Homeschooling (employment, courses, vs, districts)

[TouchOfWhimsy]

Originally Posted by Aconite

Wolf, Florida does not require a standardized test. It is an option, but examination by portfolio is also an option. (Although had I known what a PIA the portfolio would be, I might have had them take the darned FCAT.)

You can sign up under an umbrella school and only be responsible for 180 days of attendance per year. We used Florida Unschoolers when we lived in Florida (though we are not unschoolers). We just had to send in an email every quarter stating the number of days that we had homeschooled, and once we hit 180, we were done. Some people sent in 45 per quarter, some did 180 consecutive days, and some did 60 for three quarters... however you do your school year. I just thought I'd mention it, in case you were looking for another option. I found it to be totally non-invasive and ridiculously easy to comply with the laws.

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

My kids, certainly, wouldn't be out 7 hours a day interacting with other kids. That would be OUT of home schooling, lol. I imagine if I homeschooled, my kids would spend more time with each other than they would with other kids on school days.

I disagree. Supplementing is not reinventing the wheel. It's seeing to your child's particular needs that happen to deviate from the norm. I'd think you'd be reinventing the wheel even more with homeschooling as you'd be a first year teacher for each grade/subject you taught every year. First year teachers aren't very effective. Maybe this explains why homeschooling doesn't deliver the great results we'd expect.

As to volunteering. It's required at the high school I teach at. Each student has to clock 120 hours in order to graduate. They have 3 years to do those hours. Some volunteer more and some less. Kind of like individual homeschoolers would.

I admit they're kind of liberal with what they consider volunteering. They count my dd babysitting for a local stay at home mom with more kids than she can handle for free as volunteering. I've had a talk with her about this. She needs to do something constructive for me to consider it volunteering. Something that gives to the community. Babysitting is something she does anyway. She's trying to keep from going outside of her comfort zone and I'm not buying what she's selling .

If your kids are taking classes, are they really homeschooled? Or do you teach the classes in your home to other kids? Still that would be more like an exclusive private school.

Also, I have to ask how you handle things like chemistry and physics labs? You shoudln't be buying chemicals without training in storage and disposal of said chemicals. I know I have to prove I'm a chemistry teacher to buy what I buy. I can't imagine running some very standard labs at home if I did have the equipment.

Thanks, I've always been curious about this. I'm kind of surprised there isn't some kind of alternative education lab where parents can pay for the labs their kids do.

We belong to a homeschooling co-op. My children have taken classes as wide-ranging as mythology and filmmaking through that set-up. They've also taken classes geared toward homeschholers at the Aquarium, and continuing ed (primarily nature science subjects) through the Parks Department, the County Extension Service, and a couple of other, private entities.

We also have done things informally with homeschool friends: the election and inauguration, a book club, a number of field trips. (I'll add that watching my friend, an avowed conservative, do a spectacular job teaching the historical and cultural significance of Obama's inauguration was a lesson in grace and impartiality for all of us.) And we've done some other field trips with schooled friends, when they're available.

Some days we are out all day interacting with other kids. Others we're home, doing school at the dining room table-- though with a world for a classroom, we don't spend that much time scribbling in workbooks. (Which makes a better nature classroom, the beach or the kitchen? We learned the importance of strict scientific standards by spectacularly mishandling a coquina population study, and having to backtrack and redo, not by memorization of terms from a book.) Other days we're watching reruns of "Deadliest Catch" and eating cereal in our pajamas-- because we're not hampered by a schedule that says we can't spend 12 hours on something one day, and one or none the next.

Other homeschoolers in the area take some classes through the virtual academy, or virtual school, or at the junior college. I expect that, when we reach my limits, we'll do the same. That time may be coming soon, as my math education stopped after calculus, and did so many years ago (though I'll be the first to admit that homeschooling, for us, has been facilitated by the fact that my husband and I are hideously overeducated, and in diverse areas.)

Are you suggesting that all this makes us not homeschoolers? That would be incorrect (at least according to the XXXX County School System, the FPEA, and a number of other people who think they're allowed to define the term). And though my children have, from time to time, other teachers, the ultimate responsibility for their education is in my hands. Just as, though the public school fifth-graders go out for PE and music and art, they're considered "Mrs. Smith's class".

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

I believe there is. If we started with one program, honestly evalutated what worked and what didn't, kept what did and changed what didn't, it wouldn't take too many years before we'd have a pretty good program in place. Our problem is when we change programs, we change EVERYTHING. We throw the baby out with the bathwater.

If you want proof that this works, compare a first year teacher to a 10 year teacher. Most likely the 10 year teacher does better. That's because she's had time to figure out what works and what doesn't. This is something homeschoolers never do. Unless they have 10 kids and then it's the 10th kid who gets the advantage.

