Ryan Gosling’s homeschool experience was my model
I’ve been writing this blog for so long that I can see the trend of teenagers yelling at their parents for not preparing them for college — including my own. Because by the time the parents and kids realize it happened, it’s too late.
This is not just about math. The preparation is making sure the kids have wide access to the community to forge their own connections without you. Families that are insular rather than community oriented prevent kids from developing a sense of self.
The Barbie movie reminded me of this quote from Ryan Gosling from an interview in GQ about his childhood:
“I just felt this sense of: I have a limited amount of time and, you know, I’ve got to get started. I also didn’t like the arbitrariness of control that people seemed to have over me.”
I think most kids don’t know to question that. They just accept it.
“I think my mother encouraged that. I had one teacher, because I was dancing, he thought that was funny and he would make jokes about it in class, and my mother said, ‘You know, if ever you feel like he’s being disrespectful, you can just leave.’ And I did one day. I called her and said, ‘Hey, I left.’
I saved this for six years to remind myself high school kids need curriculum. Ryan Gosling had dancing and acting and he had a specific curriculum that he had to get through every year. Things were structured in his house and he had a place in the world where he fit that was separate from his parents.
That’s what the most successful homeschoolers look like. It takes a lot of money to create that on your own. If you pull your kids out of school, they have to be going to something better. They have to be participating in an education that is better, and a community that is better, and opportunities that are better. If they are not doing that, it might be that you’re keeping your kid out of school because school is a pain in the butt for you to make them go.
I’m saying this because there are so many people who take their kids out of school and don’t do academics with them. It was great that I let my little kids to play all day. And it was fine that we didn’t do math and curriculum til sixth grade.
But I made the transition pretty slowly to a world where my kids have an academically rigorous day. So I’m telling you: don’t limit your kids choices in life by not having them complete a challenging curriculum. Because it’s too limiting. You can have tutors if you don’t like how school works, but don’t leave it to your kid to learn everything on their own. Or online. It’s not fair. I found out the hard way that it’s too difficult and too slow. Every kid deserves the chance to feel the pleasure of having someone teach them. If you can afford 1:1 or 1:3 great. If you can only afford 1:30 then do that.
Taking responsibility for your kids education is a big commitment. Kids need more involvement from parents as they get older, not less. When kids are teens it’s not something to be left to chance, as in, “it will work out”, or “they’re finding their way”, or “we are self directed”. If you are willing to leave it up to chance then put your kid in school where they will get more attention.
I used to think my goal as a homeschooler was to have kids who shine like Ryan Gosling. Now that I can see a bigger picture, it’s clear to me that my goal is for my kids to feel as positively about their education as Ryan does about his.
Thanks for sharing your journey so we can learn from you. We’ve been homeschooling and focusing on therapy until recently. We are planning to start at a private school (1:4) this fall to get access to regular peer interaction that we weren’t finding with our homeschooling group. This post timing was perfect.
I’m so glad to hear that, Jenny! There were a lot of times when I thought school would have been better and I told myself I was too far down the homeschool path to switch. But I don’t think that’s really true.
Penelope
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Does this apply also to your cello kid? Unless the curriculum part was already engrained in that path.
The part that applies to my cello son is that I was late. And also I was perfunctory. For example, I made sure he stayed at grade level, but I could have done more if I had paid for tutors. And also I think I was so overwhelmed with cello that it was hard for me to also keep track of schoolwork. But some of this is the fact that I’m a single mom. So I’m such a bad example — plenty of parents could do cello and homeschool in a rigorous way because they were not also the breadwinner. So maybe this is all to say that I bit off more than I could chew. But I think this might be the trouble with a lot of homeschool and the important thing is to bite off the most important parts first. Or something like that.
Penelope
Penelope –
I have been reading your blog since my two sons were babies, and your inspired me to homeschool them. They went to private preschool and public school until 2nd and 3rd grade until Covid. Then I was able to work from home full time so I pulled them out of public school and homeschooled since. They are now going into 5th and 6th grade (homeschool grades.)
What do you think about a private homeschool co-op that meets one full day a week where they have 6 classes? The co-op is large and the classes are similar to regular school in size and teaching. Each class gives their assignments for the week that are due the next week. So that is the curriculum besides the other things I teach at home that follow their special interests. My 6th grader is gifted and has Aspergers. He is really into speculative biology and designs alien species and worlds on the computer along with reading books about it. I help them work on the assignments when they get stuck.
The homeschool co-op is part of a church (it is a large community) and they have made friends there. They say they want to keep going there and not go back to public school.
I am willing to change my mind and send them back to public school full time if I feel like it would be best for them. I went to public school and I have a successful career but public school bored me and I didn’t do that well in high school academically, although I had a very successful social life.
Hi Starrie. This is a good question. Short answer: once-a-week coops are terrible. Before I get to the longer answer, I want to say it’s really nice that you’ve been reading since the kids were babies. Sometimes people tell that to my kids and it’s inconceivable to them.
Longer answer: I think the reason to homeschool is that you can give the kids a better education than school can give them. Once a week with a teacher is not an education. If nothing else, really good teachers teach to have a relationship with a student and watch them gain mastery of the material. Anyone who is willing to teach once a week would not fall into that category.
I can’t stress enough that homeschooling is harder, not easier, as the kids get older. And it’s definitely more difficult than sending the kids to school because you need to take responsibility for their learning. If you send the kids to a once-a-week place there is no one taking responsibility for their learning.
If you’re letting someone else decide what the kids learn, then why not send them to school? When your son says he’s interested in speculative biology, I hear that as not interested in taking biology curricula. But he has to. The benefit of homeschool is that your kid knows what he’s interested in early, so he can go straight to high school biology. My son did that in 7th grade and it worked out great. But I had tutors. And it was really expensive.
The most important thing for homeschoolers to learn during 6th – 8th grade is how to study things that are difficult and linear so there’s no skipping around to what interests you. In order to prepare for college, or at least have the option to go to college, kids need to be able to learn this way. Also, autistic kids hate doing stuff they don’t want to do, and just like autistic adults, if we don’t have deadlines and clear, unmoving expectations, we only do the easy parts of our special interests.
Finally, about boredom in school. People with autism say “boring” for pretty much every negative experience. That’s because our worst fear is boredom. But we have ADHD — yes, all autistic people have ADHD — and paying attention the way school wants us to pay attention is really difficult . It doesn’t mean we’re bored because the material is boring. It means we’re bored because we can’t pay attention to the material. I’m not saying put him in school with medicine, but I’m saying when you hear “boring” from someone with autism, it’s a safe assumption that it’s something else besides boring.
Thanks for your advice!
I am looking at private schools to send them to ASAP. Thank you for being honest about what your experiences were and your recommendations!