Amy asked me some more about our homeschooling decision and I’m not gonna get into it too much (the short rundown is here) but her comment did make me think about one of my concerns about homeschooling pre-homeschool. I know that it’s not a great idea to remove the parents who are passionate about education from the public system. When we decide to leave the neighborhood school to head to homeschooling, we’re taking our resources with us. Not our taxes, mind you (homeschoolers still pay taxes) but our time and energy and one might assume that someone with the time and energy to homeschool would probably be a kick-ass volunteer and education advocate if their kids were in school.
So I thought about that and I thought about whether I was being selfish when I chose homeschooling instead of heading into my neighborhood elementary school and working to create positive change. And I do think it’s selfish kinda like I think it’s theoretically selfish to stay home just with your own kids and not open your doors to help take care of everyone’s kids, which is an argument some parenting advocates make. (Penelope Leach, for example, in her otherwise terrific Children First book.)
But the other thing is that institutional (i.e., group) schooling isn’t what I want for my kids at this point and no amount of education advocacy is going to change that. I think that if I were parenting kids who were in school that I’d be less likely to volunteer because I think the whole thing would make me so damn crazy that I’d have to get some distance. I know that my ideas wouldn’t fly in school as it is today. The reality is: homework, standardized tests, timed recess, timed lunches, etc. That’s what you have when you have a large group of kids who all have needs and that’s what you have when you’ve got grades and stuff. And for most people, that’s ok or at the very least it’s worth the rest of it (an education). Which is to say that perhaps the kind of help I’d be offering if my kids were in school is maybe not the kind of help they’d be looking for.
I’m not writing this to argue about standardized testing; in fact, it’s just the opposite. My point is to say that there are fundamentals of public school that I want to avoid and rather than get in there and try to convince all the school parents to come along with me and rip up the blue books, I think it’s better for us all if I just find an alternative, which in our case is homeschooling. I don’t WANT to try to tell people that what’s working for them is all wrong because I’m not naive enough to believe that my way is the only way. Just because I don’t want my kids to have to raise their hands to go to the bathroom doesn’t mean that I think raising one’s hand to ask to pee is going to kill kids. I mean, really, I have some perspective on this. But I do want something different for my kids and so that’s why I took my resources (time and energy) and ran to homeschooling.
(Remember, I’m an unschooler. My kids run around all day like wild animals. Wild animals with video games and lots of books. I’d venture to say that most people at the very nice, very well run elementary school across the way from me don’t want me to go in there and start arguing that their children should run around like wild animals, too. I’d say the PTA is glad I’m not there fighting for their students’ right to blow off homework just because the students think the assignment is lame, which is the kind of thing I’d have a hard time not advocating.)
I’m not anti-public school in any way shape or form anyway because I think public school is one of the blessed things about our country. Of course it could be better but that it exists at all is nothing but a good thing in my mind. I always vote for the school levies and I think teachers rock the house and ought to make way more money than professional football players. I just don’t want my kids to go to school. At least not right now and not for as long as is working for me and mine.
Now if an affordable Sudbury Valley type school shows up here? All bets are off. But meanwhile, my kids are staying free-range.
I’ve never thought that you were trying to convince me to unschool/homeschool/wild kids school. But I have spoken to many homeschoolers…and not all are like you – the ones who think that it’s all about what is right for a family…kind of like the breastfeeding and work at home/stay at home war.
Why is that?
I’m a schooler (PTA) mom and while I think that is right for us (oh, how I know that!) I’m also not naive to think it is the only way.
I hear the argument all the time that charter schools take the involved parents away from traditional schools who need them. I agree.
But the flip side is that the traditional schools can’t utilize our time, talent and ideas the way our smaller school can. If I stayed in the traditional school, it’s likely that I wouldn’t find a way to be involved in a way that I found meaningful or fulfilling and I may not volunteer.
It’s a similar argument to what you’re talking about. So instead of me going and trying to convince the 8th grade at traditional schools that their kids need to live in an aparthied simulation for 3 weeks, I’m at a school where I don’t need to convince anyone. We all agree that living it is more powerful than reading about it.
I think CHOICE is a really big deal in schooling and I’m sorry the right has kind of co-opted it so the left thinks that school choice means bible-thumping.
