"Umbrella" School or Not? That is the Question!

When my kids were still homeschooling we had the option to use a private "umbrella" school or sign up through the county. We actually did the private school thing for the first year then decided that they were just not for us. What I would have liked was a nice secular private school with a wide range of ages but also with a nice group of teens. At the time, I could not find what I was looking for. We went through the county. There really is NO problem just flying solo with homeschooling until your kids reach those high school years. Here is my list of reasons why we SHOULD have used a private "umbrella" school.

1. Math classes. I have a degree in English and did not need a math class, back in the 70's, to get it! Enough said!

2. Companionship. While my kids had friends who were not homeschooled and kept up a fairly busy social life, they really could have used a nice group of college-bound kids who were also homeschooled. My son had always said that his public schooled friends just never "got" the homeschooling thing.

3. Advising, both parental and student. I had to do all the legwork to figure out things such as how to get students signed up for SAT tests, how to apply for scholarships, how to make an ok-looking transcript and how to (and when to) apply to colleges.

4. Bright Futures Scholarship (Florida specific). A homeschooled child in Florida who is not in a private school must score higher on the SAT or ACT tests to receive the SAME scholarship as a public or private school child. Yes, how unfair! My son missed the 75% tuition Bright Futures Scholarship by ONE POINT on the ACT. He refused to retake the test. (you can lead a kid to the ACT but you can't make him take it!) He is a stubborn kid (young man) and is now literally paying for his stubbornness. He knows it. We don't talk about it. He has student loans out the ***. Had he been in a private school, he would have received the 75% tuition scholarship.

5. Diploma and professional-looking transcripts. I know, a diploma is not necessary. My kids don't have one for high school although I have the pretty diploma paper for the computer and never used it! Their transcripts are OK but certainly don't have the credibility of a school transcript. Has this hurt them? Not really. Would it have been a nice touch? Hell yes!

6. Never having to say Home Schooled to a college admissions officer. Oh yes. Try going to the college admissions office during your college seeking trips and telling him your child is homeschooled. Watch the glazed look come into his eyes. "Home schooled?" Yeah, as though they have never ever had a home educated kid at the university before. Sigh. We got the runaround while looking into colleges for our daughter. Our son went to the community college for his AA first and I worked there. No problem.

Had I known all of this before I would have started my own secular private school for homeschoolers earlier!

Importance of a Loosely Planned High School

We unschooled but that does not mean I had no plan at all. Both of my kids were headed to college so I knew what would be expected. They would need a couple of math classes, two years of foreign language, at least two lab sciences, some history (or social studies), 4 years of English (or Language Arts, now). The Florida Sunshine State Standards also include economics and US government. Some universities require more math or more sciences but in a nutshell, this is what we needed to aim towards. The kids also needed to prepare for the SAT or ACT for college admissions.

English was easy because I have a degree in English so I LOVE it. I love reading and the kids both love reading. Writing was a little more difficult for my son since he is, basically, lazy and never wanted to write anything. After much cajoling, and telling him the evaluator would not "pass" him if he didn't, he wrote a really good paper pertaining to a certain gun used during WWII. What can I say, he's a boy. That paper was GOOD! Holy cow when did he learn to write like that? Obviously reading a lot for pleasure helped.

Lab sciences can be a problem for the home schooler but my kids did most of that through dual enrollment at the community college. We did do an earth science "course" at home by watching videos about volcanoes, earthquakes, weather, plate tectonics and rocks/erosion. There's a lot of information out there in books and on video to set up a really comprehensive "course" on earth science.

Math. Oh math. Yes, math was a pain in the butt! My son was a natural at math, still is, but has a lot of Catholic School baggage surrounding math. Sigh. My daughter decided not to do anymore math no matter how much I begged. Know what? They each decided on a college major, after taking quite a few basic college classes, and each one had/has a math-related major! My daughter was finance and my son economics. Weird! Unschooling works! You just have to let them choose and the rest will come along naturally.

