Great article published yesterday in the tech section of Business Insider about homeschooling offering our kids a tremendous opportunity for gaining a 21st-Century education:
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-kids-should-get-homeschooled-2016-8
Many homeschoolers provide their kids with customized academics and are able to do it so efficiently leaving plenty of time for experiential learning, sports, free play and passions. Now you can find some of the best teachers in the world offering their courses and lessons online. Additionally, you can select curriculum and learning opportunities tailored to your child’s learning style. Furthermore, there is a massive infrastructure in place for homeschool families to participate in both enrichment and core classes as well as many other educational opportunities that are fun for the whole family.
“While traditional schools try their best to tailor lesson plans to individual students, teachers often still end up teaching to the middle. There are simply too many kids learning at different speeds for teachers to give each of them exactly what they need. Homeschooling, meanwhile, is personal by design.”
For ideas on adding more structure to your schedule to allow more time for experiential learning, you may be interested in:
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Heartily agree.
Was homeschooled long before it was mainstream and had the exposure it has now. My mother was a certified teacher and saw what the schools were like, and decided that it would not be for us. I’m glad that she did. Went to college for a short while, and though it’s been almost 10 years since, still planning on going back.
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Thanks for sharing, Steve. Your mom was a pioneer. 🙂 Would love to hear more about your homeschooling. 🙂
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I have home schooled for 2 yrs. I do worry about my children receiving all they can. Praying I am giving them all I can. I have a total of 7 homeschoolers. Ages range from 4-10. Would love any information available that might assist in giving them more.
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Sandy–Do you have a community of homeschoolers to come along beside you and encourage one another as well as share information? Tell me what specific questions you have and I would love to share with you what I know. I do have a curriculum tab on the left of the blog page that you can peruse. Also, join my Facebook page and ask the community for thoughts. Many people have valuable information to share. https://www.facebook.com/TheContemporaryHomeschooler/
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Maybe if I could teach 10 kids or less they could get the customized academics and experiential learning too. Homeschooling is great but simply not an option for all.
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Thanks for your feedback, Fred. Yes, it is a blessing for families who are able to do it! I will say that many of my friends live extremely modestly on one income. For example, I know plenty of people with 2-4 kids living in a condo and on very tight budgets. They do not drive new cars or carry expensive purses. They do not eat out a lot. You can actually homeschool on about $180/year per kid.
Even a lot can be done for free on the internet. I wrote another blog piece on curriculum. Hats off to all the hard-working teachers who do their best!!!
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I have to agree! We are a homeschooling family living very modestly on one income. Most of our homeschooling friends are the same. It’s very rare to find a wealthy homeschooling family that can afford all the perks in my area. We live very frugal, shop at thrift stores and consignment shops for things that we need. We don’t buy new if we can help it, only if it’s necessary. We utilize the library and other free or cheap resources for any learning opportunities. Meals are made from scratch at home. Dining out is a rare treat, but we’re okay with that. We are very lucky to have a large homeschooling community that gathers together for play dates, field trips and other fun activities. Financially, it hasn’t always been easy, but we’ve always had enough and what we need.
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Well said Sarah. There have never been any studies done that I know of. However, I bet a huge, huge number of homeschooling families live in the modest means that you describe above. So glad you have an awesome homeschool community. That has meant the world to us.
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Fred, it’s not about criticizing what you can or can’t do. It’s about parents doing what THEY can in THEIR circumstances. School teachers have my respect. You guys go beyond the call of duty every single day.
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I’m a mother of four and currently homeschooling three ot of four of my kids. There are days when it gets really hard but there days, most days, where we enjoy our journey. I love the idea of freedom and having one-on-one sessions with my children individually.
I know what’s best for my kids and I know that I’ll do what’s in my power to give them best of education I can. We have amazing support from our homeschool community and I’m truly blessed to be part of.
Homeschooling is great for us. We homeschool everywhere. We travel quiet a bit and still manage to engage in different activities in different parts of the world. My children have become richer in knowledge and are learning. And that’s exactly what I expect from them – to learn not to memorize.
Again, homeschooling has been a blessing and best thing for us as a family but I always say ‘It’s perfect for my family but it’s not for every family! We all have different views and expectations.’
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Thanks for sharing. The freedom in homeschooling is amazing. I’d love to hear about your travels and how you homeschool that way. What amazing experiences you are providing for your family. Also, you bring up the support of a homeschool community. That is so true. I am so grateful for ours. I can see how homeschooling could feel a bit lonely without that community.
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I grew up in a Russian communist school system and thought there is nothing better than it as it produced a high level of academics and competency…. Now that i’ve been in the US for over 20 years and finally got school age children, I decided to try home schooling. It has been a surprisingly amazing experience. Not only did I get a chance to spend more time with my kids but I also got to thoroughly understand their personalities and how they process information simply by teaching them a few hours each day. We ended up switching curriculum and ways of teaching mid year to make our kindergartner learn better and she ended up finishing curriculum from K – middle of 1st grade all in 1 year meanwhile learning 2 languages, taking acting and singing classes and getting acting jobs. I cannot possibly imagine all of these activities happening if we were bound to a 3.5 hrs a day regular school schedule with driving back and forth and homework in the evenings. So, my humble 1 year experience has shown me that home school is more of an advanced one on one tutoring system tailored to each child which leaves free time to engage in additional activities all without taxing the family schedule. The school and homework are simply done in 1 setting… how great is that? My child scored in the 90% percentile and above for the SAT test for K-1 in March… I’m a proud Mama!
