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by Rachel Gathercole
Book Excerpt: The Well Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling
It seems intrinsically obvious that homeschoolers must be socially deprived. After all, while others are in school, they are not. While schoolchildren ride the school bus, homeschoolers, in general, do not. While the conventionally-schooled spend their days with large groups of peers, homeschoolers, it may seem, do not.
But homeschooling is not what people generally imagine it to be. It is not, as many imagine, essentially school transplanted into the home, but without the other kids. And in order to understand homeschool socialization, it is necessary to understand what homeschooling really is. So just what is it?
The popular image of homeschoolers sitting studying at a desk or the kitchen table all day long, their mothers instructing them in various subjects according to careful lesson plans, isolated from the social world, is misleading. Though some homeschoolers do choose to take a school-like approach or borrow some elements (such as textbooks, chalkboards, tests, recess, etc.) from school, this approach is far less prevalent than popularly assumed (Rudner 1999).
Homeschooling does not mean or require that the children’s education takes place in a particular place or within certain designated hours of the day (“school hours”), though some do prefer this type of structure. Homeschooling cannot really be pinned down to a specific description, because the very nature of homeschooling is that it is different for every family, and this is part of what makes it work so well.
With that said, homeschoolers follow a variety of approaches. For many, academic work (as such) fits unobtrusively into the day like chores. (“You need to finish your math and make your bed before you go over to Kim’s house.”) For others, who don’t see a need for traditional study methods at all but rather view every part of life as a learning experience, the “academic” aspects are hardly more than incidental, occurring automatically as a natural part of the growing process. Some families follow a formal curriculum and a traditional school schedule. Some employ an “eclectic” approach, using whatever materials and resources suit the family’s needs at a given time. Still others use alternative or self-designed curricula or methods that meet their unique needs.
Social activities can fall into a similar range of options. Whereas one family may engage in structured academics in the morning followed by social playtime with friends in the afternoons, another family may prefer to gather with other homeschoolers to explore topics of interest in a social manner or setting. Families who engage in little or no formal, “sit-down” academics may have lots of time to simply play and discover the world with friends, or in the comfort of the family as they see fit.
Regardless of these varying methods, the fact remains that while much of the public is in schoolhouses and office buildings each day, there is a whole homeschool community life going on in the outside world. Homeschoolers are at each other’s houses, playing, gathering in parks, meeting for classes in churches, homes, and public buildings, going on outings and field trips together to museums, zoos, other cities and towns, planetariums, bakeries, concerts, shows, plays, and workshops, sitting on riverbanks having talks with close friends, playing on soccer teams, rehearsing plays, having parties, painting murals in the community, volunteering, and much more. They learn both in and out of the home, at all hours of the day, at libraries, grandparents’ houses, nursing homes, theaters, the beach, scout meetings, ball games, town meetings, colleges, parks and recreation departments, churches, synagogues, and schools—sometimes alone, and often in groups. They are out training on swim teams, visiting farms, historical sites, ice skating rinks, and the many other places homeschoolers spend their time.
For those who do formal schoolwork, chores, and so on, these activities take only a fraction of the day due to the low student-teacher ratio and the lack of busywork, administrative paperwork, attendance-taking, group discipline, transition time between subjects, and so on. Homeschoolers, like schoolchildren, are eager to get such work done each day so they can go out and play; when work is completed, the rest of the day and evening often remains for other (such as social) activities.
Busy with these types of real-life activities, homeschoolers are not “stuck at home,” but are free to come and go, in and out of the home, as they see fit. I have heard homeschoolers refer to themselves as “never-at-home-schoolers” and this is why. They have ample time to spend alone, with family, with other homeschoolers, and with the community at large. And this is the very thing that makes homeschooling the unique, rewarding, and successful option that it is!
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Homeschooling and the
all-important family
The homeschooling movement is absolutely exploding with growth. Since 2000, the homeschooling population has been growing at the astounding rate of at least 10 to 20 percent per year. Literally millions of families are homeschooling in the United States alone. What is it that draws so many people to this trend? Through all the talking and listening I have done with hundreds of diverse homeschoolers across the country, one common theme has emerged as the most important advantage to homeschoolers: family unity. This element of homeschooling is of the utmost importance to homeschoolers, who consider it the cornerstone of (and the greatest boon to) their children’s social development.
