By Vorjack
My mother recently admitted to me that if she had it to do over again, I would have been home-schooled. This was a shock, since my mother recently retired after 40 years of being a middle school science teacher. My mother has resisted all attempts to get her to teach outside her field, yet she wanted to teach me math and history?
But she probably could have done better than the soccer coach who taught me health, or the English teacher who simply had us read from the history text book. There’s no way around the fact that our local school system was below average. There’s also the fact that I was an unmotivated student. Perhaps if she could have controlled my education herself, she could have kept me interested. Or at least insured that I got my homework done.
There are many reasons why parents might wish to home-school. On one side you have the liberal-ish “unschool” movement, which stresses the benefits of an individualized education. Even more extreme are the “no-schoolers,” who reject curriculum and allow the kids to study what they want, how they want. On the other end you have the religious sects who want to insure that their children receive an education that is compatible with their traditions, and prevent their kids from being exposed to harmful influences.
Home-schooling as a movement remains poorly studied. It can be traced back just over forty years, or just over twenty for the conservative Christian version. Differing reasons for home-schooling meet with different school systems and differing state regulations for home-schooling, resulting in a complex and diverse mix of experiences for both parents and children.
Studies of Studying
Pullquote: “The more of the system’s tentacles that you can break off from you, the healthier you’re going to be.”
That’s what makes Robert Kunzman’s book, Write These Laws on Your Children, so valuable right now. Kunzman has spent two years traveling across the country and visiting six families of conservative Christian home-schoolers. He provides us with six case studies, interlaced with essays about various aspects of the home-school movement, like the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and Generation Joshua. While we still lack data about the movement as a whole, we can at least get a look at what’s going on inside those homes.
What we immediately find is that “what’s going on” depends on which home you look in. There is tremendous variety within the movement, and Kunzman looks at how each family deals with issues of education, citizenship, diversity and home-school regulations.
The families range from the Palmer family in a LA suburb to the Branson family in Tennessee. Debbie Palmer has a degree in Child Psychology and several years of teaching experience. Her nine children benefit from this, but one girl wanted art classes her mother couldn’t provide, so she was allowed to go to a public high school. Several of the children correspond with non-Christian friends, and the parents play hands-off.
The Branson family is different. Kunzman handles each case with balance and humanity, but it’s clear that sometimes things just aren’t working. The mother seems strained and impatient, and her teaching is haphazard. She’s dealing with seven kids, and has an older child in the hospital following a car accident; there are no substitutes for this teacher.
The father is a frequent distraction and an actual impediment to learning. He’s a big fan of corporal punishment, and a follower of Michael & Debi Pearl, authors of the extremely controversial To Train Up a Child. The father is also extremely anti-authoritarian — “The more of the system’s tentacles that you can break off from you, the healthier you’re going to be” — at least, he’s against every authority not his own.
As a mother who home-schools once said to me, “To be an effective home-schooler, you have to have the right teacher and the right student.” In other words, sometimes the best of intentions and all the resources in the world aren’t enough. What works for one family won’t necessarily work for another, nor will the same techniques work for every child in the family. The Palmer family has its problems, but seems to function smoothly. The Branson family does not.
To Be Continued …
As this is turning into a hefty review, I’ll break it up into two sections. Next time, home-schooling and evolution.
Vorjack is a librarian/archivist and a public historian, living with his wife in history-soaked Albany, New York.
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25 Comments
Enlightening. I’ve heard good and bad about homeschooling in the US. This book focusing on Christian homeschoolers, who I presume have chosen this education method primarily or heavily weighted for religious reasons (the last statistic I read concluded that about 40% of homeschoolers do so solely for religious reasons and 70% cite religion as an important factor), should thin the fog a bit and hopefully provide sociology and legislation something to work with.
Good or bad teaching aside, it’s still a mystery to me why the US feels that a part of freedom is to deny your own child access to education and treat it or them like pets or other property, should you consider that proper parenting, hands off, society, please.
Children raised in a decidedly antisocial environment, a tribalistic one at best, set up for a future of failure in an environment they were not prepared to live in, set up for retreat back into the safe seclusion from the world among the tribe, the increasingly segregated subculture.
Felix wrote…
> Good or bad teaching aside, it’s still a mystery to me why the US feels that a
> part of freedom is to deny your own child access to education
Very few of us would equate “education” with attending a government-approved institution. Many many other situations and activities can be educational.
With respect to home-schoolers, you could accurately say that they “deny [their] own child access to a government-approved educational instituation.” If you instead say that they deny their child “access to education,” it’s either imprecise wording, or intentional propaganda.
A study that shows that reading a certain book has harmful effect may be useful information to the public, but it’s practically irrelevent when it comes to legislation or public policy. The individual’s right to make his own judgements re what to read is so important, that an extremely high standard should be used before abridging that right based on others’ opinions about what’s harmful.