In my experience with public school (four kids, two exclusively public schooled, two who've been pulled out for homeschool), we've run across a couple of stellar teachers, and a few dreadful ones. The stellar ones were a second-year, and (no kidding) one in her forty-sixth year as a kindergarten teacher. I've gone after one job-- and that was a fifteen-year teacher who was so burnt out she was crispy. With excellent new teachers you get energy and creativity and less of a tendency toward being hide-bound; with the excellent veterans you get experience and an ability to draw from a multitude of directions. As an ESE parent, I have learned to mistrust those who claim to "know what works", because they often resist thinking outside the box. As the saying goes, if you've met one kid with <insert exceptionality here>, you've met one kid with <exceptionality>.

Back on the topic, though, I'm trying to figure out what, exactly, can possibly engage a child who is both exceptionally gifted and autistic, with ADHD on the side, and comes from a family of overeducated, involved geeks....and a child who has been held back two years, is economically and socially disadvantaged and in the low end of normal intelligence, hates school, and is physically assaultive. Oh, and throw in a handful of neurotypical and socially unremarkable peers, and an English language learner or two. If you can manage this one, you'll do far better than a certain set of educational professionals I can think of.

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

So you go the library and find books he likes??? Why does his dislike of reading, which goes hand in hand with spelling issues, negate everything else? How did you know that a new program would yeild the same results in other subjects while fixing the reading problem.

IMO, this is an example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You have a child who is acing tests but struggling in one area. IMO, you address that one area not throw out the education program that got him to acing the other areas. Was there something about the program he was in that prevented him from learning to read well? We're they stopping him?

We were in that situation when EM came along. My dd could not handle the spiraling methodology or the multiple algorithms. We could tutor her in the traditional methods but she was forbidden to use them in school and had to sit through being taught things she could not use. There was no work around so we found a school with a better program. It also had a better reading/spelling program so it was win-win. We, probbaly, sacrificed in the social science department but no system is perfect.

The education program was not what got him acing the other areas. The fact that he's exceptionally bright, and has a father who amuses him by teaching him math, has significantly more to do with it. He has done quite a lot of math this year because he wants to-- an option unavailable to him at our local school, which will not move kids ahead in one area no matter how adept they are.

Getting my children to enjoy reading was easy. I took them to the library, let them choose books, and assigned one (mostly, but not all, past Sunshine State winners) every so often which illustrated a specific topic I was teaching (theme, platform, authorial voice, utopia/dystopia, etc). Then I let them stay up an hour past bedtime if they were reading. It took about a month or six weeks to repair the poor opinion of books the school reading team instilled.

The sad thing is that probably half the people reading this thread are thinking "what an exceptionally bad school they have!" And it isn't exceptional at all. It's pretty typical of the district. Like I mentioned before, Florida is not known for educational excellence; the state BOE motto is "Thank Heavens for Louisiana!"

As for Everyday Math....no thank you. <shuddertwitch>

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

What are you doing to change this?

Not a damn thing at this point. There are things I can change, and things I cannot change. I have been granted the wisdom to know the difference, and do not waste energy banging my head against walls.

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

When our local school adopted EM, my hushand and I faught back. We informed parents and attended school board meetings and meetings of the curriculum committee. After two years, we left the district and I understand took several families with us.

In a district with nearly 250 schools, I cannot imagine this having a noticeable effect.

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

If you don't like your system, do something about it. Even though we don't have our kids in district, we're still in contact with the school board and aware of what is going on. As a matter of fact, they went out of their way to inform us that EM was being dropped. We made enough of an impact that we were remembered years later.

Somehow I doubt that you'd be that significant in a district of 200,000 students. Perhaps I'm wrong. I do know I haven't the energy or the interest to fight that battle, so more power to you.

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

Your child needs to learn to live in that village.

Not necessarily. My child has been given the knowledge and drive to find another village, or create one more to his or her liking, if s/he so chooses. One is only stuck if one chooses to be.

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by beanandpumpkin

You can sign up under an umbrella school and only be responsible for 180 days of attendance per year. We used Florida Unschoolers when we lived in Florida (though we are not unschoolers). We just had to send in an email every quarter stating the number of days that we had homeschooled, and once we hit 180, we were done. Some people sent in 45 per quarter, some did 180 consecutive days, and some did 60 for three quarters... however you do your school year. I just thought I'd mention it, in case you were looking for another option. I found it to be totally non-invasive and ridiculously easy to comply with the laws.

Good to know. Thank you.

[TouchOfWhimsy]

Not necessarily. My child has been given the knowledge and drive to find another village, or create one more to his or her liking, if s/he so chooses. One is only stuck if one chooses to be.

Wow, I love that! That's pretty much my motto for life, and it's great to see it in words like that! So many people think that "we have to do it this way because we've always done it this way." I want my kids to always be leaders, not followers, and to always think out of the box. There's tried and true, and there's finding your own way that works even better! I think that's pretty much the philosophy behind homeschooling in general, to be honest!

