What were my twelve years of schooling for?

It’s clear that people do not understand homeschooling at all. There are various methods to choose from, various ways of doing it. I’m sure some people who choose to homeschool their children are doing their child a disservice, but that’s not usually the case.

I believe the misunderstandings come from the name “home” schooling. People believe we stay at home, plop a book in front of our child, and try to teach them from our own knowledge. While this could work, it will only take you so far.

So how do you teach those tougher subjects? You get your child involved! Imax had an awesome film on the human body that is useful in teaching biology. It’s now available on DVD, I believe. You could also take your child on a tour of a pharmaceutical company or a hospital (Researching how and why a hospital makes a commitment to sterilization is very interesting- it was one of the subjects I chose to research when I was eleven. I was even able to go into the NICU and see the little babies!). You can talk to various doctors (many doctors will take the time to discuss what they do, why they do it, etc), research various conditions and diseases, and watch videos. You may want to have someone who has had cancer or another disease come speak to your children- then you can research exactly what cancer is, what is looks like, etc.
Why do people try to limit how we learn and who can teach? Maybe it’s because that’s what happened in our schools? Institutional schools are always “changing the rules”.

I have a question. Why did we go to 12 years of school (plus kindergarten)? Teachers always told us it was so we could have careers. So we could make something of ourselves. I cannot tell you how many times I heard, “You need to learn this because you’re going to use it later in life.”

So, it’s later in life! I’m using everything I learned to teach my children, PLUS other resources (people, places, things) available to me as well. How can it be that I’m NOT equipped to teach my children when I have already been taught all of the things I’m suppose to teach them?

I have found that the people who are so very against homeschool really don’t know anything about it. Maybe they have one or two examples of homeschooling gone bad and assume that’s how it all goes, but that’s not truth. In fact, top schools like Harvard and Yale love homeschoolers!

On the other hand, most homeschoolers have a very good idea of what instituational schools are like, which is why they’ve chosen to homeschool. So, before you go trashing it, maybe you should give it a whole-hearted try!