For the Sake of the Call

For the Sake of the Call

Oct. 22, 2007 - With Freedom Comes Responsibility

I am fortunate to live in a state where homeschoolers are free from government intrustion. The only requirement of homeschoolers in my state is that we keep attendance records in the event that the superintendent might some day request them. When I was in Virginia, unless I filed under the religious exemption statute, I was required to submit an annual notice of intent to the Commonwealth as well as proof of progress (in Math & Language Arts) in the form of test scores, portfolio, or professional evaluation. While I never had any real issues with providing such documentation to the Commonwealth, I am enjoying the greater freedom the Indiana courts have upheld time after time. God gives children to parents not governments. Parents are directly accountable to God for what they do with them. I am a firm believer in individual rights and am jealous for the preservation of personal liberty and freedom. One of my favorite quotes is from Thomas Jefferson, "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither."

That being said, I must add, with freedom comes responsibility. This weekend, while I was hiking, I had opportunity to talk to a friend from church. She is a fourth grade teacher and respects my decision to homeschool. We usually enjoy talking about academics, but the topic of this last conversation was not as enjoyable. She shared with me about a student she had in her class this year. This 4th grader had been homeschooled until this fall. She entered the classroom a very shy girl, and was described by my friend as "backward." After evaluation, it was determined that her reading level was that of a 2nd grader, and she was at the bottom of the class academically: beneath the special-ed and ESL (English as a second language) kids in this average/below average, city, public school classroom. When my friend worked with her one-on-one, she found her to be very sweet, and receptive to instruction; eager to learn. It was obvious; however, that she had never been taught. The situation with this girl worsened when her mother repeatedly brought her to school late (30 minutes or so) causing distress for the girl as they would arrive during times of great commotion and change resulting in her sobbing from confusion. In addition, the girl would repeatedly miss 2-3 days of class at a time, be back for a couple of days and then not again for another day or so. The girl had a younger girl in the 2nd grade who was not as sweet. She repeatedly tested and challenged her teacher with comments of, "My mom doesn't do it that way," or "My mom doesn't make me read." When she was disciplined, she would cry and go home to tell her mother how mean they were to her at school. In the end, the mother decided to pull out both girls and homeschool them again. At which point, my friend sat down to challenge her with the facts of her daughters academic level and some of the concerns that she had. Although my friend attempted to show respect for the mother's right to homeschool, the mother became defensive and accusatory, claiming that they (anyone in the public school system, my friend included) hated homeschoolers. My friend asserted that her only desire was that all children learn and be taught which led to further resistance and defensiveness on the part of the homeschool mother. And so it ended with the mother pulling her girls out of the school.

My friend was quite disturbed by the entire situation. This isn't the first time that she has had students that were homeschooled formerly, and every time a homeschooled student has been put in her class, they have been behind academically. Having friends in church who homeschool their children, she knows not to judge the entire homeschooling movement by these students, but her fellow teachers and administrators do not have the same balancing positive experience with homeschoolers who are actually teaching their children. They only see those who have failed and whose children are behind the curve academically. Frankly, I've seen it myself. Just last week, I was reading a blog from someone who had quit homeschooling and placed her children in public school. After a year, the mother was raving about the positive experience and beaming over the academic progress that has occured, citing that when her child entered the school initially, she was behind, having been homeschooled. My immediate response was, "Why? Why was she behind?" Perhaps I am naive, but my expectation is that homeschoolers should be more advanced that their traditional classroom counterparts. Yes, homeschooling is not just about academics; my first priority is to raise my children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, but I can not neglect the basics of Reading, Writing, and Aritimetic in doing so. It is a disservice to our children if we do! It is my responsibility before the Lord to equip my child for life in this world, if for no other reason than that they can serve Him!

We as homeschoolers fight for the freedom to raise our children without government intrustion, but as we preserve those essential freedoms, we must exercise responsibility. Just because the state does not require us to show proof that our children have mastered their math facts, doesn't mean that we can neglect teaching them such. We ought to be self-regulated and hold ourselves to an even higher standard! Non-homeschoolers are not comfortable with the notion that there are "all these kids out there" who are not held accoutable by the state. The more cases like this one, the more uncomfortable people become, and sooner or later, some legislator is going to attempt to pass a bill which brings further regulation, and when these schoolteachers testify of their personal experience with "backwards" homeschoolers entering their classrooms, HSLDA will not be able to save us. Once again, our freedoms will be traded for order, and there will be no one to blame but ourselves because we abused the freedom that we cherished. May it never be!

"Whether then you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

I Corinthians 10:31

"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ you serve."

Colossians 3:23-24

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Oct. 22, 2007 - Yes but...

Posted by onecrazymom

I agree completely that with freedom comes responsibility and am saddened by those who neglect their children's education. I have seen it too. I do have another side to this as well though. If I were to put my kids into the PS at this point I know for a fact that in reading they would score higher than most but in math they would not because we have taken it very slow. I have not rushed through just to maintain the pace of the PS. I watched a couple little girls in the PS after school last year and they were several grade levels ahead of my own kiddos but could not do basic addition or subtraction in theirs heads (ex. 50 + 25!) I want my kids to have mastered addition and subtraction to the point of being able to do it in their heads and not be a slave to writing it down. Then we will move onto multiplication and division with the same goals. I am also seeking to lay the Biblical Foundations for math - this takes time and lots of thinking on my kids parts and would not be a part of PS tests to see how much they know.

I also know that my kids could run circles around the other kids with their knowledge of history but would maybe not be up to the other's level in geography because I have not required them to memorize the countries and states. We study them as we have a reason, for example: When reading Heidi we studied Switzerland in depth, when studying the Pilgrims we also studied Massachusetts, with our studies of Pinocchio and Columbus we studied Italy, and so on.
According to the statistics the average homeschooler is 4 grades above their PS counterparts by Jr. High and I do believe that will be the case by the time my kiddos are to that age as well. It seems that most homeschooled kids will really begin to take off by then as well.
What I am wondering - are these extreme cases the result of homeschooling moms who have tried to model their school after the PS? This is what my experience has been. I have a friend whose children are now high school and jr. high age. These children are very behind and not always very pleasant to be around. My friend says she has never been able to let go of the PS model and always placed boring bookwork above character training. And instead of giving them the tools for researching and studying things out on their own they filled out workbook after workbook. Instead of putting the Word of God at the center of everything they were doing she put studying the Bible as secondary to the other subjects and so it most often did not get done. What do you think? Has this been your experience as well?
Thanks for getting me thinking today! ( :

Edited by onecrazymom on Oct. 22, 2007 at 7:16 PM