knucklehead
Platinum Member
Jeff - nice house - nice cars /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif.
This actually relates to the union conversation.......
Home schooling is managing your kids' education. The internet, as you might imagine, is thick with resources. We have a good resource locally, a private home schooling consulting business (<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.narsonline.com/>North Atlantic Regional School</A>), with which the boys are registered as soon as they reach "Jr High" level work. They carefully review their work, then award credits. Our oldest son had 8.5 high school credits before his 13th birthday - thanks to my wife's diligence and attention to their needs and strengths. There's a couple people signed up there who have basically shopped around and signed their kids up for classes at several high schools and colleges, as well as private lessons in music and sports. They are most definitely home schooled, but none of their courses are taught by their parents. They are managing their education.
Read your kids' books, and politely insert yourself into their schooling - which I am sure you are already doing in one way or another. You control their education; the school system is your subcontractor. Approach them with that confidence, but not belligerence. Individual teachers are generally concerned about the kids, but frustrated with bureaucracy, overwhelmed by social problems, discouraged from achievement and excellence by the unions, and pissed at selfish parents. You may have some institutional thinking to get through, but they are like any bureacracy: patience, politness and persistence pays off. Ooh, I used 3 P's! That should be easy to remember! /w3tcompact/icons/clever.gif/w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif
The public school system is an assembly line of sorts, due in part to the evolution of the system into a huge, ponderous, and ineffective government cash sinkhole (kinda like Amtrak, and anything else the Fed gets its mitts on, huh?). Also due in part to the collectivist and adversarial nature of the unions, but mostly due to to irresponsible and indifferent parents, who say they care but consider money to be a replacement for face time. It is a business, like any other, and we must individually recognize and assume control of own kids' education, and direct the schools accordingly. Personal responsibility is the key - just like managing HMO's (yet another subject) - you get out what you put in.
I wanted to encourage you to keep thinking about your kids' education, and build it according to their needs and strengths. I also wanted to applaude and to publicly recognize you for declaring yourself a "stay at home Dad". Way to go, Jeff! You're probably nearly already home schooling, you just need to recognize it!
Maybe this needs to be a new post?
This actually relates to the union conversation.......
Home schooling is managing your kids' education. The internet, as you might imagine, is thick with resources. We have a good resource locally, a private home schooling consulting business (<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.narsonline.com/>North Atlantic Regional School</A>), with which the boys are registered as soon as they reach "Jr High" level work. They carefully review their work, then award credits. Our oldest son had 8.5 high school credits before his 13th birthday - thanks to my wife's diligence and attention to their needs and strengths. There's a couple people signed up there who have basically shopped around and signed their kids up for classes at several high schools and colleges, as well as private lessons in music and sports. They are most definitely home schooled, but none of their courses are taught by their parents. They are managing their education.
Read your kids' books, and politely insert yourself into their schooling - which I am sure you are already doing in one way or another. You control their education; the school system is your subcontractor. Approach them with that confidence, but not belligerence. Individual teachers are generally concerned about the kids, but frustrated with bureaucracy, overwhelmed by social problems, discouraged from achievement and excellence by the unions, and pissed at selfish parents. You may have some institutional thinking to get through, but they are like any bureacracy: patience, politness and persistence pays off. Ooh, I used 3 P's! That should be easy to remember! /w3tcompact/icons/clever.gif/w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif
The public school system is an assembly line of sorts, due in part to the evolution of the system into a huge, ponderous, and ineffective government cash sinkhole (kinda like Amtrak, and anything else the Fed gets its mitts on, huh?). Also due in part to the collectivist and adversarial nature of the unions, but mostly due to to irresponsible and indifferent parents, who say they care but consider money to be a replacement for face time. It is a business, like any other, and we must individually recognize and assume control of own kids' education, and direct the schools accordingly. Personal responsibility is the key - just like managing HMO's (yet another subject) - you get out what you put in.
I wanted to encourage you to keep thinking about your kids' education, and build it according to their needs and strengths. I also wanted to applaude and to publicly recognize you for declaring yourself a "stay at home Dad". Way to go, Jeff! You're probably nearly already home schooling, you just need to recognize it!
Maybe this needs to be a new post?
