Good morning. It will not be a good weekend weatherwise. We have a reprieve between the worst of the weather, however. The deer were way up close to the house when I peeked out this morning. They can eat the grass, which is what they were doing. Just stay away from the cedar! 🙂
Good morning on another beautiful spring day here. And the upcoming week is looking like spring as well with sun and rain and snow and cloudy and warm and cool.
Crocuses are saying goodbye as the daffodils and mountain lilies have taken their turn. The young folk got the four fruit trees planted so those are able to soak up the spring weather. This is the last day of hunter safety for daughter. She did not want to take it when younger but was ready this time around. She has no plans to hunt but really enjoys shooting the bow so thinks shooting a gun might be fun as well. Just not into killing.
I love those days, nj, the air is so fresh and clean. It makes me think of Ireland and leprechauns, though I have never been to Ireland or seen a leprechaun.
It’s cloudy today, but started out in the 60s. I am sneezing. Pollen count was tremendously high yesterday, around 6,500, Wow! No wonder I am sneezing with my nose starting to run. I better go catch it.
Son called last night to talk a bit about his promotion from Assistant to Associate Professor. He told both of us thank you for supporting him and helping him along the way. It was very nice to hear his sincere appreciation as we congratulated him.
I reminded Art of when Son went to the orthodontist for a long, expensive two phase treatment program, how the orthodontist required all his patients to write thank you notes to their parents at the end of treatment. I wish all doctors and other professionals required the young to not take things for granted and to give gratitude.
A Tale of Two Sons. Read about one above on post 5. The other called home last night to request his dad to get up at four thirty, go pick up son, take him to work forty miles further down the road. Nope, sorry, I have plans to take sister to hunter safety. Husband has taken son only to his court appts, though he has given him a ride when his various vehicles broke. No indication of son offering to pay for fuel or anything.
When he had ortho done, he did not cooperate with the dentist at all and stopped treatment halfway through.
One of the ways we tried to help son was allowing consequences. If you refuse to ride the bus, you can walk or ride your bike the five miles. Trying to teach responsibility and forethought. But, the it takes a village folk stepped up and gave him rides, he never learned. And so he is nearing twenty four, deeply in debt, not able to keep a relationship going, living in a dumpy trailer with another alcoholic, no car as he breaks them constantly, no license due to repeated offenses, working a job forty miles from his home, wondering where all those people are who used to give him rides.
In talking with W, I did emphasize how good his Scout leaders had been in teaching responsibility and how to strive to make goals happen. Neither Art or I had the skills to do that. What I did do was to put plenty of time and effort into finding who I thought would be the best influences for his life. I was able to do that as a homeschooling mom of only one who was isolated from peers except for such structured activities like 4-H, Scouts, church, and the Atlanta wide Christian homeschooling band, The Joyful Noise.
I think we each (you and I) did the best we could given our unique situations which were about as polar opposite as you could get such as farm/city, a multitude of children/one, unavailable structured activities/available activities, difficult siblings/no siblings, no control over who came into lives(village people)/control over who came into our lives, etc. So it’s like apples and oranges.
It was enlightening to listen to Hillbilly Eligy for this very reason, a comparison of what the usual outcome was for others in a similar situation to Vance. I mean, talk about an unstable life. If I understood correctly (listening means no chance to look back at the words), he did not take on the last name Vance (a family name) until he and Usha we’d and both changed last names to Vance. He was never sure who to even call his father.
Janice, I suspect the reason is more basic than that. Our first four have all gone on to productive lives, at least three are solid believers. Then we got the eleven. The oldest eight were all eight or older when we got them so character was already developed. They have all reverted to their early experience. The ninth has severe mental and emotional challenges. The older eight have some of those as well. We still have the last two at home and at least one will probably remain so. I do think the younger two are believers. They arrived aged two and four so they could still revert.
Our purpose was to expose them to God and to a different life, and help them to reach eighteen without a baby or drug or alcohol addiction. One arrived addicted and is no more, though he may well have been a believer and we will meet later. Five had used alcohol extensively prior to arrival so likely to become addicted if they slipped off, which they did. So, all in all, we are satisfied with our efforts, leaving the results to God.
That’s great, Mumsee, about the ones who are productive and believers. And you did the best you could to salvage the remnants of what had already been inflicted on the others. So glad you got to have some at the younger age where you could have greater influence. Those have a good chance at productive lives except the one who will stay on, but that can be a nice life at home. I still have trouble keeping up with all who have gone through the Nest. I would not have had more than a bird brain to keep up with all y’all have done. I am a simpleton who is easily entertained 🙂 I get confused with too many moving pieces.
Janice, I looked back to your post to see what I had missed. A lot of people mistake farm life for isolated. The children did:
4H, symphonies, square dancing (including travel to different dances), karate, camping, backpacking, orchestra, hay baling, missions trip overseas, carpentry, car detailing, national parks, etc. no shortage of character building opportunity! We had tried Scouts but it had taken a huge turn since my dad’s Eagle days. Leaders were still great but parents….
Y’all did many things, Mumsee, that we did not get to do. That was why Scouting was so important for our son. It meant monthly he got to go on a fun supervised trip doing things we could not afford financially or time wise.
I did think being on the farm was more isolating because of the daily demands of farm chores. We did have a season of the demand of traveling very frequently to care for my mother who was in a wheelchair in her home, an hour or two, depending on traffic, from our home. Those were terribly isolating days for us. Son saw no children during those hard times and I worried what the isolation might do, but saw no way around it if I wanted to keep homeschooling him as I did. That was before he was involved in all the programs.
It is sad to see them not break the pattern, mumsee. We have a young friend who will post once in a while in such a way as to say they wish they had stayed more with those who helped them. Yet, they don’t go to them even when invited. You can lead a horse to water, but….
Janice, the plane crash is almost four hours away from us. It is much closer to two of our daughters, but still quite aways away. I am sorry for the ones in the plane. I hope no one was home. I haven’t heard. So sad for all!
Well, I always wanted a horse. And a dog. My dad, who was raised on a farm, said no place for either of those in a city 🙂 (though we did have stables not far from us)
The earthquake in Thailand sounds horrific, a 7.7 which doesn’t sound like that much in some ways but is a very big quake. And with older (historic) buildings, cities not built for earthquake standards.
😦
I loved being in the Girl Scouts with camping, mountain cabin stays during snow weather, horseback riding, beach trips to the island offshore and other rustic coastline spots during the summer. My mom and a couple other mothers got the original “brownie” troop started when we were all in elementary school and it took off from there, helped keep us grounded along with stable homes.
As for coming to true faith, those questions remain in God’s purview and control.
Our son was mostly with young people who attended church except for in two of his groups. One was, surprisingly, the Scouts which met in a Methodist Church building. Only a few Scouts were from families active in church. Most of those Scout families were much more affluent than we were and they were too active for church attendance. The other group was an alternative homeschooling group that was not not based on religion unlike the Christian homeschooling groups. Some of the Scouts were in that alternative homeschool group so overlap there. He took classes with those students, but we were never close with the moms or the children. Most were very liberal, but the group offered some really good classes. Mostly just saying that son was with a great mix of young people in which to get socialized.
Mumsee, I can’t remember. Did you homeschool your first brood of young ones?
Janice, we don’t live on a farm so much as a farmlette. We have had livestock and gardens. That’s it. Mike took the older ones to all their activities, I kept track of the youngest four.
DJ, I enjoyed Scouts very much as did my mom. And my brothers and dad did Boy Scouts. Lots of good times. I expected that to continue but took daughter out when they started going more peculiar, and the boys, who really enjoyed their first years when the Marines ran it, stopped going when things changed there. Disappointing but things change.
There was no “home schooling” option available then — not particularly needed. Now the public schools are deeply flawed, not only in academics (many public school students are falling behind) but in the social views that have seeped into the curriculum.
I support charter schools as an option (not every family has the financial or time-availability means to either home school or send their children to private schools), but here in LA charter schools are strongly opposed by the very powerful teachers’ union.
It’s sad. Perhaps the pendulum will swing back a bit culturally, God willing, seems like it’s gone as far as it can go.
We really could not afford to homeschool, but God made it possible by giving me a way to stretch pennies, like buying used curriculum and not being under an umbrella plan (groups that require fees to join and get all their benefits). We were very independent. I could not have afforded to homeschool more than one child. Above all, I give God credit for how He brought all the pieces together for our son’s education and resulting career. Son recognizes that, too. He is thankful to God, and attended church for all his college years and now that is a requirement of his position as a Christian educator.
Janice, yes, we homeschooled the first four as well.
One of the cool things about homeschooling is that anybody can do it regardless of finances. A local library, the internet, or even a few good books is sufficient.
Good morning, all, on this beautiful nearly the end of March morning. Sun is shining, people are eating breakfast, husband is off driving son to work so he can explain to him again, son’s need to step up and do what he can to run his life rather than being run by it. And, by the way, this is the son who spent the most time in public school. Probably six to eight years, depending on how much he had prior to arriving here at age ten. Impulse control is his challenge.
good time at a birthday party for youngest granddaughter yesterday. Lots of family and neighbors and kids
I prayed before I went wondering if I was supposed to speak to anyone. Ended up talking to exs wife and mentioned some retirement funds that I had been told there was nothing. She told me exactly what they were getting
I was excited about watching the online church service. The missions team had just gotten back from a trip to the Horn of Africa and I expected a report. Well, the pastor gave some news of the trip but then said the rest of what would be said would be sensitive information so they’d be going offline. Oh, well. Guess I will never know. Sad.
When we were homeschooling our older children, we were part of a group, and there were several families close to mine’s ages.
Now, we only knew one other family that homeschooling, but they chose to send there kids to public school.(much to their detriment). Trey has made friends with a different homeschooling family which he met through youth group. Their mom volunteers at the library, so gets to visit with them sometimes on Tuesday. They live way out on a ranch.
Even if Trey did not do well academically, which he does, not being inundated with all the public school crap would still be worth it.
Homeschool groups: we did participate in that with the first four. Lots of like minded parents. But here, we stayed away from it more for various reasons.
Besides having a good group of like-munded people to hang with, I saw the umbrella groups as advantageous in prepping for college to make sure all the credits were earned needed for proper graduation and acceptance to college. That part was difficult for me to do on my own, but I got it all figured out and hoped I got it right.
What Math curriculum is Trey using? We started out with the colorful math books but landed on the Saxon program because it was less distracting. It was just plain black and white math without bells and whistles.
And what math did you do, Mumsee? Probably a variety to meet the needs of all those learning styles?
I have four siblings with children, three of whom exclusively homeschooled their children, one who did so until his church (where my brother is pastor) started a private school. My grandchildren are being homeschooled. I (and all my siblings) did high school by correspondence, in an era where anything other than “going” to school was unknown (graduating a year and a half early, in 1983).
My church has homeschooling families, and our church has members who are in administrative roles (and others in teaching positions) both at a charter school and a private school, so members have students in both of those as well. I have no idea whether we have any members whose children are enrolled in “regular” public schools, but my hunch is we don’t.
Nightingale and Chickadee went to public school through eighth and fifth grades respectively and then we homeschooled for the rest. Nightingale got her GED, and scored so highly that she was awarded a high school diploma (or certificate, I forget which). (The way it was worded seemed to be that there were different levels of passing the GED, with the high school diploma being the highest. I don’t know what the others would have gotten.)
Chickadee never got around to taking the test, although she was studying for it.
I homeschooled my children for one year for all and two years for one. They did public school in two different districts and a Christian school for a few years. I have found good and bad in all the ways of schooling. The very worst experience, ironically, was the Christian school. Like with many things, I learned a whole lot through it.
I did not realize or perhaps had forgotten that we have so many here who did do homeschool at some point.
I finally got in a nice walk this afternoon and saw many trees in bloom. The dogwoods were especially lovely. I went about half as far as before. I did feel tired and sweated a little. There was a Port-o-Potty out on the street, and I thought, how nice for all of us walkers. Actually, it could be used to take deposits from dogs.
My friend picked up my BP med from Kroger and brought it by along with a few other things. About 45 minutes after she left, she called and said she was still on my street. She’d noticed a sick baby raccoon and tried to find help through a wildlife agency. She said she’d call later and let me know what happened.
We experienced many school choices. Public, charter, private Christian schools and homeschooling. Oldest two ended up graduating from public school. Third child graduated from private school while living in a Christian home for girls her senior year. Youngest graduated from a private Christian school hybrid of class time and homeschooling. The most difficult school experience was the private Christian school mean girls. But we made it through by His grace and mercy and I felt liberated to not have to deal with administration and teachers once my last graduated!
We debated homeschooling as we could no longer afford the fees at the private Christian school our children attended. We talked with the principal and he gave us a subsidy to keep our children in school as the province gave a certain dollar amount per student in the private school (not as much as for a student in public school). We were soon able to pay the full fees and were so thankful for this school. The teachers were incredible and looked on their teaching as a mission field as well as a place for learning. They truly cared for the students and it showed.
Boy does math in his head, too, and shows quite an aptitude for math. Last year, he would have points knocked off his math papers for not showing his work or for doing it in a different method, although his methods gave him correct answers. I haven’t heard if any of that is an issue with his math teacher this year.
BTW, I went to private school for kindergarten and part of first grade, but my mom said my first-grade teacher didn’t like me (and my one memory of her as my teacher tends to confirm that), and so they removed me and enrolled me in the public school across the park from our house, where I attended until graduating from eighth grade. It wasn’t a particularly good experience, as I had few to no friends and academically I was bored, but I survived. My stepkids attended a private school for their whole education; when their mother died when they were in middle school, someone stepped forward to cover their tuition until they graduated.
Wandering Views 
Good morning. It will not be a good weekend weatherwise. We have a reprieve between the worst of the weather, however. The deer were way up close to the house when I peeked out this morning. They can eat the grass, which is what they were doing. Just stay away from the cedar! 🙂
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Good morning on another beautiful spring day here. And the upcoming week is looking like spring as well with sun and rain and snow and cloudy and warm and cool.
Crocuses are saying goodbye as the daffodils and mountain lilies have taken their turn. The young folk got the four fruit trees planted so those are able to soak up the spring weather. This is the last day of hunter safety for daughter. She did not want to take it when younger but was ready this time around. She has no plans to hunt but really enjoys shooting the bow so thinks shooting a gun might be fun as well. Just not into killing.
mumsee
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A misty rainy morning in the forest. The scent of the pine is refreshing!
Thanking the Lord for all things new!
nj
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I love those days, nj, the air is so fresh and clean. It makes me think of Ireland and leprechauns, though I have never been to Ireland or seen a leprechaun.
mumsee
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Already lunch time? I’ll say good afternoon!
It’s cloudy today, but started out in the 60s. I am sneezing. Pollen count was tremendously high yesterday, around 6,500, Wow! No wonder I am sneezing with my nose starting to run. I better go catch it.
Son called last night to talk a bit about his promotion from Assistant to Associate Professor. He told both of us thank you for supporting him and helping him along the way. It was very nice to hear his sincere appreciation as we congratulated him.
I reminded Art of when Son went to the orthodontist for a long, expensive two phase treatment program, how the orthodontist required all his patients to write thank you notes to their parents at the end of treatment. I wish all doctors and other professionals required the young to not take things for granted and to give gratitude.
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A Tale of Two Sons. Read about one above on post 5. The other called home last night to request his dad to get up at four thirty, go pick up son, take him to work forty miles further down the road. Nope, sorry, I have plans to take sister to hunter safety. Husband has taken son only to his court appts, though he has given him a ride when his various vehicles broke. No indication of son offering to pay for fuel or anything.
When he had ortho done, he did not cooperate with the dentist at all and stopped treatment halfway through.
One of the ways we tried to help son was allowing consequences. If you refuse to ride the bus, you can walk or ride your bike the five miles. Trying to teach responsibility and forethought. But, the it takes a village folk stepped up and gave him rides, he never learned. And so he is nearing twenty four, deeply in debt, not able to keep a relationship going, living in a dumpy trailer with another alcoholic, no car as he breaks them constantly, no license due to repeated offenses, working a job forty miles from his home, wondering where all those people are who used to give him rides.
mumsee
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Mumsee, I am sorry to hear of that Son’s lessons not learned.
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Posting issues, again.
In talking with W, I did emphasize how good his Scout leaders had been in teaching responsibility and how to strive to make goals happen. Neither Art or I had the skills to do that. What I did do was to put plenty of time and effort into finding who I thought would be the best influences for his life. I was able to do that as a homeschooling mom of only one who was isolated from peers except for such structured activities like 4-H, Scouts, church, and the Atlanta wide Christian homeschooling band, The Joyful Noise.
I think we each (you and I) did the best we could given our unique situations which were about as polar opposite as you could get such as farm/city, a multitude of children/one, unavailable structured activities/available activities, difficult siblings/no siblings, no control over who came into lives(village people)/control over who came into our lives, etc. So it’s like apples and oranges.
It was enlightening to listen to Hillbilly Eligy for this very reason, a comparison of what the usual outcome was for others in a similar situation to Vance. I mean, talk about an unstable life. If I understood correctly (listening means no chance to look back at the words), he did not take on the last name Vance (a family name) until he and Usha we’d and both changed last names to Vance. He was never sure who to even call his father.
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Janice, I suspect the reason is more basic than that. Our first four have all gone on to productive lives, at least three are solid believers. Then we got the eleven. The oldest eight were all eight or older when we got them so character was already developed. They have all reverted to their early experience. The ninth has severe mental and emotional challenges. The older eight have some of those as well. We still have the last two at home and at least one will probably remain so. I do think the younger two are believers. They arrived aged two and four so they could still revert.
Our purpose was to expose them to God and to a different life, and help them to reach eighteen without a baby or drug or alcohol addiction. One arrived addicted and is no more, though he may well have been a believer and we will meet later. Five had used alcohol extensively prior to arrival so likely to become addicted if they slipped off, which they did. So, all in all, we are satisfied with our efforts, leaving the results to God.
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That’s great, Mumsee, about the ones who are productive and believers. And you did the best you could to salvage the remnants of what had already been inflicted on the others. So glad you got to have some at the younger age where you could have greater influence. Those have a good chance at productive lives except the one who will stay on, but that can be a nice life at home. I still have trouble keeping up with all who have gone through the Nest. I would not have had more than a bird brain to keep up with all y’all have done. I am a simpleton who is easily entertained 🙂 I get confused with too many moving pieces.
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Is the small plane crash near where you live, Kathaleena?
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Janice, I looked back to your post to see what I had missed. A lot of people mistake farm life for isolated. The children did:
4H, symphonies, square dancing (including travel to different dances), karate, camping, backpacking, orchestra, hay baling, missions trip overseas, carpentry, car detailing, national parks, etc. no shortage of character building opportunity! We had tried Scouts but it had taken a huge turn since my dad’s Eagle days. Leaders were still great but parents….
mumsee
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Y’all did many things, Mumsee, that we did not get to do. That was why Scouting was so important for our son. It meant monthly he got to go on a fun supervised trip doing things we could not afford financially or time wise.
I did think being on the farm was more isolating because of the daily demands of farm chores. We did have a season of the demand of traveling very frequently to care for my mother who was in a wheelchair in her home, an hour or two, depending on traffic, from our home. Those were terribly isolating days for us. Son saw no children during those hard times and I worried what the isolation might do, but saw no way around it if I wanted to keep homeschooling him as I did. That was before he was involved in all the programs.
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It is sad to see them not break the pattern, mumsee. We have a young friend who will post once in a while in such a way as to say they wish they had stayed more with those who helped them. Yet, they don’t go to them even when invited. You can lead a horse to water, but….
Janice, the plane crash is almost four hours away from us. It is much closer to two of our daughters, but still quite aways away. I am sorry for the ones in the plane. I hope no one was home. I haven’t heard. So sad for all!
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Well, I always wanted a horse. And a dog. My dad, who was raised on a farm, said no place for either of those in a city 🙂 (though we did have stables not far from us)
The earthquake in Thailand sounds horrific, a 7.7 which doesn’t sound like that much in some ways but is a very big quake. And with older (historic) buildings, cities not built for earthquake standards.
😦
I loved being in the Girl Scouts with camping, mountain cabin stays during snow weather, horseback riding, beach trips to the island offshore and other rustic coastline spots during the summer. My mom and a couple other mothers got the original “brownie” troop started when we were all in elementary school and it took off from there, helped keep us grounded along with stable homes.
