We homeschool. Six kids ages 5-18. Kids have never been in PS. They are smart, interact well with all ages, my teens all have jobs as well, they are business minded, work hard, and my boys already have the skills to have their own business at 15 and 16. My oldest is done with school, works full time, and is a responsible adult. My kids are smart enough for college but don't plan to go as they all have skills that they can use without wasting money on college. Over the years we have used many different curricula, some we liked, others not so much. We do the required bookwork but my focus is more on lifeskills, working hard, being kind, use your talents, love God and others. I want my kids to think, not just do rote work and become an educated moron. They know what they believe and are not pushovers.
Well, hi, fren. It's good to see other large families here. (Are you also LCMS? Love your username.)
I'm the parent of six kids and have been homeschooling for 14 years with 8 years left. Kids are 20 down to 10. My oldest two are boys who found their place in the trades, one in electrical and one in HVAC (though both are crazy smart, we don't promote college unless they KNOW what they want to do--and no loans).
We teach our kids HOW TO LEARN not WHAT TO LEARN. Raising patriots here. No room for pushovers with us, either.
Reformed Baptist actually. We had attended a CREC church for 2 years and I love most of what the demonination is doing, but being credobaptists can sometimes be an issue there. So I love all my brothers and sisters in Christ regardless, and try to live at peace and not Dicker about non gospel issues.
Homeschool Legal Defense Association will have information on each state's homeschooling laws as well as information on homeschooling in general. They also have membership benefits if you are interested in that.
https://hslda.org/
HSLDA is worth the investment. Learn the laws / rules for your state. As more home school, more pressure from the tax starved government school bureaucracy will be applied.
Zero government money, ZERO! Take money from them lets them have access.
HSLDA has a script to print out that you can read THROUGH the door if pressure shows up.
I had a fabulous home schooling experience, NO REGRETS.
Read EVERYTHING you can by John Taylor Gatto....
As I have often said, and proved with documentation, forced institutional schooling was never a home-grown American phenomenon, but from the beginning was an importation from a socialist European military state by our industrial leadership, an import imposed by force on our population which, in many locations reacted violently to what was widely seen as a coup by financial interests, a coup intended to prepare our future citizen base to abandon its dream of independent livelihoods in favor of competing for “good” corporate “jobs,” employment subservient to managers.
It was a transformation noted with horror by Abraham Lincoln, who thought it signified a re-assertion of the British social class system on our shores, brought back by British bankers financing the westward expansion of the U.S., in the middle 19th century, men made uneasy by the voice given by America to ordinary families and working class individuals; men determined to end popular interference in management by infiltrating, and weakening the minds of future citizens. According to a brilliant American scholar, Anthony Sutton, writing in a book I highly recommend, entitled, “America’s Secret Establishment,” schooling was inserted into America by an elite German secret society, working through Yale University and Johns Hopkins to gradually infiltrate every institution, directing all policy toward the end of American sovereignty. Sutton supplies chapter and verse of this sophisticated conspiracy, tracking it through its inception at the University of Berlin and the Prussia of Von Bismarck and following it through the thousands of American young from wealthy families studying in Prussia for the coveted PhD degree, granted only there in the 19th century, not in the states.
To achieve this ambitious goal of national domination, the common American population, according to the plan was to be converted from an independent citizenry into a proletariat, a landless, lightly-rooted ignorant rabble, one freed from religious faith, an inactive, indifferent mass, one content to be taken care of by a paternalistic government, one stripped of religion and traditions of liberty, independence, self-sufficiency, family ties, and concern for politics, content to cede all such matters to bankers, lawyers, business interests and the American counterpart to Britain and Germany’s upper classes.
A mass man dedicated to the proposition that a person got ahead in life by pleasing higher authorities, and by surrendering any personal principles disfavored by one’s superiors. These are the core principles taught by mass institutional schooling, habits drummed in by 12 years of confinement. If they were serviceable, according to what history shows to be America’s unique genius—invention and innovation, this coup might not be so objectionable, but obviously they directly contradict what earned us our wealth and leadership position among nations—ingenuity, inventiveness and common ambition.
The children I taught had been deliberately infected with the delusion that an entity called “mass man” actually exists, that human individuality is largely a reflection of economic and social class, and that it can be scientifically engineered by bureaucracies interlinked with one another– the great socialistic fantasy, an ultimate statement of materialism. Socialist politics rejects individual enterprise as an enemy of collectivism; socialism holds that all human beings are the same at the core, without any proper claim to individualized treatment in preparation for maturity. In such a reality, only the political state can direct the training of young people. But because state prescriptions are too rigid to fit everyone, children rebel, listen less and less; their disobedience is a natural defense of their unique spirits. The delusion that people can be treated as a mass leads inevitably to types of organization and procedure which drive people literally insane because it bleeds significance from everyday choices, makes a mockery of free will; this mental distress is a legacy of bureaucratic schooling, a byproduct of efficiency engineer Frederick Taylor’s notion that societies can be “scientifically managed” as if they were factories or coal mines, not much different than machinery.
But crucial differences exist, whether one believes in divine destiny or not; machinery can only be improved by interventions from outside while education only happens when much of the directing force is generated from inside the student; people only improve in limited ways from outside interventions. Individual growth has to be struggled for, to be taken. Nobody can do it for you.