[theS5]

This thread is unreal. Some people just love to toot their horn. Run away, far far away.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by Aconite

Not a damn thing at this point. There are things I can change, and things I cannot change. I have been granted the wisdom to know the difference, and do not waste energy banging my head against walls.



In a district with nearly 250 schools, I cannot imagine this having a noticeable effect.



Somehow I doubt that you'd be that significant in a district of 200,000 students. Perhaps I'm wrong. I do know I haven't the energy or the interest to fight that battle, so more power to you.




Not necessarily. My child has been given the knowledge and drive to find another village, or create one more to his or her liking, if s/he so chooses. One is only stuck if one chooses to be.

I wasn't referring to being stuck. I was referring to living in a community. Knowledge and drive won't help your child live in a village and be an accepted and respected member. Part of learning how to live in a villiage is learning to get along with others. That you think your child is equipped to go find a village to his/her liking is telling. That's a rather elitist attitude. Not conducive to living in a village, any village, at all.

Not surprising you don't have the energy to fight for the village you live in. This is why education systems fail. Those who could do something won't. Part of living in a community is giving back to the community. And it's to your own benefit. By improving the education within your community, you improve the community. The take care of myself and leave mentality is why community fails. Even when my kids are no longer in school, I'll be active in the education community. The quality of the village I live in depends on it.

I could not not fight EM when it started in my city. I researched it and when I learned it had been banned in California (often the bleeding edge of eduation therory) I had to do something. What was frustrating was letting my husband do the talking. I was advised that to a school board I am an over emotional mother hovering over her child no matter how many degrees I have. My husband, however, they'd listen to. So I wrote his speeches, lol. He couldn't calculate his way out of a paper bag but he's a dad. Dad's don't have reputations for being hover parents like moms do. So they'd listen to him.

Anyway, I digress. When did we become a nation of people looking out for ourselves and not worring about the rest of the community? I had no choice but to lead. I understood the literature. I stood with engineers and mathematicians across the country fighting fuzzy math programs. Unfortunately, these programs tend to dazzle parents because their children are doing algebra at 6 years old as if that matters. It does but in a negative way. All those pull downs just mean that what is taught before them is skimmed over even more than it was before. What we need is fewer topics per year not more but we're a nation convinced that supersizing is better.

Anyway, we're on different planes here. I'm in the "Unto those who are given much, much is expect plane". I was given the intelligence to be able to explain the shortcomings of the chosen program so I'm obligated to do so. While I do feel vindicated, in the end, I'm saddened that the school board has chosen to do nothign for the kids who had to suffer through 5 years of EDM. Surprisingly, with the pull down of algebra to kindergarten, one thing it fails to do is prepare kids for algebra. This is opposite of what most parents think when they see algebra concepts in kindergarten and first grade.

Actually, a district of 250 schools should provide you with the opportunity to find just the right place to make an impact. My experience is you have to be willing to take on the school board though. Prior to this math program arriving here, I, simply volunteered at my children's school, which had, virtually, no impact on quality of education. Fighting the school board and working with the curriculum commitee did. It worked in our case because I managed to collect supporters. If there are enough of you, they cannot ignore you.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by Aconite

In my experience with public school (four kids, two exclusively public schooled, two who've been pulled out for homeschool), we've run across a couple of stellar teachers, and a few dreadful ones. The stellar ones were a second-year, and (no kidding) one in her forty-sixth year as a kindergarten teacher. I've gone after one job-- and that was a fifteen-year teacher who was so burnt out she was crispy. With excellent new teachers you get energy and creativity and less of a tendency toward being hide-bound; with the excellent veterans you get experience and an ability to draw from a multitude of directions. As an ESE parent, I have learned to mistrust those who claim to "know what works", because they often resist thinking outside the box. As the saying goes, if you've met one kid with <insert exceptionality here>, you've met one kid with <exceptionality>.

Back on the topic, though, I'm trying to figure out what, exactly, can possibly engage a child who is both exceptionally gifted and autistic, with ADHD on the side, and comes from a family of overeducated, involved geeks....and a child who has been held back two years, is economically and socially disadvantaged and in the low end of normal intelligence, hates school, and is physically assaultive. Oh, and throw in a handful of neurotypical and socially unremarkable peers, and an English language learner or two. If you can manage this one, you'll do far better than a certain set of educational professionals I can think of.

You may get energy with new teachers but they have not had time to figure out what works, what doesn't and what they should try next when something doesn't work. Sure, some kids click with their style but others fall right through the cracks. And often the teacher is unaware.

I just finished my first year. MAJOR learning experience here but I can see it will be years before I can say I'm really effective. Energy I have. This is a new and exciting career for me but I don't have a bag of tricks...yet. That takes time to develop.