Homeschool: Rediscovering The Child

One of the greatest joys of homeschooling our son, after having dealt with private schools, is seeing him rediscovering himself.

Like many parents, we put our child into private schools we could barely afford in the hopes that he would receive a better education than he could in public school.

When our son went to private school, he went in as a creative, energetic young student with a great curiosity about science and history. By the time we realized what was happening and pulled him out, he was bored, uninterested in learning, irritable, stressed and probably well on his way to developing a nervous disorder, all by the tender age of 8.

What we learned about the two private schools we dealt with is that for a substantial monthly fee, we were getting the same textbooks and the same state standards as public school. The kids also took the same standardized tests. In order to prepare for those tests, the teachers put the children through the same sort of nerve-wracking rote drills public school kids face.

Everything was done with one eye on the clock. Even young children had to deal with timed tests which were a substantial part of their grades. We discovered many parents whose children were doing well were having to enroll their kids in Kumon or other supplemental classes. Learning, it seemed, took a back seat to being able to fill up a page with numbers or words in a fixed time.

In social aspects, there was a tighter leash kept on the school bullies than in public schools, but kids found ways to torture the class scapegoats nonetheless. With some exceptions, many of the teachers seemed ill-prepared to deal with children. Even in the young grades, some were more interested in playing politics, it seemed. If your child's teacher didn't like you, life for your child could be stressful, indeed. Rather than being presented with challenges to spark their interest, children who were plainly bored with any given subject were marked as troublemakers.

While the private schools avoided the all-out social melee that goes on in public schools, they nonetheless expected the same sort of cookie-cutter performance from their students. If a child is struggling in a subject, the solution should be to slow down and try different approaches. The answer at the private schools was to pile on more homework and require tutoring, which, at least in our case, was unavailable through the school.

Now that we homeschool, we've settled into a comfortable rhythm and hardly ever look at the clock. Our son, whom we were told was desperately in need of math tutoring before he could advance to fourth grade, is already almost done with all his fourth grade state standards just three months into the regular school year.

He has also pursued his interest in history and is now working out of the seventh- and eighth-grade history textbooks, supplemented by his own research, including readings he personally selected from Seutonius' "Twelve Caesars," the works of Julius Caesar and other writings about the ancient Romans.

The boy who was dubbed mathematically challenged is starting to explore electricity, motors and computers because he has an idea for a citywide solar power grid he wants to design to eliminate the need for gasoline-powered vehicles. In his spare time, he is continuing to develop his artistic skills, particularly cartooning. At age 9, he already has a sense of composition and line that is noteworthy.

To be certain, homeschooling is not for every child or family. But for our son, none of this year's big developments would have happened in a private or public school setting. And he would have grown even more miserable and bored. In speaking with other homeschooling parents, they, too, have had similar results. Children don't need to be geniuses to flourish, they just need to be listened to and have their minds fed.