Homeschooling: Tips for Getting Started

 Tuesday, July 8, 2014 at 11:46AM

Homeschooling: Tips for Getting Started

1.  Go to your state's education department web site and search homeschooling.  Search your local school district's home education program, and then talk to your local school district's homeschooling administrator. (Go to State Education Departments and Boards for links to every state's department of education)

2.  Decide on an approach. Talk to other homeschooling parents. Do your homework.

3.  Join local homeschooling groups and share. 

4.  Be patient. 

Florida Home Education Requirements as of 2014

 Tuesday, July 8, 2014 at 2:09PM

Florida Home Education Requirements as of 2014

Collier County Public Schools in Florida posts the following requirements for enrolling your child in a Home Education Program:

1. Notify the Superintendent of Schools in writing of your intent to establish a Florida Home Education Program.
2. Direct the program for your child(ren).
3. Maintain a portfolio of records and materials with the minimum content as specified in the Florida Statute. This portfolio must be available for inspection by the Superintendent upon a 15-day written notice. Each portfolio must be maintained for two years.
4. Provide for a statutorily prescribed annual educational evaluation of each student and file a copy with the Superintendent of Schools.
5. Submit a letter of termination upon completion of your home education program, enrollment in a public/private school, or when moving from the county.
6. Notify the district of any changes of addresses, etc.

Two Quotes For Parents About School

 Tuesday, July 8, 2014 at 2:27PM

Two Quotes For Parents About School

H. L. Mencken in The American Mercury in 1924 wrote that “The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality.”

 

In “Against School,” Gatto in 2003 tells his readers what he sees as the cure for the situation of today’s schools. He would like to see parents counteract the effect of the schools by teaching their children 1) to be leaders and adventurers, 2) to think critically and independently, 3) to have a well-developed inner thought life, 4) to spend time alone learning to enjoy their own company, and 5) to interact with adult-level books and materials in a wide range of subjects covering the Liberal Arts and Sciences."

 

Mencken, H. L. (1924). The goslings: A study of the American schools. In RALPH: The review of arts, literature, philosophy and the humanities (par. 7) [Book Review]. Retrieved from http://www.ralphmag.org/menckenI.html

Gatto, J. T. (2003, September). Against school: How public education cripples our kids, and why [Article from Harper’s]. Retrieved from http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ website: http://www.spinninglobe.net/againstschool.htm

Both quotes are cited in "Are All Homeschooling Methods Created Equal?"

Why I Pulled My Son Out of Public School

 Monday, July 14, 2014 at 10:30AM

Why I Pulled My Son Out of Public School

 

Ronda Bowen has been homeschooling from 2007. Here is her story.

 

Have you heard this comment from a school administrator?  “Your son makes himself a target for bullies.”  Way to blame the victim. If the teachers and administrators are not behind my son, why is he going to this school?  

 

Why do schools act so eager to place a label on a child?  Somehow my son became a target. For some reason my son became a “high risk” student. Administrators pulled my son out of class for disagreeing with the teacher about politics and about religion.  Administrators pulled my son out of class because he could do the math at a high level that other students. The administrators and his teacher became convinced that something was wrong with him.  Administrators continued to single out my son for testing and for conferences. My otherwise outgoing and happy child began to seem despondent, depressed and withdrawn.  He even said the words, “I hate myself.” Something needed to change. Homeschooling was the answer.

 

The decision to homeschool in this situation makes sense. Self-esteem and self-confidence come from competence.  Students must take charge of their own learning. Homeschooling offers that opportunity.

 

Top 10 Questions on Leaving Public School

 Monday, July 14, 2014 at 2:14PM

Top 10 Questions on Leaving Public School

Assembled from emails of parents considering homeschooling, Guilt-Free Homeschool creator Carolyn Morrison presents the top ten questions parents have on leaving the public school.

1.  How soon can I pull out my child?  Today and right now.

2.  What curricula do I need? You and your child pick a curriculum and a program to deliver it.

3.  Can I remove just one of my children from public school? Yes.

4.  How do I teach several children at the same time? An online curriculum that allows you to be the teacher can serve children in different grades. Projects can be shared such as cooking and gardening at different grade levels.  Field trips allow for different grade level experiences that can be documented in a portfolio.

5. How do I keep up with household chores?  Your children are there. Remember, the school day consisted of passing classes, attendance in every class, lunch and a free period. With a seven hour school day almost two hours were absorbed in the mechanics of the school.  Your children are not traveling to school.  So instead of spending eight or even nine hours traveling to school and at school, they are spending five hours or less on school work at home. Remind them that they have no “busy work” home work that is required at school.  Put them to work helping you. Require them to document their learning experiences for their portfolios.

6.  Is it too soon or too late in the school year to pull out my children.  No.  There is no set school year for homeschooling.

7.  Is my reason for homeschooling a good reason?  You and your caregiving partner(s) and your child must make this decision.

