Interview with Suzanne Brown

  It is my pleasure to have as my guest Suzanne Brown.  Suzanne is a long-time homeschool mom, a founding member of the Upstate Homeschool Co-op, and  an active member in the homeschool community.  I asked her some tough questions and she rose to the occasion with some very thought provoking answers.  You can find out more about the Upstate Homeschool Co-op on their website: https://www.homeschool-life.com/sc/upstatehomeschoolcoop/.

1.      Why do you homeschool? For lots of reasons but mainly because we want to be the ones molding and shaping our children. I like them, on most days, and don’t want to send them away any sooner than is necessary! Practically, I like the tutorial aspect that home educating allows. I can speed things up for those learners who are ready to go faster. I can slow subjects down where my children who have struggles need more focus and time. Home educating allows me to give my children time to explore the world and their natural bents in a wide variety of ways. Most importantly, all the things we do each day can be filtered through a biblical worldview with the end goal being to grow and release young adults who are ready to live out their beliefs in whatever area God calls them. Doesn’t mean we always get it right by any stretch of the imagination, but we are doing it as a family and that is gravely important in grounding children in a culture gone crazy!

2.      You've been homeschooling for a number of years, how has homeschooling changed since you first started? We’ve been home schooling since 1996. I think we have lost the pioneering mentality in home educating. There seems to be a trend toward just accepting what others have done instead of digging in, doing your own research to find what is best for your family and then making a decision. This is a fairly common cycle in organic movements and usually is a good thing. I’m not so sure it has been a good thing for home educating. I’ve also seen the bar lowered in the academic area with families sometimes being willing to do all the great and fun opportunities that are available except hold their child’s feet to the fire to do the hard academic work. This “bad seed”  is planted in the upper elementary grades, is tested in the middle grades and then the lack of accountability with parents not being willing to make the hard decision often “blossoms” in the high school years. Working with students, I hear over and over again: I couldn’t do that work because I had to go to my job, we were traveling, I had sports practice…..  All those things are good, and we also do them as a family, but the school work has to get done. College and a job won’t be very forgiving. My sons can all testify to times we kept them away from a practice or made them sit for part of a game as a result of not doing what they should do regarding their school work. I can get on a soapbox about that subject!
A good change that has happened is that because there are so many families making the choice to home educate, we have  much more support in a variety of ways from people who have gone before than we did when I first started. Curriculum, workshops, conferences….in person or via the internet have exploded! They can often times be overwhelming! I still think one of the very best ways for a new person to get started is to build a relationship with someone who has a little experience under their belt. This means that those of us who have been doing this a while have to be willing to stay available for someone just starting out! That challenge is definitely still for myself!! 

3.  It seems like homeschools are much more accepted by the public now than they were ten or fifteen years ago.  Is there more work to be done there, or do we just need to maintain the status quo? We never need to maintain the status quo for anything we believe in. Turn your head for a minute, and those freedoms will be gone. Public acceptance is huge and we have made massive strides in this area. Public acceptance as it relates to the state, turns into continued freedom to educate. I am a firm believer in choices in education. One size does not fit all. There are times when all types of education are a good and proper fit for any given child on any given year. We all live real lives and things happen from year to year that force our decision making process. Part of the reason, in my opinion, that we have to stay so diligent with home educating as far as public opinion goes is that it only takes one disaster to make the news and that one example becomes a, “See? We knew this was a bad idea. We need to stop parents being allowed to educate their children.”  Because it is not middle of the road, so to speak, we are held to a different standard. One way that individual families can assist with the public acceptance issue is to be open and real. Real in our churches, our neighborhoods and the community. Setting ourselves apart tends to perpetuate the belief that we are all strange and want to shelter our children and I doubt any of us want that type of public opinion!

