FOR THIS BOOK, more than one hundred homeschooling families worldwide took time from their busy lives to respond to my long, detailed survey about educating teenagers. Thank you so much. You have joined a grand tradition in which homeschoolers learn not from education professionals, but instead from those with street smarts—other experienced parents and teens. Through this book, your ideas and anecdotes inform, teach, and entertain, making homeschooling teenagers seem not only possible but also desirable.
Although I used pseudonyms for the one-hundred-four survey respondents, I used the real names of two homeschool graduates who contributed long essays for the last chapter. Thanks to Breana Mock and Ariel Simmons—and to their mothers Kristen Mock and Cerelle Woods Simmons—for writing so eloquently and speaking so frankly about the results of homeschooling.
My agent, Ling Lucas, believes in my quest to inform the public about the possibilities offered by homeschooling. I owe her my continuing gratitude for trusting her gut instincts and common sense and taking on unknown quantities—both me and the cutting edge subject matter.
Linda Dobson and Prima Publishing both deserve kudos for expanding the inspirational and practical how-to-do-it literature available to would-be home educators. Linda, thank you for putting up with my trivial questions and doubts that I would ever complete this project. Thanks to Prima editors, Jamie Miller, Ruth Younger, and Libby Larson, for the professional review and editing of my work.
For encouraging my writing about homeschooling, I owe debts to Mark and Helen Hegener of Home Education Magazine, Maureen McCaffrey and Craig Young of Homeschooling Today, Patrick Farenga of Growing Without Schooling, and Mary Leppert of The LINK. Home educators of all stripes and colors need to support each other. Together we can.
My homeschool “family” in Arroyo Grande, California, the parents and students in Shining Light Homeschool Co-op, keep me up-to-date and humble, as do the contributors to the Web-based Kaleidoscapes homeschool bulletin boards. My interaction with these two groups assures that homeschoolers’ latest day-to-day concerns seldom escape my notice.
My family—my two grown homeschoolers, Jeffrey and Tamara —as well as my parents, John and Dolores Fischer, and my second mom, Bernice Cohen, have cheered me on. My husband, Terrell Cohen, patiently reviewed all my first drafts and provided invaluable editorial assistance when the text was least intelligible. I love you all. This volume would not exist without your emotional, practical, and financial support.
Finally, thanks to God, who makes all things possible.