Foreign language was handled differently by each of my kids. My daughter took American Sign Language at the community college and her university accepted it as a foreign language both for entrance and for the major. My son went to a tutor for German (thanks Silke!) for a couple of years working through a regular text book. Tutors are great! Also, dual enrollment at the community college is an option as long as you give enough time.

History is a snap! DVD's of History Channel shows or other instructional DVDs are great for this! Don't discount regular old books and even some historical fiction as long as it is based on historical fact. Pick a time period and go for it! My kids did a lot on Ancient Egypt. We even mummified a Cornish Game Hen. Umm, yuck. Interesting experiement but I did not consider the umm, "drainage" factor, or lack thereof. MOST of the game hen was mummified though and the people who now own our house will get a big surprise if they ever dig up one of our gardens! Nothing like a mummified game hen complete with canopic jars, amulets and a decorated shoe box sarcophagus. My son also spent a couple of years learning about WWII. Yes it was because of a computer game he was into at the time, but he sure learned a lot! There is a great video (DVD) series called "A Century of Warfare" that I know the Orange County, Florida library owns, all about the 20th century wars including WWI and II, Korea, Vietnam and the first Gulf War back in the 1990's.

US Government was covered at our house during one of the presidential elections since it was a good time to go over it. Economics was sadly absent from our home school. ooops. Anyway both kids took economics in college and my son is even an economics major so I am not losing any sleep over it.

Dual enrollment was a great great program for both high school and college "credits." ALL of the classes taken during dual enrollment are college classes with the end result being college credits that the state universities will take as transfer. Pretty good stuff!

Next up: Planning for college or how to get the most for the least amount of money!

Home Schooled Students Starting College

When my kids were 16 they started Dual Enrollment at the local community college. They each were nervous about it beforehand. My daughter is the older child and went through this first but what is funny is that my son also went through the same insecurity. "What if the public schooled kids know more than I do?" "What if the public schooled kids can do better in college than I can?"

Now, it is almost laughable! Both of my kids maintained a 4.0 throughout their dual enrollment and each went on to keep up a good GPA through the university level. What is funny is that they need not have worried about what the public schooled kids knew, it was not the knowing of facts that was different. What my kids found out was that the public schooled kids, on average, did not want to work for their knowledge. They were used to getting the facts and "knowledge" handed to them on a silver platter!

Group projects were a chore for my kids since they had to badger the other students to get their work in! My daughter was like the Mom of the group always delegating and trying to make sure that the group members did their job. How sad. My son has come up against this as well at a different university in Florida. Public schooled kids do not seem to have the same work ethic, when it comes to college classes, as home schooled kids. Period. I know, I know, your nephew who is at MIT and was public schooled is a go-getter and works full time and still manages an active social life and keeps up a 4.0. OK, sure. There are some exceptions to the rule. I also know a couple of home schooled kids who couldn't pass a college class. But as a whole, I see that the public school system needs to make kids accountable. Mom and Dad can't complain that Johnny got a C and now he can't get into the college of his choice. Well, too damn bad! Obviously it is not just schools who have to make kids take consequences for their actions.

OK I Lied, Dual Enrollment will be tomorrow...

I just had to write about the book I am reading right now. I would put this book down as one of the most important books to read NOW! Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is probably the most contemporary "old" book (published in 1957, two years before I was born!) that I have read in a long while. I am only 139 pages into it and already I am stunned at her insight into human nature and the nature of people as a group. It also is scaring the crap out of me! What she wrote as a cautionary tale for humankind is actually happening NOW. Damn! Reading passages in the book is like watching the news, today.

"A free economy cannot exist without competition. Therefore, men must be forced to compete. Therefore, we must control men in order to force them to be free."

This is stated by a university professor of philosophy in the novel while discussing the Equalization of Opportunity Bill, a fictitious bill set in the fictitious future that Ms. Rand developed in her novel. Or is it fictitious?

