HI from a newbie!
kalima
Hi my name is Shelly. I live in Connecticut with my 5 children (Britt
13, Nate 11, Chelsea 9, Cody 7 and Jake 2) and my husband John. We have
been homeschooling for close to 5 years now. We pulled the kids out of
school for several different reason from one being totally bored and
unchallenged to Nate being beat up nearly everyday and just not socially
doing well which as you can guess made his school work suffer. Chelsea
only went a few weeks of kindergarten. And Cody has never been to school
at all. So recently when he heard you had to raise your hand to go to
the bathroom and couldn't enjoy a glass of juice when you want he
decided school sounded more like a jail and he never wants to go. *L*
We had originally wanted to homeschool. Neither my husband or myself had
a good experience in school at all. He left in 10th grade and I left in
11 grade. He took the high school equivalency test and I took night
school and then the GED. He went on to work construction and I traveled
the country and then we got married at 18 years old. We have known each
other since we were 11 years old. Family was fully against us
homeschooling when I began reading more on it when Britt was 18 months
old. We then decided maybe a Waldorf school which of course got worse
reviews. The running thought in his family is that we are trying to
raise communists. How they came up with this is beyond me but my father
in law still thinks this but at least is learning to keep his mouth
shut. Anyhow when we moved to CT from CA we decided to give the schools
a try since the class size was so small. Didn't work as I said above. So
we started our adventures in homeschooling.
Over the past 5 years I have reworked our way of schooling several
times. We started out doing school at home. I think it was more part of
my de-schooling than theirs. I am glad that only lasted a few months.
Next we tried Oak Meadow. I used that nearly 2 years until I had Jacob
and found my kids actually did learn without the books. So from there on
out we would use the Oak Meadow and Saxon math when we felt like that.
Some days were more structured than others. Lately though I just even
think some of that is to structured and decided to toss in the towel
after talking with other unschoolers about their day and reading up.
So I guess I am on another adventure. :0)
I noticed you all were talking about colleges. I suppose there are
career where you need a college degree. My husband is in one of those
jobs now working in NYC for one of the top 10 marketing and advertising
firms and being upper management. He only like I said before has a 10th
grade education and went to trade school for 9 months (he doubled on the
course to go finish faster as we had 2 children at home to feed and debt
piling up after our constructions company went under do to economic
times during the gulf war). This got him in ground floor. He worked hard
over the next few years and everything he is doing now is nothing he
learned in school which cracks me up. It is all from working at jobs,
keeping his ears and eyes open and learning new skills and taking those
skills to a new job and learning more there. Companies have paid to have
him trained in certain programs and to work certain machines and he is
really the one who has benefited from this. Life really had been his
school teacher.
Now he hires people and he will not really look at their education
background. He looks at their work experience and what they say they can
do and then bring them in and is able to see who they are. Like he said
it is rather easy to doctor up degrees and on the other side he has had
guys work for him who have years of college behind them and they stunk
or were unable to think for themselves.
I know not every career is like this but hopefully it gives some hope to
those who are worried. I know lots of people who are working in great
jobs making really really good money and never went to college and some
only have a GED some have trade school some just worked their way up and
learned fast. One of our high school friends also lives here in CT and
bought an extremely expensive home in a very well to do part of
Connecticut and owns his own business in NYC. Oh all before he was 30
too. Like me he left school early and just has a GED. Once more he is
really happy and has a small family of his own.
The only one in our house at the moment talking jobs in my oldest,
Britt. She currently wants to be a Reiki master and teach yoga classes.
She knows she isnt going to make a milliion dollars doing this but she
thinks she will be happy doing this. I told her fine by me. And I am
currently trying to find a Reiki teacher for her. Actually we did find
one (two actually) who are willing to teach her. If she likes it
fine..if not fine. I am not that worried at the moment about college. We
will do whatever it takes to get in one if the kids decided to go. My
neighbor thinks I am nuts with this thinking. But then I think he is
nuts for spending over $100,000 to send a kid to college up in Boston
that dropped out because he never wanted to go in the first place. I
think I am more concerned with the happiness end of success than the
finanacial though I do hope my children will be finacially secure enough
to take care of themselves. I just belive that if your happy in what you
do you will be successful.
Ok this is far longer than I had imagined posting. Sorry about that. I
have not had my coffee yet this morning and the kids are still sleeping.
