14 years ago, on Mother's Day, I held him close. We looked nothing alike, his dark almond eyes looking back at me, both of us beginning to become familiar with the scent of one another. He was ill. Very ill. 11 months old, and 14 pounds of coughing, blue lipped infant boy. I was thrust into motherhood in a foreign land, where language deficits and lack of care almost kept him from making it home alive. A midnight taxi ride through the streets of Moscow, laughing at the MD's name..."Robert Young", which dated us terribly. Today, he stands before me, still looking nothing like me. But our hearts know one another completely. He suffers still...a broken vertebrae from malnutrition, The rickets did a number on his legs, too. But still, he survived. Still, he thrived. He holds my hand as we walk through the park, He sits beside me as we read "I Have a Dream" and marvel. Once, I too had a dream. I dreamed for 13 years of marriage that I might one day be... A Mom.

Rosie, of course there are no words, but words are sometimes all we have and we offer them as our assurance to you that you are not grieving alone. Knowing that this community is "your place" and that everyone here are all "your people", I am imagining you sitting there before the screen, quietly reading and hopefully feeling the soul of this community wrap its arms around you to comfort you. It won't be enough. No way. But it is something. Reach out here as much as you need to, you are home here. Hugs to you in your great loss,

I have read this thread with great interest, and yet have struggled to post my own thoughts. IRL, we live in a rural area where the local public schools are very low performing, yet no one else seems to see that. I guess it has always been the norm around here to have only 29% of our 10th graders be proficient in math, 51% proficient in writing, 55% proficient in science...and brag about 75% being proficient in reading. Personally, I am appalled at these figures every year, but have never found a single person who has expressed any sort of concern over these scores. Knowing this, I guess it isn't much of a surprise that the majority of local homeschoolers I have met are also not academically very rigorous, with a few exceptions. There is little variety in the curricula used, it is all largely religious, and there are relatively few hours spent each week on academic pursuits. In comparison locally, we put in far more time on our school work, and clearly I can see I am expecting a lot more out of our kids in terms of strong fundamentals. However, I come to these boards, and am often left feeling as if we are way, way behind everyone else here. We are working with a wide variety of pretty serious special needs, and are doing so successfully, but we will never be at the academic level of many who post regularly here. Our kids are dedicated, hard working students who are turning into incredibly well rounded learners that are intellectually curious and have already learned how to teach themselves. But Latin will never happen, nor will standard versions of many of the "must read" classics, and heavy sciences just can't work for us as the language level needed for comprehension is just too high. We don't fit in our community, because we "work too hard" and are doing a lot more than most (and definitely test higher, as well), and yet I don't find a fit here either, because it is too rigorous for what our particular situation will allow. However, the forums here are incredibly helpful when I ask a question, and I have learned about much of the curriculum we use here as well. I just wish we could find a homeschooling "home" either IRL or online that fit us, but I have long ago given up on that. Sometimes it feels as if you can't be considered a "Serious Homeschooler" unless you are shooting for college or Ivy League, but I see us as quite serious homeschoolers who are shooting for a different sort of education that is more practical for our kids and their needs...but would be considered far too low for most here to view us as "serious", and it keeps me from posting as often as I otherwise might. Now there, I have laid out all my personal insecurities for all the world to see! HAHA!

We started out 5 years ago with our oldest in 5th grade, and we were very eclectic. Being in a charter program that tightened its rules we moved more textbooky, and now we are out of it and going more eclecticy again for the coming year. We use a mix of textbooks, notebooking, and films along with mom-created projects to go along with it all. We have textbooks as fallbacks or fillers when I don't have better resources to work with to cover specific topics. We have always been very discussion oriented, and yet I still require some output, mainly I think because it makes me feel safer. Stupid, I know, but I'll go with it:-)

Our son was just awarded the BIlly Mitchell award a couple months ago, at 14 years old, and intends to go all the way to Spaatz if possible. He LOVES CAP, and though he will be physically ineligible for the military, has always readily said that his participation in CAP will look good to any employer someday, and might open doors he can't yet imagine. I will happily relay this story to him!

We are going to use some of the John Stossel in the Classroom DVD segments, but in reality, we have developed critical thinking skills very simply... by being critical. We question everything we read or view. We fact check, we argue pro and con. I'll be darned, over time, I can really see the results.

