Converting serious lit into big business

[cecilia_writer]

What an interesting and wide-ranging discussion this has turned into. Sorry to be jumping in when it's progressed so far already. I just wanted to say something about home-schooling/hone education. I'm always interested to hear people's experience of it. I had to take one of my sons out of school when he was about 12 because he became so anxious about going that it was more or less a phobia, although in fact he didn't see it as a phobia but as a reasonable reaction to an impossible situation. The school authorities were unable to offer any solution so we were on our own.
Anyway, once we got past these initial stages of panic and disbelief, we just got on with it. I am not sure how feasible it would have been if he had been interested in science or engineering or anything practical, but he had always been a voracious reader (and still is) and interested in a kind of philosophical approach to things, i.e. he thinks a lot!. We took part in some group events, including a holiday, with a home education organisation, we wrote plays together for a youth drama group and he also acted in them, and in his later teens he took some exams at a local college. He was writing all the time too. He then went to university and graduated with 1st class honours in English, published a book, won some short film competitions with a group of friends, and now works in communications.
Although I happened to be a qualified history teacher, in this role I was more of a facilitator, searching out places we could visit, books to use, etc. He had to teach himself for a lot of the time as I was the sole earner in the family for some years and had to go to work. He is still quite an anxious person in certain situations but he has good friends and gets on well at work.
In some cases I suggested books for him to read (at last she gets to the point!) and in others he found them himself. I remember him doing a project on the works of Orwell for one of his exams, for instance, though generally he liked fantasy and grew up waiting for the next Harry Potter book. He and some friends run a book club now and I'm always surprised by their random choices of reading.

[Hopscotch]

What Cecilia accomplished is fabulous, and I'm no way a home schooling advocate.  Cheers to her and her son! 

[Bill Hiatt]

Yes, Cecilia sounds exactly like the kind of parent who could make home schooling work well.

Her son's inclinations and goals also seem well-suited. If you want to be in a creative field, and your home-schooling parent is already in such a field, that's a really good fit.

It's also good to be aware that there are home schooling organizations out there that can be really helpful, particularly with group activities and socialization.

[Vijaya]

Cecilia, hats off to you and your son! We had friends in CA who started homeschooling due to the violence in schools. This was back in the 80s when there weren't very many resources for homeschooling parents and they had very little support. Their kids thrived. Now I know many who homeschool and our parish has a homeschool co-op and it's been beautiful to see how well the kids are growing both in academics, not just in the humanities either, and in virtue. It brings to mind the truth that parents are really and truly the first educators and they need to remain so. Even when a child is in school, the parents need to be involved. I was always grateful that for us (even in my childhood), school was an extension of the home with the same values.

[cecilia_writer]

Thanks for these lovely comments. I am not generally an advocate of home schooling, and my son himself used to speculate about the education system and thought a network of smaller schools closer to home might work better tban the fewer, larger schools we have here..Of course then you get into the argument about economies of scale, ranges of subjects offered etc, though I suppose with online learning these might not loom so large. Certainly there must have been other schools where he might have settled down, but in Edinburgh it can be very hard to get into a school outside your designated area, particularly if it's a good / popular one. For balance I should say that my older son went right through the official school system and did at least as well as his brother though in a different field (he works in high performance computing in a university).

[Jeff Tanyard]

What an interesting and wide-ranging discussion this has turned into. Sorry to be jumping in when it's progressed so far already. I just wanted to say something about home-schooling/hone education. I'm always interested to hear people's experience of it. I had to take one of my sons out of school when he was about 12 because he became so anxious about going that it was more or less a phobia, although in fact he didn't see it as a phobia but as a reasonable reaction to an impossible situation. The school authorities were unable to offer any solution so we were on our own.
Anyway, once we got past these initial stages of panic and disbelief, we just got on with it. I am not sure how feasible it would have been if he had been interested in science or engineering or anything practical, but he had always been a voracious reader (and still is) and interested in a kind of philosophical approach to things, i.e. he thinks a lot!. We took part in some group events, including a holiday, with a home education organisation, we wrote plays together for a youth drama group and he also acted in them, and in his later teens he took some exams at a local college. He was writing all the time too. He then went to university and graduated with 1st class honours in English, published a book, won some short film competitions with a group of friends, and now works in communications.
Although I happened to be a qualified history teacher, in this role I was more of a facilitator, searching out places we could visit, books to use, etc. He had to teach himself for a lot of the time as I was the sole earner in the family for some years and had to go to work. He is still quite an anxious person in certain situations but he has good friends and gets on well at work.
In some cases I suggested books for him to read (at last she gets to the point!) and in others he found them himself. I remember him doing a project on the works of Orwell for one of his exams, for instance, though generally he liked fantasy and grew up waiting for the next Harry Potter book. He and some friends run a book club now and I'm always surprised by their random choices of reading.

That's a nice success story, Cecilia.   

[Lorri Moulton]

I had a professor who taught European history from the French Revolution to WWI.  The first day of class, he said we only had to remember 5 dates (and only the YEARS). 

1789, 1815, 1848, 1870, and 1914. 

And we'd better know in what section of that timeline events occurred.  It was a great class! 

[cecilia_writer]

I had a professor who taught European history from the French Revolution to WWI.  The first day of class, he said we only had to remember 5 dates (and only the YEARS). 

1789, 1815, 1848, 1870, and 1914. 

And we'd better know in what section of that timeline events occurred.  It was a great class!

Excellent! As a history graduate this is my favourite era and I like his choice of dates.

[Bill Hiatt]

my son himself used to speculate about the education system and thought a network of smaller schools closer to home might work better than the fewer, larger schools we have here. Of course then you get into the argument about economies of scale, ranges of subjects offered etc, though I suppose with online learning these might not loom so large.

Ah, yes, practical constraints often limit what the best approach would be.

My former school district was relatively small (four K-8 schools and one high school). The 6-8 parts were fundamentally separate middle schools existing on the same campuses as elementary schools. In the very old days, when the district had loads of cash, it could make four small middle schools work with complete programs. As money became more scarce, it became harder and harder to do that. A few years back, the district created one middle school because it just couldn't offer complete programs any more. There was some discussion of making the middle schools magnets for different subject areas, but that proved to be too complicated to set up. (And kids that age often changed their mind about what they wanted to focus on, a potentially even bigger problem.)

I've seen the same problem when large schools suffer declining enrollment. The smaller the student population, the more tendency there is to lose programs because not enough of the remaining students are interested, and the more difficult it is to schedule students. (Classes that used to be offered every period no longer are, and more classes are offered only once, forcing a lot of tough choices.)

With regard to online classes, they are a good supplement, but I've yet to see an online program that provides everything in-person schooling can. The personal touch really makes a difference, especially for struggling students.