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Millions of children return to school this week, but a small and growing number – about 2 million – will stay put: home schoolers. The number of pupils taught outside of traditional schools is growing at 5-12 percent per year, according to the National Home Education Research Institute, a non-profit devoted to home schooling research. I asked lifelong home schooler and BargainBabe.com blogger Bobbi Burger Brunoehler about the growing world of home education.
How long have you home schooled your son and daughter? I’ve home schooled them most of their lives. My son is now 18, my daughter is 16.
Why do you home school? Because I want my kids to be able to think for themselves and I want them to love learning and I want them to know how to learn anything because the world changes and you have to know how to learn.
How do you afford to home school when it means your family is living on one income? You almost have to think about what I’m not spending. The fancy clothes I don’t have to have. I don’t have to pay for babysitting when I work and they are out of school. I don’t have to pay for after school programs.
How much do you save home schooling? I think by home schooling I’ve saved more money than I possibly could have made. I think I’ve probably saved $60,000 a year, but it’s hard to substantiate without sitting down and doing the calculations.
When students are not interested in learning, how do you motivate them? If they were interested in the subject and now they are not, you go back and find when they were they last doing well. You find what they didn’t understand, some word or symbol. When there’s a subject that I’ve got to get them interested in, I will get them to follow me into some sort of activity. If a student wasn’t interested in math, I’d say, ‘Here’s $10. We’re going to Toys R Us. What are you going to buy with that $10?’ Get ready to spend four hours in Toys R Us while they look at the prices of everything because now math is important. There has to be a purpose. You can’t just talk about it. ‘Well when you’re older how will you do your taxes?’
How do you create study space at home? I imagine there are a lot of distractions. When the kids were really, really little we would read tons of books in bed. We did a lot of stuff on the couch. It was where anybody was comfortable. We did so many field trips. Whenever it was possible we would go to see the thing, touch the thing, do the thing, as opposed to reading about the thing. Then if they were like, ‘Wow, that was really interesting, I want to know more about it,’ then we’ll go get the book about it.
How do you organize your “schoolroom,” including supplies? We have tons of bookshelves. I also have a really awesome craft closet. Most of my materials have come from yard sales or in the home school community there are curriculum swaps and curriculum sales. You can get curriculum very cheap on Amazon and eBay.
How do you save money on educating them? I got a sewing machine from Freecycle. I’ve bought several computers off Craigslist. Another thing that is wonderful is community colleges. You have so many wonderful resources there.
Clearly there’s something I don’t know about community college. What could it offer a young student? You can go concurrently if you are a full-time high school student. My kids have taken script writing, editing, illustration, Photoshop, photography, and other advanced editing classes. You can graduate with an associates degree at the same time as you earn a high school diploma.
What if anything, do you think your kids are educationally deficient in? Deficient? The only way to answer that is to tell you what I think is important. There are a bazillion facts they haven’t learned. What is important is reading, writing, arithmetic and research because then you can find out anything you want. You’re never going to be able to learn everything and smash it into your head. You have to be able to think logically and know how to find out about things.
Anything else you want to add? You have to keep them winning. You can’t keep having learning be painful so they’re not doing well. ‘You’re behind. You got this wrong.’ You have to focus on what they’re interested in and what they do well. Find what they do well and help them do it better.
Welcome to Bargain Babe! I’m Mara, and I’m so glad you’re here. I am an obsessive bargain hunter and penny pincher, and I am determined to live a full life without EVER paying full price. 
It sounds like Bobbi’s nailed the most important things for kids to learn, and also giving them real-life lessons in applying those skills. My only question for her is: What about developing social skills with peers? A neighbor of mine is home-schooling her 3 young boys. Her idea of discipline is to yell (loudly!). The kids are bright, but socially inept and very rude. Sadly, the mother thinks she knows it all, and doesn’t take advice from anyone. I do feel sorry for the boys, as it isn’t their fault that they’re the way they are. I shudder to think what kind of adults they’ll become.
A homeschooling friend just mentioned that she gets free classes at a local science museum through a Charter School in the area. Not sure how it works exactly, but she is getting a lot of free resources through this Charter School, although the kids are schooled at home and she only meets with her Charter School teacher once a month.
But would her kids get accepted to a top engineering school? I hold a PhD in Engineering, and a BS in Engineering, and I owe a lot of to the high school I attended, granted, it was a specific to science and technology. On the other hand, I was also “late” socially, and part of that was due to my high school too. I would like to know how top engineering schools would review an admissions application from a home schooled applicant.
As a retired educator I have had an oportunity to meet with home schooled childeren and their parents/teacher. I is very clear that Bobbi is a natural teacher. She would do well in any teaching situation. There are many teachers who attempt to use some of the same teaching techniques in a traditional classroom setting with much sucsess. I have also observed the other extreme of home schooling where parents are paranoid about the outside world and are using this as a way to “protect” their kids. They would never go on a field trip or allow their students to enroll in a community college.
