we homeschooled for 9 years - kindergarten through 8th grade for our oldest and kindergarten through 6th for our middle son. I have to say that formal lessons for motivated, bright children really can be fully accomplished in 3 or 4 hours of solid work per day up through about 5th or 6th grade. If you add in art, music, or sports activities, those will take more time. My youngest attends a full day public kindergarten program, and he has learned less in 9 weeks than I would have taught him in 4. The *only* thing that I see the public school accomplishing with him that I had difficulty teaching my older kids is handwriting. His handwriting is actually pretty decent for a 5 year old. I was observing his classroom the other day, and there was a lot of wasted time. It took 10 minutes to do a bathroom break, which would have taken 3 minutes tops at home. It took a few minutes to pass out the supplies, and then there were several minutes when some children were done with their project and were just waiting for the other kids to finish up. At home, that dead time doesn't happen. Based on the completed workpapers he brings home, it appears he does about 2 hours of actual work per day, and the other 5 hours are mainly bathroom breaks, snacks, lunch, recess, lining up for all that stuff, craft projects, and listening to stories.
JW Homeschool
by grewupjw1969 20 Replies latest jw friends
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yknot
I know a few JWs who briefly used both newsystemschool and pearblossom....
I would say that if a parent was clueless of lesson plans then newsystemschool is a good start if online public school isn't available.
These days it is pretty easy to obtain free resources from online public school textbooks and yags or using achive or google books for historical teaching methods (I loved Ray's Arithmetic and McGuffey's primers/readers)
Ultimately, homeschooling success (JW or other) depends on the parent (and ideally a great support group).
Also it is of the utmost importance to abide state laws.
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yknot
So true Finally Awake!!!!
My biggest struggle putting my kids in public is they get bored, annoyed at the level of institutional structure or the pressure of hall herding to class with minimum time (but they love the electives and socialization).
My youngest has expressed a desire to homeschool one semester a year and than 'hang' with buds during basketball and baseball season, while my oldest is devising plans to test out of basic courses and load up on electives...
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Lozhasleft
I homeschooled a daughter for a year through Key Stage 3 because of emotional difficulties she couldn't handle in her first year at High School. I set up a classroom and we kept timetables and went through schemes of work very successfully. Academically when she rejoined school she was actually ahead of her peers, but I was diligent and conscious of her not falling behind, and we worked hard together. There is however, no compensation for the social interactive development that learners gain from working and growing with their peers.
Now that I am actually in the teaching profession, understanding the domains of learning, and teaching and learning styles, I see that we were actually very lucky to have been so successful. There are many skills involved in pedagogy that JWs with such poor advice from the WTBS can't hope to achieve. Learners should be in the best possible environment to achieve their full potential for life/work. With all its failings, the education system in the UK is excellent and free, so unless there's a very very good reason, it would tragic to take a learner out of it, and especially not to pacify a cult.
Loz x
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Aussie Oz
New system school...
What a crock of cleverly worded bullshit, just like the child custody pack.
my kids home schooled for 3 years and say they learnt nothing...
oz
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likeabird
Great
How about the credentials of those who started this school? I wonder how many have a college education let alone a degree in education. In any case there is no mention of this in their credentials, and if I was starting a school, it would be the first thing I'd be mentioning, but then, I guess that really isn't a selling point in dub world...
HISTORY OF NEW SYSTEM SCHOOL, INC. New System School, Inc., was created for the purpose of helping parents who were looking for an alternative to the public school system for their children's education. The school was started in North Carolina in 1980. In 1985 the school was incorporated in Missouri, and associated corporations have since been formed in many states.
New System School, Inc., is an organization of parents who wish to be directly involved closely in their children's educational process. They have made legal arrangements to be recognized as a private religious school. This is not a home school satellite situation, but a private religious school with a faculty and non-institutional campus arrangement. -
perfect1
Homeschooling is a great way to handicap your kid for life.
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wannaexit
Home schooling can be challenging. But it can work provided the parent(s) has an education background, takes advantage of all the resources available, and collaborates with the local school board. This entails following the local school curriculum and arranging for a qualified teacher, from the local school baord test the child(ren) periodically. In Canada this is important because in order to graduate and get a diploma- a student must have a set number of credits(28) volunteer hours and a second language.(core French).
From my experience with the home schooled children in my area, few have been able to attain that provincial recognized diploma. No doubt this is because GB has hounded parents that education is from Satan, and since Jw are the most educated people on earth they can teach their children far better. (some may remember the talks that reading the awake of six months was the equivalent to a college education.
I also know of a number of witness families have used the society's literature as a curriculum basis. One sister used the Daniel book as a basis for teaching history :(
Another aspect that I have noticed is: ones that have succeed have taken much longer (one to two years more). For example there are 5 homeschooled children in the congregation I loosely attend aged 19-21) All of these children are still picking away at their high school credits, while my children of the same age are in university.
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BlindersOff1
We homeschooled our kids . They went on to excel by anyones standards .
But if you are a LAZY witness parent just doing theminimum til the big A you will get exactly what you put into it.
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tenyearsafter
We used Pearblossom...it lasted one year, and then we had to put the kids back in public school. Unfortunately, the school board wouldn't recognize the homeschooling for graduation credits so the kids had to repeat an entire year! What a waste of time and money...