A few years back, the School of Government at Harvard issued advice to those planning a career in the global economy of the future; it said that school credentials would be devalued compared to real world skills acquired by experience; it identified 10 qualities to acquire to meet the changing standards, none of which are usually found stressed by public schooling:
Ability to define problems without a guide.
Ability to ask questions that challenge common assumptions.
Ability to work without guidance.
Ability to work absolutely alone.
Ability to persuade others that yours is the right course.
Ability to debate issues and techniques in public.
Ability to re-organize information into new patterns.
Ability to discard irrelevant information.
Ability to think dialectically.
10.Ability to think inductively, deductively, and heuristically.
How could schools even function if children were encouraged to challenge prevailing assumptions? If you want your kids to follow Harvard’s advice, you’ll have to arrange a work plan by yourself, expect no help from your school district.
How far we have fallen from educational schooling since colonial days can be measured by a book published in 1812 by Du Pont de Nemours, the man who owned the gunpowder monopoly during the war of 1812. In National Education In the United States, he wrote: “less than 4 in every thousand cannot read and do numbers with great facility.” He predicted that kitchen table debates about the meaning of disputed passages in the Bible would result in an explosive growth of lawyers in this country, a prediction the Wall Street Journal certified in 1990 when it reported that a quarter of all lawyers on earth were Americans!
A math book common in the northeast U.S. in the 1830’s was The Self-Taught Mathematician, the story of an 18 year old boy who taught himself geometry, Latin, and physics, having learned to read at the age of 8, after which, one by one, he acquired scholar textbooks, and by asking questions of adults, self-taught a college-level curriculum. The message was that if he could do it, so could you. And if Harvard is right about its 10 precepts, so had you better.
One final sign of educational deterioration is to examine the first 3 subjects George Washington studied, without a school to assist him. They were: 1) geometry 2) trigonometry, and 3) surveying. By age 11 he was official surveyor for Culpepper County, Virginia, earning the contemporary equivalent of $100,000 a year, a base from which he built the largest fortune in the colonies. Force-feeding young minds with stimulating intellectual challenges is part of the time-honored formula of classical education repudiated by institutional forced compulsion schooling that seeks a different end-result than traditional educational purposes that lead to an active citizenry– the last thing wanted in a socialist state.
This philosophical debate between warring visions of the best future society should be understood by anybody seeking education because the reality of both sides in the debate must be dealt with by anyone growing to adulthood in societies divided against themselves; a price must be paid by those who deviate from the leadership point of view, and that must be weighed in decision-making. Educated men and women understand every side of an argument and are careful to stay away from one-sided presentations which customarily distort half of every issue. Mastering all points on the political/social compass demands toleration of perspectives one may not like much, but which must be confronted.
If you can successfully predict what your source of data is going to say, that is cause enough to dismiss it as accurate or fair-minded– which is why CNN, FOX News, and partisan talk radio commentators are held in low regard by educated people. Some years ago, a famous satire in Harper’s Magazine by its editor, Lewis Lapham, reported at length on the Republican Party political convention without even attending it! That was a flagrant example of so relentlessly broadcasting a biased point of view that one’s message is discredited in advance of being heard.
For devotees of television serial dramas like “Law and Order” and “CSI Miami” or followers of genre fiction like westerns, horror movies or science fiction, the formulas followed are so rigid that artistic insights into the human condition are unlikely and even unwelcome, so any educational value is strictly limited. Once a commercial formula for storytelling is established, the tendency of financial investors in “popular culture” projects is to demand repetition of what worked in the past, making mass entertainment in movies, music, and drama virtually devoid of artistic insights and thus of educational value, reducing their value to time-killers.
For these reasons, and because time to learn is limited, prudent seekers of intellectual development often focus their investigations to time-tested “classics,” acknowledged by respected critics to contain artistic value. This is to illustrate the Harvard principle that the best minds screen irrelevant material from their attention, principle number eight on the list above; of course, in institutional schooling one attends to what is ordered by superiors, no selectivity is allowed to students. Merely disliking material is insufficient reason to avoid it, a case proving its irrelevancy must be mounted and accepted by authorities, Harvard principle number five in action. Finding ways to practice all 10 of these assertions will be a useful tool for all your students to use in demonstrating an educated command of mind.
I currently have 3 i home school. This is accredited and has lots of options that meet guidelines to meet graduation requirements. Mine have liked so far.
You are on a great path....
My kids did private school and are grown, but we avoided what we saw in public schools and it was disgusting. We are now graduating students who can’t read or write. Add the CRT today being taught and it’s a complete train wreck.
If I had to do over again, I would home school, so I’m saving this link in the hopes to someday teach grandkids. Too many of our friends have kids with mental health issues because of the phones, social media, programming, schedules with no time for rest, and the list goes on.
I met a home schooled young lady a year ago at a church tea. Wow! She was 16 but carried herself like a 30 year old. She had no phone and could carry on a conversation with all the adults in the room. It was so refreshing! Like a breath of fresh air. All the other 16 yr olds there were sitting at tables with their heads in their phones. Not a one of them could look up to say please or thank you, much less carry on a conversation. She was confident and had grace.
I would give up my career and the money for home schooling today!!!
The search function shows a large thread for homeschool resources.
/p/15IqsjFGQL/repost-for-visibility-homeschool
And here's an old thread I saved.
HOMESCHOOL / CO-OP RESOURCES FOR PARENTS
Hat Tip to u/ LucilleBrawl for this project/effort.
NOTE 1: This is a work in progress. Please post any good resources you have here.
NOTE 2: Before hooking up with any individual or organization on homeschooling, be sure to vet them for Anti-MAGA Lefist rhetoric and goals -- that includes all resources on this list. (Let us know if any of them fail to meet our standards.)
NOTE 3: Beware of overly-commercialized homeschool resource purveyors. Some folks are into this just for the money.
NOTE 4: Don't try to do this alone. Find other like-minded parents and join together. Know your state / local law, join a homeschool association and local / SM groups that support your values.
......................
List of The States Where Government Schools Can’t Force Your Kid To Wear A Mask -- Map and State Info
HSLDA’s leaders, directors, and employees are Christians who seek to honor God by providing the very highest levels of service in defending homeschool freedom and equipping homeschoolers.
About Us Aside from our many advisors and associates, we are a dedicated team of seasoned homeschoolers that are determined to maintain the NHSA's position as the epicenter of the home schooling movement. With a wide variety of talents and experience our team is uniquely positioned and qualified to take on the challenges to unify the millions of widely diverse and fiercely independent homeschool families across the country into a single voice to protect everyones right to homeschool.
National School Choice Week is a not-for-profit effort to raise awareness of effective K–12 education options for children. We focus equally on traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online schools, and homeschools.
By researching and developing comprehensive and unbiased web-based resources, we work year-round to help parents better understand their school choice options and navigate the process of finding schools or learning environments that best meet their children’s needs.
School choice allows public education funds to follow students to the schools or services that best fit their needs —whether that’s to a public school, private school, charter school, home school or any other learning environment families choose. Watch this video to see how an educational choice system works.
"I highly recommend researching the classical model, which I will gladly make a post on if there's an interest. Currently working on a Master's in such."
"My family utilizes a curriculum which provides the opportunity to meet weekly with other families in community. There's accountability, the chance for kids to interact with friends, cohorts of students, like-minded parents who offer encouragement, and amazing support from the curriculum company itself."
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This was my first stepping stone: Texas Home School Coalition
Has every curriculum under the sun and then some more! It was a great place to buy homeschool books. Good luck I homeschooled both my kids and they are happy and successful today without going to college by the way! One is a self-taught gaming coding engineer and the other runs her own full time home based bakery business at the age of 19. Don't give up and persevere with the help of God!
"Absolutely the best CONTENT I have seen anywhere for subjects of Literature and History. My 4th grader loves it and is learning things I didn't know about until college and beyond. PhD level professors teaching in prerecorded course (180 lessons per subject per semester). Also have courses in science, math, etc and adult courses. By 4th grade students can work almost entirely independently with the curriculum (but you'll want to learn it too!) which is a big help especially for families with multiple kids."
In 1954, Dr. Arlin Horton and his wife, Beka, started a Christian school in Pensacola, Florida. But they soon discovered a problem. Textbooks and curriculum based on biblical educational philosophy were starting to disappear. Burdened to give their students the best education possible, they stood in the gap and began producing their own materials.
"my daughter taught piano to 3 boys who were using the christian homeschool ABEKA program and there all in college now! Both my daughters were raised on this program in private christian school."
Seton Home Study School is a nationally accredited, faithfully Catholic private PreK-12 distance school located in the state of Virginia. We serve an enrollment of approximately 20,000 homeschooled students, and several thousand more families through book sales and by furnishing materials to small Catholic schools.
"Seton Catholic homeschooling is excellent. The program handles all the paperwork for the state or country of residence. They send a box of real books, computer use is minimal. We set up a fast pace with provided math course, so we can add Singapore US edition afterwards."
................................
Bob Jones University Press (Christian; homeschool resources and books)
"BJU is a great curriculum if you’re looking for one with a biblical worldview. It’s quite rigorous. Saxon math is great also. Teaching textbooks is also great for math. Also check out Wallbuilders. They have tons of true history content."
"If your kids like computer-based learning (as mine did and do), Alpha Omega Publications has a great curriculum called Switched On Schoolhouse. It starts in 3rd grade, and goes through high school. Covers all the core subjects plus Bible studies and electives."
"Calvert invented modern homeschooling 110 years ago, and we’ve been perfecting it ever since. We have helped parents educate more than 600,000 students in all 50 states and in more than 90 countries around the world."
In addition we used Right Start Math which is a great program but requires a little re learning to understand their program. I think it would be best if starting from kinder. https://rightstartmath.com/
And we added on Lexia for families for additional Language Arts. I used this mostly for my kindergartner who was learning to read but my 4th grader loved it too. https://www.lexiaforhome.com/
ABOUT: The 74 is a non-profit, non-partisan news site covering education in America. Our public education system is in crisis. Our mission is to lead an honest, fact-based conversation about how to give America’s 74 million children the education they deserve.
