WTF homeschooling

[thoughtful]

This.

My Spanish is all mixed up, because some of it is picked up from living and teaching in an area where there are a lot of Mexicans, but then the prof that I took Spanish from in college had grown up back and forth between Venezuela and Spain. He was honest about that and pointed out how things would be said in different Spanish speaking areas. I do tell my students when they laugh at my Spanish, that's it is because I learned from somebody from a different country from them, and I didn't learn untii I was an adult so I'll always have a little bit of an accent. (And some nod their heads when they think of the fact that their parents have an accent in English.)

There was a wonderful article about people getting themselves in trouble due to idiomatic expressions in Spanish being so different in various places that they didn't realize they were being horribly offensive.

It can't be found for free online, unfortunately, but is in this book: http://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-sublime- ... 015601209X

And here is an article along the same lines:

www.uees.edu.ec/pdfs/webzine/Dontfthegrass.pdf

[Sobeknofret]

I interviewed to teach Latin at a private high school last year and one of the textbooks was Ecce Romani. I wasn't impressed with it, but the teachers that were already there said that it was the most effective textbook that they'd used so far.

[emmiedahl]

I had to have 4 semesters of foriegn language to graduate. I can't recall how many credits of math I needed to graduate, but I am certain that I took Algebra I and II, Calc, Stats, and Calc II in high school. This was in the ebil public school.

How did you take five years of math in high school? Is it longer in your state?

We always bump into this in homeschooling threads. Apparently a lot of posters here went to Groton or some of the best public schools in the US. Which is awesome, but not representative of the typical American high school.

[1CrazyMama]

I went to a typical American high school--about 500 kids in the high school, small, rural community. FFA was the largest organization present (you should have seen "Bring your tractor to school day!).

Anyway, no latin whatsoever, 1 AP calculus class, 2 AP English and AP US History (since I graduated in 99 they've done away with most of the AP classes though). You could take Spanish or French, but now you can only take Spanish and the State mandates 2 years of foreign language for a standard diploma.

Homeschooling can be done well, and when it is done well, it's wonderful. But all too often parents who are ill-equipped to teach are pretending that they can and the children suffer.

Take my oldest niece for example. My brother recently married a woman who is all kinds of fundie crazy and has convinced that while it's okay for her "intelligent" children to attend public school, my niece, who has short term memory problems from years of being medically neglected by said father and her egg donor, should be homeschooled. The witch lets one of her friends (with no college degree) teach my niece a curriculum that debates such things as whether or not women should be allowed to wear pants or makeup and what the biblical role of a woman is. In 2 months my niece has stopped wearing makeup, keeps her hair down, has decided that her place is to be in the home and basically all the crap that we here are against. My brother, who, well, I won't say anything more about him, refuses to give me the curriculum info, so I'm stuck with what I find online (Far Above Rubies) and this teacher is absolutely pissed.

Stepping off my soapbox to go change a diaper now....carry on ladies, carry on.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

How did you take five years of math in high school? Is it longer in your state?

I can't speak for her but where I live now (in Illinois) kids in public school who want to get ahead sometimes take an extra math class over the summer, specifically so they can finish two years of high school calculus.

[grateful1230]

How did you take five years of math in high school? Is it longer in your state?

We always bump into this in homeschooling threads. Apparently a lot of posters here went to Groton or some of the best public schools in the US. Which is awesome, but not representative of the typical American high school.

My high school wasn't all that awesome, not in the least. I was in advanced classes so my math, science, and I think history classes counted for high school credit in 8th grade. I didn't go to summer school. I was way too busy being a teenager for all that :)

[smores]

How did you take five years of math in high school? Is it longer in your state?

We always bump into this in homeschooling threads. Apparently a lot of posters here went to Groton or some of the best public schools in the US. Which is awesome, but not representative of the typical American high school.

A/B semesters is how most people who have extra "years" of something do it without summer school... there are a good many high schools out there that use this method, I think. They're usually large schools with main courses for college requirements being in high demand.

I was homeschooled via Abeka AND went to a magnet high school that was ranked in the top 10 of public high schools in the US, do I get an opinion? Lol, no, I'm sure you could guess what it would be... and I can't remember if i've posted in this thread or not.

[JesusFightClub]

It's very interesting to see the differences between US and UK education. You (Americans) seem to put more emphasis on maths than we do? My maths education was never great, in the words of our (state) maths teacher "I dinnae ken why I bother. Yous will only need maths to work out the giro" [Giro means your dole payment - welfare cheque].

However I never went to a stellar school. I went to a state primary until I was 10, two years at a private school with quite a religious bent and then back to a state secondary when I was 12. My state primary ranked about middle of the league table for my county, my private school was near bottom for independent schools, and my state secondary was one off bottom on the league table. So although I'm speaking from a position of privilege, it's not Super Ultimate Privilege.

