Old School Homeschooling

Old school homeschooling is a term I made up to highlight real homeschooling. Before the name was hijacked recently by remote-learning (aka school-at-home).

To “old school” homeschool is to cut the cord to government institutions and homeschool for real. To gather your own supplies (selecting private outside courses/instructors as needed) and set your own heading for an independent family adventure. To create personalized plans for each of your kids based on their interests, strengths, and moral code.

And finally, to socialize naturally with those you and your kids meet on the journey.

 

Going Old School Homeschool

Embrace the freedom of independent homeschooling and steer your own ship. Then you and yours will be weird and unsocialized old school homeschoolers too! Which are the new cool kids. Whatever that means.

Don’t know where to start? My Quick Start Homeschooling How-to is here!
(*Denim jumper no longer required)

Old school homeschooling means you and your child are in control of their education, which is equally amazing and horrifying at first. In an ocean of possibilities, personal accountability feels more like free falling than freedom. There’s no one to blame if you mess up!

However, it also means there is no one you must wait on to fix the problem. Schools make mistakes all the time and many go uncorrected at the expense of individual students, or all of them.

You can change course as soon as problems arise and as often as needed. And you will make mistakes! But that’s where the learning happens for us and the kids. When we adjust and carry on, we teach our kids to do the same.

You will never stop correcting things as you go. Just like steering a ship through an ever-changing sea.

It won’t always be so scary. Even if spite or fear drove you to homeschool, the freedom it brings will be what keeps you going.

 

 

New Old School Homeschoolers

Please, join us. Become a new old school homeschooler.

Alright look. Like I’ve said before, we homeschool moms are not out recruiting sister wives. Though in odd self-defense, moms that are fighting the inner urge to homeschool often say things like, “Oh you must be so patient!” or “I could never be with my kids that much!”

Seriously we don’t care if others don’t want to homeschool. It’s none of our business. Do what works for you.

But… If you have decided to educate your kids at home and you plan to call it homeschooling, we’re recruiting pledges now! As in… pledge to homeschool for real. Stand with us against public school/government intrusion.

Of course, each of us is acting separately and doing our own personalized best for our families. But we defend each other’s rights to do so whether they like unit studies, strict desk work and checklists (EEEK.. ask me about other options), or will-see-what-we-see unschooling.

If the term homeschooling is used to define any type of education outside of an actual classroom, including public school at home, then old school homeschooling and all the freedom it encompasses are at great risk of government regulation, legislation, and possibly complete abolishment someday.

Don’t co-parent with the government. Reach out and seek the experience, knowledge, and resources of old-school homeschoolers. And become one yourself.

We’re carrying on a movement decades in the making. A movement that has been shoved into hyper drive on our watch. Our homeschool ranks are expanding in all directions with people of many different cultures, belief systems, and goals.

If we agree on nothing else, we must stand as one against government intrusion into our family and educational choices.

 

Beware the “School Choice” Push

Money to help buy supplies, courses, and activities for our homeschoolers is very tempting. Proponents of the push for “school choice” and tax refunds for private school and homeschool families are becoming very vocal as public schools lose more and more students. Some feel they are helping parents struggling in a bad economy, but others are baiting parents to give up freedoms.

To stay true to old school homeschooling, beware the strings attached to government funding or handouts. Government doesn’t give anything without seeking to regulate the recipient immediately or in the future once funding becomes relied upon. Private schools and home schools, especially those who teach religious faith, should be leery of the unconstitutional, but widely used argument of “separation of church and state.”

Once state funds are involved, the prohibition of faith based curriculum (or tuition payments to religious schools) that is bought and paid for with government funds could occur. Or worse, funds could be used to regulate these private institutions once the majority of their enrollment income is subsidized by the government. Beware when taxpayer money is involved, it’s technically no longer private education. Therefore the government can mandate oversight, like sporadic home visits and more.

Old Old School Homeschoolers

When our kids are graduated and grown, we old-school homeschoolers will never outgrow homeschooling. Not after the years we’ve spent submerged in, up to, and over the wild gray hairs atop our heads 24/7/365 of homeschool think.

