Learning objectives

1. Identify the main reasons families listed for choosing homeschooling in this chapter and the ones before.

2. Reflect on the parents’ reasons for saying they found “joy” in the homeschooling experience. What was it about homeschooling that they agreed was the best aspect of it?

3. Consider how these parents’ choices and their reflections on their experiences challenge your own ideas about what makes education and schooling effective.

Introduction

While most of our participants had some realisation that what was happening in schools was not working, there were certain events or experiences, or aspects unique to their child, that proved to be ‘tipping points’ for them. At the same time, there is research on what tips families into homeschooling; these data are not about teachers who choose homeschooling. One tipping point found in the literature includes neurodiversity (see Ray, 2021), which Queensland’s government has found is a huge factor in the choice of homeschooling in Australia (see Queensland Government: Department of Education, 2023). Another major tipping point is bullying (English, Campbell, & Moir, 2023). For some families, the pandemic made them think anew about “control” and “appropriate care” for their child, which led to the decision to homeschool (Hamlin & Cheng, 2020). This study is the first to look exclusively at teachers. Significantly, traditional issues reported in the literature that led to the choice of homeschooling were all found in our teacher population. What is significant about that was, rather than persevere with schooling, or attempt to make school fit their child, they upped sticks and left the system to homeschool.

There is some government data (Queensland Government: Department of Education, 2023) that indicates that teachers are highly represented in the homeschooling population at 20%, and that this group appears to be growing (Dunston, personal correspondence, 12 August 2024). However, this book is the first to really examine why some teachers are choosing to homeschool their own children. As such, it appears this growing group of teachers choosing homeschooling communicates something about mainstream education. If a group who’ve made their careers in schools and who are passionate about education and learning are unwilling to keep their own children in school, what does this mean for schools more broadly? And how does this impact the future of education?

In what follows in this chapter, we address three key points that were raised by the participants in their discussion of their direct decision to homeschool their own children. The first is the COVID-19 pandemic, which, while not the only reason they were homeschooling, was significant in their choice. The COVID-19 pandemic has been cited as the major driver of homeschooling; however, this reasoning is simplistic and fails to account for the growing number of families who were choosing homeschooling prior to the pandemic (English, 2021). The second was their child coming up against policies and practices in schools that teacher parents suggested would make it impossible for their child to manage learning and thrive in that environment. Whether it was neurodiversity, boredom, bullying that wasn’t managed well or a combination of factors, these teachers reported there was a specific experience that tipped them into homeschooling. A third issue was their love of homeschooling. While one participant had returned to school, this move was often not permanent. For all participants, the time spent homeschooling was remembered well and was said to have been a positive experience for their child.

Teachers’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic around policies and procedures

The COVID-19 pandemic had many effects on the teachers (n = 6) in our study. For Sian, it changed their relationship to the environment in which they lived. For Steph and Gemma, our authors, it was when things went pear-shaped for their child. For Madeline, it was the school’s closing that showed her what homeschooling could be like. For Catherine, the COVID-19 pandemic closures during the very early years of education were said to be setting her child up for failure. For Sassy, like Gemma, it made their children want to learn at home or not want to return to school. For Tara, the COVID-19 pandemic and school refusal were connected. For all of these teachers, as our participant Steph put it, “the year 2020 just became chaos.”

Sian described how much the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic and being in Victoria during the lockdowns, which were among the most severe in Australia, affected her choice. It led to a desire to spend more time as a family and for her family, her children, to spend more time in nature. She stated that the groups she was meeting and the co-operatives she was joining shared her view of the importance of nature. Sian said:

For Sian, the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic made her appreciate the natural environment around her much more. She lived on the surf coast and enjoyed exploring the forest around her home and the beaches with her children, who, as she noted, in contrast to schools, were now living and learning in what she described as a more natural way, a slower-paced way. She identified how aligning themselves with nature was an important part of her family’s journey. Similarly, for Madeline, who lived in the same area as Sian (we do not know if they were known to each other, and the pseudonyms meant we couldn’t ask), the natural pace and slowness that the COVID-19 pandemic revealed were valuable. She stated how her daughter had “experienced a version of homeschooling during the COVID-19 pandemic, and she was really excited to keep learning that way. She loved it.” Later in the interview, she stated, “during the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re like, we like this. We like this independence and freedom.” As can be seen from both participants, the slower pace of learning, the difference from school and the independence and freedom were important drivers to homeschooling.

