The Mental Militia Forums
Special Interest => Home Schooling => Topic started by: Mostly Harmless on December 06, 2004, 04:12:50 pm
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My son has given up on public school. And the school seems to have given up on him -- they certainly aren't worried about his failing, but that might be because he's a white male and therefore not deserving of concern /sarcasm.
Anyhoo, I think I'm going to take him out of school, shift my work day forward a bit and homeschool him for the next couple of years. He's in 10th grade, turned 15 last month. He doesn't want to go on to college, what he wants to do is culinary. So I'm thinking I can give him a couple of years homeschooling, get him up to 1st year college level and at 18 he can go apprentice to a cook somewhere. There must be culinary apprenticeships and training programs for "real" food prep (as distinct from "would you like me to supersize that?" training) and that would suit him better than an academic program. Alternatively 2 or 3 years of homeschooling might get him a good SAT score and he might get himself a scholarship to the CIA or Johnson & Wales or somewhere.
Anyone with any homeschooling recommendations? I'm in luverly liberal Massachusetts where such things are frowned upon.
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I don't have kids, so what do I know? But I know somebody who wrote a book (an ex-teacher) about homeschooling, a couple of years ago, and that led me to looking at a few things thinking that relatives of mine might consider homeschooling for their kids. One guy's story of homeschooling that interested me was the one I will link you to. Perhaps it will give you some ideas as to where to look, depending where your son is in his education.
http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/ (http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/)
Don't know if they still do this (have not seen ads in a long time), but "Luby's" cafeterias used to offer an intense training program for those interested in culinary/management careers. They paid well too.
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Massachusetts?!?
Then my first piece of advice would be to move! <_<
If that is impractical, then check into HSLDA (I think their address is www.hslda.org) to see what the state laws are. They will come after you if your child is not in public school.
The only other thing I would suggest is to keep it relaxed, relevant and interesting. He should be old enough to take charge of his own education once you get him pointed in the right direction.
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My daughter dropped out in second grade. We did unschooling and she turned out just fine ;-) She has a bunch of unschooling pages. Have your son check them out.....
http://www.homestead.com/peaceandcarrots/C...llegeHowTo.html (http://www.homestead.com/peaceandcarrots/CollegeHowTo.html)
Unschooler: one who learns from life and love and great books and late morning conversations and big projects and eccentric uncles and mountains and mistakes and volunteering and starry nights - not from dull textbooks and sedative lectures and interfering homework.
Syn: Homeschooler, self-schooler, autodidact, rise-out.
From: The Teenage Liberation Handbook, Grace Llewellyn
Heather wanted to go to the New England Culinary Institute....
http://www.neci.edu/home.html (http://www.neci.edu/home.html)
She also applied at a few others. All of them wanted her....no problem that she was an unschoooler. NECI is only 12 miles from where we live, but it's expensive. Even with the max in financial aid, it was too much. She begged and they let her go to school for free one day....from very early morning to midnight. Grueling stuff. Heather went on to become a carpenter at $22/hour instead.
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First of all, I'd say, "Don't limit yourself, and him, to just 1st year college."
By setting that limitation on yourself, you'll be doing him a disservice. You don't have to teach him "stuff". That's traditional schooling, doling out information on a schedule. Screw that. It's not working for him, and he knows it.
Instead, work on his learning abilities. Work with him to discover how to learn. Once he knows how to learn, all the "stuff" comes easy, because the processes are in place. At first, you might just encourage him to read, whatever he wants, for a couple of hours each day. All learning is based on literacy, even math. Hone that reading and writing ability and everything else is much easier to comprehend.
If he wants to be assigned projects, give him research projects, and work with him on them. If I had a teen ager I was home schooling right now, I'd want to know why the fuck we have a lady bug invasion. Damn critters are everywhere. It'd be a great research project. Researching requires, reading, processing, scientific theory, and writing. If he's weak on any of those, gotta start with the basics. I don't think they teach any logic in government school anymore, so simple rules of logic might be a great start. Have him learn the rules and then apply them to something he's already very familiar with.
The book I'm using is called "The Well-trained Mind". It is a guide to a home-based classical education. It starts from pre-school and runs through college level teaching, including sources and curriculum ideas, so it would have some great stuff for it.
Encourage him to run research field trips too. Nothing quite like taking his girlfriend out to the natural science museum to check out the cockroach colonies.
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Hello Mostly harmless,
I am a 25 yr old former public school teacher and my soon to be wife is a 23yr old teacher. We both love kids and teens. We have set up programs for children in the community, coached sports, and have been a large part of many childrens lives over the last few years. Our future goal is to open an alternative school much like a Sudbury school where the basic rule is that we are all equal. Children are treated with the utmost respect as are the adults. The children do not have set "classes" but are allowed to do whatever they feel interested in at the moment. The result of this type of atmosphere is amazing. Literacy rates are over 99% and children are just happy!
I am telling you this because I would like you to know about our ideas dealing with children and schooling. It just happens to be that, like your son, I cannot stand the public schools. Now that dosent mean I dont love the kids!
We are in the process of opening a deli here in Machias, Maine. As I read your post I thought what a perfect fit your son could be. We are always willing to do whatever is needed on our part. I have worked on and off for 10 years in the food industry. Your son could learn all the basics plus a good deal more. On top of that he would be able to learn to run a small deli which sounds like something he may be interested in.
Please consider the option. Feel free to email me personally so I cantalk to you about this more. I know its totally out of the blue, but we are always interested in bettering someone else's life. mattbau43 at hotmail.com
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Encourage him to run research field trips too. Nothing quite like taking his girlfriend out to the natural science museum to check out the cockroach colonies.
