While homeschooling is returning to its American roots of education, it is powerfully moving forward. This is a brief look into the sociological homeschool movement, the influence of teaching methods introduced throughout the journey and what we are doing today.

Home education and tutoring were the pervasive methods of education in America until Horace Man introduced public schools in 1837. In 1905 John Dewey strongly advocated for progressive education, which holds the belief that education should reflect society's opinions. Public schools steeped in progressive education spread across the US. As with every system, it found criticism along the way; but, it wasn't until the 1950's when progressive education began to crash.

John Holt responded to this crash in his 1964 book, "How Children Fail" and again in 1967 with, "How Children Learn." Social and political counterculture of the 1960's and 1970's was moving towards anti-establishments. Holt's school reform message of children having complete freedom to choose how and what they want to learn was best received by parents in the 1970's wanting a more pure down home lifestyle without government involvement. Many contacts from parents prompted Holt to begin speaking to homeschoolers and assisting them in riding the Underground Railroad. "The Children's Underground Railroad like all movements of social protest and change, must begin small; it will grow larger as more children ride it," Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better, John Holt 1976, according to Patrick Farenga (1999). Holt went on to publish Growing without Schooling, a newsletter designed to connect those who were homeschooling both legally and illegally. The Unschooling Method, promoting independent learning and learning by doing, was born and prospered among the political left in this new homeschool movement.

Raymond Moore, with the U.S. Department of Education in the 1970's offered an alternative to Unschooling. He and his wife Dorothy introduced, Delayed Schooling, through such books as, Home Grown Kids, Home Spun Schools: Teaching Children at Home - What Parents Are Doing and How They Are Doing It, and eventually with Better Late Than Early: A New Approach to Your Child's Education. Moore's message found favor with conservative Christians. Christians were leaving the public schools for religious reasons believing God gave the parents the responsibility to educate their children, not public institutions.

This message touched J. Michael Smith and Michael P. Farris, together they founded of the Home School Legal Defense Association in 1983. Homeschool father's themselves; their mission was to legalize homeschooling across the nation. In 1989 only three states remained, by 1993 what was once underground was now legal in all 50 states. Christian support groups spread on a grassroots level and began changing the structure of home education.

The Christian movement in the early 1990's tended to be more organized than the Unschoolers of the 1970's freedom counterculture and intermingling of the two were often met with opposition. Still, Biblically based home education soon dominated as the main motivation. It was about this time that the Charlotte Mason Method was beginning to see resurgence. Then in the mid to late 1990's dissatisfaction with the public education rose to the forefront once again. Research indicates homeschool families tend to be white, religious, 2 parent households with 3 or more children, average income with higher levels of education.

Currently, the US Department of Education claims there are approximately 1 million children being homeschooled. Brain Ray, of the National Home Education Research Institute, claims this number to be closer to 2 million and has grown 30% in the last four years. Homeschool is still on the rise, it has been estimated that it will grow 15% per year and diversity in the population is expected to increase.

With a mix of freedom, Christian perspectives, and the desire to provide the best education possible it is no surprise of the variety of methods that are crossing our thresholds. Yet, I was surprised at Rachel Biddlecome's extensive historical list of methods; Classical, Unit Studies, Traditional, Charlotte Mason, Moore Formula, Unschooling, Waldorf, Montessori, Guided Exploration, Unguided Exploration, Constructionism, Lifestyles of Learning, Principle Approach, Robinson Method, and my personal favorite, the Eclectic. The eclectic approach seems to be the most predominate, indicating a growing tolerance for one another.

Bibliography

Farenga, Patrick. "John Holt and the Origins of Contemporary Homeschooling." 1999 http://mhla.org/information/resourcesarticles/holtorigins.htm

The Heart of Home Online. Somerville, Scott W. Esq. "The Politics of Survival: Home Schoolers and the Law." July/Aug 2001, Volume 11, issue 4. http://www.homeschoolersofmaine.org/politics_of_survival.htm

Bartleby.com. The Columbia Encyclopedia Sixth Edition. 2001. http://www.bartleby.com/65/pr/progrsved.html

Suite 101.com. Campbell, Natasha. "Homeschool Curriculum: The History of Homeschooling." August 31, 2001. http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/homeschool_curriculum_retire/62261

The ABC's of Charlotte Mason. Hocraffer, Lynn B. "The Charlotte Mason Philosophy." March 6, 1999. http://homepage.bushnell.net/%7Epeanuts/faq1.html

Biddlecome, Rachel. "Original Schoolhouse: Homeschooling Educational Methods." May 2003. http://homeschooling.5u.com/custom.html

Home School Legal Defense Association. Our History. http://www.hslda.org/about/history.asp

MSNBC News. Costello, Tom. "Home school on the rise." 7:59 p.m. ET, Sept. 23, 2004. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6083826

Atlantic Monthly. Talbot, Margaret. "The New Counterculture." November, 2001.