If you happen to see us walking around town, one of the first things you will notice is our three beautiful daughters. They are amazing! Plus they are almost ALWAYS with us! If it's a 10:00 am walk to Sunshine Market or Cookie Crock for groceries, or a 12:30 quick dip into the library, or even a 1:30 Del Mar Park time, our kids are with us.
Why you ask? Well it is because we have just finished our school work for the day or are out "doing school" around town. We are a homeschooling family.
Let's Dig In . . .
The classic definition of homeschooling is simple, it's just to educate children at home by the parents. Of course there is more to it than that. At "home" usually does not mean sitting for six hours at a table inside your house with the doors and windows locked! What it does mean is learning from all sorts of rich resources available in our community and our environment outside of a "traditional" school building. Of course in our family it also means sitting at a table (or couch) for a few hours with some neat curriculum to devour as a family, together, with the windows and doors wide open!
There are somewhere between 1.7 million and 2.2 million kids homeschooled in America, and the biggest chunk of those kids are in California. And boy, do we all look very different from each other! I wish I could share photos of the homeschool families that we hang out with. We are from ALL different backgrounds and cultures, and all have very unique families!
From matching jean skirt jumpers to unbathed hippies, the word "homeschooling" brings up all sorts of images and thoughts in people's minds. Since we live in an area where people speak their minds frequently to complete strangers, we hear all kinds of comments around town on what people think about homeschooling. We also get all sorts of questions. Here are just a few of those comments and questions:
"Wow, thats great, but I couldn't imagine teaching my children all the time"
"Oh, thats nice" (Laced with sarcasm.)
"How are you every going to teach them when they are older?"
"Oh, I knew a home schooling family once..." (Followed by either explanations of how awesome or how really, really strange that family was.)
"Do you ever get a break from your kids? I couldn't spend that much time with mine!"
"What do you DO all day?"
"What about socialization?" (The big "S" word to us homeschoolers.)
"Will they be able to be social in society?" (As my kids are standing next to me having a wonderful conversation with the grocery worker.)
"Oh I would be afraid my kids wouldn't be social enough"
"Don't you feel you are sheltering your children?" (The other "S" word.)
These are all typical comments that our family and other home school families get on a daily basis as we are out in the community (being "social" by the way!). Teaching our children from home is very important to our family. For us, its a lifestyle. We are stoked to also live in an area where there are a good handful of wonderful homeschooling families.
Over the next few months, we are going to write about what it means to teach from home, from our perspective, and hopefully explain away some misconceptions people have about homeschooling. I want to add a warning though. We love homeschooling our children. We love everything about it. We think its a perfect fit for our family and we believe that done right, homeschooling has no disadvantages. With that said, these articles are not meant to judge those who do not homeschool. They are meant to inform and clarify what it means to teach from home. Sometimes when someone does something different than us, we feel judged. We are not here to judge any family. Every home is unique and every family lives in different situations. We have to do what is best for our own children and family.
There have been many, many, many things written about homeschooling, and with each of my own articles, I would like to throw out some links to a few others who have written about homeschooling.
This first one is 18Reasons Why Doctors and Lawyers Homeschool Their Children by Kathleen Berchelmann, M.D The title tells you what its about. The second one is in response to this first article, is also very well done, and is called Stereotypes. This article deals with breaking down even more stereotypes in the homeschool world. Who cares if you do wear a jean jumper, have a shy child, and teach religious curriculum? There is no room for judging.
This article has been an intro to the topics of homeschooling I feel are important to address. I hope that like in most areas of life, peoples' passionate opinions on various topics can be explored with serious, yet light-hearted dialog and exploration of individual viewpoints.
More to come next month...I want to cover the "why's" of homeschooling and then after that, I would like to write some more on the "how's" of homeschooling.
