Friday, March 30, 2007

My kids have always been home educated by me. I love having them home but at times I'm thinking why in the world would the Lord have picked me to teach my kids.

And then I go through the questions... Where are they supposed to be? How do they compare to the public school? Am I totally messing them up? Are they learning at the pace they should be? Is it wrong that I'm not teaching the capitals of every country in the world, geometry, trig, and the theory of relativity to my kindergartner?

Ok, I'm not that bad, but when I look at people that seem to really have this homeschooling thing down I feel that way. We homeschooling parents are constantly putting a lot of pressure on ourselves.

So this year my kids are virtual schooled.

Actually that pretty much means nothing except that the kids are counted as public school kids, the are able to join band, sports, field trips, and have general access to the school. The also provide us with a computer, curriculum, and a teacher/tutor as we see fit. The school has worked very well with us and we are able to use as much or as little of the curriculum as we see fit as long as we are supplementing with something comparable. We supplement a lot. Actually most of it is supplemented.

All that to say we are public schooling at home and so the kids did the state mandatory testing. My kids have never been tested for their grade ability so I was actually looking forward to this to see where I need to improve or where the kids are doing well. I am well aware of the pros, cons, and controversy of testing but I just wanted to know.

We got the results this week and both kids tested (it starts in the 4th grade) were proficient or advanced in all areas. Woo hoo! This is not bragging by any means, this is a huge sigh of relief. Maybe I'm not totally messing my kids up. I still don't strongly rely on testing but it is nice to know where I need to concentrate a little more and what the kids strengths are to help develop that. Ok, enough already.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Job well done, De. And it's not a crime to test. As long as we recognize that it's a tool and a tool only, it can be helpful in planning for the year to come.
Blessings,
~Toni~

KarenW said...

We always wonder, don't we? It's nice to get some comfirmation that we are doing somethings right. Congrats on the great scores.