Smrt Lernins

What do you think about the “so glad to send the kids back to school” sentiment from people whose children are in public/private school? This topic came up on the Well Trained Mind forums, and opinions were mixed.

Some people felt like it was merely an expression of relief to return to a familiar routine. I’m sure that’s part of it, and is perhaps the actual intent behind some parents’ jubilation over the return to school, though that might be somewhat belied by the sheer exuberance about the children being gone for the day.

Some people felt it was expressive of sometimes we all (even homeschoolers) feel, which is “I’d like ONE FRIGGIN QUIET MINUTE TO MYSELF NOW PLEASE THANK YOU!” Definitely a sentiment with which I can empathize, as I dearly enjoy a brief break from the constant demands of parenting, though I don’t think I’m in any way entitled to a 7-8 hour break, 5 days a week.

Some people felt like it was indicative of an unhealthy mentality about what our “real lives” are or should be and how we must send children away in order to have those “real lives.” I think this is the crux of it and this is far from the only area where this mentality manifests. I also don’t think this is something people are making up in their own heads; there’s serious social pressure to divorce our “real” identities from parenting and to celebrate opportunities to not be beholden to our children’s needs.

When a woman gets pregnant, she’s bombarded with social messages that tell her she is supposed to “want her body back,” and the pressure begins to keep pregnancy as short as possible. When she breastfeeds, she’s not only told she’s supposed to “want her body back,” but to “want her life back,” something that can only be done by weaning the baby, of course, since breastfeeding is clearly not a part of life and “life” seems to be comprised of as many tactics as possible to physically distance yourself from your offspring. Case in point, when her child becomes school age, the woman is supposed to rejoice in sending the child away (to “real” school, of course), so she can finally “have her life back” again.

“Life,” by the way, doesn’t mean the responsible thing you’re living, with a spouse/partner, children, and a job. “Life” actually means that thing you were doing BEFORE kids, BEFORE responsibility, when everything was fun, fun, fun and you were only responsible for yourself. There’s this emphasis on the false notion of “adult life,” which seems to actually be code for “second youth,” a period of late teen/early 20s-like self-indulgence, partying, and forgetting (temporarily, at least) that one even has children. Most of the people I encounter who are longing for this “adult life” aren’t talking about added responsibility or maturity, but time without children in order to act like children. This is adulthood? This is “real” life?

This isn’t a mentality found solely in public school parents. If anything, I think it’s a generational problem. Gen X grew up, with all their extra self esteems and misplaced sense of entitlement (seriously, I’ve read articles written by Gen Xers saying Baby Boomers should retire, because they’re selfishly keeping all the good jobs), and they’ve had a hard time adjusting to the fact that they are no longer the center of the universe or life of the party. I feel perfectly comfortable saying this, since I’m at the tail end of the Gen X generation, and I have seen it in so many of my peers over the years. I think my generation is getting far worse with age, actually, because that self-involvement that was charming in a teen and tolerable in a 20-something has become very tired in a 30-something. Gen X can’t pull its head out of its collective asses long enough to realize that this message of “real” life that they’re buying into so completely isn’t real at all. It’s fabricated by people who are selling something, be it baby formula or school supplies or a mentality about your “real” life.

Why are they so happy their kids are going back to school? They’re told they’re supposed to be.

And they bought it.

The Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA) posted a great article today, “The Teacher as Soldier,” addressing statements by public figures about recruiting an “army of teachers” and questioning what war, exactly, these teachers are fighting. The author presents the troubling paradigm of, “Generals and leaders – Administration and the government; Privates/Soldiers – teachers; Civilians/those to be “aided” – students ([...]the group that needs to be fought for – to have things done for them because we don’t see them fit to achieve for themselves) [...] = The War for Education.”

Teachers as low ranked soldiers in a battle (against whom?) to educate passive, helpless student learners; administrators and politicians as detached leaders of a battle in which they aren’t even getting their hands dirty. Not a pretty picture. Not a picture the author enjoys. Is it really that far from the truth, though?

I think public education has become a combat scenario, to some extent, but it’s not a war for education. I’m not sure it’s a war for anything. It’s a skirmish between players with little vested interest, like politicians with children in private school. It’s a battle between Republican tax cuts and the systems that are now so underfunded that they can’t let staff into the building until the day school starts, leaving schedules unfinished, classrooms not set up, curriculum not set in stone. It’s a conflict between the few teachers who are genuinely invested in the success of their students and the administrative status quo that is focused solely on test scores. In this scenario, students are not the citizens being helped, but the friendly fire casualties of a large system floundering and firing randomly, hoping to hit a target they can’t even agree upon.

This is a pretty bleak picture of public education. It’s not an accurate portrayal of every teacher, school, administration, or system. There’s no denying that there’s a strong element of this in public education as a whole, however. Our own experiences in public education certainly point to that. No one was fighting on Captain Science’s behalf but us, and it was a fight we were well aware we shouldn’t have to fight: a fight for him to not be bullied by a teacher who felt threatened by gifted students, a fight for him to spend his days doing something other than worksheets, a fight to have any expression of creativity not squashed out of hand.

Parents have to fight with teachers and administrators to have their children’s most basic educational needs met, and while we’re doing that fighting, more and more funds are diverted away from the children who need them most. It’s obvious who the administration values — not the gifted students and not the special needs students. For the parents of those children, public education can be a constant battle.

The author of the IDEA piece writes, “Learning is not a war, it is an adventure. While it can be used as a tool to equip oneself with the awareness necessary to achieve justice, learning overall is discovery and an intriguing challenge.”

She’s right. Learning is not a war. Education, however, is most certainly a battlefield.

My friend Heather’s oldest daughter is about to do something absolutely ridiculous: start first grade. I’m pretty sure she’s not allowed to be old enough to do that. In the spirit of preparing for this next stage in academic development, she IM’d me with this cute little message:

So, things homeschoolers never worry about:
1) Will the new teacher like my child?
2) Will my daughter make friends?
3) What if she doesn’t have any of her friends from last year in her new class?
4) Why am I sharpening so many damned pencils?

Oh, sweetie! Have I lead you to believe that the life of a homeschooler is a really so carefree? What a travesty! True, I don’t have to worry about teachers liking my child, but other than that? I have worries! I’m not worry free!

I worry about, on any given day:

1. Will my child be able to maintain his friendships with his public school friends?
2. Will my child have ample opportunities to socialize w/ homeschooling friends?
3. Will we cover all the subjects we need to cover?
4. Will getting in to college be too hard?
5. Does he hate homeschooling?
6. Does he hate me?
7. Would we all be happier if he were still enrolled in public school?
8. How on earth will I cover everything we need to cover?
9. Am I a failure for not having started Latin yet?
10. How about a modern foreign language?
11. Do my kids dress funny?
12. Are my kids well-adjusted?
13. Will my kids manage to actually pass those standardized tests?
14. If they don’t, what does that say about them?
15. If they don’t, what does that say about me?
16. Will I ever get a chance to sleep in again?
17. Do people think I’m doing this because I’m obsessed with Jesus?
18. What would Jesus think about this whole homeshooling business?
19. Am I way more boring than I used to be?
20. Why am I sharpening so many damn pencils?

See, Heather? We worry, too. We probably worry more, because the buck stops here. If our kids are all screwed up, we have no one else to blame but ourselves…and everyone KNOWS it!

Enjoy your babygirl’s first grade year and don’t feel too envious of us homeschoolers. We have it pretty good, but we don’t have it worry-free.

Do public schools kill creativity?

Yes, I think they do. I watched Captain Science’s ability to think outside the box be slowly crushed during the course of his 3rd grade year, until he was afraid to think creatively (at least within the context of education) out of concern of chastisement by a disapproving authority figure. I saw the traits that made him unique treated as character flaws or manifestations of a disorder. I even went along with it at first, worried that I had simply been misinterpreting aberrant behavior as creativity.

Our story isn’t that unusual. It should be unusual. It should be completely off the wall, but it isn’t.

A friend recently shared some examples of class rules sent home by her daughter’s third grade teacher. The packet contained fifty rules that the children must follow. Not simple, two or three word rules, either, but fifty rules that meticulously spell out the exact behavior students were to exhibit under nearly every imaginable circumstance. Some examples:

Rule #3 of 50 — If someone in the class wins a game or does something well, we will congratulate that person. Claps should be at least three seconds in length with the full part of both hands meeting in a manner that will give the appropriate clap volume.

Rule #17 of 50 — We should be consistently be able to turn from one book to another, complete with all homework and necessary materials, as quickly as possible. The opportune amount of time to spend in transition should be less than ten seconds, and we will work toward a goal of seven seconds.

Rule #23 of 50 — Quickly learn the names of other teachers in the school and greet them by saying things like, “Good morning, Mrs. Graham,” or “Good afternoon, Ms. Ortiz. That is a very pretty dress.” Note: If you are in line with the rest of the class, you are not allowed to speak to the teachers at that time because the no talking rule is in effect.

Imagine your eight-year-old children receiving a list of fifty such rules. Do you see a lot of room for expressions of individuality within those rules? Would your child come out of that classroom more creative or less? Is this classroom, and the others like it, helping mold a generation of independent and abstract thinkers?

Sir Ken Robinson thinks public schools are killing, rather than nurturing, creativity, and speaks eloquently about it:

I’m still on our county’s school district mailing list. Just a few minutes ago, I received an email letting me know what will be cut from the budget for the 2010-2011 school year in order to make up the $126.7 million budget shortfall. Please let it be noted that property taxes have not only NOT been increased (our schools here are funded through property tax and SPLOST), but were decreased by approximately 10%.

Instead of additional (or maintained) property tax, our county’s school district budget cuts will include, among other things, increasing classroom size, decreasing the instructional supply allotment, “restructuring” the alternative education program, and cutting the number of teachers (by over 600) and guidance counselors/graduation coaches (by 55).

The email had this to say about classroom size:

Increasing class sizes creates the greatest budget cost-savings – as class sizes increase the district needs fewer teachers. Earlier this month, the Georgia Department of Education waived all restrictions on class size to help school districts across the state contend with the economic crisis. In [our county], where class sizes already were well below the state maximum at every grade level, schools can expect to see classes increase on average by approximately three students. That number is averaged, so some classes may be higher and others lower.

Yup. Our state no longer has ANY class size restrictions. While our county’s schools were under the maximum classroom size, many schools in less economically affluent counties are already at the maximum. Can you imagine what this will do to classroom size in rural schools? Is schools that have mostly low income and/or renting (non property tax paying) families? Schools with high seasonal migrant worker populations (such as in Vidalia onion-growing country)? How large will classrooms become in this “economic crisis?”

As for reducing instructional supply allotment, well, that means the teachers are either going to have to greatly increase the amount of money they spend on classroom supplies (everything from printing paper to crayons to maps and other supplemental materials to Kleenex and hand sanitizer) OR that will be passed along to the parents, whose list of required supplies for each new school year gets longer and longer. The last year Captain Science was in public school, we provided two packs of computer paper, crayons, glue sticks, scissors, tape, folders, tissues, hand sanitizer, soap, and quite a few other sundry items I don’t recall right off the top of my head. These items were all for general, not personal use.

Guidance counselors are often portrayed as being superfluous or even goofy (even if they’re adorably goofy, like Emma on Glee), but for some students, the help of a guidance counselor in high school is how they get into a college or get the scholarship to pay for a college. Some students don’t have access to therapists/counselors outside of school, due to parental unwillingness, lack of insurance, or other reasons. Remove guidance counselors from schools and students may lose that one small place where they can seek help.

Sure, these cuts might make fiscal sense in the short term, but what are the long term ramifications? How well will students learn in classrooms of 25, 30, 35+ students? Who will help these students with college applications or crises? What will classrooms be like when teachers have had their classroom budgets stripped to nothing?

While I think our county has a good public education system (in comparison to other public education), I am increasingly grateful that we removed our children from it. Thank goodness for the option to homeschool in these tough economic times!

PhD in Parenting has been writing about homeschooling lately. She currently lives in Germany, where homeschooling is illegal and children are under legal compulsion to attend public school. Today, she wrote a post about different schooling methods and how she views them through the lens of the “right and duty to learn.”

