Homeschooled alumni - what do you remember?

[SarahW]

I'm not the only homeschooled homeschooler here, right?

 

Sometimes, when I'm in the middle of the daily hs'ing grind, I wonder - is he ever going to remember this? If he does, will he remember it fondly? Are we actually getting anywhere? lol

 

I sometimes think about my own homeschooling experience. What do I remember? What did I like, or not like? What was useful for me?

 

I went to a preschool, but after that I was homeschooled. One early and clear memory was sitting at the little desk in my bedroom with a little book that I think was titled "I Can Spell Cat." Maybe it was ABeka? I remember liking the feel of it. It was a smallish book (maybe 8x8") with a spiral binding and a glossy cover. I liked using my pencil to fill out the pages in that lovely little book.

 

Another early memory was sitting at school desks in the dining room where my older brother and I would read verses from the KJV back and forth while our mother helped us with her self-pronouncing Bible. We started in Genesis, but I think we stopped before Noah got drunk and nekkid.

 

Later memories - I found a vintage LA book in the house, and I used that one year. The date was 1904 I think, but I forget the title. It would be neat to find it again on Google Books. But, like with the Cat book, the real draw for me was the feel of the book. It was also smallish, and like many vintage books had that heavy-light feel from the pasted paper cover and the thick pages. I remember carefully copying the pretty cursive script in that book. (I came up with copywork without CM!!) It also had something like picture study in it. And some things I wasn't sure what to do with, but now realize were probably intended for studied dictation.

 

I remember going on field trips organized through a local homeschool group. That was probably 2nd-4th range. We went to a bread factory, an industrial plastics plant, a train yard, the police/fire station (the padded cell was excellent!), and a professional theater. My older brother (2 years older) probably got more out of those experiences than I did.

 

I remember not liking BJU math or ABeka LA in upper elem/middle. In contrast to the Cat and vintage books, those books were big and...what's the right word? Garish. Hmm...Ugly. Uninspiring? Unintuitive? I was averse to them. And I still am.

 

In contrast, I liked nearly every history textbook, so it wasn't a textbook good/bad thing. But I always liked history.

 

I remember one time, we all sat in the living room and listened as my older brother read aloud from Prince Caspian.

 

I also remember a curriculum called Springboard to Spanish, and my brother and I running around the house doing all the Spanish commands. That was Fun School. We didn't do that program for long, but I still remember some Spanish words from it.

 

I remember Character Sketches, they were also beautiful books with heavy paper. And gorgeous pictures. I don't remember many of the stories though, or their point. I also remember The Pineapple Story, in which I learned about the cultivation on pineapples, and that missionaries lie in their support letters.  :lol:

 

There's lots I'm sure I've forgotten. I went to a homeschool conference this past summer and sometimes had sudden deja vu seeing books that were a part of my childhood, but I had forgotten. One was a Mennonite book - Learning Virtues with the Millers, or something like that. I guess my mother tried character education, but I wasn't particularly interested.

 

It's funny to think about what I valued, like the feel of little books, and contrast that to what I am doing with my own kid. Lots of his things are computer based, or pdf's that I print out and stick in a binder. I made an effort to get a matching nice-looking binder/clipboard set this year, and I hope that is something that he enjoys and values. I try to remember my distaste for certain books, and drop things he shows an aversion to, even if the aversion is superficial.

 

And I try to remember that "Fun School" may be the learning that lasts, but desk work can also be remembered fondly. And that good presentation needs to be matched by good content.

 

Are there any other homeschooled folks around? I'm curious about what others remember. What stuck? And why?

 

 

[ailysh]

I was homeschooled. In fact, my sister and I just went through some of our old books at our parents'and that brought back some fond memories. I liked books with beautiful pictures. I still do, ha. My older daughter loves science books more for the content than the pictures but I'm still always getting beautifully illustrated books from the library in addition to her non fiction. I love Barbara Cooney.

I also didn't like abeka, Bob Jones, or saxon. I loved sing spell read and write. I still remember the songs. Must go now, family time! :-)

[dragonflyer]

Doing wrap-ups in the doctor's office.

Homeschool park days.

Spelling baseball game.

Hating Saxon Math with everything I am.

Calling my dad at his office because my sister's tooth fell out.  Most of the people my dad worked with laughing at me because I acted too grown-up.

Swearing that cursive was stupid and I would NEVER use it to write.

Being sure that phonics blending was a skill that was totally unnecessary because I did not already know it.

Listening to many cassette tapes.

My mom househunting having to bring four kids to every house we looked at.

Going to my mom's friend to learn how to do a book report.

Reciting for the end-of-year homeschool talent show.

Homeschool cheerleading squad and 4H.

Being spanked every night of 3rd grade for not doing my math homework.

Lots of sleepovers on a school night and inventing board games and our own kid's sing-a-long cassette tapes.

 

Learned enough that I am willing to do it with my own kids.

[momacacia]

DH still despises Rod & Staff. I think the lack of color and dullness, but I find his distaste for it amusing. It's otherwise so benign.

[BooksandBoys]

I was homeschooled K4 through sixth grade.

 

Being bored to tears with Abeka math for 6 years (I adore math).

 

I loved third grade Abeka history. It was a year of studying individuals, and it was amazing. I still picture the book often and hope to replicate that love in my kids.

 

How incredibly awesome my grammar education was.

 

How very much I hated the dry health, science, and history (Abeka again), except for that third grade history course.

 

How amazing it was to finish school in 2-3 hours and have hours and hours to read or create my imaginary worlds.

 

Homeschool YMCA or skate days. Coming into my tween years at the skating rink with my best friends.

 

The friendships that endure to the day, even though I went to PS.

 

"Racing" the public schools to finish the year first. As a year-round homeschooler now, my kids won't have that fun.

 

Loving being a homeschooler so much that I couldn't wait to educate my own kids.

[Teneo]

Let's see...

 

Reading lots if historical fiction outside.

Going to the library to choose books for history to supplement the What Your -- Grader Needs to Know.

Loving the Famous Men Of series.

Entering information on a timeline that lined the hall. Later on a book of the centuries.

Confusion over KeyTo followed by angst with Saxon. Trying out Jacob's Algebra and loving it but having to switch back to Saxon due to it being more self guided. Disliking Saxon.

Lots of sketching practice and nature hikes in grade school. As a teen switching from the colorful Bob Jones science to Apologia biology when it came out and liking the way Apologia seemed to be speaking to me while missing BJP's colorful pages.

Journey Through Grammar Land, Jensen's, and Grammar Songs.

Dancing to Audio Memory's music.

My first intro to Little Women and Lamb's Shakespeare at 9. Watching the plays on vhs when I was older.

Playing wrap ups, Outnumbered, and Carmen Sandiego for "spare time" practice.

Books, books everywhere. All the literature and historical fiction I could read.

Obsessively reading every and any book about the Tudors and Pearl Harbor during high school. Used interlibrary loan a lot. Getting a note on one book from the librarian saying it was dug out of the basement at the state library. To me that was a huge highlight!

Getting our first Veritas Press catalog in was it 97? And pouring over the pages. Telling my parents what I wanted to do to make my education more like the catalog for high school (VP didn't have upper levels at first though).

Running back and forth to tell parents about an interesting passage when reading in high school. Particularly in Paradise Lost, On The Incarnation, and Bondage of the Will.

Doing this whole course on Dickens one semester.

Mom using The Learnables German with me in grade school. She'd have me use dollhouse miniatures to match. Made it to level 4 before we got lost. In high school she wanted me to study German but I insisted on Latin. I also asked to learn Greek since she and Dad knew it but that didn't happen.

[Teneo]

Oh yes! Starting out the day at the kitchen table with Mind Benders.

[SilverMoon]

Mine was mostly an example of how I was not going to homeschool my own. ACE paces and very, very little help from adults. Blech.

[SarahW]

Mine was mostly an example of how I was not going to homeschool my own. ACE paces and very, very little help from adults. Blech.

 

 

Yeah....I was trying to stay positive - but by Middle School I was "independent" and quite lonely. And rather lost in a number of subjects.

 

Honestly, until CP was weeping over going to Kindergarten for months, I didn't consider being a homeschooler myself.

 

That, and all the homework he brought home from K annoyed me. If my kid is going to be tortured with worksheets he may as well stay home and do them, tyvm. But I thought his school was nice, overall. But I wasn't the student there, sooo....

[MFA323]

I remember hating Lifepacs and Saxon math. I also remember trying to convince my mom that the kids from the homeschool group were weird. My homeschooling experience was not great. I loved being done by lunchtime every day and finishing the year in March.

[SparklyUnicorn]

What a cool thread. 

[Rachel]

Not a homeschool alum, but I'm loving this thread.

[LucyStoner]

I was technically homeschooled in 7th and 8th grades. This was really more unschooling. My mom helped me through a bit of algebra from one of her textbooks from community college. Otherwise, most of my weekdays were mostly walking to the library in the morning and working in a home daycare from about 2:30 or so in the afternoon. Somedays I worked in the mornings but mostly just the afternoons. I read in the library, walked next door to the cafe and ate either a bagel, cream cheese and jelly or a cup of minestrone soup or an egglplant and pesto sandwich for lunch and then walked to work. I think I also had a typing program on this ancient computer my parents picked up somewhere. That was it. The other homeschoolers we knew were sort of school at home religiously motivated homeschoolers (I was very religious but it had nothing to do with being at home. I was at home because I walked out of school and refused to ever go back.) This was about 1992. I read a.whole.lot.of.books, including working my way through most of the classics of English and Russian literature.

[Ms.Ivy]

I loved history, and reading, and any subject I got to do that had my mom involved in the actual teaching and presentation of the lesson.  I hated Saxon, Lifepacs, A Beka, and Winston Grammar.  I think some of that had to do with the fact that I was expected to do it independently and those books simply weren't designed for that.  I loved the Learnables for Spanish and getting the opportunity to do Latin in high school.  I loved that I had lots of time to gain work experience as a teenager.  I remember telling people that we were out in public because we went to a private school that was year-round and we were on vacation that week.... my mom was afraid to tell people we homeschooled because it was the 80s and that's just how it was back then, haha

[Lori D.]

Loving this thread! So great to hear memories from those who are adults and moms now, but who homeschooled as children! It's making me want to ask my sons (now both over 20) what their early memories of homeschooling in the 2000s are!

Edited October 6, 2018 by Lori D.

[IsabelC]

Interesting to read what people remember.

 

It's probably good to sometimes consider that we are making our kids' memories right now, as well as getting through the daily joys and struggles that we're dealing with at this particular point.

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

I remember that I loved math but hated history. The way we did history was just so all over the place. A bit from here, a bit from there...I always wished I could just do a textbook from start to finish. It was the same with science except that I liked science. I planned to use textbooks with my kids until I discovered classical and CM.

 

I loved writing papers and once begged my mom to let me do a research paper that would take several months. We did month long unit studies so all my papers were on the shorter side. We did write A LOT though and my mom liked us to be creative with reports and add pictures and/or "minute books"(mini books? Not sure of the name but it was a homeschooling "thing" in the 90's). I remember that my brother always got in trouble for not finishing papers. He spent so much time reading everything in the encyclopedia EXCEPT the topic he was supposed to be reading about that he never got around to finishing his research and writing the paper. He knew lots of other cool stuff though.

 

I loved to read but never read any classics. My mom hated the ones she read in school so didn't bother making us read them. She never took us to the library (not even once that I can remember) but my dad did. My dad loves to read. He just let us pick whatever we wanted. My mom struggled in school so tended to avoid teaching us the things that were not important (i.e. hard for her). My dad taught us math in high school. He is extremely smart. He goofed off and slept through most of high school and still got over 1300 on the SAT. I don't think he understood that not everyone catches on that easily so he wasn't always the most patient teacher.

 

My parents are still homeschooling my youngest sister. My brother and I who have have school age kids homeschool them, and our brother and sister with babies plan to homeschool in the future. The five of us who are married all married home schooled kids. None of us plan to homeschool the exact same way our parents did but we're using the bits and pieces that we liked and making it our own. We'll all have very different approaches I'm sure. :-)

 

Our cousins were homeschooled using the same materials we did. They always seemed to have more fun though. Their school days were shorter, they had fewer papers to write, they did more fun, hands-on, messy stuff. (My mom hated messy projects.) Now that most of us are grown, all 8 of my siblings and I homeschool or plan to. Of the 10 of them, only 2 or 3 homeschool or plan to homeschool. I'm sure there are a hundred other factors involved there but it's interesting to think about what may have caused the difference.

[Butter]

Mostly I remember the really fun stuff like when we went all over southern MD and collected leaves and then we pressed them in a leaf press my dad made and then figured out all sorts of stuff about the leaves and trees.  I also remember all the grammar my mom crammed down my throat.  I hated it then, but I really, really appreciate it now.

[SarahW]

I loved history, and reading, and any subject I got to do that had my mom involved in the actual teaching and presentation of the lesson.  I hated Saxon, Lifepacs, A Beka, and Winston Grammar.  I think some of that had to do with the fact that I was expected to do it independently and those books simply weren't designed for that.

 

 

I remember hating Lifepacs and Saxon math.

 

 

Yep.

 

It's funny, when I recently discussed being homeschooled with my older brother, he mentioned that he LIKED the year he did Lifepacs. Though as I recall he didn't do them completely independent. But I think he did them in 4th grade. He remembers liking that it was all laid out and scheduled, and included neat electives. I suspect he was the classic workbook box-checker kind of student.

 

I remember when I was put in a math class at a local Christian school part way through 8th it was a REVELATION to me that there was more math going on than what was discussed in the beginning of each BJU or Saxon chapter. The teacher wrote all sorts of stuff out on the board, and if I followed along, and wrote it down, math could make sense!!! Amazing! The stuff in the textbook was nice to review when I was doing the homework, but I didn't have to sit there and try to learn from it! lol.

 

BJU, Abeka, and Saxon were designed for classrooms, and were designed to be taught by a teacher, yes.  I don't know how the idea got started that handing one of these books to a kid was enough to teach them.

 

Though it did work for some. My older brother progressed up to Calculus by 11th grade, with little more than being handed the books. But I suspect that if he was tested he would score as having a higher than average IQ. 