What about the social aspects of home schooling? Do the kids have friends over? Are they in organized sports? How do they meet new people?
i home school mine because one had a health probem and we got a computer books everything free and we meet with there teacher and love her its so worth it and good they have friends and you dont gotta worry about all the bad kids arond
I home schooled two of mine for a year to catch them up and get them ready for private school. it’s one of the best things you can do for your child. had to post this on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks!
I love that homeschooling is a subject on a mainstream blog. 🙂 We do not homeschool to save money. I was an engineer for 25 years — ummm — I made a bit more than $60k/year. But we decided to get out of the two-income rat race. I was not looking forward to seeing my daugther for only two hours a night if I were working and she was going to school. Is it easy? No. Is it worth it? Definitely.
@Junie: There are so many activities for homeschoolers, it shouldn’t be called HOMEschooling. Homeschoolers meet at park days every week. One park day in our city has organized sports. There are a ton of support groups that plan field trips, classses, and activities.
@Art: I went to one of the worst high schools in LA and went to a state school. I worked alongside engineers who went to Carnegie-Mellon and MIT. I don’t think there was anything on my forehead that said, “State University”. 🙂
@Sarah: We do belong to one of those charters that provides funds for us to buy curriculum and take lessons and classes. It’s a public school — they just set up the charter to let parents decide how to spend some of their state funds.
@EllieD: Unfortunately, homeschooling doesn’t prevent bad parenting.
From what I’ve observed, the whole “socialization” issue is pushed by the media as an ignorant unfounded criticism. The “socialization” that occurred in my daughter’s regular school before we started homeschooling was vicious with incessant put down of anyone and everyone. My daughter had become withdrawn because of it and didn’t want anything to do with her piers. Since homeschooling she has become well-centered and freely socializes with any age bracket including her piers.
I think this article does a good job showing some of the benefits and cautions of homeschooling, but does it really save 60,000 a year to homeschool? I don’t see how the math would add up to that much!
I do believe that it is a misnomer that homeschooled children tend to have their social skills stunted. I can see why people who haven’t been homeschooled or are familiar with it may come to that conclusion though.
With the homeschool culture becoming more broad, there are so many programs for homeschoolers. Our church actually has a program where you can pick various courses for your child to take part in ranging from karate to math. They would be invovled with other children and have to take direction from another adult.
Most of the home school children I have ever encountered have been the most calm, intelligent, socially stable children. Also, I have quite a few adult friends that were homeschooled as children and are outstanding in intellect and socially.
This was a great article. I have been tossing around the idea of home schooling my youngest daughter. She will be 10 years old next week and was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes this past January. It has been a nightmare trying to keep her safe at school because so many people don’t know anything about diabetes. My other two children prefer going to public school so I would never want to take them out of it unless they were behind or had a lot of problems. My only concern with homeschooling is the same thing everyone else has said, I want all of my children to be around other children and have a social life. I am sure I just need to look around to find the right support groups for this type of thing and find other parents who homeschool.
@Becky: I would recommend trying to connect to a local group. Collect info on homeschooling and resources in your area. Email/chat with other homeschool parents. Maybe even go to a park day or activity while your child is still in school. For us, it was a 3-4 year process as we had to figure out how to live on one-income.
We’re homeschoolers and kids get so much better socialization in the world than in the “save the socializing for after class” classroom! We turn down more get-togethers and birthday parties than we attend because there are so many!
As for college, I don’t know about engineering schools, but since schools like Harvard love accepting homeschoolers, I would think other secondary education opportunities do to.
Oh, and the single income has meant a lot of financial picking and choosing for us. Definitely wouldn’t be spending $60,000 more if they were schooled, so this is NOT a financial choice!
@Becky ~ It sounds to me like you have a handle on the pros and cons of public vs. home schooling, and will make the right decision for your daughter. Health issues are a major concern for most parents at any time. Since you plan to leave your other kids in public school, handling just one to home school should be easier. There are support groups nearly everywhere for people dealing with various serious health issues, and I recommend checking out those near you. Your almost 10-year-old has already had a chance to learn basic socialization skills, so making the transition should be fairly easy. I wish you and your family all the best with whatever you decide.
Wow! So many thoughtful comments, especially by @Kathy Thomas and @Cindy Castro.
@Amos I agree that Bobbi is a natural teacher. Every time I talk to her I learn something really important! Perhaps that is part of the reason why she was drawn to home schooling.
Socialization seems to be the primary concern so far. Bobbi, what do you think about these concerns?
Socialization? Really? Have you ever observed a homeschool child/teen? My 8 yr old son and I just returned from a park day, where he discussed an abundance of topics with another mom, held a ‘peace’ picnic with 4-10 yr olds, rode his scooter with an 8 yr old girl…etc. At Barnes and Noble he proudly discussed his solar system cookies he baked and decorated…etc.
Now, go to a playground at any school. Watch the local high school kids (as I did today) as they hang on the corner, smoking and walking in the street, ignoring cars…wearing the ‘cool’ clothes. I will take my incredibly intelligent, ‘can talk to anyone’ child over the ‘now we must do…’ crowd any day.