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Home-Schooling and "Open Source" Materials? 115

Posted by Cliff from the books-pens-papers-and-things dept.
Deagol asks: "After we registered our daughter for second grade yesterday at public school, I began to ponder (yet again) the question of homeschooling. There's certainly not a lack of sites out there about the topic, but I was surprised at the lack of public domain materials out there. I would think there'd more collections of public domain 'courses' since the K-12 core knowledge base is so stable and well understood. Sure, there are tons of places that will sell you kits of course materials, and quite a few home-schoolers who made their own courses (but only offer them for a fee). I assume there's more than a few homeschoolers out there on Slashdot. Are there any good sources of free home-schooling materials (including software) out there?"
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Home-Schooling and "Open Source" Materials? More

Home-Schooling and "Open Source" Materials?

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  • If I had kids, I would probably homeschool too, at least for the earlier years. Mailny beacuse I had bad experiances at school (maily teaching methods!).

    Having thought about this for a while, and bringing up my younger brothers and sisters (i have 6 of them!) here's my thoughts.

    1: decide of a few core sobjects you belive that your child should learn and search for material on those subjects.

    2: Make sure that you pick a broad range of education, you don't have to go too deep into every topic/area. Include things like art, music, hand crafts, social sciences as well as the more academic subjects.

    3: Find something you always wanted to learn at school and learn it with your child, you should be a quicker learner and it wil be fun for both of you.(that'd be spelling and co for me!)

    4: most importantly make everything as fun as possible. Ancient history (3000 years - 300 years ago) is very easy to make into a fun subject and you don't have to worry about ofending anyone when you talk about alixander the great going on a rampage all over asia minor, or some of the stupid things they done in the crusades.

    I hope it works out well, you child will probably thank you for it in the future!

    • You shure are rite about the spelling being a "sobject" you need to leern.

      Alexander the great, not "alixander." :-)
      • The funny thing is this is a person who would want his own children to home school so they get a better education.

        • I'm sure you doctor would like to have better handwriting too.

          Most of my teachers couldn't spell either, and my gramdma was a teacher for 20 odd years, i wouldn't call her that bright either.

          We all no what happens when you make assumptions?
        • Err. Why is this a funny thing? They went to a public school and thus know what areas the public school is lacking.

          If anything, I'd think that someone who didn't recieve a good education in certain areas would be more appreciative of the benefits that could be had by proper education.

          The suggestions were good. Why take away from that with childish heckling about spelling/grammatical issues.

          Spelling and grammar, while important, are NOT a sign of intelligence and it is foolish to percieve them as being such. ::mutters "fscking moron" under my breath::

          -Sara
  • My wife has her degree in early childhood education and is a state certified teacher, but she stays at home with my son and homeschools him. I hadn't really thought about the fact that we are really laying out a fair amount of money for the materials. The state regulations in GA as I understand it are that you don't have to use a certain accredited course.. you have do certain placement testing after every 3rd grade or so (my boy is only 5 and doing 2nd grade work right now so it hasn't come up yet)... not sure on the final diploma requirements though... I'll ask the Mrs and post again....
    • well... she says that for grade/elementary school if you joined a public or private school you'd get either placed by age or by evaluation... and after 3rd grade you have to take a state certified test every other year to determine that the student is meeting certain aptitude criteria if they are homeschooled.

      So the curriculum isn't actually doing anything but making sure that the student achieves a certain skill level set by the state education organizations (I think you can check the websites for your state government, find the education dept, and then find listings of what they state are the required things/levels that the student should know). Which would imply that you don't NEED to buy a curriculum... it is however much easier than coming up with all the work sheets, etc, that most students are going to need to ensure that they are learning the proper things...

      Most of the curriculums actually ARE open source... in that they are simply workbooks, etc, teaching the basic stuff that everybody knows (their source of information is open)... not some special formula for education. They however are not free...

      So for a DIY kind of person you could theoretically take those state requirement listings and base what you're teaching on those, rather than purchasing a curriculum. There are also local home schooling groups, which will aid you in getting started.

      I think one of the main reasons there aren't any really totally free ready-to-teach curriculums out there, is that most of the people who are home schooling have given up one income in the household, and are either teaching with other people's curriculum (or an amalgam of several company's materials) or are selling their own custom designed curriculum as a method for supplementing their family's income...
      • So the curriculum isn't actually doing anything but making sure that the student achieves a certain skill level set by the state education organizations (I think you can check the websites for your state government, find the education dept, and then find listings of what they state are the required things/levels that the student should know). Which would imply that you don't NEED to buy a curriculum... it is however much easier than coming up with all the work sheets, etc, that most students are going to need to ensure that they are learning the proper things...

        It's not the students who need the worksheets to ensure they're learning the proper things. It's the teachers.

        You're right, there's no special "formula" for education. I think this is what scares many people about the idea of homeschooling. The public schools are *not* the last word on what should/should not be taught, and when and how.

        Here's the thing about state-approved curricula: okay, so some folks got together and decided they know what's best for our kids. They decided what should be learned and when. This has become some scary, sacred thing. Standards, checklists, curriculum objectives, blah blah blah. Why are those the "proper things" to learn? What if my kid learns things in a different order? At a different time? What if he learns different things? My 6 year old doesn't know his sight words, but he can tell you more about World War II than most adults know. Should I stop wasting time on all that history until he catches up to the state-mandated age-appropriate skills?

        Where *did* Jefferson put those worksheets, anyway?

    • I homeschooled for a few years 7-9 grade. It was awesome. I had the opportunity to raise calves, learn about running a business, in addition to my normal studies. Incidentally, Washington has excellent homeschooling laws, you can go in for selected classes, I took a great biology and jazz band class, while doing math, enlish, PE (unfortunately mostly yard work), and the rest at home. I went back into high school, both for the social aspects, and to have a real transcript when applying for college. We also moved to a much better school district. For diploma's most of the homeschoolers got a GED, usually at about 16-17, and you had to take a placement test each year, but no one every saw the results. I think the state was worried because the average scores were usually quite a bit higher than the state's average.
  • Project Gutenberg (http://promo.net/pg/) has some of the best literature ever written, from Alice in Wonderland to Emile Zola; you can download the complete works of Mark Twain as a single zipped archive :)

    I wonder if anyone can suggest good analogs to PG for music and / or spoken-word materials, things like classic radio broadcasts, famous speeches, audio books with appropriate licenses, etc ...

    timothy

  • The curriculum is NOT that set... (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheWanderingHermit ( 513872 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @11:48AM (#4088907)
    As a former special ed teacher (in elementary, but also in high school for a while), I'd first suggest you ask yourself why you want to homeschool. I've worked with a number of homeschooled students. While I find that, in many cases, they are well educated, that does not make up for the social issues I see almost all of these students develop. Homeschooled students simply do not get the myriad of opportunities to interact with peers and authority figures that they would in school. In one school the valedictorian had been homeschooled for most of his life. When he graduated, he was not emotionally ready for college, and would not have been able to handle making all the personal decisions living away from home requires. He did not know how to interact wit hthe other students who frequently laughed at his attempts to "fit in." Now that I'm in the business world, I see he is also not someone I would want to hire. While homeschooling may have helped him academically, his social skills were so poor, I could not see him interacting well with other employees or working with a team in a beneficial way. He simply did not have the experience at interacting and working with people.

    While I have seen some homeschooled students do quite well, the majority I've seen (both in and out of special ed) are too much like the student I described above to be a coincidence. The parents are so thrilled Junior is thinking like them and acting the way he's been told to act, they don't see this. The few students that did well had EXTENSIVE social activities (I mean way more than non-homeschooled students had), such as playing on a soccer team AND acting in community plays AND ballet going on all at once -- which often would also lead to burnout.

    On the other hand, I have another point to help. Schools go through textbook adoption in cycles. For elementary, one year they're working on Language Arts, then Math, then Science, etc. See if you can work with other parents in the area that want to homeschool. As a group go to school districts in the general area and see if you can obtain used copies of books they're discarding when they adopt new books. Do this with private schools as well.

    The curriculum is not as set as the question makes it sound -- there are constant changes in elementary education (the very fact that statement was in the question leads me to ask if the person who asked the question knows enough about learning and what teachers are actually doing when they teach to be an effective teacher -- reading, for example, is not an easy subject to teach effectively). I only taught for 10 years, but the way reading and language arts was taught in that time changed enough so I would not have wanted to use textbooks available at the beginning of that time 10 years later.
    • I think the key term here is `former'. Even if we accept the stereotype that home-schooled students have social problems (and several studies have strongly suggested otherwise), this is a new era.

      These days, internet-based homeschooling resources make it very easy for home-schooling parents to work together to plan field trips, sports, and other activities with other home-schooling kids.

      Of course, if you really want to give your kid the social experiences he would have in a real public school, you could always beat him up and take his lunch-money each morning...

    • It's funny that when people actually do studies, the socialization scores of home schoolers end up right in the mainstream of the student population but their academic scores end up superior to the public school population. I guess you don't buy into those statistically valid samples and peer reviewed methodologies.

      The problem of academically gifted, socially awkward students is something that plays out every day in schools with the 'jocks' mocking the 'geeks' being a recurring theme. The question isn't whether a student is awkward, that happens in all systems. The real question is whether the incidence of awkwardness is within normal paramaters.

