The Colfaxes – David & Micki — homeschooled 4 sons, 3 of whom graduated from Ivy League schools and all 4 are well-socialized adults. David & Micki are the authors of Homeschooling for Excellence and Hard Times in Paradise, both available from Amazon.com
Dear David & Micki:
My 13-year old son was doing very well in school until this year. Now his grades have slipped and he’s barely passing several of his courses. We can’t understand what’s happened to him. Should we consider homeschooling? M.D., Bowie, MD
Dear M.D:
We’ve always found it interesting to observe how little attention school authorities pay to this phenomenon. There should be a term for it, a kind of “hitting the wall” or “bailing out”, that happens so often at about this age. Bright kids, often those who learned to read at the “right” age, were near the top of their classes, and who never presented any kind of problems for their teachers, who suddenly lose all interest in school. Part of it is often due to hormonal changes at the onset of puberty, to be sure, but part of it can usually be attributed to the very simple reality that in the middle school years — roughly, between grades six and ten, learning comes to something of a standstill. Here, subjects which were fresh and challenging the first time around are represented in a more systematic but relatively undemanding and less-than-intellectually-engaging fashion. The reasons for this are varied and range from the “dumbing down” of the conventional curriculum to the inability of many students to handle the higher level concepts and abstractions they might encounter at higher grade levels. Exposed to what is, for all practical purposes an organizational “holding action”, many brighter students lose interest in its bleak and uninspiring educational agenda. Some recover, but many do not. For the most part, this does not become a problem for homeschoolers. Because homeschoolers generally proceed at their own individual rates, there is no need to rehash old materials: their progress is determined by their own interests and abilities rather than on the basis of what is possible for a given age cohort of students of widely varying interests and abilities. Homeschoolers have the luxury of slowing down and of even abandoning subjects if interest wanes, without being penalized for not “keeping up”. And homeschoolers can pursue new interests in a wide range of subjects not available to the typical middle school student.
For these, among very many other reasons, we felt that homeschooling is a very real option for young people who have hit that middle school years wall. But, as always, we would urge parents who find themselves in this situation to talk it over in great detail with the child before committing to what in all probability will be a long transition period in which results may not become immediately apparent. We would suggest that your son spend some time reading Grace Llewellyn’s The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life Education. It’ll be a big step in the right direction.
Dear David & Micki:
I know that you have been asked the “S” question. “What about socialization?” many times, and I know that homeschooling has produced a lot of bright, socially-competent young adults. But what about children who just don’t fit in, kids who are perceived as “different”, for one reason or another by their peers. Is it right to keep these kids out of school, where they would have a chance to learn how to cope with the real world? B.J.Y., Falls Church, VA
Dear B.J.Y.
While we would agree that there are kids who, for a variety of reasons might not be popular with their peers, we would argue that “fitting in” as you put it, might not be such a good thing, given today’s youth culture. But if “fitting in” is something that you put a premium on, we’re not so sure that continued exposure to rejection by one’s peers does a whole lot to enhance self-esteem. Kids can be cruel — how many books and films, from “Lord of the Flies” to “Heathers”, have worked that worn-out vein? — but to suggest that they might somehow “learn to cope with the real world” by being in school doesn’t strike us as being terribly promising. Nietzsche once said that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and while we would agree that school peer cultures kill very few, indeed, we would also argue that they make very few much stronger.
I (David) recall a high school classmate, Eddy who was something of a mathematical genius and the class fool (this is before the word “nerd” had been coined). Bored and besieged, he spent his high school years tap, tap, tapping his pencil on his desk in class after class, for he had decided for reasons never explained, to count to a million before graduating. (He made it.)
Eddy was the butt of practical jokes, was routinely beaten up, and his days could not have been anything other than sheer misery. And yet, oddly enough, he returned to each of his school reunions over the years, and has reportedly been greeted politely, if a bit uncomfortably, by his one-time tormentors. (It would be nice to be able to say that he returned as a great success and his classmates begged for his forgiveness and perhaps a few stock market tips, but Eddy, alas, was no Bill Gates or Steve Wozniak.) But did Eddy “benefit” from his exposure to the “real world” of the school? Did it help him in any way? I never saw any evidence of this. Clearly he survived, but at what price?
Indeed, “socialization”, as we have said many times, is the last refuge of the educrat. A few years ago, “We might not be educating them, but at least we’re socializing them,” was the semi-official rallying cry of the National Education Association leadership. Perhaps so, but one has to ask, “What kind of socialization?” It would be nice to know that kids who have a hard time coping are provided with genuine opportunities to learn to relate to their peers a bit more effectively and to “enhance their self-esteem”, as the phrase goes, but we see little evidence of this. Rather, it would appear that “dys-socialization”, ranging as it does from learning to follow pointless directives, tolerate boredom and endure petty injustices, to acquiring self-destructive and even sociopathic attitudes. And while some school authorities have recognized this and have instituted “It’s all right to be different” programs, the culture of the school, of pressures of the peer culture, are unlikely to be moderated in any meaningful way by limited projects of this sort.
The reality is that the schools can and do harm kids in many different ways, and are especially harmful to kids who “don’t fit in”. Homeschooling is by no means perfect, but it is misleading to imply, as you do, that it isolates and thereby harms the child. Rather, homeschooling can provide a supportive environment in which the very qualities that make a child a social outcast among his or her peers can be transformed into assets. Our friend Eddy became a department store manager, and to all appearances, a competent enough one, but we cannot help but wonder what might he have contributed if he had been given an opportunity to develop his mathematical talents so many years ago instead of having to worry about who was going to beat him up after class.