As for coming to true faith, those questions remain in God’s purview and control.
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Our son was mostly with young people who attended church except for in two of his groups. One was, surprisingly, the Scouts which met in a Methodist Church building. Only a few Scouts were from families active in church. Most of those Scout families were much more affluent than we were and they were too active for church attendance. The other group was an alternative homeschooling group that was not not based on religion unlike the Christian homeschooling groups. Some of the Scouts were in that alternative homeschool group so overlap there. He took classes with those students, but we were never close with the moms or the children. Most were very liberal, but the group offered some really good classes. Mostly just saying that son was with a great mix of young people in which to get socialized.
Mumsee, I can’t remember. Did you homeschool your first brood of young ones?
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Sounds like both Mumsee and Janice were very good moms. 🙂
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2024 tax info finally submitted. Whew.
I think most of the scout families were church- or synagogue-affiliated, but it was also a different era.
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Janice, we don’t live on a farm so much as a farmlette. We have had livestock and gardens. That’s it. Mike took the older ones to all their activities, I kept track of the youngest four.
DJ, I enjoyed Scouts very much as did my mom. And my brothers and dad did Boy Scouts. Lots of good times. I expected that to continue but took daughter out when they started going more peculiar, and the boys, who really enjoyed their first years when the Marines ran it, stopped going when things changed there. Disappointing but things change.
mumsee
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mumsee, much has changed since those eras sadly.
There was no “home schooling” option available then — not particularly needed. Now the public schools are deeply flawed, not only in academics (many public school students are falling behind) but in the social views that have seeped into the curriculum.
I support charter schools as an option (not every family has the financial or time-availability means to either home school or send their children to private schools), but here in LA charter schools are strongly opposed by the very powerful teachers’ union.
It’s sad. Perhaps the pendulum will swing back a bit culturally, God willing, seems like it’s gone as far as it can go.
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I hope your Lord’s Day is a blessing as you gather with the saints to worship the Redeemer.
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We really could not afford to homeschool, but God made it possible by giving me a way to stretch pennies, like buying used curriculum and not being under an umbrella plan (groups that require fees to join and get all their benefits). We were very independent. I could not have afforded to homeschool more than one child. Above all, I give God credit for how He brought all the pieces together for our son’s education and resulting career. Son recognizes that, too. He is thankful to God, and attended church for all his college years and now that is a requirement of his position as a Christian educator.
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AJ, I sent you a photo.
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Janice, yes, we homeschooled the first four as well.
One of the cool things about homeschooling is that anybody can do it regardless of finances. A local library, the internet, or even a few good books is sufficient.
mumsee
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Good morning, all, on this beautiful nearly the end of March morning. Sun is shining, people are eating breakfast, husband is off driving son to work so he can explain to him again, son’s need to step up and do what he can to run his life rather than being run by it. And, by the way, this is the son who spent the most time in public school. Probably six to eight years, depending on how much he had prior to arriving here at age ten. Impulse control is his challenge.
mumsee
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good time at a birthday party for youngest granddaughter yesterday. Lots of family and neighbors and kids
I prayed before I went wondering if I was supposed to speak to anyone. Ended up talking to exs wife and mentioned some retirement funds that I had been told there was nothing. She told me exactly what they were getting
now praying over what to perhaps do
jo
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praying with you Jo❣️
Nj
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I was excited about watching the online church service. The missions team had just gotten back from a trip to the Horn of Africa and I expected a report. Well, the pastor gave some news of the trip but then said the rest of what would be said would be sensitive information so they’d be going offline. Oh, well. Guess I will never know. Sad.
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When we were homeschooling our older children, we were part of a group, and there were several families close to mine’s ages.
Now, we only knew one other family that homeschooling, but they chose to send there kids to public school.(much to their detriment). Trey has made friends with a different homeschooling family which he met through youth group. Their mom volunteers at the library, so gets to visit with them sometimes on Tuesday. They live way out on a ranch.
Even if Trey did not do well academically, which he does, not being inundated with all the public school crap would still be worth it.
