusting" their child to control her own education. Children don't have a broad enough context to know what they don't know. So, if you've been teaching your children and calling yourself a "partial unschooler," I submit you're not an unschooler at all. You're simply a relaxed homeschooler. I urge you to come out from under the shadow of a faulty educational theory that discourages parents from teaching their kids, and fully embrace the joys of homeschooling!

Unschooling is easy for the parent. There's no need for you to worry about how or what to teach; the child takes care of that. All you have to do is trust or have faith in the child. Making the commitment to homeschool your child is harder for the parent. During the Formal Learning Stage, parents must decide on educational goals and plan how to meet them without sacrificing the child's interest in learning. Although tutorial learning is adaptable and tailored to suit the family, learning to teach well doesn't happen overnight. It's work, and you will make mistakes, but mistakes only help you learn to become a better, more effective teacher. The beauty of homeschooling is having the freedom to make your own schedules, to enhance your curriculum with topics of immediate interest, and to use a variety of resources and field trips to keep the spark of learning alive. There's no need to plan every minute detail of "school" time together, nor is it necessary to plan an entire year in advance (unless you live in an approval state that requires specific documentation). Even with a year long plan, your curriculum should be used as a guide-a tool to help you plan-not a noose around your neck. Homeschooling in a structured manner doesn't mean that parents recreate the school system within their dining rooms. The learning environment at home between parent and child is informal, yet the effort you take to implement your goals and encourage your child's interests will form a basic educational structure to build on. Having a structure doesn't mean that you can't tutor in a relaxed manner. All it means is that you, the parent, have made the commitment to take the leading role in your child's education.

The Independent Learning Stage is the final stage of homeschooling. Independent learning is present in some degree for all stages, but is most apparent during the mid and late teen years. Consider a teenager who already has a good grasp of the basics. Appropriately, once he shows self-discipline in his studies, he earns the responsibility of gradually taking charge of his own education. At this point the teen is becoming an independent young man. His structured learning has rewarded him with a broader, integrated context of knowledge and, once again, it makes sense to let him assume more control over his educational choices. The parent properly becomes more of an assistant to help the grown child make the transition to "higher" education, or to study vocationally. The youth has gained a sufficient knowledge base to evaluate his genuine interests and to follow through in charting a course for a fulfilling career. Some might be tempted to regard this growing independence as unschooling, since the grown child is making more and more decisions on his own. But, he's taking on more responsibility in ALL areas of his life as he matures. The parents grant the child increasing control provided he demonstrates the accountability to handle it, same as borrowing the car, or going away on a weekend trip with friends. If he's not ready to take on the responsibility for his education, then his parents continue to plan, tutor, and supervise his learning. When he is ready to take that ball and run with it, the parents are finished with their job of homeschooling. The child has grown up and is able to take steps to pursue his long term goals in life. Homeschooling is and ought to be temporary. Parents teach their kids basic skills so that they learn to think well and to use reason as a guide to action. When a mature child has acquired the skills he needs to know in order to think efficiently, act responsibly, and pursue advanced knowledge independently, he no longer needs his parents to "school" him. That's when homeschooling is finished, and life within a broader context-outside the security of home and his parents - begins.

