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	<title>WIRL Project &#187; Homeschooling</title>
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		<title>An Open Letter From A Homeschooling Mother</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/an-open-letter-from-a-homeschooling-mother/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/an-open-letter-from-a-homeschooling-mother/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 May 2015 09:00:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Misty Hovis]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Life/Leisure]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[education]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[home school]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Homeschooling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mom]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=5994</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I don’t have a degree in teaching, but I’m a teacher. If you would have asked me back in high school what I would be doing in 10 years I would have said being the CEO of my own business and enjoying my life to the fullest. I NEVER would have said homeschooling my 5 children, let alone saying I would have 5 children in the first place. Honestly the thought of homeschooling seemed weird and just silly back then. My whole misconception of homeschooling was children that are unsocial, uneducated, mistreated, and sheltered from the world around them… to name a few. I believe a lot of people who are against homeschooling have these SAME misconceptions. It wasn’t until our first child was about 2 years old that the thought of homeschooling came up. I didn’t want to do it, and was completely looking forward to “my free time” when he and any other children we had would be sent off to public school. Little did I know that homeschooling was the plan that God had in mind for us. Everywhere we turned homeschooling was brought up, I couldn’t get away from the idea and for some reason it seemed so interesting to me. My husband and I decided to pray about it and we did for 2 whole years! I did a ton of research and even went over the pros and cons many times. Finally the decision had been made, we were going to homeschool. Telling our family and friends wasn’t as easy as you would think, some were very supportive and others thought we were NUTS! One of my favorite comments from a family member who we were showing our classroom to was, “Oh, this will make a nice playroom at least.” At first I took that very personal and was pretty upset about it. Then I thought about it for awhile and realized… YES, it will make a nice playroom. Learning will be fun, enjoyable, and creative! A lot of people don’t realize that a child at a young age learns the MOST through play. Here are some interesting facts to keep in mind as well: When a child reads information they will only retain about 10% of it, 90% of it is lost. If they are presented the information orally they will retain 20% of it, 80% of it is lost. If a child sees what they are learning about they will retain 30% of it, 70% of it is lost. When a child sees and hears he/she will remember 50% of the material. When a child is asked to talk about a subject or read out loud they will retain 70% of the lesson. If a child is on the other hand actively involved in a project and doing hands on activities, they will retain 90% of it. Just my personal opinion, but it seems to me that it is much easier for a mother of 5 children to do more hands on activities and educate her children in a more effective way than a teacher in a classroom of 20-30+ children. Don’t get me wrong I appreciate public school teachers very much and think they have a super hard and important job. However, the way the system is set up does not allow a teacher to educate public schooled children very effectively. The system is more worried about crossing their T&#8217;s and dotting their I&#8217;s than allowing a teacher to use her God given talents to teach the children in her class. Test scores have proven this time and time again. Once we had made our decision, we had to deal with many questions including those worried about our children’s social skills and sheltering them from the outside world. We in no way intended to shelter our children and anyone that has ever spoken to one of our children can attest to the fact that they are far from being unsocial! (LOL) We are involved in many activities outside the home, take part in different groups, have participated in Co-Ops and sporting teams. Another question that has been brought up is “Why not leave it up to the professionals, you don’t even have a teaching degree?” Who is to say I’m NOT a professional… just because I didn’t spend thousands of dollars in college fees, years of my life in a classroom to get a piece of paper that says I have a certain degree shouldn’t deem me unworthy of teaching my children. I am a strong believer that actions speak louder than words. My children and their academic scores have proven that I must be doing something right. For example, when I first thought of homeschooling, I was beyond worried about teaching my children to read. It has never been a strong area for me. However, I learned right alongside my oldest, poured knowledge into him and I was so excited last year when he got his standardized test scores back for 2nd grade. He tested higher in reading than 98% of his peers and was reading at an 8th grade reading level! There are so many benefits to homeschooling. I get the chance to see my children learning new things first hand, I don’t have to just hear about it. We can learn together… take field trips and do hands on activities that are fun and exciting. I have the opportunity to see what areas my children are struggling in and what areas they are excelling in as well. This gives us