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100 Reasons to Homeschool Your Kids

June 6, 2019June 6, 2019 Kerry McDonald

This is my 100th article for FEE.org, so here are 100 reasons to homeschool your kids!

Homeschoolers perform well academically.
Your kids may be happier.
Issues like ADHD might disappear or become less problematic.
It doesn’t matter if they fidget.
YOU may be happier! All that time spent on your kids’ homework can now be used more productively for family learning and living.
You can still work and homeschool.
And even grow a successful business while homeschooling your kids.
Your kids can also build successful businesses, as many grown unschoolers become entrepreneurs.
You can be a single parent and homeschool your kids.
Your kids can be little for longer. Early school enrollment has been linked by Harvard researchers with troubling rates of ADHD diagnosis. A year can make a big difference in early childhood development.
Some of us are just late bloomers. We don’t all need to be on “America’s early-blooming conveyor belt.”
Then again, homeschooling can help those kids who might be early bloomers and graduate from college at 16.
Whether early, late, or somewhere in the middle, homeschooling allows all children to move at their own pace.
You can choose from a panoply of curriculum options based on your children’s needs and your family’s educational philosophy.
Or you can focus on unschooling, a self-directed education approach tied to a child’s interests.
Homeschooling gives your kids plenty of time to play! In a culture where childhood free play is disappearing, preserving play is crucial to a child’s health and well-being.
They can have more recess and less homework.
You can take advantage of weekly homeschool park days, field trips, classes, and other gatherings offered through a homeschooling group near you.
Homeschooling co-ops are growing, so you can find support and resources.
Homeschooling learning centers are sprouting worldwide, prioritizing self-directed education and allowing more flexibility to more families who want to homeschool.
Parks, beaches, libraries, and museums are often less crowded during school hours, and many offer programming specifically for homeschoolers.
You’re not alone. Nearly two million US children are homeschooled, and the homeschooling population is increasingly reflective of America’s diversity. In fact, the number of black homeschoolers doubled between 2007 and 2011.
One-quarter of today’s homeschoolers are Hispanic-Americans who want to preserve bilingualism and family culture.
Some families of color are choosing homeschooling to escape what they see as poor academic outcomes in schools, a curriculum that ignores their cultural heritage, institutional racism, and disciplinary approaches that disproportionately target children of color.
More military families are choosing homeschooling to provide stability and consistency through frequent relocations and deployments.
While the majority of homeschoolers are Christians, many Muslim families are choosing to homeschool, as are atheists.
Homeschooling has wide bipartisan appeal.
More urban parents are choosing to homeschool, prioritizing family and individualized learning.
Religious freedom may be important to many homeschooling families, but it is not the primary reason they choose to homeschool. “Concern about the school environment, such as safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure” is the top motivator according to federal data.
Fear of school shootings and widespread bullying are other concerns that are prompting more families to consider the homeschooling option.
Some parents choose homeschooling because they are frustrated by Common Core curriculum frameworks and frequent testing in public schools.
Adolescent anxiety, depression, and suicide decline during the summer, but Vanderbilt University researchers found that suicidal tendencies spike at back-to-school time. (This is a pattern opposite to that of adults, who experience more suicidal thoughts and acts in the summertime.) Homeschooling your kids may reduce these school-induced mental health issues.
It will also prevent schools from surreptitiously collecting and tracking data on your child’s mental health.
Your kids’ summertime can be fully self-directed, as can the rest of their year.
That’s because kids thrive under self-directed education.
Some kids are asking to be homeschooled.
And they may even thank you for it.
Today’s teens aren’t working in part-time or summer jobs like they used to. Homeschooling can offer time for valuable teen work experience.
It can also provide the opportunity to cultivate teen entrepreneurial skills.
Your kids don’t have to wait for adulthood to pursue their passions.
By forming authentic connections with community members, homeschoolers can take advantage of teen apprenticeship programs.
Some apprenticeship programs have a great track record on helping homeschoolers build important career skills and get great jobs.
Self-directed learning centers for teen homeschoolers can provide a launchpad for community college classes and jobs while offering peer connection and adult mentoring.
With homeschooling, you can inspire your kids to love reading.
Maybe that’s because they will actually read books, something one-quarter of Americans reported not doing in 2014.
Your kids might even choose to voluntarily read financial statements or do worksheets.
You can preserve their natural childhood creativity.
Schools kill creativity, as Sir Ken Robinson proclaims in his TED Talk, the most-watched one ever.
Homeschooling might even help your kids use their creativity in remarkable ways, as other well-known homeschoolers have done.
With homeschooling, learning happens all the time, all year round. There are no arbitrary starts and stops.
You can take vacations at any time of the year without needing permission from the principal.
Or you can go world-schooling, spending extended periods of time traveling the world together as a family or letting your teens travel the world without you.
Your kids can have healthier lunches than they would at school.
And you can actually enjoy lunch with them rather than being banned from the school cafeteria.
Your kids don’t have to walk through metal detectors, past armed police officers, and into locked classrooms in order to learn.
You can avoid bathroom wars and let your kids go to the bathroom wherever and whenever they want—without raising their hand to ask for permission.
Research shows that teen homeschoolers get more sleep than their schooled peers.
Technological innovations make self-education through homeschooling not only possible but also preferable.
Free, online learning programs like Khan Academy, Duolingo, Scratch, Prodigy Math, and MIT OpenCourseWare complement learning in an array of topics, while others, like Lynda.com and Mango, may be available for free through your local public library.
Schooling was for the Industrial Age, but unschooling is for the future.
With robots doing more of our work, we need to rely more on our distinctly human qualities, like curiosity and ingenuity, to thrive in the Innovation Era.
Homeschooling could be the “smartest way to teach kids in the 21st century,” according to Business Insider.
Teen homeschoolers can enroll in an online high school program to earn a high school diploma if they choose.
But young people don’t need a high school diploma in order to go to college.
Many teen homeschoolers take community college classes and transfer into four-year universities with significant credits and cost-savings. Research suggests that community college transfers also do better than their non-transfer peers.
Homeschooling may be the new path to Harvard.
Many colleges openly recruit and welcome homeschoolers because they tend to be “innovative thinkers.”
But college doesn’t need to be the only pathway to a meaningful adult life and livelihood. Many lucrative jobs don’t require a college degree, and companies like Google and Apple have dropped their degree requirements.
In fact, more homeschooling families from the tech community in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are choosing to homeschool their kids.
Hybrid homeschooling models are popping up everywhere, allowing more families access to this educational option.
Some of these hybrid homeschool programs are public charter schools that are free to attend and actually give families access to funds for homeschooling.
Other education choice mechanisms, like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and tax-credit scholarship programs, are expanding to include homeschoolers, offering financial assistance to those families who need and want it.
Some states allow homeschoolers to fully participate in their local school sports teams and extracurricular activities.
Homeschooling may be particularly helpful for children with disabilities, like dyslexia, as the personalized learning model allows for more flexibility and customization.
Homeschooling is growing in popularity worldwide, especially in India, Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel, and even in China, where it’s illegal.
Homeschooling grants children remarkable freedom and autonomy, particularly self-directed approaches like unschooling, but it’s definitely not the Lord of the Flies.
Homeschooling allows for much more authentic, purposeful learning tied to interests and everyday interactions in the community rather than contrived assignments at school.
Throughout the American colonial and revolutionary eras, homeschooling was the norm, educating leaders like George Washington and Abigail Adams.
In fact, many famous people were homeschooled.
And many famous people homeschool their own kids.
Your homeschooled kids will probably be able to name at least one right protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, something 37 percent of adults who participated in a recent University of Pennsylvania survey couldn’t do.
Homeschooling can be preferable to school because it’s a totally different learning environment. As homeschooling pioneer John Holt wrote in Teach Your Own: “What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for children’s growth in the world is not that it is a better school than the schools but that it isn’t a school at all.”
Immersed in their larger community and engaged in genuine, multi-generational activities, homeschoolers tend to be better socialized than their schooled peers. Newer studies suggest the same.
Homeschoolers interact daily with an assortment of people in their community in pursuit of common interests, not in an age-segregated classroom with a handful of teachers.
Research suggests that homeschoolers are more politically tolerant than others.
They can dig deeper into emerging passions, becoming highly proficient.
They also have the freedom to quit.
They can spend abundant time outside and in nature.
Homeschooling can create strong sibling relationships and tight family bonds.
Homeschooling is legal in all 50 US states and has been since 1993, but regulations vary widely by state.
In spite of ongoing efforts to regulate homeschoolers, US homeschooling is becoming less regulated.
That’s because homeschooling parents are powerful defenders of education freedom.
Parents can focus family learning around their own values, not someone else’s.
Homeschooling is one way to get around regressive compulsory schooling laws and put parents back in charge of their child’s education.
It can free children from coercive, test-driven schooling.
It is one education option among many to consider as more parents opt-out of mass schooling.
Homeschooling is the ultimate school choice.
It is inspiring education entrepreneurship to disrupt the schooling status quo.
And it’s encouraging frustrated educators to leave the classroom and launch their own alternatives to school.
Homeschooling is all about having the liberty to learn.

