The Secret Homeschool
It's hard to believe we're down to our last week of homeschool. My son is so excited to be finishing that he's actually become quite the diligent little worker. We finish a lesson and he says, "Let's do another one!"
We have just four days left. That's about two weeks before the public school finishes. So those third graders get eleven days of extra learning to try and catch up. Gee, too bad my son is about two years ahead of them.
Yes, I'm feeling a bit smug and self-righteous about my son's education right now. But only briefly, I promise, because smug people set my teeth on edge. However, I can't help bragging just a bit about how far my son has advanced over the past year in terms of knowledge, ability, and common sense. I will happily take credit for it all, but most of his accomplishments are strictly the result of his own willingness to be homeschooled. Right from the start, he understood his role as student and my role as teacher. We had some rough patches, especially after the winter break, but we got through them thanks to the flexibility of our curriculum.
Honestly, if it had been a battle all year, then he'd be heading back to his old elementary school next fall. But it was a successful year for us both. He aced all of his state tests, learned how to write poetry and book reports, mastered his times tables, division, and fractions, studied ancient Greece and the Renaissance, experimented with solar energy, and so much more. It wasn't all about filling his head with stuff, but about teaching him to love learning.
I have another reason to feel smug for a day or two this week. Most of our friends and family did not support our decision to homeschool. Last spring, when we told people that we were going to do this, the reaction was almost uniformly negative. The worst comment came from my 92-year-old grandmother, who looked at me in horror and said, "Oh God, no!" as if I'd just announced that I was having my genitals pierced. Others gave us disapproving looks and the usual nonsense about socialization. For reasons I can't even fathom, people who are supposed to love and support us found it all but impossible to wish us well as we embarked on our new adventure.
So, for the past year I kept mostly quiet about our experience with teaching at home. It became our Secret Homeschool. Nobody ever asked about it, and I learned to just talk about other things. But this week maybe I won't be so tight-lipped about my son's accomplishments. He and I both deserve to brag a little. We started off wanting to do what was best for him, and it succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.
We have just four days left. That's about two weeks before the public school finishes. So those third graders get eleven days of extra learning to try and catch up. Gee, too bad my son is about two years ahead of them.
Yes, I'm feeling a bit smug and self-righteous about my son's education right now. But only briefly, I promise, because smug people set my teeth on edge. However, I can't help bragging just a bit about how far my son has advanced over the past year in terms of knowledge, ability, and common sense. I will happily take credit for it all, but most of his accomplishments are strictly the result of his own willingness to be homeschooled. Right from the start, he understood his role as student and my role as teacher. We had some rough patches, especially after the winter break, but we got through them thanks to the flexibility of our curriculum.
Honestly, if it had been a battle all year, then he'd be heading back to his old elementary school next fall. But it was a successful year for us both. He aced all of his state tests, learned how to write poetry and book reports, mastered his times tables, division, and fractions, studied ancient Greece and the Renaissance, experimented with solar energy, and so much more. It wasn't all about filling his head with stuff, but about teaching him to love learning.
I have another reason to feel smug for a day or two this week. Most of our friends and family did not support our decision to homeschool. Last spring, when we told people that we were going to do this, the reaction was almost uniformly negative. The worst comment came from my 92-year-old grandmother, who looked at me in horror and said, "Oh God, no!" as if I'd just announced that I was having my genitals pierced. Others gave us disapproving looks and the usual nonsense about socialization. For reasons I can't even fathom, people who are supposed to love and support us found it all but impossible to wish us well as we embarked on our new adventure.
So, for the past year I kept mostly quiet about our experience with teaching at home. It became our Secret Homeschool. Nobody ever asked about it, and I learned to just talk about other things. But this week maybe I won't be so tight-lipped about my son's accomplishments. He and I both deserve to brag a little. We started off wanting to do what was best for him, and it succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.
Permalink posted by Phil at 12:09 AM
16 Comments:
We've been giving homeschooling serious thought. I'm glad your experience has been so positive.
Congratulations, you both should be proud. We have been thinking about doing homeschooling or maybe a version called a University Model School and your blog keeps reminding me why we want to do it.
Congratulations on your first year of success! I don't have children yet but when I do I would love to homeschool them.
I was just wondering how difficult it is for you to teach a subject that you aren't entirely comfortable 'teaching'. Not something you disagree with but perhaps something you still have things to learn about as well? I read your blog all the time and have been wondering this for quite awhile. Do you just review the curriculum before you introduce it, or do you learn along with your son with the aid of additional material?
Phil,
I am seriously considering this...for a number of reasons...but I need someone to talk me through some things...do you struggle with your child, expecting more when he is unwilling to want to learn? How do you overcome a frustrating relationship with your child (ok...maybe I am alone in this one...my daughter and I are VERY similar)...How do you stay organized? I am terrified of this but seriously Seriously considering it....do you miss public school at all for your son? Your daughter atends public school, right? I'm really wanting to talk throught this...nice of me to make such a public statement, UGH! Sorry...;)
jtcosby@comcast.net
BTW, YOU ROCK!!!
