I wonder if my ideals are too low. Having got hold of some English GCSE books, I realise we've done very little about literature discussions, almost no essay writing, and Daniel is years away from being able to take an English GCSE. I don't think I'd even know how to deal with an essay, even if I could persuade him to write one. He doesn't think at all the same way I do, and also gets upset at criticism.
His fiction writing is excellent but when he tries to answer fiction or English comprehension questions, even at Key Stage 3 level, they're just a sentence or two and not properly structured. He can't see the point of essays! But, other than maths, I think he'll need to be able to write them for almost all GCSEs, and will therefore need to practise beforehand.
Overall, my ideals are for the boys to love God and others, to be honest and caring, and to follow careers that will fulful them. Both the boys are bright, and in a good school would probably get plenty of GCSEs with good grades, so I do worry sometimes that they're wasting their gifts or potential by doing so little.
Just because they've stayed ahead of their age peers in maths and computer work (and, I suppose, fiction and reading skills) doesn't mean they shouldn't do other subjects. Perhaps I'm aiming much too low academically, but since I've forgotten almost all my secondary school learning, it all seems rather pointless to study things that don't interest them.
Although we're now staying with my parents in Moseley, Tim decided to continue in St Francis School for this week, since there are only three days where we have to negotiate the bus. He wanted to be in on Tuesday because of choir after school, Wednesday because of 'reading partners' where he gets to read with a Year1 boy, Thursday because of Chess, and Friday because by the time he got to Thursday he might as well stay!
But he's spent a lot of time helping the Year 2 teacher with her computer so he doesn't have to do literacy hour. And the bizarrest thing... this week his teacher has decided he's so far ahead of most of the rest of the class in maths that he can wor with the two really advanced students who are taking GCSE maths in the Summer!
This evening he told me about a couple of questions that confused them all, so we ended up having an impromptu maths session at 8.30pm where I gave Tim a crash course in simultaneous equations. He said it was wonderful, but his brain couldn't quite take it all in. So I said that when we get back, we'll find the chapters on algebra in his book, and take it a bit more slowly. I was glad he loved it as I always thought algebra was such fun.
Daniel meanwhile has been reading lots of books, and using a Photoshop package to do some picture editing. Tomorrow he's going to reconstruct some old photos of my parents' church which were in their archives, which I think he'll enjoy. Today he too was in school, helping Year 3 with LOGO, and Year 2 with another program; also sorting out network problems and typing up a 'how to' sheet for one of the classroom volunteers, showing how to save documents on the network.
The main problem with school, it seems, is that it has to be fairly rigidly structured to cope with thirty or so children at the same time. Whereas we can be so much more flexible at home. If the boys dont feel like doing something, then we leave it for the day. If they start out with enthusiasm and get bored with something, we move on to something else. If they're using a workbook or text book, I ask them which questions they think would be the most interesting and they choose them, or else (for instance in maths) I ask them how many they think would be reasonable to do, and then select the appropriate number.
I keep reminding myself that the best time to learn is when they want to know something. That's why tonight I was able to go through about a year's worth of algebra with Tim in 45 minutes. He'll need some more practice and consolidation, but he grasped the principles quickly and wanted to know more. Yet when I tried to introduce algebra to him before, he wasn't interested. This time he wanted to know... and so he took in a huge amount quickly.
Sometimes in Cyprus we realise we've done no geography for months - this happened 20 months ago when we were planning to come back for July/August 1998 and both boys were going into school for three weeks. Tim was worried he was 'behind' on geography. I happened to have the text book his class had been using for two terms, so we sat and read through and discussed the entire book, in about an hour and a half!
He said it takes so much longer n class because there's always wasted time getting out pencils, moving seats, finding the right page etc. Then half the class has forgotten what they'd done the week before. Then the teacher teaches something (for perhaps five minutes) with a bit of discussion, then they have questions to do from the book and/or worksheets, of which maybe one is interesting research or creative thinking, and the rest are just to ensure they've understood. Then most of the class drag out the 'easy' questions to 45 minutes anyway.
However, at home we can mainly concentrate on the new material, with discussion, and a look at perhaps couple of the most interesting questions. I also like that that geographical concepts occur in computer games (ike Civilization II. Caesar II, Flight Simulator etc) which gives the boys a good practical understanding anyway. Then having lived in three different countries gives a much better understanding of culture than any amount of school geography.
Back in Cyprus again. Lots of good resolutions about structuring our weeks, now that both boys are going to continue with home education for at least another year or two.
