Tuesday, April 19, 2005
I'm not entirely sure what we are -- we have definite unschooling tendencies, but I also liked trying out different things, and my sons have taken classes at the Johns Hopkins summer programs, & at Stonehill & Wheaton, and now both take classes at Massasoit. They like taking classes that they pick, that don't have busy work but challenge them, and being with intellectual peers & diverse students. They also both took adaptive phys ed at the public school for awhile with a wonderful teacher -- actually, all 3 of us got to be in the class & had a lot of fun.
I think I had some grandiose plans when my 1st son started homeschooling about the projects he could do (he'd just finished 5th grade). They were based on things he wanted to or was interested in, but he really wasn't into projects. Somethings worked OK -- I remember we had a "Westward, Ho!" project -- my husband had been laid off, so we figured we could go camping for awhile. One math thing we did was to have him figure how much stuff the car trunk could hold (volume) by measuring it & doing the math. And we had him do distances on the map, & mileage & anything else that came along that was useful or involved thinking. And he & his brother (3 years younger), helped a lot with planning the trip (much influenced by the Oregon Trail computer game! It was neat when we we went to Fort Laramie & discovered the pictures of it in the game were actually modeled on it.)
Because my dh & I come from families that see everything as learning opportunities, we haven't done that much different than we would have -- we've just had more time for it. We learned about things they were interested in, & they learned about things we were interested in. I've gotten such a wonderful education over the last 8 years!!!!
After a little time passed, I realized that if I tried to teach him & set expectations, my elder son & I would just bang heads. A lot. But I remembered what one of the really good teachers had said to me at the public school: "If we just get out of his way, DS#1 will learn!" So I tried to do that & he pretty much taught himself.
Then, his little brother decided he wanted to be homeschooled, so we took him out part way through 4th grade. I discovered his learning style was very different from his brother's & he wanted more structure & attention.
Performance:
Guitar -- 1 hour lesson/week.
Media & Communication:
Informal examination and discussion of old magazines, movies, catalogs, radio and TV
shows, commercials and ads to look at what values were deemed important, impact of technological changes, etc.
Appreciation
Attendance at concerts (such as the Tanglewood Jazz Festival)
and plays (such as those at American Repertory Theater),
visits to museums (such as MFA and Gardner);
directed readings (such as The Medium is the Massage, What to Listen for in Music, and reviews of performances attended),
viewing classic films,
doing hands-on art/photography/craft projects
and activities to enhance knowledge of theory and appreciation.
Evaluation: discussion, Humanities CLEP.
Practical Living Skills
(Phys Ed, Health, Community Service, Public speaking, Faith exploration and Scripture, House/Garden/Car care, Typing/Voice Dictation, skills for living alone and with others, etc.)
Health
Reading course (Integrated with biology, above)
Holt Health
Materials from UNL-ISHS course in health
Community service such as neighborhood clean-up, helping with Vacation Bible School, volunteering at library, (In 2003-2004, DS2 volunteered five hours a week at the public library, worked on our town's. Open Space Committee, participated in the Walk for Hunger, and was a member of the Shoreline Suevey Team for the Matfield River.)
Resources such as Venture Crew, Favorite Community College courses, Share the Fire, Family Y, family canoeing/hiking/whitewater rafting/camping trips, Camp Barbara Harris, our books on gardening, home repair, car maintenance, computer programs for typing and dictating, etc.
2 year plan -- part 2
Exploring world languages and cultures
Reading books from other cultures, such as:
The Rape of the Fair Country, Alexander Cordell (novel from Wales about Welsh mining
village)
French
"Foundation level" using Power-Glide
supplemented by children's books, magazines, music, computer programs in French,
and a trip to Quebec.
French Ia & b -- College level courses at FCC
Koine (New Testament) Greek
weekly class at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Whitman,
taught by the Rev. Douglas Hale, M.Div.
Has completed one semester.
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Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Our proposed 9th & 10th "grade" for DS2
Major goals
Goal #1: To continue becoming a life-long learner who is intrinsically motivated, displays intellectual curiosity, finds learning enjoyable, and will continue seeking knowledge outside of, and after the completion of, his formal instruction.
Goal #2: To have sufficient academic knowledge to enter any school system at or above grade level.
Goal #3: To continue learning skills which will enable him to be a wise, compassionate and contributing member of society, who is able both to stand up for what he believes and to enjoy life and other people.
Materials and Methods
Since we have nearly enough relevant books, videos, tapes, computer software, and other educational resources to start our own school, we will choose those that fit the topics below and DH2’s needs as we go through the year. We will also use Web resources and field trips, including those sponsored by Family Resource Center and Freelance Learners. We generally prefer John Holt’s “unschooling” model, and in that spirit find that we can use any situation and material to DH2’s educational advantage.
DH2 received scholarships to take courses at Somelocal College in eighth and ninth grade; he took a physics course each year and earned an A in both. This year he will take five courses at Favorite Community College.
