Our Home Schooling Experience: A FAQ to Answer All Your Questions

If you’re just now tuning in, there’s big news around these here parts:

WE’RE HOME SCHOOLING.

Yes, really!

My seven-year-old is still in public school, but we decided to home school my ten-year-old daughter after she finished elementary school in May– and now that school has started, I’ve been getting so many e-mails and Facebook messages and questions from my friends over the last few weeks about how it’s going and whether it’s difficult and what it all means that I decided to answer the most frequently asked questions and concerns in one handy-dandy FAQ. Read it if you’re interested, and if you have  more questions, ask them in the comments and I’ll add them to the list.

So you’re a home schooler now? Seriously?

Yes. Well. Sort of.

Legally, my ten-year-old daughter is home schooled. But her home schooling experience is very different from what you’re probably picturing. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she attends what’s technically called a home school tutorial- but for all intents and purposes, it’s SCHOOL. She takes Literature, Social Studies, Composition, Math, Art, and Science from four different teachers- and she does a  Junior Achievement program afterward. Her teachers are all seasoned veterans who’ve taught in private and public schools all around Nashville.

On her “off” days, my daughter works under my supervision on assignments given to her by her teachers, who are available via e-mail if we need them. The way the program is designed, we have a very full work day on Wednesday and we can spread out the rest of the work between Friday and Monday– Quite a few kids in her tutorial are competitive swimmers and horseback riders and gymnasts and recording artists and have meets and events on the weekends, so this kind of school allows them to travel on weekends and still get a great education.

Why on earth did you choose a home school tutorial?

There were so many reasons.

For one, my daughter is a late bloomer and I didn’t feel that she was ready to navigate a middle school filled with seventh and eighth graders– and I say that after having raised two stepdaughters who went to that school. I knew what to expect.

For another, although my daughter is very inquisitive and loves to learn, she is very much a hands-on learner- She needs lots of discussion and experimentation to maintain that enthusiasm and she wilts when it comes to straight text reading and worksheets and lectures. I watched my stepdaughters go into middle school excited and eager to learn, and come out beaten down and hating it– and I didn’t want that to happen again, so I spent several years figuring out what the educational options were for our two younger children.

Private school tuition would have put a huge financial burden on our family (and tremendous pressure on me as a freelancer) since we’re already paying college tuition and living expenses for our older girls– This tutorial is much, MUCH less expensive. We also could have moved to a different school district– but we love our neighborhood and our elementary school and we wanted our son to continue going there. I have a friend whose daughters have both gone to this tutorial for years and I was always very curious about it, so I took Punky in for a visit. It immediately felt… right. The kids were smart and confident, the teachers were warm and knowledgeable and the parents were… NORMAL. I really felt drawn to it- and in the end, I realized that if I didn’t at least try it, I’d always wonder what could have happened if I had.

Finally, there was definitely an emotional factor that played into the decision. I’m well aware that my daughter only has a year or two before she reaches puberty, when there’s a very good chance that our relationship will dramatically change. Right now, we’re close, I’m working from home, and this seemed like an amazing opportunity to spend time together and bond in a meaningful way before she really starts to grow up and things get more complicated.

So how long are you going to do this?

Honestly, I have no idea. As long as it works for both of us.

Aren’t you worried that this will affect her socialization?

Not at all. The beauty of starting home school in fifth grade is that she’s had a chance to establish many close friendships with her elementary school friends, all of whom live within 5-10 minutes of our house. In addition to going to school two days a week, she’s involved in church programs with her friends two days a week and soccer 2-3 days a week, and we live in a neighborhood full of kids that she plays with almost every day. She stays so busy that even on our new schedule, she has very little downtime.

What if she wants to go back into traditional school? Are you worried that she’ll be behind or have gaps in what she’s learned?

Nope. The beauty of this tutorial is that its teachers are focused on making sure that every child in the program meets or exceeds state standards for his or her grade by the end of the school year. I feel confident that she’ll be right on track, no matter what she decides to do in the future.

How’s it going so far?

So far, it has been pretty amazing. Punky’s workload is substantial and time-consuming, but she’s already learning how to manage her time and discipline herself to get her work done (and done well) so that she can have more time to do what she wants to do. These are lessons that she’ll use for the rest of her life. She has made some really good friends in her tutorial (thanks to a summer overnight trip for the 4th-6th graders before school started) and her teachers are phenomenal and very hands-on– She spends all week telling me about the things she’s learned in class. School is much harder this year than it ever has been before, but I’m trying to make it as fun and interesting for her as possible-  and so far, it’s working.

We are both loving the fact that I’m now a part of her education. I feel like I’m going through the 5th grade all over again! She enjoys discussing what she’s learning with me and I enjoy adding to it and making it as fun and interesting as possible. We’re reading books together, having great conversations, and I’m getting to know how to reach her mind and inspire her and help her succeed.

Make no mistake, though, it is also  A LOT OF WORK. I would definitely say that home school is not for everyone! I feel very lucky to have discovered in this process that my daughter is a fairly disciplined, self-motivated student. She’s able to work pretty independently, as long as I’m close by to answer questions. We’ve developed a good system of working side by side so that I can help her or go over instructions or check her work whenever she needs me- which, at ten, is often! If she were a more difficult student or if I weren’t all that interested in what she was learning, it would be a much tougher and more stressful situation– and it probably wouldn’t last.

How is this affecting your son?

All of this is actually having a very positive impact on my 7-year-old. He’s interested in whatever his sister is interested in, and now that she’s on fire with all she’s learning, he’s very into it, too. The fact that she only has to go to school 2 days a week hasn’t fazed him, both because he sees all the work she’s doing at home and because he knows there’s a possibility that he could be in the same school in a few years.

What do you like least about home schooling?

Since she needs all of her books, notebooks and school supplies at school AND at home, my daughter has to transport everything to and from school in an enormous, heavy rolling cart. I hate that thing.

What do you like most?

I feel so much closer and connected to my daughter through this process. There’s a real sense that we’re working together to achieve her goals, and we’ve been getting along even better than usual since school has started this year- which is good because I am sure it could have easily gone the other way!

I love the fact that we can do her schoolwork anywhere, from Starbucks to the botanical gardens to a TV news station. (She worked on the FOX 17 news desk yesterday morning while I taped an interview!) I love that I’m able to tailor her lessons to appeal to HER– She’s studying maps right now in Social Studies, so we got out  our US and world puzzles and we’ve been working them over and over again, talking about the states and the countries and continents and all that we know about them. We visited the Belle Meade Plantation on Home School History Day and heard some amazing stories about Tennessee history from the 1700s up to World War II- She was absolutely riveted (and so was I). We’re going on bike rides, attending the zoo’s monthly home school classes, hiking, and visiting museums and historic sites. I’m so glad we now have the TIME to do this and I love seeing the impact it’s having on her.

What do I have to do to home school my child in Tennessee?

There are a couple of different avenues you can take, but it is really, REALLY easy to legally home school your kid in Tennessee, and there are all kinds of resources and groups here for every kind of home schooler under the sun. You can find the answers to most of your questions at MTHEA.org.

Got more questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them here!