The Homeschoolers

ARTICLE FOR FOLKLIFE MAGAZINE

Up until a couple of hundred years ago, what children learned depended on the role of their family in society. Much was taught at home—which plants could be turned into medicine, how to hunt for food, how to mend clothes and dress wounds, how to do the work required for survival. A privileged few were taught how to read, write, and do maths, perhaps by private tutors, but life for many children involved labour, with limited time for learning.

With the rise of public education systems in the 19th century, Western societies began taking children out of the workplace and into institutional learning in brick-and-mortar schools accessible to everyone. As society began to see education as an opportunity to improve productivity, the subject matter and teaching methods shifted in order to meet those goals. Nowadays, inspired by the factory model, much of education comes wrapped up in a one-size-fits-all package, delivered to classrooms full of 30 or more kids.

While there are certainly benefits to this approach, what happens when the school system's curriculum and rules don't align with what parents envision for their child? Some people are gifted communicators while others belong deep in the forest. We're taught that our quirks are what make us unique, but how can we honour those differences when everyone is squeezed into the same mould?

Homeschooling is the solution for some who seek to link learning with family and want to regain some of the balance lost through the industrial revolution. Each of the following stories demonstrates how families can live their values, supporting the education of their children by the way they structure their lives.

Deanna Vernon-Wood and daughters Sunora, Celeste and Ursula

Deanna Vernon-Wood grew up in a public-school environment. Her favourite subject was art, and she loved the way her worries would fade with the swoosh of a paint brush. But the way that art was graded in school felt wrong.

This fear of judgment is a weight Deanna said she's carried into adulthood and is something she wants to avoid as she raises her three daughters, Sunny, ten, Celeste, eight, and Ursula, five.

Deanna focuses on facilitating consent-based learning, a form of child-led education under the umbrella of homeschooling. This mode of education, Deanna says, is her key to building trust with her children. "We follow our own learning paths suited to each of the girls' needs, where we can rest, learn, and deep dive uninterrupted into any topic we'd like," she says, equal parts soft-spoken and exuberant.

"Enjoying the girls' company with siblings growing up together just seemed like the perfect continuation of the attachment and respectful autonomy-granting parenting styles my heart, instincts, and research were leading us to practice all along," she says.

The family’s days look similar to something out of a fairy tale. Scheduling is based on optimal tides for swimming lessons, and learning about the environment occurs through daily walks between home, meadow, and sea. Regular family meetings help the girls plan what they’d like to pursue. With support, they gather materials and seek out relevant events and opportunities, and they are tight-knit with community members who contribute their skills and knowledge.

In turn, the young people are inspired to contribute to the community and start their own businesses. “They are fibre artists, needle felters and crocheters, bouquet makers, kindling makers and egg sellers, bike mechanics, and smaller entrepreneurs helping out at farmers’ markets, helping to raise animals, and doing seasonal lemonade stands.”

Meanwhile, for Deanna, this way of life has given her permission to show up as herself. She’s been able to explore permaculture, crocheting, gardening, foraging, and medicine making. “It’s given me inspiration to try new things, follow my interests, and heal school-aged wounds around self-judgment of performance, creating art for joy, valuing productivity over rest, and connection with my body.”

Rebecca Wall and daughter, Mayvin

“The magnitude of raising a child isn’t lost on me,” says Rebecca Wall, a single mom to

eight-year-old Mayvin—lover of dogs and creative mess-maker extraordinaire. The two of

them are currently registered homeschoolers working on a “loose curriculum” rooted in

doing arts and crafts and roaming the pebbled beaches of their island home.

“My daughter loves to be outside,” Rebecca says. “Being able to explore the natural rhythm, patterns, and cycles ignites her curiosity. There’s so much to be learned through observation—a full-body experience, and you can’t get that when you’re sitting in a classroom for several hours in a day.”

It’s a lifestyle similar to what Rebecca’s own homeschooling experience was, having grown up where she was allowed to explore freely on her bicycle. Rebecca’s mom was quite resolute about never sending her children to school—partly for religious reasons and partly because of her own negative public-school experiences.

Rebecca credits her mother for her love of literature. “She read hundreds of stories out loud to us. Listening to the classics was such a treasured part of my upbringing. When I look back, I think having such a strong literary foundation really has served me well.”

