Posted on 07/23/2007 8:57:03 AM PDT by DBCJR
Thinking about home schooling your kids? ...
Establish a vision for your family. Why are you doing this? What are your goals? You need to have this before you start. This will sustain you during rough times. If you believe you have God's direction in it, this establishes faith to make things happen when, at times, it seems impossible.
Raising relaxed, well-adjusted children is one goal you might want to consider... Classroom education must address the learning style and pace of the majority. This creates stress in a child that learns differently...
For such children, classroom education can be destructive...
A growing trend in public education is the dumbing down of the mean to prevent the poor performing from dropping out. Such trends can make regular classroom experience boring, and the gifted child susceptible to all sorts of negative influences. A similar trend of cultural permissiveness and aversion to asserted authority allows a plethora of such negative influences to abound in these settings... Homeschooling protects our children’s self-esteem and confidence to learn. Children struggling to learn are often the butt of jokes, as are children who are gifted and frequently give the correct answers. Either incidence impedes the childs motivation and confidence to learn. A home environment provides a consistently supportive, can-do environment that builds your child. And who is it that is building your child? You, the parent. Can you think of anyone more qualified for that role?
Conquering mountains together is a family-building exercise as well...
Homeschooling affords flexibility and choice, and choice fuels motivation to learn. Pursuing your child’s strengths and interests at various stages of thier development is much more motivating than a mandatory curriculum...
(Excerpt) Read more at searchwarp.com ...
I shoulda been homeschooled.
(Disclaimer, this is a business research question. I won’t send you anything, more like planning..)
Bump
Also, everything we do is a teaching opportunity. Every question they ask, we walk them through solving it. We don't allow frivolous TV--the few programs they watch are educational. We don't really take any time off (summer, vacations, etc), so we are continually teaching.
One reason we do it this way is both of our children have fine motor skills issues. As a result, their writing ability is quite a bit worse than most, but their intellect and problem-solving skills are higher than most. Before the age of 10, our eldest could perform long division and 2-3 digit multiplication in his head.
It's a LOT of work and commitment on the part of both parents to educate in this way, but it pays off. Our kids are intelligent and well-behaved in spite of issues that would normally cause problems in a public (or even a private) school.
We like your approach. We’ve been doing similarly since 1982.
We use a mish mash of classical education with a dose of the Charlotte Mason philosophy. We have curriculum for Math (Saxon), and language arts, but after that it is whole book learning (i.e. the library).
If we are going to study frogs, we get a book written by someone who is passionate about the subject. This tends to provide a more meaningful connection to the subject matter than a compiled biology textbook that clinically addresses the subject of frogs. In the former case you get someone who is completely jazzed by their subject matter, in the latter you likely have a textbook by committee.
Our child is a boy, and he is all boy. Instruction in the classroom tended to temper his natural learning patterns and behaviors. He did not excel in the environment.
Of course the only real drawback to homeschool is all the lost opportunity for socialization afforded by the GovCo schools...
Somebody emailed this to me last week - y'all have prob. seen it before....
How does a homeschooler change a lightbulb?
*What are your challenges in getting curriculum or other resources? Do you have any ‘on line’ schools you can utilize? What are you missing or needing to teach properly?
We have home schooled my 16 year old son since fifth grade. I have used for several years online “The Homeschooling Network” which has a tremendous setup for children grades K - 12. I also use all sorts of different curriculum or online sites, DVD’s and of course the library. Be sure to know what laws apply in your state. Also, google “homeschool” and there are lots of sites available.
My biggest challenge is keeping up with his interests... It takes a lot of preparation time. But, the end result is quite astonishing...
Hope this helps.
We homeschooled till the 10th grade, then my son used the dual credit program, earned his AA during high school and will graduate from college in December (he’s 19, no genius, we just used the resources at hand.)
But if I had to do it over again, I’d still use the same math (we used Saxon and went through Alg. II...this allowed him to test into College Alg. for dual credit) I’d stick with Abeka grammar, which is what we used and is very straightforward and comprehensive. We hired a composition tutor once he hit middle school, and she taught him for 3 years (IMHO, this was one of the best investments we made because I didn’t feel qualified to judge his compositions and when he entered college classes he was skilled at organizing and producing quality papers seemingly not bothered by the volume of paperwork he had to produce.)
But other than that, in all his other subjects (science, history, social studies, etc.) we’d be much more relaxed and read books instead of curriculum. Toward the end of his homeschooling we caught on and used the Beautiful Feet curriculum for 20th century history, and I found that such an enlightening way of educating to have him read the novels and books written about the era, instead of just learning “the facts.”
I just think I’d be much more relaxed, all around. He always liked to read, and I’d let him read more (if I was doing it again) and require less curriculum learning.
There is no problem with getting curriculum or resources. They are more than readily available. The problem is narrowing down all the choices to what works for you and your family. Right now my mind is overwhelmed with all the resources available to us: Science Center classes, co-op classes, whether or not to utilize a HS P.E. program, scheduling in piano, t-ball, swim team, ballet, the HS classes at our church, and more.
