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Answers to the 3 Big Questions about Homeschooling, with guides to getting started and assessing your progress and success
About the book: It’s the decision of a lifetime to homeschool your kids. Will they get the education they deserve? How will it impact their social life? Will they get into college? And that’s just the start of the investigation.
In this book and documentary video series, our mission and vision is to provide case studies of families that are going through the process — from asking themselves if homeschooling is right for them, to assessing how they did in the end. We’ll share case studies of the challenges and successes, and advice these parents and kids have for others going through the process?
In three chapters we’ll flesh out as many details as possible to answer these three big questions:
Chapter 1: Should I do it?
The pros and cons of homeschooling your kids
Chapter 2: Ok, I’m convinced — now what?
The Roadmap to Homeschooling Success
Chapter 3: The finish line
How to assess your child’s home school experience
Interviews: Home school associations, parents, kids, videos, book
Resources for families
Action Plan
- Connect with homeschool organizations to find families to interview for documentary and book: Parents and Kids (starting December 2018)
- Provide preliminary questionnaire for families to fill out
- Set time for video interviews (January / February 2019)
- Video edits (March / April / May 2019)
- Finalize book / edits (March / April / May 2019)
- Post documentary / publish book (June 2019)
- Begin PR and marketing campaign (June … )
- Launch InkandescentLearning.com (June 2019)
Introduction: “I Homeschool My Kids — and you can, too!”
Catch the Hottest Wave in Education
I didn’t homeschool my kids. I never even considered it. My husband Michael is a freelance illustrator and designer, and for much of my career, I was a freelance journalist before starting my PR firm in 2008.
We knew we didn’t have the skills — or time — to manage such an undertaking. Plus, we believed that more than getting a good academic education, public school provided our kids — Anna, now 23, and Dylan, 19 — the opportunity to develop their social skills in a way we couldn’t on our own.
This was reinforced by the myriad of articles I wrote as an education reporter for The Miami Herald, New Miamimagazine, and The Washington Post— and more so during the decade I worked as the Director of Communication in the City of Fairfax Schools in Northern Virginia, and as a freelancer supporting the communications team in the Alexandria Public Schools and the Instructional Services Division of Fairfax County Public Schools.
So, aside from spending the last two years of high school at a private school in Richmond, Anna and Dylan attended public schools in Northern Virginia.
So when I got to know a couple that had been homeschooling their 13-year-old twins since second grade, I got schooled about the hottest wave in education: homeschool.
I began to meet parents that felt they had no choice but to pull their kids out of public school. Their choice ranged from religious reasons to their kids not getting the attention they needed due to having ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, or being on the autism spectrum. Other parents chose homeschooling after their kids were severely bullied, suffered from gut-wrenching anxiety, or simply felt their kids weren’t meeting their intellectual potential in the public school system.
These parents confided that as they watched their children lose confidence and academic traction, they knew homeschooling was a solution. They trusted that their children would thrive with one-on-one academic oversight — from themselves, other homeschool families, and co-ops in their region. They also felt there was enough resources online, classes taught educators around the world, to fill any void that existed.
Their commitment and dedication to educating their students was so impressive that I needed to explore more. So I reached out to some of the families that make up the 3 million members of homeschool community in the U.S. They were kind enough to allow me to interview them, and the result is the interviews in this documentary, podcasts — and book.
I think you’ll be fascinated by the stories that the parents andkids tell about their homeschool experience. Many have gone on to accomplish remarkable things — from becoming business leaders and lawyers, surgeons, rocket scientists, professional actors and dancers, bestselling authors, entrepreneurs, and more. Many also have gone on to homeschool their own children.
To be successful, it takes a village.
So as I dove into the research, I discovered an opportunity to enhance the depth and breath of offerings to this group by connecting them with master teachers around the world to provide additional courses for homeschool families, enrichment for public and private school kids, camps, tutoring, and mentorship programs.
In 2018, I created an educational division of my communications firm, the Inkandescent™ Group: InkandescentLearning.com.
This distance learning web-based project is a clearinghouse and portal filled with content that covers each of the 8 core curriculum areas — math, science, history, language arts, foreign languages, art, physical education, and technical education. These classes that are open for enrollment year-round so students can stream them and have the in-class experience, or the course can be download to watch at their convenience.
Additional fun and engaging critical-thinking classes, workshops, webinars, workforce readiness, and in-person camps (for introverts, artsy kids, science fanatics, and more) are also open for enrollment to subscribers to the project.