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Textbooks (and other books) available in pdf format for download at these sites:
Look in to home school co-ops and home school groups as well, not just home school.
(This is coming from someone with young kids who will be looking seriously into home schooling or other options in the next few years, but doesn't have experience with any of it.)
Switched On School House was suitable for us growing up. (Warning, old versions of the software require flash to run and therefore do not work on most current PCs). All of us completed grades several years ahead of time. Abeka was considered a good option too... Frankly, these curriculums have so much content it borders on busywork, so don't be afraid to spend more time on problem areas and less where you don't need to. These didn't cover issues like politics and personal finance as well I wish they did though. Learning how to read research papers was also important, but I don't recall how I picked that up.
Make sure to incorporate writing projects you assign on your own. Writing skills are one of the main issues I've seen homeschoolers have. I think a lot of parents shy away from writing assignments because they have to grade those with their own judgment and not an answer key (if that's an issue, that's a good example of when to bother with a tutor). Make sure to handle writing in MLA format, but also make them practice writing both professional and personal letters, emails, reports, comments, texts, instructions, planning, outlines for videos, etc.
Mid-high school, my brother who got a bachelor's switched from the typical home school education to looking at the college classes his degree will require and getting the books for those core classes. And studied those, and took as many CLEP tests as he could. Even a tutor for this would likely be a monetary win because of the savings in college.
Don't be afraid to embrace the fact homeschooling allows learning to come from living. Consider making it clear being productive means getting extra freedom. I spent tons of time using photoshop to make things back when you had to buy magazines for tutorials still. And 12-year-old me knew that I better keep plugging away at my projects or I'd get handed extra math sheets instead. My math still got done, but the busy work wasn't needed as long as I was doing mentally engaging activities in its place. And that led to me finding my future career which was a VERY important part of my life.
On a side note, I have a specific video game I recommend for education's sake. Portal, by Valve. I found that it asked preteen me to do puzzle-solving which made me learn to THINK. It probably wouldn't have had as big of an impact if I was older, but I do feel like learning to "think with portals" jumped me ahead of my peers. Not ideal for small kids though, bad guy robot is a bad guy. Although it's an overall good story to go with the puzzles.
We homeschool. Six kids ages 5-18. Kids have never been in PS. They are smart, interact well with all ages, my teens all have jobs as well, they are business minded, work hard, and my boys already have the skills to have their own business at 15 and 16. My oldest is done with school, works full time, and is a responsible adult. My kids are smart enough for college but don't plan to go as they all have skills that they can use without wasting money on college. Over the years we have used many different curricula, some we liked, others not so much. We do the required bookwork but my focus is more on lifeskills, working hard, being kind, use your talents, love God and others. I want my kids to think, not just do rote work and become an educated moron. They know what they believe and are not pushovers.
Well, hi, fren. It's good to see other large families here. (Are you also LCMS? Love your username.)
I'm the parent of six kids and have been homeschooling for 14 years with 8 years left. Kids are 20 down to 10. My oldest two are boys who found their place in the trades, one in electrical and one in HVAC (though both are crazy smart, we don't promote college unless they KNOW what they want to do--and no loans).
We teach our kids HOW TO LEARN not WHAT TO LEARN. Raising patriots here. No room for pushovers with us, either.
Reformed Baptist actually. We had attended a CREC church for 2 years and I love most of what the demonination is doing, but being credobaptists can sometimes be an issue there. So I love all my brothers and sisters in Christ regardless, and try to live at peace and not Dicker about non gospel issues.
Homeschool Legal Defense Association will have information on each state's homeschooling laws as well as information on homeschooling in general. They also have membership benefits if you are interested in that. https://hslda.org/
HSLDA is worth the investment. Learn the laws / rules for your state. As more home school, more pressure from the tax starved government school bureaucracy will be applied.
Zero government money, ZERO! Take money from them lets them have access.
HSLDA has a script to print out that you can read THROUGH the door if pressure shows up.
HS is great!
I had a fabulous home schooling experience, NO REGRETS.
Read EVERYTHING you can by John Taylor Gatto....
As I have often said, and proved with documentation, forced institutional schooling was never a home-grown American phenomenon, but from the beginning was an importation from a socialist European military state by our industrial leadership, an import imposed by force on our population which, in many locations reacted violently to what was widely seen as a coup by financial interests, a coup intended to prepare our future citizen base to abandon its dream of independent livelihoods in favor of competing for “good” corporate “jobs,” employment subservient to managers.
It was a transformation noted with horror by Abraham Lincoln, who thought it signified a re-assertion of the British social class system on our shores, brought back by British bankers financing the westward expansion of the U.S., in the middle 19th century, men made uneasy by the voice given by America to ordinary families and working class individuals; men determined to end popular interference in management by infiltrating, and weakening the minds of future citizens. According to a brilliant American scholar, Anthony Sutton, writing in a book I highly recommend, entitled, “America’s Secret Establishment,” schooling was inserted into America by an elite German secret society, working through Yale University and Johns Hopkins to gradually infiltrate every institution, directing all policy toward the end of American sovereignty. Sutton supplies chapter and verse of this sophisticated conspiracy, tracking it through its inception at the University of Berlin and the Prussia of Von Bismarck and following it through the thousands of American young from wealthy families studying in Prussia for the coveted PhD degree, granted only there in the 19th century, not in the states.
