Why I chose home education (#115)
December 30th, 2005My cousin has a masters degree in elementary education. I’ve known her since her birth and she’s intelligent, compassionate and loves children. So if she can piss me off, there’s a problem with the system.
Yet she has nearly every time I’ve encountered her since having children. She’s great with my kids on a social level and they love her - she knows how to play with them real, real good. She sees them once a year, if that, and is always astounded at how much they know and how “smart” they are. It’s become much more relevant since my wife shipped my oldest off to the government babysitter for a few months. My oldest daughter was in first grade. (Thank God she’s home!) Since my cousin is a first grade teacher they have much to talk about.
Sing-songy, talking to a little kid voice: “Can you count to twenty-five?”
My thought: “She’s seven! She could do that when she was three! Do you have a challenge?”
Sing-songy, talking to a little kid voice: “Wow! That’s great. You must have a really good teacher!”
My thought: “Yeah. Sittin’ right here with no college education, fool.”
Sing-songy, talking to a little kid voice: “Can you count to a hundred?”
At this point, I spoke up and said, “Emily can. She can count to two hundred by ones or tens. Take your pick.” (Emily is my youngest that *gasp* hasn’t been to SCHOOL!)
Sing-songy, talking to a little kid voice: “You can?!?! Really?!?! You can’t count to two hundred!”
Sing-songy, talking to a little kid voice: “Wow! That’s great! You’re both smarter than anybody in my class!
Sing-songy, talking to a little kid voice thins: “I’ll have to get your address so I can send your Daddy some really good stuff to do with numbers to help you learn even more!”
My thought: “Don’t bother. I did all that and more without the stupidity you were taught in college.”
She also asked Emily, “So when will YOU get to go to school? Next year?” Emily very non-chalantly said, “Prolly.” and I thought, “When Daddy’s dead. I have to protect them from people like you.”
This is also a woman that informed me a few years ago that it’s “completely wrong” to teach a child to read with phonics and now is amazed at how well my seven year old reads. Oops! Can’t argue with results. Reading with my daughter she says, “Look at the picture. Look at the picture. What are they doing there?” My daughter responds, “I don’t look at the pictures to read ’cause a lot of books don’t have them. I just look at the letters and sound out the words.”
Oops.
Based on what she said, my five year old reads better than any of her students. You have to understand both that I was separated from my kids for most of two years before I got custody and also that she (teacher, masters degree girl) works in “the highest paying school district” here. This ain’t the inner-city we’re comparing my kids to folks.
This is also someone that said she asked “her” children what was the true meaning of Christmas and had to say, “No” when a student answered, “It’s the birth of Jesus.” When pressed by her father, she said, “I can’t acknowledge that in the classroom! The true meaning of Christmas is giving!”
Read my lips:
SCHOOLS WORK PERFECTLY BECAUSE THEY ARE ABOUT SCHOOLING. NO ONE GETS AN EDUCATION THERE EXCEPT THE TEACHERS SMART ENOUGH TO LEAVE.
It’s no place for a kid. Especially one you love.
You’re doing fine, Heidi.
My mother in law does basically the same thing. Lately though, she has been getting sneaky about it. I caught her the other day pointing a bus out to my son and saying “You’ll get to ride on that next year - won’t that be FUN?”
Are you going to participat in the Homeschool Carnival?
We’re going to keep our boy here with us too. I’m not entirely confident about my abilities either, but the alternative just sucks butt. I even asked him if he wanted to go to school or stay with his mom and dad, and he said “stay with mom and dad.” And he does know what “school” is from books and tv. (He’s 4) But since I’m completely new to this, I’m undecided if I should use a formal curriculum or just wing it.
My sister, a public school teacher, recently spent a bunch of time telling me about all the lame teachers at her school (at least half of them, in her estimation). Some who are lazy and burned out, others who mean well but are just bad. I bet when she finds out I plan to homeschool my son, I’ll get resistance and she’ll stop telling me how bad public school teachers are.
Thanks, Cowboy. I really appreciate your encouragement. *big hug and all that mushy rot*
Do you have a video camera? These would make great films. Especially with your voice-over commentary!!
Great comments: I agree! One question though - do you really think phonics is the best way to teach English reading? I know it gets results, but I always understood that the phonic approach actually made it TOUGHER for kids to comprehend what they read, especially as the subect matter becomes more advanced. But I freely acknowledge that a/ I was reading at an early age (3) for no apparent reason and with no extra training and b/ I know nothing about how to educate children - except that g-schools are no place to do it!
Anyway, thanks for reading and have a Happy New Year!!
Jason
I used phonics tools as well as yearly phonics books in the curriculum we use up through 3rd grade to help teach our daughter. The only drawback that I can see some evidence of is that she has a seemingly hard time with spelling now. She reads far above her 4th grade level, though. She could read before, and better than most of her friends as well. The problems with spelling COULD be completely unrelated to having learned, at least partially, through phonics though. As far as comprehension goes, absolutely no way has phonics had any adverse effect on her comprehension/reading skills.
To Andrea:
You can definately “wing it” for the first year or 2, but if you can “afford” a curriculum now, it’s going to be very helpful to you and your child. I doubt highly that you would regret having purchased one. I’m in no way affiliated with this site, but I purchase my “deluxe secular” curriculum at homeschoolsupercenter.com . One of the few places that has some great pre-made “secular” curriculums. Or is that curriculii? hehe and I’m a teacher!? Better look that one up!
If you’ll accept anecdotal evidence, Jason, my three sisters and I all learned to read using phonics and we always read at a much higher level than our age group.
