A WORD ON LOGGING

      After explaining logging during my new homeschoolers’ workshop, a woman raised her hand to tell me that a speaker at another conference emphatically stated that Missouri’s statute requirement of 1,000 hours meant 1,000 literal hours and that homeschoolers better be counting every literal minute or else they were in violation of the law. I cannot tell you how sorry I am that new homeschoolers are receiving such inaccurate information that places such an unnecessary burden on them.
      First of all, when the statute was established, the attorney at that time stated that the term “hour” did not mean a literal sixty minutes but was defined as periods of time such as class sessions. In fact, other attorneys since then have concurred with that attorney’s interpretation of that part of our homeschool statute.
      As a former public school teacher, I can tell you quite frankly that 1,000 literal hours of formal academics is equivalent to 3 grade levels of instruction. So those who are putting that kind of pressure on new homeschoolers by insisting on teaching 1,000 literal hours each school year had better be covering 3 grade levels of educational material each year because anything less would constitute very incompetent teaching.

*****************************

LOGGING HOURS

[Reprinted from There’s No Place Like Home book] by Candy Summers

      Our Missouri law states that we should offer at least one thousand hours of instruction. What exactly does this mean? Are we to count every minute persevering until each of our children accumulates 60,000 minutes of instruction? Absolutely not! If we did, we would become slaves bound to an unreasonable and burdensome requirement. Parents would constantly worry about fulfilling the requirement,filling their children’s time with worthless activities, or they would be covering about three grade levels each year. Either way, burnout would be inevitable.
      To fully understand an hour of instruction, we must examine our past with the present. In colonial America when our nation was 99% literate, the majority of the children were home educated. These homeschools produced brilliant men unequaled in our time. Yet, after considering the parents’ far reaching responsibilities, I am certain that they did not spend six hours a day, five days a week instructing their children in academic courses. And since the very sustenance of the family relied on every family member’s contribution, I know that the children did not spend 1,000 literal hours each year studying books. Now I do know that the parents instructed their children the majority of their waking hours through real living experiences because history testifies of their faithfulness to discipleship as defined in God’s Word. Unfortunately, this is not recognized as academic instruction by today’s standards, since modern education annihilated discipleship and the natural process of learning.
      Consider that when parents first relinquished their God given authority and responsibility, children still only attended public school for a total of 3 or 4 years compared to the present 13 year requirement. Currently, children spend 9 to 10 years more in the public school system than their brilliant forefathers. And what has all this excessive time in the public school system achieved but soaring illiteracy, plummeting test scores, and widespread immorality. Obviously, requiring our children to spend more time in school is leading our nation to destruction which is, in fact, what the social planners intended all along.
      Does the state require public schools to log their time of instruction or account to anyone how they spend every minute? If they did, the schools would fall far short of 1,000 hours of academic instruction. Consider how the time is spent in a class hour in junior and senior high. Most of the time is spent taking attendance, getting ready, explaining what they are about to learn, disciplining, handing in or out papers, and preparation for departure. Studies substantiate that only 15 minutes are spent on the actual lesson.
      To help you further understand the significance of this, let us carefully examine the time spent in an elementary classroom where 3 ½ hours of every day are spent taking attendance, collecting lunch money, lining up, moving from one part of the building to another, lunch, recess, and using the bathroom facilities. Of the remaining time, much is consumed by preparing, getting materials ready, moving from one group to another, disciplining, incessant review, busywork, inconsequential chatter, and irrelevant interaction. Furthermore, studies show that children receive only 2 ½ minutes a day of one-on-one tutoring from their teachers, yet we know from several thousand years of experience that one-on-one tutoring is by far the superior method of instruction. Moreover, when an ill child misses several weeks of school, the district sends a tutor to the home that then spends about 3 hours catching up the student for the 30 hours of schooling missed. And this, the public school considers equivalent to classroom instruction!
      The following is an excellent example of the significant difference between classroom teaching and one-on-one tutoring. A homeschooling leader’s sister-in-law spent about an hour working with his daughter. When finished, she told his wife that what she had just accomplished with their daughter would have taken 3 months to cover with her own first grade class. Do you understand now why adhering to a literal hour is ludicrous? We must think of “hours” as class sessions or periods of time in which the subject matter is adequately covered for that day.
      So what is an hour of instruction? Homeschooling attorneys have interpreted our homeschooling law as anything within an hour. So if the lesson takes over an hour but is within two hours, it is logged as two hours or as two days of lessons. Think of an hour class in high school. The teacher only has an hour to cover the material, anything more is left for the next day’s lesson.
      Let’s look at the law again. It states that we must offer at least 1,000 hours of instruction. We offer our children the same amount of time they spend at school, 6 hours to complete a reasonable day’s worth of work, but they complete the day’s lessons in 2 or 3 hours. Shouldn’t they still receive credit for an entire day’s worth of work? We know that tutoring takes far less time than classroom teaching, so how could we possibly equate the two?
      How do I know what would be complete in one day? If using traditional textbooks, most lessons are defined as a day’s lesson, however, if not specified just divide each books’ pages by 170, for days of instruction. But, here again, keep in mind that most schools never finish their books. When you’ve taught for a while, you will instinctively know what is reasonable.
      What if my child does 5 days’ worth of math on a particular day besides his other subjects, and we end up with 11 hours of school? Since the child has accomplished five day’s worth of math, give him credit for five days of math by logging an hour each day for five days.
      If using a traditional classroom consumable math book like A Beka, for instance, we know that one page front and back constitutes a days’ worth of math. Many homeschoolers are able to complete that lesson front and back in less than thirty minutes. In fact my sons typically finished their math lesson for the day in 15 minutes. This poses quite a problem for those who insist on counting each literal minute. What then? Do they make their child do four more lessons that day? At that pace the child would complete his book in just three months, so then what? Either it would be necessary to give him another math book or have very little math logged that year. A just and honest approach, coming from a public school teacher myself, would be to log each lesson as one class session of math. Therefore, if my son completed three lessons, comprising six pages, as each lesson is a page front and back, I would give my son three days worth of math credit.
      What if I am not using a conventional curriculum, how do I log our lessons? Anything within an hour is logged one hour, anything within 2 hours is logged 2 hours, anything within 3 hours is logged 3 hours, and so on. So if you are doing a science experiment and it takes 2 ½ hours, you log that as 3 hours of science. If you are reading a history book for 1 ¼ hours, you would log that as 2 hours of history whereas 3 ¾ hours of home economics would be logged at 4 hours.
      Personally, our children did much more work than the textbooks required but in much less time. I cut out busywork, got to the meat of the subject, and supplemented with many creative activities. Our book learning took us a total of about five months leaving more time to pursue other interests and services. Actually, just two hours of formal academics is sufficient to keep an average child on grade level.
      If you are a new homeschooler, don’t feel badly if it seems to be taking so much more time. You are new at this endeavor, so be patient with yourself. Efficiency comes with time and experience, making each year easier.
 

*****************************

 

ANSWERS TO COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT LOGGING

I’m having trouble coming up with 400 non core hours, what can I do?

First of all, the law does not require that we teach 400 hours of non core subjects. It states, “At least 600 hours of the 1,000 will be in reading, language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science or academic courses that are related.” I reiterate, it does not require an accumulation of 400 non core hours. You could log 1,000 hours of core hours if you like, but for the sake of a well-rounded education, I recommend time spent in art, music, physical education, shop, and home economics. In my opinion, the non core subjects add more spice to the daily academic meal and should not be neglected, but you certainly need not worry about providing exactly 400 hours of non core instruction.


Language Arts=Grammar, Spelling, and Handwriting

Grammar, spelling and handwriting all comprise Language Arts; therefore, they should be combined together and logged as one subject under Language Arts. For example, if your child spends 15 minutes in spelling, 20 minutes in grammar, and 10 minutes in handwriting for a total of 45 minutes, count this as one class session of Language Arts. If, however, your child spends 30 minutes in spelling, 40 minutes in grammar, and 15 minutes in handwriting, for a total of 1 hour and 25 minutes, count this as two class sessions of Language Arts. So whatever time a child spends doing Language Arts, if within an hour, give them 1 class session; if within 2 hours, give them 2 class sessions and so forth. Reading and Language Arts should be two separate headings on your log sheet and should be logged separately. Phonics should be logged under reading.


If we are reading a historical book, may I log that for both reading and history?

No. You must determine your goal and the credit you need most that day—reading or history—but not both. However, if you are actually doing two things at once, then you can log two different subjects. For instance, during a study on the Middle Ages, the children duplicated beautiful decorative manuscripts while listening to Gregorian chants. I logged this time under both Music and Art because they were actually doing two different activities at one time—listening to the music while creating art. If your child was listening to a Bible study audiotape while making bread, you could log that time under both
Bible and Home Economics.


How do I log field trips?