[Butter]

I loved Lifepacs :)

[2ndGenHomeschooler]

We did BJU math and basically taught ourselves. I never had any real problems with it, although a little help with geometry would have been nice. If we ever got too stuck we'd ask my dad for help. Two of my brothers and I were fine with this teach ourselves method and our baby sister seems to be too. We did algebra 1 and 2 and geometry. I finished these in 11th grade and didn't do any math my senior year. The others had a harder time and didn't get quite as far. I never considered that the books weren't designed for self teaching. An excellent point that I should remember for the future. BTW - I don't currently use BJU math (or A beka) or plan to in the future.

[Cottonwood]

I was in PS until high school.  Then, in 9th grade, my parents decided to HS me (they were already HSing my older brother through HS).  Back then (1987-1990) they knew only of American SChool, so they ordered the material, briefly explained to me how it would work, and stuck the books in my hand for me to do.  It was really clear to me that I was to be completely independent with it and that it was to be done, and done well.  I was told I only had to work 3 hours a day each day then the day was mine.  I was the 2nd of 4 children and my mom was up to her neck in caring for my younger 2 sibs who were very young, plus we lived on a small family farm.  She had no time to teach high school. I was pretty lonely as we lived way out in the country and we were the only HSing family we knew of, so no one was ever around.  

 

I was bored silly and very quickly reverted to finding the answers and filling in the blanks to turn the work in.  I have NO idea how I got such good grades.    I remember having to dig really deep to just trudge through most days.  I slept  late most days, but as long as I did my 3 hours, my mom let me.  I had no math support beyond the books purchased for me and since I had such horrific teachers in middle school for math, I feel like I had a gigantic mental block with it so there was 2 yrs of struggles and very poor grades in math, despite my dad's occasional chance to help me.  I now know, though, that I was being taught from Dolciani books! 

 

I remember just not doing my work one day and getting away with it, then the next, and getting away with it.  It turned into a 6 month sabbatical in 11th grade.  it was GREAT.  ohhh, my mom (who never backed anything she said up) kept telling me I'd better get back to it.  But when my dad found out (how did he not know??), I had to get all that work done by the end of that school year.  That was hard.  So, while my parents expected me to do it independently, there were some strict guidelines.  After it was said and done, I finished high school a year early and went to work.  I went back for additional schooling once I was 20 and knew a little more about what I wanted to do with my life.  

 

I have very neutral feelings about it all.  No real fond memories of it at all, except the sleeping part and watching The Price is Right every...day as I ate breakfast.  The education portion was no utopia or fun in my life whatsoever.  My parents knew NOTHING about other resources, learning styles, adding in fun stuff, or even reading supplemental books, etc.  It w,as a business arrangement of sorts, it felt like.  The *one* thing I remember being thankful for, even though I was lonely and bored to tears every day, was the extreme amount of relief I felt, especially at the beginning.  Relief from mean girls, impossible deadlines and a strange unidentifiable pressure and stress that made my physically ill.  I definitely remember 'deschooling' in that first year.  That part felt pretty awesome.

 

There is *nothing* about those years that have influenced me to HS my kids.  If you were to see how we HS, you would think I had a utopian experience myself!  The only influence that my HS years had on me was a good measure of familiarity and confidence that it was something I could do b/c I had also done it.   I sit next to them and we work through whatever they need.  We follow rabbit trails together, I get their viewpoints on whatever I can, and there's a lot of flexibility.  Well, anyway HS was just one of many things I did in my youth.  BUt it was by no means any kind of highlight.  

[lexi]

I was homeschooled but only in high school. I remember going out to lunch at fun restaurants with my mom, doing school on the patio with her sitting nearby, being able to work part time during the day, and the amount of time I had to pursue my own interests (and how my mom encouraged me). I had a good experience and do remember it fondly. I don't have many fond memories of the public school I attended in elementary.

I hope my kids will remember days like today where they built a fort in the backyard and ate cookies in it while I read aloud. IF I had been homeschooled in the younger years it is what I would have wanted.

[nwmama]

Oh gosh, all of these bring back memories!

 

I remember long hours at the library and devouring every biography I could get from a series I can't remember the name of.

 

We did a lot of different curriculums, ABeka, Bob Jones, Sonlight, I'm all a little apathetic about. I don't hate them but I wouldn't use them myself. Konos, on the other hand, I hated! It was so hands on and I wanted workbooks. I remember dissecting a cow's eyeball and building an ear out of chairs and blankets and stuff and I hated every bit of it. My poor mother.

 

We did Robinson one year, I liked that well enough because of all the reading, but I don't agree with the theory behind it.

 

I actually liked Saxon and thought it did a good job at getting me through school.

 

I also breezed through most of my senior year. I'd already taken the ACT and SAT and scored high enough to get scholarships so I didn't see the point. My mom still feels guilty about not making me finish. With that in mind, I'll probably have my kids taking college classes by then so it's a prof lecturing them, not me!