8.  Can I teach my ADD/ADHD/ODD/Etc student without special training? Yes.  You have been teaching them since they were born.  If you have been and can continue to provide a loving and caring and accepting environment, adding a formal education component to that environment will work.  Is your child MISE (more interested in something else)? Use that interest by redirecting it to the subjects of science, math, language arts and social studies. Is your child TETL (too eager to learn)?  Let the eagerness flow and jump ahead levels and grades in certain subjects. You and your child have formed a partnership for this enterprise. Grow this enterprise and enjoy the ride.

9.  What about friends? Friends come from many relationships.  Homeschool groups offer new opportunities for friendship. Neighbors, churches, clubs are sources for friendship.  

10.  What about sports, music and other extra-curricular activities? Some states require public schools to provide opportunities to participate in sports and music and other extra-curricular activities if a student is homeschooled.  Church-based and community sponsored activities may also offer opportunities.

What does the “Marketplace” mean in our school name Marketplace Mission Learning Center?

 uesday, July 29, 2014 at 2:31PM

What does the “Marketplace” mean in our school name Marketplace Mission Learning Center?

The following list from a July 22, 2014 article titled 15 Signs You’re an Entrepreneur presents the skill set needed to move forward in our fast changing world as an entrepreneur.

French economist Jean-Baptiste Say coined the word entrepreneur, and the work entrepreneur appeared in a French dictionary in 1723 defined as a person who makes decisions about obtaining and using resources while admitting the risk of enterprise. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, in his 1776 The Wealth of Nations defined an entrepreneur as the person who puts together land, labor and capital to create an enterprise. Political economist Robert Reich considers leadership, management ability and team-building essential qualities of an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs engage in the gale of creative destruction to replace in whole or part inferior offerings across markets and industries by creating new products and business models. According to Frank H. Knight and Peter Drucker entrepreneurs willingly risk their careers and financial and social security to pursue a new idea.  Entrepreneurs don’t just take measurable risks.  Entrepreneurs take ambiguous risks - only partially measurable, and they take true uncertainty impossible to estimate or predict risks. Entrepreneurs experience what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow.  Flow occurs when the individual forgets about the outside world and becomes emerged in a powerful insight.  Maria Montessori called this flow state normalization and described it as the child’s capacity for joyful and lengthy periods of intense concentration. Maria Montessori use prepared environments that offered children opportunities to achieve flow.

Aren’t we all entrepreneurs in our own lives with our own life being the enterprise we strive to create?  Each one of us must launch ourselves into the marketplace.  Each one of us must decide where to live and work, decide what labor to perform, and decide how to use our own capital.  We are the entrepreneur of our own enterprise, our own lives. Days, weeks, months and years go by.  Our limited resource of time determines so much of our future.  How can we take charge of our own time and use it to further the enterprise of our own life?

Self-paced online learning in a teacher/tutor/coach classroom at Marketplace Mission Learning Center is where you, the student, learn to control and direct your day-to-day behavior which makes you an entrepreneur using your own resources to further your own enterprise, namely your life.

1. You take action.  

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center you take over your own learning both the how to learn and the what to learn.

2. You’re insecure.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center you face your fear of failing in a real way because you have taken over your own learning which means you can’t blame a teacher or other students or the school.  You must face yourself and take ownership of your own performance.

3. You’re crafty.  

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center you must become crafty like the television character  MacGyver and apply your own creativity, optimism and street smarts to collect and use the  resources you have to solve the problems you face.

4. You’re obsessed with cash flow.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center time and efficiency become your obsession. Your creation of your own enterprise begins to take shape before your eyes. Your own creation of yourself becomes your obsession.

5. You get into hot water.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center you try new things, forge ahead to seize opportunities and tackle issues all to explore uncharted worlds.

6. You’re fearless.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center you don’t see problems; you see opportunities in work clothes.  Your optimism carries you forward.

7. You can’t sit still.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center you don’t have to sit still.  Try something new. We did in starting our school, and together we will continue to innovate and build it anew.

8. You’re malleable.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center you can change direction right now. You build yourself, your enterprise, day-by-day. Where do you want to go?

9. You enjoy navel gazing.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center you evaluate your own performance. Lessons have quizzes and tests and projects, but you need to gather feedback from other sources, process the feedback, develop a plan to improve and implement the improvement plan.

10. You’re motivated by challenges.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center challenges feed your drive. Adversity makes the game fun.

11. You consider yourself an outsider.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center you learn that all the students consider themselves  outsiders who have begun to recognize the reality of no inside and no insiders and no outside and no outsiders. Each student learns to take command of their own boat at sea charting their own course. This realization makes for a stimulating exciting environment.

12. You recover quickly.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center you learn that what many call failure our students call experience. An experience called failure simple didn’t work that way at that time. Students learn not to wallow or mope or feel sorry for themselves; students learn to move on to the next big thing.

