As I previously posted, we pulled my boy out of school and set up arrangements for homebound service. Well, these services are a complete joke. It took a month to actually find a teacher to come to the house. Then, she frequently points out that she typically works with high school students and doesn’t know what to do with a 3rd grader. The home teacher doesn’t actually teach; she picks up work from school (often without talking with the classroom teacher), delivers them to our house, and takes back things to be graded. Although I am sorry her friend’s husband passed away, I can’t help but feel that my son is falling farther and farther behind whenever the teacher doesn’t show up. Hopefully, now that he has both flu shots, we can put him back in school without too much disruption.
Archive for the 'Teaching' Category
School at home < homeschool
Flu Season & Dumb Rules
We pulled the Gamer out of school recently after many kids (including the one who sat right behind him) came down with the flu. We had a medical plan in place ahead of time that states that he will be provided with homebound services from the school should this occur. However, we were not informed of the crazy rules that they have in place for homebound students. They state that should he be out in public (soccer practice, church, etc.) homebound services will be terminated. The rationale: if he is too much at risk to be at school, he is too much at risk anywhere. By trying to eliminate one major risk factor, they wanted him to live in a bubble (even though there is also risk at home!) Based on a doctor’s note about the benefits of exercise and Cystic Fibrosis, we have got them to let him finish the soccer season and receive homebound services, even though I wanted to pull him out totally and be done with this madness.
Books I’ve Read This Year
December is a time to reflect on what has gone on in the last 365 days and look forward to new opportunities. One of my goals this year was to read 20 books, and I did. So here they are.
- The Great Physician’s Rx for Health & Wellness - Jordan Rubin
- The Oath – Frank Peretti
- Believe Me…God is Real! - Roy Davidson
- The Truth About Hillary – Edward Klein
- Americans at Risk – Irwin Redlener
- The Faith of the American Soldier – Stephen Mansfield
- Inside the Wire – Erik Saar & Viveca Novak
- Evil Harvest - Rod Colvin
- Ambling into History – Frank Bruni
- Seven Seasons of the Man in the Mirror – Patrick Morley
- Things We Wish We’d Known – Bill & Diana Waring
- Home Schooling From Scratch – Mary Potter Kenyon
- Wikinomics – Don Tapscott & Anthony Williams
- Anticipating Surprise – Cynthia M. Grabo
- Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy – RAND Michael D. Swaine, Ashley J. Tellis
- Christopher Columbus – Stephen C. Dodge
- Here Comes Everybody – Clay Shirky
- The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook – Dr. Raymond & Dorothy Moore
- Chosen by God – R C Sproul
- The Journey to Wholeness & Holiness – Robert F. Loggins Sr.
The Roundup: October 10, 2008
What I’m into this week…
Keeping Records from My Kids Blog
It’s Anything but Dry from The Christian Post on prayer
Geode: The New Geo-Tagging Project From Mozilla Labs from Tech Crunch
The CIA and the Culture of Failure from Secrecy News
Buy a lifesize lego replica of yourself for $60,000 from Geeks are Sexy
Homeland Security’s Space-Based Spying Goes Live from Inteldaily.com
Happy Friday!
The Roundup: October 3, 2008
ACT and Curriculums from NYT Opinion
Conscience and Abortion from NYT Opinon
BrandJury.com looks pretty interesting. Vote on advertisements.
Public Speaking 101 from Jeff Pulver
The Campaign in the Classroom
Alphabet Worksheets
Kidzone Fun Facts
Happy Friday!
The Roundup: September 19, 2008
Things I found interesting this week:
Adding social buttons to your posts from Why Homeschool
Education Resources from My Kids Blog
SOCIAL CHRISTIANITY from Trey Morgan.net
Writing a book – is it really worth the effort? from Strange Attractor
Scorecard – The pollution information site
HealthMap – Global disease alert map
Chris Pirillo – Tech geek with a webcam
Happy Friday!
Back to Homeschool
My wife and I decided to pull the kids out of public school and teach them at home. We have done this temporarily in the past, but this time they are not going back. We came to this conclusion for several important reasons.
First, I believe it our duty as parents to teach our children, a job we had been delegating to the public school.
Deuteronomy 6:4-7 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Second, for medical reasons, the doctors wanted us to pull Trey out for three months of the flu season. Every year he gets sick around Nov/Dec. Last year he was in the hospital for two months. Rather than subjecting them to the germ breeding ground that is school, we want the opportunity to control the environment.
Third, we are concerned with some of the content being presented. Without going into evolution, sex education, or sexual orientation, the district voted to use the curriculum from Everyday Mathematics. This is a curriculum that every parent should protest and run away from.
It all comes down to the fact that I know my children better than anyone and it’s my responsibility to raise them. So, now my quest is to give them the best education that I can, so expect the focus of this blog (as if it had one) to shift in that direction. All tips, hints, suggestions welcome.