The maths book we use for Daniel is the Letts GCSE classbook, which has the full coursework (for all syllabuses, apparently), some interesting examples, and also some GCSE type questions in the back. I think we may see if he can sit maths GCSE in Summer 2001 - he's quite keen to do so, and it would be a good one to start with since maths doesn't change as much as some subjects, and doesn't rely on particular set texts!
An excellent looking English coursebook we've found is a Collins 'revise and study' GCSE English, which has sections discussing various kinds of literature, how to look at characters and how the author conveys emotions and so on, and plenty of hints about writing for exams as well as what needs to be done in coursework. It seems like a lot to me, but we can take plenty of time over it.
We're also going to study 'Twelfth Night', along with a 'Letts explore' guide, and then 'Great Expectations'. Apparently GCSE English expects two full studies of Shakespeare plays, one at Key Stage 3 level and a different one at GCSE level, as part of the coursework. I don't know how this works with IGCSE which is supposed to have less coursework, but it seems like a good principle to study some in depth, then if and when the boys want to take English GCSE, it won't be too hard to embark on another for that.
The Collins 'Revise and study' books looked superb - they were in WH Smiths and I was tempted to get several, but opted for just the English one for now. The boys are still working on history and geography at Key Stage 3 levels and I don't feel competent even to begin to help them with these GCSEs (I gave up both subjects when I was about 13!). So we'll stick with English and maths GCSE work, at least for the next year or so, and while we decide which are the best correspondence courses.
For science, we've found at last some books which look great, and ideal for use at home. I'm extremely impressed; they're called 'Physics for You' and 'Chemistry for you', published by Stanley Thornes. Both are for Key Stage 4/GCSE level, so again I'll have to take it slowly, though at least I did take O-level physics & chemistry. Richard should be able to help there too. If necessary we'll backtrack to the Key Stage 3 books, but it seems to repeat a lot of the same stuff anyway. The boys are only 13 and 11, so there's still plenty of time.
We seemed to get through quite a bit this past week. The more we continue, the more I'm combining my 'teaching' sessions to cover the same topics, and encouraging the boys to work together at their different levels. The only thing they do separately now is maths, which works because the examples in their books are directly related to the chapters we're following. Daniel is also supplementing his GCSE maths text book with the Dorling Kindersley maths revision CD-Rom.
For history, geography and RE we sit on the couch and read together through Key Stage 3 materials, stopping and discussing as necessary. Sometimes we do some further research online or using a reference CD-Rom. Sometimes they do a bit of computer work, or produce a poster or something, but mostly we just read and discuss.
We've just started doing English all together too, sometimes reading poetry, sometimes Shakespeare, sometimes looking at a GCSE English coursebook in a low-key sort of way, discussing characters and the way different authors express things. Both boys do like creative writing (on the computer) so they do their own things - either writing for magazine competitions, or working on ideas of their own, or letters to relatives, or web-page writing. I usually help them proof-read and check their spelling/grammar but try to get them to do it themselves rather than 'marking'.
The design and creation of web pages is a wonderful challenge, and can be an ongoing project. Daniel spends hours at his site, and has learned - by the by - a huge amount about programming, and maths. and English construction and graphics, as well as doing some research into programming languages. He finds it hard to finish things, and is easily distracted, but his site has given him a focus and some completable targets of his own making rather than something imposed on him from someone else. Having learned that he can finish things, he's more able to apply that principle to other things he does.
This week, Tim was working on a maths chapter about fractions and percentages, and converting between them. We read each section, and he seemed to understand easily (having assured me he'd done it all before), and then he did a couple of examples verbally for each one. No problem, I thought.
So I suggested that, rather than work on some of the examples after each section, he just do some of the 'review' at the end of the chapter. The review was mixed questions, sometimes converting percentages to fractions, sometimes the other way round, and sometimes using word problems. He got totally stuck, trying to divide where he should have multiplied, and then apparently not having any idea how to get started.
I find that kind of thing a bit confusing too, but always go back to first principles and think what I'm doing, whereas Tim rushes in and tries to apply forumulae because he was able to do that before. But he forgets which formula to apply. I feel that if I could help him to hold back a bit, and always think about what he's doing, he'd get along much more easily with maths. But when I try and say that, he groans that I'm 'lecturing', and that of course he knows that... (which, indeed, he does!) So I try not to worry. It doesn't matter what speed they learn, and the important thing is that they know how to learn.
