funmudder
November 16th, 2007, 12:24 PM
I'm just so incredibly happy to see this forum up here, I can hardly contain myself :yeah
Reading a few threads, you all deserve a round of applause and chocolate for the level of care, concern and brilliant advice being given to one another. You people rock :thumb
Please tell me that someone here homeschools in my new area of Mobile Alabama? We are hunting for our new group to get to know :hat
I've been homeschooling my brood for just about 7 years. I'll never go back (Lord willing) to any other way. Each of the children have blossomed in their education and I am very proud of the way their critical thinking skills have developed. I recall being in college and being told to 'think outside of the box'. Remember that? Personally, I consider the 'box' to be those factory looking buildings where education is fed like a production line, everyone getting the exact same thing with little regard for individuality and the needs that come with each individual. I'm not putting down teachers mind you, it takes pure courage and devotion to kids to want to be a teacher these days. What I'm admittedly hostile towards is the system itself *
Anyway.....I love love love homeschooling. The relationship I have with my preteens is vastly closer than the one I had with my own parents. I firmly believe that has everything to do with me actually being with them through their learning stages, changes in their own bodies and minds during the most moldable time of their life. Instead of having someone else teach them in the way that they should go 40 hours a week, it's their Dad and I. It makes ALL the difference.
I remember being nervous, scared really, about the idea of homeschooling them. I fully believed the myths that only a trained professional could teach them to read, or add. I fully believed what I had been taught in school: that teachers knew more than parents about everything. That I was going to ruin their lives by not allowing the government full control over their "education".
When my 2nd grader was threatened with a gun by the same child who had been bullying him the previous year with no help from the 'professionals", we had enough.
We pulled him out that day, and then we started looking for all we needed to homeschool. It was overwhelming at first. I was so scared I was destroying his future. Then a brilliant woman came to my rescue. I had called a local Christian group and as we chatted, she told me the most important thing I have ever heard for new homeschoolers: Take a year off.
What???????:panic
She said "Take a year off. Your family needs time to reconnect, to deprogram yourselves from what you think you should be doing to educate your child"
I had to unschool myself as much as I had to rebond with my son. It was stunning. At just 3 years of formal public schools, he and I had really lost touch. After he would come home, we had very little family time, and practically no one on one time. Between getting dinner ready, chores done, dinner eaten, cleaned up and bath time, we maybe got 30-60 minutes a day to just talk to each other. The school was getting all his prime time, the good stuff. He was also only getting my leftovers.
When I pulled him out, I found I had no idea what to talk to him about. The last time we had that much time together he was a 4 year old. I couldn't just not school him, so we went to the library. Thats where our homeschooling really began. We got some books and read aloud to each other. He learned better reading skills, syntax, rythym ect and we got something to talk about.
It's just been going and growing since then. Now I homeschool all 5 of my children and we enjoy every bit of it. I miss out on none of their good stuff and they get more than my tired end of the day time. We know each others likes, dislikes, passions and hobbies. I know their friends parents as well as their friends and they enjoy a more vibrant social life than I ever knew.
I've been told that I'm raising them in a bubble, which just dumb founds me. From my perspective, I'm raising them in the world, with people of all ages around them, in the real society of today. From where I stand, it's the school system that is the bubble. What happens in that microcosm that is actually representative of the real outside world? From what I remember, as a product of it, very very little.
I need a ladder to get off my soap box now:aha
I sooooo happy to see this forum up here :yes
Jonny can't read and Suzie can't write, but lets be sure we give them a morning after pill if their condom breaks and lets be doubly sure that they know it's okay for them to experiment with homosexuality because THAT is the politically correct thing to push on our impressionable youth these days. And above all other things, be sure their parents have nothing to say about it and to ensuer that, lets make it so they don't need their parents involved in any of this by not telling them eh?
Reading a few threads, you all deserve a round of applause and chocolate for the level of care, concern and brilliant advice being given to one another. You people rock :thumb
Please tell me that someone here homeschools in my new area of Mobile Alabama? We are hunting for our new group to get to know :hat
I've been homeschooling my brood for just about 7 years. I'll never go back (Lord willing) to any other way. Each of the children have blossomed in their education and I am very proud of the way their critical thinking skills have developed. I recall being in college and being told to 'think outside of the box'. Remember that? Personally, I consider the 'box' to be those factory looking buildings where education is fed like a production line, everyone getting the exact same thing with little regard for individuality and the needs that come with each individual. I'm not putting down teachers mind you, it takes pure courage and devotion to kids to want to be a teacher these days. What I'm admittedly hostile towards is the system itself *
Anyway.....I love love love homeschooling. The relationship I have with my preteens is vastly closer than the one I had with my own parents. I firmly believe that has everything to do with me actually being with them through their learning stages, changes in their own bodies and minds during the most moldable time of their life. Instead of having someone else teach them in the way that they should go 40 hours a week, it's their Dad and I. It makes ALL the difference.
I remember being nervous, scared really, about the idea of homeschooling them. I fully believed the myths that only a trained professional could teach them to read, or add. I fully believed what I had been taught in school: that teachers knew more than parents about everything. That I was going to ruin their lives by not allowing the government full control over their "education".
When my 2nd grader was threatened with a gun by the same child who had been bullying him the previous year with no help from the 'professionals", we had enough.
We pulled him out that day, and then we started looking for all we needed to homeschool. It was overwhelming at first. I was so scared I was destroying his future. Then a brilliant woman came to my rescue. I had called a local Christian group and as we chatted, she told me the most important thing I have ever heard for new homeschoolers: Take a year off.
What???????:panic
She said "Take a year off. Your family needs time to reconnect, to deprogram yourselves from what you think you should be doing to educate your child"
I had to unschool myself as much as I had to rebond with my son. It was stunning. At just 3 years of formal public schools, he and I had really lost touch. After he would come home, we had very little family time, and practically no one on one time. Between getting dinner ready, chores done, dinner eaten, cleaned up and bath time, we maybe got 30-60 minutes a day to just talk to each other. The school was getting all his prime time, the good stuff. He was also only getting my leftovers.
When I pulled him out, I found I had no idea what to talk to him about. The last time we had that much time together he was a 4 year old. I couldn't just not school him, so we went to the library. Thats where our homeschooling really began. We got some books and read aloud to each other. He learned better reading skills, syntax, rythym ect and we got something to talk about.
It's just been going and growing since then. Now I homeschool all 5 of my children and we enjoy every bit of it. I miss out on none of their good stuff and they get more than my tired end of the day time. We know each others likes, dislikes, passions and hobbies. I know their friends parents as well as their friends and they enjoy a more vibrant social life than I ever knew.
I've been told that I'm raising them in a bubble, which just dumb founds me. From my perspective, I'm raising them in the world, with people of all ages around them, in the real society of today. From where I stand, it's the school system that is the bubble. What happens in that microcosm that is actually representative of the real outside world? From what I remember, as a product of it, very very little.
I need a ladder to get off my soap box now:aha
I sooooo happy to see this forum up here :yes
Jonny can't read and Suzie can't write, but lets be sure we give them a morning after pill if their condom breaks and lets be doubly sure that they know it's okay for them to experiment with homosexuality because THAT is the politically correct thing to push on our impressionable youth these days. And above all other things, be sure their parents have nothing to say about it and to ensuer that, lets make it so they don't need their parents involved in any of this by not telling them eh?