The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook

This is an excerpt (Chapter one) from "The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook" by Raymond and Dorothy Moore

**You Can Purchase The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook At Our Book Store**

Part I - Can Homeschooling Be Both Successful and Stress-free?

Chapter one: So This Is Homeschooling?

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BACKDROP: Given your warm, responsive attention to your children, your materials and methods may make a significant difference in your results. The best methods, as represented in this book, bring the best results. Be wary of methods used in home education which reflect the same bad practices which have proven to be unproductive in conventional schools, such as early formal pressures to read, many workb0oks, programs which require a lot of close work before videos or computers--especially during the first ten to twelve years, lack of adult encouragement, and an imbalance in work and service. You will find more cautions in chapter 3, but at this point we also suggest great caution in reading researchers. Be sure that their studies have been replicated and true in every way, and be careful of recommendations from omnibus books which appear to be authoritative on all programs and materials, but which have probed in a very shallow way on many of the programs they recommend.

All wrong ideas are hazardous, not only for burnout, but also for other maladies. We decided to pass several of them on as horrible examples, though more common than one would suppose. Yet homeschoolers--parents and children--may need to be reminded that there are far more burnouts among their "regular school" comrades than there are in home schools.

We also share this chapter with parents who send their children to conventional schools, and we applaud them as they supplement their youngsters' formal school lessons with creative activities. The child who is taught more or less at home has a great advantage over the youngster who is not taught there at all. And the record is quite clear that the one who is given more quality adult attention, support, and freedom to explore will be the one who will significantly excel. Note that word freedom. Children value it too.

We begin now with stories we have witnessed.

In an East Coast town a tousled mother grimly confronts her bored or pouting offspring. They are slouched at a messy kitchen table and several desks in a contrived schoolroom in a basement that evokes recollections of Fibber McGee's closet. Sandy McAnn gorges them on rote workbooks and primitive textbooks that formally choke off almost all freedom to think. She is alarmed if they ever interrupt their tedium with a creative question or suspicious if they pursue an idea of their own.

"It just might be," she grumbles to herself, "another trick to get away from their books!"

For five to six hours a day--or more--this misguided mother keeps her flock in academic, behavioral, and social straitjackets, condemned to perpetual isolation from their agemates. They are alreay indelibly marked as misfits in local society. Outside the back gate the neighbor kids can't make up their minds whether to sympathize or to taunt the captives inside.

So this is home education? Try another scene.

In a plush Southern California subdivision Nellie Strickland toils in the wee small hours of the night to keep everything shipshape so that she can devote the next day "sacrificially" to educating her children. After all, she gave up a perfectly good job to do this, didn't she? A perfectionist who can't stand a speck of dust anywhere, she applies the same sanctions to her flock. For the sake of her driving conscience they must master all those textbook facts and, in their dad's ominous words, "cream the SAT" (Scholastic Aptitude Test).

Yet for some time Joe Strickland has been worried that his wife was "overdoing," although he didn't realize how burned out she was until their family physician warned him that "Nellie must have a rest, she is a candidate for a stroke." Knowing the children well, we could see that they also needed a rest.

Is this home teaching? Really? Try one more.

Carmen (her friends call her "Carm") is a certified teacher, now "retired," who lives in the heart of America's corn belt. Her state is proud of its school system and fiercely defensive of any interference with its "educational integrity." Its message is "Homework, homework, and . . . more homework!" And Carmen has heard it well. Her youngsters are settled into grades three and six of Public School 111 where they have been schooled since age five, and where they ride the crest of the homework wave with state SATs ranging to twelve points above national norms.

But every day is a battle and a march: a battle to get her kids outof bed and grudgingly off to school, and a march at the end of the day, away from the playground and cookie jar and down to, guess what--yes, more homework! Little chance for any creative thought or activity, an almost total block on entrepreneurship, and not much opportunity to serve their community.

Carm's message is loud and clear, "Keep at those books until every problem and exercise is done, and don't skip a page!" Her eight-year-old Josie and eleven-year-old Curt get the message: Instead of reveling in the prospects of citizenship in their great grain bowl, to them their lives are just "Corn, corn, and more corn."

Sadly, these are the stark impressions too many parents give. We don't bother to characterize truant families who claim to home teach, but in fact do nothing. Television and exercise on the streets is their curriculum. They are counterfeits. Yet all these parents are losing the chance of a lifetime to enjoy and to build great kids. Their programs either degrade their young or collapse. They lose in behavior and creativity. And gossips thrive. Children rebel. Parents burn out. In earlier days, many of you listened to us, or others with a similar message, when we told you that children are better off at home with their parents than in a formal school environment, especially in their early years. So, in the same way, we hope you will be willing to listen to the voices of research and experience, ours and others, in finding the individualized methods your children need for the the very best results.

Even one home school failure, we confess, is one too many. And the methods of Homework Carm are no improvement on those of Sandy and Nell. But we know that sanctimonious citizens looking on with pristine, conventional wisdom don't help matters much. Even the best home teachers are not risk-free as long as parents and children are less than perfect, and neighbors, relatives, and school officials are nosy--and skeptical! A single black spot on the pedagogical wall or even one weed in the educational garden alarms them. never mind that otherwise the wall is immaculate and the garden glorious, while conventional education's own backyard is marred with educational litter and certain misuse of "special" education.

