ARTICLES

Home School Purgatory

Doing It Alone Both Rewarding and Challenging

By Christopher Zehnder

As I sat down to write, I could hear my wife trying to teach my younger son to read. He was not paying attention. How many times, I wondered, would he sound out the syllables "dif-fer-ent" before he decided that they formed the word, "different"? At the same time, our two little daughters (ages three and five) were screaming, and my oldest daughter was moaning over a fraction problem. My wife's self-control was commendable.

My wife and I decided to teach our children at home even before our first was born. The image of happy children, eager to learn, ringed around their mother, all nestled in contentment, was appealing. The reality, we have found, is different. Children (and parents) have more than their share of concupiscence. I do not say that home schooling is hell; but sometimes, it seems, fairly close to purgatory.

I spoke to six home schooling mothers to see whether my wife's and my experience of home schooling were unique. I found it was not. While all asserted its benefits (which they said outweighed its drawbacks), most confessed it was not quite paradise. All seemed to have similar reasons for choosing home schooling and said they were led to it by a consideration of the state of schools today.

Mary Anne Shapiro of San Jose said she became interested in home schooling because she saw "the lack of good schools" and how schools were affecting her nieces and nephews. "One niece," she said, "was in the top reading group in her first grade class in a public school; but when she transferred to a private school, she couldn't read. Her first grade teacher [in the public school] said that as long as his students weren't reversing their letters, he was happy." Mrs. Shapiro's niece didn't get along much better in the private school, however, because, though she had a learning disability, she was "being graded within a context that doesn't take into account disabilities. When those things start happening," said Mrs. Shapiro, "you start taking a step back and saying, 'is it just this particular school?' I guess my desire to home school started out as a dissatisfaction with school and then ended up as a rethinking of education."

Mrs. Shapiro has been home schooling for about 20 years (she taught her nieces and nephews before marrying and having her own children. Now she teaches her three children, ages 11, 9, and 7). She believes home schooling is more in accord with family life. "I think for many years the family, by slow degeneration, became -- you know, you bred these children, and then when they reached a certain age, you began farming them out to other people to teach them and mold them," said Shapiro. "A part of what's happening in society with the degeneration of the family is that, from a very young age, children are pulled away from the family. They never get a sense of bonding, of what it means to be loyal to your family, to have your family be your friend, to be the center of your life, because from the time they are five or six they are always going somewhere else for their education, for their social life -- the whole thing."

Mrs. A (who, like four of the other women interviewed, preferred that we not use her name) said she decided to home school after she read Pope Pius XI's encyclical On Christian Education. "I could not in good conscience send my child to a school that was not Catholic according to the principles set out in the encyclical." She said she was unsure whether home schooling is the ideal form of education, "objectively speaking," but "given the pervasive nature of the secular culture in which we live, I think home schooling is the best option for parents that want to pass on the faith to their children within the context of an authentic Catholic culture." Mrs. A has five children, ages eight, six, three, one, and two months, two of whom she teaches.

Mrs. A said she was encouraged that her children "are being formed by the best things, such as classical music, great literature and poetry, good liturgy and friends from like-minded families. It does my heart good to see my eight-year-old son reading the Bible on his own time, humming Mozart and begging to serve Mass."

When her family lived in Illinois, Mrs. D, who now lives in San Jose, said she began teaching her son at home after she had missed the cut-off date to enroll him in kindergarten. When she discovered that he was learning "as much, if not more," than his sister in first grade who went to school, Mrs. D decided to continue home schooling him. Now, after 11 years, she is still home schooling her son, now a senior in high school, as well as her other children. One is a junior in high school, another in seventh grade, and the third is in second grade. Mrs. D. said she prefers home schooling because it allows for "one on one, as opposed to thirty on one" teaching.

Mary Richards, who teaches three children, grades fifth, third and kindergarten, in San Jose, was for three years a teacher in an independent Catholic school and is married to a teacher. Richards said she chose home schooling because, "I thought, 'I don't have an alternative, and I think I am equipped to do this' -- at least in theory I thought I was. I knew how to read, so I could teach them how to read."

Her experience of schools, and her own six years of home teaching, has led Richards to believe home schooling is the ideal way to educate children. From her experience as a teacher, Richards said she thinks "that, for the most part, a majority of children in the classroom setting seem to have this inbred idea that learning is not going to be fun and they don't want to do it." Schools, she said, seem to destroy the love of learning.

There is also the problem of "socialization." In schools, said Richards, "you are invariably going to have influences you don't like. When you are home schooling, you are the primary influence on your children -- you can exert more influence than any adult or peer." The influence of parents is fundamentally important, said Richards, for parents have the primary duty to mold their children's minds and hearts. "No one knows and loves their children like their parents," she said, "and so no one can better judge the pace at which they learn and what is the best way for them to learn. The home setting is the best way to keep the thirst for knowledge alive."

Mrs. B of Lafayette, gave up a career as a molecular biologist in order to take care of her children. She said she learned about homeschooling from reading articles about it in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and National Review. "It seemed interesting and fun," she said. "I decided to try it with kindergarten." Six years later, Mrs. B is still home schooling four children in grades fifth, fourth, second and kindergarten. "It's worked out nicely for our family," she said, "just because we have remained a family."

Mrs. B. said she prefers home schooling because of its flexibility. "If a child is excelling, you can push them ahead at their speed; if they are falling a little behind, you can follow up on that in terms of what needs to be adjusted. It's more like home-tutoring, as opposed to classroom format -- though we do try to keep a classroom format to keep it structured."

Mrs. C said she and her husband chose home schooling "after observing many home schooled children and their families. We decided that we wanted our family to be like theirs: close-knit, respectful, devout." Her reasons for preferring home schooling are similar to those the other women gave. She noted that some encouraging aspects of home schooling have been seeing a "progress in character development for the kids (and myself), excellent test results, and watching each child make discoveries and get excited about learning."

Home schooling, said Mrs. C, is "the best educational option for our family right now, regardless of what schools are available locally." The other mothers echoed her. "It would have to be an exceptional school," said Mrs. Shapiro, to move her to give up teaching her children at home. Mrs. Richards said she has the option of sending her children to a good Catholic school, but that she prefers to teach them at home. Mrs. B said she would be "open" to one day sending her children to school, though right now she could send her children to excellent schools. "My neighbor is also home schooling," she said, "and we'd kind of laugh that here we are in this school district that people would basically kill to get into, and we're home schooling."

This all sounded good and very much like the home schooling promotional literature one reads -- but I was left wondering (with my daughters' screams still ringing in my ears): did these women experience no hardships home schooling?

Mary Anne Shapiro said that correlating teaching with everyday family is one difficulty -- for instance, "you have something that you have to do, and someone throws up on it. Or you are working with a seven-year-old, and the four-year-old simply wants to sit on your lap -- and you can do that sometimes, and other times you can't. It is difficult to maintain the patient control of that situation when there are so many variables.

"Every day you really have to adjust your sights," continued Mrs. Shapiro. "I think most home schoolers are in a situation where they get up, they get going, get some home schooling done, then maybe they run one errand that's necessary for their family life; and then, all of a sudden, they're making dinner and coming to the end of the day. Especially in the bigger families, it's very close; you're always with your children, and you have to take the time to get breaks and kind of step back and renew yourself -- go for a walk or take days off, whatever. It's a constant activity that, many times, just because of the way life is, is a real drain on the mother. That's the difficulty, in general -- I know it is for me. You're trying to do something with one child and another child has a problem; or you have to get those piano lessons practiced. My house is very small, so where do you go to read with a child while somebody else is practicing piano?"

Because she was a teacher before she was married, "teaching in a classroom with 37 students," Mrs. Shapiro said she has found it difficult to adjust herself to the informality of home education. "You really get this controlling mentality," she said, "and you get an idea of how education takes place in a group setting-you know, you do this now, you do that now, and you close that book and you put it away -- so for me, easing out of that, not judging progress by how many pages have been read, or how many workbook pages have been done, how many paragraphs have been written, is difficult."