To achieve this ambitious goal of national domination, the common American population, according to the plan was to be converted from an independent citizenry into a proletariat, a landless, lightly-rooted ignorant rabble, one freed from religious faith, an inactive, indifferent mass, one content to be taken care of by a paternalistic government, one stripped of religion and traditions of liberty, independence, self-sufficiency, family ties, and concern for politics, content to cede all such matters to bankers, lawyers, business interests and the American counterpart to Britain and Germany’s upper classes.
A mass man dedicated to the proposition that a person got ahead in life by pleasing higher authorities, and by surrendering any personal principles disfavored by one’s superiors. These are the core principles taught by mass institutional schooling, habits drummed in by 12 years of confinement. If they were serviceable, according to what history shows to be America’s unique genius—invention and innovation, this coup might not be so objectionable, but obviously they directly contradict what earned us our wealth and leadership position among nations—ingenuity, inventiveness and common ambition.
The children I taught had been deliberately infected with the delusion that an entity called “mass man” actually exists, that human individuality is largely a reflection of economic and social class, and that it can be scientifically engineered by bureaucracies interlinked with one another– the great socialistic fantasy, an ultimate statement of materialism. Socialist politics rejects individual enterprise as an enemy of collectivism; socialism holds that all human beings are the same at the core, without any proper claim to individualized treatment in preparation for maturity. In such a reality, only the political state can direct the training of young people. But because state prescriptions are too rigid to fit everyone, children rebel, listen less and less; their disobedience is a natural defense of their unique spirits. The delusion that people can be treated as a mass leads inevitably to types of organization and procedure which drive people literally insane because it bleeds significance from everyday choices, makes a mockery of free will; this mental distress is a legacy of bureaucratic schooling, a byproduct of efficiency engineer Frederick Taylor’s notion that societies can be “scientifically managed” as if they were factories or coal mines, not much different than machinery.
But crucial differences exist, whether one believes in divine destiny or not; machinery can only be improved by interventions from outside while education only happens when much of the directing force is generated from inside the student; people only improve in limited ways from outside interventions. Individual growth has to be struggled for, to be taken. Nobody can do it for you.
A few years back, the School of Government at Harvard issued advice to those planning a career in the global economy of the future; it said that school credentials would be devalued compared to real world skills acquired by experience; it identified 10 qualities to acquire to meet the changing standards, none of which are usually found stressed by public schooling:
Ability to define problems without a guide.
Ability to ask questions that challenge common assumptions.
Ability to work without guidance.
Ability to work absolutely alone.
Ability to persuade others that yours is the right course.
Ability to debate issues and techniques in public.
Ability to re-organize information into new patterns.
Ability to discard irrelevant information.
Ability to think dialectically.
10.Ability to think inductively, deductively, and heuristically.
How could schools even function if children were encouraged to challenge prevailing assumptions? If you want your kids to follow Harvard’s advice, you’ll have to arrange a work plan by yourself, expect no help from your school district.
How far we have fallen from educational schooling since colonial days can be measured by a book published in 1812 by Du Pont de Nemours, the man who owned the gunpowder monopoly during the war of 1812. In National Education In the United States, he wrote: “less than 4 in every thousand cannot read and do numbers with great facility.” He predicted that kitchen table debates about the meaning of disputed passages in the Bible would result in an explosive growth of lawyers in this country, a prediction the Wall Street Journal certified in 1990 when it reported that a quarter of all lawyers on earth were Americans!
A math book common in the northeast U.S. in the 1830’s was The Self-Taught Mathematician, the story of an 18 year old boy who taught himself geometry, Latin, and physics, having learned to read at the age of 8, after which, one by one, he acquired scholar textbooks, and by asking questions of adults, self-taught a college-level curriculum. The message was that if he could do it, so could you. And if Harvard is right about its 10 precepts, so had you better.
One final sign of educational deterioration is to examine the first 3 subjects George Washington studied, without a school to assist him. They were: 1) geometry 2) trigonometry, and 3) surveying. By age 11 he was official surveyor for Culpepper County, Virginia, earning the contemporary equivalent of $100,000 a year, a base from which he built the largest fortune in the colonies. Force-feeding young minds with stimulating intellectual challenges is part of the time-honored formula of classical education repudiated by institutional forced compulsion schooling that seeks a different end-result than traditional educational purposes that lead to an active citizenry– the last thing wanted in a socialist state.
This philosophical debate between warring visions of the best future society should be understood by anybody seeking education because the reality of both sides in the debate must be dealt with by anyone growing to adulthood in societies divided against themselves; a price must be paid by those who deviate from the leadership point of view, and that must be weighed in decision-making. Educated men and women understand every side of an argument and are careful to stay away from one-sided presentations which customarily distort half of every issue. Mastering all points on the political/social compass demands toleration of perspectives one may not like much, but which must be confronted.
If you can successfully predict what your source of data is going to say, that is cause enough to dismiss it as accurate or fair-minded– which is why CNN, FOX News, and partisan talk radio commentators are held in low regard by educated people. Some years ago, a famous satire in Harper’s Magazine by its editor, Lewis Lapham, reported at length on the Republican Party political convention without even attending it! That was a flagrant example of so relentlessly broadcasting a biased point of view that one’s message is discredited in advance of being heard.
