A Huge Commitment: Homeschooling 

Whether parents wanted to or not, during the pandemic they homeschooled their children, albeit with some help from Zoom classes. Due to pandemic restrictions, a growing number of California families have chosen to homeschool their children. The reasons are many: too many COVID-19 restrictions or too few. When countless children struggled with virtual instruction, their parents took notice for the first time how and what their children were learning. Many weren’t pleased and decided they could do a better job. 

Paige Hagerty didn’t let the pandemic affect her children’s education. Even before she became a mother, she wanted to homeschool her kids. Paige says, “I knew people doing it and liked what I saw. I’ve seen many students go through twelve years of homeschooling and enter prestigious colleges like Oxford University, Pepperdine, and UCLA.”

When teaching her children, Bryce (11) and Tristan (6), Paige takes into consideration their personalities when developing lessons and providing instruction. She emphasizes educational exploration, but still needs worksheets. And she can’t do it all, so she enrolled her children in Learn Beyond the Book, located a few miles away in Northridge, California. Beyond the Book offers “alternative education resources and support for self-directed learning.” Bryce takes an Improv and writing class at their Northridge campus and an On-line once a week singing class. Tristan is becoming a Chess master in his favorite course.

The curriculum available to her spells everything out. However, there’s a problem. Bryce frequently derails her plans. For example, one day Bryce was sparked by a story idea. Once that got into her head, she started writing and kept focused for over two hours, an amazing achievement for a child with ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Besides the usual home instruction of Math, English, Reading, History, and Science classes, Paige has a deaf friend visit every Wednesday to teach mother and daughter American Sign Language.  For PE, Bryce takes Taekwondo classes and Tristan loves Parkour, an athletic training discipline in which the athlete attempts to get from one point to the other in the most fluid way possible. This requires a lot of jumping, overcoming challenges, helping others, and being self-sufficient. Isn’t that what education’s all about?  

Bryce has been homeschooled all her life and is clueless to the public education classroom culture. Regarding having her mother as a teacher, she says, “I like it, but sometimes I get frustrated.” She believes her mom is nicer than any public-school teacher. She meets friends at Learn Beyond the Book, church, and kids in her Taekwondo classes. And she isn’t very impressed with public school children.

Bryce says, “Mom will take Tristan and I to a museum or zoo and there are many public-school kids pushing and shoving each other. They block your view and seem not to care about anything but themselves.” She calls them ‘Public Apocalypse Kids’. 

Paige says, “My main teaching objective is for my children to love learning.” She believes the quality of learning is more important than the quantity. “If they develop a love of learning they will become lifelong learners, my main objective.”

Human beings have an innate desire to explore, learn, grow, and improve their quality of life. Paige Hagerty taps into her children’s desires and needs by paying attention to their ideas, goals, and learning mode to ensure Bryce and Tristan get the needed K-12 education and the skills to succeed if they decide to go to college.