      As for curricula, yes, they do change. When I was in primary and secondary school we didn't have Gaia advocates and PETA shills coming in to the schools. My younger cousin did. Heather has two Mommies is also a recent elementary school innovation.

      The point is that changing curricula isn't necessarily good or bad. The idea of creating an open curricula project that can be forked if it beaches on the shoals of controversy is a very salutory idea. Math is math and when you see declining test scores over several cycles of curricula 'improvement' (see the mid 60s through mid 80s) then something is severely wrong.

      The problem is that amateurs are producing superior academic results to the professionals. Social interaction is something you can get by having a big building and funneling a lot of kids there. It takes precious little skill on the part of teachers and administrators. The academic skills are the metrics that are most influenced by teachers and in the areas where home schooling is breaking out, those teacher influenced metrics are atrocious.
      • When I taught high school, one time I even taught statistics. And I also showed students how the data could be taken and used to produce whatever effects one desired. I also taught to consider the source. For example, in the studies you mention (but you don't give any examples...), who did the survey? Was it a home schooling association?

        I'm speaking from experience. Not just experience as a student, but experience as a teacher. That includes years of study and experience and learning how people learn, why some people learn in different styles, and what conditions are best for different students in their own learning environment.

        I notice you don't cite experience (other than as a student -- an my experience is taht students have no idea how much goes on behind the scenes and what teachers learn and study to facilitate learning) or any special surveys, just vague generalities. As to changes in the elementary curriculum, you only mention different advocates coming into classsrooms (something which I NEVER saw in 10 years in the classroom).

        As for amateurs producing superior academic results -- again, where and when? Who is doing it? Can you back up ANYTHING you've said? Yes, I've seen some amateurs do quite well. And in most cases, they're working in bubbles. They aren't working with a school where they have 4 or more classes of 20-30 students in a classroom per grade (which means usually from 500-720 students in an elementary school). While small groups is great, and working in a bubble away from reality is a good condition to work in, I have yet to see amateurs develop systems that work with the major "mass" of students public schools have the responsibility to educate.

        I quit teaching for 2 reasons: 1) I was burned out (Special Ed does that to teachers), and 2) I could not, in good conscience, support or participate in the public school system. I am not defending the public school system. I am, however, pointing out that just being a student does not qualify one as an expert in education or schools (anymore than going to a doctor makes one an expert in physiology or medicine, or going to a psychologist makes one an expert in depression or other mental/emotional situations, or running Word on one's computer makes one an expert in programming and designing a user interface). I'm also pointint out that I'm speaking from experince from what I've seen in 10 years in the classroom. I'm not making vague statements or talking about people doing studies without saying who did the study, or just making comments to denigrate something without backing them up.
        • I'm not going to prove the world is round. There are plenty of objective studies out there that are *not* done by parties with an axe to grind. If you are genuinely curious and are not coming out with an agenda, you'll spend a few minutes on google and come across them.

          If you taught statistics, you should certainly know the fallacy of anecdotal evidence. The fact is that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the public school system and objectively that school system has soaked up a lot of resources. Private schools often do more with less resources (especially the religious ones). Home school children are showing up as winners in national academic contests far out of proportion to their presence in the relevant population (home schooling is still under 1% nationally).

          The NEA and AFT have been putting out FUD for years regarding home schooling after their previous campaigns of legal intimidation and storm trooper tactics didn't pan out. One by one their excuses for poor performance in the public schools have been shot down. The socialization of home school children is pretty much the last one. Don't buy into it.
    • I was a home schooler myself and I plan to home school my children as well. Every time I tell someone this, they respond with "well, what about the social skils?!" My best response is that it is important for your children to be allowed freedom to interact with others. Making friends at a local church is one way. Another (which I personally used) was to begin working at an early age.

      I was 14 when I started working at the local McDonalds. When I started, I couldn't tell a good joke worth a damn (although I think this has more to do with my personality rhan anything else). Slowly but surely I learned to interact better, tell jokes, spar with words, etc. None the less, I am a private person to this day. But is it so bad to want to enjoy some privacy? I really don't want every Tom. Dick, and Harry knowing everything about my life. I do however, tend to keep a close circle of friends. These are people I know, trust, and enjoy spending time with. Just don't expect me to go out for a beer with a bunch of guys I barely know.
      • And there's a good reason it worked for you -- the academic and the pedantic was balanced with experience and common sense. Few homeschooling parents (that I've worked with or talked with) do that. Getting a job was one of the best things (imho) you could have done. Sticking it out and adapting to the conditions was another.

        Privacy isn't the issue. Keeping to one's self is not the issue. That is an entirely different issue from not being able to interact with people when needed. I'm tutoring a friend who is going for an MBA now (helping her with the math and stats classes). A large part of her assignment is working with a group on tasks. A large part of many jobs requires working with people, getting along with them, and giving them a reason to respect you and your work so your contributions are accepted. Obviously you have learned to do that. Again, my experience is that many homeschooled students do not develop these skills to an effective level. (Unless, as I said, they are heavily socialized.)

        One little tip: Church is a good place for interaction and a good place for interpersonal support; however, most people active in any one church tend to have similar points of view (for example I'm a Quaker and almost all Quakers I know have similar outlooks to my own and we tend to interact in certain ways, but the way we interact is NOT the way I interact with many other people). People that have common views like that tend to interact differently than they do with groups of people without the same background and views. It's important to include a WIDE variety of types of social interaction.
        • most people active in any one church tend to have similar points of view

          While I agree with most of what you've said, it's important to note that this is true is many groups.
          e.g. State schools will often reflect the views of the community they servce. As will private schools. A school in a small "redneck" town will have an over abundance of "redneck" views. A church run school will exhibit the same characteristics as the church. The kids in the ballet class tend to have white middle-class parents. etc. etc.
          The important thing is to have children mix in a number of circles, be they church, school, sports, work, or (extended) family.

    • Re:The curriculum is NOT that set... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by joshki ( 152061 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @02:52PM (#4089693)
      Sorry -- the whole socialization issue is really just a smoke-screen that people like to throw up when they can't come up with a better reason to keep kids away from all the bad influences in public schools. I don't want my children socialized in a state-run breeding ground for liberalism, and I don't think I'm the only one. That doesn't mean that my kids (when I have them) will ever be "locked in a closet," or kept from having friends, participating in activities outside the home, etc. There are many activities availble to a parent who home schools -- in fact, most areas now have groups where people organize soccer teams, track teams, chess clubs, etc, of home schooled children.

      There may be people who isolate their children, but that's the exception, not the norm. I was home-schooled, and I learned to interact with people just fine. I started college when I was 13, and I fit in with the freshman without any problems. In fact, they would frequently come to me for help with the math and computer programming stuff that they couldn't do. They didn't have the critical thinking skills to handle complicated problems, I did. As a result, I got along with just about everyone. Had I gone to a public school, or to a high-school, I would have probably been ostracized for being a geek, but I managed to completely avoid having to deal with it by bypassing the immature high-school crowd. And if you want proof that I can "socialize" and deal with people, I've been a supervisor in the Navy for the last 5 years, and I've always received outstanding marks for leadership and teamwork -- even from some of the most difficult people I've ever had to work for.

      On the minus side, home-schooling isn't perfect. I am currently trying to get admitted to a College in the Hampton Roads area, and found out that they will not accept me. Even though I have 117 credit hours (transferable -- I've got more than that), most of it on the dean's list -- they will not accept me into their undergraduate program because I do not have a high-school diploma from a "state accredited" school. It's a slap in the face to the whole home-school movement, and an insult to me and my education, but I have no choice but to go out and take the GED so I can get my Bachelor's degree.

      • It may be a smoke screen from some people. On the other hand, as I said, I speak from MY experience, from what I have SEEN.

        You say if you had gone to public school you would have "probably been ostracized." I never said someone should go to public school (I am a strong advocate of vouchers and private school). On the other hand, how would you know, since the chance was not taken? You can only guess.

        So the students came to you for help. Did they see you as a friend, or a resource? You give examples of the latter, but not the former.

        I don't want to insult any branch of the armed services, but for a few years I taught in a residential treatment program for adolescents. The majority of the students with severe problems had parents in the military. While these parents were able to work and live in a regimented (and to some extent artifically designed) envornment of the armed services, they had serious problems in interacting with their families on an emotional level.

        Does that mean ALL military people have no clue how to raise their children? No, it doesn't. (I, myself, am raised by an Navy CPO -- one who made CPO while he was well under 30.) I am not about to generalize and say all military parents are dysfunctional. On the other hand, talking about "all the bad influences in public schools" and calling schools a "state-run breeding ground for liberalism" are emotionally loaded statements that come more from anger than from truth. I have worked in schools where the few Democrats in schools were ostracized. (In my experience, most of the public school teachers I worked with were Republicans and made that known around election time every year. -- Only the teachers in residential treatment and in schools in disadvantaged areas tend to be at all liberal.) (Oh, and schools are not state run -- each area, at least in VA, where Hamtpon Roads is, has control over their own system and, other than SOLs, has strong control over their own system. If you don't like what's going on, VOTE.)

