My Continuing Education, Part 3

Without further ado, I will finish telling you what I learned during the last four workshops that I attended at the Midwest Homeschool Convention last weekend. Yes, I misspoke when I said I attended 4 total. I actually attended 5 workshops. The first one was presented in Part 2.

A. Laura House was the representative speaker for Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). I was so impressed by her presentation that I bought the Student Writing Intensive course to use with the Bear next year. Since I am somewhat of a kinetic learner - and so is the Bear - the fact that Mrs. House's presentation was hands-on hooked me. What do you want to know about gerbils? I can almost recite the mini-report that we wrote in class. I am looking forward to teaching this method of writing.

B. The next workshop that I attended was by Dr. Jay Wile, former university professor and author of Apologia Science curriculum (which the Bear and I use and highly recommend). This lecture was not about teaching science per se. It was more about the statistics that have been compiled about homeschoolers and their readiness to attend college. Dr. Wile's presentation both patted me on the back and slapped me in the face.

I was expecting "good job, mom" comments, and I wasn't disappointed, but I was surprised to hear that the education college of most universities is the equivalent of what we always called Basket weaving 101 in sneering voices. The cliche that says that "those who can't do, teach" is backed up by the statistics that show that as a professional group education majors are in the lower tier of academia as demonstrated by the low average of their SAT or ACT scores. Ouch! Can I just state that I had a decent score on the SAT over 30 years ago? Doesn't matter? This isn't about me? Maybe not, but it makes me feel better to state it. Can I also state that the professional teachers that I know (Prince Charming, Nephew E.'s wife, to name a few) are all brilliant? Wait a minute. All the brilliant educators I know are either homeschooling or considering it.

I guess I am not surprised by the statistics. I cannot tell you how aggravated I was a few years ago when a rather - how to say this kindly - ignorant girl that I know attended a quality university. I know that it wasn't her ACT scores that got her accepted. I'd never heard of anyone actually having a score as low as she did! But when she couldn't pass classes in any field of study her counselor placed her in the education department. I was insulted then and and I do not feel any better about this now that I know that this was not a fluke. It is sobering, to say the least.

My hurt pride aside, as I always tell moms who are considering homeschooling, no one knows the child as well as the parent does. Dr. Wile and his studies confirmed that. One-on-one tutoring is a superior way to educate a child.

He also confirmed some things that I knew from my own children's forays into private and secular colleges and universities. According to Dr. Wile, the homeschool graduates were some of the few who felt the professor meant it when he announced students could stop by his office. The Princess was dumbfounded to find that in a large state university she still had no problem making appointments to meet with her professors whenever she had questions. She also always thought it odd that she was one of the few students who actually read and comprehended course textbooks

C. I attended a seminar with my daughter, Karen, on "Notebooking" that was conducted by Cindy Wiggers of Geography Matters. I've used notebooking on and off with our children with varying degrees of success. I remember detailed ones when the Princess used Cadron Creek's "Where the Brook and River Meet" by Margie Gray,which is a high school unit study of the book "Anne of Green Gables." The Bear and I also used notebooking when we did Linda Hobar's first two volumes of "The Mystery of History" published by Bright Idea Press.

D. The last workshop that I attended was a heart-to-heart talk given by Dr. Jim Stobaugh of For Such A Time As This ministries. I attended the seminar about the prodigal child entitled "But We Had Hoped." Pastor Dad and I do not have a child that would meet the classic definition of a prodigal, but we've been close enough that the smell of pigs wafted in our nostrils and scared us. We have not reached the point where we can settle back on our laurels either since we've yet to finish raising the Bear. Would you understand if I told you that I sometimes feel like a prodigal myself? There are days...

What can I say? I needed the encouragement. Like Dr. Stobaugh and his wife, Karen, we thought we had two things working in our favor when we started homeschooling in the mid-1980s:

1. We're a pastor's family
2. We homeschool

It turns out that this combination does not come with any guarantee. Guess what? Our children still have their sin-nature intact. And since each person must have his/her own relationship with God it is not something that is inherited or taught. Faith is not acquired through osmosis even if someone is a homeschooled preacher's kid. But don't give up. Do what you know is right just because it is right. The goal isn't to bring glory to ourselves. It is to bring glory to God. And that's the bottom line.

It was a wonderful convention and I only got to attend one day of it. I have every intention of attending each day next year. I would encourage you to do likewise.