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What Could Schools Learn from Homeschools?
Why does homeschooling work? Specifically, what could traditional schools — public and private — learn from homeschoolers?
This is a neglected debate. Many traditional educators, of course, feel threatened by homeschooling or reject my premise that it works; certainly they aren’t looking to learn from uncredentialed parents. And once homeschoolers find what works for them, they tend not to look back in the opposite direction.
Even education reformers favorable to homeschooling — who should be interested in this topic — never seem to ask this question (if they have, they’ve sure been quiet about it). They would probably give you some broad answers why homeschooling works: homeschooling parents tend to be well-educated, stable, and involved; they can give plenty of one-on-one attention; they’ve freedom to customize freely, without having to overcome bureaucratic inertia; they aren’t as subject to behavioral distractions; etc.
This is all true, and I wouldn’t suggest we can simply import a few things and replicate homeschooling’s success in traditional school systems. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing for traditional schools to learn, and I believe we could find some unexpected things that could apply to public debates about how to teach children, including some that could shake common assumptions.
In education, as in any other field, there’s a need to innovate and experiment, a need to challenge assumptions and try out what works. Public schools are bound by bureaucracy and politics, and private schools often have to contend with tradition and cultural assumptions. Homeschoolers have — and use — a unique flexibility: it’s the one segment of education where innovation and experimentation flourish. People who want to make a difference in schooling should research how homeschoolers use it. In searching out things that work for themselves, it’s likely that many homeschoolers simply find things that work, full stop.
Some of these ideas might be broadly applicable, but there are probably more that would benefit only certain populations or be practical only in some situations. There are old things the public schools have forgotten or rejected, and new, 21st century things that they’ve lacked the flexibility or imagination to put to innovative use. There’s undoubtedly some low-hanging fruit, but also, perhaps, some things outside the box that are less obvious.
We have some homeschool parents here, and some teachers, and some people who are simply informed and smart. What are some things you’ve seen in homeschooling, big or small, that might also work in traditional education?
Published in Education
Of course they are. They have different abilities, different temperaments, different interests… different everything.
Research is the problem with everything in my opinion.
Well… of course. But homeschooled kids aren’t automatically so much different from every other kind of kid as all that.
Obviously much of the strength of homeschooling is individual, and we can’t recreate that. I get that. I said as much in the OP.
But we also know that many other things are wrong in the rest of the education system. They don’t have to be wrong. And lots of homeschoolers get some of them right. All I’m saying is, let’s look at and try to identify what some of those things are.
If nothing else, we know they tend to use some different curricular approaches that could totally be used in traditional classrooms.
Homeschoolers can do some things not just because they have fewer children but because they don’t have bureaucratic strings and political strings tying them down. Those strings actually aren’t always unbreakable, when someone has the imagination and the will to break through. But they have to have an idea. This is just a jump-off point for ideas.
We homeschooled our son all the way from K through high school. One of the reasons we chose to homeschool was because it seemed counterproductive to keep an active, inquisitive little boy penned up in a classroom all day when the world could be his classroom. We played outside for hours, and integrated learning into play, into daily chores and activities. I had seen my brother turn into a troublemaker because of classroom boredom and we hoped to avoid a similar scenario with our son. So I think less classroom time/more hands-on or play time would help younger children. Or don’t make school mandatory until children are 7 or 8.
Our system is modeled on what I consider to be outdated European norms. Classifying children by abilities rather than age seems a better way to organize public education. Perhaps a child can read at a higher level than they can do math. Why classify them as a 2nd grader simply because they’re 7 years old? Why couldn’t schools be set up according to levels of mastery in the various subjects and allow students to advance at their own pace? It would make a classroom easier to manage for the teacher because all the students would be working near the same level; it alleviates boredom for the students because they’re able to move on when they’ve mastered a skill.
This is what happens in a homeschool environment. Our son was reading by the time he was 3. There was no need for him to go through “skills and drills” of letters and sounds in a kindergarten classroom, so we moved on to the next thing.
They listen to their parents. That puts them in an elite group of super kids.
Wouldn’t you agree that school was much better before we had curricular approaches?
The harder we think, the harder things get.
This would make the biggest difference out of all the things discussed here, IMHO.
Also, I notice that so much social interaction in life is a lot like it was in high school. It makes sense that even out of the microcosm of high school, society would still be structured that way. Mainly, because that is how the majority of people learned to interact with each other socially. To our great detriment, in my opinion.