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Congrats, Yuka, on your kids success!!!! Your story is so interesting comparing your time in Russian schools and homeschooling. Would you consider writing a guest piece for this blog? If not, I’d love to hear more from you in the weeks ahead.
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I remember all the worries and questions people had when we began. My oldest is now 18, friendly and comfortable talking to people of all ages. He was accepted to every college he applied to, and was granted a full academic scholarship. Homeschooling is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done, and a blessing to be able to have that experience.
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Fantastic job, Meg! You are a wonderful example of homeschooling. I’d love to hear about your homeschooling approach and what it looked like. One of the great things about the homeschool community is we can all learn from each other. I’m sure many people on this page would love to learn from you! 🙂
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Here are a couple of thoughts: Single parents live on a single income, and yet nobody asks them “how do you live on a single income?” This is the most common question for homeschooling families. We lived below our means, and moving to one income was zero problem. If you buy “too much house” then you will be stuck needing 2 incomes. Most of our “wealthy” friends spend one income on the private school. The second thing to say is this: For “full time tutoring” of a single subject (for us, I hired professors to teach calculus I and II and III and upper level Mandarin) I spent around 5,000 per year per subject, for a total of $10,000. (This was only for my youngest, my oldest self-studied everything.) Mind you, these were Harvard educated mathematician and a professor from Wesleyan. For the amount that the “city” spends on EACH CHILD, I could hire these professors to do full time personalized and one-on-one tutoring for FOUR CORE subjects for EACH AND EVERY public school kid. Think upon that truth for a brief moment, and then give me your public school budget and watch me blow your school system out of the water….. Anyway, my oldest got full tuition, room, board, books, and stipend for spending money…actually ended up “making money” during college and had several scholarships that went unused. Plus, did a BS and a BA in two very different departments as well as a couple of different minors after matriculating with enough credits to be a junior (from running AP exams every year since 8th grade) By the way, I did not do much teaching. I think of myself as a facilitator and a mentor, not a teacher. Kids teach themselves if you get out of the way.
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I love how you said, ” I think of myself as a facilitator and a mentor, not a teacher. Kids teach themselves if you get out of the way.” How wonderful that you found such excellent tutors for your kids. Thanks for sharing. I’d love to hear more about your story.
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That’s me..single parent teaching two teens and a 7 year old nephew. I make very little but the cost of homeschooling for us is practically nothing. I went into it without even considering the cost. But I didn’t consider that I would need a curriculum. Since I was teaching my children after school and using the internet or my college books to do so, I figured that’s what homeschooling was, research and self prep. The only cost we have is when school supplies go on sale and I load up on spirals and pencils. My cost this year was $12 so far. The books I use are still my old books from college, online pdf books I find for free, sites like khan academy, and of course the library. And for any parent who thinks they cant give their children the best education possible because of cost, well, my teens are doing college level work and my nephew who is “technically” in the 2nd grade, or would be had he attended public school, is doing 3rd and 4th grade assignments and reading books like Narnia and Icefire series. You set the pace according to what your child is capable of doing and in my opinion, kids are NOT stupid. They are not stuck at standard grade levels. They can learn anything at any age, including algebra in kindergarten.
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I didn’t pull my kids from the public school system until they were halfway through the 5th and 8th grade. I wanted too homeschool as soon as they were school age but there is very little support for newbies on how to do so and frankly the websites on how to legally do so and what forms are needed were difficult to comprehend. I asked homeschool communities and their solution was to direct me to same sites I was struggling to understand. No one wanted to take the time and walk me through them. Now, if anyone in my state has questions on where to begin and a step by step guide, I can be there for them and have while the rest of the homeschooling families treat it like a well kept secret. I may have started homeschooling my teens later in life, but I truthfully I have been homeschooling them since the day they were born. Both remained 2 or more years ahead of their classmates in every subject and were put in advanced classes where they excelled because I never let them settle for just what their assignment gave them to do. I would always expound on their assignment and add to it or teach them the subject I loved, like math and science. I made sure both could read and write, count money, tell time, and add and subtract in the triple digits a year before kindergarten. Homeschooling has allowed me to let them pursue their own interest instead of following some badly written script the public schools wanted to shove down their throats. Like my son, who is interested in chemistry and physics and has switched his goals countless times between theoretical physicist to molecular geneticist and now to bio chemist.. He is free to explore each of these options and ignore the subjects that he has never shown interest in. And my daughter gets to study Japanese instead of having only three foreign language options, Spanish, French, or German, none of which she would have been able to retain because she has no passion for them. We retain better the subjects we have passion for. My nephew is lucky in that he has been homeschooled from day one and will never know the horror of having to read boring classics for a book report but can choose books that capture his imagination.
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So awesome you have put yourself as a resource out there to homeschool families, Kat!!!! You have done a tremendous job evoking a love of learning with your kids!
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Love the article and the conversations. I posted your article on my Facebook page. I am launching a new school that supports homeschool families and those thinking about homeschooling. The comments are very encouraging. Bless you on your endeavors.
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I’m excited to hear about your new school! In what city are you setting it up? I know it will be a blessing to many families. So awesome to build community with other homeschool families and have the opportunity to join in classes and other programs together.
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roseblash,
I am very interested in learning about your new school. I would love to piggy back some of your ideas, and learn how to go about doing the same in my community 🙂
Thanks
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So right! We have homeschooled for almost five years now. My kids are doing great, and learning is an adventure. We still have to get a little book work done, but my everything is tailored to my kids individual learning styles and they love having so much time for their own interests. So happy to see things like this being published. Thank you for the great article!
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Bravo job! You are doing a fantastic job!Thanks for the feedback!!!
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