Thank for listening to me and I look forward to getting to know you all.
Namaste,
--
Shelly
13, Nate 11, Chelsea 9, Cody 7 and Jake 2) and my husband John. We have
been homeschooling for close to 5 years now. We pulled the kids out of
school for several different reason from one being totally bored and
unchallenged to Nate being beat up nearly everyday and just not socially
doing well which as you can guess made his school work suffer. Chelsea
only went a few weeks of kindergarten. And Cody has never been to school
at all. So recently when he heard you had to raise your hand to go to
the bathroom and couldn't enjoy a glass of juice when you want he
decided school sounded more like a jail and he never wants to go. *L*
We had originally wanted to homeschool. Neither my husband or myself had
a good experience in school at all. He left in 10th grade and I left in
11 grade. He took the high school equivalency test and I took night
school and then the GED. He went on to work construction and I traveled
the country and then we got married at 18 years old. We have known each
other since we were 11 years old. Family was fully against us
homeschooling when I began reading more on it when Britt was 18 months
old. We then decided maybe a Waldorf school which of course got worse
reviews. The running thought in his family is that we are trying to
raise communists. How they came up with this is beyond me but my father
in law still thinks this but at least is learning to keep his mouth
shut. Anyhow when we moved to CT from CA we decided to give the schools
a try since the class size was so small. Didn't work as I said above. So
we started our adventures in homeschooling.
Over the past 5 years I have reworked our way of schooling several
times. We started out doing school at home. I think it was more part of
my de-schooling than theirs. I am glad that only lasted a few months.
Next we tried Oak Meadow. I used that nearly 2 years until I had Jacob
and found my kids actually did learn without the books. So from there on
out we would use the Oak Meadow and Saxon math when we felt like that.
Some days were more structured than others. Lately though I just even
think some of that is to structured and decided to toss in the towel
after talking with other unschoolers about their day and reading up.
So I guess I am on another adventure. :0)
I noticed you all were talking about colleges. I suppose there are
career where you need a college degree. My husband is in one of those
jobs now working in NYC for one of the top 10 marketing and advertising
firms and being upper management. He only like I said before has a 10th
grade education and went to trade school for 9 months (he doubled on the
course to go finish faster as we had 2 children at home to feed and debt
piling up after our constructions company went under do to economic
times during the gulf war). This got him in ground floor. He worked hard
over the next few years and everything he is doing now is nothing he
learned in school which cracks me up. It is all from working at jobs,
keeping his ears and eyes open and learning new skills and taking those
skills to a new job and learning more there. Companies have paid to have
him trained in certain programs and to work certain machines and he is
really the one who has benefited from this. Life really had been his
school teacher.
Now he hires people and he will not really look at their education
background. He looks at their work experience and what they say they can
do and then bring them in and is able to see who they are. Like he said
it is rather easy to doctor up degrees and on the other side he has had
guys work for him who have years of college behind them and they stunk
or were unable to think for themselves.
I know not every career is like this but hopefully it gives some hope to
those who are worried. I know lots of people who are working in great
jobs making really really good money and never went to college and some
only have a GED some have trade school some just worked their way up and
learned fast. One of our high school friends also lives here in CT and
bought an extremely expensive home in a very well to do part of
Connecticut and owns his own business in NYC. Oh all before he was 30
too. Like me he left school early and just has a GED. Once more he is
really happy and has a small family of his own.
The only one in our house at the moment talking jobs in my oldest,
Britt. She currently wants to be a Reiki master and teach yoga classes.
She knows she isnt going to make a milliion dollars doing this but she
thinks she will be happy doing this. I told her fine by me. And I am
currently trying to find a Reiki teacher for her. Actually we did find
one (two actually) who are willing to teach her. If she likes it
fine..if not fine. I am not that worried at the moment about college. We
will do whatever it takes to get in one if the kids decided to go. My
neighbor thinks I am nuts with this thinking. But then I think he is
nuts for spending over $100,000 to send a kid to college up in Boston
that dropped out because he never wanted to go in the first place. I
think I am more concerned with the happiness end of success than the
finanacial though I do hope my children will be finacially secure enough
to take care of themselves. I just belive that if your happy in what you
do you will be successful.
Ok this is far longer than I had imagined posting. Sorry about that. I
have not had my coffee yet this morning and the kids are still sleeping.
