A very interesting article, Bob. Thanks.
Here is my first concern. Where are the children of poor working class
families in this wonderful world of home teaching? I have several
friends and neighbors who home schooled their children. Some did this
from early grades through high school. Some did an, "In and Out"
thing, where they sent their children to public school for a year and
then home schooled them for a time, sending them back again.
Regardless of the differing approaches, those families who did home
schooling had children completing their education at a higher level
than their peers in standard public schools, or in private religious
schools.
So if this is the difference around the nation, how do we bring the
advantages of home schooling into the lives of the children who need
it the most? If we are going to break down prejudice and
discrimination, enlightening our nation's children has to be high on
the list of things to do.
Anyway, we need to block all the eager profiteers pushing into the
field of education, and we need to move toward elevating our
children's futures to the top of our survival list.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/29/15, Bob Hachey <bhachey@verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Here is a most thought-provoking article about home schooling. No, these
> folks aren't doing it for religious reasons or because they don't believe
> that humans are helping to cause climate change. In fact, they appear to be
> rather progressive. They're doing it because they believe our education
> system, (public and private) is badly broken. Their most common complaints
> are too much teaching to the test and one size does not fit all.
>
> Bob Hachey
>
>
>
> http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2015/08/25/homeschooling-in-bosto
> n/
>
>
>
> Our Kids Don't Belong in School
>
> More and more of Boston's smartest families are opting out of the education
> system to homeschool their children. Is this the new model for creating
> elite
>
> kids?
>
> By
>
> Bridget Samburg|
>
> Boston Magazine|
>
> September 2015
>
>
>
> Claire Dickson was homeschooled her entire life, and is entering Harvard as
> a freshman this fall. / Photograph by Ken Richardson
>
>
>
> When Milva McDonald sent her oldest daughter to Newton public school
> kindergarten in 1990, she was disturbed by what she saw. The kids were
> being
> tracked,
>
> even at that young age. And then there were the endless hours the small
> children spent sitting at their desks. It felt unnatural. In the real
> world,
> you
>
> wouldn't be stuck in a room with people all the same ages with one person
> directing them, she thought.
>
>
>
> During that single year her daughter was in the school system, McDonald saw
> enough to convince her that she could do better on her own. That would be
> no
>
> small feat: Newton's public schools have long been rated as among the best
> in the state. (In our Greater Boston rankings this year, they're 10th.) But
>
> she'd always worked part time-she's now an online editor-and she was
> fortunate that she could maintain a flexible schedule. So she yanked her
> daughter
>
> out of school, and over the next two decades homeschooled all four of her
> children-including her youngest, Abigail Dickson, who's now 16.
>
>
>
> McDonald's first homeschool rule was to throw out the book and let her
> children guide their learning, at their own pace. In lieu of a curriculum
> or
> published
>
> guides, McDonald improvised, taking advantage of the homeschooling village
> that had sprouted up around her. One mother ran a theater group, a dad ran
> a
>
> math group, and McDonald oversaw a creative-writing club. Their children
> took supplementary classes at the Harvard Extension School and Bunker Hill
> Community
>
> College. "I wanted them to be in charge of their own education and decide
> what they were interested in, and not have someone else telling them what
> to
>
> do and what they were good at," she says.
>
>
>
> Trending:
>
> The 24 Richest Stores in America Are All in Greater Boston
>
>
>
> And by any measure, it's working. McDonald's daughter Claire-the third of
> her four children to be homeschooled-will enter Harvard College as a
> freshman
>
> this fall.
>
>
>
> Back in the '90s, McDonald was considered a homeschooling pioneer; now
> she's
> joined by a growing movement of parents who are abstaining from traditional
>
> schooling, not on religious grounds but because of another strong belief:
> that they can educate their kids better than the system can. Though far
> from
>
> mainstream (an estimated 2.2 million students are home-educated in the
> U.S.), secular homeschooling is trending up. Last year, 277 children were
> homeschooled
>
> in Boston, more than double the total from 2004; in Cambridge the number
> was
> 46. (In surrounding towns, the numbers are growing, too: During the
> 2013-2014
>
> school year, Arlington had 55; Somerville, 36; Winthrop, 5; Brookline, 11;
> Natick, 36; Newton, 33; and Watertown, 24.)
