In the last month, the news media led many stories about homeschooling by pointing out Newtown and other school murders.  The buzz within the homeschooling community is the expanded interest and questions from concerned school parents. The start of a school session after the new year often seems a cleaner break from the school starting this new family adventure. We can wonder how many families actually took the leap into homeschooling.  Some parts of the country seem to have the Newtown reactive homeschooling interest, while other regions appear to have a more generalized basis for homeschooling considerations.

From Minnesota:  Home schooling steadily grows  Brie Groves

KASSON, Minn. (KTTC)–  With incidents like Columbine and the recent Sandy Hook massacre it’s no surprise that many parents have taken on the role of teacher.

In the past four years alone there has been a 54 percent spike in the number of children who have registered to be home-schooled.

It’s at an all time high and the types of families that are now choosing to home school span the demographic spectrum of backgrounds, income levels and education.

The Connecticut article below articulated the thoughts I know I had, as did many other homeschoolers, while our country tries to absorb and form some sort of solution to these horrific school murders and associated problems.

Connecticut based NHELD‘s Executive Director, Deborah Stevenson, also commented in the article with a different perspective:

Stevenson said roughly 2 to 3 percent of Connecticut students are home schooled.
“It’s clearly something that works for many people,” she said. “There are tons of resources for parents to get curriculum materials and individualized textbooks.”
She and several other representatives from Connecticut home schooling groups stressed that they have not seen an influx of new parents interested in home schooling since the mass shooting in Newtown. What’s more, they said personal safety has not been a dominant issue for parents.

Another Connecticut parent, Angelique Henderson, made this point, among many other thoughtful insights as a former high school teacher and homeschooling mom:

“Safety wasn’t really the major issue,” she said. “It was more determined by the atmosphere of schools. It had to do with the way systems just push kids through.”

More from Home Education Magazine News & Commentary about this subject:

Homeschooling Decisions After Newtown School Deaths

Newtown

Class Dismissed is a new movie in production which is questioning whether schools, public or private, are really the best education option for many families, and it will be the first feature-length documentary to focus on homeschooling. From the website:

“From home study and kitchen table math, to perpetual recess and park days, Class Dismissed follows the story of an ordinary American family in their quest to educate their children outside the school system.

“As they struggle to discover what path is best for them, the social ramifications of their choices come to light, family dynamics are revealed and they come to realize that homeschooling is not just an educational choice, but also a lifestyle choice that affects the very heart of the American family.

“Truth and consequence, myth and assumption all come together in this fresh look at what it means to be educated in the 21st century.

“Class Dismissed will focus on the topic of education, specifically the validity of homeschooling as an alternative to the industrial school model. Framed within the historical context of traditional schooling, and particularly at a time when education across the nation is in a state of crisis, the film will examine the numerous approaches to home learning, exploring both its history and recent growth. There are many choices when it comes to teaching our children, and Class Dismissed will ask some big questions…”

Prime Minister of Jamaica is a homeschooler

Exciting news from Linda Dobson, an HEM columnist, author of many books on homeschooling, and founder of the website, Parent at the Helm:

“I became aware of Prime Minister – and Education Minister – Holness’ decision to homeschool last week when a friend in Jamaica contacted me. She let me know she had loaned Prime Minister Holness one of my books. She said he still hasn’t returned it yet, kindly insinuating that maybe the book (and hers!) had something to do with the minister’s announcement.

“Thrilled with the news, I wrote a letter to the minister and his wife that appears in yesterday’s Jamaica Observer.” An excerpt from Linda’s letter”

“We get only one fleeting childhood, and you can make it count for your children. Cherish each heartwarming experience as your children’s eyes light up with their “aha!” moments, and their questions fill your days with curiosity and wonder.”

Click this link to read Linda’s wonderful open letter to the prime minister and Mrs Holness.

In an blog post for the Greene County Daily World, which serves several counties in Indiana, Lisa Luper shares an article titled Why I Homeschool–Part One: (Because I was homeschooled), writing: “I wanted to take the next few blog posts to answer the classic question of why I homeschool. This is a question that I have been asked over and over when people find out that none of my children have ever been to a public school. There isn’t one, quick answer to that question. Not only that, the reasons I homeschool today aren’t necessarily the same as the reasons I started homeschooling years ago.”

Looks like some interesting reading as Lisa shares her experiences in growing up homeschooled.

Update Dec. 3: Why I Homeschool, Part Two – I Like Being With My Kids

A Nov. 11th L.A. Times article for L.A. at Home, which seems to focus on architecture and design for southern California homeowners, carried the cutsy title, “For home-school parents, classroom design is the subject du jour.” The first part of the article does, in fact, focus on parents with a severe yearning to replicate school in their homes, quoting one parent who “…demolished a galley-style kitchen in her home to create a school setting. The house had to be extended into the backyard, with a brand-new kitchen built in.”

Another parent, who the article describes as ‘striving for structure and routine,’ states, “It seems there’s a whole new group of us that I refer to as ‘contemporary home-schoolers…’” The article goes on to explain that she is “so committed to the idea of replicating a traditional school experience for her son that she has given her classroom a name: University School for Children, with uniforms, a logo and school IDs.”

This beginning part of the article almost had me passing it over for mention here, but the second part highlights an entirely different approach, and quotes a longtime friend and author: “Tammy Takahashi takes an ‘unschooling’ approach with her three children, ages 7 to 13. The classroom might be an art table at home, a recycling center or the beach. The inherent appeal of the approach is that the style of teaching can be tweaked to accommodate what works best for the student, said Takahashi, who has also written two books on home schooling.”

