Homeschool

The dis-oriented author is a homeschooler. Starting with my oldest son some twenty years ago we have homeschooled all of our children. You might say, "we were homeschoolers when homeschooling wasn't cool."

Several weeks ago I had an enjoyable conversation with a lady on an airplane. She had been a biology teacher and I was reading a biology book. Our conversation revolved around books, learning and travel. Eventually we started talking about our children and schooling.

There was a notable silence when I mentioned that we were homeschoolers.

She mentioned that her experience with homeschool families had all been negative. Most of them were not competent to teach and were simply trying to shield their children from the evil influence of the public school.

There are, of course, different kinds of homeschoolers. We have not renounced modern society, gotten off the power grid and moved into the woods. We don't make our own bread, wear 'prairie clothing' or indoctrinate our children into some cult. [Note: since we are evangelical Christians, some readers may disagree with the cult part.]

Though we have concerns about public education we are not anti-public school. We homeschool because it gives our children the opportunity to thrive in the areas in which they are gifted and allows us to tailor their education to assist them in areas that are more difficult for them.

All but our youngest children have had a mix of homeschool, public school and private school. Homeschooling is not easy. It requires a considerable commitment on the part of the family.

In homeschool we have been able to focus on our children's interests and skills. Our oldest is a pianist and was homeschooled for part of middle school. He was able to devote time to the piano and this helped fuel his interest in music through public high school. He entered college on a piano performance scholarship.

All of our older children are voracious readers. We read a lot of history and my high school aged son was recently surprised that his history teacher did not know about the Doolittle Raid in WWII. He may be the fastest reader in the family, he is also the family athlete and he made the transition from homeschool to middle school to varsity athletics quite well.

The only problem our middle school aged daughter will have if she goes to public high school is that she may have already finished the basic math curriculum and be ready for AP Calculus. After that they will run out of math classes for her and she'll have to take college math to meet the 3-4 year math requirements for most college admissions.

Homeschool is not for everyone but for the families who commit to it it can be a wonderful alternative or supplement to an institutionalized education.