Methods and Madness

I posted a couple months ago about Transcripts and Diplomas where I talked about how I plan on graduating my children. I have looked into several university acceptance policies and the main requirement for students with a non-traditional education is good ACT/SAT scores. We are also planning on taking CLEP exams for them to earn college credit by "testing-out" of classes they excel in. I wish I would have studied harder as a high school student and done this route. It saves a lot of time and money.

New "School" Year
The law in Missouri states that home educators school years should run from July 1st to June 30th each year. This is the same "school year" we have followed in Arizona, so we finished up our binders for the 2009-2010 year and packaged them up in simple 3-ring clasp folders as we usually do. I keep these in an Archive box to use as our proof if anyone ever asks.

We are in the process this week of preparing our binders for the 2010-2011 year. You can see this post about the Binder and the Compass and My Brain where I wrote about how we set up our binders. I am working with each youth individually this year in developing their Compass. Sometimes I lump them together without thinking how they are at different levels of Scholar Phase. Chris has mentioned to me that he feels I expect the same out of him that I do out of Marlayna. Chalk this one up to another one of my mistakes. I learn so much from my kids!

Gearing Up!
Getting ready for this year has been a fairly painless process. I'm feeling more comfortable in how we work things in our schedule, curriculum, and the general flow of our lives. The main things I am still working on is choosing where to place my efforts in building the Leadership Education community and which classes/activities my children will participate in for the Fall. I have several things "simmering" and we'll have to see which ones the Lord tells me are the right ones.

Transcripts and Diplomas

I attended a homeschool conference where I attended a class with a lot of emphasis placed on record keeping for the state. The HSLDA attorney who spoke says they are greatly concerned that families in states that are not required to routinely show their records are not keeping records. Missouri requires families to keep records in case they are investigated, but we are not required to file them or show them on a regular basis. Almost every mom I talked to said they do not keep records...hhmmm. This is not compliance with the law and I want to be a law abiding citizen.

With Obama's new "National Curriculum" that he is proposing, HSLDA is concerned they will come after homeschoolers as well. They want everyone to keep good records so that there would be a strong showing of true education going on in families around the country. So, how does a TJED family keep records? Each child will have a different "plan" with different "records" at different "ages/grades". How does this translate into the kind of thing the conveyor-belt system is used to seeing/requiring?

Interestingly enough, the idea of transcripts and diplomas have been plaguing my mind even before I attended this conference. My father-in-law has asked me several times how I'm going to graduate my children. His comments come out of concern and love for my children, so I have given them great thought. In Missouri, there is no recognized "homeschool graduation" and they say homeschoolers need to take the GED for a diploma. Many homeschoolers are against this because they feel this makes their children look like high school drop-outs.

While spending some time pondering this, I ran across an article about transcripts by subject (I wish I could find the source). The mother developed a detailed transcript of each subject and gave it to the colleges her child was applying for. The list by subject included textbooks and other books used and an explanation of what they did for each subject. HSLDA has a sample transcript by subject here. The one I read about was more detailed by far (7 pages long).

I decided that I want a transcript and diploma in case we are ever questioned and to give my children a sense of accomplishment that what they are doing is going to be transferable to the world. I took books from the TJED Books for Youth and the TJED for Teens lists and made a book list for each subject. As my children read/study these books we check them off. Once an area of study has been completed during their Scholar Phase they have completed the "course". How is that different from some of my high school courses? It's not. I took Children's Literature and Mythology, which had a book list that we read and studied together, I wrote a couple of papers and then I got a grade.

Here are some examples:

Shakespeare (All Plays are read) - 1 English Credit

• The Tempest - Watched movie
• Julius Ceasar
• All's Well That End's Well - watched movie and wrote a paper
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Hamlet - attended a performance
• Othello - Wrote a paper
• Romeo and Juliet

Government (all are read) - .5 Government Credit

• The Constitution of the United States - Wrote a paper
• The Declaration of Independence - Watched a documentary on the signing
• The 5,000 Year Leap - Discussed each Principle
• The Federalist Papers

American History (all are read and some are watched/listened to) - 1 History/Social Studies Credit

• "I Have a Dream"
• "Give Me Liberty of Give Me Death"
• "The Gettysburg Address"
• "Battle Hymn of the Republic"
• "Let America Be America Again"
• The Last of the Mohicans
• The Making of America
• The Real Thomas Jefferson
• The Real George Washington
• The Real Benjamin Franklin
• Field trips to civil war sites and attended a reenactment

 I firmly believe that A Thomas Jefferson Education is transferable to the world and we can show people how successful it can be while still giving them something understandable in their terms.