Home schooling?

[Booko]

Is this the kind of homeschool where the parents teach or where the student only goes to class once or twice a week?

No, she'd be out of school entirely. But if anything, she'll have more time to actually spend with her friends. She has plenty of social contact aside from school, so she won't be cut off. She's a very social bird, so sitting at home studying would really be awful for her.

She *can* be quite self-motivated, so I expect I'll have to get her going on certain subjects, and then be around to help where needed and make sure she's keeping up with her subjects.

 

[jacquie4000]

My thought is she already spent most of her time in school so I don't see any harm what so ever. Two she seems quite the social person from her scheldule. I feel you are making the right decission every person needs are different in this situation.

 

[Booko]

The middle school years were because the school system around where we lived was not the best of places to be. (The teachers would tell the students that the South had won the Civil War- that sort of thing.)

And that's supposed to be...education? :areyoucra

The high school was due to severe depression. (I couldn't get through an hour without weeping, which tends to freak people out.)

Yeah, that would be a problem. Ellen had enough problems just because she would have meltdowns. We found out in the past few years that it was the food allergies at work. She doesn't do that anymore now that we've fixed her diet.

I acknowledge the opinions of those who don't believe that home schooling is the way they prefer, but I believe that public schooling is not the best for each child.

Homeschooling would've been a disaster for our son. For one thing, there are things we couldn't teach him that they have at school, like robotics. And he's NOT naturally very social, so the last thing he needs is to be allowed to hibernate in his room with his computer all day. He has a good crew of friends, and needs to stay out of his shell. He's also very thick-skinned, like me and my husband, and kids being stupid have never bothered him much.

Everyone learns best in their particular way, and that extends to being socially adjusted for ones age.

My daughter has learned to fear most kids her age. She's learned that, because that's been her experience. That's not what I'd call "socially adjusted." But she only has that reaction if it's school. If it's Baha'i functions, family gatherings, neighborhood picnics, or performing arts, she's all out there chatting everyone up.

My family would go on field trips with other home schoolers and we would make friends. Dealing with that, at my temperment and ability to adapt to a crowded environment, was much easier than being in a public school where one has to face cliques, bullies and their assorted nastiness. I'm not saying home schooling is for everyone, but don't believe that public schooling is for everyone, either.

I only wish home schooling had been available when I was in school. I spent most of my days reading things other than textbooks, feeling like I was just in prison wasting my time there. I always felt like they'd stuck chains on me just to keep me back. Shades of Harrison Bergeron. :cover:

What I learned, I did in spite of school, not because of it.

I loved college.

 

[Booko]

My mom used mainly Christian curriculae---A Beka Book and Bob Jones stuff. I am not familiar with any secular curriculae.

Um...Bob Jones. Yeah, I had a cousin went to his university. Let's just say that wouldn't be my first choice of curriculae.

The acquaintance of mine who's homeschooled her kids uses a Christian curriculum, but it's not the sort that puts blinders on the kids in certain subjects. She's no extremist by any means.

I can't wait to hire her to work with my daughter organizing her room. She's a natural for that sort of thing, firm when needed but will be patient when that's needed.

 

[zombieharlot]

No, she'd be out of school entirely. But if anything, she'll have more time to actually spend with her friends. She has plenty of social contact aside from school, so she won't be cut off. She's a very social bird, so sitting at home studying would really be awful for her.

She *can* be quite self-motivated, so I expect I'll have to get her going on certain subjects, and then be around to help where needed and make sure she's keeping up with her subjects.

Well, I did a similar program in highschool at the same grade level. I had a great experience with it and decided to do my last year in it too. And I'm sure she could do drama at the highschool still.

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Sounds like you've already got a head start, Sharon. There are a lot of resources out there for homeschooling families. I'm sure there is at least one consortium in your area for families to meet together for writing labs, teaching intensives by a parent or a certified teacher, and what-not..........we have plenty in our area.



We homeschool our daughter, if ya didn't already know. It's turning out to be a real blessing because of our family situation with our autistic son, who goes to a public school for his education. Usually when Tyler's home, he receives nearly all of our attention due to his special needs, so this is one of the reasons why we decided it would be good for our family. Dana usually is left up to her own devices unless Tyler is having a good spell for whatever reason. And long-term, that reality troubled us.



The schools in our area are good, so it wasn't a matter of sheltering her away from an aspect of our community. It just has been good for our family, which I think is the best reason why any family should decide to homeschool any of their kids.



If you have any questions, Sharon, feel free to ask. We've been doing this for four years and have no current plans to change. It's working very well for all of us.




Peace,
Mystic

 

[Feathers in Hair]

I just had an image: what if there were an RF home school where the various members would teach kids different subjects? Best idea ever or worst idea, ever?

 

[Booko]

Well, I did a similar program in highschool at the same grade level. I had a great experience with it and decided to do my last year in it too. And I'm sure she could do drama at the highschool still.

Unfortunately, the drama she can get at HS is not really worth her time...she's learned more in a month with her current theatre teacher than she could learn in 3 years at the HS level.

The chorus is even worse. I've heard them and their repetoire. There's one good group of vocalists there that do great stuff a capella, but you can tell they pretty much all come from the same (black) church, where singing is not for slackers. I'm kinda over the thought of her spending the first semester learning to sing trite arrangements of Christmas tunes. By 11th grade, you'd think they might at least know how to spell "oratorio" or maybe something of similar musical difficulty.

So that leaves me pretty much where we are already:

Regular dance studio (need to find a better place for pointe, though)
Irish dance studio
Voice teacher

If she goes to school, what she will NOT learn is:

Better trombone playing (no time for practice -- no point in lessons)
Keyboard 101 (see above)

And she won't have time to add the 2nd Irish dance class she really needs if she has a shot at Nationals or better.

It's entirely possible she can just go back to the regular HS for 12th grade, where she would just be taking half days anyway.

My son and his friends tell me not to bother with most of the AP courses there. The AP teachers are not as good as the "regular" ones. Oh, you'll pass your AP test, but if it's a subject in your college major, you'd want to repeat it anyway to get what you missed, so what's the point? They're all seriously geeky kids, and I trust their judgement on this one -- especially when they fill me in on the details behind their reasoning.

I took Ellen out a couple of hours early today, because they were having some meaningless Assembly, and she needed time to spend on Algebra. Well, she did that, and now she stopped to pet her cat on the living room floor and just crashed in minutes. She's dead asleep and I tossed the throw over her. This is what I deal with almost daily, and it's so unnecessary, and keeping her from really getting an education. And she hasn't even been back a whole week yet. :areyoucra

She has to head off for dance in another hour, so I'm going to get her up, ply her with tea, feed her, and ship her off to dance once again. She'll get back by 8:30 and can finish whatever other homework she has.

Thank God it's a long weekend. She has a project that she can finish pretty quickly (1 day or less) and then she might actually have some weekend left. And she'll probably be spending that practicing her new reel step, if I know her.

 

[Booko]

I just had an image: what if there were an RF home school where the various members would teach kids different subjects? Best idea ever or worst idea, ever?

Well, sometimes you have to have a real human right in the room with you.

But we do end up being a resource sometimes for people with homework assignments who think to look online for help.

 

[zombieharlot]

Unfortunately, the drama she can get at HS is not really worth her time...she's learned more in a month with her current theatre teacher than she could learn in 3 years at the HS level.

The chorus is even worse. I've heard them and their repetoire. There's one good group of vocalists there that do great stuff a capella, but you can tell they pretty much all come from the same (black) church, where singing is not for slackers. I'm kinda over the thought of her spending the first semester learning to sing trite arrangements of Christmas tunes. By 11th grade, you'd think they might at least know how to spell "oratorio" or maybe something of similar musical difficulty.

So that leaves me pretty much where we are already:

Regular dance studio (need to find a better place for pointe, though)
Irish dance studio
Voice teacher

If she goes to school, what she will NOT learn is:

Better trombone playing (no time for practice -- no point in lessons)
Keyboard 101 (see above)

And she won't have time to add the 2nd Irish dance class she really needs if she has a shot at Nationals or better.

It's entirely possible she can just go back to the regular HS for 12th grade, where she would just be taking half days anyway.

My son and his friends tell me not to bother with most of the AP courses there. The AP teachers are not as good as the "regular" ones. Oh, you'll pass your AP test, but if it's a subject in your college major, you'd want to repeat it anyway to get what you missed, so what's the point? They're all seriously geeky kids, and I trust their judgement on this one -- especially when they fill me in on the details behind their reasoning.

