Education Solution

Many public school parents often ask homeschool parents, “If children are taught at home, won’t they miss the valuable socialization that takes place in school?” Truth be told, most homeschool parents feel that the public school’s social life is enough of a reason for them to homeschool. This is because, in the majority of schools, the social life that takes place in public schools is mean-spirited, competitive, exclusive, status-seeking, snobbish, full of talk about who went to whose birthday party and who got what Christmas presents and who got how many Valentine cards and who is talking to so-and-so and who is not. This begins as early as first grade. You’ll see classes divide into leaders (usually the popular kids), their bands of followers, and other outsiders who you can tell have been excluded from these groups for one reason or another. Many parents will even note that they haven’t ever seen their children doing anything really mean or silly until their child(ren) went away to school.

Many homeschool parents have realized that their children already know most of what is being taught in school: how to be quiet, how to listen to children’s stories, and how to sing. They have realized that their child(ren) want to learn about the adult world. Public schools restrict these children to a world which adults believed children wanted. This causes many children’s enthusiasm to die an early death. Why? Because shame is one of the first lessons that children learn in school. Oftentimes this happens when children want to be “different” from those around them. These children want to be recognized as individuals. However, public schools shun this.

Another characteristic that is shunned in public schools is spontaneity. Why? Because it conflicts with the teacher’s view of how children should act. When children learn this lesson, they also learn that lying is a valuable survival technique. They often discover that it’s better to lye their way out of “trouble” than to stand up for themselves because of the dire consequences that they may face in that case.

Children are also taught, at an early age, not to question anything that happens in the school. Schools are very authoritative, leaving NO room for creativity or imagination. Instead, children are left standing in awe of the authoritarian system. This is why many homeschool parents compare public schools to jails. In public schools, even a child’s ability to use the restroom is restricted to when and how the teacher feels the child should use the restroom. Then when a child has an accident they often are humiliated and even punished. These incidents of fear and humiliation are numerous in public schools.

Educational materials are available free online from a wide variety of sources. Suitable for homeschooling and teaching in a traditional classroom setting, the following are some ways to get free homeschool worksheets and lesson plans online.

Step 1
Look for web sites about homeschooling or sites where teachers and homeschoolers might frequent, such as forums or social networking groups. Often people will tell about free worksheets or materials they have found.

Step 2
Search online using search terms such as “free homeschool lesson plans”, “free homeschool worksheets”, free educational material” etc. The results should bring up several web sites.

A few examples of web sites that offer free homeschool

Step 3
If you are looking for worksheets and lessons for a specific age group or grade level, you might want to consider adding that to your search terms. For example, you could search “free homeschool worksheets 4th grade level”.

To find specific subjects you can use that in your search as well, such as “free homeschool worksheets 4th grade level math” or whatever other specifics you want to find.

Step 4
Consider using online sources that provide educational material such as the Library of Congress web site. You can find many useful items that you can print out and use as free homeshool worksheets. These include lesson plans, webcasts, educational activities and more.

During the 1990s, reform math programs
like ‘Everyday Mathematics’ were widely embraced as the new wave by President Clinton’s Department of Education. As a result, school district after school district across the country adopted this new approach. But despite the adoration of the “experts”, the end result was dismal test scores.

For example, California schools embraced reform math programs in the early 1990′s. By 1996, California test scores plummeted to one of the lowest in the nation on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Finally in 1997, the California State Board of Education recognized reform math was a mistake and revised state standards to return to traditional math curriculum
.

The problem with these reform math programs is that they approach math as if it were a conceptual, critical thinking exercise. Reform math abandons the more traditional approach, which focuses on learning math facts re-enforced by math practice drills. However, math concepts build on each other like building blocks. Reform math was an attempt to by-pass the building blocks altogether. These programs failed because without any knowledge of the math facts kids were unable to grasp the concepts.

While the Department of Education was searching for the right math curriculum, many homeschool parents were on the same quest. My parents were among them, searching for the right math curriculum to use for homeschooling me and my 10 siblings. Growing up as a homeschool kid, I remember the trial and error process my parents went through as they sought curriculum that would allow all their children to excel in all subjects.

By the time I made it to the fourth grade, math had become my archenemy. I struggled more with math than any other subject. To put it bluntly, I hated math.

When I was in the fifth grade, my parents selected Saxon Math as my homeschool curriculum. I will never forget Saxon Math because the subject I struggled with the most suddenly became easy. Not only did my standardized test scores go up, but I no longer hated math. In fact, it was almost fun!

Saxon Math is at the other end of the spectrum from reform math programs, like the tortoise and the hare. Like the hare, reform math programs attempt to take shortcuts to move quickly to the solution but ultimately fail to reach the destination. Like the tortoise, Saxon Math offers an incremental, slow and steady approach. Rather than by-passing fundamental math facts, Saxon makes them the focus. Saxon’s curriculum is designed to achieve quick and effortless recall of those facts. To accomplish this, it focuses primarily on review and drill.

Saxon’s incremental approach was exactly what I needed. By using Saxon I learned to recall facts fluently and use algorithms accurately to solve problems instead of letting a calculator think for me. Saxon gave me the feeling of mental agility and mastery as I worked through problem after problem, picking up speed even as the lessons became gradually more difficult. I was able to successfully complete all the math requirements for high school graduation because of Saxon’s consistent, predictable drilling. I even graduated high school a year early!