While perusing a forum for homeschoolers, I stumbled across a discussion about whether some people aren't qualified to homeschool. The overall opinion seemed to be it didn't matter. As homeschoolers we should support each other no matter what, otherwise those opposed to homeschooling can tear us down and more easily take away our right to educate our own children. Although this opinion probably won't make me popular, I must cry hogwash. What pulls us down is not standing up and disowning those who are irresponsible are “bad” homeschoolers.

Don't believe me? Let's look at Christianity in this country as an example. For many years, all Christians stood in solidarity together, even if their beliefs had core differences. This has resulted in a public relations nightmare. Eventually, us non-Christians began to see all Christians as intolerant, crazy wackos because the wackos were the vocal majority. 

It's only in the last few years that the normal, sane Christians have realized the error of forced solidarity and have begun standing up to declare that not all Christians are hate mongering fools of the Westborough ilk. It is going to take many more years of normal Christians loudly proclaiming their normalcy before the damage is undone. Normal vegetarians are also suffering the negative PR because of early solidarity with extremist groups like PETA, and environmentalist groups are suffering from the actions of crazy fringe groups as well.

As a homeschooler, I am loud that not all of us pull our kids to teach them biblical myths about science and history. I am also loud about the fact we I homeschool because I want my children to have a more rigorous education than that found in most public schools. I am loud about being a normal parent, not a denim jumper-wearing baby machine. I scream from the rooftops, when necessary, that not all homeschoolers are fundamental Christians.

Personally, I do believe some people shouldn't homeschool. Those not willing to spend hours every day learning with their kids should send their kids to school. Those trying to shield their children from real facts and raise them in a religious myth la-la land probably shouldn't be doing it. I don't care if you teach your myths as facts as long as you also present the real facts, factually of course, but not all do so. I think those pretending to unschool when really they are just letting their kids do whatever they want should not be allowed to homeschool. (To clarify, true unschooling, which takes a lot of work on the parent's part, is legitimate homeschooling.)

I'm sorry, but I can't and I won't in good conscious stand in solidarity with all homeschoolers. Not just because I don't agree with their educational philosophy, but because I believe that some methods are hurting their children and society as a whole. Self regulating ourselves and agreeing to minor regulation to weed out poor homeschoolers willingly seems like a much better deal to me than a generation of poorly educated homeschoolers causing us to lose all rights to educating our children.

Funnily enough, the ones I see protesting annual testing the most are typically those that fall into the “bad homeschooler” category. I live in a mandatory testing state. Our kids don't have to show they are performing at public school level, only that they are gaining some new knowledge each year. Special needs kids have minimal testing requirements and the tests are even less rigorous. You can still teach your kids some BS, but you can't get away with a fact-free education or skipping education entirely.

Practice makes perfect, and there is no where that this is more true than in reading. One of the most frustrating periods of learning, for both the kids and the teacher, is when the child understands and can implement the major reading rules but hasn't yet mastered them sufficiently for fluency. The length of this period varies between children, which is why the early school years results in classes with reading abilities all over the map.

With my kids, I focus on reading for 60 to 90 minutes a day, although further practice sneaks in throughout our regular learning. We spend about 10 minutes reviewing rules or going over new ones, then my son launches into word work. In a classroom setting, you could have word work stations for the kids to rotate through, but in our small homeschool we use plastic tubs on a shelf.

On Pinterest and teacher blogs, you can find a million free word work activities, but we have settled on a few favorites. I try to rotate in something new every few weeks to keep it fresh. For reading and word activities, we have a scrabble like game. I made letter tiles with craft foam. My son uses the tiles to spell words. Each letter is only worth one point, unless he tries to spell words from a special word list, such as days of the week, months, number words or color words. Those letters are worth two points. For every 100 points he gets to pick something from a treasure chest.

We also have the writing work tub. It holds a stationary set so he can write letters (we even have a tin can mail box to “mail” the letters. I actually mail those written to real people, from family members to Astronauts and authors). We have a supply of handmade mini-blank books for writing our own books and we also have fancy pens with colorful ink for basic writing practice.

Word work takes up to 30 or 45 minutes some days. We also spend at least 30 minutes actually reading. He must read to me or his brother for at least 20 minutes, and read to himself for 10 to 20 minutes, depending on his stamina that day and the difficulty of the book.

Donald Trump’s big announced seemed to be nothing more than trying to get some of the limelight to himself. What better way to eat up the media attention than circulate reports about a possible bombshell being dropped about President Obama?

I suppose reading Obama’s college transcripts and his passport application would be interesting and solve some of the problems for a substantial minority of Americans. But, if we go by what the non-partisan website Factcheck.org has to say, presidents usually don’t release these types of records.

Even the transcripts that were obtained from George W. Bush and John Kerry were actually leaked by the press rather than being released by Bush and Kerry.

I was quite disappointed about the Trump announcement because I expected something bigger. It merely served to rehash a few unimportant issues that were already out there. Unimportant because even if President Obama was going to do what Trump asked him to do, he would not make the conspiracy theories go away altogether.

President Obama predictably brushed it off on Jay Leno’s show with jokes about him have a beef with Trump that dates back to their childhood days in Kenya.

I guess the media and people like me have encouraged this type of self-promotion from the business magnate. It seems like anything that Trump does or talks about is newsworthy. The problem is that with antics like this it makes Trump appear to be the ‘clown’ that right-winger Michelle Malkin aptly called him.

I don’t think Trump is helping the Republican cause with announcements such as these as it is going to make the American people hate people like him more. His ‘I will give $5M to the charity of Obama’s choice’ is the type of elitist comments that Romney is trying to steer clear off.