One of the best articles I have read about home schooling

Bill Masen - September 8, 2021

Over the 40 odd years I’ve been into prepping/ off gridding/survivalism I have noticed a slow but steady increase in the number of people making great personal sacrifice to home school or local group home school their children.  And like the article below I remember it being mainly hippies and anti establishment types  doing it in the beginning. But that has changed both in the US and abroad. More and more enlightened and concerned parents are now withdrawing their kids from the highly politicised state education systems.

And by pure coincidence I found a home schooling group in a large new garden village only 3 miles from my place. This garden village is full of huge homes and many VERY successful professionals ( its even got its own golf course and spa) Yet these accountants, senior management, lawyers, MDs etc are openly hostile to both STATE and PRIVATE school offerings in this area. Hence multiple families now cooperate with home schooling, even hiring teachers when necessary to teach the kids subjects the parents dont have the skills to do.

Personally I believe through my own personal experiences that home school kids get a broader far reaching education and it creates more questioning minds than state offering do.

I also see the political indoctrination of our children by certain interested parties as a clear threat to our childrens developments.

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/american-homeschooling-goes-boom

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I too have seen an uptick in homeschooling over the years, and especially this past year with covid. There are many pros and cons for this way of learning, and I think parents should evaluate their child’s development, personality, and local school curriculum to know if it is the correct choice for their child or not.

I went to public school and one of my best friends was home schooled. I’ll share some of the differences that I have noticed between us. 

I tend to have more world experience and social skills. I had to deal with bullying, making and losing friends, being around a wide variety of people, group sports, and learning from all the quirks that each person around me brought.

My best friend is an introvert, asks many simple questions that I thought anyone who was an adult should know by now, and is still developing friendship skills. Although, my friend is vastly more book smart than I am. She was able to graduate from high school two years early because she learned at her own pace, and didn’t have to sit through a class with a lesson tailored to the center of the bell curve for an entire class.

No real right or wrong decision here, just different. 

I do have another friend who is raising their son and instead of public school or homeschooling, they are unschooling. Pretty much it means that instead of a set curriculum, they learn through play, household responsibilities, travelling, movies, and just going through life. I don’t know how their son is going to end up as an adult, but I would guess that he will be way behind in basics like reading, writing, spelling, math, and other things you learn in school if your teacher is just going out in the yard and playing. He is already eight years old and is just barely starting to learn how to read basic ‘Pop likes to hop’ books.

 

Part of the differences between you and your friend may just be personalities. One kid of mine…….social butterfly that wants to make friends with the world. He would invite Jack the Ripper in for a snack. Other kid..quite happy with doing his thing and really does not want/need other folks in his airspace. It may also be differences in family structure/values. Some people value quantity of people around, some value quality. 

While I am not an unschooling fan myself, different kids excel at different things Twin 1….perfect handwriting and spelling. Twin 2….same teaching at the same time….oh my. Good luck with reading his writing. But his fave bedtime reading was the thesaurus so I am okay with that. Oldest kid refuses to play any instrument other than piano, pipe organ and harpsichord….twin 2 plays 9 instruments.

We call it “kitchen math” as the kids learned to read recipes, follow directions, temps on oven, pH meter for canning, a 1X1 inch square brownie is MUCH smaller than a 2×2 inch brownie<smile>, baking is chemistry and lots more things to learn in the kitchen. So we do go off script for things like home repairs so the boys also have skills in addition to 3 Rs. 

liebrecht

 

We homeschool our kids, for a couple of reasons. One, I strongly believe in parents raising their own children, which seems like almost a foreign concept these days. Second, we don’t think our oldest son would do well with a government school. He’s strong-willed and independently minded, two things school administrators hate.

We go through an umbrella school, which is like a private shell school that handles the paperwork and legal stuff for us in exchange for a nominal annual fee. We also have our oldest enrolled in a “tutorial” where he goes once a week for additional lessons and playtime with other kids.

Probably the hardest and most expensive part is settling on the curriculum. We had to go through a lot of books to settle on stuff that works.

 

That’s great that you are homeschooling your children. You know them best and can give them the personal attention and care they deserve. You and your wife are able to meet their needs more than a teacher with a class of 30 kids would be able to.

Was it a hard decision for you as a couple? Were you unanimous or did one have to sway the other?

 

As part of my family’s preps, I have put a little thought into possible SHTF home schooling education for my children. What if there was a long term lockdown and the internet goes out for some reason and it’s up to me and my wife to teach my children? Very unlikely, but we still prep for it a little.

I’ve gathered various books, and materials that I could make up some kind of schooling experience for them so that at the tail end of the disaster, they will have learned something on top of going through that hard trail. 

 

Bill, great topic! We homeschooled our boys for 10 years, from early elementary through high school. We used a local public charter school to maintain records and standardized testing but were free to choose curriculum within framework of fulfilling learning goals. Every vacation was a field trip, so fun! As they got older they mostly did live classes with other homeschool kids or community college classes for dual credit. Both received wonderful scholarships at a well regarded local university that valued their work ethic. They both graduated with honors and Master’s degrees in great fields that pay a living wage and have excellent jobs that suit them. All while I worked as a realtor to supplement hubby’s wages. When people heard we homeschooled they always asked about socialization. I always said, ask the boys! The doubters were always shocked to converse with articulate, well rounded kids who could effectively communicate without their phones. 😉 It’s not for everyone, as it’s definitely a lot of work to do it right, but if your kids are on board and you seek out a good support system it can be awesome. I’ll never regret all that extra time I spent with them learning, exploring and guiding their future. 
I’m happy to share advice/experience if some of you have questions.