How to Respond to a Playground Pop Quiz

It’s a common scenario; upon discovering that you are a homeschooling family, an unfamiliar child or adult begins the playground pop quiz. What is the playground pop quiz? It’s that game of trivia that none of you were prepared for. It’s the informal test of your homeschool success. It’s an on the spot verbal drill covering spelling, science, history, math, the arts or any combination thereof. It’s the race of rambling, random, questions that run from the mouths of of skeptics. It’s the final round of around town Jeopardy. Okay, you get the idea.

The playground pop quiz can go one of two ways:

Your child successfully answers the questions, proves her exceptional knowledge to the world, improves her confidence, and affirms your competence as an educator.

OR

Your child hesitates, answers incorrectly or becomes frustrated.

The playground pop quiz may feel like a surprise attack or a deliberate attempt to cause a rift between those who homeschool full time and those who don’t. When people start to talk about homeschooling a mixture of emotions can erupt that may cause uncomfortable conversations. Other children my be jealous of the individual attention that your child receives. They may be jealous of the uniqueness of homeschool education or the freedom it seems to bring.

Adults may feel jealous too about the amount of family time that you enjoy and the flexibility of your schedule as homeschoolers. Some parents feel guilty about their choices or frustrated by their circumstances. How many times has another parent said (without prompting) “I wish I could homeschool but my situation is X, Y or Z?” You might even run into a professional educator who may see your endeavor as commentary on their job performance and take offense.

Although negative feelings like jealousy, guilt or insult could be the driving force behind some of the questions posed to homeschoolers, there are often other reasons for these type of encounters. Some of which include: curiosity about what homeschoolers do with their time, who they are as people, or the quality of education that a child can receive through primarily parental instruction.

There is also confusion about what homeschooling is. While the number of children who are home-schooled has risen over the past decade, there are still many people who don’t know that homeschooling is a legal and effective educational option. Even among those people who have heard of homeschooling, many have misconceptions about homeschooling families because they’ve never met one. The closest that many folks have come to meeting a homeschooler is an interview with the winner of some kind of competition where a nervous child may come off as superior, snobby, strange, anti-social or aloof.

Some folks may even have been exposed to a more troubling, worrisome, image through a story in the news or a talk show about a neglectful or abusive individual who has hidden their children in the house to keep them from the public eye (including the local public school), resulting in them being mislabeled as someone who “home-schooled.” Hopefully, the fact that you and your children are engaging and interacting with these folks in first place, will give them a clue that you aren’t like the individual they may have seen on TV.

Do not feel, however, that you are required to answer every single question they may have. If you don’t feel like having your child take a quiz you can attempt to end the conversation by saying something like, “Oh, we were hoping to take a break from our studies and enjoy this beautiful weather (or event).” If the conversation proceeds there are several great ways to respond.

A wonderful truth that you can point out is that homeschooling allows you to customize curriculum and your child to work at her own speed. Another fact that you can share is that various curricula cover subjects at different times (or in an alternate order). You can also simply state: “We’re not there, yet.”

Finally, it helps to reassure your child by steering the conversation in the direction of her interests or a particular area of expertise by saying something like, “Actually, lately she’s been focusing on {insert topic}. She’s learning so much and having fun!” This should let the other person know that they can lighten up. It might also give your child the opportunity to shine where she shines the brightest and talk about what she does best.


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