Oh, you mad, impetuous boy! That'll keep his sex life under control! :lol:
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Mostly-
First of all, congratulations on making the decision to homeschool!
I second the motion to get Grace Llewelyn's "Teenage Liberation Handbook". Some of the chapters are irrelevant (they deal with convincing the parents to homeschool etc), but all in all, the book is inspiring to all ages. I get jazzed every time I pick it up.
I see VermontHomesteader already chimed in, I was going to suggest you talk to her or Heather. Those two seem on top of things in the homeschool/unschool world.
I am assuming that your son has already got all of the basics under his belt, i.e. he can read, balance a checkbook, and understand instructions. With that in mind, his world is totally open to what HE wants to learn next.
Set yourselves down and ask him to list out, right now, this minute, what he wants to learn about. I just did this with my daughter yesterday. She came up with a staggering list of goals of what she wants to work on in the next 6-9 months.
After the initial list of ideas, you then ask yourselves, what tools/resources do we need to be able to accomplish these goals?
For example, my daughter wants to learn how to: use Microsoft Money (easy, I have it on my computer), use our sewing machine (I will run her through the operating booklet and show her the settings), learn how to re-upholster furniture (doing that right now!), study the Civil War (see my other thread on finding books on that subject), make more throw pillows for her room and for gifts and profit (there's my craft room, kid, help yourself to some fabric!), work out at the gym (grandmother gave her a 1 yr membership)...and the list goes on and on.
Keep in mind that you can homeschool a teenager while working full-time. I've done it for nearly two years now. Through email and phone calls and evening & weekend meetings, it can work out great.
One thing that I cannot stress enough...give him time to de-institutionalize and decompress. Public school does horrible things to a person's natural love of learning. It takes time to recover from it. Start him off easy.
The best of good wishes to both of you, for you have made an important decision. Keep posting here, I am always interested in hearing how other homeschool/unschoolers are accomplishing their goals.
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Encourage him to run research field trips too. Nothing quite like taking his girlfriend out to the natural science museum to check out the cockroach colonies.
Oh, you mad, impetuous boy! That'll keep his sex life under control! :lol:
I missed the whole teen-age sex-romp stuff. I must live vicariously through other's kids.
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Some great suggestions there, thank you so much everybody.
The trick is going to be seeing how we can (a) do this in Massachusetts and (B) manage things in such a way that I get to keep my job.
I have a friend who homeschools his 4 kids in Mass, so he's going to point me in the right direction for that. I've given my son till the end of the year to decide whether he wants to stay in the system, in which case he has to work and get passing grades, or be homeschooled.
I haven't given up on him going to college. I just don't think that he's going to get as much out of it right now (or in a couple of years time to be more accurate) as he might later. He learns best from hands-on experience rather than lectures (which is why he's doing well in culinary and not much else) so at this point college would be a waste of time and money.
I'm going to be offline for a couple of weeks. Knee replacement surgery tomorrow, so no internet for me till I get out of hospital and rehab which will be between 10 and 14 days.
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If I had a teen ager I was home schooling right now, I'd want to know why the fuck we have a lady bug invasion. Damn critters are everywhere. It'd be a great research project.
They sure are. If you find out, let me know, ok?
Damn, I wish I had the funds to buy a bunch of these books... I get the feeling just from some of the titles that I could make a significant difference with these grandkids! I guess I can see if maybe I can find some of them through interlibrary loan or something...
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When life gives you ladybugs, make money!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...4342396093&rd=1 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=75582&item=4342396093&rd=1)
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amazon.com
Most popular results for The Teenage Liberation Handbook :
1. The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education -- by Grace Llewellyn; Paperback. Buy new: $17.00 -- Used & new from: $12.00
2. Homeschooling: The Teen Years : Your Complete Guide to Successfully Homeschooling the 13- to 18- Year-Old (Prima Home Learning Library) -- by CAFI COHEN, Janie Levine Hellyer; Paperback. Buy new: $11.87 -- Used & new from: $7.80
3. Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling -- by John Taylor Gatto; Paperback. Buy new: $8.96 -- Used & new from: $7.93
If it helps...
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Hi Mostly Harmless....
I have taught homeschool in a past life. I was hired by a loose group of parents to teach math, chemistry and physics to their kids. Fantastic experience for both me and the kids. One thing that I learned........lots of people have neat information to teach your kid. Some are willing to share. It can be hard to shoulder the full load of schooling your child all by yourself....kids tend to value information learned from someone that is not a parent much differently....it is to your advantage (and your kids) to seek out these other people who can help.....
There must be a homeschoolers group somewhere around your location...even in the peoples republic of Mass.......
And for Gatto....may I suggest that you go straight for his magnum opus.....the magnificent "An Underground History of American Education" ......
an incredible read from a man who knows exactly what he is talking about.........
Good Luck!
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And it's on-line at
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm (http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm)
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Chapter One
The Way It Used To Be
Our official assumptions about the nature of modern childhood are dead wrong. Children allowed to take responsibility and given a serious part in the larger world are always superior to those merely permitted to play and be passive. At the age of twelve, Admiral Farragut got his first command. I was in fifth grade when I learned of this. Had Farragut gone to my school he would have been in seventh.
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The trick is going to be seeing how we can (a) do this in Massachusetts and (B) manage things in such a way that I get to keep my job.
If you rent, I would suggest forwarding your address to a maildrop, and moving across town. Use the mail drop as your "real" address.
Then just have him quietly drop out of school. DO NOT ASK PERMISSION or attempt to be a compliant homeschooler. Do not give any government agency, DMV, or voting precint your real address. Ever. Your mail drop is your address.
When he is old enough for college, find a friendlier jurisdiction, and get him a GED.