As many of you know, I was homeschooled for most of my life, but I also attended a public school for part of my schooling history.
In that time I used a variety of schooling curriculums, different models for schooling, and had different schooling focuses.
So having tested several different ways of doing education, here are my thoughts and recommendations for any of you who may be interested in homeschooling:
Why Homeschool?
There are a lot of reasons people homeschool.
Sometimes it is because of the benefits of homeschool over conventional schooling like:
Performance. According to the NHERI, homeschoolers consistently perform 15-30 percentage points better than conventional school children on testing
Higher education acceptance rates are generally higher for homeschooled children
According to employers, homeschoolers are often associated with good work ethic and morals compared to non-homeschoolers
Sometimes it’s to avoid the cons of public education such as:
Higher rates of mental health issues
Bullying
Curriculum content
The outdated classroom setting
Lack of responsibility given to kids
Large class sizes (less one-on-one engagement)
Teaching for testing purposes only
Age segregation (affects child development)
Chronic stress
Homework loads that cut into home life
Child safety
A homeschool group at one of my foraging walks
Homeschooling Styles
Note that there are many styles of homeschooling. They tend to all lie somewhere on a spectrum from “Structured” to “Child Led” and most people will probably end up borrowing elements from multiple styles of homeschooling. (This is completely normal!)
The main styles include:
Charlotte Mason - Emphasizes time in nature, narrative books for learning over textbooks, verbal narration, nature studies, and that learning comes through play and experimentation. This is one style I used growing up, and my personal favorite!
Waldorf - A method of delaying the main academics (math, science, history) in younger children in favor of the arts. This style also places a lot of importance on finding “rhythms” in your educational life (monthly, yearly, or seasonal patterns).
Montessori - A form of child-led learning that emphasizes independence and uses special materials and mixed age groups for collaboration. This style also places importance on following a child’s natural development windows. I have heard amazing results from Montessori classrooms (homeschools or otherwise!)
Unit Studies - This is a style of homeschooling that allows children to drive the learning based on specific interests. For example; maybe your interest is in music. So all of your studies (math, science, history etc.) will be based around music and you’ll learn through that lens!
Unschooling - This method is more about facilitating learning than having a formal curriculum. With unschooling, the child is free to explore and learn in accordance with their interests and the parent’s job is to help create an environment that is conducive to learning. The philosophy behind this is that children are natural learners and are exploratory and curious enough to learn with the right tools! I also love this approach.
Classical - This is a method based on the “trivium” or “three stages” of learning:
Project-Based - This is related to unschooling, but parents take on the roles of mentors who provide the tools and support for a child to spend a meaningful amount of time completing long-term and short-term projects
Literature-Based - This style uses literature as the main backbone of education. Everything the child will learn is surrounding the book and the characters in it! There are a handful of curriculums that are designed for this, we used Sonlight. I think the concept is cool but I think it was more exciting when I got to choose the novel rather than be given one.
Eclectic - This is what my mom essentially did and what most parents do, it’s just combining different curriculums and methods for different parts of learning or for different kids based on how that child seems to respond best!
Worldschooling - This style has a few variants, but basically it uses travel to facilitate education. Maybe you’d travel for the entire summer and come back home, maybe you’d move from continent to continent for a few years or long-term, either way kids will learn by being immersed in the culture, seeing the history firsthand, and interacting with new people. This is a very cool style of learning if you have the money or work that can be done remotely!
School-At-Home - This is essentially just replicating the conventional school system at your home. I’m personally not a fan of this at all since I believe the traditional school system has some major problems
Plus several more obscure styles!
My oldest learning in nature
Why NOT homeschool?
I’ve heard strangely only a few actual critiques of homeschooling over the years but I’ve heard them a thousand times. I’ll address them one at a time here:
“But how will the child be socialized?”
This one is probably the biggest and also the dumbest argument I’ve ever heard. Firstly, there are plenty of anti-social kids in the conventional school system so clearly exposure to social settings isn’t the main factor.
Secondly, homeschooling doesn’t instantly mean you’re at home isolated from people. I’ll go over several models in a minute that debunk this idea but also most socialization comes from places outside of the classroom.
