Home Is Where The Thought Is

"Homeschooling accountability is an ongoing debate in Tennessee: Are children earning good grades, or are their parents handing them high marks?

The Medleys said their kids are earning their good grades. 'When you're a parent, you have a vested interest when it's your child,' Mark said. 'You want them to be the very best they can. Our standards may be a little bit higher. That's not to discredit the public schools at all, but our standards are pretty high.'"

In my homeschool, grades are not much of an issue. I help my son learn each part of math until I'm very sure he knows it well, before we move on.

I do the same with my daughter but since she's been exposed to the public school mentality, she asks for a grade. I don't mind giving her grades, but feel they are not that important when I'm 100% aware of how each child is doing, all the time. Grades are more a tool for classroom teachers who have to remember the progress of twenty, thirty or more students and would become confused if there were not a grading system in place to keep track.

The place where grades may be helpful would be on the high school transcripts we're preparing, but I don't feel I need daily grades to know what grades each child truly deserves in each subject. I think the most important part of a transcript is to record the areas of study each child has been exposed to.

  ¶ 10:16 PM