Do you remember when you first learned about the idea of homeschooling your children? Did it seem naturally right for you, or did you have to think about it a while, find out more information, discuss it with a few people, read a book or two and warm up to the idea first? For the majority of parents the decision probably came only after a lengthy exploration. For many it came even harder, with long nights of wondering if it was the right thing to do, heartfelt discussions with family and friends, hours of poring over books and magazines.

Why is something so obviously good for parents and children approached so cautiously and carefully? Why are we so afraid of trusting our own feelings, our own ideas, without validation from others, and often from experts?

Somehow, somewhere along the line, our basic human right to confidence in ourselves and acceptance of ourselves was jeopardized. Most of us rely on experts for everything from growing our food to filing our taxes, so it’s no wonder so many parents are anxious about homeschooling, because they have no confidence left in themselves. But making mistakes is how humans learn. Not knowing something is no reason for anxiety, it is simply a new opportunity to be seized!

Homeschooling parents come to understand and accept that there’s a sense of a shared journey, travelers’ tales on the road, instead of a leader shouting back directions to those behind. ‘This is what we do’ has a different attitude about it than ‘This is what everyone should do.’ Support groups for homeschoolers have long heralded the approach to share ideas instead of rules, encouragement instead of dictates.

Homeschoolers have always been viewed as pioneers in education and family issues, and we’ve always liked this analogy. The pioneers had to be brave, courageous and confident souls, working together, supporting each other, blazing new trails, building foundations for those who would come later. Because those courageous homeschool pioneers forged ahead, parents now have a wealth of support, and part of the adventure comes in supporting those just starting their journey. Support your local homeschool group, so they can continue to support new homeschooling families!

Pioneering the Way

There are 14 years of archived articles from Home Education Magazine available to read here at the HEM website. From the Jan/Feb, 1997 issue through the current Nov/Dec 2010 issue, the HEM archives offer a wonderful assortment of writing from the oldest homeschooling magazine still being continuously published.

The feature article writers and regularly scheduled columnists who’ve written for HEM over the years provide a very broad perspective on homeschooling issues, and they’ve tackled some tough subjects for our readers, such as the openly questioning article by Ruthe Matilsky titled On Unschooling and Life from our March/April, 2001 issue:

How unsettling it is sometimes when I think that we have scoffed at the script and now we have to take responsibility for how it all turns out. If we’d done what was expected of us, nothing would ever be our fault. Right? Of course my husband and I don’t believe that, but I can’t help worrying. The standard good-parent line is, “All I want is for my child to be happy.” That’s easy to say when the kids are little, but what about a twenty-one-year-old daughter who is not on the college track?

Then there was Dropping the Bombshell by LauraJean Downs in March-April, 1998:

Those of us who homeschool are the experts in in-law relationships, right? We simply get on the phone and say something like,”Hi Mom! I just wanted to let you know that we are going to homeschool all of the kids next year. Have a great day!” The relationship just continues as smoothly as it always did, right? Wrong!

Another complicated subject was tackled by M. S. Beltran in Homeschooled Teens Can Rest Easier from March/April, 2004:

My daughter’s late rising has brought about a great deal of eye rolling and gaping disbelief from those who cannot imagine life outside the pre-set hours of institutionalized education, even though they are aware our child is not a part of that institution. Is it stubborn adherence to tradition that keeps people holding the early bird in such high regard, while the night owl is chastised for being lazy?

And there was the delightful Reflections of a Homeschooled Homeschooler by Rebecca Bangs Amos, Nov/Dec, 1999:

When my parents shared their plans of moving to a 500-acre farm in Northern Vermont where they would educate their children themselves, their friends responded with, “Are you crazy?” My friends wondered how I could even consider having my mother and father for teachers.

Issue after issue, year after year, Home Education Magazine’s feature article writers captured the essence and the excitement of homeschooling, the concerns and the questions of homeschooling families. Visit the HEM archives – it’s all free – and learn why HEM is “More than just a magazine…”

14 Years of HEM

How does a person learn to think clearly and effectively and to make reasoned decisions? How do you learn – or teach someone else – to gather enough information about a situation to become familiar with the pros and cons, the advantages and disadvantages, and then, being informed, make a decision about the best course of action to take?