>
>
>
> There's enough momentum that major cultural institutions-from the Franklin
> Park Zoo and the New England Aquarium to the Museum of Fine Arts and MIT's
> Edgerton
>
> Center-now regularly offer classes for homeschoolers. Tellingly, even
> public
> school systems are becoming more accommodating. In Cambridge, for example,
>
> homeschoolers have the option to attend individual classes in the
> district's
> schools. Some take math or science classes and participate in sports-last
>
> year, one homeschooler took music and piano lessons. Carolyn Turk, deputy
> superintendent for teaching and learning at Cambridge Public Schools, says
> she's
>
> seeing more of this "hybrid" approach than in the past. "In Cambridge we
> look at homeschooling as a choice," she says. "Cambridge is a city of
> choice."
>
>
>
> homeschooling in boston
>
>
>
> Milva McDonald sits with her two younger daughters, Claire and Abigail. /
> Photograph by Ken Richardson
>
>
>
> The Boston Public Schools, meanwhile, have begun to view homeschooling as
> one of the many laboratories in which it can explore new teaching methods.
> "These
>
> people are looking to do instructive, nontraditional education. It's all
> different types of people from all incomes," says Freddie Fuentes, the
> executive
>
> director of educational options for Boston Public Schools. Fuentes, who
> personally helps parents with academic plans, finds that many homeschooling
> parents
>
> want "very deep, expeditionary learning" for their children. "A lot of them
> are looking at innovative ways of learning," he says. "We as a school
> system
>
> need to think about innovation and the cutting edge."
>
>
>
> In other words, homeschooling is arriving here in a very Boston-like way:
> It's aspirational, intellectual, entrepreneurial, and innovative. But is it
> right
>
> for my son?
>
>
>
> Sponsored Content
>
> Suggested:
>
> To the Sea, To the Sea..
>
>
>
> Growing up in New England, going to public schools, I always felt that I
> could chart my own path within the traditional system. In high school, I
> was
> empowered
>
> enough to propose other courses in lieu of chemistry and electives. I
> designed my own college major as well-spending hours convincing
> administrators to
>
> approve alternatives for academic requirements.
>
>
>
> I hoped that when my son's time came around, he would be able to shape his
> education as I once did. But when he turned three, I started wondering
> whether
>
> such unconventionality would be frowned upon in today's high-pressure,
> test-focused system. I'd heard plenty of stories of late-night tutoring
> sessions
>
> with third graders, and children who were physically ill from the stresses
> of school. Acquaintances from Wellesley to Boston told me about homework in
>
> first grade. Lots of it. Lengthy projects that consumed hours of time,
> often
> started and completed by the parents. Kids caving under pressure to perform
>
> at specific levels in certain grades.
>
>
>
> That was certainly true for Tracy Ventola, whose three-year-old fell apart
> every afternoon once she got home from preschool. "She'd unravel," Ventola,
>
> 41, tells me from her Arlington home. "Crying, hitting, yelling. It was her
> relief. She just had to let it out." Ventola, who had taught private school
>
> in Rhode Island, says that she and her husband struggled to unpack the
> cause
> of her daughter's behavior. Maybe the preschool was too focused on teaching
>
> numbers and letters? Hoping that another year and a change in models would
> help, they moved her to a Waldorf school, known for its imaginative,
> play-based
>
> approach to early education. No such luck.
>
>
>
> As before, Ventola found herself spending hours helping her daughter
> decompress from her school day. "School in general wasn't a good fit for
> her. Even
>
> the kinder, gentler Waldorf approach was still too much stimulation for my
> sensitive child," says Ventola, who now writes the homeschooling blog
> offkltr.com.