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Trump’s Trade War Has Probably Permanently Damaged America’s Tech Leadership Position

May 28, 2019May 28, 2019 Thomas L. Knapp

On May 15, US president Donald Trump issued an “Executive Order on Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain.”

Pursuant to that order, a number of firms in the US (including Google, Qualcomm, and Intel) and abroad (including Panasonic and Arm) have reduced or even entirely cut their ties with Chinese firm Huawei.

Beneath the risible national security claims used to justify it, Trump’s order is just another exercise in economic protectionism. He thinks he’s securing America’s position as the world’s leader in the tech sector. In reality, he’s demolishing that position.

Huawei is just one company, but it’s a big one. It sells its products and services in more than 170 countries and to 45 of the world’s 50 largest telecom operators. One third of the world’s population uses its networks.

Trump isn’t just cutting Huawei out of the US. He’s also cutting American companies out of lucrative relationships with Huawei.

Huawei will soon lose access to Google’s Android operating system. It’s already been working on its own in-house replacement for some time. It probably also has contingency plans for replacing the Intel, Qualcomm, and Arm chips in its phones with chips produced in China — perhaps by Huawei itself.

Nothing Trump does can likely put Huawei out of business. He can temporarily hurt it, but he can’t permanently kill it. The most momentous effect of his order is to put Huawei on notice that it must not, under any circumstances, ever again find itself at the mercy of US suppliers and of the US government’s good will.

If Trump “wins” his trade wars, will Huawei go back to using the US suppliers it was just cut off from? That’s very unlikely. Once bitten, twice shy.

Other global tech companies and other governments are watching, and unless they’re stupid they’re drawing the same conclusions. If it can happen to Huawei, it can happen to them. No matter the immediate outcome, Trump’s stunt has done irreparable long-term damage to global trust in America’s tech giants.

As for those American companies, if they’re smart they’re already looking into what it will take to move their executive functions, and as much of their operations as possible, offshore, for the same reasons. They’re in business to make money, not to serve the whims of economically illiterates like Donald Trump.

The Trump trade bubble is bursting. The fallout isn’t pretty. And it’s going to get worse.

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Walled Gardens of the Infocalypse

May 27, 2019May 27, 2019 Isaac Morehouse

A friend once called the plummeting cost of information “The Infocalypse”. So much info flying everywhere might soon fry our brains.

A bit dramatic, but there’s an economic reality here. Info costs were the main driver of many social and commercial institutions and relationships for most of human history. They keep dropping, changing everything.

When they get low enough, the most important structures may move from those that lower info costs to those that raise it. Or at least raise the cost of certain types of info to leave space just for the desired kind in a sea of noise.

It’s possible the wide open web will be considered gauche before long, and semi-private communities and gated, filtered, managed info markets will take over.

The internet is so, so young. It may look nothing like itself in a decade or two.

How exciting!

