Pajamas Media

104 Comments

1. Dadofhomeschoolers:

Kudos, keep us informed of how it’s going.
We pulled our son out of private school when he would come home crying wondering if he should mark answers wrong so the kids would like him. For him, socialization meant that every class has an “alpha male” and he was the target, because, frankly, he just didn’t have the time for the established pecking order.
Both of our sons are now bright, well mannered, and well socialized. They get along with everyone, from a newborn to a senior citizen.
Their test scores come back in the 99th percentile and 3 to 5 levels above their age.
It helps to have a spouse that is gifted in teaching, not educated, but gifted.
Dadofhomeschoolers

Sep 2, 2008 - 4:14 am 2. TomJW:

Another child who won’t be indoctrinated against the U.S.A.

Sep 2, 2008 - 4:15 am 3. Paul Gross:

nor indoctrinated in all the PC, Multi-culti BS that passes for a public school education these days. The typical high school grad today cannot write a coherent paragraph, speak on his feet, rationalize the other side of an argument or tell right from wrong. All points of view are equally valid after all and all that counts is that you FEEL good about yourself whether or not there is any evidence to support such a verdict.
Good luck, the establishment is not happy with folks like you.

Sep 2, 2008 - 4:39 am 4. Wacky Hermit:

We pulled our kids out of the public school when the school expressed its inability to accommodate medical conditions requiring unpredictable, immediate administration of medicine. I’m glad we did. My kids love homeschooling. They get to learn about subjects that interest them and move at their own pace (generally a faster pace than the public school would allow). I’ve even started a bit of a revolt in our neighborhood; my son’s best friend is now also being homeschooled.

A lot of people bring up the “socialization” issue, but I’m not worried about it. The word “socialization”, in the sociological sense, doesn’t mean “interacting with other people,” it means “instructing and inducting children into the larger society and culture”. And quite frankly, I don’t think that task is best done by a barely-supervised group of kids their own age, q.v. Lord Of The Flies.

Sep 2, 2008 - 5:14 am 5. Ardsgaine:

In my area, people from all points on the political spectrum are homeschooling. That is a good thing, as it creates broad public support for the activity. Instead of making this just another us vs them issue, conservatives should try emphasizing the bipartisan nature of the homsechooling movement. If we worked together, a lot could be done to increase the amount of freedom that homeschoolers have. For example, in my state, we do not have to create a faux private school in order to homeschool, nor does the parent have to have a teaching certificate. We simply have to maintain a portfolio and have the child tested or evaluated at the end of the year. With bipartisan support, homeschoolers in other states could move towards that ideal of regulatory minimalism.

Sep 2, 2008 - 5:44 am 6. Sand in the Gears » Blog Archive » I’m in Pajamas:

[...] might enjoy my essay at Pajamas Media explaining why my wife and I home-school. I don’t mention the best part of home-schooling in [...]

Sep 2, 2008 - 5:58 am 7. Susan Katz Keating:

As a mom of three, I have tailored my schooling choices to meet each child’s needs. My oldest was homeschooled for middle school only. My middle child has never left the public school system she loves. My youngest has been homeschooled since 4th grade, and today begins partial enrollment – two classes only – at the local high school. I am delighted to live in Virginia, where such decisions can be made without a hitch (although I probably live in the best county for homeschooling).

Sep 2, 2008 - 6:27 am 8. peaches1:

Individuals pay a high price.

Congratulations… You are living the real American dream.

Sep 2, 2008 - 6:29 am 9. NavyMom:

Congratulations on joining the great adventure! As a homeschooling mom beginning my 21st year, I applaud you. Homeschooling done well reaps ample rewards for all involved. Mom and Dad get to fill in all the gaps in their spotty public educations…the kids learn how to converse with people beyond the ‘Sup and Yo mentality afflicting most teens…your children will become (for the most part) voracious readers…television will mostly bore them…your kids will develop a deep patriotism not found in most public schools…violence will not become a way of life…the arts will flourish in your home…’God’ will not be a swear word…colleges will eagerly welcome your 17/18 year olds with full scholarships, as they did ours. Most importantly, your children will grow up revering God and loving and respecting Mom and Dad.

Sep 2, 2008 - 6:53 am 10. Ardsgaine:

And quite frankly, I don’t think that task is best done by a barely-supervised group of kids their own age, q.v. Lord Of The Flies.

Well put. I agree 100%.

Sep 2, 2008 - 7:01 am 11. Will Cate:

Amen, Mr. Woodlief. We started homeschooling our sons at ages 9 and 12. Both are now successful, independently-minded college students.

Good luck to you and the family.

Sep 2, 2008 - 7:41 am 12. Randy:

Our youngest daughter was home schooled via a virtual high school. For less than $2000 / year she got brand new books for each class and fantastic email support from her teachers. Instant grading on tests, except for essays.

When she applied for college, she was accepted at every school she applied too, and multiple scholarships offers. She is now a junior in college, and has not only a fine scholarship but a grant too.

Best of luck with your home schooling. It is the right decision.

Sep 2, 2008 - 7:48 am 13. Why Some Kids Aren’t Heading to School Today « Josh Brage:

[...] know why, I probably need to change that. I was homeschooled and I am far better off because of it. This article from Pajamas Media’s Tony Woodlief lays out some pretty decent reasons why he and his wife homeschool their families. I wanted to [...]

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:00 am 14. Josh Brage:

Tony, GREAT article! I am a 24 year old homeschooled dude and I love the fact that I was educated in a way that prepared me well for life. thanks for your article, god bless you and your home!

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:02 am 15. G. Andrew Duthie:

Our 5 year-old just had his very first day of home school education. As someone who attended both public and private schools growing up, I am delighted that my wife and I are able to give my sons an education tailored to their abilities and interests, rather than warehousing them with their peers for hours a day.

My favorite of the arguments against homeschooling that I’ve heard is the “what about socialization” argument. As if it make sense to trust the socialization of our children to their peers (as observed above), and as if playing with neighborhood kids (which includes both older and younger kids rather than strictly age-segregated peers) doesn’t provide socialization?

My sympathies are with those who for whatever reason are unable to homeschool, and I’m sure there are probably a subset of kids for whom homeschooling is not a workable option. But I cannot fathom how anyone can seriously argue, given the evidence, that large-scale government-run schools represent the ideal way to educate children.

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:16 am 16. Jake McElligott:

I was big-time skeptical when my wife told me she wanted to homeschool. Three years on, I can’t imagine raising our kids any other way.

We’ve come to realize that so much of what the world values– grades, achievement, competition– isn’t what we want to put at the forefront. We’re not dismissive of it, but we look around at family, friends, and colleagues, and we see that those with many of those hallmarks of success are thoroughly sad, unsatisfied individuals.

More than anything, homeschooling is giving our kids a sense of themselves. A percentage grade doesn’t define them. Who’s wearing what doesn’t matter to them. Where they are in the pecking order is unknown to them.

All they do is learn and grow and discover themselves and the world around them.

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:37 am 17. Amanda CMJ:

I have never considered homeschooling before for my very young children, but this was a real wake-up call for me. Thank you for writing this. It will give me much to think about in the years to come.
All the best.

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:46 am 18. Silvera:

I was homeschooled from third grade on and it saved my sanity. My mom pulled me from private school because the teachers were publicly shaming me for being a (very) good reader and not-so-hot at math. She figured she could do better and now, I”m a college junior who was accepted to every school I applied to and I’m going to spend a year in Ireland. I can read, write, debate & interact with adults on a level that baffles many of my classmates. And socialization? As far as I can tell, in regular highschool, socialization consists of a dating-frenzy, cliques & pecking orders and “OMG, is she wearing shoes from last year?”

So to anyone who thinks homeschoolers will be maladjusted social troglodytes, look me up. The only possibly maladjusted trait I have is an ability to think for myself and laugh at the status quo.

Sep 2, 2008 - 9:46 am 19. Sandra M:

1, The POLITICAL POWER of homeschoolers. Some years ago, a Congressman, cognizant of the political power of the teachers’ unions, gave a floor speech against homeschooling. The House got more negative mail for that speech than for any speech on any subject ever. Only the cowardice of politicians has kept us from challenging the educationists.

2. A friend of mine who homeschooled his daughter had her join other homeschoolers in classes in Mandarin Chinese and he has told me on several occasions that this young Chinese woman was the best teacher he’d ever seen. Homeschool parents can hire the very best math and science and language teachers to teach in areas they may not be expert in.