But not unique. And some students listen to their teachers, too — thankfully!
We’ve always had them. You can’t teach without them, even if they’re accidental. But I’ll grant education was probably better before it became a jargon-filled field, and I’ll also grant that maybe I’ve spent just a little too much time in that jargon and use it too freely…
Homeschoolers often use completely different books and materials which teach things differently than those used in the public schools.
Is that better?
It isn’t only curriculum that’s the problem. Schools, especially at the elementary level, actively encourage parents to leave the rearing of the children to them, the professionals. And then they are exasperated that the parents are not involved.
The guidance counselor at a beginning of the year assembly for parents at my daughter’s elementary school informed parents that they needed to minimize sick days for their childrem. He said that if you aren’t sure if your child is too sick to be at school, send them anyway and they will send them home if they’re too sick. I was appalled.
If you read up on the history of modern public education in America, you’ll find that Horace Mann imported the German model here. That model was intended to get children away from their parents’ influence as early as possible in order to produce good workers for a newly industrialized society. Society’s leaders were to be handpicked from among the elites and certain exceptional students.
As long as we have a mass production mindset to education, there will be no improvement. The system simply isn’t designed for individual excellence.
We have graduated seven K-12 homeschoolers so far, with more in process. I can assure you all of the students are not the same temperament nor do they have the same learning style. Over those 20+ years the teachers have changed a good bit as well. I don’t think your theory on the particular fit holds up under inspection.
There are some things I see frequently among homeschoolers that may be of interest to some of the members of educational systems:
Like success on so many other endeavors, the teacher’s grit, effort and creativity make more difference than the raw materials. A lively exchange between willing parties from both groups would surely benefit both.
Kids are more likely to listen to teachers. Because teachers aren’t human and live at the school and will kill children who misbehave.
But perhaps they can because they have that kind of kid.
I’m afraid this has not been my experience with home-schooled children. A high percentage of the ones I have known have been socially awkward and not very attuned to social cues. Not all of course, but a higher percentage than kids schooled in a more institutional environment.
Do you think they were congenitally obedient to the parents? And what about the obedient kids at home who tear up the system at school?
Education of children interacts with development of children. What they learn (how they learn, when they learn) in 1st grade affects what they will learn in 8th grade. These super kids are made, not had.
Although with some kids it’s a lot easier to make them super than others. I have the battle scars to prove it.
To try this, I think you’d have to start fresh. You can’t impose that kind of new model on an existing structure. It would have to be a new school. And since it’s a complete mismatch with accountability structures based on grade-level testing, it would probably have to be a private school. A charter might be able to do it, with creative thinking and political cover.
The fact that it doesn’t fit current structures isn’t a reason to run away from it. It’s a reason to push it.
I’ve commented before that the hardest part for me as a homeschool mom is
staying off Ricochet during the school daycorrecting my students in a way that they can hear. Our emotional connection can get in the way of hearing each other objectively sometimes…So much of the school day for traditionally schooled students seems wasted to me… some parents are looking for that, for their children, since the idea of a shorter school day is frightening to the parents…
I love being able to focus on art, play, music… My three youngest students (2nd, 4th, 7th grades) were done with their assigned work before noon today… I don’t think they were shortchanged in the learnin’ department… here’s what the 7th grader was up to:
Monday: Math: lesson 60
Religion: Virtue Tree pp. 130-131
Science: Workbook pp. 48-50 (reread osmosis, textbook pp. 39-40)
Music: practice
History: trace map of Mediterranean and photocopy 6 times, read OWA pp. 62-73
Lingua Mater: pp. 53-54 with Mom
Latina Christiana: complete Lesson VI with Mom and on your own
Spelling: next lesson 16 Day 1
Poetry: up to “…Sleeps in Elysium:…” pp. 151-2
Here’s the 2nd grader’s lesson plan for today:
Monday: Math: next lesson pp. 113-114
Science: Read from Animals Around the Year
Spelling: next lesson 16 p. 32
Reading: work with Mom, Baltimore Catechism lesson 8
Poetry: poem “Psalm 23”, second stanza
Music: practice
Map: p. 18
Art: Artsheet 219 snowflake with glitter
I shouldn’t have phrased it like that I guess.
So we have this big lump of a system. And that’s the way it is. Within that lump some parents take some time and evaluate the lump and evaluate themselves and evaluate their kids. Then after some consideration they think this could work for them for their particular reasons. So they step out of the lump.
When we look outside the lump we’re looking at a group of people for whom homeschooling will probably work.
