The word you never want to say to a homeschooler

Socialization.

Don't say, just don't say it. We hate that word!

For myself, I especially do not like that word coming from a public school instructor/administrator/etc.

Let me tell you why, from my own observations in my own life, firstly. School was a nightmare for me many times. There was no instruction on how to socialize or how to be proper to each other, and even if there was, it was very brief and shortly long forgotten. There were girls who clicked up and actually looked for other girls to belittle and make fun of and spread rumors about, just to make themselves feel good. There were the really shy girls who were afraid to make friends and be outgoing (me). There was the type that was way too outgoing and in your face all the time and quite frankly... just strange. There was the type that was anti-social and wore black all the time. There was the type that all they did was study and kiss up to their teacher(s). Uhm... does this sound like a healthy social arena? I think not my friends. Let me comment that most of this behavior is due to how they are raised, NOT from being in public school. And it doesn't change unless the parents change. So public school is not the answer. Working in groups in public school? I hated it and didn't learn anything from it. How did I learn to work in groups? By doing it in real life! I worked when I was 16 and I was in youth groups growing up and served in leadership positions among them. Also, I had siblings and parents who I had to work with to keep our home and family running smoothly. I did not gain what those who argue is important socially, from public school! It makes me so mad every time someone says something about it.

"School" is for education. Not life lessons. Social skills need to be taught by parents, not strangers and strange kids. Eck!

The home schooled kids I knew and know, are very well adjusted socially. They are cordial and polite, they are hard-working and can speak very well in public, they are confident and un-afraid, yet also very humble. These social skills that home schooled kids retain are that of an adult variety, yet they can also relate well to children their own age. What other's think is "weird", is just not average. Because most of us are just a wee bit screwed up from a public school upbringing. Okay, don't think I'm rude. I can admit that I am a wee bit weird from it, can't you?

My children will become socialized through church, (which is more than just a once a week thing), siblings, cousins, grand-parents, community sports, neighborhood friends and possibly home school co-ops if we choose to participate in them. In Utah you can be home-schooled and still participate in public school extracurriculars. Also, I do not intend to keep them locked up at home. We will take field trips with groups.

Now, I hope the matter is settled. And please be realistic when you think of socialization and insisting that the only place to get it is at a public school. Thank you.

All set-up

We are all ready for our first day of school, except for a couple of books we are waiting for. I thought it would be interesting for me to post pictures of everything I have done and maybe I'll look back at myself and laugh, saying, "Man, I really didn't know what I was doing." Either, I will think I did way more than necessary (which is usually how things go with me) or I will think I didn't do it right. Either way, this should be interesting.

Here is our School. Since it is basically in a hallway, that is the reason we chose the name "Woodruff Hall". Ha ha.

This is the command center. :-)

Student's desk

Being organized is SO important! I could not function without my new shelves.

History and Geography, and Religious Studies section. Preschool stuff is underneath.

Science and Math section.

Language and Foreign Language section.

Art and Music section. I realize it is quite empty. I ordered a book for art, and music is not that important right now, so the studies are very minimal. It will be empty for a while.

Here is our bulletin board. I want to draft up a list of "school rules", but we haven't gone over that yet. I thought that throughout our first year we will learn what we need to put up for rules. 

This is our mission statement.

And of course our flag and globe. :-) 

This is where all my time has gone in the last week and a half. I've been reading up, and organizing the curriculum and schedule and I have been getting a few headaches and sleepless nights. We have chosen to go with the Classical Style of Education and are using A Well-Trained Mind as a guide. It is not as simple as using a curriculum such as K12 or other online schools that have everything laid out for you. You basically have to put together your own curriculum, choose your books, and how you will use them. If it wasn't for A Well-Trained Mind I would be completely lost as to what to do. The Classical Style of Education, basically follows the Trivium theory, which says that there are three stages of learning; The Grammar Stage, The Logic Stage, and the Rhetoric Stage. This style of education is language-focused. The mind must be first supplied with facts and images, then given the logical tools for organization, and finally equipped to express conclusions. This first stage of learning will heavily be focused on language. Other subjects will not be dismissed, certainly. Interrelating the subjects is important. I recommend reading A Well-Trained Mind. The following is the schedule I set up for the year. You can click on the pictures to see them larger.

I created weekly schedule sheets so that I can go through and write down every weekend, what needs to be covered in more specific terms. Will can go off of it and check it off as he goes, which I know he will love to do. My hand started to hurt as I wrote this out so I am thinking about doing it on the computer. I also think that as I get use to it I won't have to write as much, so we will see.

