not yet a homeschooling sage
Last week a friend from church emailed Leah and me, together with a couple other folks from the community, to ask about homeschooling. She has a preschooler and is planning ahead. Leah wrote right back with some practical tips on writing and submitting a home education plan, getting hooked up with AHEM, and surviving 14 to 18 hours a day with your child without a break. I haven't said anything; nothing really came to mind. No more did it last week when a couple of moms at that church fair showed some interest—"what possessed you to start homeschooling?" one of them asked, before clarifying that maybe "possessed" wasn't the word she was looking for.
"I don't know," I answered. "I guess I just like hanging out with my kids?"
I'm not at my theoretical or philosophical best these days. I think the results of the election were kind of a shock to my system, and in reaction I can only conceive of keeping my head down and living the kind of life that seems good to me. Maybe trying to convince other people of things is always doomed to failure and strife.
That said, I do really think homeschooling is a fine idea. And people are interested in it; one of the moms at the fair said she thought about it for her kids at least once every year, when September rolled around and they were crushed by the idea of going back to school. But I don't really know what to say from an advocacy point of view—no more do I have any ideas about practical advice to offer to families interested in trying out the homeschool lifestyle. What it really comes down to, I think, is simple but maybe pretty radical change in the way we think about our relationship to kids and their relationship to acquiring information.
It's kind of like what Bike Snob said once about converting a mountain bike to a commuter. Someone asked him about it. I paraphrase because there's no way I'm going to search that blog, and maybe it was in one of his books, but basically his answer was: "ride it to work." How do you start homeschooling? Don't send your kids to school, and let them learn at home instead. Done!
I'm aware that that's not the universal model. Our public library carries Practical Homeschooling, a magazine full of curriculum reviews, guides to creating schedules that work, and fear-mongering about public school education. To the editors there homeschooling is serious business and hard work, but also something that can be solved by the application of existing methods (once you find the right one for your family). Tips are absolutely central to that mode of operation. But I don't have the energy for that, and if I wanted my kids to have to adapt to curriculum—or have it adapted to them—I'd send them to school where at least someone else would be doing all that work.
So maybe I need to come up with some snappy answers to help people who want to homeschool our way understand... and relax. If people are going to be asking me anyway. I've ordered some books on the subject; check back in a couple weeks.