Homeschooling Over 40 Years: The Road Less Traveled

Turning to the past

Let me set the stage. Back then, the internet was not widely used. The curriculum options were much less robust (or, at the very least, it was harder to discover the options—even finding tutoring services for me and my siblings required extensive in-person networking). Computers were scarce. My three siblings and I shared an ancient 1980s Apple desktop, a castoff from my dad. Our out-of-the box curriculum provider sent us everything we had; nothing could be printed off, of course, or shared over email. I vividly remember large boxes arriving at our house every August; they were the telltale signs that summer vacation was at an end.

My mom attended monthly in-person meetings of our homeschool group. Any information between meetings was shared in a printed newsletter, delivered through the mail. She learned through the newspaper about a new weekly gym and swim class being offered by a local community center, specifically for homeschooling families. It was an enterprising move given the large homeschooling population. We attended that class for almost a decade. It’s where we all learned how to swim, and where I met one of my oldest friends (now a homeschooling mom of six herself ).

Another regular event for our homeschooling community was “Skills Day” every February. Moms offered a variety of nonacademic classes from which students could choose, rounding out our education with some fun, practical skills. One year, for instance, my mom taught kids how to make a giant Reese’s Cup (it was an immensely popular option that year). When I remember these days, they represent for me peak 1990s homeschooling—hundreds of kids traipsing in and out of houses with crafts and baked goods under their arms. It’s an idyllic image of what home education can be.

It’s amusing, of course, to recall how my family was perceived by nonhomeschoolers in those days. I’m sure you’ve heard it all: unsocialized, no friends, few future opportunities, and so on and so forth. But looking back as an adult, I know now that those accusations were simply failures of the imagination. The homeschooling movement represents a different vision for education and family life. Some people just cannot perceive what that looks like.

How times change

In the years since my family was in the trenches of homeschooling, when HSLDA itself was a much smaller organization, the landscape has changed dramatically. For example: despite my nostalgic musings about the pre-internet days, technological innovations have made home education more widely available than ever. Online classes provide parents with options and opportunities we never could have imagined in the ’90s; they bring together students and teachers throughout the country and around the world, allowing for communities to form that are broader than anything I experienced while being homeschooled.

As HSLDA enters its 40th year, we’ve seen the movement continue to adapt and change, meeting the moment and providing more options for parents in their students’ educational journeys. While I miss the simplicity of the ’90s, this willingness to adapt is one of homeschooling’s greatest strengths—another benefit, I believe, of homeschoolers’ lively imaginations. We are comfortable coloring outside the lines, which mitigates concerns about the new and unknown.

Along the way, I think the movement has managed to broaden the wider public imagination as well, even before the pandemic made “homeschooling” a household word. While I was attending graduate school at a public institution, the phrase “unsocialized homeschooler” was used during one class as an example of a stereotype that has little basis in reality. I revealed that I had been homeschooled for all 12 grades, and as a group we laughed at the notion that I should be socially inept simply because my educational experience was unusual. I was certainly amused, but also hopeful: perhaps our influence has extended further than we think.

As a millennial homeschool grad, I have the unique ability to remember both the “before” and “after” from a student’s perspective: homeschooling before and after the internet; homeschooling before and after the explosion of curriculum options; homeschooling before and after many of HSLDA’s victories; homeschooling before and after it became a more mainstream educational option (and could be recognized as such in a graduate school classroom). A common thread through all the transitions, however, is the home educator’s dreamy boldness.

We are the pilgrims of the road less traveled. And it is this unique perspective that makes us look around the world, tilt our heads with a grin, and say, “Why not?”