When I was in state secondary, we adopted a new policy of taking on pupils who had been expelled from other schools. I got one of them as my charge (names changed to protect the less than innocent). Wee Jamie was 13, all but illiterate in English and when the mood took him he would attack other pupils with whatever came to hand. I was supposed to teach him German.

He was later expelled (again) for assault on a teacher. And the Big Court got him. He's doing a sentence for assault to severe injury.

I could never quite see the point of teaching a child German who was struggling to write his own name and address in English. But I was very fond of wee Jamie. He used to tag along after me wherever I went in the school. I suppose I was the only person who liked him and didn't tell him off constantly.

Perhaps the US system would be better for a child like him? The more I hear about it, I think so...

[emilymea]

In my district you take four classes a semester, so at the end of the year you take eight classes. You are required four maths, four sciences, four English composition classes, and four histories in addition to two foreign language credits and fine art credits in order to graduate. There is also a PE or ROTC requirement. You can take up to five years worth of language, math and science if you're highly modivated

[emmiedahl]

My high school wasn't all that awesome, not in the least. I was in advanced classes so my math, science, and I think history classes counted for high school credit in 8th grade. I didn't go to summer school. I was way too busy being a teenager for all that :)

Your high school was at least a little awesome. It is unusual to have two year of calc *and* statistics. I was not into math at all but I like to hear that higher classes are offered. I have been hearing a lot about Physics First, a program intended to encourage students to take physics their freshman year. Most students in the US never take it in high school because they already have enough science credit by the time they get there. And then when you hit college physics you have never seen the stuff before.

I support more science and math, whether in public or home school.

[snarkbillie]

There isn't an AP algebra exam so if they offered an AP math class it was calc. I'm curious was state you're talking about because College Board has several state initiatives to assist low income school districts with teaching and and tests fees.

You're right about the AP class, it was calc. I didn't take it so I didn't remember properly. The current situation is that if a kid wants to take an AP class they have to transfer out to the school where it's taught. My specific high school does not have any, but they will bus kids over to the other school for them.

*I graduated over 10 years ago so it's hard for me to really remember all of it. I did look up the current graduation requirements and the basic diploma does not require any math over Algebra 1 and does not require foreign language. You do have to take 4 years of P.E. or equivalent though (sports).

[Mommy22alyns]

I only skimmed this thread, coming somewhat late in the game, so this may have been said already. These are not the Maxwell methods. I'm fairly sure that Maxwell curricula did not include those types of resources. The average 10 year old in the average American public school system has no access to Latin. Some high schools offer Latin. So, even though the Latin education she is trying to give her child is inferior to your education, it MAY, depending on the school system, be superior to the education her children would receive in her public school system. This sounds like a posting from a classical home educators forum. You may be wondering why these types of resources are considered exceptional because your education in Europe follows a traditional classical model. In America we have a different approach to curricula and education. Her choices are probably very different than what the schools in her area are using, and may be quite exceptional when she compares her choices to what is available to her in the public system. I don't know of any American public schools using Oxford University Press Materials of any kind, for example.

This. Maxwells use Abeka and BJU textbooks and never read any literature. And it would certainly be a rare public school elementary that offered Latin.

As others have said, this is not "bragging." It's informative for the other forum members.

[Sobeknofret]

It's very interesting to see the differences between US and UK education. You (Americans) seem to put more emphasis on maths than we do? My maths education was never great, in the words of our (state) maths teacher "I dinnae ken why I bother. Yous will only need maths to work out the giro" [Giro means your dole payment - welfare cheque].

Where we tend to be weak is in language study, including the study of our own! Now, I'm not saying that kids here can't learn perfectly well in schools, but I've come across too many students in post-secondary/ university education that don't even know what a noun is, much less a direct object or a prepositional phrase. An inflected language like Latin or Greek is so lightyears above them, most of my Latin students had a horrible time trying to get beyond the basic grammar because their knowledge of basic English grammar was so poor.

[jenny_islander]

I'm teaching my HS kids the English parts of speech the way I learned them: by learning the English names for the Spanish parts of speech and then applying them to my own language. It actually seems to be helping. When applied to English, grammar is so much blarblarblarblar, but when applied to Spanish, it's a tool to help them predict the ending of an unfamiliar verb and so forth.

[meda]

How did you take five years of math in high school? Is it longer in your state?

We always bump into this in homeschooling threads. Apparently a lot of posters here went to Groton or some of the best public schools in the US. Which is awesome, but not representative of the typical American high school.