In addition, a short course from the Virtual School for the Gifted,
http://www.vsg.edu.au/
field trips with the Family Resource Center
http://www.frc.info/
and other homeschool groups, and activities from Edventures.com supplement course-specific materials listed below.
Subjects to be taught
"Two year plan for DS2"
English Language Arts
DS2 will continue to develop his appreciation for and understanding of literature, as well as his proficiency in oral and written communication.
Reading course covering literature, grammar, vocabulary and composition using materials such as:
Dicey's Song, Farenheit 451, Romeo and Juliet, Under Milkwood, How Does a
Poem Mean?, JB, Night, Great Expectations, Catcher in the Rye, Slaughterhouse
Five, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Left Hand of Darkness, A Clockwork
Orange, Emma, Things Fall Apart, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Walden,
and selections from Journeys through Bookland.
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett
Harpers Magazine
(video and DVD) A Room with a View, Much Ado About NothingComposition (including grammar and vocabulary) will include readings and exercises from sources such as:
Mother Tongue, Woe Is I, Lapsing Into a Comma: A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print -- and How to Avoid Them, The Elements of Style, Words Fail Me: What Everyone Who Writes Should Know About Writing, Writing Down the Bones, Vocabulary from Classical Roots, Wordly Wise 3000, local newspapers and biographies of writers.See also Visual & Performing Arts
Mathematics
Saxon Algebra II*
Saxon Physics * (to supplement other physics courses)
Saxon Advanced Math* (possibly starting it)
Note: Saxon integrates geometry into the rest of its math curriculum. Although DS2 has already done most of the geometry covered in some basic texts, Algebra II and Advanced Math each incorporate a semester of geometry (with formal proofs in the latter). Thus they cover 3 years of math in two text-books, so there seems to be no need to rush through them.
Supplemented by reading and computer programs such as: Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk, A Cartoon Guide to Statistics, Knowledge Adventure's Geometry and Multimedia Spreadsheets and Graphs.
Science, Technology & Engineering
Biology
Will cover the following:
Cellular and Molecular Biology
Ecology
Classical Genetics
Organismal Biology
Evolution and Diversity
using the Online Biology Text, http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookTOC.html, and readings from the text: Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (college level) and/or FCC course.
Evaluation: SAT II and/or FCC grades
Physics (see Math)
Has completed:
“Astronomy” course, Johns Hopkins University CTY program, Johns Hopkins Campus, June 29 - July 18, 2004.
"Quirky Physics" module, Virtual School for the Gifted.
"Topics in Physics," 3-credit course, Somelocal College
[completed "Quantum Physics and Relativity (General Science)" 3-credit course, Somelocal College, in 8th greade]
Technology & Engineering
This will be done informally, for the most part, and tied in with physics in particular. We may use hands-on activities such as computer exploration, K'Nex roller coaster building, and Lego Mindstorms.
Chemistry
chemistry course at FCC.
Science studies will be supplemented by extensive reading in science magazines such as
Scientific American, Discover, Invention & Technology, New Scientist and American Scientist; books and Web sites such as Genome, Demon in the Freezer: A True Story, Biography of a Germ, The Double Helix, Silent Spring, Lives of a Cell, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory's Website, www.nasa.gov, www.wwf.org, http://regentsprep.org/Regents/;
and labs and field trips such as
Harvard's fruit fly research lab, MIT DNA lab for homeschoolers, Ecology Science lab, Smithsonian Frog Lab, Museum of Science labs, and visits to NSC and/or MCC chemistry labs. He will also continue his work in the Venturing program, including a study of tidewater muckets and a wetland meadow.
Social Studies
DS2 will continue to expand his knowledge of history, politics, economics, geography and world religions and his understanding of how they affect our lives and decisions today as he continues to pursue his fascination with this area of study.
Directed reading course in World History I (pre-historic to 1600 C.E.) and II (1600 to present)
A Short History of the World by J.M. Roberts (Oxford University Press)* [selections]
A Cartoon History of the Universe, II, III
Peoples [selections]
Continue research related to his patent medicine bottles, Our Townhistory and archaeology.
Geopolitics course through Johns Hopkins' Center for Talented Youth.
Supplemented by extensive reading about social studies and current events in magazines such as
Smithsonian, National Geographic, The News, Newsweek and The Economist, selections from books such as Rage of the Nations, the 1895 Sears Catalog , Sophie's World, The History of the Mongol Conquests, A Distant Mirror, Gandhi:Great Soul, Past Worlds Atlas of Archaeology, Atlas of World History,
video such as Cry Freedom, Triumph of the Spirit,
computer & Web resources such as www.nara.gov, the National History Day site, National Geographic on CD-ROM,
and by field trips such as: Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community (religious history in England and U.S.).
