Barbara Frank

Let’s do something different this summer! “The Imperfect Homeschooler” newsletter will be back in September. Until then I’ll be sending out brief but encouraging messages about homeschooling to every subscriber. They’re called “The ABCs of Homeschooling,” and they start this Wednesday, 6/15/11. I thought this would be a simple way to keep that homeschooling fire burning all summer, whether or not you plan on actually doing school over summer break 

If you’re a subscriber to “The Imperfect Homeschooler” newsletter, you’ll automatically receive “The ABCs of Homeschooling.” Not a subscriber? Don’t miss out on a single letter of the alphabet this summer: sign up HERE.

No, it’s not what you think. I’m sure your kids can talk, chatter, question, and occasionally demand (mine sure could!)….the question is, can your kids communicate calmly and clearly so that they can be understood? So that they don’t come across as rude or demanding? So that they can get along with people and even defend their faith?

How about email? Can they write emails that will make sense, come across politely and not make them look bad? Many employers say most of their recent-college-grad employees have difficulty communicating properly. How can you teach your children to be the exceptions to that rule?

Learn more about effective communication for the 21^st century in a podcast I recently recorded with JoJo Tabares of Art of Eloquence. JoJo is a whiz at explaining how to raise children who communicate well, and why it’s so important that you do so.

For many years, I’ve kept this little note tucked in the clipboard that I use for my son’s lesson plans.

I needed this note because teaching Josh has been a long-term proposition. He picks up some things slowly and other things not at all. We’ve been doing educational activities together for years; at times, especially at first, I got very discouraged because I was used to the steady learning pace of my older, “typical” children. This verse has always been a good reminder for me and helped me keep at it no matter how I felt.

Today was Josh’s last day of school in the eyes of the state because he turned 18 this semester. I was in Target yesterday and saw “Graduation 2011” paper plates and cups on clearance; it gave me a funny feeling because that would be Josh’s class. We decided not to make a big deal of his graduation because then he would think he never had to “do school” with me again. His sister said he’d probably think it was another birthday party. I don’t know about that (although he would definitely be expecting presents). 

I don’t want him to think he’ll never sit down and work with me again. He has a lot to learn, and people with Down syndrome have a learning curve that’s always going up (albeit slowly) throughout their lives. What they couldn’t pick up at age 10 might be absorbed at age 20 or 30. That’s why we’re not looking at today as the end of his education.

That said, teaching him will become more informal. He’s finally gotten good at asking us questions, so my husband and I will always be a part of his education. But as for the requirement of doing a certain amount of school each year, well, that’s over now.

It’s a weird feeling. I’ve been homeschooling since I was in my 20s. What do I do now? Being over 50, I’m not getting responses to the resumes I send out (then again, why would they want someone who’s been out of the full-time workforce for nearly 30 years?). It’s both scary and exciting to wonder what’s next.

I think I’ll keep this little scrap of paper; it can remind me that God knows what the future holds, and that He’ll help me overcome discouragement about the future just as He helped me overcome discouragement about educating Josh.

I recently read a comment on an online article that said something to the effect of “Homeschooling parents are control freaks who want to run their children’s lives.”

It bugged me, yet I realized that there’s some truth to that statement. While no one wants to be called a control freak, and most homeschooling parents’ goal is to raise their children to become independent young adults, the fact is that there are a lot of dangers in this world that we parents want to keep away from our children. Many of them are found in public schools, but there are also everyday dangers that we want to avoid; homeschooling allows us to avoid them.

For example, homeschooled children have more opportunities to get physical exercise than other children. They’re not stuck at a desk for many hours a day. They can run outside and play whenever the weather isn’t bad. They have plenty of free time to use in physical pursuits such as tree-climbing, basketball playing and walking the dog, because they’re not tied to a daily school schedule. So unless their parents make them do online school for eight hours a day, they’re getting more exercise than most children.

This helps them avoid the common danger of childhood obesity, which is worsening. In fact, a recent study found that today’s children actually have less physical strength and carry more fat than the children of the late 1990s. So when homeschooling parents “control their children’s environment,” they’re actually giving their children a healthier lifestyle than they would have if they went to school.

Another danger that many homeschooling parents avoid is allowing their children random and unsupervised Internet access before they’re old enough to handle it. When I was doing research for my new book, I was shocked to learn the extent to which cyberbullying has spread, and how much it has hurt children, to the point that some of them are committing suicide. Then there’s the potential for pedophiles to reach them through online contact—ugh.

Yet today’s schoolchildren often carry Internet access on their bodies in the form of iTouches and Smartphones. At home, they have unfettered access to the Internet. Their parents say they let them conduct their social lives on the Internet because they don’t want them to feel left out. Relatives with young children tell me that party invitations are now distributed online, so if you want your child to be included, you have to let them be on Facebook (which is now actively pursuing children under the age of 13).

