With the homeschooling trend is picking up speed with each New Year, you might be as surprised as I was at the number of celebrities who homeschool. Here's a few that may surprise you.
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is homeschooling her six children. Now, I'm not sure if this means that she has hired a governess to teach, but what's important is that she's decided her kids will do better learning at home.
Which makes sense because her brood comes from such diverse backgrounds that a public school would be short-pressed to meet their needs. One of the beauties of homeschooling is that you can custom tailor your curriculum to meet the needs and interests of your children.
In school, there is no room for a child's own interests; he has to learn what the teacher decides he should learn. But in a homeschool, your kids can dive into subjects that interest them and that would be meaningful for them.
I would guess that this would be important for Angelina's children too.
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
Gusele Bundchen
Supermodel Gusele Bundchen and her NFL husband Tom Brady decided to stick with homeschooling after the Covid pandemic because they wanted to provide more stability for their children.
Regardless of what is happening in the world, an uninterrupted education for your children makes sense. Consistency is vital to developing certain skills, and stability is so critical to a child's sense of well-being, so maintaining a stable learning environment is essential during the educative years.
Homeschooling will help with a child's emotional state too because the child is not subjected to academic or societal problems in school. At home, or even in homeschooling playgroups, children are not separated from their parents at early ages, so anxiety or depression that might result from these early separations are avoided.
On top of that, as you know, separation anxiety is real in children. It always baffles me that we treat it as insignificant in America. Children need to feel loved, protected, and safe for their nervous systems to develop well, so they are not at risk for developing emotional issues later.
If the world were to stand still again, as it did during Covid, one group that won't be affected is the homeschoolers, because it'll be homeschooling as usual.
Mayim Bialik
Mayim Bialik, the Big Bang Theory actress, decided to homeschool. She believes that allowing her children to learn at their own pace, rather than be shuffled along with 30 other kids, will have a huge impact on how well they do academically.
“Don’t just teach your children to read. Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.”
And she's right. But not just academically. I would add that homeschooling has the enormous benefit of building self-confidence too. Children who learn at their own pace don't adopt a "group think" mindset. The problem with the "group think" mindset is that it leads to a dependence upon what the group thinks, instead of having the confidence to hold and express a differing view.
Homeschooled kids grow up in environments where they are encouraged to speak their minds, so this is what's normal for them. The idea of being inauthentic isn't something they would consider.
Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise homeschooled their children as did John Travolta and Kelly Preston, amongst so many others. The list goes on…
And who are the famous homeschoolers that came before us? This list is long, but to name a few…
Thomas Edison. He wasn't doing well in school, so his mother pulled him out and taught him herself.
Theodore Roosevelt was homeschooled due to health reasons.
Alexander the Great was tutored by Aristotle, as has been the custom of the ruling families (they need to raise leaders!)
Alexander Hamilton was largely self-taught until college.
President Andrew Johnson was self-taught as an adult, having never attended school.
And the list goes on…
When you think about it, hiring a tutor to teach your children is a homeschool education. So if it is good enough for the ruling class—and preferred by the ruling class—why shouldn't our kids have a "leader's" education too?
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Elizabeth Y. Hanson is a homeschooling thought-leader and the founder of Smart Homeschooler.
As an Educator, Homeschool Emerita, Writer, and Love and Leadership Certified Parenting Coach, she has 23 years of experience working in education.
Developing a comprehensive understanding of how to raise and educate a child, based on tradition and modern research, Liz devotes her time to helping parents to get it right.
Liz is available for one-on-one consultations as needed.
"I know Elizabeth Y. Hanson as a remarkably intelligent, highly sensitive woman with a moral nature and deep insight into differences between schooling and education. Elizabeth's mastery of current educational difficulties is a testimony to her comprehensive understanding of the competing worlds of schooling and education. She has a good heart and a good head. What more can I say?”
—John Taylor Gatto Distinguished educator, public speaker, and best-selling author of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. For a copy of The Short Angry History of Compulsory Schooling, click here.
