Parents refute three common beliefs about home-schooling

KIDS ARE “MISSING OUT” BY BEING HOME-SCHOOLED

“We built our own skating rink in the park,” says Communidée’s Sonya Olthof. “See that hole in the wall? We put a hose from the tap and built our own skating rink. Then we built a Zamboni out of a cooler.”

Last summer, the children at Communidée built an eight-foot magnifying glass, put a sheet of plastic over it, then put water in it. They used it to fry an egg and roast marshmallows in the park. They’ve also built a large community garden and composter.

Rosalind Barrington Craggs lists large-scale field trips they’ve organized, to Vermont, Quebec City, Ottawa, and biking and camping trips. They run a model UN with the help of a volunteer who used to run one at Dawson College.

“Every year we do a survey of the kids and ask them what they’re interested in,” Barrington Craggs says. “When people bring in their own energy and ideas, we can all feed off it.”

KIDS NEED TO BE WITH PEOPLE THEIR OWN AGE

“Our teen group has about 20 kids and we have a day carved out for them where their parents don’t even come. A couple of parents are here running activities just with them,” Olthof says. “If we can hold onto those kids, if they stick together and build on that ... the social need will be met. The academic need is rarely the motivation for kids to go to school, especially if there’s the support from the government we expect to get. I remember when I saw Tomek turn into a helper, and help a little kid out, I was like: ‘What is this? OK, he’s a big boy now, it’s official.’”

A PARENT MUST HAVE A TEACHING CERTIFICATE

Olthof has an undergraduate degree in psychology from McGill and worked as a bookkeeper before having kids. Barrington Craggs taught graduate students, but says wryly that with children, “we don’t use the lecture format too much.”

Kitchen-table discussions at Communidée can go like this, Olthof says: “‘Oh, my son was crying over his math homework.’ And someone will say, ‘Well, we’ve got this other math program that we’re trying and my kid really liked it.’ We talk about what’s working for our kids, and while some of us have an education background, some of us don’t, but we do have an expertise when it comes to our own children, and we have the sensibility and the freedom to change course when something isn’t working.”