The Texan Newspaper (Bellaire and Houston, Tex.), Vol. 38, No. 10, Ed. 1 Wednesday, March 7, 1990 Page: 1 of 8
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Classifieds P. 6
Sorvlng The Southwest Houston Area Since 1954
Volume 38, Number 10 • March 7, 1990 • P.O, Box 999 • Bellaire, Texas 77402-0999 • (713) 771-7081 • 73
20 Ashcroft, Suite 201 • Houston, Texas 77081
Texan Newspaper -
Community News
For Over 35 Years
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
Calendar P. 2
Letters P. 2
Bellaire Connection P. 4
Meyerland Memories P 5
f 1 ^ hey’re like every other mom. They get their kids up in the
I morning for school - make sure the kids have their break-
JL fast, are dressed and brush their teeth.
But instead of popping the kids into the car pool, or taking them
to the bus, they gather them in a room in their home and begin their
classroom assignments.
They consider themselves working women and they won’t
answer their phones from 9 a.m. until noon each day while their
classes are in session.
During this time they are working on a one-to-one basis,
teaching their children in what they believe is a better system than
mass education.
Most of these women have at least three children and they’re
firm believers in the home teaching concept that became legal in
Texas in 1987.
"We prefer home school," says Vickie Clements, a 55-ycar-old,
mother of 14 children, some of whom have been enrolled in public
subjects and quarterly we send them our tests. They keep records
on the kids and I can also call them for advice,” she adds.
Henry L. Walters, Jr., headmaster at St. Thomas Episcopal
School on Jackwood says, “If it’s carefully conceived, it can be an
immensely productive experience for parent and child. Most
people agree individual tutoring is far more productive than a
classroom.
“The home schoolers who come to my school are very well
prepared,"he adds. "Parents bring them here because they feel the
children have moved beyond their expertise.
“I don’t have any doubt that had my wife and I taught our
children, we could have moved them along more rapidly through
the basic subjects.”
Walters says that parents who home teach feel it is an enriching
experience. “The kids learn a great deal more than the parents
could afford to buy for their child or get in a public school.”
Marilyn Finer-Collins, director of Bureau Guidance for HISD
HOME SCHOOLING
Local moms take on teaching task
By Ann Allender
and private schools. The last four are currently being taught at
home. “It fits in more with a normal family lifestyle," says
Clements, a Westbury resident.
She recalls when the children’s grandmother was ill recently,
they packed up the kids, their school work and they all went to help
take care of her.
"I think the schools put a lot of pressure on the kids and we’re
taking them back to the joy of learning,” she says firmly.
Clements’ oldest child is 30 years old and her youngest is eight.
She is currently home teaching two boys, ages 16 and 14, and two
girls, ages 10 and eight.
"Instead of thechildren being withonly children their own ages,
they’re with people of all ages and aren’t bashful,” she says.
Clements says she has seen her younger four take a lot more
initiative than kids who are mass educated. “They aren’t totally
directed and that leaves a lot more room for thinking for them-
selves and doing things on their own,” she says proudly.
Clements admits that she and her husband A1 favor traditional
values. “The boys learn to repair the lawn mower while the girls
learn to sew,” she says. "It’s like the olden days when the kids
helped take care of the farm.”
One of her criticisms of mass education in high school is that the
books espouse a feminist view which she resents. "They just
showed too many pictures of women in men’s roles," she says.
She also disagreed when Planned Parenthood visited the
school and talked with the students. ‘Things were not presented in
a moral view. But we didn’t take the kids out of the schools
because we were mad at anyone,” she quickly adds.
Clements believes that the longer her kids were in mass school
ing the worse their grammar became. “Teachers just don’t have
time to correct each child.
“There are more and more teenagers in home teaching each
year. I think it’s because people aren’t happy in public schools,”
she says. “Our daughter graduated from high school last year and
she was a cheerleader. She got where she was afraid to go to school
because of drugs and the safety problems.”
Clements discovered home teaching while involved in area
politics and heard about the parents’ rights concept.
"I’d never heard of home schooling and the right of the parent
instead of the state.” She attended a home school conference and
was surprised to see hundreds of parents and lots of beautiful
books.
“The books were more child oriented and interesting and I
wanted to find out more about home teaching,” she says. "By then
I wasn’t happy with the public school system.”
To monitor her children, the boys take the Scholastic Aptitude
Test (SAT) each year. “This helps me know that I'm meeting my
goals," says Clements.
She is also a member of an umbrella school, an advisory group
with its own curriculum. "They make certain that we cover all
disagrees. “I don’t think it works to the child’s best advantage to
be taught at home," she says.
“When a parent teaches at home, the child is isolated and
doesn’t learn socialization - the ability to communicate and
socialize with his peers.
“How do you develop leadership skills?” she asks. “They come
from interacting with other people."
Finer-Collins says parents who home leach are trying to protect
their children from viewpoints that are different from their own. In
the process, they prevent their children from hearing and under-
standing different points-of-view.
