I was schooled in public school and went to a traditional university, so my experience with homeschooling came very late. While I was working in a research position (seeing whether I wanted to go further with my education and get a PhD, I ultimately opted not to), I encountered a young student who did a research rotation in our lab and ultimately chose us to finish his doctorate with. he was only18 and had already finished all of the academic requirements for his PhD. As I got to know him better, I found out that he was homeschooled by his parents who ran their own business, so they were able to make the time to do the homeschooling. He finished his high school equivalence by 12 I think, and took a year off before starting his bachelor's degree at a local state school. He took another year off after graduating from that program, and still finished in time to start his PhD and get to the point when I met him.

What was striking for me about him was not how intelligent he was. Everyone who completes a PhD, generally speaking, is far above average in intelligence, so that wasn't an extraordinary quality to have. What was extraordinary was he took that natural ability and leapfrogged past the system to steer his own course through life.

At the time I felt envy, because it made me realize I had been cheated out of my own education. For whatever reason, homeschooling my own children didn't seem like the greatest of ideas at the time, but the story stuck with me. When we first got married, I began talking to my wife about how we were going to educate our children, and we did a lot of research. In my research I came across John Taylor Gatto and the light bulb finally went off.

Long story short, even our oldest child isn't quite ready for school yet, but we now plan to homeschool her and my son. With all of the research I've done, and my reflection on my own experience, I can't imagine doing it any other way. When they're older, formal education might be in order, but for young children, the separation from parents and the lack of free play takes too much of a toll to justify it. Not only that, I have to much respect for my children to force them into something against their will. If they want to go when they're older, they will, but they'll be free to leave any time they want.