Sunflower Faith

It always amazes me at the oddity that people treat homeschooling as if it is a “new concept” yet before the advent of public education, children were being homeschooled at home.

As a matter of fact, did you know that some of the very people who have played a vital role in history and we send our children to public schools to be taught about were never schooled in a public setting but were homeschooled?

You didn’t?

Here are some names to think about then:

C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Pearl S. Buck, Hans Christian Andersen and Helen Beatrix Potter.

Something interesting I learned was that in the “Chronicles of Narnia”, C.S. Lewis incorporated stories about his homeschooling experience in the books.

Homeschooling isn’t for the rich and famous; As a matter of fact, many of these “famous” weren’t famous to begin with when they were homeschooled so to say they were just “lucky” is too quick an assumption.

I also learned from “Famous Homeschoolers Throughout History“, the following:

John Adams began attending Harvard University when he was 15-years-old. Prior to that he learned to read at home and then did some studying with a local neighbor who served as a tutor. After graduating from Harvard, John Adams went on to become the 2nd President of the United States. Of course, there were other United States presidents that were homeschooled. These include Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Benjamin Franklin.

So as you can see, homeschooling is not a “new phenomena” but something that was commonplace.

Meanwhile, it is really interesting the reasons non-homeschooling or rather sometimes non-parents give to why THEY feel kids should not be homeschool, particularly when it’s not about their own child.
Reason #1-The ever famous question “What about Socialization”?

What about socialization? Homeschool children are NOT locked away in a bubble from the masses. What about children prior to attending school?

How are they, themselves, not being homeschooled? Between playing with kids in the neighborhood of various ages, going to Sunday school, accompanying parents to resturaruants, grocery stories, the library for story time, the zoo, the muesum, vacation trips, day to day outings, the post office, playgroups, the park, joining boys or girls organizations such as Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, joining organized sport, taking outside classes, where in all of this, is a homeschool child whose doing any and all of this, are being isolated and not being socialized?

Dictionary.com defines socialization as:
a continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to his or her social position.

Basically, a homeschool child will not be confine to a desk for an eight hour period with a group of same age group peers, where their socialization will be bounded by raising a hand for permission to speak and for majority of the time, not being able to really interact with each other.

A homeschool child, however, will be in a socialized enviroment where they will not only learn but will on a daily basis, learn to work and interact with people of various ages, temperament and social levels not limit to just what they are reading in a book, but in normal, everyday social events.

This will be no different than being in a workplace that is not made up of people all of the same age group and educational level, but people with different cultural backgrounds, different educational backgrounds, different experience backgrounds, not to mention different age and temperaments.

A homeschooling child gets to apply real world techniques every day and aren’t kept in an isolated bubble from everyone, no more than a child who isn’t of school age yet, isn’t kept from interacting with different people each day.

The funny thing though is then the argument goes, well, a child HAS to go to public school to learn to deal with bullies and be exposed to obscene language (yes, seriously, I was given this as an argument why kids needed to go to public school) and that it was vital to their development to learn to be around offensive people.

Uhm…okay. So then techincally does that mean parents doing kids a disservice not only trying to protect them but moving to safe, crime free, drug free neighborhoods..

What is the point of willingly wanting to expose children to this type of environment and to what purpose, and isn’t the goal of schooling of any type, be it public, private or homeschooling is to foster educational development particularly given that as for as our children’s education goes, we as a nation, are behind not only literacy wise but mathematically and science wise, not about how to learn how to fight better or be a meaner bully?

This is a pretty poor argument since statistically, homeschool children, because they don’t have the distraction of peer pressure or bullies, tend to have higher self-esteem and self-confidence, better study habits, perform academically better, are better able to be more independent and adaptable to social environments due to their exposure to working with different environmental situations

Excellent read is:The Benefits of Home-Education on the Encouraging Words page.

