Almost a year ago, I decided I wanted to organize the Torah Homeschool Conference that took place in June. What prompted me to do it was because I get a good number of questions about homeschooling and I wanted to make the support and information available on a larger scale than one on one conversations. I hear the same questions again and again, and I wanted people to have the chance to speak to and meet others who are homeschooling, for support and encouragement as well as information. I know that there’s only so many people I can help personally, and I simply can’t spend an hour plus on the phone/computer with every person who calls/emails!
Most of the calls are from people who have no idea what’s involved (haven’t read anything, spoken to anyone, or done any research), and it’s a little frustrating to get these calls knowing how much attending the the conference 5 weeks ago would have helped these people, because it was for this group of people that the conference was in large part intended! It’s interesting – people could have spent $15 on a conference for the entire day, or buy the mp3s from the conference for $24, but while they’re willing to spend thousands of dollars a year in tuition, the very small cost for educating themselves about homeschooling isn’t worthwhile for them. Part of that is because they don’t want to think about how to educate, or why to homeschool, but just want a curriculum to follow or to pay me to homeschool their kids. I think most parents don’t want to put in the time to attend a conference or read books – they want quick answers and easy solutions – something that matches being able to send them out the door to school and let the teachers take care of things. But homeschooling isn’t like that at all. Homeschooling is about empowered parents taking responsibility for their children’s needs, and to effectively do that, you have to understand what those needs are.
I asked the woman calling why she wanted to homeschool her child, and she said she didn’t really want to, but her husband wants her to. They apparently just got their tuition agreement and it’s simply too expensive. Here in my area, at least two of the main schools just raised the yearly tuition by $1800 or so. Everyone is in a hard position, including the schools. Because so many people can’t pay full tuition, they raise the tuition but then it means many of those who were previously able to pay full tuition no longer can. The solution really has to be thinking an entirely different way about the problem and the solution, not more of the same, but that’s clearly not happening.
So I got to speak to someone who really doesn’t want to homeschool, doesn’t know anything about what’s involved, but feels like they have to because they can’t afford school. This isn’t my favorite kind of conversation. I don’t believe everyone should homeschool, and I’m not trying to convert the world. What I do is try to support those who want to do it. But because I know this person will probably end up homeschooling by default, I want to give her at least a chance for it to be a positive experience for her and her child. And I know that if she does what most people in this position do – copy the schools and look for a curriculum that covers everything in the way the schools would do it without taking into account who her child is and what her personal needs are – they’re both going to be miserable.
But I don’t think I succeeded. She asked me several times about my curriculum, and when I told her that I created my own each year for every child, she asked me to give her what I developed for my child at her child’s grade level (because my ‘curriculum’ for first grade is so loose and fluid as to almost not seem to have any structure, I’m positive it wouldn’t have helped her at all). I understood her asking, but I tried to explain that just because it works for me, it doesn’t mean it will work for her, because I’m coming from a different paradigm of education and have different goals for my kids. Her main concern was if my kids could keep up with school kids, and while I’m confident that any of my kids could hold their own in school in any area, my goals aren’t about keeping up with the schools. After explaining all of this, she asked me why I’m unwilling to share my curriculum, as if I was being selfish, but even after trying to explain to her again the personalized angle of homeschooling, she still didn’t get it.
Fortunately, this is balanced by those who do get it! It’s the people who sincerely are thinking about how they’re raising their children that I most enjoy speaking to, because I know my breath isn’t wasted on them, regardless of what they decide. Recently I was told that a couple who attended the conference will be homeschooling because of the help they got there. It’s hard to homeschool when you don’t know anything about it or know anyone who’s doing it! Others who send their kids to school told me that they heard perspectives that they can apply for their children, even though they aren’t homeschooling. This week, someone else called to tell me she will be homeschooling after a conversation we had (not crediting myself or our conversation, though it was helpful to her). And on Shabbos afternoon, a young mother told me that she’ll be keeping her 2.5 year old son at home another year before enrolling him in preschool. (She said, “I kept asking people for advice because I really didn’t know what was best for him, but it wasn’t until I spoke to you that I heard something I liked.”) These are all people who just need someone to give them some practical tips but more than that, who need to be reassured that they’re not crazy for keeping their kids home longer than normal or for learning at home with them. And for every one of them I’m glad to be able to help.
I’m so excited about having cds and mp3s available from the conference, because now there’s more information that can be publicly circulated to help people. I can’t tell you what a nice feeling it is to mail out cds or send the mp3 files and know that parents far away can be supported or encouraged. Are these cds comprehensive and cover every possible issue? No, absolutely not. There are a number of topics that I’d like to still see systematically addressed (two of of these important topics were addressed at the conference but the recordings were lost), but we’ll need cds from at least a few conferences until we get to that point! But until now, there’s never been anything in the frum community that supports parents who are homeschooling, and it’s gratifying to know that we’re starting to change that!
Avivah
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