Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Goals
I’m discovering that there is more anxiety involved in being a homeschooling parent than I expected.
Am I doing it wrong? Could we be more efficient about it? I’ve only got 13 years, how am I going to get through everything?
It’s easy to lose sight of the inherent advantages of homeschooling. At a very basic level, the simple elimination of counterproductive social interactions in a school environment gives homeschoolers a big advantage. If they are taught nothing beyond basic human decency, morals, and adult-level social skills, they are already better off than a significant fraction of the population.
There is a segment of the homeschooling population that believes that the installation of these social skills is the primary goal of homeschooling, to the exclusion of nearly everything else. They are called the “unschoolers”, and the dominant philosophy there seems to be “everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten”. The parents’ primary responsibility is to teach social interaction skills - don’t hit, share, be polite, say please and thank you. This teaching can be done by example in normal everyday life, and other learning can take place in a very informal way. Formal school and structured learning are not really necessary.
The unschoolers have a point. What skills does a person need to get through life? Personal hygiene, rudimentary cooking, socialization, etc - all things that can be learned in a very unstructured environment from one’s parents. That sort of schooling should turn out adults that are polite, are reasonably competent, and are able to support themselves in some way.
But the whole thing makes me wonder… shouldn’t there be more to life than this? Politeness and morality are the very bedrock of our society. Every system of schooling should have teaching these principles as it’s basic goal. But do we really want to stop there? Are we content turning out kids that are moral but otherwise ignorant?
The next step up in rigor seems to be a homeschooling structure that attempts to mimic the standard training school. By homeschooling, parents are able to improve upon traditional schools by leaps and bounds in the realm of teaching social skills and morality, but then the rest of the curriculum is adopted more-or-less intact. The usual “three R’s” form the core of the curriculum, reading, writing, and arithmetic, branching out into other related topics as the children become more capable.
The goal of this sort of homeschooling seems to be similar to that of traditional schooling, a competent individual ready and able to enter the workforce, but with the child taught social interaction by parents and family rather than by peers. Undoubtedly this is a better result than most traditional schools are able to deliver, and it is a noble goal for homeschooling parents.
However, to some extent, I still feel as if an opportunity is being missed.
I think homeschooling parents have a unique opportunity to truly educate our children, to not only teach them morality, but to teach them the historical and cultural basis for that morality. That moral culture is the very thing that has enabled Western civilization to be great - our civilization is what it is because the people in it have the morals and beliefs that they do. It is not an accident.
By pushing our kids a bit farther, by using the unique opportunity that we have given our kids in choosing to homeschool them, we are able to not just teach them to read and write, but also to connect the historical and cultural dots, to help them understand why things are the way they are, how the world got to be the way it is, and what impact our decisions are likely to make on future events.
In short, we have the opportunity to create not just moral, well-tempered, and trained young adults, but also educated people, able to be a civilizing force in the world.
Clearly not every kid has the temperament for this sort of thing. I’m not saying we should force every kid into a more rigid structure. A huge benefit of homeschooling is that the structure can be tailored at will to meet the needs of each individual kid. I am in no way advocating giving up that flexibility.
What I am advocating is expecting more from our kids when the potential is there. We should not be satisfied with the goals the rest of the world has set for themselves. We can do, and be, more.
The number of traditional schools out there that truly educate has dwindled to the point that we may be able to count them on one hand. It may very well be that the homeschooling community is the last opportunity we have for passing on the appreciation for the fundamental ideas of our civilization on to the next generation. That is not a responsibility to be taken lightly.
Comments
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I agree entirely. Homeschooling is a lot of work. You’ll always wonder if you’re doing it right.
Social skills: We work on the politeness and morality aspects. Several other families actively seek my boy as company for theirs because they see him as a good influence. I can’t tell you how proud that makes me. My girls actively work to be good influences on their gymnastics teammates. Again with the pride.
Standard training: We do this, too. I believe my grammar and vocabulary are above average. My kids correct me frequently. They also can analyze and ridicule deceptive advertising.