On the whole, I found her opinions on homeschooling to be quite positive, but I take issue with some of the concerns she mentions in her post:

At the same time, there are things that concern me about home education:

• I worry that parents who homeschool for ideological reasons may be shielding their children from the realities of the world (other belief systems, other cultures) and their selves (sexuality, gender issues, personal expression), which I believe is dangerous for the individual and for society.
• I worry that a small minority of parents who homeschool for ideological reasons may be doing so specifically to pass on discriminatory and hateful viewpoints to their children.
• I worry that parents who take their children out of school out of frustration with the school system (generally or for their specific child) may feel forced into home educating their children when really the school system should be changing and adapting to address those concerns.
• I worry that children who grow up under the guidance of the most gentle, patient, loving and inspiring parents without being exposed to teachers who are strict, ineffective, jerks, play favourites, or use coercive methods may not learn how to deal with those types of people before entering the workforce and may be at a disadvantage (although to be fair, a lot of today’s schooled youth aren’t dealing with them themselves anyway – they are getting mommy and daddy to do it for them).

You all know how I feel about the “school as a place to learn to toughen up for the ‘real world’” stance, so I’ll just link to my comment I left on the PhD in Parenting blog and leave it at that.

What about her other concerns, like the idea that parents who homeschool may be doing so to instill hateful or dangerous ideologies in their children? How harmful is “immersing [our] children in [our] beliefs and shielding them from others?” Are parents really more or less likely to attempt to instill their ideologies in their children based on where their child schools? Are homeschooled children more likely to be racist, bigoted, etc. than their institutionally-schooled counterparts? To what extent should the State or the collective get to choose the ideologies to which your child should be exposed?

And what about her assertion that “in most cases [parents choose to homeschool because] there are perfectly reasonable and factual things taught as part of the school curriculum that the parents do not want their children to learn (evolution, birth control, homosexuality, other religious beliefs)?” Was this a motivating factor for you? For the homeschoolers you know? To what extent? Was it because the curricula covered topics you felt were inaccurate or inappropriate? Was it because the curricula were too religious or not religious enough?

And finally, what about her statement that she “believe[s] more strongly in the child’s right to an education than [she] do[es] in the parent’s right to raise their children any way they want?”  Is a child’s right to a specific set of academic knowledge greater than your rights as a parent to pass on your morality, ethics, culture, or ideology? If you’re an unschooler or (I am warming to this term) “life learner,” do you think the child’s right to an education is more or less important than his freedom to make his own decisions, even if those choices are towards the less academic?

I know my answers to these questions. I’ve read some of the exceptionally thoughtful comments to her blog (like Kelly and Kim @ Beautiful Wreck’s). Now, I’d like to hear yours.

Lo, so many times doth I find myself declaring thusly, “This is why I homeschool!”

Today, at Olan Mills photography, the photographer argued with me over comma placement in the title on a photograph collage. The main picture was of all three of my beautiful, talented, and delightful children (whose behavior while Nana and I looked at photo proofs was such that they are lucky I did not devour them on the spot like a disgruntled hamster), with one small photo of Tank and Captain Science and one small photo of Babypie below. The collage was captioned “Captain Science, Tank & Babypie.”

I protested the lack of Oxford comma between “Tank” and “&” (the “&” was necessary in lieu of “and,” due to the length of Tank’s real name), only to have the photographer tell me, “No, that’s right. I thought it was supposed to be the way you’re saying it, but an English teacher was in here the other day and said this is the right way.”

I responded, “Well, I have a master’s degree in writing and editing. I can assure you that it’s supposed to have a comma,” then said to my mother, “This is why I homeschool!”

While it turned out to be a non-issue, as an additional comma wouldn’t fit on the line, I will not accept the dropping of the Oxford (or “serial”) comma simply because some English teacher says so. Dropping that comma may be acceptable in AP style, which is designed to minimize space, but dropping the serial comma is not otherwise acceptable to me. Unless the final two items are together (“peanut butter & jelly,” for instance, or even “Captain Science and Tank,” since they were in the same photograph, while Babypie was in her own), that comma belongs in that list.

But me no buts* about how this is acceptable in non-academic American written grammar, because Americans say and do many things that are an abject butchery of proper grammar and usage. American writers have become lazy, American grammarians have lost their spine, and American teachers are failing to impart a respect for proper punctuation in their students. If it’s good enough for Strunk and White, the MLA Style Manual and The Chicago Manual of Style, it’s good enough for me, and it should be good enough for you, dammit.

