On Being Homeschooled
TW: Mentions of child abuse, religious fundamentalism
As I have delved into learning about cults and organized religion over the last few years, I have come to see an overlap between these communities and the practice of homeschooling. This is not to say that there are folks who homeschool their children for reasons such as the child having a disability, lack of school funding impacting resources or other complicating factors such as parents having travelling jobs. However, a large portion of homeschooling, falls within the basis of religion or politics.
Homeschooling gained popularity in the 1960s/70s when the idea of “unschooling” came into existence. Although it began as a more liberal practice, it has become most popular among christian conservatives who have voiced disagreement against what is communicated in the public schools such as queer and race education, sexual education, history and evolution. It has become a way to shelter children from ideas that do not match religious fundamentalist values and has become the core of the current homeschooling movement and advocacy. In the 1980s, the Homeschool Legal Defence Association became established, to assist parents who faced legal disputes due to homeschooling their children. They have since expanded their focus to include other political agendas such as advocating for anti-trans legislation.
Michael Ferris is the co-founder of HLDA. The goal of the HLDA over the years has become to free homeschooling parents of as much regulation as possible. They have also been behind several repeated attacks on public schools themselves. The main critique of the christian fundamentalists against the public school systems is that education is an inherently value based practice and that by enrolling children in the public school system, they are exposed to secular and liberal values.
An example of the type of “advocacy” the HLDA has been involved in, was from 1993 - 2021 in South Dakota. In 1993, educational staff would do home visits to homes where the children had been pulled out of school for the purposes of homeschooling. Today, because of the HLDA, other than a single notice letter by the parents to the school informing the school that they are withdrawing the child for the purposes of homeschooling, there is no oversight of children being home schooled. As of 2024, most States do not require standardized testing or oversight of homeschooled children. In 11 of these States, parents are not obligated to inform anyone that they are homeschooling their children. The children simply stop appearing at school. In the States that do have some requirements in regards to standardized testing, there are several ways in which parents can eliminate meeting these requirements, due to lack of oversight.
An article from the Washington Post reported that homeschooling in the US has become the fastest growing form of education in the last several years. Despite this trend, the lack of regulation continues to leave children at risk of abuse and harm. In addition, it has led to the creation of “micro schools”, which are often also unregulated. These micro schools are a way for parents to have their children homeschooled without actually needing to do the work.
Children who are attending public schools, have the eyes of teachers and guidance counsellors on them, who are required to report suspected child abuse. Children who are homeschooled are left without this. One story, of many, is that of Roman Lopez. Roman was a homeschooled child in Michigan, where there was no regulation of homeschooling. He was just 11 years old when he died. Him and his siblings were removed from school several years before. Roman was found in a storage container in 2020, dead. It was also found through investigation and interview of Romans other siblings, that no homeschooling or education occurred.
My siblings and I were homeschooled until high school by my biological mother. It is a part of my life and trauma that I have not really spoken about in length beyond a sentence or brief mentioning in previous writings. As more cult and fundamentalist religion survivors have come forward about their experiences with homeschooling, I decided that this part of my childhood also deserves to be shared.
My biological mother decided to homeschool my siblings and I from a very young age. Although I remember being registered and pulled out from several schools, ultimately, homeschooling was the most consistent. From my memory, I was pulled in and out of Our Lady of Lourdes grade school, Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute, Waterloo Collegiate Institute, Woodland Christian High school, Rockway Mennonite Collegiate and a school which I have the most uncomfortable memories from, Our Lady of Mount Carmel grade school, which is an extreme roman catholic practicing school which still exists today. The school practices mass in Latin, as well as, segregates children by gender of male or female. My memories of OLOMC are of a very small school with very few children. It had not been open for long and I remember the catholic faith being a very core part of my limited education there.
My memories of being homeschooled are less traumatic than other parts of my childhood. Which is probably why it has not been something that I have really written about in the past. However, it does not mean that being homeschooled in a fundamentalist catholic ,abusive home, did not leave its impact.
Luckily for me, I was a fairly intelligent child. I picked up on reading and writing rather quickly and was able to grasp the concepts taught by our mother without much challenge. It should be noted, that my mother never completed a college or university degree. She had a high school education and taught us based on homeschooling resources that were often Christian or Catholic based. My father was often the one who would teach us science or math if my mother struggled with the concepts. It was not until the boys of the family came along, that my father put an end to my mother homeschooling as he wanted to boys to be able to get proper post-secondary education.
Although I was able to progress educationally, relatively unscathed, that was not true for my siblings. My one sister, developed a speech impediment as a child. Often times, speech impediments are linked to high anxiety. Although eventually my parents got her a language and speech pathologist, after first mocking her for her disability, the underlying cause of the development of the speech impediment was never addressed. She just stopped talking and would come to manage the anxiety of living in an abusive home other ways.
My other younger sister struggled with reading. I have memories of her being beaten for not understanding concepts and making mistakes. I also remember her being woken up at early hours of the morning, being forced to sit at the kitchen table to do extra hours of homework, which she struggled to understand. It was not uncommon for us to be made to write lines, being beaten with a ruler stick, being isolated or receive the silent treatment for struggling with school work.
Abuse was the motivator to do well and get good grades. My mother would mark our tests and worksheets based on answer keys at the back of the text books she taught us from. Eventually, we learned where she kept the answer keys and we would cheat as a way to avoid being hit or yelled at for getting the answers wrong.
My sisters and I will tell you that somehow, when we were placed into schools, we were often “ahead” of most other kids our age education wise. I am not sure how that happened, and I refuse to give my mothers abuse tactics credit. It probably just comes down to genetics and our brains and the fact that our mother often taught us higher grades than what we were officially in. The largest impact on us, was social.
My mother homeschooled five kids at one point. There were seven of us in total eventually. Once I got older, it was my job to mark the younger siblings tests or help teach them concepts. When the education became out of my mothers ability to teach, we then had self guided schooling where we would learn by ourselves and if we had questions, we would call a tutor line. Every two weeks or so, we would mail in our homework to be marked by the private agency who provided the education.
My only friends were my siblings. We had no other socialization outside of the home. My mother and father did not enrol us in extracurriculars. If they did, we would attend for a week or two and then be pulled out. The only extra curricular we did, was piano. Which again, has no socialization attached to it. I distinctly remember a memory of playing piano and making several mistakes. My mother stomped up the stairs from the basement and came into the dining room where my lesson was taking place. She screamed at me for all the mistakes. My piano teacher was shocked, placed a hand on my shoulder when my mother left and told me it was OK and to keep playing. The only extra curricular I remember participating in, was youth group. Which again, we were pulled in and out of without rhyme or reason.
I hated being homeschooled. I was a child, I would argue like most, who needed friends and socialization outside of my home. I also, did not have much of a childhood because I was the oldest of seven children. Often times, it was expected of me to care for my younger siblings. I was the built in babysitter. I was also the protector of my siblings, my mothers confidant of her marriage problems, the conflict resoluter and house cleaner.
My mother would break us from our schoolwork in order to do the rosary twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. We never did field trips. I only have one memory of a field trip and it was because my father took us to Toronto to see Body Works when it came to Canada, the Planetarium and the CN tower. My mother and him got into a fight because she believed that Body Works was against catholic values.
We did not learn about evolution. I went into grade nine science class, completely unaware of how the human species came to be. When I came home and told my mother than I learned about evolution, it was met with anger. We also received no sexual education and most of our science education came from watching the Magic School Bus, Popular Mechanics for Kids and Bill Nye. Otherwise, what we learned was through the lens of catholic and christian based eduction.
My partner and I went to the Science Museum in Toronto about a month ago. We walked through the section of the museum where there is a timeline that outlines how the earth and several species developed. I was shocked at how much at the age of 34, I did not know. I had known the basics of evolution however, beyond that, there were times I found myself thinking, “I had no idea this is where the universe and life started”.
Making friends was a foreign concept to me. I struggled all the times I was enrolled into schools and pulled out again. Any friendships I had, were effectively destroyed by my mother. Any friendships that existed before she destroyed them, were mandated to be shared among my other siblings. I had no privacy and no ability to have my own friendships. The times that my siblings and I were enrolled in school, my parents had created a dynamic in which we would tattle on each other if one of us “broke a rule” at school. We would tell on each other in order to receive praise from our mother. We were also bullied, because we were frankly, weird kids. Being homeschooled created a target on our back to be made fun of by other kids.
I have anger towards the systems that failed to protect my siblings and I. Despite the multiple in and out of several schools, despite several calls to Children’s Aid that were made throughout the years by suspecting teachers, no-one did anything to protect us. Being pulled in and out of school also meant that learning disabilities went undiagnosed and untreated. I wonder how different my educational experience in high school and university would have been, had I been diagnosed with ADHD as a kiddo versus a 31 year old adult.
The information in this essay is based on homeschooling in the United States. However, I can attest that when my siblings and I were homeschooled, no-one checked on us. No-one stopped us from being pulled in and out of multiple schools and no-one regulated the education we received. The lack of regulation and oversight of homeschooled children leaves room for ongoing abuse, social isolation and indoctrination by their caregivers. Until policies change, these risks will continue to exist.
Sources:
Home schooling is surging, but lax regulation can leave kids vulnerable to abuse: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/18/1225324564/home-schooling-is-surging-but-lax-regulation-can-leave-kids-vulnerable-to-abuse
Coalition for Responsible Home Education: https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/
Home schooling’s rise from fringe to fastest-growing form of education: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/2023/homeschooling-growth-data-by-district/
‘Unschooling’ Isn’t The Answer To Education Woes—It’s The Problem: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2020/05/25/unschooling-isnt-the-answer-to-education-woes-its-the-problem/?sh=7541bc55543c
https://www.hsinvisiblechildren.org/2022/12/26/roman-lopez-and-7-siblings/
https://artemisstardust.com/2024/04/05/how-harmful-is-educational-neglect/