4.  What dangers do you see for homeschoolers on the horizon? This answer ties back to my statement about lowering the bar in the academic area. I can see regulations coming our way  if we don’t stay vigilant. A way for us to keep more regulations off our backs is to regulate ourselves. We as parents need to make sure our students are working to their highest ability level by using challenging curriculum, staying on top of their assignments, finding outside accountability if they don’t want to be accountable to mom and dad and not letting them slide because of distractions. This personal vigilance might include having our students tested for learning disabilities or ADHD or other factors that might be interfering in their learning. This isn’t because labels are needed  but to enable us to get assistance for those children so they can work to their highest potential. If we don’t take our job seriously, here is the possible cycle played out after a few years. Student slides by and parent inflates their grades because they don’t want things to look bad. Student receives state scholarship money but can’t do the work once in college. Student loses scholarship. This cycle plays out over and over again and finally someone making the decision on who gets that scholarship money wises up and starts questioning things. At this point, legislation looms to “fix” the problem that we could have regulated ourselves. I don’t want us to get there. 

5.  You are one of the founding members of the Upstate Homeschool Co-op.  What led you to start the co-op? The co-op started in my home in 1997 as a way to bring like minded families together to study certain subjects. God’s vision was WAY bigger than mine and I am thankful HE is the one holding the strings. I didn’t set out to start a co-op. As more and more people found out about what we were doing, momentum, desire, and need led to organization and well, here we are 450 students later.

6.  For those who are not aware. please explain a little about how co-ops work, and how the Upstate Homeschool Co-op in particular is helping homeschoolers in South Carolina. Co-ops are a group of families willing to place themselves under the authority of like minded leadership for the betterment of their children. Parents choose them for several reasons that could vary for each of their children. They want the camaraderie of other students and adults, they want their student to learn from a teacher who has gifts and strengths in a certain area or the parent may not feel qualified to teach a specific subject. I like to think and my leadership team, which consists of a board and staff, certainly strives for our co-op to be the best of a structured learning environment where traditional classroom settings are coupled with intense parent involvement and continued teaching at home. We have 91 classes for grades K4-12, Student Government, yearbook, a newspaper, drama, chorus, monthly parent led socials, fieldtrips, an amazing graduation ceremony and of course our many varied sports teams. Our teachers are highly passionate about their subject. Many are qualified by traditional standards for their subject but that is not necessarily what I am searching for when hiring. One of the dangers of being involved in a co-op is that parents can wrongly assume they just get to “write off”  a subject because they are taking a co-op class. Parents are responsible for their students education…co-op or not. It takes daily studying at home with the parents instructing, leading and grading. I pray our organization is impacting families in SC by coming alongside parents and assisting them to continue home schooling.

7.  You have also been instrumental in helping open up a variety of sports programs to homeschoolers.  Tell us a little about that. Sports have been very important to my family for a variety of reasons. They were also important to Shawn Ward who UHC formed a partnership with several years back. Sports are a way for a group of people to be bigger than just their tiny circle and to give them something to rally around. They build community, give our kids opportunities to learn to be a part of a team and they certainly test our emotions and reactions in a sometimes hot fire!  Our sports program is blessed with strong leadership and a model for specific sports  different than traditional sports programs. In the beginning, our leadership team was hard pressed to find any program far and wide that had gone before us so our model had to be tested and developed and it is certainly always open to being reformed. We made the decision from the very beginning for it not to be open to just UHC students but to home schooling families in our community. This goes back to my belief of choice in education and that not all families need or want a co-op environment.

 8.  If you could give every homeschool parent one piece of advice what would it be? Enjoy the journey. It won’t always be pretty and can sometimes be sort of messy. Turns out we are sort of a messy human race. You are going to mess up. It’s ok. Learn from it and ask the Lord daily to help you focus on what is important for THAT day. He loves your children more than you do because He says He does and His promises never fail. One of the greatest joys of my life, notice I didn’t say the easiest, has been walking through this part of the passage with my children.

Squeaky Clean Reviews

Squeaky Clean Reviews

  As a parent of an avid reader, I sometimes find it hard to keep my daughter supplied with books.  Often when we go to the library we comb through the selves of juvenile books searching for something new to read.   It seems like with so many books on the shelves there ought to be something she would enjoy, but I am usually hesitant to get books by authors I don't know.  While I don't think I am overly strict with what I allow my children to read, I don't want to hand them books that promote bad attitudes or questionable morals.  One resource I like for help in choosing new books is Squeaky Clean Reviews.

