Learning at home> Parents working to keep the lessons lively

Laura Winters wants her kids to regard every part of the day as a learning experience. That’s why she and her husband, Jim, spend every day “unschooling” their seven children at home: designing their own lessons, using a variety of textbooks and library books, and making sure that the kids get to do lots of cool stuff in the community.

For most home-schoolers in mid-Maine, educational and recreational experiences are interchangeable, giving a whole new meaning to the concept of “extracurricular activities.” Without the construct of the classroom, the kids become accustomed to finding learning opportunities in everything they do, whether a trip to the eye doctor or a hike in the woods. Home-schooling parents try to keep things lively for their kids through organized outings, events and church activities during the school day.

Winters heads the Borders Homeschool Support Group, a group of more than 20 families, including 35 children, that meets the first Thursday of every month at Borders bookstore in Bangor and devises a schedule of field trips and events to get the kids out of the house.

Recently, Winters looked into Global Links, a program sponsored by the Office for International Programs at the University of Maine that sends international students and recently returned foreign exchange students out into the schools to talk about life in their home countries. The students wear native dress, and the program sends out “culture kits” to the teachers with items reflective of the country’s culture, from wall hangings to musical instruments.

Home-schooling families gathered at the Winters’ geodesic dome house in Orono to listen to college students from Mexico, Croatia and Saudi Arabia who told the children about the food, folklore, and customs of the countries they hailed from and pointed them out on a map.

For a home-taught kid like Destiny Winters, the “school day” is crammed with activity. First the family: Destiny and her sister Nadia spend much of the morning helping their parents with their youngest siblings. But then come trips to the fire department, the hospital and a Bangor violin maker, demonstrations by trained police dogs and weekly outings to Great Skates in Bangor for a few hours of freewheeling. Laura and Jim regard such extracurriculars as absolutely essential to their children’s learning experience.

“We’re really trying to create enough space around them so that they can think independently,” says Jim Winters.

The Winters went to see Ralph Nader speak in Orono several weeks ago and were inspired to involve their children more actively in community projects after hearing his speech.

“We try to give the kids `real life’ experiences,” says Laura. “They know responsibility.”

While their children are still very young — their oldest is 10 — they are already involved in all kinds of projects. Seven-year-old Andrei takes trumpet lessons at Knapp’s Music Center in downtown Bangor, and can blow a crisp solo rendition of “When the Saints go Marching In.” Destiny danced at the Thomas School of Dance until she broke her foot, and now choreographs her own pieces at home. They have looked in on hospital surgeries, been to the morgue, and visited the synagogue in Bangor to learn about the Torah and the celebration of Purim and Passover.

Brenda Mowdy started Penobscot Valley Homeschoolers Association 10 years ago, and still runs the group’s 4-H program at the Church of the Nazarene on outer Union Street in Bangor. Four-H — which stands for heart, head, hands and health — the youth arm of the Cooperative Extension program, provides the group with a national network of programs including foreign exchanges and opportunities for volunteer service. Meeting twice a month at the church, 65 home-schooling families with about 150 kids put on plays, work on crafts and mount science fairs.

“Home-schooling parents tend to try and provide a lot of activities for their kids, and 4-H provides the kids with projects they might not do at home,” says Mowdy. “This way the kids get a chance to socialize with everybody, of all ages, with the older children helping the younger ones.”

Her group organizes field trips and has visited the State House, the courthouse and jail, pulp and paper mills and WBLZ-TV, where the children are writing, filming and will ultimately air a public service announcement about their 4-H program.

In the years since Mowdy started home-schooling (her daughter is a freshman at the University of Maine), she has seen home-schooling gain acceptance from national educational institutions like spelling bees and scholarship organizations.

“These days we’re not having to go searching for information as much as before,” she says. “People are finally coming to us and sending home-schoolers the same information they send to the public schools.”

Critics of home education cite socialization issues and the possible lack of participation in extracurricular activities such as music, art and sports as the biggest drawbacks of the home-schooling philosophy. But with the passage of LD 1818 in the Maine Legislature last year, home-schoolers’ access to public school activities has been opened wide to include any child “enrolled in an equivalent instruction program.”

Home-schooled children may participate in public school sports teams, music and art classes, speech or special education classes, and any other class the student wishes to take, provided that his or her application to the superintendent of schools has been approved. The child may borrow library books and textbooks from the school. Schoolteachers will help home-schooling parents with year-end assessments of their children.

But many parents don’t feel they need the schools at all, even for extracurriculars. Currently, few home-schooled children in mid-Maine participate in school-sponsored extracurricular activities. Since the new law was passed, local school districts haven’t seen many more home-schoolers join their programs. Home-schooled kids crop up here and there in music classes and on sports teams, but usually no more than one or two children per district, if that many.

Hampden seems to be the exception, with several home-schooled kids taking advantage of music, arts and sports in the district, according to Ruey Yehle, director of special services in the Hampden School Department.

“One of our goals this year, and in past years, is to have a strong relationship with parents who home-school their children,” says Yehle. “When the school adopted the state’s new rules earlier this year, the superintendent invited the district’s home-schooling parents to review the new policies at an informational meeting, and tries to maintain contact with them.”

“We’ve been able to duplicate everything that public school has to offer,” says Tammy Caron, a former teacher who now devotes her time to home-schooling her three daughters. Caron and her husband have started Mid-Maine Homeschool Association in Clinton, a small group of four or five families who home-school for nonreligious reasons.

The Clinton-based group has organized several outings, but most gatherings take place in the families’ homes for school-oriented events. Caron’s children participate in Girl Scouts and in the Police Athletic League, a national nonprofit corporation with programs in Bangor, Brewer, Portland and Lewiston offering football, basketball, boxing and baseball as team sports for boys and girls. The PAL program also puts on field days, a mountain bike race, and camping, white-water rafting and kayaking trips in the summer. The programs are usually free or carry a nominal fee.

Caron believes that her girls have had ample opportunities to meet and play with other children. “Music and band would be one way we might get involved with the public schools,” says Caron, but while her children are still young (her oldest is 8), she is finding plenty for them to do at home and out in the world’s classroom.