American Homeschool Association

An encouraging post from Home Education Magazine, about the popular suspense thriller author Dean Koontz, who’s had several novels on the New York Times Bestseller List:

On the HEM Networking discussion group, longtime advocate and Texas homeschooling mom Susan Smylie, who was interviewed for HEM in 2007, shared a reference to homeschooling from an unexpected source. On Monday, Susan wrote to others on the HEM Networking group:

Dean Koontz is apparently a fan of homeschooling (I don’t think he has kids–not mentioned on his bio):

From Relentless (his newest book). The story is told in the first person by Cubby, who is married to Penny. Penny’s parents are demolition experts, survivalists, quirky and interesting. Cubby and Penny are on the run from horror (a pattern in Dean Koontz stories) and have visited her parents to stock up on weapons. They have an uber-genius son–six years old and doing Einstein-type work. (working on time travel and the like). Here is the homeschool quote:

Eyes closed, I sad to Penny, “Sometimes I worry about Milo. At the stronghold, I realized you had a childhood like his. Homeschooled. No friends your age. Your world limited to family, a kind of isolation. What were the negatives of a childhood like that?”

“None,” she said without hesitation. “Growing up in a loving family, with parents who have a sense of humor and common sense and a sense of wonder–that’s not isolation, that’s a wonderful haven.” …. “More than a haven, It’s a sanctuary, where you can decide who you are are, what you think about the world, before the world tells you who you are are and what you ought to think of it.”

Obviously, most of us don’t isolate our kids the way he describes here–there were/are reasons she and her son have that isolation. But, look at how Koontz turns even that criticism of homeschooling into a good thing. The passage goes on a bit longer, with her talking about how she would not be the artist she is if she’d had earlier formal instruction. Was a nice little surprise to find in this book (that otherwise does not mention homeschooling at all–it is just obvious their son has to be homeschooled, he is smarter than pretty much everyone else on the planet.)

best wishes, Susan Smylie

The American Homeschool Association’s Open Online Journalism Project provides a voice and broad exposure for the work homeschoolers are involved in, and it offers homeschoolers a place to share, learn and help others become empowered.

The AHA Citizen’s Journal addresses issues related to homeschooling and which homeschool advocates have a passion for: homeschooling, unschooling, parenting, rights and responsibilities, curfews, activities . . . the list goes on. If you have comments or suggestions, or if you’re interested in contributing to the AHA Citizen’s Journal, please write to the AHA Project Managers, Mary Nix or Susan Ryan, at Journal@americanhomeschoolassociation.org

In just the last couple of weeks posts have covered a wide range of topics: Proposed Legislation on Truancy, A Homeschooled College Volleyball Player, Homeschoolers and Public School Sports, College without High School, Chris Klicka in Hospice, Homeschooling Around the World, What Kind of Homeschooler, Freedom to Choose, Homeschooling and Divorce, Building Advocacy-Curfews, and Does Homeschooling Have to be Political?

Peter Gray, a research professor of psychology at Boston College, has conducted and published research in comparative, evolutionary, developmental, and educational psychology; published articles on innovative teaching methods and alternative approaches to education; and is author of an introductory college textbook on psychology. He is currently working on a book about the lifelong nature and functions of human play, tentatively titled Born to Play, and he writes a blog for Psychology Today titled Freedom to Learn: The roles of play and curiosity as foundations for learning.

In recent posts he’s been exploring the concept of what he terms ‘trustful parenting,’ and his August 26 post is actually titled ‘Trustful Parenting May Require an Alternative to Conventional Schooling’, and subtitled: ‘Trustful parenting may be incompatible with conventional schooling.’ He suggests two alternatives to consider: Sudbury model democratic schools, and homeschooling (or unschooling). He writes:

“For many parents, who do not have the choice of a Sudbury school, homeschooling may be the only alternative to conventional schooling. In recent decades, as schools have become increasingly intrusive in families’ lives, the number of families choosing homeschooling has risen sharply–to over a million in the United States today.”

More recent posts by Peter Gray:

September 30, 2009:
How Developmental Psychology’s Marriage to the School System Distorts Our Understanding of Children
To understand children we must observe them where they’re free.

In this post Peter Gray discusses The Handbook of Child Psychology:

“The list of authors could provide the foundation for a Who’s Who in developmental psychology. The work is intended as a full account of psychology’s findings and theories about children’s behavior.”

None of the 79 chapters are about play or even hint at play in their title. When I checked the subject indexes of each volume I found a few page references to play, but when I followed these up I discovered that, in all four volumes combined, slightly under 10 total pages are devoted to play. Ten pages out of 5,000–in other words, two-tenths of one percent of the whole–are devoted to the topic play in a work that is supposed to sum up all that we know about child psychology!