Here is a view of one of the subject binders.

Will still has Chinese Language tutoring every M,W,F from 9 - 12. I am hoping that it won't be too much for him to also do school on those days. We may have to tweak things a little. But I do not want to do more than 4 hours of work a day, I just don't think Will can handle that and neither can I. So moving work from these days into T's and TH's, is just not going to happen. Homeschooling is all about making school relaxing and enjoyable so your mind can learn. Too much time spent doing schoolwork at this age is just the opposite of that, in my opinion.

Wish us luck! I'm feeling really nervous to start. Will is really excited and keeps sitting at his desk to do activity work. I have good vibes about it. 

Where is the time?

As I put together everything to start school, I am going crazy! I wonder where we will fit all of this in with Will going to Chinese three days a week for three hours each day. I wonder if I will screw it all up. I wonder if Will will respond to such structure at home. I wonder if he will even learn anything by way of a classical education.

I am creating lists and tables and schedule formats. I am reading pages of "A Well-Trained Mind" over and over. I'm loosing sleep over this. I have a headache.

All in all, I really feel like this will all be worth it. Even if we figure out that a classical education is not what works for us and my time will be wasted. I do consider that life is a learning process. I just need to keep my eyes open.

Getting set up

All the curriculum came and we are getting set up. We designated a spot in the house for our school. I told our son that his first day of school is in about three days when we finish setting up. He is SO excited. I am nervous he won't be so excited when he finds out he'll be doing school work for four hours a day.

When I got that curriculum I was so overwhelmed. Where do I start? I decided to make a weekly schedule  master sheet for Will for first grade. All the subjects, which days he will do what, and blanks for specifics to be written in, are all on it. He will be able to check them off as he goes and I will put it in the binder along with all of his school work for that week. I think it should ease my mind about doing everything I need to and it will be fun for him to have some structure. He really thrives on it.

I am getting excited to be all set up and take pictures to share here.

Wish me luck! And if you are a homeschooler and you fall upon this blog. I urge you to leave comments with your advice! I want it.

A Start Is An Experiment

Let me be honest here. When my husband and I got married, he spoke adoringly of home schooling. I hated it. I would never home school my children. Why would I ruin them in such a way? I was not that crazy.

But little by little as I started to actually learn about education, and home schooling, and all the options out there, I was becoming fond of the idea. Public schools are of poor quality. Each child has a different learning style and should not learn in a one-size-fits-all manner. The simplistic life I desired would not be attainable if I had my children in a school, to be run by someone else's schedule and lists of things to buy.

As my son got into his toddler years (18 months) I saw his capability to learn. Naturally, I had always talked to him without baby talk, I sung him the ABC's and read him books. He was taking all of this in. When I saw how he responded, I took advantage and found fun ways to get him to read and count. He could sign the alphabet and count to 100 by the time he was two and a half. By the time he was three years old, he was reading whole pages in picture story books. That is when I decided that I would definitely home school him. He thrived in the home school environment. At that time, on our family blog I wrote the following exposition:

Why We Choose to Home School

Sometimes I have questioned my ability to adequately teach my children. Recently Rob said something to me that reaffirmed what I’ve been thinking all along: I am the best choice to teach and rear my son for many reasons. He helped me realize that I am already home schooling my son by teaching him letters and numbers and colors and shapes. I see that I’m successful because W has learned some of them. It’s a work in progress. As time goes on and W becomes older he will learn more and I, too, will improve as a teacher. Line upon line, precept upon precept (much like the gospel).

I don’t know for certain but I think it’s safe to say, that only a few people read my blog on a regular basis. I appreciate that people want to read it. I love reading all of my friends’ blogs and keeping caught up on them is really fun for me. Some of my blog posts may be controversial, but I try to be sensitive because I really make a focused effort not to judge another person’s situation. With that said, I have regard for my opinions and proudly express them. This includes posting them on my blog. What does all this have to do with home schooling? In the past I have expressed my desire to home school my children to friends, family, and even random people and I have received some negative feedback about it. I know that I have told some of these people about my blog and know that they probably read it.

The last two years as a new mom, while seeing the increasing problems in our society and government, home schooling has been a frequent topic of conversation between my husband and me. I hate to think that a friend or family member will criticize me behind my back. This is why I am posting this and will refer to it in the future.

Before I begin, I highly recommend reading Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Ghatto if you are considering home schooling your children. It’s excellent!

