Changes

I have been having a difficult time going over my son's English and History work. I find that I have a hard time comprehending what it is that he's doing. For some reason I just don't focus as well as I use to on what I am reading. I've always had a problem with comprehension but in the last couple of years it's gotten much worse. I think it's a result of the medications I am on, coupled with the fact that I have Hypothyroidism (which is being treated). Unless his answers are a straight yes/no, true/false or multiple choice, I sometimes am not able to make heads or tails of his answers. When I read the answer that is in the book to my son, he says that's what he has written. Either I'm just not "seeing" it or he is lying to me, and I don't think that's what it is. lol! So to make things a little easier for me and him, I have decided to use Alpha Omega's SOS for English and History (we already use the Geometry and Chemistry).

My reasoning was this: he is assigned a lesson/project/quiz/test and it grades it automatically for him. He gets instant feedback. The only time I have to grade a problem is when he has to give a written answer or it's a project. It's not that the work is easier, it's the end result that is easier. I can spend more time on other things and not so much on reading and grading papers (no wonder the public school teachers complain about that all the time).

My son likes to know exactly what he has to do and when. SOS can provide that. It will let him know exactly what his lesson is and even when it's due. He does tend to put his projects off until right before they are due. In the past he never really got in trouble for not getting his work done on time but that will change this year. If he doesn't get it done on time, he will have his computer time taken away from him. The only time he won't be punished for it is when he has a good excuse such as these last few days when he's been sick with the flu.

I tried so hard to keep up with him on his U.S. History. I had this big idea that we could just sort of wing it this year. I printed out handouts of information, time lines, tests, work sheets and an outline of each period that he would be studying. I wrote up each lesson outline and put the correct handouts with each one. I put each lesson in the folders I'd made up for each unit. I posted what pages he was suppose to be reading each day in my planner and what unit he was to be working on. I had good intentions, but not enough know-how I guess. I still plan on using some of the handouts I printed out. I'm not going to waste the time and money I spent printing those out. And he will be watching the videos I have. I may not make him do some of the lessons that I printed out for those videos but we will definitely go over the discussion questions. Depending on what the lessons want will be the deciding factor. He'll also be reading some historical books and biographies. I want him to continue to read "A Patriot's History of the United States". I think it will give him the facts and not someone else's view points which is what almost all of the public school textbooks do. That will be discussed more later. I may just go through the book and have him read sections of it.

The English really wasn't all that hard. I just never got around to correcting his work. Between the lessons in the book, to the pre/middle/post tests he had to do, then the vocabulary tests and the Wordly Wise lessons, I was overloaded with paperwork. When I looked at the English for SOS, I saw that it covered exactly what we were covering, except for the fact that it requires him to read "The Old Man in the Sea", which he has already read. We will skip over that section. No sense in making him suffer through it again. I have novels and stories that I want him to read this year. Those he will continue to read. I told my son that I wanted him to read more this year. In the past, he only read maybe one or two books. He needs a variety and hopefully I've done that with the books he is reading.

I'm real happy with the SOS program. We've used it in the past. My only issue with it, is that it comes with a Christian perspective. My son does not mind if religion is mentioned when it is presented as part of what he is studying. His problem comes from when it says things like "What you want to remember is that God has uniquely created you with the capacity to think and reason." My son has already stated that he does not believe in God. That is his choice. If God gave us freewill like everyone says, then my son is using his freewill to choose not to believe. I have told him that he has the right to believe whatever he wants but that others may not agree with that belief. So to avoid confrontations and any problems in the future, I have told him to be tolerant of religious people even if they are not tolerant of him. We've already discussed the religious issues. If there is a problem that is religious and it has nothing to do with his subject, then he is to skip it and I will go back later and grade it so that his total grade will not be affected.

Now I am waiting on the new cd's to arrive so that I can install them. Then I'll have to go in and see if there are any parts that he can skip over. That should be fun. We will work on the schedule later, when he feels better.

He said this?

I was looking around and came across this and couldn't believe that our wonderful governor who insisted that every teenage girl get vaccinated with Gardasil actually said this:

"Every child is entitled to a public education, but public education is not entitled to every child" - Texas Governor Rick Perry (Jan. 26, 2005)

Just because he supports homeschooling, doesn't mean I'm gonna vote for him in the next election!

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.