TECHNOLOGY IS GREAT, BUT…

The internet and DVDs provide many opportunities for homeschoolers, but there is just no substitute for Mom in the classroom.

Last week I invited questions from readers, and Rhonda submitted one that I found especially intriguing. She asked, “Did your children take only on-line courses, and what was the parent’s role?”

I began teaching my children in 1975—back in the dark ages of the movement when the term “homeschooling” had not yet been coined. In fact, I taught for eight years before I ever met another homeschooler.

One month before her fifth birthday I began teaching my oldest daughter to read with a system I had developed myself. By the time she was five years four months old, I had taught her to read, to print, and to tell time. She had also learned the basic one-hundred addition and one-hundred subtraction facts.

In those days there was no internet, no PCs, no DVDs. My “tools” were textbooks, pads of lined paper and pencils. The little battery powered hand-held calculators did, of course, exist, but I did not allow my children to use them. I insisted that they complete all calculations using only paper and pencil.

It was not until my youngest child was finishing his master’s degree that California State University, where all of my ten children earned their master’s degrees, gave students the option of e-mailing assignments. Since our computer was really only a word processor with no hard drive and no internet access, even that was not an option for us.

Yet, even with our limited resources, my ten children completed every grade level, including bachelor’s and master’s degrees, entirely through home study, and they did so by age sixteen.

I do not want to give anyone the impression that I am anti-technology. It is essential in today’s society, and I believe that we should utilize it as fully as possible. However, technology is never a substitute for knowledge, and I believe that this is something that we tend to forget. If the knowledge base is in place, technology is an extraordinary expedient, but no one, whether student or businessman, should ever rely on technology to provide answers he cannot verify independently.

My grown children who have children of their own are now homeschooling their little ones. They take advantage of the DVDs available with the various curricula now on the market that feature electronic teachers. I do not have a problem with that, but I frequently caution them to never rely on someone else to do their jobs. It is their responsibility to watch those DVDs with their children and talk to them about anything they do not understand. It is their responsibility to keep up and make certain that their children are deriving the maximum benefit from each day’s lessons.

When I began homeschooling, we wanted to make certain that our children were getting everything they needed for a well-rounded education. We also wanted them to progress to undergraduate and graduate work when they finished high school. As a result, we always used curricula provided through well-established schools that offered complete home study courses. We also bore the additional expense of having the schools do the grading and record keeping so that every grade level was fully accredited and each child had grade transcripts at every school.

I read every textbook that my children were ever assigned. I discussed every lesson with them that they ever completed. I read and critiqued every paper that they ever wrote. I was fully involved in every aspect of their educations. I was always willing to spend as much time as necessary to make certain that they understood their assignments. Nevertheless, because I was so involved, my children’s school day was only three hours long. I think that is a pretty good trade off—three hours of no nonsense, no distractions schoolwork in exchange for twenty-one free hours.

It is natural to want to find better ways of doing things, and when I was homeschooling, I constantly looked for ways to make my school day easier. However, there is a reason why Thomas Edison commented, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Most of life is hard. If we are going to reach our goals, we have to be willing to give whatever it takes to accomplish them.

The advancements in distance learning are exciting. Today’s homeschooling families have access to volumes of information with just the click of a mouse. Thirty-five years ago I could never have imagined that in 2010 homeschoolers would have so many choices available to them. My advice is this: Take advantage of everything that makes your job as a homeschooling parent easier. Use technology to the fullest, but always remember that a computer is never a substitute for a home teacher who knows her children better than anyone else and who loves them enough to sacrifice her time so that they can succeed. At times you will be tired and discouraged, but when your last student has finished his last assignment, you will look back on these days as some of the most rewarding of your life. You will always be glad that you shared this great educational experience with the people you love the most.

Thanks for sharing your concerns with me. I will be posting my blog every Tuesday morning. I invite you to post questions that you would like to have addressed in future blogs.