I’m happy to pay taxes for all schools, even the ones my kids will never set foot in. I want every one’s kids educated in a way that makes sense to them.
I am of an older generation where homeschooling was not done very much. Since I am very disorganized I am glad my kids got some organization in their lives at school, and since my mother was a teacher for 44 years, and a very good one, I have always been pro-public school. I was a stay at home mom, but not a very diligent or effective one, sad to say. But I was involved with PTA, vounteering at school etc.
In reading a little about homeschooling, I’ve gotten the (probably skewed) impression that most homeschoolers are Christian Fundamentalists, which you are not. Do you have to deal with these people and materials in the homeschooling world or are you totally on your own and make up your curriculum? You say your kids are “wild animals”. What if you had a kid who was not interested in books or learning at all?
Not being critical, I just do not understand. I admire someone who is capable of teaching their kids themselves, just could not imagine doing it.
Word.
I get this compledtely. Its about choice for me. Being a full time working mom, single now, the primary breadwinner, etc. homeschool was never and option or a thought. HOWEVER, I have excercised personal choice in my childrens education and gotten negative feedback for it. My oldest son attends a fabulous magnet school in the city of Hartford. I live outside the city in a very white, very upscale town. People think I am NUTS to send my son to the city magnet school (with “all those minorities”) when he could go to some regular old VERY white public school in town OR a nice yuppy private school.
Um. No. My values are diversity and culture and I want my very white sons to experience and appreciate that. Additionally, my sons magnet school is very liberal arts – language, drama, all sorts of enrichment he would NOT get elsewhere. That suits him very well and our family values. So, yeah, no thanks to your traditional public school for all the wealthy white kids. We have other goals in mind.
My take from your post is that it is less about homeschooling and more about schooling your children the way you see fits them, and you, and your family goals.
I get that.
This year my oldest daughter started attending public school for the first time. She’s been homeschooled until this year, and she is in 10th grade at the local public high school. So far, I want to run screaming in the other direction for many of the reasons you mention: stupid assignments that suck up time and teach nothing, low expectations for students’ interest and enthusiasm, and the dreaded new reality: “I don’t have time to READ, I have to do my homework”. Saddest of all, it’s a school of more than 2,000 students and there were fewer than 20 at the PTA meeting. Among the homeschooling crowd I’m used to, 2000 kids would mean 2000+ parents who wanted to make things not just good, but great. It’s heartbreaking to see what people settle for.
this is very interesting especially since i just got back from a meeting at my kids school. i’ve been on the board for a few years, and am alternately interested and frustrated. personally, i lean towards more freedom and unschooling in theory, so being involved in a pretty ‘square’ school as a parent has been a challenge.
Thanks for this post! This was exactly what I was thinking about in my previous comment. I totally agree that you would most likely be banging your head against a wall if you attempted to take the resources (time and energy) you currently dedicate to your children’s education and apply that to a school (public, private, whatever…). But oh how I wish there were thousands like you that would rabble-rouse in our schools!! I work in a school that has a good head on its shoulders in terms of priorities (full, rich, teacher-designed curriculum vs. standardized tests), but we still live in the reality that is NCLB. We can’t avoid it. A large part of my job is to make learning fun, exciting, relevant, challenging and as personalized as possible despite the constraints we face. I feel like I could talk to you about this for days! Anyway, I look forward to reading more about how your homeschooling goes this year.
And, thanks for saying that teachers rock the house. We’ll take all the props we can get.
I wish that all of us who have taken our kids out of public and private schools were rabble-rousing in those schools too…just like I wish that there were a waiting list of families lined up to foster-maybe-adopt all the abused and neglected kids out there.
But just as we chose not to continue adopting despite the fact that there are kids in our neighborhood who need families, we chose to withdraw our child and our imagination, energy and organizing ability from the neighborhood school.
Was that selfish? Damn straight. Does that make it wrong? I’m not sure of that.
Why we’ll head back home if the lovely Montessori place proves unaffordable as the kids get to full-day age (and there are two in, rather than just one).
Shannon, a friend of mine so loved her daughter’s (expensive) Montessori program and her daughter was doing so well that she bartered services for tuition. She’s an artist so she came in and did some teaching and also some mural painting and it was all good. Might be an option if your girls are really blossoming there and your budget isn’t stretching.