In the middle of February, after observing the final straw that broke the camel's back in a long series of unfortunate events, I pulled Cleo out of her public school in New Orleans, put in my resignation at the same school, and began homeschooling her. There are many reasons why this decision was made in her best interest, but the primary ones were the harassment she was receiving because of her race (she's white), what the learning environment was becoming, and the course work was at a much lower level than she was used to working at. These are a few of the reasons, but not all.
I wasn't worried about my ability to teach Cleo. I'm no dummy (4.0 GPA from University of Wisconsin thank you very much) and my husband has the most brilliant mind ever and is quite accomplished academically, having his undergrad degree in Psychology and English. He went on to get his law degree from Hamline, a pretty tough law program. He and I balance each other out with our strength and weaknesses and together really are a dynamic duo. Add in the mix a little girl that is eight but works at a fifth grade level without the pressure to perform and there is nothing that the three of us cannot do.
The biggest obstacle was deciding exactly how we were going to homeschool. There are so many different
methods. After deciding the method that would work best for Cleo, we needed to figure out which curriculum would work best. There are a lot of them, let me tell you. We decided for Cleo that the best method was the eclectic method, which takes an element from each method. Curriculum was another story. I purchased a few used text books from E-Bay. I also purchased a comprehensive curriculum from Borders. I looked online and found a program called Time4Learning which had interactive lessons on line based on the core curriculum of math, language arts, language arts extension, science, and social studies. Taking a little bit of each of these things makes up our curriculum for this year, though next year we have a complete curriculum that was given to me from a friend of mine from childhood who homeschools her children.
So, how do we home school?
I found that with Cleo, trying to do a it of everything each day didn't work, particularly when she was very interested in a certain subject. I also found that although she excels greatly in almost all subjects, math is an area that she has fallen behind on, even though she was getting A's in math on her report card. To accommodate Emily and how she learns, we have broken school up in a one subject/per day format. Almost
Monday - Language Arts/Music (violin lessons are on Monday)
Tuesday - Math
Wednesday - Science/Art
Thursday - Social Studies
Friday - Math
She has PE throughout the week.
What about socialization?
Homeschooling is a very common thing where I live in Louisiana. It is so common that there are ten homeschool groups in the area. The largest homeschool group is a secular group that plans weekly field trips, has weekly gym classes, a science club, and weekly family fun nights. Socialization is definitely not a problem and she is around a much better group of peer models than she was in public school in New Orleans.
Additionally, we do a lot of cool things together as a family we weren't able to do before because of the hours my husband works. We have much more family time together, which is very important to me.
Each homeschooler has their way of doing things. This is what works for us.
Comments (2)
I really admire that. I love the idea of homeschooling. I always imagined that I would do it if I ever had kids, but that's a ways down the road. I am glad that it doesn't lead to totally socially inept people as is most often noted. (I went to public school, and I fail socially, but I tend to think of myself as self-taught, post-dropping out.)
Also, I'm glad I'm not the ONLY one who likes newer Hanson better, haha!
I'm glad homeschooling is working for you. Different things work for different people. There is nothing less or more than public schools as far as education- only in environment the person learns best in. It sounds like it's much better for her, and your family! I wouldn't have wanted homeschooling, but it's facinating to hear about. I hope you keep us updated, I love learning about different lifestyles! Besides which I like hearing about your life- you are so interesting!