Leaderboard

Sure - here you go: It's whatever you want it to look like. That's not meant as flip, but it's the truth. Consider the bell curve of a public or private schooled family day. Homeschooling has a much wider and flatter bell curve. You have your rigorous families with a lot of structure on one end, you have your fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants "unschoolers" on the other. Colorado requires certain subjects to be "taught", and education for a certain amount of hours per year, with some sort of test or evaluation every 3 years. Looks like Utah doesn't have any requirements at all, besides "teach your kids". So it really is up to you. Basically, if you don't know what to do, or what to teach, you need to figure that out. That's why I suggested the local resources - you might find existing programs, or fans of this or that curriculum. You can buy packaged curricula and have desks and alarms and different classes. You can go to a co-op and do whatever they do. You can do whatever you want. (And, as Gator said, you can just neglect your kids and not teach them anything. I'm guessing you might want to avoid that option.) My wife ran homeschooling for our kids. There was structure at first, then there was much less structure. It's what Mamma felt was best individually for each kid. Once she asked them to pick a topic, and structured an entire unit of everything around it. They, being little girls, picked My Little Pony. So they learned about everything that went in to producing a show. They learned about voice acting and producers and background artists and storyboarding. They learned the math and science behind color palettes and how a toy company runs a product line. Every year, she asked them "do you want to go to school", and their answer was always "no", until it became "yes". So now they both go to a hybrid online school run through a school district, with classrooms and teachers/mentors - and a full fledged high school diploma when they graduate. Older kid has done this for 3 years, and was "dual enrolled" in high school and community college for the last 2. That got 2 years of her nursing degree paid for by the school district. She passed her CNA exam one week before Colorado went on lockdown - the students after her are going to miss a year. It can be daunting, but I stand by what I said. The only thing you have to have, is a parent willing to devote a lot of time, every day, month after month, tirelessly and eternally engaged. At least one of you HAS to love to spend endless time with your kid(s).

If you truly want to homeschool and you're committed to it (which, as NT points out, means you like spending copious amounts of time with your children), then by all means you should homeschool. If you're lukewarm and not really sure, then I'd say go ahead and try—but when you try, give it your all, acting as if this is the most exciting thing in the world and you're 110% committed to it. Then re-evaluate after six months. To start, Google "homeschooling" or "how do i homeschool" or "beginning homeschooling" or something like that. Look around on Facebook and find homeschoolers in your area. Find out who in your ward or stake homeschools, then go to them and pick their brains. I can almost guarantee you they'll be happy to share. That's sort of the homeschooling ethos. Some homeschoolers are evangelists, others are live and let live types, and others really don't want to broadcast their status, but pretty much all of them will be happy to give you some ideas. Not all homeschools are the same. To say it in a different way, every homeschool is different. Homeschooling is a matter of trying out lots of different ideas and finding out which ones resonate with you. It's a lot of work, as in a LOT, and it's a blast. Or better yet, learn algebra and geography so you can teach them to your children. In many cases, there is no reason you can't be learning right alongside them. Lead by example, and learn to be a guide on the side rather than a sage on the stage. As a rule, homeschoolers tend to be slightly better at academics and MUCH better at meta-academics than their publicly (or privately) schooled peers. That idea of "learning how to learn" is perhaps the single biggest advantage that homeschooled students take to college and on into adult life. When my second son at 12 started going part-time to public school, he was just sure that his peers would be way ahead of him in many subjects, especially sciences. He discovered that in almost every case, the reverse was true. My wife did most of the formal teaching at home, but I certainly engaged my children and talked to them about science and physics and math and stuff. My son found that he actually knew significantly more about science than his peers did, both in amount of content and the simple ability to think in a logical way. Obviously, how the parents are involved will have a lot of influence on any specific child's abilities. But if you ask around, you will hear dozens of stories like this. It's not unusual; on the contrary, it's somewhat the norm. But you DO need to commit to it. No half-hearted efforts, or you'll have disappointing results and bored children.