Now if we randomly selected students out of the lump for homeschooling and monitored them then we could probably learn something.
@Mama Toad: Can I ask how you do math with your 7th and 2nd graders?
Do you teach a lesson plan in which you start with an intro to hook their attention, explain and model the concept, and gradually walk them through a few examples until they can hopefully get it on their own?
Or do they get out the book themselves, turn to Lesson 60 or p. 113, and make their own way through it and come to you if they’re stuck, with you verifying their work later on?
Or something between?
But the system isn’t a complete lump. We have parents with kids in charters and vouchers and private schools, and we have innovative districts here and there. And I want to break up the lump further.
Parents don’t always homeschool because they think it works for them. Sometimes they do it because the lump doesn’t. And in trying to break up the lump, I want to look — not really at things that can be applied to the lump — but to things that can be helpful in other contexts outside the lump. Or that can be used in breaking up the lump further.
What a fantastic thread. I have wanted to call out so many wonderful, interesting comments already and I just couldn’t hold back anymore with this one.
Shelia, isn’t your point above the truth? It’s a thread that runs through so much of classroom education: public, private, and charter. It’s such a shame. Early education ain’t rocket science, but so many assume that it is.
This mindset is what dominated the public schools my son attended: nearly every teacher was much more concerned with compliance than nurturing my son’s gifts (or weaknesses). His private school teachers and staff are much more interested in groking my son and his God-given gifts.
For the NEA, AFT, etc., that’s the vocation that dares not speak its name.
If you take everyone who opts out of a default option and chooses one of the other options, then when you look at the other option in isolation it “works.” But that tells us about the choosing and not the methods. Two methods could be opposite and still work.
Oh, I agree that there are multiple methods that can work.
But there shouldn’t be one massive “default option” to begin with. And in your setup, you’re implying that the only reason it doesn’t work — and it doesn’t — is because of the nature of the people involved, and that the only reason other things work is, again, because of the nature of the people involved. That’s an unproven assumption — and, in fact, from my experience (such as it is), I am quite confident that is wrong.
Never mind theoretics, let’s talk specifics. We have students across this country failing math. We have students who are doing fine but possibly could achieve better. Home situations are a factor, but not the only factor. So let’s say Mama Toad and several thousand homeschoolers like her use a completely different curriculum and structure and get comparatively outstanding results.
Now I know that’s in part because they’re involved parents. But I also know that, because they’re involved, they’ve spent some time figuring out what works. Maybe it’s in part because they’re not making six specific stupid mistakes and because the way they teach regrouping or drill math facts makes more sense.
We have students who are failing. It would be absurd for us to automatically assume what they do works and mandate every school implement it overnight. But it would be equally absurd to not at least look.
If you are a parent who loves your child, then there’s not another person on the planet–not the most gifted teacher, not the most benevolent school system–that is more interested in their success. If you are that parent, then you will likely do what is necessary to supplement what your child may find lacking in the public school system. But for those children whose parents aren’t invested in their future, I think there are many ways the current system could be improved in order to make more of them successful. The years I spent homeschooling our son were a treasure. I wish more children could have the same type of learning experience.
It’s not the only factor but it is the filter through which all other factors must pass. As we move from National education to state to district to school to classroom to kid we become increasingly particular. The homeschoolers are such a small, self-selected slice of the whole that examination of their methods would be misleading.
Usain Bolt’s training methods made him the fastest man in the world. But if I wanted to become faster I’d be wasting my time examining the particular things he did. Even if I examined the top thousand runners I’d be too particular. I’d be better off with something general and particularizing it later for my own needs. Which, in the end, is what education is.
The analogies just don’t prove the point. Homeschool kids aren’t Usain Bolts. I’m not Usain Bolt. We were normal kids with basic needs met, loved, motivated, and held accountable. There are other equally responsible, loving parents who don’t homeschool for other reasons. I don’t believe their children can’t learn to read, write, and do math as well as I did.
You posit that everything that makes homeschoolers succeed has to do with homeschoolers. I’m positing that some of it has to do with kids, and that homeschoolers get some things right that the rest of us should think about. Just because they’re a small self-selected group doesn’t prove otherwise.
This is something I do on a daily basis, and from here it’s a matter of common sense. I’m not going to blindly assume that something that works for one group is going to work in my classroom. But if I see something that’s working, I’m not going to automatically assume I know everything that is making them successful and assume I can’t borrow any of it. I’m going to consider, using my own judgment and knowledge of education and of my situation, whether maybe there’s something I can.