When I was homeschooled I also had a job because I simply wasn’t in a classroom for 7+ hours per day and didn’t have an insane amount of homework to do. I also went to church, had neighbor friends, I had coworkers, and I was part of extracurriculars outside of all of that (an art class, the Civil Air Patrol, tennis lessons, VBS, camping). Very little of my social life actually happened at the co-op I was part of.
The second reason I hear is:
“I don’t have the energy (or time, or money) to homeschool”
This is honestly a fair concern. There are ways around this though!
First I would remember that you don’t have to personally be the teacher or the only family involved with homeschooling. There are a few good models for having groups of families educate together and save each other time, energy, and money while still providing for the needs of the kids!
The last thing a child needs is a disengaged parent. Dropping the ball on this can make homeschooling the traditional way (or even public schooling for that matter) a miserable experience. Be intentional!
The second thing is I would think about whether the pros outweigh the cons or not for your child. Homeschooling isn’t for everyone, but neither is public schooling.
The other main thing I hear is:
“We can’t provide the quality of a public education” by which people usually mean “we don’t have professional supplies and classroom space” which in my opinion is a fairly narrow view.
Quality of education is not directly correlated with whether you have a laboratory or formal sports equipment, but more importantly even if it was, there are still realistic alternatives!
There are community centers and available spaces that can be borrowed/rented for homeschooling, and there are many non-school programs (oftentimes ones specifically meant for homeschoolers) that have everything you’d need (like art or sports supplies).
That leads me into talking about homeschool models.
My oldest picking blueberries
Homeschool Models
There are numerous styles of homeschooling, but there are also a handful of homeschooling setups to choose from!
Most people will take the style they like and then choose the method of applying it (or what I call, the “model”).
Full disclaimer, I have only tried a few of these but I definitely have what I believe is the best model for most people if they can do it.
Solo Family: The classic kids at home model that everyone thinks of. This is definitely fine, but I will say your kids may struggle with feeling isolated if they aren’t regularly exposed to other people somehow. I have known homeschoolers that struggled with this simply because they didn’t really go anywhere other than church on Sunday.
Pod-Schooling: This is where a few families hire a private tutor collectively to teach their kids (typically a handful of children, maybe up to 8 or so). This model really took off during COVID and is honestly a pretty fantastic way to do cooperative schooling!
Homeschool Co-Ops: Co ops generally are organized at a church or other gathering center and various parents will teach one or two subjects to all of the kids (or specific classes of children). This is basically a decentralized private “school” but with more freedom and control over curriculum. I did a co-op and honestly loved it. Ours was only 1-2 days per week but it was plenty fun and I had time for a part-time job as a high schooler as well.
Specialized School-Groups: This is where you do a co-op but only for a specific subject (or maybe a few subjects). Some examples would be forest school or nature school groups. I love this, especially for younger children but I do wish something like this existed for kids in high school.
Microschool: These are similar to tiny private schools (think 15-20 students rather than 200+) and bear some resemblance to co-ops or pods, but they’re typically structured more like an actual school but flavored with whatever style you choose (like Montessori, Waldorf etc!) There is a current trend of people hosting these on farms in one-room school houses and I’m really intrigued by it.
Worldschool-Communities: These are fairly uncommon as far as I’m aware, but they tend to be loose groups of families that travel near or with each other for the company and companionship but do worldschooling.
Virtual School: I have a brother who did this, and honestly can’t speak to how these are generally received. Some online schools meet in person periodically as well, some are fully online. I’m inclined to not be interested in this but I’m sure there are people who would vibe with this pretty well.
Hybrid School: Some schools will allow you to put your children in the classroom a couple days per week and then be homeschooled at home the rest of the time. I have never known someone who has done this, but it might be a good middle ground for anyone who may be on the fence about full homeschooling or who may not have all of the time they need for full homeschooling!
The awesome thing is, you can combine these in whatever way you like, start your own new thing, or switch if one model isn’t working for your kids! Don’t feel like you have to commit to one method for the rest of their lives!
So what is my preferred way to school kids?
I think the best way for what I would guess is the majority of children is doing some variation of a co-op with whatever style works for your kids best.
The beauty of these is that you can start them yourself. Go to a church? Have nearby parents looking to homeschool? Perfect opportunity to start something together.
Solo is a harder route, and in today’s economy it’s even more difficult than it was when I was in school. You never have to be alone (unless you actually live isolated in the middle of nowhere, which I talk a little about in my article about community) there are people out there who want to connect with like-minds!
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