Monday, November 19, 2007

Welcome to Guerrilla Homeschooling

I first heard about homeschooling when I directed a children's theater and met several parents who were teaching their children at home. That was in 1983, three years before my first child was born.

I knew, right from the start, my child would never attend public school so I began my quest for any and all the information I could find on homeschooling. At the time there was little information to be found.

Fortunately, I found a copy of Home Education Magazine at the local library and ordered a subscription for myself. I also ordered several publications from Home Education Magazine's wonderful catalog.

Homeschooling books were few and far between on the book store shelves but one of the first books I found and read was Teach Your Own by John Holt. After reading this book I was completely hooked on homeschooling. I knew for certain this would be the route I would take to give my child a real education and to keep the government out of my business.

I was surprised to learn my greatest obstacle to homeschooling would not be time, money or curriculum, but it would be the resistance of a few family members and several friends. Because of the doubts these people had about my choice I began the time-consuming task of finding and compiling enough information to convince them my daughter would still receive an education despite her absence from public school.

I spent a small fortune on books and magazine subscriptions, but the money was well invested. Not only did I find enough information to pass along to the skeptics but my own confidence received an incredible boost from all the research. I now have an extensive reference library as well.

The need to educate others about homeschooling became the impetus for creating and publishing Right At Home, a quarterly home education newsletter. Right At Home was first published in 1993. Within the first three years of publication it grew from a one sheet, two sided newsletter to eight pages of book reviews, homeschooling information, resources, political commentary, children's art, poetry and more.

This blog is a compilation of some of the information from Right At Home along with up to date news reports, research, resources, book reviews, stories, writings, ramblings and other information about homeschooling.

The books on the suggested reading list are highly recommended for homeschooling parents and others who want to take back control of their child's education. I hope you, the reader of this blog, find the information enlightening and empowering. More importantly, I hope this information brings you closer to healing your family in this chaotic world that is controlled by those who think they know what is best for us and our children. You'll soon discover, as I did, we parents are truly the ones who know best how to raise our own children.

My first born child is now 21 years old. She did eventually attend a private preschool but only for four days after both she and I could no longer tolerate the nonsense being heaped on the two of us. To this day she jokingly refers to herself as a preschool dropout. She is a lovely girl who has been attending college part time since the age of 15, she owns and operates her own business, she is an artist, plays classical piano and is a certified firefighter. Our son is 16, plays jazz piano, enjoys working on cars, loves to travel, and is enrolled at a community college. He has never attended public or private school, not even preschool.

I, myself, have become a home education advocate and have published several homeschooling booklets. I am very outspoken about the pros and cons of homeschooling and forced public schooling. Prepare to be enlightened and, quite possibly, startled with some refreshing views and ideas about education. Brace yourself for what is sure to be a raucous ride into the world of guerrilla homeschooling.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi, I enjoy your blog, the great quote -- John Taylor Gatto's reference to the 1906 "Philosophy of Education" -- and more. I am a homeschooling mother of 4, also active with my kids in foreign language children's theater. I have a blog at atom5/informaledcommunity, and I thought I would provide a link to your site.