Supported by numbers, homeschool community and some experts are breaking the stereotypical image of this alternative method and proving its efficiency on succeeding in higher education.
Kristie Balanguer (21, Maine) is one of the thousands of college students that did n´t previously attend a regular public or private school. Currently a junior at the University of Maine, she was taught at home from elementary education to 12 grade. Her case is not an exception: While homeschool students are increasing, many colleges seeking to diversify their student bodies are welcoming them with open arms.
The modern homeschooling movement first emerged during the 1980s. Back then it was led by evangelical Christians, but the religious criteria don´t work as a defining one anymore. According to the National Home Education Research Institute, near to 2.2 million students in the United States are taught at home. It appears to be a rising trend since numbers grew an estimated 2% to 8% per annum over the past few years. In the state of Maine, there have been upwards of 5,000 students registered with their local superintendent of schools and the Maine Department of Education
But while the movement has grown, it has also changed. Its increasing popularity responds to a variety of reasons, including a search for an individual education or the discontent with the public scholar system. Today’s home-schooling families welcome cooperation with their local public school districts. This diversity challenges any typical understanding of what homeschooling is and what impact it will have on the public school system.
Away from the standardized tests and strict schedules in public education, kids can cultivate their creative sides and learn about the world they live in. As Balanguer points “Thanks to homeschool, I had time to develop my passion for music: I learned to play violin piano, guitar, chello, to sing… Normally, I tried to be efficient and finishing my tasks and homework in three, four hours and practice my hobbies after that”. The possibility of combining regular subjects, like English or Maths with knowledge from other areas (art, sciences, languages…) every academic year during the K12 education is what made her decide not changing to the public system during high school: “I enjoyed being able to decide my own learning. Obviously, sometimes I wanted to get out of the house and have a so-called “normal life” but at the end, I preferred having more freedom and more time for things you usually can´t do in school”.
The independence she mentions doesn´t implicate lack of academic achievements. On the contrary, recent studies show that home-educated students typically score above average on the SAT and ACT tests that colleges consider for admissions. In Kristie´s case, she scored a 91 % on the SAT, higher than average results. Also, allowing children to be part of their own education while growing up help them develop as a person at a younger age. They become more creative, self-sufficient and improve their leadership abilities, some characteristics college administrations value during the applying process. Even though American universities are currently facilitating this step (valuing portfolios or extra credit courses at community colleges; setting up special pages for homeschooled applicants), applying is still long and a bit confusing. Some institutions ask for an additional SAT II, multiple recommendations from nonfamily members and homeschool students must submit an official high school transcript of records that have to be created by themselves using specific tools and resources. Also, in those cases involving a sports scholarship program, a high school diploma can be a requirement.
Then, if the long-term benefits of this educational method are been proved to be many, why is still viewed with suspicion by the American population? Experience and anecdotes have led society to think that children who are homeschooled choose intellectual achievement at the expense of social development or that they come exclusively from families with extreme religious views. They often face classic stereotypes of being strange or different than children educated in traditional schools when they enter college.
Although one can find statistical deviants in every group, homeschooling research tells a different story from the experience-based stereotypes concerning those involved in home education. In 2008, the NCES found that only 36 percent of the homeschooling families in their survey chose «the desire for religious or moral instruction» as their primary reason for their decision to homeschool”. At the same time, other arguments, such as a concern about the school environment or the desire of individual focus, were just as important to many home school families.
One example of different background and situations inside home education is Elizabeth Allan´s family, professor of the University of Maine College of Education and Human Development. “Our children attend Montessori in pre-K and grades 1-5 then transitioned to the public. The older two children did a combination of public school and homeschool – so we never did full-time homeschooling – just part-time (a couple of hours/day) and primarily in middle school” she said. ”I would say they have been successful in high school (academically and socially). They played sports, did performing arts, and graduated with high honors and distinction. My younger children are also thriving in school, though they were not homeschooled because of changes in the public school curriculum that allowed for more flexibility”.
Kylie Paradis is graduating this semester at the University of Maine. While she attended various regular schools in Australia, France and United Stated her younger brother Connor decided to drop out in the second year of high school:” He was facing a lot of changes. Different friends, his girlfriend got into drug problems and he just couldn´t handle the pressure and wasn´t able to focus. He was getting really bad results in class so my parents decided to let him quit and teach him at home” she explains.” He came back to public school the next year because he missed spending time outside the home and not seeing us so much, but he admitted he enjoyed some aspects of homeschool, like not losing so much time and be able to choose interesting things to study”. Connor Paradis is currently a freshman in Setton Hall University (NJ), where he got a basketball scholarship. Even Balanguer tells very different experiences inside her family: ”Coming from a Christian, very protective family, I came to University after a whole life of homeschool and found no problem socializing or adjusting to it. I had friends previously and found new ones here. But my older sister changed to a public school in high school and it just wasn´t for her. She stayed there, but told my mother to not put me directly there after being homeschool my whole life” . “After graduating, she went to university for a while but ended up dropping out and starting a family” she concludes.
A key factor in changing the whole “homeschooling” concept is the wide range of resources parents and children enjoy nowadays. Starting with interactive tools that completely change the learning process (online curriculums for Maths or autograding tests) and followed by being able to take some courses in the school and another one at home or even high education classes.”I found resources online, PBS, the local library, and teacher friends and they essentially worked independently on assignments. We also arranged internships in various UMaine labs and on one occasion one of my children took courses at UMaine and through Virtual High School” Allan says.
Other places outside home where parents can take their children to complete some aspects of their education and find teaching support are the local learning centers. The Wassookeag Learning Center in Orono is described by her director Deborah Bell Smith as an “alternative educational place where families and teachers share knowledge and values in order to fulfill the individual needs of each child”. Some kids attend the center four days per week; others only join for field trips or math classes. They cover until Middle School but at some point, some high students joined them for individual tutoring. From literature to nature and yoga, children learn in a multiage environment and experiment social interaction. “They take what they need. It´s beautiful to see how a 13-year-old girl who has been bullied at school and had no connections with other children is now tutoring a 5-year-old boy and playing with him. They learn from each other”, observes Deborah.
Aaron (10) is another homeschooled kid of the center. His mother, Susan Pinette, and his father are both University of Maine professors. After one year in France, they moved back to Maine when Aaron was starting 2 grade.” He was unhappy and we were too. The way school understood teaching (lots of testing, strict schedules, sitting in class for six hours…). We agree testing is part of teaching but not all of it. Also, he was having problems keeping the attention, sitting still. They tried to help him the way they help every student, but each one is different and it wasn´t working for him. He was just feeling not as good as the others.” explains Pinette. “Here, he comes and play and learns things he is interesting on. Last week, they talked about migration and birds and he had to create his own board game related to that topic Sometimes they go outside on a field trip as part of a curriculum about nature”. They combine that with English, french and history lessons at home as well as an academy computer program for maths. Currently, Aaron is in 3 grade and he is completing 6-grade maths successfully.
Parents and students both agree that the state of Maine has a very flexible homeschooling regulation so the paperwork is minimal. Signing a paper stating that the child won´t be attending public school and the end of the year, show progress through a test or a certified teacher is enough. Although this aspect is very helpful for those families who make the decision of homeschooling their kids, it can be also polemic since parents (and in this case also academic educators) don´t have to demonstrate extended knowledge in every area.
In general, education at home is proving to be a successful academic method. Balanguer has a current GPA of 3.7 in Bioengineering and she is planning to do a master in tissue engineering. She admits her major is a competitive area and it requires hard work and been time efficient, but homeschooling gave her the ability to manage time better and focus on learning. Elizabeth Allan´s older children are in University (Cornell and Wellesley College) and they are both doing well. Susan Pinette plans to reintroduce her son in public school next year and decide what to take from it and what is better to keep teaching him at home. Looking upon adult life, a previous study researching on adults who were home-educated, found that “they tended to be involved in entrepreneurial and professional occupations, were fiercely independent, and strongly emphasized the importance of family”.
In the end, as Debby Bell Smith states “Some people are positivily impact, take advantage of this and the liberty of time; others don’t socialize, become academic failures and don’t know how to face the world. Every family is a different world and every kid has different needs and therefore precise one education or another one”.
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