        In my experience, when I see such phrases as "breeding ground for liberalism," I've found that they cannot be logically supported. That may not be true, but as a parent, it is up to you to influence your children if you feel they have to be brought up to agree with your own point of view. With this in mind, I would suggest reading "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg" by Mark Twain. It's about a town that makes sure the children never face temptation and do not interact with people they don't agree with. In the end, the town's people don't know how to deal with temptation because they have not faced it.

        One last comment, on a personal note. I've heard a lot of people use the word "liberal" or "liberalism" as an attack on many things. I have never heard anyone who used that word explain, in a logical manner, what it is that is liberal, or what is wrong. Personally, I think it's a catch word used to denigrate people with whom one does not agree or does not understand. It's become a word used in witch hunts, just like McCarthy used the word Communist. At least that's my person, OT comment and reaction to schools being a "state-run breeding ground for liberalism."

        • There is very little difference between the Republicans and Democrats. Get out and learn what the real issues are. You will soon discover two things: There are many thousands of issues, and all have a whole range of possibale positions. If two people ever agree 100% on all the issues, then one of those two needs to be shot for not having a mind.

          Liberalism is any belief that you disagree with, that is also new (and often popular). It is an attack because many view it as a group of changes that they belive are for the worse.

      • is that a private school? I had thought that all non private schools had to accept home schooled students. Obviously with the same criteria as public school taught(SAT, etc...)
        • evidently it's not a law... I'm sure I could probably sue them, but it's just not worth the effort. If I can't pass the GED, I'd be pretty shocked -- I've been doing college work since I was 13. The only thing that's kept me from getting my degree is money (and now this college's admissions dept).
    • Homeschooled students simply do not get the myriad of opportunities to interact with peers and authority figures that they would in school.

      My brother-in-law teaches high school art, and he says "public school teaches you to deal with assholes". I see that as an important thing to learn, but I'm also looking for homeschooling info to cover the academic side of my daughter's education.

      BTW, unschooling [unschooling.net] looks pretty interesting... see also the com and org version of that domain.

    • From a former home school kid to a former public school teacher. Your opinions are flawed. Educators in the public school system blab this hype about social problems as a way to preserve their own jobs. For every kid pulled out of public school to be educated at home, your school loses significant income. That affects the school budget that affects your wage. You can't possibly be objective, and since you have no scientific basis for your assumptions, they remain biased and incorrect.

      I was home schooled, didn't play sports or go hog wild joining every club or event. I never had any abnormal social issues. I went to college, did great. I have a great job and I work with people everyday. Nothing dysfunctional. I'm not alone here.

      There is nothing wrong with home schooling, provided it's done properly. I know of people who just used it to stay home and remain illiterate and reclusive. That's not okay.
      • Wow! I can't believe the number of logical flaws in your comment!

        1) "Your opinions are flawed." Opinions, by their very nature, cannot be flawed. Facts can be, but not opinions.

        2) "You can't possibly be objective." And you, as a homeschooled student, can? Why can you be objective and I can't? (FYI, I worked for a year helping people in homeschooling situations. I also am NO LONGER a teacher (I run my own business), I have nothing to do with the eductional system, and I have stated in this discussion that I left teaching, in part, due to problems with ethical attitudes of adminstrators in public schools).

        3) "I was home schooled...Nothing dysfuncitonal." And your source/proof that there's nothing dysfunctional? I'm not arguing with you, but an individual is not able to decide if he or she is functional (unless fully trained in psychology or medicine, and even then, there are many exceptions.) Every student I taught in residential treatment told me how they were really functional and everyone else was messed up.

        4) "since you have no scientific basis for your assumptions." And your scientific basis is....what? That you feel you're okay? Send me a letter signed by a psychologist who's been working with you for a full year, and at that point we have some scientific basis supporting your comments. While I have not done a study, I stated that my comments were in regard to MY experience. I worked with a number of home schooled students (a fair estimate is well over 50, perhaps closer to 100). I'm stating what I've seen in those students.

        Maybe you did turn out okay. But that does not prove it works as a whole. For example some honorable men were in Hitler's staff. That does not mean all men in his staff were honorable. One good egg does not prove the entire bunch is not rotton.
        • 1) "Your opinions are flawed." Opinions, by their very nature, cannot be flawed. Facts can be, but not opinions.

          Any statement can be flawed. If you state your opinion, you open yourself up to the possibility of other people pointing out how off-track you are.

          3) "I was home schooled...Nothing dysfuncitonal." And your source/proof that there's nothing dysfunctional? I'm not arguing with you, but an individual is not able to decide if he or she is functional (unless fully trained in psychology or medicine, and even then, there are many exceptions.) Every student I taught in residential treatment told me how they were really functional and everyone else was messed up.

          It can be hard for someone to self-analyze to that extent, yes. But your statement that advanced training in psychology or medicine is required to make a determination of social functionality is just another symptom of the institutionalization of, well, just about everything.

          How do you think societies decided whether or not people were normal and functional before there were degrees in psychology in medicine? Hmm?

          One good egg does not prove the entire bunch is not rotton.

          Very, very true. Also, one "rotton" egg does not justify throwing out the whole carton. Your own comments earlier pertained only to a small group of students you had worked with -- special ed students, at that!

          Some other posters have already discussed studies and test scores, so I won't go there.

          For the record, I was homeschooled -- from the time my parents pulled me out of first grade because they didn't like the kinds of socialization I was being involved in to the time I was accepted to a local technical college at the age of 14. I'm now quite happily pursuing a Comp Sci major at the University of Wisconsin.

          (Speaking of which, Wisconsin is a very good state for homeschooling. Massachusetts, unless it's changed since I was there, is not. Plug alert: If you're interested in homeschooling in Wisconsin, check out the Wisconsin Parents Association. [homeschooling-wpa.org] That's my name at the bottom of the website.)

    • It's also worth pointing out what TheWanderingHermit himself mentions -- that he was, after all, a special ed teacher. This sugests that the majority of his students, homeschool or otherwise did indeed have educational or behavioral problems of one sort or another -- but it also suggests that the homeschool students he encountered were no more representative of homeschoolers in general than the public school students he encountered were representative of students in general.

      Nor should it be any great surprise if parents of children with severe problems did indeed choose to homeschool (and not, as TheWanderingHermit suggests, the other way 'round) -- after all, we all know that the disaster that is the current public school system fails children with special needs (at both ends of the bell curve) even more than it fails students in general...

    • It is interesting that while socialization SEEMS to be endangered for homeschoolers, studies just do not confirm that impression. Again and again homeschool kids are studied as they enter workforce, or interact at playgrounds - and they show similar or BETTER results then schooled kids. I am sure you can find badly socialized homeschooled kids. However, I always wonder: what would have happened if THIS kid was NOT homeschooled?

      In an example of a boy you mention, kids "laughed at his attempts to "fit in." What kind of responce would this kid get at elementary grades? What if going to school would make matters WORSE? So many kids at schools shut down academically and emotionally if they are teased and not accepted early. This young man at least succeeded academically. Is this person unemployed now? I doubt it, at least on the basis of statistical studies I read.

      The topic of special education is especially :-) relevant to this discussion. A pattern I saw many times was that a child would be labelled as "special" (disabled, problem) at school - because he did not fit. Sometimes the case would involve medications. When parents started homeschooling, the problems would gradually diminish. In many cases, the child would go back to school later.

      What a wonderful time it is now for learning! You are not stuck anymore with just one option...
      • I think your dead on here.. the key isn't that the homeschooling made the kids reclusive... The kids who were homeschooled and end up valedictorian of their class.. are obviously of the more intelligent section of the student body... which are notoriously the more reclusive and not always socially "normal" group...

        In my experience with the home school groups my wife is involved with (as well as other friends and friends of the family who've been involved in homeschooling for years).... the homeschool PARENTS may be a bit odd (but that probably comes from spending all day with just your kids)... and some of the kids may have a little bit of social skill work needed.. but overall the kids are pretty well adjusted, have the ability to adapt to situations readily, and are hard working (which is probably the main reason I never succeeded in my one year of homeschooling... I was more motivated to compete in the Nintento Power Fest and write adventure games in BASIC, than study :D ). All of those things are going to quickly overcome the slight bit of socialization they may have missed... and are things that almost ALL employers want out of employees.
        You CAN screw up homeschooling.. and end up with a social recluse who can't function in a group... but I know people who came out of high school the same way. The people (aka kids) are going to be themselves.. and sometimes the social situations will be helpful.. and sometimes harmful... but for the most part their personalities are going to determine what they end up being after highschool.. much more so than their educational forum.

        The fact is though, that the kid who is ready for 11th grade at 13... and well on a course to being an engineer isn't going to benefit from being stuffed in a locker at public school by some Jock who's going to end up pitching for the Yankees... it will NOT help him prepare for the real world that he will enter. He would much more benefit from gaining the knowledge and experience needed to further his education. High school will help them learn how to deal with highschool students... NOT adults in the real world.... and the only real problem they're going to have from missing that situation.. is how to deal with the morons who haven't CHANGED since high-school, and those aren't really going to listen to reason anymore as adults than they did then.
    • I realize this is incidental. But as someone who went through normal school and being very close friends with someone who was homeschooled, I can safely say that she is much more social than me (who is fairly social himself). She was then, she is now.