We have repeatedly heard educators and social workers set up such straw men as poor achievement, behavior, sociability, or even incest and other child abuse as possible problems in home education which they have "heard about." Yet when questioned for specific examples, they usually can't produce any. If such a situation indeed does exist, it more likely is under the guise of homeschooling but clearly is not homeschooling.

In some cases, of course, such stories about home schools may be gossip by those who are well-meaning but simply uninformed. Yet often they are a ruse, a crude prank designed to cover their own vested interests. When we question these wishers of doom, they somehow reason that although children, too young even to be in school, are cooped up several hours a day or later chained to excessive homework which cuts them off from real and creative work at home, they are less abused than youngsters who have to work with their parents in the family business or on the family farm.

In reality, putting children out of their home nests and into conventional schools before they are ready is like putting a free bird in a cage. Instead, we should study our children's developmental needs and discover when, where, and how to provide the very best education and socialization for them.

What Is the Best Education?

First of all, it is freely allowing and encouraging home teaching for those who have the inclination. Then, for all others, pursuing programs that are as "home-style" as possible, always seeking parental involvement. Teachers should follow more closely the parent model in (1) responding warmly to their students; (2) providing a consistent model of good values in a ratio where their influence would count heavily; (3) teaching only tasks for which the child is ready; and (4) encouraging children to explore their own interests and to work out their own imaginations instead of only adult-contrived myths and fairy tales. The closer public, private, and church schools get to this model--and many are trying these days--the brighter and better behaved their school children will be. It is, in fact, a healing balm for families and schools.

Chronological age is a poor indicator of readiness--that is a well-established fact. We need to begin making use of the many good indicators of readiness for specific learning tasks.

Because academic achievement in conventional school has been linked to parental involvement, many public and private school educators are waking up to the value of parents and are making efforts to involve them as helpers and even decision makers in their school systems. If your school officials are thinking along these lines, we hope you will encourage and cooperate with them for the sake of those children who do not have a homeschool choice. Remember, we do not say that all home teaching is perfect, but we do warn those parents who try to teach as they were taught in conventional schools: From fifty years of research and long experience with unnumbered home teachers, we are now certain that they will work harder, worry more, and accomplish less than if they used the simple, informal methods we present in this book. Parents involved in mass education can also learn much from homeschooling--the greatest educational method ever invented.

The true picture of the effective home teacher is more often a secure and happy mom. She and the children do straightening-up chores the first thing each day so that the home will provide an organized, clean environment for learning. She selects learning tasks for which each child is ready. She requires only enough daily practice or drill to allow her children to progress appropriately to mastery of the basic skills. Fun projects are used to integrate and reinforce basic skills. And much of the day is framed around the children's interests with work and service that build genuine golden-rule citizens and successful entrepreneurs.

After reading, writing, arithmetic, and spelling are mastered reasonably and without rushing, she lets her scholars explore largely on their own, making herself available to help find resources and occasionally to answer a how or a why. The older they get, as they move on through the grades and high school, the more they effectively operate on their own.

Family Formula

The procedures many families use for bringing out the best in their kids run something like this:

The parents let their children grow up as naturally as possible. This does not mean that there is no guidance, no discipline. On the contrary, for every family it means that they practice discipleship and build self-control--the kind of building which requires sound parental examples. They don't rush their children into formal studies--as most schools do.

These parents understand that children's brains, bodies, and emotions are as different as their fingerprints. So they study how children develop, how to meet their uniquely individual needs, and when they are ready to undertake additional taks. They consider manual work at least as important as study and play, depending of course on the age and maturity of their children. They delight to see their kids working out their own unique ideas.

Freedom and Flexibility

As adults, we demand our freedoms. Children should have some freedoms, too, within the framework of adult wisdom and love. This is not indulgence, not even close to it! The greatest freedom they can enjoy is a chance to grow naturally under the guidance of their parents who do not create academic or social straitjackets, but rather move with them in creative work, study, and play which make the most of their own inventive genius. And no one usually knows children's individual interests better than loving parents and teachers who care.

These practices are used by the best teachers in all schools and by parents who supplement the classroom by providing appropriate activity for their children after school. The danger, and remedy, may be anywhere and is illustrated by a true story about Tommy's experiences in two regular schools:

He was bright, active, and mature for a six-year-old. He was enrolled in a Christian school where there were only fifteen children in his first grade class. About a third of those children were judged as likely to have to repeat the grade. Tommy's teacher was the rigid type. Soon his mother noticed despondency and morbidity in Tommy. He often isolated himself in his room. He complained that his family liked his sister better than him--something they had never heard before. He noted that his favorite color was black. Finally he wished he were dead.

His alert parents quickly moved him to another school where the atmosphere was relaxed and open to activity. By the end of the year, he was at the head of his class. All his emotional problems had disappeared. Whether at home or at school, freedom and flexibility have a way with children as well as adults!