Yes, when Lynne Truss (author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves) talks about not getting between those on opposing sides of the Oxford comma issue when drink is involved, she is, in fact, talking about me.

Considering that most public schools use MLA writing guidelines, which advocate the use of the Oxford comma, the idea of a public school English teacher telling a photographer that the comma isn’t necessary incites me to a new level of grammatically righteous anger. I’ve tolerated too many notes (both from Captain Science’s old public school and Tank’s private preschool) that pluralized with an apostrophe or misused “to” and “too” (No! You do not have “to many volunteers!”). While I often have a playful relationship with English, I will not give up my commas without a fight!

*Neither Officer Daddyman nor Patchfire have heard the phrase “but me no buts.” They both thought it was a typo. I promise that it is not. Here is a nice article about the “X me no X’s” model.

Karen asks, “What will your kids do without an annual yearbook? Even elementary schools have them nowadays.”

Elementary schools offer them. I do not buy them. Twice-yearly pictures were enough. I barely gave enough of a flip about the other kids in Captain Science’s class to buy the class picture. I certainly did not ever give enough of a flip about the other kids in the entire school to buy a yearbook. I am not a cash cow and do not appreciate being milked by anyone other than my nursing baby.

Really, when is the last time you opened up your yearbooks? How much meaning do they really have to you in adulthood? I think I look at mine every few years, mainly when I need a reminder of how much I hated high school and 99.97% of the people in my graduating class. Yearbooks are a $50 way of remembering a time period that I actually wish I could effectively block from my memory. High school days were not my glory days. I don’t look on them fondly. I don’t wax poetical while poring over black and white pictures of people who mostly grew up to be the kind of people I add on Facebook and summarily delete, because they are just that insufferable. You will not see me weeping over a lack of a yearbook.

Should my children express a longing for something of this nature, I’ll gather together all of their homeschooled friends. We’ll do photoshoots, get photobooks printed, and they can all sign each other’s photobooks. They’ll be classier, less expensive, and full of only the people they liked and want to remember, rather than the overpriced remembrance of people he barely knew, didn’t particularly like, and won’t bother to keep in contact with after graduation.

And that is what a [Smrt] Homeschooler has to say about yearbooks.

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Homeschooling has its many obvious upsides: customized curriculum, flexibility of schedule, ability for students to advance at their own pace. I have also discovered many benefits I hadn’t expected, however. These are some of the benefits that have revealed themselves over time.

1. Fewer lice scares. What public/private school student hasn’t brought home at least one “We have lice going around! Oh no!” note at least once during their school years? This isn’t much of an issue w/ the homeschooled student. Sure, they could pick something up at co-op, but where are those kids going to get it? With smaller groups (and, admittedly, the hippie homeschool tendency to wash hair a little less frequency) in a carefully controlled setting, lice isn’t going to be spreading through the homeschool community like wildfire.

2. No (social pressure-laden) fundraisers. I know that some co-ops or homeschool groups do fundraisers, but not like public/private schools do fundraisers. Fundraisers are serious business in public and private schools. Wrapping paper, candy, cookie dough, frozen pizzas, flower bulbs: the list goes on and on. Note after guilt-inducing note letting you know all the prizes your child will be missing by your failure to adequately pressure your friends, neighbors, and relatives into buying multiple items from your little darling. You don’t want your baby to be the only one who didn’t get the key chain and teddy bear, right?

3. Ever-ready errand boy/girl. There’s something to be said for having a child in the house who is big enough to respond to, “Go grab the whatever-it-is-I-need from the car.” Sure, this isn’t something you, as a homeschool parent, should abuse, but it’s nice to not constantly be running up and down the stairs all the time. Besides, it’s lots of extra physical activity for your child. Mark it down as P.E. and you don’t even have to feel guilty.

4. Also, ever-ready manual labor. The kids are home during the time of day that I’m doing chores or running errands, which means I’ve got extra sets of hands when it’s necessary. Sure, doing the grocery shopping may have been easier with just the baby, but that meant balancing both baby and bags of groceries to get into the house. Homeschooled kids are there to help you carry in those bags! If you haven’t figured it out yet, household chores are also a great way to break up the monotony of the school day and to drive home the valuable lesson of the careers to which one may aspire without finishing a decent education. In other words, kids who pitch a fit over doing math or writing can scrub a bathroom or rake a yard to get the full experience of why we pushy parents think learning is so important.

