Homeschool Report Card, Summer Trimester 2011
Okay, now I get it why homeschoolers "follow the school year"! We did do some traditional academic stuff over the summer. But not nearly as much as I'd hoped we would. That doesn't mean the summer wasn't packed with learning opportunities. Here's what we managed to get out and do in just three months:
- Four live theatre and music performances.
- Three art experiences.
- Seven hands-on history events.
- 16 science events/presentations.
- 22 miscellaneous field trips.
- 22 purely social events with other homeschoolers. (Many of our other activities were done with friends as well).
- 39 nature walks and hikes. We saw some really extraordinary northwest beauty this summer.
Jasper over and over told us that his most favorite things that he did were nature related. He loved our trip to San Francisco, but the hour or so he spent on the beach in Alameda turning over rocks with his dad, looking for crabs, was his favorite part of the trip. After our many summer hikes, what he kept talking about was not the spectacular vistas from the summits, but the discoveries he made on those hikes- millipedes, beetles, butterflies, frogs, snakes... And probably the single best thing about his summer was watching three giant tadpoles morph into adult bullfrogs in a tank in our home.
As Jasper gets older, I've decided that I want to equally emphasize time spent learning core subjects that seem easiest to do with formal lessons, time spent with friends, and time spent on outings that are learning opportunities. This seems to be a good rule to go by. As long as each week we are not emphasizing one area at the expense of the others, I feel good about how things are going. Fortunately, making good progress with his core subjects is not at all time consuming. And our homeschool friends love to get together for activities where the kids are learning things while they enjoy each other's company.
As Jasper gets older, I've decided that I want to equally emphasize time spent learning core subjects that seem easiest to do with formal lessons, time spent with friends, and time spent on outings that are learning opportunities. This seems to be a good rule to go by. As long as each week we are not emphasizing one area at the expense of the others, I feel good about how things are going. Fortunately, making good progress with his core subjects is not at all time consuming. And our homeschool friends love to get together for activities where the kids are learning things while they enjoy each other's company.
We are trying something completely different for the 2011-2012 school year. Or maybe not that different. We have enrolled Jasper in an Oregon distance charter school. Distance charter schools are very much a mixed bag. Some are much more rigid than others. Distance charter schools can have very different ways of verifying your adherence to state attendance laws, which can be as extreme as requiring that each student be logged into a laptop for 6 hours a day. Some require that you use the curriculum they provide. And it may be online, so your preferences about screen time vs. potentially having a child work more independently come into play. These charter schools may best be evaluated on the basis of how good a fit the curriculum is with your particular child. Some curriculum is very costly, and if you would want to use it anyway, it can be quite a blessing to have it provided free of charge!
We chose a very new charter school which so far is very flexible. I've been allowed to pick out Jasper's curriculum, or to demonstrate how I will cover the required subjects without it. Attendance is verified by communicating weekly with the teacher and meeting with her in person once a month. I've been told that the crucial thing is for Jasper to show evidence of progress, especially in reading and math. So I'm embarking on some very careful record keeping. And I was surprised to find that we have been given a stipend that they will allocate at my request for his education (for curriculum, but also classes and art supplies). I've been asked to fill out quite a few forms, but the stipend this year is $900, so it seems well worth it so far. I'm hoping this will help me to make Jasper's education really soar this year.
We chose a very new charter school which so far is very flexible. I've been allowed to pick out Jasper's curriculum, or to demonstrate how I will cover the required subjects without it. Attendance is verified by communicating weekly with the teacher and meeting with her in person once a month. I've been told that the crucial thing is for Jasper to show evidence of progress, especially in reading and math. So I'm embarking on some very careful record keeping. And I was surprised to find that we have been given a stipend that they will allocate at my request for his education (for curriculum, but also classes and art supplies). I've been asked to fill out quite a few forms, but the stipend this year is $900, so it seems well worth it so far. I'm hoping this will help me to make Jasper's education really soar this year.
Many homeschoolers have a bias against distance charter schools and say that technically, you're not a homeschooler if your child is enrolled in one. Ironically, we enrolled Jasper in order to get some academic support that I felt would be helpful, and I found that it's all still very much up to me. Jasper is having some reading issues that I definitely felt would not be adequately addressed in a classroom with 30 other kids and a one-size-fits-all curriculum, and I thought a charter school might be the perfect solution. He would still get one-on-one attention, but I would have support from an experienced primary school teacher in finding curriculum and strategizing lessons to fit his needs.
By now, I realize that was an unrealistic expectation. Their staff are of course certified teachers, and public school teachers don't typically get to pick out curriculum for their own classrooms and don't need a great wealth of knowledge about what's available. They have training and experience in teaching a classroom of kids at once, where it is impossible to accommodate every individual learning style, or to help motivate kids by zeroing in on their individual interests. The parents of a public school kid who is struggling to learn to read would probably be doing what I've been doing- figuring out what to do on their own to help. Of course some certified teachers do become homeschoolers, which gives them good experience selecting individual learning plans for their own very unique kids, and does not necessarily help them come up with suggestions for mine. But as far as getting really specific suggestions for helping Jasper, it makes more sense for me to ask on a large homeschool list. I've been able to connect with other parents who have dealt with similar learning issues themselves this way, and their advice has been quite useful.
But the stipend certainly has the potential to be very helpful, and having to provide detailed reports of what we are doing and proof of progress has actually shown me that Jasper is in fact making reasonable progress with the methods we were already using. And if an issue persists, I can always explore private tutoring, which is exactly where I can expect to find teachers who are experienced with individualized learning strategies. I wasn't expecting to have a stipend to spend, and that was quite a happy surprise.
By now, I realize that was an unrealistic expectation. Their staff are of course certified teachers, and public school teachers don't typically get to pick out curriculum for their own classrooms and don't need a great wealth of knowledge about what's available. They have training and experience in teaching a classroom of kids at once, where it is impossible to accommodate every individual learning style, or to help motivate kids by zeroing in on their individual interests. The parents of a public school kid who is struggling to learn to read would probably be doing what I've been doing- figuring out what to do on their own to help. Of course some certified teachers do become homeschoolers, which gives them good experience selecting individual learning plans for their own very unique kids, and does not necessarily help them come up with suggestions for mine. But as far as getting really specific suggestions for helping Jasper, it makes more sense for me to ask on a large homeschool list. I've been able to connect with other parents who have dealt with similar learning issues themselves this way, and their advice has been quite useful.
But the stipend certainly has the potential to be very helpful, and having to provide detailed reports of what we are doing and proof of progress has actually shown me that Jasper is in fact making reasonable progress with the methods we were already using. And if an issue persists, I can always explore private tutoring, which is exactly where I can expect to find teachers who are experienced with individualized learning strategies. I wasn't expecting to have a stipend to spend, and that was quite a happy surprise.
My feeling about distance charter schools is that they are very much in their infancy, and it is hard to tell just what they will grow up to be. It's fitting that when more businesses are moving online, and more people are working from home, that students should have lots of options beyond going every day to a brick and mortar school. Homeschooling is the way most people were educated for hundreds of years, and distance charter schools have the potential to make home education more accessible to more families.
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