I have seen the future of schooling, and it is us.

Let me explain. My oldest daughter, who's 14, is supposed to be going into grade 9. Our province allows students who wish to take their courses online, through one of the school boards. So we decided to have her do Math and Science online, while I continue to teach her English, History, Social Studies, etc.

Last year she took French and Science, and she quite enjoyed it. This year she's doing grade 10 Science and grade 11 Math. She could have done grade 11 Math last year, but there was no room in the class. My younger daughter, who is 12, is ready for grade 11 Math next year, but I'm going to let her wait a year before she takes it online. But teaching them at home just let them whiz through most of Saxon Math's program, and we've loved it. They're so far ahead.

So even though I love homeschooling, I'm letting my daughter do some public school courses (although they still are online). Why? It's simple, really. If she has six grade 12 credits from an acredited school, then getting into university is no problem. We don't have to jump through hoops. And I've decided that this just sounds easier, and I want to make it easy for her.

Besides, I'm still teaching her the important stuff!

We calculated it out, and she'll be finished her grade 12 credits when she's 16. And then she has a year and a half to work full time, or write a novel, or travel, or do missions trips before university.

But as we've been watching this whole process unfold, it has occurred to me that this must be the future of schooling. Think about it: it's much easier to teach online. Sure, you still need a teacher to mark the papers, but there's no physical building. You don't need gym equipment. You don't need a library. You don't need to hire a janitor, or a secretary. It's a lot cheaper.

And then the kids aren't exposed to all the crap they get in high school. Why wouldn't more parents have their kids do it this way? And as governments face more budget cuts, you can bet they'll start to look at more online alternatives.

Of course there are Christian online options for high school, but here in Canada most of them aren't acredited, so we went with something that absolutely was. But it just makes so much more sense. Rebecca has two Science classes a week, of about an hour and a bit each. She submits one assignment a week. And they cover the entire course curriculum. In a regular classroom you'd do 400 minutes a week, instead of their 180. You just get rid of all the wasted time. So the kids have more time for their real life.

Why wouldn't this catch on? Personally, I'm still having fun teaching History and English. We're using Veritas Press' Omnibus curriculum with both she and her sister this year, although I've added some books for her to read. Over the course of the year both girls will read approximately 27 books. Next year she's doing Sonlight's Survey of British Literature, which also has 27 books. That's serious learning and serious reading. In public school English (including online), they read 4. How is that education?

I'm thrilled that I can find the best education that works for my girls, and for our family. We're taking a month long missions trip to Kenya this year, and we don't have to worry about missing school in the middle of it.

I really think more and more people are going to clue in to how much time is wasted in school, how poor an education it is, and how much better your life can be with real educational alternatives. So let's not shirk when people ask why we homeschool. Let's be proud! We, after all, are the future.

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I know a lot of parents are panicking about the California ruling that appears to outlaw homeschooling if the parents are not credited teachers.

Ace of Spades thinks that might be reading too much into the ruling, which he thinks is very narrow.

I don't know what I think, since I'm not a lawyer, but I hope he's right.

In the meantime, this comment by Sunniemom on his post seemed apt:

Are we supposed to believe that families must have the state's permission to direct and determine the education of their children (uhm.. does this count potty training?), or practice their religion, or limit television viewing and computer games, or eat Fruit Loops for breakfast (considering the state does have a vested interest in the health of its citizens)?

BTW- when were judges granted the power to invent laws? Can we get Judge Croskey to do something about menopause and cellulite?

Anyone want to take a ride down this slippery slope?

In the meantime, come visit my new mom blog at To Love, Honor and Vacuum!

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It shouldn't surprise anyone, but Christians seem to be unique when it comes to charitable giving. A blog post relates the impact of the lack of charity in nations with no Christian past. He says:

The New York Times ran a front-page story recently about an elderly man who starved to death in Japan, having been denied help by the welfare bureaucracy.  The man kept a diary as he died: heartbreaking to read.  The Japanese welfare bureaucracy seems to have been notably heartless, and not only in this case.  There are other, similar cases of starvation in the past year or two in Japan, according to the Times.

There is this brief throwaway in the lengthy Times story:

With no religious tradition of charity, Japan has few soup kitchens or other places for the indigent. Those that exist — run frequently by Christian missionaries from South Korea or Japan’s tiny Christian population — cater mostly to the homeless.

Say what you will about the "Abrahamic" religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - can there be any doubt that they have brought an ethic of charity into a world that would otherwise be a crueler place? 

One of the things I appreciate about homeschooling is the time that it does give you to help others. We spent several weeks at an African orphanage this year, and I'm teaching my girls that we need to be giving a lot of our time every week to help out some single mother families that we know. But in truth, a lot of people just don't act that way in our society.

I think homeschooling gives us a unique chance to volunteer with our kids and make it a habit of theirs. And that is how we change the world. So let's get to it!

