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"Never ask someone to do for you
what you can do for yourself."
Thomas Jefferson
  Choosing a mode of
education
is one of the most difficult decisions parents
make for their children. Which is best, we all agonize: public school, private school,
alternative school, homeschool? Should they go to preschool? Should they try Montessori school or Waldorf school? Which
system will best enable our kids to grow up healthy, happy, ethical, self-sufficient,
tolerant, mannerly, compassionate, and intellectually above average?
Homeschool FAQ
How do I maintain my child's
interest?
by Rebecca Rupp, Ph.D.
I think one of the more difficult questions in
homeschooling is deciding when to let the kids quit something they don't like and when to
insist that they persevere. Here's few points to consider, when weighing the pros and cons |
The answer for those seeking a reproducible formula, seems
to be all of the above. Children succeed in any number of learning environments. There
simply is no best way of education; there is instead a multitude of best ways - and what
defines "best" is often a matter of subjective judgment. How do you define
success? As a high paying job? As social popularity? As intellectual accomplishment? As a
satisfied mind?
In the end for all our well meaning choices, it won’t
even be our judgment that matters. Our kids will inevitably have the final say. What did
they think of their educational experience? Did we, as parents, make the right decisions?
"If it weren’t for you." they’ll begin, casting their minds back to
these essential formative years, and we can only hope that the end of sentence will be
gratefully positive.
Our three children - now teenagers
have never been to school.
They have instead been educated entirely at home; a process that, over the years,
has been alternatively fascinating, frustrating, exciting, stressful, and deeply
rewarding. It has not, however, been quite what we expected. Homeschooling, as I turns
out,is not at all the same as school at home. Randy, my husband, and I had envisioned,
when we first set out into uncharted educational territory, a learning process not unlike
the one we had both experienced in our many years of public school: a logical and
well-rounded progression from counting games and basal readers to higher mathematics and
English literature. What we got were disorderly obsessions with Baroque music,
glassblowing, particle physics, Egyptian archaeology, rocket models, telescopes,
submarines, Shakespearean tragedy, and ant farms. One kid refused to learn the
multiplication tables. One balked at geography, another at cursive handwriting. One spent
months reading nothing but "The Encyclopedia of Fish." Our sons, Josh, Ethan,
and Caleb, all vociferously opinionated from day one, have always had distinctive
educational agendas of their own. Homeschooling, for all of us, has been a learning
process.
Our decision to homeschool
has also had far broader implications than we had originally anticipated,
permeating all aspects of our joint and separate lives. When we formally announced our
plan to homeschool the boys (to doubtful friends and disapproving relatives), we thought
we were making a single simple decision: "Should Joshua start kindergarten this
September?" In retrospect, however, that simple answer - "no" - signaled a
whole battery of decisions and choices. For each homeschooling family, hard upon the heels
of that "No" follows a list of closely linked questions: What kind of lifestyle
do you want to pursue? What values do you feel are important for your family? What is your
idea of an ideal family relationship? What are your views on independence abd
self-reliance versus social cooperation and community involvement? What kinds of
responsibility should the state have toward the nation’s children. What are your
responsibilities as a parent? What constitutes an education? How is learning best
accomplished? And twenty years from now, whne your youngest sets out to tackle the world,
just where do you want yourself to be?
Homeschooling, twentieth century style, is a relatively new
trend in education. Nearly twelve years ago, as we approached the non-entry of my eldest
child into kindergarten, homeschooling was the rare province of the educational rebel, the
ornery oddball, and those leftover free spirits from the sixties blithely raising their
offspring on communal peacock farms outside Sacramento. Nowadays the movement - reportedly
some one and a half million steong - has entered the mainstream. Homeschoolers a decade
ago who announced their educational practices in public were greeted with
"What’s that?" and "Is it legal?" Now, with homeschooling legal
in all fifty states, its practitioners are more likely to hear "Why, so are we"
- or so is my sister-in-law, mailperson, dentist, or next door neighbor.
The freedom to pursue personal interests
is a - if not THE - major advantage of homeschooling. Nothing is as motivating as
love. A kid who enjoys gardening for example, will absorb volumes of botanical information
without visivle effort; a kid enthralled by Shakespeare will remember every plot of every
play; a vast array of arcane vocabulary words, and an amazing amount of Elizabethan
history. All this is a joy to watch; this is education as we all dream it could and should
be. Still, providing raw materials, enriching supplements, background information,
appropriate field trips, and - when needed - instructions and explanations is challenging
and time-consuming. Homeschooling is often a matter of many intellectual plates in the
air.
 Rupp TV
In this interview with Rebecca
Rupp
|
 
 more
Curriculum
Guides
more homeschooling
books
"Is Homeschooling Expensive?"
Frequently Asked Questions
How to Design a
Homeschool Curriculum: What Your Child Needs to
Know from Preschool Through High School
by Rebecca Rupp
Finally, homeschoolers have a comprehensive guide to designing a homeschool
curriculum, from one of the country's foremost homeschooling experts. , Rebecca Rupp
presents a structured plan to ensure that your children will learn what they need to know
when they need to know it, from preschool through high school. Based on the traditional
pre-K through 12th-grade structure.
FAQ: How do I get
a diploma?
In an interview with David & Laurie Callihan, authors of The Guidance
Manual for the Christian Homeschool, they say:
A diploma is a piece of paper
(unless you use real sheepskin) that designates or confers the completion of some
line of study. We find it interesting that parents who confidently homeschool turn to
jelly when it is time to award the diploma. If you have homeschooled your child and he has
completed your designated course of study for high school, you may and should award a
diploma.
see the rest of this excerpt on
developing a diploma and transcript
Getting Started on Home Learning:
How and Why to Create a Classroom at Home
by Rebecca Rupp, Ph.D.
My latest book has chapter on "The Bottom Line, or How
Much Does It All Cost?" - includes results from a range of surveys and studies,
a shameful confession about our personal homeschooling expenditures, a list of useful
budgetary suggestions, and a lot of good resources for pennypinchers. Surveys, which
may or may not mean much, show that most families spend something between $500 and $1500
annually.
The Complete Home Learning Source Book:
The Essential Resource Guide for Homeschoolers,
Parents, and Educators Covering Every Subject from arithmetic
by Rebecca Rupp, Ph.D.
Designed for the more than half-a-million families who are
homeschooling their children, this book contains annotated lists of sources, including
books, CD-ROMs, Web sites, audiotapes, and other essential tools. |