13. You fulfill needs.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center you learn to look for the problems and the holes and to think of ways to fix them. Students learn to apply this problem solving to themselves, to their fellow students, to their school, to their families, to their community and to their society.

14. You surround yourself with advisors.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center students learn that their advisors are their lessons, their teachers, their students, their parents, and the wealth of information on the internet. Students learn to strive to make informed decisions.

15. You work and play hard.

At Marketplace Mission Learning Center students learn that when they fall down, they must keep picking themselves up until they get it right. Students learn to stay focused on their enterprise building, namely themselves. This means learning the basics.

Hug Time and T.T.T. and Homeschooling

 Friday, August 8, 2014 at 3:59PM

Hug Time and T.T.T. and Homeschooling

In the blog Watch Out for Gifted People  the author describes the whiteboard she uses to organize the daily chores for herself and her two homeschooled boys.  When one asks to use the computer, she points to the whiteboard and asks if he has completed his assignments. The whiteboard list reduces push-backs.  Recently, the author added “Together - Hug Time.” What a great idea. We spend too much time together on our own devices,  but  we are really alone. We need to spend time just being together.

 

Homeschool teachers, Hug Time recognizes, supports, encourages and authenticates your homeschool student. As a 39 year teacher (31 in a public high school) having taught over 5,000 students, I could not give hugs that way, but I could recognize, support, encourage and authenticate my students. I used the poem T.T.T. and a piece of candy when I sensed a discouraged student who needed a “hug.” I had the poem on a small sheet of paper and would discreetly place the poem and candy on the student’s desk even as I taught the class. Here is the poem:

 

T. T. T.

Put up in a place

where it's easy to see

the cryptic admonishment

T. T. T.

When you feel how depressingly

slowly you climb,

it's well to remember that

Things Take Time!

 

I also wrote back a kind of discussion on weekly themes sometimes even several paragraphs.  By the way any theme grade C or lower could be rewritten for a B. I also encouraged and supported class discussion.  To get thoughts from shy students into the discussion, I had students write a response with no names on a piece of paper, collected them, and read them into the class discussion.  Some of my best classes were when I stood in the back of the room and the students talked. When students made remarkable and insightful comments, I immediately wrote them down with their name, the date, the time and the class.  I transferred that information to a large sheet of paper and posted it on the classroom wall.  That “Hug” gave that student and the class a boast. Homeschool teachers, think of your own ways you can give your student “Hugs.” How do adults do it in companies?  Certificates, plaques, trophies, prizes, privileges, responsibilities, rewards, better working conditions, catch success, random acts of kindness, applause, time off, social gatherings, pizza/popcorn/cookie days, gags and gimmicks and even cash motivate employees.

Henry Hill

Marketplace Mission Learning Center

Dual Enrollment/Early Admission Student

 Wednesday, August 27, 2014 at 9:53AM

Dual Enrollment/Early Admission Student

 

Each year more than 3500 students from the five county district (Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry, and Glades) of southwest Florida start college life through Dual Enrollment at FSW - Florida Southwestern State College (formerly Edison State College). Dual enrollment college classes are free.  

See Dual Enrollment for more information about FSW’s program.

 

The Dual Enrollment/Early Admission procedure for FSW follows:

Submit an admissions application.

Submit a college placement exam (PERT).

Submit your high school transcripts.

Submit an Accelerated High School Registration Approval Form from your high school counselor.

After you are admitted:

Create your personal myFSW web portal to access your schedule, email and information about your student status.

Get your FSW Buc Card (your student ID).

Register for classes.

Home Schooling and College Success

 Wednesday, September 3, 2014 at 9:17AM

Home Schooling and College Success

From Exploring Academic Outcomes of Homeschooled Students by Michael Cogan of the University of St. Thomas

Home school lacks a clear definition.  The following characteristics describe it.

• K-12

• Child receives the majority of formal education in the home

• Primary teacher is the parent or guardian

• Curriculum may be structured or not

• Approximately 1.5 million home school children in the US (3%) in 2007 with a growth from 800,000 in 1999 and from 300,000 in 1991

Generally, home school families compared to public school families have the same income level, higher education levels, likely to live in a rural area, have two parents and bigger families.

The reasons for home schooling are a concern about the school environment, a desire to provide religious and/or moral instruction and a dissatisfaction with instruction at other schools.

According to this study of over 1000 students over four years:

• ACT scores of homeschool were 1.5 points higher with Math ACT scores the same, but English ACT  and Reading scores 3 points higher than public school students.

• The first fall 91% of homeschool students completed their schedule with a GPA of 3.37 compared to 87% of public school students completing their schedule with a 3.07 GPA.

• The four year graduation rates and GPAs were home school 66.7% with a 3.46 GPA and public school  58.6% with a 3.16 GPA.