I took Ellen out a couple of hours early today, because they were having some meaningless Assembly, and she needed time to spend on Algebra. Well, she did that, and now she stopped to pet her cat on the living room floor and just crashed in minutes. She's dead asleep and I tossed the throw over her. This is what I deal with almost daily, and it's so unnecessary, and keeping her from really getting an education. And she hasn't even been back a whole week yet. :areyoucra

She has to head off for dance in another hour, so I'm going to get her up, ply her with tea, feed her, and ship her off to dance once again. She'll get back by 8:30 and can finish whatever other homework she has.

Thank God it's a long weekend. She has a project that she can finish pretty quickly (1 day or less) and then she might actually have some weekend left. And she'll probably be spending that practicing her new reel step, if I know her.

I completely agree with you. Highschool electives definately have their place, but if someone wants to take something seriously and get more professional help outside of school, why not take that instead? I don't even think that highschool sports are as disciplined as club sports (I was surprised when I had to explain to kids on my highschool soccer team what a basic step-over was).

 

[Viconia]

Before you begin home-schooling somebody, I would suggest reading the following books by Mortimer Adler, listed in order of importance:

1. How to Read a Book
2. How to Speak How to Listen
3. A Guidebook to Learning
4. The Time of Our Lives

I would also suggest looking into the Trivium, classical education. Here is what a Church of Satan Reverend Svengali has to say on the matter:

Before the gulags now known as "public schools" were spawned from the egalitarian socialization-over-knowledge theories of John Dewey, most primary and secondary educational programs were modeled after the "Seven Liberal Arts" dividing education into the "Trivium" (3 parts) and "Quadrivium" (4 parts). This is useful for our discussion.

The Trivium consisted of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric.

The Quadrivium consisted of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. This scheme dates from the Middle Ages and is obviously not adequate for the scope of information available on all subjects today. Alternatives for this will be discussed below.

The Trivium was originally implemented from Tutor to Student as STAGES of education.

In the initial Grammar stage, the student was expected to learn the basic elements of knowledge. Memory is a key factor at this stage.

This was followed by the Dialectic (or Logic) phase, where the student is expected to exercise his critical thinking skills, to evaluate whether information is true or false, correct or incorrect, and make logical connections between cause and effect, historical events, scientific phenomena, words and their meanings, etc.

In the Rhetoric phase, the ability to organize and articulate individual opinions and arguments pertaining to any given subject was expected of the student. Rhetoric covers all modes of verbal expression, argumentation, and uses of speech. This is now most commonly encountered as Composition, which is Rhetoric of the written word.

The three stages can also be applied to any given topic.

1. Grammar: Gain the basic knowledge of your subject, collect the raw information to be analyzed later.

2. Logic: Analyze and evaluate the information, is it true or false, correct or incorrect, what are the logical relations of its parts?

3. Rhetoric: Digest the information into your own understanding. Organize and express your findings, opinions and arguments about the information you have surveyed.

Grammar, logic, and rhetoric are about the cycle of acquisition, comprehension, organization, and presentation of knowledge.

At face value, Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric are the BASIC TOOLS of the mind.

I'd post resources and the source page, but I can't post links until I have 15 posts.

 

[Viconia]

Ah, here we are:

http://deepsatanism.blogspot.com/ - Source for the above quotation and the one in this post.

SUGGESTED READING:
The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers: http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html
[ignore the Christian slant]

1. GRAMMAR
1.a. BOOKS:
The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (2. vols.)
The King's English by Fowler.
Fowler's Modern English Usage.
The Elements of Style by Strunk & White.
Etyma: An introduction to vocabulary-building from Latin & Greek by C.A.E. & L.J. Juschnig.
English Words from Latin and Greek elements by Donald M. Ayers.

1.b. ONLINE:
The American Heritage DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: http://www.bartleby.com/61/
Roget's II: THE NEW THESAURUS: http://www.bartleby.com/62/
Strunk & White's THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE: http://orwell.ru/library/others/style/index.htm
H.W. Fowler THE KINGS ENGLISH: http://www.bartleby.com/116/
American Heritage BOOK OF ENGLISH USAGE: http://www.bartleby.com/64/
The Columbia GUIDE TO STANDARD AMERICAN ENGLISH: http://www.bartleby.com/68/
The Columbia Encyclopedia: http://www.bartleby.com/65/

2. LOGIC (& CRITICAL THINKING)
2.a. BOOKS:
Being Logical by D.Q. McInerny.
The Philosopher's Toolkit by Baggini & Fosl.
Critical Thinking by Max Black.
Introduction to Logic by Irving Copi.
A Concise Introduction to Logic by Hurley.

