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June 16, 2009 Newsletter
Home Schooling: Why We Did It
I had already taught high school and junior high mathematics for six years when I quit my job in the border town of Presidio, Texas, on the reason that (having had a son two years before) I simply wanted to stay home with him, and perhaps pursue some sort of Master's Degree (which I did at the local college, in Counseling). There was a "hidden" agenda, however; I was bound and determined to home school him and any other children we had. Based on the sometimes barely manageable behavior of some of my students, who saw ignorance as a badge of honor, and the barely administrative bent in some of the principals I served under--for instance, in my first year of teaching when I also sponsored the high school yearbook, the principal took the side of a conniving student whom had stolen equipment when I was trying to get him off the yearbook staff, and was rewarded by this student with having his tires slashed and the outside of his house vandalized! And when I taught in a gangland high school in El Paso, the principal expelled a nearly psychopathic gangster student only after he nearly threw a ninja star into my eye! But anyway...I was bound and determined that there would be NO WAY my kids would have to deal with this sort of nonsense!
But it wasn't just their safety (or mine) that I was concerned about. Fact is, when it comes to how students "learn" in public schools...sometimes I think it is a wonder that they learn anything they should!...I know the drill. As much many teachers DO give a damned that the student does learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, teachers are taught in teacher training programs on and off college campuses to do the following: first, teach to the lowest common denominator, teach to the test (and all states have high school exit tests now...and Texas was one of the first. Now you know where "No Child Left Behind" came from: the state that Goerge W. Bush governed for several years), teach some state mandated "essential elements" regardless of whether these items prove real subject learning has taken place, and teach the subjects mandated, regardless of whether the student can handle the subject (or wants to). This means teaching chemistry to students that can barely multiply and divide (Texas has state mandated requirements that all graduating students have three years of science: physical science in grade nine, biology in grade ten, and chemistry in grade eleven). This means teaching upper level algebra (Algebra Two) to students who couldn't find the square root of a perfect square looking at a chart of perfect squares, or to students who have to complete Algebra One in two years because they simply can't handle completing it in one year (so-called "paced" Algebra...I taught five sections of it in El Paso!). This means teaching four years of English to students whose parents only speak Spanish or another language in the home, and who refuse to speak English when they get to English class! Muy deficil, if you know what I mean!
In fact, I recommend home schooling for any family, regardles of whether you use a Christian curriculum or not (I say that because I think the majority of home schoolers are Christian-based), EXCEPT in two cases. One, both parents must work, but can't afford a private tutor or other home schooling set up. Two, if the state (such as Texas, unfortunately) prevents the home schooled child from participating in public school extra-curricular activities, such as sports, and the child in question would clearly benefit from having access to these activities, over and above the benefits of home schooling. For instance, the kid is going to be the future Tom Brady, or Lebron James. Our own son, for instance, would have made a darned good linebacker!
We use the "A Beka" curriculum. However, we are not "enrolled" in their home school course. That is, we do not submit all homework and test assignments for transcript grades and a "diploma" from Pensacola Christian School-College, and, further, I have never used any Bible course curriculum lesson plans. The last is because all Christian Schools have some sort of sectarian bent in their Bible curriculums; A Beka is Baptist, and I have some issues with Baptist doctrines and we are strictly non-denominational. As Martin Luther once said, a person ought to read the Bible for themselves, not be told "what it says." Another thing about A Beka I like is the math curriculum: rigorous, but not overly so...we used Saxon for my son and, though hs has good number sense, the curriculum was just a wee bit too rigorous. Further, unless your state requires some sort of "proof of enrollment" in someone's course of study, it is probably easier to just buy the books (and lesson plans as well as teacher editions) and structure your home school according to what you want. If you enroll in the study course, you MUST meet their deadlines!
In case you are wondering, other good curriculums used by families in our home school group are Calvert (grades 1-8 only), Alpha-Omega, and Bob Jones (which has a really neat satellite TV program). Then there is "eclectic," using books from wherever you can get them, including old public school texts. Beware, however, if you choose to use old math texts...we used some old math texts for my son that I had gotten when I taught HS math, and transitioning from those to Saxon was, well...it didn't work! We had to keep our son behind a year because this didn't work, and other things we tried didn't work either, including using an adult education tapes series for Spanish.
If this is too much structure for you, then try "unschooling," which is just as much an "education" for the teacher as it is for the student. I couldn't do it; I need some sort of structure to teach around. To find out more about this option, Google "unschooling." Mainly what this seems to involve is "unlearning" all the mechanisms of traditional public schooling, and establishing non-traditional structures.
