Photo credit: Vimages

When I was ten years old, after eating breakfast and saying good-bye to my older siblings who headed out for high school, it was time for Spanish dialogue class with my dad.  He had a book of dialogues he had used while learning Spanish to be a missionary in Mexico.  We memorized dialogues and I had to put dramatic expression and movements to them.  I still remember the dialogue about waiting in line for a buffet lunch, “Ay, que cola mas larga!”  After my father left for work, my mother started our homeschooling routine.  After devotional, journal writing, math and history, we would do our Spanish homework from that week’s Spanish class.  My mother taught weekly Spanish classes to other homeschoolers.  In the car, on our way to piano lessons, I remember listening to Spanish tapes that my mother and father had created. The tapes taught the Spanish concepts from that week’s Spanish class.  I had to learn it well because my mother always asked me to “model” how to greet people or recite the dialogue we were working on in front of my friends in the class.

Homeschooling allowed Spanish to become a part of our everyday routine while growing up.  I was homeschooled from preschool age until 8th grade.  My parents had lived throughout South and Central America when they were first married, and wanted to share their love for the culture with their children by teaching them to speak Spanish.  They always took advantage of any opportunity to speak Spanish with waiters, church members and really anyone they heard speaking Spanish.  They invited a Venezuelan exchange student who was my age to live a year with us.  When I became a teenager, my parents had the opportunity to go on a mission to Honduras.  While living there, I was homeschooled for two years and also I attended an all-Honduran private school to completely immerse myself in the language.  Homeschooling gave me the flexibility to spend large amounts of time developing friendships and becoming involved in the community in Honduras.

My husband and I both share a love for the Latin American culture.  Neither of us are native speakers but he lived for two years in Guatemala and learned to love the people and culture there. We decided to raise our children bilingually, speaking both languages to our children.  We have assigned Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays as our “Spanish days.”  This past year, my oldest daughter turned five and was old enough to start kindergarten.  Because of the great experiences I had being homeschooled and my love of teaching, I decided to homeschool her and plan on homeschooling all of my children.  I am excited to incorporate Spanish into our daily learning.  I want my children to not only be able to communicate, but to read and write in Spanish.  I want them to have a rich vocabulary in a variety of subjects.  As my children become more involved with activities outside the home, I am realizing the difficulty of speaking in Spanish when so many classes and friends use only English.  I am happy that homeschooling allows me to involve them more in Spanish during the day than if they went to school in English.

Many times I have considered putting my children in an immersion school.  I observed an immersion preschool a couple of years ago.  As I watched the teacher read a book to the children, I realized that only a few of the twenty students had an opportunity to respond to her questions.  I contrasted this with how I read stories at home with my daughter.  We talk about every page.  She asks questions; I ask questions; we talk about the pictures; and we discuss what we think will happen next.  The one-on-one approach of homeschooling allows for more interaction and immersion in speaking and discussing in the language.  There are still advantages to immersion programs, but I have decided that the more personal approach was best for our family.

This past year has been dedicated to teaching my daughter to read in English.  We integrated Spanish into songs, weather and calendar time.  Our ocean science theme included many books in Spanish. Sometimes my daughter couldn’t think of the word “pulpo” in English.  We participated in Spanish playgroups and she attended her weekly one-hour Spanish immersion class.  Next year, I hope to teach her to read in Spanish.  I am currently researching Spanish reading programs to use for the next year.

We are enjoying homeschooling bilingually.  We have the flexibility to integrate Spanish in everything we do.  We are taking advantage of opportunities we find to immerse our children in the language.  Someday, I hope my children will be fluent in the language and love the culture that is such a part of who I am.

Tatiana Richardson is the mother of three girls under five with whom she plans on going the bilingual homeschooling route. She was raised as a bilingual (English/Spanish) “gringa” thanks to the love, determination and homeschooling of her mother, Ginny.  They both blog at Wanna Jugar With Migo, where they share their creative ideas about teaching Spanish. Their other blog, Teaching Generations, is exclusively about homeschooling.

Photo credit: wodleywonderworks

One of the main purposes of SpanglishBaby’s existence is to share with our readers the kind of useful information that can make the journey to raising bilingual children a bit less daunting. Education is not a new topic to this blog. We write about it often and, in fact, we’ve even dedicated a whole week to exploring the topic of bilingual education.