Thank for listening to me and I look forward to getting to know you all.
Namaste,
--
Shelly
Christina Morrissey
Thanks for writing Shelley....I enjoyed reading it...I am a two year
newbie, still uncertain after having to pull mine out of 6th and 2nd for
mental health reasons. I agree with what you say and just keep my fingers
crossed that all will turn out well. I figure my fall back position is the
fact that a motivated young person can learn anything in a short amount of
time! Even if it takes 'till they're 18!
Christina...Bothell, WA (Travis 13, Erin 9)
At 08:18 AM 1/23/2002 -0500, you wrote:
newbie, still uncertain after having to pull mine out of 6th and 2nd for
mental health reasons. I agree with what you say and just keep my fingers
crossed that all will turn out well. I figure my fall back position is the
fact that a motivated young person can learn anything in a short amount of
time! Even if it takes 'till they're 18!
Christina...Bothell, WA (Travis 13, Erin 9)
At 08:18 AM 1/23/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi my name is Shelly. I live in Connecticut with my 5 children (Britt[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>13, Nate 11, Chelsea 9, Cody 7 and Jake 2) and my husband John. We have
>been homeschooling for close to 5 years now. We pulled the kids out of
>school for several different reason from one being totally bored and
>unchallenged to Nate being beat up nearly everyday and just not socially
>doing well which as you can guess made his school work suffer. Chelsea
>only went a few weeks of kindergarten. And Cody has never been to school
>at all. So recently when he heard you had to raise your hand to go to
>the bathroom and couldn't enjoy a glass of juice when you want he
>decided school sounded more like a jail and he never wants to go. *L*
>
>We had originally wanted to homeschool. Neither my husband or myself had
>a good experience in school at all. He left in 10th grade and I left in
>11 grade. He took the high school equivalency test and I took night
>school and then the GED. He went on to work construction and I traveled
>the country and then we got married at 18 years old. We have known each
>other since we were 11 years old. Family was fully against us
>homeschooling when I began reading more on it when Britt was 18 months
>old. We then decided maybe a Waldorf school which of course got worse
>reviews. The running thought in his family is that we are trying to
>raise communists. How they came up with this is beyond me but my father
>in law still thinks this but at least is learning to keep his mouth
>shut. Anyhow when we moved to CT from CA we decided to give the schools
>a try since the class size was so small. Didn't work as I said above. So
>we started our adventures in homeschooling.
>
>Over the past 5 years I have reworked our way of schooling several
>times. We started out doing school at home. I think it was more part of
>my de-schooling than theirs. I am glad that only lasted a few months.
>Next we tried Oak Meadow. I used that nearly 2 years until I had Jacob
>and found my kids actually did learn without the books. So from there on
>out we would use the Oak Meadow and Saxon math when we felt like that.
>Some days were more structured than others. Lately though I just even
>think some of that is to structured and decided to toss in the towel
>after talking with other unschoolers about their day and reading up.
>
>So I guess I am on another adventure. :0)
>
>I noticed you all were talking about colleges. I suppose there are
>career where you need a college degree. My husband is in one of those
>jobs now working in NYC for one of the top 10 marketing and advertising
>firms and being upper management. He only like I said before has a 10th
>grade education and went to trade school for 9 months (he doubled on the
>course to go finish faster as we had 2 children at home to feed and debt
>piling up after our constructions company went under do to economic
>times during the gulf war). This got him in ground floor. He worked hard
>over the next few years and everything he is doing now is nothing he
>learned in school which cracks me up. It is all from working at jobs,
>keeping his ears and eyes open and learning new skills and taking those
>skills to a new job and learning more there. Companies have paid to have
>him trained in certain programs and to work certain machines and he is
>really the one who has benefited from this. Life really had been his
>school teacher.
>
>Now he hires people and he will not really look at their education
>background. He looks at their work experience and what they say they can
>do and then bring them in and is able to see who they are. Like he said
>it is rather easy to doctor up degrees and on the other side he has had
>guys work for him who have years of college behind them and they stunk
>or were unable to think for themselves.
>
>I know not every career is like this but hopefully it gives some hope to
>those who are worried. I know lots of people who are working in great
>jobs making really really good money and never went to college and some
>only have a GED some have trade school some just worked their way up and
>learned fast. One of our high school friends also lives here in CT and
>bought an extremely expensive home in a very well to do part of
>Connecticut and owns his own business in NYC. Oh all before he was 30
>too. Like me he left school early and just has a GED. Once more he is
>really happy and has a small family of his own.
