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Homeschooling worries
By ella | March 21, 2007
Every afternoon, while almost every other five year old in the country is at school, I homeschool my eldest son. After about five minutes of writing his letters he asks if he has done enough and starts whining. It goes downhill from there and at that point I am grateful he is getting the bulk of his education at preschool. But from the end of next week he becomes too old for preschool - where he has been since we removed him from school - and he will be homeschooled full time.
Olivia, Janie and Jen all asked ‘how’s the homeschooling/home educating going?’
My answer is this: I’m reluctant, on so many levels, about homeschooling Harry. For now I have the safety net of knowing that if I screw up he is still getting an education at preschool. Knowing his education is in my hands, while not exactly keeping me awake at night, is nevertheless a weight on my mind. I worry how I am going to manage to teach him with two other small children in the house. I want another baby and I wonder if I will be doing us all a disservice by doing so - my son’s education, my well-being, my stress levels and the level of attention I can give everyone. I can barely manage now some days, another baby seems to be just asking for trouble. I also write now and I rely on time to do that while the older two are at preschool. If I had some daily help while the children are small or while I struggled through another pregnancy and that awful first year with a small baby I could probably feel confident about homeschooling my son. I’m sure most of my concerns would seem trivial if he was my only child and I had only his education to think about during the day. But I don’t.
I also worry that he is missing out on the better aspects of school like friends, after-school clubs like football and being invited to social events like birthday parties. We can make up for these things to some extent by being involved in our local network of home educators, by arranging classes for football and by keeping in contact with some of his old classmates but it is not the same as being with your friends all day, sharing joint activities and experiences.
But my biggest worry is that I won’t be able to teach him at home. School relies on authority and discipline to teach incredibly boring things to large numbers of children. Transposing that to the home environment is tricky. Anyone who has considered home education is likely to be familiar with unschooling methods. The assumption behind this kind of non-teaching is that children, if left to their own devices, will learn naturally; their natural curiosity will lead them to learn. Good guidance will bring out their natural talents and they will enjoy learning. As someone who failed spectacularly at school but has gone on to become an academic, I don’t need any convincing about unschooling and the fact that most people enjoying learning when they enjoy (the process of) learning. But I have problems with it: it is one thing to believe in it for your own learning purposes but it is quite another to trust this method when it is someone else’s education at stake. As I said, it’s not that I don’t believe it will work, but I would regret my son growing up and finding doors closed to him if he has not pursued a traditional education (although I am told that home educated children tend to do very well regarding university entry) and I particularly worry that if we pursue this route and he decides he wants to go back to school at some point then he will be very poorly equipped to rejoin school at the same educational level as his peers. His knowledge would be as good or better, but it would be different. Add to that his inexperience with being taught in a traditional way and there could be a problem.
So to keep his options open for career choice and for returning to school if he wants to, I feel pressure to teach him similar subjects in a similar manner to those he would be learning in school. But it is very difficult to keep your own child motivated doing this kind of work at home where a) his teacher is his mother and doesn’t have the same authority as a teacher does, b) he would rather be playing with toys/doing something else, c) he is bored because there are no other children here (although his little brother would join him in a year and a half) and d) as most of us will remember from our own school days, most of the stuff we learn at school is boring and irrelevant to real life (although calculus, of course, comes in useful when wandering up and down the aisles in the grocery store).
I am fairly certain I will combine formal teaching (reading, writing and arithmetic) with play later on in the day (which is only what most five year olds need at this age) and try to pass learning off as play in the same way I try to pass spinach off as pizza topping. But who knows how much planning and work that will involve?
But in my darker moments of worry about home educating I hang on to the fact that my son was desperately miserable in school. Seeing him run happily into preschool at the moment is such a relief. All the research shows that a bad experience in reception/kindergarten class can put a child off school for life. Too late for my son in that respect but I don’t want to compound the problem by returning him to school before he can cope with it. I suppose if I could find a school that was smaller, friendlier where he would be happy he might run happily into school the same way he goes into preschool now. We are looking at another school this week which looks, on paper at least, as if it would suit his needs.
And since removing him from school and reading about home educating and the way children learn I have other major concerns about school and the education system.
1) Research suggests that young children, boys in particular, struggle in schools where class sizes are large.
2) Boys, particularly, can suffer by being pushed to read and write at a young age. In many other European countries formal learning doesn’t start until seven and research shows that pupils overtake their British peers later on.
3) The aggressive testing of 7, 11 and 14 year olds using SATs, GCSEs at 16, AS levels at 17 and A levels at 18 in England concerns me deeply. By the time they leave school the average 18 year old has taken up to 105 tests and exams. It is not just the time spent doing these exams and the stress involved that bothers me but the time taken away from learning that practicing for these tests necessitates.
4) Bullying concerns me. I am grateful in many ways that I could see my son was being hurt because much has come out since then of incidences about which I knew nothing. When I hear how many children don’t tell their parents about bullying for fear of it being made worse I dread what might have happened to Harry without my knowledge and I worry what might happen to any of my children if they go to school now.
5) I worry that children are put off learning by the way they are taught in schools and that children can pass exams and leave school without actually really knowing very much of importance.
So I will be homeschooling until my son wants to go back to school - which may be never - or until I lose my sanity trying to teach him successfully at home - which may be in a couple of weeks.
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Read More:
- Giving up homeschooling: starting school
- Why homeschooling did and didn’t work for us
- Starting homeschooling: the first weeks
- Starting homeschooling
- Unschooling by default
Categories: Homeschooling and School
7 Comments
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Hi Ella I haven’t commented in a while and I just wanted tyou to know I’m still reading and I wish you luck with teaching H.
Good luck! If it helps any, I am in the process of launching a homeschooling website with lesson plans and other goodies, and would be happy to send the link your way if you are looking for some good material!
Another one with a link here: www.thedenimjumper.com is a secular homeschooling site set up by a blogger I read. It has good message boards where you can ask all manner of questions about homeschooling. The members seem very friendly! It is American, but there are several Brits and other nationalities on it also.
I’m fascinated about homeschooling, even though I’m unlikely to ever do it (fingers crossed that my kids enjoy school).
I can relate with many of your worries, Ella, as I approach formally homeschooling my son this coming fall. He hasn’t been in preschool, and I’ve been teaching him at home, so he doesn’t have any preconceived notions about school. However, I still worry how I will pull this all off. I think the unschooling has to happen with me! Most of my early school memories are of sitting at desks, being quiet and doing busy work. I’ve got to get all the junk out of my head and focus on making learning fun. I wish you the best of luck in whatever you choose to do. I have every confidence you will find him the best place to learn, be it at home or at another school. Keep us all posted!
I haven’t been here for a while, and am glad to see your research about homeschooling.
My own baby # 6 was due the first week of school, so I opted not to put my four-year-old in preschool. We work together everyday during naptime (while the two younger than she are asleep, and the older ones are at school.) Although we are fairly informal, and only spend 30 min. to 1 1/2 hrs per day, all at her insistence, she is reading, writing and doing first grade math along with her older brother.
I’m not saying all children will do this. I have to spend extra time after school with one of my older boys, still struggling to read, but my point is that with patience and persistance, he will learn! You’ll be amazed at what he learns, just because you read books to him, or play alphabet and number games, or do silly science experiments (or as my daughter calls them, “Science Experiences”).
I wish you the best! Formal isn’t always perfect for every child, It sounds like you are doing well!
I’m sorry you’re having doubts about home educating. I’m sure whatever decision you come to about Harry’s education it will be the right one for him and for you. Good luck!