Home Connections

Well, It seems that Home Connections will be a bigger part of our life in the future so I thought I would take some time to explain it.  I am doing this because it is unlike anything else I have ever heard of or seen before.

Home Connections is our school district's parent partnership program.  The one wherein students enroll in public school yet most of their learning takes place at home and the school gets paid for it.  So of course it is not really homeschooling, it is actually under the alternative education part of state law.  We are 50% enrolled so we are 50% home schoolers and 50% public schoolers and the district gets 50% funding for that student. Complicated?, OH YES! and even more so cuz then you have do determine which part of the law you are paying attention to, but I will save you from that.

I really do like Home Connection's learning model.  It is unique from any other PPP I have seen.  They offer enrichment classes for grades k-10 (technically through grade 12, but there aren't many of those.  I'll explain in a moment.) These classes are taught by some amazing teachers, many are the parents of the students.  Because of the laws getting stricter, more and more certificated teachers are showing up.  In grades 6 through 10 there is an additional tract from which to choose.  The first is the enrichment course.  Students can continue to take enrichment courses at HC and complete the rest of their schooling at home.  OR students can enroll in Core Classes.  The students take their History, English, Math, and Science at HC and receive credit from the district.  This makes HC as close to a charter school as they can without being one. (I would say private, except that it is publicly funded under the school district).  The classes are small 13-16 students. And Parents are very much involved.

It is also a prep for running start.  They do not offer 11th and 12th grade classes because those students are encouraged to move to the community college and receive dual college/high school credit and degrees.  It really is a good program. Although, as an independent-homeschooler-at-heart, I resent the additional hoops I have to go through.  But I get that feeling every time I have the opportunity to deal with government agencies.

HC has plenty of hoops to jump through too, hoops aren't just for the families.  For example the parent/teachers used to be considered contracted teachers.  That rule changed last year.  They now have to be part time employees of the district.  However, with that comes a rule that part time employees cannot work more than so many hours a week.  There happened to be one teacher who taught at least 10 different classes- some fabulous ones: Spanish for kids, tumbling, ballet, local history classes and a lot more.  They were all really popular.  But she had to drop more than half of them because that put her over that limit. So, after about 10 years of teaching them, no more tumbling or ballet.  Fortunately, she has decided to open her own gymnastics/dance studio next fall.

I would love to take HC's program/model and recreate it outside of "Public Education."  There are some real strengths there.  (I just met someone who said the same thing.  I think I might have to join forces with her.)

Anyway I avoided HC for the longest time.  I have reservations against PPP's in general.  I do believe their existence and public support pose a threat to the continued existence of independent homeschooling.  I have done quite a bit of research in this area.  They do fill a need, and I don't think they should necessarily all go away.  But there is a danger simply from the fact that both PPP's and Home schoolers claim the title of Home Schooling.  If they were differentiated in some way, things would be better, but I digress.  So anyway, I kept away.  But I also realized I have to work with what I have (like politics).  I also am part of a marriage and have learned to trust my husband's council.

We enrolled last year as an experiment.  The main draw was guitar classes.  I wasn't sure if it would work at all because of student teaching in the middle of the year, but we made it work.  I stuck to it again this year reluctantly, again for guitar.  But something happened this year - ok, several little somethings, not the least of which has to do with that council of my husband thing.  Consequentially I think I am almost ready to become committed to being there.  It is such a good learning environment and the people there are great.

I am planning a couple of classes I want to teach and offer there.  So far we have only participated in the enrichment, but I think we will be taking advantage of the core track too.  We might just be in there a while.

Changing Educational Paradigms

I chose to homeschool because I felt strongly that my children would need a different learning environment than I had. As I studied how I might go about that daunting task I learned some more about our educational system. This little video shares some of what I learned. Essentially I homeschool because I felt I needed to; I continue to homeschool because of these reasons:

The Need to Simplify

I am a self-proclaimed curriculum junkie. I love looking things up and researching various resources, approaches, and philosophies in education. Thankfully, I do not have the budget to allow me to purchase all of the wonderful things out there. But that does not stop me from reading up on it. Consequentially, I have made a sort of name for myself as someone to go to for questions regarding curricula. I must talk to much. I tend to do so when I am excited about something and education and homeschooling excite me.