Dear David & Micki:
My homeschool son is 15 and isn’t interested in going to college. Where can we find out about apprenticeships? B.Y., Albuquerque, NM.
Dear B.Y:
Apprenticeships are appealing to homeschoolers for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that they provide young people with an opportunity to participate in a meaningful way in the real world of work, and to learn about themselves and the world in the process. John Gatto, teaching in New York’s schools, found that his students who were given an opportunity to work in a variety of commercial and industrial settings, usually as unpaid and short-term apprentices, almost invariably acquired a wide range of valuable skills and attitudes. Many homeschoolers have part-time jobs or make it part of their educational program to work on a voluntary basis in places such as hospitals, senior centers, fire departments and radio stations, not only to learn new skills but also to see if they might be interested in working in these fields. If you are interested in a long-term, more intensive apprenticeship, the best thing to do is to contact people who work in the field to find out what is available and what the entry requirements are. Those interested in the more traditional crafts should contact the unions directly, which are listed in the yellow pages under “Labor Organizations”. Don’t be disappointed if they don’t seem very encouraging, however, for many of the few programs now available want applicants who have completed a high school industrial arts program. I’d suggest that your son make an appointment with the folks in charge of the programs he’s interested in and be prepared to convince them that he’s a quick and independent learner and therefore a better choice than someone who may have gone through a conventional high school program.
Dear David & Micki:
I consider myself to be one of those rare birds, something of a liberal, and many of my friends are liberals. So what do I tell them when they say that I am being an elitist by teaching my kids at home? They argue that we’re depriving the public schools of the presence of our bright, highly-motivated daughters, and that we should be trying to change the schools, not abandoning them. Should I become a conservative? R.D., Berkeley, CA
Dear R.D:
Ah, liberals. You are obviously hanging out with the kind of people who have made P.J. O’Rourke and George Wills, who write bad things about them, very, very rich men. If your friends are of a historical bent, you might suggest that they familiarize themselves with the history of the public schools, and examine whose interests they serve, and when and how. If they are of a philosophical turn of mind, point them in the direction of our friend John Gatto.
But perhaps the easiest way to counter their misplaced populism is to suggest that the next time their children need to see a doctor that they be sure to go to the worst one in town. After all, he probably could use the business and think of how much better he might become if were given an opportunity to practice on their children. Or when they have a legal problem, that they make sure that they consult with the most inept law firm around, in order to help it become better at what it now does so badly.
If your friends point out that their children would almost certainly get worse care or that they’d probably lose their case were they to follow your suggestion, urge them to consider the larger good they’d be serving, how they would be enhancing the noble institutions of law and medicine. Surely they would not want to be accused of putting the needs of their children and themselves above the well-being of their new doctor and lawyer friends? With a little luck your friends might get the point. But maybe not.
Liberals are notoriously ineducable. Perhaps you will, after all, have to make new friends.
Dear David & Micki:
My younger sister is homeschooling her children and has them enrolled with their school district in something called an ISP. She says that they get books and are supervised by a teacher who comes to her home. It doesn’t sound like homeschooling to me. My adult daughter was homeschooled with no help from our school district. B.Y.M., Portland, OR
Dear B.Y.M:
To those of us who homeschooled our children back when local school districts were anything but friendly, didn’t have the opportunity to become involved in what may be broadly termed “homeschool-school district” cooperative programs. In the last decade or so, many more progressive — some might say more mercenary — school administrators came to recognize that if they could involve homeschooling parents in district programs they would be able to collect at least a part of the otherwise lost “average daily attendance” funds that fuel the public school enterprise. They have established programs that variously offer current and would-be homeschooling parents individualized study programs (ISPs), opportunities to participate in school activities and sports, and access to school books and materials. Some homeschoolers regard this as an insidious effort to coopt homeschoolers, others regard it as a way of providing parents who might otherwise never consider homeschooling with a valuable option, and still others feel that it combines the best of all possible educational worlds, melding the resources of the school with the independence of homeschooling.
And there is no question that the programs vary widely and get mixed reviews from homeschoolers who have participated in them. Some feel that they have been saddled with poor teachers by administrators who want to get them out of the classroom. Others have had to deal with teachers who are hostile towards homeschooling and see their role as that of doing everything possible to get homeschoolers “mainstreamed”. There are concerns about the kinds of educational materials that homeschool coordinators recommend to their clients. (We were recently appalled to find that a key workbook used in one of the larger ISP-homeschool programs was — almost by any standard — several degrees worse than anything that a child might encounter in a classroom — but it did have “homeschooling” in its title). And in another California county, homeschoolers who wish to take part in the school-run ISP have had to apply for admission to the program and sign a statement in which they agree to follow certain special rules and procedures — which means that homeschooling parents are required to meet standards which are not imposed on parents who enroll their children in conventional public school programs.
While parents need to be careful about taking part in programs that do not adequately serve their children’s needs, and to be wary about being drawn into the confining institutional mind-set that dominates public school culture, and on guard against program drift, ISPs can be useful.
For new, less-than-confident homeschoolers, for homeschoolers who want to participate in the social life of the school, and for those who aren’t happy with public schools but are not, for whatever reasons, comfortable with being entirely responsible for the education of their children, ISPs fill an important need.
