Compare and Contrast

 Two articles on Home Education

Home schooling gets quite a bit of press. Most of it seems to be of the 'Aren't those oddballs interesting?' variety, but some actually shows thought and research. Some, on the other hand, shows no particular use of intelligence at all, except maybe in spelling and grammar, assuming they didn't write in Word and use the Spell and grammar checks.

Recently, while touring the exotic world of Stumbleupon, I was carried off to the National Education Association's website. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, it is the mouthpiece of the largest and most strident of the teacher's unions in the USA. For some strange reason, they hate homeschooling. Must be something about putting their jobs at risk. In this article, written by school janitor Dave Arnold, teaching children is compared to car and home repair and homeschool parents are derided as "well-meaning amateurs."

Being an amateur would be a disadvantage if there was real evidence that 'certified' teachers actually gave children better educations than parents do. Obviously, according to results of standardized tests, this is not so. The author also troubled himself to go to exactly ONE homeschool website, and proceeded to rip a few quotes right out of their contexts and into La-la land...

“It’s not as difficult as it looks.”

"Wannabees" like homeschooling parents have no idea...and apparently aren't capable of learning as they go along. This is silly. Teacher's training is supposed to make sure that the teacher can communicate their subject(s) to any child. Parents only have to learn about how their own children learn. Considering that a local teacher in my district recently recommended that 22 of the 24 kids in her class of second graders be put into special education because of their 'learning difficulties (how about the teacher's 'teaching difficulties??), I'm not sure if the lessons always stick.

“What about socialization? Forget about it!”

The site recommends that parents be careful of their children's contacts, but does recommend neighborhood kids, church groups, and other outside activities. This apparently wasn't noticed by our fine author, who decided that they meant that children should be locked in a closet. Seems he needs a lesson in actually reading the whole paragraph.

In contrast, check out this recent article by former school board member Julia Steiny, as published in the Providence (R.I.) Journal.

While Ms. Steiny says that she doesn't think that homeschooling is the best option for some families, she does see the value of it for those who dedicate themselves to it. She says that, Many home-schoolers have compelling reasons for getting their kids off the educational grid, " citing violence, incompetent teachers, lack of response by the schools, etc. She blames the last at least partly on the lack of competition for the privilege of educating the children. Since public schools may be the only game in town, at least the only one that doesn't cost large sums of money while we also pay more to the government, they have no reason to be responsive or to individualize. One thing she isn't familiar with, though, is the idea is that many parents aren't necessarily homeschooling because the local schools are bad...they mainly want to have more time and more input with their children.

She also derides the passivity of children in "traditional, factory-model schools", and says that we should "stop organizing schooling of all kinds for the benefit of the ' grownups." Meanwhile, Mr Arnold seems to personify that 'adults first" attitude that some educators and administrators have.

Julia Steiny gets it. In contrast to the unresearched ramblings of Dave Arnold, Ms. Steiny has actually done her homework, so to speak, and considered the issue from more than a knee-jerk perspective.

The End of Homeschooling

Our youngest child, Alanna, will turn seven soon. Nothing too remarkable about that: it's a pretty normal thing for those between six and eight. What's remarkable, at least in our family, is that Allie doesn't have a little brother or sister to follow her around, as her five older siblings did. She's the caboose baby, a little more cuddled and petted-and teased- than the others.

Alanna is growing up. She can read, and though she really is still best with the mid-level readers, she insists on easy chapter books because she doesn't want to read 'baby books.' Her math is nearly as good as her ten-year-old brother's and she tries to emulate his immersion in science. She admires Helen Keller and Mae Jemison, and she designs very detailed house plans. She's already discussing her college plans, because her oldest brother Evan is in college, and her older sister Claire is going back for nursing school. She wants to be an architect or a scientist. She's really thrilled with her Brownie troop, and she loves homeschool gym day at the Y.

She's growing up and blooming into her own world. And that's as it should be.

Sometimes, thinking about that makes me sad. At other times, I thrill with the possibilities. After all, I have actual free time now, often several minutes in succession. This should, most likely, increase with the years. What will I do with it?

I could think about finding uses for the leftovers of my kids' crafts and crazes, collected over years and years. It might take a while to think up good ends for:

• my daughters' fingerknitted coils - all 827 yards of them.
• 1386 mostly-blurry photos of our cats
• 14 stuffed boxes of cartoons, house plans, finger paintings, old math papers, coffee-filter butterflies and smudged copies of textbook pages.
• our collection of hamster toys
• the attic shelves of lint sculptures, play-dough creations, and broken trophies

Then I could branch out to passing along homemaking tips for very busy people. Gems like:

• Clean your kitchen floor easily by 'allowing' a child to pour a few glasses of water on it. Turn a blind eye while they slide around, spin on their stomachs, etc. When the fun is over - or the first child cries - announce that they 'got away with it this time', and assign them the job of mopping up the water. They had fun, you have a (relatively) clean floor!
• Really chic houses are decorated not with expensive paintings or time-consuming murals, but with overstuffed bookshelves, lego sculpture, petri dishes full of micro-organisms, and educational posters. A world-map or periodic table shower curtain is a plus.
• Small animals of various types are great additions to any room, especially rodents, reptiles, and the occasional insect.

Somehow, I don't think House Beautiful would be impressed.

Of course, I could look for a real job (as opposed to my current unreal one?) Here are a few appropriate jobs for a long-time homeschooling mom:

• Office manager. If I can keep six kids of six different ages, birthdays,school levels, sizes, etc., somewhat organized, then that must count for something!
• Computer technician. Not only have I been installing components and tracking bugs since a 1200 modem was considered fast, but I can even tell you how to get jelly out of keyboards, and what happens when a handful of oatmeal gets in your CD-ROM drawer.
• Educational adviser. I've been doing it a while, have advised many families, and I have ideas that are a bit...different from those of the educational establishment. My ideas about children's educational autonomy (unschooling rewritten) would shake things up - if they listened.

So, the opportunities for life after large-scale homeschooling are many, but I'm glad they're a ways away. It will all pass too soon, even though it sometimes seems like it's taking half of forever. Right now I'm happy to explain long division (yet again), read about the Battle of Hastings, find the lost hamster, play 'geography bowl' on the shower curtain, and fit in all the kisses that Alanna will give.

Happy Birthday, Allie!