 

I remember my friends in PS being jealous because I had so much more free time.

 

I remember lots of field trips and road trips and always going places in the off season so it wasn't crowded.

[Clear Creek]

I was homeschooled through 6th grade. There were some benefits, but overall it was a huge lesson in how not to homeschool. I remember:

 

- getting spanked for each word I missed on spelling tests (just the tests my dad gave me, not my mom).

- schooling year-round because we used Abeka via the correspondence school since that was the only legal way my parents could do it in the late 70's/early 80's and every single lesson had to be completed...I remember being insanely jealous of my public school friends who got summers off of school.

- my mom crying every single day for years because teaching Abeka as written to FIVE kids was burning her out (she also had two kids too young for school).

- being made fun of in ballet class by the other students every year because no one else had heard of homeschooling and they thought my family was really weird.

- going on field trips with other homeschoolers in the area (there actually were other homeschoolers in our area, just not very many) - the field trip to the sewage treatment plant is one I will never forget!

- being jealous that all my public school friends got to learn a foreign language and I didn't.

- wishing I could learn to play an instrument and take an art class, again both things offered in the public schools.

 

 

I try very hard to remember that my attitude and behavior is one of the biggest things my kids will remember from these years. I don't want them to remember me as a screaming harpy or a nag, so I monitor myself closely. I also don't use Abeka (no matter how awesome people say it is), I just can't. I don't want to look at those books. Saxon math provokes the same reaction, so I won't use it either. Art and music (especially music) are important components of my homeschool; my kids all take piano lessons and the two older kids are in choir.

 

[Ms.Ivy]

I try very hard to remember that my attitude and behavior is one of the biggest things my kids will remember from these years. I don't want them to remember me as a screaming harpy or a nag, so I monitor myself closely. I also don't use Abeka (no matter how awesome people say it is), I just can't. I don't want to look at those books. Saxon math provokes the same reaction, so I won't use it either. Art and music (especially music) are important components of my homeschool; my kids all take piano lessons and the two older kids are in choir.

 

I agree. My mom's attitude and her frustration, anger, and loneliness were the biggest things I remember about homeschooling.  The mental and spiritual health of the homeschool teacher should be one of the most important considerations in homeschooling!

 

I have to add another good memory -- getting to spend a lot of time illustrating history stories.  We would read a biography and then draw a picture for it and put it in a binder.  I LOOOOOVED doing that and it really helped me remember the stories.  

[SarahW]

I agree. My mom's attitude and her frustration, anger, and loneliness were the biggest things I remember about homeschooling.  The mental and spiritual health of the homeschool teacher should be one of the most important considerations in homeschooling!

 

 

Totally agree. My "independent" work in middle school was partially self-afflicted. Thinking back on it now, I realize that my mother probably had PTSD from her own school experience (at a Catholic school with a nun who was apparently physically abusive), was under a lot of stress from the Gothard line that homeschooling is GOD'S LAW, and had post-partum depression. Plus she burnt herself out on too many volunteer activities, which made her short-tempered.

 

I can realize all that now. But when I was 12, it just made me sad and scared.

 

Which is why I say that people shouldn't homeschool out of fear, or homeschool with fear.

 

On days I'm exhausted from the baby and short on patience I try to remember that myself. Deep breath. Smile. Say something encouraging. Get the necessary done and then go take a rest.

[nwmama]

Totally agree. My "independent" work in middle school was partially self-afflicted. Thinking back on it now, I realize that my mother probably had PTSD from her own school experience (at a Catholic school with a nun who was apparently physically abusive), was under a lot of stress from the Gothard line that homeschooling is GOD'S LAW, and had post-partum depression. Plus she burnt herself out on too many volunteer activities, which made her short-tempered.

 

I can realize all that now. But when I was 12, it just made me sad and scared.

 

Which is why I say that people shouldn't homeschool out of fear, or homeschool with fear.

 

On days I'm exhausted from the baby and short on patience I try to remember that myself. Deep breath. Smile. Say something encouraging. Get the necessary done and then go take a rest.

 

Even though my mom wasn't burned out and homeschooled for other reasons, I was surrounded by kids whose mom's homeschooled because it was the "right" thing to do and who were so frustrated. It's certainly affected my decisions and attitudes. I homeschool because the schools in our area are awful, really awful, unless you camp out for 5 days in the middle of November or pay for private school, which we can't afford. But if I ever get close to the point that I am hating it, we'll put the kids in public school before I burn out. And I won't let all of our friends be homeschoolers. I work really hard to make sure I have friends whose kids are in public or private school, because homeschooling doesn't make me holier!

[ThursdayNext]

- going on field trips with other homeschoolers in the area (there actually were other homeschoolers in our area, just not very many) - the field trip to the sewage treatment plant is one I will never forget!

.

