Linda's Homeschool WebLog
Why Ruin a Special Event?
Here's something I wrote that was originally posted on my writer's community message board:
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Maybe some of you who work for, aspire to work for, or who attend public schools can address this for me.
My daughter left high school on the second day this year to go back to homeschooling. Her friends attend the high school.
Its a very small town - everyone knows everyone just about. About 1200 people live here.
So my daughter's friends tried to get a pass for her to attend the school's "Winter Formal" dance tonight. The principal said my child couldn't attend because she's homeschooled. I thought that's rather selfish of him to exclude her though she's willing to pay the five dollars to get in.
Meanwhile her friends got in trouble at school and they were excluded from the dance too. One was suspended and the other had a detention she didn't attend. I think its terrible that they have an event as special as the Winter Formal ... then use it as a behavior modification tool. It doesn't seem right to me to exclude people... sort of like most people wouldn't punish a child by not giving them birthday or Christmas presents.
When my child attended school there were lots of field trips ... she never once was allowed to attend one because her behavior never made the grade. When I took her out of school in 3rd grade, to homeschool, I remember telling the counselor that we were going to Marine World Africa USA the next week and the woman told me that she recommended I not include my child on the outing because of her bad behavior! I thought that was appalling...
What message are we giving to children... to me it sounds like "you're not good enough". I don't think this is an effective behavior modification for children with problematic behaviors. It seems like just another self-esteem breaker to me.
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"Ryan Shaffer knows his Bible. The West Farmington teen can recite large chunks of it word-for-word. That's why the West Farmington teen took top honors this year at the Christian and Missionary Alliance International Bible Quizzing finals in Redding, Calif.
''I have memorized most of Luke, John, Acts, First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians,'' Ryan, 17, said.
Bible quizzing doesn't sound like the usual kind of hobby for a teen.
''Well I'm not exactly a perfectly normal kid. I'm a little weird,'' Ryan said.
He's a home-schooled high school senior who's already taking post-secondary classes at Kent State University Trumbull Campus. He's also a National Merit scholar, a pianist, plays basketball for his homeschool group's team, runs his own computer business and is considering majoring in computer engineering or computer sciences."
Pretty impressive stuff...
Home School Versus Home Room: The Education Debate
"'We have a greater opportunity to influence our children's socialization with our character as parents rather than letting peers develop our children's character,' Stuart Whitney said."
What Mr. Whitney said in this article is true, but its not completely possible to avoid peer socializing and children do pick up strange ideas from other children. In our town my children's friends are all public schooled. Even though we live in the mountains in a remote place, there's drugs in this town, and schooled children are using them, drinking alcohol, and experimenting with sex. I am happy my children are not doing this kind of thing at this point, but they do have friends or acquaintances that do them and I find it impossible to totally isolate my children from schooled children.
Good news - I heard from a friend that all the children attending her church in this town are now homeschooled, so that's a step forward.
I'm trying to reason why it is schooled children are more likely to use drugs, etc. than homeschooled. If you have any ideas on that please drop me a line in my comments. I think my children are more influenced by me than they would be if they were schooled. Having children out of the home so many hours per day, being influenced by peers (mostly) and teachers (who they learn to despise, for the most part) just doesn't seem psychologically healthy to me. It probably makes kids feel neglected by their parents. They have too much free time between school and home and learn to go with their friends to do things their parents wouldn't approve of if only they knew. But somehow, they don't know, or don't have the energy after a long day at work to adequately address the harmful situations their teens get into. Okay, that's my best guess. What's yours?
Making the Grade Socially
"Psychologists recommend that homeschooling parents meet more than once a week. They say the best remedy for homeschoolers is to interact daily with kids their own age."
The assumption that homeschoolers need a 'remedy' is really appalling. Its easy to see the bias of this news source.
Why oh why do people assume that just because
most children attend public school, its a vital necessity to be exposed daily to a large group of other children? People, even psychologists, make sweeping assumptions like this and it is so very untrue. Not every person, and by this I include children.. not every person wants to be in a large crowd of people five days a week. The 'socialization' offered in schools doesn't appeal to everyone. It is more of a 'standardization'. We don't want it, or need it. Our children both have friends. Those are close friends with whom they can socialize and interact. They are free to see those friends seven days a week, if they like. But it is not forced, and never will be. Nor should it be. Every child is an individual and should be free to make up his or her own mind about how much social interaction feels right to him/her.