• 
  

Why Use Ignitia Online Courses

 Wednesday, September 3, 2014 at 10:35AM

Why Use Ignitia Online Courses

 

The 50 Best Online High School Diplomas presents a description of private and university affiliated high school diploma programs comparing their programming, academic oversight, state approval, performance, inclusivity, personal attention and cost. Number 16, Alpha Omega Academy offers Ignitia online and print based LIFEPAC and Horizons.  

 

Marketplace Mission Learning Center (MMLC), starting its fourth year, offers our in-class students and our homeschool teachers 180 Ignitia courses with the support of a 31 year public school teacher and four year private school teacher who has had 5 years working with over 50 students using Ignitia courses and with the support of 24/7 access to my Moodle site Marketplace Mission Classrooms.   As a forty year teacher who has had over 5,000 students I am a text or an email or a phone call or a Google video call or a Facetime away ready to help you become a learning coach-teacher to your student. Articles and support lessons on my Moodle site offer online libraries to help you assume this role.   For more information about Ignitia, read the 24 page brochure Ignitia: Bible-based, Online Courses for Christian Schools.   

Ignitia has updated 24 courses from Flash to HTML5 making them easy to navigate on mobile devices. Click list of courses. 

The One Room School Revisited

 Monday, September 15, 2014 at 12:50PM

The One Room School Revisited

 

Bill Kauffman in the Wall Street Journal article, In One Room, Many Advantages, examines Professor Jonathan Zimmerman’s book, Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory.  In 1913 half of the nation’s school children attended one of the 212,000 single teacher schools. By 1960 progressive educationists, growing cities and centralizing pressures reduced the total to 1%.  Zimmerman quotes Delaware school consolidators telling small school supporters that “modern education...is less romantic and more businesslike, more formal, more exact, more specialized, done according to tested methods and a standard schedule.” In the name of “efficiency” small town traditions were buried in a maze of regulations and policies.  Big was better, and it was only a bus ride away.  The days of walking to school were over. From 1930 to 1970 nearly two-thirds of all school districts were eliminated through the process of consolidation.  Parents and neighbors on a small town school board were incapable of keeping up with the new methods and policies. New Deal journalists filed stories depicting run down one room schools with students receiving inferior educations. Zimmerman quotes a rural mother who said that “individuality will be lost, the pride taken away from our school and our teacher gone.  Haven’t the parents who bear the children anything to say?”

 

Well, homeschooling parents have something to say.  According to the Institute of Education Sciences over 1.5 million students which is 2.9% of the school age population are now home schooled.

From a 2007 survey:

36% (of the students) of the homeschooling parents stated a desire to provide religious or moral instruction.

21% stated a concern about school environment such as safety, drugs and negative peer pressure.

17% stated a dissatisfaction with academic instruction.  

14% named family time, finances, travel and distance.

7% decided to provide a nontraditional approach to education.

5% named health problems or special needs.

 

Researchers have now discovered the advantages of a one room school.  A child is not a statistic on a government chart.  In a one room school a child is an individual and given the attention and recognition a child deserves.  A child can move at a pace that fits their ability and motivation. A child in a one room school interacts with older and younger children in a real world environment and is not some number locked in an age group in a remotely controlled warehouse where Progress is the latest buzz phrase (Back to Basics - President Reagan 1981-1989, Nation at Risk 1983, No Child Left Behind 2001, School Choice, President Clinton’s Technology Literacy Challenge, President Clinton and Nationalized Standards and Common Core)  and Bigness is the justification for government and for big business control.  

 

Marketplace Mission Learning Center on Marco Island, Florida, offers a one room school of no more than seven students where students receive attention and recognition, move at their own pace through our Ignitia  online curriculum and interact with students at different grade levels. Another option is homeschooling.  You can be the teacher. 

 

Four Problems and Four Solutions for Home Schooling Parents

 Four Problems and Four Solutions for Home Schooling Parents

Home Schooling: A Guide for Parents suggests quality of instruction, family demands, citizenship education and special services for students with special needs present problems for homeschooling parents.

1. Quality of instruction consisting of elements of content, process, learning environments, readiness, interests, materials, programs, and learning styles challenge homeschool teachers.  

2. Family demands of time and money as well as the number of children at home may present challenges for the homeschooling parent.  

3. Citizenship education in a homeschool environment without the presence of other students may limit the student’s exposure to other’s beliefs that may conflict with their own, may not present opportunities to share common experiences with other students, and may not expose the student to the diversity within a democratic society. Homeschooled students may not have as many opportunities to socialize and to learn to cope with the wider world.

4. Homeschooled children with special needs may lose eligibility for special services from the local school district.

Solutions to problems represent compromises decision makers weigh and factor and measure against possible scenarios and projections.  “Problems are only opportunities in work clothes.” Henry J. Kaiser

1. Quality of instruction problems may be resolved by choosing the online program Ignitia which offers 173 courses for grades 3 through 12. Adding a certified, experienced teacher to your homeschool team as a consultant resolves other issues related to teaching and learning.

