Teachers vs homeschoolers. Must we fight?

Since I was at least pre-teen my life aspiration was to work in the area of history. Eventually this shaped into potentially becoming an historian, researcher, consultant, author, uni lecturer, and perhaps even an archivist. I had only 2 brief sojourns from this path, one when I was 7 and declared that I wanted to be a teacher like my mother, and the other more serious lapse of judgement when I was 16 and in year 11 and decided that forensic pathology was the way to go. Why I thought that my artsy brain could suddenly cope with chemistry and maths I have no idea, but I was under the influence of watching the popular CSI TV series and had this idea that cutting up dead bodies might be fun. Failing exams allows one to regain perspective and I’ve been back on course ever since, doing an undergraduate and then several post graduate studies in the area of history.

            Now, you might be wondering what on earth my curricula vitae has to do with teaching and I’ll tell you now: absolutely nothing. Besides that moment when I was 7 I have never had a desire to be a teacher. None. Even when I realised that the most rational career option after studying history at university would be to become a history teacher, my brain refused to allow me to even consider that prospect. It was taboo. Why not become a teacher? Perhaps it’s because my mother was a teacher (some would say still is, as once you’re a teacher you never stop being one) and I saw how hard she worked. Perhaps it’s because I disliked the idea of being around little children, or even bigger children. Perhaps it’s because I have this ingrained dislike/borderline PTSD of the school system thanks to my own experience and fear that being a teacher would be no different to being a student. Perhaps I simply fear meeting students who are like was. Interestingly enough, my sister became a teacher, my brother became a teacher, my brother’s wife became a teacher, and for goodness sake even my husband became a teacher! But me? I was NOT becoming a teacher.

            Alas, God has a sense of humour. An annoying one. Becoming a homeschooler, as per His instructions, means that I have essentially become a teacher. Drat. But worse still, I don’t even get all the perks. As a homeschooler I don’t:

a) get paid (or any superannuation),

b) get holidays,

c) get training,

d) have any guidance or help,

e) have any actual qualifications or experience to draw from,

f) have no idea whatsoever as to what I’ll do once my children have finished their schooling because I’ll have been out of the workforce for 14 years and all of my qualifications are nullified.

We’re essentially unpaid teachers who have to figure everything out the hard way as we go along and only ever get to use a lesson plan once (what a waste of energy!). Not exactly an advertisement for homeschooling.

            Meanwhile conversations can become a tad awkward at family gatherings, because while everyone else is professionally trained to be a teacher, I had the audacity to remove my kids from school and teach them myself. Obviously my husband was all for this idea, but my siblings… not so much. And in a way they have a point: they did x number of years at university studying pedagogy and behaviours and classroom management, and they worked hard and sacrificed a lot in order to get that qualification. It would be easy to think of me as undermining their experience and skill by declaring that I can do better.

            The thing is that I have no issues with teachers, my siblings included. I feel that teachers remain largely unrecognised for their dedication to their craft, and apart from a few exceptions, I very much appreciate what they do. Don’t forget – I married one! What I don’t appreciate is the system that they work within. I’m not anti-education, and in theory not even anti-school. I firmly believe that some children have a wonderful time at school. Other children might not have such a wonderful time there, but staying at home is the far worse option so send them anyway. My issue is that the school system is based on the ‘average child’, which makes total sense, but what happens when your child isn’t average? What happens if they struggle socially or academically? School suddenly becomes really hard. And too bad if they struggle in both areas! The vast majority of schools, as well as the vast majority of teachers (most because they don’t receive adequate training), cannot cope with children who lay outside the average, and since my children fall in these categories then I have stepped up and decided to educate them myself. Legally I have every right to do so, and logically it was better for my children that I take up this mantle, but it’s clearly far from the history path that I had planned in life.

            There are many reasons why people choose to homeschool, but for those teachers out there, thinking that we’re stepping on your turf, I want you to know that our decision is not meant to undermine your own career choice. In fact, it can’t as homeschooling is not ‘school at home’ – it’s actually very different to what you do in the classroom and doesn’t require half the skills that you have learned along the way. In essence, homeschooling is merely an extension of parenting, adding in education alongside character training and tying shoelaces and life skills and taxiing them to and from activities. We just add in learning to read and write along the way, much like people did for thousands of years before the school system was created and school attendance made compulsory. I never planned to become a teacher and the fact that I teach my own children does not negate the wonderful things that you do for those children whose parents cannot/will not/should not homeschool. In saying that God has a sense of humour, so does my mother, who laughs as she rubs it in that ‘she always knew I’d be a teacher, like her’. Thanks, Mum. That makes me feel better. (Not).