3. The resources available online and in books for someone who chooses to homeschool their children are incredible. The John Saxon books on math are considered outstanding

4. I had a tiny bit of homeschooling. At age 4, my grandmother, a language teacher, taught me to read. Obviously, she used phonics (not the look-say, intellectually destructive system the teachers’ unions endorse). Grandmother then sent me 3 books, one of which was GREEK MYTHS AND ENCHANTMENT TALES, which made me a classicist from early childhood and which taught me many deeply influential lessons as I discovered when I bought and reread the book many decades later. I read faster and with better comprehension than most people. On the other hand, I took math classes in public school and am like too many Americans, including Obama, innumerate. Only an innumerate could have said that keeping our tires properly inflated would solve our oil import crisis. Take that statement of his and think of his budget-busting plans. The mind reels.

5. If your homeschooled kids get bored with college and the political radicalization and propaganda that passes for education, they can go back to studying on their own and taking tests on what they’ve learned. One woman spent only 6 months on campus before geting her BA degree by studying and testing out on several languages on her own, and then a myriad number of other subjects, and passing the CLEP exams. My university wouldn’t allow me to test out (a practice we must overturn). I could have taken those credits and had the time and energy to re-join the debate team. (debating and writing for the school paper were worth more educationally than most courses I took) Frustrating.

6. Why College costs so much. Hofstra which I believe is a local public college will pay $65,000 to John Edwards for a speech. Most colleges import one leftist celebrity or another a week. And that doesn’t include the leftists the various departments invite. If parents knew what the costs were, they’d have their children mount a nationwide campus rebellion. And, of course, the requirement that students buy new and exorbitantly priced texts in subjects that don’t change that much from year to year or decade to decade is another expensive scandal.

6. Charles Murray has a new book REAL EDUCATION that supports the idea of certification. Thus, a Harvard grad, a local college or online college grad or even a homeschooler will be judged on their GRADES on objective tests. Would you be willing to hire a C- accountant because he went to Harvard if you can hire an A student from who cares where?

Homeschooling. School Vouchers. Certification. Freedom!!

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:02 am 20. Mike G:

Not to say anything against homeschooling– more power to ya!– but parents who can’t quite see their way to being home and with their kids that much should give serious thought to Waldorf education. Culturally a blend of very traditionalist and hippie-new agey doctrine, Waldorf offers an experience that has a lot of the DIY, make-em-think-and-do-for-themselves aspects of homeschooling with a structure that is firmly parental without being disciplinarian. Generally speaking, Waldorf kids turn out with a higher propensity to dye their hair blue, but also curious about the world, kindly toward other kids, and with surprising resourcefulness. If you want to know more, I’d start with the Atlantic article “Schooling the Imagination,” which gives a good overview of the Waldorf education system and its benefits and drawbacks.

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:23 am 21. Robert:

Don’t overlook teaching those boys to shoot. The Kansas Junior Rifle Team goes to Camp Perry for about ten days every year as well. That would be a hot ticket. Probably stop at Dayton to see the Air Force Museum or the Corvette Plant.
Good luck and God Bless. Every homeschooler I meet is well on his or her way to being a complete human being.

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:23 am 22. Telford Work:

Your kids will thank you. I teach in an evangelical liberal arts college, and my home-schooled students are a pleasure to have in class. They know their stuff. They work hard and read well. They own their own learning rather than having to unlearn the usual grade-oriented, game-theoretical ’strategic learning’. They get along very well with fellow students from a variety of backgrounds (public, secular private, Catholic, evangelical Protestant private, and overseas). And they’re grateful for their homeschooling.

We’ll be homeschooling our four children next year, as we’ll be overseas and it’s the most practical option for us. So wish us luck!

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:38 am 23. nick:

you are not qualifed.

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:49 am 24. BMoon:

Homeshooling is the big secret the Teachers Union desperately wants to crush. We homeschooled all five of our children overseas. Well, homeschooled co-opted, anyway. The oldest went into sales and business out of high school and now makes over 100,000 a year at 33. Homeschooling taught him to teach himself, which is what he did in business. Another has almost a full scholarship at a private university. Another a 50% scholarship at another private one. The youngest is in High School.

We have had the time, two decades at least, to observe the difference between many homeschoolers and their traditionally schooled peers and cousins. One is confidence. Instead of the typical mumbling and evasive eye contact, they look adults straight in the eye and can have intelligent conversations with anyone from any background. They are mush more culturally aware. Unfettered by peer pressure and control, they are much freer to express who they are, what they think, and their creative energies.

One drawback though. My daughter reports at her school, the other homeschoolers, especially those that hail from more rural areas, are evident in that they don’t know how to dress right. Some even wear, blissfully unaware of fashio, a la Little House on the Prairie, homemade clothes. My daughter and her friends usually corral them and teach them the basics of style and makeup.

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:56 am 25. KMJ:

Any suggestions to parents who both work full time? Is there a way to augment public education? Both of our jobs are flexible in regards to hours but right now I don’t see a way to home school ourselves.

Mike G – checked out the Waldorf option, unfortunatly there are no schools near me.

Sep 2, 2008 - 11:10 am 26. Joel:

Nick, commenting at 10:49 am, is obviously a product of our public schools.
Kudos to you and congratulations to your kids. If, as I imagine, home-schooled kids are more likely to home-school their own kids, what will the educational landscape look like in a few generations?

Sep 2, 2008 - 11:21 am 27. Sam Weigel:

I went to a private Christian school for seven years, homeschooled for four years, and finished with two years of public school. During my teens, I pursued my passion for aviation by taking flight lessons, obtaining my private pilot’s license on my 17th birthday. I ended up being the first person in my family to graduate from college and am now an airline Captain. I’m not sure that it would’ve worked out that way if my parents hadn’t decided to homeschool me; the flexibility in both curriculum and schedule allowed my schooling and my passion to not only coexist but complement each other. In many ways, it was like an aviation charter school where my parents and I designed the curriculum ourselves. Now, I didn’t get anything like the classical education it sounds like your kids are getting, but I think it was still superior to the average public school education. When I did attend public school my junior & senior years, it was fairly easy to hold a 4.0 average including several AP classes & part-time classes at the local college, and I got a 33 on my ACT. Neither of my parents went to college but they’re both good teachers (and strict graders!). That, plus the one-on-one attention and the ability to intertwine the material with something I was really interested in, made all the difference.

Sep 2, 2008 - 11:39 am 28. Jay Currie:

Just finished up our first geography “lesson” of my seven year old’s second year of homeschooling. Google Maps make this fun.

We do 20 minute lessons a couple of times a day. Some Dads have coffee breaks, I teach.

We get the socialization question. I have two responses. First, do you really think the prevalent anti-learning attitude of peers in even good neighbourhoods is helpful for your kids. Second, how does it prepare a person for life to spend five hours a day in a room with 30 people exactly his age and one adult?

For the moment, and we take this year by year, we are pretty sure that we can give our son more than he would get in school. Listening to him reading the terms and conditions which came with his mum’s new cell phone, I am pretty certain he has nailed the reading thing. This year it is writing, basic arithmetic and geography. He doesn’t think of science or art or history as school subjects at all – that’s what you do for fun.

Children love to learn. They have to be taught how not to learn. The industrial school system has no choice but to largely avoid learning as it tries to combine social services with child minding and whatever the political classes think is important this week.

Part of homeschooling is simply providing the tools – books, computers, pencil crayons, DVDs, an internet connection, a library close by – and letting a child do what a child does best: learn.

Sep 2, 2008 - 11:40 am 29. serona:

Yes Yes Yes! It’s nice to hear someone schooling because you’re the smartest educators you know. After all, if we believe the Teacher’s Unions and their annual quest for more budget to reduce class size, then the greatest predictor of student success is the student – teacher ratio. An who can beat Home Schooling on that front?

Sep 2, 2008 - 11:48 am 30. Peg C.:

Excellent piece. Today’s homeschooled are tomorrow’s leaders. You can instantly pick the homeschooled out of any group of kids or adults by their individuality, well-rounded knowledge and achievement.

Public schools now exist to serve the adults that run them, not the children that attend them. It’s a heavy tax burden accompanied by malicious political power. Homeschooling is the kind of subversion I root for.

Sep 2, 2008 - 12:39 pm 31. Derek:

I was homeschooled. It took me years to really understand people. I was always playing catch up when it came to human relationships and I frankly would never wish that on another kid. Understanding people has more to do with your ultimate success than does learning.

Home school is one of the worst things you can do to your kids. It completely kills the primary thing people gain from school: Understanding people. You learn how to deal with deceit, lies, truth, popularity, good friends, bad friends, how to deal with assholes, and human nature in general. More importantly you learn how to form networks of friends that will serve you well in the future.

Now home schooling can give you a leg up academically, but honestly you can grab anything you missed in a couple of years at a JC. It’s the socialization that you need from school. Will your kids learn bad values? Sure, but good values that are never tested against others do not last long. More importantly they will learn how to evaluate values and ideas.

