Homeschool parents are amazing. They sacrifice time, energy, resources, and opportunities to make sure that their children have the best spiritual and academic opportunities possible. They spend endless hours every day, months at a time, year after year, investing their all into their children in the hopes that their children will be blessed forever by their efforts, hearts, and commitments. They teach, train, discipline, cajole, and hug their children, wanting to help them develop and steward all that God created into them, in the privacy of their homes, without fanfare or acclaim, driven solely by the calling to directly oversee their children’s academic and spiritual development.
The Academic Goals of One Day Academy
We want to support these amazing parents with great teaching. Every teacher we pick is chosen on the basis of how well they will prepare children for eventual academic excellence. We know that certain philosophies and styles have been linked to academic excellence for centuries. And we want to use these styles to help train the students who come to us for support.
We want to offer direction and guidance to parents of younger children, not formulas to follow, but an inside look at the parents who have done education very well for many years – their hearts, decisions, and overall journeys.
And we want to let people know that homeschooling, with parents teaching, friends encouraging, and teachers supporting, really does work. From the beginning, we have had National Merit Finalist seniors as part of our community.
2006 – 2007: 4
2007 – 2008: 2
2008 – 2009: 3
2009 – 2010: 7
2010 – 2011: ?
We do not claim to have gotten them there. We only claim to have invited them to be part of our community. And to have played some small part in their overall academic development.
Early Decisions and Long term Consequences
The early years of home educating our children can be overwhelming. A parent knows education is important and multitudes of options are available. There are widely diverse philosophies, goals, materials, and methodologies, curriculum choices, co-ops, on-line resources, and friends, all offering what they think is best for children. Parents want to balance academic excellence with spiritual grounding, holding out for both without sacrificing one for the other. Parents also seek to inspire their children to both master material well and enjoy learning, knowing that sometimes important tasks demand that you "just do it". Having a flexible long term plan is essential in staying on course in home education.
Feedback
Eventually, parents begin to get tangible, external feedback regarding the academic and spiritual development of their children. Maybe it comes through co-ops and classes. Or maybe it comes through academic testing such as Iowa Basic. Wherever it comes from, parents start to see where their children stand compared to what is expected.
The National Merit Program
This is the ultimate academic feedback. Content is substantive: it is vast and broad, measuring the growth and achievement of students over a 12 year period. Standards are high: being a National Merit Finalist requires a student to be in the top 1/2% of his or her ethnic/gender group. And recognition is immense: virtually all colleges and universities award sizable scholarships to all National Merit Finalists.
One Day Academy and the National Merit Program
We support the National Merit Program for many reasons. We believe that spiritual grounding and academic excellence actually go hand in hand, as character development actually propels students forward in academic development. We believe that homeschool students, because of the character and commitments of their parents, are excellent candidates for the recognition and rewards of being a National Merit Finalist. And we believe that families who have developed National Merit Finalists are worth learning from. They are a fairly diverse group regarding curriculum, philosophy, and implementation. Yet they share many things in common. And they all have something to say about using the early years, and using them to help prepare a child for high levels of academic success.