A New York Times’ reporter, Mark Oppenheimer, offered an article about Mary Pride and her homeschooling family’s history.  It focused a great deal on their technology influences and her religious background. Many homeschoolers did seem to be right on that techie cutting edge ‘back in the day’. Even now, multitudes from the homeschool community head into computer engineering, programming, designing their own websites, blog, businesses or what have you on the internet.

From the article: Mary Pride A Christian Pioneer of Home Schooling Looks to Its Future“

Yet in her embrace of technology and the Internet, Mrs. Pride is a total Webhead, as befits the wife of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate whom she met when both were working “at the key-punch room in Raytheon,” the military technology company.

All their computer hardware and tested software helped create the 1992 Prides’ Guide to Educational Software.  The guide was reviewed in Whole Earth Review, PC Magazine, and from Wired Magazine’s first issue in 1993:

Crash Tested Homework Review:

Bill and Mary Pride have eight kids, all of them home-schooled. The Prides are into using computers for class work, so they have a computer room stuffed with a Mac, Apple IIGS, Amiga, a 386 clone, various CD-ROM devices, Nintendo, a Miracle Piano system, and so on. Add five or six kids to the room at any one time, and you have a homeschooling arcade. In between lessons, Ma and Pa and their computer-savvy kids have evaluated every piece of educational software known to be on the market. The kids are ceaseless and merciless testers. Somehow the Prides found time (and a vacant computer) in this madhouse to compile their evaluations in a humongous and amazingly complete atlas to all educational software available for personal computers and CD-ROM platforms.

All was not well during that time in the homeschool community though.  This older New York TImes article shared one example of a growing chasm in the homeschooling community.

On-Line Courses Have Given a New Impetus to the Home-Schooling Movement By Louise Yarnall

Technology enthusiasts like Mrs. Pride, the publisher, counter that the elitists are the anti-computer home schoolers — particularly those affiliated with the so-called unschooling movement, which rejects most packaged educational programs in favor of more free-form learning activities guided by children’s interests.
“I think unschoolers sometimes exaggerate the benefits of doing everything yourself,” she said. “There is a reason I don’t pump my own water and build my own well and make my own electricity and grind my own wheat.

I feel to limit yourself and say, I have to do it all myself, is a mistake.”

Maybe her perspective has changed in the last several years, but I think Mary Pride misunderstood the unschooling philosophy. It’s a shame, because there are many religious homeschoolers who do ‘get it’.  I’m assuming we’re now in the healing stage, as I’ve seen many a homeschooler defend all homeschooling styles now.  What fits for each child is the right way to go.

Then there was this from the same 1998 article:

In regions where home schooling is so popular that it threatens the financial health of public school districts, some school leaders have used computers to lure home schoolers partway back to the fold. In 1997, an Alaska school district seeking to raise funds to build a public boarding school developed a program that offered home schoolers the use of new computers (for a $200 refundable deposit), free curriculum supplies and support from an expert teacher if they would enroll in the district. The families kept home schooling, but their enrollment allowed the district to qualify for more state aid. The program attracted 2,000 applicants, far exceeding district estimates, and the extra state money helped pay for the new school. Similar programs are in place in Washington State.

I happily remember the growth of on-line homeschool networks, bartering and support. But the “collaboration of homeschoolers and school” seemed  frustrating for homeschool advocates with the time spent explaining to new homeschoolers ‘public school at home’ versus independent homeschooling.  The schools didn’t seem to be cooperating with those explanations nor lessening the confusion.  Wish they were more creative with our public schooled kids’ education than they are trying to suck money out of every little free crevice.

This is an exciting prospect, this open source education idea:

“Distance learning is coming on gangbusters,” Mrs. Pride said. “EdX will be very interesting. And what Harvard and M.I.T. are doing. And the MOOC initiative. …”

The 1998 NYT article noted Mary Pride’s thoughts about her son, who suffered from chronic health issues:

“Fifty years ago, he wouldn’t have been able to finish his own education or have a job.” Mrs. Pride is convinced that the home-schooling movement will grow because technology makes families more comfortable with the prospect of teaching their own children.

Approximately 15 years later, education at home is growing and some of the reason might be the networking technology opportunities.  But most of all, I think it’s because many families learned it’s great fun spending time together living and learning.

In this first of three posts, titled Compelled to Attend, HEM’s Road Less Travelled columnist, Linda Dobson, is revisiting her first book, The Art of Education: Reclaiming Your Family, Community and Self, published by Home Education Press in 1995. An excerpt:

And if colleges and universities ignore the true meaning of education and accept indoctrination as their function in society, what then is the purpose of all the years of schooling that lead up to college, starting at the tender age of five or, in many cases today, even younger?

Continue reading at the link above.

In this brilliant video lecture, The history of alternative schooling and homeschooling, Canadian-American documentary filmmaker and writer Astra Taylor describes her own homeschooling – specifically unschooling as promoted by John Holt in his ground-breaking publication Growing Without Schooling (“delivered to our mailbox in a brown paper bag”). She contextualizes her unschooled experiences and the progressive homeschooling movement by reference to the history of alternate education, especially the public conversation about it in the sixties and seventies:

“Raised by independent-thinking bohemian parents, Taylor was unschooled until age 13. Join the filmmaker as she shares her personal experiences of growing up home-schooled without a curriculum or schedule, and how it has shaped her educational philosophy and development as an artist.”

From Voice of America’s News USA, an article titled Education Begins at Home in Many US Households and subtitled Homeschooling has broadened to include parents of all faiths:

Before 1918, when Mississippi became the last U.S. state to require that school-age children attend public or private schools, many children were taught by their parents at home or by teachers informally hired by the community. Quite often in rural areas, kids of all ages were taught in the same one-room schoolhouse.