Evaluation: SAT II and/or FCC grades
Civics
Much of this will continue to be informal, but some formal reading and activities may also be assigned, or he may take a course at FCC, "State and Local Government."
Member of the Open Space Committee,
Attendance at a variety of other meetings relevant to government and citizenship.
To be continued.... (World Language, Visual & Performing Arts, & Practical Living Skills)
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Homeschooling: "Freed to Learn"
[Here is an unedited & unformatted page I created several years ago. I know some of the links are no longer available. As I have time, I will try to fix the links and formatting.]
For some of us, the decision to homeschool our children is related to our beliefs about intellectual freedom. We may believe that our community's public school blocks our children's access to information, discourages their freedom of expression, imposes some form of secular religion on them or prevents their free religious expression. For instance, in a landmark case in Massachusetts, "The Care and Protection of Charles," the parents chose to home school their children "[d]ue to religious convictions." (399 Mass. 324, 37 Ed. Law Rep. 934) The Supreme Judicial Court quotes a letter the parents had written to notify the school department of their decision to home school their children:
" 'As Christian parents, we are committed to introducing our children to and nurturing them in the truths of the Bible....Our decision to home-school is
based on the conviction that what [our children] need most is exposure to us,
their parents, and a family whose foundation is the Word of God."
While these parents, and many others who have been in the forefront of the United States homeschooling movement, are Christian, the opportunity to integrate a family's religious faith and practice into their children's education may be valued by members of any religion.
In our case, we felt that compulsory public education for our fifth grader, which took about nine and a half hours of his time each weekday (time at school, on the bus, and doing homework) was significantly decreasing his access to the information and experiences he needed to grow intellectually. Our middle school was not prepared to educate a child whom they described as the "most gifted and most disabled student" student they had had. Although he easily did eighth-grade math, he was only allowed to use a fifth-grade math book and had to be in a fifth-grade math class (and only a fifth-grade math class), simply because he was in fifth grade. Although he read on an adult level, learning disabilities made writing and organization painfully difficult, to say the least. Rather than work to accommodate him so that he could be in the advanced language arts class, the school assigned him to a slower class, one in which he would again study Sarah, Plain and Tall. It's a good book, but he had already studied it in both his second and fourth grade classes. By being home schooled, he was able to read the Odyssey the next year (his choice). He and his younger brother are exposed to a variety of information and points of view to which they would not have had access in our middle school, from Creationism to the Communist Manifesto, from Beowulf to A Brief History of Time. In addition, we are free to integrate our religious faith into our discussions of what they study, and we don't have to worry that they might say something about God in class. (Technically students are allowed to speak about their religious beliefs in school, as long as they aren't trying to convert others, but the regional environment suggests that we would have to educate people to that fact.)
In the Brunelle Decision, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court describes what is to me part of the great liberation in how we access, integrate and express knowledge as home schoolers:
"...[S]ome of the most effective curricular materials that the plaintiffs [homeschooling parents] may use may not be tangible. For example, travel, community service, visits to educationally enriching facilities and places, and meeting with various resource people can provide important learning experiences apart from the four corners of a text or workbook."
Some interesting links
"No place like home," David Gergen's editorial on homeschooling in US News & World Report. Referring in part to Jedediah Purdy, author of For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today, Harvard graduate and currently Yale Law School student, who was homeschooled until college, Gergen writes, " It is easiest to call them 'homeschoolers,' says Purdy. 'Really, though, our parents did something more radical. They freed us to learn.' […]The future," concludes Gergen, "will belong to those children who, like Jed Purdy, are 'freed to learn.'"
Home School Legal Defense Association We have learned, the hard way, that while some school systems are wonderfully supportive of home schooling and simply want the best education for each child, others resent it and the intellectual and personal freedom it allows. This group provides assistance to many in that situation.
Massachusetts Home Learning Association Guidance for new homeschool families, links to cases quoted above.
Homeschooling Kids With Disabilities Maaja maintains this Web site of online resources, and is listowner of an e-mail discussion group with same name.
Homeschooling About.com
John Holt's Unschooling
"Questions and Answers About Homeschooling" from the Growing Without Schooling Web site which keeps alive Holt's unschooling vision.
"What is Unschooling?
"Homeschooling: Creating Alternatives To Education" Speech presented at Penn. State University's Conference, "Education and Technology: Asking the Right Questions," Oct. 1997 by Patrick Farenga
"School is out" "Why I teach my kids at home" from SALON, Oct. 1, 1997. An article by novelist Denis Johnson on unschooling his two children.
Learn in Freedom! FAQs, numerous bibliographies, commentary, etc. related to homeschooling. By Karl M. Bunday, lawyer, parent and translator/missionary.
Learning Disabled and Gifted:A Homeschool Perspective In LD OnLine: First Person, a mother's account.
"Homeschooled College Applicants On the Rise" Observations on the increase, and tips for applying.
Getting started
