New school year

Tomorrow begins a new school year. My son will be in the 11th grade. Wow! Hard to believe he's so close to graduating. If he had continued with public school, he would be graduating this year. That's an eye opener! I'm glad though that he won't be graduating this year. He just turned 17, and I feel that that's too young to graduate from high school. I was 17 when I graduated and I remember I was the youngest one in my grade level. Of course, I graduated from public school, so it might have been different since we homeschool. I'll never know though.

I am not quite as prepared as I normally am. I think I've gotten all the English lesson written in the planner. I haven't finished the U.S. History yet. I still have to write up the Chapter/Lesson plan, then fill in my daily planner. Whew! Lots of work. Thank goodness his Geometry and Chemistry is on the computer. I didn't have to do anything there except put in the beginning and end dates and any holidays. It set up the lessons for me. I still have to sign him up for the online Photography class. I'm not too concerned about it. I'll wait until we know exactly what we are doing in the other subjects, then add it. I won't have to do anything with it either. I will have to come up with some lesson plans for his Foods and Nutrition course. It's mostly reading some information online and watching videos. Not too hard. He'll put what he learns to practice in the kitchen and when we go grocery shopping. I'll start him on his Current Events in a week or so. Probably after the Republican Convention and the hurricanes are over. Too much other stuff going on right now. We'll work on his Bowling lessons. He knows how to bowl, but he needs to delve more into the history and techniques of bowling. I've got to get some Critical Thinking books for him to do. I've looked into a couple so I just need to decide which one(s) are best. We have got to get to the museum to see the impressionist paintings. I can't wait for that. Just to see something by Van Gogh or Renoir or Gauguin up close is exciting. I've also got a video on the impressionist and some other types of art for him to watch and complete the lesson on.

I know it sounds like a lot of stuff to do, but it will keep him busy and hopefully interested. He'll have to do a lot more thinking this year. He's been kind of lazy in that department. There is a lot of writing and reading too. There will be times when he's reading two novels at once.

I was reading today about the CLEP exams and some of the other tests for college credit. I never even thought about those. I'm hoping that my son will be able to take some of those tests by the end of the year. That would be great if he could get some college credits now. Who knows, if I help him study for them, maybe I can take a few of them too and get some more college credits under my belt! Not that I plan to go to college. Plus it would look good on his transcripts.

I just hope that he enjoys this year of school and that he will be more excited about learning than he has been in the past. I don't want him to just muddle through school like I did. I couldn't wait for school to be over. School was not exciting for me.

I'm off to bed. I know I usually get up early, but tomorrow I have to get my son up early. He's not happy about getting up at 8 a.m. ha! He tried to convince me to get him up at 9. The thing is, he never gets up when I tell him to. He may come out of his room 30 minutes to an hour later. Not tomorrow though. If he's not out within 5 to 10 minutes, I'll be in there waking him up again. He'll get use to it.

Preparation

I am in the process of preparing the lessons for this coming years courses. Thankfully I don't have to worry about Chemistry and Geometry. Both of those are SOS so all I have to do is put in the start and end date and any holidays. Then the program does all the rest. It will assign a lesson for each day that class is in session. I think the same will be for the online Photography course my son is taking. I will find out more when I enroll him in it. So right now all I really have to work on is the plans for U.S. History and English. English isn't going to be all that hard. My son is using a textbook, so it's pretty much a lesson per day, maybe longer depending on what all the lesson requires. U.S. History is another story. For this class I have made up my own curriculum. I have found some wonderful resources on the internet and have saved off any lessons, tests or facts that I think would be useful. I also have some great websites for my son to use for researching certain elements of each area that I feel he needs to learn about in more depth. I have to be honest, I have not read any of the books that my son will be using. I don't pick up much when I read. I'm more of a visual person. I get so much more out of watching a video on a subject than to read about it. I'm still trying to figure out how my son learns. I think he's a little bit of each. Anyway, I have managed to find some great outlines of U.S. History that I am going to use. We will skim over certain parts of U.S. History and delve more into others. I'm hoping that by doing this, my son will learn the actual facts of our nation's history and not so much what is politically correct now a days. He is also going to be learning about foods and nutrition. There's a couple of websites that will teach him about cooking and baking. They also go into food safety, planning and more. Current events and critical thinking skills will also be included. Of course he will get his P.E. from bowling and judo. Not too stringent of a schedule but enough to keep him busy and hopefully not too bored! :-)

