Home schooling

[Grumpy521]

Recess during home schooling is even more important than when they're in regular school. When mine start getting wrestles, I send them behind the house to the creek.

 

[Grumpy521]

Recess during home schooling is even more important than when they're in regular school. When mine start getting wrestles, I send them behind the house to the creek.

 

[Sentry18]

We make our younger kids each grab a dog, put 'em on a leash, and walk around the long odd-shaped "block" a couple times. Then they can go in the back yard and play. The older kids want to work steady until they are done, then try and convince the home-school principal (Mrs. Sentry18) to let them go drive around.

 

[angie_nrs]

I've thought about home schooling a lot lately and I don't have school aged kids anymore. However, I always thought kids would get a much better education if parents served as teachers in their field of expertise. If you could get, say 10 parents together and each one of them has different types of experience or expertise in a subject, then they teach what they know.

For example....Don teaches Phsical Science and Geography, Amy teaches English and Literature, Paula teaches Farming. Joe teaches computers. Jessica teaches first aid and mending....etc. So those 10 parents have 2 kids each for a total of 20 kids. Each day these kids go to a different house/hall/church/rented building, etc. and they spend the day there. So these parents would have to take a day off every 2 weeks to teach. Maybe they go to Donna's house on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of every month. Donna teaches foraging and cooking. The next day Steve might teach math and personal finanace. He would have to have materials available for all of the ages of the kids he teaches, but Steve might also have help from his sister who would pitch in and help with questions or preparing lunch. Maybe these parents hire a full time classroom helper that would serve to keep things moving smoothly from day to day. These parents would have 2 weeks to get their class prepared.

Depending upon the parents, I think this model would work very well and the kids would have a better overall and functional education. On more important (and indepth) subjects like math, perhaps that subject gets in the curriculum more often than the other subjects, which would be much more useful than the ones kids are taking today such as gender studies.

Certainly there would need to be some tweeking, but I would love to see how a system like this would work out. If I was given a million dollars to test out a theory, I'd spend it on a concept like this. You'd have to have parents who give a crap in order for it to work out, so careful screening of (parents and kids) from the beginning would be pivotal.

 

[Morgan101]

The

I've thought about home schooling a lot lately and I don't have school aged kids anymore. However, I always thought kids would get a much better education if parents served as teachers in their field of expertise. If you could get, say 10 parents together and each one of them has different types of experience or expertise in a subject, then they teach what they know.

For example....Don teaches Phsical Science and Geography, Amy teaches English and Literature, Paula teaches Farming. Joe teaches computers. Jessica teaches first aid and mending....etc. So those 10 parents have 2 kids each for a total of 20 kids. Each day these kids go to a different house/hall/church/rented building, etc. and they spend the day there. So these parents would have to take a day off every 2 weeks to teach. Maybe they go to Donna's house on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of every month. Donna teaches foraging and cooking. The next day Steve might teach math and personal finanace. He would have to have materials available for all of the ages of the kids he teaches, but Steve might also have help from his sister who would pitch in and help with questions or preparing lunch. Maybe these parents hire a full time classroom helper that would serve to keep things moving smoothly from day to day. These parents would have 2 weeks to get their class prepared.

Depending upon the parents, I think this model would work very well and the kids would have a better overall and functional education. On more important (and indepth) subjects like math, perhaps that subject gets in the curriculum more often than the other subjects, which would be much more useful than the ones kids are taking today such as gender studies.

Certainly there would need to be some tweeking, but I would love to see how a system like this would work out. If I was given a million dollars to test out a theory, I'd spend it on a concept like this. You'd have to have parents who give a crap in order for it to work out, so careful screening of (parents and kids) from the beginning would be pivotal.

The concept has some merit, and would be worth exploring. Mankind had kids long before they had schools. Those kids had to learn from somewhere.

My wife was a teacher for over 40 years. It is a profession that is much maligned. Not everybody is cut out to teach, and teaching your own kids is not the best idea. You lose your objectivity very quickly.