Anyway, A few weeks ago I was asked what my bare bones curriculum selections would be. What would I use if I was homeschooling on the road, (or in a sailboat sailing around the world) or what I would like to have in an emergency type situation without any outside resources. I had not really considered this idea before and being the nerd that I am, I had to come up with an answer; it was a new challenge. I finally compiled a list and added it here. I really enjoyed the process.

I really am a want to be minimalist. I love the idea of getting rid of stuff and having an empty house. My brain would then be free from having to care for all that stuff that I only use on occasion if at all. So why do I have so much stuff? Yes all the extra is fun, but I don't need it. With education, it is that "school I want to have someday." I tell myself that "even if my children do not use it, someone will. I should keep it for then." Whatever!!! So my problem is that I am also a collector. I also love self-reliance and collect items that would be helpful in an emergency or back-to-basics type lifestyle. All this extra just-in-case just gets in the way of my purging.

But going through the process of analyzing my options, deciding what I would really need, I realized how little it was. I now feel free to let more of that stuff go. I do not need to complicate my life so much. Now I just need the time to de-clutter my junk.

So recently I have become a recovering curriculum junkie. On to recovery and the end of the eternal search for the "perfect curriculum".

Archery

Have I told you (bragged on) how good Steven is with archery? Jefferson Academy (the charter school in Show Low) had an archery class. Steven fell in love. At the time we were able to buy one of those cheap (toy) bows from Walmart. He has been saving ever since for a real bow. With a wonderful gift from Grandma, he was able to finally get his Genesis Bow after Christmas.

In early March we found a 4H archery club in Mount Vernon. It is almost a 45 minute drive, so we do not go every week. But he has already made a name for himself there. He is the kid "who doesn't need sights." (He has just gotten use to not using them and when he tries, they mess him up.) But even without sights, he shoots better than almost everyone else there. The kid is actually pretty good!

Thoughts on Schooling

Perhaps I have given the wrong impression. I do not believe that everyone should be homeschooling. Nor do not think public schools are evil and that homeschool is the answer. Well, I do think that there is evil in the pretext of public schooling, why else would it be so high on Marx's list of must haves? But that is a digression. I certainly do not think the people teaching and administrating at the schools have anything but the best intentions. They are there because they passionately believe in what they are doing and are trying to make a difference in the lives of children.

I do not think that schools were necessarily better 100 years ago than they are now. What I do object to is the cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all way of teaching (much of which was around 100 years ago). I do not believe that children are all the same or should even have to learn the same things, let alone at the same rate or age. Daniel Boone is a good example for me. He had minimal schooling, but he was very educated. Yet, his intense schooling had nothing to do with a pencil and paper and books; he had a different mission. I do not object to standards. After all, I have standards that I want my children to meet before I let them graduate. But I do not think that politicians are the best ones to set standards.

What I like is options and variety: Choices. There are many ways of teaching that are perfect for others, even though I would not choose them. And I am perfectly fine with someone not choosing my way. I just want to have the choices available and the opportunities to take advantage of them. I would like to see each child mentored on an individual level with a curriculum catered to him/her; but that is my way.

One problem I do see in public schooling is that it has largely alleviated parents of their responsibility to school their children. Public schooling has become a crutch to lean on so that parents are not required to make some of these choices or even to consider possibilities. Not that all parents do not take it seriously, but many do not think it important; it is being taken care of. The one thing that repeatedly came up in all of my classes was "what about the parent's who do not care, or support, or etc.?)

Anyway, what it comes down to, is that I love education! I get excited when I see the many different approaches taken to learning both formally and informally. I do not want to see those options restricted be they public, private, charter, home, or something else. They all have a place and fill needs.

Enough of that.

