Posted in Homeschooling
This is the third post in a series designed to help parents inventory their reasons for homeschooling. To start off, here's an open ended question that might get you thinking: Why does clothing come in different sizes? I'll come back to that in a minute.
One of the major reasons people decide to start homeschooling is control over curricula. This goes beyond gaining the ability to weed out the "billllyuns and billllyuns of yeers" Darwinist dogma that millions of kids are spoon fed every year. That's not to say that weeding it out isn't important. Teaching origins has enormous bearing on the rest of life because it determines your perspective. Teaching my children the lie that life is just one happy accident is not in their best interest. I have the right to refuse to teach this in detail until they are able to approach Darwinism with a skeptical eye and detailed factual analysis.
But, like I said, it's not just origins. When my family started out, I chose to homeschool because I could control the curricula. I didn't want to have to worry about what the public school teacher was teaching my kids in every subject. If they were in public school, I wouldn't be able to tell if they were learning "new math" or being told that Columbus was a murderer for opening up native peoples for exploitation and disease. I wouldn't know if the teacher was telling them that Heather has two mommies or if they were spending more time on Harry Potter than George Washington. By the same token, I wondered if they would learn that Washington was a man of faith as exemplified in his Farewell Address. Would they learn that 2+2 always equals 4? Would they learn that God had a specific mission for America and preserved her when things could have gone poorly for the new nation? Would they learn that marriage is between a man and a woman only? The only way I could be sure they were learning the right things was to take it into my own hands.
Control over curricula is a benefit easily discerned by parents. Yet, since then, I've discovered that control over the classroom, the way the curriculum is presented, is equally important. Let's start with the numbers. A classroom with 20 - 40 children proceeds at a pace that is average, at best. Unless your child is smack in the middle, the progress of the subject matter is either too fast or too slow. This puts the children under stress and makes learning either a chore or a bore. Tell me, why would I choose that for my child?
Having control over the classroom gives my children enormous freedom to learn. My children don't need to wait for some trained expert to tell them when they are old enough to learn a type of math or a concept in history. They don't need to be harnessed to a group that pulls at the speed of the slowest or the average. Why does clothing come in sizes? Because we all are individuals with our own fit. Likewise, we have individual learning styles. Here's another question: why isn't the three-legged race an olympic event? Because it is not sensible or fair to the runners to pair them with someone who is either too fast or too slow for them. The true measure of an athlete will not be found unless we let them perform unfettered.
We've found that homeschooling allows our children to learn at their own pace, acquiring knowledge when they are ready. They don't have to wait for the rest of the class. They don't have to wait until next week to learn the next concept. This is probably the main reason why homeschoolers outperform their peers in learning. It's not because they're especially bright. It's because they have the freedom to learn in the way that best suits them.
Having control over the classroom means that parents and children can learn without stress and without excessive investment of time. As Green Darner discovered, such a change can improve--no, it can actually change the course of a life. The lifestyle of public schooling will work our children to death with a 9 hour school day and 3-5 hours of homework and that doesn't include with chores and meals. It's no wonder our kids are being put on Prozac and Ritalin. We're driving them into the ground with a lifestyle that emphasizes busy-ness and activity. My gosh, folks...what were they thinking when they put together public schools in the first place? It has to be the most inefficient and backward method of learning ever devised by mankind. But we do it just because some expert says we should. Not me. Not anymore.
In homeschooling, we give them their childhood back by letting them have time for themselves. We allow them to learn in a relaxed setting that fully engages the brain, not a 50-minute pressure-cooker. We give them time to engage a subject, not just fill in the blanks. If one curriculum isn't really working for a child, we can switch to something that fits them better. If one subject demands more time, we can give it to them and push another subject to the next day. Try doing that with a system of bells and time slots! If one child learns slower than another, they're not going to be handed an F branding them as a failure for not being average enough. They will learn with much more success, much more accomplishment, and a lot less stress. That alone is worth the price of admission.