2. Family demands become bigger problems when families have not established organizational structures. Daily schedules with clear expectations and goals jointly set alleviate disputes and aggravations. Ignitia presents a daily schedule of lessons (lessons with quizzes, quizzes every 3 or 4 lessons, projects and unit tests).  

3. Citizenship education starts with the human family.  Each member of the family has a role to play, has jobs to perform and has responsibilities.  Homeschool teachers need involve their student in the surrounding community starting with family then spiral out to  neighbors, churches, social groups, after school activities (homeschooled students are eligible to participate in after school activities), volunteer and service projects and jobs in their community.  Continue out to county and regional issues, state issues, national issues and world issues. As members of the crew of spaceship earth we must assume responsibility for our life support system. (See  Operating Manual For Spaceship Earth is a short book by R. Buckminster Fuller, first published in 1968 American neo-futuristic architect, systems theorist, author, designer, and inventor.)

4. Special education and related services may be available.  See the Home School Legal Defense Association’s  Special Education Provisions in the 50 States and Territories web site, and click on your state. About 90% of special education funding comes from state not the federal government. The federal government will not allow Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) money to go to homeschoolers.  Some states have enacted laws that provide services for homeschool students. According to Effectiveness of Special Education: Is Placement the Critical Factor?  approximately 33% of special education students spend 80% or more of their school day in the general education classroom.  Another one-third spend 40% to 79% of their day in general education. One-quarter spend 0% to 39% in general education.  The remaining 5% to 6% spend time in separate schools or other programs. How effective is inclusion in the general education classroom?  Does you child like going to school? Are the general education teachers effective in managing special education students in a general education classroom?  Are the academic results meeting your expectations?  Special education consultants can help homeschool parents with special education students.  Umbrella schools such as Almaden Valley Christian School offer home education services for families of children with learning differences, difficulties and disabilities.  Consulting and support groups are available.

Marketplace Mission Learning Center on Marco Island, Florida, offers a one room school of no more than seven students who receive attention and recognition, move at their own pace through our Ignitia  online curriculum and interact with students at different grade levels. Another option is homeschooling.  You can be the teacher using our Ignitia online curriculum.

10 Online Learning Trends To Watch in 2015 from EdTech

 Tuesday, December 23, 2014 at 3:30PM

10 Online Learning Trends To Watch in 2015 from EdTech includes :

Big Data - allows for more statistics on the actual learning process, tracking and group patterns, feedback analysis, and ROI reports for learning.

Gamification - learners remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% when there are visuals, 50% if they observe and hear an explanation and 90% if they do the learning job themselves. 

Personalization - includes self pacing, adjusting the learning approach, selecting their own learning path, adjusting the form of the content and combining their own interests. 

M-Learning - Mobile learning allows for easy access, contextual learning with QR codes and GPS, and smaller chunks of learning. 

Focus On Return On Investment (ROI) - The key with ROI is balancing costs with benefits. 

APIs - Application Programming Interface (API) allow services between different programs to integrate an eductioal program.

Automation - Someday soon we may be able to automatically turn content into lessons, quizzes and tests that would be customized for locations and for learners.

Augmented Learning - is where the environment adapts to the learner.

Corporate MOOCs - Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are beginning to be used in companies and for building social responsibility.

Rise of Cloud LMS - Learning Management Systems are continuing to grow with the development of cloud based authoring tools and learning platforms. 

Why I'm pulling my kids out of public school

 Wednesday, December 24, 2014 at 8:16AM

Why I'm pulling my kids out of public school

More than 150,000 people have read Lynne Rigby's letter addressed to Florida Governor Rick Scott and the the Seminole County school officials.  If you are questioning your child's education, please read this letter.  A mother of five children aged 4 to 16, a college graduate and a kindergarten teacher, Lynne Rigby discovered the profound disconnect between succes in the classroom (A's and B's), success with homework, never struggling and a low score on the Discovery Education tests. Her happy, third grade son was now suddenly pulled out of his third grade class and sent to remedial programs because of his test scores. The disconnect is the validity of the test and the test's connection to the curriculum.  Now the elephant enters the room - Common Core.  Won't it be wonderful argue some politicians, some college professors and test and teaching material producers if all students in the United States in the same grade are on the same page learning the same material every school day.  Workbooks and worksheets day after day dedicated to grinding out some myth of accountability measured by tests. 

A documented study concluded that if state and national testing were eliminated, some school districts could add 20 to 40 minutes of instruction each school day and in more competitive school districts students could gain an entire class period of instruction each school day.  Additionally, school districts would have $100 per test taker to purchase other services and goods to improve student learning. See Problems With Standardized Testing from education.com for more information.   