Reading

When Steven was about a year old, I started reading about homeschooling and different philosophies about learning. One of the first books I found was by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore called Better Late Than Early. Raymond Moore was the California State school superintendent of instruction during the 70's. In this book he documented why it is better to wait for children to be developmentally ready to learn instead of pushing them during the preschool years. They followed several hindered children who did not enter school until they were about 8 years old. As long as these children were placed with their age-mates they caught up with their peers within a matter of months and generally passed them up. The only children who had problems were the ones who were not permitted to be with their age mates. If they were put in kindergarten instead, they suffered. The Moore's also cited studies that showed that pushing children could actually do much more harm than good, sometimes even physical damage.



This book was very influential for me. But this was not the only one. I seemed to be lead and guided to similar writers/educators who advocated waiting. As I began to explore further I did eventually come in contact with the opposite philosophy, but by then I felt strongly that, for my family, I should not push. It has been found that generally by the time children are 13, you can't tell who began reading at 4 and who began reading at 10. It all seems to average out. What does matter is if that love of reading is alive. Many children pushed before they are developmentally ready resist and never really love reading.



Now this did take some faith on my part. I ended up with an eight year old who would decline to read in church because he "couldn't read." Now he could, but not well, and he did not feel confident. I knew from my research that his time would come. That he would blossom.



So you can imagine how exciting the last couple of months have been for me as I have watched Steven's love of reading blossom. It is sometimes hard to have faith in what you know is right in your heart but what others question. It really does work. I just need to trust the process! (and wait 10 years)

The Phases of Learning

Thomas Jefferson Education speaks of various phases of learning that children will naturally progress through if allowed to.

Core Phase is roughly age 0 - 8. This is when children learn values. The lessons of this time is to learn the difference between good and bad; true and false; right and wrong. This is done through the curriculum of work and play with family. Academics do not need to be stressed, pushed, or required. If they are pursued, they are in the form of playing and working with the family.



As time goes along, children will transition into a Love of Learning Phase. People in the phase will develop many interests. The interests my last a week or several years. Think of an educational buffet as children sample and test many topics and subjects.



Around the age of 12 or 13, that love of learning gains more structure as the child progresses into Scholar Phase. This is when things start to look a lot more like school. Children are developmentally ready for more rigger in their studies. They start to gain a sense of mission. They may not yet know what they want to do in their lives yet, but they begin to feel the urgency to prepare



Depth phase is more of the college age. By this time they have a general knowledge of what they want to do in their lives and are ready for the in depth preparation to get ready.


There is more, like Mission phase and Impact, but this is good enough for now.


Once one transitions to another phase, they do not leave the previous. They build on each other. I have heard several analogies of how to visualize this, but my favorite is the bicycle tire. The core is the center of the hub. The spokes represent love of learning; the more the merrier. The rim is scholar and the tire is depth.

Agency is a beautiful thing

After the interruptions of summer and moving, Steven reverted back into Core Phase in his education. He was not ready to have anything required of him and was just in play-learning mode. It took me a bit to catch on to what what happening. In my mind he should have been eagerly in love of learning phase spending his days on learning all sorts of things. Well, I decided to back off and give him the space he needed to get back to where he was supposed to be. So about 6 weeks went by with my battling between thinking he really should be doing more and knowing he needed time. Why do I doubt myself?



Well shortly before Christmas, he kind of started to get back in the grove. Then that silly Diary of a Wimpy Kid came along. He started reading like crazy. I had to make him turn off his light at night so that he would get a little sleep. When he was done reading those books as fast as he could get his hands on them, he went over and picked up The Jungle Book of all things. Now that book is NOT necessarily easy reading!! But he is sticking with it and enjoying it.


That Diary thing also got him wanting to write in his journal more, but he feels self conscience about his spelling. So he has been asking to work on that too. I am amazed at the amount of spelling practice he is going through. He is reading his scriptures a lot and reminding me when we forget. He is finding passages he wants to underline and is even quoting stuff. He did say that reading his scriptures helps him understand the older language in The Jungle Book.



