To Not Go Back to School

As most parents are purchasing school supplies and counting down the days until the First Day of School, homeschoolers are renewing museum memberships and counting down the days until science centers, nature centers, aquariums, museums, and movie theaters are devoid of school children so we can more freely and completely explore them with our students. It's nothing against school children - it's just less busy and more peaceful to go to those types of places after school starts. 

This is the time the questions start. My children get asked what school they go to, what grade they're going into, and all the typical back to school questions. For some reason, most people feel the need to quiz my children upon hearing they're homeschooled, as if they need proof that homeschooled children actually learn things. I usually don't mention we're unschoolers -  that we don't follow a curriculum, nor do we limit ourselves by grade levels or what one system or another dictates we should be learning. Queried about standardized testing, reporting to the school board, and other such things, most are shocked to hear that my children aren't required to take tests or be monitored by any school officials. We're free to teach our children as we see fit, which frees us to teach them in the ways which they learn best, at their own pace. We neither have to push our children to do things they're not ready for or hold our children back from fully exploring a certain topic because that chapter in a textbook is over. And we get to go out into the world and learn through experience.

It's doubtful my now sixteen year old would love reading as much as she does if she were forced to learn to read when schooled children usually do. Given a good foundation for reading, she began in her own time, starting to read later than most schooled children, but surpassing what would be her grade level within a year of beginning to read. My youngest child would have had to wait until at least middle school to do her first animal dissection. Instead, she got her first dissection kit when she was three years old and her most recent dissections include a heart, a brain, and an eyeball. She's ten, and knows more about anatomy and physiology than most of her high school friends. My autistic children, who don't react well to being pushed to learn things, have flourished in an environment where they can learn as much as they want about whatever they want, covering all the basics on their own in the process. Unschooling is what works for my family. 

So when you meet homeschoolers, please don't quiz them. Instead ask what they're looking forward to doing this year. And please don't try to convince the parents that the children would be better off in school or that homeschool laws are too lax. Instead ask about the benefits of homeschooling and learn a thing or two about the positives associated with educational freedom. (And trust me, we've heard all the arguments for more regulation just as often as we've seen stories of schooled children slipping through the cracks, which is a lot.) Also, before asking us about socialization, realize that socialization has more to do with being out and about in the real world interacting with people of all ages, which homeschoolers do on a daily basis, than being in a classroom with people within six months of your age, only being allowed to socialize at appointed times such as lunch.

After school starts, should you happen upon my family in public and ask my kids, "Shouldn't you be in school?" don't be surprised when they answer, "We are in school!" Because we are.