Leaping From The Box

A reader posed this Unschooling Question:

Hello! We decided to homeschool before my first was born. Along the way we discovered unschooling and it was a perfect fit…for mom and dad. My daughter, now 5, wants to go to school so unbelievably bad. At first I was appalled, but I have since warmed to the idea out of necessity. I don’t want my daughter to feel that she will be missing out on something she wants so badly…”because I said so!” I have tried to lay out the pros and cons as non-biased as possible, but I find myself highlighting the pros of unschooling (and homeschooling in general) way more, on accident, and later feel as if I am spreading propaganda rather than being honest about the situation.

This has to be one of the strangest parenting dilemmas. “Should my child go to school? (with parental hopes and dreams being that she chooses to not attend).” I guess if we choose to help her find her own path and attend public school, we would definitely be considered radical unschoolers. I just don’t know how to make sense of it in my head, and essentially to my daughter. I don’t want to push her either way. I just never thought I would ever face this kind of situation, given that most kids would love to have the option to NOT attend school.

Also, if she does attend, do I push her to do her homework and study, etc. I am so confused.

One more thing…we have a great local unschool group that is very active and hosts monthly events for every interest.

Any input will be welcomed. Thanks sooooo much!

First off, your statement that “most kids would love to have the option to NOT attend school” would apply more to children that have already attended school, not to those who have never been. Television and other aspects of our society (media) have worked diligently to make public school in general and Preschool / Kindergarten in particular appear very appealing to young children. It is not at all unusual for young children to be excited about going to school, where they can do all the things the big kids do!

The Main Decision

Your main decision seems to be whether or not to allow your daughter to attend public school. Once you decide that, then you can deal with your other concerns. In order to make that decision, you need to examine your feelings and beliefs about public school. Do you homeschool due to a belief that public schools are inherently injurious to children’s spirits? Or do you view homeschooling as just one of many possible ways to educate, neither better nor worse than any other form?

Some parents equate public school with playing in the road. While it may seem harmless at first, the dangers are there and by the time you see them coming, it is too late and the damage (sometimes permanent) is done. If you feel that public school is a danger to your daughter’s health and well-being, then your decision is made for you — you homeschool her, regardless of what she wants to do. At her young age, your daughter does not have the maturity or experience to make such a large, important decision.

If you feel that public school is a perfectly viable alternative to homeschooling, then allowing your daughter to try public school would seem to be a logical decision. Based upon the experience with my children, some children really enjoy public school during those early elementary years, while others absolutely do not thrive there. But even in the best of public schools, there will be issues, some of which you may hear about from your child, many that you will not. I was very surprised and disturbed by some of the stories I heard from my children even several years after I removed them from public school. I like to think that, if I had known at the time all that was going on, I would have removed them years earlier.

Finding Out Why She Wishes To Attend Public School

You might try to find out why your daughter wants to go to public school. I have had friends whose children wanted nothing more than a back pack like all the other kids that go to public school. Or they wanted a lunch pail. Or to ride the school bus. One even wanted a menu of what lunch would be each day of the week. It can be amusing to find out just what the child’s expectations are about Kindergarten or Preschool or Public School. If it is something as simple as having a backpack to carry around, that is easily solved.

I also know some families that have done a complete “school day” at home, so their children would know what school was really like. The reality of having to get up early, catch the bus (they actually strapped everyone into the car and made the trek to school), stay seated all day, ask for permission to go to the bathroom, etc., was much more than the children had anticipated and long before the end of the day, they were more than happy to be homeschooled.

If Attending, What To Do About Homework and Studying

Again, you have options here, depending upon your philosophies and beliefs about education, public school, etc. Some families whose children opt for public school do so knowing that they can homeschool at any time. The parents do not care about grades and wish that the child get out of public school what they desire and/or need at the time. Other families insist that, if their children go to public school, they agree to the rules of the game and therefore are expected to do their homework and worry about their grades. Some even insist that the child commit to a full year if they decide to go to public school. Of course, at the Kindergarten age, I doubt that a child that young can understand that type of commitment or whether the parent would want to insist upon completing a full year in public school if they felt it was harming their child in some way.

Guilty of Spreading Unschooling Propaganda?

We all have our biases, based upon our beliefs and experiences, and they will come out, no matter how hard we try to be neutral in our speaking. You want to homeschool, you want your child to be unschooled, so it is only natural that you present that idea in a better light than you do public school. As long as you are trying to be balanced, that is the best you can do. No one can ask for more. Quite honestly, after experiencing life with my children in public school and then homeschooling, I doubt I would be at all balanced in trying to convince a child of mine not to attend public school.

Unschooling Support Group

You are lucky, indeed, to have an active unschooling support group locally. If your family decides to continue homeschooling, be sure to plan something fun for that first day back of public school. Many homeschoolers plan a “not back to school” day, including swimming, park days, ice cream, whatever you can think of to celebrate your freedom from the public school schedule for the coming year!

Best of luck with your decision. Be sure to write back and let us know what you decide!

For ideas about homeschooling / unschooling Kindergarten, check out my Do You Need To Teach Kindergarten? article.

Finishing up with our Homeschool Mixer Questions,

13. What difficulties and challenges do you have with homeschooling?

I can think of two main challenges from our homeschooling years. The first major challenge was finding local like-minded homeschoolers. It seemed like every homeschooler that we knew within a reasonable driving distance either homeschooled for religious reasons (which we did not) and/or they followed a strict school-at-home schedule with curriculum, lesson plans, etc. Each circumstance led to uncomfortable visits, awkward conversations, and the feeling that you had to keep silent so that you didn’t offend someone or appear to be passing judgment upon how they homeschooled.
The second challenge was the learning styles in our family. I am a very visual, text-based learner. I also like to learn things for myself, do them myself. I most definitely am not an auditory learner, unless something is put to music. My children tended to be auditory, visual and hands-on. Sometimes their needs to learn things for themselves without assistance butted heads with their need to be shown how to do something, an issue I frequently have. So dealing with the issues presented with our sometimes very different learning styles and sometimes too similar learning styles was a continual challenge all through out homeschooling years. In fact, I was so aware of this issue that I wrote several articles about learning styles, which can be found on the LeapingFromTheBox.com website.

14. What makes homeschooling enjoyable?

The gift of time that it gives to the whole family - time to pursue interests, time to have a life other than school, time to give to others.

15. How do you get involved in the community?

My husband and I are not really joiners, so community involvement was not an area that we concentrated on. Sometimes I think that was a mistake, but that is just who we are, or rather, aren’t. Community involvement was in the areas of our activities; youth sports, square dancing group, martial arts lessons. When those groups held community activities, then we joined in.

16. When do you have opportunities to interact with public or privately schooled children?

Through many activities, such as sports, art lessons, interests such as astronomy and chess. We really were not isolated, contrary to what the popular societal belief is about homeschoolers.

17. Would you like more of these opportunities?

If we had lived in a less rural area, there would have been more such opportunities. But honestly, I am not sure we would have sought them out. We really had enough activities as it was, for the most part, and I don’t know what we would have gained by making a point of seeking out activities that involved public or privately schooled children.

18. How can they be created?

The marketplace, supply and demand, will eventually create them, if they are desired by homeschoolers. Already there are many more opportunities for activities in the public sector for homeschoolers than there were twelve years ago when we first began homeschooling. That is due to the increase of homeschoolers and their demand for more activities outside of the church and outside of the public school venue. I also believe as public schools go through more and more rounds of cutbacks due to the economy, that more activities will be funded by the parents in the community, hence more interaction of homeschooled and public schooled children.

19. What is your least favorite homeschool stereotype?

My least favorite is the notion that we all homeschool for religious reasons, which is a stereotype even within the homeschool community. I receive advertising packets geared towards homeschoolers that is 100% religious in its slant. I have received phone calls from political parties urging me to vote for specific politicians who expound a particular belief, assuming that because I am a homeschooler, I must be pro-life or pro-whatever.

Continuing with our Homeschool Mixer Questions,

6. What does your daily schedule look like?

Our schedules always varied, depending upon the season and the activities that the children were involved in. And honestly, it is difficult to remember exact schedules from ten or twelve years ago! Most of the time the children slept late, arising anywhere from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (yes, I did say slept late!). A lot depended upon what activities they were scheduled to go to and when they were younger, early teens, they got up earlier than 11. But morning activities were always a challenge for us, especially if it meant getting up and eating food before driving anywhere!

Any academics that we did together were done in the afternoon. Usually we were reading aloud (me reading, children listening) from some work of literature; two or three afternoons a week I would read aloud for an hour or more. I also read aloud history. History is my love and not a subject that my children would usually read on their own (unless they found a particular time or place they were extremely interested in), so I would read whatever history book I thought they might enjoy. My children loved being read aloud to and I hated reading aloud (still do), but I spent many hours doing so, even until they were well into their teens.

7. Are your kids always polite and ready to learn?

Huh?! You’ve got to be kidding! First, with our method of homeschooling, unschooling, they learned what they were interested in, for the most part. So if they were interested, I suppose they were ready to learn. As for polite, well, mostly. I suppose some very strict families would have considered them occasionally rude or inconsiderate or likely even disrespectful, but I had different standards and so I felt they were just normal children. Well, maybe not normal, as that was always considered a bad word in our house!

8. Do the kids (or you!) get frustrated?

Of course! We all got frustrated at times. That’s just a part of living together, being a family, not really a by-product of homeschooling.

9. How has this affected your parenting?

I thought these were homeschooling questions?! I never found a magic pill to dispel frustration. It was just something we had to work through. Communication, time, patience, all factor into dealing with frustration, but I have no pat answers for this one.

10. How much free time do they have?

Most of their day was their free time, to do with as they wished, dictated by our outside activities schedule. They had chores to do, helping around the house with kitchen duties and laundry and such. And we would try to plan reading together time several days a week, along with some board game / card game playing time. But all things considered, most of their days were their time.

11. What do they do during their free time?

Learn. Live. Explore. Grow.

12. What hobbies do they have?

Hobby is an interesting word and not one I have really used since we began homeschooling / unschooling. A hobby to me is something you do to take you away from your every day world, let you forget the stress of work or life and just enjoy some small area of your life. As unschoolers, we tend to gravitate naturally to those areas that would be considered a “hobby” and consider that a part of our life. Interests my children have had that they have made a part of their life, but might be considered hobbies, are many. Some they have held on to for years, continuing to do them as adults, even working to turn them into a career option. Some they have let lie fallow while pursuing other interests. Here are just a few over the last twelve years of homeschooling:

Martial Arts (Karate, Jujitsu)
Web Design
Game Programming
Writing / Blogging / FanFic
Basketball (and Soccer and Softball)
Reading
RPG’s (Role Playing Games)
X-Box (and PlayStation and Wii)
King Arthur Lore
Celtic History / Lore / Music / Culture

Tomorrow I will finish answering the Homeschool Mixer Questions. The last questions are:

13. What difficulties and challenges do you have with homeschooling?
14. What makes homeschooling enjoyable?
15. How do you get involved in the community?
16. When do you have opportunities to interact with public or privately schooled children?
17. Would you like more of these opportunities?
18. How can they be created?
19. What is your least favorite homeschool stereotype?