The time is nearing for me to contact an evaluator. I have a list of names and telephone numbers and basically no idea where to begin. I feel uncomfortable calling people and interrogating him or her about their evaluation style. I suppose because I view the concept of being evaluated as an interrogation process. There are various ways that evaluations are conducted. Each style of evaluation is as unique as the method by which you home educate. There are a few categories to choose from regarding your style. Home educators are supposed to have an idea which category they fall into. I don't quite know where we fit in yet. This year has been extremely experimental for us. I am anxious to have this first year behind me and over with. I am just as much looking forward to the evaluation, as I am intimidated and worried about it. I hope that evaluation is really quite simple and that I have overly compensated in the record-keeping department. I think that if this is the case, I will feel a little more confident and about it next year.

There are families within the support group that I have joined that Unschool. This concept appeals to me on several levels because it provides the carefree aspects of being a child and learning through natural discovery. When I began this adventure, my main goal was to focus on child lead learning. I wanted to nurture and encourage my children to pursue their own interests and learn to think independently. From what I gather, this method focuses on completely throwing out the institutionalized methods of education and relying on the faith you place in your child’s ability to learn on their own. This method encourages the idea of your child as a complete and capable person at every phase of their lives. It encourages trusting that what they know at any given moment is adequate and acceptable. I guess in a nutshell it means that you accept that they have the capability to learn adequately on their own without drills, desks, workbooks, chalkboards and textbooks, without stadardized measurements.

For me this seems a little hard to jump into because I grew up with conventional schooling and because I want to make sure that what I do will be accepted by the school board. Also, my oldest little person started with conventional schooling, and was pretty confused about the fact that we don’t have to sit in desks and raise our hands at home. I know that at the end of the year a piece of paper must be filed with the Superintendent of the public school in our county, that says that I did what I said I would do, and it proves that my child has improved commensurate to his ability. I am confident that I have done much more than that. I think that since this is our first year and we don’t really know what to expect, I feel a little intimidated by the scrutiny of having an official evaluation by a certified public school teacher.

Then there are people who conduct home education with the same methods and curriculum that public schools do. They recreate school at home with the same type of grade/age level books and papers and methods of learning that public schools use. Some order complete curriculums, use online schools, or use private schools. Some add religious concepts to their curriculum based on their family beliefs. These methods, in my opinion, are basically cut and dry. There seems to be very little guess work involved. I have read that a lot of new home schooling families start out practicing one of these methods because they are unsure of what will be acceptable by the authorities, as I have been. But, I didn’t quite adopt this method either.

Then there is the Eclectic method. I think this is basically a free for all. Throw in a little bit of this and a little bit of that, see what works, throw away what doesn’t. Most people practicing this method incorporate a lot of their own ideas and interests into the basic core curriculum. They also work by trial and error.

I think that is pretty much where we are. If I had to pick just one method that describes our current situation, I guess that would be it. But with that sort of vagueness, comes the uncertainty of what will be looked at and how you will present what you have done in an orderly and acceptable fashion. Our portfolio, at the moment, looks like a big box of mumble jumble. There are completed workbooks, completed unit studies, incomplete workbooks, unit studies that didn’t quite get off the ground because we started them and lost interest quickly. There are random art works and writing projects. Then there is the whole software issue. It would be most effective to demonstrate his abilities by watching him use the software. I wonder if that can be arranged. Our big box of stuff is pretty interesting, but looks like we completely were not locked into any sort of routine. I hope that this is acceptable proof for what ever that piece of paper is worth. That piece of paper means very little to me in respect to our achievements and goals. The only thing that piece of paper seems to be important for is assuring me that we will continue to learn at home without conflict.

Personally, I think our main goal this year was to learn to be comfortable in our situation. It has taken a long time to find our groove (not that we have actually settled into one yet), to decide what works and throw out the concepts that don’t work for us. It is difficult to deprogram a child from institutionalized learning. We started our first few weeks with practicing the basic “we are not at school” concepts. For instance, not raising our hands to speak, not having to ask to go to the bathroom, not being denied a drink when we are thirsty, not having to behave according to routine, like Pavlov’s dogs at the sounds of bells and buzzers. There is no peer pressure. They aren’t learning to make fun of children who are different, or that they have to belong to a “clique”. My little people’s abilities will never be categorized according to their family’s social status. My little people will never be just a four-digit number in the lunch line again. There is a lot to be said for raising your own children.

Hopefully, the opportunities that home education allows them to enjoy now, to learn and grow with independence and creative freedom, will inspire them to accept nothing less as an adult.

Posted by gwendolyn on January 26, 2001 at 11:03 AM