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.
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To give everyone a sense of just how many kids this is, understand that this is twice as many students as there are in the nation's largest school district (New York City).
One time I heard one kid tell another kid that homeschooling was a raw deal, because the kids never get recess.
That's like saying life outside of prison is a raw deal because you never get to go on furlough.
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.
SD freedom lovers should fight to have these burdensome restrictions lifted.
Generally any public school books must pass the approval of California educators before publishers would bother printing and selling it. What good would a book approved by Kookifornia do other than maybe balancing an uneven table?
Moreover, I think I was several years out of school before I realized that there were books in the world which were not textbooks....and that many of them were worth reading.
Textbooks suck.
In Texas, we are blessed by a law that says parents do have to answer to school district thugs - we can home school if we wish and the local "independent school district" cannot ask a thing. We have to certify to the state, if asked, that we have a structured curriculum covering 4 basic food groups :-)
My wife and I home schooled our kids for several years and then let them loose on the public schools. They are now grown and well adjusted, with a firm foundation of God's Truth and an understanding of this country's history.
The Republic of Texas - it's like a whole 'nuther country!
The 2 million figure has been used for some years now...it seems like surely it must be more than that by now...?
"There were an estimated 1,700,000 to 2,100,000 children (grades K-12) home educated during 2002-2003 in the United States. Homeschooling appears to still be the fastest-growing form of education." – Brian D. Ray, Ph.D., Facts on Homeschooling *
*Home education has constantly grown over the last two decades. The growth rate is 7% to 15% per year, according to Dr. Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute (Worldwide Guide to Homeschooling).
Therefore, I think it'd be safe to say there should be anywhere from 2.2 Mil (1.7 Mil with an annual growth rate of 7%) to 3.6 Mil (2.1 with an annual growth rate of 15%). So to be safely in the middle, I'd estimate at just under 3 Mil. But then we also know that most studies listing homeschooling population often grossly underestimate the number of students due to a number of factors (larger families, less registration, etc).
I agree.
We homeschooled, but I'm past those days and my son is doing just fine, he's a junior in college this year.
But if I would have done one thing differently, when I was homeschooling, it would have been using less packaged curriculum, even from the big homeschool publishers.
I'd still teach math from a textbook (we used Saxon and that prepared him well for his College Math.)
I'd still use a formal grammar text or workbook, because that's just something that has to be systematically taught.
But beyond that, I don't think I'd buy another "formal" textbook.
I'd just have him read, read, and read some more. Write compositions about what he was reading.
I'd take the Beautiful Feet approach to many more subjects and make those subjects literature based instead of textbook based.
And as long as I'm on a rant, I'd probably do less extra-curricular things, whether that be field trips or sports.
Of course, this is all in retrospect of a mom with an 18 year old and we did use dual credit, so his high school years were filled with college textbooks, and I'm looking purely at the "learning/teaching" aspect of 1st through 9th grade. But, IMHO, academic success is not the main reward of homeschooling. To me, the best reward of homeschooling was that the "kid" didn't grow up thinking it's weird to be friends with folks of all ages, even his parents, LOL. (he and his dad are out today depleting the fish supply in our area.) The absence of peer pressure makes for very pleasant and enjoyable teenage years.
I think South Dakota should pass a law that requires parents to pull their kids out of public school and home school them if the kids don't get good scores on the state tests.
Shalom.
The 2 million number is several years old.
As the father of 4 home-schooled little critters, I see this as a very, very hopeful trend.
"The absence of peer pressure makes for very pleasant and enjoyable teenage years."
But. . but. . .rebellion and peer pressure are normal and healthy parts of a child's upbringing! We can't have people opting out of those experiences! ;-)
"To give everyone a sense of just how many kids this is, understand that this is twice as many students as there are in the nation's largest school district (New York City)."
And many people (including myself) think the 2 million number is understated. About 10 states don't require home educators to file any notice, so nobody really knows how many there are in those states.
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