I am grateful I gave him the space he needed. I could have decided he needed to be studying more and require more of him. But not only would it have been a battle and not fun for either of us, I could not require all that he is doing now: he is asking for this stuff. He is now back in his Love of Learning and it is stronger than ever.

I love agency education!

A Cool New Resource: fun with math

We have found a fun, new math resource.

I first heard about Times Tables the Fun Way by Judy Liautaud when I visited the Montessori school in Lakeside. Math facts for 3's, 4's, 5's, 6's, 7's and 8's have a fun story to help the children remember it. I looked it up and Judy Liautaud has also written a similar book for the addition facts. My budget would only fit in one, so I decided to start with Addition the Fun Way.

Daniel and Isaac are really picking up on these. Each number is a cartoon character for example, 3 is a bee: the 3 bee. 6 is always sick. Some are silly, but others are pretty good. Either way, it seems to work.

Memorizing math facts are important, yet I also do not like the idea of memorizing by rote without understanding the concepts behind it. So we have also pulled out the dominoes. We have a set of double nine dominoes which are perfect for generating addition problems from 0 - 9. So we pick out a domino at random, say it the problem, maybe write it on the white board and then talk about the story. Then they count the dots to make sure we are right. It is fun to see.

Another fun game we have started playing is Addition War very similar to traditional War. We use a stack on number cards with each player having half of the cards. To play, the players each pull off the top two cards from the deck and lay them on the table. The two cards are added together. The player whose card add up higher get all the cards on the table. Much funner than timed sheets.

PlayDo Days

We have been having several days of play do fun. They were so

productive and creative. Not exactly what I had planned, but why mess

with a good thing? Actually it all started with cub scouts last week when

they had a game day. They have been playing UNO, checkers, and chess, almost daily ever sense.






I'm not exactly sure what they are suppose to be, but they did have fun. Since they insisted I keep these images for posterity, you have the opportunity to enjoy.

School Begins

Well, we started school this week. It actually went pretty well for a first week. Yes there were a few moments when I was questioning my sanity. (My school, homeschooling, AND getting ready to move?!?!?) This is the first year that I will have 3 school age kids. I have have tried to make it really simple this year, it will still take some gelling time to get the rhythms down.

Isaac is reading much better than I thought he was. He must have been practicing behind my back. Now as soon as HE realizes that he can reading, he might just take off.

Daniel is loving anything that looks like school. He loves to play the number games and phonics games I have. He just went to town with his handwriting book. I noticed that his fine motor skills are much stronger than last June.

Steven is having a slower start. He is preferring to listen to me read to him instead of pulling out his stuff again, but it will come. It is just getting used to the routine.

After reading scriptures at the beginning of the day, Rebecca had to have her turn. I had been pointing and reading phrases and having one of the boys read with me or repeat. Rebecca insisted she needed to read too. So she plopped herself down, started pointing with her finger and did her part too. It was great!

I do like having my guys with me. I love being able to see the light go on in there heads when they finally get something. I love having the deep philosophical discussions we would never have time for if they were gone all day. I even have a little more time for my school, since they play with Rebecca. If they were gone, I would be her only entertainment. Things do not always go perfectly, but I like the spirit of my home when we can all work, play, and learn together.

What is TJed?

In my homeschooling I have been greatly influenced by a book called A Thomas Jefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of Leaders for the Twenty-first Century, By Oliver Van DeMille. This approach is commonly referred to as “TJed.” In my community several families who also have been influenced by this book have banded together and started a homeschool group for support and social outlets. We are open to all, and although the majority of the group does follow the principles described in DeMille’s book, not everyone does. We have often had people come for a park day or two and not come back. That is fine, if we are not a good fit for their family, I would encourage them to keep looking.
Recently we had a new family come to our park day. The question of what is TJed came up. The group turned to me and asked “Flora, what was it you said the other day? You summed it up well.” “I did? If it was good, someone should have written it down!” So I will try to sum it up and write it down.
“TJed is a classical, mentored approach to education incorporating the principals of freedom with accountability.”
That is my one sentence answer. The problem with a one sentence answer is that it produces more questions. I’ll try to answer some of those later.