Boy, did you nail this! I have been saying for 2 years, as I looked at high school materials, that high school is the new junior college. I brought home a standard high school biology textbook a year ago for my hubby to look at, and I asked him, "Do you remember ever learning this sort of stuff in high school??" He flipped through the textbook, and gazed up at me with a stunned look in his eyes. "THIS is high school work??" Even when it is not AP, it is still far ahead of where we were when we were in a decent high school. I am convinced it is also why we are seeing kids drop out the way they are, or enter college ill prepared. We are pushing them into coursework that their brains are not developmentally able to grab hold of, and we are doing it all the way through school, at every grade level. Oh, they learn enough to pass a test, but the statistics of remedial work required in college prove my point. The only people we are fooling are ourselves. Sure, some kids can do it. But if the majority can't, then we ought to be taking a closer look at it. While high schools are passing them on through, almost 60% of entering college freshman need remedial courses in math and English. We are NOT preparing our students for college by pushing them through or forcing upper level work on them before they are really ready. http://www.highereducation.org/reports/college_readiness/gap.shtml Someday, we will get back to making sure those exiting high school can read, write, and compute well.

Never creepy to hear from someone else that our children are growing into special people. I had one such compliment today second hand about our kids, and it warmed my heart.

Oh, wouldn't it be AWESOME if they streamed more!

I was part of organizing one a few years back. A big hint...don't ask a price for each item, let the customer offer you whatever they think it is worth. You will find most people will be far more generous than they would be if limited by pricing, and the few who will offer too little will be easily off set by the generosity of others. We have since gone to this strategy for yard sales, etc. and every single time we saw our sales and cash taken in leap.

Actually, I was thinking about perusing the Connect the Thoughts high school PDF's I have (I have all of them for high school) and perhaps using some of the questions and writing topics to accompany the series. It will take some weeding through it, but we love CTT and I wish I could use it all the way through, but truth be told we are just starting too late and it will take us too much effort to wade through it all. We read aloud so that we can work on comprehension in depth, and I can't see us being able to do all of CTT that way, it is just too vast (Although I am still wishing we could!). I am going to look at some of his film lists to go along with the topics, too. Thanks for the activity suggestions, too!

Thanks Kai...and everyone else...for not feeling the need to criticize our selection for high school. Our circumstances are quite different than the norm, and I have researched and researched diligently to find something that can cross the divide of all our kids and perhaps meet in the middle. This series was SO well done (I have a copy of all three texts) and so rich in terms of being well written and not too :textbooky" that I think it will really help us move forward in language. Kai, I did check out the differences in reading levels, and I think after looking at it that it might be just the right amount of reach by the time we get to it. By then I would hope that all our kids would be reading at a high school level, as I have another year to go in between as we focus on Modern US History first, then dive into world history.

I haven't yet looked at the Economics courses yet, and am thinking about the standard annual set of clips as a Logic Development/Critical Thinking and Analysis or Current Events sort of course. His clips are indeed short, but the teacher's guides are RICH with the kind of suggested activities my kids love to do...rabbit trails and all are all put together for me! Yes! Our kids who were adopted at older ages struggle with logic and carrying thoughts to different levels. Also, all our kids are sort of Libertarian leaning in their beliefs, and I think Stossel's perspectives will be enormously appealing to them. Interesting to read about so many using the Economics materials. Now I will have to give them a look! We definitely want to do Economics and I have a basic text in mind to use, but this might really flesh it out some. I always learn something new here!

I have one not classified as 2E but with the Executive Functioning nightmares you describe. He is 15, and though beginning to self-regulate and move forward in some ways, so I am not totally disheartened, I thoroughly expect real maturity to arrive around 25. Seriously it just looks like that as he is maturing at a very slow rate. At least he IS moving forward.

I am going to begin to use the Stossel in the Classroom materials and was thrilled to discover the rich teacher's guides for the DVD's. I was wondering if anyone has used them for a true course, and if so, what did you call it and how did you do this. Thanks!

I lasted less than 3 days at a microfiche company. I was told I would be office staff, only to arrive and learn I would be feeding documents into a machine. All.Day.Long. To make it worse, the business was right next door to my mom's electronics factory, where she worked on an assembly line for 25 years. I respect her commitment and the fact that she loved her job, but it was my worst nightmare ever, and as I sat at the machine loading one medical record after another, tears were literally streaming down my face as I contemplated this as my future. The worst 2 days of my life, and I told my husband on morning #3, "I am so depressed, this job pays well, but it is NOT what I wanted or what I was told I would do." He looked at me, and without hesitation said, "Don't go back. We can manage until you find something better suited to you. It's not worth it." I never loved him more. I did not consider myself above lower level work, I am just not good at monotonous, low people contact sorts of jobs. I went on to do other menial sorts of jobs here and there including a stint at McDonald's which I actually enjoyed, office cleaning at a pest control company where I also worked as office manager during the day, newspaper bundle dropper, etc. I realized that I didn't consider myself "above" any sort of work, but that certain types of work would be soul killing for me.

