Time and time again, fred met people who told him that he was the first Westerner they had ever spoken with. Fred’s strongest memory was of a Honda man. fred couldn’t remember if the man was a student, someone he met on a train, or someone from a bar. Fred thought the conversation was in English, so it may have been in a class, but he wasn’t sure. Almost a quarter of a century later though, Fred still remembered the content, or lack thereof, of the conversation.
I was talking with my friend fred the other day about where language and culture meet. Fred was reminiscing about his days teaching English conversation when the English conversation boom had just started to move from major metropolitan areas to medium size cities. Now, almost any Japanese city with over 25,000 people is bound to have at least one conversation school. In those days though, there were cities with hundreds of thousands of people that only had a few schools with native English speaking teachers.
Because there is a deficit of engineers, and fundamental math skills may be lacking in public school graduates, homeschoolers have the advantage. We can provide the math students need to succeed. Our children can earn grants and scholarships for college based on their math preparation.
Thanks go to Don Peter, M.S., P.E., Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Seattle Pacific University for helping me with this blog post. Don and his wife JoAnn homeschooled their two daughters for many years. Don used Saxon math and multi-sensory games for a supplement. His family used unit studies for science. He made it clear that his children were required to complete science and math study, and even required his girls to complete calculus for high school graduation.
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