The other day I bumped into somebody online

[conuly]

who was ranting at a third person all about how homeschooling is selfish and narcissistic because when you do it you've decided that you're the best and only person to educate your child and keep them from learning other points of view etc.

I've come across this argument a few times before. Factually, it's bizarre. Emotionally, it's the anti-homeschool equivalent of "why did you even have kids if you were going to send them to daycare and let strangers raise them!!!!!" These people cannot be reasoned with and don't particularly want to be. They just want to be mean.

However, I'm sure most of us are a bit more familiar with daycare and brick-and-mortar schooling than with homeschooling, and might be taken in by a more calmly phrased variation on the first person's argument, so I'm making this post for your edification. Most of this is all pretty obvious if you sit down and think about it.

1. First things first, homeschooling is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It's common to homeschool for some years and not others, or to homeschool some children but not others, or both. It's very common for children to go to school for high school. And in areas that allow dual enrollment a great many children take classes at the public school while still being homeschooled.

2. Even while you're homeschooling, and even without dual enrollment, your child might take classes taught by somebody other than you. They might take "afterschool" programs, homeschool co-op classes, or online classes. Or they might have a private or semi-private tutor. These classes might be arranged to be primarily for socialization, or to offer enrichment, or to teach subjects which parents aren't comfortable handling themselves. Outside classes are extremely common.

Points one and two already show that not every homeschooler gets into it because they really hate the idea of somebody else teaching their precious babies. Actually, I've heard many reasons for homeschooling, including:

A. I want to include religion in the school day.
B. I want to make all my teaching connected to my religion!
C. There was too much religion in my local school.
D. My local school isn't very good academically.
E. My local school is dangerous or has a bullying problem.
F. I don't trust the public schools all that much.
G. My local school is adequate, but it wasn't a good fit for my child.
H. My child is gifted, and there wasn't enough differentiation.
I. My child has a disability, and there wasn't enough support.
J. My child is 2E, and there wasn't enough differentiation OR support.
K. My child would like to spend a lot of time focusing on a special interest (music, dance, herpetology), and it was either homeschool or not have a social life.
L. We live very far away from our school and honestly the commute was killing us.
M. We like to school in our PJs.
N. We move a lot, and I'd like my child's education to be more consistent.
O. My child asked to homeschool for reasons.
P. I specifically don't like the way our schools handle a particular issue.
Q. I would like all my children to graduate college by the time they're 19.
R. I believe in allowing my children a great deal of academic freedom ("unschooling").
S. I believe in allowing my children infinite academic freedom ("radical unschooling").
T. I want my child to have more free time to play with friends.
U. We have an illness/allergy situation and my child is safer at home.
V. One of us is probably not going to be around in five years, and while I still can I'd like to maximize our time together.
W. We have specific dietary rules my child has to follow, and during the earlier years it's easier to do that this way.
X. I'd like to do more trips and experiential learning than the schools generally provide, without sacrificing free time in the afternoons and weekends.

Now, I'm not going to claim that all these reasons are equal. However, "I don't think anybody can ever teach my child better than I can" is conspicuously not on the list. You sometimes see a variant of this - "I believe I'm the best teacher for the early years" - but even then....

3. Then we have two variations on the socialization argument. Either homeschool kids can't socialize, or they'll only socialize with people like them. Now, socialization is a real issue, and the careful homeschooling family makes sure to provide plenty of time with peers, ideally in both structured and unstructured activities.

However, it's worth noting that students in a classroom setting may not get much socialization time either if they don't have recess. I was told as a child, repeatedly, that my class was not in school to socialize but to learn. Careful questioning suggests that many parents and teachers are still rattling this off to students today... until the homeschool issue comes up, when classrooms are suddenly the only way to socialize.

And when socialization does happen in schools, there's no guarantee that those students are being exposed to a variety of views and experiences. The USA has a very segregated school system. If you live in a small town where everybody is at or just above the median income and they all go to one of three different churches and vote Republican - well, that's who your classmates are. They'll all pray the same way you do, and their parents will vote the same way yours do, and so on. I don't know how to fix this.

Are there problems with homeschooling? Definitely. However, that just doesn't excuse making ridiculous strawmen.

