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——McGuffey Readers—— My wife and I passed our copies we used for homeschooling

We have a complete original set. We used them a little, but mostly books from 1830 to 1850.

In New Hampshire you just have to send or bring a letter to the principal, or the district office or the state board of education stating you are going to homeschool and a copy of your curriculum.

We had been bandying about the idea of homeschooling for a while, but were pushed over the edge one day when I was under our Volkswagen and asked our older daughter to read me something from the manual.

She was in 3rd grade and getting As and Bs, so I though this should be no problem. I had taught her a smattering of reading before 1st grade, but then made the mistake of assuming the school system would do the rest.

She was unable to read it.

I slid out and we went to our library and I pulled out 1800s readers from 1st to 3rd grade. She was illiterate.

That did it. I wrote the short letter, and a one page curriculum, listing almost all books from the early 1800s and we started homeschooling.

In subsequent years, the last assignment each year was for them to write the curriculum for the next year.

They were tested each year by a certified teacher as required by NH law, which I prefer anyway to see where we may be behind or ahead. As it turned out we were usually ahead.

Our "schooling" was a little different from most, it took on average 2 to 4 hours a day, but didn't end there. Math was mostly taught while on the road. No calculators or paper allowed until they could do all the basics in their heads. Spelling the same way. Most "tests" also on the road, no paper.

The chairman of the school board and the assistant superintendent had become two of my best friends.

The chairman was a retired electrical and mechanical engineer, former B-24 pilot who has been involved in the development of a LOT of things that are well know by everyone.

The assistant superintendent a retired Special Forces ops colonel who is fluent in several languages, has doctorates in education and economics. He's also been in the middle of a lot of events that have been in the news. He also was in a Harvard think tank on the teaching of reading. He came to our district, seeking a small school system where he could "give back", with a huge sacrifice in pay compared to what he could have gotten elsewhere. He was hoping in that manner to be able to work at improving the system.

It would be an uphill battle with the teachers, their union and the administrators all digging in their heels.

Neither had ever met (to their knowledge) a homeschooled student.

One day they asked me if I would like to come with them to Barre, VT to check out their ROTC program as they wanted to bring ROTC to our school. I said, sure, but could my older daughter come along?

on the hour and a half drive they grilled her to see what she knew (pre-arranged). As we neard the school, she was asked if she would mind coming up with some questions for students in the program and getting their point of view, as she was more likely to get a true answer from them than any adult.

These were all juniors and seniors. She pretty much interrogated them and had plenty for the return trip. Along the way, I was asked, even though we homeschool, could she join the track team (amazon woman).

I responded, sure, but don't you have age restrictions? I asked them just how old they thought she was, anyway?

They conflabbed for a while and finally decided on 17 or 18 as she was still "in school". Then they asked her. Twelve.

I asked them if they thought there was any 12 year old in our public school who could have interacted with juniors and seniors at or above their level as she just had?

They said, no. One of the objections almost all "educators" bring up is "socialization", and how you need kids in school so they learn to "socialize". It is true, a few homeschoolers isolate their kids, usually religious ones from our experience.

Most homeschooled kids learn how to interact with people of all ages and backgrounds, not the artificial limiting to those of their own age.

We had many "discussions" over the teaching of reading in our district, but the idea of using phonics just wasn't getting anywhere with the assits. super.

In exasperation, one day I told him our younger daughter, who was in 3rd grade would come in and read and comprehend any book in his extensive bookshelves.

A few days later we had our fun. She had along a Calvin and Hobbs comic book she was reading. He asked her to read from it. I sad, come on, that's just a comic book, challenge her. He insisted. She read to him, laughing in the appropriate places and answered all of his questions about it.

He turned to me, amazed, and asked me if I knew what level that cartoon was written for? I had no clue, how should I know, it's a kids' comic book.

He said, no, it's for second year college level.

I responded that we didn't just now prove my daughter could read well, we proved that if this was supposedly second year college level, our country was in deep doo-doo.

He mentioned a problem he was having. He had a number of tests he wanted to "test the test" to see if any were something we might like to use in the district. The principals and teachers were dead set against it as they were afraid of how the kids would do.

I told him we were paying 50 bucks each per year for testing, free testing, graded by him would be great! Our kids became the most tested kids around shortly thereafter. Part of their assignment was to critique the tests for him.

We read in the homeschooling magazines these wonderful stories of how kids take off with it and often go for it by themselves.

Our kids hated it. I made their lives miserable with multiplication, division, addition, subtraction and spelling on road trips. It paid off though, and looking back they are both glad we did it.

Eventually the lefties in our district drove out the assist. super.

Since then he's taught at Beijing University and a Mongolian University, and now retired.

While as in any situation there are some good schools and some good teachers, overall, if you can, homeschooling is the better way to go.

At the very least, kids need the basics of reading with phonics and basic math.