BLENDING HOME STUDY WITH SCHOOL PROGRAMS
Kids can have it all when parents do the teaching
When school is at home, learning can happen wherever and whenever the mood strikes. Calgary mom Alisha Brignall wouldn’t do it any other way.
“The end of public school for me was when my son wasn’t encouraged to learn about things that were outside the classroom. My goal for my kids is to have a love of learning,” says Brignall, who has four children.
The Brignalls left their neighbourhood school for the Calgary Board of Education’s Blended Program at Windsor Park School, a combination of parent-directed learning at home and a school program. Her school-aged children go to the school six days a month in addition to home study.
“You have a facilitator who makes sure you’re educating your child — it’s very much a team environment.” Brignall explains. “The kids still have outside influence from a teacher and I know they’re having fun with kids their own age.”
She uses the term “unschooling” to describe her methodology at home. The children spend just 15 to 20 minutes a day with bookwork.
“When they grasp a concept, we move on,” she says. School also continues through the summer, the optimal time to study science outdoors or to conduct experiments that might “explode in the kitchen.”
“It’s a lifestyle. Whatever our kids are interested in learning, we expose them to that topic as much as possible, and we still manage to hit all the Alberta outcomes,” she says.
Home-schooling provides enrichment for the Brignall crew, but parents choose this alternative education for a variety other reasons. Children with learning challenges or those who find a full day of school too much often benefit from home instruction that’s not on a clock.
Elite student athletes, performing arts students, kids battling serious illness or children with unresolvable social issues at school sometimes choose home education, with or without parental involvement.
The CBe-learn program offers public education online for junior and senior high school students. Children are connected to a facilitator and all parents have to do is keep the Wi-Fi humming.
CBe-learn assistant principal Monti Tanner says 26 per cent of online learners are doing all of their studies online with the other 74 per cent taking some online classes and some traditional high school classes.
“Some are taking a fourth year of high school as a strategy for postsecondary. We even have transgender students who are transitioning. But athletes, students who are travelling or are in and out of medical treatment are typical,” says Tanner.
Calgary’s Catholic School District also offers both online learning and a blended program from the St. Anne Academic Centre in Ramsay. It also offers a true home school program, where parents have full responsibility for their child’s education with the assistance of a home study teacher. Families must qualify for these streams just as if they were enrolling in their local school.
Communications specialist Karen Ryhorchuk with the Catholic district says less than one per cent of students in the system take advantage of these alternative programs.
“It gives them an option should something else not work for them at their home school,” she says.
Home-schooling is often a decision for parents who want to include more character development or for reasons of faith.
“Some parents believe that when God says to raise your child in the way he should go, He means home education,” says Jennie Van Hooft, acting principal-at-large at Roots Christian Home Education Fellowship (CHEF).
There are 265 Grade 1 to 12 students in southern Alberta enrolled in the Roots CHEF program, which is one of several faith-based school boards offering education and support to parents in the province. Parents make their own home education plans for the year and many don’t follow the Alberta curriculum. By the time students start looking at university some need to take required 30-level courses through Alberta Distance Education.
Van Hooft says students do extremely well at home, which is a nod to parents who make that sacrifice. She offers advice to parents who are considering homeschooling but wonder how they’ll make their children co-operate when they can’t even get them to clean their rooms.
“It happens best if parents start right from the very beginning instead of pulling them out in Grade 7,” says Van Hooft, a home school parent herself.
“Parents have been teaching their children all along. Colours, counting, potty training. Homeschooling is a lifestyle — you incorporate everything into your program plan.”
Home-school mom Alisha Brignall is organizing a free conference for secular home-schooling parents scheduled for Sept 9. at Fort Calgary. The conference website is inspiredcalgary.com