I agree. In addition, another problem is that so many of the people who choose
to home school their children are narrow minded, bigoted, poorly educated,
culturally illiterate people themselves, so how on earth are they going to
provide a decent education for their children?
At least the well-educated people who choose to do this, probably for very
different reasons from those of the people I cited above, are capable of
teaching their children well.
Alice
On Aug 29, 2015, at 11:37 AM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My response is that when the families with more education, more advantages,
more money, more influence, remove their children from public school
systems, then those systems receive less funding and less attention from
state governments. The public school systems are seen as schools for the
poor and uninfluential, and their children are neglected in terms of
resources and good teachers.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2015 10:57 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] A Fresh Look At Home Schooling
A very interesting article, Bob. Thanks.
Here is my first concern. Where are the children of poor working class
families in this wonderful world of home teaching? I have several friends
and neighbors who home schooled their children. Some did this from early
grades through high school. Some did an, "In and Out"
thing, where they sent their children to public school for a year and then
home schooled them for a time, sending them back again.
Regardless of the differing approaches, those families who did home
schooling had children completing their education at a higher level than
their peers in standard public schools, or in private religious schools.
So if this is the difference around the nation, how do we bring the
advantages of home schooling into the lives of the children who need it the
most? If we are going to break down prejudice and discrimination,
enlightening our nation's children has to be high on the list of things to
do.
Anyway, we need to block all the eager profiteers pushing into the field of
education, and we need to move toward elevating our children's futures to
the top of our survival list.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/29/15, Bob Hachey <bhachey@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi all,one size does not fit all.
Here is a most thought-provoking article about home schooling. No,
these folks aren't doing it for religious reasons or because they
don't believe that humans are helping to cause climate change. In
fact, they appear to be rather progressive. They're doing it because
they believe our education system, (public and private) is badly
broken. Their most common complaints are too much teaching to the test and
methods.
Bob Hachey
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2015/08/25/homeschooling-in
-bosto
n/
Our Kids Don't Belong in School
More and more of Boston's smartest families are opting out of the
education system to homeschool their children. Is this the new model
for creating elite
kids?
By
Bridget Samburg|
Boston Magazine|
September 2015
Claire Dickson was homeschooled her entire life, and is entering
Harvard as a freshman this fall. / Photograph by Ken Richardson
When Milva McDonald sent her oldest daughter to Newton public school
kindergarten in 1990, she was disturbed by what she saw. The kids were
being tracked,
even at that young age. And then there were the endless hours the
small children spent sitting at their desks. It felt unnatural. In the
real world, you
wouldn't be stuck in a room with people all the same ages with one
person directing them, she thought.
During that single year her daughter was in the school system,
McDonald saw enough to convince her that she could do better on her
own. That would be no
small feat: Newton's public schools have long been rated as among the
best in the state. (In our Greater Boston rankings this year, they're
10th.) But
she'd always worked part time-she's now an online editor-and she was
fortunate that she could maintain a flexible schedule. So she yanked
her daughter
out of school, and over the next two decades homeschooled all four of
her children-including her youngest, Abigail Dickson, who's now 16.
McDonald's first homeschool rule was to throw out the book and let her
children guide their learning, at their own pace. In lieu of a
curriculum or published
guides, McDonald improvised, taking advantage of the homeschooling
village that had sprouted up around her. One mother ran a theater
group, a dad ran a
math group, and McDonald oversaw a creative-writing club. Their
children took supplementary classes at the Harvard Extension School
and Bunker Hill Community
College. "I wanted them to be in charge of their own education and
decide what they were interested in, and not have someone else telling
them what to
do and what they were good at," she says.
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And by any measure, it's working. McDonald's daughter Claire-the third
of her four children to be homeschooled-will enter Harvard College as
a freshman
this fall.
Back in the '90s, McDonald was considered a homeschooling pioneer; now
she's joined by a growing movement of parents who are abstaining from
traditional
schooling, not on religious grounds but because of another strong belief:
that they can educate their kids better than the system can. Though
far from
mainstream (an estimated 2.2 million students are home-educated in the
U.S.), secular homeschooling is trending up. Last year, 277 children
were homeschooled
in Boston, more than double the total from 2004; in Cambridge the
number was 46. (In surrounding towns, the numbers are growing, too:
During the
2013-2014
school year, Arlington had 55; Somerville, 36; Winthrop, 5; Brookline,
11; Natick, 36; Newton, 33; and Watertown, 24.)
