Homeschooling paper

[jedusor]

About a year and a half ago, I wrote a report for my anthropology class about "the pros and cons of homeschooling." Because so many people ask me the same questions I addressed in the paper, I'm now rewriting it as an introduction to homeschooling for people who are curious about the subject, aimed primarily at those considering it for their own children. It will be formatted as a series of questions and answers. I'll draw on scientific research, books, websites, and real-life experiences and quotes.

If you don't know much about homeschooling, do you have any suggestions for questions I should address? What are you curious about? What would you want to know if you were thinking about homeschooling your kids?

If you do know about homeschooling (I know several people read this who either are/were homeschooled or homeschool their children), would you be willing to share your thoughts? If you just want to leave a comment here, that's fine; if you'd like to do an e-mail, phone, or personal interview, I'm cool with that too. I'm looking for quotes about all aspects of homeschooling. And of course you can offer suggestions for questions as well, and if you have any resources you've found helpful, I'd love to check them out.

My current, very rough, outline looks like this:

Introduction

"How academically successful are homeschooled children?"
-Research

“Do homeschooled children have friends, and are they socially capable?”
-Homeschool gatherings
-Research

"Will it be a lot of work?"
-Homeschooling communities
-Motivating children

“Do I have to do it a certain way?”
-Types of homeschooling (unschooling, curriculum-based, independent study, religious homeschooling)

"Is it legal?"
-State laws

"What about college?"
-Community college classes as a learning tool for teenagers
-Four-year college homeschool admissions policies
-Collegiate success of homeschooled students

Resources

I would very much appreciate your help.

Comments

Re: homeschooling questions

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

-How are academic standards measured for homeschooling?

Can you clarify what you mean by this?

Thanks for responding :)

interview..

[devils-reject.livejournal.com]

i'd like a personal, face-to-face interview on this topic, mainly because i think we would both get a lot more out of it. call me?

Re: interview..

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That could be an issue, unless you're planning on coming out to KC, or to IJA, and I think you said you couldn't make it to that?

Re: interview..

[devils-reject.livejournal.com]

unfortunately, im broke and working all summer. but if you want to come on down the coast a ways, i wouldnt complain...

[linaelyn.livejournal.com]

Hi, jedusor. I'm a homeschooling mom or two kids, ages 12 and 8. I was sent here by hannarorlove.

I operate on a more-or-less unschooling philosophy, but I'm not opposed to a lot of judicious parental "nudging" to try all sorts of things. When my kids want workbooks, they get workbooks. We live in a state without mandatory testing of homeschooled students (we operate as a privare school under the R-4 affadavit in California.) Nevertheless, my kids would test above grade level in virtually every subject.

How can I help you?

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Hi, sorry it's taken me a while to respond to this.

Basically, I'm looking for quotes to intersperse with my own responses. When people ask you the questions above (or similar qestions about homeschooling), what do you normally say to them? Are there any questions you find people bringing up a lot that I didn't list?

Thanks!

[linaelyn.livejournal.com]

I think the core of Homeschooling is not the schooling, per se, but rather the fostering of healthy, strong relationships within the family. People often tell me, out of the blue, that they cannot possibly spend all day, every day, with their children. Recently I've been responding that I feel that if one homeschools one's kids, that ability develops with time. If you don't work at something, you can't expect to succeed at it. Getting along with one's offspring isn't something that "just happens"; homeschooling gives families a chance to develop their interpersonal skills. Honestly, which serves one better in the long term of life: the ability to get along with other human beings, or the ability to answer questions for standardized tests?

I often get the "socialization" question. I respond that my children, because they aren't trapped in a single-age classroom all day, have more friends and deeper friendships with a broader variety of peers than their traditionally-schooled kids seem to have.

My kids make friends in a variety of venues, but the crucial one in our lives is "Park Day" where they can meet kids from nearly 80 different families, every week. In the SF Bay Area, there are so many Park Day type gatherings that you can go to one any day of the week, including Saturday or Sunday. My kids participate in a community choir, in Girl Scouts, in a soccer league, and they take traditional "after school" programs such as pottery class and jazz dance. Their closest friends are active in a homeschoolers' marching band, in church activities, in fencing clubs and gymnastics and Junior Achievement and the Audobon Society and... anything you can possibly imagine, there's a homeschooler involved in it. Finding social contact has never been a problem for us -- rather, we struggle with making so many friends that we cannot find the time to see them all.

The workload for homeschooling varies a great deal. Sometimes it's a TON of work, yes. And sometimes it's an absolute joy and feels like coasting along and life as constant vacation. I try to balance the two extremes, with a slight bias towards the latter. ;-D

As an unschooler with no aversion to using workbooks, I find that Unit Studies are my friend. We usually pick something that we want to learn, and we tackle it together as a family. Last Fall, we took a trip to visit the California Missions. Before we left, we made adobe bricks in the back yard, out of our own grasses and mud. We read Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins and also his Carlotta. We also read excerpts from Two Years Before the Mast. We studied plate tectonics as they relate to earthquakes, and climate change in conjunction with El Niño. Then, we spent the week of Thanksgiving driving all over California and visiting nine of the missions (two were closed for repairs, subsequent to earthquake damage). We took a boat out to Santa Cruz Island, and studied the island flora and fauna there, and the marine life of the Santa Barbara Channel. We drew creatures we found in the tidepools. We had a BLAST. And my kids will remember it forever.

One of the great gifts of homeschooling is the ability to travel. In 2004, we spent the month of September in Puerto Rico, and the month of October in Australia. My kids learned Spanish from the neighbor kids on the beach, and watched a bowerbird construct his bower of blue items in the wild. Hard to replicate that in a desk, anywhere.

One of the most important aspects of homeschooling for our family is that learning is not something that the adults impose upon the children. Learning, rather, is something that people do, in the course of their daily lives. The difference between my family and a traditional-schooling family, is that I am constantly available to my children, so that when those moments of learning occur, I am available to assist them in their search for knowledge.

[linaelyn.livejournal.com]

There. Did I blather on long enough to give you a quote or two? :-)

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

There are some excellent quotes in there. Thank you very much!