raising godzillas

Thoughts on why people homeschool

I see two basic reasons people choose to homeschool. One, the parents want something different than what a public or private school can offer. This can include everything from the highly religious family who want their child's education totally centered on their religion to the the radical hippie unschool family who wants to raise their children out of the box- and everything in between. This is something very basic that is often missed. There are private religious schools for parents who want that, there are less structured school options such as Waldorf, and if test scores are the main concern then parents will volunteer. Schools can't woo HS parents by improving test scores or modeling themselves on freeschools, becuase school is precisely what HS parents DON'T want. Two is that HS parents really do want to spend that time with their children. That part is much harder to speak to as it can sound judgemental to say "I want to be with my kids all day". Homeschooling also offers so much freedom. We can accomplish ( academically) in 2-3 hours what the average school needs a 6-7 to accomplish. We can study things that they simply won't get in the public schools, such a s Latin or Greek. We can take a day to ride the bus downtown and go take a class at the symphony's educational program, or I can teach them how to deal with an auto tech. I fall WAY on the "schooly" end of homeschoolers, but I do see everything as life learning. I am learning so much with my children. I am spending so much precious time with them. I would not trade it for anything.

posted by gojirama @ 12:32 PM