As we go through life we make decisions, and those decisions, in turn, make us. Large decisions, small decisions. Matters of great importance and the details of daily life. What to wear today, what to have for dinner, which friends to see, which road to take. Who to build relationships with, where to live, which job offer to accept, when to make a change in how things are going.

The decision to homeschool your children is on the more important end of the scale, and inevitably your decisions relating to homeschooling will affect your child’s decisions later in life. But there’s no way to tell how your decisions now might affect your child’s decisions later. If you decide to chart a course of serious and demanding study it might inspire your child to become a scholar and pursue an advanced degree, or it might sour his attitude toward structured learning environments and encourage him to seek other approaches to educating himself, which might be less expensive and more productive than the college education you originally thought would be best. By the same token your decision to provide a more relaxed unschooling atmosphere might spur your child to seek out a more formal learning environment and higher levels of education when she’s older, or it might result in a laid-back attitude and a preference for finding her own way through life.

As parents, part of our challenge is making decisions about the best living environment for our children. We might decide to raise our kids in the city, with multifacted cultural and social opportunities, or we might decide a rural or suburban environment would be more agreeable, and there are advantages – and disadvantages – to both. Sometimes the decisions have already been made for us, as when a home is passed down through the generations. Sometimes one decision takes precedence over others, as when a job offer dictates the place of residence.

Our decisions as parents, and later our childrens’ decisions for themselves, shape and form our lives in large and small ways, and the ability to make decisions effectively is a valuable skill, worth developing and sharpening. A letter submitted to our HEM Letters email discussion list brought the truth of this into focus for me recently:

I have been musing. My grandmother was born in 1897 and was 101 when she died. She was born in the Ukraine and came to the US when she was 14. Who would have, could have, imagined the changes in her lifetime? In our lifetimes?

I can only imagine what she would have said had she been told about being prepared for her future. For my grandmother: a new country, a new language, a new culture, electicity, cars, telephones, man on the moon, computers, Mars exploration–the list is endless.

For us, the list continues to grow. Who knows what the future will be for our children?

It seems to me that when we are asked about preparing our kids for their futures, we and they truly can only be prepared to be active participants in the present–and if we know how to find out what we need to know, we’ll do just fine. We don’t need to know all the answers, we need to be able to ask the questions, and to try to find out what we need to know.

The 21st century certainly doesn’t need standardized thinkers.

Just some thoughts
Debra Bures, buresfam@surfree.com

Who can imagine the future our children will face? Beyond the unfathomable changes in society, technology, medicine, and other variables, what personal changes will affect their decisions, shape their lives? How can we best help them prepare for whatever curve balls life might decide to pitch their way?

I’ve always thought one of the most valuable and underrated aspects of homeschooling was the opportunity to makes one’s own choices and decisions, to step away from the mainstream herdlike group-think. And yet this singular advantage is in grave danger of disappearing as more and more parents seek not something different from schools and schooling, but simply to teach school in a different location.

The message of homeschooling being advanced by many businesses (“Our curriculum guarantees success!”), and organizations (“Homeschoolers test above average!”) does nothing to dispel the notion of homeschooling as merely school in the home. Combined with the scare tactics of an educational bureaucracy struggling to justify its existence (“If you can read this, thank a teacher!”), there’s little room for parents to consider any decision that leads away from traditional models of education. Parents who were trained as children to use the schoolish model find reassurance in using the schoolish model with their own children, especially when the experts, professionals, and even some homeschooling recruiters tell them that’s what works best. But is it?

If the school model worked best there would be no such thing as homeschooling. When parents decide that school is not working for their children, or when they decide to forego schooling altogether and approach homeschooling as a continuum of living, they’re seeking something different than the mainstream educational offering. They’re deciding to change things for the better, and that decision will result in learning – not just about homeschooling, but about a whole new world of ideas, experiences, opportunities, challenges and more, for themselves and for their children.

Adapted from an editorial which appeared in Home Education Magazine’s November-December, 2002 issue. © 2009 Helen Hegener, all rights reserved.

Decisions, Decisions