Homeschooling (girls, writing, best, GED)

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

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.

Ivory, I have, lo these thirty years past, put in many volunteer hours at the schools my children attended. I have been on SAC and PTA boards, have volunteered in the classroom, have tutored and Girl Scouted and cut little paper reindeer until I am weary. There are, though, but twenty-four hours in a day-- and now I choose instead to give my time to things I perceive as making a greater difference than battling to save something which doesn't desire saving, which values my time and my children-- and to appearances, most children-- but little, if at all.
I gather you disapprove of the schools not being at the center of my universe, but then, I find that a common attitude among those who make it the centers of theirs. My family is the center of mine. Beyond that, I might ask you what you've done to help community radio, or disability rights, or to protect the shoreline from offshore drilling, or any of a number of other things-- and I would expect that you, too, have only 24 hours a day, and your own priorities. That's fine. The world is big enough for people to do many different things, in different ways, and with different priorities-- or at least, my world is.

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

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.

Well, there's an easy cure for that-- you can ask. Most new teachers are assigned mentors, aren't they? And even in schools, parents serve more of a purpose than a convenient place to park blame when things go awry.

And I notice you avoided the scenario I offered. Smart call. I daresay there are those in meatspace who wish they had been able to avoid it.

[Aconite]

Originally Posted by theS5

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

You're more than welcome to go read the "pets" or "fashion" forums if this one is offensive to you.

[littlefamily]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

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.

So if I understand what you are saying, in the public schools you will get teachers that may or may not be effective. A child in elementary school who has the same teacher all day for the entire year, may in fact end up with an ineffective teacher.

Won't that alter the academic progress the child is making? Surely a child with an experienced, enthusiastic teacher will have a better learning experience than a child with a teacher that is tired/bored/burnt-out/inexperienced. The public school experience can vary greatly. And unfortunately, as you have found out with your Everyday Math experience, public schools are rigid and not at all flexible in responding to parents' concerns - even a group of parents that have concerns/complaints.

Families that homeschool make the decision for their family only. I have goals that I feel are important for my children. As long as we are meeting those goals, I will continue homeschooling. Public school goals are not the same as my goals, (and they should not be - public schools have a very different end-goal than I do) so I choose a different route for educating my children.

But I also do not make the assumption that every parent should have the same goals I do, so I don't question other people's choices. Isn't it a wonderful thing that we do have those choices? It would be a very dull world if we all followed the same path.

This is just one of the reasons I homeschool.....

Colleges coveting home-schooled students - Boston.com

A quote from the article about why colleges are actively seeking homeschool students:

Such assets include intellectual curiosity, independent study habits and critical thinking skills, she said.

"It's one of the fastest-growing college pools in the nation," she said. "And they tend to be some of the best prepared."

[flik_becky]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

You really have no choice if you want to compare entities. That's why we look at averages. How does the average compare between different types of education and that has to be tempered with how you'd expect them to compare.

I'd expect charter schools to be below average compared to public schools because charter schools attract students who are either from bad districts or students who wern't doing well to begin with (When kids are doing well, parents seldom change schools. It's when there are problems they change.)

I'd expect homeshooling to be, significantly, above public schools because of demographics, the fact you're dealing with a body of children who all have involved parents and they're more likely to have an educated mother (maternal education is one of the biggest predictors of outcomes), they're being taught in a situation tailored to their percieved needs and there is a low student to teacher ratio. All of this spells success to me so I'd expect very good results from homeschooling.

Public schools, I'd expect results based on demograpics. While the charter I teach at ranks low, compared to the schools in the district I live in, we do pretty good compared to the districts we get our students from. The Jr. High and High schools near me rate poorly compared to other schools in the city but once you account for a large ESL population, scores are about where they should be. Since my kids aren't ESL, this is not a deciding factor for me.

Reality is, the only thing we can do is compare averages, look at what we'd expect based on demographics and other factors and then decide if there is reason that explains any deviations.

