Why do I homeschool?

Why do I homeschool?

“Why do you homeschool?” is a question that I, along with you, probably receive a lot when people find out that we are homeschooling family.

I have always had difficulty with answering this question.  It wasn’t that I didn’t have an answer, but rather that my answers felt incomplete.  Each answer that I had previously given to the question when I had been asked had been true: because I wanted to spend more time with my kids; because my husband made enough money that I could stay home with the kids (although with the economy the way that it has been lately, this does not apply as much anymore!); because I wanted to know what they were learning; and the list went on and on.  And you may also have a similar list of reasons.  Or maybe it’s just one reason that prompted you to start homeschooling: my child was bullied; my child wasn’t learning, or simply that you didn’t care for the school system in your area.

I am not anti-public school.  I, along with my husband, am a graduate of our public educational school system.  Several of the Yahoo! groups that I oversee are for all educators–public, private and homeschool.   I enjoy sharing resources with all educators.  And I respect educators that are out there doing their best to help kids learn. 

So why couldn’t I previously pin-point the real reason that I chose to homeschool?  I guess it was because I had to watch my kids playing a pick-up game of basketball game at the end of our P.E. class at the college in order to figure it out exactly. 

You see, way back, and I mean way back in the mid-1980′s, I graduated from high school with my husband.  Both of us, then as we do now, had completely different perspectives and purposes of school.  My husband could not wait until school was finished.  If his parents would have allowed it, I imagine that he would have quit school in the 10^th or 11^th grade and began his working career.  In his eyes, school was a complete waste of time.  My husband was then, as he has continued to be, a hands-on, mechanically-skilled and a construction oriented person.  His life is literally energized by the sun and being out in it.   He has never wanted to be a “behind the desk” kind of working guy.  Being outside and working on things gives him purpose.  So sitting in a classroom for hours and hours a day, stuck sitting in a desk and only allowed to get up and stretch every hour while moving on to the next room with the next desk, was quite literally painful for him.  (And every opportunity that he had not to be in school, he took advantage of it.)

I, on the other hand, loved school.  And to be honest, I think if I could, I would be a professional student.  I love books.  I love reading.   I love learning.  It’s one of the things that I have loved about homeschooling–learning (or in some cases, relearning) the topics contained in history, science, math, grammar and so many of the other subjects that are quite pleasurable to me.  

I watched my kids play this game of pick-up basketball, sometimes enjoying it, and sometimes not—which, of course, was in direct proportion as to whether or not they were winning!–and thought about P.E. in high school. 

Let me put three things on the table right now.  First, I think kids should have the opportunity to take P.E. each year, in all grades, even if that means extending the school day for an hour to do it.  I think for one hour each day kids should be able to go outside and run around if they want to.  They should be exposed to various games and sport and how to play them.  And they should be able to play a pick-up game of basketball or football.  They should be able to organize a game of soccer, kickball, or just run around if they feel compelled to do so.

Second, I also think that P.E. coaches are a need.  There has to be someone with the ability to instruct these kids on a weekly basis on the rules of a variety of sports and games to play.  And, for example, the instruction could be two days and the remainder of the week would be available for free play or pick-up games for the instruction that the coaches just went over.

And, last, the importance of P.E. in kids’ lives is more about life skills than academics.  You see, to me the games that kids learn to play while growing up in their P.E. classes is something that can be carried on into their adult lives—similarly to how one continues to change his/her own oil that s/he learned to do (or some other life skill, such as cooking) as a teenager in school into their adult life; and while s/he may not get a grade for it, it’s an important to skill to know how to do.  And speaking of things from our youth continuing into adulthood, it’s not uncommon to find a pick-up game of basketball, football, or volleyball going on at a local recreation center.  And these pick-up games are filled with both blue-collar and while-collar folks alike.  And that’s simply because sports and games are in everyone’s life.

But what I don’t think is that P.E. should be a graded subject.    I firmly believe that by assigning a grade to P.E. it stops many kids from participating because they just feel that they cannot perform well enough to pass.  It takes all of the pleasure out of the only time during the day (with the exception of lunch) in which kids can just be free to have some fun!  Whereas if P.E. were not graded, I believe that more kids would participate in it.

“But if there wasn’t a grade attached to P.E., the kids wouldn’t do anything,” I imagine some might present as an argument.  I don’t think so.  There will always be those that just love to throw a ball around, just as there will always be those that prefer to sit and bask in the sun for that time while talking to their friends.  But removing the grading scale for P.E. would allow for kids to feel adventurous and go out of their comfort zone to just try to play something.  And isn’t this the kind of positive peer pressure that we want for kids to put onto each other?  And that one hour of free time, utilized by the kids to expend some energy, would be a physical and emotional benefit to them.

But P.E. should not be the reason that someone does not earn enough high school credits in order to graduate from high school and get their diploma.  And that, sadly, was a situation that happened to a friend of ours at graduation time: a shortage of ½ of a P.E. credit. I mean, really, academically where does P.E. fit into the mix of things? Should P.E. be able to give that much weight into the success of a student that by not kicking or throwing a ball around one should not be able to receive their high school diploma?—and by only ½ of a credit?  I don’t think so.  I had, after all, seen our friend participate in many activities after school time, with pick-up games being a part of them.  But like for our friend at that time, and the kids of today, there is just something about being graded for P.E. that causes them to resist participating in it; when in fact, given another time and place it would be no problem for them to have an interest in participating in it.

And so it was at that moment, and with that memory of our friend not graduating because of P.E, and watching my kids run up and down the basketball court (in a completely spontaneously started game to begin with) that I came to the realization that I chose to homeschool my kids because I wanted for their education to be more than about kicking or throwing a ball around for an hour a day.  I realized that I didn’t want for their educational success or failure to be based on one test, one course or one subject; that it was not going to be one thing that defined them.