In the line of succession for New Yorkers, I’m second. It’s not bad being second — my husband reads fast. My mom is third, and she has to depend on me to read the darn things and then get them to her in order. My brother apparently gets the dregs from her. I’m guessing for him the New Yorker is like the Ghost of Christmases Past…
So I didn’t find out about this article by reading it — I found out the way I find out most things these days, from my wonderful fellow homeschoolers. They’re always sending out interesting stuff. Amazingly, unlike most groups I’ve belonged to, it’s usually worth reading. OK, the piece about how the UN Charter for the Rights of the Child is causing British authorities to raid homeschoolers’ homes was not exactly informed journalism, but generally pretty much every day something worthwhile comes down the pipe.
Today it was this piece in the New Yorker about high-achieving homeschoolers in New York City. It’s really cool being a homeschooler in semi-rural California reading about what homeschoolers are doing in the great metropolis. My kids are putting their science fair exhibits in the county fair; their kids are onstage in New York. We’re worlds apart in how we live our lives, yet this article seemed so familiar to me.
The writer really hit on the most important themes of homeschooling: kids learn when they want to learn, they learn what they want to learn, and they learn how to learn if there’s something they end up needing to learn. The other themes are also important: homeschooled kids find school kids “mean,” they don’t think of adults as enforcers but as enablers, and they’re a tiny bit concerned about how they’re going to get into college without any transcripts.
But they’re laid back about it. My homeschooled child is only 6, going into 2nd grade, so I love reading interviews with homeschooled teenagers who just seem so relaxed and happy about the way their lives are going. That is definitely not the description I’d give for teenagers I grew up with. There was so much nastiness and stress in my high school life, I finally dropped out. I was lucky to have my mother as a guide. She didn’t homeschool me, but she got me into a program at the university that was set up for bored, frustrated kids like me.
My 6-year-old would probably not be interested in the article, but she gets something similar in her homeschool program when she’s paired with Big Buddies from the middle school. Like the kids in the article, they’re laid back, sweet to the little kids, and they follow their passions.
Homeschooling isn’t the only way (in fact, it’s not the only way even within my family), but it’s definitely a legitimate approach to schooling a child. And now that it’s hit the New Yorker, I feel truly legitimate. I can say to my husband’s New York relatives, look at this! We’ve arrived…. next stop, Broadway!