OMG!!! I might know you! I was homeschooled too. The sewage treatment field trip is infamous. Just 2 years ago, my siblings and I were talking about how weird our homeschool experience was. The waste treatment field trip came up. My stepmom then told us she was the one who planned it! We were blown away that she was responsible for the sickest field trip ever. Why, Mom, just why?

[Vida Winter]

Okay, one of you needs to tell us about the sewage treatment field trip!

[Clear Creek]

OMG!!! I might know you! I was homeschooled too. The sewage treatment field trip is infamous. Just 2 years ago, my siblings and I were talking about how weird our homeschool experience was. The waste treatment field trip came up. My stepmom then told us she was the one who planned it! We were blown away that she was responsible for the sickest field trip ever. Why, Mom, just why?

 

Where were you living in the early 80's?

 

 

 

Okay, one of you needs to tell us about the sewage treatment field trip!

 

I remember walking on a walkway alongside and above a huge rectangular pit...like an enormous swimming pool...and it was filled with sewage. It smelled worse than you can imagine. :ack2:  The employee leading the field trip said that everyone that worked there was used to the smell, but I couldn't imagine staying in that building long enough to get used to it. It looked and smelled just horrid. I couldn't even focus on the description of the steps that the sewage went through during its treatment, all I could do was stare at this huge pit of poop and try not to vomit. All I learned that day was that I really, really did not want to work at a sewage treatment facility.

[nwmama]

Where were you living in the early 80's?

 

 

 

 

I remember walking on a walkway alongside and above a huge rectangular pit...like an enormous swimming pool...and it was filled with sewage. It smelled worse than you can imagine. :ack2:  The employee leading the field trip said that everyone that worked there was used to the smell, but I couldn't imagine staying in that building long enough to get used to it. It looked and smelled just horrid. I couldn't even focus on the description of the steps that the sewage went through during its treatment, all I could do was stare at this huge pit of poop and try not to vomit. All I learned that day was that I really, really did not want to work at a sewage treatment facility.

 

How gross!!!!

 

[HSmomof2]

Where were you living in the early 80's?

 

 

 

 

I remember walking on a walkway alongside and above a huge rectangular pit...like an enormous swimming pool...and it was filled with sewage. It smelled worse than you can imagine. :ack2: The employee leading the field trip said that everyone that worked there was used to the smell, but I couldn't imagine staying in that building long enough to get used to it. It looked and smelled just horrid. I couldn't even focus on the description of the steps that the sewage went through during its treatment, all I could do was stare at this huge pit of poop and try not to vomit. All I learned that day was that I really, really did not want to work at a sewage treatment facility.

I went to public school, but our 8th grade science class took this same sewage treatment plant field trip. It was so gross and exactly as you described! I think I'm still traumatized

[Ameena]

I was homeschooled 4th through 8th in the mid/late-90's.

 

The things I remember are:

 

~Hating Saxon Math {though now I use it with my kid}

~Mostly unschooling, after we got through the bad habits I'd picked up in public school. I did a lot of reading on my own. Mom made some of my workbooks herself & I really hated those.

~Not really fitting in with the rest of the local group as we weren't homeschooling for religious reasons & didn't use abeka / rod & staff.

~Loving the freedom to do family history for history in school. I developed a love for the history of my family that is still around today. And my college professors said I had the best grasp of US history they'd ever seen.

~Homeschool 4-h. We had yearbook, rocketry, and sewing :) And Holiday helper at the ag office.

~Third Thursday Thingamabob at the library - aka each one teach one / public speaking.

~Y2k, and the wierd survivalist movement that went through our homeschool group.

[nwmama]

 

~Y2k, and the wierd survivalist movement that went through our homeschool group.

 

This!!!!!!

 

[Erin]

Am I the only one reading all these positives, wishing a man would chime in with boy-perspective?  
Boys are such different animals...

[SarahW]

Am I the only one reading all these positives, wishing a man would chime in with boy-perspective?  

Boys are such different animals...

 

I'll have to interview my brothers over Thanksgiving. I will impress upon them the importance of providing information to the Hive Mind.  :laugh:

 

I do know that my older brother is making noises about homeschooling. But my SiL worked in education, and they live in NC, so I guess there's no big surprise there.

[Eileen Aroon]

I was homeschooled, but since we need some male memories, here you are. My husband was homeschooled in Florida and South Dakota in the 90s. He liked going to historical re-enactments like Civil war battles and stuff. He was averse to reading until his step-grandma lent him a book from The Wheel of Time series and regularly took him to bookstores to get whatever he wanted. And then she would read the books and discuss them with him.

 

Once he was caught cheating on his Saxon math (his little brother did it all the time, he says) and as punishment his father (Marine Cops officer) made him do math all day for months. 45 minutes of math, 15 minute break. This was in 7th or 8th grade. Well, he blew through several math books doing that. Soon afterward, he had to take a mandatory state test for Florida students. He did so well that a community college offered him a full scholarship to go there. And that is how he completely skipped high school. He said it was weird getting hit on by college girls (he was 6 feet tall at age 13).

 

As for his little brother, apparently he refused to obey their mother, and in 5th grade she kinda gave up so he went to work with the father who had left the Marines and did his schoolwork on the road. Depending on who you ask, this was not a perfect solution. Some people aren't meant for classrooms. His parents then insisted he go to college, and after 7 years and 4 institutions he graduated with a huge amount of debt and thankfully found a great job 3 years later.

 

My mom did part-time school with my twin brothers when they were teens. For a couple years they went half of the day to PS and then came home and my mom would do Saxon math and The Lost Tools of Writing. And she read biographies of great men to them. My one brother who is at West Point credits a biography of Washington and hours spent with my dad playing Axis and Allies on our dining room table with is love of country and his desire to be a general.

 

I think in all of these lives, one of the great things HS gave the students was time. Time to pursue talents, time together with family, time to get ahead of the group.

[Mystie]

I remember feeling like school after lunch was a huge imposition. 

 

I remember my mom catching my younger brother locked in the bathroom with the Saxon teacher manual and his math notebook, copying answers.

 

I remember mom not catching me not doing my work because I looked studious and knew how to fly under the radar. – and because of these last two, my kids will never self-correct their own work, especially math.

 

I remember painfully sounding out c-a-t and not getting it. Then one day – I was almost 8 – it clicked and within a year I could and did read anything. 

 

I remember being bored with Bob Jones textbooks, hating Saxon math, and devouring books on my own free afternoons. 

 

I remember learning the reflexive response, "check out 5 book from the library" whenever I wanted to learn something or was interested in something. 

 

I remember learning to cook at 11 and getting to make dinner start to finish on my own regularly when I was 12. I wanted to, but I know it helped my mom out a lot, too. 

 

I remember knowing from early on I was responsible for myself and I would get out of something what I put in. I still often put in not much effort, but I knew that was my own choice and fault. When ambition kicked in at 15 or 16, I knew I was the one who had to make things happen - and I did.

 

I remember thinking I would homeschool and parent *so much better* than my mom, which is one motivation that prompted me to research and adopt classical education, and while I do feel the responsibility to take things to the next level in the next generation, I have also learned my mom knew a lot more than I thought she did. :)

 

 

[Mystie]

Oh, and I remember my dad coming home one day in the mid-90s with a stack of printer paper which he handed to my brother and I (I must have been around 12, so he was about 9), telling us, "This is html. You can use it to make webpages if you want."  He gave us the printed code reference, he had a computer with internet connection we could use (the internet was almost nothing at the time, and dad didn't do "cheater" aol - or "cheater" windows - we used dos). 

 

And so my brother and I had our own homepages at a time when most of our friends didn't even have internet. And I still use that html knowledge to this day.

 

I wasted so much of the free time I was given as a result of a relaxed homeschooling life, but it was still the reading and the hobbies and the projects I did in those times on my own that taught me most and applied to later life. My husband, who was also homeschooled, says the same thing. 

[Dory]

I'm a homeschooled homeschooler. I spend a lot of my time hoping and praying that my kids will have better memories of it all then I did.

 

I HATED Saxon with a passion. I'd use a stronger word for it, but I don't think that's allowed on here.

 

I oddly remember grade 7 Abeka history videos rather well. (I liked the teacher's style of doing things)

 

I cheated for numerous years in elementary and was never caught. It wasn't that I didn't know the material, it was that if I got below an 85% on a test, my mom would get really angry, so I would cheat to ensure that I would get 85-90%. I always made sure that I didn't get 100% either. I once got an honest 100% on a test and my mom drilled me and checked everything near me because she was sure I had cheated (that was grade 3).

 

I used to hide my mom's old nursing textbooks under the couch ( often sat on the floor in front of the couch and worked on the coffee table) and I'd pull them out and read from them instead of doing my work when my mom left the room.

 

I was super proud of my ability to cook a full, well rounded meal for everyone by the time I was about 11, and at 12 I was responsible for all the cookies in the house.

 

 

I swore I wouldn't homeschool my kids.

 

[SarahW]

You guys are making me jealous with all the memories of cheating. We hardly ever had quizzes or tests, and I don't recall my mother ever grading anything. I never had a chance to learn how to cheat!  :crying:

 

:P

 

I do remember one time, I was doing the chapter questions in a history book, and I realized that I had the answer key (it may  been a TM with the answers in the back, we often got the TM versions for some reason) so I thought it would be fun to grade myself. Well, I did pretty bad on the first grading pass. But then I remembered partial credit. And, you know, I gave the answers I did for a really good reason, so I should get some credit, right? After recalculating, I didn't really do that bad after all.  :D

[BooksandBoys]

You guys are making me jealous with all the memories of cheating. We hardly ever had quizzes or tests, and I don't recall my mother ever grading anything. I never had a chance to learn how to cheat! :crying:

 

:P

 

I do remember one time, I was doing the chapter questions in a history book, and I realized that I had the answer key (it may been a TM with the answers in the back, we often got the TM versions for some reason) so I thought it would be fun to grade myself. Well, I did pretty bad on the first grading pass. But then I remembered partial credit. And, you know, I gave the answers I did for a really good reason, so I should get some credit, right? After recalculating, I didn't really do that bad after all. :D

Oh, cheating!

