BevK May 6th, 2008
Stefan Merrill Block, who was homeschooled, shares his response to some of the myths about homeschooling.
Home schooling’s successes remain obscured by suspicions, so it is worth repeating the argument that many, many home schoolers have made before me and that I have had to make too many times to count: The common myths about home schooling don’t stand up to empirical scrutiny.
He goes through several of the common myths listing studies that refute them. He then goes on to, as he puts it, “attest to what I would have lost had California’s dreadful home-schooling laws applied in Texas when I was a kid.”
I could rhapsodize about the many benefits of my own home-schooling experience, but they are all based upon a single, simple, revolutionary idea, an idea that other forms of education explore but only home schooling can fully express: that students’ individual needs and interests should determine their educations. My parents understood that curiosity is the sacred heart of learning, and they gave me the time and space to put my hand on it and learn its rhythms.
When homeschoolers move away from the “school” model of education wonderful things happen. My own daughter had a conversation with a friend in Sunday school about what they were currently reading. My daughter is working her way through Jane Austen’s novels, on her own, her choice. Her friends response was that she had had to read one of Austen’s novels for school and it was really hard and not something she’d ever want to do again. Sad, but typical. Of course my daughter has fully realized that her education is her education. She’s been known to bring home a stack of books from the library on a variety of subjects she doesn’t think she knows enough about. I think the key is curiosity as Stefan says. Curiosity will make you explore something you might not think of as fun because you want to know what the fuss is about something. Curiosity can lead you to all kinds of new and wonderful places.
Read the article…
