homeschool families in the news
It's refreshing to hear positive stories about homeschoolers in the news. It seems this time last year there was only alot of negativity. Here are some uplifting stories:

Janofski family
Wencl and Thompson Families

Homeschool Truancy
I realize that title is a bit of an oxymoron, but I didn't write it. I just wrote the article they paid me for. The idea is these are the things you can do to avoid trouble with public school truancy officers.... especially if you live in an area that disregards the rights of homeschooling.

Most of it is common sense, but I wrote it because a buck is a buck. Homeschool Documentation, How to prove your child is not truant.

Some people just don't get it!
I get a phone call just about every day with someone calling me to do something. When I decline, I sometimes get an indignant "why not, what are you doing anyway?".

How about homeschooling? is my reply... and wait... how about the fact that I am getiing paid to write for about 3 hours a day?

They say OK... but they don't sound convinced.

My guess is they think that since homeschooling makes my life flexible, that I should flex for them... and since I work from home... why don't I do that when they are sleeping and don't need me.

I think I may make phone messages that says we are busy homeschooling and start screening my calls.

homeschooling and divorce
Apparently, the two do not mix.

I have read numerous emails this past two weeks about women who have gone through divorce proceeding with an otherwise reasonable husband to find themselves ordered by the judge to PUT THE KIDS IN PUBLIC SCHOOL.

This leaves me with several questions:

1. Did the father ever believe in homeschooling?

2. How does being divorced affect the mothers ability to homeschool?

3. Haven't parents learned not to use children as ammunition yet?

I am truly floored.

If you are homeschooling and considering divorce, you need to talk about both the divorce and the homeschooling situation before hand.

I wonder if in a divorce proceeding the father could force the mom to homeschool... they seem to have no problem getting the children put in public school to spite the mom.

SEEING A HOMESCHOOL SCHEDULE EMERGE
We started the new school year a couple of weeks ago and I must admit to having a rocky start because the children resisted having any kind or schedule.

However after a few weeks of nagging and forcing them to do what I wanted to, and when, I can see that a pattern is beginning to emerge.

Our Schedule is dictated by a few outside committments: They attend the Masters fine arts program on Mondays from 12-4, and I see a chiropractor twice a week at 12:30 and they seem him one of those time... And then there's music lessons on tuesday at 1:30 Just by putting these things on my Calendar, it is plain to see that we should try to get all of our work finished by 11:30-12 Since it takes 3 hours to do all of the work I have alloted them they need to have eaten done a couple of chores and get to work by 8-8:30 am. This is plenty of time to practice piano, do thier online curriculum, and a few work book exercises.

Right now we have Thursday and sometimes friday afternoons free. I am trying to decide whether to find swimming lessons to fit in that time frame, or to allow us to keep what little bit of flexibility we have and just purchase tennis rackets and maybe a kick ball and soccor ball to play in the yard.

So our current schedule is as follows

Monday: Piano, internet curricullum and Masters program for them and Chiropractor for me
Tuesday: Piano, Internet curricullum, workbooks, and Music lessons

Wednesday: Piano, Internet curricullum, workbooks,chiropractor for kids and me ( I want to move this to friday morning if I can) and church in the PM

Thursday: Piano, Internet curricullum, workbooks,

Friday: Piano, Internet curricullum, and a visit to a museum or other educational trip

Homeschooling allows us to live
Mood:  caffeinated
It's almost 9am and the kids are still asleep. We spend the entire evening and night yesterday helping my sis n law move. It was exhausting and the kids worked and played hard.

Had they been in school I am afraid that either myself and the kids would not have been able to help, or they would be drooling on their desks right now. ( Chances are they would have helped and would now be drooling)

They are starting to stir and will soon start their school day, when they are physically and mentally ready and able.

The Future of Home Schooling, by Michael Farris
This book is a must read for homeschooling parents:

The Future of Home Schooling ; A New Direction for Christian Home Education, by Michael Farris, is an interesting and possibly true assessment about the direction is which Christian Home Schooling is going. The author, Michael Farris is the Founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, which he started in 1983. He is also an ordained Baptist minister, and former nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. As of the date the book was published, in 1997, he and his wife were home schooling 10 children of their own, six daughters and 4 boys.

