[WordsAplenty]

I think homeschooling is a wonderful alternative to public school-- when it is legitimately done. Some parents take their children out of school and never actually teach them anything. That, obviously, doesn't help anyone. BUT, when families are truly homeschooling, it is a terrific learning experience. Most homeschoolers do not do "school at home." Lessons do not all come from textbooks-- their is a lot of hands-on, real life education. Plus you can more easily go at each child's pace when homeschooling. You can more easily adapt your lessons to different abilities and learning styles. When you are not trying to teach 30 kids you are free to customize your lessons. You are also more free to go off on tangents. If your children are really interested in one topic, you can dig deep, let them fully explore it before you move on. If they have outside interests like ice skating or gymnastics, they can nurture it more fully. In addition, without the busy work, class changes, roll call, etc., "school" can be completed in much less time, leaving a lot more time for living.

[markbarnes19]

"Assistant teacher" is a bit of a generalization. I don't know the types of teachers you've dealt with in Montana, but I can assure you if any of them are as gifted as the ones I have worked with in Ohio for 13 years, they can help your child. Have you sat down with them and worked on strategies together? To assume that a parent is better qualified than any teacher, no matter how gifted a child, I think is a bold and damaging assumption.

[mcmama]

Very easy. Put him in gifted classes. Yeah. Right.
When there ARE gifted classes. Real ones, that is.
We're not rural, we're suburban. We spend a lot "per pupil" but I don't think it really goes to the pupils. In my town, the gifted program is for bridge building and art. You cannot do both, as they meet at the same time. You can be gifted in bridgebuilding or art. Before school. If you are a gifted writer, you are just s...outta luck. There is a pull out in the elementary grades. You solve problems and develop "Thinking skills" for about an hour a week. The teacher travels from school to school. Brains on a cart.
Gifted children do not need to be removed from the mainstream. They do need special attention and time to interact with their peers. They need a well run classroom with a positive social climate. They need experienced teachers who know how to meet their specific learning needs and integrate this into a mainstream class. But all too often, they are viewed as the problem. Put your hand down, give someone else a chance to answer. Well, if they are beating you up, it is your fault for being such a know it all.
And my personal favorite - "What do you mean he is gifted? ALLLLLLL children are gifted". Well, in my town, ALLLL children play baseball. But not all of them are very good at it. How do you suppose it would be if we told the kid who can pitch a no hitter to sit on the bench and give someone with no talent a chance? No one would belong to a winning team! That is what happens to gifted boys in public schools every day. My son wrote a play about it. He refers to it as being "marginalized"
I HAD to withdraw my son from public school, because they were degrading and erasing his intellligence, and setting him up to fail. Bully ing was a major problem. There was so much he had to re learn in private school, academically and socially. I had to pay a huge tuition for them to undo the harm the public school did. If we had not had the option of an appropriate private school, I would have home schooled him. Both options require a huge economic sacrifice.
I have seen gifted kids who are home schooled, and the parents do a better job. They hook the kid up with private music school, language tutors, and specialists when necessary. They take a lot of trips. They experiment in science. They spend a lot of time at the public library. Reading happens a lot in the content areas. There is a lot of intentionality in choice of curriculum - not just the latest fad which is not implemented properly with decent inservice training. My oldest still cannot spell, due to the lazy approach to "whole language" instruction he endured in the primary grades. (and yes, i worked with him, but they had his attention during his best hours) For first and second grades he was taught by two burn outs who were on the verge of retirement. With tenure and unionized protection, that is routine!!!I saw it when I taught in NYC too.
Yes, I have actually seen gifted kids do better and achieve more being taught by their parents than being taught by "professionals". Maybe this is because the successful home schooling parent does not do it alone, and is constantly seeking ways to do it better. These people team with their own hand picked professionals - subject specialists, resource specialists such as librarians, museum educators, etc.
My son has a friend who is gifted/ADHD and now at a major tech university, where he is excelling. This boy went to a much better public school system than ours. Even though his mom taught in the same system, he refers to his school experience as having "survived" his education. Seems they wanted to focus on the ADHD component, the "problem" and not his giftedness. He had a scholarship opportunity to attend the university he now attends which he almost missed because his science teacher (his best subject) didn't fill out the form he submitted. See, the teacher thought that being ADHD, this kid wouldn't want to go to a "pressure" school. Thank God this boy had parents who CALLED and NAGGED and BUGGED and finally SHAMED this jerk. It is appalling how gifted boys are discarded even in the best school systems because they are not "good".
BTW, my son has an IQ of 147. This boy tests much higher.
Home schooling of gifted students is a credible response to public education's discarding them with the trash. It is something that all who are concerned with American education should be paying close attention to, and supporting. It is not the right choice for all families - you need a steady income from one parent, and a more than full time committment from the parent who does most of the teaching. But it is a viable and preferable alternative for some gifted students who do not wish to be underachievers in the name of "equality".

[cocotbo]

That is EXACTLY it!
Thank you for explaining it so well as I could not.

[WordsAplenty]

Hip, hip, hooray! Very eloquently stated!
And let's not forget the other kids who fall through the cracks-- the mildly to moderately disabled. My oldest (6) has a moderate-to-moderately severe hearing loss in both ears. She wears hearing aids. As you know, students are entitled to be put in the "least restrictive environment." The school decided my daughter was too "high functioning" for the deaf ed or hearing impaired classes, so she was put in a general ed class. She could not keep up. Her hearing loss means she cannot hear high frequency sounds-- she does a lot of lip reading and filling in the blanks. Even with hearing aids, an FM system, and preferential seating, she was lost in the crowd. The teacher could not take time away from the 20+ other kids to explain things one-on-one to my kid. And the speech therapy-- what a joke. My daughter was in group therapy with multiply handicapped kids. A child who is autistic has vastly different speech therapy needs than a kid w/ hearing loss. Speech impediment, accents, hearing loss, developmental delays, autism, etc... they were all being lumped together and taught the same-- not an effective strategy! Then, my daughter was being portrayed as a slow learner when in reality, she is quite intelligent-- she just couldn't learn the way they were teaching. In kindergarten they tested her reading readiness and determined that she did not have the necessary prereading skills. In actuality, she couldn't hear some of the sounds. If you cannot hear them, it's difficult to pronouce them. If I could figure that out, why couldn't the professionals? Maybe because I have an emotional investment, because I happen to love her, because I have the time and desire to do the research, to learn the best way to teach a hearing impaired child... So, yes there are times and situations when a parent does a better job. To automatically assume that a degree equals superior skills and that any teacher is automatically better than any parent is a bit arrogant to me. Yes, there are great teachers, but there are also apathetic ones. There are teachers who would rather be doing ANYTHING than teaching. There are the ones who feel the pay is pitiful, so why bother? The same with parents-- there are some who are completely devoted to their children and will do anything to help them succeed and there are some who couldn't care less.

[cocotbo]

Originally Posted by WordsAplenty

Yes, there are great teachers, but there are also apathetic ones. There are teachers who would rather be doing ANYTHING than teaching. There are the ones who feel the pay is pitiful, so why bother? The same with parents-- there are some who are completely devoted to their children and will do anything to help them succeed and there are some who couldn't care less.

Well said, and so true!

[mcmama]

Isn't it strange how "least restrictive environment" usually means "least trouble for the school district"?

In fourth grade, they were all set to send my son to a program for the emotionally disturbed. He would have been transported (no transportation in the district except for special ed) out of the district to a locked classroom for mildly ED children. There, he would have had plenty of individual attention.

See, I was the trouble maker who asked why he was not getting organizational skills he neded which are part of his dysgraphia done in the resource room. Seems he was getting his homework assignments done early there, and he could "help" the very kids who had been bullying him. No answers about what they would do in resource room, but lots of rhetoric about how hard they were working and having no contract for a year. My kid's education is nothing more than a slogan in a place like that. So since I expected them to actually work for a living there, they thought they'd humor me by giving him deluxe service. It would have cost the district about $25000 a year if I had gone along with this.

But what he really needed - social skills for dealing with the bullying, tutoring in old fashioned educationally obsolete spelling, and kinesthetic remediation of the dysgraphia - no. Can't afford it. No can do.

So I observed the ED program, and was told that this was "highly unusual" and not to be encouraged as it was disruptive. I believe that. But I went anyway. You are going to lock my kid in a room with other kids, you **** well better let me see what is going on.

Actually, I liked what I saw. The teacher did a very good job. And I could see how for many children, including my own, this could be academically superior and a lot less stressfull.

But....I asked the teacher how she was going to address the giftedness. She was very big on educating the WHOLE child, not just the disability. And this is where we parted company. Her idea of addressing the giftedness was to accellerate the curriculum for him. More computers, more busy work, more pressure. He would not be allowed to interact with the gifted students in mainstream classrooms, even though research indicates that gifted kids need to hobnob with their fellow wizards. She had absolutely no knowledge about teaching the gifted. That classroom was her little world. Too limiting for my boy.


So we did what they wanted us to do. We went to private school. We threatened to sue. It became clear that we did not have the money for lawyers and tuition - and tuition was more important.

When he produced his play, I asked if he would like to invite members of the school board, as it might be helpful. He absolutely freaked at the idea of anyone from "the system" coming. The play was highly critical of his elementary school structure. A lot of the scenarios were based on his academic research about how bullying develops in a school setting.

Ironically, the district has started to do more antibullying lately, as we are more multi cultural than we used to be, and bullying and racism go together. I told some of the high school teachers about his research, and they are interested in seeing it, and the script of the play. He absolutely freezes about having any contact with these people.

He works for the admissions office at his college, and he has no problem showing students from this town around the campus. He has decided to teach. He vows he will teach in a charter school, a Catholic school, or an independent school, but never a public school. He will not join a teacher's union that takes political positions and supports candidates, because he feels that a professional union should focus on contracts, salary and competency issues, and professional development, not campaigning mindlessly for a machine.

Two summers ago, he had third graders working feverishly to prove to him that Wyoming actually exists, although he says he doesn't believe in it. They were learning geography in spite of themselves. He was bus counselor too, and every day the kids would get on the bus, say good morning to the driver and the other counselor, and then shout in his face "WYOMING EXISTS! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU????" They would have these GREAT arguments all day long. These are not the gifted kids who study real hard and do well on the tests and hand in papers in beautiful neat writing that are easy to correct and always get A's. These are the clumsy ones with impulse problems who don't do very well on tests because their minds are full of questions that are never answered anyway. Their papers are usually smeared, torn, and full of holes.

You know, the bad kids.

About hearing impairments - the psychologist we saw who had the most impact was deaf. He was the best of all of them because he listened the most. He had no choice.

[cocotbo]

Originally Posted by mcmama

He has decided to teach. He vows he will teach in a charter school, a Catholic school, or an independent school, but never a public school. He will not join a teacher's union that takes political positions and supports candidates, because he feels that a professional union should focus on contracts, salary and competency issues, and professional development, not campaigning mindlessly for a machine.

What an amazing story! Thank you so much for sharing that!
A short note on teachers unions. When I was studying to be a teacher, I was also running for State Senate. I was interviewed by the teachers union, of which I was a member in good standing, and they said they really liked me and my policy positions were right on but they couldn't endorse me because I was running under the wrong party banner. How's that for "doing what's best for the kids"?

You must be very proud of your son. It sounds like he really did succeed IN SPITE OF the educational system. Good for him - and good for you for demanding the best for him.

