Volume 2 - Edition 6 - May 2006
The Homeschooling Community and HCOS teachers
by People love to share or dare I say boast a bit about those who are dear to their hearts. Parents love to share the successes of their children. I am sure most of us have looked at pictures of someone’s grandchild and listened as we heard how cute and smart they were. It is with these thoughts in mind I would like to share (boast a bit) about the teachers at HCOS.
Some of you may think that all of our teachers are sitting in front of their computers searching through Encom to see if they can find a PLO that your child has or has not met. They do spend some time doing that but it is not their focus. At our August training staff meetings we encourage our teachers to think of themselves as a team player with you and your child. We continuously look at ways that this can be accomplished. We also encouraged our teachers to get involved with the local homeschool group and where possible, if they were offering a group activity that it wouldn’t just be limited to families enrolled with HCOS.
If you live on Vancouver Island there is a good chance you have heard of the “Beacon” group. This group was the brain child of our Nanaimo teacher and expanded this year to include the two new teachers from that area. This group has done a wide variety of activities and a few highlights are: a science fair, ski trip, and are organizing a trip to Science World in Vancouver. This same Nanaimo teacher worked extremely hard at developing our science resource bins for grades K to 7 and should be in full circulation next year.
I am pretty sure there probably isn’t a homeschooler in Fort St. John that has not heard of our teacher up there. She has hosted in her home a wide variety of workshops for both parents and children. I heard that one time there were about 50 people there. These often turned into one day events with pot luck lunches. It didn’t matter whether you were registered with HCOS or not as all were welcome.
Our teacher in Victoria noticed that is was hard for some of her parents to meet the applications of science outcomes so she hosted in her home 3 different workshops dealing with primary science.
Quite a few of our teachers in Kelowna and Kamloops area are homeschoolers themselves and have been very involved with the local homeschool groups and have been willing and able to share their knowledge. One of our Kelowna teachers also just brought in an expert on teaching children to read and hosted a one day seminar on this important topic. About 25 parents regardless of where they were registered attended.
Our Vernon teachers have also been very involved with the local homeschool group there. Among other things, they recently organized a Showcase of Learning, where homeschooling parents regardless of who they were registered with, were able to showcase their children’s work.
In the fall the Campbell River teachers put on a one day workshop on teaching a child to write. This involved both the parents and the child and was open to all homeschoolers.
Our staff on the Lower Mainland has organized quite a few field trips. The latest one planned is a trip to Arocha (http://en.arocha.org/canada).
Finally, quite a few of our teachers shared their knowledge on a wide variety of topics at the recent Homeschool Convention in Kelowna. I have also been traveling around meeting with homeschool groups and sharing about the graduation program.
Where possible we have tried to hire teachers who are already homeschooling or have homeschool experience. This of course is not always possible. We do have several teachers with young children who are now considering homeschooling their children when they reach school age after having observed from our families how successful homechooling can be.
Over all I am proud of how our teachers are going above and beyond the call of duty to help homeschoolers around BC. They want to help parents to give their child the best education possible regardless of where that child is registered.
Janet Rainbow: jrainbow@onlineschool.ca