I graduated homeschooling in the South in the late '90s with about 16 other people, so my parents didn't have all the resources that're available now. We lived on several acres of land so my typical day was to wake up, go to seminary, come home, read a module and answer the questions in the back. Do this for 1 or 2 modules and then work on an extended project for one of the longer modules (I remember scaling up a mural for a scene from the Book of the Dead, book reports, working a mini-loom, among others). Then go outside and help Grandpa with the garden, the plumbing, or whatever project he was working on. When lunch rolled around we'd usually watch some video from the library about one of the modules we were studying. Then either do another workbook (if it wasn't finished in the morning) or go outside and play with the dog/mow the lawn/shovel the sand off the front walk. I can't tell you much about the administrative challenges my parents faced except that we didn't have access to labs (which made high school chemistry and physics challenging) and my brother (who had an interest in sports) wasn't able to be part of a school league. Oh, and when I applied to college and they wanted to know which percentile I was in my mom took my coursework and grades to the local high school and they said they really didn't know what to do with that. As a student, I love reading. I was already learning on my own which is one of the reasons I got pulled from public school. So even though the hands on resources were basically whatever the family could supply it worked well for me. I didn't love writing, so those assignments were where I butted heads with my mom. For my brother, he would get a mental block (not necessarily with one particular subject, just in general) and would spiral down from there. Mom's solution was to send him out for a half hour or so and try again when his brain and body cleared. I will admit that my greatest fear as a homeschooler was that my peers were learning things that I wasn't. That I was behind but didn't know it. I shouldn't have feared that. My cousin used the same math textbook I did. And his brother used the same social studies text book. But the fear was there. Oh, and because I wasn't taking a bunch of bubble chart tests all the time I needed some assistance with filling in the student information section when I took the ACT. There was another issue with the citizenship question, but that was more a problem of dividing by 0. My fears went away after a few weeks of college.

As long as the professionals are doing their job in a way that I can’t replicate via other resources, then great! But to be blunt, right now the professionals are *not* doing their jobs in a way that I can’t replicate via other resources. They are, with varying degrees of success, turning themselves into a correspondence course—but a correspondence course that still wants to set my kids’ schedules and calendars, install a raft of wonky and mutually-incompatible programs on my computer, and threaten my kids with poor grades or even failure of the year if my family doesn’t do things their way. And it seems like there are better than even odds that the same thing will be going on for a substantial portion of next year, too. If I’m going to be shepherding my kids through a correspondence course either way, I’d rather they be in one that recognizes it exists to serve my family; rather than one that thinks my family exists to serve it.

Another thought - you're probably within 20 miles of half a dozen homeschool groups - coops, facebook groups, moms groups, etc. You're close to a new group of knowledgeable and supportive folks. It's ok to look around. We despised the LDS-centric group in our area, the secular group were full of snobs, the lutheran group was by far the nicest, but not our style. We had a great experience teaming up with the co-op that operated out of a local megachurch. Anyone can homeschool, but you absolutely have to have one thing: A parent that likes to spend a lot of time with the kid(s), every day, with few or no breaks. If that's not you, it has to be your wife. And your kid's thoughts on the matter are absolutely important here.

So, we have five kids in five different grades from K-8. Their schools are shut due to the COVID-19 thing, officially until May 1 and realistically, probably through the end of the school year. They’ve been doing “distance learning” through their schools, and I’m getting increasingly frustrated by the demands on my own schedule as I try to make sure they’re doing what the school wants them to be doing while also doing my own work from home (Just_A_Girl is pretty much bedridden for the next month or so due to recent surgery and complications therefrom); the inflexibility of the program is leaving me pretty disgusted. I figure we can finish out the year this way—you can do anything for two months, right guys? (Right? Guys?)—but it’s starting to hit me that we could well see schools start up again in the fall and then close again if there’s a second wave. If so, I don’t want to have a school district breathing down my neck saying what I have to go with my kids and when and where I have to do it—if I’m going to be doing the work of homeschooling either way, I’d like to chose the program myself, thankyouverymuch. Just_A_Girl hasn’t signed off yet, but assuming this was something we committed to do—where would we start?

This goes back to the whole idea of an apostasy, either the apostasy did occur or did not occur. If the apostasy did occur then when you teach people about Jesus Christ you are helping people to know about him, but not to join His Church. You are helping them join a church that teaches about Jesus Christ, and that is a good thing. If the apostasy did occur the Book of Mormon is a keystone to the restoration of Jesus Christ's Church, which is now gathering Israel and the heritage of each member is known as they are revealed what heritage (tribe) they are from. Thus we have a literal gathering of the House of Israel. The Book of Mormon, as a witness to Christ and his work and glory, people read and come to join His Church. Thus the statement, if there were no Book of Mormon there would be no restoration of Christ's Church and thus no gathering.

