Why I chose to homeschool

I remember the day Mary came to me and asked me what I thought of homeschooling our kids. I believe she was pregnant with our oldest. I have to admit that as a young expecting father busy with my new career, I kind of shrugged it off. I said something like, “if you want to do it then go ahead”. I was always willing to help with some domestic duties but I thought that if she wanted to homeschool then it would be on her. Well, she does take the lead role in our kid’s education, (thank goodness for that because if I were in charge it would be a disaster!) but I didn’t realize how passionate I would become as I got more involved in homeschooling. Really, I think I reacted that way because in my mind school was school. You could do it at home, or in a government school building with a bunch of other kids. I was not interested in being a school teacher. I was still pretty entrenched in the system. Luckily, I have an amazing wife who isn’t just satisfied with the status quo and did her research.

Honestly, if I had known about homeschool as a kid, I would have loved to have done it. I had a VERY rough school experience. Right away in first grade we started alphabetizing. I struggled with it for some reason. It took me a long time and I had to sing the ABC song EVERY SINGE TIME! (Ok, I have to admit that I still do that on occasion). It took me three times longer than the other kids and the more nervous and self conscious I got, the slower I got at it. My teacher was a grumpy, frumpy, stern woman who had no empathy for children and had no business teaching sensitive young children like me. I wasn’t able to go to recess until I was finished alphabetizing. I was so slow that I never got to go to recess. As a physical person, this was a hard blow to my wellbeing. Whatever was left of my dignity was blown out of the water when one day the kids were coming in from recess and I was on the verge of tears because I still wasn’t finished and I noticed other kids looking at me with curiosity. Then my teacher came over to look at my progress and sighed in disappointment. She brought her hand down onto my head roughly and said, “Terral, why are you so dumb?” There may have been more to it than that, but that comment shattered me. I had some great teachers later that loved me and encouraged me to build my talents but I struggled. It wasn’t until my Sr. year of high school that something shifted and I realized that I learned in a different way. I still can’t tell you what I did differently but something just clicked and my grades went from mid to upper “C”s to straight “A”s. It’s amazing that I was even accepted by the university, but they let me in and I actually thrived in college. That being said, my background taught me that each kid has unique needs and learns differently. The public school system is not designed for that. I’ve heard it described as the “conveyor belt system” and that sounds about right to me!

I am part of a few homeschooling groups online, and I have been part of a commonwealth school group for several years. I’ve talked to and seen many people who are interested in homeschooling for various reasons but often have a massive concern. How can I do this? I’m not qualified! My kid needs structure or he’ll just play all day. If I could give you only one bit of advice about homeschooling then it is this: If you try to replicate public school at home, you will burn out and fail. Homeschooling requires a total shift in thinking. It can certainly be structured! Some people thrive with more structure. Other people, like me, often thrive with more options and less structure at times. There are two things that helped me shift the most in this: 1. Stop thinking of yourself as a teacher, but instead consider yourself a mentor. 2. Stop comparing progress to other kids. They all learn at different rates and they WILL learn when they are ready. Some kids take longer to read than others. That’s OK! If you try to force it you and your child will get frustrated. They’ll end up feeling like I did in first grade. Support them and look for signs that they are ready to dig in. Give them the tools and encouragement they need and you’ll be surprised at how fast they make progress. When I first heard this, I thought it sounded great, but being patient with the process was actually pretty difficult. However, I saw the results. It works. Kids are built to learn, and they will learn. Your job is to help them not force them.

The other big concern I hear from people is about socialization. Maybe that isn’t such a big deal anymore because homeschooling is so prevalent now days that there are tons of groups. But I look back at what social skills I learned in school. In all honesty, most of them were negative. I learned unhealthy social hierarchy. I wasted SO much time and energy trying to be liked by the popular crowd. I learned that vain and valueless things were what made some kids higher on the hierarchy than others. I learned lots of inappropriate words earlier than I should have. I learned how to demean other kids to make myself seem to be in power or above others. No, I wasn’t a mean kid but there were a few times that I did or said things to other kids that I deeply regret. I was just trying to be “cool”. I learned what it feels like to be made fun of for things that are actually very normal. I learned to hide my true self and hate who I was because other kids didn’t value that. I learned to avoid kids older than me because they might be mean. I recall trying to pee in the urinal in second grade when a third grader came in and kept kicking me in the rear and laughing. *See below how this ended up turning into one of the highlights of gradeschool! I did have some good friends, and I did learn some good social skills but it wasn’t anything that couldn't have been learned in other interactions with people and kids outside of school. I have watched with interest as my kids, and other homeschool kids are able to make friends easily with people of all ages, including adults and the elderly. It was always really awesome to see the older kids in our commonwealth include and interact with my kids. It really helped them to feel welcome and valued where I grew up in an environment where I felt like I had to avoid the older kids.

Yes, there are struggles with homeschooling. It is difficult at times but like with all things that matter, it requires more effort. I have really loved watching my kids grow and thrive and I have very much loved learning along with them! There is so much that I didn’t really grasp at that age and now that we’re going over it together, I am able to catch up and feel the joy and wonder of learning. Our whole life is school for our family. We do have some structured learning, but we look for opportunities for learning in everything we do. Again, Mary is brilliant with this. We don’t even drive into town without learning something about the world around us.

This is how the story of getting kicked while trying to pee ended: His last kick was misplaced and he hit me in the hip which spun me around. I almost fell down but I stayed on my feet. To my horror, I saw that in the process my pee had splattered him! His face went from cruel amusement to pure shock. He looked down at himself and then looked at me. Then the biggest surprise came when he started laughing! He admitted that it was his fault and he just left. I was bewildered. He never bothered me after that and we actually ended up in an art class together in high school. I think he was just as immature in 12th grade as he was in 3rd grade but he liked to tell that story and tell everyone how dumb he was.