Will they learn from home schooling?

Question

Our local school is about to be annexed into 3 other school districts that surround us. Our school is in financial distress because of a crooked accountant (who is in jail now) and the State board of Education is closing the school for the '08 fall semester and we have to send our kids to one of our bordering towns. My kids ages 15,14,11and 8 don't want to go. I've never considered home schooling until now and wonder if anyone can offer suggestions for a curriculum that I can set up so that they can fully benefit from this option that our state is giving us. Math, English, History, and Science are mandatory by the state, but what are some other suggestions to fill a minimum 6 hrs a day state mandate. I myself have a high school diploma, I graduated in 1990 and done very well in school graduating the top 10% of my class so teaching them will not be a problem, any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I would totally advise that you homeschool your kids.  There are many curriculums out there too (Sonlight, Saxon, Bob Jones, BJU Press, etc.)

Homeschooling offers so many opportunities that a traditional public school setting doesn't.  (Trust me, I've seen both, and I like being homeschooled a lot better.)

Answer 2

My  home schooled friends passed the college school assessment in a jiffy. The public schooled ones...    barely got by with a C.  Depends how they're taught.  Saxon math for math. The rest ?

Answer 3

It would appear that your kids would be highly motivated to do well in homeschool, because the alternative is to go to those other schools they don't want to go to.

Your oldest are 15 and 14, so they are likely in or about to begin high school.  You'll want to be very particular how you go about planning their next few years, so they can be prepared to go to college.  Colleges tend to look favorably on homeschoolers, because hs'ers generally are more goal-oriented and know how to organize their materials and time.  You're going to want a structured curriculum for these two, one which will fit into the admissions criteria of their choice of colleges (or trade schools).  The youngers you can probably be somewhat looser with, and some classes they can do together like in history and science.  (Reading, English, and math will obviously need to be more individualized.)  They will each get out of it what they need; you should expect somewhat better and more complex writing assignments from the 11yo.

For the older kids, you may want to enroll them in a "cover" or "umbrella" school -- one that keeps records and transcripts and such for you.  The youngers, you can probably handle yourself, at least until high school.

I recommend locating a homeschool support group or co-op, where you can get advice and support from veteran homeschoolers face-to-face in your local area.  They can help you with curriculum choices, online charter schools or virtual academies or whatever for the older kids.

Studies have shown that homeschooled kids generally average about the 85th percentile on standardized tests, while public-schoolers by definition average at the 50th.  The longer the kids homeschool, the better they score.

Answer 4

You can buy cirriculum online, teacher supply stores, ebay, all over the place. A good way to start is by networking through your local organizations and gathering info on the many, many, many approaches to learning via cirriculum, or non-cirriculum styles of home schooling. All cirriculum is different and may not be what you want, and you may opt out of cirriculum, altogether.

Here's a link to Anne Zeiss's page providing some links to states organizations:

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/regi...

Her website has a lot of great info on homeschooling, in general.

HSLDA has a very good breakdown of state information requirements, too:

http://www.youcanhomeschool.org/starther...

If you look over it's full website, just be aware that it is a  religious-based, conservative organization.  It's website does focus on religious or conservative topics and political agendas.  By all means, HSLDA does not represent the lifestyle or agendas of all home schoolers.

There are secular and religious based organizations in most states.   Secular organizations usually call themselves "inclusive", meaning there is no religious agenda, though they include people of all religions as well as those without a religion.

By the way, your state didn't suddenly provide you with the option to homeschool after your school was swiped from you.  Your local school district simply informed you of an option that was already there.  By your questions, I am wondering, however, whether your district fully informed you of ALL your home school options.  Perhaps it simply hooked you up to the public funded homeschool program that still allows your school system to collect money from your children's presence as students, while you do the work at home to meet their state standards.  You and your children may benefit from other types of learning philosophies or cirriculums, if you take the time to look into them.

Schools need 6 hrs a day to teach a large mass of people, but you don't.  This, again, seems to be an indicator that your district is informing you of an option to homeschool THROUGH the district.  You should be in touch with your state home school organizations, most of whom have local contacts, so that you can be informed of ALL the ways you can homeschool without having to meet the standards set up by the public system, which do NOT match the needs of homeschooled children.  