Comments

[isis]

When we were in our 30s my husband and I sold our house, bought a sailboat, and traveled around the east coast of the US and in the Caribbean for three years. We didn't have kids, but many of the other cruisers our ages, both who were doing it for a short term and who did it as a long-term lifestyle, did have children, and so we spent a lot of time with homeschoolers and homeschooled kids. I was impressed by both the curriculum - most boating families used Calvert - and by the way the children learned to take any chance to socialize with other kids, no matter their ages, races, or national origin. Plus they spent a lot of time with adults, and I found them to be far more poised and interesting than kids at home.

[archangelbeth]

However, it's worth noting that students in a classroom setting may not get much socialization time either if they don't have recess.

THIS! With a TINY amount of time between classes, and a frantic 15-20 minutes to eat? The only socialization is after-school activities, and gah!

(Also, if you don't like the local schools but all the private schools are religious and you don't want so much religion...)

Yeah.

(I probably should have homeschooled more than I did, honestly. Which is "virtually none at all." But I'm an introvert and the kid is an extrovert.)

[kareina]

I never heard about home schooling till I was out of school, but I would have loved it. Sadly, with a single, working mother it wouldn't have happened if we had known about it, at least not when I was little enough to actually need supervisions. And by the time I was in 7th grade I was at an open-concept alternative school for 200 students ranging in age from 7th to 12th grade, all of whom (and all 10 teachers) were on a first name basis. Steller was such a fun place to be that after I got there I wouldn't have considered any other option till I graduated (and I cried when I did, as I really didn't want to leave).

[wpadmirer]

I was a homeschool tutor for a kid for four years. He was failing the 7th grade, and no one could figure out why. He burned through three tutors before me. They literally quit claiming he could not be taught.

I took him on, and spent most of the first year earning his trust. I figured out that he was convinced he was stupid because he could no longer keep up. I told the parents we needed testing pronto. He turned out to have a processing disability. In the next three years he fulfilled all the requirements to graduate from high school, PLUS took up archery and pottery (throwing pots on a wheel), and read 47 books.

He passed the GED with an almost perfect score.

So sometimes homeschooling happens because the kid won't admit to having a problem, quits trusting the system that seems to be failing him/her, and is very bright, but the classroom is too full for the student to get the teacher's attention in the right way. (He got a lot of attention for going to sleep and refusing to do the work.)

I have no training as a teacher, but I learned as I went along, and we worked hard together.

It's still one of the things I'm the most proud of having done in my life.

[calimac]

I would have been delighted to be homeschooled, had it existed in my day, because I would have jumped at any chance to not have to socialize with my peers.

[elf]

A-F, H-J, P, R/S were all important for me.

The local public schools had too much Christianity for me to be comfortable. I didn't want an overtly Pagan curriculum, but I wanted their education to incorporate Pagan values, and specifically not to undermine or insult them. And I couldn't get that in public schools.

(Also there was that incident where one of the other kids was rumored to have brought a gun to school, and the teacher called and warned the families, and it turned out to be a fake toy-ish gun, and the teacher got in trouble. So we asked, "what's the protocol if it turns out to be a real gun?" and never got an answer.)

Socialization is not taught in public schools, at least not in our area. Kids are thrown onto playgrounds a few times a day with enough supervision to avoid bloodletting, and that purports to be "socialization."

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, same!

[siderea]

Years ago there was a tart comic strip which had a narrator saying roughly:

Panel 1: So-and-so claims to be concerned that homeschool students lack the socialization schools provide.

Panel 2: Homeschool parents will be relieved to know they can provide authentic schooling socialization...

Panel 3: ...by beating their kids up and taking their lunch money.

[conuly]

Likewise.

[conuly]

I don't think many schools actually think they have to teach socialization past kindy (if they even do it then with all the push down of academics). They figure exposure is enough.

[conuly]

Good for you and good for him!

[conuly]

That's wonderful!

[loligo]

I have a number of friends who've homeschooled, mostly for reasons E, U or X, and I'm really glad that the option exists. But there definitely are people out there who homeschool in order to restrict the points of view that their children encounter, and I wish we could come up with some sort of way to address that, without overly restricting the flexibility of homeschooling.

We have a cult-y church in town, one of those Quiverfull biblical patriarchy type places, and they all homeschool. I have a friend who escaped from an arranged marriage at age 18 from one of those families, and she's been walking a tightrope ever since. Part of her would love to just cut her family and their crazy church out of her life altogether. But she's a music teacher, and as long as she maintains cordial ties with her parents, some people in that community will consider her "safe" to teach piano to their children, and she can continue to be a point of contact in the outside world for those isolated kids.

