SO YOU WANT TO HOME-SCHOOL

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THE BEGINNING

So, in a nutshell, that is how to lay the groundwork for home schooling. My guess is that right now somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 families in America have chosen to teach their own children. Probably well over 90°70 of them are doing so without any trouble from the schools or the law. In fact, though these folks may still be a minority, more and more people are teaching at home with the active support of the schools.

Good luck to you, and let us know what happens.

"Probably well over 90% of home-schooling families
are doing so without any trouble from the schools
or the law."

EDITOR'S NOTE: A one-year, six-issue subscription to Holt's Growing Without Schooling costs $15.00 and is available from Growing Without Schooling, Dept. TMEN, 729 Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116. (A sample copy costs $2.50.) Subscrib ers to the journal can order back issues—there are more than 30 of them—for 75¢ per issue plus $2.00 shipping and handling per order.

In addition, John offered an in-depth discussion of the reasons for home-schooling in the Plowboy Interview in MOTHER NO. 64. . . available for $3.00 plus $1.00 shipping and handling from The Mother Earth News ® , 105 Stoney Mountain Road, Hendersonville, North Carolina 28791.

WHAT IT CAN BE LIKE

"Just what do home schoolers do? What are their lives like?"

If you're thinking such questions, you may find that Nancy Wallace's new book, Better Than School, is just the resource you're looking for. Nancy offers a detailed account of her and her husband Bob's experiences teaching their two children Ishmael and Vita (who, incidentally, were featured on the cover of MOTHER NO. 68). Her book portrays everything from how the Wallaces won the right to home-school from a resistant local school board to the way they tackled math. It's a very personal, inspiring story . . . with a significance that reaches far beyond their four-person family.

Below, we're sharing a few short excerpts—reprinted with permission from Larson Publications—from Better Than School.

It is 8:15 in the morning and I am in the kitchen doing morning chores. I hear the sound of the school bus as it grinds up the hill. It stops, and creaking doors summon the four or five children waiting at the Four Corners. The doors close, again with a creak, and the bus roars off along its morning route. As always, I breathe a sigh of relief as the roar grows fainter. My two children aren't on that bus, and they won't ever have to be.

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