Notes from May 2001

The topic for the final meeting of the "school year" was "Why are we doing this?" We tackled the big questions of our motivation(s) for and philosophy/ies of homeschooling. In order to respect everybody's privacy, I will not attach names to the comments transcribed below. Each person was asked to address a few big questions. Here are some of the answers that were given:

1. What does a good education consist of? What skills, competencies, interests do you foresee your child having by the time he or she is 18 (or whenever homeschooling ends)?

* I want my child to be confident and literate enough to do whatever he wants to do in life.
* I want my kids to understand how other people are, to appreciate other customs and cultures, to question, not to judge.
*I want to provide fundamentals and then let my kids decide what they want to learn. The world changes so quickly that no curriculum can really "prepare" my children for the future. Therefore I want them to know how to deal with change, to be resourceful, and to know how to solve problems.
* I want my children to know how to read and to love doing it; to know basic math; to be able to find information in a library; to know how to cook a basic meal and clean the house; to be able to make decisions without falling into pieces; and to have values that I associate with "Jewish mensch-dom."
* I want my kids to be confident, and to become good, decent people. I want to teach them life skills and responsibility.
* I want my child to have a lifelong love of learning, to realize that there's always more to learn, and to know how to find out what she doesn't know.

2. What is your own motivation for homeschooling? To what extent is it spiritual, academic, philosophical?

* Public school was doing emotional and even physical harm to my child.
* "Socialization" in public school wasn't working. My kids were coming home with the idea that bigger kids can dominate smaller ones, and that competition and aggression were the norm.
* The public school curriculum was a confusing welter of things that never meshed.
* My child's learning disability would not have been handled well in the public schools.
* I love watching learning happen and I didn't want to give that privilege to someone else.
* My child was a late reader and the school system would have been a disaster for him.
* No one but you knows how great your kid really is.
* My child wasn't being challenged in school and the principal made it clear that they had no intention of challenging her since she was already "at grade level."

Resources
Here, in no particular order, are some of the books that were mentioned as being particularly helpful and illuminating:
The Way It Spozed to Be: Innovators in Education, James Herndon and Susanna Sheffer.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paolo Friere. Discusses the implications of caste and hierarchy on learning.
Summerhill, A. S. Neall
Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler. Science fiction.
Cooperative Adventures, Dave Nettell.
The Geranium on the Windowsill Just Died But Teacher You Went Right On, Albert Cullum
The Well-Trained Mind, Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer
Charlotte Mason's books.
Better Than School, Nancy Wallace.
Child's Work, Nancy Wallace.
Positive Discipline, Jane Nelsen
Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education, Grace Llewellyn
Speed Cleaning, Jeff Campbell
Clutter's Last Stand, Dan Aslett
The Link newsletter
American Home-School Publishing catalog. Good discounts on curriculum. 800-684.2121 or www.ahsp.com.