Like the majority of Americans, I grew up in the public school system. I have two adult children. One deaf other has CAPD. The public school system labeled my children and because of their labels underestimate their intelligence and never challenged them. I found myself purchasing materials etc and teaching my children skills and subjects not taught by schools including the Constitution and federalist papers.
As a young parent in a blue state, I never knew about homeschooling option. Eventually I was befriended by a homeschooling mom. She pointed out I was homeschooling my children…her encouragement led to homeschooling. However the state required monitoring homeschooling parents via frequent government employees performing home visits. These employees reviewed all curriculum materials documentation of activities and tests.
These employees state Department of education had the power to revoke your homeschooling privileges.
I will never forget the time I was attending a 1st grade open house and when asking why my own daughter's work was not displayed, the teacher informed me her work was "too primitive" and "delayed". I was appalled and hurt beyond belief for my sweet baby girl.
25 years later, she was an honors graduate in Economics from the University of Colorado and is currently employed by Space force. I imagine the teacher is retired and still living in Tucson on our government dime. .
When my son was in kindergarten I was told he would never pass first grade. I was stunned. I had him tested and discovered that he had adhd and other learning disabilities. He was put into part time Special Ed, which turned out to be pretty useless. Even though I worked full time, I spent every night with him working on whatever he needed. He always struggled, but raised lambs in high school, became a certified welder in college and even acted in a few movies and music videos. Public school turned out to be such a disappointment.
I’m so sorry that happened to you, Nancy. My second grade teacher told my mom that I would never amount to anything. We had just moved from WI to PA in the middle of the school year and I was behind. They were already multiplying two numbers and I didn’t know how to multiply yet (I vividly remember that we were starting multiplication the day after my last day of school in WI). She was horrible to me. I don’t understand how teachers can be so cruel like that. Your daughter will continue to do amazing things! ❤️
In my opinion 1993 is when the deterioration of soecial education began , due to the passing of Congressional bill titled Goals 2000. The National School Board Association ordered colleges stop producing special education teachers and other specialized areas because general education teachers are capable of teaching children with special needs. At that time general education teachers said if they wanted to work in special education they would have spent $ to specialize in college. I’m not degrading general education teachers, there are many gifted teachers. Sadly the focus became mainstream for all (one size fits all) rather than what learning environment is APPROPRIATE for the INDIVIDUAL child. My opinion, one size fits all overwhelm teachers, sometimes takes away from general education students, and sometimes be disruptive. Also I have seen an abuse of IEPS meaning significant increase of students identified under certain IDEA disability categories. For example all the child required is extra test taking time. Rather than putting the child on an 504 Plan they put the child on an IEP. Another problem the IEPs go beyond educationally necessary to access classroom instruction to receive a free an appropriate public education. Last the parents are not informed to frequently do an IEP review meaning more than 1x per school year. IDEA says “at a minimum 1x per year” maybe this is why public schools inly do the minimum.
What was intended for good has become a money maker.
Learning the same thing year after year is something I can relate to, as my own government school did exactly this. I actually had the same history textbook in seventh grade that I did in sixth grade, and apparently the "difference" was that the seventh-grade course took a deeper, more critical dive into the material. I'm sure you'll all be unsurprised to know that it didn't; it was the same exact course. The only real difference was that an even more incompetent teacher led the class.
Homeschooled our bright beautiful granddaughter ever since PLANNEDEMIC Overlords tried to FORCE [hardly @ risk Children.] to MANDATORY MASK UP…!!! **We Simply said Thanks… No Thanks! She’s THRIVING! BEST DECISION EVER… ! ! !
So let me get this straight, the system that I grew up in didn’t prepare me enough to teach my own kids? What does that say? I feel like I have learned way more after college than I ever did in school. Thank you for this article! I have a 3 year old and we are already teaching her how to add, read, and write. I have been intimidated thinking that homeschooling would be a lot, but 20-30 mins starting out!? OK! ❤️
yeah, 20-30 mins for kindergarten. my now third grader spends maybe an hour to an hour and a half, and my sixth grader spends 2-3 hours. I currently have them set up doing most of their work independently.
I’m the mom of two home educated graduates. Personally, I would not recommend any online courses for a 10 yo. I would stick with real books, real paper, and lots of hands-on activities. We really do learn and retain more from physical books as compared to digital books. The physical act of writing notes and papers by hand also benefits the brain much more than typing.
And as the OP stated, it does not require hours per day. Nor does it even require textbooks or workbooks. Check out Ruth Beechick’s books ‘The Three Rs’ and ‘You Can Teach Your Child Successfully Grades 4-6’ for a complete, budget friendly, how-to guide for home education.
