How I Spent My Homeschooling Vacation
If I were an anthropologist I might do a dissertation on homeschooling. Talk about your culture studies, man.
Actually, homeschooling is like this whole society with subcultures of its own. Not that that is surprising - isn't it always the way of man, to divvy herself up?
I tried to explain what I've learned so far about homeschooling to my pagan mommy friend, and found the comparison to the pagan community is really an apt one. See, within the pagan umbrella, you got wiccans, reconstructionists, eclectics, shamans, fairy-unicorn-pretty-pretty-princesses (not that there's anything WRONG with that), and so on. And within each group you find divisions - like those lovey wiccans. Whooo-boy. What a nasty bunch of line-in-the-sand-drawers those tree-hugging, goddess-loving diadem wearers can be. And I say this with love. No really.
Okay, that was a little sidetrack. But homeschooling, from this newbie perspective, seems to be a lot similar.
So in case you ever wondered, here's what I've learned so far:
On the one extreme, you have Classic Education homeschoolers. These are families who follow a very definite, guided curriculum that supercedes individual expression.
On the other extreme, you have Unschoolers. These are families who believe education is an experiment in creating cookie-cutter children. Unschooling is unstructured and child-led. The idea is that children absorb knowledge anyway, and the emphasis should be on fostering independent thought and creativity.
I think in reality there are a lot of families that fall in the middle - especially considering so many people choose to homeschool out of respect for what is good for their individual child, and children have different needs. However, one would be remiss to think that these extremes are not real. They are very real, there are many people who fall well within one or the other category, and they are very assured in their reasons why. And they'll be sure to tell you why. And apparently there is enough discord within the homeschooling community that groups are very wary of their boundaries.
By boundaries, at this point, I'm talking yahoo groups. It's hard to get into yahoo groups. LOL. Not very in-depth, I know, but I've only been doing this for two months.
Add into this that there is a very large community of people who homeschool for religious reasons. Which is fine. Go for that. But needless to say, it makes the going tricky, because there are strong veins of religious homeschoolers WITHIN the sub-groups and local groups, etc, and I don't necessarily know who they are. And given that I am the opposite of what the, um. Typical religious homeschooler IS... I'm nervous about stepping on a Jesus landmine.
But I have to step out there, because academics is only one part of it. Socialization is critical, and one thing I can say about the groups and families I have encountered, wherever they fall on the homeschooling spectrum, is that everyone seems to recognize that. Even with the gate-keeping, I've been allowed access to three separate online groups and I've been networking with others, because there is a lot of crossover when it comes to social events and out-of-the-house programs. And that's awesome.
Oh, man. I typed all of that and STILL didn't get down all that's been taking up space in my mental attic. Gah. More later.
Actually, homeschooling is like this whole society with subcultures of its own. Not that that is surprising - isn't it always the way of man, to divvy herself up?
I tried to explain what I've learned so far about homeschooling to my pagan mommy friend, and found the comparison to the pagan community is really an apt one. See, within the pagan umbrella, you got wiccans, reconstructionists, eclectics, shamans, fairy-unicorn-pretty-pretty-princesses (not that there's anything WRONG with that), and so on. And within each group you find divisions - like those lovey wiccans. Whooo-boy. What a nasty bunch of line-in-the-sand-drawers those tree-hugging, goddess-loving diadem wearers can be. And I say this with love. No really.
Okay, that was a little sidetrack. But homeschooling, from this newbie perspective, seems to be a lot similar.
So in case you ever wondered, here's what I've learned so far:
On the one extreme, you have Classic Education homeschoolers. These are families who follow a very definite, guided curriculum that supercedes individual expression.
On the other extreme, you have Unschoolers. These are families who believe education is an experiment in creating cookie-cutter children. Unschooling is unstructured and child-led. The idea is that children absorb knowledge anyway, and the emphasis should be on fostering independent thought and creativity.
I think in reality there are a lot of families that fall in the middle - especially considering so many people choose to homeschool out of respect for what is good for their individual child, and children have different needs. However, one would be remiss to think that these extremes are not real. They are very real, there are many people who fall well within one or the other category, and they are very assured in their reasons why. And they'll be sure to tell you why. And apparently there is enough discord within the homeschooling community that groups are very wary of their boundaries.
By boundaries, at this point, I'm talking yahoo groups. It's hard to get into yahoo groups. LOL. Not very in-depth, I know, but I've only been doing this for two months.
Add into this that there is a very large community of people who homeschool for religious reasons. Which is fine. Go for that. But needless to say, it makes the going tricky, because there are strong veins of religious homeschoolers WITHIN the sub-groups and local groups, etc, and I don't necessarily know who they are. And given that I am the opposite of what the, um. Typical religious homeschooler IS... I'm nervous about stepping on a Jesus landmine.
But I have to step out there, because academics is only one part of it. Socialization is critical, and one thing I can say about the groups and families I have encountered, wherever they fall on the homeschooling spectrum, is that everyone seems to recognize that. Even with the gate-keeping, I've been allowed access to three separate online groups and I've been networking with others, because there is a lot of crossover when it comes to social events and out-of-the-house programs. And that's awesome.
Oh, man. I typed all of that and STILL didn't get down all that's been taking up space in my mental attic. Gah. More later.