Homeschool

Because Brayden is now "Kindergarten age", we've been getting more questions and comments lately about our decision/method/reasons to homeschool.

First, it was a family decision. We took into account all options, all preferences, concerns and opinions of not only ourselves, but each of our boys. Included was their take on the situation, their temperaments, abilities, strengths and areas that could benefit improvement- notice I don't use the term "weakness".

Of course we want our children to be educated. By teaching them at home, we feel they will not only gain a strong foundation for lifelong love of learning and education, but also remain free thinkers- a natural benefit of childhood. We want them to question things, and figure out things for themselves, not restrained in doing things "the group way". There is no right way of learning, and living. We wish to hold onto their purities of their own beliefs, not have them told their way is wrong. They are young still, and we have that advantage. They can write the letter "F" from the bottom up, and not be told it is wrong, and therefore need to correct their penmanship. At home, we can foster learning in their areas of interest, not push interest aside to work on the areas that need improvement.

Here's an excerpt from a friend's thoughts on school:
I'm reading a book by Derrick Jensen and this is what he says:

I've since come to understand the reason school lasts thirteen years. It takes that long to sufficiently break a child's will. It is not easy to disconnect children's wills, to disconnect them from their own experiences of the world in preparation for the lives of painful employment they will have to endure. Less time wouldn't do it, and in fact, those who are especially slow go to college. For the exceedingly obstinate child there is graduate school...

Take the notion of assigning grades in school. Like the wages for which people later slave- once they've entered "the real world"- the primary function of grades is to offer an external reinforcement to coerce people to perform tasks they'd rather not do.


...The process of schooling does not give birth to human beings- as education should but never will so long as it springs from the collective consciousness of our culture- but instead it teaches us to value abstract rewards at the expense of our autonomy, curiosity, interior lives, and time.

And another response:
The first thing I'd like to say is that our current compulsory form of schooling was implemented in 1850 in Massachusetts. It was met with sometimes armed resistance from citizens (approximately 80% of them opposed it) Some places continued to vehemently resist. In fact, the last community in Massachusetts finally surrendered the children in the 1880's only after the area was seized by militia and the children were taken to school under guard.

Prior to compulsory education the state literacy rate was 98 percent.

I also agree with Mrs Bee. School is meant to produce meek "good" citizens who follow orders. Children in schools are robbed of rights, or privacy... homework makes sure the interaction children have with their community and family is at a minimum. Schooled children are disconnected from families, from communities , and are for the most part disinterested in adult life. They live in an artificial microcosm with bizarre and arbitrary rules, no privacy, and an aritifical "society" made up of others who are exactly like them. This society consumes them to such an extent that they truly see the "outside" world as the one that is artificial and irrelevant. Talk to a middle or high school aged child if you don't believe me. School takes children away from any possibility of being an active participant in community life.

Students are taught to conform, to wait for others more knowledgeable to tell them what they should be doing. Good students do the assigned thinking with a minimum of resistance and they muster up some sort of enthusiasm.. even if they have no genuine interest in the subject matter. BAD students struggle against this and try to make decisions for themselves about what they want to learn -- the way they wish to learn it and when.

They must turn their interest on and off as the bell rings and they move from class to class -- nothing ever truly seen through to completion except on the "installment plan" children get very little true "meaning" -- but instead a toolkit crammed with disconnected facts.

I am appalled at the slanted political things that are crammed down my children's throats. They are taught that "the US is the best country in the world" and every single thing they are taught about the rest of the world comes from this arrogant underlying indoctrination. It took me until age 30 to even recognize this fact, and I'm still struggling to overcome the indoctrination of 13 years of public school 10 years later.

Fact: The USA ranks at the bottom of nineteen industrialized nations in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The very very bottom.

Many educating gurus will tell you that these skills can be taught to a student in 100 hours. Provided the student is willing and interested in learning these things and they are presented at the time the student is open to learning them. AND if they are taught in a natural progression.

and I'll just end this with a quote from John Gatto: (New York State teacher of the year 1991 and New York City teacher of the year 1990 among various other awards)

"It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively cuts you off from the immense diversity of life and the synergy of variety; indeed it cuts you off from your own past and future, sealing you in a continuous present much the same way television does.

it is absurd and anti-life to move from cell to cell at the sound of a gong for every day of your natural youth in an institution that allows you no privacy and even follows you into the sanctuary of your home demanding that you do its "homework"."

I know much of what I have to say is really shocking. But before you react with total outrage, consider this.

Do you really thing that great poets are taught in English classes? or novelists? do you believe that brilliant scientists are a result of science classes in school? or do you believe these people develop alongside or even in spite of formal education?


So to sum up, and answer some questions:

No, Brayden will not be going to Kindergarten this fall

No, we don't know how many years we will homeschool. We would like to at least give them the strong foundation of good esteem, sense of self, and free thinking into the elementary years. We'll likely continue, but we have no set "time" we plan to continue through.

We've been doing about an hour to an hour and a half of "learning time" daily for the past year. We take weekends off, but Brayden often wants to do "school" on weekends, and I have always obliged. We do not take summers off.

Yes, we can teach them. When you learn to read well, and have access to books, internet, materials and your community, your possibilities of learning are endless.

No, we do not have a specific curriculum, nor do we plan to at this stage.
Currently we use the following resources:
www.enchantedlearning.com
www.starfall.com
www.abcteach.com
Workbooks from Kumon and Learning Zone
Interactive CD ROMS from Broderbund, Knowledge Adventure, Scholastic, Living Books and more.
And books, of course.

Yes, they socialize with other kids. They have sports, clubs and friends. A list follows:
Swimming, gymnastics, Tae Kwon Do, Capoeira, ice skating, ice hockey, dec hockey, soccer, baseball, 4H.

Here is a good a short movie clip to watch that sums up a lot of what I have already written. Follow this link, and click on the purple button in the middle to watch "Animal School"
http://www.raisingsmallsouls.com/

If anyone is interested in more homeschool resources, books, etc, I have compiled a helpful list.