ColleenInWis
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Posts posted by ColleenInWis
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Certified Nursing Assistant training is very short--less than a semester in our state. You can become a nurse in 2 years at a technical school. One of my friends went to tech school for a radiology tech certification--I'm not sure of the time frame. There are probably other interesting medical occupations that will be in demand in the future, but I'm not up on those.
For the more adventurous, there is Emergency Medical Technician, once again, less than a semester, though you can go for more training. The down side is that in small communities, the ambulance crew is not paid much, if at all.
ETA: I know a homeschool graduate who is doing home-care for senior citizens through a business. No outside training required. http://www.homeinstead.com/pages/home.aspx
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Wasn't Elizabeth Smart homeschooled before she was kidnapped? Or am I remembering wrong?
I don't see anything online that states she was homeschooled before the kidnapping. She was included on the site because her captors used the word "homeschool" as a cover.
"'He told me to say I had been home schooled and that we traveled around ministering to different people,' Elizabeth reported during later testimony," http://hsinvisiblechildren.org/2013/11/26/elizabeth-smart/
From http://hsinvisiblechildren.org/frequently-asked-questions/:
Why did you start the Homeschooling’s Invisible Children Database? Heather Doney and Rachel Coleman, both former homeschool students who have spent time studying homeschooling at a graduate level, became interested in the ways homeschooling can be used to conceal child maltreatment and allow it to continue unimpeded. They began collecting cases of severe abuse and neglect in homeschool settings and soon felt the need for a way to organize and present these cases. They were inspired to found Homeschooling’s Invisible Children by Pound Pup Legacy, an organization that works to raise awareness of problems in the adoption and foster care systems.What is your criteria for including a child in the HIC database? We include all school aged children (ages 5 to 17) who were the victims of severe or fatal abuse or neglect who were legally homeschooled or whose parents, guardians, or captors claimed to be homeschooling them at the time an incident occurred.
Why do you include murdered children whose deaths don’t look like they have anything to do with homeschooling, such as the Moore children or the Yates children? We include every child abuse or neglect death of a homeschooled child regardless of how this death took place. Our hope is to create a comprehensive database of homeschooling fatalities in an effort to locate themes and work toward solutions. In order to effectively analyze the data, we must include all the cases.
Why do you include abducted children whose captors falsely claimed to be homeschooling them? Homeschooling has on numerous been used by kidnappers to help hide their abductions. By claiming to homeschool, abductors do not have to face the choice between enrolling a kidnapped child in school and worrying that someone will notice a child not in school and report them as truant.
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I will also be looking more closely at Life of Fred. Great suggestions, everyone!
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Effective Thinking Through Mathematics, by Michael Starbird,
https://www.edx.org/course/utaustinx/utaustinx-ut-9-01x-effective-thinking-1178
Or, Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, by Keith Devlin
https://www.coursera.org/course/maththink
For MOOCs, it's better to sign up for them both and drop the one you like least. They do vary in quality.
But, the price is right and they do have help forums so you don't have to be involved. I have taken one course on EdX and several on Coursera and find Coursera to be the easier to use website, but Michael Starbird is a Teaching Company favorite lecturer.
--Janet
Janet, I finally took time to look at these. ETA one question which I didn't find answered in looking over the sites: Do you have to be in the classes at specific times?
Very nice! Thanks for your help. These are definitely options we will consider.
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This site lost credibility for me when I saw that they included both Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Lee Duggard in their list of abused homeschooled children. Both women were kidnap victims. Their abductors did not in any way attempt to either school them or comply with any homeschool laws. Their cases are adamantly not homeschooling issues, but rather kidnapping/violent crime issues. There is no way at all that laws about documentation or reporting to school authorities would have changed what happened to them.
Maybe there is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the HSing's Invisible Children site. Their stated mission: The mission of Homeschooling’s Invisible Children is to raise awareness of the horrific abuse and neglect that can take place when unfit caregivers use homeschooling as a cover for criminal child maltreatment (emphasis Colleen's).
As I understand it, the portion I underlined would include kidnappers who tell people, "We're homeschooling." The kidnappers use the term, homeschool, to allay any suspicion and the possibility of reports of truancy.
They are trying to research how the label, "homeschooling," has been used to hide abuse. So they are including in their database abnormal cases, like kidnappings, not just cases in which children were actually being home-educated.
How regulation would have helped the girls in these kidnapping cases--good question, Harriet Vane.
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I completely agree. Not to mention the Yates family and a girl who was kidnapped by her public school teacher. I quit reading at that point, so I didn't even see the two you mentioned. And the creators of that site are two of the five people who created the CRHE....