Likewise, if the public or the authorities have some evidence that home-schooling may have effects they consider negative… it’s not in itself sufficient to warrant legislation against it. A parent’s decision on how to educate their own children takes precedence over their neighbors’ opinions about how it should be done. The neighbors have far less at stake in the decision.
I am a public school teacher (not full time) and I see many struggles in the classrooms and I have considered home-schooling, though not that seriously. In some respects, many students are learning despite their education which makes me wonder what impact teachers are making.
Behaviour and motivation are two large stumbling blocks in schools. Good students are held back in classes designed to move everyone at the same speed and poor students cannot keep up. I don’t understand why schools do not adopt the same approach to education as piano or swimming lessons – advance only when you’ve mastered the skills at each level. Further, every student does not need to learn all the things we teach them. If a teacher cannot answer the question, “why do I need to learn this?” with a convincing argument, why force a child to learn it? Better to wait until the child (or adult) reaches a point where they do need to learn a skill and they will be motivated to learn and do so quickly.
I’m an advocate for demolishing ‘grade levels’ and putting ’skill levels’ in place. If a ten-year-old can do Grade 8 or 9 math, why not put them in that class?
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on this.
I ‘homeschool’, but we are actually part of the public school system. It’s an online schoool, with all the materials being sent to our home and the curriculum completely planned out along with a certified teacher who makes contact with her students on a daily basis either through email or virtual online classrooms. Our daughter is able to do exactly as you suggested, learn what she can quickly and take time on the things she’s not quite grasping. There are no time limits and she can advance to the next grade in any topic as soon as she has mastered the previous grade material. If the brick and mortar schools could follow this example I’d be happy to place her there.
My husband was a TA during his graduate degree work and the only thing he could see that these undergraduates had learned in high school was how to send and receive text messages.
As for socialization; there are plenty of other places for her to connect with others besides school. Girl Scouts, sports, dance/music classes, part-time job, etc.
But, as mentioned in the article, home-schooling does not necessarily fit all. It is true, you have to have a willing student and teacher.
And no, we are not religious so that wasn’t a reason behind our choice in the slightest.
Happy Blasphemy Day
I’m fascinated by your fascination with this topic, VorJack. I’m also glad that someone has the motivation to actually study what few studies there are on this topic — so thanks for your willingness to do the legwork and post your reviews.
I do have one comment on your post:
I took some flack in the first thread (and rightly so) about this topic, because my arguments were anecdotal, which they were, as were mostly everyone else’s. As the conversation about this topic moves forward, I think we would all do well to remember that “case studies” are just that; whatever conclusions Kunzman draws or whatever illuminations he offers may be very insightful and helpful, but we should remember that generalizations based on those conclusions should be tentative, given the nature of a case study.
The horse may be deader than dead by now though, so maybe it’s a moot point :)
“I’m fascinated by your fascination with this topic, VorJack.”
You read so well for someone who was home schooled. Oh, and I’ll take fries with my order.
:)
You sure you don’t want the onion rings for $0.39 more?
You are one heck of a salesman, son. Sure, give me the rings.
I’m fascinated by your fascination with this topic
I’m fascinated with the fact that you find my fascination so fascinating
Wait, does that make me a fasc-ist? Damn, now I’m getting all confused.
As the conversation about this topic moves forward, I think we would all do well to remember that “case studies” are just that
Granted. Further, there’s a self-selection problem here. Kunzman is only interviewing those families that can and will give him a fair amount of their time. However, Kunzman holds that there are no reliable statistics right now, so these kinds of thing is all we’ve got.
Hopefully that will change, but I’m not optimistic. Given the biases of many of the people involved, I imagine that a lot of families will simply refuse to participate in government funded surveys or cooperate with census takers.
I would like to point out that the terms you used ‘unschool’ and ‘no-school’ are actually two parts of one whole.
I homeschooled my son after several bullying incidents at his public school (no tolerance seems to equate to “look the other way”)… we did a form of unschooling, which consisted of combining his interests and day-to-day life to be sure he was learning what he needed. This year we have decided to go with the public school at home option. It is sad, because some of these zealots give the rest of us a bad name. I wish that we could have some sort of check and balance system that is consistent from state to state.
Ok, I’m through rambling now… sorry.
I went to schools that were dangerous to attend. Everyday there was an instance of violence and everyday I went to school with great fear. My children go to school in rural areas where they don’t get the benefit of schools with more money and opportunity-but they don’t worry about getting mugged or beat up.
I vowed I would never allow them to be subject to the things I dealt with, and if we had to, we would have homeschooled.
Yes, to reiterate what Sandra said – your definition of no-schooling is actually that of unschooling. Anything with any sort of structure imposed by someone other than the child is not unschooling.
