home-school happenings
The changing face of home-schooling By Nicole McKeon WNC Parent columnist
Several months back, I wrote an article about my desire to change the name “homeschooling” to “newschooling.” I have given this a lot of thought and spent time observing many home educating families. I really believe that as more and more families leave traditional school and enter the home education realm, the face of home-schooling is changing. I think this is for many reasons. What I observe in the home-schooling community, both online and in our local setting, is an ever more “in tune” parent. Parents are taking the time to learn about how children learn, about why children struggle and have an under-
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standing that just because a child struggles in a traditional school setting, he or she is not defined by this struggle. Add to this the fact that while many families are comfortable with a limited intimacy and interaction, that is sometimes a result of everyone having many responsibilities and demands outside of the home that keep them apart frequently. An equal push back is occurring there. Many families feel that one way they can emphasize the importance of family closeness and parent/child relationship is to cut out the middle man that traditional school sometimes becomes, thereby creating an environment where family relationships trump the peer relationships that sometimes become more important in a school setting. In step with these changes, I have observed the ever-changing and often creative ways in which home-educating parents are getting the job done. Of course, there are still the home-
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schooling families whom many nonhome-schoolers reference, families like TV’s Duggar family, who primarily home educate to pass along their particular religious values on to their children. But, there is a whole new breed of home-schooler, one who enters the home education realm knowing that they will be choosing carefully every class their child attends or participates in, based on that child’s individual learning style, strengths, weaknesses and interests. Research has shown that children learn and retain more enthusiastically when they are involved in the choices and are inherently interested in the subject matter. I’d like to take some time, over the next several columns to introduce you to some of the services available for this type of home-schooler in WNC. This month, I would like you to meet Convenient Tutor, a tutoring service started by James Foust, former Asheville