The Homeschooling Handbook_ From Preschool to High School - Mary Griffith [77]
Performance groups such as theaters, symphonies, and ballet companies may also have something to offer in addition to their regular performance schedules. Their regular school outreach program may also be available to homeschool groups, and you may be able to arrange to:
Take a tour of the group’s rehearsal or performance sites
Attend a regular or dress rehearsal
Talk with some of the performers about their work
Volunteer to be ushers, stuff envelopes, or do other necessary work for the group
Manufacturers and Other Businesses
Many manufacturing concerns offer tours of their plants. As with retailers, visits can be both to view the material, techniques, and equipment used to manufacture the product and to see the kinds of workers and jobs necessary to operate such a company. Depending on the type and size of the business, you may also be able to arrange to “shadow” workers for a couple of hours or an entire day.
Medical Facilities
Most hospitals have formal volunteer programs and many have tours, but don’t stop there. There are nursing homes, assisted care homes, blood banks, medical laboratories, physical rehabilitation centers, hospices, limb prosthetics makers, and more. And don’t forget your own doctor or dentist, or even your veterinarian, who might be willing to give your family the full tour or an opportunity to help out for a few days to see what his or her work is like.
Educational Facilities
Homeschoolers in educational facilities? Of course. A surprising number of homeschoolers volunteer in their local schools, although the extent to which they can do so is often affected by the attitudes of local school officials or teachers, or by the degree to which they perceive a need for extra help. Private schools are often more flexible in allowing volunteers, especially young ones, on campus.
Some friends (a mother and ten-year-old daughter and the daughter’s friend) volunteer one morning a week at a public school. They work with some of the first graders who aren’t reading yet. I gather it’s been a positive experience for both the volunteers and the students. From what I’ve heard, our own local school hasn’t been too receptive even to parents of classroom children volunteering, so I don’t get the impression they have a welcome mat out. It seems more likely that we’ll volunteer someplace other than a school when our youngest is a little older.—Linda, Hawaii
Shauna has volunteered in the classrooms of two of my day-care kids because she walks them to the private Lutheran school that they attend. The kindergarten teacher that both kids had is especially friendly and loves to have Shauna’s help with projects. We have found the other teachers to be less flexible as Elise moved into first and then second grade. Shauna thinks her freedom “bothers the other teachers a bit,” and they aren’t as comfortable with it, especially because they are young and inexperienced. The kindergarten teacher is in her late forties and very relaxed. The first- and second-grade teachers are in their early to mid-twenties. Shauna wrote a thirteen-page journal chronicling her adventures in bringing Elise to first grade. The teacher there insisted that Shauna “drop Elise off and leave, like all the other parents do.” Elise preferred to have Shauna spend a minute helping her hang up her backpack and arrange her things. Shauna negotiated with the teacher on many occasions during the year and finally outlasted her, more or less. She also brought the teacher fresh strawberries from our garden, which may have helped win her over a bit. Shauna is not obsequious or fearful of adults, and some teachers dislike this, to be perfectly frank.—Carol, California
We don’t have anything to do with the local schools, although I have many friends at the Christian school my children used to attend. That school has a band open to homeschoolers that my oldest daughter will probably join next year. It is a