Here's my suggestion. 1.) First thing to do is find out how your school district/$tate accredits homeschooling. This will shape how you structure your homeschool plan. For example: Florida homeschoolers are in the Magnet program just like the Charter schools. They evaluate student grade proficiency through a State Assessment Exam in March. Homeschoolers take the tests at their neighborhood school. 2.) Figure out a plan and curriculum that fits State accreditation and your family life. There are plenty of options. Several people above mentioned that you have to know the subject matter and know how to teach it to effectively run a homeschool. I disagree. A perfect example is Dr. Ben Carson's mom making him read books and write book reports when she can't read. But, not having any teaching or even subject matter proficiency will require you to choose a homeschooling plan tailored for this. In Florida, we have a Virtual School that is part of the Magnet program. Your child logs on to the Virtual School website and goes through online instruction managed by an online teacher. If there's online material your child doesn't understand, he can call the teacher for clarification/tutoring. This method basically requires no more parental involvement than traditional school except for making sure your child uses the computer/internet responsibly. My favorite and most recommended method is Montessori. Especially for K-5. You're not the teacher. You're just a facilitator. The world is your child's teacher. Your job is to direct your child's natural curiousity to resources that can provide learning. For example - your child is learning Addition. You can give your child beads and have him solve problems like "If Susie gives you 5 beads and Tommy gives you 7 beads, how many beads do you get?". You don't have to know how to add yourself. All you need is to work out "where/how can my child learn to add?" You can either learn it together or let the child learn on his own - it's completely fine for children to know more than their parents. My child has been out of Montessori for over 5 years and he continues to amaze me with the things he is curious in that he learns on his own. Montessori method doesn't do tests as it is self paced and self directed with proficiency measured in what the student sets as goals rather than goals imposed by others. So, to get a child's grade-level accredited by Florida, we have to modify Montessori method to "force" the child to learn thing he's not interested in and to learn how to take a test. There are many other methods and curricula and plans, etc. including designing your own. You really just need to sit down and figure out what works for your family dynamics. One of my favorite youtube channel is Tania who is a mother of 10 kids who homeschooled all of them. Last year, she put all 9 kids (10th got married) in a C-class RV and toured Europe for 6 months homeschooling all the way.

I would second @Anddenex and would add that the sentence that precedes the one one you underlined is what it means. The gathering is Israel is to gather the flock into one fold which is the Church. The often misinterpreted Bible by itself cannot do that. But the Book of Mormon used as a companion with the Bible firmly establishes the truth and leads people to the saving ordinances found only in Christ's true church. Great question!

To expand on this just a bit, or at least to clarify, I don't mean to say that you have to be super-parent-teacher on Day One. Not at all. It will take some time, months or perhaps even years, before you really find your stride, and you'll be making adjustments right up until high school graduation. I meant simply that you really need to invest yourself in the effort. Homeschooling doesn't have to consume every waking moment or become the central focus of your entire life, but it does need to be A central focus and given more time than a few minutes' prep for the day. And there again: Some days, you might only have a few moments in the morning to prep for the day. So be it. No crime there. But in general, you should be planning and preparing for homeschool just as you would plan and prepare for any other significant event in your family. Of course, vacations and birthdays usually only come once a year, and homeschooling is an every-single-day sort of thing. But you get used to it. Like any other worthy goal that's a lot of work, it's worth it in the end. The simple fact of getting to spend the entire day with your children, watching them learn and grow, letting them soak in your attitudes and work ethic and values, makes it the most rewarding and natural thing in the world.

Yes, broader and flatter, but I believe the mean is offset to the right of public/private school children, as well.

I had this bumpersticker for a while. This was back before the nationwide study that showed what homeschoolers already know - homeschooled kids (at least in the '80's and '90's) were in more extracurricular activities, interacted with kids not in their core peer group, basically were better socialized than their public school counterparts. Not sure about the last decade, public schools seemed to have caught up a bit from what I can tell. Of course, there are exceptions. As I alluded to before, take any bell curve that public schooled kids fit into, and the homeschooling version is broader and flatter.

I think polygamy is an interesting topic in many respects. Brian and Laura Hales have recently published an excellent, in-depth study of the history and doctrine surrounding this topic: Joseph Smith's Polygamy: Toward a Better Understanding https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smiths-Polygamy-Toward-Understanding/dp/1589587235 If you want a lot more detail, they have an additional 3-volume series as well. Addressing the OP, if I remember correctly, the Hales' books would indicate the following: The popular idea that polygamy is a higher law that we all would ideally be following is not necessarily doctrine. Joseph Smith did indeed resist the commandment to him and obey it with great reluctance. This was partly because of his concern about how Emma would react. (His worries were confirmed ) Joseph Smith submitted to polygamy out of obedience. Polygamy was very difficult to live. (It was not some sort of sex party, as some people with more lurid imaginations have assumed.) We don't know all the reasons for why polygamy was instituted in the church (although the Hales' books do examine these questions in depth). My personal take-away from reading these books is that polygamy was given by the Lord to early modern church leaders as a lesson and challenge in obedience. (Only a minority of LDS practiced polygamy in the 1800s.) We don't know all the why's about it. The Lord's mind and ways are not our own. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are my ways higher than your ways, And my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9). Brigham Young did supposedly make a lot of statements saying polygamy was a higher law. However, I always chuckle at this quote supposedly from him: "The introduction of the doctrine of polygamy was the first time in my life that I desired the grave, and I could hardly get over it for a long time. And when I saw a funeral, I felt to envy the corpse its situation." -- Brigham Young Of course the go-to place to begin to understand this is the church's official Gospel Topics Essay: Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/plural-marriage-in-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints?lang=eng

