What Do Homeschool Parents Actually Do?

I think the worst part is that I get it.

I really do.

If you don’t homeschool, you may hear the word homeschool and immediately have a picture in your head.

Maybe you picture children who are intentionally sheltered from the world.

Maybe you picture parents using the extra time homeschooling provides to teach religion while limiting science.

Maybe you picture children who aren’t learning about the “real world.”

Maybe you picture families who believe the earth isn’t round, who reject mainstream science, or who are intentionally isolating their children from people who don’t think exactly as they do.

And honestly?

I understand why you might think that.

I’ve been homeschooling for 10 years, and I have spent a lot of time in and around the homeschool community.

I’ve seen things I’m not a fan of.

I’m concerned about educational neglect in homeschooling.

I think homeschoolers, just like public schools, private schools, and charter schools, should be willing to talk honestly about accountability, educational standards, and access to qualified experts.

But I also think something gets lost when we take the most extreme examples of homeschooling and use them to define everyone who homeschools.

Because that’s not our homeschool.

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We aren’t trying to make our world smaller

We’re secular homeschoolers.

And for our family, that means our homeschool isn’t built around a particular religious worldview.

It also means that I’m very intentional about making sure my kids have access to science, experts, experiences, and the wider world.

My kids take classes with scientists at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Their music instructor has a doctorate in music.

We seek out people who know things that I don’t.

And there are a lot of things I don’t know.

I couldn’t teach my children advanced music.

I couldn’t provide specialized instruction in paleontology.

I couldn’t teach every branch of science.

I don’t have a master’s degree in any subject my children study.

And I’m perfectly comfortable saying that.

Because I don’t think the job of a homeschool parent is to become the world’s foremost expert in everything.

I think our job can be much more interesting than that.

I don’t have to know everything

One of the criticisms I’ve heard about homeschooling is essentially this:

How can a parent provide what is best for a child if that parent isn’t an expert in every subject?

And I think that’s an interesting question.

Because I agree with the premise that expertise matters.

It matters enormously.

But I don’t think expertise requires one person to possess all of it.

Think about an Olympic athlete.

Their parents don’t necessarily become Olympic-level experts in every component of the sport.

They recognize potential.

They recognize interest.

They recognize talent.

And then they seek out coaches and experts who can help their child develop that potential.

That’s much closer to how I think about our homeschool.

My job isn’t to know everything.

My job is to know my children.

To understand what they’re interested in.

To recognize where they’re capable of going.

To notice where I have limitations.

And then to find the people, experiences, classes, books, curricula, museums, instructors, and opportunities that can help them get there.

Knowing what I don’t know is actually useful

I sometimes joke that my kids would have a very, very small educational world if they were limited to the things I personally know how to teach.

I couldn’t read a sheet of music if it smacked me in the face.

So when my child needs serious music instruction, I find somebody who knows music.

I don’t need to pretend otherwise.

When my kids can take a paleontology lesson from an actual paleontologist, I’m interested.

When they can learn geography from someone who specializes in the field, I’m interested.

When they can participate in a hands-on science experience with someone who works in science, I’m interested.

That’s the beauty of being able to build an education intentionally.

I can search things out.

This isn’t an argument against teachers

I want to be really clear about this because I know how easy it is for conversations about homeschooling to become “homeschool good, public school bad.”

That’s not my argument.

I’m a huge fan of public schools.

I know teachers.

I love teachers.

I think teachers deserve substantially more support than they currently receive.

And I don’t think it is reasonable to expect one classroom teacher to be the perfect expert in every subject, every interest, and every possible learning need of every child in a classroom.

That’s not a reasonable standard for teachers.

It’s also not a reasonable standard for parents.

What I do think is valuable is having access to people who specialize in particular things.

Homeschooling gives me an opportunity to intentionally build some of that into my children’s education.

Not because I think I’m better than teachers.

Not because I think my kids are better than kids in public school.

And certainly not because I think homeschooling is automatically better for every family.

It’s simply the educational model we’ve chosen, and I take the responsibility seriously.

My job is to gather the pieces

I sometimes think about my role as something closer to a superintendent.

Not because I’m running a giant school district.

But because I don’t have to personally perform every job.

I can find the music instructor.

I can find the science instructor.

I can find the language arts curriculum.

I can find the biology experience.

I can find the hands-on lab.

I can find the person who has spent years studying the thing my child suddenly wants to know everything about.

My job is to gather those pieces.

To curate them.

To make decisions.

To pay for some of them.

To drive the car to some of them.

To sit beside my kids and learn things I didn’t know before.

And sometimes, honestly, to realize that I chose the wrong thing and change course.

That’s homeschooling too.

Open doors, not taller walls

This is really the heart of it for me.

My homeschool is about open doors, not taller walls.

I don’t want my children to have a smaller understanding of the world because we homeschool.

I want them to have a bigger one.

That doesn’t mean I think every homeschool family needs to look like ours.

There are plenty of ways to homeschool.

Some families include religious instruction.

Some don’t.

Some use a traditional curriculum.

Some are wildly eclectic.

Some spend most of their time at home.

Some are constantly out in the world.

Some children need one kind of environment.

Other children need something completely different.

That’s part of why I’m uncomfortable with the idea that there is one singular definition of what a homeschooler is.

There isn’t.

I don’t need to prove homeschooling to you

If you’re someone who doesn’t homeschool and you’re worried about homeschooling, I actually understand.

I’m worried about educational neglect too.

I’m worried about children being denied access to accurate information.

I’m worried about people turning their backs on science.

I’m worried about any educational model that doesn’t provide children with the opportunity to learn, question, explore, and grow.

Those concerns don’t disappear simply because we homeschool.

But I also don’t think the answer is to assume that every homeschool family is creating an isolated little bubble where children never encounter anything outside their parents’ personal worldview.

That’s not what we’re doing.

And we’re not the only ones.

I don’t need to prove our homeschool to every person on the internet.

I need to prove it to my kids.

I need to keep giving them opportunities.

I need to keep opening doors.

I need to keep finding the people who know the things I don’t.

And I need to keep asking whether what we’re doing is actually serving them.

That’s my responsibility.

Not being an expert in everything.

Being willing to find the experts.

And maybe that’s the part of homeschooling that is hardest to see from the outside.

You can’t always see the research.

You can’t always see the curriculum comparison.

You can’t always see the phone calls, emails, museum classes, instructors, field trips, conversations, adjustments, and late-night decisions that go into building an education.

You just see the word homeschool.

And I get it.

But there’s a lot more happening behind that word than you might think.