Freebies – What could be Better?

Happy Scribe: Irish Proverbs

We all love freebies – Especially if it is something really cool … erm… education wise that is.  Westvon Publisher is a small publishing house that creates a number of products for homeschoolers.  (I think anyone with school-age kids could use most of these products though, not just homeschoolers).  I love their Reading Logs (to keep track of what my daughter has read) and I use their History Scribe books as supplements to our history and language arts program.   I think they could be worked into just about any part of the curriculum actually.  I also use their Master Planner tools.

Oh… the freebies, you’re asking.  Well, every month Westvon Publisher’s has a free download available at their website so you can try out their products.  This month they have a sample of their Happy Scribe program: Irish Proverbs in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. ( And they have 17% off all their products as well! ).   The Happy Scribe books are e-books which you download and print out as needed, and their are so many of them! There is a book for any interest.  They are also cheaper if you buy them in groups.

Handwriting is not taught in schools like it once was.  I’m not even sure public schools around me teach it any longer.  My daughter’s private school did until 4th grade, so I was lucky in that respect.  When she went to the Charter School, she told me no one wrote in cursive, everyone printed.  Once we started homeschooling I didn’t have her practice handwriting, I thought hers was good enough.  But it began to deteriorate over time, I could barely read it.  She began printing more and more.  Enough of that, I thought!  I could have her practice her handwriting from passages we read, and I have done that.  But frankly, this is easier for me.

There was an interesting entry on the Core Knowledge Blog not too long ago, “Handwriting Is Still Alive!” ( 29 Januray 2009 ) about a book being published by Kitty Burns Florey called “Script & Scribble.” She makes some interesting points in it:

But I think it’s too soon to declare legible penmanship a lost art. Maybe the problem lies in calling it an art rather than a simple necessity like knowing how to add and subtract. Hardly a day goes by when the average person doesn’t have to write something on paper.

She goes on to point out that yes, of course we need to know how to type … erm… keyboard (Sorry -I learned to type!), but we should also take the time to learn to write legibly, even it it isn’t using the old Palmer method.  I couldn’t agree more.  I don’t think that is too much to ask.  No, it doesn’t have to be calligraphy, but I’d like to be able to read it!  Just as I think the cashier should be able to make change without the register/computer telling him/her how much it should be.  *sighs*

It’s the Teacher – Not the School

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

It’s the Teacher – Not the School: This isn’t news for me, but the acknowledgment comes from an unlikely source – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  In their Annual 2009 Newsletter, they discuss the U.S. Education system and how they tried to improve it over the past several years through their program.  Despite all their money and effort thrown into the public schools all across the nation (with a few success stories), most of their efforts came up empty.  Their conclusion:

If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

Gee… isn’t that what homeschooling is all about?

We went through a private school – and had several excellent teachers.  They made all the difference in the world for my daughter!  Then we had some not so good teachers.  They made an impact too.  One we are still dealing with.

HSLDA President J. Michael Smith wrote an excellent article in his Op-Ed Column for the Washington Times on 24 February 2009: Home-schooling: It’s the Teacher, not the school. Basically he states that great teaching has nothing to do with teacher certification.  It has everything to do with caring about who you are teaching (your children) and what you are teaching.

I’ll be the first to admit homeschooling isn’t easy… it’s hard!  There are days I’m ready to throw in the towel.  But, I also know that I’m still giving my daughter a better education than she would get in the public schools here where I live.  The private schools, we simply can no longer afford, and the ones we tried were iffy at best (again, it depended on the teacher!).  We also tried a charter school.  It has an excellent reputation, and deservedly so, but it wasn’t for every child, including mine.  And again, my experience was that some of the teachers were excellent, but some were … well…  not so good.

At least now I know my daughter’s teacher cares about her and will work with her on a lesson until she “gets it.”  She won’t give up on her, or leave her behind.  If we have to repeat something… we do.  If a certain curriculum isn’t working, we can change it.