“High school was definitely difficult though—not necessarily pertaining to homeschooling—but general challenges that come with being an adolescent and always feeling like I was not quite fitting in.” Now she is grateful that she was homeschooled, because it gave her a different perspective on education.

Once she entered adulthood, Rebecca worked as an education assistant in the public school system for neurodivergent kids and immediately noticed the challenges of those who thought differently and who needed more space and time. “It was really difficult for me to support them in that context. It seemed that by Grade 2 or 3, these kids’ sparks would just fade away because we have these systems where our teachers can be so emotionally taxed. They’re struggling to get by with workloads and trying to meet the needs of so many.”

When Mayvin was born, Rebecca spent time envisioning what kind of childhood she wanted to create for her daughter. “How can I carve out a life that is better for the environment, better for my community, better for my soul, and ultimately—better for my daughter? I like the idea of just creating space for her to not always have the answers to questions, because I think there’s so much room for inventiveness.”

For now, this simplified way of life and learning is working for the two of them. Rebecca says the hardest part is trying to find balance. “Trying to carve out time for myself, preserve some of my own interests, work remotely, and make time for life as me, Rebecca, and not just as a mother. While it can be challenging to be with your child all day, every day, I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world. Being able to relive that childlike thought and perception of beauty in the world is such a gift.”

Olena and Mike Russell and kids, Kasian, Kaia, Kalyna, Kazka, and Kealey

Choosing the people they surround themselves with means everything to the Russells.

Their five children—Kasian, Kaia, Kalyna, Kazka, and Kealey—are home learners. Their

education is a collaborative effort involving parents Olena and Mike and their island

community, including groups focussed on trail maintenance, nature conservancy, weaving,

birds, and even monitoring bat populations.

“They’re getting more real-life interaction,” Olena says. “They’re capable of talking to anybody on any topic. It doesn’t matter what age or gender they are or what background they have.”

Olena’s journey into alternative education began when she was a La Leche League leader, providing breastfeeding and parenting support to new families as well as facilitating an attachment-based parenting group (a style of parenting that focusses on nurturing the connection that parents can develop with their children). Through these experiences, Olena met other families whose children learned outside of school and was inspired by them to explore further. Eventually, this led to their decision to allow their children to learn at home and in community.

Olena continued researching programs such as at Montessori and Waldorf, but these options didn’t fully align with what she envisioned. “The main thing was that someone else would be raising my children for most of the day. As a strong advocate for attachment-based parenting, I wanted them to be able to experience their childhood, and those big and small learning moments, with family and community.”

“We focus on following our children’s interests and passions, encouraging them to explore and get involved in our community, building a rich and inspiring home life, creating opportunities to explore new ideas, and challenging their thinking and learning.”

Kasian, with a knack for math, is working through various distance-learning courses to obtain his high school graduation certificate. “I like to learn about how mechanical things work. I fix bikes right now,” he says. Olena laughs and interjects, “By ‘fix bikes’ he means he runs his own business!”

Meanwhile, Olena and Kaia created a general outline of what Kaia wanted to study, including her renewed love for math. Kalyna, Kazka, and Kealey’s syllabus covers reconciliation and Indigenous history, poetry, fun math facts and ideas, oceans and marine environments, and

birds.

“It’s really nice that we don’t have to deal with making a child fit into a certain way of learning. If a kid reads at ten years old, instead of the expected six years old, they don’t have to feel like there’s something wrong with them.”

Olena and Mike decided early on that Mike would continue expanding his career while Olena would work alongside their children. “For me, learning at home with my children is not a sacrifice in any way. I chose this lifestyle because I love it. The biggest reward is seeing the joy my children have in learning new things and just being themselves.”

Sarah Schwartz and Andrew Lindstrom and kids, Walter and Frances

“To me, education is more important than school,” says Sarah, mom of Walter, five, and Frances, two. Sarah’s own upbringing heavily informed her decisions on becoming a mom.

Sarah came from parents who were part of the feminist and anti-war movements, aligning themselves with the likes of Audre Lorde and Gloria Steinem. Her mother was Métis and was part of the Sixties Scoop—the mass removal of Indigenous children from their families into the child welfare system. “Because of the experience of the Sixties Scoop and residential schools, many people in my mother’s generation saw the flaws in a colonial education system and worked to create an alternative system,” Sarah says.

When she was a child, Sarah’s family tried all sorts of alternative education paths—from French immersion to mail-in and correspondence education to Waldorf—but

her parents realized these weren’t right either. “It was a big wake-up call because we quickly learned that it isn’t conventional, government-led education that’s the problem, but rather a prescribed education that’s supposed to meet the needs of every child,” Sarah says.

Still, she stresses the importance of education itself. Sarah and her husband, Andrew, decided to have their children later in life because completing their education was a top priority.

Now, Andrew works from home while Sarah considers homeschooling their kids to be her full-time job. “It’s enough money to support our lifestyle, which by all means isn’t a ritzy one,” she says.

Sarah acknowledges both that it’s a privilege to be able to spend her days beside the

ocean with Walter and Frances and that homeschooling is about sacrifice. “You’re going to experience a level of discomfort in many ways. My parents were very committed to us receiving a holistic education. When they learned a new Waldorf school had opened, they quit their jobs and used their savings to move to and live in a rural community—what they thought would be a great educational experience. This required a leap of faith as well as sacrifice.”

These days, the island is ideal for Sarah’s sea-loving family, and they can take transit to have interactions with locals from all walks of life—teenagers, people in wheelchairs, or unhoused community members.

“I think there’s this view that you’re missing out on something if your kids aren’t already in daycare or preschool—that those settings prepare kids for real life. But I find being out in real life does a good job of socializing them and preparing them.”

For Sarah and Andrew, it’s about choice. When people ask them if they’d consider putting Walter and Frances in school when they’re older, Sarah replies, “Yes, if they wanted to go to school, I would totally support them because my view of unschooling is that they have options.”

“I do believe that parents who are really connected to their children know on a deep, deep level where a child will thrive. I guess, in a nutshell, my advice is to be a badass with your kids and not to give a fuck about the status quo.”

Stef and Chris Williams and twin boys Søren and Fynn

Balancing the running of a direct-to-consumer sustainable clothing business and homeschooling her ten-year-old twin boys, Stef Williams is a busy mom.

Where Stef grew up, there were a lot of homeschoolers, and Stef was one of them. “We had the ability to be flexible with our learning as long as it was along the same grade that we were in. We’d go to homeschool conventions every fall and pick out our curriculums. There would be specific booths for subjects, like seventh grade history and ninth grade biology.”

“In Grades 10 through 12, all I did was anthropology, history, and literature, because that’s what I was interested in. The facilitators we had were fine as long as we proved that we were motivated in learning. I’ve always been a big fan of homeschooling since then.”

It took some convincing, though, to get Chris to hop on the homeschool bus. He was quite nervous initially. “He thought we were all weird,” Stef says with a hearty laugh. “I said, ‘No, we can be really awesome people! You married me, remember?’” She stressed the importance of teaching their kids about values, morals, common sense, and critical thinking, and explained how homeschooling can cultivate these virtues by exposing kids to different perspectives.

It also helped that Stef had started her own business at the time. “I always wanted to homeschool the kids. I see tons of benefits, and maybe subconsciously that pushed me to evolve my business because with the cost of living and the lack of housing, we wouldn’t have survived with one income.” Having their mom busy at work has taught the boys how to be self-motivated learners, and on days when Stef only has to work for an hour, she’s happy to spend the day with them learning subjects like engineering or art, hands-on.

When the time came for the boys to start kindergarten, Stef remembers feeling overwhelmed. “Like, I have to teach these small people how to read a book? I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know, you just read it!’”

Luckily, they found a homeschooling group and twice a week, the boys attended their small classes with two grades per teacher per class. But when the family moved, finding a suitable homeschool facilitator was tough. They decided to work with the school district so the boys could have online classes for half an hour twice a week.

“I really am proud of the boys for their ability to think critically,” Stef explains. “My husband loves to deep dive into bigfoot and aliens and more wacky conspiracy theories, trying to figure out why people believe them.

Do they have a good point here? Where are their blind spots? We have more time with the kids, instead of just having those hours between school and bedtime.”

“The whole point of homeschooling is to listen to your kids, with their individual interests and thoughts, and let them be who they are,” Stef says. “Homeschooling may feel totally overwhelming, but I think that’s just parenthood in general. Take a deep breath and don’t force things—the kids will pick it up.”

At the end of the day, she says, “learning should be fun.”