Homecool

The thought brings to mind a cult like atmosphere where families keep there “Stepford like” children behind closed doors with the shades pulled. Or at least that was always my view of Homeschoolers. Until I became one.

Forced out of Public School because of my child’s illness I was alone, afraid, confused. I turned to the internet for help. I googled and millions of sites popped up. Well apparently I wasn’t alone. There are others and lots of them. In fact there are over one million children being Homeschooled in the US and the number is rising. More and more families are choosing to Homeschool their children. Why? Most are Homeschooled for Religious reasons but more and more are leaving because of the schools themselves.

The rights of parents are slowly being taken away by the government. My eyes were opened when I was taken to court because I refused to send my severely asthmatic child to school when he was sick. They were worried about his attendance. I was worried about his life. They had passed new laws to increase attendance. In their small minded way they believe that a child must be at school to learn. How sad and naïve of them.

The headlines are scary. Everyday there is more violence in the public school system. Gangs, drugs, sex, guns, bullies, etc. and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Not to mention staff who just don’t care, and the ones that do are frowned upon. But there are choices!

The first thing I ran across when searching frantically through the Homeschool sites was learning styles.

Learning styles? What is that? What does that mean? At that time I was still in the mind set of the school system. I wanted to get the same books he had in public school to teach him because that is what he is used to. (In fact Homeschoolers have a name for this syndrome. It’s called de-schooling) The school system picks a book and your child learns from it. And if he has problems learning from this generic book that weighs five pounds he gets put in a “special” class for “special” kids.

But Homeschoolers have choices they have thousands of choices and I’m supposed to pick one according to my son’s learning style. (There’s that phrase again) After much reading I learned that all children learn differently. Some children are more apt to learn by listening or actually doing something than just reading about it. Well that certainly explains why I can’t drive and listen to Audio books without running off the road. I’m a Visual learner but what is my son?

I ask him. His reply, “I dunno.” This is gonna take some time.

Well it turns out, like most children, Michael is a combination learner. I got him a variety of books, computer programs, and kits.

I found a local Homeschool group with wonderful people and they are the most computer literate intelligent people I know. They have been so helpful and so full of Knowledge I would put them up against any college professor. Learning does not occur Monday-Friday from 8 to 2. Learning is a continual process. Homeschoolers have unlimited teaching methods. Why settle for boring text books when you can do a colorful work book, puzzle, game, trip to the zoo, drive to the beach or just sit outside in the grass and read a book. Because the most import thing to learn is that you never stop learning.