So far, 139 pages into it, I would place Atlas Shrugged right up there on my list of VERY important books for our young people to read. Others on the list include Animal Farm, 1984 and Brave New World. One day I will come up with a lesson for parents on comparing 1984 to Brave New World and which is more insidious. Naturally I have my own opinion.

Sadly our schools may require this book for summer reading but methinks that they may not be getting the point. Sadly the beginning of the book outlining what is happening in the world may be looked upon as the "good old days" by the education elite. Perhaps the end of the book is seen as what can happen when man is not controlled and forced to compete. I will continue reading the book, all 1069 pages of it, and report back. In a couple weeks. At least.

Unschooling for lazy moms - part 2

Yesterday was all about my son and his unschooling experiences. Obviously he did more than play DiabloII during this time although I am trying to think what else there was....

My husband used to travel a lot for work back during the home school days. What was great about his travel was that having the family tag along was pretty inexpensive. His airfare was paid for as was the rental car and hotel room. If I played my cards right, the hotel breakfast turned into lunch with the help of zip-lock bags and creative use of breakfast items. Many times I would call ahead to be sure we could have a small refrigerator and sometimes we had a nice suite with kitchenette. Frozen dinners were the dinner dejour many nights but we made sure to eat out to sample the local fare at least a few times. My kids have been all over North America and have seen things most people will never see in a lifetime. They were 10 and 13 when we started. Do you think they learned anything watching right whales from a lobster boat in the Bay of Fundy? Maybe they saw some new stuff while living in a condo on the beach on Vancouver Island, in the winter. (remember, these are Florida kids) Sigh. They have no idea just how lucky they were to have these experiences. We could write a book about our travels and some of the interesting things we saw!

Unschooling. That's right, the lazy way to home school. My daughter was 13 when we pulled her out of Catholic school and it was just in time! I could see that she was turning away from us, being more secretive and less open. What's funny though is that SHE asked US to home school! It was June and we had missed a trip to Newfoundland a month or two earlier when my husband had to go. Why didn't we go? The school threatened parents who wanted to take kids out of school for a trip. How nice. And we paid tuition. I am so glad we did get to go the following September! My daughter was a bright child who always seemed older than she was. I guess maybe she is an old soul.

Once home, we pretty much de-schooled for a while to get school out of their systems. Did they watch a lot of TV? You betcha! Did they get tired of it after a while? They sure did! During that first summer my daughter heard about the new boy band (at that time) called N'Sync and simply went crazy for them. I joke that we did the all N'Sync curriculum for a few years. Living in Orlando, we had the opportunity to see the band fairly often and I actually made her cry when I told her I saw one of the band members in Petco with his new puppy. Poor girl. We were always on the "find an N'Sync member" mission and our hairdresser actually had some of them come into the salon quite often. Pretty intense stuff when you are 13 and really into a band. I saw more N'Sync concerts than I want to admit to and we did a "meet and greet" one day where we got to shake hands with the band members. Heady stuff!

Now you ask, when was she learning anything? Luckily she learned about "fan fiction" writing and a fan fiction website where you can read and post your fiction. This girl spent HOURS and HOURS writing about N'Sync. I did not pry and I did not make her show me her writing. I knew she was editing it herself and doing rewrites. One day she asked me if I wanted to read one of them. Of course I said "yes!" I was stunned to find that the writing was not only good, but near-perfect technically and extremely well thought-out. Was her time going crazy over N'Sync a waste of time? HELL NO! Some of her best memories have to do with that time and the memories have me in them as well! We were together in our N'Sync sightings and concerts. I never made her feel that going band crazy was anything other than exciting.

I forgot to mention all the reading my kids did as well as DiabloII and N'Sync. They always had a book and they STILL are always in the midst of reading a book.

Reading, traveling, doing stuff you love. What else is there?