Sorry! I haven't logged on since I posted the first time.
First off, we have had a decent amount of people respond since posting on this forum and the responses have been very worthwhile so thank you to all have taken a few minutes to help us! More respondents are definitely welcome!
Second, my interest in homeschool has taken off since I teach in a public school setting and see how the Education system works on a day-to-day basis. There are aspects of public school education that I do not favor and would not necessarily prefer my kids experience. I love teaching and educating others which is obviously why I went into the teaching profession and do my best to promote positive learning in all possible aspects despite others in the field. I was approached by a graduate student and realized this was a perfect opportunity to possibly help others while digging deeper myself!
There are many different aspects of homeschooling that interest me from a teacher's view as well as a parent's view. I am considering homeschooling my children in the future and I would like to be "ahead of the game" when the time comes to make that decision.
Further, I am certified in foreign language and recognize how important language is in a child's development. Among other topics, I was interested to find out how homeschool parents successfully educate their children in a foreign language and if they feel it is even important. While some parents are fluent in another language; therefore able to pass that knowledge on to their children, many are not. I have noticed many parents use Rosetta Stone or a similar product for foreign language instruction, but those programs do not have a physical instructor able to personally assist students and address their needs. Would parents be interested in expanding their child's foreign language experience, studying higher levels of popular languages such as French, Spanish, Mandarin and Arabic with certified, and even native speakers, of those languages through online classrooms?
I know every homeschool parent has a different reason why they homeschool and how homeschooling should be done, but with this research we really wanted to get a wide variety of parents who are intensely involved with their children to see what is really important to them, noting areas of homeschool education that could improve or would help parents be more successful with their child's educational experience. I have noticed many parents just want to be "left alone" when it comes to educating their children which is very legitimate; however, with this rapid growth of homeschooling, it seems in the near future more and more parents who are adept with computers and the internet will be turning to the world wide web for educational assistance in their homeschooling experience, which leaves much room for more resources to become available to those who are interested. The web has recently turned into such an incredible portal of knowledge, how can we pass up the opportunity to open up new worlds to our children and positively increase their educational experiences to achieve the most they are able?
