Wednesday, February 12, 2014

homeschooling

The homeschool topic showed up on one of the facebook groups I'm involved with. I honestly can't believe I haven't written about my experience, how it relates to my CF (cystic fibrosis) and why I will be homeschooling my son.

My husband was not homeschooled, he dropped out of high school, got a job at a local factory and now is welding for a living. He earns a good wage and is able to support us. I guess I could want that outcome for our son but I don't, the school system failed him, treated him horribly and he hated his high school experience. I KNOW I can do better for Colby and give him a far better education then Abe got.

I was homeschooled. My parents reasons were more along the religious line but there were other obvious ones as well, one being CF.
I know I got a good education, I had no problem going for my GED and passing it even though I didn't study for it.

I know I had better health being homeschooled. People send their sick kids to school all the time, we had the same issue with church but my parents were great with keeping us home if we felt even a little sick.

The social aspect:
I have 9 siblings, we went to church 3+ times a week, I was in 4-H, we participated in homeschool groups, gym night, I have my red belt in Tae Kwon Do (from age 14-19), had piano and violin lessons and took part in recitals.
For my son, I want to encourage his passions whether it be sports, dance, music, martial arts, guns/hunting... hopefully he'll be willing to try all of those at least once!

Why I'm going to homeschool my son:
I can give him the best chance at a great future this way. I will have no problem sending him to school as a teenager if he so chooses and wants the graduation experience and diploma, my youngest sister did this and is an honor student (I'm so proud of you Sara!)

These may be other people's reasons for homeschooling but they are not mine:
Religion - I'm not homeschooling to shelter them from "evil" and keep them isolated from "the world"
Evolution - I'm not homeschooling so I can teach them creation instead of evolution...
Tolerance - I'm not homeschooling because being gay is now tolerated and taught as a sexual orientation in the schools

Colby is only 4 months old so his educational activities include Baby Einstein and Your Baby Can Read youtube videos.

With the internet, homeschooling is so much easier then it was for my parents. All the information we need is right at our finger tips.

Before my son is school age I plan on completing Khan Academy, I already have 15% mastered.

2 comments:

Inhaling Hope said...

I started my college career in child development, but later decided to switch gears and get a different degree, but also got my elementary teaching credential. I do believe parents with the right dedication, education level, resources, and drive can successfully homeschool.

Where I do not think there is success is trying to teach infants from television based learning. All of the research points to movies like baby Einstein being more harmful (shortens attention span, does not teach depth perception, etc etc)than helpful. The baby Einstein corp is GREAT at marketing- I mean who doesn't want a mini-Einstein :)but that is all it is- marketing. You are much better off playing, reading, talking to baby. If you need to get something done is a great distraction, but not beneficial to the child. Check out this TED episode that explains why television in infants should not be considered beneficial :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoT7qH_uVNo

(or google TED media and children)

Sorry, things like Baby Einstein are my pet peeve because they trick so many parents into buying into their products by false advertising..

Inhaling Hope said...

I just read my response and realized something may have come off wrong since it is harder to express intent when typing. So I want to be perfectly clear that I do not doubt for one second that you read, talk and play with your baby. It is just those activities are much more beneficial for infants than the tv time. :)