Why homeschool?

Since my wife and I are still new to homeschooling, I thought it would be good to start with an accounting of some of the reasons we made the decision to homeschool.

We have an 8th grade daughter and two sons, aged four and one, so our decision to homeschool most immediately impacts our 8th grade daughter. We live in a great community (Thousand Oaks, CA) and the schools are highly regarded, but over the past couple years we had grown increasingly concerned and uneasy about the friends our daughter was keeping at school. Our daughter, who has always had an outgoing personality, had also grown to be more disrespectful and selfish over the past couple years. Academically, we also felt she was not reaching her potential and it seemed as if she dreaded nearly everything. She did not seem to be developing a love for learning, which my wife and I both believe is tremendously important.

On a neighborhood walk, my wife got to talking with a neighbor who had homeschooled her children. At first, we were skeptical and gravitated toward the usual cons asserted about homeschooling. We were skeptical about how homeschooling would impact our kids socially. We also wondered if we could do it. My wife and I already felt stretched pretty thin. I work hard and am in the process of completing an MBA. My wife has a four year old and one year old at home who take considerable attention.

Our neighbor invited us to an "Author's Fair" event in a neighboring city (Simi Valley). Author's Fair is an annual event where homeschooled children who are part of a local ISP stand up in front of an audience and share information about a book they have written. The books are also put on display. We were tremendously impressed with the event and felt as if for the first time in a long time we had been surrounded by people "like us." Oh, and our kids loved the whole experience.

I should say before I go further that our 8th grade daughter had been advocating the homeschooling idea for some time. So, this was going to be a welcomed life change on her part.

In the days following the Author's Night, my wife and I spent considerable time talking about our "socialization" concerns. Ultimately, we came to realize that our kids were already well socialized. We are active people and have strong family relationships with grandparents, aunt, uncles, and cousins. We also realized that much of what we saw our 8th grader exposed to was not the kind of socialization we wanted making its way into our home.

We started to think of the possibilities homeschooling would afford us. Having more time in our daily schedule would allow us to work with the kids or pay for lessons in areas we had never found the time to explore. Areas like drawing, painting, and music.

We also started to gain confidence as we talked to more people who had or were homeschooling their children in our local area. My daughter and I attended a briefing offered by a local ISP and learned a great deal.

If you're considering homeschooling, this paragraph's key for you. If you already homeschool, feel free to skip. Being affiliated with an ISP is very important once your child begins high school. These sponsors shield you legally and also provide services related to transcripts, etc. Some ISPs go much farther than that and actually provide classes. These classes are great for high school-aged kids who are often working in more advanced subjects and/or subjects that require lab equipment and faciliities. Prior to high school, affiliation with an ISP is less significant, however, such an affiliation does often provide support in the sense that you have a network of families you can interact with regularly. Parents of younger students often enjoy being part of these groups because of regularly scheduled park dates and because of the advantages networking brings with respect to selecting curriculum. We also learned that grades are generally only kept during the high school years. (Sounds great, huh? No damaging a six year old's self-esteem because he's a little behind in reading for a period of time or because she's having trouble with long division for a spell). Also, we learned many homeschoolers are taking advantage of college courses during high school years to cut down on the costs of higher education. Having an ISP is required at this stage for community college attendance. The way it works is that the high school-aged homeschoolers take courses at community colleges and earn both high school and college credits simultaneously. Pretty cool.

A few parting thoughts for now. I'm sure more thoughts of benefits will show up in future posts as well.

As time has passed, I can't help but wonder about friends and relatives who I have seen struggle and ultimately collapse under the weight and strain of the public school system. How might they have faired if they could have just had a little longer to learn to read? What if they hadn't been labeled as third-tier readers in first grade? What if they had gone years before being faced with unsatisfactory grades? My short answer based solely on what I already know is they would have been better off. They would have more self-esteem today. They might have learned to love learning if their learning vehicle hadn't made them feel oh so inferior so quickly.