That sounds absolutely wonderful. We're keeping Seth in private school next year because he's done so well there.
I can only congratulate you. I'd love to have homeschooled my kids. You are doing your child SUCH a favour to do this. He is going to thank you for sure. Pity that our families don't always support us in what we need to do
Congratulations Phil. I've enjoyed reading about your first year homeschooling. It's brought back the memories of why I started to homeschool in the first place.
You go ahead and feel as smug as you like. You earned a little smug time! And everyone gets the winter homeschool blahs. Next year just plan your year around them. We get a few weeks ahead over the summer and take off a whole month for winter break. Just fun family time and field trips. It helps.
It's times like this I hate blogging because I want to give you a real pat on the back. I suppose you just have to imagine one.
You are the bees knees and your lads is the cats whiskers :) CONGRATS to you both...... have a well earn summer....... our schools dont break up for nine weeks, and then we only get just under 6 weeks off before the winter term restarts.......
x
Congratulations to both of you.
No one, even your 92 year old Grandma, can argue with success!
I don't really talk about homeschooling either and I continue to receive negative comments. One fellow blogger pointed out that in not sharing, I am also not sharing my joy. I am trying to learn to share my joy so that they will catch the homeschooling bug.
Sounds like you've had a great year...I'll be teaching my son in Kindergarten this fall, but with a 3-year old and baby in tow!
I know what you mean about the comments. My family isn't quite so outright in their disapproval, but it's there. They get in their little digs once in a while, but I think they'll back off when they see us succeed. Go ahead and brag a little- you've both earned it!
Congrats on your first successful year of homeschooling!
I can relate to your experiences with your family, we've had that with some of ours too. It will get more
"in our face" this year, I'm sure, as our daughter will be 5 in the fall.
Congratulations both of you! I'm so proud of what you've both done..it takes both hands to clap. You guys proved them wrong. That's reason for celebration!
Heehee, been there! The oldest finished his junior year at college with a 4.0 and inductions in three honor societies. I don't think my inlaws will ever acknowledge our good work as hs just didn't give them the bragging rights their egos craved. They're loss!
Everyone else lavishes us with praise. Your day will come, too.
I saw Bernadette's question hadn't been answered yet, so I thought I'd jump in with a quick answer. In the interests of full disclosure, our oldest is about to start her kindergarten year, so we're beginners too; but as we've already managed to teach her to read, we like to think we're doing something right. :)
Incidentally, the question of how parents cover topics that they don't feel qualified to do, eventually hits every homeschool parent, especially as the kids get older and the coursework becomes more demanding. It is frequently the case, for example, that a math-phobe mother winds up raising a budding engineer who's ready for calculus while still in high-school. This kind of thing happens all the time--so frequently, in fact, that homeschoolers have through trial and error come up with a semi-standard set of approaches, which have become part of the Oral Tradition of homeschooling--passed around on blogs, etc.
There are several ways that a homeschooling parent can approach topics where he/she doesn't feel competent to teach them. These include:
1. There are many very good pre-packaged curricula out there for every subject under the sun, supporting every homeschooling philosophy one can dream up. Some of these have teachers' materials--lesson plans, etc.--that are so thorough that the teacher doesn't have to do much in the way of preparation. We have a book entitled "100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum", by Cathy Duffy (available on Amazon.com) that gives very complete reviews of many curricula, including how hard they are to administer; and gives advice on picking through all the options.
2. Especially in the younger grades it is possible for the homeschooling parent to learn the subject matter right alongside the student. If you need to teach your kid about the Battle of Trafalgar, and you know nothing about it ("What's a Trafalgar?"), you read up about it yourself, and then present to your kid what you just learned. This can be quite edifying to yourself as well as the kid.
3. Chances are, even if you don't know a subject very well, you know someone who does. For example, if you attend a church of more than about 100 people, you'll likely have someone in there who knows music really well, someone who knows math really well, someone who knows history really well, and so on. If you can fall in with a group of homeschooling families in your area, chances are there are other parents with skills you lack, who might be willing to share the knowledge. See if someone you know would be willing to do some tutoring.
4. Check to see what classes are available through community organizations, Parks and Rec, and the like. Our daughter is currently in a dance class, and will be taking swim lessons soon. You can get sometimes get your kid into a good choir, orchestra, martial arts, or sports program through these kinds of organizations.
5. As the students reach adolescence, it may be possible to enroll them in the local junior college for classes that you don't feel qualified to teach. This is also an excellent way to get their hands on resources you just can't get at home, like a fully stocked chemistry lab.
6. There are a lot of good software packages and online programs in various subject matter areas--foreign language being a common one. After all, it's not uncommon in the homeschool world for parents to say, "I want my kid to learn the Latin that I never had the opportunity to get", and there are some good options online to get these things. Rosetta Stone is a frequently-recommended software product for learning foreign languages.
This is in no way intended to be a complete list. These are just the strategies that I can pull off the top of my head. Turns out it wasn't a "quick answer", after all... :)
-- Tim
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