Busting Homeschooling Myths #2

Myth: Homeschooling my kids will make them geniuses.

Truth: There are some really smart kids who are homeschooled. There are some really smart kids who attend traditional school. There are some really smart kids who aren’t labeled as smart, because they don’t perform well in our education system.

If you are choosing to homeschool your kids because you think you’ll be able to turn churn out geniuses like some souped-up assembly line products, I’m going to suggest you reevaluate your priorities.

It is true that some very intelligent children are homeschooled. Maybe they were homeschooled from day one, but there’s also the possibility they had to leave a traditional school that may not have been able to give them the accelerated learning opportunities they required. Likewise, some children who are particularly gifted in a non-academic skill (elite athletes, musicians, dancers, etc.) may choose to homeschool so that they have more time to devote towards honing their extraordinary talent. These are the exception, though, and not the norm.

On the flip side, the “genius” stigma that is often associated to homeschoolers can sometimes have a negative impact on parents who are struggling to teach kids who have a hard time learning. Parents may consider themselves failures as teachers because their kid isn’t reading fluently or hasn’t mastered multiplication facts by the age of some friends’ kids that attend traditional school. This attitude is material for an entirely different blog post, but let’s just say that all children have strengths and challenges, and we must stop measuring kids against each other.

To sum up. Homeschooling your kids won’t make them geniuses. If this is your agenda, please think again.