Home Schooling

[Ronja]

Rachel, I must have been majorly asleep at some point, 'cause I have no memory of ever seeing this mentioned before.

YOU, of all people, were home-schooled, with the ACE curriculum to boot???

[rachelbean]

Yep (and that's the normal reaction ). The math (along with help from my dad) and English/grammar/etymology were seemingly better than what my counterparts in public school got but the science and history were horrific, and the required reading was a joke. Luckily I was already reading all the classics because it's just something I loved doing, but the lack of science education was something I didn't catch up on until much much later.

[Ronja]

Yep (and that's the normal reaction ). The math (along with help from my dad) and English/grammar/etymology were seemingly better than what my counterparts in public school got but the science and history were horrific, and the required reading was a joke. Luckily I was already reading all the classics because it's just something I loved doing, but the lack of science education was something I didn't catch up on until much much later.

Lady, I take my hat off for you! With that kind of a starting point, where&how&who you have ended up being is even more awesome. Pappa is soooo lucky!

[Coito ergo sum]

I harbor a presumption against home schooling for one main reason:

Most parents are themselves incompetent to teach almost any subject.

[rachelbean]

Yep (and that's the normal reaction ). The math (along with help from my dad) and English/grammar/etymology were seemingly better than what my counterparts in public school got but the science and history were horrific, and the required reading was a joke. Luckily I was already reading all the classics because it's just something I loved doing, but the lack of science education was something I didn't catch up on until much much later.

Lady, I take my hat off for you! With that kind of a starting point, where&how&who you have ended up being is even more awesome. Pappa is soooo lucky!

That's incredibly sweet, and means even more coming from you, Ronja

[Tero]

You could take up a biology project with Pappa to catch up on developmental biology. Start with haploids.

[Bella Fortuna]

I harbor a presumption against home schooling for one main reason:

Most parents are themselves incompetent to teach almost any subject.

I plan on instructing my child in obsessive cleaning and sweary outbursts, two of my strengths.

[Coito ergo sum]

I harbor a presumption against home schooling for one main reason:

Most parents are themselves incompetent to teach almost any subject.

I plan on instructing my child in obsessive cleaning and sweary outbursts, two of my strengths.

She Who Must Be Obeyed got me trained. Just last night, having arrived home a bit late, I walked into the kitchen to find a plate on the counter and some stuff in the sink, from SWMBO'd having made some food for herself in my absence. SWMBO'd was upstairs in the shower, probably having just finished dinner. I was shocked to find that I was unable to leave the mess (small as it was) without cleaning it up. Rinse dishes, put in dishwasher, wash out sink and wipe counter and table and put everything in place. I mean, it almost disconcerted me. I'm supposed to be a slob, and this wasn't even my leavings...rats! I've become neat!

I plan on doing my part with the offspring to instill a love of reading, a respect for intelligence, education and accomplishment, reasonable ambition, and a philosophy of life that learning things is good even if those things don't serve an evident purpose. I also intend to instill a sense of ability and confidence. I don't expect to be able to "teach" or "instruct" a child in most subjects, and that is where schoolteachers come in -- use a reasonable textbook and guide the student through a reasonable learning process - and I will supplement, encourage and assist.

Words, however, that are banished from my house in advance: "I can't..."

I am vehemently opposed to all corporal punishment. However, the single exception may well have to be the initial utterance of those words. It's a slippery slope. It leads to other abominations like "It's too hard," and the infuriating, "I haven't been trained...", among other evil concepts.

[Ronja]

IIRC, we have managed to counter the "But I don't know how!" protest, which Younger Daughter is sometimes prone to, with words to the effect "We know you don't - but we also know that you can learn, our smart and handy girl!" Sometimes that has needed to be followed with a bit of "Just try it" or "I really need help and there's nobody else to ask" but in general we have been able to talk both girls into doing pretty much every chore and trying out every activity that we have thought would be good for them. Doing chores as a team also helps: if all other family members are working, social pressure becomes pretty heavy for a 10 or 12 year old.

The blatant "I don't want to" or "I'm too tired" we have countered just as blatantly, though: "Den som inte vill arbeta, hon ska inte heller äta" = She who does not want to work, will not eat, either. We have never yet needed to make good of that threat, because already before they were old enough to do real chores they learned that if they did not eat what was offered, they did not get anything else. Cottoned on to that pretty quickly, both of them did...


Hmm - this is not about home schooling at all anymore

[Coito ergo sum]

IIRC, we have managed to counter the "But I don't know how!" protest, which Younger Daughter is sometimes prone to, with words to the effect "We know you don't - but we also know that you can learn, our smart and handy girl!" Sometimes that has needed to be followed with a bit of "Just try it" or "I really need help and there's nobody else to ask" but in general we have been able to talk both girls into doing pretty much every chore and trying out every activity that we have thought would be good for them. Doing chores as a team also helps: if all other family members are working, social pressure becomes pretty heavy for a 10 or 12 year old.

