Home Education Magazine

May-June 1998 - Articles

How's School Going?

Mary Kenyon

"How's school going?" my sister asked in a sympathetic tone. She knew we were going through a particularly trying time just then. My husband had just started a new job and the children and I were taking over the running of our family bookstore. While we shortened the hours of operation, we were still adjusting to all the changes it meant for our family. I would get Emily, our youngest, down for a nap around noon and head to the store with one or more children. There, we organized, priced, read books, and waited on customers. When Emily woke from her nap, my fifteen-year-old daughter Beth brought her down to the store. Some days Beth, or our seventeen-year-old son Dan, ran the store alone while I stayed home with the younger children.. Mornings were free so I expect my sister thought that was when we did our "real" schoolwork.

"How's school going?" It was a simple question, not meant to be accusatory, yet I didn't know how to respond. You see, my sister is a homeschooler, too, but her method of homeschooling didn't resemble mine in the least. Every morning Jane "does school" with her children. She uses the top quality reading programs, math textbooks, and other curriculum she orders each year after carefully scanning several curriculum distributor catalogs each summer. Each day the children are required to "do school" before they can play, read or go anywhere.

I, too, plan each summer, order workbooks, hunt down bargains on used curriculum, and start out each year with the good intentions of buckling down and having daily schoolwork. While not comfortable with a regimented approach, I do believe there are certain things each child should learn at approximate ages and I always worry my children have missed some of those things. But inevitably, after a week or two of schedules, we find ourselves drifting back into our regular routine, which actually can be pretty irregular at times!

Deborah Bell, in her book The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling, lists many reasons why a family shouldn't homeschool, and I'm afraid I have fit most of them, at one time or another. I homeschooled through an emergency C-section and my husband's job loss (within the same week!), I homeschooled with a toddler and a new baby, and I now homeschool even though I have two very energetic and demanding young children who definitely take time and attention away from the older children. Deborah's vivid description of a woman who shouldn't be homeschooling at all resembled me too closely for comfort. After reading her book, I spent several sleepless nights staring at the ceiling at 3:00 a.m., wondering if I was harming my children by keeping them out of school.

Then my anxiety-induced insomnia would put me in an irritable mood for the entire day. I even found myself snapping at my teen daughter, Beth, one day, "Why aren't you doing school?" for no reason other than the fact that she was reading too many books.

Reading too many books? How had I gotten to the point that I thought anyone could read too much? I'd heard other homeschoolers comment that their children would do fine in higher education if only they could major in reading books, and I'd wondered at their attitudes. Up until that point when I snapped at her, I'd always allowed Beth to read as much and as often as she wanted. After all, before I had pulled her out of school in fifth grade, I couldn't get her to read at all! I tried paying her for each book she'd read the year before homeschooling, and didn't owe her anything one entire summer. I fondly remembered my childhood summers when my sisters and I would check out four books each on Wednesday and by Sunday we'd be trading for each other's because we finished our own! We'd prop books up on the kitchen sink as we did dishes, carry books in the car whenever we went anywhere, and cherished the summer chore of keeping the geese in our yard as they ate grass because it was one chore that allowed us to read while we worked.

So it was really out of character for me to be upset that Beth was reading so much. I had always been pleased with her varied reading choices and knew she was learning from all her reading because so many of the books were based on accurate historical accounts of wars or other events. Her non-fiction choices reflected her interests in animals and police training.

So why was I suddenly questioning our relaxed method of learning?

Let's face it. The majority of us grew up with the idea that "school" is how to learn. Never mind that as a student I spent more time reading books from my lap under the desk than listening to the teacher. I can count four or five special teachers that actually "taught" me something in my 18+ years in the educational system. Everything else I could have learned from reading. There was much I didn't really learn at all, only memorized for tests. For example, I always got A's on geography tests, but to this day I have a hard time finding anything on a map. I memorized state capitals for tests and then promptly forgot them. (That probably also explains why I buy globes, map puzzles and map placemats for my own children) Elementary school, especially, was an endurance test where any learning was incidental. Somewhere along the educational path I had decided "school" was not the best way to learn.

I was excited about homeschooling and intrigued by unschooling. I reveled in the idea that my children could be free to learn when and how they wanted. For the first two years of our homeschooling journey we lived in the country and if the children spent an entire day exploring and poring over homemade maps I could easily see their play as learning. Rainy days and cold winter house bound days ensured time for math worksheets, science videos, phonics lessons, and educational games. As Beth advanced in school she chose to use textbooks for more of her learning. Her writing flourished as she wrote and edited a bimonthly newsletter for girls her age.

Moving to town started the self-doubt. Suddenly we had neighbors who didn't understand homeschooling and thought if my children were outside during the day, then they were truants. Curious neighborhood children quizzed my children incessantly, bringing my daughter Rachel to tears at one point. When my homeschooling sister moved nearby it didn't help that she "did school" in a more traditional way. While she never questioned our method of homeschooling, I found myself hiding more and more of the truth of how we homeschooled. I no longer wondered if my children should be in school. Being around the neighbor children with their swearing, constant competitiveness, and obvious peer dependence convinced me of that. It was our casual approach to learning I found myself questioning. My Catholic schooled nieces spent all day at school and a couple hours each night with schoolwork. Their writing was neater than my children's. They studied things we hadn't gotten to. Was my approach working? I wondered. Where was the proof? Beth tested high above grade-level in the California Achievement Tests but I hadn't had my younger two tested the past year because they weren't comfortable with the teacher who would be administering the test. Thoughts such as these assailed me at 3:00 a.m. "Michael doesn't know long-division," I'd think, with a sense of panic, "Rachel can't spell very well. Beth hasn't even started geometry."

Reading Deborah Bell's book just exacerbated my worst fears. Having my sister ask me "How's school going'?" brought it all to the surface.

"How's school going?" After much soul-searching, I've decided I should have answered, "Our life is our school, and right now it's a little stressful. It would be going better if we lived in the country and if I could be home more. But it has nothing to do with how many worksheets we've completed or how much textbook material we've covered. "

Now, our store is closed. We've brought our books home as a home business, and I am home more. We haven't found a country home yet but our goal is to move before another summer brings the public-schooled children back in our yard and our four-year-old son remembers the swear words a winter break from other children helped him forget. As I look around our home I see the shelves of books surrounding us. I see the Lego bin and the neat creations my two youngest boys have made from the blocks within it. I see Rachel on the couch reading a Carolyn Haywood book she's pulled from the shelves and am amused to know she has her second Lois Lenski in her room that she's been reading at night. I see art projects, cards out from a recent poker game, and Monopoly money from the children playing store. My eyes fall on the 55 newsletters Beth put out to be mailed to her subscribers throughout the U.S. She's upstairs typing a story for her next issue. A stack of her library books wait next to the door to be returned on our next trip. The phone rings with an order for books that might be located or packed up by The children for mailing. Our house is definitely cluttered. It is full of things to do and make and learn, and there is always something to read. Our children have chosen a few textbooks to use from the shelves of books we have for sale, and our workbooks are pulled out occasionally too.

How's school going? Our life is school, and life is good.

© Mary Kenyon

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