Posted on 10/06/2006 9:28:49 AM PDT by RKBA Democrat
In the 1980s Homeschooling was virtually unheard of, but now it's a growing trend across the nation. There were an estimated 2 million children educated at home last year in the United States and According to the National Home Education Research Institute, that numbers grows between 7 and 15 percent each year.
Donna Samples has homeschooled her two children from the beginning of their school careers. Emily is in kindergarten and Eli is now in second grade. But the two have never been inside a school classroom.
Samples says, “We start in the morning when we get up learning something. We have about two to three hours of formal education where we sit down with computer work or book work or handwriting, he has to write letters.”
The day we visited, they were learning about volcanoes. “Sometimes we spend a little less time on something. If they grasp it right away we don't have to wait for the rest of the class to catch up,” Samples says.
Samples says this lesson incorporates math by making the kids measure ingredients for a volcano cake. She says it also involves reading, using books they pick out from the public library.
“The nice thing about homeschooling is we can cover their interests in depth. We can still touch on everything else but we get to do what they really want to learn,” she says.
Emily has ADHD. Samples says that's a major reason why she wanted to keep her in a home environment. Samples says, “The school setting wouldn't tolerate a child getting up and moving a leaving....that's a big problem.”
The Samples family is part of growing trend in South Dakota. Two years ago, close to 3,000 students in the state were home schooled. That's compared to just over 2,000 the year before. And the kids being taught at home cover all grade levels.
But homeschooled kids aren't isolated from other children. The South Dakota Home school association meets weekly, for recess at a park or to go on field trips.
“We're here amongst everyone else with the same values you know we all have the same values for our kids and for them to start in the family.”
Kelli Willemssen-Hirsch has three children and started homeschooling just a few months ago.
She says, “I let the kids know this summer that we were going to homeschool so and they were excited about the thought of it.”
Her youngest has medical problems. Like Samples, that was a major reason she decided to pull all of her children out of public school.
“I also want the values for my kids to be established in our home and not from school,” she says.
For Samples, homeschooling her children is her first choice, but she says putting her children in school could be an option one day.
Samples says, “We're homeschooling kindergarten and second grade. So I'm not going to say that I'm never going to put them in school but I'm probably going to keep them out through fourth or fifth grade before I even think about it.”
But until that day comes, her family will remain among the thousands choosing to teach their children at home.
To homeschool your child in South Dakota, a form requesting exemption from public school attendance must be completed and parents must test their child in second, fourth, 8th and 11th grade. School districts review the exemption form, keep test score records, and loan textbooks without charge to student ages five through 19.
"This is still wayyyy too much regulation."
Agreed, but it's better than NY, ND, VT, PA, RI, and MA that highly regulate (translated: harass) home educators.
"The Republic of Texas - it's like a whole 'nuther country!"
True, and a fine place it is. But y'alls gun laws are in need of improvement ;-)
"As the father of 4 home-schooled little critters, I see this as a very, very hopeful trend."
Yeah, it's something that gives me a good deal of hope. And if you think about it, it also puts the secular socialists and the culture of death in something of a bind.
To paraphrase a Catholic commentator: homeschooling gives me a vicarious thrill that should be illicit.
Texas A & M wants to admit homeschoolers. We were told by the lady in admissions when we were looking that they loved to get homeschoolers because they were generally well behaved and scholastically superior. We thought we were going to run into a brick wall, but it was just the opposite.
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