Teacher Notes

As I draw closer to the end of this pregnancy, I find myself struggling to reign in frustrations and gauge how kindly I’m communicating with others.  It’s only natural, I suppose, but sometimes we need to hand our “natural” over to the Lord.

My frustrations come from ever so slight questioning by loved ones on whether or not we should be homeschooling.  They’re so well intentioned, I’m certain.  My frustration isn’t so much with the individuals, but with the whole philosophy against homeschooling that seems to permeate our culture.  I would file under that category:

-The priority of friends over academics.  Yes, both are important, I won’t deny that.  However, is it right to say that hanging out with friends is more important than a good education?  What about the priority of family?  Families haven’t been doing such a great job in our country lately, which is why many public school teachers feel that they must fill in the gaps so that at least someone is looking after this child and teaching them about things that used to be the roll of the parents.  I’ve heard numerous teachers complain about this.  As schools try to reach out to fill the gap, parents step back even further, and do whatever the school wants them to do because “they’re the experts” as I’ll rant about later. 

When it comes to these 3 items, I would hope our family would prioritize them as: family, education, friends.  Maybe education is tied with family, I don’t know.  Those 2 kind of mesh together at home as they are not separate.  At any rate, family/education is over friends.  I’m realizing some people have a problem with that, and feel it is a bit selfish in our part.  Upon reflection of that thought, I can honestly say it doesn’t feel selfish.  It feels sacrificial.  I don’t know, maybe there is some selfishness in there of wanting to be the one to teach my kids some of these things.  I honestly don’t believe that we’re doing it for purely selfish reasons, though.

–The assumption that just because my kids are homeschooled, they don’t have friends, or they don’t spend much time with friends, and all their friends are as sheltered as they are.  I chuckle at that because I feel like my kids see their friends all the time, I wish we could be home more to do more school as we seem to be running around a lot lately, and several of their friends are public schooled.  Sure, some homeschool families cocoon themselves, but I find them to be few and far between.  At least with my experience. 

Really, though, I’ve learned that comments made about socialization are about the most ill informed that I get, and they’ve started rolling off my shoulders faster than any other comments.  It’s hard to get mad when someone means well, but is educated badly.  You bring up socialization with a homeschooling mom, and you’re not going to win that argument.  Not only have they had that argument 1,243 times before, but pretty much all the data and science and logic is with them.  You might get flooded with tons of information that you didn’t even want, or she may start laughing uncontrollably.  So don’t say I didn’t warn you.  

–The idea that public school should oversee homeschoolers to make sure they’re doing a good job, or that you need a teaching degree to homeschool.   This one just gets under my skin.  Probably because I read Dumbing Us Down and am a big fan of James Taylor Gatto (the author) who is a retired public school teacher and winner of the “teacher of the year” award a couple of times I believe.  I read that book last year and it totally “ruined” my idea of the roll of public schools.  The fact of the matter is, different states have different regulations for homeschoolers.  Multiple studies have shown that regulations have ZERO effect on how well homeschoolers do.  It does not improve their education, it just lets the state into your home, into your parenting, to regulate how you raise your kids.  Many homeschoolers don’t send their kids to school so that they will get a different kind of education, and regulation is there to make sure that they get the exact same kind of education, which defeats the whole purpose.  I’m fortunate enough to live in a state that is pretty friendly to homeschoolers, but I still get comments related to that philosophy. 

I am not anti-public schools, and don’t mean to portray that.  It’s just, I don’t hold public schools as the gold standard in education that we must all strive for.  I don’t believe they are the expert in my child.  They may have insight into what is going on, and I’ve had some very smart teachers advise me out of ruts I’ve gotten in my own teaching. 

I think the greatest confusion is that homeschool moms are not running traditional classrooms.  Public school teachers do this amazing thing of handling 25-30 students at once, all with different stuff going on at home, all with different gifts and abilities and challenges.  They don’t control whether or not that child had Mountain Dew for breakfast or if their parents are involved or not.  Yet they press on and despite having a lot stacked against them, work to get their job done.  Having school teachers in my own family, I know that a ton of their job is running through miles of red tape and test prepping that would make most normal people’s head spin. 

That doesn’t resemble my job at all.  I work one on one with my students.  I make sure they get a good breakfast, and we stop school and switch gears to do chores or open reading time if they need a break.  I tuck them in bed at night.  I discuss biology with them on the way home from the grocery store.  There’s some crazy office romance I have going on with the principal of our homeschool.  We play math games when we’re making lunch.  I sure as heck am not qualified to manage a big classroom, but I’m certain I’m qualified to educate my kids.  We’re talking about 2 different job descriptions. 

