We Are Deep In the Heart of Texas

Nomadic seasons of farming adventures with nature thrown in to include; a pinch of family, snippets of friends, counting our blessings, paying IT forward, home school, and the spicy things I decide to rant about.















Saturday, September 25, 2010

Best Things About Home School

1.  No bullies

2.  No schedules, we are flexible.  If Saenz wants to learn about something we do that. Same for Zephyr. How many 5 year olds like dissections?  Ours does. LOL

3.  We still have core curriculum that we fit in around what the boys want to learn and, both boys are flourishing.  Saenz is almost on grade level with math, grammar, and spelling thanks to Grumpy Gramps,  Melodie (Laughing Duck) and Jana (Homeschooling a Toddler.)

4.  Less anxiety for a 12 year old boy transitioning into a teenaged boy.  If he needs to sleep in so be it, I just leave his school work aside until he wakes then he starts on his own. 

5.  No being shuffled off to Special Education classes and being made feel as if he has a label and different from classmates.

6.  No standardized state testing, mom builds her own tests and the boys take tests.  If there is a failure, it is not my sons problem --- it just means I need to change my teaching style to accomodate their learning ability.

7.  We have class outside in nature, grocery stores, banks, veterinarian, doctors' offices, a car, at a museum, by video, on the floor with books spread around us.

8.  Saenz and Zephyr have grown closer as brothers and help each other learn.

9.  No more notes home about the things Saenz has not accomplished.

10.  A lot less stress and a new willingness to learn, explore, to try, to fail, and to grow as students.  Everyday is school but, we have fun as well.

11.  We experiment, laugh, and dream about the future.

12.  Saenz has learned how to: handwrite, journal, is catching up with math, plant biology, owl pellets, animals, marine animals, math, history and value his strengths and weaknesses.

13.  The list is endless so add your own.

If you all have been following Oprah and her show about the new movie coming out,  'WAITING FOR SUPERMAN,' there is a movement starting in the US.  We took my sons out of public school because we knew Saenz was thoroughly unhappy and he knew he was going to be left behind. 

The American Education System is in shambles.  'WE,' All of us need to fix the problem?  If your child fails and does not suceed in life that is a personal trajedy.  If you add another 50% of American children not continuing in their educational career eventually all of American society will fail because; who is going to steer the American Nation into the future ---- our youth.

Parents, we are our children's hope to ensure they are able to get an education, the best.  Not only do we need to make sure they are doing homework but, we must enforce their study times and encourage them to: further learn outside the classroom, research, hope, and dream. Parents are their children's foundation. I can think of no reputable house builder who does not own or acquire the proper tools and resources he/she needs to start to build the foundation first.  How can we as parents TRUST a system which does not give our children the tools they need to build their educational foundation?

Children, YOU too have a responsibility.  You will need to work for what you want out of life.  YOU will have to be the captain of your ship.  To do that YOU will have to learn how to navigate into the digital environment and learn everything you can about the world.  The United States is not the only country changing; the globe is changing and you must change along with it.  Learn your basics but, reach for more.  Learn how to change a flat but also balance a check book.  Learn to read contracts, shop, plan, and be the mad scientist looking for better ways to do things.  YOU will be the one who, suffers in the end of you do not value Yourself and fill that never ending sponge called your brain with knowledge.

Teachers, You know what is needed.  Just do it.  Would you want your own children to have the education you are required to teach?  If not, fight the path of inclusion into a union and tenor.  It is worth your soul to know you have not done all you can do for someone else's child?

State Leaders, Not all children will learn at the same pace.  We have to revamp the classrooms of America which were built upon an antiquated 1950s model.  WHO in their right mind wants little robots running around just spitting out rote information?  We, Americans are innovators embrace this and a go from there.  Another thing, let teachers teach their classrooms.  Let teachers build the rapport they need to educate our future.  TEACHERS are the foundation of the public education system. As any child knows; without a strong foundation a house built upon sand will fall in upon itself.

And let me tell ya'll single without children peeps.  Who do you think will be taking care of you in the future in 20/30/40 years?  Those unhappy children who did not fulfill their future in a school near you.

3 comments:

Melodie said...

Well said! We can save our own children from the public school system but they are such a small percentage...the masses I fear are going to be greatly under educated.It is very scary if you think about it and it seems very few people do.The education standards of public schools seem to be dropping every year...if you expect less out of kids they will most of the time give you less...they need higher goals and the expectation to succeed.When I see what kids my sons age in PS are learning I am shocked at how below age level it seems...sigh..I just don't know what is going on.

nuranuraniku.blogspot.com said...

hello
hopefully some good news and healthy always
My second child is also home school, home school Indonesia
if the activities in Aljubail SA Mariya international schools in school

Judy's Corner said...

But most of all, remember, children's dreams are shaped by their knowledge...if we do not help them learn about their world, how can they possibly dream about their future? And the world of scramble and compete to get to the top of the ladder is probably not the world we'd like our children to dream of. What could possibly be interesting about being in atop that ladder...looking at life going on "below" you? No, I think we, as parents, have to help our children explore possibilities, so they can, one day, develop their own dream to follow.....

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young....
"You, who are on the road, must have a code, that you can live by. And so, become yourself, because the past is just a Goodbye. Teach your children well, their father's Hell did slowly go by. And feed them on your dreams, the one they pick's, the one you'll know by....

Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would die, so just look at them and sigh....and KNOW they love you!"

Thank you Mal.... your children will have the knowledge AND confidence to dream...