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The Imperfect Homeschooler |
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Cardamom Publishers P.O. Box 4 Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235 |
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Homeschool High School’s Most Essential Subject
By Barbara Frank
What subjects should you include when homeschooling your teen through high school? Answering this question can and does fill entire books. Personally, I think at least some of the subjects should be related to your teen’s interests as much as anything else. But there’s one subject that should be mandatory: personal finance. Now that our economy appears to be in freefall, a quick look at the comments section of online articles about the subject reveals people complaining, lamenting and sometimes bellowing about the lack of financial education offered to teens in our public schools. Some believe that if adults had been taught even the basics of personal finance, we would not be in the pickle we find ourselves today. Maybe. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Greed on the part of everyone involved has certainly been the catalyst. But I don’t think the schools can do the job. It means much more coming from a parent. Besides, a parent has better resources to do the job. As a parent, you put the “why” behind the “how.” It’s one thing to say that teens should set some money aside every month and save it for a rainy day. It’s quite another to tell the story of how your dad and his siblings saved almost every nickel they made as teenagers so they could help their single mom buy the family’s first house. That was a real-life situation I shared with my teens; I’m sure you have your own. (Sometimes true stories don’t have a happy ending…..every family these days knows someone with a cautionary financial story to tell.) You also have great resources available to use with your teens. For example, unlike the schools, you don’t need textbook charts showing how credit card interest is calculated. You likely have the credit card bills that show how little a minimum payment is required for the purchases you’ve made each month. You can show the high rate of interest charged on balances, the equivalent of paying a 22% (or greater) premium on everything you buy…..thus saving you 22% when you pay off your bill each month. Even if you’re not a credit card user, the reason for that decision should certainly be shared with your teens. A textbook used in the public schools might also include case studies of make-believe families with examples of income and expenses. However, you can place a month’s worth of real paycheck stubs on one side of the table and a month’s worth of bill stubs on the other (utilities, mortgage payment or rent, car payments, etc.) and let your teen do the math. Real life has much more impact than case studies of strangers. Today’s economy offers many sad stories of those who relied on credit to make up the difference between their income and their desires…. to their detriment. Go over some of these stories in your newspapers and online and discuss them with your teen. Use them as examples of why it’s so important to live within your means. I’m sure you can think of other ways to teach your teen your view of personal finance. I designed similar projects for my teens* that they worked on, and I included them on their high school transcripts with the title Life Prep (Personal Finance). No one questioned it, and it certainly didn’t prevent my son from being admitted to college. You might be hesitant about sharing your personal financial information with your teen. If so, consider that what you teach your teen about this subject will greatly affect him for his entire life. Smart financial decisions, made when young, can benefit a person for years. Unfortunately, messing up because of financial ignorance can hurt a person for years. Sharing information and opinions about personal finance is every parent’s job. It’s too important to leave out, especially in times like we’re living in right now. Homeschooling parents have the time and opportunity to do this. The time to begin is right now.
*found in Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers; learn more at http://www.cardamompublishers.com/cardamom-life-prep.htm
Copyright 2009 Barbara Frank/Cardamom Publishers
Barbara Frank is the mother of four homeschooled-from-birth children ages 15-25, a freelance writer/editor, and the author of “Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers, “The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Guide to Homeschooling,”and “Homeschooling Your Teenagers.” You'll find her on the Web at www.cardamompublishers.com and http://barbarafrankonline.com/
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What Does a Degree from Harvard Get You?
By Barbara Frank
Back when I was fairly new to homeschooling, a California family made it big in the news because their homeschooled son was accepted to Harvard University. Homeschooling was pretty much unknown at that time, so the idea that a child who did not attend school could get into any university, much less Harvard, created quite a stir. Since that time, some homeschooling parents made it their goal to raise children who could gain acceptance into the best colleges, and they’ve achieved that goal. Many homeschooled kids have since graduated from college with honors, including one of mine. But that wasn’t the reason we homeschooled him. His academic achievements were spurred by his own motivation. Our goal was to raise Christian kids who had a good basic education, could think for themselves, and who had developed the ability to teach themselves whatever they might need to know. There’s nothing wrong with homeschooling children so that they can get into Harvard, but I hope it’s not the only reason a parent chooses to homeschool. Apparently, a degree from Harvard doesn’t guarantee learning as much as it does “a good student,” as college professor Joseph Epstein writes in the online edition of The Weekly Standard:
I have come to distrust the type I think of as "the good student"--that is, the student who sails through school and is easily admitted into the top colleges and professional schools. The good student is the kid who works hard in high school, piles up lots of activities, and scores high on his SATs, and for his efforts gets into one of the 20 or so schools in the country that ring the gong of success. While there he gets a preponderance of A's. This allows him to move on to the next good, or even slightly better, graduate, business, or professional school, where he will get more A's still, and move onward and ever upward. His perfect résumé in hand, he runs only one risk--that of catching cold from the draft created by all the doors opening for him wherever he goes, as he piles up scads of money, honors, and finally ends up being offered a job at a high level of government. He has, in a sense Spike Lee never intended, done the right thing. What's wrong with this? Am I describing anything worse than effort and virtue richly rewarded? I believe I am. My sense of the good student is that, while in class, he really has only one pertinent question, which is, What does this guy, his professor at the moment, want? Whatever it is--a good dose of liberalism, libertarianism, feminism, conservatism--he gives it to him, in exchange for another A to slip into his backpack alongside all the others on his long trudge to the Harvard, Yale, Stanford law or business schools, and thence into the empyrean.