      I think the hardest thing for her will the always having family around and then not. For now she's even at the same college as her brother so she's still got immediate family in close quarters.

      On the other hand, two of my cousins who are homeschooled have huge social deficiencies. I mean HUGE. Granted, they're 12 and 14 right now, but still. It's going to be a MAJOR obstacle for them later on.

      So here we go...more useless personal anecdotes that are only vaguely on topic. For the record, my friend used packaged stuff and took all the state Regents exams (this is NY. Those are subject tests that you take throughout highschool to receive a regents diploma). My cousins' mother rolled her own as far as I know (it would be in her nature to do so...and to follow no guidelines at all since her state is less strict about education than NY).

      So there it is. I don't believe in homeschooling myself, being of the public school ilk. I was a geek throughout...at least in spirit and still did well socially and I can't say I would have the social skills I do now without high school. I probably would have holed myself up and coded/practiced music for those four years otherwise.

      Random and Long..yes I know.

      Brian
    • The curriculum is not as set as the question makes it sound -- there are constant changes in elementary education

      This is part of the problem. Too many people theorizing and not enough reliance on proven methods. Phonics is how to teach reading. Period. Whole language is a failure.

      Do you know why grammar school is called that? Because they used to teach grammar in those grades. Not just English, Greek and Latin as well. How many elementary school teachers were even required to learn a second language, let alone teach it?

      Show me an average (American) public school teacher and I'll show you someone who's got degrees in Education which emphasize methods and inclusion and other crap, not degrees in his/her subject matter. Granted, there are some people with plenty of knowledge that can't teach to save their lives (tenured college profs come to mind), but that doesn't excuse the fact that many of our teachers have much less knowledge of subject matter than the typical baccalaureate.

      I strongly suggest that any opponents of home-schooling, especially teachers, go out and get a copy of Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools [amazon.com] This book shows how public eduaction emphasizes individualization and "feeling good about yourself" over subject matter. Is it any wonder we're nowhere near the top 10 in math and science world-wide?

      Before I get flamed, just let me say that I had the opportunity to work in the same school system in which I grew up. I got to see how the curriculum is watered down, the special needs kids are catered to, and the gifted are generally ignored. When the gifted aren't ignored, they usually end up with more work, not more challengin, just more, because their teachers don't know what to do with them.

      I've also gone to both public and private schools and definitely got more out of the private school where the teachers' hands weren't tied by unions and administration. I've seen teachers who knew the teaching methods they were required to use were ineffective, but could do nothing about it because the current methods were "policy." Every kid is different, or so we like to tell them, so teachers ought to be able to adapt their methods to individual needs.

      Take a good look around the tech sector. There are plenty of H1B visa workers where there used to be Americans. Why? Because the education in other countries is focused on the facts, not how the kids "feel" about their performance. The American public school system hardly prepares children for the reality of corporate America, where many of them will likely end up working.

      • Phonics is how to teach reading. Period. Whole language is a failure.

        I'm not quite sure what you're thinking about is 'whole language'...I think you're confusing it with 'whole word'. 'Whole word' is a style of teaching reading that teaches kids to read words by recognition -- it bumps up directly against phonics. 'Whole language' is a way of thinking about how to merge reading, spelling, and writing such that the learning has meaning to the kids, rather than making it rote. It also addresses the way kids learn...you don't correct a baby that's learning to speak...you wait until it can use the correction. In the same way, you don't nitpick over a child's spelling errors when they're writing their first essay -- you introduce spelling gradually so you achieve the spelling goal without undue criticism.

        I agree that whole word is a pretty poor way to learn to read...you can't introduce new words without being in the proper setting. Whole language has gotten a bad repuation because it has been associated and confused with whole word, when in fact - the two are quite distinct and shouldn't be lumped together.

        • I'm not quite sure what you're thinking about is 'whole language'

          Okay, you got me on semantics. Although I don't think the students taking a "whole word" approach themselves is necessarily wrong. English, as a whole, is a pretty screwed up language. Take the words through, thorough, rough, and trough, for instance. All end in "ough", but it sounds different in every single word. As a child, I found that I could learn a word and then quickly be able to pronounce it after memorizing its pattern. However, for strange words that have not yet been seen or heard, I believe phonics is the way to go. It's not going to be 100 percent all the time, but it's a good start. My problem stems from when phonics are thrown out the window entirely in favor of "modern" methods.

          rather than making it rote

          Here I have to disagree. At younger levels, children may not be capable of the abstract thinking which we're giving them credit for. There are certain things that they simply won't figure out either because they are not at a level of mental development where they are able to abstract concepts, or because they don't want to spend the time. So, they have to be taught by rote. From the child's point of view, rote memorization sucks. However, it also gets the point across. Learning is supposed to teach you something; it won't always be fun. That said, we should also be teaching children how to remember things more effectively. Mnemonic aids don't seem to be taught until later grades, if at all. Some kids figure them out for themselves, others never catch on. When I was in high school, I read Harry Lorayne's Page a Minute Memory Book [amazon.com] which really helped. I've been using the techniques ever since. Unfortunately, this was something I never would have known about had I not stumbled across it. Other than some of the standard mnemonics, (e.g Every Good Boy Does Fine for the lines of a treble clef music staff), my teachers were of little help other than saying to study more. Learning the 9 times tables would have been easier had I been told that adding the digits of the correct answer would always turn out to be 9 or 18.

          the learning has meaning to the kids

          Unfortunately, for many of them, learning does not carry the importance it should. TV and the Internet provide them with entertainment and instant gratification, and too many parents use one or both as baby-sitters. The kids only spend 6 hours a day at school. The rest of the time is with family and friends. If those people don't emphasize the importance of learning, it will be meaningless to the child as a value, no matter how hard the school system tries.

          you introduce spelling gradually so you achieve the spelling goal without undue criticism.

          Sorry, I have to disagree here. I've seen way too many kids learn bad habits that their teachers unsuccessfully tried to unteach in later grades. The point of my original post was that we are spending too much time worrrying about being overly critical and letting kids feel good instead of teaching them effectively.

          When I ran the computer lab in an elementary school, I would occasionally correct students' spelling, from grades 2-5. I took great pains to make sure they knew that the spelling they had may have been perfectly logical, but because the language was so old it had changed many times (mainly due to various conquests of and by the British). So they took the correction in stride, and did not permanently learn an incorrect spelling. In the long run, I think this is the better way to go instead of trying to put off until a later grade what can be addressed right now.

    • Based on my experiences with home schooling, the home schooled students are for batter adjusted for society, then public schools.

      Sure, you lock your kid in a closet, and teach him by sliding material under the door, they will have problems. Every home schooling parent I know gets together with other home schooled kids regularly. The get about 50-100 kids and go to museums on days the public schools do NOT. they get to be there longer, and get to kow each other in an atmosphere of learning and creative discussion that you will never find in a public shool group attending the museaum.

      In CA, and possible other states, home schooled kids are allow to participate in school activities, sports, clubs, music, etc... because there parents raxes go to the schools. so they get to learn social skills that way as well.

      the reading curriculmn changes because it is being geared to the lowest denomenator, and who ever gets budget control gets to do thing there little pet ways.

      The only social skills public education teaches is Bullies get there way, sports are more important the science and arts, and teacher don't give a damn and the only way to solve your problems are through violense. Yes shootings are rare, but I refer to the more general violense that goes on every day that the teacher and staff turn a blind eye to.

      as a matter of fact, your post is so oposite then my real life experience I almost modded you as flamebait.

  • Two great resources (Score:3, Informative)

    by neocon ( 580579 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @12:13PM (#4088995) Homepage Journal
    One word of advice: definitely check out the Home School Legal Defense Association [hslda.org].

    In addition to helping with the various legal hurdles some states impose on home-schoolers, the HSLDA also provides a clearing house for home-schooling information.

    Another group you may find interesting is k12.com [k12.com], which is an internet-based classroom for homeschoolers, founded by former US Secretary of Education Bill Bennett.

  • Free Homeschooling Materials (Score:4, Informative)

    by medcalf ( 68293 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @12:15PM (#4089000) Homepage
    It is true that you won't find a great deal of actual courses freely available. The information being taught in any course/curriculum is public domain; you're paying for the time and effort it took for someone to arrange that information for you.

    However, do you need actual courses? The information you're seeking *is* out there for free. It is possible to pull together a fantastic curriculum with little effort.

    One book you should immediately look at is "Homeschooling Your Child for Free." I forget the author, but you can find it on the shelf at any Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc. I found a copy at my local library. It is filled with free educational resources on every subject. If there are free courses available, this book will list them.

    Another useful book is "Home Education Year by Year" by Rebecca Rupp. This book will walk you through pulling your own curriculum together.

    There are literally thousands of free lesson plans for teachers on the web.

    All of the phonics and reading materials I use to teach our kids can be found at the library. So far all of my science material has come from the web or libraries. My kids learn handwriting from worksheets I print off the web. Most of our citizenship and art projects come off the web too.

    I did purchase math and history programs, but I could easily teach those subjects using free resources as well.

    Finally, go grab any books you can find by John Taylor Gatto and John Holt. Anyone who is considering homeschooling should read what they have to say about education.

