Our daughter had a good kindergarten year, liked her teacher, and made friends. But as first grade approached, my wife and I couldn’t shake a feeling of uneasiness about sending her back to public school. We knew that homeschool would involve a lot of changes to our daily schedule that we weren’t sure we could accommodate at first.
And then there were those feelings of inadequacy about taking over our daughter’s education. People go to school for years to equip themselves to teach. Why should we think we could do it ourselves?
Despite our anxieties about taking this big step, we decided it was at least worth trying. Here are some of the big reasons we did.
1. Modern Schooling Stifles Creativity
Nearly everyone who attended public school had at least one good teacher who rose above the inherent limitations of the system to challenge and inspire us. However, it still needs to be said that system itself is not designed to inspire creativity.
The late John Taylor Gatto was an award winning teacher who left the public school system because of his concerns about it. In his book Dumbing Us Down he wrote that in his job as a teacher, “curiosity has no important place in my work, only conformity;” that “successful children do the thinking I assign them, with a minimum of resistance and a decent show of enthusiasm.” This is because modern education is built upon the premise that “people are machines.”
In the public school system, education cannot be guided by the natural interests and curiosity of the student, no matter how much their individuality “[tries] to assert itself.” Instead, the public school system forces every child into a mold. Those that can’t fit into the mold are disciplined for their “bad behavior.” That’s why Gatto, reflecting on his job as a teacher, defined individuality as “behavior that threatens my control.”
We wanted our child to develop her own interests and be encouraged to love learning, not forced into a mold.
2. Modern Schooling Crushes Independence
We haven’t had the public school system for very long, but it has become such a rite of passage in American society that we rarely stop to question it.
What do you call a building that houses people held against their will, where they must line up single file and unquestioningly obey every order, where each ward of the state is treated as a potential threat, where rights are suspended and even using the toilet is a privilege? We normally call them prisons, but many not only accept that our schools are like this, but argue that they should be.
It’s no wonder, in an environment designed to function like a prison, that bullying is rampant, cliques form that resemble little in real life apart from prison gangs, and children feel overwhelmed and devalued.
When I was in public school, I saw the building I was forced to populate as a prison, the administrators and teachers as guards, and the suspension of my rights as a violation of my freedom to be resisted. Instead of forcing my child to negotiate the balance between individuality and success like I had to, I wanted to treat her like a valuable human being with rights and responsibilities.
3. Modern Schooling Teaches to the Needs of the Group, Not to the Needs of the Individual
Now that we’re homeschooling our daughter, we can spot the areas where she excels and where she needs more work. We can give her the individual attention she needs instead of farming her education out to an overworked teacher with dozens of other students to attend to. That means working quickly through the areas she understands instead of leaving her bored and working on her problem areas until it clicks. That not only means a better education, but a more efficient one.
Instead of seeing school as either boring or too difficult, our daughter can have a targeted education that meets her right where she is.
We’re not too far along in our homeschooling journey yet, but so far our anxieties have been tamed and we’re glad we did it. We decided to start with the K12 program (what homeschool purists call “public school at home”) because we were overwhelmed with the prospect of picking our own curriculum. The K12 curriculum is okay and their interface just so-so, but they gave us a starting point to think about what a more independent homeschool program that’s designed around our needs might look like, and we gained confidence that we could homeschool ourselves. We’re looking into transitioning into a fully independent approach in the very near future.
We have been excited to be more involved in our child’s education and provide her with a learning environment that better meets her needs, encourages her creativity, and reinforces her individuality and value. If you feel that the public school system is short-changing your child in these areas, perhaps homeschool is an option you should consider.