And this makes sense. Unlike families of school-going children, the homeschooling family shares their days, and the members of the family share one unified life rather than leading separate lives (e.g., lives at school, at work, etc.) that intersect only in the evening and on weekends. This is cited as a key feature of homeschooling even by single-parent families and families in which the parents work outside the home. Whatever approach a homeschooling family follows (and there are many), they do it in a family context, a setting that we all continue to live in, need, and experience our entire lives, rather than in a school setting, which is an artificial environment that exists only during childhood and for its own purposes, and is not duplicated later in life unless one becomes a teacher.
Within the homeschooling lifestyle, families are also free to spend frequent, extended periods of time with other families or groups of families, socializing with the other kids and adults while still remaining in the presence of their own families.
Since they move in the same circles rather than in separate circles, it is easy for the children to spend time with their friends while the adults spend time with theirs, while at the same time the family remains physically unified and the parents remain present for and available to the children, who can be supervised on an age-appropriate basis. This type of social gathering is, for many, an integral part of the homeschooling experience. Certainly homeschooling kids and adults also have some of their own separate friends from other circles, too, but it seems they are far less likely to feel disenfranchised from one another.
When at home, too, the homeschool family functions largely as a unit, having abundant time to know each other well and learn skills for living together. That learning is as much a part of homeschooling as learning math or reading is. At the same time, the very small ratio and the unique parent-child relationship homeschooling facilitates allows parents a great deal of room to understand, respect, and nourish their children’s individuality.
Critics of homeschooling sometimes assert that children need to be separated from their parents in order to learn independence and experience things they would not (or would not be allowed to) if their parents were around. They worry that children may be stifled by their parents’ presence. Onlookers may wonder: is the parent just having trouble letting go, afraid to allow the child any freedom to grow and become an independent individual?
Homeschooling parents have thoughtful and fascinating answers to these questions, beginning with two basic assertions: one, yes, we can, and do, let go—homeschooling does not mean our kids spend as much time around us as you might imagine; and two, parents are not supposed to let go as early as popular culture leads us to believe—kids need us, and that is why they have parents.
Homeschoolers do have time away from their parents. They typically engage in a substantial number of activities outside of the home and have plenty of friends with whom they spend time. But with that said, the question arises as to how important this time away from parents really is.
There is another issue that ultimately may be far more important. Research has indicated that the most important aspect of socialization is not relationships with peers, but relationships with adults. And of course, this is nothing new. It has long been known that parental involvement is the number one factor in kids’ success at school, and it is likewise in the family that the most important social learning occurs. All types of educators and school personnel agree that the most important social and other learning occurs at home. And needless to say, parental involvement is a defining element of homeschooling.
The idea that early and abundant independence from parents is desirable may be part of an overall societal pressure on kids and parents toward early, forced independence (also seen in pressures toward early weaning, sleeping alone and through the night at a very young age, and so on.) More and more research is showing, and parents are discovering, that strong attachment bonds between child and parents, not forced independence, creates happy children and healthy socialization. In other words, the one factor that, more than anything else, influences children’s socialization, is family. And really, haven’t we always known this? No wonder homeschoolers consider family unity the most important aspect of homeschooling, and the key to their children’s social development. Happy Parenting!
About the author:
As the mother of three children, Rachel Gathercole has been homeschooling for ten years and is respected as an author of many informative articles and essays that cut through stereotypes and misconception and shed new light on homeschooling, parenting, and children. Her articles have appeared in various national and local publications, including as cover stories in Mothering, Life Learning, and other magazines. She was also a contributor to the 2004 anthology Loving Mama: Essays on Natural Parenting and Motherhood, edited by Tiffany Palisi.
A trusted member of the homeschooling community, Rachel was recently interviewed by Mike Smith on the nationally-syndicated radio show Home School Heartbeat, is a resident parenting expert on the popular website WithJess.com, and has been featured as a guest speaker in the Mothering-sponsored chat room at MommyChats.com. Rachel has interviewed hundreds of homeschooling parents and children across the United States and Canada, taught writing classes to homeschoolers for several years, and served as a co-leader of her local home educators’ association. She holds a
diploma from the New World School of the Arts and a Bachelor of Arts with distinction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and believes that caring for children is the most valuable, challenging, and fulfilling thing a grown person can do. “Every morning I wake up feeling I’ve won the lottery,” she says. “I am very grateful for the life I have, and I want to help others find their winning lottery ticket, too. That’s what keeps me writing.”
Rachel also enjoys dancing, watching movies, talking with friends, listening to music, and singing along. She lives with her husband and three beautiful children in North Carolina.
For more information, please visit her
web site:
http://www.rachelgathercole.com/
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