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The Value of a Self-Directed Summer for Kids

April 24, 2019April 24, 2019 Kerry McDonald

It’s all over the news these days. Kids are stressed-out, not playing, and, most worrisome, experiencing sharp increases in depression and suicide.

Last month, a new paper published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology revealed that adolescent mental health has deteriorated over the last decade, with soaring depression rates for young people ages 14 to 17. This month, a research paper published in JAMA Pediatrics found that between 2007 and 2015, the number of children and adolescents who visited hospital emergency rooms for suicidal thoughts and actions doubled. The average age of the suicidal child was 13. Dr. Gene Beresin, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston who was not involved with the study, told CNN in response to the new research. He said that

Kids are feeling more pressure to achieve, more pressure in school, and are more worried about making a living than in previous years.

So what can parents do?

Self-Directed Activities Reduce Stress

Childhood anxiety and depression can be linked to a high-pressure environment and not feeling in control of one’s life and circumstances. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that anxiety and depression are a major concern for teens and that academics are a top stressor. Parents can help to reduce this pressure-cooker environment by prioritizing self-directed activities over structured, school-like ones. Summertime can be a great place to start.

Rather than continuing a schooled schedule of structured camps, adult-led enrichment activities, and academic catch-up, parents can use summertime to grant their children true freedom and agency. Let them be kids, with wide open days to fill as they choose, pursuing their own interests.

But won’t they just play video games or stare at their smartphones all day? It’s possible that after such a programmed academic year, young people may need to decompress a bit. Video games may be something that kids gravitate toward initially, as they often provide a sense of control sorely lacking from many young people’s lives. Smartphones, social media, and other technologies are often vilified as exacerbating adolescent anxiety and depression—despite new research showing that this is not the case.

A key characteristic of a self-directed summer, though, is that if young people are given real freedom combined with the opportunity to explore and discover, they likely won’t languish long in front of a screen. Laura Kriegel and Jack Schott, who run Camp Stomping Ground, a fully self-directed summer camp in New York, confirm this. Unlike most summer camps, Camp Stomping Ground allows young people to be fully in control of their camp experience.

Many activities are offered, but nothing is required, and it is possible that kids could just lounge around on their phones the entire time. But it just doesn’t happen, say Laura and Jack. It’s hard to stay sedentary and alone, they say, when giant shaving cream wars are happening outside or interesting, optional classes are offered with dynamic camp counselors. According to Laura:

Stomping Ground offers choice-based programming that lets kids decide, try and quit. This autonomy and trust build more authentic relationships and empower kids to be their best selves.

Enrichment Activities Can Be Counterproductive

Autonomy and choice are central to a self-directed summer, in contrast to the control and regimentation that define so many children’s days all year round. Parents from all socio-economic backgrounds face mounting pressure to have their children’s summer days filled with structured, and often expensive, enrichment activities; but poorer parents may confront the most coercion.

In an effort to close the academic achievement gap between poor and affluent students and prevent alleged summer learning loss, school districts across the country increasingly offer full-day, academic summer programs for low-income students. The result, however, is that poorer children may have even fewer opportunities for play and self-direction than their wealthier peers.

To overcome this disparity, and to help prioritize self-directed summer play for low-income, urban children, Janice O’Donnell launched Providence PlayCorps in Rhode Island in 2014. As the longtime director of the Providence Children’s Museum, Janice lamented the loss of childhood free play she witnessed during her 30+ year career. To bring back play to urban neighborhoods, she implemented PlayCorps in public parks across the city. Kids can come and go as they wish to the designated parks that are staffed with young adults trained in play work.

Parents and children alike feel the increased pressure of academics and enrichment activities.

The facilitators, many of whom grew up in the city, are there if needed, but they know not to interfere with or direct the children’s play. Instead, they offer various materials and creative supplies, like cardboard boxes, scraps of cloth, tools and “junkyard” materials, balls and ropes, and so on, that the children can incorporate into their free play if they choose. PlayCorps has been so well-received that it is has expanded to include a self-directed after-school program during the school year, in addition to its summer program.