I think most people who criticize parents who choose to home school are not fully informed on the subject. Forgive me if I offend anyone, it’s not my intention. Read on for some information you may not have considered. Before I became pregnant with my son, I too was against home schooling – very much so. I was argumentative toward my husband’s intense desire to do home schooling and refused to see his point. At that time I had only known maybe one or two families that have home schooled in my entire life, and one of them had some children who weren’t adjusted well socially (which I attributed to the lack of mainstreaming in the public school system). By the way, I later found out this family had many other issues which contributed to the children’s socialization problems. The other family actually did just fine and was well adjusted and very smart. I knew nothing about the faulty public school system, indoctrination, "dumbing down", or other issues that I understand now that I have educated myself. At the time, I refused to hear it.
Once I became a mom, I started thinking about my children’s education and what I want them to learn, and how I want them to learn. I also thought about what I DON’T want them to be taught. I reflected back on my very own public school education and how much I had to learn on my own. The public school system really didn’t help me. I was never motivated or encouraged. The only time I really learned something valuable and had something stick with me was when my own mother took the time to teach it to me and help me get a better grade. Please do not conclude that I am discrediting public school teachers. I am not trying to be disrespectful of them. I actually feel sorry for most public school teachers, because they have so much restriction put on them by the government and administration, and too many kids to teach. For the public school teachers that succeed in doing something so tremendous, they are truly angels.

Let’s address the main objection to home schooling and get it out of the way. That is socialization through interaction with other children in public schools. Let me tell you. I am seriously sick of this argument. I can’t even begin to describe how annoyed I am by this. It should not even be an issue. Do we seriously send our kids to school to be "socialized", or do we send them there to learn? When we drop them off at school, do we imagine them talking to other students and playing with toys, or listening attentively to their teacher? The only socializing a student should get at school is at recess, which is maybe an hour and a half total out of the day, plus lunch time. And when they hit middle school and then high school, there is no recess there. In my opinion a home schooled child will ultimately get more opportunities to socialize than a public schooled child. If a home schooling parent does an efficient job, the work is done in half the time, leaving plenty of time for activities and "socialization". A home schooled child of mine will have siblings, and church, and neighborhood friends, and other activities such as sports or arts which they will have more opportunity to do not being public schooled. There are home school groups in which families will get together to do field trips or other activities. This should be the end of this issue and I hope it is no longer an argument for those who once used it.

The real benefits of Home Schooling I would like to address are:

• Parental choice of values being taught.

• Focusing teaching techniques to each child’s individual learning styles, needs, and levels.

• Keeping the liberal agenda out of my home

• Having control over schedule.

• Making learning for my children FUN!

Point number 1: Parental choice of values being taught. I realize that we can still teach our children values while they are attending private or public school. It is important to remember that the school system has influence over them as well as the parent. When opposing values are taught, the child is confused, and the parent often has to "un-teach" their children. Exposing my children to the values of other children in a public school system puts my child into a position of running into other children who I have never met, (or have met their parents), who may say or do something a child inappropriately learned in their home. I don’t know about you, but I personally do not want my child to even consider that some things taught in public schools are okay. I will teach my child things, do not assume that I will keep him in a bubble and have him never know about the world, this is not my intention.

Point number 2: Focusing teaching techniques to each child’s individual learning styles, needs, and levels. As time goes on the children in our schools are not being taught at the appropriate aptitude level. The curriculum for the main group of children is aimed at the lowest common denominator (least smart child) so as to not leave any child behind in school. What this does is cause those children who have so much more potential to either get very bored, thus end up not learning much, or never learning to their potential. Every child learns in different ways and at different levels. You can not accomplish the most ideal, acceptable, and proper outcome with this "one size fits all" teaching style. The United States ranks fifteenth among other nations around the world for test scores among high school graduating students. How sad is that, when we are supposed to be the leader of the world? Additionally, some children learn through music, some through stories, some through art, hands on, and other types of learning activities. A home schooling environment allows for a tailored teaching experience resulting in a higher academic performance.

Point 3: Keeping the liberal agenda out of my home. The liberal agenda is increasingly saturating the public and private school system. I am not in favor of that. Children are being taught things without the permission of the parents, and they go on to say that we don’t have the right to be notified or sign off on curriculum. For example, one is evolution. Personally I believe this is a theory, but the schools are teaching it to our children as FACT. This theory completely takes out the reality of a God and supreme creator as taught through the Bible. The liberals took prayer and God out of school and are teaching children their own theories as fact. In my opinion, this is not right, because you can’t claim to be tolerant and teach one theory and not the other (creationism). I don’t want to have my child believing we came from monkeys. I will have him believe that Heavenly Father created him and everyone else. The newest controversy being taught to our children in public schools (not yet here in Utah, though), is gay marriage. While it isn’t even LEGAL in 47 states, on the east coast, it is being taught in classrooms as an acceptable and normal way of life, completely disregarding traditional family and confusing a child’s ability to recognize their own identity and the identity roles of their own parents. Please keep in mind I have mentioned only TWO things, when there is so much more damaging indoctrination in public schools across the country, like being required to read books that discuss premarital sex and immorality across the board as being acceptable, and so much more.

