Keep it in the family

Home schooling is growing ever faster

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Heston in reply to grinnell

You miss the previous poster's point. Homeschoolers do not "stay home" all day and lock themselves in a closet. Homeschoolers today are not only staying home or going to church.
For a part of the day, we sit and work on some curriculum, yes. But then we are out about about, seeing and experiencing the world and other people through field trips, visits to museums, clubs, parties, theater, events, LARP, classes, sports, park days, co-ops, group music lessons, recitals, performances, hiking, game nights, 4-H, little league, boy scouts, girl scouts, group vacations, etc. As I write this, my kids are at a play date with other several other children.
A typical "school" week in our home? Out of the house for at least part of four out of the five "school" days and out again on the weekends and evenings, interacting with children 3 years younger to 7 years older than my children's ages. Each day brings us into contact with a different set of other homeschooled and public schooled children we interact with on a regular basis, let alone the varied adults we come into contact with.
Then there are play dates and sleepovers, and nights out for the parents to get together!
If my children attended the local school they would associate mostly with a class of 30 children the entire year, all their same age. They would know these same 30 kids for several years as they progressed through the grades. All from a similar socio-economic background in our neighborhood.
When you say that homeschooling allows children to spend their entire lives never having to interact with other types of people, you are actually referring to schooled kids. My children have more access to a wider range of children and adults than if they were in school.
Additionally, my children have the freedom to experience a truly individualized education and have more time in their day to experience all of the above because they can spend their time doing "school" more efficiently. There is more time for them to pursue their passions, more time to become more deeply involved in the things they desire to learn about and experience. They are better "socialized" because they meet and interact with a wider range of types of people while having more adults around more of the time to guide them. In this way there is less opportunity for bullies to bully them, for ostracizing to take place and for my children to be traumatized by same. Wouldn't you want that for your children?
Please become educated about how homeschooling really works, in today's world, before relying on tired, old stereotypes.

Pam Sorooshian




Your comments are interesting but lack any sense of reality. First off, schools teach children things about the world that the school won't admit to, for example, don't trust adults, athletes don't have to follow the rules and the squeaky parent gets the grease. You are concerned about social skills when we live in a world of incompetent jollies who spend their time wasting it on Facebook? Yeah, socialization is not the problem and never has been. Schools are just warehouses for children so their parents can go to work and socialize the raising of their child onto the government.

Melisa Hills in reply to hommer_simpson

So you said you know exactly how many homeschoolers? Because if you knew any, you would know that your concerns were actually unwarranted.... Home educated children's education begins at home, but that doesn't mean it stays at home. It does not mean the children live in isolation, never to interact with another human being until they are 18 and tossed outside of the home to fend for themselves or some other silliness. I really dislike the lack of thought people put into responses like this.



Km2UNR4aSS in reply to jamwizard

I had this concern when my wife proposed moving our kids to home schooling. It proved (at least for us) unfounded.
There r several home schooling networks where we live (Northern California). The kids get a huge amount of socialization through the many events, group classes, and other activities in the network.
I also noticed something else about the home school kids i met - ages 6 thru 18. There was something "different" about them - they seemed to have a social confidence that I did not see in other kids their age. It was pervasive too - i have met perhaps 100 home schooled kids and they just seem to have a confidence that i rarely see in other kids. My theory (albeit based on anecdotal evidence) is that in the home school environment the social situations for the younger kids are more closely watched than in a regular school. We don't see ANY bullying behaviors among these kids. They are somehow being socialized in a different - and apparently positive way.
As for diversity, the racial diversity in our home school group is quite high. And the socio-economic diversity is even higher than our local school have which serve a pretty affluent area. We have kids from parents that live in mobile homes all the way up to quite wealthy families.
And the academic benefits of home schooling have been remarkable. My kids r now all 3 to 4 grade levels ahead based on standard testing. We're really happy with home schooling.
But i do think the socialization concern you raised is probably a real one for home school kids raised in rural areas.







Decentralization of education will continue to spread as the quality of online education improves, The instruction/feedback is just so much superior.

Also the pace of traditional education is abyssmally slow, especially at the lower levels.

"What did you do today at school"

"We made macroni art for the 20th time"

Young Children are very intelligent and inquistive and willing to learn quite rapidly (as they constantly stump parents with questions), for some reason Westerners like to surpress this period (I imagine mainly that many teachers and parents did not have a proper outlet) we've all heard the phrase "you ask too many questions", with online education and decentralization and the increase in outstanding instruction online Children will be able to finally learn naturally and quickly at a much younger age instead of wasting so much time.

No Mist

For much of our evolutionary history of ~3 million years we have been taught in home, mostly by mothers, but also by fathers, uncles and siblings. Congregational schools have appeared very late .. only in the last few thousand years.

It goes without saying that home schooling just cannot be seen as undesirable or immoral ... why was it declared illegal in the first place ?


Means not blindly indoctrinated, that they can think for themselves.


It really doesn't matter what anyone thinks of homeschooling. The kids belong to the parents and no one or nothing else(like gov't)-for now.

Medicine4theDead in reply to grinnell

Your comments are ignorant to say the least, considering that public schools are a modern invention. What country are you talking about again? You think that rural Montana or Minnesota has a diverse mix of cultures in their schools? Hilarious. Schools don't want to talk about incidental learning. These are the things kids learn from school that school doesn't want to admit. First, athletes are better than everyone else. Two, brown-nosers get better grades. Three, the louder your parent the more you get. Four, everyone passes because tax payers would never pay to hold everyone who fails back and the students know this. Five, schools have little to no control over the students or their behavior.



Thank you, Ecomomist, for the mostly positive article on homeschooling in America. My daughter is involved in competitive speech & debate and is on their extemporaneous team. They use your magazine as a main resource for their speeches. I've homeschooled in Texas for over 10 years and am so thankful for the freedoms we have in this state.

grinnell in reply to Heston

I don't believe I am missing any point. My point was that you and your children choose exactly where you go and with whom you interact. You say yourself that basically you are reducing or eliminating the opportunities for them to get bullied. Part of life is learning how to deal with difficult people or people with whom you share so few similarities interacting with them may be uncomfortable. If they never are exposed to difficult people how will they learn that lesson?

Zee Zee in reply to 98point6

Well it depends on what the parents subjectively value. For most homeschooling parents, they would rather give up the wages/productivity for homeschooling their own children.


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