You might ask, "shouldn't home schooled kids be learning at home?" And the answer is, "yes...and no." Although most of their studying and work is done at home, these kids come to classes 2 days a week. They have the 3 classes with me in the morning, and 2 classes (English & History) in the afternoon. We do the lecturing, experiments, "teaching" and then give them studying & assignments to do at home. If it sounds like college to you, you're on the right track...it's a university model school. So the class set-up is a lot like college. The other interesting thing is that the kids aren't required to take all 5 classes...their parents can choose which classes they want them to take, & which ones they would rather teach them at home. So, although there are 7 students, I only have 3 in Math. The other students are either below level in Math or have another reason that their parent chose to teach them this subject at home.
As I get further into teaching in this setting, my thoughts about homeschooling are continually changing. I have actually thought a lot about whether I would want to homeschool Adley, although this decision is a few years away still, and I tend to go back and forth. There are pros and cons to all kinds of schooling, public, private & homeschool. But this new idea of having some classes with other kids & some at home is starting to grow on me. There are several schools that I know of that have adopted this model around Houston, and the people that I have talked to who's kids are in this model really seem to love it! Perhaps it's a growing model across the US, but it is definitely an intriguing idea that I'll keep in mind for the future!
