This is the final chapter in a three-part series on home education. The first story, published Oct 15, looked at parent motivations for home schooling. The second, published last week, looked at how the Internet has changed the way home schooling can be done. This story looks at the results of home schooling for students who go on to post-secondary institutions.
Those involved in the home-schooling experience often speak highly of the benefit of this type of primary and secondary education when compared to the traditional paths.
And while most would concede there are challenges associated with home schooling, for the most part home-schooled students feel very positive about the whole experience and see it has having helped as they move on to post-secondary education.
The self-reported benefits having gone through a more individual-focused home-school approach are many, but common ones include the ability to learn independently, to teach oneself difficult concepts and to be self-motivated with respect to deadlines.
Stephanie Gurnett, a 19-year-old Westlock resident who did most of her education at home, said she felt the home-schooling experience was an overwhelmingly positive one.
“I think that being at home gave me the opportunity to grow in my own personality,” she said. “I was able to foster these different things that I loved to do.”
Tanya Pollard, a former home-schooler who now home schools her own kids, credits her own independent education experience with giving her a more well-rounded and worldly educational experience.
“Being home schooled does not mean that there are any closed doors at the end of the road,” she said.
There are, however some, challenges associated with traditional home-schooling as well.
One of the big challenges for home-schooled students is meeting post-secondary institutions’ entrance requirements, and this can be addressed in a variety of ways.
Entrance requirements for many well-known colleges and universities in Alberta refer to the Alberta Education curriculum and the 30-level courses for which students write departmental exams in Grade 12.
At the University of Alberta, for example, most program entrance requirements refer to those 30-level courses, with different emphasis depending on the faculty.
The faculty of engineering, for example, requires prospective students to provide proof of proficiency in math and sciences, while the faculty of arts requires proof of proficiency in humanities such as English and Social Studies.
Deborah Gougeon, a spokesperson for the Registrar’s Office at the U of A, said while alternatives to the Alberta curriculum can be considered, such as out-of-province Grade 12 equivalents or other standardized testing options like the SAT test, there are currently no other options.
“We want to ensure students have the necessary proficiency and competencies coming into post-secondary education, and that’s why we don’t have alternate entrance requirements,” she said. “We don’t have a practice of prior learning assessment where a student could amass a whole portfolio of competencies and life skills.”
She added that while this is not something that has been ruled out of the future, with 30,000 undergraduate students it can be difficult to even address the standardized tests.
There are roundabout ways to meet the prerequisites for different programs, such as going into an open studies program before being formally accepted into a faculty. This could still present challenges if a course requires high-school classes for a prerequisite.
There are other post-secondary institutions, however, that have allowances for students who have not followed a traditional education path. Some might requires just a high-school diploma and an entrance exam, while others might consider a portfolio to show competencies combined with an entrance interview.
For most higher-level institutions, though, some form of standardized testing is needed.
For both Gurnett and Pollard, entrance requirements to university weren’t a problem as they transitioned through the public school system in the latter part of high school.
Gurnett was schooled at home until Grade 11, when she enrolled at R.F. Staples as a way to transition into post-secondary education, although her home-school experience was already aligned with the Alberta Education curriculum and she was taking all the standardized tests.
“I wasn’t sure what it would be like to go from home schooling right to university, so for me personally, I just wanted to go to see,” she said, adding that she now isn’t sure it was really necessary. “In retrospect, either way would have been fine.”
She attended Mount Carmel in Edmonton, a small bible college, and now intends to begin an education degree at the U of A starting in January.
Her post-secondary experience so far has served to reinforce her belief that home-schooling has more advantages than drawbacks.
“In home school because I often had to teach myself things, it’s helped me become more independent with my studies,” she said. “I’m used to teaching myself, whereas in school you become dependent on the teacher.”
Gurnett also feels she is more well-rounded socially because she spent time interacting with people of all age groups instead of just kids her own age.
“I think it was very beneficial,” she said. “It was good to be around my parents and be taught from them rather than be influenced by your peers.”
Pollard’s home-school experience was atypical in the sense that it took place at first on different cruise ships where her single mother was employed as a chef, and later on a farm outside Sexsmith, Alta., where her family was part of a Wiccan coven.
Although she was technically registered in public school in Sexsmith, she has a medical condition that made it difficult to regularly attend school.
She moved to Morinville when she was 13, and attended public school there — although she had already covered a lot of the material, so she challenged some of the exams and ultimately graduated at 15.
Pollard spent some time traveling and working, before being accepted to Harvard University when she 17 and finishing a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology/Criminology. She returned to Alberta and did three years of law school at the U of A, before deciding it wasn’t for her and transferring into education.
Looking back, she see her time home schooling as having been more beneficial to her than any time she spent on the public school system.
“One of the things that was most useful with being home schooled is that I can relate to anybody, whether they’re younger than me, whether they’re my elders, whether they’re my peers or my professors,” she said. “I’m not uncomfortable in any social circle. I’m not intimidated.”
She also credits the ability to learn at her own pace — much faster than the traditional K-12 stream, with giving her more options in life. Having finished school at 15, she was able to get a job and be more social in her teenaged years without being limited to an after-school schedule.
Pollard also felt like the public education system served to try to “dumb down” a lot of the topics. In a social studies class for example, she turned in a two-page paper for a current events assignment and was told it was too much — so the next week she just wrote a few sentences like the rest of the students did.
Because of that experience, she said she feels like home-schooling served her better in terms of preparation for university than the public system did. As a result of that experience and her own time spent teaching, she doesn’t have a high view of the public education system.
“I’ve seen and worked in Canadian schools,” she said. “The teachers try, but they just don’t have the resources to do what they’d like to do, so they’re just kind of shuffling students along.”
The positive experiences Gurnett and Pollard report don’t mean that neither see any drawbacks or challenges associated with their non-traditional education experiences.
For Gurnett, one of the challenges she faced that was helped by transitioning into public school is that many concepts in higher-level courses can be difficult to teach to yourself.
“One thing is that Grade 11 and 12 courses are a little harder, so it was nice having a teacher who could help me with them,” she said.
She also found it a bit of a challenge to work on a more fixed schedule, with classes being a prescribed length and assignments due on particular days.
Pollard said the more significant challenge for her is that her educational experience led her to being somewhat sheltered — she was a little naďve after leaving a home-school environment.
“I thought I could handle myself and I was so independent, then you get into these circles of people who are so much more experienced than you,” she said. “You’re trusting, because you think that all people are pretty decent people. You haven’t had a lot of experiences with people that aren’t quite on the up and up.”
Despite a few drawbacks, both Gurnett and Pollard would recommend the home-school experience to others — including their own children.
Pollard home-schools her young daughter already, and sees it as a very good alternative to what she calls “public indoctrination.”
She has no concerns about the quality of a home-school education, as her own experience has shown that a traditional school isn’t needed get into Harvard, one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Furthermore, she said she sees it as a way to foster a positive relationship with her own children.
“I’m glad to home-school my children, because there’s a better bond built between parent and child. “They like being here and you create and atmosphere that’s conducive to learning.”
Gurnett is looking to earn a degree in Education, saying she so enjoyed her experience as an older sister to many young siblings — she is one of 10 children in her family — that she would like to teach as a profession, whether to her own children or others.
She said she would recommend the experience to anybody — although stressed that outside social interactions can be crucial. “There are people who home school who are not as comfortable being around a lot of people, and that’s not a bad thing, but I guess it would hinder you in some ways,” she said. “I definitely would encourage people to do it so long as they are taking care to ensure their children are involved with the rest of society.”
