ARTICLES

Study with Mom, Star at Harvard

HOMESCHOOLING IN THE BAY AREA

By Joan Frawley Desmond

Monday morning, 8:30 a.m. Most parents have just completed the race to dress and feed their children before the trip to school. But in the San Francisco household of Vivian and Glenn Dudro, the Catholic family of six lingers over the breakfast table. There's no rush, for the children's classroom is in their home, not across town. They still have time to help with the dishes before starting a half day of classes on math, English, Egyptian history, Latin and Greek roots, religion and science taught by their mother.

Twenty years ago, the Dudros' homeschooling efforts would have provoked a visit from the local authorities. Today, the stronger legal position of home education in many states means that families like the Dudros are no longer an anomaly. Indeed, the 1997 National Spelling Bee champion, Rebecca A. Sealfon, 13, is being educated at her New York home.

Homeschooling now attracts half a million families concerned about the nation's declining test scores, the moral chaos in many U.S. schools, and the inability of a monolithic public school system to reach children with special needs and interests. Further, as more children are educated at home, a growing number of homeschooling curriculum and guidance services -- secular and religious, classical and New Age -- have smoothed the way for parents and their young students. Some of the best Catholic curriculum materials have also inspired the establishment of small, home-like traditional schools that disdain secular mainstream textbooks in favor of rigorous Catholic materials and Great Books.

The news-making successes of homeschoolers have forced professional educators to take a second look at this new movement, particularly after two homeschooled brothers graduated at the top of their respective classes at Harvard University. The brothers' academic honors confirmed that home education could equal the quality of academic preparation at elite U.S. prep schools. Harvard now has a full-time admissions officer screening applications from students educated at home. Though many Americans still fret that home-educated children lack the proper "socialization" to succeed in a culturally diverse world, this criticism hardly fazes Catholic parents like the Dudros. They argue that U.S. children spend too much time with their peers and too little time with adults modeling good moral values and mature, responsible behavior.

Throughout the nation, more children spend their days away from home and their parents in daycare, afterschool programs and organized sports. Consciously resisting this trend, homeschooling families celebrate their ability to focus on family relationships and spiritual growth. In their homes, unhurried children have the leisure for individualized academic and artistic pursuits, family prayer, and character-building tasks like the care of younger siblings.

"We considered homeschooling after we noticed the striking qualities of homeschooled children," recalls Glenn Dudro, an accountant in San Francisco. "The children seemed more mature and self-reliant, and their example planted the seed for us." The poor quality of the neighborhood public school and the financial cost of sending their child to the local parochial school also led the couple to consider homeschooling.

Four years later, the experiment has worked out surprisingly well. Though Vivian Dudro, a college graduate and freelance writer, had no previous experience with teaching, her oldest child, a third- grader, reads above grade level, writes compositions, and has mastered multiplication and division.

Once the Dudros' son completes his daily three-hour morning schedule of formal schooling, he has ample time for doing chores, pursuing his interest in the Second World War, practicing the piano, participating in a local choir and playing team sports.

The Dudros readily admit that the juggling act of educating two active boys, while keeping two younger daughters occupied, is no easy feat. Glenn Dudro describes himself as the "principal" and he is occasionally called in to restore order, provide tutoring support or discuss the children's progress. Though most fathers of home- educated children work at outside jobs, their supportive role is viewed as an essential ingredient of successful homeschooling.

But such parents need not struggle alone with the social and academic issues that arise during the school year. The Dudros take advantage of the huge range of educational resources assisting such families. Their sons are enrolled in St. Thomas Aquinas Academy, a private California school specializing in curriculum guidance for homeschooling families.

"The director of St. Thomas Aquinas Academy makes it her business to keep apprised of curriculum materials," said Vivian Dudro, explaining why she uses a curriculum guidance service. Mrs. Dudro relies on Deborah Yonan, the experienced co-director of the academy, to assess her children's academic strengths and weaknesses and organize the weekly lesson plan.

The Dudros keep a file of their sons' academic work and tests, sending these portfolios, along with quarterly grades, to Mrs. Yonan. Thus the Dudro children are enrolled officially as students at the academy, which keeps all their records.

St. Thomas Aquinas Academy files an affidavit on the family's behalf with the county, fulfilling the California state requirement to maintain compliance with truancy laws. The state Education Code allows parents with homeschooled children to choose between four different options, according to Michael Smith, vice-president of Homeschool Legal Defense Association, based in Virginia.

"California is one of 11 states that permits home education via the private school exemption," notes Mr. Smith. "Home-based schools qualify as private schools, so parents can file their own affidavit to avoid truancy charges. Students can also affiliate with an independent learning program run by a private school, or they can enroll with a similar program run through the public school system. A tutorial directed by a certified teacher, possibly a parent, is another option."

Some county education officials in California dispute the position of the state department of education, which has permitted homeschooling. A number of California parents, who filed their own affidavits, have received letters stating that they are in violation of truancy laws. Smith reports that two homeschooling families were formally charged in Santa Maria, but the cases have since been thrown out.

These limited challenges to home-based schools are routinely addressed at conferences and monthly meetings that draw homeschooling parents. At these meetings, some parents vent their anxiety that state laws permitting their efforts could be reversed by hostile officials. Still, most participants at these gatherings express more interest in trading tips on home education than preparing for future legal battles.

Regular discussions and outings through various homeschooling groups, such as the San Francisco- based Sacred Heart Home Education Association, allow mothers like Vivian Dudro to exchange ideas about a host of related subjects, from hands-on math programs to raising adolescents.

