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STATE & LOCAL
3
'Monday, December 4,1989
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jMedicine Tribe gathers
$176 for needy at bonfire
iff
By Pam Mooman
Df The Battalion Staff
Bonfire ’89 warmed thousands of
[hearts, but some Texas A&M stu-
[dents also want it to warm one home.
Members of the Medicine Tribe, a
[student organization started in Fall
11988, raised $176 by asking those at
[bonfire to contribute loose change to
[pay heating bills for needy families.
Brian Skipworth, a senior techni
cal education major from Conroe, is
the member of the Medicine Tribe
who came up with the idea of using
bonfire to raise money.
“We were discussing the sense of
community and heat generated by
bonfire,” Skipworth said. This
spawned the idea for the project, he
said.
“(We thought) maybe we can
channel that to the community so
Students get trapped in elevator
Fourteen Texas A&M stu
dents, a custodian and stereo
equipment were trapped in be
tween the first and second floor
in a Rudder elevator Sunday
night for approximately one
hour.
The students, who are all
members of Young Life, said they
jumped while in the elevator and
accidentally hit the emergency
stop button.
When the students used the el
evator phone to call for help, the
operator agreed to call and order
pizza for the trapped students.
After prying the elevator doors
partially open, the students man
aged to reach for the pizza.
The Dover Manufacturing
Company, who provides 24-hour
service, was called to repair the el
evator. The Dover Manufactur
ing Company employee said he
brought the elevator down man
ually after the elevator doors
were properly closed.
The students and the custo
dian said that nobody was hurt or
.felt ill.
other members can get some heat,”
he said.
Skipworth said the Medicine
Tribe plans to take the money raised
during bonfire to local utility compa
nies and ask them the best way to use
it.
He said the money raised could be
added to funds to help needy fami
lies, or used to help a specific family.
“It will go to help a needy family
pay their bills for the winter,” he
said. “We’re going to let the utility
company do what they feel is the
best thing.”
The Medicine Tribe already has a
candidate for their funds. An A&M
employee, who is on sick leave, can
not pay her heating bill, Irwin Tang,
president of of the group, said.
“With this much money, we’ll at
least be able to heat one house this
winter,” he said.
Skipworth said he appreciated the
attitude of the people asked for
money.
“People were extremely cooper
ative,” he said. “I couldn’t believe
how nice people were.
“There were very few rude com^
ments, and those people probably
weren’t even from A&M.”
Everyone loves a parade
A group of cheerleaders from A&M Consolidated
High School ride through College Station on a
Photo by Sondra Robbins
reindeer and sleigh float Sunday afternoon at the
annual Christmas parade.
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ome schooling on rise inU.S., Brazos Valley
tBy David Hood
[Special to The Battalion
Home schooling once was per-
jeeived as an option only for parents
jwho couldn’t route their children
through the public or private school
| systems.
Farmers, missionaries, movie stars
land “extremists” — those who edu
cated or tutored their children at
home — were accepted as special
cases to a society in which the edu-
cate-at-home concept was a lingering
memory of America’s country
schoolhouse days.
[ Today, though, for reasons rang
ing from disgust with the public
school system, to religion, to the spe
cial needs of the “problem child,”
home schooling has edged its way
[into middle-class America.
Although still below one percent
| of the total public school population,
experts guess that between 200,000
and 1 million children are being ed
ucated at home in the United States
today.
In the Brazos Valley, the national
trend in this grassroots education
approach is evident.
“It’s really mushrooming right
now,” Jane Crouse, a College Station
resident, who, with her husband
Robert, teaches their three elemen-
I tary school-aged children at home,
said. “Three years ago there were
only about 32 families that home
schooled in this area.”
Crouse said she knows of about 80
families in the Brazos Valley that
home school. Other estimates put
the number as high as 150 families.
Bryan couple keeps children home during school
to educate in ‘spirituallyprotected' environment
By David Hood
Special to The Battalion
When Linda and Gary Linder decided to
educate their children at home rather than
follow what many people would call the “nor
mal” public school route, even their parents
called them radical.
Eight years later, this Bryan couple contin
ues to do what they set out to do, and they are
succeeding. Their five children, from 2 to 12
years old, are home schooled.
“We’ve made up our minds,” Linda said.
“We’ve made a commitment to our children.”
She said they chose the home education ap
proach because of their belief in the need for
a strong religious and family environment.
“We felt like we could both protect and pro
vide for them spiritually, emotionally, psycho
logically and academically better in a home sit
uation,” Linda said. “We just pray about it and
take it one year at a time.”
Linda and Gary said their approach to the
home classroom situation is unregimented.
For their children, the day begins at about 10
a.m. Because the Linders own their own gym
nasium as a business, the children are coached
* through three hours of gymnastics by Gary.
“I found that after they expended a lot of
physical energy and have finished working
out, they’re ready to sit down and study and
read,” Linda said. “It’s worked out to their ad
vantage and ours.”
Both Linda, who received her degree in so
ciology and social education, and Gaiy, who
was certified temporarily as a teacher, partici
pate in the teaching process. The family’s in
formal learning approach is to make learning
more enjoyable.
“We try to take advantage of their natural
curiosity or their interests in certain subjects,
like Indians or dinosaurs or whatever,” she
said. “Or, if they want to write letters to their
friends, that’s what we use for grammar and
punctuation.”
Home schoolers are not required by law to
give standardized tests to their children. The
Linders, however, are very aware of the levels
at which their children should be learning,
and they use curriculum testing to map out
academic progress and improve lesson plans.
“There’s a whole ocean stocked full of cur
riculum materials that are prepared by educa
tors,” she said. Her children have been tested
by Texas A&M graduate and doctoral stu
dents doing educational research.
As the Linders’ children enter the high
school levels and become interested in more
difficult subjects, like advanced math and sci
ence, Linda ahd Gary might hire tutors for
the children.
“We feel like we can hand pick their teach
ers, even in their high school years,” Linda
said.
As they get older, the kids can choose to
participate in a type of apprentice situation,
she said, where they can spend part of their
day with an expert in their field of interest.
“In home schooling, you basically have to
teach yourself how to teach your children to
teach themselves,” she said. “We’re teaching
our children not just to grow up and get ajob.
We’re teaching them to be entrepreneurs, to
work smarter, not harder.”
For residents in Texas, home
schooling h^s not only become a
workable reality for many parents, it
has also become, legally, a parental
decision.
“People call here and say, ‘Who’s
in charge of home schooling?’ and I
love to answer that question,” Patrick
Whelan, a legal counselor for the
Texas Education Agency, said. “I
say, ‘You are.’ ”
In Texas, children between the
ages of 8 and 17 are required by the
Texas Education Code to attend
school. But what many home school
ers had wondered was whether or
not a home school could be included
in the state’s definition of an accep
table educational establishment.
The answer came in Leeper et al.
v. Arlington Independent School
District, a 1987 district court case
that established the right for parents
to teach their children at home in
what the state defined as a private
school.
“The judge has not said home
schooling is legal,” Whelan said.
“He’s said that a school conducted by
a parent is a private school in that
manner within the meaning of the
Texas stature.”
^PLAYERS AUDITIONS
OPEN AUDITIONS FOR ALL AGGIES
Book and Lyrics by
Tom Jones
Music by
Harvey Schmidt
u
America's Longest Running Musical Comedy! The USA's University Entry in the International Siglo de Oro Festival!
6:00 PM WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 6 RUDDER FORUM
Auditions will consist of "cold readings" for both shows.
Those interested in The Fantasticks should be prepared to sing 32 bars from a musical.
(We will teach you a simple dance combination.)
All of the women's roles in Gambler's House will be cast from the Elenco Experimental.
There is at least one female role (maybe as many as three) in The Fantasticks.
Whelan says parents must use an
organized curriculum that includes
basic educational needs, such as
math, science and spelling, as well as
a study of good citizenship. Parents
who teach their children at home do
not have to be certified teachers, he
said.
Home schooling provisions vary
with each state. In North Dakota,
Iowa and Michigan, only certified
teachers can be home schoolers.
Other states require children to pass
standardized achievement tests.
Anne McDow, a College Station
resident, teaches her three elemen
tary and two preschool-aged chil
dren at home with her husband. She
says that they would like to continue
teaching through their children’s
high school years but her son, who
will be in junior high next year, may
move into the public school system.
“Right now, my son really wants to
play football and it will depend on
that,” she said. “He thinks he’d really
like to be in the school system, so
we’re considering (it).”
The lack of a structured socializa
tion process is what some experts, al
though supportive of home school
ing in some situations, fear about the
movement.
Katherine McFarland, an A&M
doctoral student in educational cur
riculum and instruction, has taught
in many different educational fo
rums, including public and private
schools, experimental and open
space schools and overseas. From a
teacher’s standpoint, she has seen
both sides of the home-schooling is
sue.
See Home school/Page 8
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