Why when people say they went to decent public high schools do you get snotty? I'm sorry your high school experience in California was lacking, but you make these sweeping generalizations about "the American education system" like that is a monolithic entity that you can just generalize about based on your personal experience. When someone mentions the quality education they received in a public school, you immediately make some crack about how it must be an elite school or an exception.

I went to a small rural high school in the middle of nowhere in Upstate NY. I graduated with aclass of about 60 in the early '90's. I had to take 3 years of foreign language, 4 years of science including physics, 3 years of math through pre calc, and 4 years of English to obtain my Regents diploma, and I was able to take AP calculus and AP American History. This was not an unusual or elite course offering for my area. Again, my area was poor, rural, and in the middle of nowhere.

[Rosa]

I went to a terrible public high school, in a poor town that formerly relied on a meatpacking plant for jobs, and now relies on a prison. When we moved there from a nice suburb I was in 7th grade and I was 2 years ahead of the average classes they stuck me in at first. Not because I'm super smart, just because school districts vary SO MUCH.

And yet, that high school offered calculus, 4 foreign languages (spanish, german, french, japanese), debate, drama, AP English, AP physics, AP chemistry. And also a decent set of trades training - at that point it was welding, auto repair, carpentry, ag industry, retail worker and health care worker (the last two were for girls, and sucked, both in terms of work and wages.) What made it a shitty school was that the "average" classes were so terrible - if you had pushy parents, or a lot of get up and go yourself, you'd do just fine. A lot of the rest were left to fail.

The thing I think people (especially Europeans) don't get is that we have so much inequality, there's huge inequality between school districts and in a lot of cases between schools in the same district or kids in the same school. We have schools that set up health clinics because kids don't get any health care otherwise; we have lots of districts that serve "school lunch" on school holidays because so many kids are going hungry at home. Because we don't subsidize child care, a lot of poorer kids sit in front of the TV or are supervised by 13 year olds when there's no school.

So our failure numbers are terribly high. But the failure doesn't start with the schools, it starts with our own society - a society that allows families with young children to be homeless, leaves lead in the soil and water, lets kids go without health care, and then expects schools to fix that.

[emmiedahl]

Why when people say they went to decent public high schools do you get snotty? I'm sorry your high school experience in California was lacking, but you make these sweeping generalizations about "the American education system" like that is a monolithic entity that you can just generalize about based on your personal experience. When someone mentions the quality education they received in a public school, you immediately make some crack about how it must be an elite school or an exception.

I went to a small rural high school in the middle of nowhere in Upstate NY. I graduated with aclass of about 60 in the early '90's. I had to take 3 years of foreign language, 4 years of science including physics, 3 years of math through pre calc, and 4 years of English to obtain my Regents diploma, and I was able to take AP calculus and AP American History. This was not an unusual or elite course offering for my area. Again, my area was poor, rural, and in the middle of nowhere.

I am sorry, I fail to see how that was snotty. My sweeping generalizations are based on statistics that indicate a real need for reform.

I don't think that pretending the average American teen has access to Calc 2, Biochemistry and Latin will help us reform the system.

[hapamama]

I actually use IXL as a supplement to the math that the kids are learning in (ebil public) school. Because I hate the curriculum the school is using. I wouldn't use IXL as the sole math curriculum, but as a supplement it's pretty good.

Our ebil (but effective) public middle school uses IXL as a supplement... they just started this year after years of using Accelerated Math. I'm glad to hear it's pretty good.

[meda]

I am sorry, I fail to see how that was snotty. My sweeping generalizations are based on statistics that indicate a real need for reform.

I don't think that pretending the average American teen has access to Calc 2, Biochemistry and Latin will help us reform the system.

Agree with you about the need for reform, but in this comment you have moved the goalposts again. Now you are pronouncing on what the average American teen has "access" to in terms of school curriculum. The attached link is an interesting study looking at rigor in American public school systems, looking at a variety of factors. 60% of high schools offer AP classes. The number of public school students taking those exams has doubled since 1989 (although it is still too low). Another aspect looked at access to higher math classes. There was a real breakdown here by race. 77% of white high school students had access to higher math, defined as Trig, and 59% had access to Calculus (not including pre calc). That number drops to below 50% when you look at Hispanic access to Calculus. The distribution of AP schools by region and demographics was also pretty interesting.

http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org ... eport.html

Now I'm certainly not going to argue that those numbers are a raging success, but they do not support your repeated categorical assertion that most high school students do not have access to higher level classes. There are a whole host of reasons why students may not take such classes, including poverty ( the cost of exams), inadequate skill sets, tracking by race our other demographics, either subtle or overt, no encouragement or support from home or school to take such classes...all of those issues need work. But it really is wrong to repeatedly state that most schools don't make an effort to provide a rigorous curriculum.