ROG blog

When people ask what school our kids go to, and we tell them that we home school them, the answer is almost always the same, “Wow, that’s great, I could never do that.” But you can usually see in their eyes that they don’t really approve, and they immediately peg us as one of those strange families to watch out for. Maybe we are strange, we certainly are a different family than what I was expecting to grow into, but I think that’s a good thing. I like the idea that life still has some surprises in store for me.

The next question they usually ask is, “Why?” There used to be a very long answer because it seemed like a long process in the beginning, but I think enough time has passed now that I can skip to the main points and keep it to a shorter explanation.

Let me begin by saying that we aren’t passing any judgement on people who send their kids to public schools or the teachers who teach in them. The public school has been effective for millions of kids in America. I quite enjoyed my time in school and got a fairly descent education. But the system doesn’t work for everyone. Not everyone learns the same way and the teachers don’t have time to modify their style to adapt to each of those different needs so some people get lost in the shuffle and never really reach their full potential. If you look back at your time in school, you’ll remember those kids that were never in the main groups, the ones who caused trouble, did drugs, dressed strangely or just wanted to be alone. Many of those kids were really smart, but didn’t know how to fit in to a regular school system. They might have been good candidates for home schooling.

My kids started out in a regular public school like most of your kids. Our older son was an OK student, but not really outstanding. His main problem was that he didn’t like to write. He never felt like his printing was good enough, so it would distract him and consequently any time he had to write in class, he fell behind. The teachers would tell him to finish at home, but then they’d also give him homework to do. When he got home, the homework would take hours to do what the teachers expected was 40 minutes worth of work at most. The hours of frustration often lead to anger and tears.

When his 4th grade teacher showed the class new math concepts, he soaked it all in and excitedly mastered each new skill. But after two weeks of working on the same math concepts, he would get bored, start to struggle and fall behind. His teacher’s response to this was to put him in the slow math group and have him do even more work sheets.

After hearing about our situation, one of my wife’s friends (a teacher who also happened to be the G.A.T.E. coordinator for our school district) suggested that we have Alex evaluated by an educational psychologist. We brought him to the psychologist for several sessions after which she told us that he was actually quite bright and demonstrated cognitive reasoning abilities well above his age group. She suggested that we talk to the teacher about modifying his workload so that he could prove his mastery of the material, but not get bogged down with busy work. She suggested that we give him medication for ADD to help organize his thought process. She also suggested that he be allowed to use an Alpha Smart (a small computer for typing in class). This would allow him to write without getting distracted by his penmanship. The teacher agreed to these modifications when we spoke with her and the school principle.

Things looked like they were making a turn for the better. (Alex was happy using his Alpha Smart and said that he could concentrate better during tests when he took the pills.) Then things started to turn back around. Alex didn’t like taking the pills because he didn’t like the way it made him feel the rest of the day. The teacher was moving his workload back up very quickly, maintained that he had to finish any work that wasn’t finished in school at home in addition to his homework. She discouraged his use of the Alpha Smart and got frustrated when he asked to use it. Things weren’t going better. Frustration was mounting for my son, the teacher and us as parents.

My wife’s friend (the teacher/G.A.T.E. coordinator), who was familiar with our situation, suggested that we consider trying the home studies program offered through the school district. There was a teacher on site at our same elementary school who would advise us on how to home school, provide us with materials and do evaluations and state mandated testing to make sure our son was progressing well. She also offered occasional classes within her classroom so that the kids would stay used to the class room environment and hear another voice to teach them.

After one more hectic day in the regular 4th grade classroom, culminating with the teacher yelling at our son for wanting to use his Alpha Smart during class, we decided to try the home studies program and take him off the medication. Things immediately got better. Over the next 6 months, Alex learned two years of math and got a perfect score on his state science exam. (That’s the same test all the regular school students in California take.) He still wasn’t a great writer, but we allowed him to orally answer any exam questions that took more than a couple sentences. Learning is about knowing and being able to communicate the answers, it’s not all about penmanship.

Our younger son wasn’t having any trouble in school, other than occasionally getting in trouble for reading in class when he was supposed to be paying attention to other things. This child really liked to read. When they tested his reading comprehension at school, he was already at a 9th/10th grade level while in the first grade. He was jealous that his older brother got to stay at home and claimed that he was bored in his class, so we took him out as well a few months later.

I have to say that both kids love being able to wake up in a leisurely fashion to a warm home-cooked breakfast at the start of each day before easing into their studies. I remember most of my school mornings as being woken up by my alarm clock, quickly getting dressed, popping a couple of pop tarts into the toaster oven and hopping on my bike to get to school before the first bell. (Note to Mom: I know you would have cooked me breakfast if I had asked for it, but there usually wasn’t enough time and you did make me lunch every day. I love you for that.)

And then…

We stayed with this program within our school for almost two years under the guidance of Barbara Harrison, but with most of the lessons being conducted at home by my wife. It certainly wasn’t always easy. Kids get frustrated with their parents as well as their teachers, so we’ve had our up and down moments, but the nice thing is that we have the freedom to try different things when one direction isn’t working out. Singapore math might make sense to one child, while Saxon math works better for another. We wouldn’t have had these options in school.

My wife heard a lecture at a homeschooling conference by a woman named Resa Brown who wrote a book called The Call to Brilliance. After learning that she also ran a homeschooling program closer to our home, we decided to change schools and learn from her. After reading her book, I got a better appreciation of what kids could do and become when given the right tools and encouragement. I really do believe that all kids have the potential to be great at something, but not all kids have the potential to be great at the same things.

We worked with Resa in the Las Virgenes School District and then the following year at her new charter school, River Oaks Academy. This year we will be doing what is referred to as an R4, which basically means we are creating our own private school. Part of the reason we’re moving on from our previous group is that the curriculum wasn’t rigorous enough for us. Some homeschoolers feel that the children should work at their own pace and shouldn’t be bothered with competing for grades. We disagree on that point. Competition is very healthy in sports and academics. Our kids will be competing for jobs in the near future and we want them to be prepared.

My wife does most of the teaching, I help out with science on the weekends. In addition to our regular school work this year, our kids took some classes through Youth Leadership Project that were really amazing. In Alex’s class “Key of Liberty,” he wrote 20 papers about American History, had two oral presentations, memorized the Declaration of Independence and studied the Constitution in depth. That’s more than I had to do in most of my high school classes and he’s only 13.

What about socialization?

I read somewhere the other day that teachers were blaming the parents for their children doing poorly in school. If that’s the case, is the only role of public school to socialize our children? I’ll admit that my children aren’t the most social and they probably won’t have jobs in sales. Oh well. Our kids have friends that they get together with and they play team sports. There are a lot of good habits that you can learn from socializing in school, but there are also plenty of bad things you can learn. I’m willing to take a chance on this one.

Other benefits…

Our kids have learned a lot through homeschooling. But they also have so much more time for other things. They both practice piano every day, they read voraciously, they are each writing their own novels, they have time for basketball practice and basketball leagues. Our quality of life has improved. The days of whining and crying over extended homework assignments has been replaced with laughter and learning. Another great benefit is the flexibility in our schedules. We can take a day off in the middle of the week to go skiing or camping and make up for it on another day.

Overall, homeschooling has been good for us and I look forward to finding what surprises it brings in the future.