People don’t stop and think about that, though.  I wish we could open up our minds and think that all of us should be educators.  You don’t need a degree to teach Sunday school.  You don’t need a certificate to read a book to a child, and help them sound out words.  I wish every single adult we encounter out there would take the time to look at a child and explain to them what they are doing, and satisfy their bottomless curiosity. I believe every single one of us has something to teach…something to give.  We may not all be classroom managers, but we can all be educators. 

People, don’t think that way, though.  They believe only certificated, trained, unionized teachers should do the teaching, and the rest of us should contribute only through our tax dollars to hire more qualified, unionized, certified teachers.  They believe education takes place at a desk, with pencil and paper, with tests and reports. We do teach our kids some things that way, but the longer I’ve homeschooled, the more my mind has opened up to how much BIGGER education is than that.  That’s mainly what the book I mentioned above talks about.

I wish that teacher’s unions would stop telling people that teachers are the only qualified people to teach, and I wish our overworked teachers would get flooded with volunteers from the community wanting to read to kids, and mentoring kids so it wasn’t all on the shoulders of our teachers.  I wish people knew they had something to give, and you don’t have to be an expert to give it. 

I’m sure that would just be disastrous as I’m sure there would be some sort of regulation/red tape as to who could see the kids and read to them, and some sort of volunteer screening.  It would end up just like New York’s city homeless shelters who no longer accept food donations because they’re unable to monitor the fat, salt, and fiber content of donations.  Charity regulated.  Giving regulated.  Public giving stopped, government financing only.  Sigh.

Along with this exaltation of the public school system, people are always so eager to point out, “While you may be doing a good job homeschooling, some people do a bad job academically with their kids, and some people don’t socialize their kids, and their kids end up very messed up, and they end up being the problem of the public school system.”  For those teachers who have dealt specifically with those situations, I’m sorry they had to deal with that.  I know it happens.

I am pretty sure, though, (and pretty much every study done on homeschoolers confirms this) that while homeschooling families have produced less than stellar results at times, they produce less — less stellar results than the public school system in our country.  It happens less often.  Public schools kids have higher dropout rates, lower college entrance rates, and less community involvement as adults than their homeschooling counterparts. 

Now, I don’t believe we should run our lives based off of what studies say, but what God has called us to do.  So if God called you to send your kids to public schools, than you better do that, and put your whole heart into it.  Support your kids’ education.  That’s just it: I don’t believe there is a one-size-fits-all way to educate.  Homeschooling may not work for your family, and that’s okay!!  Every family should figure out what works best for each of their kids.  God has made the parents the authority of what is best for their kids…not the government, not some blogger, not your next door neighbor.  The parents and the parent alone will have to stand before God on this issue on how they chose to raise their children. 

I don’t like public schools telling homeschoolers “you need to do it this way…” as if there were only one right way, and they have the edge on that market.  They are the experts in ONE method of education (the modern/Dewey/classroom kind), but as I have learned, there are several.  Most people looking into homeschooling curricula can relate, and have had their heads spinning within hours at the choices out there.

However, I’m still looking for the reason that public schools are superior, and need to oversee regulate, and direct my work.  If the public schools financially supported our homeschool, I would understand that, but they don’t.  It’s hard to communicate that without seriously offending my friends who work in the public schools or send their kids to public schools.

And now I need to stop rambling and get some school done…and laundry…and dishes…and probably some cooking.  Hopefully I didn’t say something especially moronic today.  I don’t have time to proofread anymore.  I apologize in advance for any broad generalizations I may have made, and it’s only my reaction to broad generalizations I’ve heard personally made towards homeschooling.  I think I’ll add my old disclaimer for comments on my blog just to be safe:

I don’t care if you leave comments disagreeing with me, and I actually enjoy good discussion from multiple points of view.  So don’t feel like you’re being mean for disagreeing with me because you might have some good information to share.  However, anonymous mud-slinging type of comments aren’t allowed.  You can’t anonymously post “You’re stupid” or something along those lines and not expect me to delete it.  I like to keep my space on the internet bully-free and clean.  So just leave your first name, even if it’s fake, and make sure your comment is contributing to the conversation if you feel you must comment.