s/o s/o educational standards - when mom is ill?

[cathmom]

nt

Edited June 10, 2011 by cathmom
never mind

[sbgrace]

I'm a former teacher. I don't think subs accomplish much generally but that's beside the point.

 

I do think it's easier to make things up in my experience with major health stuff in both myself and a child. Home schooling is much more efficient in terms of time use. I can accomplish more in 4 hours here than I could with a classroom of 30. Therefore, I can accomplish more in less days. You can prioritize what is most important if needed, you can do school on Saturdays if needed, you can school year round, you can indeed accelerate in some areas--an older child can likely handle more.

 

I think it's much easier to catch up as a homeschooling mother than it was as a classroom teacher. I went on maternity leave. I know those kids didn't learn what they could have learned with me. I've had health issues here. My boys are and will make up the missed material as we school year round.

 

Of course my kids are elementary and there are two of them. I don't know if I'd feel differently with, say, high school age children where the time pressure might mount but I would assume children of that age could handle more themselves anyway if needed. I don't think teacher "absence" in school vs. homeschool is equivalent.

 

Having said that I should add that if I felt whatever issue or situation meant my kids were behind where they needed to be and would not catch up I would have to think about options.

Edited June 10, 2011 by sbgrace

[MorganClassicalPrep]

IF the illness is temporary (as you stated- a month or so), and the children really can't catch up, I think the time should be made up. Vacation time, summer, weekends, etc.

 

If the illness is a chronic illness, and the children begin falling behind with no reasonable plan to catch them up, my personal opinion is that keeping the children home is doing them a disservice.

 

I know this will be unpopular, but I feel the same thing about multiple pregnancies. If children end up a year or so behind because siblings are being born, then either the children need to go to school or mom needs to figure out which is more important- to keep increasing their family, or to home school the children that she already has.

 

I understand that many families will get behind at some point or another, but if the children are falling further and further behind... well.

And this changes depending on the ages of the children also. It is a lot easier to make up a year when the children are young elementary, and I'm a little more flexible on whether I believe they should be sent to school. By high school, it is difficult to make up a year, and something should be done before it gets to this point.

 

(I feel that I should clarify- this is all my own personal opinion, and of course there are people for whom there are extenuating circumstances. Children with learning disabilities who need more time, when it is the children who are sick, etc. all bring up completely different issues.)

[Jean in Newcastle]

I'll weigh in as someone who does have a chronic illness. I've had periods where we have fallen behind in some subjects (but never all of them). I've had some things fall between the cracks. I actually did hire a sub for my dd during my worst part of my illness - unfortunately she was lazy and only wanted to do the "fun projects". But my kids have not fallen behind in learning good character.

 

As far as academics go, homeschooling is one of the most efficient methods of schooling out there. Yes, it has required my attention when I am doing better to identify those areas where we did fall behind and to work more diligently in those areas. And yes, it has required my discernment to see where there were some gaps in teaching and a commitment to fill in those gaps. I think that if you have either times of acute illness or a chronic illness you have to "work smarter" to meet the educational needs of your children.

[Peela]

I agree with Jean that homeschooling is efficient.

I do think it is possible for kids to "catch up".

I think the OP is coming too much from the perspective that homeschooling is just school at home. It isn't- it is far more than that. And "getting behind" is really a school type thinking. So much of school is repetitive. What is "getting behind" anyway? Not finishing a certain text book? Schools frequently don't finish text books. There is no set content. And skills are learned sporadically and can often be learned in shorter times with focused attention.

Homeschooling has so much inherent flexibility that a few months here and there over the lifetime of a child is very redeemable.

[ocelotmom]

Public schools are in session approximately 180 days of the year. That leaves more than half of the year available for catch-up as necessary.

 

If the parent is so sick for so long that catching up isn't possible, then something probably needs to change, whether it's putting the kids in school, passing more of the responsibility to another parent, or implementing a more self-teaching curriculum.

[MorganClassicalPrep]

As far as academics go, homeschooling is one of the most efficient methods of schooling out there. Yes, it has required my attention when I am doing better to identify those areas where we did fall behind and to work more diligently in those areas. And yes, it has required my discernment to see where there were some gaps in teaching and a commitment to fill in those gaps. I think that if you have either times of acute illness or a chronic illness you have to "work smarter" to meet the educational needs of your children.

 

This is why I was specific in my response to say *if there is no reasonable plan to catch up*. :D The OP was asking as if catching up wasn't possible, and that is what I was basing my opinion on. I agree that homeschooling is much more flexible and more able to catch up than public school

[Mommyfaithe]

I have been chronically I'll AND chronically pregnant or wit a newborn much of my homeschooling career. My illness has never caused my kids to fall behind...it has just caused me to be creative in my teaching approach. I have bed schooled, couch schooled, dr. Waiting room schooled, car schooled, had kids do phonics with stick on letters in the tub, used older kids to teach younger....had kids read to me and to each other. My kids have consistently scored in the 90th percentiles throughout our homeschooling despite my illness. Now, we have not done Latin every year....but all the children have done Latin for at least 2 or 3 years and a other foreign language in high school.