    ~medcalf's wife

  • I was surprised at the lack of public domain materials out there

    I'm honestly not trying to troll here. But we must remember that most "stuff" makes it into the public domain because the copyright on it has lapsed. There is some good stuff out there at the college level, more or less, most of which my (cursory) examination reveals to be university or more rarely governmentally sponsered.

    But my point is that I, like you, am surprised at the paucity of material. (An unrelated example: try finding simple instructions for constructing a model geodesic dome. It's out there, but not to the extent I'd expected. The best beginner-level instructions are scanned from a book that went out of print in the 1970s.)

    Why is this? I think it may be that our expectations are wrong. I expect free, accurate, and complete information to easily found and painlessly obtained on the 'net.

    Why do I expect this? Because I can freely, easily and painlessly download just about any sort of software I care to name, for nearly any OS I prefer to run. In the last few years, I've even come to expect a choice of a binary compiled for my system or source code that I can freely modify.

    But other than software authors, who else makes their work-product available for free?

    Doctors? Generally not. Lawyers? Not too often. Civil engineers? Not that I'm aware of. Authors of (non-software related) reference works? To some small extent. Authors of (saleable) fiction or music? A few.

    But I can get nearly any software I care to name easily and at no or nominal cost (and hopefully someone will correct me by noting what categories of software can't be found freely -- GUI-based spellcheckers come to mind).

    So who's missing the boat? Free software authors, or everyone else?

  • YesICan Science (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You may be interested in the Curriculum DataEngine [yorku.ca] at the Yes I Can! Science [yorku.ca] project at York University. While it doesn't have full courses it does have activities/lesson plans/assessment tools/etc aligned to various curriculum. Its primary focus is the Pan-Canadian Science Curriculum but it is starting to incorporate the U.S. National Science Education Standards as well. It also provides features to track which curriculum outcomes have been met, and to search for activities or lessons which meet outstanding items.

    They also present "real-time science" events which are lesson plans and activities based on current events or special activities. For example, they teamed with CSA to do a webcast [yorku.ca] from the International Space Station to demonstrate some physics in space and build a educational units from it.

  • Think hard about it... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This coming from an individual who was formerly home schooled, I strongly recommend you think, seriously, about going that route with your children.

    The education *can* be better, depending on how motivated the parent(s) doing the educating are. And there are experiences a homeschooled child can have that are different/better than one in the public education system, simply because of the "flexible scheduling" possible. You can *go* places that relate to what you're learning, any time.

    However, don't forget the social aspect of homeschooling. Homeschooling is, primarely, a religiously-based organization. In some states, they even have that chartered into the organization. Florida's primary homeschooling organization *requires* you to be a Christian to be a member. (I'm not sure of the legality of that, but that's how it is.) So, most homeschooling is done for religious reasons. And, while this has some merrit, for the most part, it defeats the whole purpose.

    I was homeschooled, for said religious reasons (but no longer follow christianity, because it didn't and doesn't make any sense to me -- but that's OT.) and I was 100% unprepared when I went back to public school, for high school, after having been homeschooled grades 2-8. The point of Christianity is to exist as a "becon of light" or something of that nature, in a "world of darkness" However, when you remove the world, what's the point? You're learning only one side of the issue, and aren't prepared to defend it from attacks, if you really do believe it.

    In addition, even though there exist *many* socialization groups and group classes that homeschoolers may take, 2-3 hours a day, 1-2 days a week of social contact simply cannot replace the 8 hours a day, 7 days a week contact that children in standard schooling arrangements experience. Homeschoolers, as a result (unless they have family who are not homeschooled, i.e. older siblings) lag behind in terms of social skills...Interacting with other *children* in addition to the styles of dressing and such. And by "styles" I don't mean wearing the right brands, I mean wearing clothes of the proper length and cut.

    Finally, there is the social aspect. Because of the lack of social contact, over 3/4 of the homeschoolers I've met have a chronic problem with the ability to be around children their own age. Partially because of a "superiority complex" bred by their parents (You're too smart for public school...) and an inability to speak the language (slang, etc.) homeschoolers are ostracized in mixed groups.

    I went through this. Everything I talked about. Now, obviously, I'm over that (and have my best friend to thank for that, for seeing through to my potential 'coolness') but unfortunately, too many parents still subject their children to it.

    Another IMPORTANT issue to bring up is -- while I'm sure you, the submitter of the article, are qualified to teach your children, there are too many parents who aren't. Being knowledgable in your religion does not equate to knowledge of any other subjects -- and the best "bible teacher" of the world won't help you pass your SATs.

    • Many parents homeschool for regligious reasons, but no state requires homeschoolers to join a church or profess the Christian faith. (And you don't pass or fail the SAT, either.) Secular homeschoolers will easily find plenty of other people who aren't just putting their kids through religious indoctrination. For the last ten years the most growth among homeschoolers has been non-religious families.

      The best reason to homeschool your kids: to be closer as a family. Too many parents don't know their kids, don't know what their kids are doing, and leave almost every aspect of their child's education and growth to total strangers. Nothing can replace spending time with your kids every day. Numerous studies, not to mention common sense, show that kids who spend time with their parents and are part of a family do better in life.

      The socialization issue is really a non-issue; people with don't like homeschooling for one reason or another always trot that out. Spend some time in a public school and say with a straight face that most of those kids show healthy socialization. Do you really want your kids to spend 12 years in an artificial, opressive, regimented, and cruel environment that--at best--prepares them to do what they are told, to blindly accept arbitrary authority, and to jump whenever a bell rings?

      Some homeschooled kids are spelling bee geeks. Some are jocks. Some are social butterflies. To me they mostly seem like well-adjusted versions of schooled kids, minus the toxic amounts of peer pressure and grade anxiety the schooled kids carry around. And I don't have to wait for the 10th grade skills test to find out what my kids know or don't know.

      The "professional teacher" argument is another red herring favored by teachers and "education professionals." Kids know how to learn on their own. Almost everyone learns the single hardest skill they will ever learn--speaking their own language--with no professional help at all. Believe in your child, and yourself. If you don't know how to teach your child something you can easily find someone who can. Many homeschooled kids we know attend some classes at private schools or community college, to learn things like languages or music that are best taught by an expert.

      I have three homeschooled kids and my wife and I are involved in various city and state groups of homeschoolers. Social activities dominate the calendar: skating, teen dances and activities, camping, museum trips, 4-H, soccer and other sports, various clubs and study groups, etc. etc. Lots of kids have part-time jobs. Most will go to college: homeschooling conventions and curriculum fairs attract recruiters from Ivy-league schools now, and homeschoolers have higher college admission rates than public school kids.

      Don't accept random opinions from slashdotters to decide something so important. Find a local group of like-minded (secular or religious) homeschoolers and attend some activities. Read about it: John Holt's two excellent books How Children Fail and How Children Learn will open your eyes.

      If you still think public school has something magical to offer, or that the folks who run the school and choose the curriculum know more than you do, read John Taylor Gatto's excellent essay The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher at:

      www.cantrip.org/gatto.html [cantrip.org]

  • Education Libre (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dheltzel ( 558802 )
    Most Home Schoolers are not really tech savvy, but a few of us are (the demographics of home schoolers track pretty closely to the general population). The thing to remember is that homeschooling offers a great deal of freedom for parents to customize their child's education. There is not even a dominant vendor of materials, mostly because the parents really value their freedom to choose. We have never used an entire curriculum from a single vendor, we might get math from one place and English from another and decide to "roll our own" on sign language. The real point is that the curriculum is "free as in speech, not free as in beer".

    Homeschooling should not be considered a low-cost education (that would be public school), but rather a high-quality education. We would certainly be a lot of $$ ahead if my wife worked full time and we sent our kids to a private school. We make the choice to home school because we feel it is best for our kids. I don't believe it is the best choice universally, but it clearly is the best for some, it's largely a personality and value issue. I can tell you that when done well, the kids really shine. I am always amazed by the people who say there is no way the kids can be socialized properly. The people making those claims most vociferously are generally trying to assuage their own guilt for not home schooling (or even better to justify their membership in the NEA, a labor union, not a child advocacy group!). These people would not want to meet my kids, they are data points they'd rather ignore (pardon the obvious parental pride and chest beating - homeschool dad's are prone to that).

    So, in conclusion, OSS fits perfectly with home schooling. They are, at a philosophical level, cut from the same mold. I'm proud to be a staunch advocate of both!
  • There is a lot of material out there on the web. It's not all in one place and it certainly isn't packaged as full curricula for home schooling. The free stuff will be found in bits and pieces.

    One such place is the Mathematics, Science and Techonology Office [uiuc.edu] at the University of Illinois. Web sites like these are where you can find both static and interactive material that could be used for K-12 home schooling.

    I teach and my suggestion is to use other course material/curricula as a guide. Every good, qualified teacher develops their own material to suit their style of teaching. If you rely to heavily on what some else has developed you can lose effectiveness. Judiciously use it as a guide and a base for developing your own stuff for your kid.

    With that said I would like to add the other side of my $0.02 coin. We are pretty much mirror images of our parents and many of us spend a great deal of time and sometimes money trying to deprogram ourselves in order to function well as adults. Home schooling will have a tendancy make your child think like you do. Is this really what you want ?

    Try not to apply an ego preservation heuristic to this where you accept only what challenges your belief system the least.