There's enough momentum that major cultural institutions-from the
Franklin Park Zoo and the New England Aquarium to the Museum of Fine
Arts and MIT's Edgerton
Center-now regularly offer classes for homeschoolers. Tellingly, even
public school systems are becoming more accommodating. In Cambridge,
for example,
homeschoolers have the option to attend individual classes in the
district's schools. Some take math or science classes and participate
in sports-last
year, one homeschooler took music and piano lessons. Carolyn Turk,
deputy superintendent for teaching and learning at Cambridge Public
Schools, says she's
seeing more of this "hybrid" approach than in the past. "In Cambridge
we look at homeschooling as a choice," she says. "Cambridge is a city
of choice."
homeschooling in boston
Milva McDonald sits with her two younger daughters, Claire and
Abigail. / Photograph by Ken Richardson
The Boston Public Schools, meanwhile, have begun to view homeschooling
as one of the many laboratories in which it can explore new teaching
"Thesecompletely."
people are looking to do instructive, nontraditional education. It's
all different types of people from all incomes," says Freddie Fuentes,
the executive
director of educational options for Boston Public Schools. Fuentes,
who personally helps parents with academic plans, finds that many
homeschooling parents
want "very deep, expeditionary learning" for their children. "A lot of
them are looking at innovative ways of learning," he says. "We as a
school system
need to think about innovation and the cutting edge."
In other words, homeschooling is arriving here in a very Boston-like way:
It's aspirational, intellectual, entrepreneurial, and innovative. But
is it right
for my son?
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Growing up in New England, going to public schools, I always felt that
I could chart my own path within the traditional system. In high
school, I was empowered
enough to propose other courses in lieu of chemistry and electives. I
designed my own college major as well-spending hours convincing
administrators to
approve alternatives for academic requirements.
I hoped that when my son's time came around, he would be able to shape
his education as I once did. But when he turned three, I started
wondering whether
such unconventionality would be frowned upon in today's high-pressure,
test-focused system. I'd heard plenty of stories of late-night
tutoring sessions
with third graders, and children who were physically ill from the
stresses of school. Acquaintances from Wellesley to Boston told me
about homework in
first grade. Lots of it. Lengthy projects that consumed hours of time,
often started and completed by the parents. Kids caving under pressure
to perform
at specific levels in certain grades.
That was certainly true for Tracy Ventola, whose three-year-old fell
apart every afternoon once she got home from preschool. "She'd
unravel," Ventola,
41, tells me from her Arlington home. "Crying, hitting, yelling. It
was her relief. She just had to let it out." Ventola, who had taught
private school
in Rhode Island, says that she and her husband struggled to unpack the
cause of her daughter's behavior. Maybe the preschool was too focused
on teaching
numbers and letters? Hoping that another year and a change in models
would help, they moved her to a Waldorf school, known for its
imaginative, play-based
approach to early education. No such luck.
As before, Ventola found herself spending hours helping her daughter
decompress from her school day. "School in general wasn't a good fit
for her. Even
the kinder, gentler Waldorf approach was still too much stimulation
for my sensitive child," says Ventola, who now writes the
homeschooling blog offkltr.com.
With about 20 other youngsters and a whole lot of social expectations
and pressures, she says, "She was overloaded emotionally, socially,
and spiritually..
School was running our lives."
Discouraged by stories like this, I sought a child-led, open
environment where my son could learn by doing. But when I applied
through the Cambridge public
school lottery to a Montessori school and came up empty, I began to
think about homeschooling more seriously. I don't have a degree in
education and lack
teaching experience, save for one summer spent as a tennis instructor,
and a winter giving ski lessons. But I'm pretty good at math. And
Massachusetts
makes it relatively easy to opt out: Families submit an application
and curriculum plan to their districts-most towns expect annual plans.
Was it ridiculous
to consider taking on the responsibility of teaching my son?
Not knowing where to turn, I decided to seek out people like
me-secular, educated, urbane-who'd chosen to take their kids'
educations into their own hands.
That's how I found myself at the Cambridge Public Library on a cold,
rainy day last March to learn about homeschooling from the Advocates
for Home Education
in Massachusetts (AHEM). I entered sheepishly at first, as if I were
violating some basic, strongly held American tenet. In theory, I
wanted my son to
be a part of the public schools. I trust in the community, the great
democratic ambition to educate all of our country's children in a
supportive, and
free, learning environment.
But when you enter homeschooling territory, the first thing you'll
notice is how clearly, boldly, and unabashedly parents proclaim that
traditional schooling
is broken. "Here it is, 2015, and we don't have recess in a lot of
public schools, and we're keeping them in schools longer every day,"
says Patrick Farenga,
a homeschooling advocate and president of HoltGWS, the company founded
by John Holt, the father of homeschooling. "In a time that we
customize jeans, we
can't imagine doing this with education?" he continues. "We've decided
that in third grade a child should read, but school is not based on
any biological
evidence for how children learn."
Some of the system's harshest critics are trained teachers who'd quit
their academic gigs, often out of frustration, to educate their brood.
Megan McGrory
Massaro left a seven-year stint as a middle school English teacher in
Massachusetts schools, both public and private, to stay home when her
first daughter
was born. "You can't allow your child to explore their own interests
in the classroom.. It's a broken system," says the Pembroke resident.