3Blue1Brown is a great Youtube channel. For the record.

Second anointing?

Yep. I absolutely stink at math. I remember the exact minute my 9 year old passed me in mathematical ability. We were doing a big bunch of addition, and I was showing her the shortcuts I'd learned to add bunches of numbers in multiple columns. I was halfway through explaining one step, and she just blurted out the answer for the entire problem. Dang kid. I kept teaching her math for several years after that, but she did most of the teaching herself by just reading the math book and understanding it. Can't do algebra and geometry and whatnot, that needs a tutor or someone else. One mommy at the co-op had a PhD in microbiology - she had paused her career to homeschool her kids, and taught a few science classes at the co-op. Eclectic stories like that are the rule of the day for homeschoolers. Your mileage will vary, you'll get whatever mileage you decide to get.

I would take things a step further and say that even some of those who have been formally trained still cannot teach very well.

It depends on the state. I only know Colorado, but I think Utah is one of the more homeschooling friendly states out there. (searching for old link - ah - here we go.) https://hslda.org/content/hs101/UT.aspx?

Sanctimony is usually counterproductive. Lecturing only occasionally. Social shaming can work, but it comes at a cost. Informing with love unfeigned is usually a good bet. (Unless you're dealing with MormonGator. That guy just needs to be set straight.)

That being said, we still need assignments to avoid chaos. There is a reporting structure with assignments.

I agree. Authorized to administer the sacrament must be done in the Lord's way or it is just bread and water. But ministering to anyone in need is a no brainer.

By the way, donating to fast offerings is an EXCELLENT choice for charitable giving - no matter what the makeup of your home ward. It's not a ward-level bucket of money, it's a churchwide bucket.

I have a spare back yard if you need more room to plant

Very true. And if anyone is trying to sell the notion that selfishness is absent in socialism (or any other alternative to capitalism), they're probably doing it out of some selfish reason. Bernie Sanders' homes: - this one is on a lake!

Why not?... For just about all of human history people feared major illness or ailment... because it would kill them. Now it oh no my bank account is empty... Don't get me wrong its not a good thing... but people need some serious perspective to understand just how good we have it. Not only on how good we have it but how we got here so that we can make wise choices to kept things trending in that same direction.

Here goes. Last year, indie publisher Alterna declared a 100% refund policy on returned unsold product. If a retailer buys their product and it doesn't sell, Alterna will buy it back and then make it available via their direct-order website for anyone who does want it. Not only that, Alterna's decision to use old-school newsprint in order to keep single-issue cover prices down means that they'll actually be able to continue printing, albeit with some delays; the printer they're using for their single-issues has been declared "essential", leading me to think they were hiring time from an actual newspaper's presses. And as I said, Alterna allows people to order direct from their retail website *and* offers subscriptions. Alterna has been incrementally trying to develop their own physical distribution system, but by their own admission even under optimal circumstances it'll be June before they can fully make it happen. Additionally, Boom, Image, Dark Horse, and a few other publishers have declared that they'll allow 100% refunds for the duration of the crisis. They're doing this, they say, so that retailers can quickly liquidate unsold stock in order to get cash they can use to pay bills until things straighten back out. Meanwhile, a number of crowd-funding projects that made it in under the wire are shipping product to backers, while others are still trying to make a go of things. But that's it for the good news. Valiant Comics put on a brave show by offering PDFs of free material people could read, but this was followed up by them telling their creative teams "pencils down" for the next month or so. This has led to fears that Valiant doesn't actually have enough money to pay salaries during the shutdown period, and that as such they might not be long for the world. IDW has tepidly encouraged people to visit whatever local comic shops are still open, and continued to announce upcoming product as if it was going to make release date. IDW is so deep in debt that they've been on death watch for some time now, and this might be what finally knocks them over as well. Marvel's response to the matter has been so completely out of touch with reality that Alterna CEO Peter Simeti actually went at it with Marvel editor in chief C. B. Cebulski on Twitter, with Simeti calling Cebulski out for essentially being in Cloud Cuckoo Land and Cebulski being as condescending as humanly possible. DC and Archie, so near as anyone can tell, have been dead silent. So where does that leave us? No one is expecting Valiant or IDW to survive, and there are concerns that the corporate owners behind Marvel and DC may opt to wrap up physical production of new material, instead licensing the characters out to third parties. That's going to do some serious damage to those retailers who survive being shut down for so long. If the industry does survive, however, Dark Horse will essentially become "big man on campus" given how they've diversified, Image will be limping along behind them, and Alterna will be jockeying for third place. Behind them will be a slew of B-list, C-list, indie, and vanity publishers all trying to rapidly gain ground in the midst of everything. For example, Splatto has gone from a vanity imprint to a credible indie publisher, with five crowd-funded books under their belt (including a Hollywood license!) and a sixth campaign in the works as we speak. And the Breitwisers just inked a deal to have their indie label's books carried in select Wal-Mart stores. As it is, some of the same people who were cyber-bullying Simeti just a few years ago and trying to destroy his company are now begging him for work and assistance with distributing their books. He's explained at length why he has no desire to help them out. It's not entirely likely that this will kill the industry in the US, but it's going to radically re-shape things depending upon who you talk to.