In fact, even though schools hold children inside their walls for at least 6 hours a day, a Washington Post article quoted a study that showed students were only getting "52 MINUTES a day of actual learning time".  This supports the masses of anecdotes given by home schooled families, and adults who were homeschooled, that much of the studying they did at school could be accomplished at home in FRACTIONS of the time it was done at school.  The reason is obvious.  Teaching masses of children in groups requires a lot of the day to be spent corralling children from place to place, and maintaining order in & out of class.  Children's individual learning needs are forfeited to the most basic needs of the group so that all can be taught in the most efficient manner.

ARTICLE:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Your background is not an indicator of your ability to home school.  In my opinion, the best requirement of a parent who homeschools is that they are able to work hard to FACILIATE their child's learning, which means paying very close attention to what the child needs and is interested in.  It's important to build close bonds of trust so that you are better able to listen, effectively.  Then, once you are in tune with your child, you need to put in a lot of time getting the child to places where they will be able to learn about those things they want or need, whether that be an online site or cirriculum that inspires the child, the local science museum that gives them hands on experiences, city sponsored activities presumably taught by people who specialize in a particular area, homeschool organizations and network sponsored activities, or just a junior college that provides a class in math or english, (and gives the child a step into the world of college).  

But please understand that though there are many accomplished parents home schooling their children, a large amount of parents were average or below average students.  Where one falls in the spectrum of grades, rank or positions in school is, by no means, an indicator of that person's intelligence level, or ability to learn, though it is an unfortunate outcome that many students leave school feeling superior or inferior, educationally, to the other students around them based on their ability to sit in chairs, memorize facts and take tests.  The one thing you figure out when researching home schooling is that you do NOT need to be the person who provides all the answers to your child's questions, you become the facilitator to their learning, which means that you help them figure out what it is they want to know, and many times means you will be home schooling just as much as they will.  

A NOTE TO MICHAEL:

> MICHAEL WROTE:  " my mom had to put me aside"

AND

>"that's cause I had the drive to no longer be stupid."

Michael, I'm sorry to hear you felt neglected, educationally, by your mom (parents), and congratulate you on your efforts to fill in what you felt was missing.  It's impossible to meet all the needs of our children whether they are in OR out of school, though I believe spending so much time with them, as homeschoolers do, we have an advantage.  It doesn't necessarily follow that your feelings would have been different had you attended school.  

For me, your story validates home schooling because it shows the importance that all kids need individualized attention when learning, something the schools could never have provided you in your earlier years.  Your story also validates home schooling, because it shows how easy it is to feel incompetent within any kind of educational setting, home or institutional.  Especially if a family re-creates a school-at-home environment, (vs trying more alternative philosophies) without using that built-in advantage they have to truly individualize each child's experience.  

It's quite possible that had your parents put you in school from Kindergarten, you may have still felt stupid, only you may not have learned that valuable lesson that often comes from home schooling: how to teach yourself.  You may also have lost the confidence that comes from year after year of being compared to all the many children in each grade who achieve high scores compared to your lower scores.  At home, from parents who are focused on only their three children, you were probably receiving far more nurturing of your spirit than any teacher or organization can provide, so that your confidence levels were strong enough for you to take your education into your own hands.  Many bright children lose that confidence after years of being told by teachers (and parents who believe them), that they are slow learners, not up to par, etc.  Just a few things to consider when you analyze how you were educated...since you did not experience public school from the start, indeed, you missed a great deal of it, you can't be sure that it would have benefited you.  And, by explaining your sucesses, now, you can't be sure just how much of that was due to your upbringing away from a system that might have suppressed your innate desires to learn in the earliest of years.

Answer 5

There is a lot of curriculum to choose from. You can get a whole pack of everything, or mix and match. You need to find what you think will work for you. I can tell you what I like. For math: Math-U-See or Teaching Textbooks. If you want a whole curriculum ABeka is pretty good, it's a lot of work though. You could look at some catalogues, like Learning House, ABeka, or Sonlight. And yes, it does work. They will learn. I also recommend joining a home schooling group or talk to someone you know who home schools (if you know someone).

Answer 6

They will learn from homeschooling if you provide them the opportunity to learn. We had a teachers' strike in a neighbouring town a few years ago and the kids were off school for a month. A number of parents took that time to teach the kids themselves and it worked very well.

There is a lot of curriculum out there. The question is: what do you want them to be learning and how do you want to go about it? Also, are you open to a Christian curriculum or does it have to be secular? Just look up homeschool curriculum or homeschool curriculum reviews to start learning more. Cathy Duffy's book curriculum reviews is fantastic. She has a site that has some stuff on it, but of course, she'd like to earn a living, so you need to get the book for the full details on everything.

