Part One: Co-Producing Our Sons' Middle School Education
We didn't expect to become home schooling parents, but we did. Our twin sons were simply not learning at the local, public middle school. Their "A.D.D." condition made it next to impossible for them to navigate successfully the new, large middle school that had been built by the elementary school district. They were losing assigments, homework materials, and forgetting to finish projects. Moreover, they weren't getting their work completed in the classroom during the day, so they would bring it home, along with the assigned homework. We were in effect homeschooling them every afternoon and evening from about 4:00 pm until close to 10:00 pm.
Although very intelligent and good classroom citizens, our boys just couldn't meet the organizational challenges posed by the busy, sometimes chaotic setting of the school. In reponse to their low grades -- perhaps implicitly blaming us -- the school wanted us to begin attending special Saturday workshops with our sons to ensure that we were supporting them in their work. Given that we were already pushing and guiding them through all of the work that they were not completing during the regular school day, we threw up our hands and chose to pull them out of the middle school and teach them ourselves.
So, we restructured our work schedules, bought a full curriculum on-line from the Calvert School, and became for the next year and a half their full-time teachers.
Now I understand what a father is missing when he isn't at least co-teaching his kids. I had the pleasure of teaching them history, science, and architectural history for 7th grade; history, science, reading and literature (and a little Spanish) for 8th grade. Maureen taught them math, grammar, and spelling.
We got to know our sons like never before. We saw that despite their struggles in the formal school, they were indeed hungry learners and very smart. With the organizational setting simplified, they became "A" and "B" students. (Their tests were graded with extensive commentary by teachers on contract with the Calvert School).
We believe in the mission of public schools. In fact, our other two children are honors students in the elementary school and high school. Even for our twins, the break from the middle school was not a complete one. Although Maureen and I became their full-time academic teachers, our boys continued to take gym, music, and a writer's workshop at the middle school. Despite our disappointment with this middle school, we were pleased that its staff and administration did agree to a partnership with us. At the end of 8th grade, the special education staff worked with the public high school staff on a transition plan, and our sons will be enrolled in a resource class at the high school to help them with their organizational skills.
What we had worked out in fact was a co-productive partnership that dealt with the middle school's limitations, our sons' limitations, the capacity to be flexible at both of the schools, the resources of the Calvert School, and our own commitment and skills (we each have extensive university teaching experience -- although one doesn't need a doctorate to teach successfully from the Calvert curriculum) as parents. After we asserted our roles as co-producers of education, a budding disaster for our boys was turned into a successful graduation from 8th grade and a hopeful transition into a public high school. (See below for our experience with high school).
Not everyone has the schedule flexibility or time to home school their children on a full-time basis. In fact, our situation didn't involve complete home schooling. And, our experience was a time-limited intervention in an unfortunate mismatch between how one school organized itself and the organizational needs of our sons.
However, there are varying levels of schooling at home, and it is likely that were professional educators and parents to work harder at it, families and formal schools could be improve childrens' education through a variety of co-teaching approaches.
Part Two: Co-Producing with a Public High School and an On-line High School (2003-2007)
The same problems that occurred during middle-school cropped up during high school. If anything, the situation was worse: the high school was larger physically, it enrolled thousands more students, and the scheduling was vastly more complex. After two years of working closely with the Special Education staff to help our sons navigate the institution, we are taking another approach to the co-production of education. We are doing so with the full cooperation of the school staff and administration under our sons' IEP's (Individual Education Plans afforded to students diagnosed with disabilities).
During their junior and senior years, our guys will take four classes on the high school campus (including physical education and band), and the rest of their academic courses (social studies, science, English, and math) at home through the University of Missouri's online high school. This approach will greatly simplify the organizational challenges involved in completing high school. It will keep our sons enrolled and active with the high school (and connected with their friends). And, it will allow them to work more at their own paces, getting the most out of the flexibility afforded by the online classes.
We, the parents, will coach and mentor them with their online subjects, and hire additional tutoring for the lab sciences and advanced math.
This creative arrangement would not be possible without committed and flexible school staff and teachers. Our home once again will serve as a home-based school. Technology will make possible this three-way education partnership between the university's program, our local public high school, and our family.
