I subscribe to dozens of blogs, online newsletters, and facebook fan all kinds of homeschool related items. It can be quite entertaining to see all the various takes on those of us who keep our children at home instead of sending them to public or private schools.
What parents who send their kids to school, or folks that have no children, seem to miss is that no homeschool is like any other homeschool. My neighbors unschool. I just saw online an article that slams that philosophy relentlessly as near negligence in parenting. Frankly, the young lady next door that just had her 14th birthday is the only babysitter I have ever hired. After living beside these "crazy unschoolers" I know that she was better qualified and mature enough to handle my five with no concerns than most "normal" kids. (More on "normal" in other posts. Trying to stay on topic here.)
I do not school at home by any stretch of the imagination. My hubby is a teacher. I spent all my time in college working towards a teaching degree. I even worked as a teacher for 2 1/2 years. There is no way having my five sit at a desk for 45 minute time periods doing worksheets would teach them anything. I wish I had known and understood what I do now as a parent back when I did teach. My classroom would have been radically different and my students would have had fond memories of field trips to the playground to follow bugs, paint rocks, and barely any memory of silly repetitive worksheets. True, my students now have workbooks to practice math and writing skills. They also have businesses. My eldest son runs the snack machine at our business. He is responsible for making sure it is kept stocked. My second son is more willing to try new things. He will find plush animals or toys that would appeal to our customer base and stock them. Both have jobs to do within our business having to do with stocking, store upkeep, and customer interaction. We go to the zoo. We go to museums. We go to the library. We go to the park. We read. We play games. We go to family functions. We go to the local university for the occasional lecture series. We do all this and more. We do it on our time. If there is going to be something of interest at noon across town, we load up and go. I do not have to provide an excuse to a teacher. I don't have to worry if our trip out of state will keep them out of school for more than the 10 allowed days per school term. If my husband gets extra time off and wants to spend time with our children at a movie, we can go. No homework for hours after hours at school interfering with his ability to have conversations about physics or video games with our kids.
Do I know families that are more structured? Yes. I know families that buy boxed curriculum each year and follow it precisely. Even then, school doesn't last from 8am to 3pm like at the usual institutions. They do their workbooks. Read their assignments. Follow the prescribed day's activities. They learn right on the publisher's timeline and use their expansive free time to pursue other interests.
The majority of homeschoolers I know do everything differently from every other homeschool family I know. Even when they purchase the same curriculum, they go about completing it differently.
Eclectic, classical, Charlotte Mason, unit studies, lapbookers, notebookers, the list goes on and on for different titles for homeschoolers. There is a reason that we each chose to teach our children at home: So we can teach them as individuals, not as an age group. If you ask each parent why they do this, answers will swing from one end of the spectrum to the other.
My answers have even changed over the years. After having Blue Eyes in a pre-kindergarten, we realized hubby would get to see him for about 30 minutes each school day. At the time, he had Fridays off. We would pick up Blue Eyes at nap time and head off somewhere. We had to wait until after lunch so that the days would not add up. Too many absolute absences equaled removal from school and we were trying to get him "properly educated". Hubby missed the boy. So my first answer for why was so that he could spend time with our children.
Now it is along the lines of God telling us in the Bible that we should raise up our children in the way that they should go.(Proverbs 22:6) My 10 yo and 9 yo are most of the way through a pre-algebra program. They read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and The Time Machine in the last couple of weeks. My 6 yo loves to read and asks for math pages whenever she gets a chance. My 4 yo builds and runs and talks and draws and gets to be a boy. My 2 yo joins in everything she can with gusto resulting in various adventures and messes.
It's loud. It's quiet. It's organized. It's chaos. It's running over with extra kids. It's just us few. It's our school. Even with a schedule, it is different everyday as we learn and discover together.
One of the best things about homeschooling is our differences.
Have a blessed day.
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