I didn’t choose Bolt for his greatness. Just for his particularness.
Let’s say we have 50 people and 20 people explore the possibility of homeschooling. 10 choose to do it and 10 not. Of the 10 that do it doesn’t work well for 5 so they go back. 5 sick with it. If we take a snapshot at this moment we see the 5 outperforming the other 45.
But what about the 5 it didn’t work for? Or the 10 that thought it might not work? Or the 30 that never considered.
All we can really say from what we know is that home schooling is real good for the people it is good for. We have no idea if it is good good.
To me this seems like an obvious truth but any time I encounter anything assessment related I’m on an island fighting this battle. How could it be otherwise?
I spent 15+ years teaching in both public and parochial schools. We are currently in our third year of homeschooling, and I have had a vastly different experience.
I would say that there is a similar balance of socially awkward and socially well-adjusted children in both the “regular” school and “home” school communities, esp. among younger children (early elementary).
Among older children (teen/high school age), the scales tip in favor of the homeschooled children as being more polite, more mature, and better able to interact appropriately with individuals of a variety of ages. I have also found homeschool teens to be more friendly and welcoming to new people and more accepting of other children’s differences and special needs.
Thanks to an ever-growing variety of classes, clubs, groups, and programs, the stereotypical weird, unsocialized homeschooler is becoming increasingly rare.
*Edited typo
I think you’re missing my point.
I am not saying “homeschooling is better — let’s throw out everything we do and try to imitate homeschoolers.”
I did say this:
Let me try to put this another way: education, as a rule, is not a free market. Even private schools are influenced heavily by the public virtual monopoly. Around the edges, in the voucher and charter schools and a few districts, you have people wanting to break the mold, people with more freedom. But you don’t really have a free market.
Homeschoolers have a free market. So if you look at homeschooling, you can start to get some sense of how the free market might take you on certain issues. Like math curriculum, or phonics instruction.
It would be foolish to simply dismiss the one example we have simply because the population is somewhat unique. Of course you can’t simply copy it. But we have intense debates in education that might be well-served with at least a glance to what is happening in the free market.
Casey, you’re making the case, over and over, accurately, that correlation doesn’t equal causation. That just because homeschooling works for some doesn’t mean what homeschoolers do works for all.
But I acknowedged that upfront. Read my post carefully: I specifically did not make any sweeping claims that we can instantly generalize from what they do. You’re critiquing a claim I am not making.
You further argue that, because you can explain one aspect of why homeschoolers seem to do better (which I also addressed upfront), you can assume you’ve fully accounted for the correlation and don’t need to look further. I’m arguing that there is another element to the situation that potentially makes this untrue: that homeschoolers have a level of freedom that traditional educators don’t, and can explore things they can’t. It’s reasonable to wonder if, in that exploration, they’ve hit on some worthwhile things.
If you’re not even prepared to consider that possibility, I think we are simply talking past one another.
Since this thread is still going. The particularness of homeschooling has to be addressed before the conclusions drawn from it are exported. Note that the weaknesses of homeschooling are really not the point of the thread so they are not addressed. The summation of reasons for homeschooling success: parents who care, an individualized curriculum often self directed after a certain age, the importance of reading as an independent productive time-sink was mentioned, and an ability to deal with behavioral difficulties particularly attention problems.
So which of these are exportable, parents who care can’t be guaranteed so it’s not broadly applicable. Behavioral troubles can be dealt with by extra staff in a regular school. But that’s expensive so not broadly applicable. Perhaps in class best practices could help teachers and students with this difficulty but I have a hard time thinking it would make a dent. A focus on reading differs from school to school but most schools have an internal library that kids take advantage of. Also, in my experience, independent reading is highly correlated with intelligence, an independent factor that can not be applied widely to an entire cohort at once. Again it can be encouraged but not guaranteed. As for an exportable home-school lesson it is the importance of independently paced curriculum. This is the major reason why common core is so destructive and why schools depress a significant amount of potential learning. Hopefully technology will prove to be the wedge that opens up the proper pacing for each student as they learn.
Also, it has not been noted in the thread, but the distractions inherent in the public school classroom, I’m thinking specifically of discipline problems, kills instruction time and models unproductive imitable behavior detrimental to the learning process. So homeschooling as a model would suggest less inclusion which could minimize this problem as well.
TLDR: Successful homeschooling implies individualized curriculums are exportable; not much else.