empowerment
Dennis/Laurie Brown
----- Original Message -----
From: <marbleface@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: May 19, 2001 4:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] I have a question was: Sandra, I see part
of your point
> My question -- unrelated to any of this -- or who knows?? -- I am curious
> because of another conversation I have been having -- how many of you
never
> sent your kiddos to school and why did you make that decision? I sent my
son
> (pre-K and 7 months of K) then learned about ps and started hsing. I am
> wondering how people get the nerve, the info, the empowerment, the
awareness,
> the ????? to go straight into hsing.
>
> Nance
Well, we sort of never sent our child to ps. We have 10 years between our
boys. The oldest started out in ps (parents were being jailed for not
sending their children to ps when he started school and we simply didn't
have what it took to join the fight at the time. I'm VERY grateful to those
who paved the way and due to personal experience really keep an eye on what
is happening, watching for need/opportunity to protect or improve homeschool
opportunities).
Anyway, we removed oldest DS mid-8th grade. He never returned to ps.
Youngest son has never attended ps. He's 12 now.
In all honesty, watching how much trouble ps caused for our oldest DS and
our family has really helped my resolve to not send youngest DS to ps. Now,
any time I consider sending youngest DS to ps, it quickly passes when I
think about all the rigmarole (sp?!) that goes with the package!
What has empowered me the very most is to have been a guinea pig of several
new programs in my own ps experiences. As a child (and adult actually!) we
moved a lot and it seems like every school I attended had some new program
or another that they put the new kids into. Some of them really made school
awful for me (things like being in a split grade class so I was doing
advanced work one year and then having to repeat the same work the following
year because they didn't have any place else to put me or any other work to
do and this is what students this age are required to cover...grrr...hate
that sort by age business).
I have always wanted to homeschool my children from before I even knew who I
would marry. I was crushed when DS was school age and local parents were
going to jail! DH was in the military in Nebraska and if we had defied the
local school district DH would have been looking at doing Federal Military
time. It was simply too much for us to fight at the time.
Still, I'm surprised that once we made the decision, I had lots of angst
over the how's and what if's. Seems pretty silly now, but I do remember how
scary is was to consider teaching my child to read and do math and WHAT IF
HE DIDN'T LEARN!? What if he was never socialized!? (Don't make me laugh!
What silliness...yet at the time it was a very real concern.)
Back to empowerment....while worrying about which teaching style would help
youngest DS learn to read and doing lots of research on one plan and another
looking for the perfect solution, I realized that nobody writing any book
knows my son like I do! No one else can say with any certainty what will
work for my son.
Here's the key (at least it was for me)...all the 'new and improved'
programs are just a bunch of experiments with our children as the guinea
pigs! The educrats don't know any more about how to reach and teach my son
than I do...in fact I know more because I know HIM. Well, if the
establishment is just conducting experiments...then he might as well stay at
home with me and we can conduct our own experiment and see how well he does!
I'm just as qualified to make decisions for my child as any one else.
Actually, that's how I started out thinking...now I realize I'm MORE
QUALIFIED than anyone else.
Once I got past finding the 'right' way to teach and share with my child and
we just got down to the business of enjoying our time and lives together it
has been a grand experience! I'm amazed at the things he learns from our
every day activities and thrilled at the things I learn with him. (That was
also an important thing to learn...if I don't know something DS wants/needs
to learn, it's no problem. I just learn along with him or help him find an
outside resource!)
It helps to rub shoulders (or keyboards, as the case may be) with others who
are on similar journeys. Sometimes I'll see a theory or idea another family
is using and think 'you know what, that just might help our family'. Other
times I'll hear something and know there is no way that is gonna work in our
home. It really doesn't take long to gain confidence in your ability to
find the answers that are right for your family. Even better yet, those
things that don't work are not likely to cause irreparable damage and the
things that do work will bring great joy! How's that for a deal?
Hope it helps!
Eiraul
Brownville77@...
[email protected]
In a message dated 05/20/2001 12:47:56 AM !!!First Boot!!!,
Brownville77@... writes:
to understand more about how parents make these decisions. How some seem to
know more about their options than others. It's all very interesting.
Thanks to everyone for sharing.
Nance
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Brownville77@... writes:
> Hope it helps!All of the insights offered on the list about this are helpful. I am trying
>
to understand more about how parents make these decisions. How some seem to
know more about their options than others. It's all very interesting.
Thanks to everyone for sharing.
Nance
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Pam Hartley
----------
It helps to immediately see your own learning preference as soon as you read
about unschooling. It helps to have quit school two years early to start
working at interesting things, and be glad of it. It helps to have a husband
who doesn't shoot down bizarre-at-the-time ideas out of hand. It helps to
find very quickly a group of homeschoolers already doing what you dream of
doing, and watch them at it.
Some of us are just lucky. And cheeky. ;)
Pam
>From: [email protected]It helps to be cheeky. <g, but serious, too>
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] Digest Number 1247
>Date: Sun, May 20, 2001, 1:51 AM
>
> I am
>> wondering how people get the nerve, the info, the empowerment, the awareness,
>> the ????? to go straight into hsing.
It helps to immediately see your own learning preference as soon as you read
about unschooling. It helps to have quit school two years early to start
working at interesting things, and be glad of it. It helps to have a husband
who doesn't shoot down bizarre-at-the-time ideas out of hand. It helps to
find very quickly a group of homeschoolers already doing what you dream of
doing, and watch them at it.
Some of us are just lucky. And cheeky. ;)
Pam
Betsy Hill
>It helps to be cheeky. <g, but serious, too>It also helps if you have fiery radical tendencies. (I've got some, buried
under all my timorousness.)
Fiery conservative tendencies are probably also a powerful shot in the arm.
(Maybe it's the un-opinionated that have the hardest time arriving here?)
It helped me to think back over my school career year by year, and try to
figure out what I learned in each class, each year. Mostly, it wasn't
much. I can't remember more than one thing from the third grade. I
suspect the teacher was a dull disciplinarian. If you've forgotten a
foreign language, and most of the math and science you were ever exposed
to, don't blame yourself for heaven's sake. Blame the school system!
Betsy