This has been stated many times. I'm not buying it. Number one; there is not proof behind your words. This is what most people thought up after the first few waves of tests scores came in. But then, a small clip from this article The Results of Home Schooling vs Public Schools....

The simple fact of the matter is that there are many, quality studies which show that, on average, home schooling produces superior students. To an extent of course this is understandable as parents clearly have an effect on education no matter which route they take. A parent who is genuinely interested in the education of his or her children will help to motivate them, producing better results.

But there is certainly more to it that this and there are many cases, in a great enough variety of situations, to take even this into account and still come to the conclusion that home schooling produces better results.

Even the Unites States Department of Education agrees. In one study which they sponsored themselves home schooled students produced exceptionally high test scores. The median scores in every grade were far higher than those of public schools and even higher than those of private school students. The average home schooled student in grades one through four was a grade level above that of public school peers and, by the time home schooled students reached the equivalent of the 8th grade, they were as much as four years ahead of students attending public school.

The late Billy Mayes said .."A million customers can't be wrong!" I would say, "2 million and growing homeschooling parents couldn't be wrong."

And the argruement about race may also be outdated in a few short years as homeschooling gains in popularity. It has already been reported that the racial demographics may be being to fade. From census information gathered by our government....

Home Schooling in the United States - Population Division Working Paper 53

Home schoolers and their families were different from regular school attenders and their families, but the differences weren't that large. Some of the distinctive characteristics of home schoolers seemed to be decreasing. Home schoolers were likely to be non-Hispanic White, but there was some evidence of fading racial differences over time. Some distinctive characteristics of home schoolers seemed not to be changing very rapidly, but the characteristics needn't be thought of as limitations to future growth. Households with home-schooled children had moderate to high education and income and were located in the rural or suburban West. Home-schoolers were likely to live with two adults, with one not in the labor force or working part time.

[flik_becky]

Originally Posted by Ivorytickler

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.

There are all kinds of experiments that you can safely do at home. In our home, there we have many chemicals that most schools probably would not have in the quantity we do. We did not need formal training to know how to properly store them. For our own safety, especially our childrens, and so we do not have to purchase more because we were careless, we have taken it upon ourselves to become educated. We didn't have to pay thousands of dollars on schooling to know how to put a bottle in a locked, cool, dry location and to use protection when using it. Hell, they sell toilet bowl cleaner to many senseless Americans everyday without formal training and has been used in mulitple dangerous and explosive ways.

We have been able to use some of these chemicals as chemisty experiements. In fact, we are probably one ingrediant away from getting a visit from a government agency, dressed in bomb protection gear. (The chemicals are used safely and within legal parameters for our business.)

There are some nice kits you can purchase for chemisty experiments, you really have to pay for them though. There are, as you probably well know of, enough easy to do experiments with separating hydrogen from water that can be done at home with little more than a bit of knowledge, and some with very deadly waste gases, my high school actually did one where we had to vacate the room and hope the 'spilled' fumes hadn't caused any health damages. There are materials in your natural environment, if you care to educate yourself in such, that you can gather or otherwise obtain, that can be substituted for such materials. A simple one would be obtaining salt peter from your urine, or any carnivorous mammal or from the feces of any herbivore, a simple experiment. Or, just as simple, obtaining lye from ash, just to name TWO. What ways to make the chemistry experiements way more meaningful and much more educational.

I'll tell you, I can't remember how many times my high school chemisty teacher would say, "I can not legally tell you that..." with questions that I thought were harmless, until I found out that the byproducts were used for illegal reasons. At home I can at least be honest with my kids, knowing that they, and I, will not be doing those experiments.

You can learn as much, if not more, in home chemisty and physics than in public school. If you lack the knowledge, you can either learn it or send your kids to public school for that one subject.

[flik_becky]

Originally Posted by Aconite

Ivory, I apologize if it seems like I'm jumping on you; you simply have offered many things to which I'd like to respond. That disclaimer having been issued, I'll continue:

"Socialization has come up a number of times. (I might note that it's the favorite argument amongst folks who are convinced all homeschoolers are bespectacled, pocket-protecting uber-Christians who spend their free time challenging one another to multiplication bees.)