Those Pesky Homeschoolers: Part 2

To continue my previous post on Are Homeschooled Kids at a Disadvantage on the Opposing Views Debate …

The California Federation of Teachers states:

Every parent wants the best education for his or her child.  All parents have the right to be involved in the education of their own children, and are entitled to seek the type of education that they believe best addresses their child’s needs.

At the same time, all students deserve to have a quality education. These two goals-parents’ rights, and quality education–might, under the best of conditions, come together in excellent education delivered at home.  But home schooling also has the potential of creating an inadequate overall education. While public education is certainly not perfect, it does provide for common standards, transparent evaluation processes for teaching and learning, administrative oversight and accountability, and the opportunity to learn within a diverse community. Home schooling often fails to meet at least some and sometimes all of these criteria.

Well… where to begin… Of course all parents want what’s best for their children’s education.  And yes they ARE entitled (by law) to seek out the type of education that is best for their children.  This is NO thanks by the way to the teacher’s unions.  The state and teacher’s unions have fought tooth and nail against both homeschooling and charter schools.   Way back when, they even fought against private religious schools (Pierce v. Society of Sisters 1925).  The type of parental involvement the teacher’s union wants in this case, is the the type and kind that they can dictate.

“All students deserve a quality education. ” Who can argue with that?  We all want that for our own children and for all the children of this country… do we not?  Ideally, parental rights and quality education do come together.  It can happen with any type of education, be it public school, private school, charter school or homeschool.  Often, it does not, especially with the first example, I am sorry to say.  My own experience with private schools has shown me that it can happen just as often as it doesn’t happen.

I take issue with the part of ‘homeschooling having the potential to create an inadequate overall education.’  Sure it has the potential… just as public schools do.  There seems to be plenty of proof of the inadequacies of the overall education received in public schools though – just read the varied reports from “A Nation at Risk” written in 1983 all the way down to “Diploma to Nowhere” released earlier this month.

Public Education has no “Common Standard” – each state sets its own standard.  Then each district interprets the state standard from there.  NCLB was supposed to help on that issue by setting a common bar, but the law instead again lets each state set it’s own standard.  So magically all states are again “above average.”  Amazing!

Transparent evaluation process for teaching and learning?  Administrative accountability?  Is this the teaching style du-jour?   Just try to find out what and how your child is taught at the local school.  Just try to get a clear answer from the local school board on anything.  The district I live in uses Everyday Mathematics for the 1-6 Math program.  It is not the most popular among the parents here, and the district has taken a lot of heat from the parents for using it.  Despite the protests and demands of the parents to start using a better program that would actually teach children math, the district continues to use the program because ‘they know best.’  So much for accountability.

Homeschooling doesn’t fail to live up to any of these things.  It is simply different.  It’s comparing apples to oranges.  I worked in my dd private school and teaching a class full of 25 kids is totally different than teaching your own children.  What works in one, does not work in the other – simple as that.

Common standards won’t work because each child/family/situation is different.  That is the beauty of homeschooling.  If the child doesn’t get adding mixed fractions in one day, you can repeat it in the next lesson and the next and so on, until they do get it.  With a room full of kids, you can’t do that.  You have to keep moving.  The child has to get help from the parent or a tutor or as often is the case, simply not learn it. There are general guidelines that most homeschoolers follow for what their x-grader needs to know.  Some are ahead of that, others behind.  By the end of high school, I think it pretty much evens out.

As far as accountability, it varies from state to state how accountable homeschoolers are.  Some have more over-site than others.  Some have to show more “proof of progress” than others.  Some have certain subjects they are required to teach.  Some must register with their State Department of Education/County Department of Education.  This mish-mash of regulation is a reflection of the chaos of the education system as a whole.

In general homeschoolers would rather just be left alone.  Who wants to be told what to do all the time in regards to educating their children.  It’s like having a bad mother-in-law!  Personally, I don’t have a problem with registering as a homeschooler with the local Dept. of Education, being required to teach certain subjects and of having to take a standardized test every two years or so.  I would like to choose my test among several because I believe some are better than others.  But other than that I don’t think the state should be telling me how to educate my child.  I certainly can’t do any worse than some of the public school results I’ve seen.

Okay… I’ll step off my soapbox now.