About a million other questions come into play. Books? Curriculum? Testing? Standards? Consistency? Supplies? Location?

I would very much agree parents should be intimately involved with their children's education. They should be helping with homework every night, and checking progress. That is a huge part of the problem today.

 

[angie_nrs]

I agree Morgan, parents would have a lot of decisions to make before launch. With online learning, I think it would be much easier to introduce content such as with Kahn academy. I think with home schooling now, there are standard tests that need to be taken, but I'm not sure since I've never home schooled.

When my kids were in high school I always asked what needed to be done with school work and I would never get a straight answer. I constantly pushed and they came out of school with decent grades, but what a headache that was! They just didn't care much for school, and much of their homework I could not help them with b/c I didn't understand it, such as Trig. Blech! I hate advanced math. Unfortunately the schools push these advanced math concepts without first making sure kids thouroughly understand basic math. Many don't even know how to count back change without a register or computer. I believe a solid understanding of the basics would get most folks through their lives. In addition schools don't apply those math skills in useful ways. Kids come out of high school and have no understanding of basic personal finance. What the heck good is math skills if you can't apply it to useful areas of life? I took algebra and algebra 2 in school but never advanced further than that. I'm doing just fine and have never once used any concepts of algebra 2 in my life.

 

[Amish Heart]

I'm viewing this as "mini homeschooling". We did homeschool our oldest 3 years ago, and a lot was put into the day. Right now, the twins (highschoolers) are supposed to be online for their classes from 9 am to noon. Mostly it's goofing off in chat. The math teachers are giving up already and telling them to go online to Khan Academy on their own. Little granddaughter is on a curriculum I created (according to what she needs to learn), and I write out what needs to be read or worked on, stack it up, and away she goes. I check it afterwards and we go over any mistakes. Also do a daily quick spelling test using words that she read. This all takes a couple hours in the morning. Finish up to all have lunch together. Then exercise and chores and free time. Their school would be finishing for the summer in a month. They are notorious for doing nothing the last month of school.

 

[Morgan101]

I agree Morgan, parents would have a lot of decisions to make before launch. With online learning, I think it would be much easier to introduce content such as with Kahn academy. I think with home schooling now, there are standard tests that need to be taken, but I'm not sure since I've never home schooled.

When my kids were in high school I always asked what needed to be done with school work and I would never get a straight answer. I constantly pushed and they came out of school with decent grades, but what a headache that was! They just didn't care much for school and much of their homework I could not help them with b/c I didn't understand it, such as Trig. Blech! I hate advanced math. Unfortunately the schools push these advanced math concepts without first making sure kids thouroughly understand basic math. Many don't even know how to count back change without a register or computer. I believe a solid understanding of the basics would get most folks through their lives. In addition schools don't apply those math skills in useful ways. Kids come out of high school and have no understanding of basic personal finance. What the heck good is math skills if you can't apply it to useful areas of life? I took algebra and algebra 2 in school but never advanced further than that. I'm doing just fine and have never once used any concepts of algebra 2 in my life.

Angie:

You did EXACTLY the right thing by being involved, and taking an interest. I was exactly the same as you. I hated math. While you may not have been able to help with homework, I'm sure if they came how with a bad grade you would have been meeting with the teacher to get them help.

I completely agree with your assessment of not teaching the basics. I can say after working for over 45 years all in the private sector; most of it in a manufacturing environment; the highest order of math I used was fractions and percentages. Everything was basic math. Not being able to make change or balance a checkbook are serious failures of the system. You are right. None of that higher order math will be used unless you go into a field that requires it.

We need to get back to basics. I even heard that in the UK they were going to ban analog clocks because the idiot millennials couldn't tell time. Talk about dummying down.

 

[CrackbottomLouis]

I would love to homeschool my soon to be here kid when he gets to that age. Wife resistant. She doesn't feel up to it I think. I've been planting the seed for a while.