For us, socialization is a large part of why we homeschool. My children attended a mid-sized elementary school in a zone comprised of a number of middle class white families, many Latinos of varying legalities, and the edges of one of the most notable black slums in the county. My kids were labelled "rich kid" because they didn't qualify for free lunches (they took their lunch) and because they had no frame of reference when a classmate talked about the Welfare Lady coming to take her baby cousin. My daughter was sexually harrassed by fourth grade classmates who were two years older and happened to be of a different ethnicity. My son observed that, with one exception, the kids who were in gifted were white, and why is that, Mom? (And then there's the ongoing use of "retard" and "that's so gay" as pejorative...)
Public school, in this case, reinforced inaccurate and very damaging stereotypes. For several years, I fought the good fight and kept telling them "no, not all black people are---", "not all Mexicans are--", "not all white people are--". But it didn't mesh with their artificial, 8AM-2PM reality. My only hope of raising them to avoid thinking in stereotypes was to provide them with a different reality, wherein happy families and functioning individuals come in all colors and ages and orientations and abilities. We've done that by spending our days as homeschoolers, and interacting with the larger community, rather than just one small dysfunctional corner.

First off, I must say that you must be typing some good points because I don't pay any attention who is doing the typing. Everytime I try to give a rep however, I get the message that I'm giving you too much!

So to back you up, I was just reading this article about socialization. Its about 'the first generation of homeschoolers grow up' and they look at the facts.
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First though, I must say one thing about socialization. When we talk about socialization with a dog, we want a dog that acts proper in public, does not bark at stangers walking down the side walk, gets along with other dogs, and conforms well with the other dogs at the dog park. I think that we have thought a lot about humans behaving the 'proper' way in society as per what our government education tells is proper. However, I think that is what proper socialization means to the mass of society today, is it what are govenment says is proper and teaches in school. If they are homeschooled, the homeschooler themselves is a non-conformist, thus they are not properly socialized, regardless of how well or properly the group interacts we society as a whole. Does that make sense? Maybe not. But anyway...to that article.
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Homeschoolers Grow Up
HSLDA | Homeschooling Grows Up
The big question is, are homeschoolers socialized?

“No problem here!” But critics demand proof. Today, the first generation of homeschooled students has “grown up,” and there are enough homeschool graduates to begin to see how they are succeeding in their homes, in their work, and in their lives.

To keep from quoting the entire article, let me put it in my own words...

The report is from 2003 and looks at the lives of 7300 homeschooled adults, 5000 of which were homeschooled for 7 years or more.

Over 74% had taken college-level courses. 46% of the general United States population had in comparison.
71% of them are active in their communities compared to 37% of the general population.

Are they getting jobs? Well they do include full time student as a 'job' but of all the occupations together there was..not surprising to me...100% of them with jobs with multiple types of jobs some including farmer, teacher, and office worker with the larger quantities heading toward typical non-laborious jobs. (I wonder what the current level of unemployment in 2003 was?)

4.2% thought that politics where too hard to understand. 35% of the general population agreed. 74% had voted in the last 5 years compared to 29% of relevent US population.

They go as far to compare the "enjoyment of life" and homeschooled adults are "just more content." One of the questions on the page of questions and comparision graphs was bigger than the rest. "Some people say that people get ahead get ahead from their own hard work; others say that lucky breaks or help from people are more important. Which do you think is more important?" (HMMM? Made me think about this one before I looked at the results. Lets see...governement program that we call public school, just like the rest, that promote leaning on the government for those things your need vs working hard to get your education. Back to the socialization and conformist bit I was talking about.) The three choices were, hard work, both or luck... Drum roll please....68.2% of the general US said HARD WORK. Not bad. But the homeschoolers however were....85.3% Both" General: 22.2% Homeschooled: 14.2% Luck or Help: General: 9.7% Homeschooled: .5%
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Which leads me to these questions. Which is the more realistic group? Which group could better manage hard financial times with the least burden on society? Which group is a bigger tax burden? Which group has more individuals believing the world, our government, our society, and our communities owe them something WITHOUT the paying back the society? (Do you get that last one? 100% of homeschoolers are with jobs and 71% are active in their communities while the general public employment rate is well below this and only 37% of them give back to the community. Do you see the problem here, the irony? Why are we giving to those who are taught, by our government schools, to just take? Why are we teaching our children that this is ok? Why does our government increase our taxes to create progams that just make these gaps widen instead of just teaching the obvious during the critical years?)
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95% were glad they were homeschooled. 82% of them would homeschool their own children. A whopping 9% would choose public school.

