As of April 2017, these are the locations our family has visited/lived in
As our "school year" winds down (as I've written about before, we still do lessons in the summer, but they are much more abbreviated and only a couple of days a week), I'm starting to get serious about our plans to travel around come September/October. I've decided to start putting together some record-keeping items that will hopefully add another layer to our adventures. I also figured that by recording our adventures, they can be a part of our annual "portfolio" that is required by our state by those who homeschool in order to prove....umm...I think to prove you actually did meaningful activities that the students learned from?
While I appreciate the effort of the aforementioned end-of-the-year reporting, it certainly wouldn't stop someone from creating an adequate ruse solely for reporting purposes. It is hard to assess learning and potential, which is one thing that John Holt had once touched upon, as has many great outspoken minds such as John Taylor Gatto. Look, people are either going to invest time and energy into assuring their children are well prepared for any choices they make upon reaching adulthood, or they are not. If a family does not place a high premium on college, then they are less likely to ensure their children have all of the base skills required to be good candidates for that possibility. I simply want my children to have the option of going if they choose, and to that end I try to prepare them by giving them a good foundation of skills.
Each family has to decide for themselves what they want their education to look like. I don't agree that The State (tm) should decide what our education should look like. Just because I don't personally agree with 100% interest-only-and-child-led radical unschooling, I still feel that families should have the choice to conduct their learning in whatever way works for them. Some families are not interested in preparing their children for college, and speaking as someone who now has a lifetime of student loan debt for a degree that I am not using,
I now realize that college is definitely not for everyone, and certainly is not the end-all-be-all destination for all young adults.
Life looks so much more different for us than I ever envisioned it would back when I was in college. I now no longer feel that education needs to be a preparation for college/work force, but as I mentioned above, at the same time, I **DO** want our children to have the option available to them to pursue paths that may require certain educational foundations. That's just our own personal motivations, but to be honest with you, it is far more important to me that the children learn at their own pace than it is to ensure that they have 6 hours a day, 5 days a week of desk work/busy work in order to prove they're "learning something".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyway, back to traveling...this little one-horse-town we have found ourselves in is starting to feel very boxy these days, and its usefulness to us is drawing to a close. We're very itchy and excited to get out of here and on to our next adventures. As such, I've decided to start compiling ways in which we can all keep track of the places we'll visit and what we'll do/see/learn there.
Here is a page I'm considering adding into a travel binder. I found it through google searching for "kids travel journal", and I believe the source is at the bottom of the page.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now that we are established into May, as I've mentioned before, I'm trying to wrap up our lessons. My goal is to have a good stopping point by the end of May. We'll take most of June "off", with the exception of our usual audiobooks in the car and occasional educational videos/games. We'll start back up again at a much slower pace (probably just about 20-45 mins. a day 2x/week). If we only manage one day a week, so be it, but I do want to get a jump on next year's math curriculum (in particular) so that we can have a bit more of a relaxed pace with it next year than we've had this year. If we can get a good 40 pages or more into the book, that will allow us to cut our weekly math work down by one page each of the three days that we work on math.
I also want to ensure that my son (in particular) keeps the skills fresh in his mind throughout the summer, and so doing a little math each week (which I do not consider to be overly burdensome) will help him out in many ways. If we can plan our math days to coincide with either rainy days, or around 11am (when the sun is in the "skin burning" position, so we try to stay indoors), then it should be a naturally perfect time for a little relaxation at the table with some math.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thoughts on being a homeschooling family who has a child in the public school system:
Look, I haven't made a secret of the fact that I'm not thrilled with the fact that our littlest one spends time in the public school each week. This was a compromise we made as a family, and one that we hare having some mixed feelings about. Having said that, I want to add a bit of...
perhaps "comfort" (??) to anyone having conflicting feelings about this possibility for their own family.
1. It is entirely possible that your local school will have very understanding and more professionally-minded staff. They may be more apt to accommodate your child(ren) in accordance with whatever has been agreed upon in their IEP.
2. It is entirely possible that your local school will have an adequate budget, so that your do not have over-worked and stressed-out staff who then pass along their attitudes to the students and parents.
3. It is entirely possible that your local school will not have poor management. This current school has an absentee superintendent, and a lackadaisical principal, which can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on your situation. I've been involved with schools where both the superintendent and the administrators were both jack@$$es who were far too involved in things that don't even pertain to them, causing unfair situations to crop up due to their overweening egos and insecurities. That doesn't fit in well with families who are hoping for a fair-and-accommodating unique and individual learning experience for your child.
4. It is entirely possible that your local school will allow you to be very flexible. Your state may have access laws that allow your child to take as few (or as many) classes and extra-curricular activities as you like, allowing you to tailor your exposure to the school to fit your family's needs. I will admit that this particular school has stated our son can attend any/all activities he chooses. Our daughter, however, has not exactly been afforded the same flexibility, mainly due to her individual teacher's misunderstanding of the term "IEP" as it concerns the INDIVIDUAL. My daughter's teacher still wants our daughter to look at cookie-cutter as the rest of the children, and despite the fact that we have a diagnosis of autism, and despite the fact that DD's IEP states that the teacher should be focusing on "quality, not quantity" of work, the teacher still insists that our daughter complete every.last.worksheet that her peers complete - to the point of sending any incomplete sheets home to be completed as "homework".
I simply refuse to spend more than 15 minutes a day with DD on "homework", so any that is not complete at that point gets tossed in the trash. She's in the first grade, and is autistic. I challenge this teacher to make a stink about the small handful of sheets we don't complete. (I'm pretty sure the teacher realizes that I would happily call an IEP meeting with the local SpEd folks to clarify what "quality, not quantity" means should she push the issue. I'm happy to go to the mat with her on it, and I think she's well aware that she doesn't want to push me.)
So, if you have a local school that is willing to work with you, it is entirely possible that you can have a positive experience having limited exposure to them (or even sending 1 child to school full time while another stays home, for example). Just because our particular situation has left us with a sour taste in our mouths, you notice we still have 1 child in school (until the end of this school term in June). We won't be returning to a public school again any time soon, but that is partly because we'll be traveling. Don't base your decision on our experiences, because we haven't had the best staff/administrators, which can make all the difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment