We use outside sources, like DVD classes from a private school, homeschool orchestra and band, art classes, and so forth. There are an overwhelming number of options to choose from.
Expanding the horizon for home-school students
The home is no longer where all the action is in this new wave of home schooling. Although some instruction takes place at home, parents now choose from an increasing number of options that allow their children to interact with and learn alongside other home-schooled peers. The opportunities for socialization are numerous - swim lessons at the YMCA, staging a play with like-minded friends found over the Internet, or any of myriad academic courses offered at cooperative schools in the area.
"It all can be subcontracted," said Marcia Coakley, who teaches her 14-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter at home in Medway. "There's so many resources out there, it's almost hard to decide."
As the number of home-school students has risen, so too have the networking and group opportunities, which has helped pull the practice closer to the mainstream, according to Jack Klenk, director of the Office of Non-Public Education at the US Department of Education.
"It is so much more common than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago or even three years ago for people to know some one who is home-schooling," said Klenk, whose daughter home-schools one of her children. "Home schooling is much more of a community and social enterprise than the stereotype about home schooling held some years ago. There used to be a lot of talk about home-schoolers not being socialized."
Not so much anymore. Home-schoolers are competing in athletic leagues against each other and even gathering in spaces that look a lot like classrooms to participate in courses taught by certified teachers, he said.
"I call it the hybridization of education," Klenk said.
This quote is fun too.
"When we're out, people will talk to him and he'll say something about being home-schooled, and they always turn to me and say, 'What about socialization?' " according to Wayne-Shapiro. "And I nod and say, 'Yeah. I think that's one of the greatest advantages.' "
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Technorati tags: homeschooling, homeschool, home school, home education, parenting, children, education, Hybridization of Education
4 comments:
I know it's a Boston paper, but when you focus on Massachusetts like that you get a very skewed picture. Those people are oppressed. Imagine having to have the APPROVAL of the PUBLIC SCHOOL district to educate your own child!! You know that with two autistic kiddos, the state would tell me no way b/c they want that money for themselves...
Anyway, no way most parents, even Evangelical ones, are going to tell you for print that they pulled their children for religious reasons. Way to get their homeschool program scrutinized, you know.
Out that way, I'm sure they do use co-ops and the like more because they are more carefully "watched" and the homeschoolers want to be very careful. Safety in numbers kind of thing I guess.
I do know a lot of people who join co-ops and have their kids play in community-based sports, but most of the younger kids I see about do basics at home and then maybe t-ball and church camp with other kids. I live in Missouri though. I am very grateful for the freedoms we still have in our state.
And I nod and say, 'Yeah. I think that's one of the greatest advantages.' "
I gotta remember that line - thanks!
There was a fellow going on in an online forum about how the primary purpose of public schools was to socialize children outside the home.
At the time my oldest was outside fooling around in the snow with his best friend from across the street, his little brother was at his friend's house behind ours.
If our kids were more socialized we'd never see them.
>I know it's a Boston paper, but when you focus on Massachusetts like that you get a very skewed picture.
I agree that Massachusetts homeschool laws are terrible.
>primary purpose of public schools was to socialize
That is such a strange idea when you think about it. How can children "socialize" other children into an adult perspective?
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