On 9/30/10 7:22 PM September 30, 2010, Deepa Mohan wrote:
Heather, I'd like to hear more about your experiences with home-schooling, because I have always been afraid that homeschooling a child (in India) would mean lack of contact with the child's peer group.
Yes, if you homeschool your children, they do not have the experience of being part of a huge pack of children the same age. Instead, they have to live in a mixed-age community, as children throughout most of human history have lived. This is not a limitation of homeschooling; this is a benefit.
Oh, the children have friends all right, and some of them are even their own ages. There are plenty of opportunities for children to mix with others their own age: sports activities, park days, theatre programs, choir, dance, scouting, church, etc. At our current homeschooling park day, there just happens to be a group of about 30 boys my sons' ages. This actually has a downside, as some of the negatives of peer socialization have emerged and must be handled both by the children and by their parents.
The children also have plenty of opportunities to mix with people of all ages, including their own siblings and grandparents. It's good for children to spend time with older and younger children, to learn from the ones just ahead of them developmentally and to help care for the younger ones. My children, particularly the fledgling adults, also benefit greatly from their close relationships with older adults (and by "older" I mean as old as 102). In the United States, children are largely segregated from old people, to the great detriment of both groups.
When we first started homeschooling, we attended a homeschooling day at the local skating rink. A 15-year-old girl spotted us, introduced herself, and took my then-4.5-year-old daughter under her wing. This was my first introduction to the homeschooling style of mixed-age socialization. Having attended school, I marveled at the kindness of this teenage girl. In truth, though, she had never learned that she was supposed to be friends only with people exactly her own age. Instead, she was open to everyone around her, including adults.
I see this openness working in my children's favor all the time, especially as they move into adulthood. My daughters have extremely positive relationships with all of their professors, treating them both as human beings and as valuable educational resources. They have also done well in their first forays into the work place, and in their volunteer work. They are already at ease with adults and the adult world, and so their transition seems gentler.
Of course, I did not even know that such an alternative was available to me, but even if I'd known it, I would still have chosen school as I feel that a child learns a lot more than just lessons at school...and my daughter's formed lifelong friendships from the schools she went to as she was growing up.
My daughters also have lifelong friendships with people they met while they were growing up. Since they didn't attend school, these friends are people they met in activities they enjoyed. My oldest daughter met her best friend in a theatre activity when they were 4 and they have remained friends for 18 years. Her sister met her best friend at a homeschooling event when she was 2. Both of them are serious musicians. When they get together, they have long conversations illustrated by passages on violin and piano.
Children learn more than lessons if they grow up outside of school, too. Life is the great teacher.
We started homeschooling as an experiment because my oldest daughter did not seem ready for kindergarten at age 4.5. After about 3 weeks, we were sold on the value of it, and we've never really looked back. After 17 years, it seems like it's schools that are the radical experiment. Homeschooling is a return to our primate roots, to the way humans have always reared their young in the heart of the family and the community. It makes sense in all sorts of ways.
-- Heather Madrone ([email protected]) http://www.madrone.com http://www.sunsplinter.blogspot.com I'd love to change the world, but they won't give me access to the source code.
