I have always known that we would homeschool. Ever since we moved to the inner-city we knew that homeschooling was the right option for our family. I have never considered any other alternatives, and I fully plan to homeschool through high school.
I assumed everyone else felt the same way. That was a silly assumption–I admit. I was recently talking with a good friend who also homeschools who is considering sending her child to high school. I was, and still am a little shocked.
Why? It’s not because I have a problem with it–after all, they’re not my kids. I don’t even think the issue is that he’ll face negative peer pressure or be poorly educated. (Ironically, while the elementary and middle schools in New York City suffer, we have some of the best high schools in the country.) My issue is that she’s stopping after 8th grade because she thinks she’s unqualified.
I know many who are against homeschooling may tend to agree. After all, how could I, a French major, teach my children advanced chemistry. I have to admit that the argument has some merit.
There are lots of helps, video courses, online courses and anything else you can imagine available on the home schooling market. You don’t have to know the subject area. You may need a willing student–but you really don’t have to be an expert in a subject area to teach it. Even at the high school level. And if you did decide that your child had to take chemistry from a “real” chemist. . .I promise there is a co-op for that too. In other words, the resources are out there.
Secondly, saying I’m unqualified to teach high school assumes that I’m incapable of learning to teach. Since I’m just a mom, I couldn’t possibly learn chemistry anymore. While I admit my brains turned to mush after having twins–I think I still have a few cells in there left to learn a new subject. After all, I did go to college and I do have a degree that required me to take a variety of subjects–including chemistry.
But if you home school, you know there are resources to help you with what you don’t know. That isn’t surprising anyone. I guess my question is, ’What’s your mentality?”
If home schooling to you is something you’re doing to fix an immediate problem that your child was having in school, you’re not likely to be in it for the long haul.
On the other hand, if you’re looking at your child’s education as an investment I would think the investment would be hard to turn over to someone else so close to the finish line.
As I’ve said, every family is not the same and I realize that home schooling doesn’t work for everyone all the time. We’ve been fortunate to not have to consider other options. But I would encourage those of you just starting out to think about home schooling as an investment.