Michael Farris has also authored, Anonymous Tip (novel), HOW A MAN PREPARES HIS DAUGHTERS FOR LIFE, THE HOME SCHOOLING FATHER, WHERE DO I DRAW THE LINE? Constitutional Law for Christian Students, and HOMESCHOOLING AND THE LAW. He has personally defended hundreds of home schooling families in court as well. Suffice it to say, he knows a little about home schooling and is a good recourse to look to in order to determine a possible future.

Mr. Farris's major assumption is that the future of Christian home schooling is in a classical education. All of his other predictions suggest how support of a classical Christian education will evolve. He feels that as home schoolers have more and more, and bigger and bigger successes that smart parents will follow the examples of the successful therefore a revival of the classical curriculum for modern American Children will emerge as the dominant curriculum route. Having evaluated all forms of home schooling myself from un-schooling, to relaxed to eclectic, I must say I am most comforted that a classical route will give my children the best academic edge. So I have to agree with Farris.

Michael Farris quotes Fritz Hinrichs, author of a provocative essay entitled, "Why a Classical Education?" Hinrichs explains why this kind of education was lost in our nations public schools. `The study of the great books has been the backbone of good education for centuries', he wrote. `If you look at he books that the intellectual giants have read who have arisen out culture, you will find that there are particular books that come up again and again. These books were required of schoolboys until the rise of Dewey and the democratization of education thought the public school system The public school system saw these books as elitist and not easily comprehensible by the masses and therefore not appropriate for public education'. Farris goes on to state and explain that a classical education is a better education in less time.

Unlike the book THE WELL TRAINED MIND: A Guide to Classical Education At Home (see my review http://www.epinions.com/content_92291894916 ) This book states that each stage of the trivium, grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric only takes 2-3 years to complete. In an ideal educational future, a child will finish school at age 14, ready to apprentice or start college. He shows parallels of Swedish education where only 25% of children go to high school, and he rest go immediately into business apprenticeship. Of that 25% that goes onto high school for college preparation, 100% of them go on to college. He backs up this startling fact with the observation that " The Swiss people are both highly educated and highly successful, boasting the highest per capita income of any nation in the world.
Here is the breakdown of the book:

Prefix: overview of the Homes Schooling phenomenon, complete with easy to understand charts and graphs.
Ch! Classical Education Comes Home, explaining why classical education is fast becoming the preferred choice by Christians who want excellence in their children.

Ch2. Broadening Our political Horizons, shows how home schoolers are getting involved in politics and how home schooled children have already made their mark and the need for them to stay involved.

Ch3. Support groups of the future, suggesting support groups will change to be multi purpose and multi tiered to support the home schooling parent, and provide children's enrichments on different levels.

Ch4. High Tech Learning, although he points out the dangers of the Internet, the author shows how the Internets is an invaluable resource in home schooling

Ch5. Home School- Friendly Churches provides insight to how home schooling parents and churches have (surprisingly) clashed in the past, and how they are starting to come full circle to work together.

Ch6. Equal access to Public School Activities, explains how public schools will and should open up resources to home schoolers.

Ch7. Apprenticeship become a Real Choice, suggests that we will eventually abandon the US institutionalized way of education, and lean toward Switzerland example, which really works.

A reference guide of about 100 pages that included orginzations, and homeschool laws follows the chapters.

I found the prediction and arguments in the book to be extremely convincing. At the same time, the book was written quite a few years ago, and from what I have observed, more people are leaning toward a relaxed or un-schooling methodology.

For myself, however, since I am home schooling for academic more than religious reasons, classical education makes more sense, but I need more examples that are not quite as rigid as what I have found so far.

I recommend this book to others to give a less frightening example of classical home schooling than the most popular book (The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education At Home) currently gives. I also suggest looking for more books by this author for more up to date information.

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