HOME-SCHOOLING: Teens challenged to do hard things

I was sent a link to an interesting article in the Washington Times that talks about a book written by two homeschooled twins. Their book called "Do Hard Things," attempts to explode the myth about adolescence. When did the term "teenager" come about? Why did we start classifying them as teenagers instead of just children? It must have all come about after WWII when we had kids 16 and 17 years of age lying to enlist in the military. There must have been some outrage when people found out that there were soldiers that young fighting (although it had happened all through history). After all, they were just children. But they weren't "just children" because they were older and could make decisions (albeit not always the wisest decisions) so let's make up a new category to stick them in. It's funny though that even though a person at the age of 18 can register to vote and enlist in the military, they are still considered a teenager. In fact, they are a teenager until they turn 20. BUT, they are still not an adult. That doesn't happen until they turn 21. Then suddenly at 21 we expect them to act like adults. Why aren't they acting like adults when they are 18? Why aren't we as parents preparing them to be adults when they are old enough to start making decisions for themselves? We should be preparing them to be responsible adults when they are little children. After all, isn't that why we send them to school, so they can learn how to cope in the real world? I like the part in the article that says:

"The Harris twins are giving direction to the teens to become productive. By first exploding the teen myth, they inform teens they are capable of much more than is usually expected of them and that adults have completely underestimated their talents and abilities."

That's true. We don't expect them to be productive people until they become "adults". I am guilty of this. I expected my children to suddenly become mature, responsible adults as soon as they turned 18. I thought I had taught my child how to be that person but I didn't do anything out of the ordinary to train them for life as an adult. It was just a gimme because my parents had done the same thing. I guess I was sheltered from a lot of that responsibility and so I did the same thing. And I'm still doing the same thing. I plan on reading this book and I will have my two children read it also. Maybe it will help all of us to understand why our teens are not living up to their potential.

Here is the article in it's entirety:

HOME-SCHOOLING: Teens challenged to do hard things

Michael Smith

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word "teenager"? For many, it is not positive.

Teenage rebellion has become commonplace, and our culture has responded by expecting less and less of teenagers. But is teenage rebellion inevitable, or are there new ways of thinking that could address the problem? Responsibility for teenage rebellion and underperformance must fall primarily at the feet of parents and other adults. This is because our current expectations for teenagers provide very little challenge.

Alex and Brett Harris, 19-year-old home-schooled twins, are trying to give adults and teens a wake-up call. In their book, "Do Hard Things," they attempt to explode the myth of adolescence. They show that prior to the early 20th century, people were either children or adults. Family and work were the primary occupations of the group we now call "teenagers." Teens, though it was often driven by economic necessity, were given real-world responsibility. Today, few teens are expected to imitate responsible adults, but are rather immersed in a frivolous peer culture.

The Harris twins are not the only writers to question the conventional wisdom about teenagers. Robert Epstein, a longtime researcher in psychology who received his doctorate from Harvard, has exposed the myth of the teen brain in his book, "The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen." He argues against the common belief held in the scientific community that an incompletely developed brain accounts for the emotional problems and irresponsible behavior of many teenagers.

Mr. Epstein shows the differences in the teen brain are the result of social influences, rather than the cause of teen turmoil. He concludes that a careful review of the research shows the teen brain we read about in the headlines — the immature brain that is supposedly the cause of teen problems — is nothing less than a myth.

For example, if the teen brain was really fundamentally different from an adult brain, then we would see similar patterns of teenage rebellion throughout history. We do not. Teens in other cultures, and our own until the early 20th century, held responsible positions and were expected to imitate adults rather than children.

Mr. Epstein says teens are extraordinarily competent, even if they do not normally express that competence. Also, long-standing studies of intelligence, perceptual abilities and memory function show that teens are in many instances far superior to adults.

Mr. Epstein concludes that the peer culture of teens, where they learn virtually everything they know from one another, rather than from people they are about to become, is the cause of the problems we see today. Almost all teens are isolated from adults and wrongly treated like children.

What is the solution? When teens are treated like adults, they almost immediately rise to the challenge. Parents must trust their teens by giving them more and more responsibility, accompanied with the proper mentoring. This is a strong admonition to parents and adults to challenge our teens to act more like adults rather than traditional teens.

