Barbara H
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Posts posted by Barbara H
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It is really tough. Even with sensitive/fearful kids there can be so many different things and what bothers one may not bother another. Magic Tree House was considered scary here - but I know it doesn't bother a lot of kids. So, I think you do have to preread everything at this point and see if it fits with what would work for your kids. I do think you are right to keep it gentle and not worry about pushing it right now.
Some that occur to me.
Picture books for sure - so many good ones.
I'd ask the librarian also about collections of gentle poetry - I wish I had a good title in mind but I don't, but I bet there are some nice children's poetry collections that may be good exposure to rich language and with rereading over time develop that kind of comforting familiarity that can be so good for kids.
Pooh - original AA Milne no Disney stuff.
Frog and Toad
Moomintroll
Winnie the Pooh
Milly, Molly, Mandy
Teddy Robinson Storybook
All of a Kind Family
Dick King-Smith (hit and miss but there are lots of titles so you may find some good ones)
Little Bear
Homer Price (though I can't remember if it touches on any of the problem categories)
Enormous Egg (again not 100% sure... it seemed safe here though)
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I'm sorry for all you and your daughter have gone through. You are doing a good thing by sharing it.
I agree it is a really important message that depression can look different in kids and teens. Our culture does oversell the idea that unhappiness is the norm for teens and that can make it more difficult to realize when kids need help.
Take care!
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It is always tough to know. There are therapists and doctors who have a genuine prejudice against homeschooling and it will continue to be a problem in having a good working relationship with them. There are others who ask because they actually are curious how it works or because they are trying to get information to be helpful to your child. It is pretty typical, even for kids in school, for therapists and physicians to want to know how the particular concerns may be affecting the child academically or if there are issues that need to be worked on. I would simple express your awareness of the academic expectations for the grade and confirm your child is on track (or needs help in whatever particular areas).
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Lucky you. I hope there is a way you can work out childcare!
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Great idea. At a minimum, I'd like to see bookstores be required to inform faculty what price the students will have to pay for the books they are assigned. There are some professors who are sensitive to this concern, but there are others who really have no idea when they are assigning books what they will cost. Because there are so many variables in pricing it can be hard to know.
There are some colleges that include the price of books in the overall cost of tuition and fees. Appalachian State is one of them. I don't know if that has lowered the cost for books or not.
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You might find this of interest, I've got it on my hope to read this year list. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127370598
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I would meet with the school counselor and ask to see what her transcript will look like when she withdraws. Some schools will list the average at the time of the withdraw, some will just leave the grade area blank.
As she's already a 4.0 student personally I would not be too concerned that it would look bad if she shifts over to homeschooling and earns As at home. If she had two years of earning 2.0 at school and then came home and got As that would be more of a flag.
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I'm sorry your daughter is struggling... I know this may not be a helpful thought but in a lot of ways I'd rather if a kid is going to hit depression that it happen during high school rather than during college. You are there to help her now and hopefully through this experience she will learn some skills that will help her long term.
My one big consideration for homeschooling a child with depression is always that families go into it with very clear expectations and limits and that some structure is provided. Depression + the need to self direct... that can be a disaster. Perhaps with a third party like a therapist, I'd try to work out with your daughter exactly what the plan will be for academics and for ongoing extracurricular involvement, getting out of the house, etc. With continuing some time at school this may be less of a concern, but totally leaving school for some kids with unresolved depression can just lead to a further, deeper retreat.
One other idea: I'm wondering if anyone has entertained adding an extra year to high school. Is that something you'd be open to? Would it help?
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I love Miquon. I know it isn't the way the program designed to be used, but what worked for us was to be pretty loose about it. We started with the first book, but decided fairly quickly to move on to the next book. We let the child take the lead in choosing what he wanted to work on. I know that doesn't work for every kid, but for our child was very curious about math it was a good fit (and he's a math major now so I guess it worked).
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This new study is worth a read. Students who are given high financial support, often do worse in college, particularly when this is coupled with a lack of specific parental expectations. The researchers suggestion isn't that parents withhold support, but instead that they make "smart investments."
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Folks shouldn't panic, check on your local situation. For most of us it will be unchanged. If anything what I see as the trend is the expansion of dual enrollment for kids enrolled in college. There are more "middle college" type programs opening up to channel at risk kids into community college. We've also got a new public school experimental school in my area which is based on the idea of having high school students part time at the state university (which years ago was very restrictive about allowing high schools students on campus). So, my point would yes, there are changes but not all in the direction of limiting dual enrollment. That said, knowing where state funding for education is, I wouldn't assume free dual enrollment will be available forever because it has been in the past.
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For kids who are interested in philosophy I wanted to share one idea and that's the Philosophy Slam. Open k-12, just $2 for homeschools to participate. "The Kids Philosophy Slam is designed to make philosophy accessible and fun for kids of all ages and abilities, to promote a philosophical dialogue between kids and adults, and to promote a greater awareness of philosophy and education in everyday life. Over $3,000 in prizes are available to students & schools. Home school participation as well as international participation is encouraged." http://www.philosophyslam.org/
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I've seen homeschoolers make the most of their daytime availability to build really good petcare and dog walking businesses. It can be pretty well paid for the hours they need to put into.
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Yes, honors programs vary widely from school to school. If anything these programs most often tend to be MORE humanities oriented, so the students who resist joining are often STEM majors who think they seminar courses will be harder. So, that may explain why there were more STEM guides because they are trying to reach out to these students. If she's a humanities kid at a school more known for engineering, honors may be exactly where she meets her peer group.
Benefits vary widely, but here are some:
- Honors seminars which substitute for general education requirements
- Honors only sections of some freshman courses
- Some social/group component - speakers, clubs, etc.
- Honors only housing
- Better advising
- Priority registration (particularly at big schools this can be a HUGE benefit)
- Increased support for applying for undergraduate research funds and nationally competitive scholarships
- Capstone or senior thesis type projects
- Graduating with honors
It is quite common for students who are cautious to fear that honors will be too hard. I would reassure her that if it was going to be too hard for her they wouldn't admit her because they don't want students who won't do well. I would encourage her to look very specifically at what this Honors College offers. She can always give it a try and decide to let it go later.
- Honors seminars which substitute for general education requirements
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I'm all the way over in the bluegrass but I just wanted to say welcome. It sounds like you've figured out the legal requirements are not at all difficult to meet. WKU does have good dual enrollment options and it looks like Beth got you that information. I hope it isn't too late for next year. If you are looking for free/low cost online options there are a couple that work for some Kentucky students. KET has some online courses including Latin and German. http://www.dl.ket.org/ Barren County also has a virtual academy that includes some homeschoolers from around the state. Individual districts have agreements so not every county can participate, but for participating counties it is very inexpensive (just a small deposit your student gets back once they complete the courses. Not sure if your area participates but thought I'd toss that out just in case. http://www.barren.kyschools.us/content_page.aspx?schoolid=11&cid=622
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Berea is a great fit for many students. Everyone defines low income or middle class differently - but Berea is not just for extreme low income families and there are people who consider themselves middle class who will qualify. Here is the link to the Berea online estimator. For many lower income families, they may get as good a financial deal at high selective schools that meet full financial need, but Berea is likely going to be a better financial deal that schools that don't meet full need or do so primarily through loans. I personally don't think the work requirement is that burdensome. My friends who went to Berea had jobs that were very similar to the work study jobs I had at a liberal arts college. Low and middle income students who go elsewhere are going to work anyway.
Berea's campus is physically beautiful - very college feel, nice quad, old buildings, big trees, nice landscaping. Their placement for grad school is strong. It is in a small, dry (no alcohol) town in Kentucky and that's not going to appeal to some students. It is a cute town with lots of artist's shops that appeal to tourists, but it may feel confining to students who want to be some place bigger. The student population is fairly diverse and has quite a few international students. For kids who don't have a ton of money it can be nice to have a peer group that also doesn't spend a lot on clothes, vacations, etc.
Jane raises the important point that Berea's acceptance rate is very low. They aren't just looking for kids who could get into the most selective colleges (near perfect test scores, amazing GPAs, etc.) but rather for kids who fit in within the mission of Berea to open up college opportunities for kids who might not otherwise have them. They like kids who have had life experiences, community service, etc. and many of their accepted students don't have top grades and test scores so I would look at it with an open mind. Here's an article from my site with more information about work colleges
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A percent of the student's salary is subsidized through federal dollars, so that's why it is needs based. Some colleges have campus jobs that are not connected to work study, but there may be fewer options. Also, it may be helpful to know that the cutoff for work study is quite high - it is not just low income kids who qualify but many middle class families.
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Who knows? Whomever is paying the College Board and the lenders for this information, I suppose.
You may be think of the PROFILE the College Board's financial form. This is only used by a small number of colleges, mostly private more elite schools. The form that is filled out for federal and state financial aid is the FAFSA and that is run through the government. You file online much like income taxes. Your information is encrypted and shared only with specific entities (colleges or state) that you request.
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Here's my three cents:
1. The vast majority of parents fill out the FAFSA without their kids anyway. The FAFSA is filled out online and it is really quite easy to get done - most people are able to get it finished in 20 to 30 minutes. I have no see no reports of personal information being stolen as a result of the FAFSA.
2. My personal experience was a lot like what I see when I look at the research about student employment. Working part time in college - 10 to 15 hours, especially on campus work study is good for students. Working full time leads to lower college performance and lower graduation rates. Campus work study (which I was able to get because my parents filled out the FAFSA) allowed me to begin to develop skills as a writing tutor and those are skills I still use in my work today. The fact that I wasn't working too many hours allowed me to have an unpaid internship which led directly to my first post college professional job. The research is very clear that students who have internships have better employment prospects after graduation. The fact that I wasn't working full time gave me the time to build the academic profile that allowed me to be paid to go to graduate school. Obviously we all have to do what we have to do... I worked long hours during summers often at pretty unpleasant jobs. But, especially with the high cost of tuition and the very high rate of youth unemployment, we need to be realistic about how many hours students can work and do well.
3. You can decide how much you want to share about your personal financial situation, but financial literacy is a crucial skill all of our kids need as they head into adulthood. Here are a couple of articles from my site that I hope you find to be helpful.
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Mims, I haven't used this course. Just my gut reaction from looking at it for five minutes - what is there is fine, but I'm not sure for most students there is going to be enough there for a full course that will lead to a good APUSH score. There is less content, fewer assignments, fewer free response, fewer DBQs, etc. It may be a good starting place but I'd strongly encourage your student to use all of the past test information on the College Board site and get a good test prep book too.
I don't love it and I know it doesn't sit well with most homeschoolers, but there really is a lot of teaching to the format of the test for APUSH and APWorld especially.
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The main thing with APUSH is that you really need to also use a good practice study guide and resources from the College Board. I've seen some homeschoolers who were really well versed in US history stumble on this exam because they didn't spend enough time with practice questions, DBQs, etc. Their public school counterparts may have not been learning as much about history but they really learned the format of the exam.
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Yes, this is really disturbing stuff and makes me worry about our kids' generation.
There's another survey out where high school students were asked what they expected in college: Only 11% of students believe that college will be difficult. 49% said it will not be difficult and 40% are unsure. Nearly 70% do not believe balancing college with personal and work lives will be a real challenge.
When you look at these sorts of stats it isn't really difficult to figure out why graduation rates are so low!
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Love dogs, but they aren't the same as people and they don't think the same way. They don't have a category for "why have I been forsaken what are the people thinking about me?" They are much more in the moment than that As a human we'd feel a huge distinction between being kept at the pound and being kept at a kennel patronized by uppermiddle class dog owners. I don't know that for dogs the distinction is particularly different. At both it is noisy with lots of dogs barking, but at both they will get food, be safe from the elements, be free from beating or mean treatment, and be allowed to relieve themselves.
My guess is that the dog will be a bit out of sync and maybe barky for a day or two, but he'll get over it.
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Great question! It is an important distinction. The top concerns with for profits are lower graduation rates, higher cost, and accreditation and transferability of credits. You probably heard that many for profit colleges were encouraging students to take out a lot of student loans. A very low percentage of students were completing programs - some of these schools had graduation rates well under 10%. Even for students who completed the program the jobs may not pay enough to justify the loan debt. This a particular concern for culinary jobs. Our local for profit has a huge program turning out lots of students who are competing for what are often jobs that pay just over minimum wage. Often for profit programs are much more expensive than comparable public programs - so look at the total cost to program completion. I've seen examples where the for profit degree may cost four or five times more than a comparable community college program!
Finally, and this is a big concern, look carefully at the accreditation of the school. You want to choose a school that has regional accreditation so the credits are transferable in case your student ends up on a different path and wants to complete a four year degree later. It is heartbreaking when a student has put years and thousands of dollars into a program that doesn't have the right kind of accreditation and when they want move, change their area of study, or want to go back to school years later they are sitting on what amounts to basically a pile of worthless credits.
I Only Have a 4th Grader but...
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
What is it about our culture, that we can't let kids be kids without always having to see this looming threat of the future? This is exactly why many of us choose to homeschool in the first place is avoiding this trickle down of pressure to where we are making kids in elementary school be tested constantly to make sure they are not behind.
Ultimately the stuff that is most important to life success - imagination, hard work, creativity, close family relationships, persistence - the foundation for all of that is in your daily life right now and you don't have to do anything extra to make that happen. Enjoy this time - it is so fleeting and you will be glad for all the time you spent baking cookies, taking walks, etc.