Homeschooling
Sept 9, 2004 AM/Place
We're considering homeschooling our two children. The recurring question seems to be: why homeschooling? Well for one thing, if she's learning at home she'll never overhear her teacher saying she'll never understand math. And I can make sure she can make change in her head so her grandfather won't fly off the handle at how math is taught these days. There's just a couple reasons! (Little inside joke, my Mother often tells the story of overhearing her teacher say she'll never understand math.)
Seriously though, there's a bunch of factors that are all pointing toward discomfort on our part. I've sat in classes with prospective teachers, and its just not pretty. Especially in math and science, until high school the teachers are effectively math/science illiterate with a few exceptions. There's a great plus. I want to put my kids in classes with teachers that can barely add, subtract, multiply and divide. Dad, you want to know why kids these days can't make change ... there's your reason right there.
And then there's this strange compulsion for experimentation in the schools ... maybe because the stakes are too damn low. In private schools, if they tried to pawn off some experimental stick/rock based mathematics or word recognition based reading program the school would go out of business. In public school the kids are shoved through, getting ever more frustrated. And since no public school teacher can really exercise discipline, and the kids know it, this all makes for a non-learning classroom.
We've also got an unusual advantage (as I'm reading more and more about homeschooling). It seems what most people who are looking at doing homeschooling, the subjects that most concern them most are math, science, computers and languages (Spanish, French etc). Math, science and computers are not an issue for our family! But Spanish definitely would be an issue. We're going to need to hire a tutor for that. But jeeze, the rest is there.
As for SATs (another concern for homeschoolers), it seems homeschoolers on average do better than their in-school counterparts. But the intellectual vitality part that this article mentions is what I'm really excited about.
Looking back on my school years, there was Mrs Davagian who did a great job with vocabulary in 5th grade. There was my social studies teacher in 7th grade who taught archeology. Loved her. There was Ms. Bell and Mr. Reitman for English in high school, nobody better. And of course there was Mr. Harris for Calculus. The rest ... kind of a waste of time. No wonder I started college and was blown away that light had a peculiar duality.
As for school activities my kids wouldn't have access to ... like what? Sports are available in all sorts of leagues. There's after school drama (Amanda did that when she was a kid). We live right down the street from a brand spanking new Music school. Remember, this is California under proposition 13. Most programs outside of the core curriculum have been eliminated, which is why the Music school was built in the first place.
The benefits as I see them are:
- We control the curriculum, so we can easily follow the kids interests. Today for instance, Phoebe was asking about why the juice squirted up out of her juice box if it has been sitting out too long. So I took two bowls, one I filled with ice water and one I filled with boiling hot water and we stretched plastic wrap over both. You should have seen the look of concentration on her face as we did these ... and then checked them periodically as they came to room temperature. It was neat. Then we talked about pressure and temperature ... we're talking fluids. Its my backyard :) Nerd central.
- We get to spend more time with our kids. But in a different way.
- Phoebe and Piper get to help each other learn, and spend more time together as well.
- Phoebe already has a tough time listening and concentrating. I'm worried that she's going to have a very tough time adjusting to sitting at a desk listening and not going off into her own fantasy world. You know the type well. Its me. Or I suppose I could ground her for a good chunk of her high school years for not living up to her potential. That path has certainly been tried.
- They're both so naturally curious. While we had introduced Phoebe to the concept that the letters have sounds that go with them many times over the last year, the concept clicked yesterday. Today she's sounding out words, and trying to associate letters with the sounds. Water. WahWahWahater. Its so damn cool! Who wouldn't get a kick out of this!
- And hey, improved SAT scores, and intellectual vitality would be nice too!
Doesn't it make sense that we would be more in tuned to how our kids learn best, and what they truly ARE learning? This way nothing is getting lost in the jumble of trying to "manage" 30 kids. As our dear friend and burned-out elementary school teacher can attest to, most of their time and energy goes to classroom management.