From The Editor
Home Education Magazine, October 1985
Every day now I spend many hours driving to work. This leaves me with as many hours to reflect, to think, to feel. The subject so often on my thoughts and in my heart is exactly that which I have so recently left behind — my family. Many times I have the very real feeling I have forsaken my family for financial gain.
Now, the real world says we must …. and have made commitments …. but … ! I often drive along with the flowing traffic wishing I was at home with my little, and not so little ones. Am I merely wishing my life away for something that not right now? … but then it will never be again either.
Remember, father, the smell and feel of a warm stove on a frosty morning when your children are coming to life one by one? Remember the feelings that you share as each one crawls into your lap in turn and shares their schemes and dreams for their day as they prepare for the most important and serious job of learning about their world (and your world, also). And a serious wondrous business it is. (if one happens to be fortunate enough to realize this, if one is fortunate enough to make the commitment to share this growing with your children, then it can also be a serious wondrous business for you.)
I have been in three worlds of thinking, or possibly awareness, about a father’s relationship with his children – about my relationship with my children. I have been a witness as we Helen raised our children; I have shared the day to day, 24 hour commitment to our children; and now again I am out of the house during most of our childrens’ waking hours. They grow so fast, so very quickly they are no longer babies but growing children. What did I miss all those years when I was feeling fatherly duty calling me away from my family into the company of strangers to build whatever it was that duty dictated. How many mornings by the stove — that will never be again — have I missed? How much of my childrens’ life and dreams has been poured out to be unknown by me, unshared with their father?
Maybe I would not be feeling the loss as so real if I had not had the opportunity to share those dreams of every day life with my children. A relationship of weekends and hours after life at work is, as it seems, the sentence for the tremendous majority of fathers across this nation. Even if this time “off” is spent in a meaningful manner, so much is missed of real life — the happiness, sorrow, frustrations, triumphs, understandings, misunderstandings, and on and on. Yes, I was there with the freedom to share it all with my children. And now I am going back as soon as I can.
Illustration ©1985 Billy L. Fikes, all rights reserved.
“If the state took our children from us when they were 5 or 6 and fed them until they were 16, giving them nothing but potato chips, we know what we’d do. We’d fight. We’d sue. We’d do anything we had to do to get them the nourishment their lives depend on
Stephanie Tolan, coauthor of GUIDING THE GIFTED CHILD,
at Conn. Assn. for the Gifted Conference
From the October 1985 edition of Home Education Magazine, illustration ©1985 Billy L. Fikes, all rights reserved.
Tags: Billy L Fikes, education, homeschooling, schools
Arithmetic, computation or mathematics … no matter what it’s called in school, the subject often adds up in a child’s mind as plain old boring. Kindergarten worksheets display clusters of objects for children to color and count. By third or fourth grade word problems sneak into the curriculum. I don’t know about you, but when I was a child, I remember reading the word problems and thinking, who cares? I also remember spending many happy hours playing board games-several of which teach math skills.
It’s not that the subject of mathematics is boring in and of itself, it’s that worksheets, word problems, multiplication tables and textbooks ignite little (if any) excitement. When your child whines, “This is too hard!”, what he may really mean is, “This is no fun!” Math really can be fun… if you take a less conventional approach to it.
Continue reading this great article, From Boring To Board Games: Math Really Can Be Fun!, by Elise Griffith, from the Jan-Feb, 1998 issue of Home Education Magazine.
Tags: Elise Griffith, Home Education Magazine, homemeade games, homeschool math, homeschool resources, homeschooling, homeschooling families, homeschooling resources, making your own games, math games, teaching math, unschooling
[hat tip Jessica]
Out of Australia
AAP reports : ONE of Australia’s leading early childhood educators [*Emeritus Professor Philip Gammage] has warned the Federal Government’s strategy for young children could see them doing worse at school and not being prepared for later life.
“Children don’t need to be taught curriculum, they need quality relationships, quality attachments and quality boundaries,” he said.
“Zero to six-year-olds should be concentrating on play-based learning, drama and aural learning.”
Professor Gammage said Australia could learn a lot from the wisdom of a saying in Finland, “talk more, write less”.
*Emeritus Professor Philip Gammage is one of the keynote speakers at Playgroup Australia’s Power of Play conference.
Tags: curricula, homeschooling, public school, unschooling
Keith Wilcox is Almighty Dad. His blog says so. Indisputably. And he had me at this sentence: “All the money in the world cannot hold a candle to enjoying time with my kids.”
Keith has a sense of humor and he’s not afraid to brandish it, but he also has a sense of what’s important, and he shares it in abundance with his readers, as in this passage from his 7 Reasons I Home School post:
Kids don’t stay young forever. When they are with me all day I feel like I’m giving them face time and otherwise spending quality time with them. When they finish with their work we can have fun at the park and do all kinds of entertaining things together. Other parents might spend all day at work and only get to see their kids for a few hours at night. Teaching them at home let’s me cherish the time I have with them before they get old and don’t want anything to do with me. I know, it’s selfish; so what.
Keith ‘Almighty Dad’ Wilcox not only writes on homeschooling, but he addresses other family-oriented topics, such as Toys That Don’t Drive You Insane, Sibling Rivalry, and The Cost of Youth Sports.
Click over to Keith’s site and just start reading. You won’t be disappointed.
Tags: Almighty Dad, fathers and homeschooling, homeschool, homeschooling, homeschooling dads, homeschooling families, homeschooling fathers, Keith Wilcox, reasons to homeschool, sibling rivalry
HEM’s Questions & Answers – January-February 2010
We were told that our little girl, age 8, is suffering from ADD by her teacher and guidance counselor. They told us that a doctor can put her on drugs to help her concentrate. My neighbor is the teacher to her children at home and she tells me that we don’t have to use any drugs if we teach at home too. My wife and mother can take turns doing the teaching so that isn’t a problem but we want to know if it’s true that this way means our little girl won’t have ADD any more. -Charlie
About HEM’s Questions & Answers
(The deadline for answers which will appear in the print magazine is Nov. 25.)
Tags: ADD, homeschooling, medication