“In addition no one knows enough in every area to adequately
teach a child every subject,” she emphasizes.
Debi Tice, a 29-year-old fifth-generation Texan has also opted
for home teaching and is in her third year with kids aged eight, six,
four and 20 months, with another on the way.
“There arc so many reasons for home teaching, but the main one
is to be sure of excellence in academics," she says. “They also have
a more spiritual lifestyle with us. They (the children) can see us
making decisions and our trust in the Lord,” says Tice.
"We’re the ones who guide them. We teach them the right
choice, even if it’s the hard one. In a classroom they can’t get that
personal attention. There are too many kids to deal with," she says.
Like most home teaching moms, school lasts from 9 a.m. until
noon. "During the afternoon the kids rest and do household chores.
Mostly, they just play. It makes you wonder what they do in school
all day," she questions.
“We don’t have a television. It was too big of a distraction from
school work. We got rid of it two years ago.”
Tice also emphasizes that home teaching is extremely difficult
but says that she’s learned as much as the kids. "I’m receiving an
education and I'm teaching the kids. It’s a full-time job and we
view it as a two-income family,” she says.
Tice’s oldest son has attended pre-school, but she says that he
loves home schooling. Her daughter is curious why all her friends
attend their church school. "We belive that the kid’s peers, who are
just as ignorant as they are, have too much influence on them," she
adds.
“Right now we’re unregulated," says Tice. "There are some
people who think that needs to be changed. Texas is one of the
more open states. Until recently, home schooling was illegal in
North Dakota and people were actually going to jail," she says.
Debra Weidncr, 34, and a board member of the Southeast Texas
Home School Association (SETHSA) says their are approxi-
mately 1,500 families home teaching in Harris County and
Galveston.
SETHSA is holding their annual conference June 8 and 9 at The
Encourager Church at 1090 Old Katy Road. For additional infor-
mation, call 586-8897.
Ann Allender is a free lance writer in Houston, Texas.
THIS WEEK AT A GLANCE
Library Friends
hold book sale
Read any good books lately? You’ll get your chance when the
Friends of the Bellaire Library hold their book sale this week. The
library fund raiser is set for Saturday, March 10, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.,
in front of the Apple Tree store in Bellaire, 5130 Bellaire Blvd.
Used hardbacks and paperbacks will sell for 50cents and 25 cents.
Rain date is set for March 17.
YMCA sets Teen Dance
March 10
The YMCA has plenty of ideas to keep your kids off the streets.
The latest is aTecn Dance, set for Saturday, March 10, from 7 p.m.
to 11 p.m., at the Southwest YMCA, 4210 Bellaire Blvd.
Food and drinks will be sold and door prizes will be awarded.
Cost is $2 per person. For more infonnalion, call 664 9622.
Pershing Pride Day
showcases student activities
Find out what Pershing Pride is all about when the school hosts
Pershing Pride Day, this week.
Slated for Sunday, March 11, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., the event
will feature performances by the choir, gymnastics team, orches-
tra, band and theater arts departments. Academic departments will
present displays of student work. The French Club will perform the
Can-Can and student artwork will be on display.
The event is designed to show prospective students and their
parents the many things the school has to offer.
ZZ Top music rocks
Museum Planetarium
Music from Houston-based ZZTop will shake you in your seat
at the new Houston Museum of Natural Science starting March 9
when an all-new laser rock show opens in the Burke Baker
Planetarium. The ZZ Top laser show features a brilliant four color
laser light show with dazzling special effects.
ZZ Top’s music is "transformed" into animated, three-dimen-
sional laser images dial dance across the ceiling of the planetarium
dome.
Admission is $5 per person or $3 for museum members. Show
times are on the hour, from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., every Friday and
Saturday night March 9 through April 28. Tickets may be pur-
chased up U> two weeks in advance. Call 639-4629 for rcserva
tions.
Da Camera Society
continues Signature Series
Da Camera Society continues its Signature Series with the
concert, "Pupil, Teacher, Colleague" which highlights the musical
expose of relationships between three French masters, Maurice
Ravel, Claude Debussy and Gabriel Faure. The March 10 concert
begins at 8 p.m. at Wortham Center's Cullen Theater.
One of the talented musicians performing in this concert is
harpist Nancy Allen who was the first prize winner of die Ameri
can Harp Society National Competition at the age of 14 and later
won top prize in the Fifth International Harp competition in
Jerusalem.
Tickets are available through Da Camera Ticket Services, 3920
Mandcll. Call 524-5050.
Get set to go
in fourth annual Azalea Run
The fourth annual Houston Azalea Run, benefiting the pro-
grams of the Christian Community Service Center (CCSC) is set
for Saturday, March 10 at 9 a.m. To participate, call 961-3993.
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The Texan Newspaper (Bellaire and Houston, Tex.), Vol. 38, No. 10, Ed. 1 Wednesday, March 7, 1990, newspaper, March 7, 1990; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth641729/m1/1/: accessed June 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Bellaire Friends Library & Historical Society.