People homeschool for so many different reasons that I hesitate to even talk about this topic.  I bring it up because so many people misunderstand homeschooling and what underlies the decision to homeschool a child.

When my oldest child was four, I (and by I, I mean my husband and myself) began to look at schooling possibilities.  I considered the public school system, but wasn’t absolutely thrilled with the school district where I lived.  I looked at the Catholic system, and visited several of the schools that I thought might work for my child.  I then went through the horrid process of having my child accepted into a Catholic school in a parish which wasn’t my family’s when neither my husband nor myself had gone to that school–and managed to do it by pulling every string I had.

In the meantime, through talking to my best friend who was already homeschooling, I was introduced to the concept.  I started reading some of the books that I mentioned in the last post, and homeschooling started to look more and more acceptable to me.  Convincing my husband was a little difficult, but I was able to do it.  My decision didn’t have anything to do with my religious beliefs.  It didn’t have anything to do with my wanting to keep my child separated from the world or other children.  It had to do with my knowledge of my child and what that child needed right then.

When I decided to homeschool, I didn’t make the decision that I was going to homeschool for the whole time that my child was in school.  I made the decision that I was going to keep that child home that one year.  That’s been the way it has pretty much been since then–although we’ve been doing it for so long that I can’t imagine putting my children in school now.  But that could change–when circumstances change, people have to adjust. 

I didn’t realize how many people looked at homeschoolers as being sort of strange religious fanatics until that same oldest child was getting ready to go to college (by that time, she was well on the way to becoming a National Merit Scholarship Semi-finalist).  We met with some of the administration at UL, where we were told that they were sure that “she knew a lot about the Bible” but that they were concerned about her academic status.  This was while we sat there with ACT scores that showed that her academic status was (at the very least) the equivalent of public and private school students.  AT that point, they were willing to give us the benefit of the doubt–but went ahead with their assumptions about the rest of the homeschoolers who were trying to apply.

There are a lot of families who base their decision to homeschool on their religious beliefs.  There are a lot of families who don’t want their children treated like part of a herd of children.  There are a lot of families who just want to let their children help to direct their own learning.  There are a lot of families who have a lot of other reasons to homeschool.  Even after homeschooling for so long, and even after knowing so many people who homeschool, I would be hesitant to tag homeschoolers with one label. 

There are so many factors that we all consider in making decisions that are going to affect our families.   What we need to do is give people the benefit of the doubt.  We should assume that the decision to homeschool a child is a family making a decision for the best interests of their child.  That’s what I was doing.

Posted: January 6th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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