As for the 6 hours... Understand this does not and should not be all sit-down work. What do kids get at school in those 6 hours? They might be read to, they might have discussion time, they might have art, phys. ed., the class might play outside, they might play a reading bingo, do stuff on the computer, visit the library, etc. All the little things become part of those 6 hours. They do NOT have to be doing 6 hours of focused work each day--they certainly weren't getting that in school, because in school there are the additional interruptions and time wasters. Valid educational activities in the home are: silent reading, creating things on the computer, bike riding, walking, playing outside, building things, cooking, reading, writing, listening to someone else read, drawing, using clay or Play Dough, painting, playing a musical instrument, listening to music then writing something about it, creating little skits together... SO much can count. If you have homeschool groups near you and they have activities going on, most of those will count, too.

Ifyou are looking for actual subjects in addition to the ones you've listed, you'll have to really look at high school diploma requirements and how to obtain credits, especially if you think they'll be going back to school at some point. For the younger two, geography, art, music, phys. e.d., foreign language, health are all possibilities. They can even have a home ed. class--helping cook and take care of the house and even helping plan a grocery list and do the groceries are all a part of this.

Answer 7

I was home schooled for most of my time as a student, and from my experience the students in it have the potential to learn a lot and go beyond their years. My older brother started taking college classes when he was 11 after my mom couldn't teach him any more math from home schooling. He did that throughout middle school and high school, was on the Deans List at the junior college he took classes, he started going to Harvey Mudd when he was 16 (still considered a high school student), and now goes their as an engineering major, because Harvey Mudd is the no. 1 engineering school in the nation. My younger brother has a similar story; both are very intelligent math and science people. So obviously home schooling worked very well for them.

However. I am the exception. Academics have always been a struggle for me, for the longest time I was not good at all in any academic subject, I had so many wholes in my knowledge because in order to push my brothers, my mom had to put me aside to push my older brother though the junior college, and make sure my younger brother could do the same. I had to go to go to boarding school in the 7th grade to try to catch up, but before then the headmaster of the boarding school had my knoledge assesed by a psychologist, and he concluded that my knoledge was three years bedhind of what it rightfully should have been. It was a struggle to make up all that lost ground, and it's been a struggle throughout public high school and middle school. But despite that, I'm still in AP classes, I take junior college classes now, I'm in student government, have good SATs, ACTs, in a public school that’s in the top 2% of the country and now I'm in the process of going through the ROTC. But that has nothing to do with home schooling, that's cause I had the drive to no longer be stupid.

The reason why I say all this is that it's a huge task to try to home school, and you pretty much seal the fate of your kids to either be successful or not. There are home schooling conferences that had standard curriculums and books. Or you can do what my mom did and freestyle it and teach your kids Greek and about the Trojan War by creating your own lesson plans. It really depends on what sort of education you want to give them and you have to push them in it, and stay on top of it; otherwise they will end up having the same problems I do. It can be a really great thing to home school, but there is also a tremendous risk. So understand that as you decide whether or not you want to home school them.

Answer 8

what is great about home schooling is you can make a curriculum that is tailor fit to your kids needs... i have several sites here that i hope helps... one important thing you can do is to get into forums/discussion groups about home schooling, that way you can get connected with parents that also use this method of teaching... a lot are very willing to guide you through the way... good luck!

Answer 9

The thing about home schooling is you have to keep them motivated.  I was in home school for a year and honestly who likes to work at home when they are kids.  Keep their interest and keep them motivated and they will learn.  I take college on line now and I love it and I am learning.

Answer 10

Absolutely not. How can any parent live up to the qualities in some of the good teachers I had?

Answer 11

I believe children can actually do better being home schooled. I myself do not teach them, I do help them when needed but I use an online charter school that provides everything we need including a computer, books, supplies etc. as well as a teacher for assistance. It has worked out great for us. I did this with all 3 of my children ..my oldest graduated this way and went to the University of Dayton with scholarships.

Answer 12

Saxon math, Teaching Textbooks, Horizon math.  Apologia Science,  Easy Grammar, Easy writing, Horizons Writing,  Have them read the great classics of the 19th century.   Have then  keep a diary and write a page a day of anything they wish. Unschool History- History is fun exciting, and interesting.  It can teach itself if you make it real and relevant.