Home Schooling Hills & Billies

You can take the billy out of the hill, but you can’t take the hill out of the billy.

I have learned this lesson through experiences with home-schooled kids. I have two home-schooled students. One student with an educated and dedicated mother is doing just fine. My other student, a sixteen year old girl, tells a different story. This kid’s mom introduced herself to me by explaining that they hadn’t done any math work for a few years because of, “oh y’know”.

For our first session I gave the student a basic skills evaluation to test her skills ranging from addition to fractions and percents. She cannot subtract numbers over 10, cannot add, subtract or multiply fractions, and did not recognize the percent sign (%). That puts her at a level near fifth or sixth grade. I have arranged for her to see an elementary ed person, since she is about two or three years away from algebra readiness. Her math deficiency came to light when mom finally faced up to the mandatory algebra testing the State requires for home school kids to get a graduation certificate. I wish them the best of luck.

The moral of the story: Don’t even think of home schooling unless you can look at yourself in your mirror and be 100% sure that (1) You are willing to devote several concentrated hours per day to your student, and more time for studying the material to keep ahead of the syllabus. (2) You have excellent knowledge of the syllabus. Hint – if you don’t remember how to solve systems of multivariate linear equations, you have some homework to do. (3) You will be willing to stick to the subject material that is the most difficult to learn.

In short, unless you feel you have the abilities and personal resources to expertly teach the high school syllabus, please keep your kids in school. If you can’t picture yourself as a teacher, don’t teach your kids.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.