The Homeschooling Handbook_ From Preschool to High School - Mary Griffith [0]
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Terms
Introduction
1 Does Homeschooling Really Work, or What Do We Tell the Grandparents?
2 Legal Stuff, or Can We Really Do This?
3 Structure, or Can We Wear Our Pajamas to School?
4 Assisted Homeschooling, or Do We Really Need Any Help?
5 Money and Other Practical Matters
6 The Primary Years: Reading, ’Riting, and ’Rithmetic
7 The Middle Years: Exploring the World
8 The Teen Years: Finding a Direction
9 Evaluation and Record Keeping, or How Do We Know They’re Learning?
10 Finding Learning Resources
11 The Homeschooling Community
12 Coping with the Rough Spots
13 Special Circumstances
14 Beyond Homeschooling
Afterword
Appendix A: Homeschooling Resources
Appendix B: Homeschooling Organizations
Appendix C: Selected Learning Resources
Appendix D: Colleges That Have Accepted Homeschoolers
Works Cited
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FMH
One of the real pleasures of writing and eventually revising this book was working with the homeschooling parents who so willingly and articulately shared with me how their families homeschool: Karin Boosman, Lisa Medlen Bugg, Tammy Cardwell, Carolyn Clark, Deborah A. Cunefare, Laura Derrick, Alisanne Fleitman, Peggy Flints, Pam Hartley, Shari Henry, Linda Inouye, Beverly S. Krueger, Ava Miller, Cindy Sulaiman, and Grace Sylvan. Contributing additional material for the revised edition were Carol Burris, Tammy Glaser, Elizabeth Kanna, Monica Molinar, Barb Simonds, and Jennifer Tompkins. All were unfailingly helpful, eager to explain their own versions of homeschooling, and terrific reminders of why I so much appreciate and enjoy the homeschooling community.
Once again, thanks are due to the friends and colleagues from whom I’ve learned and continue to learn much of what I know about homeschooling (and many of whom also shared details of their homeschooling lives): Helen and Mark Hegener, Patrick Farenga, Micki and David Colfax, Donna E. Nichols, Ann Zeise, Linda Dobson, Janie Levine, Dianna Broughton, Sandra Dodd, Edith Touchstone, Anne Wasserman (known to homeschoolers on the Internet as “anne in chicago”), and Karl Bunday (who graciously allows me to include his ever-growing list of colleges friendly to homeschoolers); my dedicated fellow activists (and dear friends) from the Homeschool Association of California: Barbara David, Melissa Hatheway, Kim and Julie Stuffelbeam, Steve Greenberg, Diane Kallas, Lanis LeBaron, Carol Edson, Jill Boone, Lillian Jones, and Margaret Arighi; and the stimulating crowd of regular posters on the Home Ed and Unschooling Internet mailing lists and in the America Online homeschooling forums.
The folks at Prima Publishing continue to make the process of getting books ready for publication seem almost easy, especially Jamie Miller, Michelle McCormack, Laura Larson, and Leslie Ayers.
And still to thank are all those homeschooled kids—including my own daughters—who continue to provoke and exhaust and astonish and energize and amaze their parents. I am privileged to watch them learn and grow.
TERMS FMH
Several terms are commonly used to refer to parents taking direct responsibility for their children’s education by teaching them at home, and debate within the homeschooling community over which term is most appropriate is surprisingly lively.
Consider the basic choices: unschooling; deschooling; home education; and home schooling, home-schooling, or homeschooling. The choice is not as simple or as meaningless as it first appears.
Unschooling and deschooling are a bit confusing. Unschooling can mean the actual process of educating one’s child outside the confines of a conventional school, and it can also be a specific approach to learning that emphasizes following the child’s interests. Though all unschoolers are homeschoolers, not all homeschoolers are necessarily unschoolers. Deschooling can also mean the process of educating children outside the conventional classroom, but most often today it refers to the process of getting used to homeschooling. Many children and parents who are accustomed to learning