2.b. ONLINE:
Mission Critical: http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/graphics/main.html
Logic & Fallacies: http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html
Informal Fallacies: http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/fallacy.htm.FALLACIES
Logical Fallacies Index: http://datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm

3. RHETORIC
3.a. BOOKS:
Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student by Corbett & Conners.

3.b. ONLINE:
The Forest of Rhetoric: http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/silva.htm

 

[MysticSang'ha]

Welcome to the forums, Viconia! :flower:



Do you homeschool, or did you at one point?



Peace,
Mystic​

 

[anders]

Here's the Swedish version of homeschooling.

If a child for unusually severe medical reasons or circumstances of similar gravity can't go to normal classes, it may have the education in its home (free, of course) if the local school board so decides. The education is then supplied by the same teachers that teach where the child was supposed to go. That way, there is a guarantee that the curriculum will be exactly the same as for the others, so that there will be no problems when for example applying for next level of education.

"Homeschooling" USAmerican style is incomprehensible to me. Where do you find parents who can teach what is needed for languages (for us, it will always be Swedish and English, and normally at least one more language, with a very wide spectrum to choose from), all sciences (I have taught adults maths, physics and chemistry, but biology - no way) as well as religion (which necessitates a not too elementary knowledge of at least the major world religions), history, civics, phys ed (which includes health education and orienteering as well as the practice of a wide range of athletic events and sports), music (how many parents can teach an instrument, or will be knowledgable of the history of music?) and art (which nowadays seems to be heavy on message interpretation and other communication aspects)? A failing grade in one or more subjects will close a lot of future doors for the unfortunate youngster.

 

[N00bPwnr]

I was homeschooled from the 4th grade. I'm 18 and have an associates degree in science from my local college. The only problem that I ever had with it was I did not see my friends as often as I liked. That of course changed when I started taking college classes when I was 15. So if you want to homeschool your kids the recommendation I would make is to have them involved in outside activities.

 

[Viconia]

I served my twelve year prison sentence in the American public High School system and obtained a chemical dependency counselor associates degree from a community college.

However, I am currently studying on my own as a prelude to returning to a university. I've learned more in the past year studying on my own than I have in 14 years of public schooling.

However, self-directed education requires a set of predispositions that a child might not have. And of course a parent needs to consider how their child is going to receive their credentials. Mandatory education law varies depending on your location of residence.

The most important thing to remember is that homeschooling your child depends in no small part on your ability as a parent to motivate your child. The key word is motivate, not force. I suggest this book for everyone, even non-parents, because it teaches one how to empathetic: http://www.amazon.com/Parent-Effect..._bbs_sr_1/103-1901694-3713468?ie=UTF8&s=books

 

[N00bPwnr]

I was homeschooled from the 4th grade. I'm 18 and have an associates degree in science from my local college. The only problem that I ever had with it was I did not see my friends as often as I liked. That of course changed when I started taking college classes when I was 15. So if you want to homeschool your kids the recommendation I would make is to have them involved in outside activities.

 

[Booko]

Sounds like you've already got a head start, Sharon. There are a lot of resources out there for homeschooling families. I'm sure there is at least one consortium in your area for families to meet together for writing labs, teaching intensives by a parent or a certified teacher, and what-not..........we have plenty in our area.

Actually we're pretty well set up, as every core curriculum class my husband or I are qualified to teach anyway. I can handle French at the level she's working at, and when I need help, a good friend of mine can pick up, as she's qualified and a native speaker as well. Can't beat that!

And for the performing arts stuff...we got that covered already.

We homeschool our daughter, if ya didn't already know.

Well, I was rather hoping you'd turn up in this thread.

It's turning out to be a real blessing because of our family situation with our autistic son, who goes to a public school for his education. Usually when Tyler's home, he receives nearly all of our attention due to his special needs, so this is one of the reasons why we decided it would be good for our family. Dana usually is left up to her own devices unless Tyler is having a good spell for whatever reason. And long-term, that reality troubled us.

So are you saying that you pretty much let Dana move at her own speed? I'm curious as to how you handle this day to day. I don't expect Ellen will need a lot of hand holding once she gets into the swing of things, but I'm assuming my life during school hours will basically shut down until I know where she's at in that area. It doesn't mean I intend to be breathing down her neck, but she can get distracted, so I need to be around at least.

