How’s it going with your non-homeschooling friends? Do they get what you’re doing? Do they think you’re crazy? Or are they just drifting away……?
A dear friend of mine and I lost our friendship over homeschooling. It wasn’t that she was mad at me for choosing to homeschool, and I doubt that she felt guilty that she wasn’t doing it. Those are the usual reasons that friends split up over homeschooling, at least from what I’ve heard. No, my friend was thrilled to put her kids in school and go back to a job she loved and missed while staying home while the kids were little. I think we just drifted apart because I was so busy having babies and homeschooling them while she was busy working and going back for more education.
Now we just send Christmas cards to each other. As far as I can tell, her kids have grown up fine, and everyone is doing well. I’m happy for her. But do I miss her?
A little. I guess I’m just more comfortable with the homeschooling crowd. They get me. They get what my life is like. And I get them.
To make things even better, being a homeschool mom means finding new friends all over the place. I meet them at conferences, when I speak to support groups, and online. No matter how they homeschool (Charlotte Mason, traditional, unschooling, etc.), we have the joy of homeschooling our kids in common.
So don’t be blue if homeschooling has put some distance between you and the friend(s) you used to hang out with. You’re in a different season of your life, and that may call for new friends. They’re out there waiting to meet you. Why not find a local support group or an online group* and start making new friends?
One of the best things about summer is that it reminds us that educating our children is not just up to us.
You’ll see this when you watch your child at the beach. I get to do this a lot because we’re blessed to have a beach a few blocks from our house. We can spend a lot of time there during the two warm months that comprise summer in northeast Wisconsin.
At the beach, my son takes his shovel and bucket and creates mountains, castles, roads, levees….he just lets his imagination loose and he has a ball. I don’t have to participate at all. In fact, now that he’s older, he prefers that I butt out! He has his own ideas.
When I watch him problem-solve after the tide takes down part of a wall of his castle, or when stray toddlers march through his masterpiece, leaving destruction in their wake, I’m reminded yet again that he’s capable of learning all on his own. He not only fixes the problem, but makes the project even better in the process.
Now, this particular son is 16 and developmentally delayed, but I saw the same thing in my older children when they were young, and I’m sure you see it in yours. God enables everyone to learn. While we homeschooling parents work hard to make a good learning environment for our children, it’s not up to us to make things happen. God has already taken care of that part.
This knowledge can be very freeing, if you’re a conscientious mom who wants to make sure her children learn what they need to know. This summer, give your children a bucket and a magnifying glass and take them to a pond so they can inspect the pond water for living creatures. Hand them a package of colored chalk and let them loose on the driveway or sidewalk. Don’t get involved in what they’re doing. Just watch, and you’ll see what I mean.
What interested me the most is that the rate of truancy increases as children get older, so that by the time they reach 12th grade, well over 40% of them miss at least ten days of school per 176-day school year, and a quarter of them miss 20 days or more per school year.
Some of this can be explained by the fact that 12th graders often have cars and can easily take the day off, drive around town, and no one will notice because they look like the young adults they are, not students. It’s a lot easier for them to play hooky than it is for your average first-grader.
But I wonder if there isn’t another reason so many teens skip school. My memory of the last two years of high school can be mostly summed up by the phrase “relentlessly boring.” Each semester, when I set up my schedule, I squeezed my class requirements into the tightest time period possible, skipping lunch and putting study hall at the end of the day, so I could be out of there as early as possible.
However, I didn’t spend that extra free time loafing. For most of my junior year, I had a job in a hardware store, working from 2:30 to 9 most days. So I needed to get out of school early. But I also had a life, one that extended beyond what was going on in my high school.
Most of my classes were dull, not very useful for the future, or both. There were some useful classes, like typing, home ec and industrial arts, but those of us who were college-bound knew better than to court the possibility of wrecking our GPAs by risking a B or C in those subjects. So I did my best to stay awake through classes that were not very interesting or not very useful: World History via lectures and textbooks, Literature via lectures and textbooks, Sociology via silly games and fake wedding ceremonies. Snore.
However, I took one class during my senior year that was excellent, and I loved it. It was designed and run by one of the school’s social studies teachers, and it was called Public Service Practicum.
