Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Thinking about Homeschooling

Dear Mr. Schank,

I absolutely loved your book, Coloring Outside the Lines. I never knew how passionate I was about education - alternative education, in fact - until I read it, and I tell people about it all the time. Thanks so much for writing it.

I know you said that a child doesn't need to be homeschooled to be raised a "smarter kid," but with the prospect of moving back into Manhattan (with terrible public schools), coupled with being on the cusp of my second child's entrance into kindergarten (she is a break-every-rule, cannot-be-contained kind of girl), I'm considering it. Given that I was homeschooled for several years during elementary school (and still managed to go to Stanford for undergrad and law school), I see this as an incredible opportunity to experience life on a different level - but I'm not really sure what that would look like.

My questions to you are these: if you were to devise a homeschooling curricula, or even just guidelines, what would you do? Are you aware of any excellent materials already created? I know several people in favor of a "classical" education, but personally, the idea sounds incredibly boring. Your thoughts?

Alternatively, what do you see as an ideal childhood, educationally speaking?

Also, how would you balance the educational needs of kids with wildly different interests when there's only one teacher (namely, me)?

I look forward to hearing from you,

Elisa

Elisa,

Thanks for writing. Those are good questions and ones that are on the minds of many people these days. I am not against home schooling, not at all. But I am against what is typically done in home schooling. I will explain shortly, but first let’s talk about New York City.

Many people panic when they move to New York City because it seems that their only choices are expensive private schools or awful public schools. So first let’s talk about that. New York, especially Manhattan can be an awful place to try and educate your kids, if what you mean by educate is “send them to a school.” The good news about Manhattan is that there are so many different private schools that some of them are really not such awful places.  They do try to be innovative. So, my first piece of advice is check them out before you conclude that they won’t work for you.

But, that having been said, I believe that school is an awful place for any kid that is a square peg who wants to do things his or her own way. Since you have one of those, let’s talk about what I would do if I were you.

The good news is you are in New York. Why is this good news?

1. There are a lot of other mothers in your situation. Find them. Do not do this on your own. Get a group of 5-10 other kids and have them meet regularly in various people’s house with maybe 3 mothers on duty (if there are 10 kids) at any one time. Why is this good? Home schooling is hard work. And, you don’t know everything. Find others who you can work with and form a team to divide up time and make everyone more effective.
   
   
2. The city has just about everything you need.

This leads me to my main point. What do you need? That is, what is a good curriculum for a kid who is going to be home schooled? First let’s say what it is not. It should not involve any attempt whatsoever to copy, imitate, or even try to approach what is currently being taught in school. That curriculum was designed in 1892 for another time and another set of students. It can’t be changed because politicians and others won’t let it change. But, don’t get caught in its trap. The main reason to home school is to get rid of the 1892 curriculum. Just do it. Ask yourself what your kid should be learning as if you had no idea what is being taught now. Would you seriously come up with algebra, the state capitals, or reading Dickens (unless of course you had been in such a curriculum yourself)?

Since curiosity is the natural driver of learning, the question is what your kid is curious about. Kids can only be curious about what they have experienced. The Museum of Natural History is a good starting point as is the New York City Subway System, The Today Show broadcast and the construction going on at any building site. Take the kids to anything you find interesting and start fielding questions. If there is no excitement move on. Kids get turned on by the oddest things. When they do, make that the curriculum until they are bored with it and then move on.

What does it mean to make something into a curriculum? It means creating projects that are just a little difficult for them to complete without some help. This help might mean investigating something more, or finding resources or simply asking and getting answers from you. In the end, the idea is to have them complete projects. These could be papers, oral reports, drawings, or creations of some sort, depending upon their age and the subject at hand. Your job is to make each project stretch their abilities (in language, in team work, in discussions, in technical or arithmetic details.)

Please avoid anything resembling a classical education. There is time enough for that. As you may recall from Stanford (an institution at which I one professed many years ago), professors really do not expect high school to have taught you anything anyway and teach it all over again. So, if a classical education is needed, and I am sure it is not, they can acquire it later on.

Let curiosity rule.

Don’t follow anyone’s home school curriculum. (There are none that I know of that are any good but I await responses that tell me otherwise.)

Roger