Communal Homeschooling on the Rise-CNN

http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/21/communal-homeschooling-on-the-rise/

“Isabelle, you’re next. What card do you need to add to 10 to get what?”

Grade schooler Isabelle Hannon is learning how to add and subtract, but not in a classroom. She’s outdoors, at a beautiful Stillwater, Oklahoma park. She and her sister, Alyssa, are being taught not by a professional teacher but by their mom. And they’re not alone. The Franklin kids are there, too, along with their mom and dad who are also acting as teachers.

Welcome to homeschooling 2010. It’s no longer a solitary exercise for many parents: it’s communal. Many families are now sharing ideas about teaching and taking turns as teachers. In effect, they’re creating their own “shadow schools.”

Pascha Franklin says her kids are thriving and so is she. “When your kids are saying, “I want to do this,” and it’s some kind of lesson, you smile because you’re like, yes! They like learning!”

Franklin isn’t the only parent jazzed about homeschooling. According to the US Department of Education, 1.5 million children are taught by Mom and Dad. That’s up 74% since 1999.

Studies used to show that most parents decided to homeschool for religious reasons, but that’s not the case anymore. In a 2008 study, 36% of families listed religious and moral values as the main reason for homeschooling. But, another 38% said the primary reason they homeschool is because they don’t like the school environment or the way teachers teach—those numbers are also way up from a few years ago.

Just ask the Sobrals, who are homeschooling their five children. For them, “one size fits all” education just doesn’t cut it anymore. “What we’ve learned now is that it’s unnatural fitting 20 children in a room and learning from one teacher, on the same schedule, on the exact same material in the same way,” says Courtney Sobral.

The Sobral kids each have their own interests and learn in different ways. Sobral says since she’s the teacher, she can experiment with teaching techniques to see what works best.

Her husband, Alex, says that’s not always possible in public schools. “You’re taught that you have to go to A, B, and C…and if you’re not excelling here and there, there must be something wrong with you.”

Parents also say it’s easier now to homeschool because there are so many resources available on the internet. For the Sobrals, it’s a for-profit Christian-based company called “Classical Conversations”, a curriculum that “combines classical learning—grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric” with a “biblical worldview.”

The Stillwater parents get guidance from the Home Educators Resource Organization of Oklahoma a non-profit network of support groups and families.

Other parents go with companies like K12, another for-profit group that says it has contracts with 25 states to provide 70,000 students with a full curriculum, along with “a state-certified teacher” assigned to each student.

Still, taking over your child’s education isn’t easy.

Laura Brodie wrote “Love in the Time of Homeschooling” after homeschooling her daughter for one year. “I had a lot of success, but also a lot of fights and power struggles (with her daughter),” she says. “I didn’t find homeschooling books anywhere that were talking about that. They talked about the advantages of homeschooling, but not so much about the bad days.”

Brodie adds that homeschooling can be exhausting. It’s a 24/7 job. “You have to care deeply about your child’s education and well-being to want to spend all of that time with them, and want to find the best avenues for them. And you have to know your child deeply for you to understand what sort of education they need.”

So, is homeschooling for everyone? “No,” says Brodie. “It can be a wonderful option for some families,” but not for those “where the parents have to work full time and can’t fit homeschooling into that schedule…Parents have to make sure it’s something they want to do and get excited about, and I think a child should be willing.”

Carol Costello – Correspondent, CNN’s American Morning
Filed under: AM Original •Education
By Carol Costello and Bob Ruff, CNN

Why do I homeschool?

This is a question I have had to really consider over the last few months. As my children are getting older I seem to get more and more heat about my decision to homeschool.

I was on one website where a woman said I owed it to the public school community to put my kids back in public school. Really? I “owe” the community my children? Right.

One lady said that I was a quitter for taking my kids out of the public school system and that it was people like me who were ruining the system. Honestly, this was the funniest and frankly catered to my narcissistic side. My leaving …caused total ruination. **insert evil laugh**

One lady said that my children were, get this, “educational capital”. And because of people yanking out their “educational capital” the kids left behind would suffer. Seriously? If a tree falls in the forest and no one was there to hear it, did it make a sound? Basically, I’m saying….if my child was never there, how can he/she be missed or cause damage?

I now realize the truth. I homeschool to tick other people off. Not really, but what is it about homeschooling that causes other people so much discomfort? So much angst? Why is it that when a parent says I’m teaching my own kids… people get angry? You know what when someone says to me I’m going to solve my own problem; I’m happy for them why wouldn’t that same happy feeling extend to education? I homeschool for a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones was because this is what was best for the educational needs of my children. I don’t think the government gets to make every decision for me. I think I get to make some of my own and if I think I know what’s best for my children well then the government ought to understand that, but what’s more so should everybody else. Yeah. I can dream.

