Previous | Next 

Home-school: When “back-to-school” means staying at home

Roxanne Willems Snopek

All across the country this month, children are turning from backyards and beaches to books. It’s back-to-school time, but for over 40,000 Canadian families, this means hauling the books out from the closet onto the kitchen table. Part of a growing movement of home-schoolers, children in these families are getting their education; they’re just not getting it at school.

While home education seems relatively new, proponents remind us that school as we know it has been around for a mere 150 years, with attendance compulsory only since the early 1900s.

The pendulum of education in North America has swung widely in this short time. In the 1950s, public schools were leading children in prayers and Scripture recitation. By the mid-1960s this fell out of favour, and the curriculum began leaning toward “secular humanist” philosophy. Sex education entered the schools. Discipline changed. The spiritual and moral teachings important to many Christian parents were no longer being reinforced in the schools; in fact, some parents felt public education was undermining what they were teaching at home.

The result of this disillusionment was twofold: Enrollment in private Christian schools rose, as did the number of Christian families choosing to educate their children at home. In the 1996-97 school year, an estimated 700,000-1,150,000 children in the USA learned at home instead of school, and this “fringe” movement is growing at the rate of 15-40% per year. Across North America, home-schooling has come into its own, gaining credence as a legal, viable, practical educational option.

Why home-school?

For many, but by no means all, home-school families, faith plays a role in this choice. Home-schooling is popular in Abbotsford, British Columbia, where over 250 families belong to various support groups; the majority of them are Christian families. They want to incorporate biblical beliefs into the everyday lives of their children, and find this difficult with the kids gone for a large chunk of each day. Ruth and Terry Lamb of Abbotsford have six children between the ages of four and 14, and have home-schooled for the past nine years. “We wanted our children to be grounded in who they are as individuals but also as children of God,” says Ruth. “When you have a lot of time with your children, the ‘teachable moments’ are more frequent, and this seems to be where the real learning often is.”

The other reasons families choose home-schooling are as many and varied as the families themselves. Dissatisfaction with local facilities, and social and academic concerns are often noted, but many parents find their motivation changing over time. What begins as a reaction against something negative often becomes a choice in favour of something positive. The biggest benefit for many students is the time to tailor their learning to their special interests and abilities. “I like to draw every morning,” says one third-grader, “and I probably wouldn’t have time if I had to go to school.” Some children have special needs that respond to the one-on-one time an at-home parent can provide. For many, school just comes too soon. “I wasn’t ready to send my oldest off to kindergarten and have the best part of her day spent away from us,” adds Ruth Lamb. “I felt we were already teaching her so much, home-schooling seemed like a natural step.”

There are other advantages as well: Parents can influence curriculum without the expense of a private school. Children are less peer-oriented, and develop more cross-age, cross-gender friendships. Learning occurs at their own pace, rather than at the pace of the class average. Ethelyn and Steve Stanage enjoyed an unusual advantage of home-schooling when they spent last year visiting family outside the country. For their four sons, school continued more or less as usual. “I don’t think we would ever have considered doing something like this if we hadn’t seen how flexible home-schooling enables us to be,” says Ethelyn. “We knew about being together all day long, living on a shoe-string, exploring and learning on our own.”

The downside

The downside includes the parental commitment of time, research and organization. It means that full-time outside employment for one parent (something many parents of preschoolers eagerly await) is out of the question, though home-school parents point out that flex-time, self-employment and part-time work all remain options. In fact, many home-schooling parents are self-employed, and some even include their children in the business of earning a living, counting it as part of their education.

It appears that the main advantage of home-schooling – family togetherness – is also its main drawback. Surprisingly, it’s not academics but rather the normal stresses of living together that are the biggest hurdles for most home-schooling parents. Sibling rivalry has more opportunity to blossom, but parents also report a greater opportunity to use it as a learning experience. Conflict resolution and communication skills can be honed within the microcosm of the family system. “That doesn’t make it easy, though”! laughs one mom.

Famous home-schoolers from history Andrew Carnegie Agatha Christie Thomas Edison Benjamin Franklin Florence Nightingale Booker T. Washington Andrew Wyeth

How does home-school work?

Eve Pohl and her husband David lead the Abbotsford Christian Home-school Association, and have been schooling their children at home since 1992. A structured approach – complete with classroom and recess – works best for them, but Eve spends a great deal of energy making school fun. “I believe creativity is an important part of school, so I try to bring it into all subject areas as much as possible.” As with most home-school parents, she feels it’s important to see each child individually. “Home-school may look a little different for each of them – the curriculum we use, the approach we take, the expectations, as well as how long we continue to home-school. Most important for me is daily seeking God for the strength, wisdom and patience needed to do my part, and allowing Him to do His.”

On the other end of the spectrum are the “unschooling” families, who use unstructured, interest-led learning. Joyce and Peter Kehler have homeschooled their three children for the past 12 years. Their two oldest children are now in a public high school for the first time, while 14-year-old David remains at home. The Kehlers follow a relaxed agenda. “It was very important to us to nurture our children in an atmosphere where we could daily, in an unstructured way, share our faith with them,” says Joyce. “As they grew older, the time they had to reflect on their lives, their skills, their spirituality, instead of the distractions of school and busywork, has made them very balanced individuals.” Practically speaking, their education revolved around field trips to Science World, historic Fort Langley, Vancouver Aquarium and of course, the local library. “We more or less followed their interests,” Joyce adds. “They joined 4-H, they are all avid readers, and because they had so much extra time, they explored the outdoors and became fascinated by God’s world. The only thing I insisted on was math on a daily basis.”

However they do it, home-schooling parents are required to meet guidelines set out by the ministry of education in their province or state. Specific requirements vary, but common to all is that children must be registered as home-schooled students at an educational institution. This may be a local public or private school (not all will register home-schooled students), a distance education program (correspondence school) or, the latest alternative, an on-line computer-based program (technically, these children are not counted as home-schooled, but as students of the registering institution – which adds to the difficulty in accurately estimating the number of home-schooled children). The registering school board then receives funding and is responsible for providing assistance to the parents. Depending on where the child is registered, this may take the form of textbooks and materials, field trips, the administration of tests, and reimbursement for educational supplies. Parents may or may not be required to provide “evidences of learning” to demonstrate that the appropriate subject areas have been covered. These learning outcomes are available from the ministry of education and outline the levels of mastery a child is expected to reach in each subject for a given grade.

What about socialization?

Studies indicate that growing minds are stimulated by limited exposure to same-age children, large amounts of time with nurturing adults, and free time for solitude. That said, we all know children need friends. Home-schoolers meet this need by pooling their resources in cooperative learning projects; group sports such as swimming lessons, baseball and gymnastics; and a variety of other activities such as picnics and nature hikes. Most parents join a support group to gain access to these events, as well as to tap into the wealth of resources available from experienced home-schoolers.

Lifelong learning

Can home-schoolers really achieve scholastic excellence? In Canada’s largest study of the academic success of the home educated, Dr. Brian Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute found students scored, on average, at the 80th percentile in reading, the 76th in language, and the 79th in math – compared to the 50th percentile public school average. Yes, it appears they can.

Can home-schooled students be accepted into universities? David and Mikki Colfax of California created a storm of interest when Ivy League universities actively recruited their home-schooled sons. The boys’ high levels of initiative, creativity and maturity appealed to the universities, and their parents feel these levels are a result of the close family connection and limited peer interaction. Many post-secondary institutions will now consider home-schooled applicants on an individual basis, but entrance requirements vary.

Home-schooling, like any option in education, is what parents make of it. It does not work for everyone, and most home-schooled children will spend at least some time in a public or private school. More than anything else, home-schooling is an attitude: Exploring the world with one’s own children is simply an extension of the learning that begins at birth and lasts a lifetime. Educators everywhere agree that kids learn best when they feel a strong emotional connection to their teachers, and this is where home-schooling excels. All the “teachers” think their “students” are the greatest!

Roxanne Willems Snopek is a member of Northview Community Church in Abbotsford, B.C. She and her husband Ray home-school their children Stephanie (grade 5), Andrea (grade 4) and Megan (kindergarten), with the on-line support of the Nechako Lakes School District.

Previous | Next 

Last modified September 28, 1999.

© 1999 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
Masthead and usage information.