This should go without saying, but here goes (homeschool related)

[Nestof3]

I was thinking about DC's proposed legislation some more while making lunch. There are some who insist homeschooled children should be schooled for the same time each day / same # of days a week as public schooled children.

 

I just got back from a Mad Science class. The boys assembled rockets today. There were two instructors and 7 moms, including myself, helping out the children. It took the children ONE HOUR to assemble due to:

 

getting attention of all children for instructions

sharing glue

normal distractions/interruptions

the fact that it just takes longer to get 20+ students to do the same thing

 

I guarantee you that if the boys and I had done the rockets at home, it would have taken 20 minutes at the most.

 

Now, the idea that it takes longer to teach a group and longer for a group to comprehend something is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

 

Why propose such a ridiculous mandate?

 

Furthermore, why in the world is the public school held up as the model?

[Sue G in PA]

I was thinking about DC's proposed legislation some more while making lunch. There are some who insist homeschooled children should be schooled for the same time each day / same # of days a week as public schooled children.

 

I just got back from a Mad Science class. The boys assembled rockets today. There were two instructors and 7 moms, including myself, helping out the children. It took the children ONE HOUR to assemble due to:

 

getting attention of all children for instructions

sharing glue

normal distractions/interruptions

the fact that it just takes longer to get 20+ students to do the same thing

 

I guarantee you that if the boys and I had done the rockets at home, it would have taken 20 minutes at the most.

 

Now, the idea that it takes longer to teach a group and longer for a group to comprehend something is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

 

Why propose such a ridiculous mandate?

 

Furthermore, why in the world is the public school held up as the model?

 

That could very well backfire on them. See, I know for a fact that our school district counts half days as whole days, counts field trip days (and the trip actually takes 1/2 day at most), sports days, holiday parties, desk clean-out days, etc. as full days. They also get off for teacher conferences, teacher "in service" days, snow days, have fire drills, bathroom breaks, etc. If I ran my school like a ps...we'd never get anything done (thus the need for homework, right?). So, this legislation could very well backfire if we are actually held up to the same standards. Already, here in PA, I feel like hsers are held to HIGHER standards. I could go on and on about this b/c it really burns me up. I say go ahead...make me run my school like a ps! I bet they'd change their mind real quick if they only knew!

[nancypants]

I was thinking about DC's proposed legislation some more while making lunch. There are some who insist homeschooled children should be schooled for the same time each day / same # of days a week as public schooled children.

 

I just got back from a Mad Science class. The boys assembled rockets today. There were two instructors and 7 moms, including myself, helping out the children. It took the children ONE HOUR to assemble due to:

 

getting attention of all children for instructions

sharing glue

normal distractions/interruptions

the fact that it just takes longer to get 20+ students to do the same thing

 

I guarantee you that if the boys and I had done the rockets at home, it would have taken 20 minutes at the most.

 

Now, the idea that it takes longer to teach a group and longer for a group to comprehend something is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

 

Why propose such a ridiculous mandate?

 

Furthermore, why in the world is the public school held up as the model?

 

Ayup. You're preachin' to the choir, girl! :D You are totally right.

[elegantlion]

In Louisiana we are required to do 180 days of school. We were here a year before I discovered that the public schools only meet for 170 days. If you add in the in-service days it adds up to 180.

 

We used to homeschool in Missouri, where you have to keep track of hours. There are always a debate of how a classroom hour was calculated. I think 20-40 minutes of actual work was the general concensus. Kind of like a TV show, they call it an hour but you only get 40 minutes of show.

[Tracey in TX]

I was thinking about DC's proposed legislation some more while making lunch. There are some who insist homeschooled children should be schooled for the same time each day / same # of days a week as public schooled children.

 

 

Why propose such a ridiculous mandate?

 

Furthermore, why in the world is the public school held up as the model?

 

Good friend is private school teacher. She envies the freedom we're granted to teach at home. Her comment was "of course you get done in less than 7 hours". There isn't (major) discipline, busy work, time spent standing in lines, repeating lessons. After all, make-up work for a typical elementary school day is 15-30 minutes. Shocking <gasp>!

 

Sometimes people are punitive with no thought to reality.

[Jenny in Atl]

Good friend is private school teacher. She envies the freedom we're granted to teach at home. Her comment was "of course you get done in less than 7 hours". There isn't (major) discipline, busy work, time spent standing in lines, repeating lessons. After all, make-up work for a typical elementary school day is 15-30 minutes. Shocking <gasp>!

 

Sometimes people are punitive with no thought to reality.

 

I don't doubt for a moment that most of us spend way more time on actual "school/learning" than your average public or even private school teacher. Even without trying, I went over the 180 days this year. If I added up the hours... I know it would be way more. So much time is wasted learning to form a queue - it's ridiculous. But then again, today at the library, I ran into a lady that obviously was not paying attention to this lesson while she was in school. :lol:

[Kathy in MD]

I was thinking about DC's proposed legislation some more while making lunch. There are some who insist homeschooled children should be schooled for the same time each day / same # of days a week as public schooled children.

 

[/b]

 

Woahhhh!!!!! Is DC proposing this????

 

Mayor Fenty has his hands full trying to reform the DC schools. And the reason he's doing it is because they've brought in a lot of good people as superentendent to try to do this who've failed. As I recall, one was even a retired military officer (a general???)

