Posted on 10/15/2004 11:41:53 AM PDT by cinives
Don't be scared! You can do it, and you will love it! My daughters went to preschool and public school through 1st grade and kindergarten before I brought them home. My son, who just turned 5, has never gone to preschool and we will homeschool him, also. I was kind of panicked when I decided not to even send him to preschool, but I have not regretted the decision. He loves learning and asks to 'do school' like his older sisters. He just got his own library card yesterday and is so proud. Spending all this time with him and knowing I will get to spend so much more time with him in the future has been priceless. I has so many doubts and fears when I brought my girls home, and now I can just relax and enjoy myself knowing everything will work out great!
Here in WI, we have open enrollment and we've taken advantage of it. In a nutshell it means that the money my home district taxes me for and spends to *educate* my child follows him to the school WE choose. We have chosen a Virtual Academy (THANK YOU BILL BENNETT) from another school district. The money leaves my pathetic district and goes to where the academy is based.
I'm in a VERY similar situation as the author of this article (gifted middle schooler and utterly clueless teachers) and am happy with the way our homeschooling experience is going thus far.
We've done both also, and I'll take the public over private. My son was bored silly at a private Christian school.
I'm not up for homeschooling. If it gets very bad in public school, I might try it. However, we're not there yet.
Of course, we are in Oklahoma and the kids can pray, sing Christmas carols and are taught phonics, real math, and must diagram sentences.
Sounds like a slice of the fifties.
Thanks. My kids were also bored to death at Catholic school. I had to chastise my middle son's first grade teacher for carping about his handwriting when he was taking the spelling homework ("Make a sentence with each word") and making four line rhyming poems with the spelling words.
I am not up for homeschooling, either. I have a great deal of praise for those who do, and I have a number of FReeper friends who homeschool. Some take it too far and make it look bad for those who don't.
It kind of is! I love it here and so do the kids.
LOLOL! I love Blackadder!
I know how independent homeschoolers prefer to be, but here's the best advice on learning English: Learn Latin and translate into English. Latin is best tool --bar none-- for access to our language.
We have home schooled for many (17+) years. A daughter is now in graduate school with a major in art history. Her room mate from college and now graduate school is also home schooled and an english major. She is teaching English 101 as a graduate assistant and is amazed at the lack of basic grammer skills of the freshmen. Our 13 YO daughter sent her big sister a letter a few weeks ago that the room mate is using as an example for her 101 class. To me that says something when a 13 YO has better skills than a class of college freshmen. Our public school system is in more than a shambles - it needs to be dismantled.
"Apologies! This reply is nearly wordy enough to be a John Kerry answer. Except, I actually did say something, not just blah blah blah."
No apologies necessary. I appreciate your story, as we have just started homeschooling my son.
BTW, to give a "John Kerry" answer you would have had to say, "It's all Bush's fault. But I have a plan to fix that," about 3 times per paragraph.
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