An INFP Homeschools. Hah.

Fourth in a series. The others are here: My family background in education; the decision to homeschool; the basics of homeschooling for us.

This entry was going to be one entry on resources, followed by a “what I learned” post tomorrow. But I think I’m going to split the resources post in two, post the other half tomorrow, and save “what I learned” for Monday. Or maybe Monday and Tuesday. Every time I start thinking about it, I get all rant-y about education and can’t think in less that 5000 words, and that’s not fun for anyone.

So…what did we use for homeschooling?

As I mentioned before, there really was no way I was going to do a boxed curriculum. I couldn’t see the sense of it. There are so many great resources out there, I saw no reason to confine the boys to a certain way of learning, and while I wasn’t going to tie us to a specific style either, I did lean towards Charlotte Mason, which emphasizes “living books” (as opposed to textbooks) and experiencing nature/life/journaling – anyway.

OH..I should mention this. I probably should have mentioned it a couple of entries ago, because this played a huge role in my decision to homechool and how to go about it. Yes, this post will definitely get split into two sections now. Geez. How could I forget this.

What did the state of Alabama require us to do as homeschoolers?

Not much.

Alabama has very, very loose homeschooling rules. It even veers to..”almost none.”

Here’s how it works.

You make a decision to homeschool. The next thing is that you have to find what they call a “cover school” with which to associate. A cover school is the entity that mediates between the homeschooling family and the state – you register with the cover school, and the cover school tells the school system that you are enrolled.

At the end of the school year, you tell the cover school, “Yes, we had school for 180 days.”

AND THAT’S IT.

That is all you have to do. INFP dream life. You don’t have to report curriculum. You don’t have to test. You don’t have to inspected or certified or provide any more detailed documentation. All you have to do is report attendance.

It’s great. And honestly, I don’t know if I would have homeschooled if we had to provide a lot of detail to the government about what we were doing. One, having to do so really would tick me off. Secondly, I’m so disorganized lazy such an INFP it would be a lot of hassle, and I suspect it would have tilted that equation back in the direction of school.

Not kidding. As I considered this, I was all about the “sacrifice” and yes I was willing to sacrifice my time alone and creative energy that could go for work projects, but when you start talking “student portfolios” and “year-end evaluation” – I’m out. Jesus, take the wheel, because that cross is too heavy, and if I could think of one more metaphor, I’d use it.

When I was first learning about this, I also found it odd that the cover schools have to be church-associated. That got my dander up, and I was all about diversity and down on backwards Alabama, but then I realized that there’s a purpose for that.

First, the “church” can be any religious association you can dream up, so there are cover schools that are run by, oh, I don’t know, the Sisterhood of Transcendentally Aware Unicorn Seekers as well as First Church of the Blood of the King and Lord Jesus Holiness Tabernacle In the Piggly-Wiggly Parking Lot.

The purpose of it is to keep the state’s hands off of homeschooling activities, since in Alabama, chuch-related schools don’t have to operate by state standards. They can if they want to, and most do, but there’s no requirement.

So it actually makes sense – if you value your homeschooling independence. But I guess you could be against that.

If you’re a fascist.

Cover schools in Alabama provide more than just that letter to the school board, of course. Many sponsor activities and all provide transcripts when requested and the information is supplied by the parent. There is a diocesan cover school here, but I was a part of Everest Academy, which has a great, helpful website and sponsors good activities – last year, for example, M did a rock-climbing course and we went to a very nice program on Japanese art at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

So now…back to the specifics.

I didn’t want to use a boxed curriculum. There are no hybrid schools in the area and I was not aware of any co-ops that I might want to join. I had heard about a couple in outlying communities, but that would not be worth the drive. Last year, a fabulous local Catholic homeschooling mom began a homeschooling “academy” working out of the Cathedral. It did very well, and is expanding this year. M really enjoyed it, taking classes on drama and the history of science. Here’s the website.Here’s the website.

I also did not want to do online classes. I considered it, and looked into it, and if we had continued to homeschool in high school (or if we do in the future), I’ll look into it again – although as I considered homeschooling high school, my thoughts were leaning more towards hiring tutors for science, math and language rather than doing online classes.

Why not? I know many find them very useful, and I’m sure they are. But I really am not enthusiastic about kids in front of screens, even at home, and I don’t know what I think about my kids establishing even casual friendships with others online. We just don’t do that – don’t do online gaming, etc.

I did think about my older son doing an Art of Problem Solving math class, but when I looked into it more closely, I decided the pace was just too fast. He’s sort of math-y, but not that math-y, and there was really no reason to put him under that kind of pressure.

So. No online classes. No preset curricula. So…where does that leave us?

