9NEWS.com posted a video of an Aurora, Colorado homeschooling family.

Family of 7 kids finds a way to homeschool, attend college

The Henderson family likes to do things a little differently than most. Not only does Janelle Henderson have to keep up with the whereabouts of all seven kids, she homeschooled all of them.

“I’ve been homeschooling for 21 years now,” Janelle said. “There was a time where I worked all night and came home and homeschooled my kids in the day.”

Never  a dull moment, Janelle Henderson is also working on her mechanical engineering master’s degree.

Homeschooling, community college aided high-achieving Moorestown family By Susan Snyder
Philadelphia Inquirer

[Father] Charlie said they [3 homeschooled sons] weren’t specifically seeking the Ivy League.

“The real issue is finding a good fit, and that’s what we were able to do with the older two sons so far, with academics as well as extracurriculars,” he said, noting that Jake was captain of Yale’s skeet and trap team and Tom a “walk-on” to Harvard’s fencing team.

Ryan said it was “nerve-wracking” when he began taking college classes at 14. He wasn’t sure how people would react, but he quickly became comfortable. He decided to tutor, he said, because he wanted to help others.

Homeschoolers: Not So Different After All by Victoria Beckmann

The Century Times

Emma Button, a student who attended Century and is now attending St. Thomas, said, “Although I will be the first to admit that there are many strange homeschoolers in the world, I will also be the first to defend them. …most of us are normal teenagers.”

Many homeschooled teens are not as completely socially inept as some people seem to believe. Homeschoolers get the chance to interact with many different kinds of people because of their education, unlike publicly schooled students who, while at school, only have their peers and teachers to interact with. Button stated very accurately, “…Although you interact with far less people as a homeschooler, the people you do interact with are consistently genuine, mature, creative, and kind.” Also, homeschooling often gives students the chance to be closer with their families because they are around them more often. Button commented on this saying, “…your family is a lot cooler than you think.”

 

Huffington Post blogger Kate Fridkis writes about the New York Style Magazine article on upscale New York homeschool cooperatives:

The New York Times Style Magazine piece about the trendy Brooklyn homeschoolers, “School’s In,” both did and didn’t remind me of my own pre-college education. My family called it unschooling, because we didn’t have any classes. We were living in one of the parts of New Jersey that has a surprising number of farms, and our neo-Nazi neighbors harassed our black neighbors. We had “group,” which met every week or so–not for French lessons, but for random fun. The kids from group, local homeschoolers of different ages, went ice skating in the winter. We were the only ones on the rink, except for a foul-tempered skate guard with a bristling mustache. We went to parks in the summer. We built a raft out of recycling buckets and plywood and floated on the pond. We were not cool. Some of us ate processed cheese. No one had very much money.

Continue reading Kate’s outstanding article at “School’s In,”. But for those who won’t click the link, here is an important reminder about homeschooling (but we suggest skipping this and just reading Kate’s entire excellent article):

Both of my parents are very, very smart. They are both good at networking. They are both creative. But most importantly, in terms of my education, they both somehow were able to agree that I would turn out fine, even if I never sat in a classroom. They somehow trusted that children will always learn, as long as they are encouraged.

The Brooklyn homeschoolers’ world, as described, sounds so delicate to me. Which is funny, because people have always imagined my world to be constructed out of fragile materials and a rare brand of naïve idealism. This is a narrative about homeschooling that people repeat. It’s not “real.” It’s sort of a fantasy. It’s not gritty and down to earth and diverse. Maybe this is always at least partly true, but maybe it also just depends a lot on who is doing the homeschooling, or the unschooling. Because the truth is, school and home are never really perfectly balanced alternatives to one another. They aren’t opposites. School is controllable and uniform to an extent that unschool can’t possibly be.

Homeschoolers compete in a lot of different kinds of contests:

From the Lincoln County Record, Pioche, NV – Established September 12, 1870

Panaca’s Cookie Crumb Trail Contest
By Angela Musser
The Christmas Tree Ornament Contest for Panaca’s Town Tree is now open to public and home school students.

Argus Leader - Sioux Falls, SD

Home-school team wins annual quiz bowl

For the fifth time in six years, a team of home-schooled kids won the annual Siouxper Bowl Quiz Tournament last Saturday in Sioux Falls.

The Greater Sioux Falls Home School Association’s Team A advanced to the national championships to be held in Chicago in May.

from thefacts.com – Brazoria County: Where Texas Began

Lady ’Necks roll to 82-9 victory – Butch McReynolds

WEST COLUMBIA — About midway through the fourth quarter Thursday night, the Columbia Lady ’Necks went into their version of a four corner stall, trying their best to run the clock out against Christian Home School Athletic’s Warriors.

From The Huntsville Times

Study and practice paysoff at National Bible Bee – Kay Campbell

Local girl takes home $15,000 for third place finish

Drury Sports Information
Dury University

Lady Panthers Sign Standouts Funderburk, Williamson To 2010-11 Recruiting Class – Drury Sports Information

Drury University’s Lady Panthers added two players to their basketball recruiting class of 2010-11 with the signings of Nixa standout Bethany Funderburk and their first home-school recruit – Kylie Williamson – to NCAA national letters-of-intent on Wednesday, the first day of the winter early-signing period.

Littleton Homeschooling Examiner

Homeschool dad Rob McNealy will announce candidacy for US Congressional District 6 – Lynda Ackert

Rob McNealy, homeschool father of three and community activist, will officially announce his candidacy for US Congressional District 6 via Twitter on December 3rd at 6:30pm according to dBusiness News.

If you are concerned about homeschooling your kids you can find encouragement in this story from The Ukiah Daily Journal:

Mathematics, Meyer Style
By Carole Brodsky

Ukiahan making waves in academia and cyberspace

For the Daily Journal

Holiday shoppers can thank Dan Meyer and his Ukiah High instructors for helping them shave precious minutes off their waiting time in crowded stores. And that’s only the beginning for Meyer – recently labeled by CBS news as “the trash-talking High School Math teacher.”

Meyer lived in Ukiah from ages 5 to 18, homeschooling and attending Ukiah High School, graduating with the class of 2000.

From homeschooling kid to “trash-talking High School Math teacher” to:

That piqued the interest of Google – which has hired Meyer part-time. Google reached out to university professors and high school math teachers, and Meyer was selected for the job.

“I have deferred graduate school for a year and accepted a 10-month position as a curriculum fellow at Google’s campus in Mountain View, California. I just started, which means my understanding of the job is informed only by the application process and not yet by any actual experience.”

Meyer will be working with a handful of other math teachers to embed the Python programming language into traditional math curriculum.

I am no longer surprised to find homeschooling woven into an interesting life narrative. The description of the “Meyer Style” approach to teaching math is part of that narrative and also of interest. Read the entire story.

In Different Perspectives: The Daily Illini Opinion Blogs, homeschooler turned college student, Colleen Lindsay addresses longer school hours, improved test scores and the lives of our children.

Lagging far behind the rest of the world academically, American schools have been struggling to catch up. Now, we take action!

The proposed solution is longer hours of schooling per day and shorter summers.

From middle-school to senior year of high-school, the test scores in core subject areas dramatically decrease. In science, for example, the US drops from being ranked 3 to being 16 from 4th to 12th grade. The number of hours spent in the classroom is also lower than those in other classrooms globally. US students spend 180 hours in the classroom versus the 243 that Japanese students spend. Charter schools in the US have longer hours as well, with better test scores to show for it. Somewhere about this point in the national discussion on improving US test scores, the connection between longer hours in the classroom and better test scores was made. Obviously, this is the answer! No need to investigate any further! Problem solved, smiles all around, and we can now improve our national image.

We have already sacrificed our small children. And what has this gotten us? Well, the scores have not improved, but our children’s lifestyles have been compromised. Now, we want to take the happiness and fun away from school-age children and teens.

It is nice to see the next generation speaking up. Who was it that said it is hard to argue with experience?

Read the entire posthere.

There hasn’t been a lot in the news about this homeschool family’s ordeal, in fact these are the first articles I’ve seen in our local papers since the incident occurred on December 4th. The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote, Manna Storehouse asks court to rule sheriff’s search illega Lorain-

The food co-op searched by the county earlier this month asked the Lorain County Common Pleas Court Wednesday to block any more interference with the business.

The Manna Storehouse and owners John and Jacqueline Stowers asked the court to declare the entire Dec. 1 search unconstitutional and to order the county to return more than $10,000 in food seized.

They also asked the court to rule that the law the county cited for the search – one requiring retail food businesses to be licensed and inspected – does not apply to Manna.

And:

According to the suit, the search interrupted eight small children in the middle of a home-schooling lesson.

The Stowers have eight children with the oldest serving in Iraq and the rest living at home, the suit says. A daughter-in-law and three grandchildren also live there.

There is another article in the Lorain Morning Journal,Duo suing over armed raid: Experience ‘traumatic’ for Manna Storehouse owners

The Stowers are being represented by The Ohio Buckeye Institute where you can read a press release on the situation. The Stowers explain what happened in the raid in this you tube interview.

Jackie and John are good, good people. I know– I am a member of their coop. — Mary Nix

The Minnesota Daily interviewed University of MN’s Junior basketball guard, Brittany McCoy.

She was homeschooled until high school and talks a bit about her parents’ decision to homeschool. Many homeschoolers can relate to the periodic checking in of the educational choice.

OFF TOPIC with Brittany McCoy 12/6/2008

BM: Well it’s kind of a funny story, it was my mom’s idea to home-school us. I’m the oldest of six kids, and my mom got her teaching degree in school, so she wanted to home-school me, and my dad kind of was unsure…

MH: So you were kind of a guinea pig?

Keep reading at the site, as her mother was persistent.

~ Susan Ryan

The book (from the publisher’s web site):  Right: Portraits of the Evangelical Ivy League

Right — Patrick Henry College is the higher education institution of choice among politically far-right young people aspiring to enter the conservative power elite. The explicit mission of PHC is to cultivate leaders to take American politics and culture back to God, through careers in politics and entertainment. Acclaimed photographer Jona Frank presents an honest, intimate, and eye-opening portrait of the school and its students. Frank’s photos eschew cultural politicking of the left or the right, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions about a school and a youth movement with the potential to produce many of tomorrow’s leaders.

“Look Inside“ feature from Amazon.com; a few photos and the homeschooled sibling’s book report.  The author has other photos available at her web site under “Book project.”

Reviews

Photo:

• Right: Portraits of the Evangelical Ivy League, Photo District News 
  “Frank, who has devoted much of her career as a photographer and filmmaker to documenting cultures of adolescence, began her series of portraits of PHC students after reading a story Rosin wrote about the college for the New Yorker in 2005.”

Conservative:

• American Gothic Redux, American Thinker
  “Simply put, Ms. Franks uses her camera and staging to portray the students at PHC as tense, artificial, pasteboard figures that float like detached ghosts over the landscape.”

I hoped to find more reviews of the book, but these two articles were the only ones that were actual reviews.  Perhaps once it is released, reviewers at more sites will comment.

Of the little I’ve seen, the photos from Right … appear to be the same style as Ms. Frank’s other works.