Let me tell you about my personal homeschooling journey—a liberation from the proverbial box—and the lessons I learned. Of course, my son Steffen was the homeschooler, but I learned so much about myself over those four years.

When Steffen was three he wanted a hammer and “a nice assortment of nails” from Santa Claus. In the spring he proceeded to build a platform on a limb in our yew tree, which overlooked the street on the other side of the garden wall, almost eight feet off the ground. When Steffen was four, my husband built a tree house replete with a trapeze in our backyard. That, too, was about eight feet from the ground.

For the next few years Steffen played in the tree house, swung on the trapeze and hung out on his tree seat over-looking the street. Was I worried that he might fall off? Sure, at times it seemed that his hold was a rather precarious one. But always I trusted in his ability to judge for himself how far he could go and what he could risk.

As the years and his school career wore on, Steffen turned from this adventurous risk taker into a sullen, uncommunicative young man. The change was slow, insidious and almost imperceptible. When this metamorphosis had become too obvious to ignore, I feared it was too late to turn back the clock, too late for Steffen to find the path back to learning and growing and being happy. By the end of his eighth year in school my son had changed. His life revolved endlessly around listening to an objectionable choice of music on his Discman and working on his computer, which seemed to be the only time he perked up.

When Steffen was in public school, I did everything I could to work within the system, even going so far as to become PTA President in a hopeful effort to effect some change. When it became obvious that my input was falling on the deaf ears of administrators, I became completely disillusioned with the system. A rather disastrous interview with the high school counselor was the last straw. He told us that the school would try to work with our child as much as possible to keep him on the proper path.  In case that did not work, they would have no alternative but to check out his home life to see what we were doing to mess him up! After the interview, Steffen told us that he would rather die than go to high school.

As good fortune would have it, I happened to be listening to the Diane Rehm show on the radio soon after that meeting, when she and a guest were discussing the concept of homeschooling. And it could not have come at a better time for all of us. In a moment of what I feared was temporary insanity I asked Steffen, “How about homeschooling?” He was not particularly eager but seemed to think that was a better solution than going to public high school. That is when my rocky path truly started.

I suppose I should tell you that I was born in and went to school in Germany, and even though all my life I have tried to be bohemian and sophisticated, I was firmly rooted in what I now call “the box mode.” One of my grandmother’s truisms was “you cannot jump over your own shadow,” but that is precisely what I set out to do.

Despite having become completely disillusioned with the public school system, however, I found myself importing to homeschooling the same “education unfriendly” tactics and standards that the system had imposed on us all those years. The concept of child driven learning was buried deep inside my psyche. Gone was the knowledge that Steffen truly loved to learn about the things he was interested in. Gone the trust I had that he was sure-footed and would not slip and fall off his tree seat or trapeze.

All I was able to see was that he sat in his room day after day and played on his computer. He was surfing the net and I was sure that he had visited every questionable site available. I doubted my own ability and kept hearing the words of well-meaning teachers and friends who told me that I would never be able to teach him all the things he needed to know to make a success of himself. I admonished him, sometimes several times a day to get started and finally do something. Then, feeling guilty, I would relent, saying, “No. Just go ahead and do whatever comes to mind” (adding, “as long as it’s what I want you to do” under my breath).

We joined TLCI and everyone attempted to be helpful. Our consultant, Barbara Baumgardner, tried to tell me that things would work out for Steffen.  He just needed to rid himself of the misery he had bagged so generously during his school years.

“After six months or so, he’ll come out of his funk. You’ll see.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I thought.

For two years we struggled like that. I wanted him to do what he wanted as long as it was within the parameters I set out. After all, had we not taken him out of school and afforded him the life he wanted? The least he could do was to study what I wanted him to.

As you can see, breaking out of the box was a slow, arduous process. It began with small openings like when it came time to fill out the reviews for [TLCI] at the end of each semester. I was always surprised to see just how much Steffen had done. Yet I could not overcome the feeling that whatever he was learning could not possibly be right. After all, he was not hitting a math book, an English book or a history book. Okay, he had asked us to buy him an “Adobe Classroom in a book” because he wanted to learn Adobe Photoshop. But would that count?

My first epiphany came when Steffen, then in tenth grade, took the placement test at the community college. He passed the reading and writing with flying colors but had trouble with the math portion of the test. This was not too surprising since he had not done any math in the previous two years. In an effort to reassure both of us, I pointed out to him that the tests were geared toward twelfth graders and that he should be proud of the fact that he could take an English 101 class and not some remedial course.

Finally, I had something from an authority that I could hold on to. After all, if he gained admittance to college he must be learning something, right? Yet, I still felt I was on shaky ground: why did other homeschooling parents seem so secure? It seemed to me that all the people who had been homeschooling their children from the beginning had some sort of secret that I was not privy to. Would I ever learn their secret?

I “helped” Steffen find two courses at the college that I thought would be good for him to take. He was not overly enthused. The closer the time came for enrollment, the more he dragged his feet.  Finally, exasperated, I said to him: “I don’t care what you take as long as you take something!” And that’s exactly what he did. He signed up for Darkroom Photography and a digital photography course. Not my choices, but that’s what he wanted.

That was my next and much bigger epiphany. Was it not his education?  Should I not let him choose what he wanted to take? Did I not trust him in the past? Why should I not trust his judgment now?

Scary? Indeed it was. Our family has taken great strides to break out of the box—and we continue: it is a work in progress. And it has been as much a process for me as it has for Steffen to break out of the box. At times, when I feel the box closing back around me, I have to remind myself that this “experiment” has led my son out of his sullenness and unhappiness; it has helped him regain his adventurousness and has helped him define what he does not want out of life. He has learned much more and at an earlier age than I.

For years, “experts” have drilled the idea into parents that we are not qualified to teach our own children. Those naysayers have duped many of us, even if it went against our grain. After all, we are not the “experts.” We have been told that our children cannot teach themselves because they would do nothing but fool around. Steffen’s “doing nothing” led him to a science teacher and through her to an Envirothon team which took second place in their competition in Washington County, “doing nothing” led him to an internship at the Imagination Center, an Apple authorized Service and Repair shop, “doing nothing” gave him the idea to make ID cards for TLCI, and, finally, “doing nothing” led to an internship at NASA. He may not know right now precisely what he wants to do with the rest of his life, but I am confident that he will succeed in whatever he chooses to do.

I am not trying to tell you that the steps we took to break out of the box will be the same for you. Everyone’s box is constructed of different materials— different preconceived notions and degrees of disillusionment. For some this may mean turning to a set curriculum; for some it may be total unschooling; and for some (like us) it may be an eclectic approach: mostly unschooling with classes thrown in as needed or desired. I am challenging you to break out of your own individual boxes by facing these negative building blocks head on. Give yourself and your children the chance to find out what it is they want to do with their lives. That is the first step in breaking out of the box.

(Read Steffen's side of the story in part 2, My Journey Into The “Real World")

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