Having taken more than three decades to evolve, home-schooling is presently thriving in Canada.
From Victoria to St. John's, parents across the country are increasingly choosing to conduct class at the kitchen table rather than have their children taught in a conventional school.
"We have a very, very rich community in terms of collaboration in home-schooling in Canada," says Deani Van Pelt, assistant professor in Education at Redeemer University College in Hamilton.
Lead researcher of an in-depth study on home-schooling released in 2004, Van Pelt says home-schooling is not only surging in Canada but is "hugely popular" in the United States and Europe as well. She says prejudices that may have surrounded the practice in the past have all but vanished.
While there are no statistics available on just how many Canadian children are being home-schooled, Paul Faris estimates there are 60,000 to 80,000 Canadian children currently being taught at home.
"Any numbers we have across the country are based on educated guesses in the home-schooling sphere." Says Faris, Executive Director of the Home School Legal Defence Association of Canada.
A first-generation graduate of home-schooling with a law degree from the University of Western Ontario, Faris says that while home-schooling is legal in all provinces, the requirements vary depending on provincial legislation and funding.
He says home-schooling is a fairly recent development, and in the early days was favoured mostly by those who were "Caucasian and Christian." However, today the concept appeals to a broad spectrum of society, including immigrants.
Tucked away in small communities across the country since the 1980s, home-based education grew rapidly through the 1990s. Today, while its rate of growth is hard to pin down, Van Pelt estimates that Ontario alone has 20,000 students.
Sherri Piechnik from Surrey, B.C., who gives workshops on home-schooling, claims it's over ten thousand in her province. Piechnik, who has spent 22 years home-schooling her five children ranging in age from 10 to 28, says what attracted her initially was how the home-schooled kids she met were confident and well-behaved.
Van Pelt's study found that most parents opt for home-schooling not because of dissatisfaction with the public school system but for reasons such as bonding with their children or dealing with sibling rivalry.
"I thought people would be reacting against something negative in public schools…what we found was parents wanted to be shaping the views that their children are studying within," says Van Pelt.
Van Pelt says home-schooling is cost-effective, averaging approximately $700 to educate a child in a year. In the public school system in Ontario, it costs the government $7000 per child per year. The vast majority of home-schooling parents aren't clamouring for any form of government or public funding, she says. But Van Pelt's study found that a second language education was a weak point in home-schooled children.
Parents who are sold on home-schooling say this approach to teaching puts the holistic well-being of the child first and fulfills their need to do what they believe is best for their children. They emphasize that it's a lifestyle choice that can incorporate every aspect of the daily routine into an education—laundry, cooking and cleaning included.
A home-school graduate, 26 year-old Amanda Piechnik describes how she was encouraged to "step out and experiment with ways to learn something." Mom Sherri says, "It's not necessarily what you teach your children, it's do you teach them how to learn."
Faris says there are no high school drop-outs or failures in home-schooling. He believes this is because it has the ability and flexibility to "draw out the individual learning style of the individual child."
While moms are the primary teachers, all home-schooled kids have above average access to their dads, who contribute their expertise in a variety of ways. When he was building a swimming pool, construction contractor Jack Baribeau had his kids pitch in, doing everything from measuring the property to drawing the design to working with a laser level.
In home-schooling their five children who range in age from nine to 17, Baribeau teaches hockey and baseball while wife Gisele, a certified accountant who works part time in her husband's construction company, tackles the other subjects.
While it has its benefits and rewards, parents say home-schooling doesn't come without sacrifice, and many forfeit their careers to do it. But for Gisele Baribeau, the choice is clear.
"A lot of other things wait literally years to get done, a lot of friendships are put on hold.... My children are going to be with me for only so many years, I can't postpone that; I can postpone other things."
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