I’d go into more detail, but it’ll have to wait until I’ve got more time. =)
Definitely loved the voice over, and I could just hear the “talking down to kids” voice as I read, my own name for the sing-songy thing.
Andrea, I can understand the feeling of lacking confidence. Rest assured that most, if not all, homeschoolers go through this. There is so much info out there right now for us homeschoolers, and there are many, many ways to go about homeschooling. We don’t have any time constraints with our children as gschools do, so we have plenty of time to make mistakes, recognize and then fix those mistakes.
DD learned to read thru phonics and at 7 can read and comprehend anything you put in front of her (sometimes can be a problem LOL). We use Spelling Power to help her with spelling, and she is at a 6th grade level and frankly, I am learning things I didn’t know!
To the wanna-be homeschoolers I’d recommend “Patchwork of Days” by Nancy Lande to give an idea of 30 different homeschool homes as well as reading a few issues of Home Education Magazine.
Great post. I had some friction early on with a teacher-relative who was very unhappy with homeschooling. I started showing her my curriculum and asking for her advice when we were together (I didn’t have to use it, and some of it did turn out to be helpful). This helped defuse the situation and we’re all much more comfy and happy now.
Dennis O’D:
‘Curriculum’ is neuter (note the -um ending in the nominative), so the nominative plural, which we would use in English even if it’s in the objective case, is ‘curricula.’ However it’s generally accepted usage to just use an English plural form, -s, with Latin-derived nouns in English. So ‘curriculums’ is fine.
I didn’t know any of this until I started homeschooling!
Andrea, I know you’ll do a great job! You love your son, which puts you leaps and bounds ahead of the system. Don’t be afraid to experiment and find what works for you and the little guy.
I would venture to say that comprehension is aided by phonics. Through phonics, one can more easily recognize the roots of words. I think it more completely wires the brain for better reading. Language is a system and you figure out how to best use that system by learning the rules that govern it. Phonics is the system manual for the English language. From there, practice will teach you the rest.
My own daughter (for those of you who don’t know) is almost 5 and she can read just about anything that you put in front of her. And yes, I taught her by using phonics. Furthermore, there is no need for a formal phonics program, I just took her through the letter and worked through the sounds with her. Then I started showing her various words and what the sounds were. Practice, practice, practice.
Don’t be lazy, it’s your job to teach your children not the so called ‘educators’.
I started to read before I could talk (I was very confident with books but not confident with speech), at about 2 and a half. Mom used to show me off to her friends by grabbing whatever printed material was handy and telling me to point out letters and words.
My next-in-line little brother was hyperactive (they’d call it ADHD today but I think he was just full of monkey energy) and they put him in a special “developmental first grade” to get him ready for big school. The school proper had run away with some whole-language idiocy, I think, but this class taught solid, no nonsense phonics. Within months, Monkey Boy was reading the text in TV commercials out loud. Within a year, Mom put him in a kitchen chair to read recipes to her as she cooked. Big Sis (me), eight years old, used to sit on the couch with him and read Narnia or other books about that level using a “you read this page out loud and I’ll read the next page” method.
Second little brother, at about the same age, had a teacher who was pretty useless. So Big Sis and Big Bro taught HIM to read, more or less behind our parents’ backs. He was never all that interested in reading on his own, though.
I spell perfectly (spelling champion); my brothers are near that. My dad is a Hungarian immigrant and insisted that we always pronounce things properly; I think that has a lot to do with it.
I got off the point. What I intended to show was that if a halfway competent self-taught ten-year-old and a halfway literate eight-year-old can teach a five-year-old to read and write, what the heck is the matter with the schools?
On why phonics is best I enjoyed reading this ‘Thank-you, Whole Language’ letter:
http://www.illinoisloop.org/anon_thankyouwl.html
My opinion goes like this.
Phonics is just one method. It happens to fit many people. Thing is, everybody is different so if you want your kids to learn in the best possible way then you have to figure out what works for them. And that could be any number of things.
Use what works and tell the people with the formulaic methods to stuff it.
Kids want to learn. It takes a teacher to make them want to stop learning.
If the kid is asking questions and you are answering them then you are not a teacher, you are answering a question, nothing more, nothing less.
A teacher is someone that forces you memorize something against your will. Notice I did not say learn, I said memorize, because they are two separate things.
There are many good points made here. I apologize for not being involved in the ongoing discussion. Just about an hour ago I finished the last leg of my 9 day, 4000 mile plus Christmas adventure. (Also, if I seem more deranged than usual in this comment, it’s because I’ve been up for 33 hours and on the road for 23 of them.)
Headmistress, thank you for that link. I can think of a couple people right away to whom I’ll be forwarding it.
Athor, I agree completely with you about adjusting to the child - that’s one of the many benefits of home education. However, I firmly believe that if you’re not using phonics as a starting point, you’re a) deceived by the propaganda against phonics, b) ignorant without having understood the propaganda and/or c) not serious about the kid learning to read.
Most “professionals” qualify for all three.
I couldn’t possibly agree more with your statement:
Kids want to learn. It takes a teacher to make them want to stop learning.
I started to relate an anecdote to confirm how right you are and realized that it’s too long to put here and too good to be hidden in the comments. I’ll make it a blog post.
[…] Anyway, there were a number of great comments on that post. I suggest you read them all. […]
A year of Latin at about age nine helped me a lot with recognizing root words. I want to do more than that with my boys, and some Greek, too. Learning quite a bit of French helped with recognizing roots, too.
amazing