Title Post

I never intended to become a counterculturalist. It just sort of happened that way. Makes one wonder, is that the experience of all counterculturalists? Do they just wake up one day in their usual place outside the mainstream of society and say "whoa, how did I wind up here?" Because that's how it was for me.

When our eldest son was four years old, we were shelling out for him to attend preschool for about nine hours a week. About halfway through the year, my wife and I realized that any benefit he derived from it was way, way too low in proportion to the size of the check we wrote monthly. It was then that Betty conceived the idea: "I'm as qualified to teach my son as anybody."

And it was true. She has a degree in Early Childhood Education. Worked in a preschool and then taught kindergarten before dropping out of the workforce to be a mom (which, I've come to realize, is a somewhat countercultural choice in itself). And knows her own children--their learning styles, abilities, weaknesses, interests--better than any other teacher could ever hope to. So she says, "maybe we should homeschool him next year."

As a practical matter, it made perfect sense. She was staying home with the kids, anyway. And then there was the monthly check we wouldn't be writing. Plus, where else are you going to get a 1:1 student-teacher ratio? And if the experiment didn't work--maybe she'd hate it--we'd just send him to public school to start kindergarten the following year as planned.

But that's all it was for me at first, a practical way to save money and for our son to get more one-on-one attention from his teacher. Fast forward to now, and it defines our lifestyle. Most of our friends are fellow homeschooling families. My wife is the co-chair of the local homeschooling cooperative. We recently met with our financial planner to discuss strategies for continuing to live on a single income for the next 20 years or so, in order that we might keep doing this (and in the process found out, entirely coincidentally, that the financial planner's children are homeschooled as well).

And now that we're at this point, I realize just how far-fetched the idea seems to most people. For example, I had this exchange of small talk with a group of fellow soccer parents before practice one day:

Soccer dad: Where do your kids go to school? My daughter goes to Eastwood.
Soccer mom #1: My son goes to North Grove.
Soccer mom #2: Our son goes to Mooresville Christian.
Me: <silent, trying not to participate>
Soccer dad: Chris, how about your son, where does he go to school?
Me: <ok, you asked for it> Well actually, he's homeschooled.
Soccer dad: Oh.
All: <awkward silence>
Soccer mom #1: Really? Well that's different.
Soccer mom #2: Not that there's anything wrong with that.

It's the same sort of reaction I get when people ask what about my college major. If you're ever engaged in vapid small talk and need to find a way out of the conversation, just tell people you majored in mathematics. Nothing takes the wind out of most people's sails like realizing they're talking to someone who enjoys math. Except possibly the realization that they're talking to someone who enjoys math AND whose kids are homeschooled.

And that's where this blog gets its title, from the similarity between homeschoolers and that small minority of people among us who choose, for whatever reason, not to get their electricity from the local utility company. Instead of plugging into the readily available and fairly cheap supply of power available to everyone, they erect solar panels and windmills and heat their homes geothermally while the rest of society wonders "Why on earth would any sane person do that?"

Our system of education in America is like the nation's power grid in that it's so readily available--in our case, right across the street--and inexpensive, that most people cannot fathom why anyone would opt out of it as completely as we have. I can only answer that I know it's not for everyone, and I wouldn't expect you to understand, but it works for us. Also, it has shown me that the grid isn't all it's cracked up to be.

And I bet my fellow counterculturalists with the solar panels and windmills would tell you the same. We would seem to have much in common. Therefore, welcome...to my life off the grid.