[KW29]

Wow! I have really enjoyed reading all of your posts regarding homeschooling. I am fairly new to homeschooling, started this past February. We moved to a different state during the middle of the school year and decided to homeschool the remainder of the year with the intention of putting our son back in public school the beginning of the next school year.
Homeschool has been such a wonderful experience that we have decided to continue it. I also wanted to mention that my next door neighbor who was a public school teacher for 10 years, homeschools her 3 children also. Her reasons are the same as mine, there is so much negative influence especially in the middle school age group which is where my son is.
My son is very smart and like previously mentioned examples would finish his work immediately and have to sit and wait for the rest of the class to catch up. This would lead to him talking, roaming the class looking for something to do and consequently getting into trouble for not sitting and being mindless.
My child enjoys homeschool because there is not a dull moment. There are no bullies, no peer pressure, nothing to distract the most important thing...his education. I did months of research prior to our move looking for the perfect curriculum. Also, when he was in public school he would come home and tell us that the teacher said that we came from apes. We would try and explain that this was only someone's theory, not truth. He was insistant that the teacher said that this was fact. The curriculum that I chose (Alpha Omega) is centered around Christian values and beliefs. That God created the universe and made us. We are not just some freak thing of nature. I spent an equal amount of time looking for activites for him to be involved in for social interaction in a positive manor. My child is happy, well-adjusted, and excelling in all of his studies.
This may not be for everyone, but I feel very blessed to have this opportunity to control what my child is presented.

[Shauna]

We homeschool for many different reasons. I was in the gifted classes, my husband in remedial classes in public school. He tests with an IQ higher than mine now. Ha. My son is a carbon copy of my husband, and he may have slight ADD. We do not want to medicate him, or even have him diagnosed, so we homeschool. His learning style is something foreign to me, but together, my dh and I make sure our son learns the basics, but more importantly, he learns to love learning so he'll excell in whatever interests him (which, at the moment, is raising turtles and hermit crabs, and taking apart skate boards).
Another reason we homeschool is because of what goes on in public school. Many of my friends have kids in our suburban middle school. We hang out with these families, my kids play with their kids, and we trust their judgement. These folks, the ones with their own children in public school, tell me not to send my kids to public school if I can help it. Sexual acts, both homosexual and heterosexual, go on in the restrooms all the time. Kids and teachers verify this. What?!?! My ten year old daughter could witness this? I'm her guardian, her protector, her guide in life until she's an adult. I can't let that happen. Won't let that happen. Call me if overprotective if you want, but she's ten. T-e-n. Smoking in the bathroom was the worst I expected. Am I naieve?

And as for "needing" a certified teacher, I don't believe that's the case. I respect teachers tremendously, have some in my family, and considered becoming one myself. But, for homeschooling, a degree isn't necessary. There used to be no public school, yet many brilliant minds still developled and grew to become inventors, philosophers, and even educators.

In our homeschool, we provide a daily checklist for our children. These itemize their lessons in spelling, math, language arts, geography, reading, handwriting, vocabulary, creative writing, journaling, AND household chores. I check their work, answer questions, and guide them to think outside the box, but they have learned to be self-led (ie: responsible) in their own work. Additionally, for history and science at the elementary level, we do games, puzzles, videos, field trips, unit studies, and Internet research projects. Socialization? Son: two hockey teams, daugher: two dance classes, both: book club, church, neighborhood pals. We do arts and crafts and home improvement projects. My son can hammer, nail, drill, etc.; my daugher is a better cook than I am. She takes notes while watching the Food Network, then records herself performing cooking shows in the kitchen. We reap the benefits with fantastic dinners.

I love homeschooling, and so do my kids. Education is not a problem, and neither is socialization (though money sometimes is--hsing is a financial sacrifice for many). The best part is that I get to tell them about the birds and bees, our famliy morals and values, and I get to counsel them immediately when problems/questions arise. I don't have perfect angels, and I'm not a perfect parent. I believe God gave me my kids as a gift and a responsibility. For 20 years, I may have to be a teacher as well as a mom and a full time player in the work force, but 20 years will come and go pretty fast in the whole scheme of things. And I'll never be able to reclaim them.

Carpe diem!
Shauna