Sep 2, 2008 - 12:49 pm 32. Virgil:

While Mr. Woodlief paints a nice picture, I suspect there are far too many cases in which homeschooling = truancy. For those who claim to love America, you would do well to reject homeschooling. Our nation will do better with better public education and public schools. That’s not going to happen when parents shelter their kids teaching them to no verifiable standards and greatly narrowing their exposure to the real world. Homeschoolers talk about their study groups and soccer teams, but how diverse are these groups? My guess is not very. I realize diversity is a radioactive word within the Republican/homeschooling circles, but like it or not the real world is diverse, and kids should learn in such environments if we want them to thrive later in life. That social interaction with kids of different backgrounds, races, ideologies, etc. is very important education. Homeschooling removes that.

Our public school system has its challenges and areas of needed improvement. I’m no fan of the NEA. But, it is still our American public school system. Self-described patriots who refuse to support and help improve one of the educational foundations of our citizenry are false patriots. Just like those that drive around with ’support the troops’ magnets who don’t want to pay taxes from which the troops’ pay is derived, they’re phony and selfish.

Mr. Woodlief makes a strong argument for homeschooling and may be exceptionally qualified to conduct it, but it’s selfish. As long as his kids are taken care of everything will be okay. Where is the commitment to bettering our country by contributing to its education. If you don’t like your local school district, become involved and make it better. If your kids is not learning enough, supplement it at home. Imagine if every American 18-year-old hit college or the military or other job after just spending the last 13 years getting their education at the kitchen table at home and/or with a group of other kids just like them. Do you see any complications there? Homeschoolers have the illusion that their way is better because the results are masked by the vast majority of Americans who had a formal education in public or even private schools, i.e. homeschoolers benefit from the strong society wrought by the foundation of public education. They have the luxury of touting homeschooling as superior citing various successes, but fortunately we haven’t had to rely on the home-schooled to maintain a functioning society. Honest question: How many leaders and professionals in various industries were homeschooled? How many civic leaders, say, state-level and above were homeschooled? And, I’m talking about modern times, not Abe Lincoln learning by candlelight.

I’m happy to live in a country where you’re free to homeschool your children, but there are just certain things that are done better using economies of scale, e.g. building roads, national defense, and, yes, education. Go ahead a homeschool your kids. I’ll send my to the local public school where I’ll be active and supplement their learning at home. We’ll see who is more successful in college and the work force and in American society in general.

Not what you wanted to hear but true.

Sep 2, 2008 - 12:54 pm 33. Mark L.:

Tony:

I reviewed your pamphlet for a Texas newspaper a few years back.

I enjoyed it. My wife and I homeschooled our three for pretty much the same reason as you have started it. The oldest went through college on a 4-year academic scholarship. The middle son is now on the honor role at Texas A&M (engineering), the youngest is finishing up high school and about ready to become an Eagle Scout.

You and your wife will find a lot of challenges in homeschooling, but you will also find that the rewards are great. We entered homeschooling with a lot of trepidation, but were glad we did it.

Sep 2, 2008 - 12:54 pm 34. Little Homeschool on the Praerie:

[...] Homeschool on the Praerie Four boys under nine and homeschooling. [...]

Sep 2, 2008 - 12:57 pm 35. nora:

Bravo! I just sent my son off to his first day in 10th grade at a private religious high school after homeschooling him for six years! Contrary to the previous commenter, my son is gregarious and far more competent socially than other kids his age. Your kids are very lucky to have the opportunity to be taught by their parents and socialized by adults and children of all ages as they make their way in the world with their family. I have never met a child raised in public schools who could talk to adults and children alike with the same ease as most of the kids I met who were homeschooled. DO NOT allow anyone to shake your confidence. You are giving your children the best gift, ever!
Enjoy,

Sep 2, 2008 - 1:10 pm 36. Gene Henderson:

We homeschool our three children 17, 14 and 12. Mothers all the time ask us “how do you do that?” or “That must be so hard”. I always say to them, if their children are doing well in school, that is public or private, it is because they are homeschooling. Who after all is making sure that they are getting their homework done right and on time? Without parental involvement kids will almost always fail. This is why innercity schools struggle to produce high quality kids. It’s not that they need more money or better teachers. They have some of the best. It’s just extremely difficult to teach kids when mom and dad are careless or clueless to their own child’s needs. Any way, way to go! and also, you will find out homeschooling is a great way to continue your own education as an adult.

Gene, from the Henderson Home where the learning never stops.

Sep 2, 2008 - 1:22 pm 37. Jason Newcomb:

Tony,

You are correct on most all accounts. I see wisdom here that would otherwise not be worth commenting on. Bless you.

You understand this far better than the NEA.

You and your Child have to live with consequence and you decided to educate instead of condemning that child the corrupt thought format that comes with what once was a decent education system.

If there is one thing I would allow to be destroyed outright, it would be our corrupt “education” “system”.

It angers me that it is not enough to feed the public nonsense and for them to believe it, but to do this to the youngest of US is criminal.

ONLY parents can enforce education, but it is a personal responsibility of an adult. A responsibility for which you willingly took up upon yourself as a Father. And that is the way of a Father. An Adult.

Bless your kid(S).

The power and strength needed to survive has a moral character to it with which you seem to have grasped.

Yes, 75% of the world could be and IS wrong. Please ensure your kid is part of the 25% with a future.

I look forward to seeing more efforts from people whom have an actual interest in education rather than snippets from ideologically functionally illiterates as have posted above me here.

Derek, all you need to understand is that the heart of man is inherently evil, not in the way you think as evil but just adverse to correct.

Sep 2, 2008 - 1:27 pm 38. Alice Finkelberry:

Yes, Virgil, government factory education economy of scale is best if you are manufacturing a clone. But since parents are trying to help their kids become their optimal, happiest selves, they exercise a bit of choice. Your point of view is duly noted. But it is your POV. Millions of other POVs diverge from yours and are just as valid or moreso.

Sep 2, 2008 - 1:27 pm 39. homeschooldad:

Homeshcooling works great for us. Our two kids (2yrs apart) are best friends. Both interact with older/younger kids and adults better than their peers, score great on ACT/SATs, and love to learn.

Our older child is starting at an Ivy this year,is a national merit finalist, and completed over 30 community college creidts during high school. #2 child also scored a 34 on ACT, has 11 college credits and is just starting 11th grade.

However, some colleges are not friendly to homeschoolers. They will accept your HS’er, if you take additional SAT2, etc., before accepting your HS’er credits.

Sep 2, 2008 - 1:32 pm 40. Sarah:

Virgil, We pay taxes, thus support public schools even if we choose to home educate our children. You also mention that we do not teach to any sort of measured standard. You should really do your research, sir. Some states require testing. Many do not…however, Just about every national contest that will allow home schoolers to compete with public schooled children has been won by a home schooled student.
On the topic of diversity, our home school group is much more diverse than the school that my neighborhood feeds into. Our group pulls from outlying areas while the school just pulls from a small area of our town. You really should spend some time visiting with some of these kids before you pass judgement. My extended family had their doubts but are happy to admit how wrong they were.

Sep 2, 2008 - 1:44 pm 41. DensityDuck:

The reason that people get so crazy about homeschooling is that many (if not most) homeschool parents are very overt about their religious beliefs, and that they incorporate their religion into their teaching. Because, in the enlightened mind of the tolerant and inclusive liberal intellectual, it’s not possible to be both intelligent and religious. Wrongthink doublebad; Cits need puremind, else thoughtcrime!

Sep 2, 2008 - 1:45 pm 42. Carol:

“It’s because we can do a superior job of educating our children.”

Ditto. We’ve been homeschooling for 11 years. We love the freedom of the homeschooling lifestyle.

Sep 2, 2008 - 1:47 pm 43. JeanE:

KMJ

I’ve been homeschooling for 12 years, and over the years I’ve met several families who either supplemented their kids schooling or discovered that they were able to combine full time work with homeschooling. Here are a few ideas for you to consider.

Supplement your kids education with things you can do together as a family. Read historical novels or biographies aloud. Don’t be afraid to use picture books, even if you have kids who are reading on their own. There are some really great picture book biographies out there.

Plan one morning or afternoon a week for a family science investigation. You can find a wealth of science experiments or demonstrations that you can do at home at the library or online.

Discover the great artists and/or great composers. There are a couple of curricula available, or you can put something together yourself. Listen to the works of Beethoven at dinner every night for a week, then Mozart, etc. Don’t forget those picture book biographies.

If you are taking young children to a museum exhibit, they may get a lot more out of it if you go by yourself first, and then prepare to be their personal “docent” when you go as a family.

Go to a homeschooling convention, or get some homeschooling catalogs and look for products that you can incorporate into family activities. You might look for math games, vocabulary games, geography games, etc. to play together. Homeschooling catalogs have LOTS of things besides spelling and math books.

If after doing some supplemental work you find you want to take the plunge and homeschool full time, here are some options to consider.

