It’s official: after ~3 years of research (a.k.a. obsessive blog reading and lurking on mailing lists) and 2 years of alternative schooling (for one of my children), we’re saying “goodbye” to school and “hello” to home learning. My kids will be finished with school by June 15.

Yeehaw!

In September we hope to attend our first not-back-to-school-picnic, as we also start to figure out exactly what home learning will look like for us. I have some ideas, but since the kids haven’t really had a chance to just do it, we’re going to have to wait to see how it turns out.

But I’m also truly thrilled to finally have taken the plunge, so I must take a moment to give a hearty and heartfelt thanks to all the homeschoolers who write or frequent homeschool-related blogs and to the homeschoolers with whom I have spoken or corresponded via email. All of you speak so eloquently of the joys, challenges, and benefits of home learning with your children — you have helped my family understand that homeschooling is more about the way you live your life than it is about how you educate your children. Thank you for sharing your insights and your passion for your — to coin an oft mis-used phrase — lifestyle choice.

Heh.

My daughter marked her last day of school on her calendar as “School Vacation.” The other night we talked about the fact that it’s going to be a really long one. My kids are both excited and nervous about not going back to school in the fall. Their primary concern seems to be who their friends will be — they won’t have classmates for a built-in supply of candidates. So we have feelers out into nearby communities so that we can connect with other homeschoolers in the area. It’s important to me that my kids feel like they belong to a community of people who also opt to learn at home.

Our decision to homeschool has been a long time coming, and it’s a relief to have finally made it. I have the usual concerns about my soon-to-be missing income and whether or not I’ll be any good at my “new job,” but I know we’ve made the right choice for our kids. I don’t know how long the journey will last — we’ve told the kids we’ll take it year by year — but honestly, I hope it lasts a long, long time.

Wish us luck!

Once considered the domain of only deeply religious families who didn’t want to send their kids to secular schools, homeschooling has been gaining popularity among not-particularly-religious families. In “Meet My Teachers: Mom and Dad,” Business Week covers the growth of homeschooling specifically within the “creative class.”

According to Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class, the creative class consists of educated, affluent people who, um, “create for a living”:

[They]…seek not only fulfilling jobs, but also tolerant and vibrant communities and cities. This new class of workers does not define itself by national boundaries, but is highly mobile, willing to relocate for the best social, cultural, and economic opportunities. The creative class, 38 million strong in the U.S., produces a disproportionate share of wealth, accounting for nearly half of all wages and salaries earned - as much as the manufacturing and service sectors combined.

Sounds like a pretty good life:

Highly educated? Check.
More than adequate income? Check.
Freedom to live where you want? Check.

So what do they have to complain about, these jazzy, improvisational creators? School, apparently. If they don’t like their public schools, the creative class can presumably find a different community with more suitable schools. Or they can pony up and send their kids to private schools — in fact, some of these parents attended elite private schools themselves. But they’re homeschooling their kids instead. Why?
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