Why Do We Homeschool?
I've been asked this more times than I can count, and I actually have
trouble answering it. Not because I don't have good reasons for homeschooling
(of course, that begs the question of who's to say what's a "good
reason" for a parent to raise her children a certain way, and why no one
asks if parents have "good reasons" for sending their kids to public
school, but I digress), but because I have so internalized my reasons for homeschooling
that I don't often think about them explicitly, and thus have trouble
articulating them on demand. So here are, off the top of my head, the reasons
why we are a homeschooling family:
I think every homeschooling family will have a different answer to this question.
In our family, we homeschool for many reasons... by homeschooling, my kids
can learn at their own pace and in their own way. If one method of teaching/learning
isn't working, we can try something else. They have more freedom to follow
their interests at home than in school. We can teach whatever way works best
for them, without being constrained by politics, fads, bureaucracy, or the
logistics of teaching 30 kids at once. We're constrained by our family's
budget, but that's easier to manage than the budget constraints of a school
or school system.
We don't have to worry about bullies, peer pressure, teachers yelling at our
kids, bad influences, or having religion or nationalism pushed onto them. Our
kids don't have to learn the "hidden curriculum" of racism, sexism,
classism, authoritarianism, and sublimating their daily activities and even
their bodily functions to the ringing of bells.
We don't have to schedule vacations or appointments around a school schedule.
I'm present for so much of my children's lives and get to see them as they
learn and experience things, instead of the typical "Hi, sweetie, how
was your day?" "Fine." Homeschool enhances the parent-child
bond, while school erodes it.
Basically, it boils down to the fact that while there are abysmal schools and
fantastic schools and everywhere in between, they are all set up with the goal
of educating large groups of kids in a way that is good for most of them and
feasible for the teacher and the system, but when I homeschool my goal is educating
MY kids in the way that is best for THEM.