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Homeschool groups: we did participate in that with the first four. Lots of like minded parents. But here, we stayed away from it more for various reasons.
mumsee
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Besides having a good group of like-munded people to hang with, I saw the umbrella groups as advantageous in prepping for college to make sure all the credits were earned needed for proper graduation and acceptance to college. That part was difficult for me to do on my own, but I got it all figured out and hoped I got it right.
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What Math curriculum is Trey using? We started out with the colorful math books but landed on the Saxon program because it was less distracting. It was just plain black and white math without bells and whistles.
And what math did you do, Mumsee? Probably a variety to meet the needs of all those learning styles?
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And AJ homeschooled, too. Several of us here♡ A subset of the group.
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Math problem: What percentage of the Wandering Views blog family have been involved in homeschooling?
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I have four siblings with children, three of whom exclusively homeschooled their children, one who did so until his church (where my brother is pastor) started a private school. My grandchildren are being homeschooled. I (and all my siblings) did high school by correspondence, in an era where anything other than “going” to school was unknown (graduating a year and a half early, in 1983).
My church has homeschooling families, and our church has members who are in administrative roles (and others in teaching positions) both at a charter school and a private school, so members have students in both of those as well. I have no idea whether we have any members whose children are enrolled in “regular” public schools, but my hunch is we don’t.
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Nightingale and Chickadee went to public school through eighth and fifth grades respectively and then we homeschooled for the rest. Nightingale got her GED, and scored so highly that she was awarded a high school diploma (or certificate, I forget which). (The way it was worded seemed to be that there were different levels of passing the GED, with the high school diploma being the highest. I don’t know what the others would have gotten.)
Chickadee never got around to taking the test, although she was studying for it.
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I homeschooled my children for one year for all and two years for one. They did public school in two different districts and a Christian school for a few years. I have found good and bad in all the ways of schooling. The very worst experience, ironically, was the Christian school. Like with many things, I learned a whole lot through it.
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We did a mix of home and public, never really experienced Christian school. Though a grandson is doing that through their church in Virginia.
I am just in from a quick and tasty walk. Lots of good spring eats out there today!
mumsee
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I did not realize or perhaps had forgotten that we have so many here who did do homeschool at some point.
I finally got in a nice walk this afternoon and saw many trees in bloom. The dogwoods were especially lovely. I went about half as far as before. I did feel tired and sweated a little. There was a Port-o-Potty out on the street, and I thought, how nice for all of us walkers. Actually, it could be used to take deposits from dogs.
My friend picked up my BP med from Kroger and brought it by along with a few other things. About 45 minutes after she left, she called and said she was still on my street. She’d noticed a sick baby raccoon and tried to find help through a wildlife agency. She said she’d call later and let me know what happened.
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She of course did not touch it because of possibility of rabies.
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We experienced many school choices. Public, charter, private Christian schools and homeschooling. Oldest two ended up graduating from public school. Third child graduated from private school while living in a Christian home for girls her senior year. Youngest graduated from a private Christian school hybrid of class time and homeschooling. The most difficult school experience was the private Christian school mean girls. But we made it through by His grace and mercy and I felt liberated to not have to deal with administration and teachers once my last graduated!
nj
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We debated homeschooling as we could no longer afford the fees at the private Christian school our children attended. We talked with the principal and he gave us a subsidy to keep our children in school as the province gave a certain dollar amount per student in the private school (not as much as for a student in public school). We were soon able to pay the full fees and were so thankful for this school. The teachers were incredible and looked on their teaching as a mission field as well as a place for learning. They truly cared for the students and it showed.
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we have used Saxon math for all of them. The main challenge is to get him to show his work when he can do it all in his head.
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Boy does math in his head, too, and shows quite an aptitude for math. Last year, he would have points knocked off his math papers for not showing his work or for doing it in a different method, although his methods gave him correct answers. I haven’t heard if any of that is an issue with his math teacher this year.
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BTW, I went to private school for kindergarten and part of first grade, but my mom said my first-grade teacher didn’t like me (and my one memory of her as my teacher tends to confirm that), and so they removed me and enrolled me in the public school across the park from our house, where I attended until graduating from eighth grade. It wasn’t a particularly good experience, as I had few to no friends and academically I was bored, but I survived. My stepkids attended a private school for their whole education; when their mother died when they were in middle school, someone stepped forward to cover their tuition until they graduated.
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