Kate Tsubata

About the author: Kate Tsubata is a freelance writer who home schools her three children.

Student desire and effort are the impetus behind home-school learning, making parental background insignificant. Students, therefore, are not teacher-dependent. Once students realize that they can understand material on their own, they take responsibility for their own learning, initiating and following through on educational projects. As a result, home schooling allows children to practice adult behavior.

Each month, my children send their completed assignments to the correspondence school in which they are enrolled. A few weeks later, we receive a transcript of their marks on those assignments and their overall grade for the period.

Before sending their work, we make a photocopy of their papers to keep for our records and to use to check their work. This morning, while...