Sign up with an umbrella school program. They’ll help you choose curriculum, figure out lesson plans, and they’ll help with all the required paperwork- that may be important depending on the regulations in your state.

Get another homeschooling parent to tutor your kids part time. This option varies depending on state regs, but if you and your spouse are both working, this option helps you with homeschooling and provides a little extra income to another family with only one spouse working.

If your work schedule is flexible, your school schedule can be flexible too. Some families do school work in the evenings, on Saturdays mornings, throughout the year with regular short breaks, etc. You don’t have to go from 8-3 on M-F.

Sep 2, 2008 - 2:57 pm 44. Valjean:

Virgil,

Thank you for the Top Down Perspective. I don’t believe, however, that you’ll find anywhere in Mr. Woodlief’s essay the phrase (or even the implication) “everyone should do this.” I do find it in yours — and find it correlates highly with a public school mentality of “put ‘em all through the same mill”, conveniently rationalized to the altar of (take your pick): socialization, “diversity”, “bettering our country”, anti-elitism, or what have you. (Though I admit “economy of scale” is one I’ve not yet encountered.) Funny how “individual learning that works best for your child” never seems to make the cut.

If you’re so gung-ho on diversity, how about a little diversity of method? We homeschool, you don’t. Our kids learn better that way; why would we send them someplace where we *know* they won’t learn as well? We don’t see this as some sort of sport with winners and losers (”We’ll see who is more successful …”). Call me crazy but we don’t even *think* that way; we just see it as giving our kids the best education available.

And what do you have against Lincoln? Before the latter part of the 19th century, *every single* “professional in various industries” and “civic leader” was homeschooled — and that seemed to have worked out alright. I’ll put my Washington or Jefferson against any post-Lincoln president you care to name.

Sep 2, 2008 - 3:05 pm 45. POLYSEMY Online: The Daily Goose:

[...] father’s view of his family’s decision to home educate. A nice moment (of many): The secret of home-schooling, however, is that you don’t have to be a [...]

Sep 2, 2008 - 3:12 pm 46. Lynda:

Way to go! From one radical atypical homeschool family of 10 years to another. Don’t sell the kids to the zoo – people will talk.

Sep 2, 2008 - 3:14 pm 47. Mike:

I’m an ABD Ph.D. and my wife has a B.S in Psychology with a specialization in Genetics who could have attended Carnegie Mellon gratis if she chose. We have often mulled homeschooling our 13-year old son but probably won’t at this point in his educational career, instead trying to make-up for what he’s not getting from school with extra effort at home.

We live in an area that has one of the best school districts in the state. It is a college town in which the norm is to be the child of someone associated with the university, to be in a college-prep track, and to be an slacker in your education is to be the outsider. And yet the degree to which the quality of education has declined is staggering. Kids don’t learn math fundamentals like long division, showing ones work, doing arithmetic by hand. Instead everything is taught as a form of addition, kids use calculators, and homework is considered taboo.

Virgil states:

“As long as his kids are taken care of everything will be okay. Where is the commitment to bettering our country by contributing to its education.”

The logical implication of which is that the moral choice is to sacrifice the future of your own kids for the betterment of others. What nonsense. Just like setting income caps doesn’t raise everyone, forcing your kids to be taught to the mean ability doesn’t raise all kids abilities, it just lowers everyone’s knowledge to the mean.

The problem is not the quality of most teachers, their motivation, or the size of the classroom. The problem is that public education has become prisoner to bogus educational techniques that are designed to ensure that no-one fails, that things are fun, and that the easiest route is the best. It is an ideology based on a false assumption: that everyone is equally equipped for scholarly success. Camile Paglia is particularly sage on this point.

As for the so-called benefit of “learning about the real world in public schools” that Virgil also claims, that is also a farce. There’s nothing real-world about public education. In the real-world people who are incapable or undisciplined don’t make it, they end up self-segregating themselves from the best jobs, social circles, etc. Diversity? Public schooling is a homogenization factory in which kids are taught to conform: learn as others learn, obey the bureaucracy, don’t think critically, institutionalize your live with meaningless routines (the irony of which Marxists are particularly scathing of the public school system). Kids learn to conform to fit in, that they have to have cool clothes and toys or they’re ostracized. Going along also means abusing the other kid so that one can be an insider. Yeah, those are social skills worth learning.

And finally, the simple truth is a parent can teach their kid more in half as long as pubic school day freeing up the rest of that time to grow in other ways making the child a more gifted, more well-rounded individual. There’s a reason why home-schooled students are increasingly in demand.

Sep 2, 2008 - 4:40 pm 48. AgingMom:

Economy of scale in the public schools? You must be kidding! Some public school districts are now spending over $15,000 per child per school year. Even if a public school is doing a good job, they shouldn’t be overcharging the taxpayers. If individuals want to buy a gold-plated school experience for their child, that is fine, but the public schools need to stop bleeding the taxpayers dry. They are ass deep in bureaucratic overhead and they are so heavily regimented that many schoolchildren are absolutely miserable. By getting rid of ability grouping, every lesson is taught (and re-taught) at the level of the slowest child in the class.

I have moved many times in my life, and I am no longer surprised at all when a public school district spends millions of dollars repairing and upgrading a campus, only to shut the campus down a year or so later due to declining enrollments.

If there is anything you DON’T get from the public schools, it is efficiency.

Sep 2, 2008 - 5:06 pm 49. Ardsgaine:

Virgil thinks we should sacrifice our children on the altar of public education. To hell with him. It’s not my job to improve the public education system. My job is raising my two children, and I will do what I think is best for them.

As far as public education, there is no other service industry that would expect its customers to be responsible for the quality of its product. However, if I were going to undertake the task, the first thing I would do to improve public education is get the government out of it. So long as public education is public, it will HAVE to be a one-size-fits-all, cookie cutter, public housing sort of product. Any attempt to tailor it to the individual needs of the students would be met with charges of favoritism, elitism, anti-egalitarianism. We operate on the principle that the law must treat all people the same. Therefore, when the government undertakes to produce a product, that product must necessarily be the same for everyone. You can have any color of uniformity you like, so long as it is a dreary gray. So to improve public education, my solution is to abolish it. By homeschooling, I’m doing my part to achieve that goal.

Oh yeah… to the accusation of selfishness, I say thank you. I do my best to do what’s best for me and mine.

Sep 2, 2008 - 5:50 pm 50. Pantera:

Here’s a analogy I think of when I think of homeschooling. Most deaf people are also mute. This is because when they were learning to talk, they couldn’t hear what they were saying, so their brain could not correct mistakes in speech. This lack of a “correction mechanism” prevents them from speaking clearly later in life.
Socializing with peers is like a “Correction mechanism”. If you act like a loser or a weirdo, your friends will stop hanging out with you and you will quickly learn to change that behavior. If you homeschool your child, you will drastically reduce your child’s exposure to socialization a la the “Correction mechanism”. This tends to not be a good thing later in life.

Now, the conservative inside of me is cringing at the phrase “correction mechanism”. It sounds like some Chi-Com torture. But it makes sense to me.
I’m also sure some people will argue that being a “loser” is nothing to be ashamed of and that you should be yourself. This is bullcrap that parents tell their kids who are losers and feel bad about it. Come on, don’t you remember high school? Remember the nerds and dorks that everyone thought was wierd? Are those people to be celebrated?

Sep 2, 2008 - 7:22 pm 51. Are You Homeschooling? Why? - In the Race:

[...] parent.Those aren’t all serious questions.But an article did come out today regarding home schooling.  I thought I would ask my own pointed questions just to get you going….I am curious [...]

Sep 2, 2008 - 7:35 pm 52. Orion:

Well, I’m a teacher and I wouldn’t send MY kids to a public school.

More power to you! I visualize you as the parents in Heinlein’s ‘Have Spacesuit, Will Travel’…

Orion

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:23 pm 53. JWE:

“I’m also sure some people will argue that being a ‘loser’ is nothing to be ashamed of and that you should be yourself. This is bullcrap that parents tell their kids who are losers and feel bad about it. Come on, don’t you remember high school? Remember the nerds and dorks that everyone thought was wierd? Are those people to be celebrated?”

Of course not–Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, et. al., are rich enough to celebrate themselves

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:29 pm 54. Bullfrog:

This is encouraging to me, as my wife and I plan to homeschool our children. It is a shame that home-schoolers get a bad rap or are thought of as “odd”. Some close friends who homeschool have neighbors that actually forbid their public schooled children to associate with thiers; amazing!

We know alot of homeschooler families fortunately, so when the time comes (ours are just toddlers) we will know where to get the right materials. Our main reason for this choice is because public schools are teaching alot more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. As has been mentioned, it is the social indoctrination and anti-American, not to mention anti-Christian bias we are trying to protect our kids from. That said, my wife, or any of our homeschooler friends, do not wear bonnets…;)

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:35 pm 55. max:

For you junior sociologists out there, ’socialization’ is not the same a socializing. Socialization entails acceptance of the beliefs and attitudes of a society and its subordinate institutions – it has nothing to do with getting along with other kids.

