Homeschooling for Excellence

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Summary: This is a book that will change your family's life!
Review: After reading this book five years ago, I reinforce my commitment to seek excellence in my children's education by taking it into our own hand. Both my wife and I have MS in engineering and MBA from Ivy League university. I have to say this decision has changed our family life completely. This book is good, but it has its own shortcoming which I would like to point out to you if you are seriously thinking about homeschooling. This book does not talk about music and physical education for children which we think are very important. As a matter of fact, one of our daughter decides to go for professional violin training, we have no choice but to pull her out of a private school. This book is also weak in math and science part. The Appendix 4 is great, but it does not classify books by literature level. So, you can find pictural books among classical masterpieces. :-)

Homeschooling is not for every family for five reasons. 1. It is extremely time-demanding on the parents. You need to study, research, teach, review, correct test and discuss course materials. 2. You definitely need to have patient. Don't be surprised to teach the same material over again. The children need a lot of TLC. 3. You need to be able to teach at least to the level of high school cirriculum. Mrs, Colfax was a high school english teacher and Mr. Colfax was a college sociology professor who didn't get his tenure. Our commitment is to teach our children to the college sophomore level in science and math depending on the children's interest. We pretty much set "the sky is the limit" policy. We use current MBA readings (used by Stanford)to teach our children to go straightly for future entrepreneur career path. To us, the degree is useful only to get their first job. After that, their career depends on their capability in creativity, management (including interpersonal skill)and continuing learning on their own. They need to be agile and assertive to seize once in their lifetime opportunities like B. Gates and S. Jobs. 4. Financially, you will sacrifice a lot at least on one spouse income. Occasionally, both of you have to quit working for a short period of time or take on flexible job such as consultant. Sometimes, it will put stress on your marriage. 5. Finally, not all kids are suitable for this type of freedom in learning. Their efficiency of learning will be severely compromised. You may even have desciplinary problem. Don't put high hope on your homeshooling result imaging that you will have your kids to go to Harvard. You need to aim high but be willing to accept low. We certainly have our share of hardwork. Does it worth the trouble? I have to say a thousand Yes! The result is beyond our wildest imagination.

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Summary: A good introduction to the beginner or homeschooling-curious
Review: I am a homeschooling parent and I've read many books on homeschooling and overall was disappointed in this book.

The book is small in size and 142 pages, with large font and good-sized margins. Twenty pages are comprised of lists of books and resources they like. Many of the references are from the 1970s and 1980s, since those were the times they were homeschooling their older children. I wonder how many of these books are out of print and also wonder if better books have been published since. Also these materials are simply in a list format and don't contain any opinions about why they liked that book, what the book is about, etc.

The beginning was a bit confusing to me as they go back and forth in time explaining their life experience. It jumped around from homeschooling to before they had children, and to when their children were in school. It would have been much better if they just started at the beginning in a chronological order.

A chapter on why the government education system in England and America doesn't work is a good introduction to these subjects. Both Colfax's were teachers prior to having children. The Colfax's seem to have firm opinions against government schools yet sent their children there and didn't homeschool until they moved to a rural area and had no other choice. I was surprised that they didn't homeschool from the beginning, it seemed a bit illogical to me to send your child to school when they worked in schools and didn't like what they knew of it. Also they stated they moved to a homestead area with no near school and only after moving did they realize they never considered the education issue for their children. How can someone never think about that? Doesn't every parent think about education issues, school quality, etc. before moving? Homeschooling is explained as a necessary step due to their living situation in a rural area.

The sections where they explain "how they did it" were very skimpy. Reading gets two pages and math gets three pages. My interest in this book is to hear how a family who homeschooled did it, given that three of their four children attended Harvard.

I enjoyed the theme of getting back to the land and simplifying their lives, with the cute photos of their children working at their farm, however this is the stereotype that some of us homeschoolers are shunning: that homeschoolers all live in rural areas with no school nearby and are part of a hippie back to the land movement.

No mention was made of how their fourth son "turned out". I was curious about that.

In a positive light I was happy to hear their philosophy was basically unschooling but making sure the three R's were covered. A strong sense of family values and helping their family create their homestead in a teamwork atmosphere are accomplishments to be admired. The last chapter is written by a child about his experience in school and explains why school is not a good fit for him and his life-it is excellent and almost worth buying the book for in and of itself.

In the end I would say that since this is a fast and easy read, beginning homeschoolers or the homeschooling curious would love this book. It is also a great book to give to relatives to convince them that homeschooling is great and everything will turn out fine for their grandchildren.

For more in depth discussions on school issues, unschooling, or more details about "how people do it", further reading is necessary. Some suggestions are the excellent ... which is full of reviews and detailed summaries of thousands of books and reference materials and written by a mostly-unschooling family-it lets you pick out what you think will be best for your family.