Unschooling (i.e., letting the child lead and control her own education) is a risky business. Some kids are more self-motivated than others, but even so, children don't have a broad enough context to know how to gain knowledge. Many are not inclined to expend the mental energy necessary to learn the basics. If left to their own devices, they'd spend their days building sand castles and playing video games. Without a parent's commitment to teach them, they will learn some things on their own like all of us do, but they'll likely miss out on acquiring basic skills. They may not even notice their lacking until they are grown; then it may be too late or too embarrassing to go back and acquire the basics. "Partial" unschoolers are homeschoolers who are struggling to resolve an imagined conflict. They want to respect their child's interests and not squelch her enthusiasm for learning, yet they also want her to learn about and master certain subjects. What these parents don't realize is that there isn't any conflict. Teaching doesn't mean forcing information, nor does it mean that parents make all the decisions and the child has no say in her learning. The fact is, children are eager to learn. They long to be taught by a caring, respectful teacher. Parents can lead and teach, and still respect their child's individuality and unique interests. The ultimate goal of homeschooling is knowledge, not freedom. Since parents are responsible for their child's education, they should not hesitate nor apologize for teaching. Homeschooling pays off for everyone. Not only do parents learn from teaching their kids, and the kids gradually build upon basic knowledge while learning how to learn independently; the homeschooling family builds a uniquely close bond that's bound to last a lifetime. Gail Withrow is the owner/director of HomeTaught, a private home-based alternative school in Austin, TX. She writes freelance on education and child rearing, and is a single homeschooling mother of two daughters. Gail's informative website <http://www.hometaught.com> is ranked as a Top 20 Homeschool Site on the web. To comment on this article send e-mail to: gail@hometaught.com <mailto:gail@hometaught.com>

What kinds of people homeschool?

All kinds. Homeschoolers live in the country, city, suburbs, small towns. Some are single-parent families. Some run family businesses, and some parents combine working outside the home with homeschooling. The homeschooling movement is growing increasingly diverse as people of many religions, philosophies, and ethnic backgrounds choose to homeschool. In addition to several groups and publications specifically for Christian homeschoolers, there are now groups and newsletters addressing the concerns of Jewish homeschoolers, Muslim homeschoolers, and homeschoolers of color.

How does homeschooling work? What do the families do all day?

As most families will tell you, there is no typical day. Homeschooling children learn through reading, through conversation, through play, through outside classes, through volunteer work and apprenticeships. Typically children will have some time on their own at home (to read, play, build, draw, write, do a science experiment, work on math), and some time with their parents (to get help with any of the above, to talk, to do some kind of focused project together), and some time with others outside the home (in music class, in Scouts,in a homeschoolers' book discussion group, in a volunteer job at a museum). Some families set aside a part of the day for focused academic work; others do not. Often this varies for each child and the family often adapts its schedule as the children grow and their needs change.

Do I need to purchase a curriculum? Where can I get materials if I don't want to use a packaged curriculum?

We emphasize that you don't need a packaged curriculum in order to homeschool successfully. There are various resources available on a variety of homeschooling sites.

As well, think of the resources available in your community: libraries, museums, historical sites, courthouses, specialty shops, nature centers. Think of adults you know who can share a skill, answer a question, let your children observe or help them at work. Think of real-life activities: writing letters, handling money, measuring, observing the stars, talking to older people. These are some of the ways that homeschoolers learn writing, math, science, and history. Talking with other homeschoolers will give you further ideas.

Some families like to have an idea of what is expected of kids in school at various ages. If you can get a copy of your school's curriculum, use it as a guide but don't make yourselves follow it rigidly -- one of the biggest advantages of homeschooling is that you don't have to operate exactly as school does or make your child follow the same timetable. Another useful document is the "Typical Course of Study, K-12" pamphlet, available for 52 cents from Worldbook International, Educational Services Dept., Northwest Point Blvd., Elk Grove Village, IL 60007.

Do I need to spend a lot of money on homeschooling materials?

No more than you would ordinarily spend on a child's interests and activities. Homeschoolers often use the library and other free or low-cost community resources. They share or barter materials and skills with one another or with other people in the community. Some families are able to barter for outside lessons and to volunteer in exchange for admission to arts events or museums. Older homeschoolers find that volunteering is a good way to learn from adults outside the family, and it is often less expensive than taking a class or buying equipment.

How can parents teach subjects with which they are not familiar?

They don't have to. Homeschooling doesn't mean that the parents are the only people from whom the child learns. The parents are facilitators, helping their children seek out information and hook up with other people. Homeschooling children may become interested in a subject or involved in an activity that their parents don't know much about and that's fine -- there's a world of resources available.

What about the social life of kids who learn at home?