>
> With about 20 other youngsters and a whole lot of social expectations and
> pressures, she says, "She was overloaded emotionally, socially, and
> spiritually..
>
> School was running our lives."
>
>
>
> Discouraged by stories like this, I sought a child-led, open environment
> where my son could learn by doing. But when I applied through the Cambridge
> public
>
> school lottery to a Montessori school and came up empty, I began to think
> about homeschooling more seriously. I don't have a degree in education and
> lack
>
> teaching experience, save for one summer spent as a tennis instructor, and
> a
> winter giving ski lessons. But I'm pretty good at math. And Massachusetts
>
> makes it relatively easy to opt out: Families submit an application and
> curriculum plan to their districts-most towns expect annual plans. Was it
> ridiculous
>
> to consider taking on the responsibility of teaching my son?
>
>
>
> Not knowing where to turn, I decided to seek out people like me-secular,
> educated, urbane-who'd chosen to take their kids' educations into their own
> hands.
>
> That's how I found myself at the Cambridge Public Library on a cold, rainy
> day last March to learn about homeschooling from the Advocates for Home
> Education
>
> in Massachusetts (AHEM). I entered sheepishly at first, as if I were
> violating some basic, strongly held American tenet. In theory, I wanted my
> son to
>
> be a part of the public schools. I trust in the community, the great
> democratic ambition to educate all of our country's children in a
> supportive, and
>
> free, learning environment.
>
>
>
> But when you enter homeschooling territory, the first thing you'll notice
> is
> how clearly, boldly, and unabashedly parents proclaim that traditional
> schooling
>
> is broken. "Here it is, 2015, and we don't have recess in a lot of public
> schools, and we're keeping them in schools longer every day," says Patrick
> Farenga,
>
> a homeschooling advocate and president of HoltGWS, the company founded by
> John Holt, the father of homeschooling. "In a time that we customize jeans,
> we
>
> can't imagine doing this with education?" he continues. "We've decided that
> in third grade a child should read, but school is not based on any
> biological
>
> evidence for how children learn."
>
>
>
> Some of the system's harshest critics are trained teachers who'd quit their
> academic gigs, often out of frustration, to educate their brood. Megan
> McGrory
>
> Massaro left a seven-year stint as a middle school English teacher in
> Massachusetts schools, both public and private, to stay home when her first
> daughter
>
> was born. "You can't allow your child to explore their own interests in the
> classroom.. It's a broken system," says the Pembroke resident. "We've lost
>
> sight of the goal here. Freedom and liberty and happiness? I feel like
> we're
> sucking that out of our children."
>
> Similarly, after six years spent teaching second grade in Quincy Public
> Schools, Deanna Skow says, "I felt my love for teaching dying. I felt a
> little
>
> soul-crushed by all of the testing. I watched children lose interest in
> learning." She and her husband, a philosophy professor at MIT, opted to
> skip
> traditional
>
> school altogether for their two children, ages two and five. Ironically,
> Skow initially set her home up like a preschool, with lessons to learn
> numbers
>
> and letters. "I got so much pushback from him," she says of her older son.
> She's since adjusted her style. "When I did relax, I could see him take the
>
> reins," she recalls. "It's hard for me to turn off the teacher completely."
>
>
>
> She then states the constant refrain among homeschoolers: "I want my
> children's education to be meaningful and engaging and for them to have the
> gift of
>
> time to study and explore their true passions.. This is not the type of
> learning environment that is offered in public schools."
>
>
>
> I reached out to Barbara Madeloni, president of the Massachusetts Teachers
> Association, to see what she thinks of these critiques, but she was
> unavailable
>
> to comment for this story. However, Richard Stutman, president of the
> Boston
> Teachers Union, sniffed, "It's a subject that never comes up in my world."
>
> When asked what he thinks of parents taking their children out of public
> schools because they think the system isn't working, Stutman says, "My
> opinion
>
> is that there is a social cost to homeschooling. I have no comment or
> opinion as to whether parents who homeschool are qualified."
