My family and I just returned home from a little visiting trip. We were in the car about 11 hours each way so I decided to take advantage of that time and read/watch a couple things I have had on my back burner of homeschooling research. I wanted to talk about them a bit here. First I want to state the obvious.....I support homeschooling. It is working for my family and my kids are thriving in the year we have been doing this. That being said I do not believe homeschooling is for everyone. If you curl your nose at the thought of stepping outside of the traditional box of public school, if the thought of being with your kids all day every day is nauseating, if you have no desire to be an active participant in helping your kids learn....then read no further because schooling at home is not for you.

Another thing I want to point out is that you have to be flexible. If the idea you have in your head about what home schooling should look like doesn't work for your kids you MUST be willing to change things up. You will learn right along with your kids, sometimes you will teach them new things, but most of the time they teach you new things as they explore things that interest them. You do not have to keep up with or slow down to keep on track with what the same age level students are learning in the local school. The great thing about humans is that they learn at different paces because each person is unique. If you have a pair of twins one may read quicker and faster than the other, while the other is better at math. They do not need to be at the same level at the same time....and that is perfectly normal!

I watched “Class Dismissed” and I read “They're Your Kids....” and here are my thoughts:

*****************

In one of the homeschooling facebook groups I follow one movie is mentioned and recommended frequently... “Class Dismissed”. I bought the documentary DVD (if any of my local friends want to borrow it get a hold of me). It follows one family through their decision and some of their research for homeschooling. It was insightful and some of their struggles hit home with some of my own. There are so many ways to school/educate your children, I think this documentary is a great starting point for those who are considering different options or who have just begun their journey. 

Here are a few youtube links for “Class Dismissed” Trailers:

Official-https://youtu.be/0FMrQXkFCxA

Trailer 2- https://youtu.be/vL0kZ69LwNw

Trailer 1- https://youtu.be/74fO06CU6xY

***************************

“They're Your Kids: An Inspirational Journey from Self-Doubter to Home School Advocate” by Sam Sorbo

The first part of the book talks about the governments role in our education system, and I will admit some of these things made me physically nauseous. The book starts out very politically anti-government, socialism, dictatorship comparisons, even some conspiracy thrown in there....but sometimes we need hit with the big stick of possible truths. There are a lot of facts written here too, including years worth of unsuccessful reform- notably 2001: No Child Left Behind Act, 2011: Race to the Top Fund, and 2013: Common Core (Take note these major changes were implemented AFTER, or possibly during our [as parents] later years, in public school.....today's school experience is NOT the same as ours.)

The more I learn about common core the sicker I feel. Please Please Please research common core. It is NOT just a new way to do math, which has been detested by many math professionals. The English and especially History changes are just as, if not more, damaging. Do you know about the new Human Rights? Do you know about some of the major text books companies making wording changes for the original Constitutional Amendments? Do you know about the important historical events that are now being left out of textbooks? 

Here are a few quotes from within the book that stood out to me:

“How could I home educate? I'm not capable! The question is, if you graduated from your public high school, maybe even a good college, and ended up incapable of instructing a nine year old, what hope do you hold for your children who you send to public schools? Education should be contagious, not constrictive. Doesn't your own sense of inadequacy compel you to protect your children from enrolling them in the same kind of institution that clearly, by your own tacit admission, failed you?”

You like the idea of a small school because of the small classroom size. You know a smaller group setting, say 10 kids to 1 teacher, has a higher probability of holding those kids more personally accountable to learn and digest the material instead of just being passive grazers giving those children more of a chance of slipping through the “cracks” of the system. Well imagine a one on one or a two on one teaching experience. You are going to know whether your child actually absorbed the information that you just went over, no test necessary. (this is paraphrased because I forgot to make note within the book and didn't take the time to track it down again.)

“Compare school to buying a house. You walk through it and love it. The inspector says it's great, the neighborhood is right, and so you purchase it. You may not realize until after you've moved in that the roof leaks or that it's drafty. You can repair the roof or apply caulking. (Hire a tutor.) The draftiness is caused by a faulty design of the heating system. Buy a few sweaters. (Hire a therapist for the kid.) But eventually you discover the house's foundation is defective and twelve years later (graduation) the building starts to sink. (Your child can't hold a job, because of low self-esteem, or high self-esteem, and no one taught him anything about the skills needed to hold one, or, worse, he doesn't even know to desire independence, because the government education bureaucracy taught him to revere the government-as-provider. His education was steeped in entitlement, recycling, and nature conservation.) Luckily, a good homeowner's insurance policy covers the foundation issues. But little will mitigate the deficits in your child's education. He's moving back home. The future of our children is at stake, and parent's have blindly entrusted the care of their kids to those who, on a broad scale, have proven to be mediocre, at best. Would you knowingly hire an average or less-than-average builder to construct your home? Are your children more valuable than your home?”

“The unions are the worst thing that ever happened to education because it's not a meritocracy. It turns into a bureaucracy, which is exactly what has happened. The teachers can't teach and administrators run the place and nobody can be fired. It's terrible.” -Steve Jobs

“Money runs the show, and that's why many are convinced it can fix the system. They're not only wrong; they're one hundred and eighty degrees wrong and thus, are part of the problem, though some of them don't even know it. Misuse of money has broken the system, but human greed is why it's broken and greed can't be repaired. The education establishment must return to being more about the advancement of education in our children, and less about power and money. And the only way to do that is to wrest the power away from the institution, bringing the educational responsibility back home.”

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” -George Orwell

“Our rights as home schooling parents are only as strong as the rights we have as free citizens. Sadly there are those in our country who choose to abdicate choice to the government, allowing it to dictate our everyday lives, despite its proven inefficacy.”

“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” -Robert Frost

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -Benjamin Franklin

“You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen.”

***********************

So as you can see I took a lot from the book and movie I watched this past weekend. I have had other recommendations made for books similar to this- the self help, build your home school confidence, and common core awareness types. But honestly I am already there. I have confidence in myself because I know my kids. I know when they know something, I know when they understand, I am willing to do different things to peek their interest. I can read and research and try different methods. We are changing our entire life style and learning has become a part of our every day life, not an 8:30 to 3 day job work experience.

We are Schooling As We Grow and we are doing it together!