I was encouraged that Tim picked up long division easily - so easily I was amazed, because Daniel struggled with it for ages and never really understood the principles, or how to apply them. I think there were too many stages for Daniel to be able to remember or understand, and it didnt seem logical to him. He also thought it was totally pointless, since he can always use a calculator or computer to do a complex piece of arithmetic, if he really needs to!
But when I showed Tim long division, he immediately spotted that it was a shorthand for the kind of cumulative subtraction method that's used in the Steps books; he even showed me the page in his exercise book from nearly a year ago where he'd been working out long divisions by that method. Perhaps the idea of sharing things out or dividing something up is 'obvious' to him because he has such a scrupulous belief in fairness.
I'm interested to see that, after spending a month in school, he's suddenly started (a) laying maths work out neatly (b) showing all his working (c) remembering to do an estimate to see if his answers are sensible. Why? Because his teacher in Year Six spent a lot of time in Numeracy Hour telling the class how important it was to do these things.
I'd been trying to tell him that ever since we started home education, and he considers it nagging when I do. But for some reason, when Mrs G tells the whole class, he considers it a helpful and useful comment, and remembers and applies it! Perhaps all home educated children should have the opportunity to spend a month every so often in school, so they can see the sense of things like that, and also be reassured that they aren't 'behind' - and also see for themselves that home education is a better way for them to learn.
I suppose in England it's easy enough to take GCSEs at local colleges, or at least do the exam externally at a school, and people don't feel the need for doing a lot of them. If we were in the UK I probably wouldn't worry about it either. If necessary we'd wait till Daniel was 16 and could take them free (or reduced) at somewhere like Bournville college.
But in Cyprus, now I've started asking about it, it's a lot more complicated. He might be able to take GCSEs at the British Embassy in Nicosia, or - possibly - at one of the local secondary schools. Or he could fly back to the UK and take them there, if we could find a centre that would take an external, international student.
None of those possibilities sound very hopeful. Exams are stressful enough without going to a strange place, with people he doesn't know. And it is all sounding increasingly and depressingly expensive. So I started asking on the home education lists, whether there is any alternative. I don't know if either of the boys will want to go to university, but assumed that for any career they would need at least the five core GCSEs.
It turns out that there is one American correspondence course that is validated for British universities. It's by School of Tomorrow, and the course is ACE - Accelerated Christian Education, I think it stands for. I've heard of it before, but not in very positive terms. I gather it's rigid, right-wing fundamentalist in outlook, and involves a lot of rote learning. The only positive feature seems to be that rather than exams, the students sit tests at home, which are marked by the parent and then sent to the UK for checking and validation.
At the end of the first couple of years, the student gets a certificate which is equivalent to about eight GCSEs, and if he continues for another two years he can get a certificate that's the equivalent of A-levels. Apparently a good number of British or international students with this final level of the certificate have been offered places at UK universities.
An email friend has been using ACE with her children for some years, so she sent me a few of the work-booklets (called PACEs) that they have finished with, so we could get an idea of what is involved. They do seem very rigid, with fill-in-the-blanks comprehension, although I suppose one doesn't have to do all the questions if it seems too easy. The tests at the end of each PACE are what matters.
I'm also glad we started investigating this now, because it seems that children doing this National Christian Schools Certificate programme have to do a couple of years on ACE before they do the certificate part, starting at the Year 8 level. Daniel would be in Year 8 now if he were in school, so if we decide it's a better option than GCSEs, we need to get started as soon as possible.
This issue seems to be consuming all our energy, as we consider eductional options. I'm still totally undecided. Having looked at some ACE booklets, the boys are quite keen on the idea of something definite to do each day even if it's a bit boring! And obviously if they could get some form of qualification at the end, it would be useful for them. But I don't know that it would be any cheaper than doing GCSEs by correspondence and finding exam centres - and we don't have any spare money anyway.
I had an email back from one of the ACE contacts, who says he's in contact with families doing the certification programme from as far apart as Zimbabwe and Greenland, and that it can all be done by correspondence. So, no need to exam centres, which is encouraging. The boys are still pretty keen on the idea and I'm beginning to feel 'right' about it.
We all still have the feeling that it's important for the boys to be following basic academics - even though I do agree in theory with autonomous education/unschooling. Yet the only things we do well and feel good about are the French and Greek, both of which are structured courses (Linguaphone French and online Greek).
