At Home In America - a free newspaper and blog for the homeschool community Private Schools, Maine Law, and Parental CHOICE Parent's choice, Private Schools, and Maine Law (730 words) From the Sun Journal to the Boston Globe to the Miami Herald, why all the media about our Lewiston private school? Because resourceful high school seniors in Florida found a way to avoid exit exams by transferring their credits to our Maine high school. Maine families can learn a lesson from this. As flattered as we are, when news travels, the issues can become clouded. So, as the founder and administrator of the school, please allow me set the perspective. Including Family Tree Research In a History Curriculum My disclaimer: The Bible tells us to not be tied up with "endless genealogies". I personally don't think researching my family history falls into that category, but some families may. Use your own discernment & enjoy the endless history you uncover about your family tree. My sister began our family tree research years before the computer was commonly used. She interviewed relatives, mailed off payments for vital records, and wrote her research by hand. As I picked up where she left off, my job was much easier...most records can be obtained free from the Internet or swapped among cyber-relatives via genealogy message boards. I've dug into the Mayflower branch we have on my mother's side, finding wills, relationships to Presidents, and even arrests! My father's family came to Vermont from Canada, and many French-Canadian records are on the web, unfortunately not always in English. My husband's Jewish family emigrated to NYC from Russia in the early 1900's, and is my most challenging tree to date. Doing research, I've met unknown or long-lost relatives, discovered historical facts I never knew (or cared to!), and developed a respect for these old families who wanted to make the best life possible for their children. Walking the Inspired Tightrope God works in mysterious ways! Agree? I always envisioned myself a career person, but... Teach Kids About Money.... Or You'll Pay For It! We teach our kids many subjects, some of which they will never use again once they have graduated from high school. Money is the one subject we can teach that will be used or misused every day for the rest of our child's life. So if money is such an important subject, why aren't we doing a better job of teaching our kids about its creation and care? We did it... I was nine and my sister was seven when my parents decided to homeschool us. At the time, my father owned a manufacturing company and my mom was a school nurse. Each morning we would get ready for the day and begin by doing devotions and then reading. My mother would read us things like "The Chronicles of Narnia" for an hour or so, then we would do our other subjects. At first we used Alpha Omega's LifePacs, because the private school that Steph and I went to used them and it seamed like the simplest way to get started. At the time, the only way to get them was to order them through the school along with their order. There was no BookmobileOnline or Amazon, heck there was no Internet! There were no conventions, no used book swaps, no catalogs. It was much different back then. Honey, I've been thinking... My parents got to thinking about the time Steph and I had spent with them while we were sick. At the time, my sister an I were going to a private school that was 45 minutes away. Our schedule was rigorous, it was up at 6:00AM and off to school at 7:15AM. Then we'd get picked up at 3:30PM and return home around 4:15PM. We'd play for a while, eat dinner, do home work and go to bed at 8:00PM. The more my parents discussed this, the more convinced they became that homeschooling was a real option for our family. At the time only three families were homeschooling in our state of Maine. The idea that our family could re-claim at least eight hours per day seamed worth it, not to mention the flexibility and educational advantages! Here we go again... My sister and I would finish our dealings with the chicken pox after both having had them TWICE! By the time we were done with the chicken pox she and I had missed over a month at school, each. Yet, even with all that time away from school, we were right on track. We hadn't missed anything! After we were healthy and had returned to school, my dad asked my mother how much time per day she had spent with my sister and I on our school work. The answer: "About an hour and a half." Then my sister got the pox... I returned to school, and wouldn't you know it, my sister comes down with them. She was six when she missed two weeks of school because of the chicken pox. So, each day the school would send me home with her assignments. When she returned to school she hadn't missed anything either! It all started with the chicken pox... It all started with the chicken pox. I was eight when I missed school for two weeks. Each day the school would send my assignments home with my sister. When I returned to school two weeks later I was right on track. I hadn't missed anything! More PJ's Please We decided to unschool about five years ago. Our daughter was sick all the time, because instead of paying day care the parents sent their kids to school sick! Our daughter had two thirds of her left lung removed, and is catching everything. Soon after we pulled her out, we took our son out of the public school system. Reason being he'd bring home illness' to her. Our son was sick. He told the teacher and she told him to get a drink of water! His temp. was 103. All we needed. He was now going to be unschooled as well. SATs: Are they still important? Are the SATs as important as they used to be? In this age of the Internet and Pentium processors, is a multiple choice test taken on a single Saturday morning still one of the best ways for colleges to weed out applicants? It depends who is answering the question. Many colleges say SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) scores are maybe the fourth or fifth most important measure of a student's suitability for college, after course level, grades and class rank. Some 300 colleges nationwide don't even require applicants to submit standardized test results. The argument against SATs is that they can be biased toward certain types of students, and are generally not good indicators of how a student will do in college. What is Homeschooling? 99% of the population thinks homeschooling is mom sitting at the kitchen table teaching everything to her children. In fact, for more than 80% of homeschoolers, their mental image of homeschooling is probably the same. Let me offer a slightly different view, and define it this way: "Homeschooling is parents deciding and directing the education of their children". Deciding and directing the education, not doing all the educating. The REAL GOAL of Education The money's being spent, the reform is pending, the discussion is brewing, but have we lost sight of the real goal of educating a child ? I believe the goal is the same as it's always been -- it's never changed, it never will -- and it's simple: to prepare a child to move from childhood to adulthood. That's it. Prepare my child for adulthood. Period. Some would say, "I don't want my child to grow up so fast." I'm not suggesting fast preparation for adulthood, I'm suggesting a truth much simpler -- children grow up to be adults, and they will grow there with us or without us; they will grow up guided by their parents or guided by their peers. The 4 Advantages of Homeschooling There was a time when I had a list in my wallet of 20-30 advantages of homeschooling. I carried this list tucked in my pocket everywhere for years and used it when confronted by the critics of homeschooling. Occasionally it would come in handy with reporters (especially in telephone interviews when they couldn't see it). But the list was too long, people would not listen to a lengthy treatise. Over time, after consulting with hundreds of families in my office, after attending support group meetings around the country, and after hearing speeches by supporters, I concluded that reporters and the general public really wanted to hear the simple advantages, and they fell into four broad categories. Children Educated at Home Don't Become Social Misfits Ann Arbor: Teaching children at home won't make them social misfits, a University of Michigan study suggests. The detailed study of 53 adults who were taught at home by their parents is one of the first to examine the long-term effects of homeschooling - a practice now followed by as many as 300,000 American families. "One of the major arguments against home schooling is that it deprives children of the peer contacts needed for normal social development," says J. Gary Knowles, U-M assistant professor of education. "Public school educators and other critics also question whether home-educated children will be able to become productive, participating members of a diverse and democratic society.