From:    The Cegorach                           Area: THE_OASIS
To:      Rose Dawn                              11 Aug 97 01:15:28
Subject: Homeschooling                          UpdReq 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Rose Dawn wrote in a message to The Cegorach:
 RD> 93 Ceg!
 RD>   
 RD> Oh-tay, we're still not *totally* settled in, but I've got enuff
 RD> 'breathing room' that I'm making a start on catching up on the
 RD> mail...bear with me a bit, Ok? Prob take me a while to really get
 RD> back in the swing of thangs!  ;>   
No problem.  I've been pretty busy on the Internet lately; upgraded the puter, 
upgraded the software, finally broke down and got a homepage, etc.
For now, I'll probably only dial in to BaffleNet on my days off, i.e., 2/wk.  
We'll see how that goes.  
 > Wanna talk 'bout homeschooling for a spell?  I'm about to start, and
 > may need info....
 RD>   
 RD> Oyah? You gonna home school the kids? First off, I know every state
 RD> has different rules'n'regs about how it can be done, so dunno how
 RD> helpful I'd be on that end. I could tell ya how we do it in
 RD> Kali-fornia, but that wouldn't tell you NEthang you need to know. 
 RD> ;>
What I want to talk about is not so much the technical side, but the theory, 
etc.  
I'm aware of NC's requirements, etc., now I'm trying to do some of the 
planning etc. required.  Need to get off my ass and do it, too, as my 
daughter turns 7 in two weeks.  So I'm trying to figure out what to do beyond 
the initial filling out forms--i.e., planning a curriculum, or maybe picking 
a pre-done one; the Waldorf stuff by Rudolf Steiner doesn't look too bad; I'm 
mostly just rapidly getting tired of so much specifically Christian 
homeschooling material--i.e., don't any damned agnostics home school?
I guess I can see why most people ('round here at least) think that 
homeschools are some kind of religious freak anti-social weird shit--in the 
reference I checked, re: curriculua, only two were *not* specifically 
Christian (out of, say, 25-30); one was the Steiner program, and only 1 out 
of say 30 was *non* religious.   And, of course, the book I was reading 
basically chastised the Waldorf program a bit for being "new Agey".  
So it seems that I may have to do my own; but there are a few that emphasize 
classics heavily that I'm very interested in at first glance--they don't seem 
(at least superfically) to be Christian-specific, or (like many of the 
curricula) focus as much on religious indoctrination as in developing 
thinking skills.  I mean, hell, I have my own religious beliefs, too, but I 
don't think that's what homeschool should be--Bible class, that is.  Or AL 
class, in my case.  -:)
If nothing else, the fact that classics--i.e., Greek and Roman 
literature--are, pretty much by definition, non-Christian in origin, is 
enough to offer me a glimmer of hope.  
Larry 
The Laughing God
Love is the law, love under will. 


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