Times Recorder, Zanesville, Ohio, 21 January 2007, Library offers program to benefit homeschoolers

With her husband in the military, Kim said her family, like many other military families, has had to move around a lot. They lived in Germany for seven years, and not knowing the language or culture, made homeschooling Kody an even better option.

I hope that was the reporter ‘speaking,’ because that reason for homeschooling makes little sense when considering the rich opportunity of living in another country.

Most American military families in Germany have to work to get away from American culture because it is so accessible via movie theaters, chapels, youth centers, Boy and Girl Scouting, baseball teams, AFN-television and radio, DoD schools, the American housing areas themselves, and whatever game succeeded Magic the Gathering.

Just as immigrants to the United States may have “Little” enclaves, so, too, do Americans overseas have “Little Americas.” One of the chief stumbling blocks for families overseas who live on or near military facilities and want to learn the local language is the American community — and the local people around the community who have picked up more English in their years of exposure to the military people who have been around for decades, than Americans do of the local language. A person can be simultaneously living overseas and surrounded by the American idiom.

The exception to this might be for those families whose sponsor is stationed in a remote area. They, indeed, may be dropped into the local culture. In that case the family may have double ‘culture shock’ by living in a foreign area with no buffer and perhaps involuntarily homeschooling because of a lack of a local DoD-povided school. In that case, either a home education program or funding to attend a non-DoD school is provided by the DoD Education Activity.

For the most part, though, homeschooling overseas is a “better option,” but not to get away from the foreign-ness. The fun is to immerse oneself in it. The history alone is a reason to free oneself from the educational 9 – 5 routine. Don’t squander your time sitting in a classroom reading about the Romans and the Alemanni, go out and walk the limes!

posted by Valerie

Tags: military homeschooling

This entry was posted on January 26, 2007 at 4:41 pm and is filed under International News, Military Homeschoolers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.