Let the Homeschooling Begin!
The time has come to pull the wraps off our plan to homeschool. Every homeschooling family has its own reasons for doing so, including imparting their values they hold precious, which is where we fit in to all this.
Truth be known, we'd send them to a Catholic school could we afford it, but we can't. Now that convents are empty, lay people fill the need for teachers at a living wage, driving tuitions up into the stratosphere. Tuition has roughly tripled its inflation-indexed cost since I was a student in Catholic schools.
Our first plan was to send our children to public school for the 3 R's, then supplement them with religious instruction here at home and at Sunday school. For starters we registered our oldest, our kindergartener in the district, and shortly received two indicators that the plan wasn't working out. First, he candidly stated that what he likes about lunch at school is that he doesn't pray before eating. The second and greater sign was when he uttered forbidden words. "Oh my God," he slipped, before he caught himself and corrected, "I mean, oh my gosh!"
This slip indicated that his mindset maintained a dual set of standards, one for school and one for home. At school, he matched his peers', and for all I know, even the teachers' casual use of OMGs. This was a substantial environmental difference between his public school education and my Catholic one. In my day, the teachers would correct you for breaking the Second Commandment, but at public school, the only values they're empowered to impart are to eat healthy, study, and visit your library.
After having applied a good deal of research, we decided to enroll in Seton Home Study School. They're solid on Catholic orthodoxy, provide curriculum and materials, maintain actual grades and enrollment records for your child on site, include human telephone support in real time, and appear to have the best Internet based support in place for communications and work submission. Since I'm uncomfortable with wandering the child-directed wilderness of unschooling, I like Seton's structured day to day lesson plan booklet and big box o' books included in the price. Next, on to class.
Truth be known, we'd send them to a Catholic school could we afford it, but we can't. Now that convents are empty, lay people fill the need for teachers at a living wage, driving tuitions up into the stratosphere. Tuition has roughly tripled its inflation-indexed cost since I was a student in Catholic schools.
Our first plan was to send our children to public school for the 3 R's, then supplement them with religious instruction here at home and at Sunday school. For starters we registered our oldest, our kindergartener in the district, and shortly received two indicators that the plan wasn't working out. First, he candidly stated that what he likes about lunch at school is that he doesn't pray before eating. The second and greater sign was when he uttered forbidden words. "Oh my God," he slipped, before he caught himself and corrected, "I mean, oh my gosh!"
This slip indicated that his mindset maintained a dual set of standards, one for school and one for home. At school, he matched his peers', and for all I know, even the teachers' casual use of OMGs. This was a substantial environmental difference between his public school education and my Catholic one. In my day, the teachers would correct you for breaking the Second Commandment, but at public school, the only values they're empowered to impart are to eat healthy, study, and visit your library.
After having applied a good deal of research, we decided to enroll in Seton Home Study School. They're solid on Catholic orthodoxy, provide curriculum and materials, maintain actual grades and enrollment records for your child on site, include human telephone support in real time, and appear to have the best Internet based support in place for communications and work submission. Since I'm uncomfortable with wandering the child-directed wilderness of unschooling, I like Seton's structured day to day lesson plan booklet and big box o' books included in the price. Next, on to class.
Labels: Catholicism, homeschooling, Seton Home School
posted by Kevin Gleeson at
2:47 PM
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