For devotees of television serial dramas like “Law and Order” and “CSI Miami” or followers of genre fiction like westerns, horror movies or science fiction, the formulas followed are so rigid that artistic insights into the human condition are unlikely and even unwelcome, so any educational value is strictly limited. Once a commercial formula for storytelling is established, the tendency of financial investors in “popular culture” projects is to demand repetition of what worked in the past, making mass entertainment in movies, music, and drama virtually devoid of artistic insights and thus of educational value, reducing their value to time-killers.
For these reasons, and because time to learn is limited, prudent seekers of intellectual development often focus their investigations to time-tested “classics,” acknowledged by respected critics to contain artistic value. This is to illustrate the Harvard principle that the best minds screen irrelevant material from their attention, principle number eight on the list above; of course, in institutional schooling one attends to what is ordered by superiors, no selectivity is allowed to students. Merely disliking material is insufficient reason to avoid it, a case proving its irrelevancy must be mounted and accepted by authorities, Harvard principle number five in action. Finding ways to practice all 10 of these assertions will be a useful tool for all your students to use in demonstrating an educated command of mind.
John Taylor Gatto
Wow. Great info.
I currently have 3 i home school. This is accredited and has lots of options that meet guidelines to meet graduation requirements. Mine have liked so far.
https://www.powerhomeschool.org
You are on a great path.... My kids did private school and are grown, but we avoided what we saw in public schools and it was disgusting. We are now graduating students who can’t read or write. Add the CRT today being taught and it’s a complete train wreck.
If I had to do over again, I would home school, so I’m saving this link in the hopes to someday teach grandkids. Too many of our friends have kids with mental health issues because of the phones, social media, programming, schedules with no time for rest, and the list goes on.
I met a home schooled young lady a year ago at a church tea. Wow! She was 16 but carried herself like a 30 year old. She had no phone and could carry on a conversation with all the adults in the room. It was so refreshing! Like a breath of fresh air. All the other 16 yr olds there were sitting at tables with their heads in their phones. Not a one of them could look up to say please or thank you, much less carry on a conversation. She was confident and had grace.
I would give up my career and the money for home schooling today!!!
The Good and the Beautiful is an awesome homeschool curriculum. Homeschooling is the best!
Have heard the same, second hand.
The search function shows a large thread for homeschool resources.
/p/15IqsjFGQL/repost-for-visibility-homeschool
And here's an old thread I saved.
HOMESCHOOL / CO-OP RESOURCES FOR PARENTS
Hat Tip to u/ LucilleBrawl for this project/effort.
NOTE 1: This is a work in progress. Please post any good resources you have here.
NOTE 2: Before hooking up with any individual or organization on homeschooling, be sure to vet them for Anti-MAGA Lefist rhetoric and goals -- that includes all resources on this list. (Let us know if any of them fail to meet our standards.)
NOTE 3: Beware of overly-commercialized homeschool resource purveyors. Some folks are into this just for the money.
NOTE 4: Don't try to do this alone. Find other like-minded parents and join together. Know your state / local law, join a homeschool association and local / SM groups that support your values.
......................
List of The States Where Government Schools Can’t Force Your Kid To Wear A Mask -- Map and State Info
https://thefederalist.com/2021/07/29/here-are-the-states-where-government-schools-cant-force-your-kid-to-wear-a-mask
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PUBLIC ENEMIES LIST: 15 LARGEST TEACHERS’ UNIONS IN THE UNITED STATES (Zippia Career Blog)
https://archive.md/IdLQS
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Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
https://hslda.org
HSLDA’s leaders, directors, and employees are Christians who seek to honor God by providing the very highest levels of service in defending homeschool freedom and equipping homeschoolers.
How to Get Started (Interactive Explainer)
https://hslda.org/get-started
Homeschool Laws by State (interactive map)
https://hslda.org/legal
List of other homeschool organizations (each State has them)
https://hslda.org/content/orgs/
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FIND HOMESCHOOL GROUPS NEAR ME -- US, CANADA, PUERTO RICO
https://www.homeschool.com/supportgroups
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Hillsdale College
K-12 at Home: An American Classical Education
https://k12athome.hillsdale.edu
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National Home School Association (NHSA, appears to be membership/dues-based)
https://nationalhomeschoolassociation.com
About:
About Us Aside from our many advisors and associates, we are a dedicated team of seasoned homeschoolers that are determined to maintain the NHSA's position as the epicenter of the home schooling movement. With a wide variety of talents and experience our team is uniquely positioned and qualified to take on the challenges to unify the millions of widely diverse and fiercely independent homeschool families across the country into a single voice to protect everyones right to homeschool.
Free E-Book
Terra Scholar - A Complete Handbook for Today’s Homeschooler E-book https://nationalhomeschoolassociation.com/terra-scholar-homeschool-ebook.php
What are Homeschool Pods and Co-Ops? (explainer)
https://www.homeschoolingsc.org/resources-page/homeschool-associations/
Other Resources, Activities, and Curriculum available on site.