>
>The only one in our house at the moment talking jobs in my oldest,
>Britt. She currently wants to be a Reiki master and teach yoga classes.
>She knows she isnt going to make a milliion dollars doing this but she
>thinks she will be happy doing this. I told her fine by me. And I am
>currently trying to find a Reiki teacher for her. Actually we did find
>one (two actually) who are willing to teach her. If she likes it
>fine..if not fine. I am not that worried at the moment about college. We
>will do whatever it takes to get in one if the kids decided to go. My
>neighbor thinks I am nuts with this thinking. But then I think he is
>nuts for spending over $100,000 to send a kid to college up in Boston
>that dropped out because he never wanted to go in the first place. I
>think I am more concerned with the happiness end of success than the
>finanacial though I do hope my children will be finacially secure enough
>to take care of themselves. I just belive that if your happy in what you
>do you will be successful.
>
>Ok this is far longer than I had imagined posting. Sorry about that. I
>have not had my coffee yet this morning and the kids are still sleeping.
>Thank for listening to me and I look forward to getting to know you all.
>
>
>
>Namaste,
>--
>Shelly
>
>
>
>
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kalima
Christina,
Honestly I keep focusing on stories I hear from other parents and what I read on kids that did learn a large amount when they wanted to or when they found they needed it. I am lucky too I live in a state with really no requirements either so I don't have anyone to answer too either. But I do know kids who were not great writers and couldn't do certain things at age 14 have it hit them they want to this or that and suddenly want to learn and pick it all up.
My problem is keeping that voice of doubt that goes off in my head quiet. *L* Like I said I need those stories and inspiration like they are a broom to beat the doubt down. My 7 year old (Cody) has never been to school and honestly is unschooled , always has been just it didn't hit me till a little while ago. I have trouble with my 9 year old (Chelsea) with reading. Cody asked shortly after he turned 6 if I was going to teach him to read. I asked if he was
sure and he said yes and to my surprise picked it up fast. I am glad he did as I thought I did something wrong with Chelsea and was thinking what a horrible mother I was for not being able to teach her to read. Now I see she will blossom in her own time. Actually I have discovered she can read...just when she wants and what she wants.
Shelly
Christina Morrissey wrote:
Honestly I keep focusing on stories I hear from other parents and what I read on kids that did learn a large amount when they wanted to or when they found they needed it. I am lucky too I live in a state with really no requirements either so I don't have anyone to answer too either. But I do know kids who were not great writers and couldn't do certain things at age 14 have it hit them they want to this or that and suddenly want to learn and pick it all up.
My problem is keeping that voice of doubt that goes off in my head quiet. *L* Like I said I need those stories and inspiration like they are a broom to beat the doubt down. My 7 year old (Cody) has never been to school and honestly is unschooled , always has been just it didn't hit me till a little while ago. I have trouble with my 9 year old (Chelsea) with reading. Cody asked shortly after he turned 6 if I was going to teach him to read. I asked if he was
sure and he said yes and to my surprise picked it up fast. I am glad he did as I thought I did something wrong with Chelsea and was thinking what a horrible mother I was for not being able to teach her to read. Now I see she will blossom in her own time. Actually I have discovered she can read...just when she wants and what she wants.
Shelly
Christina Morrissey wrote:
> Thanks for writing Shelley....I enjoyed reading it...I am a two year
> newbie, still uncertain after having to pull mine out of 6th and 2nd for
> mental health reasons. I agree with what you say and just keep my fingers
> crossed that all will turn out well. I figure my fall back position is the
> fact that a motivated young person can learn anything in a short amount of
> time! Even if it takes 'till they're 18!
>
> Christina...Bothell, WA (Travis 13, Erin 9)
>
Tia Leschke
> And Cody has never been to schoolMy 7 year old granddaughter just tried school for a week. Now she says
>at all. So recently when he heard you had to raise your hand to go to
>the bathroom and couldn't enjoy a glass of juice when you want he
>decided school sounded more like a jail and he never wants to go. *L*
that she will never let her own children go. <g>
Tia
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
*********************************************
Tia Leschke
leschke@...
On Vancouver Island