[shadowkat]

My brother home schooled his daughter last year when they moved to Hawaii for nine months. They found extra-curricular activities for her -- so she was socialized. And took turns teaching her science, math, history, etc. She joined a swim team, took hula lessons, and Hawaiian language as extra-curricular.

It didn't hurt her education at all -- if anything the experience enriched it.

While I was in law school -- I interned with a Senator in Kansas who was an advocate of home-schooling, mainly because not everyone could get to school in the rural counties. Busing took hours. And the schools weren't that good.

I think it's situational. I used to look down on it, but my experiences have taught me that there are instances that it is necessary and enriching.

[brokenallbroken]

This is one of the reasons I scoff at the "socialization" anti-homeschool argument. I went to school and have no social skills. Learning how to behave in adult society is not something best taught by one's age mates.

[cloudsinvenice]

When I think about the amount of bullying and/or isolation so many kids go through, I'm far from convinced that a conventional school experience is necessary or even ideal for socialisation. So much depends on the kid and their personal circumstances.

I wasn't homeschooled, but I did have to have tuition at home for a few years (tutors from the educational board, some of whom were also teachers I knew from school) because of illness, and it gave me an appreciation of why there needs to be flexibility in any education system for kids who, for whatever reason, are not going to be able to flourish in school.

[agoodwinsmith]

Alrighty - I'll be the crabby-ass in the room.

Some context: university/college is mostly publically controlled like K-12 where I have worked. I'm retired now, and no one will be named. Important: because of my work, the segment of the homeschooled child and heli-parent group I met will be skewed.

I was an academic/education/admissions advisor. When I had contact with homeschooled children, it was with their parents in the room, shoving their oar in for every question. Regular school wasn't good enough for them, but suddenly they want the cachet of a structured university (college, etc) for their darling blossom - for whom they haven't bothered to document the secondary education the child received.

I felt very sorry for those children because their parents were so invested in the Uniqueness of their child that they had long since lost sight of the idea that the child was separate from them. Getting their education documented properly was going to be the least troublesome thing the child was facing (and getting after-the-fact documentation is notoriously difficult).

[conuly]

Unseen in your anecdote: The homeschoolers who had sent their kids to high school or documented (and tested) properly so they could prove learning. (Which is something I think ought to be darn well required, at pretty much all grade levels. You should be able to show that your kid learned something over the course of a year, or have a good reason as to why not.)

[conuly]

Of course, when I think of parents isolating their kids, my first thought is ultra-Orthodox yeshivas. Very little secular education, very little oversight. (See also: ACE schools.)

I wish this was a just homeschool thing :(

[agoodwinsmith]

Remember: the admission/academic/education advisor usually only sees the applicants who are having difficulty getting into the school.

[agoodwinsmith]

Actually, now that I think about it, this is probably why the stereotype is so prevalent: the noisy homeschooling parents are the ones who either don't know how the system works (or don't care to find out), or who think the system shouldn't apply to them. And they badger the hell out of anyone and everyone to make exceptions for them to get what the system offers without doing what the system requires.

[conuly]

Except the people most commonly promulgating it don't seem to be in education, so...

But that's definitely what's behind the "They're all unprepared for higher education" stereotype, and the associated "They're all overprepared" stereotype. (Also the "All young people have helicopter parents" stereotype generally.)

[pipilj]

Homeschooling is still rare here. Competition is crazy and the pressures in normal school are scary. You have five year learning about photosynthesis as part of their environmental studies. Home schooling needs a lot of discipline and commitment on part of the parents and tutor so that the kids don't fall behind. It is being taken up by a few for a more holistic development

[conuly]

Sounds like most schools there are overkilling it.

[conuly]

Well, Kansas should definitely improve the schools, because not everybody can homeschool, but rural areas gonna be rural.

[alias_sqbr]

I used to assume home schooled kids would have issues with socialisation. Then I worked at a museum and we had groups of home schooled kids come through, clearly used to these kinds of group excursions, and behaving much the same as any other group of kids. And I stopped assuming :)

[pipilj]

A lot depends on the school your kid goes to. You have three boards - two central and one state (Indian Boards) or international boards. Indian Boards are with various degrees of funding (private, semi private and government) private schools are general more competitive. A good school does apply crazy pressure to ensure high marks in the school leaving exam. The school I went to now has about 90% of students scoring over 90% in the school leaving exam last year the topper had scored 98%. College education is another ball game

[mindstalk]

Cool post!

