Bonnie From Texas:
[Rod Dreher  03/18 10:29 AM]

Bonnie from Texas writes:

I have been reading the home schooling discussion with interest, but nobody has really talked about the actual shape of home schooling, at least not in the first fifteen or so posts. I think people would really be surprised to find that home schoolers have the choice of an incredible number of supports, particularly for secondary students. Of course, I might not have a full pespective, since I live northwest of Houston - also known as Home School Heaven, where many excellent classes are offered as private tutorials for home schoolers. I have been teaching Latin and English (sometimes Logic) to high schoolers for about 10 years. They come to me weekly for lecture, class participation, demonstration, and then they work at home, sometimes submitting work online or receiving graded work online. I am just one of dozens of such teachers in my area. I usually don't get the best writers; those are home with parents who are good writers and good writing teachers. My friend who teaches math often gets the most math-challenged students, since students who are talented in math can fly through excellent video curricula without much help.

If a child has been properly prepared, much of his secondary education is easily self-taught. The student reads and digests the material, usually with just the need for an expertly moderated discussion... sort of on the Oxford model.

I have found that the hilarious fear of missing socialization disappears quickly as parents find out that they don't have to chain their family to the kitchen table and wade through every subject alone. And the more reasonable fear of teaching higher skill subjects fades a bit more slowly as they find the countless opportunities for group learning, online curriculum, and best of all - the fabulous capability of their own well-prepared students to confront, understand, measure, and respond to quite complex ideas as they go along.