  • Many college professors put courses online. The lower level/remedial college courses would be excellent for junior high and high school aged children.

    Here's link to an annotated, java-illustrated Eudlid's Geometry [clarku.edu], since it's way cool, and geometry is taught as early as 8th grade in schools.

    K-6 material is more difficult to find for free, I agree. Schoolhouse Technologies [schoolhousetech.com] has a math worksheet factory that we like, available in pay, trial, and free(lite) versions. Another tool we use is StartWrite [startwrite.com] which also has a trial version. (Google can't find any pages which link to both of those sites. bummer.)

    There is probably a lot of print material for the basics which has expired copyright, but is hard to find since it is so old. The historical fiction by G.A.Henty is excellent. Gutenburg [promo.net] has a few, and the rest are being republished at Prestonspeed Publications [prestonspeed.com].

  • recommendations from my wife (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sharkeys-Day ( 25335 ) on Saturday August 17, 2002 @04:42PM (#4090027) Homepage
    My wife selected a few links from her homeschooling bookmarks, where you can find lots of free material:

    Homeschool Central - Study Resources [homeschoolcentral.com]
    TeacherFeatures.com [teacherfeatures.com]
    Homeschool Support on the Internet [geocities.com]
    HomeworkCentral.com - Lesson Plans by Subject [bigchalk.com]
    NGA: Teaching Resources: Loan Programs [nga.gov]
    Novel Study Guides for the Classroom Teacher [nt.net]
    Outline Maps [eduplace.com]
    100 Top Map Sites [100.com]
    Unit Studies (huge site!) [geocities.com]
    Lesson Plans & Teacher Helps [geocities.com]
    Newton's Apple [pbs.org]
    MathWork -- Math worksheets you can create in your browser [coastlink.com]
    S.C.O.R.E. [k12.ca.us]
    homeschooling.about.com [about.com]
    A to Z Home's Cool - Homeschooling Web Site [gomilpitas.com]
    Jon's Homeschool Resource Page [midnightbeach.com]
  • http://seul.org/edu

    this org has a list of learning software that works with Linux.

    you might also try:
    http://schoolforge.net/

  • Well, Cliff,

    There's plenty of good stuff out there, but you'll have to do some editing. As somebody who grew up around teachers and has worked in textbook publishing I can assure you that teachers all have to do it too. Their stuff sucks far worse than anything referenced here.

    While Project Gutenberg is great, you should also check out on-line encyclopedias like NuPedia [nupedia.com], and Everything2 [everything2.com] which are all open source, as is The Open Directory Project [dmoz.org]. A great source of fiction, which can be a wonderful learning tool, is Baen Books [baen.com] who have put hundreds of book online and are eager to have them downloaded and spread around.

    For science materials, there are lots of great sites for kids [uky.edu] done by educators pursuing whever they're into. All of which you'll want to use to spice up access to sites like Science Daily [sciencedaily.com] that are handy but a bit too serious some days for young minds.

    Which brings me to Make Stuff [makestuff.com]which should fill in quite nicely for the "arts and crafts" part of most school curricula.

    For biography I'ld check out American National Biography [anb.org] and for history a good start can be made with pages like Anyday [scopesys.com]which can be amazing or useless, all based on where *you* go from the starting point that they provide. Places like Colonial America [jmu.edu]are designed just for this but again, check out more than one.

    For reference material you should check out Theodora [theodora.com] which, while not meant to be open source, is very handy, Geographic.Org [geographic.org], which is open source and student-oriented, should do the rest. I've found that the CIA sourcebook is terrible, as folk should have long since figured out. Biased, misinformed, and sometimes just wierd; leave it behind. However if you hunt you'll find that within various.gov sites there's tons of great stuff, from manuals on camping to stuff on solar panels.

    The space science community [space-access.org] is very kid friendly, from NASA down to the local Mars Society chapter, having plenty of materials on quite a range of topics that you're free to reproduce and spread around. If you can handle it, the neopagan community [witchvox.com] is reliably eager to provide information and links on ancient indo-european history, from the government of Sumeria, to Celtic ironwork. (You might be surprised at how many neopagans have advanced degrees in history and/or literature.)

    Speaking of limits, you'll always have to be careful that your kids aren't ending up places they shouldn't be [adultnetsurprise.com] but again, every teacher and librarian faces that one.

    Lastly, the reason that I've got all this ready to hand is that I took it from my source database, more of which can be found on my web site [reedandwright.com], which is primarily oriented towards adults and older kids but does have plenty of other links like the ones here.

    Best of luck to you and be sure to post back to slashdot in a few years about how it's going.

    Rustin H. Wright - Information Geek
    "It's all about the information, Marty. Little ones and zeros!"
  • ...all this is possible thanks to the unique way [bbc.co.uk] the BBC is funded...
    BBC Learning [bbc.co.uk] from people who heard about the internet [bbc.co.uk] (:

    the Earth Edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [bbc.co.uk] makes a nice reference and project site, and a very fitting memorial.

    Of course, this article [theregister.co.uk] shows that certain members of the educational IT establishment aren't too keen on the idea of providing quality learning materials free of charge.

    Good to know that some people with access to resources realise the need to supplement what's available in schools and don't have shareholders and profits to worry about.

  • Homeschooling has lots of advantages, especially
    if the children can be networked with others
    who are pursuing the same path. Take, with a
    grain of salt, the comments which lump all
    homeschoolers together. As mentioned elsewhere,
    there are many reasons to homeschool, but expect
    to pay much more than you would for a "public"
    education ... this is an investment in the
    children. I have three children who have never
    attended "real" school (eldest is 14).

    One of the neat things about homeschooling, if
    you have a technical bent, is that you can
    really work together *with* your child to solve
    a tricky problem. You are much more engaged in
    the whole process. And they get to share a
    dynamic and passionate side of your personality.
    There are plenty of engineering, space, biology,
    programming, and math puzzles/contest/investigations available
    for free.

    My only meaningful contribution to this thread
    is the following: the "good stuff" is more
    plentiful as your children become more advanced.

    o Online biology text book. Neat. http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/ BioBookTOC.html

    o Look at the recently discontinued QX3+ USB
    microscope on EBay. This is billed as a toy,
    but actually is a really sophisticated
    microscope camera that directly attaches
    to your computer. Lots of neat material
    about it are to be found at http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/intelplay/livev iew/index.html

    Good luck with things.

    Ken

  • Not all public schools will work with you, but many will. Find out, and take advantage of whatever they will do.

    Try to get your kids in for music or Gym class, or perhaps you did poorly in math, so you should bring your kids in for math. I would be well advised to bring my kids (if I had them) in for english class. Most teachers have a set schedual, so you can your kid in at the same time every day for one class, and you get both socalization and instruction benifits.

    The biggest advantage of public education is the varity of people and teaching styles the kid is exposed to. Your kids need to learn to work with people, including people they don't like. They also need to learn how to deal with the "bad" kids, that is to say no when a chance to do something wrong is offered.

    Finially, don't be afraid to admit you are wrong, and give up on the whole idea. You might turn out to be a bad teacher, or you may have one kid who doesn't do well home schooled. All kids are different you might have one who shines and one who fails in home schooling. Most likely you will need to change things a little bit for each kid.

    Last, beware of people like me who give advice about how to raise your kids, but don't have kids themselves. We mean well, but we don't know your kids.

    • actuall, I find that in the home school community there are many different people with different back grounds. sometime you can swap subjects. I am good at computers and, so I may volenteer to have some kids over and teach a computer class in exchange for someone with a stronger english background to teach my kids english.

      If you have read any of my posts, that last part id pretty self-evident.
  • Make sure what you are doing is legal. In some places, homeschooling more than a certain number of kids together is illegal. Apparently the state wants to prohibit parents working together to educate their kids collectively. Total fascist bullshit.
  • I asked myself the same question. I couldn't find any such thing, so I whipped up a little website [hutnick.com] and started working on the first book. I have some basic ideas for a full-blown curriculum that I intend to clean up and use to seed a wiki.

    The main thing that I hope to do is comb public domain works to create a complete set of copyleft (FDL) course materials that support a full (written) k-12 curriculum.

    I haven't really built enough of a . . . kernel to make very good use of outside help, but if someone wants to talk more email me at the address on the site (not the /. address above).

