Ok, I have had some of you ask me about homeschooling so this is gonna be a long post. Brace yourselves. Jesse and I decided that we wanted to homeschool our children when Riley was about 2. We had many concerns and after 4 months of research we made our decision. These are our reasons why and they are in no special order.
*We wanted our children to have the freedom to become who ever they wanted to become without anyone telling them that who they were wasn't cool or wasn't right.
*We wanted our children to learn about God and to learn to be people who served others.
*We wanted our children to not have to deal with things like bullies, teasing, hazing, gangs, drugs, peer pressure on a daily basis( yes, we know that it will happen even though they are not in school)
*We wanted our children together not separated.
*We wanted our children to be able to learn at their own pace and we wanted to encourage them to learn everything about the subjects of their interest.
*We wanted them to have time to be with their family and time for things that are important to them
*We wanted to be able to travel with our children
*We wanted them to be in a SAFE and positive learning environment where they get one on one attention.
*We want them to be able to go outside in the middle of the day and read a book if they want to.
* We want them to have a excellent education .
And there are so many more...
For those of you who have thought about it but don't know much about it I will give you a little info about it. The 2 biggest questions and criticisms that I get about homeschooling my son are
a.)You're not a trained teacher so you don't know how to teach your child and he will not get a good education.
b.) What about socialization?
These are the 2 that really upset me and I will answer both of them.
a.) I know my son better than anyone , I spend 24hrs and day 7 days a week with him. I know what he likes and what he doesn't. I know how he learns and how he doesn't. I know what makes him happy, what bores him, what makes him sad, and what makes him laugh. I also know that my son is learning every minute of everyday, and he has never been to school and is pretty darn smart. I CAN teach him just fine. He is learning at HIS own pace and is doing just fine.
b.)Socialization is not being in a classroom with children of all the same age where they put each other in a pecking order and pick out each other's flaws. Socialization is the act of being social with others of all ages, races, and cultures.When we go to a park he has no problem going and talking to other kids and asking them to play. When we go to our organic market Riley talks with Denise,who is the lady that always checks us out. They talk about cars and trucks and his baby sister.He usually stays and talks with her while I shop . When we go to Publix he talks with Judi, our check out lady who is like a Grandma to him, and they talk about balloons and what he does everyday. When we go to church he talks with all the ladies, our pastor, and our friends. On Wednesday nights he goes to church and plays with the kids of all ages. And we go to parks where he plays with other kids of different ages. He is a very social little boy, a little shy around people he doesn't know. But if you stick around long enough he opens up . Anyone could see by the way he acts that he is socialized , but I guess certain people have their own"opinions".
There are several different styles of homeschooling. Some are very structured and some are completely on the opposite. We tried several of the structured curriculum and they just didn't seem to work for us. It was hard to keep on the same schedule and still be able to do things outside of the house. And Riley didn't enjoy them. When Riley is interested in something, he learns it right away. When he is not it's not even worth trying. This is what brought us to unschooling . It was something that was started in the 70's by John Holt who was a teacher. He felt that children in school had to deal with so much fear and anxiety of failing that it was hard for them to learn. What we do is we let Riley lead us to what he wants to learn. That may sound scary but you would be surprised at what he wants to learn on a daily basis. We almost always cover every subject every day that he would be studying in a school. I always try to tie other subjects in or make suggestions to him about things we should do. We also do unit studies, which is taking a theme and pulling all subjects from that theme. For example, let's say we chose Korea as our theme. We would look it up on the map and study what type of government they used. Then we would do a science project and learn about fermentation . Then we could read a book written by a Korean author and, etc. It really keeps their interest if it is a theme they are really interested in. It is working really well for us and keeps us very busy. We spend a few hours every morning in our schoolroom playing games, reading books, doing art projects, and then I try to spend as much time outside as possible. We have found several free websites that have games that teach phonics and other skills and he really enjoys them. We really have a lot of fun.
I know there are lots of critics of homeschooling but every child learns differently. Not all of them benefit from a "one size fits all" education. I'm not saying that schools are bad or teachers are bad. I had several awesome teachers that I remember made a difference in my life. The one thing all those teachers had in common was that they all accepted me for who I was and always took the time to help me one on one when I was struggling. That's what I want for my children. I know my son is happy and is having fun while he learns and that is what is important to us. If you have a question, I would love to answer it for you. Just write a comment.
Addition: One of the most important things I wanted to add was that when I did my research on homeschooling , one of our concerns was college. I contacted several colleges including the one my husband attended and ALL of them were very enthusiastic about homeschoolers. They said that all they needed from a homeschooler was some sort of homemade transcript, an essay, and SAT/ACT scores. Some of the ivy league schools actively recruit homeschoolers because they know that they are good independent learners, are mature, and have motivation . And in reference to unschooling, about 50 % of homeschoolers use the unschooling method now.
8 comments:
you are awesome! great post. i'm sure this topic will dominate our phone conversations in a few years!
Great post! We also homeschool and I get the "socialization stereotype" questions all the time, and they also rub me the wrong way. Like Riley, my boys can carry on a complete conversation with adults. They are resepctful and polite. They also "socialize" fine with kids their age.
I LOVE being home with them and learning with them. It fits, and is what's best for our family.
Thanks for sharing, I love every post you share!
Thank you *so* much for posting this! Homeschooling has really been on my mind a lot lately as Olive nears 3 years old, which is apparently when kids go to preschool these days?!?!?!! I just can't imagine entrusting not only the education of, but also the full care of, my child all day long. I used to work as a fifth grade teacher in the public schools and I know how BAD it can be. And unfortunately, it's dealing with that or paying way too much for private school. I think being a teacher made me extra picky about where we send our own child. My question for you would be 'how do you keep your sanity?' The one thing that worries me about homeschooling is never having a break for myself. And because I run a NPO, I *need* that time to myself. Plus, my sanity depends on it. So what do you do?
Elizabeth, I get an hour and a half to myself on Wednesday nights when Riley goes to church and for the last 15 weeks I have had Saturday mornings off at my gardening class. When I wasn't doing that my husband would let me have a night off once or twice a month and I would go get coffee and read books somewhere. The other thing I wanted to tell you is you need to check on www.hslda.org to see what your state's requirements are for homeschoolers. That will tell you what age they have to be registered as a homeschooler with the county and any attendance and evaluation requirements. You can email me with any other questions and I'll try to help as much as I can. arakword@embarqmail.com
Thanks for posting! I like the unschooling approach. Starting to make me think traditional cirriculum is more about managing large classrooms than teaching? Not sure is the right way of schooling for us, but it is interesting.
Thank you *SO* much for all the info! I definitely have lots of research to do...
I love reading your posts, this one was no exception. I would love to be able to homeschool our child when we get him. As of right now, that would not be an option for us as we rely on both of our paychecks. I hope and pray that when the time comes, this may change as I feel that the school system is failing a lot of our children in the area I live. I feel that it is not always the teachers as much as it is the lack of resources and the fact that the teachers in Fl. are over worked underpaid. I have other personal opinions about the area in which I live which I will keep them to myself but I feel that many children in the area are lacking the encouragement to reach their full potential. Again, I enjoyed your post and it is definite more food for thought as this has been on my mind.
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