We see the light at the end of the homeschooling tunnel fast approaching. But it’s not really the light of free time at the end of the tunnel, but an interrogation lamp shining in our tired eyes asking, “Now what are you going to do all day?”

I’ve figured it out…

G.O.S.H. What now?

When I get old, I plan to be a card-carrying member of a new flavor of blue-haired group: The Great Old School Homeschoolers! Just G.O.S.H. for short. Cause GOSH! We’ll astonish everyone we meet with our love of life and learning. And mad book hoards.

We’ll have nicknames like Garden Grannies, Music Memaws, Geometry Gigis, Artsy Abuelas, and History Honeys. I’m currently working on my Granbrary: a cozy library to escape to filled with all I’ve read with my sons over the years plus comfy pillows; hot chocolate and fresh baked cookies to come!

Ya sure, we’ll babysit the grandkids. And we’ll also read them Treasure Island, setup a real treasure hunt (directions written in cursive), bury the prizes in the garden where we’re teaching them to grow their own food, and later use those veggies to try recipes from around the world. With historical relevance.

We’ll wear comfy dresses with pockets to stash our treasures after long walks. We’ll annoy strangers at the park with tidbits on botany and how to recognize animal scat. We’ll help out at bake sales with periodic-table-of-the-elements cookies.

Homeschool Granny Love

Kids that are jaded from forced association and too much busy work will see us coming in our sensible shoes and book-filled totes and run-in fright that we might hand out summer book reports, mistaking us for Old Miss What’s-her-name from 4^th grade reading lab.

But on closer inspection, and to the discerning eye (homeschool graduates), we’ll obviously be  spry old ladies ready to help them cook an egg with a magnifying glass, or to accept their challenge to an ancient history fact battle for bragging rights and the first scone at 2^nd breakfast. (click here for more homeschool lingo)

Yes, I’m going to be an amazing grandmother! God willing. (But… ahem… no rush.)

 

Leading the Way Back to Family First

Old school homeschooling has been everything I never knew I always wanted to do. And I have my kids to thank for helping me find my calling. So many of us never imagined homeschooling as a way of life, and many can’t until they’ve tried it.

Old school homeschooling has taught me to live in the moment for the good of my kids’ future. To be present and participate, listening to and interacting with them as the people they are in anticipation of the adults they will become.

If you plan to homeschool, dare to old school homeschool, though the alternative might appear easier. (Read: I don’t know how you do it.)

The system will never put your individual kids needs above that of the systems. It never did. Looking back at my own public schooling, I see that many parents were duped into co-parenting with the government. I don’t blame them. It’s what everyone was doing. Things worked out mostly fine. But I can’t help but wonder what if…

We were almost pulled into the status quo too. Yet the quiet nagging “something ain’t right” feeling I had when my kids were in public school wouldn’t let up. (See Against my Will, How I Became a Homeschool Mom)

And now everywhere, more and more, parents are waking up to the results of “leaving things to the system” and reclaiming their rights and responsibilities. Realizing that kids are not pets to be boarded and trained by “professionals.” Parents are deciding that bigger houses and better vacations are not an equal trade for consistent family time, for preparing our kids to face the world, and the future liberty of the nation.

 

Where do we go from here?   

Some days it feels like all is lost and then the next day, videos of parents and teens giving testimonies, both researched and heart felt, in their goodbye speeches to their local school boards renews hope.

I like to imagine a future where the neighborhood kids rush to old Honey Homeschoolers back porch for ancient story time with fresh baked flat cakes and honey butter after math with mom on the kitchen table. Or little Dennis-the-Curious (not a menace) is yelling…”Hey Mr. Wilson! Can I come over and show you my coin collection and new self-watering plant invention? And you can tell me another crazy story from your days in school and getting suspended for asking questions!”

That may be a bit far-fetched from the state of things as they are now. Not everyone can or should homeschool, but more can than will admit. I hope and pray they will wake up soon. And decide to go old school homeschool too.