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I have a lot of friends and family members who homeschool their kids. I have thought about the idea myself.  If a mom is considering homeschooling, what are the three most important things she needs to know?

Number one, before all doubt, is where the stash of chocolate is hidden. There are times you’re going to need it.

Number two, and this is what I really get at in my appendix for homeschoolers, is that as soon as you homeschool you can’t fake it. You can’t let discipline slide. You can’t let housework slide, at least not too much. You can’t let organization slide or you will totally lose it. I remember once I walked in to a friend’s home and found it absolutely immaculate. I felt like a 2-inch high slug. My home didn’t look that good the day I moved in! But as I was talking to my dear hubby about it, he remarked that both my friend and her husband worked full-time. The kids were with baby-sitters. They didn’t get home until 6:00. There simply wasn’t time to mess up the house! When you’re homeschooling, you have time. Believe me.

And if homeschooling is going to work, you need to achieve at least organized chaos. Chaotic chaos won’t cut it, because you’ll start biting you kids’ heads off. So you need to have a plan to get the house tidied (and that plan should not involve you doing all the work!). And you need to discipline so the kids respect you. Otherwise they will spend their entire day whining and falling out of chairs. Well, the falling out of chairs thing, I think, still happens no matter what. But you have to deal with the whining. The reason most homeschooling families stop schooling is not actually to do with academic problems. It’s to do with basic parenting issues: the kids won’t listen; the house is chaotic; I can’t stand the noise. So to be a good homeschooler, you have to be a good parent. That’s really all there is to it.

Number three, you need to know that it’s best for the kids. Really know it. Read about homeschooling a lot before you do it. Read about the public school system and all its failings. Pray tons about it. If you’re sure this is what you should be doing, you’re far more likely to stick it through and not second guess yourself.

Okay, can I add a fourth? I’ll be quick, I promise. Realize that you don’t have to recreate school. You just have to create an environment for learning. Some years we stop official school in March because they’ve completed their goals for the year. Some years we’ve gone through to July. We have them in different grade levels for different subjects. We’ve skipped whole grade levels if they get the concept. We don’t make them do endless worksheets. The measure of their learning is not the number of worksheets completed. It’s whether they know how to teach themselves at the end of the process. And regular school doesn’t teach that, so why should you copy regular school?

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So we rented RV last night on the recommendations of a friend. I was a little nervous for the first twenty minutes, because the kids are absolutely horrible and treat their parents abominably, and that's not something I really like the kids seeing. They also have a little bad language--including Lord's name stuff and other more minor words--but it's not too too bad.

Anyway, by the end of the movie I was singing a different tune.

The gist of the movie is that this very dysfunctional family that is not connecting in any meaningful way takes an RV trip across the country. Along the way they meet another family--that looks like a parody. They're happy, they're hokey, and they homeschool! They throw in things like "Do you want to hear how Jesus saved us from the tornado", to make us laugh at them.

But pretty soon you realize that this family is actually the happy and functional one, rather than the main family (sort of the same idea as the Flanders family on the Simpsons; you make fun of them, but deep down you know they're the ones who are together). And the best part is when the teenage kids realize that these homeschooled kids aren't idiots at all; the teenage boy is 15 1/2 and studying for college prep because he's advanced. The twelve year old girl has already skipped two grades. It's the "regular" kids who are dunces without realizing it.

By the end of the movie the "regular" kids are begging to be homeschooled and live full-time in an RV, and get away from the all the chaos of life.

It's really neat. Yes, they made them too hokey. But even in the midst of being hokey, they give us the model of a healthy family.

I think this movie is good, but not for really young kids. They wouldn't understand the disobedience of the kids at the beginning of the movie. Say a mature 9 and up. But follow your own instincts on that! I was just happy to see homeschoolers portrayed well.

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I know a lot of Canadian Christians support the Liberal party (though I often wonder why), but this story out of B.C., in the social conservative hubbub of White Rock near Vancouver, made me especially mad:

McMurtry wrote that parents who educate their children at home are “condemning their children to an impoverished, friendless, and segregated learning environment.” Home schooling parents, he said, “participate in what can be perceived as a form of child abuse.”

Jim McMurtry is the Liberal candidate. Any Canadians reading this? Let's send him packing.

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If anyone's interested in what's happening to the Canadian election, and the big kerfuffle about childcare, you can visit my other blog http://hipathome.blogspot.com. I've got quite a few posts up on it.

One thing I haven't written about is an interview I did with an NDP candidate yesterday for our Christian radio station. I asked why they were only interested in creating institutionalized day care centre spaces, and not helping anyone else, especially those of us who chose to stay at home with our kids.

He said just like they don't fund homeschooling, so they won't fund parents staying home. I thought it was kind of funny since he doesn't know that I homeschool, though almost all our listeners do. They probably got a chuckle out of that.

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