Who does home schooling?

It seems to be the exact opposite up here Acquiunk. The school my daughter graduated from seemed to have nothing but extension programs.

I went to a much larger high school down there in your area when I was a teen and had the choice of 3 foreign languages to study. Up here she had her choice of over 30. She scored high enough on the state science test that she was offered a bus ride 3 days a week to the local community college to take college level courses.

The local high school's course catalog is bigger than the community college's is though.

I would think that situations like the no child left behind set of feelings and programs like the MCAS would force more teachers to teach to the LCD.

Teaching to the LCD started happening back in the 1970s when they started "mainstreaming" kids that used to be excluded from the general classroom.

I was a kid who got caught in the middle of mainstreaming. I'd been in a program for gifted children, which was decommissioned in 1969 or 1970. A number of my classmates from the gifted program had difficulties when we returned to the mainstream.

I was lucky, partly because I had hamburger and mrs. hamburger keeping me interested and challenged outside of the classroom, partly because I had a couple of very challenging teachers (not the one who let us complete our Grade 8 math program at our own pace, and when the gifted group finished early, had us play cribbage at the back of the room for the remaining 6 months!), and partly because I'm a keener by nature. I would have been a disaster as a home-schooled child. I definitely needed the non-classroom mental stimulation and socialization offered by the other children.

I have had major problems, as a teacher, with mainstreaming, since a high percentage of deaf kids are multiply-disabled. As in, they were extremely premature and so have severe cognitive problems, are in a wheelchair, AND are deaf.

These students are very different to teach than "normal deaf" -- kids whose only disability is deafness.

I don't see the solution to this one, though. Mainstreaming children with disabilities shouldn't go away. (Mainstreaming "normal deaf" -- the actual term -- kids has a lot of problems from the deaf kids' perspective, but that's another thread.)

My (public) elementary school somehow managed all of these disparate elements -- 30 kids spanning three grades and an enormous variety of skill levels with one teacher. We all went at our own pace, and that pace was quite accelerated for many. (I was reading at the college level in 4th grade, etc.) It can be done, with flexibility and creativity.

As a substitute teacher, I was in high demand in the special needs classrooms. One of the regular teachers told me that the minute I walked in the door, she knew I was a "peace bringer." I saw children with a wide variety of problems. One three year old could barely speak and was subject to seizures but she struggled to make her speech understood and one of her triumphs was to speak my name. There was a normal intelligence trapped in a defective body. Her plan aimed at putting her in a regular classroom, because just as there are different grades of normal, there are different grades of disabilities.

The child I mentioned above was part of a group of preschoolers. The kids received speech, occupational and physical therapy. the parents were grateful: they could never have afforded the services these kids required.

Let's face it: when a normal mind is imprisoned in a burdensome body, shouldn't every thing possible be done to allow that mind to flourish?


As for programs like state testing, I can't tell you how much I hate them and how debilitating they can be to the education of normal children. I have written time and time again that these tests are the product of for profit companies, people looking for another way to squeeze a dollar out of the economy, who created an artificial crisis. The amount of time teachers are devoting to preparation for these tests is criminal.

This isn't about homeschooling but my family received some bad news yesterday. My daughter who has been teaching Spanish at Parker Charter School in Devens, MA did not have her contract renewed.

During the year, she complained about a male teacher who, as it turned out, did not pass the comprehensive (a test on reading, English language usage and editing) sections of the MA State Teacher Licensure Exam and who teaches his students swear words and slang,and about a female teacher who never took a college level Spanish course and has poor grammar skills. Emily told me that on the one hand, it hurts because she is so qualified and has worked so hard, but, on the other hand, if the school wants such low quality people, she is glad to be gone.

Emily intends to send out her resume with three cover letters -- in English, Spanish and French.

plainoldme--

I don't know about MA but Pennsylvania charter schools often have hidden agendas (like empowering the downtrodden) which get in the way of education.

Your daughter will be job hunting, but she won't have to face another year of Pretending and Pretense--she can find a job teaching.

Noddy,
There are always ads for Spanish teachers in the papers and Emily has a fine education.

plainoldme--

Fine education? I'd certainlysay so. If Emily is fluent in three langauages she has an excellent education! Even so, job-hunting can be a humiliating occupation.
I'll keep my fingers crossed for her.

We have been accepted by one of the local home schooling organizations and plan to pull our son out of public school very soon.

What the organization does: Once a week you are visited by a teacher, who makes sure the student is doing the required work. You can have them do a lesson at the same time. They organize field trips once or twice a month. There are get togethers for the students as well, even a soccer game once a week. They provide all the course materials, you are responsible for the same things you would be in public school. They also get the budget that would otherwise go to the public school.

The reason we are doing this is for our son's education, nothing more. We don't feel we can trust the school he is currently enrolled in. The principal is gutting the Parent Participation program we helped build over the last eight years. They also took money away from a special arts program, most of which was donated by parents, and gave it to rest of the "have nots" for art in the classroom. We've had enough.

Good luck to you CJ. It's a lot of work, but it's well worth it, in my opinion.

Noddy,
Thanks for your good wishes.

I was just given the chance for a try out as an inhouse permanent sub at Arlington (adjacent community) High School. My car dropped its transmission!!! I can't get there by public transportation! I donot want to give up the job after searching for six years! Ouch!!!

There has to be SOME way to get there. Can a friend give you a ride? Cab? It may be pricey, but...

Forgot about this thread completely.

Met a home schooler just before Christmas at the pottery sale at Mudville, in Somerville, MA. Every third sentence this woman uttered was to point out that her daughter was home schooled. The daughter, who seemed about 16 or 17, expressed an interest in learning to throw pots. The two women supervising the sale at that time gave a capsule review of their program, then suggested she could also look into the program at Mudflat, a studio and pottery school about 1/2 mile away. As I had taken a class at Mudflat, I explained that they offered beginning wheel-throwing and the teacher either concentrated on cylinders or bowls for the first class. This outraged the woman. Although she had never been to Mudflat, she was certain she would hate it because it was too restrictive.

It never occurred to me that some people home schooled because they were narrowminded and vindictive.

I've been re-reading this thread and was struck by a comment on the waning of art and music.


On another thread, a member of the right thinks what is wrong with public schools is that they are not run as for profit companies. Of course, we all know that it is worship of the bottom line that is devaluating education. First to go are art and music. The bottom liners fail to realize that some kids need art and/or music and that even the kids who are not inclined toward either can learn to think better and more clearly if they participate in creative studies.

Did anyone here watch the episode of Blue Collar TV where they went to a pottery studio? F-in hilarioius. Larry the Cable Guy threw a turd.

cj -- How are things going in your round of home schooling? BTW, I think the behavior of your principal was appalling.

Our son is doing great. As far as the school is concerned, the one that he was in is being closed due to budget cuts. It probably wasn't the logical choice for closure, but, it serves them right.

On the third hand, on a free schooling market, parents choose their children's school, and a substantial minority of them think music and art are very important. Some schools will be run by bottom liners who want that minority's business; they will either teach music and art, or else watch their bottom line go south. When you live in a democracy and hold minority views about school curriculae, there is much to be said for setting them by individual choices in markets, rather than by majority choice in school boards, who then impose them on a one-curriculum-fits-all-schools basis.