 

Marketplace Mission Learning Center (MMLC) offers a one room classroom for seven students with the teacher of the online course work in the classroom.  MMLC offers parents who wish to homeschool access to 180 courses for grades 3-12.  Instuction on using the course work and support are a text or phone call away. With 40 years of teaching over 5,500 students, Mr. Hill is available to address your education questions and concerns.  

Why an online school?

 Wednesday, August 2, 2017 at 7:29PM

August 2, 2017

Why an online school?

We all have been learning since birth. We all remember that some lessons came fast and easy, and some lessons came slowly and hard.  Students do not learn at the same pace as their same age peers.  Online courses allow students to work at their own pace.  If students find the lesson easy, they can choose to skim the lesson and take the lesson quiz.  If the students finds the lesson difficult, the students may go slowly, seek other same topic online lessons, and ask the classroom teacher for help. 

Why a one teacher classroom?

One teacher all day offers the student a safe, secure and predictable learning environment. The student and the teacher with the care givers become partners in learning.  The teacher is a learning coach constantly seeking ways to help the student move forward. 

Henry Hill

What is unschooling?

 Tuesday, August 29, 2017 at 8:25AM

What is unschooling?

 

Homeschoolers adopted the label, unschooling, from John Holt who founded Growing Without Schooling (GWS) America’s first home education newsletter in 1977. Unschoolers encourage the learner to determine what to learn and how to learn. Unschoolers help their learner learn to love learning for its own sake. A typical “unschool” day may include a visit to the library, a nature walk, working in the garden, taking care of pets, cooking, doing spelling exercises and math worksheets, reading, writing, and working on an art project. No more than 90 minutes may be spent on formal school work.

 

Unschoolers believe that the inefficient “factory model” school stifles their natural learning children. Unschooling adapts to different learning styles and different growing rates. Unschooling parents support, guide, inform and advise their learner. The unschool environment frees the learner from the fear and the anxiety that often burdens learners in traditional schools.

 

Critics of unschooling and homeschooling cite the neglect of socialization, the danger of isolation and attachment parenting. Critics question the qualifications of the unschooling parents. Critics question whether the unschooled child will proceed to develop for a happy and successful adult life. Unschooled and homeschooled children may experience the lack of standardization, the lack of measurement of progress and the lack of respect for authority.

 

Dale Stephens, an unschooled learner from grade six, founded a UnCollege movement, received a Thiel Foundation grant and wrote the book, Hacking Your Education. Stephens started The UnCollege Gap Year Program where students “Voyage” for ten weeks living and volunteering in one of five countries, “Launch” for ten weeks attending workshops, networking, and building a portfolio in San Francisco, and “Intern” for twelve weeks  to work pursuing a project and to launch the project.

 

John Holt’s first book, How Children Fail published in 1964, sounded an alarm for the modern school system and helped launch the educational reform movement of the mid 60's. John Taylor Gatto, after 30 years of teaching,  published the underground classic, Dumbing Us Down: the Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling in 1992 and continued the revolution. Gatto asserts that the compulsory schools confuse students with an collection of courses and information, that schools teach students to accept their class affiliation, that self-confidence requires constant recognition by teachers and that they are always supervised. These lessons make students emotionally and intellectually dependent and indifferent.Today two million homeschool students represent 4 percent of the 50 million K-12 students.  

 

References

 

Collier, Lorna. "Unshackled and Unschooled: Free-Range Learning Movement Grows." Mind/Shift. May 2, 2014. https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/02/unshackled-and-unschooled-free-range-learning-movement-grows/.

 

Gray, Peter. “Self-Directed Education-Unschooling and Democratic Schooling.” Oxford Research Encyclopedias. April 2017. http://education.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264093-e-80?platform=hootsuite

 

Holt, John, GWS (Growing Without Schooling).  “Homeschool and Unschooling Resources” includes “Common Questions and Answers about Homeschooling”  from Chapter 3 of Teach Your Own (17 questions).  http://www.johnholtgws.com/frequently-asked-questions-abo/

Considerations when deciding whether or not to pull your child out of school

 Friday, September 1, 2017 at 1:12PM

Considerations when deciding whether or not to pull your child out of school

 

Your child wants to drop out of their school. This isn’t just a passing complaint.  You and your family must address this question. How do you and your family make the decision to pull your child out of school? This decision has three characteristics: reversibility,  “nowness”  and the “failure” issue. Your child can attend a private school or do homeschool which includes unschool and then later return to the public school at grade level.  From 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 at Winterberry Christian Academy and from 2011 to 2017 at Marketplace Mission Learning Center, the school I started,  I have taught many students who successfully returned to the public school. ” A “now decision” has two aspects:  you can’t postpone this decision indefinitely and “now” because it is not about the future such as college.  Your child needs to complete some education successfully now, and by successfully I mean that your child learns to learn, learns to value learning, learns that they can learn and learns that they like to learn. The “failure” issue means “quitting” the traditional school.  How about you and your family decide to “fire” the traditional school and “hire” another school - private or homeschool. So how should you make this reversible and “now” and not a “failure” decision? First, who should make this decision?