If you’d like your children to be educated in a bilingual environment, but don’t live in an area where dual language immersion schools are an option or if you feel like your child would get bored in a school like this because of everything you’ve already taught him at home in Spanish, then you need to know there are other choices. Thus, we’re dedicating this, the last week of April, to bilingual homeschooling.

We hope to provide with you with an overview of this alternative way of schooling your children as well as some useful resources you can explore for yourself to see if this is something that could work for your family. As you well know, SpanglishBaby is all about creating a supporting community for all of us raising bilingual children, so if you’re already homeschooling your children and would like to share your experiences, dish out some advice or points us in the right direction in terms of curricula or lesson plans, we’ll be forever grateful.

Before we get into it, I’d like to preface this whole week by saying that we’re really not interested in getting into the on-going debate over whether homeschooling is right or wrong. We respect every parent’s right to choose the way they raise their children—this is merely another option to educate them bilingual. I will say, though, that I truly admire those who successfully homeschool their children because I am sure it’s no easy task.

An Introduction

It is estimated that 1.5 million of the 56 schoolage million children are homeschooled every year and the number keeps on growing. The reasons why parents choose to homeschool their children abound. They include anything from overcrowding to religion to the need for especial education. In many instances, the public school options available are not up to par with what a parent considers sound education for their children or their teaching values and methods are not consistent with what a parent wants for their children. In the case of those raising bilingual and bicultural children, homeschooling seems like the perfect fit.

“Having my children at home, I can decide how much Spanish they get and if I feel their vocabulary or comprehension needs a boost, we take care of it and it’s quick. We don’t have to wait for the rest of the class to be in the same place,” said Eliza Campos-Montero who just started homeschooling her 10-year-old son this school year even after he attended a dual language immersion school in Chicago.

The Mexican-American, who also has a three-year-old son, said the decision to pull her son out of public school was not an easy one mainly because she really loved the dual language program he attended for the amazing cultural experience it provided him. She felt that her son; however, was more advanced than the rest of the children and was worried about his possibility for advancement.

“In third grade, I began to feel as if he needed to be doing more with his time and that he could be accomplishing more, learning more in depth if he didn’t have to share the one adult in the room with 20 other kids, some of which needed more help than he did,” she said.  “Then I started noticing that by the time he was in fourth grade I just felt that, although he loved going to school most of the time, he was very bored, easily distracted, and not putting his best effort into his work.”

Trying to avoid something similar happening to her daughter, Brisa Martinez de Byrnes has finally decided that she will be homeschooling her children this Fall, starting with her preschooler. Her daughter, who recently turned three, has already shown a keen interest in reading and learning in general. Brisa and her husband feel that she’d be more advanced than her peers if she were to go to a regular school and she might not be given the attention necessary for her to continue advancing at her rhythm. Not to mention the fact that they are raising their daughters bilingual and bicultural.

“Something extremely important to us is that they learn to read, write and speak Spanish correctly on top of learning about my country’s traditions and history,” said Brisa who is from Mexico. “Truth is I find it very difficult to believe that I can find a school like that, where they’ll learn both languages well in addition to both cultures.”

The down side to bilingual homeschooling has to be the difficulty in finding curricula to homeschool bilingual children. Even though there are tons, and I mean tons, of online resources for those wanting to homeschool their children; unfortunately, the same can’t be said about bilingual homeschooling. I’ve been scouring the Internet for a while now doing research for this topic and I’m sad to report that I’ve come up short.

A Little Support

The same can be said in terms of finding others on the same boat. In an effort to change this, Stephanie, a bilingual homeschooling mom of three, decided to create the Yahoo Group, HomescholersHispanas in 2003.

“I created HomeschoolersHispanas because I felt completely alone in so many ways. Nobody I knew in the local Hispanic community homeschooled. At times I felt that I was the only one,” said Stephanie, who has been homeschooling for 10 years. “This group made it easier for me to face criticism and misunderstanding with the knowledge that I am truly one of many.”