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Christian Homeschooling Association (CHA)
https://cha.church
[Not sure about this group. Their website seems a bit thin.]
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What is a School Pod ? (How to form and manage)
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-to-form-a-coronavirus-school-pod-legal-and-practical-considerations.html
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Duck search results for "homeschool pods and co-ops"
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=homeschool+pods+co-ops
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National School Choice Week (NSCW)
https://schoolchoiceweek.com
About:
National School Choice Week is a not-for-profit effort to raise awareness of effective K–12 education options for children. We focus equally on traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, private schools, online schools, and homeschools.
By researching and developing comprehensive and unbiased web-based resources, we work year-round to help parents better understand their school choice options and navigate the process of finding schools or learning environments that best meet their children’s needs.
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Ed Choice
https://www.edchoice.org
School choice allows public education funds to follow students to the schools or services that best fit their needs —whether that’s to a public school, private school, charter school, home school or any other learning environment families choose. Watch this video to see how an educational choice system works.
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Reddit Homeschool Groups
https://www.reddit.com/search/?q=homeschool
NOTE 1: Vet these very carefully. Lots of lefties.
NOTE 2: Also search Reddit for specific State / Christian / faith-based homeschool subs.
Example -- Arkansas
https://www.reddit.com/r/ArkansasHomeschoolers/
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FakeBook Homeschool Groups
https://www.facebook.com/search/groups/?q=homeschool
NOTE 1: Vet these very carefully. Lots of lefties.
NOTE 2: Also search FB for specific State / Christian / faith-based homeschool subs.
Links to Duck search results pages for various Homeschool topics (offered temporarily for lack of fully-vetted resources)
State Homeschool Associations
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=state+homeschool+association
How to Homeschool
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22how+to+homeschool%22
Homeschool Basics
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22homeschool+basics%22
Homeschool Resources
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=homeschool+resources&t=h_&ia=web
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Indiana Association of Home Educators https://iahe.net/
"I highly recommend researching the classical model, which I will gladly make a post on if there's an interest. Currently working on a Master's in such."
"My family utilizes a curriculum which provides the opportunity to meet weekly with other families in community. There's accountability, the chance for kids to interact with friends, cohorts of students, like-minded parents who offer encouragement, and amazing support from the curriculum company itself."
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This was my first stepping stone: Texas Home School Coalition
https://thsc.org
Info on how to withdraw from public school. In Texas, it’s pretty easy.
https://thsc.org/sending-a-withdrawal-email/
How to choose the right curriculum for your child: https://thsc.org/homeschool-curriculum/
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Homeschool Buyers Co-Op for curriculum choices. Free to join, lots of great deals!
https://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org
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https://www.rainbowresource.com/
Has every curriculum under the sun and then some more! It was a great place to buy homeschool books. Good luck I homeschooled both my kids and they are happy and successful today without going to college by the way! One is a self-taught gaming coding engineer and the other runs her own full time home based bakery business at the age of 19. Don't give up and persevere with the help of God!
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BetterWorldBooks
Great source for older / out of print Textbooks.
https://www.betterworldbooks.com
Khan Academy
https://www.khanacademy.org
NOTE: The Math and Science resources are untainted, but check other materials for CRT and other SJW propaganda just in case.
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Ron Paul Curriculum
https://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com
"Absolutely the best CONTENT I have seen anywhere for subjects of Literature and History. My 4th grader loves it and is learning things I didn't know about until college and beyond. PhD level professors teaching in prerecorded course (180 lessons per subject per semester). Also have courses in science, math, etc and adult courses. By 4th grade students can work almost entirely independently with the curriculum (but you'll want to learn it too!) which is a big help especially for families with multiple kids."
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ABEKA (Christian Homeschooling Program)
https://www.abeka.com/homeschool
About:
In 1954, Dr. Arlin Horton and his wife, Beka, started a Christian school in Pensacola, Florida. But they soon discovered a problem. Textbooks and curriculum based on biblical educational philosophy were starting to disappear. Burdened to give their students the best education possible, they stood in the gap and began producing their own materials.
"my daughter taught piano to 3 boys who were using the christian homeschool ABEKA program and there all in college now! Both my daughters were raised on this program in private christian school."
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Seton Home Study School (Catholic)
https://www.setonhome.org
Seton Home Study School is a nationally accredited, faithfully Catholic private PreK-12 distance school located in the state of Virginia. We serve an enrollment of approximately 20,000 homeschooled students, and several thousand more families through book sales and by furnishing materials to small Catholic schools.
"Seton Catholic homeschooling is excellent. The program handles all the paperwork for the state or country of residence. They send a box of real books, computer use is minimal. We set up a fast pace with provided math course, so we can add Singapore US edition afterwards."
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Bob Jones University Press (Christian; homeschool resources and books)
https://www.bjupresshomeschool.com/content/home
Saxon Math (subsidiary of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
https://www.hmhco.com/programs/saxon-math
WallBuilders (history resources)
https://wallbuilders.com
"BJU is a great curriculum if you’re looking for one with a biblical worldview. It’s quite rigorous. Saxon math is great also. Teaching textbooks is also great for math. Also check out Wallbuilders. They have tons of true history content."
