jaeger-babe:

A rant from a former homeschooled child

Listen. Listen to me.

If you’re a parent and you decide to homeschool your child YOU are responsible for giving them an education that will benefit them into their adult life. YOU as the PARENT need to take the initiative to teach your child. Your child is not responsible for their own schooling.

Learning is HARD. Learning about math gets harder the more complex it gets, it is discouraging. If you are not prepared to help your child and encourage them to learn and understand difficult and advanced math, you should not homeschool.

It is HARD to learn history and names and dates and science and grammar structure when they want to play outside.

It is your job to teach them anyway. You have made the conscious choice to withhold your child from school and teach them yourselves. It is not your place to give up when your child doesn’t want to learn.

It is not your place to give your child schoolbooks and expect them to teach themselves.

The second you decide to take schooling into your own hands you do not get to pass that responsiblity onto your child.

You alone are responsible for teaching them things appropriate for their age. The older a child gets the more selective their interests may get. You can discuss them researching and learning more about that topic on their own , but you do not get to step away and let them handle the entirety of their own education.

You are responsible for teaching them.

My mother homeschooled me my whole life and while I know I’m not unintelligent by any means, I know there are some topics on which I am extremely ignorant because I was never taught about them.

My mother neglected my schooling and refused to put me in school even when I begged. I did not learn any history apart from her Jewish stories and the WW2 documentaries my older brother watched on TV.

All of my English is self-taught because of fanfiction.

I cannot do most forms of math, and rely heavily on google and have to use overly complicated ways to figure out numbers with my job.

I did not have any education in science until I reached 10th grade and found Khan Academy videos. All of my science has been self-taught.

My mother started every ‘school year’ by selecting ‘grade-appropriate’ books from the back closet of our house. They were all old, outdated, and heavily skewed towards extremeist Christian and Right-Wing views. I would be handed a pile of books and told to learn.

I was not taught. I did not have the capability, as a CHILD, to teach myself.

My mother gets mad when I state how I didn’t receive an education and says that it’s my fault because I didn’t want to learn.

She is wrong. It was not my choice, and it was not my responsibility to teach myself.

So, if you choose to homeschool a child, consider the fact that you will become parent and teacher. Your child may fight you because learning is HARD and BORING and the television or video games or YouTube is much more exciting and fun, but it is your responsibility as their TEACHER to teach them.

You don’t get to be tired and neglect their education. You made that choice and it is your responsibility.