5. Fewer birthday party invitations. If you don’t realize what a blessing this is, you have never had a child in public school. The obligatory birthday invitations mean hundreds of dollars spent on impersonal gifts for children your child doesn’t even play with outside of school or risking the possible social ostracism that comes from failing to appear at all the right parties. The other upside of this is that you are equally freed from the obligation of inviting 19 near-strangers into your home or rented bounce house facility once a year. The controlled social sphere of homeschooling means smaller, more intimate parties. Be happy about that.

6. You do not, in fact, gotta catch ‘em all. A controlled social sphere also means your child’s exposure to the “kid crack” phenomena of Pokemon, Bakugan, Yu-gi-oh, and all other collectible card games is significantly more limited. Few parents really want to get their kids started on these games (Which the kids don’t even know how to play. It’s just about the having), but they’re aware that knowledge of games like these (and ownership of the cards/toys) is like currency in a public school, and they don’t want their kids to be the socially impoverished ones, begging for little Pikachu scraps off the elementary lunch table. As long as you keep them off of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, homeschooled children don’t have the same exposure to these games, and aren’t as likely to get caught up on the frenzied need to have them. Homeschooling, I choose you!

7. Minivan Expectations. No one will make “oh, you poor, unhip thing” faces over your choice to drive a minivan. Everyone knows that homeschoolers drive minivans, even if they only have one or two kids. Homeschoolers are not expected to drive SUVs, Camrys, or muscle cars. If anything, there might be some confusion as to why your van is a mini and not a conversion.

8. Floods. Not the natural disaster, but the pants length. By the end of the season, pants are hanging a few inches above the shoes and shirts are cutting off a few inches above the wrist. In a public or private school setting, this means either replacing the garments for the few remaining weeks of cold weather or dealing with the disapproving looks and comments directed at your slightly bedraggled-looking offspring. When you’re homeschooling, no one cares if your kid is wearing floods. Being slightly ill-dressed is part of the social expectations for homeschoolers, so you’re disappointed nobody by meeting those expectations and rising above expectations if your kid is wearing pants that fit come March. It’s win-win.

9. Never again be perceived as idle. While a stay-at-home-mom may be perceived (incorrectly and unjustly) as “not working” or “doing nothing all day” or “getting to stay home and play with the kids all day,” a homeschooling stay-at-home-mom is perceived as undertaking a momentous and time-intensive task, one that most parents of public/private schooled children believe they could never, themselves, manage. Fewer people will make assumptions about your availability (“Well, you don’t do anything all day, so you can do this favor for me!”). Lackadaisical housekeeping will be viewed, not as a sign of laziness, but as a natural byproduct of the tremendous effort expended planning lessons, directing learning, and grading and filing papers. Don’t disavow anyone of that belief; You’ll ruin it for the rest of us.

10. An excuse for weirdness. When your child does something unusual, socially awkward, or just plain bizarre in public, you can easily soothe observers’ distressed looks with a slightly dismissive hand wave and an, “Oh, don’t worry. They’re homeschooled.” This also works pretty well to explain weirdness in homeschooling parents. A woman muttering to herself in the aisles of Borders book store is creepy. A homeschooler muttering to herself in the aisles of Borders book store is just planning for next semester.

When the current course of home education isn’t at its peak, homeschoolers sometimes fall back on the dangerous logical fallacy of “homeschooling is better than public schooling, therefor any amount of homeschooling is better than public schooling” when attempting to justify or rationalize any lapse in their intended output. You may recognize the related mantras: “A homeschooled child learns more before lunch than a public schooled child does all day” and “The worst day homeschooling is better than the best day in public school.”

In other words, as long as they can convince themselves that a day spent playing Club Penguin or watching videos on YouTube surpasses the quality and quantity of education in the average public school day, they don’t have to feel guilty about having let their children play Club Penguin or watch videos on YouTube all day. At least the kids aren’t in public school!

