Schools are for Fish

Homeschooling involves sacrifice.

Even if you’re not sacrificing a paycheck, or a career that you loved (and many of us did both), you’re sacrificing a lot of time and energy that you might have used elsewhere.

We were fortunate: my spousal unit’s career is enough to provide for our tiny family and then some (we’ve almost always had other living with us — 4 teen girls, 3 teen refugee boys, assorted relatives who were getting on their feet or starting over, elder care).  My paycheck was the “fun” money.  It allowed us to not struggle to care for others, allowed us to afford private school for our daughter, allowed us some little luxuries here and there we might not have otherwise had.  But what I gave up more than that paycheck was a career that I really loved, and was really good at.

During my time in the homeschooling community, I’ve seen parents make amazing sacrifices to be able to homeschool.  I’ve watch two parents juggle 4 jobs and homeschool 5 wee kids.  I’ve seen single parents get really creative with their work, their homeschooling, and their community to figure out how to make it all work.

Homeschooling involves sacrifice, but what you lose in wages or work or sleep you make up for in family time, education, and a relationship with your kids that’s like no other.

Homeschooling demands creativity.

The first hard lesson of homeschooling is that your kids aren’t the student you were, and they aren’t all the same.  You knew this, on some fundamental level when you started, but you went ahead and bought a curriculum that would have been great for you as a student or you bought a big box curriculum for each of your kids because you somehow thought that would be “easier” than working out something for each of them individually.  So you got to learn two lessons early on: sometimes you make bad purchases (and you should move them along ASAP — they’re just sitting there on the shelf, collecting dust and judging you), and this homeschooling thing is going to require more creativity than you thought.

Even if you didn’t make that mistake, and your shelves are only full of things you and yours love, you have to be ready to translate what you’re doing into digestible educationese for your athlete’s eligibility form, for grandma, for the clerk at the store, for your kidlet’s highschool transcripts.

What did Susy do last week?  Er, she was framing her windows and figuring out where to put the steps . . . Susy’s been doing a math and physics intensive over the last few months.  She blogs about it.  Oh, and focusing on her writing.

Homeschooling doesn’t have to be expensive.

You can get a perfectly good education with a library card and a bus pass.  You needn’t ever purchase a single textbook.  If you return them on time, the library is completely free (snort — a homeschooler who always returns all the books on time — that’s rich).  Do ask about a “homeschool card” at your local library — they often allow homeschoolers a greater number of books and sometimes a longer loan period.  The bus pass isn’t something you *need* to homeschool, but your homeschool life will be bigger and richer if it’s not all at . . . home.

Homeschooling doesn’t mean you have to know everything.

One of the things that’s awesome about homeschooling is that you get to learn alongside your children.  And, left to pursue their interests, it’s amazing how soon they’ll blow you away with their knowledge of things that are of interest to them.  You don’t have to be an expert on dinosaurs or gemstones or the Dark Ages or geography.  You just need to be willing to be the guide, the guru, the nudge, the muse, the facilitator, the chauffeur.

You can homeschool.

Homeschoolers cringe inwardly when, in response to, “Oh, we homeschool,” other parents say, “I could never homeschool my children.”  While it’s tempting to smile and say, “I could never homeschool your children, either,” what we really want to do it grab you about the shoulders and shake you gently, while saying (probably a bit too loudly), “Of course you can!  Who loves your children more than you do?  No one!  You can do this.”

Here’s homeschooling’s dirty little secret:

We’re *all* terrified that we’re messing up our children for life.
Anyone who says different is one of two things: a liar, or second generation (because they know that homeschooling works).

Regardless of the bravado or gushing, or magnificent blog, we’re all terrified. We’re worried that we’ll miss out on something important that will keep out children from doing something they want later in life. We’re worried when they don’t read early, because “Success by Six” has to mean “Washed up by 8.” We’re worried they won’t get a job, won’t go to college, won’t become functional adults. We’re worried that our choice to homeschool will limit them.

And I think this: Being worried means you’re still doing a great job. When you stop worrying, that’s when you should really be concerned.

On the other hand, if you tell us you want to homeschool, but then start down a laundry list of why it just isn’t possible — we’ve heard all the excuses before.  And we know folks who, despite the same (or even more arduous) circumstances are making the sacrifices they have to in order to homeschool.  What we know is that that box is of your own making.  It’s okay if you don’t really want to homeschool — but unless you have been forbidden by a court from homeschooling, it’s a choice you’re making.  And that’s okay — plenty of us came up through the pubic schools, and we turned out pretty okay.  Your kids will, too.

Homeschooling is messy.

Unless you stick with a curriculum and follow their neat scope and sequence, homeschooling will take you all over the map.  And it’s not just the “educational bits” that are messy — you house will look like someone destroyed it.  Every.  Single.  Day.
Because there’s a lot of life going on in there.  And there’s a whole school.  And there’s projects.  And some of them take a long time to dry.  And other take even longer to complete.  And there’s books and books and books and papers and papers and papers.  You’re going to have to embrace that mess, even if your pinterest is completely full of “school room” ideas that came straight out of the Pottery Barn catalogue.

Homeschooling is worth it.

All the sacrifice of time and money, all the brain-wracking creativity, all the library fines, all the feeling like a failure because you don’t know X, all the worry, all the day dreaming about ladies who lunch and a day at the spa, all the fantasizing about living in the Restoration Hardward catalogue — all of it is worth it.

~Jen GS

“If you’ve ever tried to wrestle a kid into line whose parents have convinced him to believe they’ll love him in spite of anything, you know how impossible it is to make self-confident spirits conform.” ~John Taylor Gatto, “The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher”

I know you.  Your child is struggling in school.  It’s become a battle.  You’re lurking around the edges of homeschooling groups, trying to decide if you want to homeschool.  You’re terrified.  Then there’s a meme about Thomas Edison that comes by on your FB feed.  It’s not an accurate story, about his mother getting a note from the school that he was addled, and hiding it from him as she homeschooled him.  In the internet story, he finds the note after her death and declares, “Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century.”

But the story is grounded in reality.

In the biography, Thomas Alva Edison: Great American Inventor, Louise Betts tells the story:

For a boy who was used to learning things his own way and to playing outside by himself all day long, sitting still in a one-room schoolhouse was pure misery. Tom did not like school one bit. His teacher, the Reverend G. Engle, and his wife made the children learn by memorizing their lessons and repeating them out loud. When a child forgot an answer, or had not studied well enough, Reverend Engle whipped the unfortunate pupil with a leather strap! Mrs. Engle also heartily approved of using the whip as a way of teaching students better study habits. her whippings were often worse than her husband’s!

Tom was confused by Reverend Engle’s way of teaching. He could not learn through fear. Nor could he just sit and memorize. He liked to see things for himself and ask questions. But Reverend Engle grew as exasperated by Tom’s questions as Mr. Edison did. For that reason, Tom Learned very little in his first few months, and his grades were bad. 

Years later, Tom would say of his school experience, “I remember I used to never be able to get along at school. I was always at the foot (bottom) of the class. I used to feel that the teachers did not sympathize with me, and that my father thought I was stupid.”

Then, after Thomas Edison told his mother that his teacher had referred to him as addled, the two of them went to the school in search of an apology, according to his biography:

“My son is not backward!” declared Mrs. Edison, adding, “and I believe I ought to know. I taught children once myself!” Despite her efforts, neither the Reverend nor Mrs. Engle would change their opinion of young Tom Edison. But Mrs. Edison was equally strong in her opinion. Finally, she realized what she had to do. 

“All right, Mrs. Edison said, “I am hereby taking my son out of your school.” Tom could hardly believe his ears! “I’ll instruct him at home myself,” he heard her say.

Tom looked up at his mother, this wonderful woman who believed in him. He promised himself that he would make his mother proud of him.

Later in life, Edison said, “My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me: and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint.”

There’s not anyone in this world who loves your kid more than you do.  No one.  You cannot mess up your kid any faster than the school would have.  You can’t.  You’d have to set out with that as your goal — and you’d probably still fail at it.

It’s toxic for a kid to stay in an environment where *he is continually told, every day, in a hundred little ways, that *he’s stupid, *he’s not keeping up, *he’s a bad kid.  If that was an environment you had to spend 40 hours a week in, you’d wake up with a stomach ache, head ache, general malaise every day, too.  Simply getting your kidlet out of the environment will relieve the burden of those labels.

Your kid is going to rise or fall to the level of expectation set for h**.   Bring h** home — set a new expectation.

~Jen GS

 

I think schools do a really good job of reinforcing the “right now”
fallacy.

That is, they operate on the fears of parents that if your X-grader
can’t do something “right now” then their “educational foundation” is
shaky, and they won’t be able to do X or Y in the future, because they
didn’t master this lesser thing “right now.”

I look at some of the things I do now. For example, I knit, and I
spin, and I run a tractor (drill holes, repair the road, move dirt). 8
years ago, I didn’t knit. 4 years ago, I didn’t spin or do anything
on a tractor. This summer, we’re building. This week, I plan to
build my first rocket stove.

