February 20, 2005
-
What irony. An old photo of our two boys
appeared in the papers today. Half-page in the Sunday Star tabloid! Taken 5
years ago when we were interviewed for an article on homeschooling, it’s now
used to illustrate a story about the tyranny of homework.A homeschooler once quipped that parents of
children in conventional schools must believe in homeschooling - after all they
spend so much time coaching and helping their kids with their school
assignments at home. In the report, one
mother claims that she spends 3 hours after dinner every night going through
her daughters’ schoolwork.Ethan and Elliot (15 and 13 now) who do not
have any idea about our Malaysian homework culture – like, copying questions AND
answers from workbooks, rewriting ‘nicely’ a teacher’s notes, etc
– are shaking
their heads in disgust seeing their picture accompany a story on
homework. Is that weird or what? “Shouldn’t they pay us for
using our photo?” asked Elliot.On the other hand, homeschoolers aren’t
exactly twiddling their thumbs all day. Our boys use Sonlight. If you want to know
anything about the curriculum, I’ll tell you – but only if you don’t mind
picking up your jaw off the floor when I’m finished.
swimming, Scrabble and LOTR Risk, writing their blogs (here and here), picking up the house, watering
the plants, helping with Mom’s groceries, visiting my Dad at the hospital, and
oh, just getting on my nerves now and then.Say, why do you think some parents insist
on telling us homeschoolers that we’re missing out on the “real world”?
Comments (2)
I totally agree with you about the pic being used for the article on homework. On the other hand, the article was very true.
I used to spend alot of time on my older kid's homework ,almost as much as I do now that I homeschool my two daughters. (12 and 17)
I would like to know about Sonlight, sounds good.
How do you incorporate LOTR Risk into your homeschool curriculum? We have the game and have never played it.
Really great post.
Thanks for the 'heads up' about homeschooling.
We don't use LOTR Risk in our curriculum, but the boys have been playing Risk (original edition) ever since they could roll a die. Ethan says it teaches strategy, planning and negotiation; Elliot says playing Risk lets them vent themselves on each other in a healthy way! You know, they've read Tolkien, they've seen the Trilogy, and they just had to have LOTR Risk........
About Sonlight, visit http://www.sonlight.com for more info. And thanks for visiting.
Comments are closed.