In Canada the home schoolers belong to an organization where they get their teaching materials from and also go on field trips with other home school families. Does this work the same with how you did the home schooling? Im guessing that since you were in a remote area you may not have done the field trips with other homeschoolers. [/quote]

You have to understand that we didn't start out to homeschool them so we didn't really spend the time to investigate different groups like many homeschool families do.

It started out very slowly, with us just supplimenting their school work and one summer, we decided that since we all had a background in education that we could teach them ourselves and then, at the end of the summer one year, they just didn't go back.

It's really only been in the last three or four years that homeschoolers were seen as anything but religious whakos and survivalist rednecks.

Even today, if someone in our area says "homeschool", it's pretty safe to assume that they're talking about the Amish.

So we know that there are a lot of groups out there, but we've never really taken advantage of them.

[quote]Also, in high school where in chemistry or biology where you would do labs, are home schoolers able to do these activities as well?[/quote]

Absolutely. My mother and her husband have a home on our farm and help us with the childrens' schooling.

Her husband has a background in engineering and physics and they've done great things together.

I have a tendency in my enthusiasm to overdo things so the more he got into science as a boy, they more I tried to create a NASA size lab for him but that really wasn't necessary.

They have a pretty rudimentary lab, but have still been able to do all sorts of things with robotics, rocketry, some chemistry, etc.

[quote]From the sounds of your post it sounds like your son is very good at science.[/quote]

He is and I can't imagine where he got that from. I'm pretty good and mechanical things but I'd much rather talk theology or history.

But he's always been curious about the way things work and it just grew from there.

He used to watch those robot fighting shows that were all the rage a few years ago and he really got into building robots. Then, a couple of years ago, he saw a story on TV about soldiers coming back from Iraq missing arms and legs and he got interested in prostetics and how they work.

That was what his project was in the science fair I mentioned earlier.

He's also made a project dealing with robotics and voice recognition.

In Canada the home schoolers belong to an organization where they get their teaching materials from and also go on field trips with other home school families. Does this work the same with how you did the home schooling? Im guessing that since you were in a remote area you may not have done the field trips with other homeschoolers.

Also, in high school where in chemistry or biology where you would do labs, are home schoolers able to do these activities as well? From the sounds of your post it sounds like your son is very good at science.

I look forward to seeing your response
Merry Christmas

The boys' grade-level equivalents fell, for the most part, around 12 - 12.9. They each had a couple of areas in need of improvement, but they are way above, as Mike says, government school peers. The WJ-III is a normed set of tests, what that means in re grade level equivalents is that the test subject has done about as well on that subtest as the average person at that grade level would have done. It doesn't mean they've mastered every skill or knowledge area found in that grade level's curriculum.

Still, if you can afford it and one of the parents can tolerate being around the kids 24/7, I think homeschooling's the way to go. Waist-length hair and denim jumper for Mom is probably optional

The first is that we live so far out in the country, that almost four hours of the kids' day would be taken up just riding the bus.

That just seemed stupid to us.

The second reason is that we know from experience (I'm a former teacher and my mother, who has a home on our farm with her husband, is also a teacher) that government schools are really not educating our children to their fullest potential. Some of that is their fault because of union, outcome based education, etc, but a lot of it is because government schools are designed to cater to the lowest common denominator.

You have twenty-five kids in a classroom and twenty are performing at A-B level and the other five are performing at D-F level. The way the schools are set up now, the teacher can't go on with the A-B kids until the D-F kids are caught up or else he gets in trouble.

Back when I was a kid, my dad was an engineer, my grandmother was an English teacher, and my mother taught college level sociology.

So, when we kids would get home from school, they all made sure that our government school education was supplimented at home with their assignments.

Because they expected more of us and pushed us harder, my sister ended up graduating high school at sixteen and I would have, too, if I hadn't wanted to stay in for baseball and football.

Our kids are miles ahead of their government school contemporaries.

Melody and Jason both are taking college courses at a local community college and they're only 14 and 13, respectively.

Melody is 14 years old and she makes money tutoring the government school seniors and juniors after their classes. She's also started her own business making scented candles. She actually has distribution among about twenty stores. FOURTEEN YEARS OLD!

Plus, she's helped to draft two grant proposals to the NEA and is an intern at a local assisted living community.

Jason just came in second in a science competition a couple of weeks ago. He's thirteen years old and beat out a couple dozen government school kids from various government schools around the region.

I mentioned he was second. The kid who came in first was another homeschooler.

Jason's thirteen and he helps me run my business. He deals with vendors and distributors and retailers about as much as I do.

And the third reason we decided to homeschool is that government schools teach facts and principles, but don't teach how to apply those facts and principles in real life situations.

Again, I point you to Melody and Jason. They wouldn't have accomplished half of the things they've accomplished in government schools.

They wouldn't be learning Latin or rhetoric or philosophy or economics.

By the way, not sure if you're aware of this or not, but Tim Tebow was homeschooled.

Secondly, the argument has been made that as we degenerate into a more secular society, and as we teach kids to keep God out of their lives when in school, are we really that ignorant to think that we will NOT have more shootings and mass murderers? Without God, there will be an absence of God (clearly) and with an absence of God, there is a core problem, right down to our roots. The core problem, or "root cause", is that people tend to place themselves above all else, and even before this country's forefathers, we knew that this meant chaos. Chaos means their is a need for control and that control either comes in self-control, through the understanding of a higher being watching over us and monitoring us, or it means a camera, today. And behind that camera, there is an authority watching over us.

When I was a child, there certainly was someone watching over me at all times. That Being (my Triune God) is still there and will be there forever. I do not need a camera watching me. Besides, it can't love me like a police man can.

And it's all for our own good.

mis understandings meant you might be a witch
The Japanese - Americans were locked up
Different thought meant you were a communist
Be careful if you choose to spank in public

The thing is the fear only opens up the ability to create more fear, it is like something that grows.

*sigh* Schools will become a police state and later these babies will be the government we can only pray they do not do what they were taught,

Love now tomorrow is not promised to anyone

Rome is a great example. For hundreds of years, it seems that balance would last for about a minute then things would start collapsing again. In the end, security won out but when it did, people became apathetic and no one really wanted to save Roman culture anymore. I bet the same thing would have happened if liberty won out over security, except it would have been from terror, rather than banality.

I agree that such intrusions go against the spirit of our liberties. John is right about schools becoming graveyards of liberty, but these days, they sometimes are just plain graveyards…and the tension grows.