One - Homeschooling Series
You can gain an incredible education by studying anywhere in the world except in a school building. As a Millennial, parenting children today, I highly recommend homeschooling to you.
Knowledge, which is acquired under compulsion, has no hold on the mind. Therefore, do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to discover a child’s natural bent. Plato
If you believe the job of the schools these days, public or private, is to teach reading, writing and arithmetic, you need to re-examine what they are really doing.
If you think the schools are there to teach how to think and not what to think, you need to re-examine what they are really doing.
I get many questions about how I homeschooled my student. Especially once one finds out he’s an Aerospace engineer working in his field since graduation.
My student was what experts call “highly gifted”, which presented its own unique degrees of difficulty with homeschooling. There’s always an aura of mystery portrayed when the subject of giftedness comes up, and that was as much of a stumbling block as it was a “gift”.
I pulled my kid out of school then because I felt the school system would do harm to who he was. I imagine the idea that the school system will do harm is present in decisions being made about homeschooling in the current education environment.
The nuts and bolts of what you need to do to homeschool, no matter what your situation is, will be similar to what I had to do, and it is all common sense stuff.
Homeschooling is not just curriculum. It is a myriad of decisions about a lifestyle you’re choosing for your family.
This series, which will be presented on Thursdays, intends to deliver common sense ideas for those who want to homeschool or who are already homeschooling and need some new ideas; it will present some of the hurdles I encountered discovering and dealing with giftedness, it will lay out details of the nuts and bolts everyone who is homeschooling deals with and yes, I’ll present our curriculum.
My Story
When my student was in the second grade at a private school, teachers suggested that my student had an attention deficit disorder. Fortunately, I knew my student better than it seemed they did. Instead of rushing him to a psychologist for an ADHD diagnosis as they suggested, I explored other avenues.
I had read about “giftedness” in children, but I didn't really understand what that meant. Don’t all children have gifts and talents?
After further reading on the subject of giftedness, I had the Woodcock-Johnson tests of Cognitive Abilities and the Slosson Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests administered.
The Woodcock-Johnson tests of Cognitive Abilities tests were devised by Woodcock and Johnson in the late 1970’s and were the standard for measuring a wide variety of cognitive skills. It is a test that measures general intellectual ability, specific cognitive abilities, scholastic aptitude, oral language, and academic achievement. The Slosson Intelligence test is a quick verbal intelligence test that measures intelligence quotients (IQ) from 10 to 164 and covers a broad range of topics including general information, vocabulary, comprehension, math skills, auditory memory and more.
They were an early indicator of just how gifted my student was. He showed that he had abilities far above “the norm” in several areas. The test administrator suggested that my student was “highly gifted” in some areas and “off the charts” in other areas. The Stanford-Binet test was recommended at the time, it is a test series that measure IQs greater than 164, but I deferred that suggestion for another day as I wasn’t really sure what that would tell me.
These tests didn’t help with what to do in our homeschool, it helped with the decision to homeschool.
Naturally, at that point in my life, I shared the testing results with the school. Surely they would be able to educate a student that was “highly gifted” in some areas. They presented some ideas that didn’t feel right to me, but even more interesting was that the school claimed that they only “taught to” an IQ of 120. To this day I still don’t understand what that means.
The suggestions the school provided were that my student could stay with the current group of kids and do more advanced work in a special class once a week or he could skip a grade. They also wanted to focus on my student’s small motor issues in a special class. It seemed to me to be the perfect recipe for personal disaster for my student.
The school assumed I was seriously considering their solutions. After all, they were the experts weren’t they? What they didn’t realize was that I had been exploring another option, homeschooling.
I was a single, divorced mom who had a lucrative career before I jettisoned it to raise and homeschool a child. And it was wildly successful for both of us.
In the Fall of 2009, my student went to one of the top ten engineering schools in the United States.
In May of 2014, my student graduated with a degree in Aerospace Engineering and was hired in that field while completing his last semester.
As of 2022 he is working with that same corporation in his field using that degree. He is a well-adjusted, confident, self-reliant Millennial. He is debt free and recently bought a house.
What About Socialization?
There used to be two types of reactions from people who realized I was homeschooling my child. People who weren’t homeschooling would ask:
“Are you qualified to homeschool a gifted student?”
and
“What about socialization?”
Curiously, other homeschoolers who didn’t care about the “gifted” part, and many didn’t in those days, would ask about how many children I was homeschooling and would inquire about the topics we were currently studying.