I absolutely agree that, overall, the quality and quantity of education received in the average public school is greatly exceeded by the quality and quantity of education received during the same period of time spent homeschooling. That doesn’t mean there is something inherently superior about homeschooling, though. Very little is brought to the table by location alone (academically speaking — mentally/emotionally/socially, being at home has an important impact). Done right, your child is receiving significantly more education than in a public school. Done wrong, your child might be receiving significantly less education than in a public school. Homeschooling parents seem to want to make it about location, but they’re missing the point — a great big fat point. It’s not the fact that you’re schooling at home, but that you’re putting in time, effort, individual attention, creativity, and love. Location is one of the less significant factors in education, coming far behind materials, methodology, and investment in the child’s success.

It’s not fair or accurate to selectively compare homeschooling and public schooling day by day, and certainly not hour by hour or minute by minute. To say “a day of homeschooling is superior to a day of public school” is disingenuous. Which day? Which homeschool? Sure, a public schooled child isn’t learning much on CRCT day, on class party day, on school assembly day. A homeschooled child isn’t learning much on mom’s pneumonia day, on “first I have to run all these errands” day, or on YouTube watching day, either. None of these days would be a fair day to choose for comparison as an adequate example of education, yet I’ve seen many examples of homeschoolers use class parties or school assemblies as examples of how public schools don’t educate, but just waste time. As a former public school room mom, I can assure you that our school system allowed for exactly two class parties a year and they had assemblies once per grading period.

We have had days when we accomplish more work and cover more materials than my son covered in a week in public school. We’ve also had weeks where we struggle to cover the amount of material that they covered in a day of public schooling. It fluctuates. No, every day of homeschooling is not going to cover more material in greater depth, simply by virtue of being homeschooling. Location doesn’t make the materials better — they have to actually be better materials. Location doesn’t make you roll out of bed in the morning and teach — that’s your own motivation. Location doesn’t cause ideal lesson plans to spring up or those lesson plans to be adhered to — you, the parent, have to make sure that happens. That video you watch at home has no more or less inherent academic value than the video watched at school unless you make it relevant, make it part of something bigger. If you plunk your kid on his butt in front of a video without finding a way to engage him in the materials or contextualize them, he’s not learning any more than he would being plunked on his butt in front of a television in public school. Location doesn’t equal education.

Public schools do have certain academic standards to uphold. Yes, many schools are failing, but most schools at least attempt to educate the children attending them. Are these standards as rigorous as my personal standards? Not by a long shot. Do I think kids are sitting there being taught nothing? No, I do not. Public school classrooms cover a wide range of materials. They even cover some of it well. It’s possible to have a sound, thorough education from public school, though a lot of that depends on student commitment, parental involvement, and the quality of the individual school(s) and teacher(s). A good public school teacher will engage the students, find ways to make information accessible, and will impart a love of learning. Dismissing public education out of hand simply because it’s not at home is just as bad as dismissing homeschooling out of hand because it is at home. Location doesn’t equal education. Déjà vu!

Not every homeschooler is done by lunch. Not every homeschooler is learning in a half day what public school kids are learning all day. Don’t make it about day-for-day, hour-for-hour. Don’t make it about there vs. here. Look at the big picture. An hour of half-assed homeschooling isn’t better, academically, than an hour of public schooling with a competent, engaged teacher. Stop telling yourself that to make yourself feel better. Public schools have some really good days, days that are doing to be better than your worst days, and that’s ok. You’ll have good days that are way better than their best days, because you can give your child the personal attention to make a good day great. You, as the parent-teacher, not homeschooling as a concept. You don’t have to tear public schooling down to make yourself feel better about an off day. You don’t have to blow smoke up your own denim jumper. If you’re making an effort 75% of the time and teach your children with love and a vision for the future success, you don’t have to excuse your worst day by trying to compare it to public school. Not only is it not accurate (Really, have you ever had kids in public school? It’s certainly less than ideal, but it’s not exactly day care, and some of them are doing a good job), but it’s not necessary.

It’s not the location that makes homeschooling better. It’s you. You are invested in your child. You want your child to learn. You want her to love what she’s learning. You want him to engage with his curriculum. You make education happen. Keep your eyes on the big picture and the important part you play in it. It’ll keep you motivated through those weeks when “a homeschooled day watching science videos on YouTube is better than a public school day of science labs” seems like a really nice lie to tell yourself.