Our state has an on-line HS program that provides families with a computer, free curriculum, and a certified teacher to check in with every week. My problem with that is that it’s controlled by the state and is simply doing public school at home. The state doesn’t allow the use of Christian-based curriculum. Overall, my concern with these schools is that they will become the definition of “homeschooling” by the state and the result will be laws restricting the freedoms of true homeschoolers.
I understand why ShadowAce is taking this approach, but recognized curriculum is just that, “recognized”. When a child has completed a well known curriculum, and there is detailed documentation of performance, public education, private schools, and universities all have some idea as to the knowldge base and performance of the child.
Read the article and get the resources.
That is also a consideration and we understand it well enough. One of the major reasons for homeschooling is the child, and catering to his/her learning styles. Knowledge base and performance can be (and usually are) measured by standardized tests.
These curriculums are good!
Public school is tending toward the feminization of our male children. “All boy” boys, those with healthy testosterone levels, are seen as problematic because they need authority in the classroom, a concept being “taught out” of aspiring teachers pursuing and education degree.
I remember my son’s first grade teacher. I had coached all the boys in her classes so I told her that she had better establish who is in charge right off the bat. I seldom had problems with these boys, but they knew who was boss, knew I loved their onery little hides, and they performed well for me gaining confidence in themselves.
Everytime I picked my son up for lunch that year the class was in complete uproar, kids out of their chairs, yelling and running around. This young teacher was doing what she was taught, walking around with her hands folded, speaking softly, “I’m looking for children sitting quietly in their desks.” Well, she wasn’t going to find them in THAT classroom!
They couldn’t even hear her! That teaching method comes from a “child rights” philosophy that says that authority should not be imposed upon children, and that you should never raise your voice above that of the children’s.
So, we diagnose our boys ADHD and give them amphetamines. Some kids do need meds but the diagnosis is not even clinical justified until the second grade. It is way over diagnosed.
Yes, I address that in the artcile http://searchwarp.com/swa235868.htm
There are many curricula available - the problem is finding a suitable one from a list of many. My wife is the one who does most of the research into selecting the curriculum we use. She tends to be particular about the details, while I have a "just-buy-one" mentality. She'll look at 20+ vendors at a convention; I'd probably pick the first one that looks good.
One aspect that has helped us is that we meet with a small group of homeschoolers to do science and some rec activities as a group. The moms rotate on leading science. The group also has "moms' nights" to meet for planning and support. It was also helpful to talk with friends who had already done homeschooling before.
With regards to what was said about "online charter schools" - many are being operated by government schools/agencies. You get a ready-made curriculum (and have to follow it); they get the funding that's tied to enrollment. The Home School Legal Defense Assn has decided that such programs do not officially count as homeschooling, and will not provide council for families participating in such programs.
Last - homeschooling takes a lot of time, and over time the barrier between "School" and "Life" blurs. We take vacations, but visit historical/cultural sites along the way. I work on the car or around the house, and I have my kids help and try things.
Just my $.02
There are many curricula available - the problem is finding a suitable one from a list of many. My wife is the one who does most of the research into selecting the curriculum we use. She tends to be particular about the details, while I have a "just-buy-one" mentality. She'll look at 20+ vendors at a convention; I'd probably pick the first one that looks good.
One aspect that has helped us is that we meet with a small group of homeschoolers to do science and some rec activities as a group. The moms rotate on leading science. The group also has "moms' nights" to meet for planning and support. It was also helpful to talk with friends who had already done homeschooling before.
With regards to what was said about "online charter schools" - many are being operated by government schools/agencies. You get a ready-made curriculum (and have to follow it); they get the funding that's tied to enrollment. The Home School Legal Defense Assn has decided that such programs do not officially count as homeschooling, and will not provide council for families participating in such programs.
Last - homeschooling takes a lot of time, and over time the barrier between "School" and "Life" blurs. We take vacations, but visit historical/cultural sites along the way. I work on the car or around the house, and I have my kids help and try things.
Just my $.02
BTTT for later digestion after work..
That’s interesting information about online homeschools. It sounds to me that if all that is going on, it’s the parents who are dropping the ball! If they’re like the homeschooling parents I know, they would keep an eagle eye on their kids and the work they’re doing.
It occurs to me, also, that you’re describing what goes on in thousands of public school classrooms: kids cheating, not really learning concepts, being passed on to make it easy for the teacher, teachers trying to avoid confrontations with parents. I guess whatever is “new” is just the same old, same old!
I prefer sitting down with my kids, refusing to go on to the next lesson until what we’re working on is finished satisfactorily. I prefer being able to model the correct way of approaching a problem, writing a sentence, etc. over and over again, if necessary to just throwing out information and hoping my kids “get it”.
I’ve been blessed with extremely smart kids who make me, the homeschooling mom, look good, but I’ve been on the other side of the fence as a public school teacher, frustrated with time limits, low parental involvement, and all the other ills of the system.
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