Well, the first place it leaves us is trying to figure out where we have been left. There are a zillion books and websites on homeschooling. What your homeschool is going to look like is completely up to you and your children. But getting ideas from others helps. Here’s where I looked:

• Homeschooling blogs and other websites. This can be overwhelming, because there are so many of them and people going about them in different ways. It’s very easy to feel intimidated, but don’t. That said, after the initial decision was made, I didn’t spend a lot of time on homeschooling blogs unless a search on a specific question took me there. Everyone is just so different, there was no reason for me to use another person’s experience as a permanent reference point.
• Discussion boards – now these are useful – and not just in terms of homeschooling. I tend to find discussion boards one of the most useful information sources on the internet. Even if I don’t enter the fray with my own question, what I find is that someone out there probably has the same question as I do and someone else has an answer that applies, no matter what the topic: Why won’t the stupid snake eat the stupid thawed out rat? Why won’t the Ipod turn on? How can I unclog my dishwasher? Bologna or Ferrara for a base? How can I help the hummingbirds stop dive-bombing each other and all get along?
• So with homeschooling, my go to resource has been the discussion board at the Well-Trained Mind website. The Well-Trained Mind is the homeschooling community and resource center that has as its core the work of Susan Wise Bauer, known for her texts on history and writing and advocacy of classical education. If you are considering homeschooling – or even if you are not and are simply looking for ideas for enrichment as a parent or teacher – use this website. I got so many ideas on books and curriculum, I can’t tell you – the give and take between board participants, sharing their opinions of various books and curricula was so very helpful.
• REAL PEOPLE. IN REAL LIFE.

That last point requires emphasis.

When I got started, I didn’t know many homeschoolers. I think I might have known one homeschooling family here in Birmingham. But just about the time I started, a Catholic unschoolers group started meeting on a monthly basis – and I attended only a couple of times because the meeting place was a good distance from my home. But through that, I made some initial connections, got on some email lists and started getting to know people. Then what happens is that folks start organizing activities, and you go to the activities and you get to know people and make friends. When we returned from Europe, the boys also started doing classes at the science center and the zoo, and I made connections hanging out and talking to other parents in those settings, talking curriculum, home dynamics, activities, and the question every conversation would end with….

So…what are you going to do about…high school?

And we would all just sigh.

I think what I’ll do is just go through a few subjects today, talk about what worked and what didn’t, finished up tomorrow with more of the same and a list of some of my other favorite resources.

Well, I typed that sentence thirty minutes ago, at which point I interspersed a few other paragraphs, and now I’m running out of time – I have a book proposal to work on that I promised “this week because I won’t have the kids at home anymore” – and THIS WEEK is almost over, so I guess I had better get on that.

So I’ll start with one subject: religion.

This really isn’t fair or representative, since I have an MA in religion and have taught it and written books about it, but that also means it’s a good one to get out of the way.

Religion

Didn’t use any texts consistently. Religion instruction (for 2nd-5^th grader and a 6^th/7^th grader) was centered on the following:

• Daily prayer which was a mash-up of Morning Prayer and the daily Mass readings.
• Saint of the Day.
• After prayer proper, I would spin out interesting themes from the prayer, readings and saints. We’d talk more about the saint. We’d look at geography or history. We’d talk more about the liturgical season. We’d look at art related to the saint/feast, etc.
• I used the Universalis site for prayer and readings.
• For saints, I used this book and this one as a start.
• That’s mostly it, in terms of our school-day religious instruction.
• For specific seasons, I would pull out some old vintage Catholic textbooks and have them read chapters like this one.

 

• I did get a couple of Faith and Life volume and had the younger one read here and there, but nothing consistent.
• They serve Mass regularly at the Casa Maria Convent and Retreat HouseCasa Maria Convent and Retreat House and I confess that one of the reasons I have them do it is that since the priests saying Mass and preaching are either experienced retreat masters – and well-known, like Fr. Paul Check, Fr.Andrew Apostoli and Fr. Brian Mullady – or Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word – they always hear good preaching with solid instruction. And since they are sitting right up there six feet from the preacher, facing a couple of dozens sisters and a bunch of retreatants and their mother, chances are good that they will listen to at least some of it.
• Of course, our travels include churches, monasteries and shrines. Daily.
• Every once in a while I would lift my head up from this Rich Holistic Teachable Moment Catechetical Tapestry and think of the younger one, “Wait..he does know that there are seven sacraments, right?” And I would quiz him, and he might forget Anointing of the Sick, but other than that, he was good.
• And our conversations about Scripture were always peppered with me quizzing them on how to do Scriptural citations properly and little things like, “Okay…this reading is from Isaiah. Old or New Testament?” or “Name the Gospels. What comes after the Gospels? What are most of the other books in the New Testament about?” “List the first five books of the Old Testament. What are they called all together?”
• I don’t see any need to do a lot of theology with kids. Teach them the faith via the Scriptures, the lives of the saints and the liturgical life of the Church, be involved in that life of the Church and the Works of Mercy and make sure they understand the basics. I think that’s a good, solid start. Because all you really need to know  is: