Kip Harding - The Brainy Bunch: The Harding Familys Method to College Ready by Age Twelve

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Gallery Books

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Copyright 2014 by Kitchener Harding and Mona Lisa Harding

All insert photographs courtesy of the authors.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Gallery Books hardcover edition May 2014

GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Interior design by Akasha Archer

Cover photo Morgan E. Jones

Jacket design by Laywan Kwan

Jacket photographs Mark Gooch

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4767-5934-0

ISBN 978-1-4767-5936-4 (ebook)

To Auntie Cilla, Aunt Mimi, and Cousin Maury, for their expression of love and care for our family and for being women among women.

D uring the legal battles that I fought over twenty-five years ago to give parents the right to teach their own children in my state, one could not foresee the full array of advantages that homeschooling would provide. Alex and Brett Harris worked for me at the Alabama Supreme Court at age sixteen and wrote Do Hard Things out of that experience, challenging young people not to conform to the low expectations of society for their age group. Now the Hardings have demonstrated how the age threshold can be pushed back even further by the individualized tailoring of educational opportunities afforded by devoted parents in their home. At a time when public education is in a constant state of crisis over poor results, this book is a must-read for loving, conscientious parents seeking the best for their children.

Justice Tom Parker

Alabama Supreme Court

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

PROVERBS 22:6

T his isnt a story about geniuses or driven parents obsessed with their children. We like to think this is a love story, about how an ordinary couple met in high school and were eventually blessed with an amazing set of children. Its a story of faith, and how that faith defined how we chose to parent. Its also a story about dreams, about instilling them into kids with average intelligence and allowing them to blossom. We thank God for our family and for inventing this wonderful thing called homeschooling. Our true hope is that youll be inspired reading about all the possibilities homeschooling has to offer.

Before sharing with you who we are and how we got to this point, we want to start by talking about why we choose to homeschool. We realize theres a stigma attached to this word. But homeschooling has come a long way in the last couple of decades.

When we first started homeschooling in 1997, we did not have all of the online resources that we do now. We felt like we had to find the material for our kids and try to supply all of the answers that their little curious minds could come up with. Now when they have a question we cant answer, we say, Wow, that is such a good question. Then we suggest they Google it and tell us since we really want to know the answer, too. They usually come back a few minutes later with so much interesting information. And even if were not too interested in the subject matter, we are so thrilled to see that spark in their eyes that this newfound knowledge has put there.

Our kids teach us something every day and they are learning to find answers on their own. We do not have to worry about what they are missing in their education. We, as parents, just have to make sure that they have access to the Internet, good books, and our attention.

The amount of resources instantly available is remarkable. There are tools and techniques for homeschooling that we will share with you later in this book. But for now, wed like to share the eleven primary reasons why we (and many other familiesover 2 million kids as of 2013!) choose to homeschool (our source for the homeschooling statistics is www.topmastersineducation.com/homeschooled/):

There is a lot of dumbing down going on in the American school, as John Taylor Gatto explained in one of his books. Kids are not allowed to learn at their own pace in public and most private schools. Many kids get bored in school because the teacher has to teach to the middle of the class. He or she cannot move forward with the kids who are ready to move and doesnt have time to really help the kids who are falling behind.

There are places like Selma, Alabama, where 40 percent of students do not graduate from high school. The public school system is failing. If you have doubts, just watch the documentary Waiting for Superman. As an early private school kid who later worked as a high school math and science teacher, our oldest daughter clearly saw how little learning actually goes on in a classroom of over twenty-plus kids as opposed to the quality of the education she got at home with personal attention.

We believe in a Christian worldview and creation. We believe that there is scientific evidence that supports intelligent design. Uncle Sam will pay for kids to learn only a single theory, which limits diversity of opinion and growth.

Our right to pray in school is being challenged everywhere (and has already been taken away in many places) even though it is still our constitutional right. Thirty-six percent of homeschooling families say that providing religion to their children is their first concern.

We believe teaching kids in an age-segregated environment is not the most effective way to develop real-life social skills and exposes them to peer pressure. It is not the way the real world works. In the real world, we encounter people of all different ages. We want to teach our kids how to interact with people of all ages. Homeschooled kids are less peer-dependent and better socially adjusted for the real world.

We were both educated in the public school system and we know all about how much time is wasted sitting around, standing in line, and excessively practicing concepts. Our daughter had to ride the bus for forty-five minutes each way to and from the private school that she attended for her first four years of school. At home, we can be done with our school day by lunch and have time in the afternoon to read more books for pleasure, to play, to go on field trips, or to have bonding time with the family. No homework for Dad to deal with when he gets home.