 

The only reason I can think that this is being proposed is because of the recent murder of several children who were pulled out of school. Good Grief!

[Tammyla]

:iagree:

The two are as different as apples and potatoes.

 

I was thinking about DC's proposed legislation some more while making lunch. There are some who insist homeschooled children should be schooled for the same time each day / same # of days a week as public schooled children.

 

I just got back from a Mad Science class. The boys assembled rockets today. There were two instructors and 7 moms, including myself, helping out the children. It took the children ONE HOUR to assemble due to:

 

getting attention of all children for instructions

sharing glue

normal distractions/interruptions

the fact that it just takes longer to get 20+ students to do the same thing

 

I guarantee you that if the boys and I had done the rockets at home, it would have taken 20 minutes at the most.

 

Now, the idea that it takes longer to teach a group and longer for a group to comprehend something is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

 

Why propose such a ridiculous mandate?

 

Furthermore, why in the world is the public school held up as the model?

[iquilt]

Having entered the home education arena only 2 years ago, I had never given much thought to all of these issues. (As a parent and a elementary education teacher I should have). Now I see just how efficient and wonderful home education can be, but I guarantee there are a lot of people out there who think homeschool must mean "slacking off" or used as an excuse to be lazy. My in-laws were "absolutely amazed" this past weekend at how wonderful dd is doing at home and how she can "still make friends so easily!" but they are still not convinced that we're not completely off our rockers. It is so hard to teach to a classroom of 25 first graders that I'm still so amazed at how easy it was to teach my own first grader and how much more we got to do this year. It's ridiculous that public school is used as the standard to which all educational opportunities are held; aren't they failing millions of kids across the country?

[Nestof3]

It is so hard to teach to a classroom of 25 first graders that I'm still so amazed at how easy it was to teach my own first grader and how much more we got to do this year.

 

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. I am always awed by people who can keep focused enough to teach that many students. My Dad told me the other day that he was very supportive of homeschooling (I've homeschooled my eldest since the 4th grade) but he was convinced I could do it because I was able to teach my younger sons how to read. He silently wondered how I (someone without a degree in teaching) could teach someone to read.

 

I admit that I was a little curious how I'd pull it off as well, but I figured it couldn't be as difficult as trying to teach 20 students to read. LOL

[Audrey]

There are some who insist homeschooled children should be schooled for the same time each day / same # of days a week as public schooled children.

 

 

 

:blink: Huh... so then I should stand in front of my [only] son repeating "Sit down. Quiet now. We're going to start our lesson. Come on. Sit down. Quiet now. We're going to..." over and over again for 20 minutes per subject? And, I suppose I'll need to screech "Line up!" over and over before and after each lunch and recess break. And, should I also take another couple of 20 minute sessions during each day to deal with imaginary "discipline" issues?

 

If I do all that, sure... it might take 7 hours to finish, but my kid would think I was a complete flippin' moron -- which I would be if I tried that :cursing:!

[Adrianne]

 

Why propose such a ridiculous mandate?

 

Furthermore, why in the world is the public school held up as the model?

 

Honestly, I feel it is because the state can't and will not admit that the people can educate their children better than the state sponsored education. It would be calling themselves incompetent to say homeschoolers educate better than the state does.

 

They tried to pass similar strict legislation in NJ a few years back and it did not pass. One representative got it in her bonnet that homeschooling is bad and started a crusade.

 

After rallying the homeschooling community together and launching a large campaign against this bill ( I along with friends attended this rally and made phone calls to my rep), the bill was defeated.

[Mamagistra]

:blink: Huh... so then I should stand in front of my [only] son repeating "Sit down. Quiet now. We're going to start our lesson. Come on. Sit down. Quiet now. We're going to..." over and over again for 20 minutes per subject? And, I suppose I'll need to screech "Line up!" over and over before and after each lunch and recess break. And, should I also take another couple of 20 minute sessions during each day to deal with imaginary "discipline" issues?

 

If I do all that, sure... it might take 7 hours to finish, but my kid would think I was a complete flippin' moron -- which I would be if I tried that :cursing:!

 

 

:lol::lol::lol:

[teamturner]

If you homeschool in D.C. under these requirements, your kids would graduate high school before 7th grade :tongue_smilie:. Talk about an accelerated homeschool!

[lovemyboys]

Woahhhh!!!!! Is DC proposing this????

 

Mayor Fenty has his hands full trying to reform the DC schools. And the reason he's doing it is because they've brought in a lot of good people as superentendent to try to do this who've failed. As I recall, one was even a retired military officer (a general???)

 

The only reason I can think that this is being proposed is because of the recent murder of several children who were pulled out of school. Good Grief!

 

 

When I saw this the other day, I immediately thought it was a reaction to the recent situation there....similar to the Calif. initiative coming as a response to one family's situation.

 

Unfortunately, DC is notorious for some of their DFS cases. If someone thinks that legislating the homeschool community will somehow fix their incredibly overloaded and poorly managed DFS, then they've really misunderstood the whole issue. Rather than helping the DFS, it will hurt the homeschool community, and further burden some poor government dept. employees because the bureaucrats see a quick fix.:glare: