Utterly Meaningless

Looks great! Thanks for all your effort you put into this, even if you don’t have poetry or any creativity left from your ps days : )

Good job. Looks like a great list of good things to read. Thanks for putting this together.

Thank you for putting this together,Daryl. I am looking forward to sitting with a glass of water to drink while I peruse the Carnival this week.

Tami

PS I only drink water and the occasional glass of cranberry juice. 🙂

Carnival of Homeschooling

This week’s Carnival of Homeschooling is up and running, courtesy of Daryl Cobranchi. So much to read, so little time…

Why do people think teenagers sleeping late is such a crisis. They are growing for &*(&S sakes. There is major physical development stuff going on including stuff with their brains. I’m not biological determinist but heck, the kind of growing they do is comparable to little babies who no one ever complains about sleeping too much.

Little typo. Beverly Hernandez’s post isn’t about making a geography kit, it’s a geology kit.

Handy WP tip: there’s some code to show how to separate the trackbacks from the comments over here.

Basically, swap out the contents of the comments.php file in your default theme for what was listed on that page. 🙂

I think I recently read a study that showed that teenagers naturally tend to be night owls, wanting to stay up and sleep in. I can’t remember where I saw it though. Certainly explains why it was so horrible that my high school started at 7:20 am!

I definately agree that the pasta is better than the veal. 😉
Great job Daryl.

After many days, weeks and months of trying to find an ‘itch that just could never seem to be scratched’ – I have found there is only one (although potentially major) ‘flaw’ in home schooling. I am, and always will be, a proponent of home education, so don’t get me wrong when I say there is a ‘flaw’. As my firstborn graduated, that ‘flaw’ began to show itself clearly and I wished I had recognized and fixed it much earlier. It is so well disguised and hidden from the naked eye under the guise of what is ‘best for my child’, that it has actually taken me over three years to find it and begin repairs to the damage the ‘flaw’ may have caused.

As with many home schooling families our choice to follow this path of education had many deciding factors: quality of education, amount and quality of family time, a sense of God’s calling to home educate, our children’s own choice and many other factors. While wading through the wide variety of curriculum choices, it seemed that the opportunities were endless and would meet their every need of education. The joy of learning was sparked and we were off and running! The students or myself would need the occasional ‘booster shot’ – but for the most part, we enjoyed the challenge and freedom that home schooling had to offer. Our family decided that THIS was the best choice. There is no regret about the choice to home school. It is the best thing for our children.

In hind-sight, it wasn’t until my eldest started his high school career that the ‘flaw’ actually began to take root. It may have already taken root in other parents of younger children, so it is not age specific. Although unnoticed and undetected – it is ever pushing in a direction.

The opportunities of groups to join, activities, field trips, hands-on unit studies and fun-learning-style seemed to dwindle as my children aged. Our scope became narrowed because of the number (or lack of number) of home schooling High-Schoolers in our area and the perceived pressure of High School State requirements. Surprise! THIS is NOT the ‘flaw’. This is reality, a challenge, an obstacle to be overcome. The’ flaw’ was not and is not in trying to homeschool a teenager. It is out of wanting what is best for the student (my child) that the deep seeded ‘flaw’ took an ugly turn.

With the onset of High School, the perceived pressure is on many of us, not just the student. Comparisons can surmount to unprecedented heights as the sand drains from the hour glass of our child’s time at home. The flaw IS NOT wanting to give our child every opportunity to succeed…it is wanting to give them every opportunity. Period. It is here, in me, the mother-teacher – trying to broaden too many horizons, trying to match the choices of public or private schools, trying to make sure they have more than I did at their age, trying to put them in places/situations where they can succeed. THIS, out of a parent’s own feelings of love, yet inadequacy, is the ‘flaw’.

Recognizing the ‘flaw’ and stopping it from taking over are two different things. When unchecked we run the risk of alienating our own children by forcing them into things that WE orchestrate ‘for their benefit.’ Truly, in some things, like all parents, may have to strongly guide and suggest and even arm-wrestle to have a positive outcome for them. However, when we are searching and trying to provide an array of endless opportunities, there is no benefit for them.

I don’t do their school work or even spoon feed it to them, but I have agonized over the socialization issue (you know what ‘they’ all say about home schoolers not being ‘social’), prom, high school sports, rural home schooling issues that limit their ‘opportunities.’ These have driven a tension into our home school environment that leaks out with every attempt to encourage my students to broaden their horizons.

The solution is simple yet a priceless jewel that I had wished I had found long ago. The solution is NOT giving my home schooled children endless opportunities. It is not in broadening their horizons by my own efforts. It is not living in home school friendly State. It is not trying to ‘fill the gaps’ that they might have had filled in public or private school. The solution lies in the RIGHT opportunities – not in endless ones.

Those RIGHT opportunities are orchestrated by a much more loving and wise Teacher than myself. In stead of searching for a way to ‘scratch the itch’ of having every opportunity, I am now learning to rest in knowing that the Author of my children’s very lives will bring the RIGHT opportunities to them – or – even cause THEM to seek the RIGHT opportunities. God will bring the right ones into their hearts. One right opportunity is far more valuable than a huge range of opportunities or experiences. Who am I to usurp what The Almighty has to bring to my children by searching endless opportunities, when He has just the right ones on the Way.

“Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” Col 2:8 NKJ

~ Donna L. Miller
Homeschooling parent of one homeschool graduate and two high schoolers at home.

Hey – guess what – I ment to enter that as my blog! HaHa…something goofed!

This is a great idea – just can’t figure out how to be involved….*smiles sheepishly*…anyone care to hold my hand and direct me….

Donna

I can’t figure out how to do your trackbacks but wanted to let you know that I have linked to the Carnival. You did a great job!

[…] CARNIVAL OF HOMESCHOOLING, WEEK 8 […]

“Spunky notes that just because you’re schooling at home doesn’t mean you’re a homeschooler. And in a Tinkers to Evers to Tinkers moment, Spunky links back to an essay that Tim Haas published here at HE&OS.”

Sounds similar to what I’ve said in the following entry:

Tim

[…] Week 8 hosted at HE&OS […]

[…] HE&OS » CARNIVAL OF HOMESCHOOLING, WEEK 8   Hosted this week by our old friend Daryl Cobranchi, who writes: "…kick back and grab a cuppa (or a beer) and enjoy. The theme, such as it is, is the 5 Ws and 1 H."*   *That’s Who, What, When Where, Why – and How.   […]

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