Practical Homeschooling » homeschooling

Survey Needs Homeschoolers Responses

Laura — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 17:22:23 +0000

Dear Homeschooler,

My name is Roya Dedeaux. I am currently working on my Master’s degree in Counseling at California State University, Long Beach to meet my goal of becoming a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT). I was homeschooled from the age of ten, when my mother removed me from the public school system. From that time, I have been interested in how our alternative education has impacted us as a culture.

As I began my studies in the Counseling field, I became more and more aware of how many therapists are unaware of the diversity that the homeschooling population includes. I also heard many anecdotal stories of homeschoolers who felt they could not go to therapy because they were afraid that the therapist would not understand their lifestyle.

I decided to use my current studies to benefit the homeschooling culture that I grew up with. The purpose of my study is to measure adult homeschooler’s mental health needs, and their attitude towards seeking therapy. The results of my thesis will hopefully be used to benefit the homeschooling population by providing much needed information to the mental health profession. If there are any significant barriers for homeschoolers to seek therapy, this survey will isolate those as well.

I found your homeschooling organization’s email address from an online search. To qualify to take this survey, you need to be over the age of 18. Additionally, you need to have EITHER been homeschooled yourself, OR homeschooled your own children. Any types of homeschooling methods, religious affiliations, or mental health needs are welcome. It should take approximately 25 minutes, is completely anonymous, and at the end you are qualified to win one of 2 $50.00 electronic gift certificates to Amazon.com!

Please feel free to pass this survey along to any other adult homeschoolers you know. I have two goals: 1st, to get 1000 responses, and 2nd, to get responses from every state!

Thank you in advance for your help and support of a fellow homeschooler.

–Roya Dedeaux

THE SURVEY:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/homeschoolerssurvey

Being With Your Children

Laura — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:12:25 +0000

One of the wonderful aspects of homeschooling is the chance to spend quality time with your children on a daily basis.

School is a huge time-waster. Statistics show that of the six/seven hours spend in school, only 90 minutes are actually used up in active learning. The remainder of the time is used up with lunch, recess, shifting between classes, classroom discipline, or just plain busywork and waiting for other classmates to finish assignments so the teacher can move on to the next topic.

Once a child gets home, they have homework to contend with, then more often than not, they also have other activities such as Scouts or sports to attend.

All this doesn’t leave much time for families to be together… Not only are children essentially raised apart from their families, siblings are also raised apart in seperate classrooms and peer groups.

Homeschooling is the ultimate chance for families to return to core values where they (the families) are the centre of society–not the schools. Parents need to nurture their children, not thrust them into a ‘tough love’ lifestyle before they have yet to grow up.

It’s not enough to merely be in the same room with them. We need to engage them, learn with them and grow with them. We are their role models and as such, need to provide a positive example for them to follow.

I am not guilt-free in this assumption. Many times, I was layed up in bed when ill or busy one one project or another, thus leaving my children to figure out what to do for themselves. They do benefit from this, but not nearly as much as if I were there beside them.

I feel bad for doing this to them because I can see the type of negative behaviour this can beset. They start arguing more and become restless. They begin detesting each other’s presence and one will start screaming for the other to get away. They jump around and run–there is nothing wrong with that, but we are in a condo with very irritable neighbours below us.

When I make the effort to really BE with them, they are calm, they are pleasant, and they want to do things with their mother. Sandra Dodd, a well-known unschooler, once designed a chart that illustrated how much time we should spend with our children according to their actual age.

It’s about

the quality,

not

the quantity.

How to give your children more special attention

Spend one on one time with each child individually. While it’s wonderful to be with your children as a group, each child needs time with mom and dad. Siblings can harbour resentment, or want to talk about subjects they are concerned about where they may otherwise feel like they can’t speak up.
Don’t be afraid to interact. Get down to their level and play along with them.
Cuddle! Sometimes a child wants nothing more than to be held tightly in a loved one’s arms.
Don’t forget that they’re children! Acting up negatively is often a sign of frustration and a request for help.

How much time do you spend WITH your children? How can you improve the quality of time you spend with them?

Some Interesting John Taylor Gatto Clips

Laura — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 18:21:45 +0000

As I already mentioned in The Underground History Of American Education posted last week, I have a lot of admiration for John Gatto. He takes the so-called modern education by the thorns and wrestles it to the ground.

