Let’s just say it: As it stands, homeschooling will turn out better writers. The reason isn’t as spiritual as it is mechanical. It isn’t necessarily about a writing curriculum, but a writing curriculum that mimics the failed public schooling study-grammar-and-diagramming approach is doomed to fail. The process homeschoolers experience is going to produce a different kind of intellect. They may not be as tech-savvy in the short-term, but homeschool graduates are going to be more powerfully balanced in the long-term. The better balance makes for a better writer, since every fine writer is thinking about living a life rather than tweaking a code. Here are the 10 Reasons I believe you will see a better writer in a homeschool graduate. These are generalizations and represent the larger group, not the disappointing exceptions 🙂

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1.  Homeschoolers don’t do busy work

2.  Homeschoolers learn according to interests

3.  Homeschoolers don’t test too soon or too much

4.  Homeschoolers don’t get easily promoted

5.  Homeschoolers don’t see learning as a compartment of life

6.  Homeschoolers are focused on getting ready for life

7.  Homeschoolers are being tutored not taught

8.  Homeschoolers easily get caught cheating

9.  Homeschoolers are learning how to learn

10. Homeschoolers learn to write by writing

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1. Homeschoolers don’t do busy work

Busy work is a behavioral strategy that looks like something productive is being done. But, as in the military where you always need to look busy, busy work encourages both manipulation of authorities and a lack of discernment about what’s important. Learning to look busy means that you are learning to focus on giving ‘eye-service’ rather than real service. If busy work is elevated to a level of value, then it takes on its own importance. In the real world, the 80/20 rule is always in play; 80% of what is really valuable comes from 20% of the material. 20% of your skills produce 80% of your results, etc. Face it, “If everything is important, nothing is important.” Moreover, busy work makes most people HATE education/learning, because it seems so pointless.

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2. Homeschoolers learn according to interests

George Washington Carver observed that “Anything will reveal its secrets if you love it enough.” There is something powerful about being able to use reading, writing, and math as a bridge to discovering something you are seeking. Everyone does better when they are interested.

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3. Homeschoolers don’t test too soon or too much

We shouldn’t have to have proof for the obvious, but it’s available. Labeling a child based on early testing would be fine if the testing was flawless…but really, how dare anyone tell others what they can or can’t do? Besides giving a child false beliefs about herself, testing also forces mass education systems to make learning and education primarily about the test results. Do we want our students to learn or just to learn how to test?

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4. Homeschoolers don’t get easily promoted

Any of us who have been in school systems have seen this unfortunate phenomenon. I personally was moved along from 5th to 6th grade without understanding anything about long-division. Really! In homeschooling you have to actually learn the subject to advance, and that’s based on what you KNOW the student can do. Not getting ‘moved along’ in the system means that homeschoolers are going to tend to actually know what they’ve learned. Also, any delays can easily be covered at home over the summer.

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5. Homeschoolers don’t see learning as a compartment of life

When you ‘go to school’ and come home ‘from school’, then you can’t help but see school as the place you go to learn / study / think. They used to make up for that with ‘homework’, but even then school was treated as a compartment. It is hard to learn in the thick of life if you think you have to go to a classroom with an expert to grow your knowledge or skills. Homeschoolers get to see that home and school and life are all opportunities to learn.

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6. Homeschoolers are focused on getting ready for life

The goal of most mass education systems is to get kids out into the world with some basic learning OR to filter out the elite learners for advanced education. What isn’t really in play (except for a few precious and rebellious teachers) is to see how all learning relates to being equipped to do life well. This is one of the reasons homeschoolers study government and citizenship, they are being prepared for contribution to their nation; it’s part of the mindset.

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7. Homeschoolers are being tutored not taught

When a student struggles in mass education settings, the solution is to get a tutor to help him. Tutoring is the ‘fall back’ because (drum roll here please) …IT WORKS. Teaching deals with a large audience receiving the notes in a lecture. Tutoring allows for an awesome student/teacher ratio. It means that the tutor has the time, energy, and insight to work with the student from where he is in any given moment. We are talking targeted and individualized eduction! Face it, the low student-teacher-ratio just naturally gives a huge advantage to the homeschooler.

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8. Homeschoolers get caught cheating

It’s just hard to cheat your tutor (and too, with your siblings around you watching all the time). We’ve had two of our homeschoolers try this approach to school. Both were caught, and both had to start the subject over (our goal was to learn math not to merely get through the book).

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9. Homeschoolers are learning how to learn

Except when homeschooling mimics the public and private schools, the implicit focus of school is to encourage homeschoolers to learn to teach themselves. Almost no single parent (or both) can know more about every subject then their students. In the course of time they will pass you in a specific area or skill. Our youngest (Brooks Lybrand) is currently a senior in high school and finished calculus when he was 15 years old. He also made a perfect score of 800 in the math section of the SAT. Sorry, that’s just past us! We encouraged the kids (and designed a system for it) to teach themselves and each other. As of today, it seems to be paying off well for all 5 of them.

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10. Homeschoolers learn to write by writing

To the point of the article. I hope you realize that writing is the hardest of all subjects. Do you? Honestly, just think of the number of decisions being made in writing a mere paragraph; with word choice, grammar, spelling, punctuation, strategy, sequencing, etc., it’s staggering! Additionally, writing is more self-taught than any subject. One’s own voice and style are individually discovered as we play around with words.

Homeschoolers are going to be better writers because of the previous 9 reasons…better and balanced self-learners make better students of anything. Writing is no exception.

But, there is an even greater reason homeschoolers are going to be better writers: THEY LEARN TO WRITE BY WRITING. Yep, that’s it. Writing is what grows writers, just as working math problems grows mathematicians. Learning about math isn’t learning math. Learning about writing isn’t learning to write. Mass education settings simply do not have students writing much at all. Moreover, the writing they do is grammar obsessed, which only leads to a growing hatred of writing (see Reason 2 above and The Wrong Way to Teach Grammar in The Atlantic Monthly).

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If you want a child to grow as a writer:

1. Minimize obsessing on grammar and correctness (please don’t put faith in formal traditional grammar/punctuation curriculum, they mostly hurt your young writer)
2. Have them write some everyday
4. Have them learn grammar, etc., by reading their writing aloud
3. Give them a little feedback about what you liked (especially)
4. Have them share their writing with others (dad, grandma, friends, etc.)

Unless they follow mass education practices, homeschoolers will turn out better writers. Homeschoolers actually have to write, so they naturally have the best shot at improving. As Malcolm Gladwell pointed out, they’ll need to put in their 10,000 hours to become great. Now, what will they do with this skill in the head-to-head competition in life when writing matters? Well, we’ll just have to stay tuned.

Off to learn,

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Dr. Fred Ray Lybrand
Creator: The Writing Course
www.advanced-writing-resources.com

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P.S. Would you do me a favor right now? PLEASE share this online somewhere (tweet / facebook / pinterest / etc.). OR (and) PLEASE post a comment below. Thanks so much!

(c) Fred Ray Lybrand, 2014