Beginning Homeschool

How do you make kids sit down to learn at home? How do parents

teach the higher grades? Won't homeschoolers miss out on

socialization? Will it affect their character and social

skills? What if I start homeschooling my child after primary

school?

Homeschoolers are asked these questions all the time.

I wish I could offer a cut-and-dried response to these common

queries put to homeschoolers. There isn't (simply because

every home is different) although it's probably safe to say

that there are some commonalities across the board. Also,

there are no perfect situations, only opportunities. Parents

who educate their own children at home hope and pray their

kids will turn out well. The truth is the journey has only

just begun. Our homeschooling kids are at different points and

milestones along the way, and who they are or what they will

become is just unfolding. So we're all a work-in-progress -

parents as well as their children - counted as `saints' by our

heavenly Father, yet saints in the making.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions about homeschool is

that it is schooling' that is carried out at home. The image

therefore, is of a conventional classroom now scaled down but

imported or adapted to the living room or kitchen table. Some

parents have the idea that the one-on-one situation with mom

as tutor and junior as student is an attractive proposition

because, a) there's going to be a lot of attention given to

the student b) there's going to be a lot more Junior will

absorb in the personal tutoring process, and c) obviously, the

potential for academic excellence is going to be greatly

advanced.

Speaking as a former teen, that's as much fun as a torture

chamber. Why bother with homeschool then? Might as well stay

in a conventional school.

It is possible that some families may homeschool this way (to

each his/her own I say) but that's not how I understand

homeschooling to be, nor is this how it is practiced in the

homes of most if not all homeschoolers I know. My own home

would certainly be dismissed as a slacker's paradise; parents

who imagine homeschools to be a miniature academe peopled by

diligent children sitting ramrod at their desks studying, will

be sorely disappointed if they drop in our home for a visit!

In the first place, homeschooling is more than academic

learning or formal scheduled study. It is providing a child a

secure home to realize her potential holistically. It is

equipping her for self-directed learning, training her to be

resourceful and independent.

Seen this way, the homeschooling parent does not consider

herself as a tutor but a facilitator. We're seeking a balance.

Life itself is one big classroom or a laboratory for

creativity, discovery, a safe place for learning from one's

mistakes. Conventional schools with their over-emphasis on

exams and books and tuition offer little time or space for

self-discovery and imagination. The difference between a happy

pre-school kid of 4 years and an anxious, bored, schooled kid

of 7 years is staggering. Which is tragic considering how many

great minds, inventors, and writers, owe their greatness not

to hours of mugging but to playing and tinkering about while

in their formative years as young children.

Certainly there are sit-down periods, but informal learning

constitutes a significant part of a homeschooler's education.

Eventually the role of parents as their child's facilitator is

diminished until personal involvement is no longer necessary

or a primary concern. Inculcating this attitude and outlook in

a child when she is younger pays off when she grows older.

Parents will quickly find that their initial fear of being

unable to teach the 'hard' subjects becomes irrelevant because

the homeschooled child will and often does surpass her tutor.

Taking a child out of school at 13 years to homeschool is not

uncommon, but some parents admit to struggling with weaning

the teen from an entrenched and usually peer-dependent

lifestyle. A lot of families do succeed at 'deschooling' a

child for home education but it entails more effort since

you're developing a new circle of friends at the same time as

picking up a new learning culture.

Then there is the whole issue of learning styles and gender.

Different children learn differently according to Howard

Gardner's (among others) multiple intelligences theory (Frames

of Mind, 1983). Again, boys are psychologically and

developmentally different from girls. Given these variables,

parents do their children a great disservice when their idea

of education is one-size-fits-all. It isn't and it doesn't.

The good thing about homeschool is, a child gets to learn at

her own pace and in her own style.

It should become clear by now that homeschooling is a

radically different way of looking at learning. I often tell

friends it is a whole new lifestyle requiring some drastic

makeover in my expectations and value system. But what about

socialization, people ask? Simple observation confirms that

socialization in all its negative modes is precisely why our

present schools and society are having so many problems. The

right question ought to be, what kind of socialization do I

want?

Homeschooling promotes positive socialization. It's insulation

(as opposed to isolation) during a child's most impressionable

years. And contrary to popular myths about homeschool, it

takes place in a real world instead of the artificial one that

is merely made up of children of the same age. In that unreal

walled-up world called 'school' with its sterile classrooms,

children wear the same uniform, read the same books, pick up

the same bad habits and prejudices, conditioned by a system

that rates their self-worth against exam marks, and

discourages anything but conformity. Urgh. Then there's that

persistent interrupting bell that only Pavlov's dog could

love!

While this is going on, our homeschooling kids are reading a

variety of books, getting involved with community service,

interacting with people of different ages, building rafts and

swimming in the river, traveling, hiking up Maxwell Hill by

themselves, helping in the zoo, and participating in debates

and mock trials. Sure, we families have to do it ourselves to

make all this happen. But that's where the pleasure lies!

Above all as parents we have the time to provide a steadying

influence, adult modeling, moderating and interpreting the

challenges of life against an agenda set by other parties,

institutions, and vested interests.

Finally, I wish I could conclude that homeschool is the answer

to our educational and institutional ills. It is not. And it

will not be for everybody. It may be that other families and

children are doing well following conventional routes -

national schools or private, international schools or learning

centers.

But those of us who have chosen to educate our children at

home believe it is the better way. It is more worthwhile

embracing a radical alternative that matches the values we

hold - including our love for God - which we hope to pass on

to our children. We do this in the process of equipping them

with skills to engage the world with more than paper

credentials. It appears research is on our side, because

homeschoolers are by and large academically above the national

average, assimilate well into society, and are unafraid to

march to the beat of a different drum.

Homeschool is a long way from becoming mainstream, at least

not in Malaysia where I come from. But things are changing,

and opportunities for tertiary education are already opening

up. Technology and community resources are making education at

home more and more viable and accessible. So should you

homeschool? Can you homeschool? The question our family would

ask is, why won't you?

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