Credentials for Homeschoolers: Problem or Opportunity?
"But you won't have a regular diploma or other credentials!" Such thoughts, observations, or accusations have occurred or been delivered to many homeschoolers at some point or another. At first, it might seem to be a disadvantage to homeschooling. After all, aren't solid, widely-recognized credentials necessary for college, employment, and various other activities young adults want to do? Won't grown homeschoolers be handicapped and miss out on important opportunities if they don't somehow manage to get such credentials?
However, further thought and exploration show that actually homeschooling is a big advantage when it comes to credentials (as well as in many other ways, of course). Through homeschooling, you (both parents and young people) can more clearly understand the difference between formal and informal credentials and between third party credentials and those created by individuals who want credentials and decide what credentials will be most useful to you. By taking charge through homeschooling, you can set a course early to achieve the most important credentials. By approaching credentials in this way, you can become more competent, have greater freedom, and save significant time and money.
This column discusses what credentials really are, distinguishes between formal and informal credentials, explores what homeschoolers have learned about credentials, and suggests ways homeschoolers can get effective credentials that will serve them well.
What Are Credentials?
Although credentials are defined as something that entitles one to confidence, credit, authority, or power, the term has come to refer primarily to formal pieces of paper that have been awarded through an institution. Yet in practice, employers, college admission committees, and others often quickly pass over these formal credentials and instead make decisions based on informal ones.
What is the difference between formal and informal credentials? Formal credentials are what most people think of when they hear the term. Examples include course credits, transcripts, diplomas and degrees, certificates, awards, permits, licenses, and resumes. They are usually (but not always) third-party credentials, meaning they have been awarded by an institution, such as a conventional school, a private organization, or a government agency, to people who have met certain clearly identified requirements. (Resumes are an obvious exception to this, since people create their own.) Teens who complete the high school graduation requirements in conventional schools automatically receive a diploma and a transcript. Homeschoolers obviously do not, although they can get diplomas and other formal credential in several different ways if they want to, as will be shown later in this column.
By contrast, informal credentials are usually created by individuals to demonstrate their qualifications, experience, and abilities. Although many people may not think of them as credentials, they are often more convincing to potential employers and selection committees and usually provide more accurate information about an individual's strengths and abilities. Examples of informal credentials include personal contacts, face-to-face meetings, speeches, publications, demonstrations, videos, portfolios, and letters of recommendation. (Letters of recommendation, obviously, are third party credentials rather than being created by the individual.)
What Many Homeschoolers Have Discovered About Credentials
• Formal credentials are sometimes necessary but seldom sufficient. For example, many jobs require a high school diploma, but not everyone who has a diploma will be hired for a given job. In fact, the vast majority of people who have diplomas will not be. Informal credentials are important because they usually determine who will be selected from among all the people who have the necessary formal credentials.
• Schools and many people in our society convey the notion that formal credentials are essential and without them, you are lost. Formal credentials are not emphasized because they are logically necessary and inherently more valuable than informal credentials. Schools promote formal credentials because much of their prestige, value, and money comes from the fact that they are the primary source of formal credential such as degrees and diplomas. Some people who have formal credentials stress their importance so they can maintain the prestige and advantages they have gained from having such credentials. Other people have simply accepted without question what they have been told about the importance of formal credentials. The determination and commitment of individuals and institutions such as schools make it challenging to question the value of formal credentials.
• What you know and can do is more important than what formal credentials you have. This is a logical and obvious point, but it is often lost in the emphasis that is placed on formal credentials. Informal credentials provide a good way to demonstrate your skills and abilities to others.
• Formal credentials are usually expensive in terms of time, energy, and money required and often allow limited opportunity for you to exercise your strengths or pursue what most interests you. On the other hand, informal credentials are much more flexible. Most of the time you create them yourself, so you can design them to emphasize your strengths and minimize what you have not yet learned. You can be creative and format them to attract attention. By creating your own credentials, you are demonstrating many of your strengths, including the ability to take responsibility for yourself, exercise initiative, solve problems, communicate clearly, and take reasonable risks. In a real sense, the fact that you have created your own credentials can be, in and of itself, one of your credentials.
• There are may ways to satisfy the need for credentials. Many homeschoolers have found that it works well to spend more time developing strengths, interests, abilities, and personal contacts and less time earning formal credentials. When they get to the point where they need to demonstrate that they are qualified, they draw on their past experiences and what they have learned to produce effective informal credentials that get them where they want to go, as discussed in the next section.
• Being true to your interests, skills, abilities, and principles and beliefs is your best credential. Credentials cannot fix the problems that inevitably arise when you are not being true to yourself.
Earning and Creating Credentials That Will Get You Where You Want To Be
Many homeschoolers have found the following ideas and practices helpful as they confront the question of credentials.
• Be prepared to meet requirements for formal credentials but don't be intimidated by them. Focusing on formal credentials will make your homeschooling experience and your life in general a lot more limited and allow you much less opportunity to discover and do what you really love and find work that you want to do. Many homeschoolers find it is enough to know that they could deal with requirements for formal credentials if they ever needed to. This is a sensible, time-saving, money-saving approach, especially considering how seldom formal credentials are actually needed.
In case you're wondering just how you could meet requirements for formal credentials, consider these alternatives:
(1) Try to negotiate an exemption from the requirement. For example, most colleges realize that homeschoolers do not have conventional high school diplomas, so they often consider other parts of a homeschooler's application and waive the requirement for a diploma.
(2) Create your own credentials. Private schools determine the requirements students must meet to earn a diploma and award one to students who meet them. Homeschools are private schools, regardless of the technical language in any given state's statutes. (Homeschools are recognized as schools, and since they do not receive public funding, they are not public schools, which means they are private schools.) Therefore, homeschooling families can set their requirements for diplomas just as other private schools do and award them to students who meet the requirements. Of course, they need to be upfront about the fact that the diploma has been granted by a homeschool, not by a state, a public school, or an accredited private school. But most places that require a diploma simply require a diploma, not a public school diploma or a diploma from an accredited school. Many institutions, including the federal government in granting loans to students attending colleges and universities, recognize high school diplomas from homeschools as legitimate diplomas. If the institution to which you are applying does not initially accept your homeschool diploma, you may need to educate them on this point and share with them examples of institutions that do.
(3) Earn formal third party credentials in alternative ways. High school, college, and graduate degrees are available through distance learning, including correspondence schools and the Internet. Official college credit can be earned by getting high enough scores on CLEP tests. (For more on CLEP tests, see our column in Home Education Magazine, May-June, 2006, http://www.homeedmag.com/HEM/233/takingcharge.html) Most certificate programs, community colleges, and technical schools accept homeschoolers, although sometimes homeschoolers have to negotiate to be admitted if they are not old enough to meet the standard age requirement for entering students. Alternative approaches to earning credits can save a great deal of time and money.
(4) Consider alternatives. If you would like to help sick or injured people regain their health but do not have a degree from a medical school, consider learning an alternative approach to healing, such as acupuncture or using herbs. If you want to help people resolve conflicts but do not have a law degree, consider becoming a mediator. If you want to help children learn but do not have a teaching license, consider becoming a homeschooling parent .
• Many homeschoolers find that the best way to develop informal credentials is to spend as much time, money, and energy as they can exploring what interests them and pursuing their passions. They discover that it is more important to discover what work they really want to do than to develop a string of formal credentials, such as high school and college degrees, that they don't know what to do with because they haven't figured out what work they want to do. But also see the next three points.
• It often pays big dividends to invest time in developing the skills you need to create your own informal credentials. Develop a wide range of personal contacts by getting to know people in your community. Join organizations such as 4-H, Scouts, church groups, and special interest groups such as garden clubs and recreational sports teams. Volunteer at your local public library, a hospital or nursing home, or other places that need help. Participate in community theater and local festivals. Learn to talk to groups by making presentations before groups you belong to. It is impossible to predict who might turn out to be just the contact you need to open a door or who might provide an opportunity you hadn't even thought of, so it often works well to get to know a variety of interesting people.
• Learn about what options are available to you for work. Find out what work people do, what they like and dislike about it, what helped them prepare to do it, etc. Ask people you know about their work. Call people you know and those you don't know and ask if you can "job shadow" or follow them and watch them work. Consider volunteering in places that interest you if you are too young for them to hire you. Get a part-time job for the experience of working and so you can tell future prospective employers that you know how to manage the responsibilities of holding a job. Don't get discouraged if you decide that something you thought you were interested in turns out not to be what you want to do after all. It's much better to find that out now than after you've invested time and money and gone through a lot of preparation, including earning formal credentials.
• Keep records so you have raw material to work with when you need to write a resume. Choose a format that you enjoy working with; you'll be more likely to stick with it. For example, store digital photos on your computer. Write a journal. Once a month, make a list of what you've done recently. Try different approaches until you find one that works for you. Switch when you get bored with the old approach and want to try something new.
Conclusion
Many homeschoolers find it makes more sense and works better to focus on developing strong interests and skills and informal credentials than on earning formal credentials that may not get them where they want to go anyway. Taking charge through homeschooling allows you to more clearly understand the importance of informal credentials and set a course to develop credentials that will serve you well in the future.
Please consider these comments for publication in your "Letters and Discussions" section of Home Education Magazine. (Unless you check this button your comments will be for Home Education Magazine's editorial staff information only.)