Decades later in the 1980s, homeschooling made a comeback when religiously conservative parents convinced states to approve and give full credit for the teaching of children at home. The homeschooling movement has since broadened to include parents of all faiths – or no faith at all.

Linda Dobson’s Parent at the Helm is featured in this quick overview of homeschooling.

Huffington Post blogger Kate Fridkis writes about the New York Style Magazine article on upscale New York homeschool cooperatives:

The New York Times Style Magazine piece about the trendy Brooklyn homeschoolers, “School’s In,” both did and didn’t remind me of my own pre-college education. My family called it unschooling, because we didn’t have any classes. We were living in one of the parts of New Jersey that has a surprising number of farms, and our neo-Nazi neighbors harassed our black neighbors. We had “group,” which met every week or so–not for French lessons, but for random fun. The kids from group, local homeschoolers of different ages, went ice skating in the winter. We were the only ones on the rink, except for a foul-tempered skate guard with a bristling mustache. We went to parks in the summer. We built a raft out of recycling buckets and plywood and floated on the pond. We were not cool. Some of us ate processed cheese. No one had very much money.

Continue reading Kate’s outstanding article at “School’s In,”. But for those who won’t click the link, here is an important reminder about homeschooling (but we suggest skipping this and just reading Kate’s entire excellent article):

Both of my parents are very, very smart. They are both good at networking. They are both creative. But most importantly, in terms of my education, they both somehow were able to agree that I would turn out fine, even if I never sat in a classroom. They somehow trusted that children will always learn, as long as they are encouraged.

The Brooklyn homeschoolers’ world, as described, sounds so delicate to me. Which is funny, because people have always imagined my world to be constructed out of fragile materials and a rare brand of naïve idealism. This is a narrative about homeschooling that people repeat. It’s not “real.” It’s sort of a fantasy. It’s not gritty and down to earth and diverse. Maybe this is always at least partly true, but maybe it also just depends a lot on who is doing the homeschooling, or the unschooling. Because the truth is, school and home are never really perfectly balanced alternatives to one another. They aren’t opposites. School is controllable and uniform to an extent that unschool can’t possibly be.

From the Southtown Star, an edition of the Chicago Sun-Times, an article by Fran Eaton titled Homeschooling taught lessons for both children and parents:

Any day now, we’ll all be hearing those familiar sounds of school buses and young voices shouting out as the kids head back to school. That first day marks a fresh beginning in a child’s life.

I’ll never forget our daughter’s first day of kindergarten more than 20 years ago. Determined to be independent and on her own, the little blond 5-year-old went out the door with lunchbox in hand. I stood and watched as she walked down the sidewalk. Within minutes, she entered the front door of her school – back home, right where she started.

“I’m ready for school,” she said. And she was.

Homeschooling was our family’s choice. During the 1980s, a revival of home education hit the United States, and we, along with tens of thousands of other young couples, were swept into the tidal wave.

Continue reading Fran Eaton’s article at the link above.

The Carnival of Homeschooling #239 is hosted this week at The Common Room blog:

“Although a theme is not necessary to host the homeschooling carnival (I have hosted with no theme before), it can be fun. This week’s theme is a bit ambitious. It is… the history of homeschooling in America. Please understand this history is somewhat subjective and is in no way intended to be comprehensive.”

It may not be comprehensive, and there are some sections we would quibble with, but all in all it’s an interesting and often entertaining jaunt through parts of homeschooling’s history.

Interesting news article highlighting the history of homeschooling in North Carolina, from the Lincoln-Tribune:

RALEIGH — When Rod Helder became the second director of the state’s Division of Non-Public Education in 1985, he inherited a small staff and a unique arrangement for state regulation of private schools. Under the previous director, the state’s confrontational attitude toward private education had boiled over into civil disobedience by church schools and a class action lawsuit by the state. As thousands of parents rallied quietly in the streets of Raleigh, the General Assembly rewrote the private school law, and in the end, totally separated DNPE — and private education — from any public school oversight.

Now North Carolina boasts a healthy private school community and one of the largest concentrations of homeschoolers in the country.

Continue reading at the link above.

Thirty-five visionary educators were asked:

What was your schooling like? When did you realize that there is a need for an alternative approach? What have you done since to help realize that vision? What are you doing now?

Turning Points: 35 Visionaries in Education Tell Their Own Stories, edited by Jerry Mintz & Carlo Ricci, and with a foreword by Alfie Kohn, is an anthology of their responses, a peek into the lives and journeys of these pioneering individuals who have—and are—transforming what it means to be a teacher, a student, and a life-long learner. Among the contributors are several names familiar to the homeschooling community, including Helen Hegener, co-publisher of Home Education Magazine; John Taylor Gatto, Matt Hern, Herbert Kohl, Grace Llewellyn, Pat Montgomery, Wendy Priesnitz and many others.

The National Charter School Watch discussion group (NCSW) is assessing the state of things six years after its founding by homeschooling mom Annette Jurczak in June, 2004. The group’s description explains in part:

We welcome those seeking information about charter school issues in their states and nationally, as well as those sharing information about charter schools. Objective discussion focused on the *issues* at hand and in the service of better understanding these issues, is welcome.

The discussion group’s membership consists of charter schoolers, virtual schoolers, homeschoolers and advocates of homeschooling. Annette posted on July 11:

“Much time has passed since this group was started, and much has changed over the years. So what are your thoughts? What have you learned as it relates to hsing and ps at home programs over the years? Do you think hsing is being negatively impacted? Do you think there has been any loss of homeschooling freedoms? Have your attitudes and opinions changed and if so, how?”

Join the group at the link above and join the discussion beginning with Annette’s July 11 post.