Homeschool Notes

A place for comments from parents of homeschoolers.

There's a lot of change going on in the schools, in the way teachers are trained and the way students are taught. Sometimes I wonder how much effect the experiences of homeschoolers who have chosen to do something completely different from traditional school - and are still 'sucessful' in both college and in life - has had on the changing attitudes in the schools.

I particularly found myself thinking about this while reading "The Passionate Learner, how teachers and parents can help children reclaim the joy of discovery' by Robert L. Fried, Beacon Press, Boston, 2001. The author, an education professor, speaks of the way children 'begin life as passionate, curious, powerful learners' but become passive and alienated from learning as they pass through school. Although the author is speaking to schoolteachers, it is interesting to read a teacher's complaints about the very problems that were at least some of the reasons many of us had for taking our children out of school (or never starting in the first place.)

I think the most useful parts of this book for homeschoolers are his discussions of the way testing and grades remove the joy and passion from learning.
--Christine

March-April 2002

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