People tend to forget that it is not necessary for students to be enrolled in a physical (or cyber) “school” to get a stellar education. Homeschools are places where real learning flourishes, especially for the gifted student.
Once your student discovers he can be in charge of his own education at home, he generally will be.
“Socialization” has several meanings and interpretations. I interpret socialization as the ability to communicate with and adapt to all kinds of people. You don’t need twenty other kids the same age as your student to ensure that they are “properly socialized”. You just need the knowledge, the imagination, the common sense and the common courtesy to be able to participate in our society in a meaningful way.
You learn this by being in society, not in “school” all day.
However, when you are speaking of the gifted student, “traditional socialization” bores him. This kind of student prefers a variety of different people and age groups addressing academic needs. That’s a no-brainer with homeschooling.
In the beginning, our “Elementary school” was called “Mariposario” which is a Spanish word that means butterfly sanctuary.
When we “graduated” to middle school level, we changed the name of our school to “Irie”.
My student, one time had to describe our “school” and here is that description:
“Right now I’m the chronological equivalent of seventh grade. I have been homeschooled for the last five years. I call my homeschool “Irie” which means “nice”, “right”, and “cool” in Patois. Patois is a Jamaican language but it is spoken all over the Caribbean.“
How many 7th graders do you know who would say that?
Homeschooling - A Great Way to Go
Being retired you can spend your days doing the things crowds prevent you from doing otherwise, like going to a popular restaurant. The same thing happens when you homeschool. While other children were returning to the boring confines of a school building, we used to have “Not Back to School” parties and especially vacations in September or October.
It’s always fun for me now to walk into a restaurant and see a large table filled with homeschoolers. They are easy to spot. First of all, you will find them at a time of the day when kids that age should be in a physical school building. The next thing you’ll observe is that the children, no matter what the ages are, will be very well behaved. They will also have manners and know how to communicate with others of all ages around them. They will be inquisitive and curious when strangers engage them in conversation.
Homeschooling is a lifestyle and it doesn’t have to involve denim skirts and bibles. It does involve sacrifices, specifically financial sacrifices but the rewards for your family is well worth it, especially these days.
Homeschooled students tend to have a broader age-range of friends than their schooled peers, which encourages maturity. Homeschoolers are not necessarily isolated from others of their age; they meet and socialize with peers in their neighborhood, on sports teams, in volunteer activities and other academic endeavors. This encourages independence and problem solving.
Homeschooled students tend to have a broader range of interests and follow through in mastering many of them. Most of the time, it is done on their own, as part of their studies. This encourages time management, critical thinking and non-conformity (individuality). It produces self reliant adults.
We traveled.
At the beginning of what we considered our “school year”, we sat down and looked at what we thought we were going to study. Then we paired that with possible trips we’d take. My Millennial learned how to use Orbitz and Expedia (online travel booking websites of the day) at a very young age when both travel sites were fledgling websites.
The greatest things I saw homeschooling do was to make my Millennial a non-conformist, confident, independent, self sufficient, critical thinker loaded with common sense.
As a Millennial, parenting children today, I highly recommend homeschooling to you as an alternative to public school and I am not talking about public school at home.
I am talking about independent homeschooling.
If you are going to make the financial lifestyle change in order to educate your children at home, do it as independent homeschoolers.
There are many styles and methods of homeschooling.
But.
If a family enrolls their child in any public education system, if they accepted a laptop and the online curriculum they are not independent homeschoolers. Any form of school at home that includes dependence on a public education system is not independent homeschooling; it is public school at home, or at-home public school.
E-Schooling is an arena where the Public Education system attempts to exert power over American families. Often the Public school system will masquerade these systems of education as “homeschooling”: Charter Schools, Cyber Charter or E-Schools, Distance learning, Dual Enrollment. These choices may be fine for some families, but this is not independent homeschooling.
Independent homeschooling means you are not dependent on the established public system of education in any way.
If you are an independent homeschooler, you have freed yourself from the power of the Public Education system, their money, values and standards.
Many of the folks who enroll in public programs they administer in their home honestly believe they are “homeschooling”, or have been sold what they are doing as homeschooling.
When families choose this option, they are authorizing a public school to exist in their home.
This means that they are subject to monitoring by the entity that sponsors the program; they are subject to the power these entities have. It also ensures that your student will be fed the same garbage they dole out in the physical buildings regarding the societal conformity they prefer and the values they want instilled.