Tracy, what is your concern about the Yates family being included on the Invisible Children site? I'm not very familiar with the case, so I don't immediately see a discrepancy in including it on a site that lists children who were harmed while adults claimed to be homeschooling.
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Honestly, though, I'm a little puzzled about why you are so worked up about the data issue, La Texican. I'm not really interested in this aspect of the discussion, so I have nothing else to say about it. If you think you have a valid point, maybe you should... oh, wait--I've already suggested that to you twice. ;)
Quoting myself for La Texican b/c this is where I tried to express what I personally am not interested in. If someone else wants to discuss the "data issue" on this thread, go ahead. I have nothing more to say about it.
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To be clear I was quoting the unaffiliated appraiser whose review is the bottom half of the page linked. It was to support the arguement that I have been making, that there is actual data available on homeschool abuse. I thought the police and social workers have it, but the appraiser says it's avalable through google search from the courts online. The homeschool coalition does not want this data, they want data that backs their policy. (Including belt spankings and subpar education as homeschool abuse, to compare to public school data on abuse, which does not count spanking as a crime and education is not a legal American right.)
You've asked me why I'm "so worked up about the data issue", and stated earlier that you "weren't interested in discussing the legislative part" of a thread about a group whose stated purpose is developing regulation and getting data. Then to prove it you started another thread about....wait for it... legislative regulation.
I dropped it because you basically told me to take it off your thread, "I told you where to take it if you think you have a point." Of course I came back to read because obviously I think this topic is interesting. I guess I saw my name and took it as my chance to blurt out that middle paragraph, which has been burning a hole on the tip of my tongue.
Sorry I wasn't clear. I'm not interested in arguing whether or not the CRHE should be crying out for data. I think you may be splitting hairs in your complaints about what they say about data, or you may be right. I don't have anything to say about your concerns about the data, but they might be able to answer your concerns. That's all I meant.
I never said I wasn't interested in discussing the legislative part...? Again, sorry for the misunderstanding, La Texican. You have added lots of valuable thoughts to this discussion, imho.
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Flowy, boho, hippie awesomeness.
You have to make them OR shop resale/thrift stores. Sometimes craft fairs or farmer's markets will have similar clothing items...
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It is normal for children not to want to do things like brush their teeth. It doesn't mean that they are stubborn and strong-willed. It just means that they are children and need to be instructed and corrected consistently. That's what we parents do. :-)
Yes, patience, patience, patience! He will grow and change! Patiently instruct and correct him--you won't see immediate results in every area, but with time, eventually he will learn.
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I second the ideas of reading worthy literature aloud and physical activities--nature walks, trampoline, etc. School needs to be much more than academics, especially in the early years. You are building a relationship with your son. Base it on love. :)
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That is interesting. Are you familiar with ICHER? Could you share what you know?
Dialectica, I first heard of them when La Texican posted a quotation and a link in message 355 above. I looked around the sites a little, main site here and their blog here, where they post articles that include research on home schools. I see articles about tetanus vaccinations in Oklahoma homeschool families, homeschooling in Spain, home-schooled children are thinner, gender/religion/homeschool...
Part of what they say about themselves: The International Center for Home Education Research was founded in 2012 by a group of international scholars with more than 70 years of combined experience studying homeschooling. What sets ICHER apart from most national and international homeschool organizations is that we are not an advocacy group. As longtime observers of home education across a variety of contexts, we have great appreciation for homeschooling’s value and importance, but our purpose is not to promote home education or argue for its superiority over other forms of schooling.
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I have lots of ideas for keeping our one son happy and healthy... I wrote a few paragraphs about it here not too long ago.
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Lea, both your sons are in agreement with this? I think it's great that you've all learned what you've learned, and I hope it goes well with you back at home again. Just keep working on those changes you wanted to make. And love each other. None of us are perfect, but home is about relationship and love; with those and God's grace, you can accomplish much.
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I live between Organic Valley headquarters and these Amish farmers prosecuted for selling raw milk, so I don't care what stereotypes I fit! In case you're wondering what Organic Valley has to do with fashion, we see a lot of styles like this:
I kinda like the hippie-look, truth-be-told, but I'm over 50, so I'm not really up to revamping my entire wardrobe.
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We used MMM levels K-6 for all six of our children (except our oldest "guinea pig" who endured BJU for K and a year of Saxon in 4th grade). It worked for each of them, and I believe my six represent quite a spectrum as far as math ability. What's also important is that both teacher and student enjoyed it most of the time. I feel confident that it got them off to a good start.
We tried the algebra text (Principles from Patterns) with our "guinea pig." but neither of us got it. It might work for some, but what I remember is that the text tried to teach how to use manipulatives (or was it graph paper?) to represent the quadratic formula before my student understood beans about the basics of algebra... Just didn't seem right to me. We went on to Jacobs Elementary Algebra and Geometry, then the Lial books after that.
If you are concerned that it isn't rigorous, you can certainly take your child through it as fast as he can learn it, then start algebra early. We found that most of my kids didn't need as much practice as was provided, especially in levels 5 & 6, in which the same skills are repeated with larger numbers and more difficult fraction problems in level 6.
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Started a spin-off thread about a House Joint Resolution in Virginia, "Requesting the Department of Education to study the religious exemption to compulsory school
attendance." -
The text: http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?141+ful+HJ92+pdf
A petition for the resolution: https://www.change.org/petitions/virginia-legislature-rules-committee-support-homeschooled-children-by-passing-house-joint-resolution-no-92
Opposition to the resolution: http://www.hslda.org/cms/?q=bill/house-joint-resolution-92-requesting-education-department-study-religious-exemption-compulsory
An article in support of the resolution: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2014/01/virginias-proposed-house-joint-resolution-92/
There isn't much on the web about this besides those sites. Has anyone in VA heard of it?
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Those coalition people are dropping the ball by not pursuing documented cases of actual illegal abuse hidden by homeschoolers. They want to vaguely demand, "we need data", "we need regulation", while ignoring sources of actual data. (Still not sure what they think they're going to do with the data.)
Are you aware of Homeschooling's Invisible Children, affiliated with CRHE, in which they list documented cases of abuse by homeschoolers?
Honestly, though, I'm a little puzzled about why you are so worked up about the data issue, La Texican. I'm not really interested in this aspect of the discussion, so I have nothing else to say about it. If you think you have a valid point, maybe you should... oh, wait--I've already suggested that to you twice. ;)
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Ok, CRHE is already involved with ICHER--"The International Center for Home Education Research (ICHER) exists to provide expert information and analysis regarding homeschooling research and to facilitate networking among researchers studying home-based learning. While CRHE is not affiliated with ICHER, some of our researchers have worked with their researchers, and we highly approve of their data-collection efforts on homeschooling laws."
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Wow--the International Center for Home Education Research--sounds like a worthwhile pursuit. Thanks for finding it and sharing, La Texican! From their "About" page:
As longtime observers of home education across a variety of contexts, we have great appreciation for homeschooling’s value and importance, but our purpose is not to promote home education or argue for its superiority over other forms of schooling.
Instead, our goals are threefold:
- to provide nonpartisan information about homeschooling to media outlets and the public
- to offer detailed analyses of emerging research on home education
- to encourage networking and collaboration among scholars
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Graduated 1979. Considering that I was #2 in my high school class (small town) with straight A's except for phy ed and one English class in which I "wasn't working up to my potential," I think I should've been prepared for college a whole lot better. I think I had 2 science courses--biology and geology? And for math, only 3 courses, I think. I took as many language arts and fine arts as I could, but there were no AP classes offered. I did have 2 years of Latin!!! Then the teacher retired...
College didn't help much because, again, I took language arts courses. I was able to get an Associate of Arts without much math or science. Well, the math and science I did take have helped me as a homeschool parent, I can honestly say. But more would've been better.
ETA: In retrospect, I didn't realize at the time what a large effect my parents probably had on my high school education. Although they encouraged me in grade school to do as well as I could (I was a classic first-born and received straight A's--cried if I didn't!), they had no aspirations for education after high school at all. We didn't talk about anything related to education that I can remember. They supported me in my desire to go to college, but they didn't have a clue about how I should prepare for it.
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Is it a problem? Unfortunately, yes.
Is it a widespread problem affecting a large percentage of HS children today? Or is it a problem particular to a tiny subset of HS families who are involved in cult-like churches/movements?
Do we have any statistics to answer these questions? Not as far as I know. You have your experience which tells you it's a tiny problem. Cathmom shared her experience which tells her it's a fairly common problem, which lines up quite well with my non-catholic experience. What I am trying to say throughout this thread is that if we are aware of the attitudes that lead to rogue homeschooling (hmmm... not sure that term works...?), we might as individuals find ways to combat the attitudes.
Coalition for Responsible Home Education
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
For those interested, both of these sites have updated their FAQ pages recently: Homeschooling's Invisible Children FAQ Coalition for Responsible Home Education's FAQ
I also heard that CRHE's Policy Recommendations have been edited. I haven't taken the time to look it over myself, yet.