When I started thinking about homeschooling about 13 years ago, I never really thought much about homeschooling methods or styles. Over the many years, different ones emerged. I never really thought about them having a specific name only knew about how different families homeschooled by either buying their curriculum or making it up on their own, using this and that as well as other ways. Today, in homeschool circles, when you say you are homeschooling people ask you if you use Charlotte Mason method? Do you unschool? Are you eclectic? What curriculum do you use? Ok. The list goes on and on.

I always have said we were eclectic because we don’t really follow a specific curriculum or plan. I make up my own stuff, glean from the internet, use books from home and library, use some online resources, some selections from various curriculum and whatever we find from life in general. Some days I admit I feel as if we will never get out of the starting gate. I admit to having years like that as well. I think though almost any homeschooler who is honest about it will say the same thing. Of course I am talking about those homeschoolers who do not just do school at home but are really doing homeschooling where you are examining your kids and learning how they learn and what works best for them as well as having goals and taking meaningful looks at what you what accomplished as a result of teaching them at home. I feel sorry for folks that think they have to do everything exactly how the public institutions do ‘school” because often they become quickly frustrated and burnt out as well as their kids. Not saying that method does not work but I often wonder why they bother to put themselves and their kids through that if they are not accomplishing any goals different from what they would have done if sent to school.

The one thing that I find really amusing is when people look at me when I declare we homeschool and say “Oh I could never do that!” Or say “I love it when my kids are in school how can you be with your kids 24/7?” Or “you must be really patient to do that?” Or “you must have a degree in teaching?” Or.. You fill in the blanks if you are a fellow homeschooler. I think most people who say those things to me often think that I am using the exact same methods and teaching the exact same things that my kids would have done in a school environment. They assume that homeschooling is simply just doing school at home. Maybe the problem comes from the word “homeschool” itself. Just the word itself implies that you are just doing school while at home. No one could be wronger than that. Maybe those that coined that phrase were trying to protect homeschoolers from being harassed because the phrase implies they are doing exactly what the schools do so that no one would freak out about what homeschooling really is all about and threaten them that the have no right to do that to their own kids. Oh how wrong they were if that was the case. Homeschoolers are threatened, ridiculed and made to seem like common criminals all because they do not force their kids into the same educational mold as the general populace. There are those threatened by homeschooling and are trying to take away our rights so they can get tax money or so they can protect their educational system since many public schools seem to be failing in various areas. Homeschooling really in concept is even older than public education but “Shh” don’t bring that up to anyone. Maybe instead of calling it “homeschooling” it should really be referred to as “home education”? Going back to methods and styles… I am hoping to comment on a few of the various methods in my blog moving forward…. If you care to comment on how you homeschool.. please feel free to do so. I would love to hear from you!

Filed under: Home, Homeschool by Barbara
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