The blatant "I don't want to" or "I'm too tired" we have countered just as blatantly, though: "Den som inte vill arbeta, hon ska inte heller äta" = She who does not want to work, will not eat, either. We have never yet needed to make good of that threat, because already before they were old enough to do real chores they learned that if they did not eat what was offered, they did not get anything else. Cottoned on to that pretty quickly, both of them did...


Hmm - this is not about home schooling at all anymore

That is a form of home schooling, I think.

You identified one of my pet peeves there - when parents let their kids choose what is for dinner, to the point of making individualized meals. I was at a friend's house some years back, and I sat there dumbfounded as she entertained games and tantrums from the children as to which foods they wanted -- "I want this - no I want that" - yes, no, maybe, this, that, I'm not hungry, yes I am... And, it went on...I kept my place and didn't say anything, but man....I learned what I would never do in my house.

[Ronja]

You identified one of my pet peeves there - when parents let their kids choose what is for dinner, to the point of making individualized meals. I was at a friend's house some years back, and I sat there dumbfounded as she entertained games and tantrums from the children as to which foods they wanted -- "I want this - no I want that" - yes, no, maybe, this, that, I'm not hungry, yes I am... And, it went on...I kept my place and didn't say anything, but man....I learned what I would never do in my house.

I had seen scenes a bit like that - though nothing quite as OTT as what you describe - before we had kids, and my first and fundamental reaction was along the lines "But I'm too lazy to not do the work of teaching my kids to eat what is in front of them!" I.e. I really did not want the repeated, possibly daily, bother of negotiating about food (neither did MiM), so we chose to take the confrontations that came when they first discovered the words "No" and "Won't." Sometimes that meant that one girl was carried away from the dinner table kicking and screaming and locked into the shower room, and had to have the same food cold for supper, but we did not have to do that very many times until they realized that there was no getting around the rule "we eat what's for lunch/dinner/supper" - especially as they saw that we follow that rule ourselves.

However, if some food really made either of them gag (like raw carrots used to with Elder Daughter and cheese still does with Younger), we did not force them to eat a lot of it or even to taste it often - just a couple of times per year. ED has "graduated" to pushing herself a bit: she sometimes comes home from school really proud that she has managed to eat a whole big spoonful (!) of grated carrot.

I think we all won with this approach: today the girls enjoy tasty food, don't like fast food much, eat a varied diet, agree to taste almost anything once, and don't limit what we parents can eat.

[Tero]

Tim Tebow

Evangelical home schooling poster child

[Coito ergo sum]

Tim Tebow

Evangelical home schooling poster child

John Parr, you have just sucked more than anything that has ever sucked before...

[hadespussercats]

IIRC, we have managed to counter the "But I don't know how!" protest, which Younger Daughter is sometimes prone to, with words to the effect "We know you don't - but we also know that you can learn, our smart and handy girl!" Sometimes that has needed to be followed with a bit of "Just try it" or "I really need help and there's nobody else to ask" but in general we have been able to talk both girls into doing pretty much every chore and trying out every activity that we have thought would be good for them. Doing chores as a team also helps: if all other family members are working, social pressure becomes pretty heavy for a 10 or 12 year old.

The blatant "I don't want to" or "I'm too tired" we have countered just as blatantly, though: "Den som inte vill arbeta, hon ska inte heller äta" = She who does not want to work, will not eat, either. We have never yet needed to make good of that threat, because already before they were old enough to do real chores they learned that if they did not eat what was offered, they did not get anything else. Cottoned on to that pretty quickly, both of them did...


Hmm - this is not about home schooling at all anymore

That is a form of home schooling, I think.

You identified one of my pet peeves there - when parents let their kids choose what is for dinner, to the point of making individualized meals. I was at a friend's house some years back, and I sat there dumbfounded as she entertained games and tantrums from the children as to which foods they wanted -- "I want this - no I want that" - yes, no, maybe, this, that, I'm not hungry, yes I am... And, it went on...I kept my place and didn't say anything, but man....I learned what I would never do in my house.

I agree with you, for the most part-- "This is what we have for dinner. If you don't want it, you're not getting something else."

But man am I ever leery of talking smack about other people's parenting. Kids throw tantrums. Kids cry. This sort of behavior makes parents look bad to other adults-- especially those who don't have kids. And when you're the one in the hot seat, you might find yourself making choices you'd never think you would.

I'm not too far into this gig, myself, so I don't have many examples, yet. But if there's one thing I hate to eat, it's my own words.

[Coito ergo sum]

Don't get me wrong. I had no problems with my friends' overall parenting, and I loved their kids like I was a member of the family. They were very sweet kids, and well behaved. It was just the idea that there are two kids, and the way to make dinner is to open the 'fridge and ask them to point out things they want. Take out the temper tantrums and silly behavior, which all kids will engage in. Just the idea that mom is a servant who is going to obey the wishes of the children, and make individual means for the two of them, was to me abhorrent. I would avoid setting any such precedent, and simply making something for dinner and saying, here - here's dinner, and say please and thank you and may I and please pass the...etc.