Homeschooling Part 1

Well, back in January I wrote a post making my intentions known to blog on a number of items this year. Since I've covered almost none of them, I think September is a good time to start checking a few things off the list.

My only experience with homeschooling as a young lad was when a home-schooled child would enter into my public school, usually socially awkward and struggling to keep up with the class work. It got to the point when a student would be discussed and then a party would mention, "Well, he was home-schooled" and then the other parties would say, "Ohhhh" while nodding their heads in recognition. "He's one of those kids . . . "

Needless to say it wasn't something I though much about as I entered college. Two things converged though around my junior year: Shannon and I started dating, and one of my co-workers at the music library home-schooled his two girls. The first thing was important because marriage and family was something that grabbed my attention for the first time; the latter was important because this was the first advocate for homeschooling I had ever encountered.

Intrigued by my discussions with Chris (my co-worker), I did a bit of research into the topic and wrote a paper for my Educational Psychology class. I found the research compelling, and started working on Shannon (I believe we were engaged by this time). She was predictably uncomfortable about the thought, but even she was no match for my persuasive arguments. : )

So it appears that we're sold on the subject, and will implement home-learning as the kids continue to age. In my next two posts (to come before 2008 : ), I'll discuss the two main objections to home-schooling: socialization and academics.