Nora is getting bigger. She sits up, plays with her toys and has a smile that just doesn't stop. Nora also nurses every 4 hours which means I am exhausted!! She is 5.5mths so we let her eat her first cereal yesterday. It was a family event. I think she is going to like this eating thing.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Homeschooling Trials
Our friends who have 9 children in their homeschool family are starting to see their oldest leave home for college. The second oldest rattled off the names of colleges he has been accepted into, the Air Force Academy to name one. I was very excited for him. We live in an age now where the homeschooler is grown up (they actually survived), out of the house and making their way as adults in life (without having a social breakdown as some think) .
I have known 2 men (former homeschoolers) who worked with Tim in the EOD career field. OK well, maybe homeschoolers are crazy and demented but that is getting off the point I am trying to make.
It has been encouraging for me to see a finished product . I do struggle with the future for my children. How will they turn out? I am happy to see the lack of consistency in what defines a homeschool parent. They come in all shapes: 4 year degrees, high school diploma, some are real certified teachers.... most aren't. There is even the single parent thrown in the mix from time to time. Some provide a rigid curriculum, others are more laid back in their schedules and formality.
I want a how to book on everything. Tim once threatened to throw out all the "how-to" books in the house because I drive him crazy over "we need to do it this way". How to be a Christian, how to be a wife, how to be a mother, how to be a homeschool mom....then there are those "how to be __fill in the blank_____ and do it better" books.
I hate to admit that I am lazy and just want a book or a person to tell me how to do it...how to make me successful. I really just want someone to say do it this way and it will work out best. To myself I think..."Ask so and so how they do it cause their kids really seems to have it together." or "they seem really organized I must be doing it wrong". I have homeschooled for 6 years, read books, talked to many different types of homeschooling families and have never settled on any one way they have told me. Of course I have picked fruit from their trees and applied them where I need to but I haven't adopted any ONE method or copied exactly what another would do. (Against my desires to do so)
There are parenting methods, teaching methods, horse/dog training methods that are all different. Even when applying the same style, you get a different outcome. At some point (and I am slowly getting there) I am going to have to be confident in saying to myself and the world. "This is how I do it, it works for me". As long as I am not living in a world of sin that displeases God, he has given me freedom to raise my family, choose a career, live in a location that I desire and to his glory, I will be successful. He will accomplish his purpose he has for me in his way as well, unfortunately he won't provide a "HOW TO" book on that. That is where Trust comes into play.
I have known 2 men (former homeschoolers) who worked with Tim in the EOD career field. OK well, maybe homeschoolers are crazy and demented but that is getting off the point I am trying to make.
It has been encouraging for me to see a finished product . I do struggle with the future for my children. How will they turn out? I am happy to see the lack of consistency in what defines a homeschool parent. They come in all shapes: 4 year degrees, high school diploma, some are real certified teachers.... most aren't. There is even the single parent thrown in the mix from time to time. Some provide a rigid curriculum, others are more laid back in their schedules and formality.
I want a how to book on everything. Tim once threatened to throw out all the "how-to" books in the house because I drive him crazy over "we need to do it this way". How to be a Christian, how to be a wife, how to be a mother, how to be a homeschool mom....then there are those "how to be __fill in the blank_____ and do it better" books.
I hate to admit that I am lazy and just want a book or a person to tell me how to do it...how to make me successful. I really just want someone to say do it this way and it will work out best. To myself I think..."Ask so and so how they do it cause their kids really seems to have it together." or "they seem really organized I must be doing it wrong". I have homeschooled for 6 years, read books, talked to many different types of homeschooling families and have never settled on any one way they have told me. Of course I have picked fruit from their trees and applied them where I need to but I haven't adopted any ONE method or copied exactly what another would do. (Against my desires to do so)
There are parenting methods, teaching methods, horse/dog training methods that are all different. Even when applying the same style, you get a different outcome. At some point (and I am slowly getting there) I am going to have to be confident in saying to myself and the world. "This is how I do it, it works for me". As long as I am not living in a world of sin that displeases God, he has given me freedom to raise my family, choose a career, live in a location that I desire and to his glory, I will be successful. He will accomplish his purpose he has for me in his way as well, unfortunately he won't provide a "HOW TO" book on that. That is where Trust comes into play.
Homeschool
Colleges Want Your Homeschooler!
From Patti Miller, for About.com
Filed In:
Teaching and Testing
It used to be that homeschooling families approached colleges with some fear and trepidation. The path to admission was quirky and nonsensical, and the hoops that needed to be jumped through were often ridiculous…if the school would even consider accepting a non-traditionally-schooled person. Homeschoolers had no access to federal scholarships, and colleges rarely gave any money to them.
Things have changed, and definitely for the better. Homeschoolers are entering college in record numbers, with higher test scores than their public school counterparts.
“Home educated students generally score at the 65th to 80th percentile on achievement tests, 15 to 30 percentile points higher than those in public schools,” writes Brian D. Ray, Ph.D. of the National Home Education Research Institute. They also tend to stay in college and finish on time, often with above-average grades. This makes them very desirable students.