    -Peter
  • I am an unschooler, now 22 and married to a wonderful man who happens to read Slashdot and keeps me informed about interesting conversation threads. I thought it might be useful (and, I hope, not intrusive) to post an essay that I wrote about homeschooling... For as long as I can remember, I've felt like everyone and her second cousin is waiting to see how I'll turn out. I was the oldest of five children, the oldest in the homeschooling group, and one of the oldest in the secular homeschooling movement in general. "How will you get into college without school?" strangers asked me over and over, sounding like a broken record. "How will you get a job?" asked my grandmother despairingly. "What if she's socially inept?" disapproving friends insinuated to my mother. Sometimes it seemed like literally 99% of the people I met doubted that I would survive my upbringing. "You can't learn anything outside of school." "You won't have friends." "You won't know math." "You're overprotected by your parents." "You're underprotected by your parents." "You'll have to work at McDonalds." "You won't learn how to take care of yourself--it's a cruel world out there." "STOP IT! BE QUIET!" I'd often want to scream in response to thoughtless comments, but I never did. I listened to the cool interrogations a million times, watched the faces of strangers who didn't know how much their insensitivity affected the child in front of them. My voice would falter after explaining my educational philosophy a hundred times without getting through to anyone. "If it's so hard to understand, then maybe homeschooling is all wrong," I would start thinking. But deep inside myself, even in the throes of self-doubt, I knew that allowing me to stay home was the most wonderful gift my parents ever gave me. When all the other five-year-olds in my neighborhood boarded a school bus for the first time, I continued to have tea parties with my dolls, play hide and seek with my brother, and create elaborate works of art from construction paper. That was the year when Mom and Dad decided to homeschool me, although I was unaware in early September 1984 that my life was taking a different path from the lives of almost every other five-year-old in America. As the years passed, I realized that people my age usually sat inside a building called "school" for most of the day, but it was a reality far removed from my own life. I never had lessons or tests; my parents allowed me to decide what, how and when I wanted to learn. Sometimes I said that we "homeschooled." Sometimes I called it "self-directed learning." But mainly I called it my Life, and in my mind I didn't separate academic subjects from any other interest or hobby I had. The aforementioned skeptics said it wouldn't work. Friends and strangers were convinced that I would have no math skills, no employment opportunities, no knowledge of literature, and that I would turn out to be a social misfit. Concerned aunts said my parents really should make me write something--thank-you notes were still my main literary accomplishment at age 12--and that I should overcome my shyness already. But my mom and dad told them all, "She'll learn when she's ready, and she'll learn best when she needs or wants to know something." A baby learns to walk and talk because she wants to be a part of her society, they reasoned--why should a desire to learn stop there? It wasn't until I was fourteen that I wrote my first essay; later in the year, I slipped free of my shyness and traveled to Alaska alone to visit a homeschooling family whom I'd never met. Three years later, I'd had articles published in our local newspaper and my stories had won awards from Cricket magazine, and I was planning a solo six-month bike tour. People started telling my parents that I was too young to be so independent. My parents were up against a lot when they made the then-revolutionary choice to keep me out of school. At the beginning, our "homeschooling group" consisted of my mom, my brother and me, and we sat around the dining room table on Monday mornings and painted pictures while the neighborhood kids sailed off to first grade. Few people had heard of homeschooling in the early eighties, and Dad and Mom didn't know many people who could answer questions from experience. But my parents were committed to homeschooling, and looking back, I can see how they spent an incredible amount of time making sure that I could guide my own life. Mom carefully chose good books for me on our weekly library trips, but never forced me to read them. Instead, I "just happened" to find interesting books lying around. Both my parents took us camping each year on Dad's summer vacation, and we learned about geography and geysers and geology and How To Live in A Small Tent Without Killing Each Other. As we got older, my siblings and I had more autonomy than many of our peers. We went places by ourselves, stayed out as late as we wanted, and were allowed to sleep late in the mornings. But we also had more household chores and "family duties" than any of our friends; my parents made sure we learned skills to be able to handle both freedom and responsibility. If you ask twelve different homeschoolers what they do all day, you'll get twelve different answers. On one end of the spectrum are families who use boxed curriculums, hang blackboards in their dining rooms, and start lessons at 8:30--and somewhere at the other end are families like mine, who have no scheduled lessons and where the lines between "living" and "learning" become indistinguishable as parents and children go about their daily activities. Yes, during my childhood I learned to read and write and identify Australia on a world map. But also, equally important, I learned how to cook healthy meals for seven people, how to structure my time, and how to get along with my four younger siblings and my parents. I learned how to find my way around in cities I'd never been to before. I learned about making money for things I wanted, and I learned to ask myself whether the thing I wanted was worth the price of my time. Working at our local food co-op, I learned about invoices and gross vs. net sales, and I got healthy helpings of politics and economics. I had time to take in the world around me and to slowly start formulating values and ideas of my own. My seven-year-old brother's homeschooling career is markedly different from my own. As I did, L---- gets the benefit of learning and growing at his own pace--but unlike when I was younger, people don't often ask him, "Home-schooling? What's that?" They're more likely to say, "Oh, that's cool! My cousin/friend/neighbor homeschools!" And even if L---- starts getting interrogated about his education, he can flaunt some statistics. Studies in recent years have shown that homeschoolers consistently score at or above their grade level in all academic subjects. An independent study in 1998, by the director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation, studied 20,760 homeschooled students' achievement test scores and their family demographics. Results demonstrated that on average, homeschoolers in grades 1-4 perform one grade level higher than their public and private school counterparts. The achievement gap begins to widen in grade 5, and by 8th grade, the average homeschooler performs four grade levels above the national average. Additionally, the ERIC study found that homeschooled children perform well on tests regardless of whether their parents are certified to teach. (i.) I wish I'd had those figures to flash when I was younger. L---- has more homeschooled playmates than I ever had. There are now three homeschooling groups in my hometown, there's a homeschooler's soccer team, and countless field trips and classes and get-togethers. Nobody knows for sure, but researchers generally place the number of homeschoolers in the United States between 600,000 and well over one million. (Not all states require homeschoolers to register at a central location; in states where such figures are available, the number of homeschoolers has grown substantially over the past ten or fifteen years.) A study conducted in 1997 by the president of the National Home Education Research Institute estimated that the number of homeschooled children in America exceeds 1.23 million. That number surpasses the total public school enrollment for the state of New Jersey, which has the 10th largest student population in the nation. That means, in other words, that there are more homeschoolers nationwide than there are public school students in Wyoming, Vermont, Delaware, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Montana, and Hawaii -- combined. (ii.) Homeschoolers (including many of my friends) have also made inroads in the area of higher education. Homeschoolers have enrolled in community colleges and small private liberal arts schools, as well as Stanford and Harvard and MIT. Many colleges and universities have started developing new standards for evaluating less conventional academic records, and some are actively seeking out homeschoolers, who tend to be self-motivated and enthusiastic students. So, statistics aside, now you can ask, "How did Sara Turn Out, after all?" I guess I'm only just starting to figure it out. In 1996, I decided that I wanted to test myself, and to learn in ways that I just couldn't when I was ensconced in the comfort of home. And so I decided to ride my bicycle across America, alone. In a way, it was my "graduation"--from living as a child at home, and from the time when everyone I met asked me what grade I was in. I left the East Coast in March of 1997, when I was seventeen, and I reached Oregon in late August. On my gray Panasonic bicycle I pushed myself harder than I ever had before. I met dozens of people every week--was I the same person who had been shy about talking with strangers only three years before? I found my emotional limits of joy and fear and love and loneliness--and I pushed past them. I found that I could take the freedom I'd always had as far as I dared. Midway through the trip, in Carbondale, Illinois, J---- literally rode into my life. He and his friend W---- were also pedaling cross-country, and, excited to meet other cyclists, we decided to ride together for a couple of days. Even after we ended up riding a thousand miles together, J---- and I had no idea that a year later we would be in love--or that five years after our trip was over, we would celebrate our first wedding anniversary. Now, on a sunny August afternoon, I sit at the computer in J----'s and my apartment. We moved here together in January 2000, and J---- got a job as a web developer at a very cool local museum. I've recently started a personal chef service. I've chosen not to go to college for now, but homeschooling will never be over. My relatives are anxiously waiting to see how I've Turned Out, but really, it's an ongoing process, this business of learning and growing and being free. It's the process of self-discovery, the awareness of other people and the earth, the act of challenging perceived limitations, and finding a place in this sometimes-crazy world. Resources: Books- Grace Llewellyn, The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education (Lowry House, 1991) John Holt, Teach Your Own and many other titles David & Micki Colfax, Homeschooling for Excellence (Warner Books, 1988) Linda Dobson, The Homeschooling Book of Answers (Prima Publishing, 1999) David Guterson, Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992) Herbert Kohl, The Question is College Magazines- Life Learning Magazine Box 112, Niagara Falls NY 14304-0112 USA; (800) 215-9574; or (Canada) Box 340, St. George ON N0E 1N0 Canada; website: http://www.lifelearningmagazine.com/ Home Education Magazine, P.O. Box 1083, Tonasket, WA 98855; (800) 236-3278; website: http://www.home-ed-magazine.com/ Websites- Jon's Homeschool Resource Page, http://www.midnightbeach.com/hs/index.html Family Unschoolers Network, http://www.unschooling.org Not Back to School Camp http://www.nbtsc.org i. The Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998, Lawrence M. Rudner, Ph.D. Director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation. The study examined data on homeschoolers in grades K-12. ii. Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America, 1997, Dr. Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute. The study was based on data collected on 5,402 homeschooled students from 1,657 families.
  • I am an unschooler, now 22 and married to a wonderful man who happens to read Slashdot and keeps me informed about interesting conversation threads. I thought it might be useful (and, I hope, not intrusive) to post an essay that I wrote about homeschooling...

    For as long as I can remember, I've felt like everyone and her second cousin is waiting to see how I'll turn out. I was the oldest of five children, the oldest in the homeschooling group, and one of the oldest in the secular homeschooling movement in general. "How will you get into college without school?" strangers asked me over and over, sounding like a broken record. "How will you get a job?" asked my grandmother despairingly. "What if she's socially inept?" disapproving friends insinuated to my mother. Sometimes it seemed like literally 99% of the people I met doubted that I would survive my upbringing.

