Mood:
happyTopic: uplifting
Home Schooling
“Kids must go to and graduate from, some form of public education.” This was my long held opinion. I saw the need for social interaction, but more important, I saw no other way to get that coveted high school diploma. You quit school you can get a GED, but by going all the way through high school you earn the diploma.
I spent decades believing this. Wow! I could not have been more wrong! The school environment is not for everyone. In some cases, this is the absolute worst place for a child to be. But what do we doe with these types of children? Do we just throw them away? Should they be institutionalized? Both answers are no. These children do not belong in a school type environment for a reason.
There are the few children that need to be in a hospital type environment because of strong medical needs. But they are not the ones being discussed here. Children with emotional needs, such as ADD/ADHD and Bipolar are the primary subjects. If the child is correctly diagnosed early enough and on medication set to the right dosages, then a school environment could work. This rarely if ever happens. So the only good solution is home schooling. Statistics show that for the most part, theses children have above average intelligence.
First, what home schooling is not. There is no set schedule, such as it starts at eight in the morning and each class is forty minutes long. It is not for the nine months like a regular school, nor do various instructors come into the home to teach. Not all home schooling is done the same way.
Then just what is home schooling? Again, not everyone does it the same way. Let’s use one example to illustrate the principle. In the bookcase are the traditional books used by schools. After the student wakes up, mom has some of the books set out on an agreed work area. Each lesson for the day may take an hour or it may be done in a few minutes. There is no set time limits, nor is it just Monday through Friday. Other lessons, reading and math, for instance, are spread out throughout the day. Regular visits to the library and helping the student select appropriate books facilitate reading. Games help with the math.
Other subjects like science are often taught on nature walks or with specific and safe experiments. A lot of the learning is done invisibly. Trips, the computer, and talking with mom and others add enormously to the student’s information intake. Now all mom has to do is tell the school board that her child has passed all the subjects for a particular grade? It’s an idyllic situation, but not true. At specified intervals the students work has to be saved and then turned into school authorities. Then the student must also be tested for proficiency for that grade level, before advancing.
