Homeschooling

Homeschooling has always been given sidelong, suspicious glances. I admit, that back when our kids were toddlers and Mike and I started to consider the future of our children’s education, we were a little skeptical. After all, there were far too many homeschool families out there consisting of 25 kids,  dressed in blue oxford shirts, whose names  started with the letter “G.” The extent of my interaction with kids of this sort left me with the general idea that while they were rather well educated, they tended toward the geeky end of the spectrum and found it difficult to relate to their less mature, worldly, un-homeschooled counterparts. In many cases, they had no knowledge of Monty Python, the Beatles, or Seinfeld. Star Wars was an anti- missile campaign instigated in the Reagan years. It was a picture less than appealing.

What really got me interested, though, was the idea that by homeschooling you might be able to erase the lines between normal life and education. Teach kids that learning is part of our regular routines. I liked the idea that you could tailor this training to fit individual needs, proceeding at your own pace. I wanted to give the neurons in my kid’s brains varying volts of electricity with hands-on experience and tactile demonstrations. I started to dream: could we spend all afternoon in the woods, cataloging plants and tracking wildlife, and call it school? And I wondered if, while other kids were bonding with teachers and peers outside the home, it would be possible to create a positive environment where we as parents might fulfill their socialization needs. Bottom line: would it be possible to nurture intelligent, worldly wise, savvy, “cool,” free-thinking kids at home? We thought it worth a try.

For the first few years, although I was exhausted, our kids found homeschooling enchanting. But eventually they got so depressed watching the school bus come and go in front of our house, that we decided to send them to the school down the road. Lo and behold, they didn’t morph into trolls or become pyros and begin to blow things up. In fact, they learned a fair bit by socializing with other kids, both positive and negative. The one good thing about experiencing the negatives was that it allowed for the discussion of issues that they would have encountered down the road, anyway. They remained at school for several years until, in a unanimous decision, we decided to live on a boat and homeschool again. Which is all to say, that we are very fortunate to live in a country where you can choose how you will educate your kids, and of course this just means that as parents we have the responsibility to make an informed decision toward that end. What works for one family certainly doesn’t work for everyone.  And for us, different systems better supported the different stages of our lives.

Once we moved onto Chrysalis, there was no choice but to homeschool as we were moving around every month or so. The wonderful thing about homeschooling these days is that you don’t have to have a PhD in Education to provide your kids with a decent learning experience. In fact, there are so many well designed curriculums out there, the hard part is choosing between them. There is a ton of hand holding, instruction, and support. What you end up with is a totally viable curriculum that covers all the same bases, and often much more, of a public or private school system.

I have to admit I was a little nervous about homeschooling through the high school years since my math abilities peak at about a 6^th grade level. I was also wary of attempting to keep track of all the records and assignments by myself. University loomed. In light of this, we registered Lauren, and eventually Stefan, for 9^th grade  at Keystone National High School.  A fully accredited high school, they offered both online and correspondence classes, as well as numerous online clubs (newspaper, photography, yearbook, etc.-all interactive online between other registered students). The school kept track of their assignments, grades, and Lauren graduated with a transcript with which she eventually applied to several universities. She is now a second year student at Trinity Western University outside of Vancouver, Canada.

In terms of ease on my part, homeschooling through high school was a breeze. Much easier, in my opinion, then the earlier years. Both the kids were well familiar with the homeschool routine by then and basically taught themselves with Mike and I acting as mentors when questions arose. This, by the way, is fantastic prep for college. As we began to cruise to more interesting and historically invigorating ports, we got really jazzed when what we were learning was brought to life by what we were visiting. To read about the lives of Monet, Matisse, Klimt, and Van Gogh, and then see their paintings, as we did, at the Met in New York reinforced the idea that these were real people who painted real pictures.  It’s all about connecting those dots. In Boston, after visiting a temporary demonstration of fashion through history, I remarked to Lauren, who was well aware of my quirky preference for comfort over style, “I laugh in the face of fashion.” To which she replied, “Well, it laughs in your face, too.”

And that is about as real as it gets. Class dismissed.