The issue is not about choice; the issue is what these “programs” are called.
If they are called homeschooling then it endangers the regulations that independent homeschoolers already enjoy, and I believe that is the intent. Why does this matter?
It is possible that at-home public school programs may introduce unnecessary regulation for those who do not choose those programs. It is a quiet way for the public education system to regain some measure of control over independent homeschoolers.
What people don’t seem to understand is that if you have to register at the public school for any reason to receive any “service” or participate in an extracurricular activity they offer, you most likely become listed on their rosters and therefore viewed as public school participants.
Schools want you on their rosters - and they'll do it any way they can. Why? If you are on the roster, what do they get?
Funding.
The families who have to register as public school students to participate in extracurricular activities are the absolute favorite because they are on the roster as members of the school system yet their kids are not in the building all day.
As I said above, if you are going to make the financial lifestyle change in order to educate your children at home, invest wisely, do it as independent homeschoolers.
How do you become an independent homeschooler? Your best resource is the local homeschool network. Ask them what the homeschooling regulations are in your state (they vary greatly) and follow them to the letter. You can’t be protected by the regulations if you don’t know what they are. Sometimes you’ll be asked by a zealot superintendent (usually wishing to make it as difficult as possible for you) to do something other than what the regulations state, don’t. Repeat the regulations to them and stay your course (continue doing something until it has finished or been completed).
There are many resources to find the local network, search on “homeschool groups near me”. If you can’t find a group, search on “homeschool regulations by state” or you can take a look at a map maintained by the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. Once upon a time members of the homeschool community were opposed to this organization for a number of philisophical reasons, but they always had accurate information about the laws in each state: Homeschool Laws by State.
The map is pretty accurate, I checked it with the states where I homeschooled. If you are still unsure what the laws entail, you’ll have to pour over your state’s regulations. Most states in the United States have laws regulating the attendance of school aged children at the public schools. Search on “[your state name] regulations” and go to the .gov website. Typically the laws that dictate the rules for homeschooling are found nearby or around these rules in your state codified laws.
The other place to check is in the "administrative rules" for your state. Search on “[your state name] administrative rules” and go to the .gov website. Typically codified law is written by state agencies (your elected officials). Statements written by state agencies which have the effect of law are called administrative rules. By their very nature, administrative rules have a direct effect on your life and homeschool. They expand and in my opinion, sometimes pervert what the original intent of the law was.
A third place to read about how government officials may view your homeschooling activities is at the Department of Children and Family Services Services for your area. Search on “[your state name] Department of Children and Family Services” and go to the .gov website.
Am I An Expert?
Hardly.
I was an expert on my student, to a degree. Let’s just say I knew him well, almost as well as I know myself. I knew what buttons to push to get the results required at the moment.
What I learned is that there are plenty of “experts” out there who are going to tell you what to do.
Remember, you are the expert on your kid. That’s a fact.
At some point in your career as a parent and homeschooler, you may be persuaded into NOT believing you are the expert on your kid.
Some experts are more persuasive than others.
The key to successfully homeschooling is your confidence in yourself, your choices and confidence in your student.
So here’s advice for you for today:
You cannot control the words others may say to you, but you can control how the words make you feel and the way in which you react to them.
Progress, not perfection.
Every moment can be a learning moment and only you can determine if you are going absorb or react to a situation.
I also realize that the experiences I have had may not align with where you are in life, but know that my life has been shaped by many people, experiences, bits of writing, some good - some bad and over a decade as an independent homeschooler. All of this has helped me formulate a few rules that I live by:
The biggest trouble maker you will ever have to deal with watches you brush your hair in the mirror every morning.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away.
Wisdom comes from exercising bad judgment and learning from it.
I also firmly believe that you can gain an incredible education by studying anywhere in the world except in a school building.
BOOKS
Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling By John Holt and Pat Farenga.
Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education By John Taylor Gatto.
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Kudos to you for recognizing the public school system for the indoctrination centers they are…. AND…. Having the courage to act on it. They tried to convince me my son was ADHD and in need of prescription drugs. While I knew that wasn’t true, and never filled the scrips - I didn’t have what it took to homeschool. It is one of those things, that if I had it to do over again, I would do differently. Enjoyed this column very much!
Thank you for sharing such a unique, insightful article about the advantages of homeschooling—solid, practical advice. Given the current state of the K-12 school system, it's becoming more common for parents (who can schedule) to teach their children at home or even form "homeschool pods" with like-minded parents.