Just Discovered: What, My Grades Are Too Low?!

The most amazing thing happened at our co-op last week that I had to share with the entire homeschooling community at large!
We had a college admissions officer visit our co-op here in Williamsburg and basically admonish us on our transcripts. She said that we needed to include more courses designated as “Honors” or “Advanced” and weight those grades. She said that because we were not offering a weighted GPA our students were missing out on scholarship money and competitive admissions opportunities. She then proceeded to go down the list of what she considered missed opportunities for homeschoolers on their transcripts.

#1 Not including absolutely every accomplishment on the transcript. This Admissions officer said no one wants to search through and try to find your resume and various other pieces of paper to find out what you’ve been doing the last 3/4 years. It should be listed on that transcript.

#2 Designating Intramural or Team Sports as Honors or Advanced PE. You work hard; you should be recognized for it with a weighted grade!

#3 Not designating Upper Level Music Lessons/Performance/Theory as “Honors Music” or “Advanced Music”

#4 Not designating enough Freshman level classes as “Honors” classes if not “Advanced” particularly Classical and Great Books curricula that required intensive reading.

#5 Not designating dual-enrollment classes as having 6.0 quality points for an A instead of 5.0 or worse 4.0 quality points on a 4.0 GPA scale!

#6 Not providing both a weighted and unweighted GPA. I did not even know I had to do this!

These were amazing eye-openers to our entire group!

Just Discovered: Sneaky Summer School

Okay, I have been missing in action lately… trying to make that last push to finish our school goals and objectives for the year so the poor blog has taken a serious back seat.

But, now I’m back! … and with a new discovery no less. Sneaky Sneaky… its not happening summer school! I had to have a bit of a heart to heart with my oldest because she is just working on her math at a veritable snail’s pace… so I told her don’t worry about it you can just finish over the summer and start your next year’s math right after you’re done, as punishment. She was thrilled that she got extra time on her math, and I was thrilled that she would now begin next year’s math a month early and not have months of forgetfulness in-between. This year is an important year for my 11th grader. She needs to take PSATs, ACTs, and SATs this year, and since it is her weakest subject… it will be the first one she forgets so having her do it all summer with a few short breaks is the best way I know that will allow the material to remain fresh in her mind. Yes, sneaky sneaky summer school..

Okay, so I do the same thing with my 5th grader. I let her do her history at a snail’s pace during the year so we have the summer to finish and up and just start next year’s while we’re at it. We have had the best “school” when we were just hanging out for the summer!
Happy sneaky summer school!

How Much Will Your Life Cost?

I’ve been talking to my daughter lately about college and her choices. I’m pretty to the point when it comes to talking about college because I think some tough things need to be said. We in this country tend to treat college as some sort of extended adolescence or a time when you can go off to “find yourself”. I don’t agree.

I’m going to ask you to look at college in terms of necessity, not as an investment. An investment will always pay off, theoretically, and let’s face it college doesn’t always pay off. However, if we think of it in terms of necessity we can see the opportunity of college with just a bit more objectivity.

Thinking in terms of necessity, it is necessary to attend college for some vocations like, teaching, engineering, nursing, accounting, or being a doctor. IF you aren’t sure what vocation you are interested in, or it is not a vocation that requires a college education like, drafter, mechanic, electrician, welder, journalist, writer, real estate agent, small business owner, or lab technician; then college is not a necessity.

The truth of life is that when you enter college, every degree costs the same amount of money to obtain, whether or not it is actually financially worthwhile to obtain. For example, lets say our budding business woman decides to attend a college where a 4year degree in Business will cost her $60, 000. She lands her first job at making $29,845/year salary as a retail manager. Her friend, who also spent $60,000 for her 4-year degree but in Accounting, lands her first job at a hospital making $54,000/yr. salary. Whoa, what a difference! They both paid the same for their degree, but clearly one was worth a little more in the end. If the Business major could have looked into the future would she have chosen differently? Better yet, did she even realize their was a difference??

As I am looking at colleges with my daughter, I am asking her to look down the road and note those differences. Why spend $120,000 to get a degree where your average salary will never be more than $40,000? It is not necessary to put your life into that kind of debt if you look at college with some common sense and objectivity. College is not the time to spend money to “find yourself”; it is a time to expand your learning on the vocation that you have carefully chosen.

Don’t gamble with your future, take a close look at the road ahead and make a shrewd decision to be as practical as possible.