I just posted this in the gripe column called "how was your week" at the writing community I frequent here on the web, and thought I'd post it here too, since its about the kids:
Yesterday I took my children to the dentist. I live in a remote river valley in the far-northern part of California. The nearest dentist is a two-hour drive by the scary-one-lane-on-a-cliff backroad. By the main scary-two-lanes-on-a-cliff its three hours.
Anyhow, the two kids and I all saw the dentist. They each have one small cavity and lucky me - I need another root canal. I honestly wish they'd just pull the tooth instead.
While there the dentist showed me my son's x-ray. It was startling. There's a big tooth up above his front teeth, sort of off to the side a little, needing to come down. But there's no place for it to come down into. He's got all the teeth he really needs.
Flashback! I remembered when I was his age I had braces and at one point an oral surgery to remove a similar tooth. I had to wear a cast in my upper mouth for a few months after that, as I recall it.
So my son apparently inherited this wretched thing from me! It absolutely has to be taken care of - and soon.
My dentist, who is also an orthodontist, says he cannot do this for us. Its a money problem mostly - we are having to get this done on the state medical program. He says I must drive all the way to Sacramento to have my child seen by a specialist... either that or come up with four thousand dollars for each kid. I don't have it.
He suggests that what happened with my tooth shouldn't happen to my son - that the front teeth should be pulled and the extra tooth brought down. You know my son is so thrilled to know his gorgeous smile will be messed with for the next couple of years. My daughter, on the other hand, wants braces desperately. I hope the program will accept her too though her problem is not as severe.
So... this is what I'm looking at for 2004. Multiple drives down the great valley to the metropolis of Sacramento. Not fun. Lots of driving hours. Sleeping in the car because I can't afford hotels all the time. That kind of thing.
Plus worst of all... being away from my computer for writing - though I'm sure I'll take some good books and notebooks to write in. What would be more natural.
The kids will probably like the trips to the city if I include plenty of cultural activities (known as 'field trips' to us homeschool families).
Thanks for reading if you got this far with my current distressing concern.
Home Is Where The Thought Is
"Homeschooling accountability is an ongoing debate in Tennessee: Are children earning good grades, or are their parents handing them high marks?
The Medleys said their kids are earning their good grades. 'When you're a parent, you have a vested interest when it's your child,' Mark said. 'You want them to be the very best they can. Our standards may be a little bit higher. That's not to discredit the public schools at all, but our standards are pretty high.'"
In my homeschool, grades are not much of an issue. I help my son learn each part of math until I'm very sure he knows it well, before we move on.
I do the same with my daughter but since she's been exposed to the public school mentality, she asks for a grade. I don't mind giving her grades, but feel they are not that important when I'm 100% aware of how each child is doing, all the time. Grades are more a tool for classroom teachers who have to remember the progress of twenty, thirty or more students and would become confused if there were not a grading system in place to keep track.
The place where grades may be helpful would be on the high school transcripts we're preparing, but I don't feel I need daily grades to know what grades each child truly deserves in each subject. I think the most important part of a transcript is to record the areas of study each child has been exposed to.
Home-schoolers stage walk-a-thon - baxterbulletin.com
"The students raised a total of $1,290 for Homestyle Christian Educators, the local group, and The Education Alliance in Little Rock. They have plans to do it again in October 2004.
The Education Alliance helps to promote and support home-schooling, said Laurie Kasinger. Locally, the funds will be used for field trips and any other needs the group has."
The Rutland Herald Online - More and more, home is where the school is
"...choice is being made by an increasing number of American families - at least 850,000 children nationwide, up from 360,000 a decade ago, according the Education Department."
A good article about homeschooling in New York.
Welcome to the world of homeschool blogging,
River's Edge Urban Academy... I was tipped off to this new blog by Tenn over at
School @ Home.
KnoxNews: Politics
"Rep. Chris Newton, R-Benton, who sponsored the lottery legislation in the House last session, has filed a bill that would lower - to a 19 on the ACT college entrance exam, instead of the current 23 - home-schooled students' eligibility requirements for lottery-funded scholarships."
That's nice that someone cares about homeschooled children getting scholarships. My daughter was just asking about this yesterday - how to get a college scholarship. I'm so pleased that she's thinking ahead this way.
Another article on the same topic:
Fiddling with new lottery law on agenda for January session
"While the Black Caucus and others fought and won the battle for lower requirements, home school students were held to a higher standard than that of conventional high school students."
Its good to know HSLDA is monitoring these things. Its enough to make me want to send in my one hundred bucks one of these days. This article is about a hearing regarding the adoptive family in New Jersey whose adoptees were recently found starved and emaciated:
"On Thursday, November 6, 2003, the Human Resources Subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee, held a hearing to examine 'a recent failure to protect child safety'.
[.....]
Prior to this hearing, HSLDA contacted the Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Wally Herger of California, to inform him that the family at issue was reported to be a homeschooling family, that certain legislators in New Jersey had cited this case as highlighting a need to pursue new regulations on homeschooling (see http://www.hslda.org/elert/archive/2003/10/20031029171258.asp), and why this call for new regulations was in error. Our efforts were not in vain."
You go, HSLDA! Wally Herger is MY congressman and I'm glad he's getting YOUR information. God bless you in all your efforts to protect homeschool freedoms!
You'll have to click on the link at the top of this post to read the entire article, but I want to point out this part of it:
"It has long been held that the government's legitimate constitutional interest in education is literacy and self-sufficiency, not to detect child abuse. Wisconsin v. Yoder 406 U.S. 205 (1972). Moreover, it has been long understood that the government may not require all students to be required to be a part of the public school system, as children are not "mere creatures of the state". Pierce v. Society of Sisters 268 U.S. 510 (1925). Even though some parents might abuse children, it is still a presumption in America that parents act in the best interests of children. Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584 (1979)."
Please take note - these are US Supreme Court cases... the best kind to cite. They take precedence over all state and appellate level cases.
If you're a homeschooler, if you care about your freedom to continue homeschooling, I advise that you get informed, and stay informed regarding cases like these. You can look them up at
http://www.findlaw.com. Don't delay - the family you save may be your own.
More from the HSLDA article:
"...there is a growing trend to link homeschooling with child abuse. This trend poses a significant threat to homeschool freedom. Should it be accepted, it will pave the way for significant homeschool regulations."
BE AWARE - and BE ALERT... these trends do catch on if left unchallenged. The entire theory is that homeschool children could be more likely to be abused, and it completely ignores the facts about abuse of children in the school systems. And I do mean, IN school... not just of children who are sent to school but abused at home.
I once saw an experiment in a film in my psychology class - it showed that if you put enough rats in a closed space, they start going crazy and attacking each other just because they're overcrowded. I believe this is what goes on in public school. Yes, kids need friends - but how many do they really need at one time? I think my experience is typical. I have dozens of acquaintances but only one or two really close friends. Likewise children do not need to be forced into 'social situations' where there's dozens or hundreds or thousands of other children. It is neither healthy or safe.
Now a word about the job of social workers:
Child welfare social workers, or caseworkers as I like to call them, are not interested in abuse that happens on a school campus. Their only interest is in finding children who are being abused or neglected at home by their parents.
The reason is in the funding streams. There's no money in taking a child out of a school. The money goes to child welfare agencies only when children are removed from a home and placed in foster care. That's it. That's their focus. So they won't be out talking about the truth about children abused in their schools. They're too busy sticking their noses into family business looking for abuse whether its really happening or not. That's their job. That's what our dear government decided to pay them to do.
Awk... I am disgusted... but I am only one citizen, one simple voice. I beg whoever reads this to take note and do whatever you can to let your congresspeople know how inappropriate this situation is.
God bless you, one and all. Have a wonderful homeschooling day!
A high school principal in North Carolina invited the police in for a drug raid. They forced the students to lie down in the hallways at gunpoint. It was all caught on the principal's handy dandy security surveillance system. You can be he's in trouble now! Parents are infuriated. National news columnists are writing about him, laughing at him, and condemning his actions. Glenn Reynolds at MSNBC.COM (see link above) said this:
"Principal McCrackin would seem to be this year’s poster-boy for home schooling."
This is yet another good example of why I don't want my children in public schools.
