At Amaya Cáceres' house, in León, there are no desks, no classrooms, nor a bell to mark recess. Their children (Carlota, 18 years old; Mateo, 15; and Carmen, 12) have not gone to school or high school and, however, they study and learn every day. What they practice is known as homeschooling or home education: an option through which some parents decide to directly take on the education of their children outside of schooling.
For Amaya, educating at home does not mean moving school to the classroom: "I am not a teacher and this is not a school," she summarizes. In their case, reading together for hours, going out into nature, weekly poems, cooking, shopping, board games or taking advantage of a car trip to talk about Criminal Law are part of daily learning.
For his children, growing up like this was never strange. Carlota is the first to verbalize what her siblings second: "We have not experienced it in any way because it is normal for us. Just as you do not ask a child who has gone to school how he has experienced going to school because it is what he does every day."
In Spain, there is no official data on how many families educate at home. The Ministry of Education assures that "there is no specific state registry because domestic education is not recognized as an educational modality in the Spanish legal system." For its part, the Association for Free Education (ALE), which currently brings together about 400 families, has an indicative figure of between 2,000 and 4,000 families in Spain, although it admits that it is not known with certainty.
As many systems as families
Amaya came to this option because she knew closely a family that educated like this. "I felt something in that house," he remembers. A friend encouraged her to try it before sending Carlota, who was 3 and a half years old at the time, to school: "And I said: come on, okay. And so on, until today."
At home their children have shared learning, although adapted to their ages. "If we are watching the Second World War, for example, the little girl is not going to find out the same way. But she is listening to me, she is hearing words that she may not know," she says.
To organize, it takes as reference the minimum contents of Primary and Secondary, without dividing them strictly by grades. He has also used outside teachers for some subjects, such as English, mathematics, physics and chemistry. "There are many ways to do education at home, as many as there are families," emphasizes Amaya.
For the three brothers, homeschooling has many advantages, although each highlights their favorite part of homeschooling. Carlota points out the freedom to deepen her interests. "When I was little I really liked the Egyptians and I knew a lot, but because I had the freedom to say: well, I want to study this."
Mateo has learned the capitals of the world with board games and dedicates part of his time to researching animals and insects on his own. "Learning by playing is what I learn the most, what I memorize the most," he says. And for Carmen, the youngest, the best thing about being educated at home "is being with my family," although she admits that there are disagreements between siblings. "There are their arguments, but then well, you get used to it," he says, smiling.
Limits and reconciliation
In the Sierra Oeste of Madrid, José Novillo also chose to educate his daughters at home, in a model called unschooling, based on following the girls' interests. "There is no closed format, nor a schedule," he explains. "You simply follow the child's interests and provide him with what he needs, helping him, accompanying him." Museums, libraries, workshops and meetings with other homeschooling families were part of their days. "Most education, in almost every family I know, even if it's called homeschooling, is outside the home."
But freedom did not mean absence of rules. "You always have to set limits," José warns. At home there were responsibilities, like taking care of the chickens, and commitments to keep. "I am much more interested in my daughter being a critical and autonomous reader than in knowing all the provinces of Spain," she explains.
This accompaniment requires, however, time. "Availability is the most complicated thing," he acknowledges. His wife, a self-employed architect, had flexible schedules and he, an IBM worker, asked for reductions in hours, leaves of absence and teleworking. "We both coordinated and, since we had these very flexible schedules, there was always someone present," he remembers. He recognizes that in other families it is usually the mother who stays at home, a situation that is related to difficulties in conciliating work.
Years later, her daughters ended up joining the institute by their own decision. The oldest, in the third year of ESO, after the pandemic drastically reduced her social encounters. The little one, in fourth grade, to later study hairdressing. "We have always been clear that this was for them. If they need to go to school, then they go to school," he says.
The transition was good, although not automatic. The oldest, remembers, the first time she had to take a test she only did half of it because she didn't turn the page. I knew how to answer, but I wasn't used to the format. "An oral exam, he nailed it. But his writing speed failed in the written one," says José.
Socialization
Socialization is the inevitable question when talking about homeschooling. Who do children who don't go to school interact with? Amaya questions whether being in a classroom with children of the same age is the only way to socialize. Your children have friends, do activities, and interact with adults. "My children are not isolated," he insists. As an example, remember that Carlota appeared on the end-of-year t-shirt of her high school friends, even though she was not studying there.
José agrees with this idea: "Sociability is not so much at school and it is not so little outside of school," he maintains. Their daughters had friends who were also homeschoolers, they participated in meetings with other families and interacted with the children of the town. "The vast majority of us do not stay at home. We are outside, in society."
Nely Vicario, member of the ALE board of directors, remembers that socializing also involves assuming norms, managing conflicts and tolerating frustrations. "Any minor needs to face diversity, frustration, norms, but that does not only happen within a classroom or within a school." Recognize, however, that these children may have fewer opportunities to see their friends each day.
Do you feel then that you have missed something by not going to school? "It has never crossed my mind that I have missed things," responds Mateo, Amaya's middle son. And it poses a paradox: although he has time to meet during the week, his school friends can barely do so due to the load of homework and exams. "I can go out during the week and they can't go out even for a single day," he laments.
Legalization
In Spain, schooling in approved centers is mandatory between the ages of six and sixteen, according to the Organic Law of Education (LOE) of 2006. The Ministry of Education also recalls that the Constitutional Court endorsed this requirement in its ruling 133/2010 and explains that absenteeism and homeschooling "are conceptually different": the former implies "repeated or continued non-attendance" of a student enrolled in a center educational; the second, "poses a situation of non-schooling or unschooling."
But both, they insist, "can give rise to administrative actions aimed at guaranteeing the right to education of the minor", and can activate the intervention of social services, educational inspection and, in certain cases, the Prosecutor's Office.
Amaya experienced this clash with the law firsthand when she was denounced for not sending her children to school. "We were tried for family abandonment," he recalls. According to him, social workers visited his home, interviewed the minors and issued a favorable report, but the case still went to court. During the four years that the process lasted "there were bad moments, but well, in general we lived it peacefully, because as my husband said: we were not doing anything wrong, we just had to defend ourselves and that's it," she says.
Benito Aláez Corral, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Oviedo, explains that "compulsory schooling pursues a constitutionally legitimate and even obligatory goal: democratic education in the civic socialization of the student." The jurist is against legalizing homeschooling because he is concerned that some families reject the values transmitted by the educational system and end up creating "parallel societies." He admits, however, that the TC ruling does not prevent the legislator from allowing it, although if it were finally regulated, he considers it essential to "establish a system of authorization, periodic supervision and periodic evaluation of educational results."
From ALE, Nelly Vicario demands precisely this regulatory change: "Evidently education has to be mandatory, but not schooling." It calls for legalizing homeschooling "because this reality already exists", and demands "opening the possibility for minors to be educated according to the way their families consider most appropriate."
In a possible regularization, the association accepts the intervention of the State to ensure the well-being of children, although "for us it would be very relevant if these monitoring were carried out by people trained in this educational option." The Ministry, for its part, points out that "there is currently no state initiative for regulatory reform aimed at recognizing or regulating homeschooling as an alternative to compulsory schooling."
Amaya, who now acts as a lawyer for other families in similar situations, concludes: "Homeschooling families want the best for our children, just like other families, we just do it differently."