The teacher, a highly regarded educator named Richard Chierico, designed the course to help students understand what goes on in local government. He worked out agreements with local government entities, including the village board, the public library board, public works, etc., to allow each of us to work within the system as volunteers, and to shadow various employees so that we would get a firsthand look at how local government operates.
I worked with the public library board, which meant I had the chance to work at all the stations in the library so that I understood just what went on. Then I attended library board meetings after being filled in on the issues by the head librarian. I even attended a gathering of head librarians from all over the region. Having long been a bookworm and regular visitor to the library, I found it all fascinating.
As much as I enjoyed the course, I think what made it extra special is that Mr. Chierico treated us as young adults. He trusted us to go out during the school day to our different posts in local government and to arrange future appointments with our supervisors. He didn’t treat us as other teachers did, as students in need of repetitive instructions and orders. He just expected that we would do what we needed to, and so we did.
I think that’s the problem with high schools, and why there’s such a high truancy rate among older students. What teens do in school is not relevant, it’s not interesting, and it’s too much of what they’ve been doing for all their lives: sit still, raise your hand, you need a pass to go to the bathroom, no you can’t leave campus for lunch. We all know the drill.
Teens are too old for that kind of school. They need to be challenged, trusted and freed. Will some of them bolt if given freedom? Sure, but you can’t imprison everyone because some will run.
Teens are smart enough to know when something’s useful or of value. They’re also smart enough to know when they’re being warehoused. Instead of trying to figure out how to reduce the truancy rate by imprisoning teens further, parents and teachers need to consider other alternatives.
I think this is why so many teens have done well in homeschooling. It gives them the time and the freedom to explore their interests and to consider what they need for their futures. Not to mention, they never need a pass to go to the bathroom.
(For ideas on what useful things teens can do, check out the video below.)
Yesterday was the annual event that always threatens to give the mailman a hernia: the arrival of the latest Rainbow Resourcecatalog 🙂
That’s right, over 1300 pages of homeschool books, curriculum and assorted goodies. I’ve been receiving Rainbow’s catalog for many years, but this one must be the biggest yet.
If you’re going to take the time to read a book about homeschooling, don’t you want it to be the wholesome, practical advice of a mom who has “been there and done that?” Author Barbara Frank’s warm conversational tone leaves the reader of this book with the feeling that you’ve just finished a coffee chat where you’ve been able to ask all your questions and each was met with a knowing smile that implied she knew exactly what you were asking. And each was met with a no-frills answer that empowers the hearer rather than overwhelms. She covers all the basic topics – getting started, teaching techniques and specific subjects, covering the bases, and home organization. Two chapters were particularly helpful – overcoming obstacles and coping with challenges. In these she not only looks at personal habits that can get in the way but also personality-driven roadblocks. Don’t be fooled by the “plain Jane” cover or the lack of detailed information about homeschool philosophies or educational approaches readily available elsewhere; this is a must-have book that will help you start out or “regroup” your homeschool into a livable lifestyle. 192 pgs, pb. ~ Janice
Got your Rainbow Resource catalog yet? If you’ve never seen one, you can sign up here for a free copy. I’ve been buying from Rainbow for 20 years, and you can’t beat their prices or their service.
Over the years I’ve spent a lot of money on new homeschooling books and curriculum, and it was worth it, no question. But I have to admit that I often found some of my best stuff while browsing at garage sales.
One year I saw an ad in the garage sale section of the newspaper classifieds that said, “Teacher retiring, many years’ worth of books and teaching supplies for sale.” I turned up in her driveway early the first day of the sale, and was it ever worth it! She had beautiful old textbooks, lots of children’s literature (mostly hardcover), and reproducible masters of worksheets from the 1960s that I couldn’t resist. I was like a kid in a candy store.
And how many times at other garage sales did I find unused workbooks, like-new boxes of flashcards and untouched educational games bought by well-meaning parents who planned to help their kids hone their skills over the summer or on weekends but never got around to it?
At garage sales, I’ve bought educational computer games, like-new art supplies and classic literature and movies (Moody science videos!) sold for pennies on the dollar. The beauty of all these purchases is that, once we were through with them, I resold them at my own garage sales.
These days, many support groups sponsor used curriculum sales, and I highly recommend them. But don’t forget to hit the garage sales, too. With money tight these days, finding something wonderful for a few bucks (or cents) can be very encouraging.