The thing is, compared to most families we know who start schooling at 8 am and end the day around noon, like clockwork, we start school anywhere from 10:30 am (we are sometimes late sleepers) and go until 4 pm, with various breaks. Sometimes our daughter "does her Japanese" at night (for Japanese, we use a college text, "Beginning Japanese, Part 1" by Elanor Harz Jorden...which amazingly, is the same text our Japanese "sensei" used at UC Berkley...in the early 70s!) Other courses (she's a senior this coming year) will include English (spelling/vocab, language, English Lit, composition), American Government/Economics, Physics, Trigonometry/Advanced Math, Spanish, Drivers Ed (we use "Drivers Ed in a Box," which costs about $250), Pslams/Proverbs, Speech (one semester), and an elective of her choice. She is also going to be cooking for the family one night a week!
Now, some folks have said to me that home school retards "socialization," but that is ridiculous! Our son, who had nary a boyhood chum, except for the year we lived in El Paso and a year when there was a boy his age out here in the mountains, is now going to start his senior year a Texas A & M (Galveston), and has all sorts of friends, a girlfriend for two years (she has already graduated), and is a campus leader! Our daughter, who has had friends who were only summer visitors and a family with girls who lived here for a couple of year, several years ago, has been going to Girl Scout Camp (Mitre Peak) for the last seven years and this year is a Junior Counselor there! Given the opportunity, she has never had problems making friends. As a matter of fact, whereas many children in public schools have difficulty dealing with adults, parents and otherwise, our two have never had this problem, and are a comfortable with adult friends as with peers. Now I call that REAL socialization! And they don't have "maturity issues," either.
Another reason folks balk is the cost. Even I have complained, because not only do we have to pay for home school materials, but we have to pay public school taxes as well, about $400 a year. However, in our situation, being about 20 miles from town and driving on dirt raods out here, we would probably spend more money on transportation and wear and tear on vehicles, even if we carpooled. Our school district does not have bus service. But still... Consider this. In Washington, DC, the average cost per pupil to educate him is over $15,000!. And DC has one of the worst school districts in the nation! A few years ago, we spent about $250 on textbooks and another $130 on a taped chemistry course for my son, who was going to be majoring in a science (marine biology-fisheries management). Over a year ago, we spent about $230 on Rosetta Stone's "Japanese I" CD set for our daughter. She completed the course but wasn't satisifed; we learned our pastor, who spent 12 years working in Japan in the 70's and 80's, was fluent and was willing to teach her Japanese, for free! For our daughter's senior year in high school, we will spend about $100 in materials, mostly quiz-test booklets and teacher answer keys, plus an SAT test review book with 8 practice tests. Let's see...instead of spending $15,000 plus a year to keep a student stupid, we spend about $200 a year or less, on the average, per student. Whereas the majority of DC students wind up dropping out or not going to college (heading into the workforce or other) with that $15,000 plus per student, we spend about one-one-hundredth of that and send our son to Texas A & M (so what if he doesn't graduate with honors with about a B average overall? He WILL graduate with NO DEBT!) Our daughter? Likely it will be either University of Texas, El Paso (UTEP), or University of Texas (Longhorns...and our son's an Aggie! Oh, the irony!), at least for a year or two. Unfortunately, the college she wants to go to (either Rice U or Austin College, outstanding private colleges with top Asian Studies programs with "study abroad" options) are VERY EXPENSIVE (and difficult to get into). Factoring in what we must pay in school taxes, we pay about $650 a year on education expenses (but fortunately, Fort Davis has pretty good public schools that do not take but a small amount of federal funding. They don't go by the "No Child Left Behind" program, for one thing).
Moving on to "commentary,"...One of the best explanations as to why this country continues to want to make war everywhere--though we simply can no longer afford to do this!--can be found by reading Chris Hedges here. I never realized that the economic reasons for war had so much to do with just keeping our banking system afloat. Even so, at some point, if what Hedges says is true, our banking system will collapse and thus so will our warmaking. I think there is more to it than this, but this article was very interesting. Moving on to that shooting at the Holocaust Museum...haven't I said in the past that one of the consequences of having Israel running our foreign policy was that some folks (patsies? maybe...this has a "false flag" feel to it) would want to somehow take it out on Jews, even if it wasn't really "taking it out on Jews." But what I want to say is this: is anyone really this surprised that Ron Paul is taking flak over this, just because the guy (patsy?) who did this was a supporter of the "Liberty Lobby," which is big on Paul? And is anyone surprised that sites like Daily Kos and Huffington Post are using their own version of "divide and conquer" tactics, calling people who want to audit the Federal Reserve "terrorists"? But the same goes for Glenn Beck (who was starting to make sense for a change), calling 9-11 Truthers "terrorists" because supposedly the shooter (patsy?) disagreed with the "official version" of 9-11? With all the divide and conquer tactics used by both sides (the same side of course--love the system you're in), it's a wonder that any Americans have sane judgment nowadays!
I now close with this video, which I call the "mother of all economic rants" (yes, that is also the title!). You now have options as to what to do weith that old TV set of yours...
Don't forget, if you have a comment on this or other posts, e-mail me with your comment, and put the name of the article in the subject line.