The Harris twins are giving direction to the teens to become productive. By first exploding the teen myth, they inform teens they are capable of much more than is usually expected of them and that adults have completely underestimated their talents and abilities. They challenge teens to join the "rebelution," which is a revolution against rebellion, and spell out five steps to responsibility for teens.

First, teens should "do hard things" that take them out of their comfort zone. Second, teens should go beyond what is expected or required of them. Third, teens should attempt tasks that are too big to be done alone to learn teamwork and collaboration. Fourth, teens should do things that don't pay off immediately. These are the unexciting things that may seem like an endless round of chores that go without recognition. These chores, however, build character. Finally, teens should stand up for their beliefs even if the majority opposes them.

"Do Hard Things" is a book for teens and their parents. I firmly believe this book, if taken seriously by the current generation of teens and their parents, could prove to be one of the most life-changing and culture-changing books of this generation.

Michael Smith is the president of the Home School Legal Defense Association. He may be contacted at 540/338-5600; or send e-mail to media@hslda.org.

New name?

I'm thinking of calling our homeschool by a different name than Sutton Academy. I want something with a little more flair to it. A friend of mine has hers named after the street she lives on. Another one has a cutesy type name to hers. So I got to thinking, what name would I choose if I changed the name of our "school". I thought about the street we live on, "Alabama Street Academy" but I decided that since I am from Texas, I didn't want to name my school after another state. Just didn't seem right. lol! I thought about naming it after the housing addition we live in, "Bluegrass Academy", but naming it after a music style just didn't seem right either, even though I like to listen to Bluegrass once in a while. We have a creek running through our property, so I thought I might use that name. The thing is, I can't find the name of the creek anywhere. There is a "lake" that this creek flows from, but I didn't like the sound of it - "Clark Lake Academy". Since our creek merges with another creek and then runs into a much bigger lake that is part of the Trinity River, I thought I might name it after the Corps of Engineer park that is closest to it. It's called "Mustang Creek". I thought that might be a cool name to call my school "Mustang Creek Academy". Sounds outdoorsy and it could be the name of my creek.

I ran these new names past my son, but he said that he didn't want to change the name of our school. He also said that our "school" really isn't a school since he's the only student. So that brought to mind what the definition of a school really is. I looked up the definition of school on the web and this is what I found:

1. An institution for the instruction of children or people under college age.

2. An institution for instruction in a skill or business: a secretarial school; a karate school.

3. 
   

   1. A college or university.

   2. An institution within or associated with a college or university that gives instruction in a specialized field and recommends candidates for degrees.

   3. A division of an educational institution constituting several grades or classes: advanced to the upper school.

   4. The student body of an educational institution.

   5. The building or group of buildings housing an educational institution.

4. The process of being educated formally, especially education constituting a planned series of courses over a number of years: The children were put to school at home. What do you plan to do when you finish school?

5. A session of instruction: School will start in three weeks. He had to stay after school today.

6. 
   

   1. A group of people, especially philosophers, artists, or writers, whose thought, work, or style demonstrates a common origin or influence or unifying belief: the school of Aristotle; the Venetian school of painters.

   2. A group of people distinguished by similar manners, customs, or opinions: aristocrats of the old school.

7. Close-order drill instructions or exercises for military units or personnel.

8. Australian A group of people gathered together for gambling.

There were several other words listed in The American Heritage Dictionary under the heading with school in it so I clicked on the link to see the others. I found homeschool. Under that definition I found this:

VERB:

tr.

To instruct (a pupil, for example) in an educational program outside of established schools, especially in the home.

VERB:

intr.

To provide educational instruction in a homeschool.

NOUN:

A school operated outside established educational institutions, especially in a home.

In the previous listing, the word "school" is listed as a noun as were all of the other words with school in them except afterschool which is an adjective and homeschool which is listed as a verb. I guess it makes sense that homeschool would be a verb, after all it is an action since we as parents are homeschooling our children. Normally I write homeschool as one word because I am talking about how I am teaching my son. Other times I'm talking about where we do our schooling so I really should write it out as home school instead of one word. I will have to think about how I am using the word in a sentence next time and write it the "correct" way.

BTW, I decided to just keep the same school name we've always used. After all, it tells exactly who we are.

