The year has been hard, really hard, because everything has been turned upside down. We all hate change, especially this kind of forced change.
Without your consent or thought, you're now homeschooling, because your local school has opted to see your kids only on certain days, or not at all. Some of you are going to find that on the days when you send your kids to school the social distancing requirements they will impose on kids aren't going to work at all. Your kids may beg to go to school, and then they may beg to stay home. Some instructors are going to throw in the towel and go home. Teaching this way is horrendous!
The rest of my remarks are for those of you considering abandoning public schools for homeschooling. Here are some of your questions:
Will my kids fall behind?
Will they be properly socialized?
Will my teaching my kids destroy their future?
Will future opportunities be closed to them because I homeschool?
Will my kids fall behind?
I have two anecdotes to answer this question.
First, I was working on my Master's degree in Education (a completely worthless degree, by the way) back in 1990, and homeschooling was about five years old. The ugly whisper around the education department was "Those homeschoolers! They're testing at the 70th and 80th percentile on standardized tests! How can that be?"
I mentioned this data to Francis Hildebrand in the math department. Hildebrand was a free-thinking sort of person who had the ability to step back from a situation, have a look at it, and make cogent remarks about it that were true, and that irritated everyone. Hildebrand said (I paraphrase) "Hey, take ANYONE, even people who have never been schooled, not even homeschooled, and they will place about the 50th percentile on standardized tests!"
For me, that remark led to two possible conclusions. Either this says something about the test, or it says something about our schools.
Standardized tests are 'normed', meaning that the broadest possible population taking the test would include people who knew everything on the test, all the way to people who could not read the test. It is written in such a way that most people fall near the 50th percentile, the middle.
The other possible conclusion is that our schools just aren't better than the 50th percentile. Well, they can't be, because the test is 'normed'.
I was talking to Julie Sessions about this. Since the beginning of homeschooling in Whatcom County, Julie has taught the homeschool qualifying course at the community college. Parents of homeschoolers in WA must either have a year of college or take a homeschool qualifying course. Julie also used to offer the standardized testing for Whatcom County. I told her of my conversation with Hildebrand, and of my conclusions, that this says something about the test, or something about our schools.
Julie's response was "I don't think it's either of those." What?? I asked. What do you mean? "I think," she said, "that it reflects people in general, and their ability to figure out what is necessary to know, and to learn it."
How much of what you do right now did you learn in school?
How much of what you learned in school do you use today?
Who were the really good teachers, both in schools and the other folks from whom you learned something?
How much of the knowledge that you use today is stuff you realized you had to know, so you figured it out?
The second anecdote is my experience at Whatcom Community College, where I taught math through pre-calculus for 17 years. The college has a program called Adult Basic Education. This program is for people who never got an education, not even homeschool. How does that happen? It happens in schools - kids who threw down education and would not conform to a classroom setting. You knew who they were, if you attended school. It happens also in homeschooling. Some of those people who had a disastrous public school experience never want to see the inside of a classroom ever again. They tend to live in remote areas, and may or may not register their kids for homeschooling with the local district, as they are required to do in WA. The kids grow up, find they want a particular job that requires a diploma, and then show up to the community college to get one. The college has courses that start at ABC and 1-2-3.
How long does it take to get an adult through an 8th grade education? A year or two. How long does it take to get them to a high school diploma after that? Another year or two.
The conclusion is that older students are faster learners. If you feel you are dragging a child through a curriculum, then possibly it will be much easier if you just wait a bit. Kids learn to walk at different ages. They also learn to read and do their math facts at different ages.
There were also people in my math classes who did their best in school, and had disastrous experiences with math. Five to fifteen years later, they walked into my algebra classes, terrified. But I get them settled down, working on some problems, and they find it's easy. They think I've worked magic, but the only magic is that their brain is now older and better. What they could NOT do in high school is now easy, and rocket science is now open to them.
Will your kids fall behind? Maybe. It depends on what 'behind' means! But they will catch up, when they decide they need to. And when their brains are older and better, they'll learn it.
Will they be properly socialized?
Good heavens! Is school where you send your kids to be properly socialized? In my experience teaching homeschoolers in small groups we had kids from both homeschooled-only settings, and kids with a classroom background. The disruptive kids were almost always the ones who had learned these behaviors in a classroom setting. We heard all the time from parents about how nice our homeschooled kids were to each other.
Take your kids to church to get them properly socialized. They will learn that 'red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight', and the golden rule, and that it's an omniscient and loving God and not Santa who will find out who's naughty and nice.
And then there's the social classroom of the bus, which starts and ends each day. I don't think I need to elaborate.
And then there's social media. I don't think I need to elaborate.
Will my teaching my kids destroy their future?
Only if you hate your kids. You love your kids! You know how to give your children good things. You already invest in things that you know nothing about so your kids can have experiences you can't provide. Riding lessons. That box of art supplies. Dance and piano lessons.
A better question is: Who are the people I want to get in front of my kids? The ones who will set their brains on fire for learning? Be thinking about that, and not your own inadequacies.
Will future opportunities be closed to them because I homeschool?
Again, I saw literally hundreds of people who were products of public schools in my college classrooms, repeating, or taking for the first time, classes they should have had in high school. I saw people who could not do algebra in the 9th grade have rocket science opened to them. Some of them went on to do rocket science! When they get a fire under them to learn something, they will go around or leap over all the barriers, or even plow through them, and learn it. It might not happen while they are under your roof. Sometimes it takes some life experience to motivate them. Sometimes it takes a class from the school of hard knocks to motivate them. That will make you sad, but you can't prevent it all.
Your job is to do your best. Observe, observe, observe. Your elementary age kids often don't have the vocabulary or life experience to decide what's happening to them. They love you, and will often tell you what they know you want to hear, and not truly how they are feeling. Keep talking, and keep watching. If something is 'off', then ask YOUR parents, or your spouse's parents. You'll often hear something like "You were just like that at that age." You got through it! So will your kids!
Limit screen time. Consider eliminating screen time.
Before there were devices, there was a summer I looked at my kids and said, "We're turning off the TV. If you spend the summer in front of the TV you won't remember there was a summer." Like your television, your device is mostly a piece of equipment to deliver advertising and tell you what you need to buy. The library still has books. There is a time and a place for learning via the web. Consider limiting the use of your device to looking up something, and not for entertainment.
No conclusions, just questions
How much of the knowledge that you use today is stuff you realized you had to know, so you figured it out?
Where do you go today to figure out what you need to know?
Who are the really good instructors you want to have your kids in front of?
When is the last time you pushed yourself to learn something, and did it in front of your kids?
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