Quote of the Day…

“I don’t mean to be inflammatory, but it’s as if government schooling made people dumber, not brighter; made families weaker, not stronger; ruined formal religion with its hard-sell exclusion of God; set the class structure in stone by dividing children into classes and setting them against one another; and has been midwife to an alarming concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a fraction of the national community.”
John Taylor Gatto
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/2k.htm -location of quote
Read his entire book, the source of this quote, The Underground History of American Education
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm

Just Discovered: Upcoming Homeschool Events!

Connecting Nutrition, Behavior, and Learning
Given by Jane Hersey
Jane Hersey:
* Began using the Feingold diet in 1975
* Became a volunteer in 1976
* Feingold Association Director since 1985
* Editor of Pure Facts
* Author of:
o Why Can’t My Child Behave?
o Healthier Foods for Busy People
o What are all those funny things in food? … and should I eat them?

The workshop will be given at:
Williamsburg Christian Church
200 John Tyler, Williamsburg, VA.
Tuesday, March 23rd, from 12-2pm.
RSVP: catrynajackson (at) hotmail (dot)com

To learn more about Feingold visit their website:
http://www.feingold.org/index.php

HEAV
27th Annual HEAV Homeschool Convention & Educational Fair
Home Education: For Their Future
June 10-12, 2010
Greater Richmond Convention Center
Richmond, Virginia

Well-Trained Mind Events
Jessie Wise
June 10-12
Home Educators Association of Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
http://www.heav.org

Susan Wise Bauer
June 24-26
Society for Classical Learning
Williamsburg, Virginia
http://www.societyforclassicallearning.org

Classical Conversations
Williamsburg VA 3-day Parent Practicum
From Monday, May 24 2010 – 9:00am
To Wednesday, May 26 2010 – 4:00pm
Great Wolf Lodge, 549 E. Rochambeau Dr, Williamsburg, VA.

Who Needs an Audio Book????

Well, another strange title from a homeschool mom, but when I explain it will make sense I promise.

I wanted to encourage my 4th grader to read more. I wanted her to began to read more complex books and stories. Now, how to do this without severe reticence on the part of the 4th grader?

I told her I wanted to hear the stories. She will read to me and her family without so much as a blink, but if I had asked her to read them for purely academic reasons… forget it. She sat down and began to read book after book to me. Some, I didn’t even request…. turns out she likes having a bit of an audience. Amazingly, often when she’s reading “to me” I’m reading something else. She doesn’t seem to care whether I’m actually paying attention to exactly what she’s reading just as long as I’m near and reasonably quiet. Go figure.

Its almost as if all she needs to really get into learning is a caring parent who doesn’t mind listening. Hmmmmm.

Memo: Top 10 Reasons to Criminalize Homeschooling

Memo: Top 10 Reasons to Criminalize Homeschooling

In an effort to increase the public drumbeat for criminalizing homeschooling, a memo has been distributed containing the top 10 reasons why public schooling is better than homeschooling. Here is an excerpt from that memo:

Most parents were educated in the under funded public school system, and so are not smart enough to homeschool their own children.

Children who receive one-on-one homeschooling will learn more than others, giving them an unfair advantage in the marketplace. This is undemocratic.

How can children learn to defend themselves unless they have to fight off bullies on a daily basis?

Ridicule from other children is important to the socialization process.

Children in public schools can get more practice “Just Saying No” to drugs, cigarettes and alcohol.

Fluorescent lighting may have significant health benefits.

Publicly asking permission to go to the bathroom teaches young people their place in society.

The fashion industry depends upon the peer pressure that only public schools can generate.

Public schools foster cultural literacy, passing on important traditions like the singing of “Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg…”

Homeschooled children may not learn important office career skills, like how to sit still for six hours straight.

Preping your Homeschool Teen for Higher Education

You may be tempted as a homeschool mom to ignore the academic world beyond your front door, however if you have a homeschool teen please don’t give in to this temptation!

My homeschool teen and I just arrived back from a lovely trip to Boston to allow her to take some rigorous classes at MIT(Massachusettes Institute of Technology). While I pride myself on providing a challenging academic program at home, it was lovely to see my hard work validated and for her to gain experience in a highly diverse academic environment.

This experience required that she find her way on a fairly large college campus and be mentally engaged in several academic topics covered in several classes during the week. On our arrival, my daughter may have felt slightly overwhelmed and little short on confidence that she could do it, however to her surprise she found her way, learned something new, and met new friends. She is now more confident than ever that she is ready for college and life beyond.

I encourageyou, as a homeschool parent, to make every attempt to find micro-expriences such as these to give your student a boost of confidence for their academic future!