 

Remember the “Five W’s?”  How about seven questions:  Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How and How Much. Think of your child’s traditional schooling as your child’s job.

Education is your child’s job. What work conditions would drive you to quit your job and seek another?  Are those conditions there for your child at school? School when and where you went to school is not the school your child attends. Your child is not the academic, athletic, social child you were? Your neighborhood, your friends, your classmates when you were in school are not the same people for your child.  Listen to your child. What is your child’s school world really like for your child?  You only have now with your child, not a month or a year, just now.  Let your child help make this decision. Have your child go through decision making processes such as listing the pros and cons, taking hourly decision polls by listing leave or stay each hour, and following a seven step process:  identify the decision and/or goal, gather information, identify alternatives, weigh the evidence and consider the consequences, choose among alternatives, take action and review your decision.

 

Deciding to pull your child out of traditional school is not a self-evident, a  “known knowns” decision, unless you were pulled out of public school and home schooled or sent to a private school. Don’t be susceptible to “entrained thinking” and blinded to new ways of thinking by your past experience, training and success. Don’t be complacent and react too late. Your world is not the world your child lives in every day. The complicated “known unknowns” in this decision exist in your worry over did I make the right decision for my child’s future, so do research and seek expert advice.  If the decision is a family group decision, if the child buys into the decision,  if you have sought expert advice and if you have followed a decision making process, then it is the “right” decision for now. “Analysis paralysis,” deciding not to decide, is a decision for which you are responsible. Your child’s world is like the Brazilian rainforest not like a Ferrari.  An expert mechanic can take apart a Ferrari and put it back together. The car is a static whole that is the sum of its parts. The rainforest is in constant flux where the whole is far more than the sum of its parts. Your child’s world is in a constant flux both internally and externally and is far more than the sum of its parts. This is the complex realm of “unknown unknowns” and this is the world of your child both internally (intentionally) and externally (extensionally) ever changing moment by moment.

 

The Cynefin framework offers five decision-making domains (contexts or environments): simple, complicated, complex, chaotic and disorder which give decision-makers a “sense of place” from which to view the situation.  Simple Domain represents “known knowns” where the rules or best practice create a stable, cause and effect environment. Complicated Domain represents “known unknowns” where a range of right answers require analysis and judgment. Complex Domain represents “unknown unknowns” where cause and effect can only be deduced in retrospect with no right answers and only instructive patterns can emerge.  Chaotic domain represents the world where cause and effect are unclear so an “act-sense-respond” behavior is needed to establish order to find where a sense of stability is present and where it is absent and then to respond to transform the situation from chaos to complexity. Disorder Domain, in the center of all four domains, represents situations where no clarity exists and leaders argue and cacophony rules and where decision makers must work to break down the situation into constituent parts and assign each part to the other four domains.  How would this apply to your child?  You believe your child’s desire to leave the traditional school is in the Simple or Complicated Domain, but to your child this situation is in the Complex or Chaotic Domain and maybe even drifting into the Disorder Domain which means your child could be thinking about purposely failing, running away, self-harming, using drugs to escape the chaos and even suicide. Are you listening to your child, really listening? The world your child is describing is their “now” world. Is their world simple or complicated or complex or chaotic and moving toward disorder?  

 

So probe, sense, respond, reach out, reflect, interact, look for patterns, try different tactics, create environments and experiments that allow positive patterns to emerge. In the flux and unpredictability of your child’s desire to leave the traditional school be patient and together make a decision.  

References

 

Cynefin framework. (n.d.). Retrieved September 1, 2017, from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework

 

Snowdon, David J. and Boone, Mary E. (November 2007). A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making

The Florida Department of Education Sent MMLC the following Email at 1:54 September 1, 2017

 Friday, September 1, 2017 at 6:19PM

The Florida Department of Education Sent MMLC the following Email at 1:54 September 1, 2017

Dear Educators,

 

Suicide is a major health concern nationwide and in the State of Florida. Suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people ages 10-24 (Center for Disease Control [CDC], 2014). In the State of Florida (2015), suicide is the leading cause of death for ages 10-19 and the second leading cause of death for youth ages 20-24; 296 deaths by suicide were reported in Florida alone for ages 10-24 (Florida Suicide Prevention, 2015). In 2014, suicide accounted for 5,505 deaths in the United States for persons aged 10-24 (CDC, 2014).

Statistics regarding the suicide rate in the United States indicate the following: 

 

·         The suicide rate was highest in the American Indian and Native Alaskan population for both males and females; White males had the second highest suicide rate. The percentage of Latina females attempting suicide is higher than most other female racial groups (Kann et al, 2014).

