Homeschooling mentor offers advice

Flynn Keith began homeschooling her second-grade son in 1991 and went on to homeschool her second son after pulling the first out of both public and private schools.

“It was a difficult time to homeschool,” she said. “People were underground and worried children would be carried away by truant officers. It was a really challenging time to homeschool. … I started a newsletter to try to network with people and starting writing a lot about homeschooling.”

Now, she’s mentored thousands of parents on homeschooling.

“I love liberating families from conventional schooling,” Flynn Keith said. “When you have freedom of choice in education, that’s education. Kids resist schooling, not education. If you just expose them to the bounty of life, you can have great success in helping them achieve their dreams.”

This bounty of life can include field trips to museums and other spaces, she said, along with wonderful labs that one simply can’t have in a public or private school. Parents tend to worry their children won’t get proper socialization when they’re homeschooled, but debate teams, spelling bees and other activities make up for this, she said.

“We have this freedom of time,” she said.

Homeschooling is not for every parent though, she stressed.

“You have to be pretty fearless,” she said. “You have to be researcher and have a sense of humor. If you’re an authoritarian parent, it makes the homeschooling more difficult overall.”

Increased interest

The state’s newly enacted Common Core standards focus more on technology in the classroom and project-based learning. Flynn Keith said more parents are coming to homeschooling because of the new curriculum and that homeschoolers are not changing their materials because of the change.

“People are tired of teaching to the test,” she said. “Standardized curriculum, no matter what you call it, it is counterintuitive to becoming a self-directed learner.”

For this particular workshop, Flynn Keith typically draws about 15 to 25 people, but 40 people have already signed up, she said.

“That just is an indication there is way more interest and this is midyear,” she said. “People are becoming uncomfortable with the academic requirements of the schools. Some have had enough and withdrawn their children.”

Flynn Keith has been running the New Year event since 1992.

“I came to doing them in January because people struggle with schooling from September to December,” she said. “They have a reprieve from school and are happier (during winter break), wonder, ‘What can I do?’”

Workshop details

Another speaker at the event will be Barbara Phillips, a veteran homeschool mom and activist, California Montessori certified teacher, and a reading tutor and coach who specializes in helping children with special needs. She has been mentoring homeschool/unschool families through workshops and presentations for more than 20 years. Phillips homeschooled her daughter Rachel from second-grade through high school.

For those who can’t make it to the workshop, they can watch a film that featured homeschooling parents. Flynn Keith was one of the homeschool advocates interviewed in the film that follows a family’s two-year journey from public school to homeschooling. Learn more at classdismissedmovie.com.

This event is for adults only. Advanced registration is $20 per person at homefires.com/click?artofhsing, while registration at the door (if seating is available) is $25 per person. The event is 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 10. at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall, 2124 Brewster Ave. in Redwood City.

angela@smdailyjournal.com

(650) 344-5200 ext. 105