My kids are homeschooled. These days, I rarely have to explain that to anyone. There are plenty of homeschoolers in our area and the public schools have a four day a week schedule (or at least they did the last time I looked.) We don't get the "no school today?" question much at all anymore.
Except for that cashier at the grocery store a couple of days ago who sternly told my son that it didn't matter if he was homeschooled, he had to go back to school. She'd asked him if he was excited about starting school and he'd told her that he does school all year and I don't know if she didn't understand his answer or just didn't like his answer.
And the cousin who asked me one night if I just sat the kids down at the kitchen table and told them what I thought they needed to know. No wonder he'd treated me like a lunatic when I first mentioned homeschooling.
I'm not teaching my kids just what I think they should know. Or just what I know. I'm not trying to shelter them from opinions or lifestyles that I disagree with. In this day and age, I don't think I could do that even if I wanted to.
We don't participate in those online courses that they advertise on television. Those didn't even exist (at least not in their current form) when we started with our oldest.
What we do started out as a "school in a box" curriculum. We bought a package that included all of the books and a teacher's guide with a schedule that tells you which pages to do on which days.
Over the years, we've strayed more and more from the strict schedule, replacing the math portion with one that worked better for us, skipping some books and adding others, studying subjects when the kids were interested in them instead of waiting a year or two until it comes up in the curriculum, and learning about things that aren't in the curriculum at all. The goal is for them to learn as much as they can about our big wonderful world, not for them to learn it in a particular order.
I'm deliberately not going into my reasons for homeschooling here. I'm kind of rabid on the subject, at least when it comes to my own kids. If you want to have a private discussion about the whys and hows, send me an email.
Fun to learn you homeschool, too! I'm in my last year with my youngest as she'll be in dual enrollment at the community college next year.
ReplyDeleteI applaud you for homeschooling. A good friend of mine homeschooled her two boys and they went on to high level professional careers making lots of $$. They are smart, creative, fun and good family men. She helps with the grandkids now too, but think they go to public schools. She moved to another state and I'm not up-to-date with what is going on in her life these days.
ReplyDeleteHomeschooling is great! I was a public school teacher and I loved what I did, but if I had little children at home now, I'd be homeschooling. A lot of my friends do. There children score very well on national tests, too.
ReplyDeleteAMEN ,we loved home ed.
ReplyDeleteisn't it amazing how strangers, esp CLERKS in stores think they can tell your child what to do ?! LOL they are working as a clerk for heaven sake !
Our daughter had several adults attack her for being Home ed ,ADULTS !
We developed some great lines to counter them too.
when asked about 'socialization' I would say : I know, I worry about all those kids being locked up in a class room all day for 240 plus days a yr. scary ! ( I got some strange looks ).
or if asked if school was out for the day , I would say , I don't know :_)
again, strange looks .LOL
sometimes I would ask if they had kids & if so , where were they ? then I would reply with a , Oh...
as if it was a bad/strange thing. :-)
thankfully we had great support system & our daughter graduated 2015 & is working part time & paying for ALL her college courses :-) Mission accomplished .
AMEN !