Sean Martin
February 21st, 2005, 08:07 PM
Why I Homeschool
The answers change almost as fast as my kids do. But my commitment to at-home learning remains strong.
By Amy Thornton-Kelly
I'm on my third year of homeschooling our three children and probably my 150th response as to why. The question always makes me panic, just a little. The answer is not simple and certainly it's evolved since I decided to make the big leap.
Initially, I simply missed our kids. Our twins, a boy and a girl, were 5 and in an excellent preschool near our home in a suburb of New York City. Our eldest daughter, nearly 8, was in second grade. I had left my career as a video producer to throw myself into the job of parenting our children. I had been passionate about my job; I was now passionate about our kids. Yet, a mere four years after their birth, I was supposed to transition again, detach, send them off to school, and resign myself to seeing them for a few harried moments in the morning and exhausted, homework-ridden hours at night.
There is a lot of pressure to encourage children to be independent when the school bus arrives. Yet, my intuition cried out that even at 7, a child was too young to force separation. Our children, my husband and I felt, would most definitely discover their independence in their own time.
I found shepherding three young children through the morning and evening routines of a typical school day unpleasant, to say the least. I wanted to hear about our children's dreams, but instead had to wake them before they had a chance to remember them so I could jam clothes over their heads. I wanted to hear the questions that arose somewhere after cereal but before brushing their teeth, but instead had to tell them to hurry up so we could leave. I wanted to give them my complete attention, but there were too many details to attend to.
A Growing List
Once we considered homeschooling, the floodgates opened. I couldn't stop thinking up more reasons to do it. Alleviating stress, seeking a healthier environment, and searching for a more profound learning process became the next most pressing reasons for us to homeschool. Since I had left my job years before, my husband and I had already adjusted our finances to make living on one income work. (Homeschooling also gave us the flexibility to relocate to our weekend home in Vermont full-time when my husband decided to leave his job in New York City to start his own business.)
Our son's asthma heightened our awareness of health, or lack thereof, in the classroom. A large group of kids together, indoors for most of the day, besieged immune systems. At the beginning of each school year at least one of our children would get sick and spread it to the rest of the family. We kept the kids home from school long enough to let their bodies fight back naturally -- which almost always took more than just a day or two. These recuperative days just made me miss the kids all the more when they were back at school. Now that we're not tied to a classroom or strict schedule, we spend plenty of time together, much of it outdoors. Although our children are with other kids all the time (in extracurricular classes, homeschool group settings, and at playdates), they are rarely ill.
Slow Down, Branch Out
"Do fewer things well" is our mantra this year and was a pivotal part of our decision to homeschool. The more I work with our kids on long term projects, the more I realize the need for them to focus on fewer subjects over longer periods of time. Now, each child picks a topic to study for an entire semester, and we use it as a jumping-off point for lots of cross-curricular lessons. So far, subjects have included Egypt, queens, world religions, primates, and democracy.
While the kids were in school, I volunteered to teach a "hands-on art history" class in which we studied an artist or time period and then created art reflective of our subject. At first I used a packaged curriculum and had exactly 45 minutes to set up, deliver as much information as possible, get the kids on task, and ask them to be creative with only 25 minutes to spare (including clean-up time). I don't think any of us learned much or completed satisfying work. This classroom time convinced me that learning slowly and with time to fully experience the process is much more valuable and long-lasting than that which is rushed and superficial. Darting from one subject to another every 40 minutes seems to create a culture of short attention. Now we devote entire mornings to writing, art, science or social study projects, which leaves us satisfied with the richness and depth of our study.
There is a certain fluidity to the children's learning because it doesn't stop at the "homeschool door." We discuss the subjects that we are studying, often passionately, at the dinner table, in the car, or with friends and relatives. Their depth of knowledge builds confidence. Our youngest daughter said one morning after practicing the violin: "The more I practice, the better I get, and the more I want to practice."
Freedom, I have found, is a huge and beautiful reason to homeschool. Certainly, I have much less time (if any!) to be alone in the house, talk on the phone, or go shopping unaccompanied. But we have the freedom on a brilliantly sunny day to strap on our snowshoes and explore the glittering and fluffy snow outside our farmhouse. The children can learn at their own pace, which allows them to zoom forward in math while also slowing down to experience the world so they can have interesting things about which to write.
http://family.msn.com/tool/article.aspx?dept=learn&sdept=lea&name=sc_012705_homeschool>1=6074
The answers change almost as fast as my kids do. But my commitment to at-home learning remains strong.