I have hired tutors, done online classes, found mentors etc for my kids. We have created an educational environment in our home...and our kids tend to choose educational games over useless ones.

 

Anyway, I am no where near being a superwoman. I just value my children and I prioritize their education as a lifelong pursuit where I get to be the initiator. Being chronically I'll has been very difficult for me and my kids....but homeschooling has allowed us the time to be together, create a lasting relationship and learn together.

 

Faithe

[twoforjoy]

I'm a former teacher. I don't think subs accomplish much generally but that's beside the point.

 

No, I think that's a very important point. I've subbed. Often, as a sub, you end up doing emergency lesson plans, and so you aren't really covering what would have been covered anyway.

 

I can't remember taking a class in K-12--or even many in college--where we actually covered an entire textbook. That's just accepted. You aren't going to cover everything that you could cover, because things are going to come up.

 

I think homeschooling parents feel a lot of pressure to finish everything, because we can. I can choose to extend the school year by three weeks to make sure we finish every program we're using completely, or to do school for twice as long if we've gotten behind, until we catch up again.

 

I think 1-2 month interruptions can be dealt with. We're having a baby in early August, and decided to do school through June and July, and take take our break in August and September. We're not cutting the school year short or starting it late, just shifting around the timing. If a mom has an unexpected illness that means they can't do school for a month, then they can choose to work for a month in the summer, or to do school on Saturdays, or to double up on work for a couple of months, or whatever work for them.

 

I also think there's a lot of options if you can't be as hands on for a bit. I had really bad sciatica when I was pregnant with DD, and then I broke my tailbone during delivery, so there were maybe 4 months total where I was barely mobile. We did a lot of "bed school" at the end of the pregnancy. I'd bring DS's school books into bed in the morning (or DH would bring them in for us), and we'd hang out in there for a couple of hours in the morning and do work, mostly reading together. After DD was born, and I was exhausted and not really up to teaching (at that point I was a pretty new homeschooler and didn't think to plan our year so we'd have a break around the birth), so DS utilized a lot of online stuff, like Time4Learning and Explode the Code online, for a couple of months, and he mainly did that and then reading together while the baby was nursing or napping. He doesn't seem to be any worse for the wear.

 

I also think, although this isn't the question, that homeschooling makes it much easier for a kid to stay on track when they are sick. Once in a while my DS is sick enough that we skip school entirely for the day, and he just sleeps. But, most of the time when he's sick, he's not quite that sick. He's sick enough that I'd keep him home from a school so that others wouldn't catch what he has, but he's not so sick that he just wants or needs to sleep or rest all day. In those cases we can either do school exactly as planned or at least get some of what was planned done, so that he isn't a week or two behind when he's fully recovered.

Edited June 10, 2011 by twoforjoy

[cathmom]

nm

Edited June 10, 2011 by cathmom
nm

[fairfarmhand]

here is how I feel about catching up....

 

How much of a typical school year is "wasted" on repeating things that were supposed to be learned in the prior year? How much of the typical school year is "wasted" on _______( fill in the blank with school assemblies, parties, movie days...etc) How much of a typical school day is "wasted" on crowd control, taking 25 kids to the restroom, making sure everyone is opened to the same page.....

 

So say you have a chronic illness and work through the summer. All the kid's knowledge is fresh and new....is there a good reason to do all the first 45 lessons that repeat things that you just learned a few weeks ago? Is there a need to "refresh" knowledge that is not stale? Nope. Not for many students.

 

Homeschooling is more efficient. One can spend plenty of time on difficult concepts while just brushing over ones that are mastered. Getting behind might mean not learning the typical stuff a ___grader might need to know. Or it might just mean that mom is going to have to look through the curriculum and make wiser choices about which lessons one covers in a given week. "susie, remember how we learned word problems last year? Do you remember that? Ok do the first 5 on this page and if you get them all right then we will move onto the next lesson."

 

Learning is not necessarily about completing workbooks.

[cathmom]

nm

Edited June 10, 2011 by cathmom
should have known better

[MrsBasil]

.

Edited June 10, 2011 by MrsBasil
OP edited her post.

[Jean in Newcastle]

wow. I guess I'm the only one who ever worries about this stuff.

 

No. You just caught me at a time when I've done processing my latest "what have I done to my child" anxiety attack! As I mentioned in my earlier post, I have found areas where my kids have fallen behind and things that have fallen through the cracks. I went through a period of self flagellation when I realized this. But once I calmed down and took inventory, so to speak, I've been able to come up with a plan of attack. That has done a lot to take away the worry.

 

ETA - I didn't know from your OP that this was more of a personal question - ie. something you were trying to work through. I think that would have changed, not the content of what I said, but the way I said it. Instead I was approaching the issue as an interesting homeschooling topic to discuss.

Edited June 10, 2011 by Jean in Newcastle

[cathmom]

ETA - I didn't know from your OP that this was more of a personal question - ie. something you were trying to work through. I think that would have changed, not the content of what I said, but the way I said it. Instead I was approaching the issue as an interesting homeschooling topic to discuss.

 

That's the way I wanted to approach it. I appreciated your post. Thanks! :grouphug: