A Family Classroom More And More Parents Are Preferring The Home Classroom To The Schools’

Lately, Melissa Roloff has been reading Greek mythology.

Nothing unique about that. Lots of 14-year-olds trudge through that literary world dominated by Zeus, Hera, Apollo and Athena, not to mention Leda and her swan.

Few probably do it by choice, though. And almost none complement it by also studying the language in which the myths were originally told.

Only a minority do it while enhancing math lessons with practical business applications the way Roloff does.

And only a very small number choose to do it at home or at their family’s business instead of in a classroom.

Roloff does all this because she, and her three siblings as well, are among those Inland Northwest children who are being homeschooled.

Kathleen McCurdy calls it “a more natural approach” to education.

McCurdy is director of the Family Learning Organization, a Spokane organization that, she explains, was formed in the early 1980s “as a loosely knit coalition of homeschooling families in an effort to get a home-school law passed.”

After the law was indeed passed in 1985, the FLO formed as a taxexempt service organization with an ongoing agenda: “We try to serve the home-schoolers of any persuasion,” McCurdy says, “and also just to promote parent involvement in education.”

The group fulfills its mission in various ways, one of which is to hold a biannual Home-school and Family Learning Fair. The 1996 edition will be held Friday and Saturday at the Spokane Convention Center.

Over the fair’s two days, adult participants can attend workshops on teaching techniques (“how to nurture interest in science and mathematics through modern technology”), goal-setting, G.E.D. testing, reading skills and more. Children’s workshops range from gun safety to backyard beekeeping.

Speakers include Donald M. Joy, an author and college professor whose talks are titled “The Mystery of Human Bonding” and “Empower Your Kids! Alternatives to Adolescence Craziness,” and Ed Nagel, a school principal from Santa Fe, N.M., whose topic will be “The Rising Star of Liberty - 25 Years of Home-schooling.”

“This year especially we are inviting the public to come and participate and watch what home-school families do so that they might be more involved and let them know what resources are available,” McCurdy says.

McCurdy, the 50ish mother of five children whose ages range from 17 to 34, is a confirmed believer in home-schooling. She educated all her children at home, and her eight grandchildren are following form.

“So that says something,” she says.

She isn’t even shy about stating that she kept her children at home before the 1985 law.

“Let’s put it this way,” she says, “before that, it wasn’t legal to home-school. But a lot of it went on.”

A lot of it still does. No one knows exactly how many children are home-schooled across the Inland Northwest because some, perhaps many, home-school families refuse to register with their respective school districts.

According to the latest available official statistics, some 1,196 students were being home-schooled during the 1993-94 school year both in Spokane County’s 12 school districts and Reardan/Edwall. That total rose from 868 for 1992-93.

McCurdy says there are several reasons why parents want to keep their children at home. Some fault public school instruction (she calls this the “Johnny Can’t Read” syndrome), while others - such as military families - move so often that any sense of educational consistency is lost.

Some parents have philosophical differences with state-funded instruction. “They want science taught from a creationist point of view or history from a pacifist point of view,” McCurdy says.

There are moral concerns. “You know, they (public schools) have a lot of problems with drugs and all of that stuff,” she says. “Parents want to protect their children, and one good way is just to keep them out of that scene.”

But the main reason McCurdy says many parents home-school their children is simply that they want to keep the family together.

“A lot of teachers think it’s a criticism of what they’re trying to do so they have a negative view of it,” McCurdy says. “But many of us home-school because we want to have our children around us.”

McCurdy once talked to a school superintendent who “was convinced that if he just made the school better maybe we would send or children back. And I said, ‘Your school could be perfect and I would still homeschool because they’re my kids!”’

As for the Roloff family, Mark and Tamy - co-owners of Spokane’s Total Health Center - have home-schooled all four of their children. Melissa is the oldest, followed by siblings aged 13, 11 and 9.

Mark, who grew up on a Ritzville farm, says it was always his intention to home-school his children. “I really enjoyed it when my dad would keep me out of school to help with things if it was a really busy season or whatever,” he says.

He stresses that his kids are neither slackers nor grinds but are instead children who have integrated their studies into the family business. Each reads voraciously, each is excited to learn and each is self-motivated.

“We consider our home-schooling program as an expression of life and part of life,” Roloff says. “So when people would ask us, ‘Are your kids off for the summer?’, they’re really not, because the way we home-school, their education is constantly going on.”

As for annual assessments, Mark and Tamy keep track of their children’s studies (Melissa, for one, supplements her practical math experience with textbooks that her parents have purchased) and gauge their progress with a state-certified teacher at the end of each school year.

In answer to the obvious question - do you miss a school-based social life? - Melissa is adamant.

“Never have,” she says. “When I was little, I always had my brothers and sisters to play with. And then when I grew up, I got involved with my church group, and I have lots of friends in my neighborhood as well. So it’s never felt like I’ve been missing out on anything.”

In fact, she says, it’s felt just the opposite. As with her math studies.

“I do things throughout the store, like use calculators and cash registers,” she says. “I’m always adding things up because I have to place orders and stuff. It just kind of is everything I do.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Learning fair The 1996 Home-school and Family Learning Fair will be held from 2 to 9 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday at the Spokane Convention Center. Registration fees vary from $45 for full families (including workshops) to $6 per person (per day). For more information, call 924-3784 or 924-3760.