    "You can't learn anything outside of school."

    "You won't have friends."

    "You won't know math."

    "You're overprotected by your parents."

    "You're underprotected by your parents."

    "You'll have to work at McDonalds."

    "You won't learn how to take care of yourself--it's a cruel world out there."

    "STOP IT! BE QUIET!" I'd often want to scream in response to thoughtless comments, but I never did. I listened to the cool interrogations a million times, watched the faces of strangers who didn't know how much their insensitivity affected the child in front of them. My voice would falter after explaining my educational philosophy a hundred times without getting through to anyone. "If it's so hard to understand, then maybe homeschooling is all wrong," I would start thinking.

    But deep inside myself, even in the throes of self-doubt, I knew that allowing me to stay home was the most wonderful gift my parents ever gave me.

    When all the other five-year-olds in my neighborhood boarded a school bus for the first time, I continued to have tea parties with my dolls, play hide and seek with my brother, and create elaborate works of art from construction paper. That was the year when Mom and Dad decided to homeschool me, although I was unaware in early September 1984 that my life was taking a different path from the lives of almost every other five-year-old in America.

    As the years passed, I realized that people my age usually sat inside a building called "school" for most of the day, but it was a reality far removed from my own life. I never had lessons or tests; my parents allowed me to decide what, how and when I wanted to learn. Sometimes I said that we "homeschooled." Sometimes I called it "self-directed learning." But mainly I called it my Life, and in my mind I didn't separate academic subjects from any other interest or hobby I had.

    The aforementioned skeptics said it wouldn't work. Friends and strangers were convinced that I would have no math skills, no employment opportunities, no knowledge of literature, and that I would turn out to be a social misfit. Concerned aunts said my parents really should make me write something--thank-you notes were still my main literary accomplishment at age 12--and that I should overcome my shyness already. But my mom and dad told them all, "She'll learn when she's ready, and she'll learn best when she needs or wants to know something." A baby learns to walk and talk because she wants to be a part of her society, they reasoned--why should a desire to learn stop there? It wasn't until I was fourteen that I wrote my first essay; later in the year, I slipped free of my shyness and traveled to Alaska alone to visit a homeschooling family whom I'd never met. Three years later, I'd had articles published in our local newspaper and my stories had won awards from Cricket magazine, and I was planning a solo six-month bike tour.

    People started telling my parents that I was too young to be so independent.

    My parents were up against a lot when they made the then-revolutionary choice to keep me out of school. At the beginning, our "homeschooling group" consisted of my mom, my brother and me, and we sat around the dining room table on Monday mornings and painted pictures while the neighborhood kids sailed off to first grade. Few people had heard of homeschooling in the early eighties, and Dad and Mom didn't know many people who could answer questions from experience.

    But my parents were committed to homeschooling, and looking back, I can see how they spent an incredible amount of time making sure that I could guide my own life. Mom carefully chose good books for me on our weekly library trips, but never forced me to read them. Instead, I "just happened" to find interesting books lying around. Both my parents took us camping each year on Dad's summer vacation, and we learned about geography and geysers and geology and How To Live in A Small Tent Without Killing Each Other.

    As we got older, my siblings and I had more autonomy than many of our peers. We went places by ourselves, stayed out as late as we wanted, and were allowed to sleep late in the mornings. But we also had more household chores and "family duties" than any of our friends; my parents made sure we learned skills to be able to handle both freedom and responsibility.

    If you ask twelve different homeschoolers what they do all day, you'll get twelve different answers. On one end of the spectrum are families who use boxed curriculums, hang blackboards in their dining rooms, and start lessons at 8:30--and somewhere at the other end are families like mine, who have no scheduled lessons and where the lines between "living" and "learning" become indistinguishable as parents and children go about their daily activities.

    Yes, during my childhood I learned to read and write and identify Australia on a world map. But also, equally important, I learned how to cook healthy meals for seven people, how to structure my time, and how to get along with my four younger siblings and my parents. I learned how to find my way around in cities I'd never been to before. I learned about making money for things I wanted, and I learned to ask myself whether the thing I wanted was worth the price of my time. Working at our local food co-op, I learned about invoices and gross vs. net sales, and I got healthy helpings of politics and economics. I had time to take in the world around me and to slowly start formulating values and ideas of my own.

    My seven-year-old brother's homeschooling career is markedly different from my own. As I did, L---- gets the benefit of learning and growing at his own pace--but unlike when I was younger, people don't often ask him, "Home-schooling? What's that?" They're more likely to say, "Oh, that's cool! My cousin/friend/neighbor homeschools!" And even if L---- starts getting interrogated about his education, he can flaunt some statistics. Studies in recent years have shown that homeschoolers consistently score at or above their grade level in all academic subjects. An independent study in 1998, by the director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation, studied 20,760 homeschooled students' achievement test scores and their family demographics. Results demonstrated that on average, homeschoolers in grades 1-4 perform one grade level higher than their public and private school counterparts. The achievement gap begins to widen in grade 5, and by 8th grade, the average homeschooler performs four grade levels above the national average. Additionally, the ERIC study found that homeschooled children perform well on tests regardless of whether their parents are certified to teach. (i.) I wish I'd had those figures to flash when I was younger.

    L---- has more homeschooled playmates than I ever had. There are now three homeschooling groups in my hometown, there's a homeschooler's soccer team, and countless field trips and classes and get-togethers. Nobody knows for sure, but researchers generally place the number of homeschoolers in the United States between 600,000 and well over one million. (Not all states require homeschoolers to register at a central location; in states where such figures are available, the number of homeschoolers has grown substantially over the past ten or fifteen years.) A study conducted in 1997 by the president of the National Home Education Research Institute estimated that the number of homeschooled children in America exceeds 1.23 million. That number surpasses the total public school enrollment for the state of New Jersey, which has the 10th largest student population in the nation. That means, in other words, that there are more homeschoolers nationwide than there are public school students in Wyoming, Vermont, Delaware, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Rhode Island, Montana, and Hawaii -- combined. (ii.)

    Homeschoolers (including many of my friends) have also made inroads in the area of higher education. Homeschoolers have enrolled in community colleges and small private liberal arts schools, as well as Stanford and Harvard and MIT. Many colleges and universities have started developing new standards for evaluating less conventional academic records, and some are actively seeking out homeschoolers, who tend to be self-motivated and enthusiastic students.

    So, statistics aside, now you can ask, "How did Sara Turn Out, after all?"

    I guess I'm only just starting to figure it out. In 1996, I decided that I wanted to test myself, and to learn in ways that I just couldn't when I was ensconced in the comfort of home. And so I decided to ride my bicycle across America, alone. In a way, it was my "graduation"--from living as a child at home, and from the time when everyone I met asked me what grade I was in. I left the East Coast in March of 1997, when I was seventeen, and I reached Oregon in late August. On my gray Panasonic bicycle I pushed myself harder than I ever had before. I met dozens of people every week--was I the same person who had been shy about talking with strangers only three years before? I found my emotional limits of joy and fear and love and loneliness--and I pushed past them. I found that I could take the freedom I'd always had as far as I dared.

    Midway through the trip, in Carbondale, Illinois, J---- literally rode into my life. He and his friend W---- were also pedaling cross-country, and, excited to meet other cyclists, we decided to ride together for a couple of days. Even after we ended up riding a thousand miles together, J---- and I had no idea that a year later we would be in love--or that five years after our trip was over, we would celebrate our first wedding anniversary. Now, on a sunny August afternoon, I sit at the computer in J----'s and my apartment. We moved here together in January 2000, and J---- got a job as a web developer at a very cool local museum. I've recently started a personal chef service. I've chosen not to go to college for now, but homeschooling will never be over.

    My relatives are anxiously waiting to see how I've Turned Out, but really, it's an ongoing process, this business of learning and growing and being free. It's the process of self-discovery, the awareness of other people and the earth, the act of challenging perceived limitations, and finding a place in this sometimes-crazy world.

    Resources:

    Books-

    Grace Llewellyn, The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education (Lowry House, 1991)

    John Holt, Teach Your Own and many other titles David & Micki Colfax, Homeschooling for Excellence (Warner Books, 1988)

    Linda Dobson, The Homeschooling Book of Answers (Prima Publishing, 1999)

    David Guterson, Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992)

    Herbert Kohl, The Question is College

    Magazines-

    Life Learning Magazine

    Box 112, Niagara Falls NY 14304-0112 USA; (800) 215-9574; or (Canada) Box 340, St. George ON N0E 1N0 Canada; website: http://www.lifelearningmagazine.com/

    Home Education Magazine, P.O. Box 1083, Tonasket, WA 98855; (800) 236-3278; website: http://www.home-ed-magazine.com/

    Websites-

    Jon's Homeschool Resource Page, http://www.midnightbeach.com/hs/index.html

    Family Unschoolers Network, http://www.unschooling.org

    Not Back to School Camp http://www.nbtsc.org

    i. The Scholastic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics of Home School Students in 1998, Lawrence M. Rudner, Ph.D. Director of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation. The study examined data on homeschoolers in grades K-12.

    ii. Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America, 1997, Dr. Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute. The study was based on data collected on 5,402 homeschooled students from 1,657 families.

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