This is another danger homeschooling parents can avoid. By not giving our kids unsupervised round-the-clock access to the Internet until they’re old enough to handle it, we can protect them from the dangers that lurk there. Some will call that being a control freak. I call it something else: parenting.

How about you? Do you encourage your children to run and play outside? Do you have full or partial restrictions on their Internet use? Do you mind being called a control freak homeschooling parent? I’d love to get your take on this.

And so it begins…school districts are finding that they can keep their school year from being extended further into summer by allowing kids to learn online on snow days. And already they’ve discovered that kids like being free to learn online, and parents like seeing what the kids are learning. Isn’t this an interesting turn of events?

Personally, I think they’ve stepped out onto the slippery slope of (dare I say it?) educational freedom. Of course they think they don’t want to be there; note the comment of this parent:

“I think it’s a great tool to have,” said Cameron’s mother, Jane. “Obviously it’s not going to replace going to school. But for situations like this, I think it’s wonderful.”

I think it’s wonderful, too, because once people get a taste of freedom, they want more. I can picture kids being allowed to stay home on Veterans Day as long as they do an online history study assigned by their teacher. How about Valentine’s Day at home? They can exchange virtual valentines on Facebook while finishing their math homework online. I’m sure you can think of other ways kids can learn at home on school “holidays.”

Here’s where the slippery slope comes in: the more kids “do school” online, the more they’ll want to keep doing so. As for the school districts, they’ll soon find all sorts of reasons to let kids learn online because it will save money (most school districts are hurting financially these days) and teachers will be free to supervise from afar.

The increasing numbers of parents who either work from home, work part-time or are unemployed means there will be adult supervision during the day. Once regular days of “school at home” become more prevalent, and everyone gets comfortable with the concept, more families are going to take advantage of full-time virtual learning as offered by the public schools here in Wisconsin and other states. I can picture angry taxpayers eventually insisting that the schools consolidate their physical facilities to reflect the lower numbers of kids showing up, thus lowering costs. As for the kids who are too poor to have a computer or Internet access, the cost could be taken on by the school district for much less than the cost of keeping up all the buildings and staff.

And just think of the teens whose grades will go up because they can do school later in the day, after they’ve had enough sleep, instead of getting up at 6 am!

Yes, this turn of events has real possibilities.

Be inspired, be encouraged: check out this week’s Carnival of Homeschooling!

(Note: this is the fourth and last post in a series related to my new book, Thriving in the 21st Century.)

Over the past few months, we’ve seen that preparing our children for a challenging future means not replicating school in our homes. It also means giving our children the opportunity for free exploration, hands-on learning and discovering the upside to failure. These are important components for raising children to thrive in the rapidly changing 21st century.

But just as we no longer teach our children to use the slide rule or achieve perfect penmanship because they’re not necessary any more, there are some things we may not need to do to prepare our children to thrive in the 21st century. One of them is to push our children to earn a college degree.

Not attending college is a touchy subject for homeschooling parents. Back when homeschooling first hit the public consciousness, there were many naysayers who didn’t believe that parents could teach their children well enough for them to succeed in life. Here’s the gauntlet those critics of homeschooling held up: “How will homeschooled kids ever get into college?”

They got their answer when homeschooler Grant Colfax was accepted to Harvard; years later, when he and his homeschooled brothers had all successfully completed college, there was more proof. And when some suggested the boys were simply products of excellent genetics, their father pointedly noted that two of his boys were adopted.

Since then, college has become the holy grail for most homeschooling parents. A home-educated child with a college degree is proof to friends and family that this homeschooling thing works. So to suggest that most of their kids probably won’t need to earn a college degree may seem almost sacrilegious to some. But looking at college graduation as a badge of honor doesn’t necessarily help our children.

The push for college in society as a whole over the past 40 years has ignored the fact that many kids are not cut out for college. They may not be book learners, or they may have gifts that are better served by on-the-job training or tech school. Evidence shows that forcing all kids into college has resulted in a low graduation rate (only half of all college students graduate within six years) and a lot of dropouts hampered by large levels of student loan debt racked up during the time they were in college.

Even young people who excelled in college are finding that the high-priced degree they earned is not much help in the new economy. If they can find work, it may not be in their field of study; it may also pay less than they expected to earn. This can result in real hardship if they took on a lot of student loan debt, which can almost never be discharged through bankruptcy, leaving them with a burden of debt that could weigh them down much of their lives.

The fact is that most of the job growth over the coming decade as predicted by the U.S. government does not require a four-year degree, and college won’t be necessary for most workers (I’ve included those statistics in my new book, Thriving in the 21st Century.)

