Sandy Manca of Naperville, mother of book-loving 17-year-old Nora, once did the unthinkable: She discouraged her child from reading.
After Manca and her husband decided to home-school Nora, who was 10 at the time, Nora’s response was, “Now I’ll finally have time to read!” Sandy Manca recalled. “We let her read as much as she wanted until we finally had to make her take breaks to get things done.”
Now the teen starts each day perusing the newspaper, which sparks a breakfast discussion of current events. Then she takes in some “Divine Comedy” or “I Promessi Sposi” (“The Betrothed”) in both English and Italian before heading to algebra and writing classes at Benedictine University. Other days, she runs an acting club for younger home-schoolers, studies tap dancing at a local performing arts academy and serves in her church’s peer ministry group. She visits her grandmother, who lives just a few miles away, daily. And, Manca added, “She bakes an excellent apple pie from scratch.”
Nora is one of many area home-schoolers who, with parental guidance, has taken charge of her education.
When the Mancas began home-schooling, “we had a short experiment with replicating school at home,” Sandy Manca said, “which left us cold.” Despite a master’s degree and college teaching experience, “I had little idea of how to go about teaching a particularly headstrong 5th-grader.”
The family joined a support group, Homeschooling Families of Illinois, where they learned of the work of the late John Holt, author of several books on education and founder of Growing Without Schooling magazine.
Dorothy Werner of Chicago, who in 1981 founded Illinois H.O.U.S.E. (Home Oriented Unique Schooling Experience), a network of home-school support groups, explained Holt’s theory: “If you go about the business of daily living, children will indeed learn everything they need to learn by being exposed to adults who answer their questions or take them where they need to go to find out–in short, who help them follow up on their own interests.”
For Werner, a nationally recognized advocate who home-schooled four of her five sons beginning in the late 1970s, that meant sitting in candidates’ campaign offices, attending court hearings, visiting rabbit farms and machine shops.
The outings were designed to show her sons “all kinds of possibilities of what grown-ups tend to do with their time so they could have some idea of their options” in terms of finding their “real work,” as Holt referred to pursuing one’s passions, as well as the means to earn a living.
“[Kids] have to be equipped for both,” Werner said.
The approach struck a chord with Manca. “Since traditional methods weren’t working with Nora, I decided to give it a try.”
As her fascination with medieval England and outer space grew, Nora learned “from every source in every way she could: books, educational TV, videos, museums and College of DuPage’s Kids on Campus courses,” Manca said.
Space camp and Shakespeare
Nora went to space camps, launched rockets, wrote stories based on Robin Hood and took rock climbing, archery and fencing classes. She fell in love with Shakespeare and started an acting club.
In preparation for college, Nora is participating in a biology club, researching schools, working with a math tutor and studying for the ACT. She maintains a portfolio of her work, which she will present with her application.
Northwestern University estimates less than 1 percent of its applicants have been home-schooled. According to a Wheaton College Web page for prospective students, about 10 percent of its current freshman class has at some time been educated at home.
Wheaton recommends that home-schooled college applicants supply as “standard” a transcript as possible and syllabi for courses and also opt for an interview when possible.
An `organic’ relationship
College is a few years away for 12-year-old Zoe Sjogerman of Chicago, who has been home-schooled since a three-week stint in kindergarten. Her curriculum is “100 percent child-led,” said her mother, Paula Sjogerman. “That does not mean lack of parental input, supervision or unbounded permission.
“There’s a much more organic relationship between everyone in the family; we all get excited; we all talk about what we’re learning; it’s a constant dialogue,” Sjogerman said.
Zoe develops her curriculum based on her interests and what classes are offered through her home-schoolers group, Evanston Home Educators. She and her parents talk “all the time” about studies, but once a year they sit down and plan. This year–which refers to a 12-month period rather than the traditional 9-month academic calendar–she’s taking tae kwon do, biology, drama, piano, Hebrew, religion and junior great books.
Zoe and her mother attend a mother-daughter reading group, and Zoe is part of a science co-op where she recently built an atom from beads and developed a group activity that demonstrates a scientific concept.
Zoe’s goals are to read more challenging books (she just finished “The Crucible” and the 870-page “Mists of Avalon”) and study pre-algebra so she can tackle algebra next year.
“Algebra’s not the funnest thing in the world to do, but if I’m interested in learning something–I really do want the skills to get through my life–I’ll work until I know it,” she said.
Without grades or tests, how does Zoe know she’s progressing?
“I think everyone knows when they don’t know something,” she said. “If you look at a math problem, for example, and don’t know how to solve it, you don’t know it. But if you can, then you can do it. That’s my process.”
Bring on the tests
Fourteen-year-old Ezra Brabham of Evanston, who home-schools along with his 11-year-old sister, Miriam, actually prefers a test or quiz now and then. He and his parents, Margaret and Jeff Brabham, have chosen a variety of textbooks and curricula this year: A Beka for social studies, grammar and science; Saxon for math; a 25-book series of biographies for history.
After studying a unit or reading a book, “when I’m confident enough with it I’ll say [to my parents], OK, give me a spot quiz.”
Learning doesn’t only take place from books and packaged curricula. Ezra takes a drama course with a local home-schoolers’ group and gives himself extracurricular assignments when some subject piques his interest. Recently he wrote a report on 12th Century armor.
Ezra also prefers “hands-on” activities to straight bookwork, such as science experiments, which illustrate the principles he has read about.
“Mentally, I can understand what my mom and the book are saying, but it doesn’t quite click until I do the experiment,” Ezra said.
Emma Clark, 11, of Evanston doesn’t need grades either.