What does this have to with homeschooling? Several things, as a matter of fact.

First of all, if you’re homeschooling, there is a good chance that you have issues with the school system. Whether you dislike the teacher’s training, the high class numbers, bullying or students being forced to learn according to the lowest common denominator, you feel that being home is a better place for your children.

Secondly, formal education does not equal success. How did humanity function all these thousands of years without formal education? People learned the practical way, by watching and trying. I personally learned a lot more working with medical missionaries for a year in Ecuador than I ever did in school.

Third, whether people think about this or not, we (as parents) are our children’s first teachers. It’s instinct. Who teaches them to hold a bottle? A spoon? Who shows them to use a bathroom and recite the alphabet? Teaching comes naturally. No need to obtain a 4-year degreeto do something we are neurologically wired to do.

(Email readers, please click through to the site by clicking on the title above to view the videos.)

Schooling Is Not Education – Part 1

Schooling Is Not Education – Part 2

Why Does The Government Really Insist Our Children Be Sent To Schools?

Breaking Out Of Dependent Thinking

State Controlled Consciousness

If you’d like to see even more clips, please read my other post, Insightful Interviews With John Gatto.

The Underground History Of American Education

Laura — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 02:36:02 +0000

A free e-book by John Taylor Gatto

Two-time Teacher Of The Year for the state of New-York, John Taylor Gatto, shocked the teachersphere when, at his acceptance speech, he began to scorn modern educational practices and called for a reform in the way we educate our children.

He is an ardent supporter of homeschoolers and returning children to their families where they belong. His book, The Underground History Of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling is available online for everyone to read. It offers a fearful insight into the real reasons for forced government education.

From the book’s Introduction:

“… Underground History isn’t a history proper, but a collection of materials toward a history, embedded in a personal essay analyzing why mass compulsion schooling is unreformable. The history I have unearthed is important to our understanding; it’s a good start, I believe, but much remains undone.”

“… what I’m trying to describe [is] that what has happened to our schools was inherent in the original design for a planned economy and a planned society laid down so proudly at the end of the nineteenth century.”

How Much Time Do You Get Your Children To School/Educate Each Day In A Structured Manner?

Laura — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:30:55 +0000

A friend of mine posted this letter to a local homeschool mailing list, and I wanted to share it along with my response, hoping that you too, can share your own opinions.

Hello all.

I took my children out of school at the end of January last term, and have decided to home educate them. I have slowly been imersing myself in the home school community and getting involved with other families as our family schedule allows.

My frustration is this. I have been feeling really bad as though I am not keeping up to what I ‘signed up for’. We have not been structured at all since taking them out. I tried that for the first few months and that just didn’t work, partly due to my oldest having diagnosed adhd (and likely the others have it too). So we un-schooled or de-schooled for months after that (my oldest had been in grade 5 in the school system and is considered near genius level intelligence).

I know my children learn best through using technology and it has been a slow process of waiting for our computer issues to be fully dealt with (having to re format them with another operating system, basically fully wiping them out) so that I can have just computer software. on them to use for learning, and they will not have access to the internet on those computers. So while waiting, they haven’t been technically doing muuch educating (aside from playing online once day, and reader rabbit on the one computer, went to the telus world of science recently and toured all the exhibits briefly, as best as can be with children w/ adhd, and taking books out of the library for them to read and give a brief bullet point word document on what they found interesting about the book they read). Aside from this they haven’t had anything structured, just trying to get the older two more active with helping around the house.

I am anticipating getting them the horse back riding lessons that were posted on here earlier, which I think will be a lot of fun.

So I guess what I’d like to know is about how much time the majority of you get your chilren to do schooling/educating each day in a structured manner. My children are age 4,6,8, and 11.

Thanks for your feedback, I’m looking forward to the replies.

And my response:

It sounds like you are already doing a great job! As I like to say, children learn in spite of us. Give them some tools and let them fly.

Have you thought of using some funding to get a laptop for them? Especially for your oldest, he could make good uso of it to make projects and create computer programs and such. Lotus123 is now free and so easy to use that children can program on it.

Get involved in the community. Tomorrow there’s a gym day at Evangel for homeschoolers–what better day to expend some energy?

As long as you let your children follow their passions, you can never go wrong as far as education goes. Check out Sandra Dodd‘s website for a different perspective on children and education.

What advice do you have for this mother about home-educating four very-active children? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comment section below.