Rethinking Our Reasons To Homeschool, Part I, Part II, Part IV
Other Voices:
One of the major reasons people decide to start homeschooling is control over curricula. This goes beyond gaining the ability to weed out the "billllyuns and billllyuns of yeers" Darwinist dogma that millions of kids are spoon fed every year. That's not to say that weeding it out isn't important. Teaching origins has enormous bearing on the rest of life because it determines your perspective. Teaching my children the lie that life is just one happy accident is not in their best interest. I have the right to refuse to teach this in detail until they are able to approach Darwinism with a skeptical eye and detailed factual analysis.
But, like I said, it's not just origins. When my family started out, I chose to homeschool because I could control the curricula. I didn't want to have to worry about what the public school teacher was teaching my kids in every subject. If they were in public school, I wouldn't be able to tell if they were learning "new math" or being told that Columbus was a murderer for opening up native peoples for exploitation and disease. I wouldn't know if the teacher was telling them that Heather has two mommies or if they were spending more time on Harry Potter than George Washington. By the same token, I wondered if they would learn that Washington was a man of faith as exemplified in his Farewell Address. Would they learn that 2+2 always equals 4? Would they learn that God had a specific mission for America and preserved her when things could have gone poorly for the new nation? Would they learn that marriage is between a man and a woman only? The only way I could be sure they were learning the right things was to take it into my own hands.
Control over curricula is a benefit easily discerned by parents. Yet, since then, I've discovered that control over the classroom, the way the curriculum is presented, is equally important. Let's start with the numbers. A classroom with 20 - 40 children proceeds at a pace that is average, at best. Unless your child is smack in the middle, the progress of the subject matter is either too fast or too slow. This puts the children under stress and makes learning either a chore or a bore. Tell me, why would I choose that for my child?
Having control over the classroom gives my children enormous freedom to learn. My children don't need to wait for some trained expert to tell them when they are old enough to learn a type of math or a concept in history. They don't need to be harnessed to a group that pulls at the speed of the slowest or the average. Why does clothing come in sizes? Because we all are individuals with our own fit. Likewise, we have individual learning styles. Here's another question: why isn't the three-legged race an olympic event? Because it is not sensible or fair to the runners to pair them with someone who is either too fast or too slow for them. The true measure of an athlete will not be found unless we let them perform unfettered.
We've found that homeschooling allows our children to learn at their own pace, acquiring knowledge when they are ready. They don't have to wait for the rest of the class. They don't have to wait until next week to learn the next concept. This is probably the main reason why homeschoolers outperform their peers in learning. It's not because they're especially bright. It's because they have the freedom to learn in the way that best suits them.
Having control over the classroom means that parents and children can learn without stress and without excessive investment of time. As Green Darner discovered, such a change can improve--no, it can actually change the course of a life. The lifestyle of public schooling will work our children to death with a 9 hour school day and 3-5 hours of homework and that doesn't include with chores and meals. It's no wonder our kids are being put on Prozac and Ritalin. We're driving them into the ground with a lifestyle that emphasizes busy-ness and activity. My gosh, folks...what were they thinking when they put together public schools in the first place? It has to be the most inefficient and backward method of learning ever devised by mankind. But we do it just because some expert says we should. Not me. Not anymore.
In homeschooling, we give them their childhood back by letting them have time for themselves. We allow them to learn in a relaxed setting that fully engages the brain, not a 50-minute pressure-cooker. We give them time to engage a subject, not just fill in the blanks. If one curriculum isn't really working for a child, we can switch to something that fits them better. If one subject demands more time, we can give it to them and push another subject to the next day. Try doing that with a system of bells and time slots! If one child learns slower than another, they're not going to be handed an F branding them as a failure for not being average enough. They will learn with much more success, much more accomplishment, and a lot less stress. That alone is worth the price of admission.
Rethinking Our Reasons To Homeschool, Part I, Part II, Part IV
Other Voices:
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