Bingo... If we are serious about reforming and fixing Health Care... there are two areas we need to tackle. Both of which are areas we traded Freedom for Safety and ended up shafted. First the Government regulation of Heath-care and medicine needs to be dialed way back. We thought we would be safer if the government regulated it... what we got was restricted supply that can not meet the demand and increased cost. Second the Insurance myth. Insurance should be for things you hope never happen but you want to be ready for when and if they do. It should not be for basic and expected expense. Yet we have bought the Myth that everyone "must have medical insurance" Because we believe this myth we have created a 'Union' that only represents itself. It strong arms Doctor's and Hospital causing increased cost for them that they have to pass on. And it strong arms its 'clients' with high premiums and restricted services. Those are what needs to be reduced and restricted to fix the system. Sadly most people think we need more of both.

Also interesting to note... that those people who are more likely to be supporters of the free market system.. also tend to be more charitable... It almost like the people who understand the system the best are also covering its short comings... Take for example our church... Totally supportive of people working and figuring out things for themselves. But if some thing bad happens they are willing to help out and help people get back up. Free Market is all about two individuals or groups coming to a arrangement that benefits both. Most of the time we think in terms of money, but that is not always the case. How many people have felt better or more blessed while and after they have served someone? That is not a experience that is limited to church people. Its still a beneficial arrangement to both even when all the goods and services are flowing in one direction.

https://www.sciencealert.com/three-black-holes-orbiting-each-other-can-t-always-go-backwards-in-time?fbclid=IwAR197b7upYLDcLf1ucvwNY3wWGNrlUweKzhH9SunfyyqEGTSZ4VcBS0I75w When I was a BYU undergrad studying physics, one of the things we were taught was that time appeared to be unidirectional*. This was used to explain entropy, why heat never flowed "uphill" and why a balloon might explode but not spontaneously reassemble. This article reports on an experiment that takes things a large step further, suggesting that non-reversibility occurs in stellar systems from perturbations as small as the Planck length (!!!). The suggestion is that chaos (in the mathematical sense) is literally built into the universe. Very, very interesting, from both a physics and a metaphysics point of view. *I always wondered if this unidirectionality might not be explained simply by the nature of human psychology and perception. Maybe time flows in both directions, but we only perceive it as flowing in one? But the above article would suggest that, no, perfect temporal reversibility is not possible in all cases. That argues pretty persuasively for one-way time. As I tell my children, "I have travel here through time from 1963 to bring you this message: Sweep the floor."

Soon after POTUS recommended public gatherings of 10 or less our church made the call to discontinue main services. We still have prayer meetings, since they are small in number. Our service was live-streamed today, and it was a strange, but blessed experience for my family to watch along with over 100 others, as the worship team sang and pastor preached. Pastor, our youth pastor, our children's pastor, and yours truly all posted Bible studies on the Facebook page as well. One thing I noticed is that without a congregation to respond, my usual 40 minutes was nearly halved. Here's my sample: https://www.facebook.com/111591192213576/videos/617068422179887/

Who needs escapist fantasy, when we've got real life happening outside right now?