Home Schooling

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I learned to speak French struggling with an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, which had belts that tended to slip if I failed to keep them clean and dry. In the meantime, the interminable modern English assignments made me sweat for hours as I learned the rudiments of writing. Because I hated it, I taught myself to write as succinctly as possible. The fewer words I put down, the less I had to write. I remember turning in a book report on Field Marshal Montgomery's memoirs. I thought it passable, but not superlative. Yet, Mrs. Carlbom gave me the highest mark possible. Then she kept the report, adding: "If you don't mind, it's always nice to have something to show the student teachers what to expect." I was rather pleased, but after all these years I'm still trying to figure out what on earth I wrote in that report to cause such a reaction.

Disadvantages and Dividends

So I've come through the home-schooling experience. For me the dividends are immense, the disadvantages minimal. To be sure, if you're going to teach your kids at home, at least one parent has to be there all the time. Some people may find having the kids underfoot all day, everyday, more than they're prepared to accept. But in our family, having us all together most of the time strengthened our family unit and made it unshakable. As a result, come hard or good times, there was nothing we couldn't go through and survive.

A woman I met a couple of months ago, on learning we had been taught at home, exclaimed how lucky our parents were, saying: "They must have saved a lot of money!" I'm afraid I gaped at her in disbelief, for I know that during high school, in particular, it cost my family far more to study at home than if I'd gone to school. When I asked her what she meant she said, "Well, the cost of clothes and school supplies...." I still can't figure out her reasoning. In our minds, the cost of the education never entered into the equation and with the state of our income; we spent far more on education than one would believe we could afford. Money was certainly never flush in our house.

Then there are those who like to pose the old question with all its variants: "Didn't you miss interacting with your peers?" "Didn't you miss the competition?" "Didn't you miss the `real life' experience?" "After all," they'd say, "School is where you learn to prepare for life!" Our preparation for life was life itself as we lived each day, one by one. By the time we reached our teens, we'd amassed more experience and knowledge of people and their foibles, good and bad, than many kids gain in a lifetime.

Others ask if we suffered from the lack of amenities—those fancy labs, libraries, gyms, swimming pools, and lecture theaters of the large regional schools? My chemistry lab was the kitchen table, the wood stove my Bunsen burner. Did I suffer from that? Frankly, it all added to the adventure. For libraries, we had eight public and three university libraries only an hour away, their doors open to us every time we went to town. I can assure you they were used. Every two weeks saw a new stack of books in the house. Nobody used those libraries the way we did.

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