"We've lost
sight of the goal here. Freedom and liberty and happiness? I feel like
we're sucking that out of our children."
Similarly, after six years spent teaching second grade in Quincy
Public Schools, Deanna Skow says, "I felt my love for teaching dying.
I felt a little
soul-crushed by all of the testing. I watched children lose interest
in learning." She and her husband, a philosophy professor at MIT,
opted to skip traditional
school altogether for their two children, ages two and five.
Ironically, Skow initially set her home up like a preschool, with
lessons to learn numbers
and letters. "I got so much pushback from him," she says of her older son.
She's since adjusted her style. "When I did relax, I could see him
take the
reins," she recalls. "It's hard for me to turn off the teacher
college-ready?
She then states the constant refrain among homeschoolers: "I want my
children's education to be meaningful and engaging and for them to
have the gift of
time to study and explore their true passions.. This is not the type
of learning environment that is offered in public schools."
I reached out to Barbara Madeloni, president of the Massachusetts
Teachers Association, to see what she thinks of these critiques, but
she was unavailable
to comment for this story. However, Richard Stutman, president of the
Boston Teachers Union, sniffed, "It's a subject that never comes up in
my world."
When asked what he thinks of parents taking their children out of
public schools because they think the system isn't working, Stutman
says, "My opinion
is that there is a social cost to homeschooling. I have no comment or
opinion as to whether parents who homeschool are qualified."
Qualifications are one thing, it's true. And educating children at
home requires tremendous time and resources as well. In fact, many
homeschooling families
make major sacrifices to educate their kids. One partner may give up a
full-time job to be with the children-the loss of income can mean
going without
vacation, or selling one of the cars. Regardless, they firmly believe
they're making an invaluable impact on their children's lives.
And that's what makes me panic a little. How could anyone think that
she or he alone has what it takes to get a child from toddler to
visits.
Robert Holzbach, 43, has complete confidence that he can handle the
workload required to educate his four daughters. "I thought whatever a
teacher can
do with 30 kids, I can do with four," he says. Holzbach had been
working 80-hour weeks as a financial adviser before his oldest child
was born. Even before
his wife, a full-time technical architect for Partners HealthCare, got
pregnant, they began discussing the possibility of homeschooling their
children.
Holzbach now teaches his 12- and 11-year-olds; he plans to take the
seven- and five-year-olds out of school once they complete second
grade. "What terrifies
me about school is taking a test, even if you get an A-plus, and
forgetting it the next day," he says in his Winthrop home. "There's no
incentive to learn
long-term."
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While talking to me, Holzbach pulls out a single sheet of paper; it's
a sample task list from a recent day of homeschooling: two hours of
math, a one-hour
history lecture, 40 minutes discussing the Brooklyn Bridge, time spent
on Portuguese, 90 minutes of history reading. His daughters can choose
when to do
what, but it all has to get done by the end of the day. And they also
must practice typing. I like how seriously he takes the individual
subjects, and
I like the flexibility.
Holzbach has always emphasized reading, too, and fortunately, his
older daughters are passionate about books. This year, they read Moon
Over Manifest,
by Clare Vanderpool; The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt; and E. L.
Konigsburg's Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me,
Elizabeth, to name
a few. They could happily read all day long, and some days they do. If
the family seems to need a break from one another, Holzbach will
declare it a reading
day and the girls may retreat to their rooms upstairs or to the brown
leather couches in the living room.
homeschooling in boston
Richard Holzbach homeschools his two older daughters. / Photograph by
Ken Richardson
For other subjects, Holzbach relies on a variety of materials. He uses
the well-known Saxon Math books, published by Boston-based Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt,
which offers an entire line of textbooks for homeschoolers. He also
uses Khan Academy, a free learning website that has received more than
$10 million
from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Holzbach regularly
introduces subjects through the Great Courses-multipart lectures,
available for purchase,
that cover history, literature, science, music, philosophy, and more.
He also has a wealth of regional resources catered to the
homeschooling trend. Public libraries and major museums and
organizations-from the Museum of
Fine Arts to Mass Audubon-offer day programs. Alternative learning
centers that provide daylong classes, semester programs, and communal
learning programs
have exploded. There are more than a dozen around Massachusetts,
including Parts and Crafts, in Somerville; Trellis Community Learning,
in Pembroke; and
the Macomber Center, in Framingham.
And aided by the Internet, homeschooling parents are finding it easier
to build a village. On a given week, for example, Kerry McDonald says
she lets her
four children-ages eight, six, four, and 20 months-guide what they
talk about and explore, using homeschooling family play dates found
via Yahoo boards
and other online forums to supplement the learning. McDonald tells me
about meet-up offerings, including math classes, soccer, and museum
