Schoolhouse Expo Session with Dr. Jay Wile

Over at the Schoolhouse Expo blog Lori has challenged us to Listen Along with Lori Lynn and listen to a Schoolhouse Expo October 2010 recording a week and post a review about it on our own blogs. I'm already behind the schedule she proposed and I'll probably be behind the whole way through but I'm going to try to get do what I can.  Here's my thoughts on Dr. Jay Wile's session titled "Homeschool Graduates: What Are They Doing Now?".

I actually forgot about this session when it was presented and didn't join until it was about half over.  Boy, was I glad that recordings of the sessions after the fact were included in the price of a ticket. I took in what I could then knowing that I would be able to take it all in again later.

What stood out to me in the part of the session that I did get to take in the first time was how Dr. Wile emphasized trusting God's guidance and how the graduates were following God's leading and were willing to let their plans go if need be.

About a week ago I listened to the whole session in it's entirety and took note of some other things.

Dr. Wile started the session by telling a bit about himself and how he became interested in homeschooling.  I think it's a pretty cool story.  Dr. Wile was a professor and he had some homeschool graduates taking some of his courses and he discovered that the homeschool graduates were some of his best students.  It impressed him so much that he decided that when he had children he was going to homeschool them.

Near the end of his session Dr. Wile revealed that he did just what he had decided, he homeschooled his own child, but he was very transparent about the fact that it wasn't always a bed of roses. His daughter didn't want to be homeschooled so he stressed the advantages to her - like sleeping in, creating own schedule, etc. They went through some rough times, as all homeschooling families do, but they do not regret their decision and he considers his daughter to be one of the successful homeschool gradutes.

Most homeschool families know Dr. Wile as the guy that wrote the Apolgia Science curriculum.  Dr. Wile made it clear, however, that he no longer works with Apologia.  I didn't realize that and I went searching for the story behind it and discovered this article titled Apologia Changes Hands.

On Dr. Wile's website you can actually find the handout for the What are They Doing Now? session he did in the Expo, as well as handouts for other talks he's done at other times in other places.

I found it interesting that Dr. Wile started his session with a lot of statistics.  You can find all these statistics in the session handout I personally found some of these statistics very interesting.

Dr. Will then went on to share the stories of nine homeschool graduates he followed up on to see what they were doing now.  It was very interesting and encouraging to hear their different stories.  Once again these stories are included in the handout for the session.

After the session was over people had a chance to ask Dr. Wile some questions and one statement that he made in response to a question stood out to me.  He advised that it's a good idea to get out of the packaged curriculum.  He said it's nice and easy to use but it's better to tailor the curriculum to your own child.  I happen to agree with him.

If you missed Dr. Wile's talk and would like to hear it, it is available for purchase $4.95 in the Old Schoolhouse store.  Just scroll down until you find Dr. Wile's session.  Also, if you entirely missed the conference but wish that you hadn't, you can purchase the recordings for the entire Expo, over 20 hours, for 19.99 from the Old Schoolhouse Store.