“If I’m playing a spelling game and I learn a new word or how to spell an old one right, I feel like I’ve learned something,” she said.
Helen Hazlett, an educational consultant and family friend who has been tutoring Emma since spring, maintains a portfolio of her work and keeps a daily journal of what they cover.
Growing in wisdom
Hazlett and Emma light a candle each morning and affirm: “May our wisdom and understanding grow each time we light this candle.”
Days are structured around outside commitments Emma has chosen–fencing, entomology, drama, soccer. At-home time is spent on a math curriculum (algebra), spelling, vocabulary, reading and her current science project: creating a “Who Wants to be a Junior Chemist?” game for the rest of her science co-op. But it all depends on Emma.
“What we do with the time depends on Emma’s readiness to learn, whether it’s time for something challenging or for a break,” said Hazlett, who stays attuned to the child’s rhythms throughout the day. Even when the pair breaks, they learn.
“We take walks and see what we can find outside–what kinds of bugs or what type of trees leaves come from,” Emma said.
Letting children follow their interests can be expensive, given the costs of books, computers, project materials, tutors and camps, and that doesn’t include lost wages for the parents who coordinate it all rather than draw pay in a job.
Sandy Manca estimates her family spends more than $2,000 each year on Nora’s education. Paula Sjogerman said it’s hard to estimate the cost but joked that she accepts donations.
Chelsea Sky Link of Evanston is serious about the donations she accepts. When the 11-year-old home-schooler isn’t playing the harp, reading or studying French, she is probably coordinating a fundraiser for KidVets, a not-for-profit organization she founded two years ago to aid abused and homeless animals.
“I wanted to do something to help animals since I was 7, but I didn’t know where to start,” she said.
When her grandmother sent her an article about a paralyzed cat in need of a new wheelchair, Chelsea knew it was time to act. She gathered friends, organized a flea market and bake sale and raised $350.
KidVets donated $250 to Virginia-based Meower Power Feral Cat Coalition for the wheelchair and $100 to Alley Cat Allies, which also aids feral cats. Now more than 30 members strong, KidVets has raised more than $9,000 through golf outings, car washes and an annual flea market and holiday card sale.
The group recently donated $1,000 to Lifesavers Wild Horse Rescue Ranch in California to save a mustang from being slaughtered and sold and is collecting signatures to close a loophole in the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act, which KidVets hopes will end the practice. (For more information on KidVets, call 847-475-1338.)
Running a non-profit organization at the age of 11 “feels really good; I’ve always loved animals,” said Chelsea, who has five cats. “It’s not as hard as it sounds,” she said. “I get a lot of help from my mom, especially with all the driving.”
It’s that sort of commitment from parents that serves as a key component of home-schooling. Regardless of the cost, family circumstances or educational approach, home-schooling is an “incredible undertaking,” said George King, spokesman for the Illinois Education Association. “The class size is great,” he joked.
Some concerns
Still, the association has concerns, not so much about curriculum as with socialization and potential difficulties making the transition into a conventional classroom or college.
“The socialization process is important to a child’s maturation. A good setting–in school–interacting with children and adults with varying views is very important to the education of a child,” he said.
Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, director of the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University, said, “You can’t let kids only investigate what they’re interested in. Sometimes they just have to learn certain things to go to the next level that they might not be interested in learning. You can get them to look at a body of knowledge in ways that really motivate them, but that takes some creativity.”
On the plus side, kids [who study what interests them] are very motivated to do a lot of work–high-quality work–and that’s always a good thing, whether in school or out,” Olszewski-Kubilius said.
According to Werner, kids retain more when they set their own course. “When it comes to factual information, if you learn when you want to know, it sticks. If you try to force it, children may parrot it back to you on a test, but five years down the road, will they really know it?”
Along with “spending lots of time learning cool stuff,” Chelsea sees another benefit she enjoys with other home-schoolers: “Probably the best thing of all is having sleepovers on weekdays.”
The facts about home-schooling
Families who home-school buy packaged curricula or take correspondence courses through private schools. But whatever route they choose, it’s difficult to know just how many families home-school in Illinois.
Registration isn’t necessary
Home-schools are considered private schools and therefore are not required to file a non-public school registration form, said Ray Hernandez, a truant officer with the Will County Regional Office of Education and unofficial home-school liaison.
Hernandez said he gets more than 200 calls each year from parents in the county inquiring about home-schooling, “just the tip of the iceberg” he believes, though he receives fewer than 70 of the voluntary registration forms.
Required subjects
Non-public school teachers, including home-schooling parents or tutors, need not be certified, according to state law, but they must teach in English and cover subjects taught in public schools: language arts, social studies, math, fine arts, physical science, physical education and health.
(Even in the public school system, translating Illinois State Board of Education curriculum standards into classroom activities is left up to individual districts and schools.)
An increase in home-schoolers
The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics pegged the number of home-schoolers in 1999 at 850,000, or 1.7 percent of U.S. students, according to a recent study.
Based on its 1997 research, the National Home Education Research Institute, a private, not-for-profit organization, sets estimates between 1.5 million and 1.9 million students for 2000-01, about 3 percent of the student population, and annual growth rates in the 7 percent to 15 percent range.
Family income irrelevant
Surprisingly the U.S. Department of Education study found little difference in the incomes of home-schooling and non-home-schooling families: roughly two-thirds of each group reported annual incomes less than $50,000.
The groups differ, though in terms of educational attainment. Twenty-five percent of home-schooling parents have earned bachelor’s degrees versus 16 percent of non-home-schoolers. Marital status is another difference. Eighty percent of home-schoolers live in two-parent households, but only 66 percent of non-home-schoolers do.
— Kim Roth