We are going to be using K12's The Human Odyssey for our high school world history, and I am wondering if there are other materials or self-created lists out there for activities, etc. that pair well with it? I purchased the teacher's guide that goes with it, but I am looking for something else as well that might step it up a bit. I plan to use the Great Courses High School World History lectures to accompany it, but wondered if someone had put together something else out there for their own use that they might share, or if anyone had suggestions. And please, I'd really appreciate it if folks would refrain from posting and telling me how this is not a "high school" level text. I know that, but we have English Language Learners who are 15 and 16 and are quite bright but not at a high school level of reading skill yet, and I felt this was a very well done series that will provide a thorough overview of world history at the right language level and also could be adapted for us to use as a whole family for my higher level readers. So what I am really looking for is some tools to intellectually lift it a bit, while keeping the reading level accessible for all my kids. Does this make sense? I even hesitated to post this here on the high school list for fear of being publicly flogged :-) But maybe someone here will understand what I am asking and be able to offer some good suggestions.

Thanks for posting this. Though we have not had testing because it seems pointless with a child for whom this is so obvious, we definitely have a Dyscalculic daughter. Your first sentence was so validating for me, as I have struggled to figure out what, at 14 years old, is an appropriate expectation for her future with math. We are STILL reviewing things like place value, and it is clear she will never be able to fully picture math in her head. Timelines are awful, the clock is painfully challenging, and there is a time to accept what will be and work with it. From what I see at this stage, 4th -5th grade basic math fundamentals will be all she is capable of doing. We are pounding those fundamentals as I want her to be as strong in them as she can be, but reading this helped me instantly relax a little. We are doing an AGS text in basic math, along with TT6th (which is really more like 5th) and then I am moving on to consumer math for practice. She can't get it, and not accepting that only hurts her. She's a strong student in every other way, and I sort of see my job now as to help her move forward in appropriate ways, not force what she is clearly incapable of or make her feel as if she is dumb because she has a learning disability. We laugh as we joke about her future and clearly, being an accountant doesn't figure into that equation!

I find the philosophical perspectives here fascinating...how many are offended by what one person says when the question is "Is public school never an option for YOU?" Personally, I don't consider it arrogant or elitist to anyone to say that, nor do I really have any vested interest in what any particular family does or doesn't do with the education of their children. Sometimes it saddens me to read how many people feel the need to "correct" someone's closely held beliefs or judge them, particularly when they don't effect them in any way. For us, by default and not over any rigidly held belief, public school is the last possible option and probably not one at all. We were in public school for 5 years, and I have my own concerns about it but our situation is so unique I can not blame the school, and the teachers we had were very concerned, caring individuals who were doing a good job within the system that often didn't work well for student or educator. Our children are years behind, and we have many special needs. For one son, in particular, we have been told by no less than 4 different public educators that we need to recognize that he can never fit in a traditional classroom setting and learn well...and he has made amazing progress at home. Would we put them in public school? Well, clearly, if we had no other options that would be what we would do. However, we have made the commitment in our minds and hearts to see this through, as we know it is best for our kids and our situation, and we would do just about anything possible to continue to homeschool through graduation, because any other alternative will not work well for most of our kids. Honestly, our concern about this would lead us to sell our home to be able to do it, as they are that important to us and we already know what didn't work. Our kids are older now, and more self-directed,and even if something happened to me, we have talked about ways to work around teaching some subjects at night and using particular curriculum that would allow them to keep moving forward at home, or with a little adult guidance that my life insurance would pay for. It is important to us, mainly because we can't see them reaching their full potential in public school. Other families have different situations, different values, different financial circumstances...and even different access to great private schools or alternatives. I don't feel there is anything wrong at all with saying this is a black and white issue for some families, and more gray for others. I'll bet that in every family for which the answer to this question is a gray area, there are other questions whose answers would be more black and white. I think we could be kinder to one another on this forum when asking questions like these, it saddens me that we ask such open ended questions, and then argue about the responses as if there is a right or wrong that is absolute.

Now. Mine is 14 as well, and it is time to accept that not everyone will be a good speller, and to thank the Good Lord for spell check! Move on, dear one, move on. It's not the end of the world (or so I keep telling myself! Haha!).

