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Peeking Inside the Homes of Homeschoolers
I don’t know about you, but I have a profound curiosity about how other people live, how they make the decisions they make and what leads them down the paths they take. Homeschooling is a particular curiosity for me. It is fueled by my own personal educational conundrum of the past few years. Like many of you, I came to parenting with an idea of what educating my children would look like. I grew up in Atlanta and know that there are very good schools if you know where to look. So, there I was – just cruising along with my children doing well in the neighborhood schools when…what is that? A brick wall in the path of my third grader? What do you mean he has trouble reading? What do you mean I should have him “tested?” Testing – did that. Recommendations – got those. What were my options? There was private school, there were tutors, there was special education, and, on the outskirts of my reality, there was homeschooling. Although I am a certified teacher, being able to teach high school seniors to write term papers and analyze British literature was not going to help me here. Homeschooling scared me silly. How could I give my son the tools he needed to succeed when I felt so ill-equipped? I thought, “Why would anyone want to homeschool given the plethora of choices we have?” I was definitely a skeptic. We went the private school route for two years but there was always the “what if?” I wrote myself off as not being capable of teaching him, but “what if” I could? “What if” I was the best possible teacher for my own child? “What if” the money we spent could have been better spent in educating him at home? “What if” homeschooling was just what the doctor ordered? Many homeschooling parents make their decision in a swarm of emotions – concern, trepidation, dismay, excitement, eagerness, apprehension, determination. Many of the families I spoke with did not ever think they would homeschool. Yet, more and more families are making the choice to dedicate themselves to educating within their home. The resources are more available than ever and homeschooling families are finding they are not alone. There are some families that give it a try and it doesn’t work for them, while others continue from year to year. One outcome that most agree on is the unique bond that is created within their family and the memories created through the process of educating at home. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning more about the challenges and triumphs families experience with homeschooling. I have been moved by the stories and impressed by the dedication. I hope you too can open your minds with me and peek inside the homes of the homeschoolers… Montie Stone, Editor The Chinery Story
My first teaching job was in Kingsport, Tennessee. I was born in Kingsport to a wonderful father who was a public school teacher, who was also the son of a teacher, who was the son of a teacher. You get the picture: I come from a long line of public school teachers. When we moved to Atlanta and were expecting our first child, we planned for me to stay home with the baby. I went to talk with the headmaster of a small, local school about any teaching opportunities there and he put a copy of For the Children’s Sake, by Susan Schaeffer Macauley, in my hand. This introduced me to the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason. It was like someone put into words the ideas I had about children and education, as well as how to develop those ideas into ways to teach. I was thrilled not only to be able to teach in this environment, but also to have such a wonderful place to possibly send our children for school one day – at least that was the plan. Part of the Charlotte Mason philosophy is that young children need lots of time outdoors, developing good habits of character (obedience, attentiveness, truthfulness), reading great books, discovering nature, etc. I could do that and it wasn’t really “homeschooling” since my daughter wasn’t even officially school-age yet. When it came time to register for school, my husband suggested we try one more year at home, but I was not quite on board yet. I enjoyed our family life and it had gone very well overall, but all of our friends were going to school and this would officially be “homeschooling.” Long story, short, we decided that another year wouldn’t hurt. By the next year, we had decided to just take it year-by-year, child-by-child and continue our educational way of life. Soon, I came to see the freedom homeschooling gave to our family in pursuing individual interests and abilities, in scheduling and setting our own pace, and in having time and energy to develop good relationships within our family and with others. None of our children have had any learning issues to speak of so far. However, a couple have had real strengths in certain areas and real weaknesses in other academic areas (think Math). Homeschooling has allowed me to go at a pace set by their individual abilities, challenging where challenge is needed and allowing more time, attention and practice where that is needed. I have had homeschooling friends whose children have had learning issues (including physical, intellectual, behavioral issues that affect learning). There are LOTS of resources and support groups available to homeschooling families dealing with the number of issues that come up. I know that sometimes people, much like I did at one time, misunderstand homeschooling. Thankfully, I now see the treasure that it is for us. The Rhyne Story
First, I went home and cried and cried and cried. And I asked the questions: Why me? Why us? Why him? And then I got myself together and started to work. We immediately started with the developmental pediatrician and occupational therapist. I sent our son to the special educational classes at our school when he was 3 years old. At first, it was great. The classes were small so there was a lot of one-on-one teaching. I learned a lot. In first grade, my son was mainstreamed and I was told that he could stay in the public school system, but he would receive a certificate of attendance instead of a diploma. Well, that wasn’t good enough for us. He could learn, but he just didn’t learn like everybody else. So, I pulled him out and decided to homeschool. I found The Cherish Home School Group – a group of women and children who took my son under their wing and treated him like he was their own. These women became my rock. Every time I felt like I was failing and couldn’t go on, they would pick me up and refocus me again. I also learned so much from my daughter who is two years older than my son. She was a determined little girl and taught my son how to play; she made him get involved. When I saw how she could pull him out of his daze, I knew there was hope. I knew we could get through it. I knew he was in there somewhere and I just had to figure out how to get to him. With time and the techniques that were taught to me by his teachers, developmental pediatrician and other mothers, it all came together. I learned early that my son was a tactile learner. When I taught math, he always had manipulatives. When we studied history, the projects were building pyramids or making bricks like the Egyptians. But he was still struggling with reading. I went through six reading programs without success until I found a tutor who specialized in Orton-Gillingham. I signed up for multi-sensory education and Orton-Gillingham classes. In one year, my son went from reading little readers to reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I was so ecstatic about the progress he was making! Each person God brought to me led me to someone else that taught me so much. I often wondered how I could give back everything I have been blessed with. The answer came to me when a friend and mentor told me that I needed to share the knowledge I had been given. She was right and if I could help other mothers not make the same mistakes I made, that is what I needed to do. So, I started tutoring. I’m not saying it is easy. But it goes smoother when you have a strong family and friends who pick you up when you fall. It’s a learning experience. Some things worked great for my son, some failed miserably. Through it all our family has remained strong and was able to help him through those times of rejection and defeat. Because of our faith, strength, friends and family we have watched him grow into an amazing young man whose heart is as pure as gold. He sees the world as an adventure and not as an obstacle. The Myers Story
Homeschooling provides us with a learning environment for our daughter that is customized to her instructional level in every subject and addresses every social, emotional, physical and academic need. For example, we currently work in third grade math, fourth grade language arts, science and social studies, and sixth grade literature. Meanwhile, we are honing keyboarding skills to replace laborious handwriting, and we have the time to work on life skills in a safe and nurturing environment. Social skills are addressed through a weekly junior bowling league, weekly structured youth group activities, a bimonthly YMCA program and workouts at a local health club, in addition to her less structured texting and phone skills time. Our daughter is learning to be responsible for her academic studies and organizing her day by making appropriate choices in time management. She is gaining confidence in completing a task, finishing well and successfully achieving her goals. She is also learning that poor choices have consequences and affect other opportunities she may want to experience. She is gaining confidence academically and in herself as a valuable person. She is also learning to enjoy the process of learning. She gets excited when she learns something new, when it finally clicks and when she knows she has mastered that concept or skill. While academic institutions can, and do, offer our children many of these same opportunities, they cannot offer the one-to-one customized and personalized curriculum and schedule available through learning at home with the person who knows them best. This knowledge really made a lasting impression on my heart when our daughter had to write about a hero in her writing curriculum. We were working on a goal of 3 paragraphs with 3-5 sentences in each. Her hero? “My mom,” she said. When I asked her why, she gave me her verbal outline, “Because you are the best teacher I’ve ever had, the best mom in the whole wide world and my best friend.” Why do I homeschool our daughter? I really like being her hero. More importantly, I love how it is growing our daughter. The Lockwood Story
Driving home one night, I blurted it out, “I’m going to homeschool for fifth grade.” I made my case to my husband, but in reality I was trying to convince myself and dismiss any lingering doubt. Why should we continue to spend thousands of dollars on private school where even a great program was catering more to the needs of a group rather than to our son’s individual needs? Why should we put him back in public school when I was basically re-teaching the concepts covered at school each day? Couldn’t we save time, money, and my child’s sanity by removing the stress of homework and private school tuition? Wouldn’t it be the best option to spend our money on tutors and our time on working with him one-on-one in the quiet setting of our home for a year? How could we miss? Throughout the spring and summer, I buried myself in researching homeschooling and in developing a specific plan for my son. I researched curriculum and spoke to my friends who had been brave enough to try this crazy idea with their children. I went to a homeschooling fair over the summer and also paid a homeschooling consultant to help me select appropriate books and materials. By late August, I was ready to go and enthusiastic. The program I compiled for my son was a mixture of me teaching him directly, tutors, and classes at a homeschool education center one day per week. I took the lion’s share of the hours each week, but we had a math tutor and a language arts tutor come in once a week. These tutors, who used the Lindamood-Bell approach, basically helped set the tone for my instructional week. I let them introduce new concepts and then I spent the rest of the week assigning work to reinforce those skills. Science and social studies time was comprised largely of hands-on activities and field trips. The classes he took at the homeschool center also added to his science and social studies instruction but also added enrichment classes of art and creative writing. Those classes also provided me a much-needed midweek break!
In addition, because we were able to target his instruction specifically to him, he covered about two grade levels worth of material in math and made fairly significant gains in language arts as well, and all of this happened without any late-night homework. Despite the positives, it was an extremely challenging year. We both found it isolating and I believed that he needed to be around other kids every day in order to maximize his social development. Also, for me, it was physically and emotionally draining. Every day, my child’s academic challenges were front and center. There were days when I tried everything I could think of to get him to comprehend certain material, but it just wouldn’t sink in. What began in August of that year with great excitement and enthusiasm had, for me, turned to exhaustion by spring. By May, I knew our homeschooling days were behind us. My son returned to public school the following year for sixth grade and then went on to private school after that. As we now look forward to high school, I do not believe we will ever return to homeschooling, but I will never regret our experience. To homeschool, I still believe, was the best option we had at the time. The year gave us both a better understanding of and respect for each other. I will always be a huge advocate of homeschooling, and I know that when my child is an adult we will both look back on that year as, perhaps, the best one of his childhood. The Wilcox-Crovatt Story
My story begins with my daughter who struggled in first grade with reading, spelling, slow speed and lack of attention at times. A testing appointment resulted in a diagnosis of dyslexia and ADHD. I called the Schenck School to find a tutor and learned that the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) was having a conference in Atlanta that coming weekend. I was in a fog with so much information to absorb! After the IDA conference, I was convinced about my daughter’s dyslexia and believed I had it as well. It was another exhausting and highly emotional day. I bought every book on the subject of dyslexia and ADHD. The recommendation was for our daughter to repeat first grade. Our child was not only behind academically, but she was also behind developmentally. So we decided to have her repeat. It was a tough decision, but in looking back, it was right. That summer, a tutor helped her with her reading. After being diagnosed with Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD) by an audiologist, a speech pathologist then worked with her weekly for almost two years. It was now the beginning of April, getting close to the end of the school year, and I was completely frustrated. It propelled me to search for homeschool information now, more than ever. I became passionate about my quest for information, resources and help. I was determined and frustrated at the same time and that fueled my perseverance. I attended one homeschooling convention and then another. I was still nervous as to how I was going to do this, but my faith kept me on the homeschool path. I left the convention with a cart full of books and school supplies; I was tired, but excited. That was the summer of 2006 and I have now homeschooled for four years. My daughter just turned 13 in March. She is still working on her reading speed and using a computer program that helps with her memory, but she is a reader! Our homeschooling experience was so successful that we decided to try it with our eldest daughter in ninth grade. Although she doesn’t have any learning challenges, we were able to tailor a program for her as well. Because of my years of homeschooling, I knew of a homeschool program that I felt would work well. Her first year was a success and now we are into her sophomore year. Learning isn’t something she dreads now, but something she embraces once again. This journey hasn’t been easy. I still cry and pray but my relationship with my girls is wonderful. They are two of my best friends. I don’t want my daughters to be carbon-copy kids. I want their God-given uniqueness to be embraced. I want them to learn in their own way, at their own speed, and with leeway to question the norm and be independent thinkers. They get all of this from homeschooling, and so do I. Learning is for a lifetime.
April 21, 2010 | In Feature Articles | 1 Comment
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The stories of families that homeschool are as different as the families themselves. Homeschooling a child with learning differences adds another layer of decisions that need to be made and details that need to be addressed. Join Kids Enabled as we take a look into how some local families came to homeschooling and how it worked for them.
I never thought I would be a homeschooler. It’s not that I hadn’t heard of it or thought about homeschoolers – I had and I knew I wouldn’t be one. All the stereotypes of mothers and children who homeschool were firmly in my mind, and although I didn’t actually know any of those people, I was definitely not interested. It makes the fact that we have absolutely loved homeschooling for over a decade delightfully hilarious.
In 1998, I had a beautiful baby boy who was strong and healthy and had the biggest blue eyes you have ever seen. In 2000, he was diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). We were given a list of a list of support groups, occupational therapists, speech therapists, and a developmental pediatrician. So what did I do?
Our daughter, who was diagnosed with special needs, has experienced many educational options: from public schools (mainstreamed, inclusion, resource, pull-out, small group, one-on-one, self-contained, team taught), to virtual public schools (schooling at home under the direction of a public school with certified teacher support and related services), back to public school, then again to virtual public school, then to homeschooling with support from a private school. Each one was the perfect fit for our child at that time. Each time we changed settings, it was to meet the changing needs of our child and our family. While our daughter needed structure and consistency, the timely changes offered her stepping stones to learning life skills. She learned that change is okay and it can offer opportunities for growth and new experiences.
The decision to homeschool came to me after much thought, but when I finally said it out loud the idea sent me into immediate panic mode. I had never taught anything in my life, so how would I know what I was doing? How would I make sure my son had an appropriate curriculum that addressed his weaknesses, as well as his strengths? What would happen to my life? And above all, how in the world would I be able to summon the patience?
When asked to write about my homeschooling journey, my first feeling was nervousness. I said, “Yes,” because I am so passionate about education and children. If I can help one parent either begin homeschooling or continue homeschooling, then it is worth it.
