Homeschooling or homeschool (also called home education or home learning) is the education of children at home, typically by parents or professional tutors, rather than in a public or private school.

Although prior to the introduction of compulsory school attendance laws, most childhood education occurred within the family or community, homeschooling in the modern sense is an alternative in developed countries to formal education.

In many places homeschooling is a legal option for parents who wish to provide their children with a different learning environment than exists in nearby schools. The motivations for homeschooling range from a dissatisfaction with the schools in their area to the dissatisfaction of modern schools in general. It is also an alternative for families living in isolated rural locations and those who choose, for practical or personal reasons, not to have their children attend school. Homeschooling is illegal in Germany for everybody except military families from the US. These families stationed in Germany have the privilege of homeschooling their children.

Homeschooling may also refer to instruction in the home under the supervision of correspondence schools or umbrella schools. In some places, an approved curriculum is legally required if children are to be home-schooled. A curriculum-free philosophy of homeschooling may be called unschooling, a term coined in 1977 by American educator John Holt in his magazine Growing Without Schooling.

There are many sites on the internet with information on homeschooling, a good place to start might be here and here.

Information specific to North America

Often the first step is to get a GED, which is what I did after dropping out of high school. The specific rules for getting the GED and for homeschooling/unschooling (not attending regular school) also vary by state (or country). Your parents don't necessarily need any qualifications, and if they are supportive, you could potentially design your own course of study and basically learn on your own.

For the US at least, the Home School Legal Defense Association has a lot of information for each state: http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp

If a person were to be unschooled in the US, how would this person go about getting, for lack of a better word, “certified” for a job/career? Would their only choice be the GED and then maybe some college, or are there other options?

Aside from the GED and maybe some college or completing college, some areas of work have certification exams you can take. For example, in computers, there's a certification called A+, and Microsoft has certifications called MCSE and so on. Other than that… mostly what I've done (with a GED and about a year and a half of college) has been to start out at a low level with small companies, demonstrate my abilities, get recognized, and eventually do more advanced work. But that requires finding sympathetic companies. Another approach, which I'm really interested in (but I haven't really pursued) is somehow working independently and getting hired for jobs based on a portfolio and/or recommendations and worth of mouth.

A lot of it depends on the area you want to work in, and your abilities and interests, and the opportunities available where you live or where you're willing to move. I'm in NYC now, and on one hand it's hard because there are so many people with degrees (and so many people looking for jobs in general), but I'm also finding more opportunities now that I've met more people who need help with tech stuff.

Other countries

For homeschooling advice related to other countries, please use the country list on the Knowledgebase Main Page.