Today I spent most of my library shift moving books. At one point, a little girl of perhaps 10 to 12 years of age passed through the stacks where I was working and politely asked where she could find some particular books. I directed her to the areas where such authors could be found and returned to the task at hand, combining, alphabetizing, and occasionally separating for recataloguing the paperback and hardcover adult fiction.
Later on, I overheard this same girl animatedly and enthusiastically chatting about books with one of the other librarians. I joined the conversation. She was already familiar with the Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, and other more substantial fare than many readers in her age bracket. At this point, I had my suspicions that there was a home-schooler in our midst!
My suspicions were confirmed when, as part of my closing procedures, I was doing the evening walkaround to check on everything. In our study room, there was a stack of workbooks and texts, some of which bore the familiar Abeka logo I remember from when I was homeschooled some cough years ago. I gathered these up into a plastic grocery bag to hold at the front desk, but the bag tore. I got two more bags from our recycled stash to split the load between them, and the girl returned as I was working on this. She thanked me politely and went on her way.
Her disposition was certainly sunnier than our sky!
If you are not even in the US, much less one of its rural residents, you may not be familiar with home-schooling. The US school system has been declining in educational quality for decades, and many parents object to the lack of moral, religious, and/or practical instruction there. Bullying victims, special-needs students, and the academically gifted can also benefit by escaping the institutionalized school system for a more personalized curriculum and attentive environment. The community my library serves includes many homeschoolers, and they often use the library to expand their curricula.
Now, homeschoolers have an undeserved but widely-believed reputation for poor academic and social performance. It is true that a minority of homeschoolers are weird antisocial cultists. Most, however, are eager to educate their children to a higher standard than the public schools offer. The kids are exposed to, and interact with, people of all ages instead of being segregated into a crowd of people their own age. They tend to be polite, articulate, and confident in a way that only comes with more ownership over their own lives. It is independence and individuality as a lifestyle, and it deserves more credit than it gets. This young lady was an example of someone who is better adjusted to interacting with others than most, and more literate than many high school graduates.
Home schooling isn't a guaranteed panacea for all kids, but consider the possibility if you are a parent. Khan Academy and other online resources make it easier than ever. Libraries have a wealth of books on all subjects for all ages. Many home-schoolers pool resources and expertise to better cover more advanced subjects. From my own experience, I can say that studying at my own pace usually meant faster completion and better information retention. If a subject did require more time, I could take that time instead of being held to a class schedule. Home-schooling also allows flexibility so unique opportunities can be exploited in a more spontaneous fashion. If you're on the fence about home-schooling, I encourage you to start planning now for fall, and get ready for an educational adventure!
A smidgin of rainbow in the clouds above the trees!
I was schooled in public school and went to a traditional university, so my experience with homeschooling came very late. While I was working in a research position (seeing whether I wanted to go further with my education and get a PhD, I ultimately opted not to), I encountered a young student who did a research rotation in our lab and ultimately chose us to finish his doctorate with. he was only18 and had already finished all of the academic requirements for his PhD. As I got to know him better, I found out that he was homeschooled by his parents who ran their own business, so they were able to make the time to do the homeschooling. He finished his high school equivalence by 12 I think, and took a year off before starting his bachelor's degree at a local state school. He took another year off after graduating from that program, and still finished in time to start his PhD and get to the point when I met him.
What was striking for me about him was not how intelligent he was. Everyone who completes a PhD, generally speaking, is far above average in intelligence, so that wasn't an extraordinary quality to have. What was extraordinary was he took that natural ability and leapfrogged past the system to steer his own course through life.
At the time I felt envy, because it made me realize I had been cheated out of my own education. For whatever reason, homeschooling my own children didn't seem like the greatest of ideas at the time, but the story stuck with me. When we first got married, I began talking to my wife about how we were going to educate our children, and we did a lot of research. In my research I came across John Taylor Gatto and the light bulb finally went off.
Long story short, even our oldest child isn't quite ready for school yet, but we now plan to homeschool her and my son. With all of the research I've done, and my reflection on my own experience, I can't imagine doing it any other way. When they're older, formal education might be in order, but for young children, the separation from parents and the lack of free play takes too much of a toll to justify it. Not only that, I have to much respect for my children to force them into something against their will. If they want to go when they're older, they will, but they'll be free to leave any time they want.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
As a teacher (and someone who was partially homeschooled), I often get asked about homeschooling. I don't necessarily recommend it, both because I've only been at schools that tend to be pretty high performing (and why leave a good school for homeschooling) and because you need to do it deliberately with the recognition that it's a huge investment of time, but I do try an put to rest the myth that any homeschooling is going to have overt negative effects.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
My kids are (usually) polite, articulate and confident but apparently not academic (judging from my middle child's school report, she's in high school by request) XD They all know a lot, just not whatever it is the school wants/needs them to know. And are otherwise probably not quite as stellar an example of homeschooling as the young lady in your story :)
But we're having fun so it's all good.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Sometimes the development of individual interests trumps boring academic benchmarks.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit