Ask FREd is an advice column edited and published by the Alternative Educators' Network, with contributions from Hoosier Homeschoolers with hundreds of years of combined experience.

Many of our questions come though the IndianaHomeschoolers [1] networking e-list, the largest subscriber e-list in Indiana, dedicated to Helping Hoosiers Homeschool. Some of the questions come from homeschooling networking hub, the Indiana Home Educators' Network [2].

If you have a question you'd like asked in our column, just click on any of the "Ask FREd" links and we'll try to help you out.

We hope that these resources help parents learn, more than anything, that THEY are in charge of and responsible for the education of their children; even if they are enrolled in a public school.

 

CURRENT column(s)

Standardized (State) Testing: What should a homeschooling parent do if they want to give their children the same tests the state give to publicly schooled kids? Are they necessary? Are there any free testing options out there. FREd contributors let you know what's what.

 

what's new?

The Indiana Home Educators' Network has released several new resources for parents who are just starting out, or thinking about it. Here's a list of some of the more popular web pages and files for Hoosier Homeschoolers:

IHEN Getting Started Online Brochure

IHEN Homeschooler Help File
A PDF file with all of the basic links and information on how to start legally homeschool in Indiana. Downloading this file will answer most of your immediate questions.

IHEN Statewide Support and Resource Directory
Our county by county resource directory. The most comprehensive in the state.

IHEN County Contacts Program (e-mail)
Contact a homeschooler near you, or in your county, who can help you find local resources.

IHEN Special Needs Advisors (e-mail)
Contact a homeschooler who works with special needs children. If you're concerned about homeschooling your special needs child, these moms are here to help boost your confidence.

Homeschooling Teens who Dislike School
This PDF file is an essay, republished from Home Education Magazine. The Kasemans discuss some of the reasons your child might be acting out in public school. They also give some ideas for new homeschoolers, so they don't make the same mistakes their public schools made.

 

extra credit reading

Here are some more articles, essays and ideas that we think you'll find of interest.

Education: Free and Compulsory
by Murray N. Rothbard

"The effect of the State's compulsory schooling laws is not only to repress the growth of specialized, partly individualized, private schools for the needs of various types of children. It also prevents the education of the child by the people who, in many respects, are best qualified-his parents. The effect is also to force into schools children who have little or no aptitude for instruction at all. It so happens that among the variety of human ability there is a large number of subnormal children, children who are not receptive to instruction, whose reasoning capacity is not too great. To force these children to be exposed to schooling, as the State does almost everywhere, is a criminal offense to their natures.

"Without the ability to learn systematic subjects, they must either sit and suffer while others learn, or the bright and average students must beheld back greatly in their development while these children are pressured to learn. In any case, the instruction has almost no effect on these children, many of whose hours of life are simply wasted because of the State's decree. If these hours were spent in simple, direct experience which they were better able to absorb, there is no question that they would be healthier children and adults as a result. But to dragoon them into a school for a formative decade of their lives, to force them to attend classes in which they have no interest or ability, is to warp their entire personalities."

Public Education versus Liberty: The Pedigree of an Idea
by Michiel Visser

"Now that many parents have taken things into their own hands, thus re-conquering bits of sovereignty ceded long ago, we wait for political leaders who will not be afraid to state the truth. That the attempt of the state to educate has failed. That it is time to undo the antiquated legacy of absolutism. That we must once again separate state and school. Thus we await the liberation of our schools."