This year, the Sacred Heart Home Education Association organized seasonal events, including an All Saints' Day costume party, and field trips to local museums, including a presentation on the Christmas star at the San Francisco planetarium. Yet the main draw is the group's Catholic identity, and mothers and children meet every first Friday for Mass and a picnic, where the children play games and the mothers report the month's triumphs and tragedies.

The Dudro boys participate in a variety of local sports and cultural activities, but some Catholic homeschoolers are more isolated. Their cautious parents see little benefit in exposing the children to the questionable influences of a society perceived to be in serious moral decline. Thus the children rarely go outside their family circle. In some cases, though these students receive a superior academic education, their parents do not encourage them to attend college.

Such families do not constitute the norm and their calculated withdrawal from mainstream society is viewed with concern by some advisors to Catholic groups in the field. However, even active families like the Dudros can provoke the censure of some educators, as well as parents of school-educated children. These critics argue that the products of home education are ill-prepared for a world--and an economy--that prizes collaborative skills and social sophistication.

Faced with these familiar arguments, most Catholic homeschoolers have a ready answer, one reflecting a deep conviction that homeschooling can help repair the disintegration of American families and the moral crisis rocking the country.

"When I worked as a teacher's aide in a public school, I decided that I didn't want my kids there. I saw how uncharitable the children were in the playground--that was the socialization the students were getting and I didn't see it addressed by many teachers," says Valerie Scadden.

A homeschooling parent in San Jose who meets monthly with a group of mothers and children at Our Lady of Peace Church in Santa Clara, Scadden recalls that she was equally disenchanted with the lack of solid academic content in the teacher training courses she took at San Jose State University. She turned to homeschooling as a solution to the social and academic problems that have tarnished the reputation of the public school system.

Katie Short, a homeschooling mother of six in Atherton, and an attorney who defends prolife activists in court, hasn't signed up her children for the local soccer team or for little league. However, her sons and daughters spend about half the day puttering around the back yard, biking to the local library, reading, and visiting tidepools and wildlife.

Though the Shorts' school-age children are only tutored in math, reading and writing, the oldest boy scored above the 90th percentile on national tests covering science and social studies. Mrs. Short assumes that her son picked up the information during his long hours devoted to reading a self-selected assortment of books and encyclopedias. Another son used some of his free time designing and making a boat that the family took out on a nearby lake.

Homeschooling parents like Mrs. Short believe that the extended American school day crowds out both family relationships and time for thinking and even dreaming. Recalls Laura Berquist of Ojai, author of the popular Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum: A Guide to Catholic Home Education:

"When we started homeschooling, our children started playing with each other. We relinquished the view that they had to play with kids their own age during the day. We were able to go to daily Mass. My husband, a philosopher at Thomas Aquinas College, also liked the idea that our children had more free time, so there was time to think."

Dynamic home-based educators like Berquist, a featured speaker at homeschooling conferences, are shaking up preconceptions about the content and the goal of elementary and secondary Catholic education. Berquist, and other advocates of a classical Catholic education, have furnished the intellectual firepower and curriculum resources for small, lay-run schools devoted to the restoration of Catholic faith and culture through education.

While many Catholic schools--private and parochial--offer a curriculum that employs the same secular textbooks as non-religious schools, Berquist is an unabashed supporter of a distinctly Catholic curriculum that rests on a challenging selection of Catholic readers and history books, reinforced with great literature, poetry memorization and instruction in Latin and Greek. Not every text recommended by Berquist is specifically "Catholic," but the goal of her academic plan is to "learn the art of learning," through the study of Catholic teaching, traditional pedagogical methods that have disappeared from most schools, and the pursuit of the three ideals of classical and medieval learning--the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.

The transformation of these towering educational ideals into a weekly syllabus for a third-grader is a difficult task. However, Catholic educators like Laura Berquist, Deborah Yonan of St. Thomas Aquinas Academy, and Francis Crotty and Diane Muth of Kolbe Academy in Napa now offer age-appropriate curriculum designed to produce virtuous and intellectually prepared young Catholics. Kolbe Academy, which has enrolled about 800 families, publishes its own catalogue, allowing parents to buy textbooks directly from the school.

Berquist's curriculum philosophy and methods are spelled out in her manual, which includes lengthy lists of literature, poetry, religion and history books--along with math and science texts. She also runs a private school, Mother of Divine Grace, that enrolls about 350 homeschoolers and provides consulting sessions that help parents design individualized academic programs and identify solutions to problems that crop up during the year.

The entire homeschooling movement supports the view that parents must retain full authority for their children's educational, spiritual and moral growth. In the larger field of American education, some professional educators reject increased parental involvement. They even argue that parental wishes, regarding sex education or phonics instruction, for example, must be pushed aside. In contrast, homeschooling consultants bolster the parents' confidence as the primary educators of their children.

"In my experience, most parents are trying to do the right thing," reports Berquist, who adds that only one family has withdrawn from her program. "Homeschooling can also be seen as another path toward salvation. We grow up by taking care of our children. When you want to read a book, instead of doing a lesson plan, you stop and say, 'That won't work.'"

Some parents, including Mrs. Berquist, describe homeschooling as suprisingly "easy," while mothers like Vivian Dudro readily pay for additional support. Burnout is not unheard of: there are numerous stories of frustrated parents sending the kids back to school. But most Catholic mothers who teach their children at home view the task through the prism of faith, and this provides considerable comfort during good and bad times.

"Educating children at home is a kind of crucible," agrees Vivian Dudro, who is already starting lesson plans for next fall. "At times it can be difficult to do--the character defects of both the children and the parents seem especially clear when you are together all day. But, the closeness leads to moments of real joy and a recognition that our daily work together is a great preparation for the soul."

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