>
>
>
> Qualifications are one thing, it's true. And educating children at home
> requires tremendous time and resources as well. In fact, many homeschooling
> families
>
> make major sacrifices to educate their kids. One partner may give up a
> full-time job to be with the children-the loss of income can mean going
> without
>
> vacation, or selling one of the cars. Regardless, they firmly believe
> they're making an invaluable impact on their children's lives.
>
>
>
> And that's what makes me panic a little. How could anyone think that she or
> he alone has what it takes to get a child from toddler to college-ready?
>
>
>
> Robert Holzbach, 43, has complete confidence that he can handle the
> workload
> required to educate his four daughters. "I thought whatever a teacher can
>
> do with 30 kids, I can do with four," he says. Holzbach had been working
> 80-hour weeks as a financial adviser before his oldest child was born. Even
> before
>
> his wife, a full-time technical architect for Partners HealthCare, got
> pregnant, they began discussing the possibility of homeschooling their
> children.
>
> Holzbach now teaches his 12- and 11-year-olds; he plans to take the seven-
> and five-year-olds out of school once they complete second grade. "What
> terrifies
>
> me about school is taking a test, even if you get an A-plus, and forgetting
> it the next day," he says in his Winthrop home. "There's no incentive to
> learn
>
> long-term."
>
>
>
> Trending:
>
> The Beautiful Chaos of Boston's Fall Move-In, in One Heat Map
>
>
>
> While talking to me, Holzbach pulls out a single sheet of paper; it's a
> sample task list from a recent day of homeschooling: two hours of math, a
> one-hour
>
> history lecture, 40 minutes discussing the Brooklyn Bridge, time spent on
> Portuguese, 90 minutes of history reading. His daughters can choose when to
> do
>
> what, but it all has to get done by the end of the day. And they also must
> practice typing. I like how seriously he takes the individual subjects, and
>
> I like the flexibility.
>
>
>
> Holzbach has always emphasized reading, too, and fortunately, his older
> daughters are passionate about books. This year, they read Moon Over
> Manifest,
>
> by Clare Vanderpool; The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt; and E. L.
> Konigsburg's Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth,
> to name
>
> a few. They could happily read all day long, and some days they do. If the
> family seems to need a break from one another, Holzbach will declare it a
> reading
>
> day and the girls may retreat to their rooms upstairs or to the brown
> leather couches in the living room.
>
>
>
> homeschooling in boston
>
>
>
> Richard Holzbach homeschools his two older daughters. / Photograph by Ken
> Richardson
>
>
>
> For other subjects, Holzbach relies on a variety of materials. He uses the
> well-known Saxon Math books, published by Boston-based Houghton Mifflin
> Harcourt,
>
> which offers an entire line of textbooks for homeschoolers. He also uses
> Khan Academy, a free learning website that has received more than $10
> million
>
> from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Holzbach regularly introduces
> subjects through the Great Courses-multipart lectures, available for
> purchase,
>
> that cover history, literature, science, music, philosophy, and more.
>
>
>
> He also has a wealth of regional resources catered to the homeschooling
> trend. Public libraries and major museums and organizations-from the Museum
> of
>
> Fine Arts to Mass Audubon-offer day programs. Alternative learning centers
> that provide daylong classes, semester programs, and communal learning
> programs
>
> have exploded. There are more than a dozen around Massachusetts, including
> Parts and Crafts, in Somerville; Trellis Community Learning, in Pembroke;
> and
>
> the Macomber Center, in Framingham.
>
>
>
> And aided by the Internet, homeschooling parents are finding it easier to
> build a village. On a given week, for example, Kerry McDonald says she lets
> her
>
> four children-ages eight, six, four, and 20 months-guide what they talk
> about and explore, using homeschooling family play dates found via Yahoo
> boards
>
> and other online forums to supplement the learning. McDonald tells me about
> meet-up offerings, including math classes, soccer, and museum visits.
>
>
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