Where Modern homeschooling started

Homeschooling, as we understand it, has been around since the 60’s. It started as a response to research from the time that showed children were not learning well and nor were truly prepared for the future. Guys, they were realizing the flaws of the government education system in the 60's! Our problems are not new...

John Holt claimed that learning in school was actually suppressing children's natural ability to learn. He said that schools had their own motives for teaching, they teach to the tests and educate to create cooperative workers for society. Holt believed that children have the natural ability to learn, think for themselves, and could cultivate and grow their own interests. He started teaching about unschooling. Unschooling isn’t just about doing the opposite of what the public school is doing, but it encourages parents and families to create their own education path. A path that is unique and customized to children and their family.

At the same time, Dr Raymond Moore and his wife Dorothy were working in the Department of Education and were seeing the same weaknesses in the public school system. They took child-led learning a big step forward. They insisted that research showed children did not need formal education until 8-10 years old, the end of elementary school. Instead, these were the years to teach kids how to be a part of the household, teach them how to function in the home, have them work, and do purposeful things with their hands. Children at this age truly need to do meaningful work, and tedious classroom work wasn’t cutting it.

By the 80's, homeschooling was not very popular. There were very few families actually educating their children at home. And the ones that were, were facing pushback and persecution from various states. Michael Farris created the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, HSLDA. He took the less religious, freedom seeking, diverse homeschool movement and made it an inherently Christian movement. While the HSLDA is wildly important from a legal standpoint for all homeschooling families, it has left a stark impression for families that homeschooling is just for right wing Christian families.

There is culture shift happening. More and more parents, religious or not, are realizing that they are able to raise AND educate their own children. We have all grown up in the “age of experts” and are slowly starting to realize, that we are actually the experts of our own children.

I'm sure the growth of homeschooling today would just blow the minds of those homeschoolers that came before us. It's an exciting time to start homeschooling!

Lori

To Know God and To Make Him Known

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