The Spontaneous, Organic, Informal Homeschool Co-op
Not all homeschool co-ops are large, public groups that meet in a church and charge an annual fee. In fact many, homeschool co-ops are small, private, informal groups of parents who get together to cooperate in teaching their children. You only need one or two other moms to form a great co-op that will serve your homeschool well.
I was a reluctant homeschooler. After exhausting all the educational alternatives either by trying them or otherwise evaluating and rejecting them, I finally gave into full-time homeschooling for my daughter's 2nd grade year. The first thing I did was to sign up for the Rio Rancho Homeschool Swim Team. That was the best thing I ever did for our homeschool for several reasons, not the least of which, was that we met other homeschooling families. At the end of the semester one of the moms invited a few
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We went to Popejoy Schooltime Series performances together. And we had lots of parties. We celebrated holidays together: exchanging Valentines and decorating cookies on Valentine's Day; we dressed up and went trick-or treating together on Halloween. Christmas included a gift exchange and a Christmas Concert (performed by our students). One year we had a pre-holiday Thankgiving Dinner to revival the best of Thanksgivings. We had Turkey and all the trimmings and the conversation was better than any Thanksgiving with the in-laws.
In our fifth year, we decided to compete as a robotics team in the First Lego League (FLL) Robotics Competition. This stretched our kids as they added a division of labor and learned to rely on their individual strengths as they became a team. They had to work through disagreements and solve problems together. They refined and perfected their presentation skills. They won the regional qualifying competition our first year and took home a project trophy from the state competition. We moms saw them grow so much this
The program Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is a successful community mentoring program that has been in existence for more than 100 years. In fact, this program started as two separate programs back in 1904. The two programs were the Big Brothers movement, which formed as the result of a court clerk’s concern for troubled boys he saw coming through the courts and the other program was the Catholic Big Sisters, which formed for the same reasons except for the girls. These two programs sought volunteers throughout their communities to help these troubled children who seemed to just need a positive adult influence in their lives to help them stay out of trouble. These two programs joined together in 1977 to form what is known know as the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Not only does this successful program extend throughout the 50 states but also operates in 12 other countries throughout the world.
Myths regarding the improper socialization of homeschoolers are as ever-present in modern society as they are false. Studies show that home-educated students are not only equal to publicly educated students when it comes to social skills, but are actually superior to their public schooled peers. While this may seem counter-intuitive, as public schooled students spend most days surrounded by dozens, or even hundreds, of other students, some suggest this is the very reason home-educated students hold the advantage in social fields. While public school students are segregated entirely based on grade, home school students interact with individuals of all ages, through partaking in various athletic activities with teams in their area, taking classes at co-op home-school centers, auditing classes at local colleges, and interacting with other social groups in their area. A study by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute in July of 2000, in which counselors were shown videotapes of homeschooled and public schooled children playing, supports the theory that homeschoolers possess superior social skills to public schoolers. Without knowing which children were from each category, the counselors noted that the homeschool students
Hegener, H. (1997). Homeschooling Online [Electronic Version]. Home Education Magazine, Novermber-December. Retrieved May 3, 2004 from http://www.home-ed-magazine.com/HEM/issue_index.html.
The screeching decibels of my alarm clock woke me at five-thirty that morning. Football practice the day before completely destroyed my body leaving my arms and legs almost unmovable. All my strength was used to stand that morning. My brother told me to stop complaining and get ready for school. He was older and always bossed me around. “I don’t want to go to school” I exclaimed! “What are you going to do, sit at home and stay dumb?” He said. That is not a bad idea I thought. I can teach myself. I imagined the possibility of being homeschooled. I knew homeschooling was not an option for me. My mother worked two jobs and was hardly home to check my homework. If it was an option, homeschooling would be my choice. Homeschooling is a better choice than a Public School education. Homeschooling offers
Contrary to public schools that start at the same time every day and continue with a rigid schedule, being homeschooled meant that I could study what I wanted, when I wanted. Not to say I had free rein to do whatever I wanted - my mom was always there making sure my brothers and I were working diligently. I would attempt all sorts of science experiments from my curriculum, choosing the ones I thought would be most interesting. We would compete to see who could make the strongest popsicle stick bridge using heavy books to test their
Rivero, Lisa. The Homeschooling Option: How to Decide When It's Right for Your Family. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.
Education is a basic form of learning in which the knowledge, skills and value of a group of people are transferred from one generation to the after generation through formal transmission such as, discussion, teaching, training, and research. Otherwise, education occasionally may include part of informal transmission for example story telling and non-academic organization. There are several ways and techniques on how this learning process are transferred from one generation into another such as by goes school or takes private course. Education is divided into stages such as preschool, primary school, secondary school, college proximate university and apprenticeship. In every stage a single person is expected to learn and gain skills also knowledge
Socialization is a never ending process that continues to change our perspectives to help us learn and adapt to a social reality. This lifelo.ng process can be split up into two different parts; primary socialization, the first socialization an individual undergoes in childhood, and secondary socialization, when an individual adapts to a specific group within society. Although one may believe that secondary socialization has more power over primary socialization since it is current and therefore more relevant, primary socialization has more authority considering that it lays down the foundation for all future socializations. Our initial values, attitudes, and actions are more important since we internalize them
Today, many parents are homeschooling their children. A U.S. Department of Education’s report shows that approximately 1.5 million children were being homeschooled in 2007 (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). This is almost 3 percent of all school age children (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). A private researcher, the National Home Education Research Institute, estimates 2.5 million children were being homeschooled in the 2007 – 2008 academic years (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). By either count, homeschooling is growing exponentially.
A parent-teacher conference is a short meeting or conference between the parents and teachers of students to discuss children’s progress at school and find solutions to academic or behavioral problems. Just by the definition that was stated above, one would believe that more parents would schedule an appointment with the teacher to see how their children are doing. Most do not; some parents have very good reasons while others not so much. Parent-teacher conferences have many benefits, parents get the teachers opinion, it is a face to face conferences allowing for no miscommunication that might have happened otherwise. The conference goal is to find a plan to help the student.
Many articles can attest to the subject that is, why education doesn 't just stop at school. Lily Claiborne, Annie Paul, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi are all people who have written articles about learning outside the classroom. Things like the internet, world experiences/ responsibilities, and your peers, teach you so much more that you ever would in a classroom. Articles like “Teaching Outside the Classroom” by Lily Claiborne, “Informal education: What students are learning outside the classroom” by Annie Paul, and “Education for the 21st Century” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, show great examples to why learning doesn 't stop at school. Going to school may be a primary form of education, but with the immense amount
This experience as a whole provided me with the opportunity to show my professional quality as an educator, a cooperative team member, and a lifelong learner. A few things that I continuously had to reflect on throughout this experience was my self-competence, my performance as well as the children’s, and of course my professional demeanor which directly impacted the effectiveness of my planning, teaching and...
In this paper I am going to critically discuss how parental involvement in children's education does make a positive difference to pupils' achievement. I will be using research in differing trustworthy media such as literature, journals and government documents to strengthen my discussion.
Going to school with other learners is probably the easiest way to educate a child in today's busy society. This option is perfectly convenient for families, especially since a growing number of households may need both parents to work to supplement their incomes or they may have other responsibilities that can get in the way of effective home-schooling.
Education gives a new and refined life to human beings. It enhances thinking and reasoning power, thereby producing good and responsible citizens which in turn contribute to the development of country. Amongst all the stages of education, right from play school to university education, the senior secondary stage of education is the most important, because it is the time when the foundation for future education is laid. It is a pivotal period for the multifaceted evolution of a child. Education provides the opportunity for growth and development. Secondary education acts as a link between primary education and university education. Anxiety plays an important role at secondary