Tag Archives: homeschooling

Is Homeschooling Better for Introverts than Group Education?

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Seldom does a nonfiction book grab my attention and hold it as well as Quiet just did.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking fascinated me because we have introverts in our family. And until I read this book I didn’t realize how many of us are introverts. It gave me new insight into my husband, though we’ve been married for almost 35 years, and also helped me understand more about my kids, which is always helpful. I even learned a few things about myself that made me feel a little better about some things that happened to me when I was young.

Author Susan Cain’s main point is that we live in a society where extroverted behavior is celebrated and expected, even though 1/3-1/2 of the population is made up of introverts. This cultural preference for extroverted behavior (which doesn’t exist in some other cultures, ex. Asian) is reflected not only in how employers choose workers, but more importantly (at least in my view) in how school personnel treat children.

That last point, which Ms. Cain covers in one chapter of her book, is very important, because children are so sensitive and affected by how the adults in their life act towards them. If an introverted child is treated like there’s something wrong with her, it can affect her negatively, with lifelong ramifications. When I read this, my brain started going “Ding! Ding! Ding!” because it made so much sense to me based on my own personal experience. In fact, as I thought about what I had just read, I realized that much of my own personal dislike for school had to do with the incessant pressure from teachers to be someone that I wasn’t.

Ms. Cain believes that we need to stop trying to change introverts into extroverts, and instead celebrate the gifts that introverts bring to the world. Many of the world’s creative geniuses have been introverts; this makes sense because introverts need a lot of thinking time, which usually translates into creative time.

When faced with hectic social situations, introverts often need recovery time afterwards. While extroverts are energized by being in large groups of people, introverts tend to find them exhausting. Just think of the ramifications of being in school all day, every day, for years, for the introverted child!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. There are several really interesting aspects of this book that I’d like to cover, so I think I’ll post about them in the coming weeks. For now, let’s just take a brief look at the common characteristics of introverts vs. extroverts:

  • Introverts tend to prefer talking with one or two people instead of being in a group activity, while extroverts find a big, loud party to be their idea of a great evening.
  • Introverts like to spend time delving into a subject, while extroverts tend to be better at multi-tasking.
  • Introverts usually prefer to avoid conflict, while extroverts enjoy the verbal back-and-forth of conflicting opinions.
  • Introverts hesitate before speaking, not because they’re shy but because they’re thinking first, while extroverts often speak before they think.
  • Introverts prefer working on their own to working in a group, and usually work best on their own (this has huge ramifications for how well they learn in school settings.)
  • Many introverts like to write, and are sometimes accused of “living in their heads.”

So, do the habits of introverts remind you of any of your children? Your spouse? You?? Stay tuned to learn more about introverts.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

Next week: Introverts and Socialization

Homeschool High School’s Most Essential Subject

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What subjects should you include when homeschooling your teen through high school? Answering this question can and does fill entire books. Personally, I think at least some of the subjects should be related to your teen’s interests as much as anything else. But there’s one subject that should be mandatory: personal finance.

With unemployment and underemployment becoming more common, it’s imperative that we send our kids out into the world with some financial savvy so they can wisely manage what money they’re able to earn. And we have the resources to do the job.

As parents, we put the “why” behind the “how.” It’s one thing to say that teens should set some money aside every month and save it for a rainy day. It’s quite another to tell the story of how your dad and his siblings saved almost every nickel they made as teenagers so they could help their single mom buy the family’s first house. That was a real-life situation I shared with my teens; I’m sure you have your own. (Sometimes true stories don’t have a happy ending…..every family these days knows someone with a cautionary financial story to tell.)

We also have great resources available to use with our teens. For example, we don’t need textbook charts showing how credit card interest is calculated. We likely have the credit card bills that show how little a minimum payment is required for the purchases we’ve made each month. We can show the high rate of interest charged on balances, the equivalent of paying a 22% (or greater) premium on everything we buy…..thus saving us 22% when we pay off the bill each month. (Even if you’re not a credit card user, the reason for that decision should certainly be shared with your teens, if you haven’t done so already.)

Textbooks might also include case studies of make-believe families with examples of income and expenses. However, we can place a month’s worth of real paycheck stubs on one side of the table and a month’s worth of bill stubs on the other (utilities, mortgage payment or rent, car payments, etc.) and let our teens do the math. Real life has much more impact than case studies of strangers.

Today’s economy offers many sad stories of those who relied on credit to make up the difference between their income and their desires…. to their detriment. Go over some of these stories in your newspapers and online and discuss them with your teen. Use them as examples of why it’s so important to live within your means.

I’m sure you can think of other ways to teach your teen your view of personal finance. I designed similar projects for my teens* that they worked on, and I included them on their high school transcripts with the title Life Prep (Personal Finance). No one questioned it, and it certainly didn’t prevent my kids from being admitted to college.

You might be hesitant about sharing your personal financial information with your teens. If so, consider that what you teach them about this subject will greatly affect them for their entire lives. Making smart financial decisions when young can benefit a person for years. Unfortunately, messing up because of financial ignorance can hurt a person for years.

Sharing information and opinions about personal finance is every parent’s job. It’s too important to leave out, especially in times like we’re living in right now. Homeschooling parents have the time and opportunity to do this. The time to begin is right now.

*found in Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers

Homeschool Encouragement, Every Single Week for Eight Years and Counting

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One balmy spring day in 1984, my husband and I found ourselves in an auditorium at Wheaton College listening to Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore talk about this radical idea called homeschooling.

We weren’t homeschoolers yet; in fact, our only child was just six months old. But being surrounded by all these others in the audience who weren’t sending their kids to school gave us hope that this wasn’t such a crazy idea and that we might someday be homeschoolers ourselves.

As it turned out, we had four children and never sent any to school (until two of them went to college). One constant throughout our child-rearing years was the encouragement we got from being around other homeschooling families.

After the Internet took over the world and blogging became a way for people to share their lives and interests, the Cate family decided to help fellow homeschoolers share their lives with each other, and they started the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Since then, there’s been a weekly collection of homeschool-related blog posts from a variety of bloggers for our information and pleasure. We homeschoolers certainly owe a debt of gratitude to the Cates.

Of course, as with all good things, there is a potential negative to surfing the blogs of homeschoolers you’ll find in the Carnival of Homeschooling. Take care not to compare yourself, your family or your activities with those you read about. There’s nothing wrong with picking up a new idea here and there, but when you start making comparisons with others, you risk disillusionment and burnout. And ultimately, doing so is a waste of time, because homeschooling is a very individual journey. Each family is unique; every single combination of teaching parent and homeschooled child is unique, too.

So it won’t do to make comparisons. Instead, just enjoy the camaraderie of your fellow homeschoolers as we did that day so many years ago when we heard the Moores speak. It will remind you that you’re not alone.

(Do check out the Carnival of Homeschooling archives. Though some of the blogs no longer exist, there’s still a wealth of information there.)

Flashback Friday: How Many Hours?

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One of my least favorite questions that I’m asked by non-homeschoolers is, “How many hours a day do you homeschool?”

Let’s face it, answering this question is like tip-toeing through a minefield. Depending on the viewpoint of the questioner, you may not be doing enough, or you may be overdoing it. The former is usually the case, but in either case, your answer may not be what they want to hear.

I’m often asked that question by new or prospective homeschoolers, too. Faced with the proposition of recreating the seven or eight-hour day they remember from their own school years, they wonder how they’re going to be able to fill those hours, and whether they can handle it.

I like to tell them the story of my five-year stint as a Sunday school teacher at my church. I began teaching Sunday school after I had been homeschooling for about ten years. Needless to say, I was accustomed to working one-on-one with my kids, and that’s a pretty efficient way to teach, and to learn. Of course, I knew that I couldn’t expect the same efficiency when teaching 10 or 12 fourth-graders for an hour, but I still didn’t realize the extent to which it would be different.

Every Saturday night, I diligently read the teacher’s guide and the Bible lesson, and made a list of activities as suggested by the lesson plan. Since those were usually rather dry, I’d throw in a few ideas of my own, including a game, or a passage from a book…something to make things more interesting. To me, it was important that we had enough activities to do. I didn’t want to find myself standing in front of the class with 15 minutes to go and nothing left to do with them.