Unschoolers, transcripts and books

A new friend of mine is an unschooler. Now I'm not real sure what exactly an unschooler is and apparently unschoolers have different opinions of what it means too. The way I perceive it is that they have no set of curriculum, no schedules, no real structure and they just kind of learn as they go. Now I'm no unschooler, but I'm not as regimental as some homeschoolers I know. I do like some structure, a plan and most times a curriculum. I like having most things laid out for me. BUT I'm not stuck with a schedule. I do plan a schedule for him to follow as to what he is suppose to do each day but if we have other plans for that day, then he just does those lessons the next day or whenever he can. My son also likes knowing what he is suppose to be studying that day. I think it helps him to stay on track. I'm not set on any one type of curriculum. I do use textbooks, workbooks, computer courses, and worksheets but I also use videos, movies, websites, field trips, outside classes, etc. as a supplement for those courses. I'm always looking for something that will help my son to better understand what he is suppose to be learning.

A few of us homeschoolers got together a while back and we asked this unschooler about grades and doing a transcript. When we met up with her yesterday, she gave us each a copy of the transcript she made up for her daughter. It was very simply done but it had all of the information that a college really needs, that she met the requirements for a high school education and what subjects were taught. There were no grades listed, just a statement saying "We do not 'label' or 'grade' students. Subjects are studied until material is integrated and mastered." This is exactly what I have been trying to get through to some other homeschoolers I've talked to. You don't need grades for a transcript, and colleges could care less if you made straight A's in high school. They only care if you get them in college! I loved the way this transcript was done. It's similar to the one I have written up for my son except mine has a description of the courses. I think I'll go back and redo his transcript. I realized that I don't need to put the description down for the courses unless they are so off the wall that they need further explanation. After all, colleges teach English, Math, History and Science too. I think they know what those are.

Another homeschooler made a very good point when it comes to English and History. The student is taught the same thing over and over all through school. In elementary school we were taught about grammar and sentence structure and that continued all the way through high school. The same thing with history. We learned about the presidents, constitution, Civil War, all the way through the present time, and that continued through high school. The only thing that changed with them was the reading level of the books. We didn't learn anything new about how to conjugate a sentence or how the Civil War ended, it was all just a repeat of what we had learned earlier in our education. Math is a little different only because we go from the basic math skills to Algebra and Trigonometry. The public schools even touch on Algebra in elementary grades! But nothing changes with math. The only subject that changes is science. New concepts and discoveries are happening all around us, so the child leans something new every time they turn around. If a child reads and is able to comprehend what they are reading, then they will be able to learn anything they need to know about any subject they want. So why must we constantly teach them English and History each and every year? If a child does not read well, then they cannot learn. So why don't the public schools focus more on teaching a child to read and less on spelling tests (the child would learn how to spell correctly if they could read the words)? My own son has missed out on so much because he was not a good reader when he was in public school. It wasn't until we took him out of public school and started homeschooling him that his reading got better. He's still not big on reading but he's a lot better than he would be if he was still in public school! I wish I had made my kids read more when they were younger and not just fiction either. They could have been learning so much more. So I have decided that with these last two remaining years that I have to teach my son, we will focus more on reading all sorts of books and a little less on busy work. Hopefully it will open up a whole new world for him.

Ah Summer!

Summertime is upon us. Most of us take the summer off. We haven't had a summer off in several years. Usually my son is finishing up work that he didn't get completed during the normal school year due to this and that. This year he finished up his work one day after my "deadline". I was impressed. He finally kept to the schedule...well sort of. There are some things that I want him to work on over the summer, but they are for enrichment and to keep him busy. Mostly this summer he will be working on getting together with other teens in the area and practicing his driving for his license. That's my main goal. Then school will start up again probably the first part of September. I haven't really decided when the first day of school will be. I'm looking at the day after Labor Day. I usually plan on him finishing up his last day of school by the end of May but that's flexible too. I'm just going to take it easy this summer. First time my son's really had a summer off since he was in public school, and that was the summer of 2000! Wow, a long, long time ago. Poor kid. He won't know what to do with himself! lol!

Hours, lessons and credits.

I have had conversations with some of my homeschooling friends concerning awarding credits for classes and how to determine what a credit is. Some of these conversations have gotten rather heated, especially by those who seem to think that you have to have credits in order to get into college. Not so. But I won’t go into that. That’s a whole ‘nother subject altogether! I found some interesting information regarding what an “hour” is and what might be considered a “credit”. Sounds reasonable to me, especially since that's the way I’ve been doing it all this time. But some people you just can’t convince that they are the ones who decide what an “hour” and/or “credit” is. They are determined to follow what the public school system says is an “hour” and “credit”. As for me and my house, we choose to follow the homeschool way!