And, our subscribers have the opportunity to be part of the editorial team of Inkandescent Kidsmagazine, where they learn to think like a reporter and have their articles, artwork, photos, and videos published in our professional online publication. We also publish their books, feature them in our multiple video projects, and connect them with other students around the world through our global pen pal network.
The Nitty Gritty about InkandescentLearning.com
Teachersbecome small business owners by creating classes that can reach children worldwide. They develop revenue streams, including passive income by getting paid each time a cataloged class is downloaded.
Familiesgain access to classes that serve as primary courses for core curriculum subjects: math, science, history, language arts, foreign languages, art, physical education, and technical education. They also find creative ideas on ways to integrate the subject areas. For example:
- Assessments give students and parents the opportunity to discover their learning and leadership styles through guides such as the Myers-Briggs Personality Assessment, the Kolbe Index, among others. State-by-State Assessmentsalso enable families to understand the requirements for academic success by graduation.
- Mindfulness is the ability to connect your mind, body, spirit and soul. In these classes, students have the opportunity to join our yoga teachers as they guide students through an array of movement classes that can also be downloaded at any time. Classes also include lessons in meditation, deep breathing, aromatherapy, healthy eating, and more.
- “So You Want 2 Be A …” is a book and video series, described below, gives puts students in the driver seat to write a book and star in a video while taking a deep dive into careers they might pursue by taking a deep dive into dozens of professions
- This is What Democracy Looks Like — the battle cry from the peaceful marches in Washington, DC and around the world — leads the charge as legal eagles guide students through a myriad of classes about what it means to be an activist, and global citizen. Classes include a deep dive into geopolitics, legal systems around the world, interviews with judges, lawyers, NGOs and nonprofits, analysis of revolutions that have occurred during the centuries around the globe, and much more.
Inkandescent Kids magazine: InkandescentKids.com
Members are invited to join the editorial staff of our professionally curated monthly online publication teaches students (K-12) to think like a reporter by giving them the opportunity to write, illustrate, design, and create videos for publication. A newsletter will go out featuring our cover story and sidebar articles to our growing database of subscribers. Topics of monthly cover stories for 2019 include:
- Violence in Schools: shootings, guns, and anger issues
- Understanding the Me Too Movement: https://metoomvmt.org
- 10 Things Kids Can Do to Save the Environment
- Be My Pen Pal: Connect around the world
- Workforce Development: What do you want to be when you grow up?
- STEM / STEAM: What’s your passion?
- Stopping the Opioid Epidemic: Diving into the problem
- A Day in Your Life: What is it like to live in Alaska, South Dakota, and other remote places with reservations, etc.
- The Future of Telemedicine: Do you reallyneed to be in the same room with a doctor to get medical attention?
Memberships Package
For $25/month for an entire family, parents and kids gain access to all of our offerings including assessments, listservs, weekly webinars, global pen pal networks, and more. Plus, members can:
- Sign up for classes, workshops, and seminars taught by master teachers: Our online classes in core subject areas range from $150-$400 per streamed class that run a quarter or semester and can be downloaded anytime thereafter for additional review)
- Be part of our workshop and camps (starting at $150): These online and in-person programs enable students to come together to dive into enrichment courses ranging from series’ that include “So You Want 2 Be A …” • “This is What Democracy Looks Like” • “Cook Like the Colonists” • and more!
- Think like a Journalist: Members become part of the editorial staff of Inkandescent Kidsmagazine.
- Write a Book: They have the opportunity to work with our Inkandescent Publishing staff to publish their books under our Inkandescent Kids imprint.
We hope you’ll check out InkandescentLearning.com and InkandescentKids.com and become part of our growing family of dedicated parents and students striving to get the best education possible.
About Hope: Hope Katz Gibbs is the founder of InkandescentLearning.com and publisher of Inkandescent Kidsmagazine,the education division of her firm, The Inkandescent™ Group, LLC. A journalist, publicist, author, and serial entrepreneur she founded her firm in 2008. Here, she puts to work her masters degree in educational leadership from The George Washington University, and the decade she spent working as the communications director of the City of Fairfax Schools in Northern Virginia. Hope is responsible for managing the organization’s distance learning program, coordinating teachers and enhancing family participation, and spreading the good word about the organization. Learn more about her at Powered-by-Hope.com.
Contact: For more information about joining the growing list of homeschool, private and public school families, and teachers around the world who are working together to expand their horizons through InkandescentLearning.com, contact Hope Katz Gibbs at 703-346-6975 or hope@hopegibbs.com.