The Financial Aid picture has changed also. Thanks to the Higher Education Act Amendments of 1998 (Pub. L. No. 105-244), the student is eligible for Federal Aid if “the student has completed a secondary school education in a homeschool setting that is treated as a homeschool or a private school under state law. That’s all that is necessary. No GED, no special tests, just a homeschool diploma. The law also discourages colleges from discriminating against homeschoolers, and encourages them to accept students on the basis of their ability, not the accreditation of their school.
This played out very well recently when I took my seventeen-year-old son to our local community college to enroll him in their computer science program. I went armed: copies of my letters from the county board of education to prove that we were legal, a homemade high-school transcript to show what he’d studied, results of a recent standardized test, and a copy of the state homeschool regulations.
I didn’t need any of it.
I dropped Evan off to take the COMPASS exam, a placement test that many colleges use to see who needs remedial classes. Evan hadn’t studied much, but he felt ready for the challenge, and it could be retaken if he chose.
An hour and a half later, I went to pick Evan up. He was not in the testing room, and he’d left only about two minutes before. I wandered around the campus, wondering how I could lose someone twice my size. After a nice long walk, one of the ladies in the testing room said that maybe they’d sent him to the academic counselor.
When I finally caught up with Evan, all there was to do was pay.
He’d registered, been accepted, and signed up for three classes (no remedial needed).
It was a bit more complicated five years ago when his older sister, Claire, applied to a small, private, heavily academic college. She had a few small scholarships to the school from some church programs she’d participated in, but she was only sixteen, so we doubted she’d make it. On the other hand, she had a 33 on her ACT (top score is 36: national average is 19-20.)
This school had a user-friendly program for admitting homeschoolers. They asked for a list of courses taken with books used, test scores, a student essay, and recommendations. It was easy to navigate, and the admittance office was very helpful. All-in-all, though, it took a few months, not counting the dishearteningly long FAFSA application.
When all was said and done, though, Claire was offered most of her tuition paid in scholarships and a very low-interest loan for the rest.
Claire graduated last year, second –and youngest- in her class.
From Patti Miller, for About.com
Filed In:
Teaching and Testing
It used to be that homeschooling families approached colleges with some fear and trepidation. The path to admission was quirky and nonsensical, and the hoops that needed to be jumped through were often ridiculous…if the school would even consider accepting a non-traditionally-schooled person. Homeschoolers had no access to federal scholarships, and colleges rarely gave any money to them.
Things have changed, and definitely for the better. Homeschoolers are entering college in record numbers, with higher test scores than their public school counterparts.
“Home educated students generally score at the 65th to 80th percentile on achievement tests, 15 to 30 percentile points higher than those in public schools,” writes Brian D. Ray, Ph.D. of the National Home Education Research Institute. They also tend to stay in college and finish on time, often with above-average grades. This makes them very desirable students.
The Financial Aid picture has changed also. Thanks to the Higher Education Act Amendments of 1998 (Pub. L. No. 105-244), the student is eligible for Federal Aid if “the student has completed a secondary school education in a homeschool setting that is treated as a homeschool or a private school under state law. That’s all that is necessary. No GED, no special tests, just a homeschool diploma. The law also discourages colleges from discriminating against homeschoolers, and encourages them to accept students on the basis of their ability, not the accreditation of their school.
This played out very well recently when I took my seventeen-year-old son to our local community college to enroll him in their computer science program. I went armed: copies of my letters from the county board of education to prove that we were legal, a homemade high-school transcript to show what he’d studied, results of a recent standardized test, and a copy of the state homeschool regulations.
I didn’t need any of it.
I dropped Evan off to take the COMPASS exam, a placement test that many colleges use to see who needs remedial classes. Evan hadn’t studied much, but he felt ready for the challenge, and it could be retaken if he chose.
An hour and a half later, I went to pick Evan up. He was not in the testing room, and he’d left only about two minutes before. I wandered around the campus, wondering how I could lose someone twice my size. After a nice long walk, one of the ladies in the testing room said that maybe they’d sent him to the academic counselor.
When I finally caught up with Evan, all there was to do was pay.
He’d registered, been accepted, and signed up for three classes (no remedial needed).
It was a bit more complicated five years ago when his older sister, Claire, applied to a small, private, heavily academic college. She had a few small scholarships to the school from some church programs she’d participated in, but she was only sixteen, so we doubted she’d make it. On the other hand, she had a 33 on her ACT (top score is 36: national average is 19-20.)
This school had a user-friendly program for admitting homeschoolers. They asked for a list of courses taken with books used, test scores, a student essay, and recommendations. It was easy to navigate, and the admittance office was very helpful. All-in-all, though, it took a few months, not counting the dishearteningly long FAFSA application.
When all was said and done, though, Claire was offered most of her tuition paid in scholarships and a very low-interest loan for the rest.
Claire graduated last year, second –and youngest- in her class.
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