A Revolutionary Act

School is a pervasive institution in our society. Children are expected to go to school each and every day, barring illness, from the time they are around 5 years old until they reach adulthood at 18. The teachers are with the kids all day long, 7 or so hours, and then the teachers send homework home with them. Parents are then expected to help with homework once the children finally get home. The kids have to get to bed on time and wake up at a certain time so they can get to school. Family vacations have to fall during official school vacations so the children don't miss too much subject matter. It's fair to say that a child's school controls not only every aspect of the child's life, but every aspect of a family's life, too. This control is expected, honored, and appreciated in our culture.

So, when someone decides to take his or her child out of school -- or never put the kid into the institution to begin with -- it can safely be called a revolutionary act. Most secular homeschooling families I know come to find out pretty quickly that taking their child out of school is cause for their friends and family to start questioning their abilities as parents and their standing as upstanding citizens in their communities. Acquaintances look askance at them and say things like "Well I could never do such a thing," with eyebrows raised. Conversations falter in an instant when the answer to, "where do your children go to school," is "well, they don't." Homeschooling families often lose friends and alienate family when they make the decision to pull their kids out of school.

The question is, then, why do it? Why would anyone risk that kind of ostracization? There are probably as many reasons as there are homeschoolers, but they all have to do with what is the best thing for each individual child and family. I started homeschooling simply because I love being with my kids. For me, I couldn't be happy with just seeing their first step, and hearing them say their first word. I needed to see them read their first word and solve their first math problem. I also figured that nobody could possibly know how to teach them better than their father and I could.

The goal of this blog is to explore the reasons why people choose to homeschool, the methods that work (or don't work), and the way secular homeschoolers create their own communities. I'm hoping to have a couple of regular bloggers, a lot of guest bloggers, and a ton of discussion in the comments.