Home Field Advantage

Chapter 1: The Case for Homeschooling

ONE: The Case for Homeschooling

Knowing why you are homeschooling and what you want to offer your child is the first step.

WHY do families choose to homeschool their children?

It’s a simple question, yet there are as many answers to that question as there are homeschooling families. If you’re interested, here’s my family’s answer. In the Introduction, I told you a bit about my background in teaching. Within just a few months teaching in the public schools in Oregon, I realized a fundamental truth: There really is no single best way to teach all students.

My daughter who’s bookish by nature might appear to do just fine in an institutional setting, but we would never see what she could really do unless the entire class were at the same level, because there’s little room, even in gifted classes, for kids to really work as intensely as they want on any given topic.

What if Hunter, my kinesthetic learner, were in a traditional classroom where the teacher was tasked to get as many kids as possible to pass a standardized test (a test based completely on reading and writing to be taken by kids sitting quietly at their desks)? Most likely Hunter would fall behind because there would be no time to teach him concepts in the way that he learns best—by moving and doing rather than by passive reading and listening.

At home with just my three kids I can make sure that my book-loving daughter gets a steady supply of written material on the topics that interest her most. I can make sure my hands-on learner is exposed to the right environment filled with physical activity and action-based learning. This personalized approach to education simply couldn’t be replicated in a typical institutional classroom where the primary objective is passing the year-end written exams.

I’ve always believed that parents are actually in a better position to provide their children a tailor-made schooling experience that public schools simply can’t offer. That’s why you’re doing this, isn’t it? For that chance to inject a little bit of magic and creativity in your children’s learning experience?

Moving Away from One-Size Fits All Education

Studies have long proved that children learn in a variety of ways. Some children are fairly flexible in their learning and can absorb material delivered in almost any format. Most children, however, have an innate learning style or disposition that works best with one or two teaching methods or information delivery strategies.

In a traditional classroom setting where the average classroom size is typically between 20 to 30 students, there is no conceivable way for a teacher to individualize lessons for every student. Even with the best efforts (and many teachers are the hardest working people out there), it’s nearly impossible to personalize the learning experience. It’s not the fault of the schools or the individual teachers. It’s just the reality of the institutionalized system. In this system teachers inherit a curriculum chosen years before by a committee of parents and educational specialists. Teachers have to follow the designated curriculum until they can sit in on the next committee to offer their own ideas. Teachers also face limits set by state curriculum standards. Classroom management issues and parental conflicts also distract from the focus on teaching.

Those methods drilled into pre-professional teachers in their university programs rarely get a chance to be applied in the classroom as teachers are often encouraged to “stick to the script.” Sure, teachers can try to pepper their teaching in the classroom with different methods, but the fact is the school has generally chosen one course and teachers are expected to shuttle all children who pass through their doors down that same path. It’s enough to make you wonder why we send our teachers through all of that training in the first place.