Growing Without Schooling 90
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"We can't afford that. There isn't one in our area. What is available isn't exactly what we were looking for." How many times have you thought about possible opportunities and then decided they were impossible, for reasons like these? Most families have probably said exactly these things at least once, if not many times. There's nothing wrong with sayrng them. The trick is not to stop afieryou've said them, not to give up and assume that you can't do the thing you
A.lex Huffman is among those who write for
this issue's Focus
Solutions," pages 14-17.
Inside this Issue News & Reports p.2-3 Services from Federal Programs, Diploma News, News from New Zealand, Testing Discourages
Innovation
Learning from Mistakes p. Homeschoolers
4
of Color p. 5-6
An Adult Teaches Herself p. 7 Challenges
&
Concerns p.
8-1o
Coping With Doubts, Difficulties Between Child and Parent, How Single Parent Homeschools, Rethinking ADHD
\[atching Children Learn p. rI-13 Studying Birds, Middle Ages, American Revolution, Benefits of Waiting, Doesn't Like Qwizzing, Easier to Make Friends
FOCUS: Creative Solutions p. t4-t7
Book Reviews p. r8-2o
1993 Directory of Families and Organizations p. 2l-38
want to do. For this issue's Focus, we asked young GWS readers to write about creative solutions that they and their parents have found when confronted with logistical problems. Since one of the more common logistical problems families face has to do with not being able to afford classes or activities, many of the kids' stories have to do with finding ways to trade skills or volunteer help in exchange for the class they want, or to earn the money for it in some other way. All of these things take time, of course, and may sometimes come with their own frustrations. AIex Huffman writes about volunteering for a group called Horses for the Handicapped in exchange for getting time to ride the horses himself. Besides the time that volunteering takes, the arrangement is sometimes frustrating to Alex because he doesn't always get his own time with the horses right away. Celeste Chan writes about delivering papers to earn money for her ballet classes, which makes her schedule even busier than the six dance classes a week already make it. In some obvious ways, it would be easier if these kids just had the money to do what they wanted to do and didn't have to bother with the creative solutions that they describe here. But as they themselves point out, bartering, volunteering, or taking another job often ends up being more fun and more interesting than just handing over the money would be. Alex writes that he plans to keep his volunteer job even if his family manages to save enough money to buy a horse and build a corral, because he enjoys the work and learns so much from it. Mika Perrine writes about giving violin lessons to a young boy in exchange for practicing Spanish conversation with his mother. That too takes more time than just paylng for Spanish lessons would have taken, but in the end Mika has enjoyed the experience of teaching violin and - no small thing - such arrangements build connections between people that more typical moneta4r transactions are less likely to build. [,ack of money is not the only problem requiring a creative solution. Sonnet Pierce describes how pen-pals became a solution to the problem of not having any other homeschoolers in the area. Sara Dilliplane writes about how her family figured out ways to let her and her sister be at home when they were only I and 7 even though her mother worked outside the home part time. Sara writes that the experience of figuring out a solution to this problem "opened our minds to how what seems almost impossible can sometimes be solved." That's exactly the message we want this issue's Focus to deliver. Susannah Sheffer
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