One of my recent newspaper columns looked very broadly at the topic of homeschooling.  (For the blog version of this column see Homeschool.Education.)

My good friend and former colleague from University of Central Missouri (now retired in Round Rock, Texas), Dr. Terry Goodman joined the discussions with some very articulate and enlightening thoughts.  These thoughts arise from the experiences he and his wife Teresa have had, as they made the decision to help home-school their grandson Jagen.

Terry has given me permission to share his comments.  Most of them are below.

From the Comment section of the blog:

Having worked with public school teachers (pre- and in-service) for 40 years and strongly believing in the value and importance of public schools, it was with some mixed feelings that Teresa (a public school teacher) and I decided to home school our grandson. We are now members of a home school association.

You are correct in pointing out that there are many potential advantages and disadvantages when you home school your child. As we have talked with other home school parent/grandparents, we have found that the majority have made an informed, calculated decision to home school their child/children.

We are even more convinced, now that we are home schooling our grandson, that being the home school “teacher” is a very challenging task. Choosing curriculum materials, especially in area that are not our “specialty” areas requires careful thought and research. Building in appropriate and consistent extracurricular/social activities requires even more time and careful planning.

The primary advantage we have seen in our home school experience has been that we can more easily and consistently construct a schedule and curriculum that takes into account our grandson’s learning disabilities. We have found that this approach works well for other parents whose children have such needs.

We have encountered a few parents who seem to have made the decision to home school based primarily on fear of what would happen to their children in public school. In my opinion, those fears are unfounded and often based on incomplete or simply false information. In some cases, such parents often find that they are “in over their heads” when they have to make curricular/pedagogical decisions in their home schooling.

From a later e-mail:

My observations on what it takes to create a “successful” home school situation:

1.  Parent(s) with the time, discipline, and organizational skills needed to create and maintain an “educational” environment.
2.  Subject matter “expertise.”  Most home school parents I have talked to feel very inadequate in teaching math/science.
3.  Choosing a subject curriculum that is appropriate, challenging, and relevant for their child.  It is no surprise to me that Saxon is the biggest seller in the home school math curriculum market.  I am using Connected Math with Jagen.  Very few parents would be able to use CM in the way it is designed to be used.
4.  Pedagogical “expertise.”  Differentiating between skill/procedural mastery and concept development, connections, multiple representations, and problem solving.  Asking “why,” “what if,” and “how do you know” questions.
5.  Willingness to put in the time, effort, and creativity needed to develop lessons, especially in subject areas that are not in your area of expertise.  Teresa spends a great deal of time (more than I would!), finding books, videos, movies, extracurricular activities etc. that help to make Jagen’s English and social studies curricula interesting and relevant.  Given his severe ADHD, these adaptations are really important.  I am afraid that many parents would not have the time, initiative, and teaching experience that would enable them to do this.