Why homeschool?
Before we begin,
homeschooling is easily not for everyone. What I’m not going to do is tell
you that homeschooling is a better option than going to a public school. I’m also
not going to tell you why you should choose homeschooling. That’s for you to
decide. I’m going to give you facts about homeschooling and reasons why it may
or may not be a more successful option for you.
I’m going to assume that if you’re reading this article you
have at least some interest in homeschooling. What prompted that interest? You
could be sick of the busy work assigned in school that teaches you nothing and
would like to have more free time to pursue your interests. Maybe you feel unchallenged
– or too challenged – by the rigor of curriculum in public schools. You might
only be looking for an end to the amount of straight up annoying things that happen
within public schools: fights, bullying, and dealing with people who seemingly hate
you for no reason. Determine the reason you’ve become interested in
homeschooling. From there, it will be a lot easier for you to decide if you’ll
do well as a homeschooler. After you’ve determined why you want to pursue
homeschooling, the next (if not the first) natural question, “what is
homeschooling?” becomes a lot easier to answer.
Okay. But what, exactly, is
homeschooling?
What indeed? It’s whatever you want it to be. There is no real
“standard” or “stereotypical homeschool”. The true beauty of homeschooling is
in its potential for flexibility and customization.
Homeschooling is customized to fit the needs of the student.
It’s up to you or your parent(s) to decide what you learn, how you learn, where
you learn, and why you learn it. Homeschooling is choosing to take control of
your education. If that sounds a little corny to you, consider the implications
of your education in general. If you’re in public school, you spend close to
eight hours a day, five days a week in school. This doesn’t include any
after-school activities or commuting. You do this for twelve years (I’m
obviously generalizing here). Homeschooling allows you more control over what you do with
those twelve years.
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| This is definitely not how it works |
Some homeschoolers are taught directly by their parents.
This is a rare phenomenon even though it is commonly misconstrued as the
definition of homeschooling. One of the main general criticisms of
homeschooling is that parents “are not qualified” to teach their children. Homeschoolers
can take classes from co-ops, which might be found through a homeschool group
and sometimes resemble small schools. Co-ops are groups of homeschoolers who
learn together. They designate parents and perhaps private tutors as teachers
for classes that take place at a certain location. Many homeschoolers choose to
take their classes online. Some homeschool kids take dual credit classes at a college
near to where they live. Some hire private teachers. Most homeschoolers use
more than one of these approaches, depending on the subject, grade level, or
other factors such as availability or cost.
There are a couple things you’ll want to consider no matter
why you want to homeschool.
- If you plan on graduating, you’ll want to keep your
state or country’s graduation requirements in mind. If you’re college-bound,
you might want to consider shooting for the higher grad requirements. These
vary by area, make sure you understand your graduation requirements to avoid
unfortunate situations down the road. Visit your state's board of education website for more information.
- There are legalities you'll also need to be aware of. Homeschooling laws vary greatly by state. For example, in Pennsylvania, it's required to submit an Affidavit to the local school district every year. You'll have to work on the required subjects for a certain amount of hours and log your reading material. 3rd, 5th, and 8th graders are required to take standardized tests. All of this information as well as the test scores and some work samples goes into a portfolio that gets evaluated yearly by a qualified professional who ensures adequate academic progress is being made. In Texas, you don't have to worry about any of these things.* You need to understand your state's homeschooling requirements in order to homeschool. The HSLDA's website is a good starting point for accomplishing this.
What do I do for curriculum?
Again, there is no straightforward answer to this. Each of
the many styles of homeschooling has different kinds of curriculum. You first
need to decide why you want to be homeschooled. Then, choose the style of
homeschooling that interests you the most or you’re most comfortable with
pursuing. After that, your curriculum options will already be narrowed down
significantly.
Keeping graduation requirements in mind, jot down or think
up what kinds of courses and classes you want to take. From there, there are a
few paths you could take. Common types of homeschooling include:
- Charlotte Mason (faith based, "living methods")
- Unschooling (minimalistic structure, learn by doing and living)
- Eclectic (mixes and matches styles according to child/subject)
- Classical (rhetoric, logic, literature)
- Virtual school (online public school, not homeschool, but school at home)
- Unit studies (tie every subject into the current theme or topic being studied)
If you do a quick search for “homeschool curriculum”, you
will find a good amount of faith-based programs. If this is up your alley,
there’s no problem. If you’re looking for secular materials, never fear. There
are a lot, you just have to be more specific in your search or use products that
are not solely marketed to homeschoolers. Many of the major homeschooling
websites will link you to curriculum by subject and grade level. You should be
able to find a decent amount of resources that include curriculum reviews and
trial versions of different products. If you’d like to do more heavy research
before committing to a class or curriculum provider I would suggest using the
trials, especially if you’re trying to decide between two similar products.
If you're completely unsure of where to start,
homeschool.com has an extensive list of curriculum with reviews and so does
homeschoolreviews.com. You might want to consider using free materials as curriculum. If you know anything about
MOOCs, those can work great if you're self-motivated enough to utilize them. Look around and try not to get overwhelmed by the amount of choices. Once you decide what type of homeschooling curriculum you want to use (online, physical workbooks, co-op classes, virtual schools) you've done half the work.
Most of the information you're going to find is geared toward parents. A vast majority of the prominent homeschooling websites are outdated looking and mom-ly but they're certainly well-intentioned and most have decent and helpful content. Attempt patience, hopefully in the near future the general presence of homeschooling will update itself. In one of my upcoming posts, I'll shoot you a few ideas to get your parents on board with homeschooling if they aren't already.
* I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not sure how often homeschooling laws get updated so check your state's homeschooling laws and grad requirements before making a decision to homeschool.
