You are invited to come and spend a night at the theatre!
Seven families from our Manukau Homeschool Support group are involved in the production and performance of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. They would be delighted if you would come and support their efforts.
Please feel free to circulate this invitation to other groups, family, friends and other contacts.
31 October 2009 Refresh Conference for Women in Nelson
Don’t miss the rest of the Australian conferences in you are in one of these areas. You wont be disappointed, you will be challenged and encouraged in your home education:
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Refresh E-Brochure
For present or future home educating mothers
Nelson, New Zealand
Saturday 31 October 2009
Hope Community Church, Ranzau Road, Hope
Come and be refreshed
As mothers we are always so busy serving, loving, teaching, cherishing
and supporting that we need time to stop, reflect and be refreshed.
This day conference will provide you with an opportunity to do just this.
“Our days look like the scrap floor of a studio, frayed bits of work,
remnants snipped off family, a heap of countless fabrics – ministry,
creativity, worship, volunteerism. We’re ripped into pieces , and putting our
lives together again is like stitching a crazy quilt – driving us a bit crazy.”
Ann Voskamp.
Yet, God is weaving our lives from above into one seamless fabric.
Come and be encouraged by sitting at His feet and learning His ways…
”that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.” Acts 3 :19
Conference Programme
Venue Hope Community Church, Ranzau Road, Hope, Nelson.
9.00am Venue open
9:30am Welcome & Worship
10.00am “Enjoy the Flavour.” – Karen Dawson
10:45am Morning tea
11:05am “Getting organized.” – Ruth Hattingh (DVD format from Heart Conference).
12:15pm Lunch (Fill out question slips for “Ask the panel”)
1:15pm Craft time “Love on a Wire” – Corene Newth & Lisa Ferguson
2:30pm “Three Strands.” – Kim Perks
2:45pm “What to do when puberty comes knocking at your children’s door” – Alison White
3.00pm Afternoon tea
3:30pm “How to nurture a love of literature in your home” – Gabrielle Blakemore
3:45pm “Feeding your family from your own backyard.” – Elaine Borger
4.00pm “Have your cake and eat it too!” – Yolande Tzinavos
4:15pm Panel Discussion
5:30pm Dinner (Please complete feedback form)
6:30pm Drama: “Life in the Bull’s house.”
6:45pm “View from the Mountains” – Phillipa Ashton
7:30pm Closing Remarks & Supper
All are welcome. This is a non-denominational conference.
All topics will be addressed from a Christian world view.
Conference Information
Registration Form
Cost $ 40.00
Early Bird – $ 35.00 (If received before 30 September 2009)
All meals, teas, venue hire and craft included in cost.
To Register Complete the form below and return with a cheque made payable to Nelson
Christian Home Schoolers: c/o Hannah Batt, 74 Whitby Road Wakefield 7025.
Payments can be made by direct credit to Nelson Christian Home Schoolers, Bank
ANZ account no. 01 0677 0126350 00. Please indicate your name on the payment.
For out of town visitors, billets can be arranged.
Enquiries All Billet enquiries to Angela Taylor – 03 541 9065 or email j.e.l.taylor@xtra.co.nz
All other Enquiries to Hannah Batt – 03 541 8084 or email hannah.batt@gmail.com
Registration Form
Surname Given name
Name badge to read
Address
Tel ( ) Mobile
Email
Method of payment: Direct Credit* Cheque
Billet required? Yes No
* If paying by direct credit please email your details
to Hannah Batt at hannah.batt@gmail.com
http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/09/08/no-more-homeschooling-way-too-religious/
We are not happy to have our photo associated with this somewhat negative article. The Canvas Magazine, the weekend magazine of the NZHerald, took this photo about 18 months ago and didn’t use it then.
We would like to see some positive comments about Home Education on this NZHerald blog.
Original article at:
I have to say that the day my fairly conservative husband came home and wondered out loud if homeschooling was a good idea made me stop dead in my tracks.
It’s one of those options that I have always thought of as extreme. An extreme lifestyle choice, and a total career 180 degree turn for a woman in her most competitive years.
Heck, putting your foot on the pedal for 3-5 years while the kids are little is hard enough. But devoting potentially 12 years to their education at home, having them underfoot 24-7? I couldn’t imagine it for my own part – and I swiftly told my dearly beloved this – and wondered aloud back to him if it was in some way detrimental to have the kids cooped up with me for longer than strictly necessary.
Ali had cottoned onto the benefits of homeschooling when he’d done this story about a group of local home-schooled kids who had made an award winning robot and were about to go to America to compete in an extremely prestigious robotics competition.
These guys’ families were part of a well established, tight-knit group of home schoolers currently operating outside the New Zealand school system. Then I came across this article from Salon.com written recently by a husband whose unconventional-sounding wife has made the decision to homeschool the couple’s twins because they felt it unnecessary for the children to come into line with the regular school day (week and year) at their relatively tender age of 5.
The family in this article are teaching two of some 1.5 million US home-schooled kids, and interestingly, statistics on the matter – such as they are – suggest only a third embark on homeschooling for religious grounds (there are some religious groups that consider state schooling morally bankrupt).
The rest just do it because they think it’s better. This is the reason given in the Salon case:
“We’re not ready to surrender our kids, and ourselves, to a 10-month-a-year, all-day institution whose primary goal, at least at this age, seems to be teaching kids how to function within a 10-month-a-year, all-day institution. Our kids are learning plenty – not exactly the same things other kindergarteners learn, I suppose, but plenty. They’re making friends and having fun. They can go to the beach on gorgeous fall afternoons, or hit zoos and museums on crisp winter mornings, when other kids are sitting at desks doing worksheets about the letter B.”
“Hell , I wish I could do it”,” writes the father.
The subject always attracts lots of debate where ever it pops up. Hell, this article in Salon got a whopping 538 letters in response. And you can certainly point to many successes of the home schooled, in various competitions that see them pitted against conventionally-schooled pupils (see not just Ali’s piece but also this admittedly older piece, also from Salon)
I still can’t see myself doing it, although like most people I think the benefits of good home schooling are pretty convincing.
For one, I am not a teacher, certainly not one with much patience. I am the daughter of a teacher who spent many years honing her craft and I find it difficult to see how this skill might simply be aped by the untrained (an ex-teacher would be a different story, of course).
And then there is the issue of socialisation… My children don’t have cousins nearby, and are unlikely to be part of a huge family. Already their options for playdates during the day are ever-decreasing as more and more children get sent off to daycare and kindy. I would worry that they would become insular, and not come into contact with the various types of people they need to – I believe – to develop empathy and understanding.
If you could somehow fill your children’s minds with wonder, teach them everything they need to know to both pass exams and live informed lives, arrange for them to have lots of stimulation from both friends and other “teachers”, then I can see home schooling might work.
But boy it seems like a lot of work – and work that not many of us would really be that well cut out for.
Pictured above: To home school, or not to home school? Photo / Mark Mitchell
Dita De Boni
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