Sassy, another teacher located in a regional area, had experiences that mirrored those of Sian and Madeline. She noted how the homeschooling community in her regional area had held information sessions for people interested in homeschooling after the pandemic lockdowns and school closures. Her family was homeschooling before the pandemic, but that changed her children’s experiences. They wanted to, for the first time, try something different, in this case, using textbooks. But they went back to their old ways, as it was much more suitable for their family, and focused on how the children learn:

For Catherine, another of our teachers, it wasn’t just about the health mandates and the disruptions to learning, but how both revealed to her, for the first time, the strict pathway through the curriculum mandated by schools, which meant teaching was unable to be flexible and adaptable. Catherine also noted the time that was wasted in schools. Again, this would not have been a shock to her, but seeing it in the experiences of her own children may have been the first time she’d really considered the issues with time-wasting and busy work.

Again, the COVID-19 pandemic was a factor, but this quote alludes to what we saw in most (n = 10) of the participants’ accounts. The COVID-19 pandemic alleviated the school refusal for Steph’s daughter. She stated:

There was a strong element of school refusal in the participants’ stories and in the story relayed by Gemma, our co-author. For Catherine, it was about the COVID-19 pandemic affecting and disrupting the system, but it revealed to her, “the scales fell off my eyes overnight” the scale of the time wasting (“the six hours it takes to get [through the day]”), the pointlessness of the tasks (“the red tape … the staff meetings”) which were identified as a huge factor in the school experience. Her daughter made the choice, but she stated that she knew it was not going to work anywhere else any better. For Steph, it was the realisation that there was another way, and that the struggle, the trouble with school, with her daughter getting into trouble, with her daughter being unhappy, might mean that school was not the right place for her daughter. She, like the other families reported here, identified how school refusal and the COVID-19 pandemic were deeply interlinked.

Finding joy in homeschool, in spite of its challenges

Participants reported how much they loved the experience of homeschooling in spite of its challenges – its impact on their careers, their finances and their freedom. For the parents in the study the major benefit of homeschooling was getting to spend more time with their children. For example, Sian said:

Similarly, for Aeleth, in spite of her son’s severe distress and unhappiness in school, the familial relationships forged through the experience of homeschooling really strengthened their bonds. She stated she learned a lot more about her son, and trusted him more, as a result of homeschooling.

What’s interesting about Aeleth’s response was the simultaneous rejection and embrace of school (structure and learning). Her child was not interested in doing schoolwork or going to school, but would do something approximating “work” in school hours. It’s also interesting how much experimentation and trial, and error was evident in her response. And trust. She identified how, with this trust, came a strong bond, Aeleth stated:

This very painful story, of a boy who was badly bullied and dyslexic who was saved by homeschooling, reflected the strength of the participants’ positive experiences with homeschooling. Violet had never sent her children to school but chose homeschooling because the homeschooled children she’d met in her church were exactly the kinds of people she wanted her children to be. She argued:

The ability to have an influence over their children’s behaviour and life, the capacity to engage positively with their children, to be able to keep them safe and help them become productive, engaged and appropriate adults was the main advantage identified in the cohort.

Bringing it all together

There are some study points to consider at the end of this chapter:

1. The COVID-19 pandemic had many impacts globally. And it was this pandemic experience that provided the “risk-free trial” to some of our parents.

2. There are many barriers that occur within schools around support for school distress, which influenced our teacher parents’ choice to homeschool. It may be that their unique, insider knowledge affected their choice and meant they saw no hope in staying on in school.

3. There is the common saying “children are resilient,” but our participants did not appear to think that was a risk they were willing to take for their child.

4. The homeschool community members often discuss the term school trauma and their child/rens experience of it. From the stories in this book, what changes could occur in schools to lessen these impacts? Do you see those changes ever happening?

5. At the beginning of this book, what was your perception of homeschooling? What is it now? Has it changed? Why or why not?