a chance to help them one-on-one to improve on certain skills and give them room to grow and advance in areas of interest. For example, my oldest son, Logan, LOVES birds! He honestly could tell you the name and important facts about pretty much any bird you show him. He amazes me with the knowledge and interest he has in this area. I am able to provide resources and encourage his love for birds and this gets him excited about reading and learning even more. There also are so many wonderful materials, curriculums and resources offered to homeschooling families. Trust me I have done plenty of research to find what works well for us. I remember our first year homeschooling, I had someone ask me “Did you ever take calculus in school, if you didn’t how are you going to teach your child something you never learned?” My response was this… First off my son is in Pre-K and just learning his numbers, I think we will be ok. When he is older and will be taking more advanced classes, if I can’t help him we have some amazing friends that would be willing to help in this journey with us. Plus there are so many programs out there that we would be able to learn together. As far as teaching different grades at the same time, there is this awesome thing called unit studies! A great example I always like to share is this: let’s say we are learning about the eye. We would learn together all of the material about the eye up to a 3rd grade level (my oldest), maybe even higher if he is interested in knowing more now. Then our work would be as followed, 3rd grader might write a report about the eye, 1st grader might write a paragraph about the eye, Kindergartener might label the parts of an eye with a word bank and a Pre-K might color a picture of an eye. There also are many curriculums that allow for some independent learning for older grades which allows more time to focus on the basic skills needed in the younger grades, such as Phonics. I will be the first to say homeschooling is NOT for everyone though. There is a lot of work, planning, time, and energy involved in it. As well as, a true commitment you have to make to be a homeschooling family. It’s not always easy, but for us, it is worth it. There is no right or wrong… each person / family is entitled to their own thoughts, feelings, and opinions about public school vs. homeschooling. However these feelings should never judge the choice of another family if they feel called to do something different than yours. Again, 10 years ago I would have said I would be a CEO of my own business and living my life to the fullest. I am thankful to say, I am a CEO of my own business, by being an Independent Director with Thirty-One Gifts, and completely love every aspect of my life… funny enough, I even love being a homeschooling mother of 5! Sincerely, Proud Homeschooling Mother, Misty Hovis &#160; &#160;]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>This Whole Homeschooling Thing&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/this-whole-homeschooling-thing/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/this-whole-homeschooling-thing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 May 2015 09:00:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Sara Brennan]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Home]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Home Schooling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Homeschooling]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[parents]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Public School]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Schooling]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Teach]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teachers]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=5929</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When I am passionate about something, you know it. Most of the time my friends and family will say, Calm down! as I&#8217;m talking because I get so worked up. I guess that&#8217;s the Type-A coming out in me. Anyway, I feel pretty passionately about what I&#8217;m about to say. I was a teacher for 6+ years before becoming a stay-at-home mom and I have some thoughts on this issue. And, if you start reading this and strongly disagree, I urge you to keep reading, you will be really surprised at my closing thoughts.  So, here we go. I&#8217;ve found through reading SEVERAL blogs lately that homeschooling is on the rise. Apparently, according to the National Home Education Research Institute, there are about 2.2 million home educated children in the US. This baffles me! To me, homeschooling seems so unnatural, but that&#8217;s probably because I&#8217;ve been in a classroom for years. I also don&#8217;t know who would actually want to do this? Why wouldn&#8217;t you just leave it to the professionals? I like the idea of my kids going off to school and interacting with other students and teachers! Plus, I need a break! To help you understand how I feel about this, in true teacher fashion, I&#8217;ll give you an example: I guess I can explain my way of thinking on this subject as this: Something went wrong with my electricity in my house. Sure, I could look it up on YouTube and read books to educate myself on how to fix it, but why not just hire a professional who knows what they&#8217;re doing to fix it? Why on Earth would you try to take on something like this yourself? Is the end result the same? Maybe, or maybe not? So, yeah, that may have pissed you off because you think I&#8217;m comparing your kid to an electrical problem and you to a DIY Electrician, but that&#8217;s not really what I meant. Let me explain&#8230; So, I have a Master&#8217;s Degree in Secondary Education and know the content I am qualified to teach VERY well, just ask any of my previous students (this is where my old students should scroll to