Parents and children alike feel the increased pressure of academics and enrichment activities. Parents want their children to succeed, and children don’t want to let their parents down. This race to the elusive top, however, is causing many young people to experience severe anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. These kids may be “succeeding,” but they’re miserable. Parents can take charge and halt this pattern of overwhelmed and over-scheduled children. They can begin by using summer as a launching pad to a freer, more self-directed, more play-filled, and happier life for their children and teens.

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Focus as an Antidote for Wanting to Do Everything

April 9, 2019April 9, 2019 Leo Babauta

I have a problem, and I think most people do as well: I want to do everything.

OK, not actually every single thing, but I want to do more than I possibly can:

I want to do everything on my long to-do list, today
I want to take on every interesting project
I want to say yes to everyone else’s requests, even if I know I’m already too busy
I want to travel everywhere, and see everything that’s interesting
I want to try every delicious food, and I always want more of it (and I always eat too much)
I want to watch every interesting TV show and film
I want to read everything interesting online
I want to take on a lot of interesting hobbies — each of which would take me many hours to master
I want to spend time with everyone I love, with every friend — and also have a lot of time for solitude!

Obviously, this is all impossible. But I bet I’m not alone in constantly wanting all of this and more.

There’s a term for this in Buddhism that sounds judgmental but it’s not: “greed.” The term “greed” in this context just describes the very human tendency to want more of what we want.

It’s why we’re overloaded with too many things to do, overly busy and overwhelmed. It’s why we’re constantly distracted, why we overeat and shop too much and get addicted to things. It’s why we have too much stuff, and are in debt.

Greed is so common that we don’t even notice it. It’s the foundation of our consumerist society. It’s the ocean that we’re swimming, so much a part of the fabric of our lives that we can’t see that it’s there.

So what can we do about this tendency called greed? Is there an antidote?

There absolutely is.

The traditional antidote to greed in Buddhism is generosity. And while we will talk about the practice of generosity, the antidote I’d like to propose you try is focus.

Focus is a form of simplicity. It’s letting go of everything that you might possibly want, to give complete focus on one important thing.

Imagine that you want to get 20 things done today. You are eager to rush through them all and get through your to-do list! But instead of indulging in your greed tendency, you decide to simplify. You decide to focus.

Let’s talk about the practice of complete focus. It can be applied to all of the

The Practice of Complete Focus

This practice can be applied to all of the types of greed we mentioned above — wanting to do everything, read everything, say yes to everything, go everywhere, eat all the things.

Identify the urge: The first step in this practice is to recognize that your greed tendency is showing itself. Notice that you want to do everything, eat everything, and so forth. Once we’re aware of the tendency, we can work with it.

See the effects: Next, we need to recognize that indulging in the greed tendency only hurts us. It makes us feel stressed, overwhelmed, always unsatisfied. It makes us do and eat and watch and shop too much, to the detriment of our sleep, happiness, relationships, finances and more. Indulging might satisfy a temporary itch, but it’s not a habit that leads to happiness or fulfillment.

Practice refraining: Third, we can choose to refrain — choose not to indulge. The practice of refraining is about not indulging in the greed tendency, and instead pausing. Noticing the urge to indulge, and mindfully noticing how the urge feels in our body, as a physical sensation. Where is it located? What is it like? Be curious about it. Stay with it for a minute or two. Notice that you are actually completely fine, even if the urge is really strong. It’s just a sensation.

Focus with generosity: Then we can choose to be generous and present with one thing. Instead of trying to do everything, choose just one thing. Ideally, choose something that’s important and meaningful, that will have an impact on the lives of others, even if only in a small way. Let this be an act of generosity for others. Let go of everything else, just for a few minutes, and be completely with this one thing. Generously give it your full attention. This is your love.

Clear distractions: If necessary, create structure to hold you in this place of focus. That might mean shutting off the phone, turning off the Internet, going to a place where you can completely focus. Think of it as creating your meditation space.

