Homeschool dads no longer content to sit on sidelines

CHICAGO -- For Tim and Nicholas Peebles, school is always in session -- even at the grocery store.

As the father and son stroll the aisles, Tim finds plenty of visual aids to teach 8-year-old Nicholas about subjects like health and nutrition, agriculture and economics.

No longer content to sit on the sidelines, fathers like Tim Peebles are getting more involved in what was once firmly a woman's domain: homeschooling.

"I think there's a real awakening going on," said Robert Ziegler, spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. "As we continue to evaluate ourselves family by family, I think dads are saying, hey, there is a role for me."

While statistics and the stories of homeschoolers suggest that mothers still tend to be the stay-at-home teachers, Ziegler said fathers are finding ways to participate -- whether they're taking on some subjects, setting curricula or checking homework.

Hands-on learning

Clark Aldrich, who designs computer programs from his home in Madison, Conn., lets 8-year-old Slater sit on his lap and listen in when he takes conference calls for work. Aldrich and his wife split teaching duties and often have science class as a family during their outdoor walks.

"We tried kindergarten at public school, but I didn't like their attitude," Aldrich said. "They were of the philosophy that we know better than you know how to raise your child."

About 850,000 students were homeschooled in the spring of 1999, according to the most recent statistics available from the U.S. Department of Education. Homeschool advocates estimate the current number is closer to 2 million this year, based on their own surveys.

In 1998, a voluntary survey of homeschooling parents whose children took one of two national standardized tests found that 23 percent of the mothers of those students were employed, while almost all the fathers -- 98 percent -- had jobs.

Different ways

Susan Wise Bauer, co-author of "The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home," said fathers participate in different ways depending on their reasons for homeschooling.

Conservative Christian families tend to view the father as the head of the household, so those fathers may serve as homeschool "principals," setting curricula or checking homework, Bauer said.

In other families dissatisfied with the quality of public or private schools, fathers may have less traditional jobs that allow them to work from home and share teaching duties, she said.

Whatever the reasons, Bauer said she has noticed more and more male faces in the crowd when she speaks at homeschool conferences.

"There used to be no men at these conferences," Bauer said. "At the latest one I was at it was almost 50/50."

Peebles, a theology doctorate student in Chicago, stays home with Nicholas while his wife works. He sees nothing but benefits in his decision.

"I'm completely confident it's been a good thing. I have no second guessing at all," Peebles said. "I feel blessed that I've been able to be home with him more than most fathers have time to be with their kids."

Nicholas also likes the informal arrangement that gives him hours to read -- right now, it's the "Wizard of Oz" series -- and devotes more time to subjects he loves, like dinosaurs.

There's also the bonus of not having to schedule his life around a school bell.

"I'm not really an early riser by nature, so that wouldn't be for me," Nicholas said.

Luis Oviles took three of his children out of private schools in the San Francisco area to teach them himself. Oviles schedules his job counseling troubled teens around his children's schoolwork.

"Many of the teachers are not well-trained to deal with multicultural children," said Oviles, who is Hispanic.

Oviles' wife helps with the basics, such as arithmetic, but leaves most of the teaching to him because she speaks limited English, he said. He also gets help from a homeschooling program run by the Laguna Salada Union School District in Pacifica, Calif.

Erika Karres, an education professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said she has seen an evolution in fathers' roles since homeschooling first caught on in the 1960s and 1970s.

"The role of dads then was nonexistent, except maybe nodding their heads and saying, 'OK, if that's what you want to do, wife,"' Karres said. "I welcome this as a great, positive change in the homeschooling movement."

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On the Net:

Home School Legal Defense Association: http://www.hslda.org

Homeschooling Fathers: http://www.fatherville.com/homeschool_fathers.shtml