"Home schooling is a substantial burden," said Mrs. A. "Our family has to sacrifice having a museum-quality level of cleanliness. Our meals are not gourmet. I have very little time to pursue my own interests. However," she added, "I do my best to view these things as opportunities to sacrifice my own will and serve God in His. I see home schooling as part of my vocation as wife and mother and therefore truly believe that it will be instrumental in my own sanctification. For example, I do not have the luxury of shrugging my shoulders and saying that I am not a patient person and leaving it at that. The demands of home schooling are such that daily I must get on my knees and beg God for that very virtue; and, thanks to His goodness, I am progressing in it slowly but surely."

Mary Richards, who has a toddler and infant twins as well as her three home schooled children, said her difficulties are "primarily organizational. The logistics of trying to teach while running a household is very difficult. Taking care of younger children -- I was joking with a friend that it would be really easy to home school if I didn't have all these little kids. If I just didn't have any children it would be easy! I've heard some people say that it's very natural to home school -- I think it's natural to be with my children; I don't know if [home] is a natural setting. I think it would be more natural if there were two parents home, with one person devoting himself to the education and the other person devoting himself to everything else. Without another person, it's hard, very hard. I know people who say it's easy, and I don't think it's easy. Just trying to get people fed, and laundry done, meals cooked. I would say, that's the greatest difficulty in home schooling."

"Juggling two full-time jobs: mother of kids ages nine and down, and teacher of four," is the most difficult part of home schooling, said Mrs C., along with "time management" and "limiting outside activities to keep our schedule sane."

Mrs. D, though, said "there are daily struggles" in home schooling, but she doesn't find it hard to run the household "because everyone pitches in." While, she said, she "maybe" doesn't have "a Better Homes and Gardens house where everything is in place all the time, that's not a priority."

"I don't find it that difficult," said Mrs. B. "Sometimes I have the older children -- the fourth and fifth grader -- work with the younger two, doing math and reading, things that they can do. They learn, too, when they see the younger student not listening -- they say, 'gosh, this is what Mommy deals with when I'm not listening to her.' It's challenging, but the thing I find that really overcomes that is having a pretty tight schedule where, say from 8 to 9, I'm doing math with one, and then from 9 to 9.20 I'm doing phonics with someone else, etc. Within that schedule, even though it is rigorous, you have the flexibility of, you know, today is a beautiful day, let's go out to a park, or let's go on a field trip."

When I asked Mrs. B what, if anything, could make home schooling easier, she replied: "this is going to go contrary to what I have just said, but four obedient children." Besides that, though, she said she would like to have "a closer group of women, more involvement with other families."

Mary Richards, Mrs. A and Mrs C agreed with Mary Anne Shapiro when she said that what would make things easier for her would be "hired help -- someone to cook and clean. That makes all the difference in the world," continued Mrs. Shapiro, "to have someone come in and straighten out your bookshelf. I mean, my children go through these books and they just have this thing about not putting them back where they found them. And after a while, especially if you live in a small house, you just start going crazy, because nothing is where it belongs -- now that goes to discipline. I think I have to say that the most successful home schoolers are very disciplined people, in themselves and in their children. Things are done a certain way, mom and dad are in charge, no questions asked. They get up in the morning, they have their breakfast, everyone takes their dishes into the kitchen. Then they go and do their home schooling for a while, etc. Those families tend toward a nice flow, and less frustration. But sometimes that's harder to achieve for some than for others."

So, if life would be easier for these women if they just sent their children to school, why do they keep teaching them at home? "I think it [home schooling] is a more realistic lifestyle," said Mrs. Shapiro. "I think the big thing is that home schooling strengthens the family, if everyone is prayerful and tries to see things in the light of the will of God. At the same time it's hard, because family life is a constant constant thing."

"What keeps me home schooling?" said Mrs. C. "I look at home schooling as part of my vocation. I love this way of life, even though it is often very difficult. I see that my kids are growing in wisdom and virtue, and I know that by following this path our family is drawing closer to God every day."

Mrs. A said that it was internal peace that kept her home schooling -- "the peace that comes from knowing that I am doing God's will for my family."

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