Just what the world needs…another Yes Man (or Woman), someone who goes with the party line in order to gain approval. In his essay, Epstein points out that there are some students who are willing to stick with their beliefs, no matter what belief system their professor professes. His own son is one of them. But they know they may be punished at grade time. Epstein also suggests that those who do not attend high-brow colleges and universities like Harvard have a better chance of real success in the world:
Universities are of course the last bastion of snobbery in America. The problem is that the snobbery works. Nor is this snobbery likely to be seriously eroded in our lifetime. No parent whose child has the choice of going to Princeton or Arizona State is likely to advise the kid to become a Sun Devil. Go to one of the supposedly better schools and your chances for success in the great world increase, flat-out, no doubt about it. To have been accepted at one of the top schools means that a child has done what he was told, followed instructions, kept his eye on the prize, played the game, and won. But does it mean much more? Harry S. Truman and Ronald Reagan were two of the greatest presidents of the twentieth century. Truman didn't go to college at all, and Reagan, one strains to remember, went to Eureka College in Eureka, Illinois. Each was his own man, each, in his different way, without the least trace of conformity or hostage to received opinion or conventional wisdom. Schooling, even what passes for the best schooling, would, one feels, have made either man less himself and thereby probably worse.
Epstein taught at Northwestern University for over thirty years, so he’s had some time to develop this theory. I think his experience as a college professor lends credence to it. His point about past presidents Truman and Reagan each being “his own man” rings true given each one’s performance on the job as president. Like my husband and myself, many of those who choose to homeschool their children cite the goal of raising young people who can think for themselves, rather than allowing them to become the victims of indoctrination in the public schools. We relate to the idea of raising a future Truman or Reagan, someone who can stand up against the crowd when necessary. Once we’ve done the hard work of homeschooling a child through high school, do we really want to send them into the world of yes-students that Epstein describes? Will they even be happy there? Or would they be better off at a smaller college, or even doing something else instead of going to college? After all, our children have had the freedom to learn on their own terms and because of their own motivation. If not impeded, that freedom should serve them well throughout their lives…..even if they never do obtain that Harvard degree.
Author note: You’ll find the entire article by Joseph Epstein at http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/857lzqko.asp?pg=1
Copyright 2009 Barbara Frank/Cardamom Publishers
Barbara Frank is the mother of four homeschooled-from-birth children ages 15-25, a freelance writer/editor, and the author of “Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers, “The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Guide to Homeschooling,”and “Homeschooling Your Teenagers.” You'll find her on the Web at www.cardamompublishers.com and http://barbarafrankonline.com/
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These articles may be freely reprinted or forwarded as long as the entire article and author bio/postscript are included. These articles may not be sold. |
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What Kind of Homeschooler Are You?
By Barbara Frank
It’s interesting how people categorize themselves. When I began homeschooling, there were homeschoolers. Before long, they morphed into two groups: Christian homeschoolers and secular homeschoolers. Over the years we’ve seen a transition into homeschoolers defining themselves by their method of homeschooling: traditional, unschooler, Charlotte Mason method, etc. I’ve never looked at it that way. I see homeschoolers as falling into two camps: proactive and reactive. And I think the motivation and gifts that each brings to the table can surely help the other. Proactive homeschoolers start when their children are young, and maybe even before they’re born. These are people who are fascinated by the idea of homeschooling. Maybe they were bored in school when they were children, or maybe they’re just the kind of people who would rather do something themselves than trust others to do it. They tend to prefer homeopathy, growing their own food, sewing their own clothes, or simply raising their own kids instead of putting them into daycare before the hospital bill for the birth arrives in the mailbox. Reactive homeschoolers may never have thought about homeschooling until long after they became parents, and only then because their child’s needs were not being met in school, or there was a bullying situation that became impossible, or their child had trouble learning the way the teacher insisted they learn. They chose homeschooling because they were unhappy with the other options. These two groups, proactive and reactive homeschoolers, may seem poles apart, and often they are. But when they get to know each other, they often find that they can help each other out. For example, the proactive homeschooler has often never sent a child to school. On those days when exhaustion hits and they start thinking sending the child to school would be a lot easier, their reactive homeschooling friends can tell them a few stories about what school is really like. There’s nothing like a little reality to bring you around. People like me, who never sent a child to school until one went off to college, are often stunned by the reality of what’s going on in the schools today. (In my newsletter, I usually include a recent news story about something outrageous happening in a school. I do this so that we naïve proactive homeschoolers are reminded about what’s going on there, because we don’t know. I call it the “What Our Kids Are Missing Out On Dept.” because we need to be aware of just what’s happening in schools. Quite frankly, these stories shock me as much as they shock some of my readers. Call it negative reinforcement if you wish, but it works.) Proactive homeschoolers have the ability to return this favor to their reactive homeschooling friends. Often, reactive homeschoolers pulled a child out of school rather quickly, before they had a chance to learn about the many ways to educate a child at home. Proactive homeschoolers tend to have more experience with this, and can share resources and materials with their friends. They can help them navigate this new path and save them a lot of trouble “reinventing the wheel” of homeschooling. Instead of viewing other homeschoolers as those using a different method, we can look at them as being proactive or reactive homeschoolers. We all fall into one of those two groups, and each is the perfect helper to the other. We need to have a cooperative spirit with other homeschoolers instead of feeling different from them, because the assault on homeschooling freedoms continues. As Benjamin Franklin famously said upon signing the Declaration of Independence, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
Copyright 2009 Barbara Frank/Cardamom Publishers
Barbara Frank is the mother of four homeschooled-from-birth children ages 15-25, a freelance writer/editor, and the author of “Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers, “The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Guide to Homeschooling,”and “Homeschooling Your Teenagers.” You'll find her on the Web at www.cardamompublishers.com and http://barbarafrankonline.com/ |
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►New Articles◄ Updated Jan. 19, 2009 |
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