Probably won't ever be a real issue to me, but I've thought of a toned down version of "nobody can teach my kid better than me": "I can probably teach my kid better, given who I am and what I know." Special attention to math, science, history (imagine having to learn from Texas textbooks), and the time inefficiencies of dealing with a large class vs. personal tutoring.

[conuly]

Although I have discovered that some subjects are probably better covered with well-run class discussion.

[shadowkat]

It was in the 1990s. No clue what they are doing now.

[al_zorra]

For another point of view here --

Well, I loved school, and I hated being with my parents because then I was in a state of constant anxiety and fear, never knowing when I'd be subject to tirades and beatings.

School was my safe space, it was a place where I was other people, not confined to the farm. It was filled with books and all kinds of other interesting experiences. And people liked and respected me, both teachers and the other students. At home I felt constantly disliked and despised.

And while working at the Fraunces Tavern Museum, I saw so many home-schooled kids, who were being brought in by their parents, and they were -- not all of them, but most of those I encountered and interacted with -- woefully non-socialized and narrow minded. The very idea that something else was going on in our War of Independence and Early Republic that wasn't God and the 10 commandments was anathema. That black people were part of this, and so was slavery -- this is lies! O dear.

[conuly]

That is not the sort of thing I've encountered with NYC Homeschoolers. But I do know it happens a lot in other places (and not just with homeschoolers, unfortunately).

[author_by_night]

And while working at the Fraunces Tavern Museum, I saw so many home-schooled kids, who were being brought in by their parents, and they were -- not all of them, but most of those I encountered and interacted with -- woefully non-socialized and narrow minded. The very idea that something else was going on in our War of Independence and Early Republic that wasn't God and the 10 commandments was anathema. That black people were part of this, and so was slavery -- this is lies! O dear.

Yes. I live in a community that's on the rural side (it's a "rural suburb" of sorts), and a lot of homeschoolers are... what you described. Maybe not even that narrow-minded, but certainly very lacking in any world knowledge. There are also kids whose parents don't know how to educate them, so they end up being severely lacking in skills.

However, I do think a lot of it comes down to the parent themselves. I know people who were homeschooled for, yes, religious reasons, but they still managed to be intelligent, well-rounded people. They have some views I don't share, but they're not totally unaware of the outside world. (And maybe they'd think differently if they'd gone to public school, but maybe not.) And parents who homeschooled for non-religious reasons have also dropped the ball.


I DO think if you're going to homeschool, though, you need to know what you're doing. I feel like there are a lot of line tools now, though.

[oracleofdoom]

Yeah, my peers were pretty awful people. High school was a little better, though.

[oracleofdoom]

I admit when I see people talk about home schooling, I have a knee-jerk sort of, anti-classism feeling of resentment? It's huge and it's REALLY hard for me to see past it.

With considerable effort on my part, I know that your points are accurate. I also have to admit that I probably would have benefited greatly from home schooling, but my family could never afford to do that (again, I feel incredible resentment when I follow this line of thinking).

So, I recognize that my feelings about it don't really apply to all of it, in any way.

A lot of the things in your list could apply to my kids, both gifted, one being twice exceptional. The public schools where I am are, apparently INFAMOUSLY terrible according to a friend of mine who is a teacher. I got my kids into a charter school that specifically caters to gifted children. It's a really good school, and I'm REALLY lucky. I had to get help to afford to pay for some of the things they require (an IQ test, which, I realize is an antiquated tool that probably should not be relied upon for anything anymore). And most of the families who have kids attending are a much higher income bracket than me and my family. So I also feel a little bit of that same resentment I mentioned toward some of the other parents. Like a while ago one of the parents posted to the school's FB that they heard a RUMOR that they would be doing away with the IQ test requirement. While I posted articles in the comments about how IQ tests mainly just indicate socio-economic status, the other parents were LOSING THEIR SHIT. It was super gross. I wonder if at some point someone will realize they accidentally let poor people attend this school and we'll turn into pariahs.

So, yeah, there's no perfect option. The public schools where I am are AWFUL. I can't afford to home school. I will NEVER be able to afford that. But their school is good. It's the parents who make me cringe.

[oracleofdoom]

I keep getting invited by parent groups to various prayers they do at the flag pole of our school. It irritates me.

[conuly]

Next time you should ask if it's okay to come skyclad. I can guarantee you that they will never ask again. (This is the low-key version of showing up and starting things off with HAIL SATAN!)

[conuly]

*hugs*

[conuly]

Also: We get that hard on for testing here in NYC too. As somebody who attended Stuy, it is indeed gross as fuck.

[landofnowhere]

Thanks for writing a sensible post about homeschooling! (I was G with shades of H/J, and a very mild case of E.)

[conuly]

I do try.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Making ridiculous strawmen is a favored activity for logic-impaired trolls on the Internet, and you're quite right: they don't want to have a rational debate; they're just being mean.

Traditional public schools are actively anti-socialization; one I went to didn't even allow us to talk at the lunch tables.

"I don't know how to fix this."

I know a way, but there's no chance of it being tried in America this decade, if ever. I've long held that we need a National Service, not connected to the military in any way, mandatory for everybody for three years after they're out of high school. It would make good sense to send people out of their own communities, where they'd have to make new connections and learn different ways.

People always want to fight about the 'mandatory' part, but it would have to be mandatory for everyone - the billionaires' kids the same as the slum kids - or it would devolve into yet another bureaucratic burden on the poor, while the rich skated off to play like they do.

As for homeschooling: I'm totally in favor of all the flexibility, but the other side of that is, there has to be oversight as well - and if it was up to me, it would be Federal oversight, not State (or not primarily State, anyway.) People want to teach their kids religion, that's one thing, but they don't get to teach their kids nothing but religion. People want their kids to be 'unschooled'; fine, but the burden of proof ought to be on them, to demonstrate how that differs from simply being 'ignorant'.

That whole "we move a lot" thing raises a potential red flag. Some people move a lot because their kids keep racking up too many suspicious ER visits and/or calls to CPS from the neighbors. The Turpin family is just an extreme example of the 'Quiverfull' philosophy, that openly advocates child abuse as 'religious discipline', and puts a lot of emphasis on keeping children out of the view of secular authorities who might try and put a stop to it.

[conuly]

People want their kids to be 'unschooled'; fine, but the burden of proof ought to be on them, to demonstrate how that differs from simply being 'ignorant'.

My rule of thumb is that done well, unschooling is waaaay more work for Mom and Dad than other options.

That whole "we move a lot" thing raises a potential red flag. Some people move a lot because their kids keep racking up too many suspicious ER visits and/or calls to CPS from the neighbors.

Yeah, I didn't include "We homeschool because actually we're child abusers" on that list, but it's definitely there. But many many families move a lot because they're in the military or because they want to travel the world (or the nation) or live on a boat or whatever and that's not necessarily bad.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"done well, unschooling is waaaay more work for Mom and Dad than other options."

Yes, absolutely, and I have known one family that did it fairly well, but their situation was unusual: both parents highly-educated academics, both working at home (Dad mathemetician, Mom violin teacher,) in an extremely kid-safe, homeschool-friendly town.

I couldn't have done it; I was a single parent who had to work outside my home, and I didn't have the resources or the spoons even for homeschooling, let alone unschooling - nor did my daughter want either of those anyhow.

"But many many families move a lot because they're in the military..."

I was a Navy kid myself, and while homeschooling wasn't an option back in the day, I can't see that it would have been a good thing for those of us who frequently had to pull up stakes. If you move all the time and don't go to school, how do you meet other kids? They're all in school during the day. It's all very well to say "homeschooling groups", but it takes time to find those, and more time to assimilate, and they're not automatically going to be a good fit in whatever town you happen to be in.

Living on a boat is like living in a camper: it's not necessarily bad, and there can be some nice things about it, but it's certainly not ideal for children even at best, and that situation is usually not 'at best'. Here in the Pacific Northwest, where the winters are warm enough for people to live on boats year-round, they're known as "boat trash", which is mean, but not entirely unjustified. No doubt it's possible to do a creditable job of homeschooling while living on a boat, but I wouldn't call it 'probable'.

If it were up to me, all kids would have to be enrolled in an accredited school - not some jerry-rigged 'private school' like the Turpins set up - even if they never actually set foot in it, and would have a home visit at least every three months to check on their progress and welfare.

[cesy]

Brilliant!