Thoughts on Television in the Home

(This is the 2nd email forward that my husband has sent me in 10 years, so you know it must be important!)

The Stranger

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.

As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger... He was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies. He made me laugh, and he made me cry.

Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home - not from us, our friends or any visitors. After our long time visitor stayed longer he became more daring however, and even got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn't permit the liberal use of alcohol but the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing..

I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked... And NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents' den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.
His name?....

We just call him 'TV.' 

Is it still "homeschool" if you aren't at home?

My kids' learning is based at home. We do the 3R's, Reading, wRiting, and aRithmatic at home and at each child's own pace. We also learn Spanish, art, Bible, science and history at home but spend an equal amount of time out of the house studying those topics.

Weekly homeschool co-op:

Visit to a Dairy Farm

We really enjoy learning Spanish using La Clase Divertida. However, there is nothing like sitting in a small group of people and practicing those conversational skills. That is difficult to do at home where there are children of widely different ages and ability levels, so we attend a homeschool co-op one morning per week that includes conversational Spanish. The boys are in separate classes divided by maturity/academics rather than age group, so each child feels comfortable with material presented in class. 

One of the moms in the co-op has a real passion for science and does a good job of engaging the children in discussion about science topics. Each class has 8 students so when they do science experiments, each child can be active for all or part of the lesson.

Museums:

We live in a medium-size city that contains many museums and historical sites. A two hour drive in any direction takes us to larger cities with even more opportunities for my kids to see relics from the history book we usually study. School groups will usually visit one museum per school year but we can go several times per year depending on the topics we are studying at home.

It isn't easy to get "hands on" with the ancient history we are learning in Story of the World, Volume One; but there is a full scale model of the Parthenon nearby and one of our universities has a permanent collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts.

Our local art museum offers a monthly class to help homeschoolers get an in depth look at some of the pieces in the collection and a chance to use different media.

I want to give my children an education that is rooted in real life experience as much as in books. The term "homeschool" is too limited. The popular terms "life school" seems too broad and "unschool" describes what we aren't doing instead of what we are doing. Maybe we need a new word to explain what we are doing to help our kids learn about their world.

I would love any appropriate suggestions!