Eric Mack On-Line

Fellow technologist, Richard Schwartz, recently blogged that he is considering home educating his gifted daughter, and he's looking for information from other technically oriented parents who are already doing this. If you fit that description, he'd like to hear from you.

Kathy and I have been home educating our four daughters since birth (the older twins are now 11.75 years old) and we have found it to be a simultaneously challenging, time-consuming, exhilarating, and rewarding experience. It's a lot of work, but the benefits can be tremendous.

Home Education involves many aspects and can be accomplished in a variety of ways. That's one of the wonderful things about becoming responsible for your child's education. You do not have to do everything alone or even at home. I tell parents that any parent can (and I believe should) become a home-educating parent -- regardless of whether or not they entrust their child's education to an outside institution (public or private) for portion of their day.

Home education is about more than just where the learning takes place; it is about the process and the approach. Every discussion, event, activity, problem and question that your child  asks is a learning opportunity.  What will be learned depends entirely upon how you respond. This can be a great deal of fun, too. Just take a look at my past blog about Binary Carrots.  (I could fill a daily blog site with stories like these.)

My first recommendation, Richard, would be to attend a local home education conference. There, you will find a variety of resources. For my wife and I, it is one of our favorite times of year, and in many ways, it is better than  [gasp]  Comdex or Lotusphere. Imagine the excitement of being in a convention center with 5000 other people -- all parents -- who have only one focus in mind -- how to best educate and equip their children for life. Add to this the speakers, exhibits, curriculum vendors, and learning resource companies; you will definitely leave exhilarated and with a new perspective.

Since many focus on the academic potential of home education, which is great, I'll mention something else: relationships. We have found that our own family relationships have been greatly strengthened by the time and activities that we do together, and I have observed this in most of the other homeschool families that I know.  This destroys the myth that quality time is better than quantity of time.  You need a lot of both. Kids watch and learn from everything that they see.

I could go on all day, about this and other benefits, but I'll take my leave. Perhaps I'll write more to post on our Family Homeschool site, which I am currently converting to DominoBlog, so that I can more easily add information, resources and sections. Amy and Wendy have already asked for sections where they can blog about their LEGO robotics team and other school-related projects and activities.

Best wishes for your family success.

Eric Mack