There are some good arguments for both structured and non-structured approaches, and lots of food for thought and discussion.

The venerable New York Times Magazine published an article on November 8, 2011 titled My Parents Were Home-Schooling Anarchists, by Margaret Heidenry:

“Tired of the constraints of the 40-hour workweek, my father, in 1972, quit his job in publishing. My parents were in their early 30s, and they had four children under 7. ‘But we still wanted to explore the world,’ my father recalled recently. They bought six one-way tickets to Europe, leaving only a laughable $3,000 to subsist on. Young and idealistic, they thought they could easily educate us along the way. ‘Life itself would become a portable classroom.’”

Margaret explains how for the next four years they “embarked on an uncharted ‘free-form existence,’ traveling through Spain, England, a Midwestern farm, Mexico, and finally settled in St. Louis. She details how her parents stretched their budget to allow for the far-flung classrooms, and writes of the family adventure, “…my parents were consistently inconsistent. There were a few interludes of standardized education, but for the most part, as my mother would later write in this magazine, ‘during all this time, the children traveled with us and received nothing that remotely resembled formal schooling.’”

“Home Is Where the School Is,” published in the Oct. 19, 1975, issue of The New York Times Magazine, was the first article in a national publication to espouse what was then still a fringe educational choice.

Read Margaret Heidenry’s entire article at the link above.

After just a few months of college – in which he enrolled after spending his middle and high school years unschooling – Dale J. Stephens, 19, left school. Based on his conviction that college is not necessary for success and fulfillment, he founded an organization called UnCollege, which promotes ways that young people can “hack their education” by finding individualized paths to self-directed learning. A Thiel fellowship recipient, he is currently writing a book for Penguin called Hacking Your Education and traveling extensively on speaking engagements.

In a guest post for The New York Times, Mr. Stephens explains his belief that any student at any level, even those in traditional education environments, can take charge of their learning:

“Why did I make trouble? Going along with the program seems pretty sweet. I could have written papers, skipped class and partied until dawn. After four years as a college student, I would have had many friends, a good job and letters after my name. But I left college because I realized I couldn’t rely on a university to give me an education.”

Read the entire article at the link above.

Too Cool For Homeschool? (Here’s what you didn’t know), by Melanie O’Brien, shares the activities of families involved with the Baltimore Homeschool Community Center, described as “…bright and friendly, full of laughing kids and smiling adults.” The member-based organization serves homeschooling families throughout the Baltimore area. O’Brien writes:

“But wait a second. Why are homeschoolers away from home, in a center taking classes? If you’re like me (and statistics suggest you probably are), then your state-mandated K-12 education happened in a public or private school. But for about 2.4 percent of Maryland’s school-aged kids, education happens somewhere else.”

The article is long, interesting, fair and balanced, and the final paragraph, while startling and unusual for an article about homeschooling, leaves true homeschoolers with a knowing smile. Recommended reading, for sure.

On Wednesday, Nov. 9th, at 9:00 a.m. PST, Homeschooling will be the topic of a program on KUOW-FM radio, 94.9, a National Public Radio affiliate station in Seattle, Washington, a service of the University of Washington, and a top-ranked radio station in the Seattle/Tacoma area.

Host Steve Scher will discuss homeschooling with several guests. The program notes detail the direction the questions will take:

“Homeschooling has soared in the United States in recent years, climbing from 850,000 home–schooled kids in 1999 to 1.5 million in 2007. That’s an increase of 74 percent. What government oversight is in place for parents who choose to keep their kids at home? What oversight should there be? What are the drawbacks and benefits of homeschooling? If you’re considering homeschooling, this show will inform your decision. Were you homeschooled? What was it like? Share your experience by calling 1.800.289.KUOW (5869).”

GUESTS:

Tera Schreiber is a non–practicing lawyer, former nonprofit executive director, and current freelance writer and home–schooling mother. She has three daughters who are nine, seven and four. She’s been homeschooling for five years.

Erica Forrest homeschools her children.

Jen Garrison Stuber is a board member for the Washington Homeschool Organization.

Rob Reich is an associate professor of political science at Stanford University.

Brian Ray is the founder and president of the National Home Education Research Institute.

Homeschoolers in Illinois are facing challenges to their situation as described in this Sun-Times article by Fran Eaton, titled Homeschooling Parents Not Eager for States Help:

Homeschoolers can be called a lot of things because they’re so independent and self-sufficient, and that seems counter-intuitive in today’s world. But they’re not as paranoid as some public school officials would make them out to be. The truancy officer acknowledged he would assume guilt before proving innocence. He would not have a problem searching private homes to prove the schools within were up to state standards.

The Senate committee exchange became more revealing when Reynolds told the committee he would look around those registered homes for computers with educational software, books and other indications teaching was going on.

And then he would “help” them.

Illinois blogger Susan Ryan is following the situation closely at her blog Corn and Oil:

Illinois homeschoolers don’t want any legislation that will infringe on their rights.  Any negotiations are concerning if they ever end in compromise.  4,000 Illinois homeschoolers in the Capitol showed the resolve about that issue.

Susan also noted the formation of a political action committee for Illinois homeschoolers:

One good thing to come of this ongoing fiasco is the creation of the IL Homeschool PAC.  We needed that yesterday.