I can empathize with you. For a wide variety of reasons, our kids are way behind. The difference is that I have a built in excuse and it helps me not be as concerned...(Obvious documented and named learning disabilities, English language learners, suspected brain injury in one). These boards can also be discouraging, as so many terrific success stories are read here, and less about "average" or even "lower than average" students. I don't fault anyone for that, SWB's approach is rigorous and it works well for the right students, and this is the place for folks to share about it! But truthfully, there are more of us out here struggling and doing the best that we can than you might realize. I, for one, have 3 learners who will graduate at 20 or 21. One will likely never be able to do more than basic math. The thought of Algebra is a joke for her, when at 14 she still struggles with place value and can't subtract 400 from 1000 and come up with the correct answer in her head. We're working on it, she is progressing, and she obviously has a disability with math as she rocks other subjects. Another is 14 and without adaptive technology writes like he is in 3rd grade...barely. Dysgraphia can be a pain in the patootie, and yet he is an accomplished young man in so many ways, and very driven. Another...well...I can't list all the challenges he has, but he is growing and learning, and we have taken years to figure him out. Its not a lot to brag about, but it IS the reason we are homeschooling! We need to meet our kids where they are at in ways a public school classroom could never accommodate. We also get to help them find their strengths, of which they have many, and use that to move them forward as well. Your son may not be ready to learn at a higher academic level, he is only 8. I know by this board's standards he seems way behind, but in many countries (including the ones our kids are from, hence one reason they are so behind), he might be just beginning school at 7 years old. Your son is a kinesthetic learner from the sound of it, he lives more in his body than in his head. This does NOT make him stupid, it means different things trigger learning for him. He is not probably going to be a workbooky kid, which means you might want to try very different approaches with him. Here are some thoughts: 1) Buy one of those large inflatable balls for him to sit on and bounce on while doing school work. 2) Teach the reading and phonics in more "touchy feely" ways...use shaving cream and let him write blends and digraphs in it, use the curriculum as a guide but then have him "Do" the work in more physical ways. 3) Use magnetic letters on a cookie sheet and have him manipulate them rather than write the answers in a workbook 4) As the above poster wrote, let him walk around while reading, bounce on the trampoline, etc. 5) Have him write adventure stories about things he has just done outside...go to the park, play a bit, then sit at the picnic table and have him write a few sentences about what he just did. Reward? Sit and correct them and he can go play some more! 6) Research kinesthetic learners and how to teach them. Be more experiential with him, recognize learning happens in all sorts of ways. 7) Will he sit through films? Captivate him with history movies and short video clips. Let YouTube become your friend. 8) Will he use a computer? Get him a typing program, the movement of using a keyboard (and he can keyboard standing up if he wants) might make things more engaging for him. 9) Don't compare him to others. He might grow up to be an Outward Bound Program Leader, a Mountain Climber, a River Rafting Expert!!! Figure him out and teach TO him, not AT him. Find his gifts, and work with them as creatively as possible. 10) You are not a failure. You have a different sort of learner and you are already on the road to figuring him out by even writing this post!!! It might be worth getting him tested, to discover if there are any learning disabilities involved or if this is merely a case of a kid who learns differently or is never going to be all that traditionally academic. Maybe talk to a specialist and ask some questions, see if you see any thread that would lead you to spend the money on testing. No two kids are alike, you already know that. Your daughter is a more traditional learner, and you can look at her success and see you are not a failure. You just have to figure out HOW to reach your son...and I have no doubt that your care and concern will lead you to the answers eventually. In the meantime, hang in there, and know there are plenty of us who have felt (or even still feel!) exactly how you do. Some of us have had a long road, and know how hard it can be with kids who don't fit the norm. The important thing is...he can learn. Your job, should you chose to accept it, is to find the key to unlock it all for him. And don't expect that key to look like a standard one, it might be an old skeleton key for all you know! Hahaha! Best of luck and lots of hugs.

I feel that the whole "Historical Fiction" bandwagon is a little too much. There is some great modern lit for kids as well, but seldom are there good book study guides for it, which pains me. My kids have told me, "Mom, can't we read something that is in our times and not just old stuff?", and I tend to agree with them. Historical fiction has its place, but not at the expense of other, wonderful reading experiences.

My mom spent 40 years working in two different electronics assembly plants, and only retired when she was laid off with several others as work was outsourced. She loved that job, making DC power supplies, soldering, etc. For someone like her, who is not one who appreciates change and prefers to know exactly what is happened each day, it was a perfect career fit. For me, it would be my worst nightmare due to the sameness of each day. Everyone is different!

Some of ours have caught up, some of ours are compensating well, some of ours are going to live permanently with deficits that won't easily be accommodated. The important thing is that they all feel positive about their futures, are creative thinkers, and are open to possibilities. I haven't heard, "I am just stupid." in a long time, like we did so often prior to pulling from public school. I am so grateful! Though I certainly don't want to rush their childhoods, I am so happy we are through the "fact finding" stage. This is much more enjoyable :-)

I love this group for exactly this reason! There are such great ideas to be mined here! Thanks for the suggestions, I particularly like the videos. The boys are really enjoying this more hands on way of learning...and adding in a little something else will make Mom happier :-)