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Summary: HELPED ME TO LOOSEN UP
Review: I have been Homeschooling for 4 1/2 years. This book helped me to see that I don't have to follow a strict curriculum. We changed pace in two days and we are back to loving it again. We started to bog down when child 2 started school this fall. Live and learn and remember change happens ! After all, isn't this one reason to homeschool? When it doesn't work, change gears and keep going.Public could learn a few things from all the parents( from all walks , religions, and backgrounds)who are HELPING their children.

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Summary: Read this and you won't doubt homeschooling works!
Review: I read this book the first year of my marriage. I decided at that point that I'd like to homeschool our children.

Selling my wife on it took some time. She never read the book, but after nine years of brain-washing, er um..., selling her on homeschooling, we're in our first year of full-time first-grade homeschool!

Our son is doing great and our 4-year old joins in on our out-loud math challenges.

I bought this book this year and read it again. Then my wife read it. The spark for giving our children a superior education has again ignited our homeschooling passions. Thanks to the Colfaxes!

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Summary: Read this and you won't doubt homeschooling works!
Review: I read this book the first year of my marriage. I decided at that point that I'd like to homeschool our children.

Selling my wife on it took some time. She never read the book, but after nine years of brain-washing, er um..., selling her on homeschooling, we're in our first year of full-time first-grade homeschool!

Our son is doing great and our 4-year old joins in on our out-loud math challenges.

I bought this book this year and read it again. Then my wife read it. The spark for giving our children a superior education has again ignited our homeschooling passions. Thanks to the Colfaxes!

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Summary: Excellent book
Review: I very much enjoyed reading this book. I didn't look at it so much as a how-to book but more of an inspirational book for anyone homeschooling or thinking of homeschooling. The authors don't tell you want to do - they just relate what they did, why they did it, and how it worked.

I loved many of the ideas they presented and we have already put one into practice - the idea of having the children write daily in a journal - or even just draw if they can't write yet. This is a big hit with our six year old who every night writes in her book something special that happened that day. What a fun way to learn writing, spelling and grammar skills and we'll be able to look back in later months and years and see how she has progressed.

Even though this book is dated - most of the information and processes are very relevant to today.

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Summary: outdated but good
Review: Non-christian book about family homeschooling on a remote mountainside. Not your typical family situation. Christian families will want to closely review suggested books before using them in their own homeschool. Excellent spirit and attitudes portrayed by all. Harvard is probably not the first college pick for conservative Christians. However, the children's admittance to an Ivy league school does lend credence to their title "Homeschooling for Excellence."

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Summary: The BEST home schooling book
Review: Ok I admit we are friends of the Colfax family even if we have STANFORD as our university of choice. The one thing about their book which other books fail to share is the whole lifestyle issue. Since home schooling is a lifestyle choice and not just an educational choice. David it should also be noted ran and was elected to their local school board so this is an added plus since they are not writing a book about how evil public education is, but more an issue of poor educational choices overall.

They write about how they used their California homestead as a teaching tool. And in this day and age of the need (or so it seems) for electrical gadgets galore, they write about teaching their sons valuable life issues, like working and saving for the future. They built their home from the ground up, and a few years later they boys strung the power lines from the road on up to the house, which not only taught the boys valuable construction skills but also issues dealing with money and saving expenses.

They raised their own food, and over time they also started raising goats and other livestock. It used to make me so mad when Grant was accepted to Harvard when I would read about the "Goat Boy" at Harvard as if he was some mountain hermit discovering the big city. He went on to graduate Harvard and them medical school, as well as becoming a Fullbright Scholar to New Zealand.

Another excellent point the books shares is that environment does play a MAJOR role in a childs life and ability to succeed. Two of the sons are adopted, and are minority race, and yet they soared as high as the other sons. I even hate mentioning the adoption and race issue, but do so only because the book PROVES that any child can succeed and that home schooling is not just a wonder bread middle class ideal.

The books also addresses what I feel at very important issues like the heavy subjects i.e. math and sciences. While also pointing out that home schoolers MUST be challenged to take hard subjects. That local science groups and junior colleges welcome home schoolers as they do anybody who is SERIOUS about learning new ideas. Junior colleges also encourage home schoolers to enroll to further test their grey matter, and help prepare for a four year college. The books speaks to the whole issue of testing and being as well prepared as possible.

This is a MUST own book for ANY home schooler who is serious about ACADEMIC excellence. Which should be #1.

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Summary: Homeshooling's Poster Children
Review: The Colfaxes are the homeschool movement's Poster Children. Back in the '70's and '80's they homeschooled their four children who went on to Ivy League colleges. This is not a how-to book, although there are some curriculum ideas laced through it. It is a journal of how the Colfaxes unconventionally educated their sons back when almost everyone else used the public schools. One point that sticks out in my mind from this book. The Colfax boys worked hard physically building their ranch. That may have been the silver bullet that made their program so successful.

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Summary: A book to introduce the skeptical to homeschooling!
Review: This book has got to be the best introduction to homeschooling for reasons other than religious education that is on the market. It's short length makes it ideal. Glad to see it is not a "how to" book but a "why to" book. When family and friends ask me why I keep my daughter home, I hand them this book.