If you’re concerned that your child isn’t socializing enough, take them to the park. There’s no reason to compel a child to attend a public institution five days a week for 12-13 years so that they can learn to get along with other kids. It’s really not that difficult of a skill to master.

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:35 pm 56. Little Homeschool on the Prairie:

[...] Homeschool on the Prairie Four boys under nine and homeschooling. [...]

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:58 pm 57. Bullfrog:

Pantera: My experience in public school was that any kid who was smart or mature for their age was considered a “loser” or a “weirdo”. This is what happens when teenagers who are more interested in being “cool” and fitting in dominate the environment. I knew some “cool” kids who didn’t turn out so well (seriously). So, I think the terms are very subjective and that your premise is pretty flawed.

Sep 2, 2008 - 9:07 pm 58. Why some kids aren’t heading to school today | Mirabilis.ca:

[...] Here’s a bit from Tony Woodlief’s article, Why Some Kids Aren’t Heading to School Today. [...]

Sep 2, 2008 - 9:13 pm 59. Doc:

Allow me to add my bravo to the article, and to all the other homeschoolers represented here. My wife and I have 4 children, all homeschooled, the oldest now about to start his 3rd year at Centre College in KY; he’ll spend the next semester in Shanghaii.

It would be interesting for someone to do a study: take some liberal sociology or psychology professor, and ask him to observe the social interactions of different groups of older teens. Some of the teens are homeschooled, some not. Make sure he can’t tell explicitly who were homeschooled from their conversations, and keep politics out of the mix, then ask him to rate them in terms of maturity, social interaction, etc. I strongly suspect, from experience and testimony from multiple sources, that the homeschoolers would far outperform the gov’t schooled, the posts above to the contrary notwithstanding.

Someone above wondered what will happen in the next generation. I hope that demographics will kick in with a vengeance. Those who are ideologically inclined to homeschool tend, I suspect, to also be ideologically inclined towards having children without feeling guilty if they have more than 2. Those who are ideologically against homeschooling are mostly rather the reverse. From reading and experience it seems likely that ~ 80% of children will hold the same worldview as their parents, altho’ I suspect conservatives have not achieved that rate uniformly if they send their children to the gov’t schools, where liberalism reigns supreme. Also consider this: parents decide to homeschool because they perceive that they can do a superior job in some way to the gov’t schools. Parents who are committed to their children’s education typically are parents who contribute in a positive manner to their children’s school, if they attend one. Now take some of these parents away when they homeschool. What happens to the gov’t school environment? It deteriorates to the point that some parents, who didn’t previously perceive it, now also perceive that they can do a better job educating their children than the gov’t, so they pull their children out too. These are also committed parents, if not quite as committed as the former set. So the environment deteriorates further.

A preferential reproductive rate among homeschoolers, a superior transmission rate of values among homeschoolers, superior academic performance among homeschoolers, and progressively deteriorating gov’t schools: add these trends together, and I suspect and hope that there will come a time when homeschooling will take off in an asymptotic curve, and almost every parent who had enough of a sense of duty not to kill their children before they were born will homeschool.

Sep 2, 2008 - 9:20 pm 60. mnmsmom:

Ok, so I started out as the public school kid that thought for sure that MY KIDS would go to public school. After all, I did fine.

Then we started public school… my son, who is now 16, did great until middle school. I wanted to either kill him, or myself for most of those 3 years. I didn’t know who he was or what was going on with him. Then I realized that his education was no longer about LEARNING what he needs to be a successful adult. It was in deed about learning whatever the teacher felt that they needed to know. For his high school career we pulled him out of public school and he is now attending an online high school- it’s still considered a public school, but he’s at home and we love it. He could actually graduate this year, but we are opting to keep him in for two years so that we can take advantage of the “Running Start” program in our state which will give him 2 years of free college…

Fast forward a couple of years. We have two younger kids that were in third grade. One was really struggling and would tell me regularly that she was stupid and would never be able to read or do math. I went to parent teacher conferences last October and was asked by one teacher if I could work on my son’s handwriting because they didn’t have time to work on that in school. I then went to my daughter’s conference and was asked if we could work on her math facts because they didn’t have time in third grade to work on that… our question was WHAT DID THEY HAVE TIME TO TEACH??? Furthermore, why were we sending our kids there for 6+ hours every day and then doing a few hours of homework every night???

We started online school with them in December. Because we started part way through the year, we had to start from the beginning, and boy am I glad we did! Our daughter, and son, now LOVE school, math is fun and they can wait to do history! WHAT A CHANGE!!! This is how school is supposed to be.

I went to the elementary school’s concert last December and told my friends what we were going to do, they thought I was crazy… In June I had two of my friends contact me and register their kids for online school.

Who knew, from pro-public school, PTA President, to home school or online school advocate (actually kid advocate)! I say do whatever works for your family! My son has taken AP courses and scored very well with only his online class for training, so don’t let anyone tell you that it can’t be done.

Oh, and the other perk, we’ve done school all over the world- what public school can do that?

It takes work, but what about raising kids doesn’t take work? Anything that’s worth anything takes work…

Enjoy the journey and keep us posted on your adventures!

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:15 pm 61. Gozer the Carpathian:

You know, I’ve always had a negative view of home schooled kids. Every one of them I met, while polite and well learned, didn’t really know much about popular culture or general peer interaction. Now I know these are just the local ones I’ve seen, but that is where my view came from. It probably has something to do with the fact that these kids never really socialized with anyone outside of home and church.

On the other hand though from some definitions I was home schooled. Not because I didn’t go to public school, but because my parents augmented my normal schooling with their own teaching and pushed/aided my learning in the areas I wanted to learn in. To me that has always been the ideal solution, a combination of public education(or private school, I’ve never been I but I don’t disagree with it) and home learning.

Now that I’m about to have a daughter of my own and I’ve seen more and more of the public education system I’m not quite as sure about my “plan.” While you fine folks haven’t “sold” me on the idea of home schooling, I’m no longer completely against it.

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:39 pm 62. Gregory:

Pantera, hate to tell you this, buddy, but you are making an ass of yourself.

1. The Nerds and Dorks everyone thought was weird? Yeah, they the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of today’s environment. Who’s laughing now? Gates even dropped out of college, fer cryin’ out loud.

2. “If you act like a loser or a weirdo, your friends will stop hanging out with you and you will quickly learn to change that behavior.” Yeah, why don’t you tell that to the Goths and Emo kids, huh? You wanna straighten out a homeschooled kid who’s nuts (rare, but not impossible), send him to the Scouts. Or the JROTC. Or the Boy’s Brigade. Or the girls’ equivalent organisations.

What you don’t seem to understand is that you’re not supposed to be doing anything *but* study during class times. You do your ’socialisating’ outside of class times. Which is what, surprise surprise, homseschooled kids should be doing also. Plus, no bullies!

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:59 pm 63. Ardsgaine:

Of all the arguments here in favor of homeschooling, I think Pantera’s is the best.

Sep 3, 2008 - 5:28 am 64. Israel:

Here are some snippets that I have taken from a study on the success of homeschooling compared to public education:

on average, home school parents have more formal education than parents in the general population, with 88% having continued their education beyond high school compared to 50% for the nation as a whole (Figure 7). Furthermore, almost one in four home school students (24%) has at least one parent who is a certified teacher.

Home school families have a higher median income ($52,000 in 1997) than the median income of all American families with children ($36,000 in 1995)

The overwhelming majority of home schooling parents are married couples (97.3%), compared to only 72% of families with school-age children nationwide (Figure 10). Furthermore, 76.9% of home school mothers do not work for pay, while 86.3% of those who do work, only work part-time.

The home schooling community contains a smaller percentage of racial minorities (6%) than public schools nationally (32.8%).

Another distinguishing characteristic is that home schooled children tend to watch significantly less television than do average American children.

http://www.hslda.org/docs/study/rudner1999/Rudner5.asp

It is no secret why private/parochial/charter/magnet/independent/homeschooling schools work. If you have strong nuclear families with strong core beliefs and values and a strong committment to education – voila! you have an environment that is conducive to successful learning. The most successful population of students in the public school systems come from the same demographic profile.

Comparing homeschooling to public education is strictly apples and oranges. How successful would a homeschooling teacher/parent be if he/she took on the job of educating not just their own kids but an additional 15 or 20 kids neighborhood kids? And those kids were from families that represent the demographic population that attends public schools. And you did this year after year. I’m going to suspect that results wouldn’t be any better than the public school setting.

Homeschooling is everything that public schools are not and will never be. If you can homeschool then you should.
Israel

Sep 3, 2008 - 6:37 am 65. cowgirl:

Thanks for a great article. I will file this under the 1,090,788th reason we homeschool our son.

