Home-Education is About Learning, Not Schooling

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Zion Lights is a writer and mother interested in ethics, attachment parenting, permaculture and green living. She is a regular contributor at One Green Planet. Check Out her website.  The original article can be found here, but has printed here with the author's permission.

I wonder whether approaching the subject a different way would have been more tactful. First, a barrage of questions washes over me; 'What do you mean, you're going to teach them yourself? How will you know what to teach? But you're not qualified to teach that subject?' Then, more adamantly stated, 'Are you sure it's legal?'

These are the incredulous comments of a teacher friend of mine after hearing that my husband and I plan to home educate our children. She studied for four years in order to teach in a school, and she strongly believes that teachers who study for less than two years are not 'properly qualified' to impart knowledge to young people.

So, I'm having trouble conveying to her our decision not to send our children to school. To say that we plan to 'home-school' our daughter does not offer much explanation, as the term implies that teaching will take place in a structured fashion, in the home instead of the school, with a strict timetable, exams and homework, and to a strict curriculum. If this was the case, there would be little difference between home education and school education.

Whoever Said There's No Such Thing As a Stupid Question Never Looked Carefully at a Standardized Test

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Alfie Kohn is an American author and lecturer who has explored a number of topics in education, parenting, and human behavior. He is considered a leading figure in progressive education. His website is here. You can find the original article here.

It can't be repeated often enough: Standardized tests are very poor measures of the intellectual capabilities that matter most, and that's true because of how they're designed, not just because of how they're used. Like other writers, I've relied on arguments and research to make this point. But sometimes a telling example can be more effective. So here's an item that appeared on the state high school math exam in Massachusetts:

n 1 2 3 4 5 6 tn 3 5 __ __ __ __
The first two terms of a sequence, t1 and t2, are shown above as 3 and 5. Using the rule: tn = (tn-1) plus (tn-2), where n is greater than or equal to 3, complete the table.

Richard Elmore: "I do not believe in the institutional structure of public schooling anymore"

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Dr. Gary Houchens is a former teacher, principal, and district administrator now serving as Associate Professor of Educational Administration, Leadership, & Research at Western Kentucky University. This original writing can be found at his website School Leader.

In my teaching and writing I sometimes ponder whether the existing structures of schooling are actually the biggest obstacle to student learning.  Can schools as we currently know them ever accomplish the mission we've established for them?

This week Richard Elmore, one of the nation's most prominent educational thinkers, emphatically shared his conviction that they cannot.  Speaking at a forum on education reform sponsored by the Aspen Institute, the American Enterprise Institute and the Harvard Graduate School of Education (where Elmore is professor), the father of instructional rounds distinguished himself from other panelists by concluding that schooling as we know it will inevitably fail.

"I do not believe in the institutional structure of public schooling anymore," Elmore said, noting that his long-standing work at helping teachers and principals professionalize their practice is "palliative care for a dying institution."  Elmore predicted "a progressive dissociation between learning and schooling."