School of Life
January 1st, 2010 by Leigh Ann Roman
Five-year-old Josie Nolen attends a very large school with a great student-teacher ratio. At her school, there is one teacher for two students. The classroom can be her house, her backyard, the Memphis Botanic Garden, or her East Memphis neighborhood. Her school boundaries are invisible, because she is one of an estimated 4,000 children in the Memphis area who are educated at home.
Virginia Nolen says one major reason for home schooling is that her husband often works nights and weekends. Home education allows their three children to spend more time with their dad, Charles Nolen, the organist and choir master at Holy Rosary Catholic Church, where they are parishioners.
“We consider ourselves to be the primary educators of our children,” Nolen says. “I don’t want my kids to be raised by somebody else or spending the majority of their time away from us.”
Homeschooling on the Rise
You hear that sentiment often from parents who home school. The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) estimates more than 1.6 million children are being taught at home, with homeschooling education rising 7 percent annually over the past decade.
John Keller is executive vice president of the Memphis-area Home Education Association (MHEA) — a Christian group supporting home schoolers in which 891 families are registered. “In the home-schooling world you have people on one extreme of not wanting any government intervention (in education) and on the other extreme they are on a mission from God,” he says. “I understand both attitudes. I’m somewhere in the middle. I do know that educating your children and communicating your family values is really critical.”
Inside the Classroom
So what does home schooling look like? Some parents rely on workbooks while others do “unit studies” or projects that bring together several disciplines such as reading, math, composition, and art. A classical model that emphasizes memorization along with an early introduction of Latin is also popular. “Unschoolers” use a more child-directed approach in which children learn naturally in a rich, interesting environment (unschooling.com).
Nolen follows the classical education model and participates in a home school co-op called Classical Conversations (CC). One morning a week, Josie learns with children her age, doing science projects and art. CC is a fast-growing co-op available nationwide with a prescribed curriculum for all grade levels. Families pay a small tuition to fund trained tutors and a director for each group, but parents provide daily instruction and most — especially those with younger children — provide all language arts and math instruction at home. But other co-ops exist as well.
The Nolens are also part of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Homeschool Group that offers a monthly meeting time for Mass, classes, and socializing, field trips and other events including Mom’s Night Out.
Nolen likes the flexibility of homeschooling. When Josie grew bored with her phonics book, another mom suggested Nolen write that day’s lesson on the white board instead of using the book. “It worked,” Nolen says. “And I can say we don’t have to sit around the table and do our math. We can walk around the neighborhood and recite math facts as we go.”
The greatest challenge? Household distractions.
“Being at home with the laundry piling up and dishes in the sink and the phone ringing and emails to be answered, it is very tempting to be distracted from homeschooling,” Nolen says. “I’m learning to be very careful about safeguarding the time we have set aside for homeschooling.”
One-on-One Learning
The genius of home education is the one-on-one tutorial method, says Mike Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), a group that monitors the homeschool laws of all 50 states and provides member families with legal representation and protection.
University of Memphis graduate Niki Richard says she especially appreciated the homeschool setting growing up, because she suffered from test-taking anxiety. At home, she could learn without pressure. And at U of M, she learned to cope by working closely with her professors and completing “a lot of extra credit” to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in business. Now 23, she works part-time in the MHEA office and as a nanny.
Tonya Richard of Oakland, Niki’s mom, is a seasoned homeschool mother of four. Two of her children have graduated from U of M, one is in a nursing program, and her youngest, a high school freshman, is still being schooled at home. She encourages parents to “research the gifting of your child” and work with them where they are.
When Richard’s son was young he couldn’t sit still at a table and do his work well, she says. “I could give him the same math lesson Monday and again on Wednesday. If he stood up on Monday and sat on Wednesday, he would get 100 percent, on Monday and fail on Wednesday.” So, she let him stand up to do his work.
Steve and Amy Ginski of Collierville homeschooled all 11 of their children, and Amy says the children’s participation in cross-country running with their father helped them when they eventually transitioned to Houston High School as freshmen.
“I really think having them in a school sport helped immensely. It was a group they immediately belonged to,” Ginski says.
Seven of the children have graduated from high school as honor students; two are in high school, and she homeschools her third- and seventh-graders. Of her adult children, one is a doctor, another a law student.
“I was excited to expose them to a world of great childhood literature, something we could all share together,” Ginski says. “Our homeschooling experience began with many trips to the library, carrying home as many as 50 books at a time.”
The key to homeschooling success for Ginski is to have a routine in place and resist the pressure to have children constantly involved in outside activities. “When we are too busy with activities outside the home, the stress level increases,’’ she says. “I believe children need ‘down time’ to just be kids – no structure, just free time.”
Six sports are offered through MHEA, and many homeschool graduates from the Memphis area have gone on to win college scholarships in sports, says Tonya Richard. In addition, MHEA lists 10 homeschool support groups on its web site memphishomeschool.org, ranging from those focusing on a particular faith, such as Anglican, to one for African-American homeschoolers.
Dell Self is the founder and support group leader for Ebony Homeschoolers, which has about 35 members. She began homeschooling 11 years ago after struggling to re-teach one of her older sons who was being taught to read without phonics at public school.
“When my children were in school, I was simply dealing with the leftovers – what the school gave back to me at the close of the day. When I homeschool, I’m getting the first fruits to shape and inspire,” says Self, who also is vice president of MHEA.
She plans to continue homeschooling her youngest, 15, until graduation. But she acknowledges it is also easy for homeschooling parents to become overburdened with outside activities.
“In hindsight, I should have limited my involvement in everything and in some cases I should have simply said, ‘No.’ Family time is crucial,” Self says. “Let’s face it, children grow up so fast.”
Leigh Ann Roman homeschools her two grade school children in Virginia.