Hi everyone. My name is Steve, I'm originally from the Celtic country of Cornwall (hence my name), and have lived in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia for close to 20 years now. I look forward to learning from y'all in the coming weeks and months. Just a little background: My wife and I have six children, although several are old enough now for the word 'children' to give the wrong connotation. Our oldest is 26 and married; our youngest is 11 and starts her middle school years in August. We've taken advantage of all forms of education for our children, depending on their personalities, our life situation, and our funds. All six attended public elementary school, and that worked well. We home-schooled the older three during middle school years, which was both challenging and rewarding. The older four all attended a private Christian high school. Our fifth child is very much driven by his love of playing the tuba and by Junior ROTC. Primarily for these reasons, he's the first of the bunch to attend public high school. The first year was a challenge because you don't get second chances to submit work on time in the public school; the Christian school was more understanding and we could work through issues when home-schooling. Still, we believe it is the right option for him - and he really does need to learn the importance of meeting schedules! As for the sixth, we'll see how things work out in public middle school. Right now, she's eager to continue learning alongside her friends and to play in the school band. I'm sure she would do well being schooled at home, but we'll let this year play itself out first. There's one other aspect of life that's relevant to these forums, and that's a business I've been starting up. So I don't fall foul of advertising rules at the forums, I won't say too much about it - except to say that our system allows home-school parents to work together to create their own courseware and teach classes online. After five (yes, five!) years of conducting trials, building prototypes, and developing the final system, we're almost ready to launch. By becoming an active member here, I hope to listen and learn more about how home-schooling may have changed since we home-schooled our children. Well, that's about it - and hopefully not too long-winded an introduction.
Geez Steve, you're an awful tease. I'm looking forward tog etting to know you better and to hearing about your venture at some point!
As a moderator on a rather large forum (a business forum, not a homeschool forum), I'm only too aware of new members joining a forum just to promote their own business. I'm here to learn and hopefully contribute a little, not to promote. Maybe, at some point, I'll add a link to my signature so you know what the venture is all about. Is that a good compromise?