By Amy Thornton-Kelly
I'm on my third year of homeschooling our three children and probably my 150th response as to why. The question always makes me panic, just a little. The answer is not simple and certainly it's evolved since I decided to make the big leap.
Initially, I simply missed our kids. Our twins, a boy and a girl, were 5 and in an excellent preschool near our home in a suburb of New York City. Our eldest daughter, nearly 8, was in second grade. I had left my career as a video producer to throw myself into the job of parenting our children. I had been passionate about my job; I was now passionate about our kids. Yet, a mere four years after their birth, I was supposed to transition again, detach, send them off to school, and resign myself to seeing them for a few harried moments in the morning and exhausted, homework-ridden hours at night.
There is a lot of pressure to encourage children to be independent when the school bus arrives. Yet, my intuition cried out that even at 7, a child was too young to force separation. Our children, my husband and I felt, would most definitely discover their independence in their own time.
I found shepherding three young children through the morning and evening routines of a typical school day unpleasant, to say the least. I wanted to hear about our children's dreams, but instead had to wake them before they had a chance to remember them so I could jam clothes over their heads. I wanted to hear the questions that arose somewhere after cereal but before brushing their teeth, but instead had to tell them to hurry up so we could leave. I wanted to give them my complete attention, but there were too many details to attend to.
A Growing List
Once we considered homeschooling, the floodgates opened. I couldn't stop thinking up more reasons to do it. Alleviating stress, seeking a healthier environment, and searching for a more profound learning process became the next most pressing reasons for us to homeschool. Since I had left my job years before, my husband and I had already adjusted our finances to make living on one income work. (Homeschooling also gave us the flexibility to relocate to our weekend home in Vermont full-time when my husband decided to leave his job in New York City to start his own business.)
Our son's asthma heightened our awareness of health, or lack thereof, in the classroom. A large group of kids together, indoors for most of the day, besieged immune systems. At the beginning of each school year at least one of our children would get sick and spread it to the rest of the family. We kept the kids home from school long enough to let their bodies fight back naturally -- which almost always took more than just a day or two. These recuperative days just made me miss the kids all the more when they were back at school. Now that we're not tied to a classroom or strict schedule, we spend plenty of time together, much of it outdoors. Although our children are with other kids all the time (in extracurricular classes, homeschool group settings, and at playdates), they are rarely ill.
Slow Down, Branch Out
"Do fewer things well" is our mantra this year and was a pivotal part of our decision to homeschool. The more I work with our kids on long term projects, the more I realize the need for them to focus on fewer subjects over longer periods of time. Now, each child picks a topic to study for an entire semester, and we use it as a jumping-off point for lots of cross-curricular lessons. So far, subjects have included Egypt, queens, world religions, primates, and democracy.
While the kids were in school, I volunteered to teach a "hands-on art history" class in which we studied an artist or time period and then created art reflective of our subject. At first I used a packaged curriculum and had exactly 45 minutes to set up, deliver as much information as possible, get the kids on task, and ask them to be creative with only 25 minutes to spare (including clean-up time). I don't think any of us learned much or completed satisfying work. This classroom time convinced me that learning slowly and with time to fully experience the process is much more valuable and long-lasting than that which is rushed and superficial. Darting from one subject to another every 40 minutes seems to create a culture of short attention. Now we devote entire mornings to writing, art, science or social study projects, which leaves us satisfied with the richness and depth of our study.
There is a certain fluidity to the children's learning because it doesn't stop at the "homeschool door." We discuss the subjects that we are studying, often passionately, at the dinner table, in the car, or with friends and relatives. Their depth of knowledge builds confidence. Our youngest daughter said one morning after practicing the violin: "The more I practice, the better I get, and the more I want to practice."
Freedom, I have found, is a huge and beautiful reason to homeschool. Certainly, I have much less time (if any!) to be alone in the house, talk on the phone, or go shopping unaccompanied. But we have the freedom on a brilliantly sunny day to strap on our snowshoes and explore the glittering and fluffy snow outside our farmhouse. The children can learn at their own pace, which allows them to zoom forward in math while also slowing down to experience the world so they can have interesting things about which to write.
http://family.msn.com/tool/article.aspx?dept=learn&sdept=lea&name=sc_012705_homeschool>1=6074