Sep 3, 2008 - 7:23 am 66. ADF Alliance Alert » Choosing the most radical education reform there is - home school:

[...] Woodlief has this essay at Pajamas Media explaining the decision he and his wife made to home school their children: The [...]

Sep 3, 2008 - 8:18 am 67. DEGUELLO:

As a teacher with 30 years experience,I applaud anyone who decides to home school.Education in both primary and secondary levels,is in the hands of “progressive” obscurantist charlatans,who suppress best teaching practices,ignore cognitive research,and promote sloth,incompetence and illiteracy.For those interested in home schooling,and in the crucial issue of best reading methods, please see the excellent National Right To Read Foundation Web site.It contains horrific descriptions of what is being perpetrated in our schools ,as well as the latest research on reading, vocabulary development ,and efeective teaching methods.Best of Luck, Mr. Woodlief!

Sep 3, 2008 - 8:18 am 68. Ed is Watching » Tony Woodlief Reminds Us That There Is No “Typical” Homeschool Family:

[...] who want to pigeonhole homeschoolers into a box really ought to read this Pajamas Media column by Kansas parent and writer Tony Woodlief. A key [...]

Sep 3, 2008 - 8:57 am 69. IT: Instructional Technology » On Homeschooling:

[...] Woodlief has written a thoughtful, and thought-provoking, opinion piece about why he and his spouse have chosen to homeschool their children. He writes, in part: The reason we’ve broken with tradition, or perhaps reverted to a deeper [...]

Sep 3, 2008 - 9:05 am 70. Susan Katz Keating:

And let’s not forget that homeschoolers can find what they love and run with it. My youngest wants to be a doctor. She is reading textbooks voraciously and has attended open heart surgery 3 times and has shadowed an ortho doc for a day. Her biggest high came when someone literally mistook her for a med student… at age 15. My full-time school kid, meanwhile, is soaring in the system, kicking booty in academics, forensics and debate. There’s room for everyone in this fantastic country of ours, and I begin each day by thanking God for making us Americans, where – among much else – we can allow our children such intellectual luxury.

Sep 3, 2008 - 9:07 am 71. So Much to Do, So Much to Say « Mixed Nuts:

[...] aside, I’m still really glad that we’re doing this.  My mom sent me a link to a great article. It says everything I feel about why I’m not interested in going the public school route. And [...]

Sep 3, 2008 - 1:19 pm 72. Dog Trainer:

Re: Socialization

Dogs that are only around dogs all day become “doggie” and very hard to train to become working dogs.

Dogs that are around humans most of the time become reliable work dogs that can be trusted to “do the right thing, ” when called upon.

Our daycare generations are simply manifestations of the the first “doggie” scenario. We have been reaping what we have been sowing.

By and large there are no bad dogs only bad trainers.

Sep 3, 2008 - 2:17 pm 73. John:

My parents tried to home school their children. They did a terrible job! Once they realized that they were wholly incapable of educating their children properly, they sent us to a private christian school. This school had some of the worst teachers I have ever had, excepting my own parents of course! Eventually, we convinced our parents to put us into the public system which was vastly superior (which is not saying much!)to what we had experienced so far in our short lives.

I have little doubt that many of the home school parents who have posted above provide their children with an enriched curriculum which is head-and-shoulders above what is typically offered by the public system. However, there needs to be accountability. Home schooled children need to be tested annually to ensure that their parents are providing them with a suitable and complete education. My parents certainly failed us in that regard! You cannot simply assume that all parents are fit educators.

Some posters have suggested that they have no responsibility to the educational system as a whole and only have a responsibility to ensure the best for their own families. With respect, I completely disagree. The majority of people you will interact with over the course of your life will come from the public educational system. As a result, it is critical that the educational system does its job properly in educating the nation’s children. The system, in its current form, is in serious need of reform. We cannot make the problems go away by capable parents educating their own children and leaving less fortunate children on their own.

My wife and I have chosen to put our children in alternative schools that still operate within the public system. I am often dissatisfied with the quality of what is taught and supplement the curriculum where needed. To some degree then, our children are partially home schooled. Nevertheless, both my wife and I are active in the public system in seeking appropriate reforms to improve the system so that our nation does not face a future in which it cannot compete with nations whose systems are doing a vastly better job of educating their children, such as Finland.

Sep 3, 2008 - 2:42 pm 74. My Own Thoughts » Blog Archive » Homeschooling discussions:

[...] In the Wall Street Journal and in Pajamas Media. [...]

Sep 3, 2008 - 5:20 pm 75. Grandpapa:

Tony, a truly commonsense and balanced approach to homeschooling. You are breaking from the stereotyping of homeschoolers. Thank you.

Will you allow me to re-publish this article on my website http://www.homeschool-portal.com? I will give the necessary credit and referencing.

Looking forward to a reply from you.

Paul Coetser aka Grandpapa

Sep 4, 2008 - 7:27 am 76. Justin:

John:

Why don’t you try simply putting your children in a private school but still remain an activist for better public schools. Children don’t need to be a sacrifice here while you are waiting for improvements that may or may not be an improvement.

See that last part is the part that concerns me the most I think. People, especially the left, talk about how they are going to reform our schools, but when they get the chance things simply get worse and then they do a lot of waffling to hide the fact that their heads are where the sun don’t shine. If you can, get your kid out of the private school. Try to improve it if possible but don’t leave your children there while politicians and activists make their ten millionth grand promise and then screw things up as they always do.

From my point of view a lot of the problems aren’t with the schools themselves, a lot of the problems are with the culture. When you are sending your children into a school where learning isn’t cool and their are petty but stressful distractions everywhere, eventually it is going to rub off. Home schooling your children not only helps give them better learning it also prevents them from becoming infused with a culture that is continually degenerating.

Sep 4, 2008 - 1:44 pm 77. Bryan:

My wife is pregnant with our first child. Now, the question obviously won’t come up for a few years, but there isn’t a chance in hell that I’m letting the Seattle public schools get their paws on my kid, and the suburban districts aren’t much better. We have no ideological axes to grind (neither of us is particularly religious, nor are we extreme right- or left-wingers), but everything we’ve seen of the public schools fills us with horror.

I went through the public school system in Anchorage, Alaska — which at least at the time was supposed to be a really good school system — and being motivated to learn I managed to get a lot out of it (and by the way, I was one of those nerd losers Pantera mentions — screw him). Nevertheless, when I look back on how much time and energy was wasted on things like lining up in alphabetical order… yeesh.

I’d love to homeschool, but my wife and I both work, and, until the far-off day when we can retire our debts, we need both paychecks — and besides, we enjoy our careers. We’re hoping that other parents in our extended group of friends can set up a co-op school, or alternately we’re looking at the local Sudbury School. There aren’t a lot of Sudbury Schools, but they might be a good alternative to Waldorf schools.

Sep 4, 2008 - 2:29 pm 78. homeschooldad:

All parents start “homeschooling” the day your child is born. Teaching them to walk, to talk, feed themselves, potty training, socializing (tantrum control, no biting, privacy, etc.), and probably to read, colors, shapes, etc.

That was our mistake. Our daughter started public kindergarten knowing her alphabet, colors, etc. Needless to say this was a major problem. She was bored!!! The teacher at 3 week was not able to understand why our daughter did not correctly color her “make work” coloring sheets (she had for the first 2 weeks then gave up). My wife volunteered to be a class helper – she got to tutor the least prepared kids down the hall while our daughter still bored, cried most nights. We had told her learning was fun, so she thought that she was the problem. Her public school career ended after 3 weeks, when we were told by the principal that our teacher was the best she could offer, but “wink-wink” no promises, next year she might be able to get a better teacher.

Our public school was brand new and the teachers with seniority got the first choice on jobs. The principal had no say in teacher selection. Our public school was proud of their “computer lab” that the kids got to use 1-2 hours per week. We had two PCs at home much more capable than anything in the school’s “lab”, available 24 hours a day. By the second, the school’s computer lab was turned into a classroom due to overcrowding.

We were not willing to sacrifice our child to the system which clearly did not have her best interests at heart. We are both college educated parents (engineers). My wife made the decision to stay home and raise our two kids. We used books on tape/CD (esp. while traveling), Greathall Productions’ tapes (wonderful storyteller – greek myths, classics for every age group), The Teaching Company classes on DVD (high school), enrolled at our local community college, made every trip a learning opportunity, and wore out several library cards. Most importantly, we encouraged, supported, and challenged them to love learning.

Where are we now?
Our daughter was selected as one of the top ten students at the community college, while a dual-enrolled high schooler (44 hours earned), and was a national merit finalist. She earned several scholarships (two full scholarships), and is now a freshman at an Ivy (in their honors program)

Our son, starting as an 11th grader has 11 hours college credit (dual enrolled) from the community college. He earned the same scores on the ACT and PSAT (as 10th grader) as his sister. He expects to earn 20-25 more hours of college credit before graduating.