  Squeaky Clean Reviews is a site for “book reviews with a Christian focus,” begun in 2009 by Kristi Simonson.  Born out of a desire to provide readers—and especially parents of young readers—with a place to check the content of a book before picking it up, it is essentially a literary “Plugged in Online.”  Unlike Focus on the Family’s site, however, SCR allows anyone to contribute by writing reviews, which are then checked and posted by the site’s editors.  This system has allowed them to accumulate over 950 books over the last four years, and they’re pushing for 1,000 in 2014.

  Despite coming from a Christian perspective, SCR’s inventory isn’t limited to Christian-labeled books: readers will find reviews for popular series like The Hunger Games and Twilight, as well as classics like Dickens and Shakespeare.  Listed genres include Contemporary, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Mystery, and Sci-Fi, among others.  Readers can also search by age range—particularly useful for parents.  Apart from offering hundreds of book reviews, however, SCR also offers readers a place to hone their critical thinking skills by writing reviews more thorough than a brief, “I liked it.”

  So how does SCR work?  To reflect a book’s merits as accurately as possible, the site uses a two-part review system that shows both entertainment and value levels. This provides prospective readers with a quick way of checking how worthwhile a book may be.  The book’s plot, morality, and objectionable content is then laid out in a structured review, while a conclusion highlights areas of concern and details the book’s pros and cons.  Only one review per book is allowed, but the editors strive to make that review as thorough and helpful as possible and will edit based on other readers’ input.  They also try to avoid spoilers: always a plus for those of us who want to know what we’re getting into, but don’t care to have the ending given away.

  If you’ve ever been surprised by unpleasant content in a book, or if you just want to know whether to assign that “classic” to your student, take a look at Squeaky Clean Reviews!  You can follow the reviews with just a click by “liking” their Facebook page, facebook.com/SqueakyCleanReviews . 

  You can browse through the entire selection of reviews at their website: www.squeakycleanreviews.com. 

* Special thanks to Abigail at Squeaky Clean Reviews for helping me put this together.

The Semi-Annual Progress Report

Google

 One of the homeschooling laws states that parents will issue “a semi-annual progress report including attendance records and individualized documentation of the student’s academic progress in each of the basic instructional areas specified.”  I have yet to issue any progress reports this year, but as we are exactly halfway through the school year, grades have been on my mind.  And since most families are about halfway through their school year, it seemed like a good time to expound a bit on the topic.

  a semi-annual progress report including attendance records and individualized documentation of the student’s academic progress in each of the basic instructional areas specified

  Take a minute to look at the law again.  It doesn’t give much guidance as to how those progress reports should be made and what supporting documentation should accompany the progress report.  And this is a good thing.  It means that as long as we comply with the basic requirements and issue at least two progress reports each year, we can tailor the progress reports to meet our needs and those of our children.  So here is how some of those reports might look:

• Letter or number grades – simply tally up the scores on every paper and workbook page, divide by the number of assignments and you’re done!  Well, probably not that easy.  While this is the method we prefer for high school students (more on that in a minute), it does require the parent to grade every assignment, and furthermore to grade that assignment without bias. Grading math is not so hard; an answer is generally either right or wrong.  But grading something like a composition is much more subjective.  I usually make a list of the things I am looking for in a paper and assign a point value to each.  Then when I come across a mistake or poorly written section I already know how much to count off.   

So why do we prefer this method for high school students?  Well, in order for us to help them apply for scholarships and college admission, we have to make a transcript, a single page record of the four years of high school.  One thing we calculate is the grade point average (GPA) which gives colleges and scholarship boards a snapshot of where the student stands academically compared to other students.  We encourage parents to submit number grades not only to facilitate this process but also to help students get the most accurate GPA possible.  For example if a parent submits only letter grades we must convert them to number grades using the state’s guidelines.  An ‘A’ becomes a 96, a ‘B’ 88, a ‘C’ 80, ‘D’ 73 and ‘F’ 61.  A student who receives all ‘A’s can only earn a 96 average, but if that student really earned mostly grades in the 98, 99, 100 range then the average will be much higher.

• Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory/Needs Work – register your satisfaction with your student’s work in each subject and be on your merry way.  I know the public schools used to use this method with early elementary students years ago.  It gives a succinct label to each class without the pressure of actual letter or number grades.
• A brief summary of each class analyzing the student’s progress and assessing where more work is needed.  This is a little time consuming, but it can be a valuable tool to help you see which subjects are going well and which need some adjusting.  I typically use our mid-term break to take a good look at what worked well in the first semester and see why we aren’t making as much progress as I would like in other areas.

 These are just a few ideas to get you started – each person’s grades will look a little different, just was every homeschool looks different.  Personally I use a combination of grades and summaries.  The grades give me a firm number and oddly enough encourage my students to try a little harder to earn that “A” on their work.  The summaries give me a snapshot of where we’ve been and help me know where we should be headed.

  The law states that the progress reports should include “attendance records and individualized documentation”.  But what does that mean?

  We are required to homeschool for 180 days in each school year.  Somehow we must document that we completed those 180 days.  I have found that the easiest way is to simply date my lesson plans and keep a running tally of the days at the top of each lesson plan sheet.  This shows which days my students attended school and what we did that day (fulfilling the keeping lesson plans part of the law too…).

  Similarly, the individualized documentation can be taken care of with another item required by the law - the portfolio.  The portfolio is basically a sampling of your students’ work from the school year.  I try to select work that corroborates my progress reports, showing improvement in various areas, and highlighting areas that still need work.

  Together the progress reports, attendance records or lesson plans, and portfolio give a good picture of your homeschool.  As you have time over the next couple of weeks, take a few minutes to think about putting together your own progress report.

 

Happy New Year! and an Introduction

  I love the new year for the feeling of freshness it brings.  For me it is a chance to pick up the house after the holidays and dive back into the busy-ness of everyday life.  I have spent some time the last couple of weeks thinking about the PHEA Digest and the blog and where things are headed this year.  Starting this month, I plan to send out the email Digest on the first Monday of each month.  Each Digest will include a list of posts that will be coming up on the blog each of the following Mondays.  This year the blog will be more active with information on various aspects of homeschooling, interviews with members of the homeschooling community and occasionally a “from the trenches” view of my homeschool.

  In thinking about all that I would like to post on the blog this year, I realized that in the year and a half since I have been writing the blog, I have never given myself a proper introduction.  And so…

  How do you do?  I am Deborah, mother of a third grader and a kindergartener.  I have been a homeschool mom for the past three and a half years.  But my involvement in the homeschool world goes back much farther than that.  My mom is the PHEA administrator, so I pretty much grew up in the PHEA office.  From registration to transcripts, phone calls to emails I have filled pretty much every role at some point.  I was in charge of the old paper Digest for several years, so coming back to the digital version has been a bit like coming home.  While my home duties, homeschooling, helping my husband with his business and such have made it necessary for me to hand off much of my work at the PHEA office, I am glad to be able to continue out with the Digest and the blog. 

  I think it was pretty much a given that my husband and I would homeschool our children.  Both my husband and I are homeschool graduates, and from the start we agreed that we wanted to be the primary influence in our kids’ education and in their lives.  And while I went into homeschooling with a lot of knowledge as far as the laws and requirements go and a lot of theories about how to homeschool, actually sitting down and teaching my kids from day to day has been a learning experience for me too.  I have a lot of support from both my mom and my mother-in-law.  Often when I mention to them a particular thing I am struggling with their first comment is, “I remember those days…” followed by, “have you tried…”.  It is nice to know that I am not the only one plunking down at the table and working through twelve years of education one day at a time.  It is my hope that in my “from the trenches posts, I can pass on to you a little of that feeling that you are not alone along with some great advice from my moms. 

  If there is any aspect of homeschooling you feel that you could use a little more information on, please let me know.  I am always looking for ideas for blog posts.  My email is pheadigest@gmail.com.