What about curiosity or exploration? Here the story is even worse.

September 2, 2009:
“Why Don’t Students Like School?” Well, Duhhhh…
Children don’t like school because they love freedom.

Everyone who has ever been to school knows that school is prison, but almost nobody says it. It’s not polite to say it. We all tiptoe around this truth, that school is prison, because telling the truth makes us all seem so mean. How could all these nice people be sending their children to prison for a good share of the first 18 years of their lives? How could our democratic government, which is founded on principles of freedom and self-determination, make laws requiring children and adolescents to spend a good portion of their days in prison? It’s unthinkable, and so we try hard to avoid thinking it. Or, if we think it, we at least don’t say it. When we talk about what’s wrong with schools we pretend not to see the elephant, and we talk instead about some of the dander that’s gathered around the elephant’s periphery.

But I think it is time that we say it out loud. School is prison.

Complete archive of Peter Gray’s posts on play and curiosity as the foundations of learning.

There’s an interesting feature article at the well-known online newsmagazine, Salon.com, and it’s not only very favorable toward homeschooling, it’s written by a homeschooling dad with a smart, savvy sense of humor and a good understanding of what homeschooling is all about.

Confessions of a home-schooler, by Andrew O’Hehir, is a fun read, and worth linking to if you have a blog or a website. O’Hehir is the father of two young homeschoolers, and he’s taking his homeschooling dad duties seriously. Or not. His ‘public answer’ to the old socialization question is “…we’ve got a nice support network. They have a circle of friends. They do lots of classes and activities. They go to birthday parties and stuff.”

But then O’Hehir goes into an expanded explanation of the whys and wherefores of homeschooling. It’s very nicely done.

An interesting part of the article is the comments and letters it has generated already, over 14 pages of them as I write this! I haven’t tallied up the pros versus the cons, but in a quick run-through and an informal estimate it seems like the pro-homeschooling contingent are ahead by quite a margin, but the anti-homeschooling group are fairly ornery and accusing. As one commenter who signs his post ‘cabdriver’ notes: “…dogmatic anti-homeschoolers continue to apply finger-wagging worst-case scenarios and snarkily indulge their corny one-size-fits-all stereotypes, even as home-schoolers continue to relate their own stereotype-busting stories.”

This is only the first article in a series, but it’s a good start.

Many homeschool advocates, support group volunteers, and business people who work with homeschooling families have noticed a marked increase this year in media challenges to homeschooling laws, regulations, and long-accepted practices, not only in many parts of the U.S., but around the world in countries where homeschooling is also popular.

Alaska

In the U.S., the most recent flare-up is an in-depth feature article which appeared in the Sunday, Sept. 13th edition of the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska’s largest newspaper, titled Home school: Making the grade?

The writer launched right into her point: “Alaska has the most lax home-schooling law in the country. No one even knows how many Alaska children stay home instead of attending a public or private school — they aren’t tracked or monitored.”

After a couple of short paragraphs about reporting and regulation and what the writer terms “the tension between the two camps,” that is, the “traditional bricks-and-mortar educators and fiercely independent home-schooling parents,” the writer gets to her point: “Should Alaska join the ranks of other states by tightening its home-schooling laws? State Education Commissioner Larry LeDoux wants to at least ask the question.”

The article almost immediately galvanized both homeschool advocates and opponents in Alaska, with almost 200 comments within the first 48 hours of publication; that’s ten pages of discussion.

Connecticut

In Stamford, Connecticut, in an article titled Home.EDU, on Sept. 3rd, the writer quipped, “I was interviewing Ann Zeise, a California expert, on the pros and cons of home schooling when she said the thing she hated most were the stupid questions from people like me.” And then she dives headlong into controversy: “Defensive? You bet. A common theme. But when you begin to understand how the whole thing works – and many say it does – you get why home schooling parents get so angry when the world thinks of them as a bunch of religious fanatics who shelter their children in underground bunkers and never let them out into the light of day.”

The writer explains a bit about the local situation: “In Connecticut, home-schooling families have quite a bit of leeway when it comes to curriculum. It’s apparently one of the few states where there are no statutes governing what must be taught, and how. …For the most part, a parent who wishes to home-school a child is pretty much free to let a child study what, and how, he or she wants.”