·         Suicide is the second leading cause of death among Asian Americans and Pacific Island youth between the ages of 15 and 24 (Suicide Prevention Resource Center, 2013).

·         Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth are also at an increased risk of suicide (Suicide Prevention Resource Center, 2008). Factors such as not coming out, being outed by someone else, or being ridiculed are specific stressors for this population, not necessarily being LGBTQ (Bontempo & D’Augelli, 2002; Russell & Joyner, 2001). African American and Latino LGBTQ youth are at an increased risk because they are less likely than White youth to come out to family and friends (O’Donnel et al., 2004).

·         Although most people who have a mental illness do not die by suicide, having a mental illness may increase the likelihood of suicide compared to those who do not have one (National Council for Behavioral Health, 2016). 

Youth Mental Health First Aid, offered by the Florida AWARE Project, teaches an action plan to help a young person experiencing a mental health crisis. The program further teaches how to look for signs of suicidal thoughts and behaviors, non-suicidal self-injury, or other harmful signs. Florida AWARE is committed to increasing youth mental health by including raising awareness on the topic of suicide. Listed below are a list of resources that may help your agency.

 

For more information, please see the attached handout or contact Dr. Sandra Sosa-Carlin at ssosa@usf.edu.

 

Resources:

Youth Suicided Awareness and Prevention Training

 

The Florida Department of Education, in collaboration with the Statewide Office of Suicide Prevention, established criteria for reviewing youth suicide awareness and prevention training materials and compiled a list of nationally recognized youth suicide awareness and prevention trainings. A list of approved trainings may be found here: http://sss.usf.edu/resources/topic/suicide/index.html (Student Support Services Project website). Another resource shared by Florida’s Emotional/Behavioral Disability (E/BD) department is https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/suicide-prevention/index.shtml

 

 

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) provides suicide prevention information and other helpful resources to behavioral health professionals, the general public and people at risk at https://www.samhsa.gov/suicide-prevention. In addition, SAMHSA provides additional resources and toolkits free of cost:  Suicide Safe – The Suicide Prevention App For Healthcare Providers: https://store.samhsa.gov/apps/suicidesafe/ and Preventing Suicide – A Toolkit for High Schools: https://store.samhsa.gov/product/Preventing-Suicide-A-Toolkit-for-High-Schools/SMA12-4669?WT.ac=EB_20120622_SMA12-4669

 

For information on the Youth Mental Health First Aid training program, and how we can train at your agency, please review the attached YMHFA handout or visit https://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/cs/take-a-course/what-you-learn/

 

 

Specific Dates of Awareness:

 

►   September is dedicated to Suicide Prevention & Awareness Month

►   National Suicide Prevention Week – September 10^th – 16^th

►   World Suicide Prevention Day – September 10^th

Sources:

 

Bontempo, D.E., & D’Augelli, A.r. (2002). Effects of at-school victimization and sexual orientation on lesbian, gay, or bisexual youths’ health risk behavior. Journal of Adolescent Health, 30(5): 364-374.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Ten Leading Causes of Death by Age Group, United States – 2014. Atlanta, GA: https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_of_death_age_group_2014_1050w760h.gif

Florida Suicide Prevention Coalition (FSPC). Resident Deaths by Age Group, Florida, 2015. Florida: http://www.floridasuicideprevention.org/the_facts.htm

Kann, L., Kinchen, S., Shanklin, S.L., Flint, K.H., Hawkins, J., Harris, W.A., Lowry, R., O’Malley Olsen, E., McManus, T., Chyen, D., Whittle, L., Taylor, E., Demissie, Z., Brener, N., Thornton, J., Moore, J., Zaza, S., & CDC. (2014). Youth risk behavior surveillance – United States, 2013. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Surveillance Summaries, 63(SS-1).

National Council for Behavioral Health (2016). Mental health first aid USA: For adults assisting young people. Washington, D.C.: National Council for Behavioral Health.

O’Donnell, L., O’Donnell, C., Wardlaw, D.M. & Stueve, A. (2004). Risk factors influencing suicidality among urban African American and Latino youth. American Journal of Community Psychology, 33(1/2): 37-49.

Russell, S.T., & Joyner, K. (2001). Adolescent sexual orientation and suicide risk: Evidence from a national study. American Journal of Public Health, 91: 1276-1281.

Suicide Prevention Resource Center. (2013). Suicide Among Racial/Ethnic Populations in the U.S.: Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Hawaiians. Waltham, MA: Education

 

 

Sincerely,

Non-Public Schools
Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice
http://www.floridaschoolchoice.org
"Increasing the Quantity and Improving the Quality of Education Options"

DOE Nonpublic Schools Administrator	1:54 PM (4 hours ago)

Freedom and Existence Essay No. 2 "Age of Anxiety"

 Sunday, October 20, 2019 at 1:38PM

Freedom and Existence No. 2 "Age of Anxiety"