I can’t point to anything in my “educational foundation” that has
prepared me for any of these, and I can also point to several things
in that “foundation” that have made each of these more difficult. The
major one being a constant little voice in my head that tells me I’m
not a professional, I probably don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m
probably going to screw things all up.

You know what? Sometimes I do.

The first year we had the tractor, I dug to place a culvert. It took
me the better part of a week and a half, because I had never used a
backhoe, didn’t know what I was doing, and did it from the wrong
angle. (I was 90 degrees off). But my culvert fits just fine, drains
my road, and fixed the problem. Next one–the next one won’t take as
long, and will be even better.

I think the thing about homeschooling (and especially unschooling) is
instilling a lust for learning, a sense of capableness, an ability to
ask for assistance (and do research), and general thoughtfulness. If
the budding vet needs higher math, she’ll pursue it. And if you’ve
set her up to know she can, be self-assured that she can find answers,
ask for and receive assistance from people who are knowledgeable, and
can stick with and learn something she’s passionate about . . . isn’t
that a much firmer “educational foundation” than a crummy math class
that she hated?

I spun a LOT of lumpy thick yarn on the way to being able to handle
fiber to spin the yarn I want. I kept spinning yarn I didn’t like
because I knew what I wanted to spin, and I knew that practice would
get me there. I didn’t do any spinning as a child (that’s not wholly
true–I did a teensy bit in 6th grade), and I didn’t know any spinners
except that one (and I don’t remember seeing her spin or actually
doing the spinning–I do remember collecting some wool off bushes and
fences to bring back–I just don’t remember getting any further than
combing it). Anyway, it wasn’t some set of exercises that I did as a
child that got me to being a pretty decent spinner — it was deciding
it was something I wanted to do, and then keeping after it.

–Jen (whose theory is that one person’s hobby is another person’s “I
want to poke my eyes out” boredom)

I use the terms “de-facto homeschooling,” “legal homeschooling” and “independent homeschooling” to distinguish between public programs that are largely administered at home, HBI status, and HBI homeschoolers who don’t participate in public school programs.

It seems to me that a lot of this comes down to a “states rights” type issue, which is, in part, delineated in RCW 28A.200.020.

As a “independent homeschooler,” I face a steady barrage of questions about:
a) the “legality” of what I’m doing (what? I’m not credentialed? I have no oversight from a school?)
b) the “unfairness” that we don’t have to participate in the WASL
c) our “lack” of sorting (no, I don’t actually know what grade my daughter is in — were she in school, they’d subtract 5 from her age and place her in that grade, regardless of how bored she was with the work — actually, this is one of the reasons she is no longer in school).
d) our freedom to pursue our interests (what? no curriculum? how can this be “school”? [um, it can’t–we call it an education, because we’re not, as it turns out, providing a schooling]).

and (and this one cracks me up the most):

e) our bending of the space-time continuum (which is, you know, also unfair).

Because of my position as leader of a local support group, and because I truly think that there is no one size fits all, and I truly want to support families finding the right educational opportunities for them and theirs, I do my best to support those choices . . . including alt. ed. programs, online hybrids, part time participation in public
schools, and even folks going back as full time students in the standard public school programs.

But I feel a constant push back against independent homeschoolers to conform to curriculum and testing and “doing school” at home . . . and it’s probably as aggravating as being told you’re not a homeschooler.

And I don’t have a good answer for the linguistics (which it why I created the terms above) of the whole thing, but I think that language has an impact on reality, and as public-school-at-home programs grow and continue to use the term “homeschooling” to define what they’re doing, I see independent homeschooling coming under pressure to conform. The NEA already wants all homeschooling to be outlawed; my paranoia is not misplaced.

Well . . . I’ve got no good answers, but I’m happy for the dialogue.
Want to tackle world peace next week?

–Jen

Farmergirl plays with powertools, runs the saw mill, drive, lights fires in the woodstove, cook son the gas range, runs all over the forest we live in (124 acres surrounded by other large tracts of land), flies transcontinentally, talks to strangers . . . she’s ALWAYS talked to strangers.

For that matter, she’s never met a stranger–just people she wants to talk to whose names she doesn’t yet know.  How are you going to learn to distinguish between and assess people, if you have no exposure to them?  We’ve always talked at length about people who give me a chill, to assess that split-second intuitional gut feeling . . . how can you learn to identify and trust that, if you never meet people who are “off”?

I think people forget that the “play” of childhood is shaping future adults.  Children are constantly finding our more about their world in their interactions with it . . . which sure does explain a lot about kids who go to school, come home from school, lock themselves in the house with their homework and video games and television until their parents come home, go to bed, and repeat that 5 days a week.

