How do we homeschool? : Travel Q&A

What does your family do for school?

Of the many questions we get asked, this one is very common! To those who are not familiar with homeschooling, it seems like this great crazy type of school shrouded in mystery and confusion. I certainly knew next to nothing about homeschooling before we started it! Even those who know homeschooling intimately will still have questions because no two families homeschool the same way! That's the beauty of homeschooling: it's unique and individualized towards your family and students individually!

As we began homeschooling, we first had to overcome barriers and obstacles that we had unknowingly set in our own paths. Our mindsets had to be completely undone as we began to debunk common homeschool myths!

Myth 1: School always takes 6-7 hours.

My mom researched for hours and got us all set up with our classes and work for the first week of homeschool. You can imagine her shock when she got us started at 9 AM and we were all completely finished for the day at noon. It is simply not true that school takes all day long. This truth is accurate across basically every homeschool family. When you are working without switching classes, doing busywork, and all of the dead time of normal school, it flys by. I remember my mom thinking that she was doing something wrong because school was so fast, but that wasn't the case at all! In fact, school doesn't even have to be during the day.

Once we determined that school only takes us about 2-3 hours, we decided to do it in the evenings. It seemed like such a crying shame to be sitting inside on laptops when the sun was shining and inviting us to hike and be active! So we usually do school when my dad is working and in the evenings so that we can maximize our daylight hours!

Myth 2: Homeschool ruins potential college interest.

This is actually totally opposite of the truth! Before we began homeschooling, we called the potential colleges that we were considering for my siblings and my own future to inquire about their view of homeschool applications. Shockingly, they said that homeschool applications are generally highly favorable. They love seeing homeschooled students who are smart, capable, and passionate about something! The student who answered one call told us that he was in fact homeschooled himself and the college had been excited to accept him because of his passion for learning languages (he was fluent in five and working on a sixth).

Just like other students, my siblings and I have transcripts, GPAs, will take the ACT and SAT, and have portfolios of the things we've learned. Many homeschoolers participate in dual enrollment programs. Dual enrollment means that you are taking an online college course to receive a college credit that also counts as a high school credit. In order to take these classes, homeschool students have to apply to the college while still in high school which is phenomenal practice for future college applications. I myself was accepted into a dual enrollment course for next fall that I will take online to receive college credits.

As a final note on college, homeschool encourages a different way of thinking so many homeschool students find alternative routes instead of college that is more specialized to the future they desire such as trade school, internships, or running a household.

Myth 3: All homeschool families do it the same way.

Nope, not true. Unlike traditional schools which all resemble each other greatly in format, homeschool families are each very unique. Basically every family has a specific goal for their homeschooling which often stems from the reason they homeschool in the first place. For example, if a family homeschooled their child because they felt he or she was not being challenged enough in traditional school, they are going to set up their homeschooling so that the child is being challenged as much as possible. Many families use a technique called "unschooling." This is where you spend much more time on developing a child's passions then his compulsory education. We, like many others, do kind of a hybrid.

My own family's homeschool motto is called MACE. This is an acronym that stands for Minimum Acceptable Compulsory Education. My dad coined the term for us! We felt like traditional schooling included a lot of unnecessary dead time and subjects that were rather unimportant to the actual goal of raising your child which is to prepare them to be a successful adult. So my family abides by the MACE rule. The state tells us how many credits we need to graduate, and we meet that standard thoroughly and competently. After meeting the required standard, we do not try to keep expanding on compulsory education and instead turn our focus on supplemental activities that we value more greatly.

For example, as women, my sister Lucy and I are going to be wives and mothers one day with a household in our care. So, my mom teaches us how to cook, clean, do laundry, and other household skills as well as how to manage our time with it so that we do not get burnt out. She teaches us gentleness, compassion, and respect. My brother learns every day how to channel his energy and interests into becoming a strong man of God who will lead and provide for a family. Alternatively, we also learn how to do taxes, how to grow in faith throughout the storms of life, how to budget, how to communicate and hold our own in an adult world, how to set goals and plan/prepare for the future, and how to take in the current events and information from the world with a grain of salt and distinguish the truth. We learn to ask questions and find real answers. Most of all we learn how to discover the things we love and expand on them.

We also do something called Passionate Productivity. This is where we spend around an hour a day devoted to setting goals and developing a skill that we love. For example, I have used that time to write songs, create my blog, and research Christianity thoroughly to expand my understanding.

Our homeschool today is the product of lots of trial and error and it is uniquely us! We know that many people would strongly disagree with the way that we homeschool. However that is the beauty of it, everyone does it in the way they see best! This works for us and makes us love homeschooling. Someone else may do it totally opposite in a way that works for them and also love homeschooling too!

Myth 4: You have to use a set curriculum.

So it's actually kind of crazy how relaxed the homeschooling laws are. At least in our home state of Michigan, the government is pretty hands off regarding homeschool. The state determines the credits needed to graduate, but it's completely up to my parents to decide what counts as those credits and then to award us the graduation certificate when we've accomplished them! It seems intimidating. At first, my parents were still caught up in the traditional school mindset, so we did basically "normal" school at home at our own pace through a curriculum called Christian Liberty Academy. Slowly though, we began to branch away and do our own thing. Now we do classes through whatever works best for us. Lucy and Charlie use IXL online courses for their main classes and supplement with my mom or dad teaching them. I take history, religion, and government through Hillsdale College online courses, science through Coursera or Crash Course, math through Thinkwell or my dad, and literature through reading classic books and writing.

For our classes outside of core, our parents determine when we receive credits. We all wrote a book which we received credits for. We get credit for being extremely active in hikes and activities outside, for growing in our faith and studying the Bible, for learning about and practicing the up keep of a household, for exploring new places and soaking up the rich history (such as studying in the Louvre or in Washington D.C.). I personally love to read, so I get credit for reading classic literature and writing an essay connecting it to current culture! (We call this "Classics Meet Culture.") For instance, I've read War and Peace, all of Jane Austen's books, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and more! I really enjoy this, and it's expanding my knowledge with every read! We gather up all of our experiences and learning and put it into our transcripts which look just like traditional school transcripts.

As a side note, we learn so much from traveling that doesn't even go into our transcripts. While in Spain, we practiced Spanish with real time interactions with actual Spanish people (I was beyond excited the first time I successfully ordered and paid for a baguette without a word of English!!!) Traveling overseas gave us such a better grasp of geography and culture. Our skills at meeting new people and maintaining relationships have improved greatly. We learn just SO MANY small things through real-time experience by traveling! We could never manage to fit it all down on just transcripts!

Truth: Homeschooling isn't as scary as it seems!

Homeschooling is different and is often an unknown. That is what makes it seem scary. Once you get down to it, it's not scary or as intimidating anymore! It can be totally amazing for each family. I love our lifestyle so much and have learned more than I ever thought imaginable. Before, I learned to pass tests, now I learn because I want to.

Comment below: What other questions do you have about homeschool or our travel life in general?