Education: We lean heavily toward history to help with this one. On their own, they compare situations in life and in society to historical situations frequently. I admit with some chagrin that they know much more history than I do. We also work to get them to ask fundamental questions about things they encounter rather than just taking things as they find them.
Homeschool is difficult, expensive, disruptive to other parts of life, and sows self doubt. I’d never want to do it any other way, though. I’d rather hang around with my kids than most adults I know. They’re becoming quite human, and I don’t count many people as human.
Also, I figure that when you make the decision to have children, you agree to a responsibility to form them into self-sufficient people who will contribute to society. Many of the graduates of public school achieve that, but I think, in not being educated as you define it, they are only able to live half a life at best with the joy that comes from understanding higher ideas denied them. Sad.
Weetabix | 3/26/2008 08:44 AM CDT -
As a family who is “done” all I can say is that it is WORTH it. Yes, you know that. Yes, you have doubts, but it pays off.
We’re a living, breathing example of that. Our kids are doing so well in all things (life, education, drive, being good people) it just astounds me on a daily basis.
Those daily life lessons do get through.
The only aspect of the unschooling method I recommend is to get the child involved in choosing longer term activities and allowing a focus if they get passionate about something for a while.
It’s like healthy eating--you don’t have to eat well-balance meals, but you have to get a well-balanced diet over a series of days. Trying to get balance in every meal means you’re overeating.
Mastery of a subject and the time to focus on it is one of the great advantages of the private tutoring method. If they want to learn to play an instrument, for example, they can spend six hours a day, for a month, and do that (with little else).
But without something passionate to keep them active, you have to do it (allowing for periods when they’re just “blah").
As for what to teach… you know about the 3 R’s. You know about morals, decency, manners, etc. Don’t skimp on the boring basics--multiplication tables, arithmetic worksheets, penmanship, but then bring it alive by doing things where they use it (without being overt about mentioning it every single time). Real learning, TRUE learning, is being able to apply what you’ve learned in a different environment. If they can double a recipe, cut a pie into “fifths,” etc., create an even grid pattern for planting vegetables, then you can see mastery applied. If they can’t do that, but they can recite and figure, get outside more, and spend more time on the application.
Beyond that? READ.
As another “done” parent mentioned to me when we were working on the homeschooling business, reading is THE important thing. If you can instill (through whatever method words) a love of reading, you are giving them everything. You are giving them the whole world, and the tools for discovering it.
Whatever it takes to get them to start reading (when THEY are readers--don’t force the skill of it), then introduce them to classic stories that are age appropriate.
It isn’t enough that they read crap only, but that’s a good way to start (with whatever interests them). They have to develop a healthy and diverse palate for LITERATURE. They have to know bathtub gin from champagne, and prefer the latter, even if they occasionally indulge themselves with the bathtub gin.
Mrs. du Toit | 3/26/2008 09:06 AM CDT -
Oh, and when you’re in those doubting periods, just repeat this meme:
“No matter what I’m accomplishing or feel we’re not accomplishing, it is STILL a 1000 times better than anything they’d get in public school.”
Mrs. du Toit | 3/26/2008 09:07 AM CDT -
When my eight-year-old asks questions, I make a conscious effort not to brush him off. “Why is the sky blue?”, for example, will buy him a brief discussion of light as a wave phenomenon, colors as related to wavelength, and the observation that short waves (blue) get bounced around in all directions, while long waves tend to keep going.
It has to be short enough to not bore him, of course.
I’d guess that homeschoolers are in a uniquely advantageous position to do this sort of thing...going beyond the simple surface explanation to deeper causes...and I suspect your kids will be far the better for it.
Three cheers for you!
Mark Hagerman | 3/26/2008 11:25 AM CDT -
I expect that public education has not changed all that much since I was there a dozen years ago.
The school district I attended (not an inner-city school, probably better than a lot of them) Had two main goals. First every graduated. Some dropped out, but over all, most did graduate. Second, that those willing got in to a college.
Thats it. If you are doing ANYTHING more with your children than the bare minimum for a HS diploma or entry in to a college, then you are leaps and bounds beyond even a decent public school.
Cobar | 3/26/2008 02:49 PM CDT
