Amy Millstein, of UnschoolingNYC, and 14 year old unschooler, Jude Steffers-Wilson, gave a brief explanation of unschooling on John Stossel’s Education Blob. It’s always difficult to explain the unschooling, or even homeschooling way of life, to people who don’t experience it every day. But it was obvious Jude was passionate about his education. What more can you ask?
I had to laugh when I read the Buffalo News article about New York’s Iroquois School Board policy decision to exclude homeschoolers from their public school activities. I’m a bit ambivalent about mixing the two in my state – noting that too many Illinois local school board policies create over-compliance demands for participating homeschoolers, but this reason given by School Board President Lowrey is a tad ridiculous.
Iroquois home-school policy stands on no extra activities By Eileen Werbitsky
Lowrey said a poll of faculty club advisers showed that some clubs run activities during the day, which would put home-schooled students at a disadvantage. In addition, the school district’s attorneys advised against changing the policy.
Good one. If clubs run their activities “during the day”, homeschoolers couldn’t possibly attend. Hello role, meet reversal.
Homeschoolers are out and about, not penned away in a room with windows you’re not supposed to look out. The homeschooled kids could attend, if they were allowed by the school board. And of course – if the school district attorneys allow it. Which they didn’t.
There might be good reasons they don’t want private schools participating in public school extra-curriculars, but some of the reasons given in this article are certainly not about the kids.
Drama and academics seems like a useful combination in the world of children and education. One mom, Ruth Henry, found a way to show history is fascinating while engaging the recipient in a fun way. (It’s a trick many homeschoolers and good teachers learned.)
From New York’s Capitol District Parent Pages History takes center stage – Zan Strumfeld
“You pick up the textbook, it weighs 40 pounds, you blow off the dust, you open to page 2,423 and by the time you get to the third paragraph everybody starts drooling and their eyes are rolling back in their heads,” Henry, of Loudonville, said. “I just thought, ‘Gee, there’s gotta be a better way to teach this.’”
She didn’t know it at the time, but Henry was about to introduce a new way of learning to dozens of homeschooled kids.
Successes on the stage playing out various histories such as the Erie Canal, Thomas Edison and westward migration stories created the established program-DRAMAcademics.
Though Henry didn’t keep on homeschooling her own children, the history musicals inspired her to create DRAMAcademics, an educational youth theater, to work with other homeschooled students.
After only a few productions, Henry began writing her own scripts. In 2007, while traveling back and forth on the Thruway to visit her husband’s business in Rochester, Henry said she felt very inspired while continuously passing the Erie Canal. On the drive she would create scenes and characters and record melodies on her cellphone, eventually writing “The Amazing Erie Canal.”
Looks like Ruth Henry is hooked on history and that will bode well for homeschoolers.
The last of three articles on local homeschooling families is a positive, upbeat article from the Oct. 7th issue of the Dansville-Genesee Country Express in Dansville, NY, titled Homeschool Gives Choice to Students, Parents:
The freedom to pursue what a parent deems best for their child is still allowed in America.
That’s the feeling of Heather DeNee of Sparta, who feels “very blessed to have the opportunity and choice to homeschool.”
This mother of three (soon to be four) added that she understands that homeschooling is not for everyone, but, “there’s an opportunity for those who have that desire.”
Read the entire article at the link above.
Susan Ryan blogs about educational freedom at Corn and Oil:
“Some Americans are disturbed that Swedish homeschooling families are losing their right to educate their children at home. What a depressing notion turning into a reality, that children can and will be taken from their homes because they’re learning at home with their families.
“In Sweden – a country oft considered a progressive’s dream- and Germany, families were torn apart when their homeschooled children were forced from their homes. But here in the US, states such as Pennsylvania and New York bear down on homeschoolers with oppressive rules, regulations and bureaucratic paperwork having little and nothing to do with learning.”
It’s a good post, worthy reading for anyone interested in educational freedoms – and, of course, we all should be.