 

I woke up early every single day of fourth grade so I could copy the answers from my mom's Abeka math teacher's manual. She caught me in April. I spent the summer doing every lesson again...on my own this time.

 

There was also a long period of time when I did my younger brother's handwriting. I have no idea what was in it for me, but I remember how hard I had to work to write like he would.

 

In related news, I learned not to cheat. This served me well in public HS and college.

[maize]

My mom homeschooled us until age 8, then sent us to school. Mostly we were unschooled--mom had an education degree and teaching experience, and basically felt that formal education was a waste of time for young children. We did Suzuki music, she taught us to read, basic handwriting, we had math workbooks we could do if we wanted but most math was learned through everyday life and helping at the family produce stand during the summers. Lots and lots of read alouds. 

 

Those were by far the happiest years of my life.

[Critterfixer]

I was home-schooled during my middle school years, seventh and eighth. Before that I was in various private schools.

I credit home-schooling for making me a writer. Up until that point, all writing was for school. For the first time in my life I had free time to take the imagination that made me an object of ridicule in every school I'd been to and turn that into fiction. Those years made me love writing.

I remember hating Saxon, but I suspect I learned something in spite of my dislike. 

I remember taking all day to do my lessons because I kept pulling out my Abeka literature and reading it cover to cover repeatedly. Some of the beautiful works of art in that book are with me to this day. I still have dreams about View of Toledo.

I remember biking to piano lessons. That served me well when I had to bike between college and work later on. I was very adept at wearing a huge backpack and cornering. 

Running. We had a track at the public school down the road where I could open up and run. I'm not anywhere near as fast or dedicated as I once was, but I still run because I learned how to run on that track. Up until then, the whole idea of physical education involved groups that wanted me off the team because I couldn't run, couldn't hit and couldn't play like they did.

 

What I remember the most was not dreading the environment of education anymore. I spent a lot of my days as a child either hiding from other children, or trying desperately to keep my mouth shut, although I never could quite compose stories without speaking aloud. I tried to run right so I wouldn't get laughed at. I still remember composing a story aloud below a court where the big kids played football at recess and having a ball hit me right in the temple, knocking me to the ground, and sitting up dazed while kids above me howled with laughter. That was school to me. Home-schooling was the first time I was able to embrace the idea that learning didn't have to involve just trying to survive.

[Lori D.]

bumping -- hoping for more homeschool alumni to add their own homeschooling experiences! (:D

[mykidsrmyjoy]

I was homeschooled 2-12. Some of my memories:

That brand-new book smell. I loved opening a new school book and feeling the smooth, shiny pages. 

Mom taking my brothers and me shopping for new school supplies. This was a yearly tradition. 

Getting to add a sticker to the chart for making a 100% on a test. If we got 5 in a row, Mom would let us choose a slip of paper with small rewards on them from a jar.  My favorite reward was a parfait from the local yogurt shop. 

Weekly trips to the library. We'd stop by the library and then go to the grocery store. I'd always take my book in and try to read while keeping a hand on the grocery cart. 

Loathing Saxon. 'Nough said. 

Loving history. 

Knowing how to plan and cook a full meal by the age of 12, which I did regularly.

Asking for and being given the responsibility of planning a week's worth of meals and getting dropped off at the grocery store around age 14-15 to buy groceries. 

The list could go on but those are some of the highlights. 

Edited October 7, 2018 by mykidsrmyjoy
Added more memories

[8filltheheart]

My ds is the oldest of 8, didn't do much in terms of outsourcing (never did a coop, but he did DE his sr for cal and chemistry), and is now a chemE, father of 4, and a homeschooling family. His wife was homeschooled from 6th on. 

My adult kids who talk about not wanting to homeschool don't do so bc of any negative views toward homeschooling. They all agree they are are where they are today bc of the opportunities homeschooling gave them. They say they are too lazy to do it. ?

 

[ealp2009]

This thread is a fun read.  Although I was not homeschooled I used Saxon Algebra and calculus and I find it fascinating that so many remember hating Saxon.  I thought it was fine and I used to to pass the credit by exam and so skip algebra in high school.   I didn’t do a credit by exam for calculus but I felt the book helped understand calculus and do well when taking it later.  I’m not sure what that says about my school’s math curriculum or about me.  ?.  In any case, I don’t use Saxon with my kids but I have thought about using the Saxon algebra book after Right Start G.  We will see.  There seem to be so many great options now though.