There’s a lot of wide-ranging commentary in the article, pointing out examples of homeschooling which worked, following up with warnings and citations like this one which wraps up the article: “Home schooling is a complex proposition, says Milton Gaither, author of “Homeschool: An American History,” and college professor in Grantham, Pennsylvania. “It requires sacrifices and compromises and generates conflict among parents, children and extended family, even as it brings people together in a shared endeavor. It’s neither panacea nor scourge. It can be liberating, isolating, rewarding and punishing.”

Calls for Regulation

In an August article for the Washington Post titled “Three Smart Rules for Home School Regulation,” education columnist Jay Mathews called homeschooling “the sleeping giant of the American education system.” He explained how good data on homeschooled kids is hard to find, but the number has been growing over the last decade. He reports that “Some public school educators I know are uneasy… They don’t know home-schooling families well. They worry those kids are being ill-served by well-meaning but inexperienced parents. There is potential for more battles over regulating home-schooling.”

He sides with Robert Kunzman, author of the controversial new book, “Write These Laws on Your Children,” who thinks homeschoolers, like regular school children, should be tested for basic skills in reading, writing and math.”

London, England

An article in the Sept. 15th London, England Times Online, “Hey, teachers, leave us kids alone,” highlights homeschoolers in London protesting against tighter restrictions on homeschooling. The Badman Report, published earlier this year, recommends compulsory registration for home educators with the local authority and that parents specify their educational plans for their child a year ahead. Local authorities should provide access to the national examination system and sports facilities, and representatives who have been suitably trained should be able to visit homes where children are being educated.”

Catholic Homeschooling “Just War Theory?”

In a bit different turn of events, the Sept. 15th Catholic Online presents “A ‘Just War Theory’ of Homeschooling,” by William Fahey, which counsels, “The common approach to homeschooling today is inherently dangerous, because it may go against what our entire Western tradition and the Catholic Church herself teach about the education of the young — that education should not be done in the home, at least not for long, except during a time and place of crisis.”

Fahey invokes Church pronouncements to explain his declaration, and later in the article claims “…the feelings of isolation and inadequacy so common to homeschooling parents should be recognized as the natural response to stress in the face of crisis. They point to something “unnatural” about the total education of the child at home:”

It’s an unusual twist on the anti-homeschool argument, to be sure.

Helpful Information and Resources

Your Homeschooling Decisions Affect My Homeschooling Freedoms
Taking Charge – Larry and Susan Kaseman
Home Education Magazine, March-April 2001

Basic ideas about homeschooling freedoms: Why we need to be free from unnecessary state regulation, why it is difficult to do this, and what we can do to reclaim and maintain homeschooling freedoms, including situations when this means giving up something our family wants. Why freedom from unnecessary state regulation is essential to maintain homeschooling as we know it.

Why Independence Is Essential To Homeschooling
Taking Charge – Larry and Susan Kaseman
Home Education Magazine, Sept-Oct 2002

Some of the most important advantages and strengths are based on our independence of public school models and the fact that we respect each other’s independence and have not established our own homeschooling orthodoxy to which homeschoolers are expected to conform. This column will examine the strengths of homeschooling, emphasizing those that exist because homeschools are independent of public schools, and discuss contributions homeschooling makes to our society.

Revelations of a Homeschooling Mom, by Carol Wanagel, was originally published in the January-February 1995 issue of Home Education Magazine, and it quickly became a timeless classic.

Here we present the opening sentences, and outline the revelations Carol identified, but we highly recommend clicking the link above and reading the entire article. Carol’s explanations of how she arrived at these revelations are inspiring, empowering and, even after all these years, just a darned good read!

Revelations of a Homeschooling Mom
by Carol Wanagel

Thirteen years ago when my kids first talked me into trying this homeschooling thing, I was like everyone else who thinks about trying it- scared. I didn’t know how to teach a kid to read and I didn’t remember much of the science or math or history I’d been taught, and what would the school officials do to us?

So I had my doubts, but, even without knowing all the good that would come out of home education, I had to consider it. I never felt right about sending my kids to school, knowing what it was like there. From the moment that motorized yellow monster came to the end of my driveway and swallowed up my children, I felt guilty and anxious until they were home again. It seemed worth it to try something else.

REVELATION #1, of course, was that home schooling was legal at all.

REVELATION #2: Textbooks are the most stultifying, mind-deadening books in the world.

REVELATION #3: It takes about an hour and a half a day to cover everything they would cover in a day at school.

REVELATION #4: The more you teach, the less they learn.

REVELATION #5: Most of what we do in school beyond the third grade is a big waste of time.

REVELATION #6: The pursuit of any one interest will result in a complete education.

REVELATION #7: School is not the only, the best or even the most common route to a job.

REVELATION #8: Public schools are typical government agencies- excessively costly, inefficient and incompetent. (Not much of a revelation, I guess.)

REVELATION #9: If kids are not dropped into school and abandoned to peer influence at an early age, they do not become hostile and alienated adolescents. They become friendly, cooperative and productive young adults instead.

REVELATION #10 – About tests: Testing and grading are the two most destructive things the schools do.

REVELATION #11: If you stick to doing what’s right, even bureaucrats may see the sense of it.

© 1995 Carol Wanagel

In a recent article on unschooling for the Baltimore Sun, Holt Associates President and long-time homeschooling advocate Patrick Farenga noted “Interest in unschooling has skyrocketed,” and that comment landed him a debate with a school representative on the merits of unschooling tomorrow, Saturday Sept. 5, at 9:50 AM EST, on Fox and Friends. Currently in their banner for this weekend: “What the new trend of un-schooling means for students, parents.”

The Home Education Magazine News & Commentary is one of the oldest and most reliable sources of homeschooling news and information on the Internet, exploring homeschool news, issues, and ideas on a regular basis. The diversity of topics and the often in-depth commentary make it a primary resource for anyone interested in news within or about the homeschooling community.

Homeschooling is legal in many countries around the world, and those with the most prevalent home education movements include Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Some countries have highly regulated home education programs as an extension of the compulsory school system; others, such as Germany and Brazil, have outlawed it entirely. In other countries, while not restricted by law, homeschooling is not socially acceptable or considered undesirable and is virtually non-existent. The Wikipedia has a good analysis of the status and legality of homeschooling in close to two dozen countries at this link.

The World Guide to Home Education is a wiki for anyone who needs to know what the legal and cultural conditions for home education are in different parts of the world, and a gateway for home educators trying to make contact with other home educators and support groups.

This new wiki will collect together, in one place, information and links about home education around the world. The administrator, a home education leader in the UK, would like to encourage people with knowledge of home education in various regions and states to help to put this wiki together. He writes:

“Have you ever wondered how changes or proposals to legislation in your region relates to events in other parts of the world? Well this is your chance to contribute towards answering that question. Governments are doing this, they share intelligence about education outside state provision so we should too, so that we can act globally and see what changes are being proposed. Perhaps changes in your state or nation are similar to changes in other countries. So please get involved, join the wiki and create or edit a page on your region. It will only take 5 or 10 minutes and it will help build the first interactive global resource for home educators around the world to work together.”

Homeschooling: Our Perspectives, Their Views
by Larry and Susan Kaseman
(from Home Education Magazine, March/April 2005)

Since the late seventies, homeschoolers have been working to educate the public about the strengths of homeschooling. The widespread acceptance of homeschooling today rests on the hard and effective public relations work homeschoolers have done.

However, the work is not done. Homeschooling is still sometimes misunderstood by conventional educators, legislators, homeschoolers’ friends and relatives, and the general public. Misleading and inaccurate reports continue to appear in the media. And the work is still important. The more people understand the strengths of homeschooling, the more we have won the hearts and minds of the people, the more secure our homeschooling freedoms will be.

The way we homeschoolers view ourselves, other homeschoolers, and the homeschooling movement influences how others view us. This column discusses how our perceptions of homeschooling shape the way homeschooling is viewed by others, important points homeschoolers can communicate to the public about homeschooling, pitfalls to avoid, and ways we can respond to commonly asked questions.

How Homeschoolers’ Perceptions of Homeschooling and the Homeschooling Movement Shape Public Perception of Homeschooling

Much of the general public’s understanding of homeschooling comes from us and how we view and present ourselves as homeschoolers. It is through us that the general public learns about the concrete reality of homeschooling. To be sure, the media continues to sometimes present inaccurate, misleading, or distorted reports on homeschooling. But many positive reports have also appeared. Many people now have a friend, relative, acquaintance, or a friend-of-a-friend who is homeschooling. As homeschoolers, we have influence over and responsibility for how homeschooling is understood.

As we are all aware, homeschooling has important strengths. Among those that come quickly to mind are:

• outstanding learning opportunities for both children and parents,

• opportunities to take responsibility for our families and exercise more control over our lives,

• strengthening of family ties and bonds,

• increased self-respect and confidence of children and parents, and

• greater opportunities for children to understand their strengths and pursue their special interests.

The more we focus on the strengths that homeschooling has, the more positive the public’s perception of homeschooling will be. This does not mean denying or ignoring problems and difficulties. It means dealing with the relatively few difficulties that may arise as effectively and matter-of-factly as we can and then moving back to the positive as soon as we can.

Continue reading this article at HEM.