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Alpha Omega Publications
https://www.aop.com
Switched on Schoolhouse
https://www.aop.com/curriculum/switched-on-schoolhouse
"If your kids like computer-based learning (as mine did and do), Alpha Omega Publications has a great curriculum called Switched On Schoolhouse. It starts in 3rd grade, and goes through high school. Covers all the core subjects plus Bible studies and electives."
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Calvert Education
https://www.calverteducation.com
"Calvert invented modern homeschooling 110 years ago, and we’ve been perfecting it ever since. We have helped parents educate more than 600,000 students in all 50 states and in more than 90 countries around the world."
American Education FM Podcast
https://americaneducationfm.com
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The Good and the Beautiful ("Making homeschool beautiful and easy")
https://www.goodandbeautiful.com
"I LOVE this curriculum! Christian based and has amazing resources!"
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This is what we used last year and loved it. It is a non faith based, literature based program that is a lot of fun. https://www.movingbeyondthepage.com/?gclid=CjwKCAjwos-HBhB3EiwAe4xM9yKOk1mVxbUPu6zr34gw4WJyo5NzY_eOOobZLJ27AeVCTA0IcjVaZxoCaiwQAvD_BwE
In addition we used Right Start Math which is a great program but requires a little re learning to understand their program. I think it would be best if starting from kinder. https://rightstartmath.com/
I've also heard great things about Math U See https://www.mathusee.com/
And we added on Lexia for families for additional Language Arts. I used this mostly for my kindergartner who was learning to read but my 4th grader loved it too. https://www.lexiaforhome.com/
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The 74 Million
https://www.the74million.org
ABOUT: The 74 is a non-profit, non-partisan news site covering education in America. Our public education system is in crisis. Our mission is to lead an honest, fact-based conversation about how to give America’s 74 million children the education they deserve.
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Textbooks (and other books) available in pdf format for download at these sites:
https://b-ok.cc
https://libgen.rs
Its up to each state's vaccine authority whether or not to require specific immunizations, not the CDC.
It is up to each adult and parent. No state bureaucracy has any right to determine medical interventions for free people
Look in to home school co-ops and home school groups as well, not just home school.
(This is coming from someone with young kids who will be looking seriously into home schooling or other options in the next few years, but doesn't have experience with any of it.)
Edit to add a link: https://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/local-support/
I wonder if gab would be a good place to find people with experience.
Switched On School House was suitable for us growing up. (Warning, old versions of the software require flash to run and therefore do not work on most current PCs). All of us completed grades several years ahead of time. Abeka was considered a good option too... Frankly, these curriculums have so much content it borders on busywork, so don't be afraid to spend more time on problem areas and less where you don't need to. These didn't cover issues like politics and personal finance as well I wish they did though. Learning how to read research papers was also important, but I don't recall how I picked that up.
Make sure to incorporate writing projects you assign on your own. Writing skills are one of the main issues I've seen homeschoolers have. I think a lot of parents shy away from writing assignments because they have to grade those with their own judgment and not an answer key (if that's an issue, that's a good example of when to bother with a tutor). Make sure to handle writing in MLA format, but also make them practice writing both professional and personal letters, emails, reports, comments, texts, instructions, planning, outlines for videos, etc.
Mid-high school, my brother who got a bachelor's switched from the typical home school education to looking at the college classes his degree will require and getting the books for those core classes. And studied those, and took as many CLEP tests as he could. Even a tutor for this would likely be a monetary win because of the savings in college.
Don't be afraid to embrace the fact homeschooling allows learning to come from living. Consider making it clear being productive means getting extra freedom. I spent tons of time using photoshop to make things back when you had to buy magazines for tutorials still. And 12-year-old me knew that I better keep plugging away at my projects or I'd get handed extra math sheets instead. My math still got done, but the busy work wasn't needed as long as I was doing mentally engaging activities in its place. And that led to me finding my future career which was a VERY important part of my life.
On a side note, I have a specific video game I recommend for education's sake. Portal, by Valve. I found that it asked preteen me to do puzzle-solving which made me learn to THINK. It probably wouldn't have had as big of an impact if I was older, but I do feel like learning to "think with portals" jumped me ahead of my peers. Not ideal for small kids though, bad guy robot is a bad guy. Although it's an overall good story to go with the puzzles.
Welcome. Reading , learning, and growing little used muscles is now your life.
Your children may need some time to decompress, consider that.
This is a lifestyle, not an 8 to 5. Everything is learning.
Your families standards only, no one else's. They are not show dogs. Latin may be cool, but not a matter to stress about.
Each of your kids has a God given purpose and desires, now you and spouse can truly work to uncover and empower.
THE TRIVIUMThe Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric / Sister M. Joseph
Learning Skillsand the Trivium / Jarret Sanchez
https://ia902202.us.archive.org/1/items/FinalTrivium1/FinalTrivium1.pdf
Teaching the Trivium: Christian Homeschooling in a Classical Style / Harvey Bluedorn, Laurie Bluedorn
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/0974361631/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_4?smid=A7ZXDJZD3UIRG&psc=1
Update, this resource list will be posted more frequently now, per the OP
https://greatawakening.win/p/16aA99gOsZ/homeschool--coop-resources-for-p/