Support for Parents Involved in Christian Education
Why
I home-school my children by Tess Riley
It still happens fairly often.
We're standing in line at the supermarket, when someone in line behind us,
politely trying to make small talk, asks where my children attend school.
"They don't go to public school," I reply. "We're a home-schooling family."
There's usually a long pause. A stiff smile. An unspoken comment hangs in
the air. "Oh. You're one of those people."
There currently are more than 30,000 children ages 5 to 17 home-schooled in
Colorado, according to the Kids Count Census Data Online. Nationally,
home-schooling is rapidly becoming a widely accepted educational option,
with conservative estimates of 1.1 million American families teaching their
children at home.
Yet there are still many people who believe that home-schoolers belong to
radical fringe groups or have some kind of vendetta against the public
school system. I can relate. Before I had children, I used to feel the same
way. Why would anyone choose to teach their kids at home when public
schools, staffed by trained professionals, would take them off your hands
and do it for free? I still recall my initial reaction when, in the early
'80s, some friends announced that they planned to home-school their
children. I was stunned. They'd always seemed so ... normal. What was with
these home-schooling people, anyway?
Then I had children.
When my oldest daughter reached the age of 5, I looked into her enormous
blue eyes and knew there was simply no way I could load her onto a school
bus, wave good-bye, and send her off into the care of strangers. For the
first time, I began to contemplate home-schooling as a viable option.
Although the main reasons most families home-school their children are
because they feel they can provide a better education at home or because of
religious convictions, those reasons, though valid, were not my primary
concerns.
It wasn't that I lacked faith in the abilities or training of teachers. Some
of my best friends are teachers. My college major was education. Teachers
are my heroes. It also wasn't that I was afraid the public school curriculum
would turn my daughter into a godless heathen. I, myself, am an uncorrupted,
God-fearing product of the public school system.
No, it was more basic than that. Call me overprotective if you like, but
when I gazed into my daughter's trusting face, it wasn't teachers or
curriculums I wanted to shield her from. It was her peers. The cruelty of
children to children. Even though the most commonly raised objection to
home-schooling is a perceived lack of socialization, it was this very same
issue that was behind my desire to educate my daughter - and later, my other
children - at home.
For some reason, our culture has always blindly accepted the notion that
children can only be properly socialized by spending all day in
age-segregated groups of 25 or 30 of their peers. That puzzles me. In such a
setting, children develop a "survival of the fittest" mentality. Cliques,
bullying and power struggles emerge. Children face enormous pressure to
conform. Wear the right clothes. Listen to the right music. Experiment with
drugs, alcohol and sex. Be cool. Ridicule the outcasts.
At an age when our children are most vulnerable, they are subjected to
pressures and temptations more overwhelming than any they'll ever face in
their lives. Not even the most diligent teachers or carefully implemented
programs can prevent the often unspeakable terrors that many children
quietly endure on a daily basis.
I vividly remember the day I sat in front of the television set, sick to my
stomach, as the Columbine drama unfolded, grateful beyond words that my
children were all safely accounted for in the next room. Granted, Columbine
was an extreme, isolated incident, but the subtle dynamics behind the
Columbine tragedy play themselves out in classrooms across the country every
day.
I want my children to grow up feeling safe. I want them to learn kindness. I
want them to be free to be who they really are, without fear of ridicule. I
want to protect them for as long as I can. It is for this reason that I've
chosen to educate my children at home. It's the only choice I can live with.
Tess Riley, a former children's librarian, is now a full-time wife and
mother of four. Visit her blog at
tessaegg.blogspot.com.