Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
Homeschooling is a great boon. Our RishiKul page is also called The Homeschooling Homepage and was the first such on the WWW, in 1994. It was guru dakshina (gift to the teacher) from our elder son upon his completion of homeschool.
The substance pages are all the same. There are just these two differently named doors to them: Sri Sathya Sai Virtual RishiKul and The Homeschooling Homepage. The curriculum or substance pages are all the same and organized/integrated to a ramification of the Sarva Dharma Symbol for academic purposes that I did dating from the mid-1980s. You will see, I hope, that the thing is dynamic.
The first thing about homeschooling is to get within the state’s statutes in re same. The next thing to do is to adjust/develop curriculum — what I call Phenomena to Study — to suit your goals and the child’s needs. Instead of doing homeschooling as schooling at home, which many do (desks, time-schedules, etc.), we had a core competency we insisted upon — reading, algebra — and from there watched carefully what I call the child’s inner necessity and moved resources to bring that out to blossom and fruit. This is a familiar pedagogical principle.
As the child gets near high school age, they need resources for their inner necessity which the parents likely cannot entirely provide. Our second son, for example, needed advanced math and engineering work. Mine is in theology. So fortunately WA statutes let homeschoolers attend public school part-time and this was a great blessing. Then at 16 he entered Project Running Start, a WA program initiated by Boeing and other high-tech Cos, which let him do college or technical college as a high schooler and paid for by the state. So he entered the Academy with an AAS degree (two year) in Civil Engineering. Our elder son did the same program in diesel mechanics and has been with Cummins since he was 18. Full union scale and benefits and will be earning more than Mary and I do within a year and a half. He is 20.
The point is to use the resources around, especially as they are state-funded. I never had the anti-establishment attitude of many homeschoolers. I told them I am the establishment, that plenty of establishment people were homeschooled — which is true — and that I am going to do education and do not care where or from whom it comes so long as the source is not immoral or illegal. You see my attitude. It works very nicely. Education is education and the key to life. So do it when and where and how, is my attitude, given caveats just mentioned.
The only things we insisted on in the homeschool “curriculum” was reading and algebra. I am sure I do not need to mention why I consider these fields important. We found, also, that for arithmetic there really is not a substitute for straight old-fashioned memorization of the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division tables up to 9 and a little farther for some of those functions. And finally, the most important mathematical concept I feel is that of the proportion, which is the root of algebra, so I did a lot of coaching for the guys to grasp the concept of a proportion, which is a dynamism.
Theologians of consequence are crypto-mathematicians and almost all the great mathematicians were “clergy” broadly defined or sons or daughters of clergy, again broadly defined. Pythagoras himself was a monastic founder. I regard theology and mathematics as synonyms, but that is probably hyperbole for most tastes.
Update 1: Matthew Hennessey: Homeschooling In The City
Update 2: Megan Fox: 8 Reasons Homeschooling Is Superior To Public Education
Update 3: Homeschooled with MIT courses since 5, accepted to MIT at 15.
Update 4: The Gift of Marriage and the Proper Role of Parents in the Education and Formation of Their Children
Update 5: Factory Model School
Update 6: Updates to Department of Education and Department of Justice Guidance on Title VI
Update 7: First space, then auto—now Elon Musk quietly tinkers with education
Update 8: Are Homeschoolers Over-Qualified?
My comment: Our three homeschoolers were like that and that was 22 years ago. I made sure none of them went to college or university. I also made sure none of them asked for a job where they would be told they were overqualified, because it was well-known to homeschoolers then that such situations existed. Conclusion: this son has had poor guidance from his parents.
Update 9: America’s Homeschooling Mothers Are Leading Our Next Revolution
Related: I’m going to go way, way out — some will say way, way away — and observe that Boris Johnson owes his new-found opportunities to two Trumps: Melania and Ivanka.
Update 10: Mckenna Dallmeyer: Harvard ‘anti-homeschooling’ event ‘cancelled’ amid conservative backlash
Update 11: Sarah Imgrund: Homeschooling scholar-mom takes on Harvard prof who wants to crack down on homeschooling
Update 12: Daniel Payne: Homeschool searches at hits 5-year high
Update 13: J.D. Tuccille: Viewpoint Diversity Gets a Boost as Families Flee Public Schools
Update 14: Misty Severi: Homeschooling on the rise amid COVID-19 pandemic
J. D. Tuccille: Forget Classroom Battles: Homeschooling Is Easier Than Ever
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