the bottom and leave a comment about how I was such an AMAZING teacher). Very few people actually completely major in the subject they&#8217;re teaching; it&#8217;s rare to find someone like me. For example, most people go to school knowing they want to become a teacher and major in Education. They take classes to hone in on the area they want to teach and major in some kind of Education program. Then, as long as they can pass the Praxis text, they are good to go and they can become a qualified teacher. Not me. I majored in Biology, actually I was Pre-Pharmacy for a while, and I ended up with a BA in Biology and a Concentration in Neuroscience. Whoa, right? I MUST be smart! Well, yes, but that major wasn&#8217;t really getting me anywhere, especially since it wasn&#8217;t ideal timing for me to jump into Pharmacy School (my dad just passed away) and so my &#8220;smartness&#8221; wasn&#8217;t getting me anywhere. So, the next best thing was to go to Graduate school and get my Masters in Education, so I could teach. Still with me? I promise, this article really is about homeschooling! So anyway, I moved south and started teaching at a not-so-great school and then eventually got a job at a SUPER-great school! I was living the dream, right? No. The amount of work that was put on me as a science teacher (not to mention NEW teacher in general) was incredible. Not only did we have lesson plans due every day, but I taught 220 students! Yes, 220! And that meant that for every assignment I gave, I had to grade 220 of them! WTF! How is this even possible? On top of that, teachers are faced with parent criticisms meetings, committees, report cards, state testing, district testing, phone calls, discipline issues, differentiated lessons and children with special needs. We are asked to be innovative and we are evaluated using a very impossible difficult evaluation tool that is supposed to be objective, but is SO subjective! There were many days I left my classroom in tears or so angry that I could have exploded, but rarely was it because of the kids. It was the incredible workload on my plate and that I kept being asked to do more, more, more and to be better, better, better! Aside from actually being in front of the kids and interacting with them, there was never a time when it was really that &#8220;fun&#8221;. I had very little autonomy to allow my &#8220;craft&#8221; or &#8220;art&#8221; as an individual to shine through. A robot could easily do the job of a public school teacher, on some accounts, because there are so many checklists and systems we are forced to follow&#8230;it has very little to do with how &#8220;good&#8221; a teacher is anymore, it&#8217;s more about how well can they &#8220;play the game&#8221;. So, my biggest question, concern, rant, whatever this is about the homeschooling thing is not that it&#8217;s not a good choice or that I don&#8217;t agree with it, but rather, how the hell can a mom of 6 homeschool her kids with 6 different curriculums and do it just as well as someone who knows the ins-and-outs of education and is a master at the content they teach? At first, my personal thought was that homeschooling can&#8217;t be done as effectively as in a classroom. Learning in a classroom setting not only teaches the kids the content, but it also teaches them empathy, social skills, and discipline. There are definitely some children who I have taught that would have done SO much better in a different setting, the classroom just wasn&#8217;t right for them, but for the most part, school is a great experience for kids. They get to play sports, learn classroom etiquette, develop a rapport with adults OTHER than their parents, and they get to make lifelong friendships. Aside from my personal thoughts about homeschooling vs. public schooling, I&#8217;d also like to point the finger at the public education system. Earlier I asked, &#8220;How the hell can a mom of 6 homeschool her kids with 6 different curriculums and do it just as well as someone who knows the ins-and-outs of education and is a master at the content they teach?&#8221; It wasn&#8217;t a jab at those moms and dad&#8217;s homeschooling their kids, but rather a serious &#8220;How the hell do you do this?&#8221; and &#8220;Why does it have to be so difficult to just teach one curriculum in a public setting?&#8221; Ask a public school teacher, especially a middle or high school teacher, to teach more than two subjects and they&#8217;ll flip! Why, because it&#8217;s SO hard to manage just ONE! And then you&#8217;re going to ask us to completely learn a whole other subject area? NO F&#8217;ING WAY! It&#8217;s seemingly impossible to be knowledgeable enough or capable to teach and manage this many lessons, assignments, and students and it causes teachers to spread themselves too thin and get burnt out. Plus, needless to say, it&#8217;s not in their pay grade. But people do it, and they do it well, but rarely do you EVER seeing a public school secondary education teacher instructing more than two curriculums. And then we go back to the homeschooling parent, who is apparently managing and facilitating several different lessons per day, across several different curriculums, and you&#8217;re telling me this is as effective? I don&#8217;t know, that&#8217;s a hard pill for me to swallow. So when you look at the data from homeschooled children from the National Home Education Research Institute you&#8217;ll (be shocked to) find the following: The home-educated typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests. (The public school average is the 50th percentile; scores range from 1 to 99.) Homeschool students score above average on achievement tests regardless of their parents’ level of formal education or their family’s household income. Whether homeschool parents were ever certified teachers is not related to their children’s academic achievement.  