There are SO many resources...be careful NOat to get overwhelmed. HSLDA.org is a huge national array. The only reason I stay on FB is for access to the state and local homeschooling resource groups and activities. Do you know there are curriculum reviewers? They can help SO much...Cathy Duffy has done reviewes for years and is excellent. A newer more complex array-by every imaginable catagory- is the Home School Resource Map. These folks are ANGELS who share their work/assessments. As for online resources...we started that way too. Just PLEASE be *VERY* careful w/ online opportunities. Even at age 10 you need to reassure your child to trust their instincts about content. We STILL use online resources but we learned the hardway about corporate buyouts affecting homeschooling. Glynlon bought Monarch-and these huge companies now have subsidiaries. They're gobbling up resources to access our children and monetize their data. Several have suffered Marxist like attacks to monkey their operations, use AI, and even hack in to the tablet or computer being used. They also infiltrate curriculum w/ horrid content...like editting offerings to eliminate US and Civil War History, inserting propoganda about an array of health and social issues, and propose ideas that question/ challenge family and parental rights deferring to the government's superiority 😵🫠🤨😮💨. SO...PLEASE watch the content. 🙏 Lastly, if you have a public library nearby? You might treat yourself to a visit to checkout homeschooling resources there. If you find an author that speaks to you, it can be a huge boost. I've found free curriculum that homeschoolers take & leave each other for free, homeschooling groups who meet at the library, and bulletin boards of community activities. 🤗
Thank you so much. It’s my grandson that I’m concerned about. Mom and dad are absolutely against public school, but don’t have the patience or $ to do homeschooling “ right” . He’s a bright kid and has three siblings younger. I worry she,’s just sticking a iPad in front of him and he’s on his own. I will pass along to this information. Thanks again!
Ah! Yeah, sitting in front of an ipad all day is not good. Thankfully, a quality education does not require much money. Abraham Lincoln proved that. It does, however, require intentionality on the part of the parents and/or student.
You may find that reading some books about unschooling will help allay some of your fears. As a Christian, I could not fully embrace the unschooling philosophy. However reading about unschoolers did help me relax my methods quite a bit. It also helped me recognize true learning (hint: it looks nothing like what we find in schools). I ended up using more of a lifeschooling approach.
Like the majority of Americans, I grew up in the public school system. I have two adult children. One deaf other has CAPD. The public school system labeled my children and because of their labels underestimate their intelligence and never challenged them. I found myself purchasing materials etc and teaching my children skills and subjects not taught by schools including the Constitution and federalist papers.
As a young parent in a blue state, I never knew about homeschooling option. Eventually I was befriended by a homeschooling mom. She pointed out I was homeschooling my children…her encouragement led to homeschooling. However the state required monitoring homeschooling parents via frequent government employees performing home visits. These employees reviewed all curriculum materials documentation of activities and tests.
These employees state Department of education had the power to revoke your homeschooling privileges.
My children excelled.
I will never forget the time I was attending a 1st grade open house and when asking why my own daughter's work was not displayed, the teacher informed me her work was "too primitive" and "delayed". I was appalled and hurt beyond belief for my sweet baby girl.
25 years later, she was an honors graduate in Economics from the University of Colorado and is currently employed by Space force. I imagine the teacher is retired and still living in Tucson on our government dime. .
When my son was in kindergarten I was told he would never pass first grade. I was stunned. I had him tested and discovered that he had adhd and other learning disabilities. He was put into part time Special Ed, which turned out to be pretty useless. Even though I worked full time, I spent every night with him working on whatever he needed. He always struggled, but raised lambs in high school, became a certified welder in college and even acted in a few movies and music videos. Public school turned out to be such a disappointment.
It was, however our children are wonderful!!
I’m so sorry that happened to you, Nancy. My second grade teacher told my mom that I would never amount to anything. We had just moved from WI to PA in the middle of the school year and I was behind. They were already multiplying two numbers and I didn’t know how to multiply yet (I vividly remember that we were starting multiplication the day after my last day of school in WI). She was horrible to me. I don’t understand how teachers can be so cruel like that. Your daughter will continue to do amazing things! ❤️
In my opinion 1993 is when the deterioration of soecial education began , due to the passing of Congressional bill titled Goals 2000. The National School Board Association ordered colleges stop producing special education teachers and other specialized areas because general education teachers are capable of teaching children with special needs. At that time general education teachers said if they wanted to work in special education they would have spent $ to specialize in college. I’m not degrading general education teachers, there are many gifted teachers. Sadly the focus became mainstream for all (one size fits all) rather than what learning environment is APPROPRIATE for the INDIVIDUAL child. My opinion, one size fits all overwhelm teachers, sometimes takes away from general education students, and sometimes be disruptive. Also I have seen an abuse of IEPS meaning significant increase of students identified under certain IDEA disability categories. For example all the child required is extra test taking time. Rather than putting the child on an 504 Plan they put the child on an IEP. Another problem the IEPs go beyond educationally necessary to access classroom instruction to receive a free an appropriate public education. Last the parents are not informed to frequently do an IEP review meaning more than 1x per school year. IDEA says “at a minimum 1x per year” maybe this is why public schools inly do the minimum.
