The Homeschooling Handbook_ From Preschool to High School - Mary Griffith [5]
We homeschool because we honestly believe that schools are pointless and potentially dangerous, that they are a waste of time. We believe that schools cannot be “improved” to the point that we would think that they were a good place for our children to get an education. We believe that children, adults, anyone learns best by following their own interests and that human beings learn by immersion, from the time they are born. If I become interested in, say, harps, I immerse myself in it. I go to concerts; I buy harp music; I check out books from the library. I do not “study” a subject determined by some other person for one hour, then move on to another subject determined by some other person for another hour. I follow my own interests; I learn what I want to, when I want to, in the way I want to. While learning about harps, I will incidentally learn many other things. I will learn, perhaps, to read music. Or about the curing of wood to make harp frames. I might learn about another country and a period of time in which they made harps. Now I might not have had, at another time, an interest in learning to read music, for example. But if I become interested in playing beautifully on a harp, learning to read music will probably become necessary to reach that goal. In the same way, if children want to start a lawn-mowing business so that they can afford summer camp, they’re going to want to learn something about math and finances to make that goal a reality. To me this is the essence of homeschooling; and it is the very thing that no school could possibly duplicate, even if it desperately wanted to.—Pam, California
It’s a whole way of life that allows us to be together as a family and live our lives in a more meaningful way. Before, when our son was in school, he saw very little of his dad—that alone is reason enough. Once in a while, I’ll tell (spout off to) people what I really think about the way kids are being raised by their peers in schools, but I try not to get into negatives too much, because it makes people uncomfortable. I think all those kids of the same age being together day in and day out is weird! And I think their behavior is weird! I think parents giving their kids away to strangers to raise is weird!—Lillian, California
When our oldest was five, I knew that she wasn’t ready to be away from me, and I simply started telling people that we were homeschooling, although I am sure that I didn’t know anything about it at the time. When she was six, I just liked being around her so much that she continued to stay home. When she was seven, I thought that I really knew what homeschooling was all about, and because we were having fun, we kept doing it. I would say that my top two reasons for homeschooling are that I like to be around my two kids. After that, my reasons go way back to my own school experiences, which were not positive, and to my youngest brother, who graduated from our “model” school district an angry, violent, and illiterate young man. Once out of the institution, he learned how to read, operate computers, and run successful businesses. When he died, he was a successful man in every way, and none of it can be credited to his “education.”—Barbara, California
Our number one reason is that our educational philosophy is inconsistent with learning in a school setting…. Other important elements are the family environment, a less hectic pace of daily living, and flexible scheduling, so even if a learner-directed approach were somehow miraculously available in a school setting, we would not want to send our children there eight hours a day (maybe a few hours a week, though)…. Amazingly, for a couple that used to agonize over every major decision and many minor ones, Brad and I had a lot of clarity on this one issue. As soon as we heard about it, it just made a lot of sense to both of us, and we have always felt it was the right decision for us.—Linda, Hawaii
Taking the Plunge
So, how do you