SPECIAL REPORT: Living Room Learning

Education, It’s one of the things in life we’re told can never be taken away from you. But *how* you receive that education is up for debate. Most get it through public or private schools, but what about home schooling? This year North Carolina is seeing a record number of parent’s home schooling their children. 9 on your side’s Carley Wegner say down with some home schooling mom’s to find why living room learning is becoming such a valid 3rd option. 

At this table are three mothers. All with different backgrounds and reasons for home schooling their children. “It’s my job as a Christian and a mother to train my child the way I believe my child should go.“ Hannah McLawhorn has 6 children. After what she calls “struggles” in the public school system, she decided to home school. “It’s not the teachers—it’s overloading the teachers to me the teachers are being over worked and their pay is being cut.“  Karen Kozel, a mother of 12 agrees. She taught in the public school system but now teaches in her living room. “Really when you do it long term, the relation that I have with my children and the relations my husband has with the children, is phenomenal, it’s amazing.“ Cyndi Shimer has been home schooling for 10 years- she says parents essentially home school their children in the afternoons, so she decided to do it yourself from start to finish.

    These mothers aren’t alone. In the 2008-2009 school year just over 41 thousand families in all 100 hundred counties of our state decided to trade in the classroom setting for their living rooms. Of those 44 thousand families who are now choosing to home school- 65 percent say they classify themselves as religious schools. But the trend of home schooling is something these mothers know is being looked at with skeptical eyes.  But all agree, home schooling is different than it was 10-15 years ago. Shimer says “the question I get most is how do you go about doing that? They are more interested.“ Interested and opinionated too. An argument that comes up a lot is the issue of socialization or… lack of. McLawhorn, “my children are very well socialized we are in Lenoir county there is an organization, Lenoir county home educators our children get together one Thursday a week for 12 weeks during the first semester and 12 the next semester and they are with other children their age.“

And there are home school group organizations across the country—- recently this Lenoir County group got together for a lesson on fire safety. Some groups even offer athletics and dances. But what about their education? How can parents—that by law in North Carolina, only have to have a “g-e-d” teach better than trained and certified teachers? When asked about their struggles Kozel says, “I think as they get older the resourcing out—you have to be willing to resource.“  These home school moms admit *parents* might not be the best to teach “10th grade biology” but in today’s home schooling world there are resources out there to help. Kozel says, “  to people that are opposed to it sometimes its a paradigm that they are uncomfortable with and the fear of the unknown I think if they got to know more families that did home school successfully then their opposition would probably crumble.“ And Shimer says “look at the results look at the test results look at the kids who have gone through college and look at what they are doing now.“

    We tried, but the truth is that information is hard to find because no one tracks it. Not even the state. In North Carolina- families who want to home school only have to *register* with the state department of non-public education. Students *do* take national standardized tests but because the curriculum is so individualized, the state doesn’t track their success. If you are interested in learning more about homes schooling and some studies done on the issue, we’ve made it easy for you. Just click on the links provided.

Here are some links on home schooling:

1) Lenoir County Home Educators: http://lenoircountyhomeeducators.org/index.htm

2) National Home Education Research Institute: http://www.nheri.org/

3) North Carolina Division of Non- Public Education: http://www.ncdnpe.org/index.asp

4) North Carolinians for Home Education: http://nche.com/

5) Home School Legal Defense Association: http://www.hslda.org/research/default.asp

6) Home School Foundation: http://www.homeschoolfoundation.org/