There are many ways for homeschoolers to meet other kids. Studies have shown that homeschoolers have a more positive self-concept than their schooled peers. They are more likely to have friends of different ages and to be free of the cliqueish, exclusive behavior so common in school. Here are just some of the ways that homeschoolers meet and socialize with other young people: In the neighborhood, in church, in Scouts, in 4-H, through community sports teams, in community theatre, in music or dance or gymnastics or art classes, through participation in some school activities, through homeschool support groups and activity clubs.

A teenage girl who left school and became a homeschooler wrote to GWS, "I think that homeschooling has allowed me to develop my social skills a lot more than school did." A mother told us about a local group for teenage homeschoolers, in which the kids have gone to museums, studied biology together, and done all sorts of other activities. She said, "The kids are meeting people from many different backgrounds, with many different kinds of life experiences, and the friendships really cross those lines." Homeschooling does not make kids socially deprived.

Does homeschooling work for teenagers? Can homeschoolers get into college?

Yes, and yes. More and more teenagers are leaving school and becoming homeschoolers. There are also increasing numbers of teenagers who have homeschooled their entire lives. These kids are studying subjects in depth, learning from apprenticeships, work, and travel. They enjoy the independence of homeschooling and the time to discover what they really love to do. Homeschoolers now attend many of the selective colleges and state universities , and others are pursuing work or apprenticeships instead of going to college.

For much more information see The Teenage Liberation Handbook, Real Lives, Homeschooling for Excellence, A Sense of Self.

I'm interested in homeschooling, but the school has labeled my child "learning disabled" or "ADHD" and I worry that I'm not qualified to teach such a child.

It is noteworthy that many children who are labeled learning disabled in school turn out not to be disabled once they've been homeschooling for a while. Too often, the "LD" label is a result of group instruction; a child who does not follow the expected timetable, or learn in the expected way, does not thrive in a classroom setting. In school, for example, a child who is not yet reading at age 7 would be labeled LD, but in a homeschool setting such children learn to read when they are ready and become fluent readers within a short time.

I love the idea of homeschooling, but my spouse/parents/other relatives/friends are skeptical about the idea. What can I do?

This can be one of the biggest challenges a homeschooling family faces. Remember that many concerns about homeschooling are based on ignorance or misinformation. For example a friend may worry that your child is being deprived of access to group experiences, not realizing that homeschoolers can participate in Scouts, community groups, homeschooling groups, etc. A skeptical relative may fear that this is simply your outrageous idea, not knowing about the thousands of successful homeschoolers who have gone before you. Many skeptics are reassured when they learn that homeschoolers do have friends, do get into college, do have a wide range of learning opportunities. When you have done some reading about homeschooling you will be able to select the passages that best address your critic's concerns. Some people are also reassured by meeting other homeschoolers or listening to talks, workshops, radio interviews.

Remember, too, that it can take time to feel comfortable with homeschooling, and sometimes you may simply have to live with a friend's or relative's uncertainty for a while.
Often people report to us that with time, as skeptics have a chance to see how homeschooling works, their fears lessen.

Homeschooling doesn't have to mean sitting with your children six hours a day and giving them lessons. Some parents combine part-time work with homeschooling, and some even manage to work full-time and still allow their children to learn at home. Even parents (more often mothers, but sometimes fathers) who forego paid work to be home with their children do still have time for their own pursuits. You may find that your children become interested in what you are interested in. You may also find that you enjoy learning along with them. Other children typically have several outside activities, and sometimes relationships with adult friends or mentors, so you will not be the only one working with your children or helping them learn.

Should you let your teen go to school if he really wants to?

Keeping Children Safe:
A Parent's First Responsibility

Our perspective is that homeschooling is the responsible parent's choice. Those who believe conformity is good--that being like everyone else will keep their children out of trouble, but still want to protect their children from danger, send their children to private or parochial schools. We have come to believe the only parents who send their children to state schools are those who don't take seriously their responsibility to keep their children safe. What with locker room rapes, the outbreaks of deadly, communicable diseases, and the ubiquity of weapons, it's difficult to view the decision of parents to send their children to state schools as anything less pernicious than neglect.