Practice with the resistance: As you practice focus, you are likely to feel resistance towards actually focusing and doing this one thing. You’ll want to go do something else, anything else. You’ll feel great aversion to doing this one thing. It’s completely fine. Practice with this resistance as you did with the urge: noticing the physical sensation, meditating on it with curiosity, staying with it with attention and love. Again, it’s just a sensation, and you can learn to love it as you can any experience.

Let go of everything, and generously give your complete focus to one thing. Simplify, and be completely present.

You can do this with your urge to do all tasks, read all things, do all hobbies, say yes to all people and projects. But you can also do it with possessions: choose just to have what you need to be happy, and simplify by letting go of the rest. You can do the same with travel: be satisfied with where you are, or with going to one place and fully being there with it.

You don’t need to watch everything, read everything, eat everything. You can simplify and do less. You can let go and be present. You can focus mindfully.

If you’d like to train in this kind of focus, train with me in my Mindful Focus Course.

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Climate Strike

March 19, 2019 Verbal Vol

I was the chauffeur last Friday who took my youngest granddaughters to the Climate Strike demonstration in front of the Fayette County, KY, Courthouse. I did this at the request of their mother, my daughter, the hydrologist who works for the Kentucky Environmental Protection Agency. The young women are a teen and a pre-teen on the cusp.

These may seem to be odd arrangements and relationships for someone, such as I, who has a very decided stance on global warming. Just last week, I wrote a blog entry that criticized those who would hide behind complexity. But I will hasten to add that global warming is very complicated — too complicated for humans, apparently. Let me make some observations:

I supported my granddaughters and my daughter because I support their spirit of civil disobedience. The point of the climate strike was that school children would skip school to express their impatience with the seeming complacency of their elders.
I was concerned for the safety of my granddaughters. This turned out to be misoverestimated, but I am a contemporary of those gunned down at Kent State University, so I always get queasy when people come up against the police state.
I had lots of time on the 60 mile round-trip to Lexington to share information with my granddaughters — and I have the rest of my lifetime as well, just so long as we expect one another to be rational.
Most of our climate information comes to us from people whose hair is on fire — the media, the deniers, the protesters, the promoters, and the politicians. How many pictures have we seen just this year of the edge of the ice. There is always an edge to the ice! Somewhere! The Earth is not covered in solid ice. Yet these photos are presented to us as evidence that all the ice in the world is melting at a breakneck pace.
At demonstrations, you will nearly always hear that you must vote. I pointed out to the young women that those of us who are over 18 only get to vote against Mitch McConnell once every 6 years, while the coal industry gets to vote every day, with dollars. The deck is stacked.
One of the entities at the Lexington event, distributing flyers and speaking through a bullhorn, was the Kentucky Democratic Socialists. They claimed to have an environmental project to justify their presence, but one suspects they have a project for every occasion. Their agenda suggests that they were politicizing this event.
The crowd was underwhelming. About twenty minutes in, I counted just over forty people, and school children were less than half of that number.
Three suits watched us from the vestibule of the federal courthouse. US Marshals? FBI?
Most of the high school students who spoke at the event were articulate, but they are the outliers.
Although I am a scientist, I am jaded about people who claim that authority as their main argument for a holding. As a scientist, I always suspect fortune telling and handwaving.
It would not surprise me if the world were indeed in a warming phase, of some finite duration.
It would surprise me to find that there is some set of incontrovertible evidence predicting the future. I am reminded of Butch Cassidy‘s movie prognostication that “The fall will probably kill ya.” Are we sure that nothing else will get us before global warming does?
Do we think that politicians even care? Do we think that corporate CEO’s, who are concerned only with this year’s books, care about the future?
Anthropogenic is the 50 cent word we use to show we are smart enough not to insist that humans take the blame for global warming. Human nature is part of Nature. We are the ones who buy extended cab pickup trucks and Mercedes SUV’s as soon as gas prices dip slightly.
Do we think that people, who have been engaged in war throughout their history, will suddenly do something that makes sense?
Do we think the Earth was created only for the short term health and welfare of the few generations living today?
I am not a denier. I am not a decrier. I am not a seer. I am not a fearmonger. I am not a scientist who thinks he is part of a priesthood.

— Verbal Vol

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