Maths is all right, too, because it's progressive, and they're working through school text-books doing examples, so I know they're doing well. Moreoever, because I understand maths, I can explain any problems they have. But although we read history and geography text books, and some English literature, and have some quite good discussions, they're not doing any essay work or much research or thinking. Moreover, I've no idea if they'd be able to write essays, nor how to tell if their ideas are sound.
As for science, I do like the books we're using, but they raise more questions than they solve. They also tend to leave Daniel muttering, 'Science is so stupid!' - until next time anyway. I'm going to encourage him to read Asimov's 'New Guide to Science' because I think it's very well-written and even I can understand a fair bit of it. I think it would help him to see how scientific thought developed, and how physicists and chemists view the world.
But it would also be good to have some structured course that they could follow. I'm not good at setting up experiments and doing investigative science. I never enjoyed it at school and it all seems a bit pointless. But the boys would like to do some. If we were in the UK, I think they might well choose to go to the best of the local schools for the science labs, as well as things like orchestra and the art/craft rooms, and of course team sports. Daniel says he never wants to go back to school but I can see that if it was convenient, friendly (and free!) he might change his mind in a year or so.
I'm feeling very confused about the whole teenage education thing now. Having pretty much ruled out GCSEs by correspondence as too expensive, impractical, and too hard to organise from Cyprus, I'm now not certain that ACE would suit us at all. I asked about it on several home education lists I'm on, and joined two that are specifically set up to talk about ACE, and the reactions aren't altogether encouraging.
The guy who does email support at ACE itself is very friendly and helpful. I've asked him several difficult questions, which he has answered cheerfully. But I'm getting cold feet at the thought of FOUR YEARS of rigid workbooks, and the boys potentially losing their love of learning. They seem to do so many wonderful things these days, much less National Curriculum related stuff than we used to, but enough to stay ahead of average, and so much else as well.
If it weren't for the thought of qualifications, I wouldn't even consider something like ACE or any other formal curriculum. But some kind of certification seems to be a necessary evil these days. I had a look at the Northstar-UK site this evening, as one or two people have mentioned that. It looks quite interesting, with Key Stage Three and GCSE courses online, with real 'teaching' and assignments assessed via email tutors. But it's extremely expensive; besides, although they give lots of help, families still need to go back to the UK to take exams.
I love the idea of GCSE-type certification without any exams. But ACE, as far as I can gather, doesn't appear to contain any of the valuable part of GCSE work - no projects, no experiments, no creative writing...! I'm sure we'd still do those anyway to some extent, but I can't understand why universities would accept pure workbook related qualifications.
So I'm back where I started, but more uncertain. I had a look at some of the American curriculum sites, too. Some of them seem to offer 'high school diplomas' or equivalent, for much less structured courses than ACE, but none of them are really appropriate for the UK, and I can't imagine UK universities accepting them. Besides which, they all require initial large outlays of money so it's all or nothing again.
I also don't actually know if the boys will need GCSEs. I have no idea if either of them will want to go to university, or whether they might want to go to school here when they're older, or even to boarding school in the UK...
My doubts about ACE have been because I know it's workbook-based, not very creative, and rather formal, and up to now I've avoided anything resembling a curriculum. The emails I received about it were quite a mix - some people saying it's a great course and their children loved it, others saying it was very dull and they'd given up before secondary age. Some said it was thorough and very academic, others said it was nowhere near the standard of GCSEs! So all very confusing.
Anyway... after much discussion with the boys, we've more-or-less decided to try it out and register for a year. If it's a disaster, we'll follow up the Northstar route and see how that goes. But I do actually hope it will work out as I love the idea of qualifications without exams. And while it means a couple of hours of - possibly dull - workbooks each day, as someone pointed out that's what they'd be doing in homework each day if they were in school.
I have been very concerned about financing this, as, though less than the cost of GCSEs, we'd still need to shell out 350 pounds immediately for the registration, diagnostic testing, and first set of workbooks. I told God he would have to find it for us, if he wanted us to do it. The very next day, I had a letter from the DHSS in the UK saying that - after a 2-year correspondence during which I'd given up hope - we're eligible for Child Benefit while we're here, and they're going to backdate it to December 1997. Some might call it coincidence, but for me that was divine guidance and provision that was miraculous in its timing.
This month, in between our discussions about the future, the boys have been doing some autonomous learning - reading, using various computer packages for artwork, creative writing, etc - and a bit of maths from text books, as well as Linguaphone French. We also read some chapters from history and geography books and chatted about issues that arose such as rain forests, life in the 16th century, and so on.