This doesn’t mean that we should discourage all of our children from going to college. Those with the smarts and the desire to have careers that logically and/or legally require advanced education (physicians, scientists, etc.) should certainly be encouraged and helped to attend college. But the idea that every young person can and should go to college makes no sense in light of the changes in our economy. We parents need to be brave enough to buck the trend and look at each of our children as individuals, determine which (if any) will likely benefit from going to college, and then help the rest figure out the best way to proceed so that they’ll thrive in the 21^st century.

(Thriving in the 21^st Century: Preparing Our Children for the New Economic Reality is now available! It’s packed with ways to prepare your children for the future. Learn more HERE.)

Missed the first three parts of “Preparing Our Kids for a Challenging Future”? You’ll find them here: #1, #2 and #3.

I did all my grocery shopping the other day and was dismayed to find that prices continue to go up. To make matters worse, in some cases the price increase is disguised by smaller packaging, which just makes me mad that food companies think we’re so stupid that we don’t realize what they’ve done.

For instance, a can of tuna is now 5 oz. I have recipes from when I was a newlywed (back in 1979) that refer to a 7 oz. can of tuna. So now, when I double a recipe using tuna, I have to buy three cans of tuna, not two. Do they think I don’t notice this?

As I’ve written elsewhere, I do the usual things to combat inflation. I bought 10 pounds of ground beef when it was on sale, cooked up 3 pounds and froze it, and froze the rest raw for meatloaf, etc. I watch all prices and only buy items when they’re on sale for a good price (as opposed to “sale prices” that are actually regular-price items placed on the sale aisle with a big sign, which is why we need to know our prices).

But as each grocery shopping trip reveals higher prices, I’m thinking I need to add a new tactic, one that makes sense but that I hadn’t really thought about in recent years: we need to eat less.

So instead of freezing one-pound packages of meat, I’m freezing ¾-pound packages, figuring a little smaller hamburger patty won’t hurt any of us. I’m putting fewer chicken pieces in each bag before I freeze it. I’m making cookies and rolls a wee bit smaller than usual.

This will make the food I buy last longer, and will hopefully help me shed a little weight, too. It’s healthier, and it also goes back to the way we lived when I was a child.

For instance, my grandmother used to split a can of pop between four of us kids. Each one’s share barely filled a juice glass (and we knew better than to ask for seconds!) Her logic was that pop wasn’t good for us so we shouldn’t have too much.

In an age of 32-oz. soda cups in fast-food restaurants, I think our society has lost that sense of limiting ourselves. But the era of unrestrained appetites may be coming to an end, thanks to inflation. I guess every cloud really does have a silver lining.

Previous posts on saving money that you may have missed:

Exercises in Frugality

Exercises in Frugality, Part 2

Exercises in Frugality, Part 3

Exercises in Frugality, Part 4

Exercises in Frugality, Part 5

I never get tired of reading that a homeschooled child has won a spelling or geography bee. In the most recent case, it was a girl named Annie who won Illinois’ Geography Bee. Congratulations, Annie!

But though I love hearing about homeschooled kids winning these contests, I’ve been dismayed by some homeschooling parents I’ve known who think these bees are some kind of referendum on homeschooling, and for that reason push their kids and others to sign up for them.

I think pushing a child to compete in any contest is unfair. Some kids are overwhelmed by contests, and others just don’t care. To me, the child who wants to be in a contest is the only one who should be in it. Note what motivated Annie to compete in the geography bee:

Ulrich was prepared for the challenge. During the week leading up to the competition, she spent five hours a day studying atlases, geography books and reference materials online.
She was not only driven to win, but passionate about the subject as a whole.

Note also her mother’s role in the process:

“She really did all the work, I just drove the bus,” said a near-speechless Janet Ulrich, who doubles as mother and teacher.

Smart girl. Smart mom.

Today was my first day back to homeschooling after a 2.5 month vacation.

Ok, so it was a working vacation, as I spent the time finishing my new book. My husband took over my teaching duties, and I have to say that he did a great job. Josh got to make a life-size human skeleton (complete with organs and muscles) out of paper. (My husband is very artistic.) They also made several different animal and car models and did a study of bird anatomy that included making several lovely paintings.

Unfortunately for Josh, I’m not that creative. Over the weekend, he was actually pretty excited about doing school with me again today. But after a morning spent doing math, practicing sight words and writing thank-you notes for his birthday gifts, he must have decided that he hadn’t missed much. His first comment at lunch was “When are we taking a break again?” 

A recent case decided in the New Hampshire Supreme Court has forced an 11-year-old girl into public school against her will and her mother’s. The case resulted from the parents’ 1999 divorce and the father’s belief that homeschooling does not allow “adequate socialization” for his daughter, despite the fact that in addition to a home-taught Bible class, the mother:

…also taught her daughter math, reading, English, social studies, science, handwriting and spelling using curriculum “comparable to the public school curriculum at the same age.” She also allowed her daughter to take private music lessons and attend a monthly theater class and weekly classes in art, Spanish and physical education at a public school.

Without getting into my perception of the father’s real motivation here, I’m just saddened and frustrated to see yet another divorce cause trouble for homeschoolers in general. Having known of several divorces in the homeschool community, I think it’s a shame that these divorces not only cause misery for the children involved, but that it seems like there’s always one parent who has to punish the former spouse by taking them to court over homeschooling, vaccinations, lack of vaccinations, etc., often creating legal precedents that then affect other homeschooling families.

Seriously, divorcing parents, must you involve the courts in these things? The rest of us are getting a little irritated at being affected by your poor decisions.

Have you ever added up what you spend to homeschool your children?

I used to, and still do. For the first few years (back in the 1980s), I spent around $500 a year to educate our two eldest children. I was buying books from A Beka back then, which isn’t cheap.

Once I had a few years of homeschooling under my belt, I became more interested in trying a variety of books and curriculum, so my annual expenditure actually went down a few hundred dollars or so. Most of what I did spend went to Rainbow Resource at each year’s homeschool convention; Christian Book Distributors, Miller Pads and Paper and Rod and Staff got a few dollars from us, too.

We spent only a few hundred dollars a year (even after having two more children) until the first year of high school for our eldest, when we signed her up for a correspondence school. We registered her brother for the same program the following year, and that was probably our most expensive year of homeschooling ever: $1000 total.

Before long, we jointly decided that the program involved too much memorization for tests, so we went back to doing our own thing. Since then, I doubt I’ve ever crossed the $300/year mark, no matter how many children I was homeschooling at one time.

I’m going to guess that you spend a similar amount. Am I right?

Whatever you spend, I’ll bet it’s not as much as the figures quoted for private and public education by writer Bill Walker from New Hampshire:

The Well School in Peterborough charges $7,360 for grades 1–4 and $8,800 for grades 5–8. Pine Hill Waldorf School in Wilton is $12,160 for grades 1–8. Monadnock Waldorf School costs $7800 for all grades. Here’s the fee schedule for St. Joseph Regional in Keene: “Tuition for grades K-8 for Catholics is $3,153, and $4,412 for non-Catholics. There is a 5 percent discount for one-time payment in full, and a discount for multiple children from a family.”

Now that’s private school tuition, and it far exceeds what our family has historically spent on homeschooling each year. But it’s nothing compared to what Walker says the public schools in New Hampshire spend: over $14,000 a year per student.

I have a feeling that far exceeds the most freespending homeschooling family in the country. But if you’re the exception, I’d love to hear where you’re spending all that cash! 

I don’t always find time to promote the Carnival of Homeschooling as I should. It’s such a great resource for both new and veteran homeschooling parents. Every post gives you a peek into the world of homeschooling. You learn about the enormous variety of ways that parents are educating their children.

This week’s edition of the carnival is no exception. As a bonus, it’s very pretty, thanks to the artwork of Swedish artist Carl Larsson, whose work I adore because his favorite subjects were his family and his beautiful Swedish home (yes, I’m part Swedish). Visit the carnival and you’ll see what I mean!

Imagine traveling in your vintage 1928 auto all over the world. Imagine having four kids (born in four different countries) during the course of your travels. Imagine homeschooling them while you travel.

Impossible? No: the Zapp family has done so for the past 11 years, living out of their car or staying with strangers most of the time. They homeschool their children using curriculum from an online school, but their children’s real education comes from meeting people and seeing the sights in North and South America, Australia and New Zealand, and most recently, the Far East.

They tried settling down in Mrs. Zapp’s homeland of Argentina, but only lasted a few weeks before they gave in to the urge to be back on the road again.

Check out this article ; there are some great photos and a map that vividly illustrates just how far this young family with wanderlust has traveled.

I’ve been addicted to reading since I was three years old. I can’t help it, it’s what I do. 

For many years, well into adulthood, I spent several hours each weekend reading the voluminous Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune. But it’s now a shadow of its former self, thanks to the Internet, which is where I do most of my reading these days.

I love having such a variety of interesting things to read. Once in a while, however, I hit on something really good, something someone has written that is so spot-on that I just have to share it with others. And have I got something good to share today.

Prolific writer and economic historian Gary North has written an awesome piece entitled “Public Education is Going Down” that clearly explains how the rise of the Internet is slowly killing public education. His theory is that, thanks to the growing availability of knowledge online at an increasingly lower cost, we parents are regaining the educational control that was lost centuries ago:

Home schooling is a throwback to the fifteenth century. It lets parents choose the content and structure of their children’s education. But it goes far beyond anything available then. One size does not fit all: all parents or all children. There is enormous diversity today, and it is getting even more diverse.

Read the entire article for yourself, and be sure to catch his last line. It made me smile  :)