I needn’t have worried. I soon discovered that it was going to be impossible to even start class on time. Kids trickled in for about the first ten minutes, and each one’s arrival interrupted what we were doing. Taking attendance was not as easy as it sounds, because the kids would interrupt each other with stories of what they’d been doing lately, or they’d ask me for a drink of water or permission to visit the restroom.

Once we got started on the lesson, we’d be interrupted by dropped or broken pencils, someone kicking someone else under the table, someone falling out of their chair (this happened fairly often), or someone who had a question because they hadn’t been listening.

I still recall the day I was trying to get through to them the concept of Jesus’ resurrection. They seemed interested, and they were asking good questions, but then one young man raised his hand, and when I called on him he very seriously informed the class and me that his dog liked to eat breath mints. The rest of the class burst into laughter, he looked around confused at their reaction, and I realized any impact my lesson had made was now lost.

I taught Sunday school for five years, and I hope my students learned what they needed to know. What I learned is that teaching in a classroom setting can be very inefficient, especially when compared to homeschooling. I was accustomed to accomplishing a lot in a little time with my kids, but when it came to Sunday school classes, I learned that it was a good day if I accomplished anything.

Sunday school lasts an hour. Multiply that by seven or eight to get an idea of how much inefficiency you’d find over the course of a day of formal school. Getting everyone into their seats, taking attendance, quieting them down…and that may be for each class period. Then there’s the misbehavior, the back-talk…all those things that kids do when they’re determined to keep the teacher off-track.

Let’s compare that to homeschooling. By giving our children our undivided attention for a while, we can answer their questions, share information with them, and make sure they understand what we’ve taught them. It’s pretty simple and straightforward, and it doesn’t take several hours a day. I usually tell new homeschoolers that in the early years, I spent maybe an hour (90 minutes tops) “doing school” with my kids. By high school, it was more like an hour or two working with them, and an additional hour or two of them working independently.

Most non-homeschoolers don’t need that much information, though. They are really asking me if my children are getting what they need to become “educated,” as society sees it. If I give them an actual number of hours, they may not approve because we’ve only ever done a few hours a day of formal study. A quoted number of hours wouldn’t be accurate anyway, because like most homeschooled kids, mine have learned many more things outside of formal study than they have from it.

What I’ve found works best when non-homeschoolers ask how many hours of school we do each day is replying, “As many hours as it takes.” It seems to satisfy them, and I know it’s an honest answer, because my children are learning throughout their waking hours. It also forces them to put a number to it; since they’re accustomed to the inefficient ways of public schools, they’re probably thinking of a larger number of hours than I am. Works for me!

(Excerpted from The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Guide to Homeschooling, available HERE.)

Flashback Friday: Not Exactly Fond Memories of School

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What’s your earliest memory of school?

Mine is that very first day. I remember it so clearly. I was not quite five, but had been reading for quite a while, so my parents decided I needed to be in school ASAP. Since our neighborhood public school (located right behind our house) did not offer kindergarten, my parents found a kindergarten offered at a church about a mile away, and signed me up.

I recall my nervousness as we approached the multi-sided building with a cross on top. It looked like a space ship, so I suppose it must have been fairly new, a reflection of early 1960s architecture. When we entered, a sick feeling came over me, because I could tell my mother was not going to stay with me.

Soon my fears came true. Mom said she’d be back in a while. The teacher offered me a seat at a nearby table, but I ran after my mother. When I tried to push open the door, it wouldn’t budge. My mother was holding it shut on the other side. All these years later, she says she remembers feeling bad that she had to do that, but that it was for my own good.

I eventually got used to going to school. I even liked it for a while. But I soon grew bored. I occupied my mind with daydreams to pass the time.

Another clear memory: the day school let out for the summer at the end of second grade. I was wearing a light green dress with a collar trimmed in lace, and as I balanced on the railroad ties lining the school’s parking lot, all I could think was, “I’m free!” I planned my summer as I walked home that day….playing, reading, more playing…..freedom! What an incredible feeling!

That was a long time ago. It makes me sad to think about that little girl. To be seven years old and longing for freedom…..I guess I never could bear for my own kids to have that trapped feeling, so I never sent them to school.

I wonder how many people choose to homeschool because they don’t want their children to feel like they did when they were kids. If you’re a homeschooler, did your own school experience have any bearing on your decision to homeschool?

Originally posted 3/2/07