Making the Transition into Homeschooling a Young Child.
Many parents struggle with the decision about homeschooling their child. What a daunting concept—enough to make someone pretty nervous—like William Tell getting ready to shoot an apple off his son’s head without ever having shot a crossbow. You may feel a little apprehensive and plenty overwhelmed about the mammoth idea. Your sensation of butterflies, in this case, is not completely unfounded. Many issues emerge. Issues such as whether or not the child will get adequate socializing with kids their own age. Or, are large amounts of socialization with a narrow age group as valuable as ‘everyone’ thinks, anyway? Or, how about the question of what curriculum you should choose, from the hefty hay-stack pile available. Fortunately, wonderful resources exist to help you. Unfortunately, some resources will just waste your time and money. Furthermore, deciding to self-teach your kid could surely cause staggering changes in your home. You, the prospective teacher of your child, do not need to feel like an unskilled William Tell to gain your first teacher’s apple; it need not happen in such a precarious manner. It may be easier to begin than you think. Hopefully, the contents within this essay will give a useful idea and cross-section about what it takes to begin homeschooling your young-one. Better yet, this should help illustrate the level of difficulty, or lack of difficulty, in the transition. One thing for sure, the concept of teaching your own child can be quite awe-inspiring and difficult to wrap your mind around, but keep reading.
The number one question people bring up about homeschooling, in my eight years as a homeschool father, addresses a concern for heaps of socialization. If this concerns you, then get the child involved with things like church youth groups, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, other homeschoolers, community sports, and many other activities imaginable. But, on the flip-side of socialization, other arguments will surface about not needing so much. Reed Benson, in his Doctoral Dissertation while attending Brigham Young University, provides an example of why so much same-age peer association may not be warranted. He illustrates by citing a study that was published in 1960 by Harold G. McCurdy, professor of psychology—University of South Carolina. The report speaks of twenty historical, and adequately comparable, men considered great thinkers—geniuses. Men like Gottfried Von Leibniz, Blaise Pascal, Voltaire, John Quincy Adams, and Alexander Pope were included. McCurdy found two commonalities, surfacing like U-boats, between these men. He found that these men in their youth were “exposed to significantly great amounts of intellectual stimulation by adults and experience[d] very restricted [contact] with other children of their own age” (Benson, p. 39). Unexpectedly, these U-boats have launched their torpedoes and have possibly blown out of the water some of our current concepts of socialization. Examples of different philosophies are found in numerous places and in diverse forms. Often, parents choose the more social way because they feel too uncomfortable going against the status quo. In any case, it will be up to you as parent and teacher to decide which avenue to take. Now, if you are concerned about your student being socially weird, take a good look at yourself; if you’re not weird, then chances are, he won’t be either. Really though, there is no obvious way to tell.
As if the socializing question isn’t enough to cause a headache while your mind stretches, what about curriculum choices? In the past, only a few curricula were actually made for homeschoolers; the rest existed in the realm of public school, and these sparked very mixed opinion. Now there are so many good and bad choices of curricula, that you could pop some stitches while your mind stretches even more. The bad news first: You could spend hoards of time and money finding out what curriculum you do not like. Do you want to experiment like Thomas Edison learning two thousand ways how not to make a light bulb? This, of course, can be frustrating. Now the good news: Curriculum guides exist that experienced people publish for your convenience. They make recommendations on specific curriculum. Also, you can pick the brains of seasoned homeschoolers at organized home-educator meetings in your local area; or, go blogging on the Internet for information. Try to discover what resources people like and what they don’t like. Have conversations with parents who have sent their homeschooled children to college. It is good to speak with a variety of levels of homeschoolers. In the end, you will just have to make decisions on curriculum (which can always be changed as necessary). Hopefully, you will only have to learn a dozen ways how not to make a light bulb.
So, now to speak of the staggering changes I eluded to earlier. Do you want your family to spend a great deal of time together? Do you like to wear pajamas? You can, if you want (my answer for both questions). You can make changes according to your interests. You can work with your child at one o’clock in the morning, or you can study at seven in the evening. If one parent works odd hours, regular study sessions can be planned where both parents can spend more time with the student. Where appropriate, a student can go to work with a parent. Studies (as my family refers to homeschooling) can be done on a trip across the country doing a national history tour, in the hot-tub out on the deck (I met a family that did this), during a family backpacking trip to study geology—you name it. Most of the time in my home, studies are done at the dining room table next to a chalkboard on the wall, in the living room, at tables in the bedrooms, on beds in the bedrooms, and anywhere that seems to work the best at the time. Another change that occurred in my home—there is a constant atmosphere of learning different subjects such as: Reading, writing, arithmetic, math (math is actually not the same as arithmetic), spelling, history, government, science, geography, and how to do open-heart surgery. Well, maybe not that last one on the list. We sometimes do these things at odd hours because we learned something “cool”, and wanted to just revel in it. A few families, new to homeschooling, have asked to come over to my home to see how my family functions with it. These people have all seen the mystery of homeschooling unfold before them. Apprehension that they had, then turns into a can-do attitude. These so-called staggering changes will seem natural to you; the traditional school setting is not required (and maybe not recommended). Freedoms that you gain may be very surprising.
In the end, if you take some of the advice given here, or if you come up with some of your own great ideas, the transition into homeschooling your young son or daughter does not have to be a shock. Everything is transitioned gradually; the subjects and philosophies are added one by one as you and the child are ready for them. You do not have to have everything ready the moment you declare that kindergarten begins. That would be like having everything a child would ever need the day that child was born. Do you need every size of shirt and shoes—a full wardrobe for the kid’s whole childhood—ready now? It’s not practical—but you know this. You will have time to figure out what the child needs next. For now, you can get by with a little workbook for the four or five year old. Don’t hand over the car-keys just yet, and don’t worry if the student isn’t ready for medical school. Relax, and enjoy your time. Read many great books out loud. You may even learn something new yourself. Challenges will come, though; your kid may be someone like you—try to be patient. And if a day is going poorly, take the day off and do something fun. For now though, just declare that school is in session and make cookies with your youngster. Then, put the cookies on a plate and talk about basic colors and shapes—like you have already. Look back when your child learned his first word, second word, and four thousandth word, and you may realize that you have already been homeschooling. Your kid may already know how to ride a bike. Your five year old child can, probably, already say his ABC’s and add one plus one. You have been homeschooling for a few years already. Just, keep gradually adding more—like you have already been. And if your student happens to give you a nice apple as a gift, it doesn’t have to be placed on his head and shot off with a crossbow. Receive it graciously and enjoy.
Annotated Bibliography
Benson, R. A. (1981). The Development of a Home School (Doctoral dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1981).
Reed Benson is the son of Ezra Taft Benson (ETB)—deceased 13th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1985-1993); ETB also served as Secretary of Agriculture for the U.S. Government (1953). This dissertation talks about how to form a home school and what kind of implications go along with it. He explores the challenges, the reasons, and his methods for homeschooling. There is a section about historical geniuses, and explores what is comparable about these people.
Some information in the work is obsolete. Laws about home educating have changed in many states, and there are other ways to approach homeschooling that Benson may not have ever heard of. Despite the things that are out-dated, the basic concepts hold true today. Reed Benson is clearly biased in favor of homeschooling. But, this resource will be useful in showing prospective homeschoolers (who are already biased themselves) positive points on the subject.