. Both kids interact with young and old jut fine. One down side, this summer my daughter did have to keep reminding her boss that she was a senior IN HIGH SCHOOL, not college.

Homeschooling is hard work. The hardest work you’ll never get paid for. We would never have it any other way

Sep 4, 2008 - 4:26 pm 79. Four boys, two parents, one school at Joanne Jacobs:

[...] under the age of nine, Tony Woodlief and his wife, who taught school in Detroit, have decided to educate their children at home. They hope “to cultivate in them an intellectual breadth and curiosity that public schools no [...]

Sep 5, 2008 - 3:58 am 80. Anonymous:

test

Sep 5, 2008 - 4:44 am 81. Richard Aubrey:

Get involved?
Improve your local school system?
Public school systems are, by design, absolutely impervious to parental input.

Sep 5, 2008 - 1:47 pm 82. jtoad:

I taught music for many years. I recall many home-school families. They would bring a couple kids, and study with the one I wasn’t teaching while waiting for his/her turn at the music. Many were involved with 4H, science projects, county fair projects, educational trips all over, and much more. There were lots of choices, from family-based education projects to large groups of other home-schoolers.

I wish I could have had an education like that. Many of these families sacrificed an income in order to home-school. I think they came out ahead in the long run.

Sep 5, 2008 - 5:02 pm 83. Jackie:

You’ve made a great choice. We also decided that we could do better than the California public schools in 1989. Our girls were ages 9 and 7. Homeschooling was wonderful and liberating. It was a complete success story. No teen age rebellion and never a single night when we had to worry about them. They got into the nation’s most competitive colleges. Now one is an attorney and the other is a geologist. I hope you have as much fun as we did.

Sep 7, 2008 - 9:39 am 84. Sal:

Might want to make a quick fix, changing “there’s” to “there are” and considering a comma before “but we are…”

“There’s many things we stink at, like dusting, and lawn care, and filing our taxes in a timely manner. But we are good teachers.”

Sep 7, 2008 - 10:11 am 85. Annie:

This article helped my perspective on homeschooling, and confirmed what I had suspected, that the homeschooling movement is now not just religious folks afraid of indoctrination of their children but committed parents doing their best for their kids.
My 17 year-old thrived in the public schools. She is a well-rounded, happy, fun-to-be-with National Merit Semi-Finalist. However, my 14 year-old struggled with abusive peers, unprepared and unmotivated teachers with huge classes they could never, ever hope to adequately teach. I pulled him out of public school when he was to enter junior high. I was having nightmares about what that would be like.
He is now a happy, motivated student in an Independent Private school. The first teachers’ conference we had showed me they knew him very well and had zeroed in oh what he needed to learn most effectively.
Neither I nor my husband could have done this at home for him, unfortunately, but that is the case.
I used to think that the criticism of public schools was unwarranted and motivated by religious underpinnings. No longer. What has damaged public schools beyond repair is unfunded mandates, the requirements to pass tests and the subsequent focus of learning on solely passing those tests.

Sep 7, 2008 - 10:14 am 86. Jason7:

Interesting article. And for the record, I’m a left winger who supports parents rights to homeschool their children. The public school system is in a shambles. Which is why the Clintons sent Chelsea to a private school. I’ve known my share of left wing home schoolers. So it is something that cuts across political lines. America is about freedom. And parents should have the freedom to home school.

Sep 7, 2008 - 10:20 am 87. Matt:

I have no interest in winning over people like Vigil, who I think are so deeply invested in the system they can’t imagine anything different. Even the way they approach the problem is from the straight-jacket of group think. But I also think it’s important to point out that many home-schoolers, or at least the ones I know, would reject to Navy-Mom’s insistence that home-schooling will churn out God-fearing patriots. My wife and I are home-schooling our 7-year-old son, who, so far anyway, is a budding scientist and unrepentant atheist (any God-talk is “magical thinking” as far as he is concerned) and a hard-nosed individualist. He doesn’t buy into any collectivist or tribal mentality, including the so-called patriotism bandied about these days by Limbaugh, FOX blowhards, etc.

Of course, like most home-schoolers, we don’t fit the mold. We’re both agnostics and deeply suspicious of any dogma. We’re not materialists, by any means, just skeptics. We “un-school,” which means we have no set curriculum and let our child set the course. Every day is school. Every environment is the classroom. We have several friends and relatives in the school profession, all of whom are shocked (if not dismayed) by our approach. But you can’t argue with results. Our friends and family who disapprove of our decision to un-school nevertheless call our son wildly gifted, a label we find absurd. All people are gifted if given the right to educate themselves (see John Taylor Gatto).

Sep 7, 2008 - 10:34 am 88. Steve Scott:

Tony,
Just a couple of points from a Liberal to reenforce Jason7. A good teacher friend works with home-schooling families and grooups here in Santa Cruz, CA, providing assistance and guidance when needed. Many home schoolers here are teachers or even professors at UC Santa Cruz who recognize the limitations of the public school system as it stands. My friend’s favorite job is to link school topics to the next port of call for those families on that special year-long world journey. My own experience is different. In the 8th grade, my ADHD son left math class for 50-minutes 1-on-1 with a Special Ed teacher. In that time, they would cover all the material for all of his classes AND learn the tools he needed to achieve in school. He went from 4th grade skills to the gifted class to now at 25 being just short of a PhD in EE at UC Davis. As a personal prescription, I tell him when he has kids, I’ll retire and teach them myself. As a public policy, I really see that with 35 to 40 pupils per class, almost none of the students get the kind of focused attention my son could take advantage of. We need more teachers per pupil (and home schooling helps that) and put the best in that 1-on-1 consultative role.

Sep 7, 2008 - 11:04 am 89. Mike:

For all the talk about “the public school system,” there are actually thousands of them, subdivided from fifty larger ones. In some districts, homeschooling absolutely makes sense for many families; in others (mine, for example, which is a reason we moved here), it makes sense for very few. More power to those who homeschool; just don’t assume it’s right for everyone.

Sep 7, 2008 - 11:08 am 90. ken williams:

We home schooled our son all the way through high school. He never took a test until college entrance examinations. He was awarded a full scholarship to Oklahoma State Univ. 1 year paid scholarship to St. Andrews University Scotland, Summer scholarships to Cambridge and a graduate scholarship to Oxford University, England. Home schooling is the way to go for many people. We never felt he was exceptionally bright, he just had opportunity to work on subjects that interested him at his own pace.

Sep 7, 2008 - 12:22 pm 91. ken williams:

We home schooled our son all the way through high school. He never took a test until college entrance examinations. He was awarded a full scholarship to Oklahoma State Univ. 1 year paid scholarship to St. Andrews University Scotland, Summer scholarships to Cambridge and a graduate scholarship to Oxford University, England. Home schooling is the way to go for many people. We never felt he was exceptionally bright, he just had opportunity to work on subjects that interested him at his own pace. We are a very liberal family. Religion played no part in our desire to home school. We did it because we wanted our son to have a strong, classical education, and we wanted a saner family life.

Sep 7, 2008 - 12:24 pm 92. kathy:

Good for you! I would hae liked to attend you school. I didn’t homeschool myself: my daughter was a lonely only, and she needed the social activity that school provides. There are home schoolers in my area, but frankly, my family had nothing to gain from fundamentalists, which is the vast majority of home schoolers here. We supplemented at home, and through travel, and she turned out just fine, with scholarships, good sense, and a rare outlook on life. But my husband and I were completely underwhelmed by our local public schools. I am still pondering why memorizing the periodic table of elements was better than actually doing labs in chemistry, but we’ve moved on. Perhaps if we’d been able to have another child, things would have been different, but I wouldn’t change who she’s become for anything.

Sep 7, 2008 - 4:27 pm 93. woodnsoul:

If it works for your children and you, why should there be any other consideration?

It works, and can work very well. Our oldest son, who has always been homeschooled in a secular, relatively free environment is doing very well. We love it and more importantly so does he. Our youngest is just starting and we asked if he wanted to try the “other” school and he didn’t even think about it, he wanted to school at home.

It simply works.

Sep 7, 2008 - 7:16 pm 94. billy:

Two points to make. A fellow homeschooler summed it up to me the best when she said, “If the doctor I was seeing was incompetent, I wouldn’t let him use my child as a test case. I would get a new doctor.” That’s how I feel about the public school system.

Also, homeschooling, in my experience, cuts across ideological lines. I know many conservative homeschoolers, as well as many liberal homeschoolers. We all share a very strong bond, that is to do what’s best for our children, regardless of how difficult it might be. There were several comments on this board referring to the “left” or problems with education being the fault of the left. In my opinion, this just re-enforces the (false) stereotypes of homeschoolers as right-wing religious kooks.

