NHEG-January-February2022

January - February 2022
NHEG EDGUIDE January - February 2022
Take this as an example: your child is sitting outside in the sun drinking a cold drink, and asks you why the outside of
their cup is getting wet.
Your reaction is simultaneously intimidation (I have no idea) and interest (there might be a science lesson buried in
this).
You say, “I don’t know. Let’s figure it out.”
Five minutes and some Googling later, your child has learned about condensation, the dew point, and the effects of a
hot entity meeting a cold one.
Their joy in learning was alive. All I had to do was direct their natural curiosity and let them run with it.
Working with public school students was an entirely different story. I was working with the full grade range—1st grade
all the way into high school—and I saw in stark relief their natural curiosity slowly dying.
The 1st-3rd graders were hungry to learn. The 4th-6th graders required some prodding, but after some explanation and
encouragement could start to have fun. But by the time the students hit middle school, their interest in learning was
gone. Nothing I tried could make them excited. They were there because they had to be, and they were watching the
clock waiting until they could go. Learning had become a compulsory requirement, not an endeavor stemming from
desire.
School doesn’t foster curiosity; it kills it. With its rules, its rigid structure, its obsession with right and wrong answers,
and its punishments for deviating off course, it doesn’t leave any room for curiosity.
With all that unnatural structure absent, a child’s natural curiosity remains intact. And when a child is left to their own
devices and allowed to lean into their curiosity, a parent’s biggest job is helping to direct it.
Despite common belief, all of this applies to homeschooling your high schooler, too
I’ve heard countless homeschooling parents say, “I could never teach my child through high school.”
Even when someone is convinced of their ability to educate their child through elementary and middle school, high
school is considered to be a different beast.
The subject matter is more challenging, the standard requirements more complex, and the level of expertise necessary
to answer questions is significantly higher.
In spite of that, you don’t need any extra qualifications to homeschool your high schooler. If anything, the resources
available to you are even more expansive than they are for elementary-aged students.
With your child at a comprehension level to use resources like The Great Courses and Khan Academy (both of which
were staples of my own homeschooling experience), they’re able to engage with entire courses covering the subject
matter they’re expected to learn—putting less of a burden on you, not more.
And as your high schooler becomes more self-directed, they’re able to take on more and more of the impetus of
answering their own questions. As long as you’re able to support them in finding the answers they’re looking for, you’re
more than qualified to educate your child through high school—and often, high school is the most fun part of the
homeschool experience (it certainly was for me).
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2021 The history of compulsory schooling laws says a lot about their true purpose.
BY KERRY MCDONALD
Compulsory Schooling Laws Under Scrutiny in Michigan
Following Deadly Tragedy
n the wake of the devastating school shooting in Oxford, about keeping the teen in school. “Probably they will
Michigan this week that claimed the lives of four teenagers
and injured seven others, state board of education McMillin, a Certified Public Accountant and former Mich-
come to that conclusion.”
member Tom McMillin called for an end to Michigan’s igan state representative who lives just 10 minutes away
compulsory schooling laws.
from Oxford, has long been in favor of eliminating compulsory
schooling laws, but this week’s tragedy prompted
“Repeal compulsory schooling laws,” McMillin announced
in a Facebook post on Thursday. “State needs to stop him to come out publicly against the statutes for the first
dictating terms of education of our kids,” he wrote.
time.
The Associated Press reports that details have emerged “Oxford highlights that the mental health of kids often
indicating that the teen shooter’s parents—who on Friday
were charged with involuntary manslaughter—met interview about his social media post. “School meetings
needs to be the total focus,” McMillin told me in an
with school officials a few hours before the massacre, but with a troubled child, parents, and administrators need
the student remained at school.
to not end with ‘we have to treat the child like all others.’
Parents should be able to get their kid out for a week, a
“Should there have been different decisions made?” said month, a year. And open all kinds of alternative options
Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald when asked of which parents can avail themselves,” he explained.
Compulsory schooling, or compulsory attendance, statutes date back to the 19th century, when Massachusetts
enacted the first law of this kind in 1852. Horace Mann, then president of the Massachusetts state board of education
who is considered to be the architect of the American public school system, was captivated by the Prussian model of
education that hinged upon compulsion and standardization. Mann imported that model to the US, where widespread
anti-immigrant sentiment in places such as Massachusetts made it easier to pass compulsory schooling laws.
Source: National Review
https://www.nationalreview.com
In the first half of the 1800s, immigrants flocked to American cities seeking a better life and fleeing famine and oppression
abroad. In 1847, for example, 37,000 Irish immigrants arrived in Boston, which at the time had a population of just
over 100,000 people.[i] These Irish, mostly Catholic immigrants challenged the dominant Anglo-Saxon Protestant mores
at the time, and were seen as threats to the social order.
56
57