I certainly think that taking into account the experience of others has its place, but I think you have to temper relying on that.

Funny case-in-point.  We were in the grocery store, and my daughter (about 8yo then) asked what the brussel sprouts were, and then what they tasted like.  I said I didn’t know, and she asked why, since we eat so many “weird” veggies, she was curious why this was the only one in the produce section that hadn’t come across her plate.

The reason we never had brussel sprouts is because my mom didn’t like them.  (I’ve also never had liver-and-onions, because neither of my parents (nor my husband) like it (though I’m not that hot on meat in general, so I haven’t gone out of my way to try it)).  So we bought a few, and then accosted people in our line to find out what most folks thought the best way to cook them might be.  We decided to slice them in half, and saute them in butter and garlic.  We stopped cooking them when they turned bright green, and concluded that we both thought them delightful.  We still get a few from time to time.

At the same time, there is a good deal of time to be saved by “not reinventing the wheel” and moving to the next step of a process.  It’s quicker to multiply, once you understand the concept, than it is to count individually, for example.  I can also conclude that square wheels, and unbalanced wheels will probably not suit my vehicle, by reading about the experiences of others.

On a more serious note, I chose not to experiment with drugs, based on the experience of others.  One of the most interesting and compelling descriptions of (I think it was crack cocaine) that resonated with me was this:  “Getting high the first time stimulates all the pleasure centers of the brain.  It’s an incredible feeling that you can NEVER HAVE AGAIN, but that you will chase, ever hopeful of having it again.”  I look at the ill effects of such drugs on familial relations, communities, the toll it takes on us all, and can decide that the first high can’t possibly be worth it.

A parent in a forum I’m on asked this:

How would one answer this question:
How can we expect our kids to make their own decisions when they are not developmentally ready or experienced enough to be aware of the future consequences?
K T

I would assume that such a person asking this question believes that a child who tries and does not succeed has failed, and that such failure is a permanent condition.

I believe that failure is essential to learning, and that we learn as much from our mistakes (often more) than we do from our successes.

Likely, I’d take them to task on the premises behind the question:
How will the child develop and gain experience, but by trying?

We’ve helped our daughter name the consequence of her actions (“my stomach feels uncomfortably full”– that’s a consequence of overeating. How might that be avoided in the future?). Letting children make their own decisions isn’t something we let our children do in a vacuum. But being there when they try–whether they succeed or fail–and helping them think through and puzzle through–letting them develop and gain experience–that’s what we do.

It’s not like I never say, “I don’t think that will work” and explain why I think that . . . I don’t get in the way of the experimentation unless life or limb is on the line.

–Jen

We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through
our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of
success, but it isn’t. Success often lies just the other side of failure.
Leo F. Buscaglia

Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.
Napoleon Hill

Don’t be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience.
Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every
discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is
true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which
we shall afterwards carefully avoid.
John Keats

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another
chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the
staying down.
Mary Pickford

Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is
an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own
versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways.
Samuel McChord Crothers

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss
of enthusiasm.
Sir Winston Churchill

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they
were to success when they gave up.
Thomas A. Edison

As homeschooling is legal across the US, it certainly SHOULD mean that, once you explain that your school aged child who is outside on a “school day” is playing, that the questioner should cease and desist.

But the problem with the world is that it’s full of people.
Worse, still, it’s full of well-intentioned people who think they know better what you and your family need than you do.

Homeschooling is a little like breast-feeding.
It’s legal in all 50 states.
It’s championed by many; it’s practiced by many.
It’s still seen as a little weird by many; it’s seen as vulgar by many.

I would be quite firm with police or CPS at the door, both on the protection of homeschooling side of things, and as a 4th amendment thing.  With the neighbors (when we had them), and now with anyone else who expresses doubts, I gush about all the wonderful things we do until they feel the need to explain why they use the schools–and then I smile sweetly at them, and say I think that’s a fine choice for them to have made.

I think the more of us (homeschoolers) who live openly, the more it’s becoming less counter-cultural, more accepted, and more widely understood.  There’s a TON of articles out right this moment on how important play is–I’d get yourself a little cache of those (physical or just keep it in your head), and wax poetic about the importance of play, and how all the experts think that children aren’t getting enough of it, are stressed out with over-booked schedules . . . how you think exercise and fresh air and long lengths of uninterrupted imaginary play and time to read and time to write and time to be with  one’s self and create are just so important–that you agree with “the experts.”  Keep that line up long enough, and whomever you’re talking to will find h**self suddenly defending institutional school, or agreeing with you.