YOU Are Not A Rocket Scientist, How Do You Teach THAT Subject?

Some of the most prevalent questions I've been asked about homeschooling are regarding the more academic classes of the upper grades and what to do about higher education*. To keep it simple for the purposes of informing the people of my community through this blog, I'll just touch on it briefly (You can always find out more detailed legal information at the _Home School Legal Defense Association_ site or at _MACHE_ ).

"I can teach my child first grade math and all, but what happens when they need to start Geometry?" was something that I asked myself a long time ago._ Mr. Greeno _could tell you that I stank at Geometry in the tenth grade (he was and is a brilliant teacher, I was just a very distracted and uninterested student of math)! I am a natural procrastinator so I just figured I'd face that problem much later. Well, as any parent could tell you, "later" came VERY quickly! All too soon, my own children started to study some of the subjects that were too challenging for me to teach them effectively. For math, I happened to find a program developed by a math teacher who also homeschools his own children. It is a full set of instructions on cd-rom disks, along with textbooks and workbooks. The program also grades the daily work and keeps track of the quizzes, so if my student does all the work and I'm not there looking over their shoulder, I can see the grade they got later on and help them if they need further instruction. There are many other programs like that out there and many curriculum choices for all of the different subjects we need to teach our children.

 A lot of homeschoolers belong to co-ops or groups that hire a teacher who specializes in a subject, or they might get together to go on field trips. The best place to find out information about home education is from a broad base of other home educators. There are home education conferences during the early part of the summer with book fairs and lots of scheduled talks about all aspects of homeschooling.

 I believe many parents think that they are not possibly "smart enough" to teach their children any "school" subjects. To them, I say: "Do you like to go shopping? Do you like to go for walks in the woods? Do you like to cook? Are you good at cleaning? Do you like sports and/or exercising? Do you like to read science fiction novels or watch sci-fi movies?.”..Yes? well then, you already have a good foundation for learning and teaching your children about:  "Consumer Sciences,” "Natural Sciences Studies,” "Chemistry and Math (measurements),” "Heath and Biology,” "Physical Education,”"Literature" and  "Scientific Theory and Physics.”

"School" isn't just workbooks and rote memorization of facts (although that stuff is important, too), it's getting out into the world and showing children where and how those skills they learned in "school" are applied to real life! I often caution parents when they're worried about not teaching exactly the same things that "they are teaching in school,” that there are no two schools that teach the exact same thing to every student.

Even math, as solid and never changing as it is, is taught in different ways in different schools. Sometimes the math program is taught in different ways according to the specific challenges of each of the students in each of those schools! No, I'm not a rocket scientist (what, exactly, is a "rocket scientist?" hmmmm, gotta go look that up!), but I am a parent and I have the ability and knowledge to be able to teach my children many things. The things I don't know, I can find out and teach them or find out how to find that information and guide them to it. So can you!

 *I will address the higher education information at a later date because I'm just finding out about it right now! I have a child who will be seeking post secondary education this year. It's our first year dealing with such a thing. We also have a young lady living with us from out of state who will be looking to start college in the fall. We have a lot of work to do this spring/summer!