To conclude the article:

The results of Dr. Ray’s cutting-edge research defuse long-held false criticisms of homeschooling and seem to indicate that homeschooling produces successful adults who are actively involved in their communities and who continue to value education for themselves and their children.

[Aconite]

I'd like to note that it's vastly amusing to read the 13 years of education - - worthless? thread while posting on this one. The posts there are hardly a ringing endorsement of institutional schooling.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by Aconite

Well, there's an easy cure for that-- you can ask. Most new teachers are assigned mentors, aren't they? And even in schools, parents serve more of a purpose than a convenient place to park blame when things go awry.

And I notice you avoided the scenario I offered. Smart call. I daresay there are those in meatspace who wish they had been able to avoid it.

Yes, but it still takes three years of mentoring to grow an efficient teacher. The first year, you don't know what questions to ask until after the fact. Some of the things that stymied my students stymied me. What I guessed they'd struggle with wasn't what they struggled with. Approaches I thought were good and taught the subject well had to be redone because they didn't get it.

It would be a full time job for the mentor to review every lesson plan and make corrections before the teacher taught. Plus, what you learn in pain you do retain. There are mistakes I will not make again next year.

My mentor concerned herself with classroom management, this past year. She did not get into efficiency of teaching. She never even looked at what I taught or how I taught it. Because classroom management is a bigger issue that's what she focused on. Looking back, I can see why. You can recover from using a method of teaching something that didn't work. There are classroom management issues that can cause problems the entire year if not handled right the first time.

A mentor is just that, a mentor. It still takes time for the person they are mentoring to become profficient. You don't get instant effectiveness because you have a mentor. If only it were that easy.

This is one reason I would never home school. Every year, every subject would be an experiment WRT my teaching ability. My kids would never have the advantage of a seasoned teacher who knows what works and what doesn't. I think those teachers are too valuable in my children's lives and I think first year teachers are more likely to be below average that first year. The decision to move my kids back to the public school in my area stems from the teacher turn over rate at our school.

Teachers seem to stay about 2-4 years and move on. We have only a handful who have more than 5 years experience. The school has been open 11 years and we have zero teachers who have been there the entire time (a few have moved into administration so they're still there just not in the classroom). It is because I don't want my dd to face new teachers with high frequency (this is not as big an issue in our elementary schools) that I'm moving her next year (or maybe the following. She really wants to stay and it's looking like it's the only job offer I'm going to have). Why would I consider making me her only teacher and guaranteeing she has a first year teacher every year WRT subject matter?

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by Aconite

I'd like to note that it's vastly amusing to read the 13 years of education - - worthless? thread while posting on this one. The posts there are hardly a ringing endorsement of institutional schooling.

Problem is, there isn't a rining endorsement for any type of schooling right now. We need change. But we don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

One of my issues with homeschooling is you can only teach what you yourself know. I guarantee I know a lot more chemistry than the average homeschooling parent and it takes a few years of teaching a subject to get good at it. I can't imagine teaching english to my kids well. I'm not a subject matter expert in english. Nor could I teach spanish. I don't speak it. I could do all math, chemistry, physics and organic. Can't do analytical without an analyitical lab so that's out. There's a reason they limit the subjects teachers can teach. They know that you have to know your subject to teach it and it would be very rare to find a teacher who knows them all.