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Tuesday, September 3, 2013

To School or Not to School, at Home: Part 2

This is part 2 of why we want to homeschool our children. 
You can read part 1 here.

Last time, I posted about test scores, the one thing that really got us wondering about whether we should homeschool the girls or not. This time, I would like to delve a little into their work at school and highlight the reasons we cringe when completed work comes home.

We are having a hard time swallowing some of the things and ways they are learning at school. I do not, DO NOT, blame the teachers. They do what the Board of Education mandates. But what's being mandated is not working for us... or the kids.

For instance, work comes home completed but never really corrected. They never go over the correct answers. We always did that when I was in school 100 years ago. If you are not told what you did wrong, how can you ever be expected to do it correctly? It's so much easier to learn something the 'right way' than to unlearn the 'wrong way'.

They also spend 2 hours a day reading but their grammar and spelling needs so much work it's almost overwhelming. And yes, we always correct them when they speak. It's one of the best ways to teach grammar.

Button has a vocab test each Friday. But most weeks, the word list doesn't come home until Tuesday, sometimes Wednesday. And these are not easy words, for most kids and a lot of adults. (Fractals? Benediction?) Not to mention, HOW the words are assigned. Each week, the words all have the same root word. 'Benediction' was used for the root word 'bene'. So the definitions, a lot of times, are really stretched and farfetched. Example: Manipulate: When most people use this word, we use it as another person trying to 'manipulate' you into doing something. Their definition was more 'manipulating a screw into place'.  I have never used that word in that way.

And if a child in the class bombs the test on Friday, the next week they are told to go to a specific website to do activities with the vocab words... for the next test. How does that make sense? Shouldn't they be working on the words that they already missed instead of a brand new set of words? Is it up to each parent to make sure the kids go over those missed words until they get them right? We have asked her if they ever go over what they missed and the answer is always 'no'.

So, the parents are SUPPOSED to be the teachers? Then we might as well keep them home and teach it all.




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