Requirements.
As a homeschooler in Texas, you legally have to teach reading, spelling, grammar, mathematics and a study of good citizenship. Other states require that you teach the “core subjects”. What do they mean by “core subjects”? In most states those subjects would be science, social studies, language arts, math, etc. In Texas the public schools are required to meet 180 days per year and students must attend school for 170 days. This does not apply to homeschools. Texas also does not require you to teach a minimum amount of hours in a day. Some states require that you log hours for the school year. What does that mean? In some states the “hours” must be logged in each of the “core” subjects during that school year. Some require that your student must have 1000 hours total of logged “class time” to complete a full school year.

Logging.
Now “to log” means to record that a “lesson was completed”. To “log an hour” of class time is to record in a ledger or log book that the student has successfully completed the lesson in that subject that was assigned for that day. Remember, an “hour” is not necessarily 60 minutes of time. The class could take 10 minutes; 20 minutes; or 1 ½ hours. You are just verifying that “legally” the child completed the assignment.

So where does the 1000 hours come in—well, let’s say that you take your child to choir or band—you record that your child attended the class. You can then also record each time the child practices. If you do “art” projects or take lessons—that can be part of the 1000 hours. If you take a field trip—mark that as well (the way to mark a field trip is the time it takes from when you leave the house until you return). If your student only does 1 or 2 other subjects that day (and they normally have 8 subjects) log the field trip as “6 hours”.

“How” to log the hours.
You need to understand what an “hour” is. The word “hour” does not necessarily refer to actual minutes of an hour—but refers to a “complete daily lesson”. For instance, if you were teaching your student in mathematics, you would have a set lesson to teach your child that day. If your child learns and does the work in 3 hours, or in 3 minutes, it makes no difference—the “hour” refers to the completed lesson for that day. You have to get past the idea that you are clocking–in and clocking-out, as if you were on a time card. What if your child does not understand the material and they work for several hours and still do not understand it? Just as in the public school, “hours” are not just determined by whether a child masters a lesson, but is determined beforehand by the instructor. There is a difference between mastering a lesson and completing it. I will explain: you can spend 1 week on a particular lesson in math and that would be “logged” as 5 separate lessons (or hours) even though you were working on 1 lesson in the math book. On the other hand, you might have the opposite situation— your child handily finishes an assignment in 15 minutes, instead of taking 45 minutes to an hour. Can that be logged as “1 hour”? Yes it can. They have successfully completed the assigned lesson for the day. The critical idea is that “hours” refer not only to time spent in a subject, but also material covered. And an “hour” specifically means a predetermined lesson assigned for that day’s work. Who does the predetermining? YOU do.

How much is a lesson?
How do you find out “how much is a lesson”? Here’s a very easy method—look at the textbook you will have your student use. Find the last page of the “text” in the book. Take that number and divide it by 150. The answer will be the number of pages that should be covered each day (the number of pages for each lesson). Since the student should be in class 180 days in a school year (a normal school year), by dividing by 150 you have 30 days to “play with”, days that can be used for field trips, tests, working on papers or project, etc. And then, if your child completes the textbook in less than 180 days—they are done! That’s it. They finished that subject early! Yippeee!

Credit Hours and GPA's.
The High Schools assign “credits” to each subject—normally a subject is worth “1 credit hour” if it last the entire school year. If your child takes a subject for 1 semester only, then that course is assigned “1/2 a credit hour”. The standard used in computing a student’s G.P.A. (Grade Point Average) is usually a 4.0 for an A; 3.0 for a B; 2.0 for a C; 1.0 for a D; and 0 for an F. Advanced Placement courses, honor courses, and all college level courses are often given 1 additional point since the material is more difficult: in other words, for a dual enrolled student, they would receive a 5.0 for an A in that college level course; 4.0 for a B in the course; 3.0 for a C.

I have discussed credits in a previous post so I won’t go into too much detail about that. YOU as the parent/teacher determine what the credit is for the class, not the public school system (at least in Texas). Even though my own son used one book for grammar, one for vocabulary and one for writing, I only gave him one credit for English. I could have given him a credit (or ½ credits) for each subject but to me they were all related to English. My son spent two years doing World History, but I only gave him credit for one year. Normally World History is covered in one year in public schools but then again, they don’t cover everything in the book whereas we did. To me it all depends on how in-depth the subject is as to how much “credit” I give.