Point 4: Having control over schedule. This is more than just a perk. Having a discipline with your child of study and play is critical. Not just a perk – family order and organization. I believe there are so many more opportunities to strengthen a family when you can easily formulate your schedule and not have to deal with calling teachers and getting homework or waiting until summer to go on a vacation. On those occasions when a family emergency were to arrive, like the death of a loved one, or a medical situation, flexibility is part of family organization too and that includes home schooling.

Point 5: Making learning FUN! There is a reason that most children "hate school". Because it’s too hard to make school fun, when you’ve got 25 or more students in one room and they don’t really have a say in how they learn the best. A mom and dad know their kids the best and what they love to do and what they like, so they are the best choice for making learning fun. When learning is fun, it’s easier to learn, and easier to remember. When doing a science project, who is a better partner than Mom, or Sister, or Brother or even DAD? I hated when I was in school and "assigned" to someone I barely knew to work with on a project, or being forced to pick someone when no one wanted to be my partner. I truly HATED that and didn’t learn anything. I hated school until I was in high school, because it was boring and people were mean to me. This unavoidable way of doing things in public school can be traumatizing to a child, and very hard to get over.

I have done some research – talked to people who have been home schooled as children and told me they loved it! They are normal and well adjusted people and have great lives and are good citizens. I have also come to know children in my neighborhood that are home schooled and there is nothing wrong with them and they come from a very good family. I have taught these children in primary at church and they are generally better educated. (Notice that I do not use the word "smarter" because I think all these children are capable of being very smart, they just don’t know as much because they just aren’t taught). Home Schooling is becoming a popular trend. I hope someday that public school will be done away with completely. I doubt that will happen, and I also hate to see a whole industry of work go away, but I just think it would be so awesome if every one home schooled. 

Public school has only been around for about 100 years. Why should the government be the ones teaching our children? Does that make ANY sense to you? In the old days children were always home schooled, taught by their own parents. For example, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson… you know, back when people were truly SMART, and spoke like it. Even when people were thought to be dumb, they were still smarter than the average student today. Since education has become publicly mandated and administered, quality education has become increasingly difficult to find. As a mother who takes her role in society seriously, I want my children to think like a founding father. I believe the only way to truly accomplish that is by home schooling.

Please do not think that I believe parents who send their kids to public school are making an awful choice. I do not think that. I realize that every family has a different and unique situation. I know plenty of public schooled children who have their education supplemented. And I do not think these parents care less about their children. It may even be that someday I will have to send one of my children to public school, I can not predict the future and every child is different. I just wanted my side to be heard before I hear more about making a bad decision to home school by people who do not know all the facts or consider all circumstances. If you are not convinced please do some research of your own on the internet. It is difficult to cover all the benefits and all the statistics regarding home schooling and home schooled children in one blog entry.

Our son is now four and has never attended a formal school. I have tested him and found him to be on a third to fourth grade reading level, and a first grade math level. I can't begin to tell you the other areas in which he has shown us his brilliance, this child has such a memory and brain capacity that I can only wish to have for myself.

We are taking the leap into the brave world and American sub-culture of homeschoolers this month. W is not officially Kindergarten age until next school year, and Utah law does not require an affidavit to opt out of public school from us at this time. But we feel we would be wasting his abilities if we waited. I have begun to read The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer (we have chosen the Classical style of education), and the curriculum has been ordered, awaiting arrival.

Another tidbit of honesty: I feel I have no idea what I am doing. I'm sure all the homeschooling haters love hearing a homeschooler say such a thing, and I'm sure they would retort, "Then put your kids in a real school!" Well I will say this; I have never embarked on anything in my life having known what I was doing in the beginning. Marriage, raising my children, being a homemaker (quitting my job), cloth diapering, making my own baby food, etc. I consider myself a good learner. Though not quite an expert at those things, I do think I do a pretty darn good job. So I give myself credit. I give my husband credit. When anything in life is ventured on, the start of it is always an experiment. That is why I am happy we get a couple of years extra head-start with W. We can do it, and even though I am scared and a bit shaken over it, we will not fail because I don't give up on much.