Sep 8, 2008 - 1:59 pm 95. Elementary Teacher:

I *really* need to join the teacher’s union so that I’ll have a representative in court.

I work with special ed kids. If a child decides to throw him or herself to the floor, kicking and screaming, I have to catch the child under the arms and gently lower him/her to the floor. If I am caught off guard and reach out just in time to catch an arm before the child hits the floor, I could be sued by the parents of the child. A teacher was sued last year because a child had a bruise on his arm where the teacher reached out to catch him before he collided with some concrete steps.

The IEP (and the parents) require that the children spend a portion of their time in inclusion in a regular class even though the children may be disruptive in the classroom and abusive to the other children. If I’m working with one child having a tantrum and another child takes advantage of the moment and clobbers a regular ed kid behind my back (impulse control being somewhat lacking), I can be sued by that regular ed child’s parents. When informed of their child’s antisocial behavior, the parents laugh; however, if their child is the focus of another child’s aggression (sigh), I’ll be sued, along with the school system.

Special ed teachers are bitten, scratched, kicked, slapped, cursed and have to deal with all manner of bodily fluids from the incontinent kids on a daily basis.

If my children were still of school age, there is no way that they would be going to a public school.

Sep 8, 2008 - 5:48 pm 96. Finished homeschooling:

Ours is a long story, but I’ll try to keep this brief. Our two older sons did well in public school though we had a lot of hassles along the way with the system’s regimentation and factory mentality (cut them down to size, fill them up, cap them, and shove them out the door). Our youngest son, though very bright, never did do well, and was teased and bullied mercilessly (that wonderful “socialization” we keep hearing about!). What he learned was to hate school and other kids. Afraid we would “lose” him, and after much soul-searching, we took him out in 7th grade and began homeschooling.

And what an adventure it has been! After starting from necessity, we caught a vision of what education could be, not just an escape from a government system that couldn’t help our son with his problems and hardly even cared enough to try, but a unique learning experience tailored to his specific interests and abilities. “If this is education, bring it on!” is the way he put it. He did well in most subjects, was accepted into his first choice college, and graduated in 4-1/2 years.

It was a life-changing experience for me, his mother, too, well worth the time and effort I put into it and the things I had to give up for it. Our family joined a local homeschool support group, which I eventually came to lead for three years. Not only did it provide many group activities from which to choose, but it gave me a chance to receive advice from others and to give back that help to other new people who joined. We still belong to that group and attend some of its activities even though we finished homeschooling 11 years ago.

What a difference it has made to how he turned out! Our son never went through the rebellion stage, never cared for the silly trends other teens think are so important, and shares my husband’s and my interests, views, and beliefs much more closely than do our older boys. He has wide-ranging interests and abilities and can hold conversations on many topics with any age group.

Homeschooling isn’t for everyone, but most people can do a good job even if they aren’t college educated or certified teachers. There are many helps available for subjects the parents don’t feel comfortable teaching. The opportunity to fit the education to the child rather than forcing the child to fit a standardized mold (and often not a very good one at that) more than makes up for anything lacking. How can even a fine teacher do as good a job working with a child he/she has never met before, in a class with 20 or 30 other students, than can that child’s parents who have known and loved him all his life? The school system had no idea what to do for our son, but we certainly did!

In our boy’s case, I would say my husband and I succeeded in salvaging an at-risk child who, without our intervention, could easily have slipped into destructive or self-destructive behavior, or at least would have left school as soon as possible and probably would never have chosen to go to college.

My only regret is that we tried so long and hard with the public system, while our son suffered miserably. I wish we had never sent him, or any of our boys, to public school. I can only try to imagine how different our family would have been if we had homeschooled all three.

Sep 8, 2008 - 8:32 pm 97. jcrn:

We came within an inch of homeschooling this year and I’d like to hear from others who decided to do this with a high school student. We don’t like the goals of the school system, which seems to embrace mediocrity. On the other hand, we have a teen who recoils in horror at the thought of being home and away from his friends, stuck with Mom and/or Dad all day. We’ve looked into group home schools but there are none in our area so it’d be a one on one situation. I’d love to hear from others who’ve made it work – and how – for teens.

Sep 9, 2008 - 12:43 am 98. Finished homeschooling:

jcrn: Please email me at kathymeyer123@gmail.com and maybe we can begin a dialog on homeschooling teens.

Sep 9, 2008 - 8:19 am 99. Dan:

Just one contrary comment from one person’s perspective… I did a short Google for “homeschooling” when this page came up.

I wouldn’t home school my children (and don’t.) They are 13, 10, and 4. There is too much about the experience of having to work with and be around others that keeping them at home all day doesn’t make sense.

Despite the claims that socialization at school isn’t important–or can even be a negative at times–where else are they going to get the exposure? Kudos to parents who provide good opportunities like scouts or sports, but how many hours a week is that? I recently learned about a few families at church who home school: it suddenly made sense because all of the kids are noticeably uncomfortable, awkward, and I dare say a bit weird.

What is the expectation, that when the kid turns 18 they are loosed on the world and perhaps easily sent off to college? Or enter the workforce. How is that going to be for a shock to the system? And why is a college-level education acceptable, while K-12 is not for home schoolers?

I don’t expect responses to there questions, which are more rhetorical.

I regularly help my children with their homework. I don’t find evidence that they aren’t learning at a level they should be expected or that the curriculum isn’t sufficient. Yes, I have found on a few occasions that the teaching tactics and content seemed to be more than a little slanted toward meeting the state’s standardized text expectations as those exams approached, but not at their current school since we arrived a year ago.

I say love your kids, support them, and spend time on educational activities that supplement anything else they are doing. But have an expectation that they will have an opportunity to explore the world and interact with others in a public or private school. If you are instilling positive values and setting an example for their behavior, it will affect them wherever they are.

Sep 17, 2008 - 8:56 am 100. New Orleans Charter Schools | Constant Conservative:

[...] I am not a proponent of public schooling, in large part because the parents have very little control and the Federal government has way to much. In fact, we are teaching our own children at home (Tony Woodlief explains this very well). [...]

Sep 18, 2008 - 5:46 am 101. homeschooldad:

Virgil,

I support our public school system. I pay a high property rate, in fact so high that our state takes some of those taxes and gives them to other counties that have chosen to tax less.

I have asked nothing for my money from my public school until this, my son’s junior year. He scored well on last year’s PSAT. This year taking the PSAT is the only way for him to qualify as a National Merit Scholar. Our “inclusive”, “diverse”, community minded public high school first said “NO” he could not test there, because ” a ceiling tile might fall on him” and they were concerned about his safety. Unbelieveable? We thought so, so we asked our school board. They said our son “might cheat or bring a gun on the school grounds”. Even though he has the same earlier scores as his sister(a 2008 National Merit Finalist), our public school would not allow him to take the test there. We had to drive across town to a private school.

Suprisingly, the most accommodating schools are the local private schools. On the 11th phone call we found a private school willing to risk the ceiling tiles/guns/cheating to test our son.

Our experience with the local community colleges and even a university was refreshing different. They knew we had a choice, and we paid them directly (not through taxes).

Choice and competition are the key. The public school system won’t change, because the customers are not the students, its the teachers and politicians.

Oct 15, 2008 - 8:07 pm 102. L. Smith:

Homeschooling has taken on a fairly large following not because it “works” but because the traditional schoolhouse model does NOT work. Further, homeschooling has risen in popularlity simply because parents have no real alternative to schools (whether public or private) but to keep their children at home.

Unfortunately, homeshooled children basically get the same teaching and learning approach in their own homes that they would be getting in formal schools and unless the homeschool “teacher” (usually a parent) is highly skilled and able to dedicate upwards of 8 hours a day to this task, the children as often as not do not emerge any better off.

What is needed is a better way to enable children to learn and provide for them to do so outside of their homes and without needing for one or more parents to make a life commitment to it. Take a look at the definitive treatment of this problem developed by Trigon-International in its recently released commission report, “Education in America — What’s to Be Done?”

Nov 13, 2008 - 9:12 pm 103. antivirus:

(Tony Woodlief explains this very well). [...]

Dec 20, 2008 - 11:23 pm 104. web:

I have asked nothing for my money from my public school until this, my son’s junior year. He scored well on last year’s PSAT. This year taking the PSAT is the only way for him to qualify as a National Merit Scholar. Our “inclusive”, “diverse”, community minded public high school first said “NO” he could not test there, because ” a ceiling tile might fall on him” and they were concerned about his safety. Unbelieveable? We thought so, so we asked our school board. They said our son “might cheat or bring a gun on the school grounds”. Even though he has the same earlier scores as his sister(a 2008 National Merit Finalist), our public school would not allow him to take the test there. We had to drive across town to a private school.

Dec 20, 2008 - 11:25 pm

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