My apologies. My homeschooling friends – such as the woman I quote in the last paragraph – fit Kunzman’s description of a “unschooler.” That is, they emphasize the need for individual, personalized education. However, they still belong to curriculum programs that send them packets of study materials, worksheets, etc. They can pick and choose among the available materials and have complete control over what they do or do not study, yet they still take part in the program.
I had assumed that the “no-schoolers,” who were described to me as people who allow their children to learn just by experience life, did not participate in such programs, and that was the primary dividing line. If I’ve gotten my terminology confused, again, I apologize.
To follow Mr. Kunzman’s, work, words and assertions will leave people with the impression that a good percentage of homeschooled children are neglected or at least not being “socialized” the way that “others” (government, teachers, next-door neighbors) think they ought to. (Did you notice the gigantic axe he has to grind with certain organizations? Now there is a sign of good journalism!)
I know on this blog it’s not cool to quote the bible, but we are commanded to “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Prov 22). You can’t do that if your not there. When you send your child to the government school everyday, you are putting your faith in the government. The government that has done all the things you agree with (hahaha), but you are OK letting them teach your children what is important, what should be permissable, what they should or shouldn’t do with their bodies and minds? What is more important to you than your children? No matter what your reason for homeschooling, how can you justify handing off your responsibility to someone else, let alone the government?
Rather than criticizing folks that take the responsibility to assure their children are being well educated, you should examine the motives of your own opposition to folks that sacrifice their own time and treasure to give their children the opportunity to realize who they are and how they can impact this world.
Give homeschoolers a break, they are only trying to do what is right.
Did you notice the gigantic axe he has to grind with certain organizations? Now there is a sign of good journalism!
I think we have another problem with terminology here. Journalists are not stenographers. They are frequently called to make judgments and reach conclusions in their work.
If you want someone who will parrot the press releases of groups like Generation Joshua and the HSLDA, that’s usually referred to as a “shill”. I know the difference can be hard to spot in today’s media, but it’s there.
For myself, I found his constant need to be even-handed a little irritating. The announcements from the HSDLA read like rejected articles from WoldNetDaily, “Obama and his Public School Minions are Coming to Steal Your Bodily Fluids!”
And frankly, Generation Joshua scares the piss out of me. There’s more than a whiff of the dominionist about them.
As for the rest of your comment, I’ll wait until the second half of the piece goes up.
“I know on this blog it’s not cool to quote the bible”
It’s not that it’s not cool. It’s just that it has about as much weight as quoting The Da Vinci Code.
If I could have children, I would home school them but only because I do not feel that the public school system does children justice and I would want my children to excel damnit!
I went to a mediocre public school and came out alright. I don’t understand how what school you attend is supposed to dictate what or how you end up learning.
I had some idea of using public school as a starting point and spend teaching time with the children (I don’t have any yet). I know some parents help with homework, I don’t know what else goes on, what the parenting difference is between kids who learn and kids who blow it off. I think helping with homework is one thing, and to help too much might be doing it for them, and keeping out of it leaves them to absorb what’s being taught and be in charge of how well they apply themselves – and that’s just to what is being taught. If they are being taught the test, or they are gifted, or normal even, and bored because the slow kids have to catch up, this is unsatisfactory. Teachers grade kids, but who grades teachers? I would never want to take it for granted that they were learning what they should know.
I also went to public school. If I were home-schooled, I would be a lot stupider, but that’s because I’m old enough now to hear my mom say stupid things. I used to be gifted, but there weren’t many options to demonstrate it and excel as a student in any meaningful way. I’ve also had some heinous persons teaching me, perhaps not stupid or ignorant, but just plain lousy people with terrible mental issues, one of whom dumped our messy desks in one big pile before we got to school, and who told us crazy stories of her hispanic friend whom she had thought was pregnant, who one day squatted out a toiletful of leeches in a public bathroom.
That’s the kind of thing, if I were a parent, I’d be a little careful about. I think a lot of people trust the public school system implicitly, and don’t do a lot of example-teaching at home or discussing school topics to hear for yourself if the kid knows anything, or foster their interest by taking them on your own field trips as a family. The kid goes to school, they come home, their homework is their business, and then they are allowed to play. They bring home grades, and that’s all you think you need to know what goes on at school – if the grades are bad, do parents tutor their own children or hassle them and yell at them to bring their grades up or else? Some kids respond to threatening, but I don’t think most kids are otherwise motivated to succeed, and how many without exploration outside the curriculum, actually know anything worth a damn.