The schools in our area are good, so it wasn't a matter of sheltering her away from an aspect of our community. It just has been good for our family, which I think is the best reason why any family should decide to homeschool any of their kids.

The schools in our area are good (at least by Southern standards, which ain't sayin' much), but they've fallen off quite noticably in the last couple of years, and the board's getting ever stupider. The textbooks they have to work with this year are truly dreadful.

Oh, I expect I will have lots of questions.

A few to start with:

1. Where do I find curricula and materials?

2. I know there are computer-aided curricula, and that's probably what I'd aim for anyway. At least, the one lady I know has her kids taking tests online, which for many things works well. For literary subjects, I'm a firm believer in getting used to writing essays early. You'll have to do plenty of that in college anyway.

3. How do colleges handle admissions for homeschooled kids? Do the just take the GRE and SATs or what? There's not really a GPA to look at, is there?

Those are some questions I'm pursuing now, anyway.

 

[Booko]

Before you begin home-schooling somebody, I would suggest reading the following books by Mortimer Adler, listed in order of importance:

1. How to Read a Book
2. How to Speak How to Listen
3. A Guidebook to Learning
4. The Time of Our Lives

Thanks! I've located "Guidebook to Learning" in our library and will check it out today. The other 3 they don't have (well one is on order, but that could take months) but we have access to Emory U's library, and there's always Amazon.

My husband is acquainted with Adler's work, but it's been a while, so it's time for a brush up anyway. Besides, I just finished the last interesting nonfiction book I had to read in the house.

I would also suggest looking into the Trivium, classical education.

I'm acquainted with the Trivium and Quadrivium as a byproduct of my music degree, which concentrated in Early Music (medeival/renaissance/baroque), and you have put your finger *precisely* on what bothers me about the education my kids are getting in "Language Arts" as they call it.

Grammar is there, but frankly only because they were in the "magnet" program from 4-6th. It needs work.

Rhetoric is completely absent, and we fill in on that with our son just when watching politicians speak, which is rather educational. But my daugher is usually at some sort of lesson then and is missing this almost entirely.

Logic should be a required course for every HS grad, but heck, we don't even require it in college any more. Again, my son is doing well in this area on his own and is naturally attracted to the subject (he has my old college textbook and is about as functional as a 17 yr old should be), but my daughter is missing the boat on this, except what she gets in regular conversation at home, which is still more than average.

We are demented as parents go, and encourage our kids to point out our flaws in logic and correct us if we say something ungrammatical. It's a family "game" that started the first day my daughter came home and wanted to "axe" a question. aargh!

My husband's entire extended family are serious education wonks, so we have a lot of accidental background and resources to draw on as well. My bro-in-law teaches history at one of the best schools in the Detroit area, and because he's so gung ho, he ended up the head of the department in about 3 years. I'm sure we'll be picking his brains bigtime in his area of expertise, to make sure we're covering what we should (plus extra).

Here is what a Church of Satan Reverend Svengali has to say on the matter:

Very interesting!

I'd post resources and the source page, but I can't post links until I have 15 posts.

Well, you can *sorta* post links, if you cheat a bit like:

www....samplewebsite....com.

That'll fly through the software, but anyone can figure what the site is.

We only have that 15 post limitation to avoid hit and run spammers and advertisers.

 

[Booko]

Ah, here we are:

http://deepsatanism.blogspot.com/ - Source for the above quotation and the one in this post.

SUGGESTED READING:
The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers: http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html
[ignore the Christian slant]

1. GRAMMAR
1.a. BOOKS:
The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (2. vols.)
The King's English by Fowler.
Fowler's Modern English Usage.
The Elements of Style by Strunk & White.
Etyma: An introduction to vocabulary-building from Latin & Greek by C.A.E. & L.J. Juschnig.
English Words from Latin and Greek elements by Donald M. Ayers.

Yup, all the basics you really need. My husband's ABD in English, so we have this stuff lying around. We're all strange and think it's raucous fun to look up stuff in the OED.

I'll never be able to watch Bugs Bunny again, knowing Elmer's last name is a variation of "rear end." :biglaugh:


Thanks so much for all these suggestions and links. It looks like I'll have a good reason to demand my husband take me out on a date. Since I can eat almost nowhere, this usually means coffee at the local bookstore, and I bring my own goodies to eat.

Well, at least I'm a cheap date, eh?