Critics of homeschooling say we're running experiments on our children that could lead to life-long damage. At least we're giving them a chance to have a life. The people in Bosnia have more sense: statistically, birth rates dropped as parents worried about bringing children into the military zones. In our society, well-indoctrinated parents believe their children will be in greater danger if they don't enjoy all the advantages of the school and yard-- from the bullying, competitive peer group to extravagant, outmoded electronic equipment.

Homeschoolers have done a fair job convincing the public that our children will not be disadvantaged intellectually. We still have a way to go on the socialization front because it's the one area in which schools do really well what they set out to do. When the schools were established in this country about 150 years ago they were designed to Americanize immigrants, homogenize society, and create docile factory workers for a newly industrialized society. Today our cry is diversity, not homogeneity. The Industrial age is over. It's the Information era now, but factory schools dominate.

Government schools are the outgrowth of the child labour laws of the last century. Once it became illegal for children to be employed, something had to be done with them to keep them from becoming unruly and getting into mischief during those long days with nothing to do. So they were put into schools, purportedly to learn, but in reality to keep them off the streets and the labour market until such time as they were virtually adults.

The quotation at the beginning of this essay ["There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison." -- William Glasser] exposes the lie behind the idea that schools are primarily for learning. If that were indeed the case, students could either (a) leave when they had completed the curriculum, or, (b) continue learning far beyond the curriculum in the same time if they had that ability. As the situation is now, school serves only the median intelligence level; slow learners get left behind and fast learners lose interest through boredom. ....

More proof, if it were needed, that school's purpose is to keep children out of circulation, in effect to "babysit" them, is that while attendance is compulsory, appropriate behaviour while at school is not!

Logically, students should either be forced to attend and to behave, or they should be free not to go at all. And of course it is the second alternative which is the only one that would exist in a free society.

Non-Coercion and Unschooling

Do you remember doing things to get a good grade or to please your mother? I certainly do. I spent my entire high school years working towards one goal--to get into a good college. Learning was irrelevant. The only things that mattered were getting grades and performing well on achievement type tests, including the SAT's. I crammed for everything and pulled little tricks in Math, Latin, French, Art, and English, that I knew would earn me extra credit without actually forcing me to learn anything.

As a libertarian unschooler, I don't want my son to perform or learn simply to please me, but I know he may lose interest if I don't respond. For instance, it has long been his goal to make me laugh (sincerely) at his jokes, but yesterday, at 12.5 he decided he would never tell me a joke again because I won't laugh and my strictures on laughing at a joke--that it make sense--are too severe. I work at treating my son as an equal. Just as I wouldn't laugh at a dumb joke an adult makes, so I won't laugh at inanity in my son.

On the other hand, I know encouragement and smiles help when he's doing something new, just as my husband, in his new clay modelling hobby, comes upstairs bearing his clay tableau every hour for my assurances. It is not coercive to tell my husband or son he is doing a good job, especially since I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it.

This is known as external motivation. Some people think there is something wrong with it. I suspect they never realized they had been doing things to please other people until they read Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards after which, all of a sudden, they felt their entire lives were shams. The only way to rectify the perceived wrong is to condemn any external motivation as evil--in this case, by slightly twisted logic, the evil of coercion.

Non-initiation of coercion is a tenet of libertarianism. It means that a libertarian will not initiate violence or force someone to do something unless the other party started it. If you hit me, I don't have to turn the other cheek, although I have done and might do so again if I run into another hypocritical Bible quoting missionary.

If I do something nice for you it is either with the expectation that I will get something in return or because it does something positive for me (makes me feel virtuous). Turning the other cheek in the above instance made me feel "holier than thou." All social interaction can be seen as an exchange of physical or psychic goods.

When we take a baby into the house, we have to do everything for it, wipe, diaper, feed, clean, play, etc. In exchange we get the warm cuddly feeling we get when we play with a puppy amplified a thousand times.

When the baby first smiles and seems to recognize us, we feel as if we must have done something so right as to be marvellous.

