The Relaxed Home School: A Family Production

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Genre: Home Schooling; United States; Education; Education / Teaching;

Average Review: 4.5 stars

Review: Just Relax : Mary Hood, the author of ""The Relaxed Home School has a PhD in Education and is a popular workshop speaker and editor of a newsletter with the same name as her book's title. At the time the book was released (5 years ago), she had been home schooling for 12 years, I was interested in reading her book because she and her family reside in Georgia, as I currently do, and I thought that would give me more insight into home schooling in my state. The author's point introduces a middle ground or "third approach" to what were the current home schooling styles, having too much or too little structure. I can identify with this approach because I like the idea of un-schooling, (allowing the child to explore and learn on their own), but I fear that in my families quest for excellence, important lessons would go left unlearned. At the same time, I don't see the point of home schooling if one is going to duplicate a classroom setting. The book is written from Mary Hood's point of view, and in a style that is second nature to her and her family. From the front cover to the table of contents to each chapter introduction, at first glance you would think this book was a review on the theatre. The hood family is heavily in the fine arts, with artists, musicians and actors in their family. "In their spare time, they enjoy participating in community theatre and playing music together." The table of contents is the first clue that portrays how theatre is second nature in this family. It is as follows: Introduction: this chapter explains her point of view of using the middle ground approach versus the two possible extreme styles The production Crew: Discusses how a play the family in participating in is still surviving in spite of the producer's hospitalization. It goes on to correlate and parallel how a well-run family home school should mirror this kind of structure where everyone understands their roles and works together cooperatively for a successful performance. Writing the Script: This chapter correlates the writing of a Script with a home school's Philosophy of education. Such a philosophy would include a family's worldview, their ideas about learning, and their goals, including goals for each child, methods, and materials. Setting the Stage: This chapter compares the stage manager to the mother or person who is actually doing the teaching. It discusses emotional preparedness, temporal preparedness (time-related), and physical organization (household management) Act I. Natural Literacy: This chapter suggests an absurdness of every child learning to read and write on the same timetable. There is no theatre comparison here, but an imaginary example of what would happen if the school system were in charge of teaching children to speak as well. Act II. A Living Curriculum: This chapter discussed the different subjects like science, math and the arts and the relaxed way to go about teaching these subjects. The Ms. Hood suggests using a living curriculum "that does not break the real world into bits and pieces known as subject areas". Rather she suggests that curriculum be allowed to "flow out of everyday life" revolving around current events and interests of family members. On to Broadway! : With this chapter the author returns to comparing the theatre to home schooling. This chapter discusses a Childs future option in life. A child has to make a choice between preparing for future academics or a straight to career path. She does warn though that since she had not "graduated" a child at the point at which the book was written that her advice is to be take cautiously. Answering the Critics: This chapter compares the morning after opening night reviews with the reviews home schoolers regularly face. It discussed how to prepare for such reviews by practicing for tests and keeping accurate records. Postscript: No OBE for me: This final chapter of "The Relaxed Home School", departs from the subject of home school and briefly explains the authors feelings on Outcome Based Education initiative that are becoming the standards in schools today. It suggests that OBE is an affront to traditional values and "is going to be one f the biggest fights that we have ever witnessed in the educational area". This chapter is strictly her opinion, and too short to prove her claims that the government is attempting to take over teaching of morality to our children. However I do agree with her that such a morality would be purely subjective and dangerous, and that we should all do our homework, and look into it as she suggests. "The Relaxed Homes School, written in 1997 is not the most up to date home schooling book one can currently find. Many home school styles have been introduced since the publication of Ms. Hood's book, but most methods with their fancy names and methodologies fall somewhere between the two extremes just as this book suggests. Being only 99 pages long, this is the perfect book to pass on to those curious about the average home school experience. This will be the book that I give to my husband to read so that we can begin to develop our plans of actions and discuss our respective goals. Though the book is outdated, there is updated information by and about this author at her website relaxedhomeschool.com, and her newsletter the "The Relaxed Home School" Before I read this book, I felt a bit conflicted and compelled to choose a learning style. Now I feel a little more relaxed (un-intentional pun) about the whole situation, but I am still looking for some true examples of after home schooling success, which no book, including this one, has been able to show me up to date.