07.28.08

Questions

Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 12:54 am by Meg

This has been floating around and I thought I’d take a stab at it.

1. What was your motivation for homeschooling? Was it based on religious reasons? Was is it based on curriculum - did you want more freedom in choosing what your children were being taught? Was it based on socializing - wanting to have more control in the people with whom your children came into contact with? Was it based on logistics - the nearest school being 20 miles away? What made you finally decide to go this route?

We’ve got two kids and the motivation for homeschooling each of them was different. Boy’s beginning story is here. For Girl, she looked at all the fun Boy was having and decided it was better than dealing with a brick and mortar school. I suspect her choice was also motivated by the fact that she was harrassed by some classmates for not being Christian. (She did Kindergarten and First grade in PS; after one month of Second, she decided to come home.)

2. Don’t hate me for asking this. How to you handle socialization? What steps do you take to make sure your children are around other children and adults? Are you active in a home school group? Do you spend a lot of time at church activities? Maybe you utilize the local Y for activities and they meet friends there?

You got the wrong question. It should be how do we fit in any academics around the kids’ activity schedules? They find things that they want to do and I’m left trying to make sure that we get in enough seat time to complete work. They are active in a homeschool group, they volunteer, they do 4H and drama….

3. Do you use the public school system for any part of your child’s routine? Some children here come to the school for band or chorus, or maybe for science class. Do you send your child to the public school to take advantage of any of their programs?

The only benefit of the public school system that we have used in the past was speech therapy to clean up pronunciation problems. It was a pill and I’m happy those days are behind us. OTH, we are about to start a new experience - Girl will be taking Spanish at the local high school this fall.

4. Do your children begin and end school at the same time each day? Do they have a strict schedule, at least as far as waking up and reporting to the school area of your home? If not, when/how will you transition your children into following a more rigid schedule - awaking at the same time each day so that they can follow a routine outside of the home like for college and work?

When my kids need to get up for something, they can usually get themselves up and ready to walk out the door whenever we’ve discussed. With Boy being sick this last year, he has had a few days where he’s missed his alarm, but they are rare. As for doing “school,” everyday is different and while we try to get moving at a reasonable time it’s not always the same time. OTH, we also don’t have a firm ending time.

5. How many spelling bees has your child won? Oh, I’m kidding. We all know most of the recent national spelling bee winners have been home schooled children. I just wanted to throw a little funny in there?

You know, not every child that is homeschooled is a superstar. Homeschooled kids cover the entire spectrum from high achieving to struggling. Homeschooling allows us to tailor an education to a child and hopefully be successful, but that doesn’t mean that they are going to win national competitions.

6. Do you have a sense of humor? It’s probably a little late for me to ask that but…

You probably should be asking that of my family and friends. They are the ones that have to deal with me.

7. Where do you find your curriculum? Do you shop for it and order it? Do you create your own?

LOL - to me, creating my own would be drawing knowledge out of thin air. It doesn’t work that way. That aside, are you asking how I decide what to teach, or how I decide what to use to teach with. To me, at least, they are separate questions.

Deciding what to teach comes from looking at long range goals (getting into college at this point) and deciding what needs to be done to get there. That gives us a framework that is then modified by discussions between Hubby, myself, and the child in question. For example, Girl is crazy about Japan. So, we are about to enter our third year of self-studying Japanese and for history this year she wants to study Japanese history.

Deciding what to use to teach with is trickier. We tend to use regular textbooks as spines for most subjects, so for “normal” things it’s just a matter of browsing catalogs. Something like Japanese History is a little trickier because it’s not something that most public high schools are looking at teaching, so there isn’t an obvious place to start. Then it’s a matter of looking at what colleges use to teach with and see if it will work for us.

8. Do you have any worries at all about teaching your teenagers the higher level math and sciences? I, for one, could not teach chemistry to my children but I could probably teach them calculus. Is this a concern for you?

Well….we just graduated our oldest and he’s about to head off to a top ranked college. Generally, we didn’t so much “teach” him the higher level stuff as find him good materials to learn from and then be here to help facilitate his process. If that wasn’t working, I’d probably look into some of the online/distance learning options that are out there.

9. What bothers you the most about the reputation home schoolers have? What things do you hate to hear people say about you for your choice? I really hope you don’t say that it’s my previous post.

Most things said about homeschoolers I just ignore. I’m not going to change someone opinions by arguing with them. What I do hate hearing are comments about how people hate spending time with their kids, or can’t wait for them to go back to school and be out of the house.

10. Be honest, do you, at least in your mind sometimes, judge those of us who choose public school? Do you ever think we are making a bad choice for our children? Are you vocal about that disapproval?

No, there are so many different ways to get an education and homeschooling is just one option. But it has to be an option that everyone is comfortable with. By everyone I mean you, your partner, and your child. I often tell newbies that they need to remember that family situations change. The reason you are considering homeschooling now, may not be the driving factor next year. The important thing is to always be open to what the choices are and be willing to see which the best one is for your entire family.

11. Is “home school” one word or two? I’ve seen it both ways. With spellcheck, it shows it as ONE word when used as a verb, but two words when used otherwise. Please enlighten me.

I prefer homeschool.

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