The biggest problem here between public school and homeschooling is that to send your child to hours of school, have them hours of homework, how much more of their time can you take up? It seems selfish. Homeschooling is all you and them. But what do you do with that time? You might not be very smart at all. You might say we have to go to the sale at the mall today. You might watch tv and tell them to read and tell you when they’re done reading. Then they get to watch tv too. Ideally, I would want to have some part of both, but it seems like a “super-mom” idea and almost punishment to have that much control over your child’s “free time” because they are just children and do need time to relax.
I don’t know about religious home schooling and that they are much worse – protecting one’s child from certain information is a crummy way to parent, I think, which is why I tend to favor sending them off to school, so everything they hear isn’t me and my agenda, not so thrilled with them soaking up a lot of myth and revisionism in a glossed-over history class. I wish when you say “home school” people didn’t have such a vile reaction as if everyone does it for the same reasons or is totally incompetent.
I don’t understand how what school you attend is supposed to dictate what or how you end up learning.
Unfortunately, not all parents are responsible parents.
If the combination of my public school and my parents determined what or how I’d ended up learning, I’d be a minimally educated evangelical right now.
It is possible to excel in spite of your surroundings, you know.
Just like it’s possible for home-schoolers to actually be educated better than those who attend public school – possible – it’s also going to take a fairly determined kid to acknowledge his or her surroundings and just learn more than they’re being taught. I went to public school, like I said, and was socially dumb. Intellectually curious on some things, but nothing that was encouraged. Gets too distracted. I read the entire encyclopedia* once, and that was a “bad” thing. I went to look up something for my homework and got distracted, by knowledge. Didn’t turn anything great for my homework. I had to deal with parents who trusted the school to do its job and for me to comply, and in hindsight, my parents are kind of ignorant, kind of totally. The things I didn’t know I wasn’t going to know. I got good grades because that was what they wanted. I got lots of notes about not applying myself. Hell did I know what that’s supposed to mean. Explain how I, a person age of 6-9-12-15 is autonomous here to “apply” MY-self. Me. I go to school, I have authorities at home telling me what to do and what to knock right the hell off now. That’s pretty much how it went.
I can understand some kids having a real thirst and feeding themselves, and developing a real determination. I was not that kid. I was dealing with firm house rules and mixed messages. I was “the smart one.” I feel like I could blame my parents a little. I feel like, damn, I should take responsibility, but when I was a kid, and I think of that kid now, how could I expect a kid, in retrospect, to conquer this system, to figure out one day that it was on me to figure out how to do that? Lots of kids do that, so I get a little angry at myself when I think I wasn’t swift enough to catch that. I was supposed to be smart and suddenly figure out myself how to become successful, and I feel I was hindered at every attempt.
Where the article speaks about the right teacher and the right student (or it was another comment?), that’s me. I was not the right student for the public school system, and my parents seemed to have some idea they were unqualified to interfere, except for expecting good grades. I still have sucky time management skills.
*I’m told this every so often that I would read the encyclopedia for fun – I really don’t think I read the whole thing and that it’s an exaggeration. But it’s true it was too much of a distraction and discouraged.
My friends who are teachers say that their best students have parents who are involved in their children’s education. They make sure the homework is done. They are interested in the content of the school work. They communicate with the teachers. Students whose parents are not involved have a more difficult time.
I’m sure there are exceptions. In my own case, my parents always assumed I did my work, and they only checked over the report cards when they came out. I did okay, even though I had some rather poor teachers.
In the best case, I’d rather the kids had quality teachers and involved parents.
DJ said, “I know on this blog it’s not cool to quote the bible, but we are commanded to “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it” (Prov 22)… When you send your child to the government school everyday, you are putting your faith in the government.”
Exactly! Much of the public school system we have inherited was created in large part to furnish workers for the industrial revolution. Also to teach kids to be farmers & wives, thus all the ag or farming schools, & the home economics classes for girls, & it provided a great opportunity to indoctrinate kids in the trendy politics of the times. In other words, there used to be much in the way of an agenda in public schools that still sullies the reality of us having the perfect educational environment.
I live in the city & I have more than toyed with the idea of homeschooling my 9 year old boy. I have no problem with specific groups, his 2nd grade teacher was openly gay, my problem is that I’m just not happy with what he’s learning. 4th grade & I’m the one to teach him times tables. He studies neither history or geography. So much of school time is spent in just handling the herd, or waiting for the slower kids. Add on after school stuff like soccer & suddenly all the time for little extra projects is gone, yet they still seem so lacking in what you think they should know. Here in Seattle there are more than a few parents like me, liberal, well educated, who are just dismayed at the lite education. One of the pluses of homeschooling, I’d imagine, is that with a skilled parent & groups of other homeschooled kids to have field trips with, you could much more easily find that path DJ talked about, where you find the thing your kid loves so much, they will study & carry on without your making them do so.
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[...] is a continuation of my review for Robert Kunzman’s Write These Laws on Your Children: Inside the World of Conservative [...]