Degree of state control and regulation of homeschooling is not related to academic achievement.  Home-educated students typically score above average on the SAT and ACT tests that colleges consider for admissions. Homeschool students are increasingly being actively recruited by colleges &#160; WHAAAT? It actually works? Assuming that the data is unbiased, this is insane to me! It ACTUALLY works. So, maybe this is the time I&#8217;m supposed to say, Yay, go homeschooling kids and parents!, but I&#8217;m not going to say that just yet. I will tip my hat and congratulate you homeschooling folks; I know it&#8217;s not easy, in fact, it&#8217;s incredibly hard! However, I think we need to use this information to reconsider how we go about public education&#8230;if something else is working, I don&#8217;t think we should argue it and put it down, we should take a look and see what they&#8217;re (homeschooling parents) doing and why what we&#8217;re (public schools) doing isn&#8217;t as effective.  So, I said my closing remarks may surprise you, didn&#8217;t I? Here they are: I&#8217;m not going to take one side or the other, but I am going to point this out: I don&#8217;t think all the extra shit public school teachers are asked to do is helping. I think we need to get back to the basics and just let our teachers teach. Moms and Dads, who may not know shit about the content their teaching (no offense), are doing it successfully! They take the time to learn the content and help their kids in the best way they can and they are SUCCESSFUL, regardless of their economic status, demographics, or background&#8230;and we all know this is NOT the case for public schools.  I guess I just think teaching at a public school does not have to be as hard as we (the system) make it. I&#8217;ve said this during my whole career as an educator, Just let them teach! The data, the methodology, the evaluations, the paperwork, the meetings, and the initiatives aren&#8217;t helping &#8211; they&#8217;re taking away from planning time and hindering us from being able to create really impactful, effective lessons. If a mom of 6 can teach each of her children the same things I would (while in her pajamas) and do it just as effectively or better, then there is something REALLY wrong with our system. Don&#8217;t you agree? And let me just finish by saying Thank you to every teacher out there, who is doing the best they can, because it&#8217;s SO hard. Aside from being a parent, it&#8217;s the hardest job I&#8217;ve ever had. Keep working hard public, private and homeschool teachers. Keep putting in the time because it&#8217;s working and no matter what anyone tells you, you ARE making a difference. I guess it doesn&#8217;t matter who is teaching what or where, what really matters is that the child is getting the best education possible. Right? That&#8217;s my two cents and I guess that&#8217;s also why I&#8217;m no longer a public school teacher (lol). &#160;]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>10</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Using Every Ounce of Talent I&#8217;ve Been Given</title>
		<link>http://www.wirlproject.com/using-every-ounce-of-talent-ive-been-given/</link>
		<comments>http://www.wirlproject.com/using-every-ounce-of-talent-ive-been-given/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Apr 2015 09:00:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Misty Hovis]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Love/Relationships]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[God's Help]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Homeschooling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stay At Home Mom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Talent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Thirty-One]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.wirlproject.com/?p=4707</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#160; Quiet&#8230; I sit here alone enjoying this moment. Ahh another day goes by, five sweet little blessings tucked into their beds, but this mother still has much to do before I lay down to rest. Time to prepare, time to pray, and time to reflect. A while ago, I came across a quote that read: This quote really touched my heart and opened my eyes to a lot of things. Being a wife, stay-at-home homeschooling mother and Director with Thirty-One Gifts I wear many hats. From the moment I get up, I am nonstop being pulled in one direction or another. It&#8217;s not always easy and I will let you in on a little secret, some days I feel like the biggest failure and not worthy to be in the roles I hold. Then, I realize I am exactly where I am suppose to be, blessed with exactly the children I am suppose to have, and doing exactly what God has called me to do. He alone has instilled talents and gifts in each of us&#8230; what we chose to do with them is up to us. I chose to use every bit of them for His honor and glory. To reach deep within myself and give my all, in all I do, so at the end of my life I can look back and say I used every bit of talent He blessed me with. I hear often words from strangers and even friends, &#8220;Boy, do you have your hands full!&#8221; Or &#8220;Wow, you must be super woman!&#8221;. I am far from being super woman, or mom for that matter, I struggle just like the rest. My hands are full, but not in the way most would think. My hands are full when I have a child close by to hug, a little hand to hold, and a child in my arms dancing and singing around the kitchen, just to name a few. This is my life&#8217;s greatest joy and accomplishment. Even though the moments of silence are refreshing, I look forward to tomorrow when I can continue to use my talents with God&#8217;s help until every ounce of it is used up. Loving my journey!]]></description>
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