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The principal focus of this Blog is Family Guided Education, or Home
Schooling. But its purpose is to help parents and caregivers to
understand the entire landscape of "education." To do this we will
discuss all aspects of the educational environment.
At the beginning, I will be talking about my
experiences as a teacher in public middle and high schools, as a
development consultant and administrator in charter schools, and as a
tutor to individuals and small-groups tutor. But as time goes on, I
intend that the content will be driven by comments and questions from
you--the readers--whether you are parents, students, or professional
teachers.
Home Schooling is
nothing new. As
a
matter of fact, it is the oldest form of educational practice.
Education, especially in the basic skills, has been a family affair for
thousands of years. Formal education, as a profession, is a relatively
new development for the vast majority of humanity and the idea of
mandated, standardized Public Education has only become the norm for
"developed" countries in the past three hundred years or so. Until
then, the education of children was the responsibility of parents,
siblings, and the communities in which they lived--in that order!
Everything else comes from this
basic concept.
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"What
does
it
take to be a teacher?"
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"We
are
thinking of home-teaching our children but don't know the first
thing about teaching. What will it take for us to be our children's
teachers?"
Let me start by saying that anyone can be a teacher. As a matter
of record, most educators are their child's first and best teachers.
And with that said, the most important qualities needed to be a
teacher are patience, knowledge of the subject that is being taught,
and the ability and willingness to dedicate the time necessary.
Home-schooling parents, and students, actually have an advantage
over any other education environment. In most cases, the teaching is
done one-on-one. Reading, for example, is taught as a shared activity
... side-by-side ... rather than dictated by a teacher standing at in
front of a classroom.
But to teach someone to read, you need to be a reader. Ideally
you will be teaching your child to read and teach proper pronunciation
at the same time, so you will need to understand some of the structures
of your spoken and written language.
12 March 2010
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Professional
teachers often forget what it was like to not have the
training and experience which has been gained over the years. One of
the
most basic activities, planning a lesson, has become automatic for
them.
I still remember what planning my first lessons was like for me.
Fortunately, I had a
teaching mentor to explain.
Mentors are individuals who have "been there and done that."
This might be a professional teacher or another parent who has gained
experience through homeschooling their own child. They just need to be
someone to simplify everything and help you build a road map from what
you want your student to learn through the steps covering the material
to making sure the student understands what he or she has learned.
And there are any number of books and magazines which cover
general teaching techniques and even how to teach specific subjects.
14 March 2010
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