I was given a link to a homeschooling blogpost that has a lot of wonderful information for homeschooling parents. It occured to me that, of course, school parents very often share the same love of learning and interest in furthering their kids interests that homeschooling parents do so I thought I'd share the post here.

15 Common Characteristics of Successful Homeschoolers

From the post;

Keep your promises to your children. We all respect people who keep their word, and we dismiss those who don't. Knowing that, why would you make a promise to your child that you could not or would not keep? Don't use a promise as a leverage for learning unless you intend to keep it. If you don't keep it, it will make a liar out of you. Do you want your child to respect you? Then be honest, truthful, and don't make promises lightly. They are not negotiable. If you do make a promise, keep it.

I really think it's the kind of advice and reminders we all could use when we're trying to raise thoughtful, curious kids. I'm sort of over the 'which education approach is better' phase and am more interested in what our different experiences can offer each other.

By Nicki on Friday, August 24, 2007 - 04:36 pm:

Thanks for sharing, Dawn. I especially liked her point about grading. I have always felt it would be better to point out the positive and get rid of those red pens! It brought to mind a teacher I had full time for both 5th and 6th grade. She was near retirement and clearly had lost her enthusiasm, so to make her job easier, she used to have all her students correct and grade each others work. Oh, how I dreaded handing my paper to the person behind me, envisioning it coming back to me with the awful red marks. It was one thing to make mistakes, but to have your classmates see them as well was so humiliating. Up until that time, I loved school, but after those two years my attitude changed, and not for the better. So, I really agree with a more positive approach. This blog is great.:-)

By Dawnk777 on Friday, August 24, 2007 - 09:49 pm:

I had a professor in college, who was so encouraging. For papers and tests, he just had different degrees of positive comments. I flourished in his class. I don't think he had a bad bone in his body and I don't think he could have said a bad thing to anybody. I had him 2 semesters for Growth and Development I and Growth and Development II. I did wonderfully in both classes and loved the teacher! What was even better was we could decide for ourselves how important tests would be and how important the major paper would be. I made my tests worth as little as possible and made my paper the most important thing. I knew I could do a really good job, on the paper and loved not having to worry about that final exam. (The final was only worth 10% of my grade and the paper worth 50%, or something like that!)

I know, within the constraints of going to school, that doing homework in the evening, wasn't always my kids "best" time to do homework. There were times I told a frustrated child, that they should go to bed, and pick it up in the morning, before school. In the morning, the problems of the night before would have been erased and the homework went much more easily and often finished before the bus came (or in time for me to drive them to school.)