Love statistics? Read this interesting article about homeschooling and socialization:

Some excerpts from the article include:

1. Home schooled students are not isolated from social activities with others.
   A survey of 5,402 home schooled children revealed that, on average, they were engaged in 5.2 activities outside the home, and that 98% were involved in two or more.³ This substantiates a 1989 study finding that home schoolers are not socially deprived or isolated.⁴
2. Home schooled students are better socialized and more mature than their public school counterparts.
   A 1992 study compared twenty home schooled children with thirteen demographically matched public school children using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales to evaluate social maturity. The results showed home schoolers scored in the 84th percentile whereas the public school students scored in the 27th percentile. The researcher concluded that, “Home educators seek to socialize their children vertically, toward responsibility, service, and adulthood, with an eye on eternity.”⁸
3. Home schooled students do not lag behind conventional students in social development.
   A 1992 study compared the behaviors and social development test scores of 70 home schooled students with those of 70 public and private schooled students. The results showed no disparity in social development between the groups. In fact, home schooled children showed fewer behavioral problems, causing the researcher to conclude, “The results seem to show that a child’s social development depends more on adult contact and less on contact with other children as previously thought.”⁹

There is even a great book out about socialization and the homeschooled child:

It’s really hard to have a con against homeschooling and what I found pretty disturbing how despite the problems public schooling is facing, majority of the reasoning to send a child to public school boils down to, convenient babysitting.

I heard one parent, upon hearing that I was homeschooling, remarked how she couldn’t do it because she lacked patience and plus she just enjoy having the whole day to herself and not having to deal with the kids.

The scary thing about thoughts like that is the question, are we regulating children more and more to just being mere accessories or out of sight out of mind, keep out of the way until they are adults?

It’s difficult to justify, “well it’s free and no more worries about dealing with the kids” when it shouldn’t be about if it’s free or not, but rather, “concern that they are really learning”.

With mindsets such as that, it creates a lack of care what the child is really learning and wanting “someone else to take over the responsibility”.

Parents who home school, home school because they are genuinely concern about their children’s education and not just doing this “just because”.

Secondly, parents who home school; Home school because they VOLUNTARILY WANT to be INVOLVED in their children’s learning and development. Scary thought, but there are actually parents who want to be involved more than just going to the PTA.

Dr. Brian D. Ray,PH.d provided a very compelling and interesting reason why parents wanted to homeschool:

The most common reasons given for homeschooling are the following:

* teach a particular set of values, beliefs, and worldview,
* accomplish more academically than in schools,
* customize or individualize the curriculum and learning environment for each child,
* use pedagogical approaches other than those typical in institutional schools,
* enhance family relationships between children and parents and among siblings,
* provide guided and reasoned social interactions with youthful peers and adults, and
* provide a safer environment for children and youth, because of physical violence, drugs and alcohol, psychological abuse, and improper and unhealthy sexuality.

In a day and age, where schools are almost like war zones, teenage pregnancies, is it really a BAD thing that parents actually are both interested and want to be involved with their children; Not to mention, provide a safe but distraction free environment where LEARNING is the only focus?

Is it really that bad to want to provide kids with a safe environment to learn, but also where they can not only be able to be free to learn more than what is sometimes available in a school classroom setting. With schools cutting and almost doing away with art and music is it really wrong that home schooled children are provided this opportunity that due to tight school budgets, public schools sometimes don’t offer this.

School isn’t a free daycare.

School isn’t a social event.

School is suppose to be about learning and equipping children to get ahead academically. Socialization is the job of a parent, no one else and if a parent wants to be involved and care what their child is learning, that should be a plus not a negative or reason for criticism.

It’s interesting that there is a catch-22 to this thought. On one hand, there are teachers who often talk and criticize about how uncaring or uninvolved parents are, but when a parent, who IS the prime and should be the prime influence in a child’s life, take the initiative and decides to homeschool, suddenly they are “un-equip”.

So a total stranger is BETTER at raising and influencing a child than a parent?

And to add, say for example….you like to ski but I like to swim? They are both forms of exercise, so is it really wrong if they are not done the same way but with the same outcome? Homeschooling is basically private schooling, and parents are first and fore most, really, the first teachers in a child’s life and should always be.

A parent doesn’t stop being a parent once a child is of “schoolable age” (Okay I made that word up).

Something else to think about as JUST AN EXAMPLE, NOT ABSOLUTE FACT.

There are home schooled children ,whom, in addition, to being able to learn foreign languages, can have the opportunity, say, they want to learn Greek or Latin when that is really not normally offered in this day or age, aren’t limited to not having that choice.

Dead language one may say?

Well…Latin is the root of the English language not to mention most foreign languages.

A child that understands even basic Latin, has an easier time grasping scientific names or medical terms, not to mention, just grasping learning a new language.

This isn’t to say that IS what every homeschooled child learns.

Some may learn French, or may decide to learn Russian or Chinese.

Say, a child lives in Idaho. They want to learn Japanese? That is not a language most public schools offer and the truth is that it is common knowledge that the younger a child learns a foreign language, not only are they more likely to learn and retain but can learn more languages faster than an adult.

Not many public schools have that in their budget to offer a wide range of languages, but a homeschooled child is not bound by budget restraints or by that school board.

They can learn Spanish AND Latin AND Japanese if they wanted. (And if they can learn all three of those languages, I would love to learn how too! Lol).

As a nation, we are behind in learning foreign languages compare to other countries where most children learn not only one but many three or four different languages by the time they graduate.

How homeschooling is limiting a home school child’s opportunities is difficult to understand, in addition, homeschooling children, in all truths, tend to be more well manner and discipline due to the fact that they receive the one on one interaction that is difficult to provide in a crowded classroom but also, a home schooled child is less exposed to negative social situations that are more distractions than “helps”. By being more often exposed to positive social situations, be it with other authority figures, interactions with other homeschool children and continue involvement and guidance by the parents, children do better academically. It’s not healthy for them to have to worry more about peer pressure, bullies, gangs, overcrowded classrooms and a classroom ratio of 1 teacher to say 20 kids and they are unable to receive the one on on attention they sometimes need.

It’s NOT okay to regulate children to mere pawns.

Which leads to another “funny” reason I was given why not to home school:

Home school children need to be around someone if other home school children are at home being home school.

Okay…eyes are crossed on this one.

So…….then that says that home school children are kept from each other not to mention the whole wide world. Seriously. Think how silly that really is.

Home school children still go on field trips and who are they more likely encounter during these trips? Yes..other children and more than likely, other home school children. Interaction bound to happen. NO one lives in a bubble.

If the parents are part of a homeschooling group, anyone who actually takes the time to research would see to be a part of any group, requires-interaction.

Home school groups are great for homeschooling parents because not only do they provide a source of information and encouragement, but also activities for the kids to get together and *gasp* interact.

They still do things as a group there.

And more than likely one can count on getting to know the parents and knowing who the kids are interacting with….no different than getting to know a parent in a public or private school setting.

Homeschooling is not a foreign concept. It’s basically….private schooling. Nothing mysterious about it. Nothing awkward.

Just genuine people interested in a child’s education, only a little bit more involved than a public school setting.

Here…the parents will know exactly what their child is learning; Homeschooling children have their weaknesses and their strengths, no different than a child who goes to public school has their strengths and weaknesses.

Like public school children, if a homeschool child need extra attention, not only do they get it from their parents, but have the support of other homeschooled children and their parents and if necessary, there are inexpensive, professional tutors available if absolutely needed as a last resort.

So the argument really of no interaction, no socialization, environment, everything is really silly and not warranted.

The kids are getting the best of what is offered and honestly, it’s a great way to deepen the family bonds and it’s something to take a step back from and ask oneself….is it really that bad to want to deepen a relationship with one’s child and at the same time, offering the ability to not only succeed but to know that one day, they will be able to think and work independently?

Parents shouldn’t be criticized if THEY make the PERSONAL choice to be interested and involved in their child’s development and want the best for them. Some of the best people were the results of home schooling.

What’s next…parents are no longer qualified to be, uhm, parents?