Over time, the baby grows into a toddler who can dress and "do" for herself in small ways. She responds to our gestures with soft, wet kisses and hugs, but even at this age, it is time to teach her to start fending for herself. Personally, I couldn't handle it, but my neighbor handed sharp knives to her children when they were three and instructed them on how to pare vegetables. Small children can clean up their own messes and from a very early age, we parents need no longer act as round-the-clock slaves to our children's every whim and fancy, spoken and unspoken.

Some of those who see coercion in everything, think it is coercive to expect one's children to pull their own weight. They claim that expecting messes to be cleaned is an adult imposition. There are many arguments against this, but the most libertarian one is that a mess diminishes my property and no one has a right to do that. Other arguments are based on the idea that one of our jobs as parents is to teach our children to get along in the world of adults and since adults generally prefer not to live out in the corn-cob filled pigsties, teaching children to clean up after themselves will help them fit in.

Of course, it could be said that the goal of homeschooling is anathema to fitting in and there would be a valid point there, so I'll stick with the idea that not cleaning up a mess interferes with my property right. It is, in essence, the initiation of violence against me.

Hard to think about your children that way? Perhaps. I have a very warm, loving relationship with my son and one reason for it, I believe is that I try to apply the principles of Frances Kendall's Super Parents Super Children to my child raising/homeschooling.

I mentioned it in passing, but it is of vital importance to treat your children, as Kendall says, as ordinary people with limited experience. If a friend visits and drops a plateful of spaghetti marinara, you wouldn't yell at her. If your friend just sat there expecting you to clean up for her, you might want to re-evaluate the friendship. The most likely scenario, however, is that you'd help your friend by handing her the appropriate towels or, perhaps, getting down there with her and scrubbing. There's no reason to behave differently when a child makes a mess.

Following this line of thinking, there is no excuse for mandating bedtimes. If the child discovers he is tired the next day, you can explain that this would be mitigated by going to sleep earlier, but the child has a right to go to sleep when he wants. However, he doesn't have the right to keep you up, just because he wants to stay awake until the end of Conan O'Brien.

As a parent you have accepted the obligation to feed, clothe, educate, and house your child until he reaches maturity or until the government considers the child to be an adult. This doesn't mean you have abrogated your rights. Nor does it mean the child can demand food and clothing from you without giving in return.

There are many jobs involved in running a family from earning money to cleaning, cooking, and going on errands. Expecting a fair share from each member of the household isn't unreasonable or coercive. It is not, however, reasonable to sit in your lounge chair watching televsion and expect your child to change channels for you. You should pay your child if you want him to wait on you. But work that sustains the family is different. Since presumably the children want cooked meals, you can expect meal preparation help from your children. In our case, since our son refuses to learn to use a knife, we've had to make alternative arrangements. Given the choice of dishes or the floors, he picked weekly floor washing. Our chore tradeoff list is subject to negotiation. In another household--or another year in our's--scrubbing the bathroom or doing the family laundry might seem a suitable trade, although laundry need not be a family production since modern American four-year olds have been known to take care of their own laundry.

In our household, my husband earns the money. I do the budgeting, pay the bills, do the cooking and most of the cleaning. I expect my son to pull his weight by living up to his end of the cooking/cleaning bargain. If he prefers not to, I am prepared not to cook specially for him. Since he has fussy tastes, all that means is I prepare dinner to my husband's tastes or mine. My son won't eat it but will be stuck eating crackers for an evening or until he does his share of the work.

Some people say this is coercive, but I'm not initiating violence or destructive behavior, nor am I denying him food--he's welcome to learn to use a knife and fix his own food. It is coercive to be obliged to slave after others day after day without getting some return. Besides, it's important that homeschooled children learn to do the chores that make a household run smoothly.

Unschooling libertarian style means allowing your child to study what he wants and when, but it doesn't mean he can play the trombone in the middle of the night or study the effects of fire by setting one of your mattresses ablaze and it certainly doesn't mean you have to live a life of sacrifice. Having one's children happy, useful, productive, and beside you is one of the homeschooling life's greatest rewards.

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