What was intended for good has become a money maker.
Learning the same thing year after year is something I can relate to, as my own government school did exactly this. I actually had the same history textbook in seventh grade that I did in sixth grade, and apparently the "difference" was that the seventh-grade course took a deeper, more critical dive into the material. I'm sure you'll all be unsurprised to know that it didn't; it was the same exact course. The only real difference was that an even more incompetent teacher led the class.
Homeschooled our bright beautiful granddaughter ever since PLANNEDEMIC Overlords tried to FORCE [hardly @ risk Children.] to MANDATORY MASK UP…!!! **We Simply said Thanks… No Thanks! She’s THRIVING! BEST DECISION EVER… ! ! !
So let me get this straight, the system that I grew up in didn’t prepare me enough to teach my own kids? What does that say? I feel like I have learned way more after college than I ever did in school. Thank you for this article! I have a 3 year old and we are already teaching her how to add, read, and write. I have been intimidated thinking that homeschooling would be a lot, but 20-30 mins starting out!? OK! ❤️
There are SO many supportive resources...this is one of my faves: www.hslda.org.
Thank you so much! This is amazing!!!
yeah, 20-30 mins for kindergarten. my now third grader spends maybe an hour to an hour and a half, and my sixth grader spends 2-3 hours. I currently have them set up doing most of their work independently.
Homeschool your children!! Get them out of the government indoctrination schools!! If I can do it, you can do it too!!
Do you recommend any particular online courses for a ten year old?
I’m the mom of two home educated graduates. Personally, I would not recommend any online courses for a 10 yo. I would stick with real books, real paper, and lots of hands-on activities. We really do learn and retain more from physical books as compared to digital books. The physical act of writing notes and papers by hand also benefits the brain much more than typing.
And as the OP stated, it does not require hours per day. Nor does it even require textbooks or workbooks. Check out Ruth Beechick’s books ‘The Three Rs’ and ‘You Can Teach Your Child Successfully Grades 4-6’ for a complete, budget friendly, how-to guide for home education.
There are SO many resources...be careful NOat to get overwhelmed. HSLDA.org is a huge national array. The only reason I stay on FB is for access to the state and local homeschooling resource groups and activities. Do you know there are curriculum reviewers? They can help SO much...Cathy Duffy has done reviewes for years and is excellent. A newer more complex array-by every imaginable catagory- is the Home School Resource Map. These folks are ANGELS who share their work/assessments. As for online resources...we started that way too. Just PLEASE be *VERY* careful w/ online opportunities. Even at age 10 you need to reassure your child to trust their instincts about content. We STILL use online resources but we learned the hardway about corporate buyouts affecting homeschooling. Glynlon bought Monarch-and these huge companies now have subsidiaries. They're gobbling up resources to access our children and monetize their data. Several have suffered Marxist like attacks to monkey their operations, use AI, and even hack in to the tablet or computer being used. They also infiltrate curriculum w/ horrid content...like editting offerings to eliminate US and Civil War History, inserting propoganda about an array of health and social issues, and propose ideas that question/ challenge family and parental rights deferring to the government's superiority 😵🫠🤨😮💨. SO...PLEASE watch the content. 🙏 Lastly, if you have a public library nearby? You might treat yourself to a visit to checkout homeschooling resources there. If you find an author that speaks to you, it can be a huge boost. I've found free curriculum that homeschoolers take & leave each other for free, homeschooling groups who meet at the library, and bulletin boards of community activities. 🤗
Thank you so much. It’s my grandson that I’m concerned about. Mom and dad are absolutely against public school, but don’t have the patience or $ to do homeschooling “ right” . He’s a bright kid and has three siblings younger. I worry she,’s just sticking a iPad in front of him and he’s on his own. I will pass along to this information. Thanks again!
Ah! Yeah, sitting in front of an ipad all day is not good. Thankfully, a quality education does not require much money. Abraham Lincoln proved that. It does, however, require intentionality on the part of the parents and/or student.
You may find that reading some books about unschooling will help allay some of your fears. As a Christian, I could not fully embrace the unschooling philosophy. However reading about unschoolers did help me relax my methods quite a bit. It also helped me recognize true learning (hint: it looks nothing like what we find in schools). I ended up using more of a lifeschooling approach.
Good to hear. Hadn’t thought about it before and now I think it will have a tremendous impact on those well rounded and knowledgeable.