When Bernadette Baird-Zars observed a fourth-grade class in a Chester, Pa., school as part of an Introduction to Education course last semester, the 19-year-old freshman was surprised by what she saw.

“There was a lot of time spent on discipline and learning things like how to wait your turn at the drinking fountain. One of the kids I thought was really bright got in trouble for yelling out the answer, and the teacher constantly told the kids, ‘Don’t ask questions’; ‘sit up’; ‘pay attention.’

“There are a lot of things you have to know in traditional school. You don’t want to talk about your ideas with another student because then you’re disruptive. Don’t raise your hand too much, or you’re the teacher’s pet,” claims Baird-Zars, who admits that many of the rules—both written and understood—in a public elementary school classroom are foreign to her.

That’s because Baird-Zars is one of a handful of Swarthmore students—and a growing number of students throughout the country—whose parents elected to teach them at home before they entered college.

According to a study by the U.S. Department of Education, an estimated 850,000 children—or 1.7 percent of children ages 5 to 17—received their education at home in 1999. Brian Ray, president and founder of the National Home Education Research Institute, believes the numbers may be about twice that amount.

In addition, the number of parents electing to homeschool their children is growing by 5 to 15 percent a year, according to Cafi Cohen, author of Homeschoolers’ College Admissions Handbook (Prima Publishing, 2000).

This increase has forced college administrators throughout the country to develop flexible admissions procedures to evaluate the homespun, nontraditional curricula and wide range of educational experiences that these children receive.

The National Association of College Admissions Counselors reported in 1999 that 51 percent of institutions responding to a survey now have official homeschooling policies. Cohen, whose book is a guide for college-bound homeschoolers, also claims that “despite a few problems, it appears that homeschooling presents no significant barriers to admission to more than 95 percent of the colleges and universities in the United States.”

The typical homeschooler is likely to have more than one sibling and both parents in the house but only one parent working outside the home, reports a 1999 U.S. Department of Education survey. Most homeschoolers are non-Hispanic whites, and homeschooling parents are, on average, better educated than other parents, although their income is about the same.

The report also noted that the most common reason for homeschooling was the parents’ belief that they could give their children a better education at home, either for religious reasons or because of a poor learning environment at school. A new comprehensive federal homeschooling study will be completed this year.

Baird-Zars’ mother, Belle Zars, a former teacher turned freelance writer, made the decision to homeschool her daughter when she was a toddler. The family had moved several times and ended up in an isolated area of West Virginia. When her daughter started reading at age 4 and appeared to be an eager learner, Zars decided to try homeschooling.

“We couldn’t afford an expensive private school, and I decided we could do it better than anyone else I could afford,” said Zars, who maintains there are as many reasons for homeschooling as there are homeschoolers.

“I think every kid has a natural inclination and passion for learning, and our job, often, is to get out of the way. I never met a kid who wasn’t hungry to learn. You need to put them into areas where they can follow their interests,” Zars said. She pointed out that traditional school can often be viewed as burdensome to a child—“almost like it’s the kid’s job.”

Some of Baird-Zars’ schooling included writing a weekly neighborhood newspaper called The Zephyr when she was 9 years old; planning a neighbor’s garden, complete with soil testing; and spearheading a petition for a library and a playground in her hometown in Logan, W.Va.

Now, Baird-Zars is involved in an almost unbelievable number of activities at the College, including the Cricket League, the Good-Schools Pennsylvania Committee, Living Wage Committee, and the Peace and Social Concerns Committee at the Swarthmore Friends Meeting. She studies Kathak dance, plays marimba in the College’s wind ensemble, and is a Spanish translator for the Friends of Farmworkers in Philadelphia. In addition, she and a friend are organizing a fall conference at the College on the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir.

“There’s so much opportunity [at Swarthmore]. It’s like trying to drink from a fire hydrant,” she said.

Senior biology major Carrie Cooper-Fenske, from Fairfield, Ohio, considers her mother a bit of a pioneer in the homeschooling world in their area.

“My mom decided to [homeschool me] in the ’80s, when it wasn’t popular. She did it because she wanted to teach her own kids,” said Cooper-Fenske, whose mother, Jody Cooper, was a former elementary school teacher. “Everyone then had an opinion about homeschooling, and it was usually negative. When you said you homeschooled, everyone thought you were doing it because of conservative Christian ideas.”

Cooper-Fenske has vivid memories of playing with neighborhood kids in the morning at the school bus stop. When the bus came, she and her two younger brothers and sister would simply walk home and start their school day in the family’s living room, which had been converted into a classroom with a long brown table, chairs, dry-erase boards on the walls and book cases lining the walls.

As a high school senior, she was accepted at all seven colleges to which she applied. She chose Swarthmore for its focus on liberal arts, variety of cultural dance offerings, beauty, and small size. After graduation this spring, she plans to attend medical school at the Ohio State University.

Mitchell Stevens, associate professor of sociology at Hamilton College and author of Kingdom of Children, a history of homeschooling (Princeton University Press, 2001), refutes the widely held idea that homeschoolers won’t learn to interact with others, that they’re sheltered from children who are not like them, or that they won’t receive a “well-rounded” education because their parents fail to teach certain subjects.

“There’s usually a laundry list of concerns that I’ve seen in the media,” says Stevens, “but in my research, I’ve seen no evidence that homeschooling disadvantages students academically or developmentally.” In his interviews with hundreds of homeschoolers, Stevens—who maintains he is not necessarily a homeschooling advocate—said he’s found they are active in their local communities and more likely to be politically involved and to participate in extracurricular activities such as music and sports.

“What homeschooling makes possible is a more varied set of relationships in [the students’] school career. They can work part time or pursue a particular passion. These kids can pursue their passions to the nth degree and have extraordinary areas of accomplishment in some endeavors.

“We sort of presume that [traditional] school is a good place for youth development, and in some ways it’s worth challenging that notion,” Stevens said.

However, he also noted that homeschooling may not be the right choice for children who need a more structured environment or for parents who are not adequately motivated.

Sophomore Joanna Pernick agrees.

“There are people who think homeschooling is good for everyone, but I don’t,” said Pernick, who was homeschooled by her parents in Haskell, N.J., primarily for religious reasons. “It requires a certain willingness from both the students and the parents. You have to be self-motivated and fairly disciplined.

“Being homeschooled leads to closer ties with your family, but it can go the other way too. You can really get on each other’s nerves. There are also sacrifices the family has to make, like there’s not much time to devote to cleaning.”

Pernick, a 20-year-old classics major, noted that there were also some extra-curricular disadvantages when she was in high school. For instance, she wanted to participate in a local mock trial competition but couldn’t because her homeschooling group couldn’t get enough students to enter. She also would have liked to participate in sports during high school but couldn’t because homeschooled children were not then permitted to join school teams.

An increasing number of organizations and networks have made possible a broader range of experiences for homeschooled children. “People who homeschool now have it easier,” says Pernick. “When I was in high school, I didn’t know that many people who homeschooled locally. My friends were more spread out. But my 15-year-old brother has tons of local friends, and now, homeschooled kids can play sports on local town teams.”

Now that she’s in college, Pernick said she’s grateful for her homeschool background.

“I think homeschooling can prepare you better for college because you’re used to doing things on your own. Since coming to college, I’ve become very thankful for my parents,” Pernick said.

Louisa Strouse Boiman, a 21-year-old junior from northeast Philadelphia, spent much of her childhood preparing to be a professional violinist. However, she transferred to Swarthmore after one year at the Manhattan School of Music, when she realized she wanted a broader liberal arts education. She is now a political science major.

Strouse Boiman says her homeschooling experience is a big part of who she is today and, although she was glad she was homeschooled, she did have some problems when she started at Swarthmore.

“My mother always said that if I’d been shy, she would have put me in school. As a child, I do remember being terrified of kids my own age because I didn’t have the same experiences as them. But I never had a problem interacting with adults.

“At Swarthmore, I realized there was a lot I wasn’t prepared for. I had missed little-girl friendships,” she said. As a result, she said that during her first semester at the College, she kept to herself. In her second semester, she says she had a lot of “psychodramas” with friends. “I didn’t have the perspective that everything wasn’t a very big deal.”

Academically, Strouse Boiman also had some difficulty adjusting to a class schedule that had her simultaneously studying several topics for different professors. “I wanted to focus on one thing at a time. I wanted a project. I guess I wanted to go to graduate school,” she laughed. “I resented the time and assignment constraints that didn’t allow me to go into the material in the depth I would have liked.”

Strouse Boiman contends that a successful homeschooling experience depends not only on the motivation of the students but on the responsiveness of the parents who teach. “I think my parents were very responsive to me as an individual, and that was why it worked,” she says.

Strouse Boiman is currently on leave from the College, working as a volunteer coordinator and a paralegal for the American Civil Liberties Union. She’ll start classes again as a senior this fall, planning to attend law school and work in immigration or labor law.

Dean of Admissions Jim Bock ’90 says that when he started working in the Admissions Office eight years ago, the College received only two or three homeschoolers’ applications each year. This year, there were 25 applications (up from 17 last year), and he said the number is steadily rising.

A recent Swarthmore directive to homeschoolers and their parents states: “Every year—and in increasing numbers—we receive very strong applications from students who have been homeschooled for a significant period of time, if not all their lives. As one might expect, each application looks different, making it fruitless to set specific, rigid standards for homeschoolers in the admissions process.”

Swarthmore requires the same testing (SAT I or ACT and three SAT II exams) and information for homeschoolers as it does for traditionally schooled students. Homeschoolers are asked for transcripts from any formal classes they have taken at community colleges, arts centers, or summer programs and for a special descriptive listing of their “homegrown” classes. The College also asks for examples of special research projects or internships and extensive travel experiences as well as a list of extracurricular activities and written recommendations from advisers, coaches, members of the clergy, and others.

In addition, an on-campus interview is strongly encouraged, so that admissions deans can evaluate whether homeschoolers are “engaged learners” who will fit in well in the classroom, Bock said.

Swarthmore typically admits one in four homeschooled applicants—the same ratio as the traditionally schooled students who are offered places at the College each year, says Kennon Dick, associate dean of admissions. Curiously, all of the current homeschooled students at Swarthmore are women, although the U.S. Department of Education reports that about equal numbers of boys and girls are homeschooled.

Bock said that his view on homeschoolers has changed over the years: “I’ve become more open to the varieties and types of students who choose homeschooling as an option.” Although he’s interviewed homeschoolers who are weak in certain academic areas, he contends that many will do well at Swarthmore because they are independent, analytic thinkers and passionate learners.

“They give a different perspective, and they add something to the social and intellectual life of the College,” Bock said. “They’re a good fit for us.”