Photo credit: jimmiehomeschoolmom

The truth is that, although minorities in general seem to be warming up to the idea of educating their children at home, Latinos still make a very small part of the 1.5 million children believed to be homeschooled today. It might have something to do with the fact that this alternative way of schooling is not really popular in Spanish-speaking countries. It is, in fact, actually illegal to homeschool in Spain. It also has to do with not really knowing too much about what it really means to homeschool.

“I never even thought of homeschooling. I wasn’t familiar with it. I thought that homeschooling was something for farm kids or very strict Christian extremists,” said Eliza, who is Christian herself and a member of the Yahoo group. “It never dawned on me that before he entered school, I had already been homeschooling him and doing a much better job than what someone who didn’t know him could do having to divide themselves among so many other children.”

Added Stephanie: “People tend to like the image of hermits or oddballs trying to hide their children from a big, bad world. We’re not about fear, but joy and excitement, for the most part. We want our kids to embrace new knowledge, to rejoice as much about an episode of Mythbusters as most kids do about Spongebob. For me, it’s less about the world’s negative influence than about an enthusiastic family’s positive one.”

HomeschoolerHispanas, which currently counts with close to 120 members, exists to exchange curriculum ideas, advice and more than anything to encourage and support moms who are homeschooling their bilingual children.

“Among my members, the most common reason to homeschool was to promote family unity, for the freedom to raise truly bicultural and bilingual children, and for the chance to raise kids who truly love learning,” explained Stephanie. “I know the last one seems odd, but everyone knows some children who are so burned out from homework that they won’t pick up a book to read for fun. Our kids read all the time, and because they want to! My son, for instance, asked for two books for his birthday, each one from a favorite author whose books he devours!”

Debunking Myths

Although the majority of the research I’ve done for this series point to the fact that any parent can homeschool their child, I still find that difficult to believe. I personally think it takes a special kind of mother (or father) to do this and, even when my children’s education is of utmost importance to me, I don’t think I’d be able to homeschool them, but maybe I’m wrong…

“Personality is not the key, but rather an outlook,” said Stephanie. “If you’re considering homeschooling with any agenda at all that doesn’t include letting your child grow up to be who he or she is, then maybe this isn’t for you. Want to turn your bookworm into a football star? Don’t bother. Allowing your budding author more time to work on his next book. Ding, ding, ding, you win!”

Another common worry has to do with not having any kind of professional experience or training as an educator. Many of the mothers I’ve spoken to regarding the possibility of homeschooling their bilingual children have said this factor can be a bit intimidating.

“Most homeschooling parents are human—okay, all of them are. We have strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes the biggest strength is realizing when you need help. If you can’t handle teaching long division, hire a tutor or swap that lesson with another mom. You can handle this, if you really think it’s for you.”

It is precisely because she thinks that this is the right option for her daughters that Brisa has made the decision to homeschool them, even when she knows it’s not going to be easy. She said she’s already received a bunch of criticism to which she’s turning a deaf ear because, truly, at the end of the day, her daughters’ education is her’s and her husband’s responsibility.

“As their parents, nobody cares more about our daughters’ education than we do,” she said. “If we want our children to be truly bilingual, and to also learn about our culture, our history and our traditions, then it’s our responsibility to teach them.”

Are you homeschooling your children? Why? Or have you thought about homeschooling them? What’s stopping you? We’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, tips, experiences on this topic.

We have a lot more coming your way this bilingual homeschooling week. Not to mention the awesome giveaways you can enter to jump start or add to your bilingual homeschool classroom.

Thanks for stopping by and being part of this special week where we gathered useful information for parents who are choosing the bilingual homeschool, or even afterschool, route.

You can visit the whole series with the links below:

• An Introduction to Bilingual Homeschooling

• Ask an Expert: What is a good resource for homeschooling parents?

• Your Story: A Generation of Bilingual Homeschoolers

• A Creative Activity for Bilingual Homeschoolers

• Celebrating Día, Libraries and Bilingual Homeschooling

• Resources for Bilingual Homeschoolers

We invite you to check out the two sponsors who graciously offered their educational products, perfect for bilingual homeschooling parents, as giveaways:

• Ingenio Bilingual Toys and Games

• The Boca Beth Program educational resources for parents raising bilingual children in English and Spanish.