Qualified to homeschool

Homeschooling raises basic questions such as “why do we homeschool?” and “how does one homeschool?” But there is also the question, often coming from well-meaning, and sometimes concerned, family and friends, “Are you qualified to educate your children?” This question raises a number of other questions, all of which are fueled by numerous assumptions and presuppositions. I want to try to answer the question because it is important to me and to my family, but I also want to try to give an answer because there are a lot of concerns among homeschooling parents as they worry about their “qualifications” and hope they are doing the right thing. Of course I am no expert (we are practicing teachers, like doctors practice medicine or lawyers practice law) and you may have better answers than I.

• There is no one, other than my wife, who loves my children as much as I. Nor is there anyone who desires their well-being as much, or an education for them as much. My wife and I have a unique perspective and passion for our children that no one else has. We know their nuances, their learning styles, their hearts. From the day they were born we have been committed to knowing and loving them. Having a teaching certificate does not instill a passion for teaching, and certainly not the level of passion and love I demand from anyone teaching my children. An educator who must carefully manage and teach 20+ students cannot offer the educational focus or specific academic goals that we can, even if they are generically passionate about teaching. Of course, this does not mean I would never allow someone else to educate my children, just that a teaching certificate, or even 20 years of classroom experience, is a thin argument for saying a public school is a better (or even equal) educational choice than homeschooling.
• In my experience the common educational goals found in most educational systems are below mine and my wife’s standards, whether they be reading, writing, mathematics, science, history, and all the rest. Schools, for the most part, also do not emphasize the arts as much as they should. We are not the kind of parents who seek to drive our children to educational extremes. We don’t want them to enter college at age 9 or receive their second PhD by age 17. We want our kids to grow up rather normally and at the right pace for healthy development. Regardless, many educational systems, and in particular public schools, tend to have lower achievement goals than we do. With our kids we don’t have to teach to the lowest common denominator. We also don’t have to focus on the slower learner and let the faster learner languish.
• Developing an excellent curriculum is not impossible. There are innumerable resources for home educators to create wonderful, rich, and top-notch curricula. There are also good arguments for choosing some of these curricula over the standard fare found in many schools. We are fond of using the concept of the trivium as an overall guide, but there are others. And we adapt the trivium by including other ideas and constantly testing our choices through experience. We have also been greatly influence by the book The Well Trained Mind as a guide. The specifics of what books, programs, or exercises we use are too numerous to mention here. This means we are not tied to questionable top-down delivered federal or state programs, nor are we slaves to whatever is the latest method. We can change and adapt quickly, focusing more on the needs of our children than the needs of educational bureaucracies.
• Implementing an excellent curriculum is not impossible. Many good ideas fail because of poor implementation. This is as true in education as is it in business. There is a mindset that sees the need to separate children from their parents and from their home environment in order to effectively implement educational curricula. There may be some wisdom in that, and for some children that might be best. However, we believe, and our experience tells us, that the home environment is highly suited to educating children. A “normal” day may appear less structured than one might find in a public school (no bells, no standing in line, no strict beginning and end of classes) but the integration of education with the rest of life is a better way to teach in our opinion. It is probably more likely that a homeschooled child will grow up with a more holistically integrated sense of learning as a part of life. Another benefit is the ability to move from one subject to another when it is most appropriate for the child. The “class” is over when the lesson is done, not when the bell rings. As we see it, a traditional classroom is not required and may, in fact, be a hindrance.
• For many the idea of homeschooling does not fit into the common lives of many families where both parents work at full-time jobs and need a place for their children to be during the day. For many homeschooling families it is the wife/mother that does most of the teaching while the husband provides the primary source of income. This scenario just does not work for many women who love their careers and would go insane if they had to stay home all day with the kids even though they truly love their children dearly. (Note: Much homeschooling is actually done outside the home with other families and is not confined to literally staying at home.) But for many the homeschooling scenario is ideal. Some families, however, believe they need two incomes, and certainly some do, but a careful financial analysis often shows this not to be true. Adding up all the costs associated with having both parents working is an eye opener. Think of the costs of day care, dry cleaning, eating out, two cars, higher tax bracket, someone to clean the house and maybe do yard work. It adds up and can dramatically cut into the two incomes. Regardless, each family has to decide for themselves. For us it works, though we see it as an experiment year to year. Our willingness to “go for it” and make it work is another of our qualifications as teachers though it does not come with a signed and sealed certificate that says so.
• Finally, some might say that all those reasons above may be fine and good, but you can’t deny that teachers are highly trained professionals. I have no reason to deny that. But I would say a couple of things. First, ask any teacher to compare their initial training with their experience and I would guess that hands down their experience trumps their training. Years in a classroom outweighs their official teaching credentials as far as making them truly qualified to teach. Second, we have all experienced the fact that the best teachers in life are often not professional teachers at all, but someone with a passion for the subject at hand, plus a passion that others understand that subject, and the desire to see the subject through another’s eyes. Thirdly, much of the professionalism of modern teachers has to do with things that are of little or no importance to homeschooling scenarios. Homeschooling does not have the same kinds of cultural and societal burdens as does public education. Homeschooling also tends not to be burdened with internal politics or socially cautious ecumenism.