What is "School?"

In general, I believe that homeschooling is becoming more accepted, and even if it isn't something you would do yourself, most people recognize our right to educate our children as we see fit. I do still hear quite a few negative comments about my decision to homeschool mostly regarding the quality of their education. For most people "School" is a building you go to 6 hours a day 5 days a week 9 months out of the year. Any learning must be done within these walls, during this time frame and certainly taught by someone with a piece of paper stating they are capable of doing so. Learning must be done out of textbooks only of course and everyone must learn the same thing at the same time. Even though homeschooling is different than this traditional model, that doesn't mean my children are learning less. I think they are learning more. While we only use the occasional textbook (mostly Math) we teach in other ways too. My favorite is hands on learning and reading real books. Learning is not confined to only certain days a week at certain times a day, it can be done all of the time. Children are like sponges, they soak up everything around them. For instance, even though it is summer, when Daddy went to Dallas for work, we found Dallas on the map, talked about what direction we would have to travel to get there, and how long the trip takes. The children also learned quite a bit about reptiles at the program at DeGray Lake, and yesterday did several experiments on how to make a paper airplane fly higher. Think of it this way. When you learned to ride a bike or drive a car was it just from reading a textbook, or did you have to go out and do it? Can you learn to cook by just reading a cookbook, or do you actually have to cook? I am quite certain my children are getting a "quality education" from the comfort of their own home and from a teacher who loves them more than anyone else in the world.