Introduction

My name is Catherine Brison.  I began teaching homeschool 10 years ago, when  my then- kindergartener, Joshua. My husband and I chose to homeschool Joshua because we were living in Sequoia National Park and we could not bring ourselves to put him in a classroom when we were living in such a unique world. We hiked, played in the river, went to the library and worked on teaching him to read. It was a very rewarding experience.

Later that year, we moved out of the park. My husband’s job took him to Angels Camp, California where we found a charter school that was an enrichment to help homeschoolers. The school provided a mentor teacher, a curriculum and supportive classes we could sign up for. Over the next three years, we participated on campus in many activities and classes, including science, math and art classes. In spite of considerable effort, my son was not learning to read. A Sunday school teacher, who was also a special educator, pointed out that he seemed to have a visual-spatial learning disability and that we should investigate this. This is not a common disability, making research difficult to find. I took him to a specialist who concurred that he was definitely struggling, not with his vision, but in the way his eyes and his brain were communicating. His eyes and muscles were working very hard to achieve the schoolwork he was producing. This revelation explained the headaches, exhaustion and anxiety he was experiencing. The school tested him for special education services. All of the research I had done led me to continue my own education. I chose to obtain a masters degree in special education which qualified me to teach, in addition, it helped me more clearly understand mountain of paperwork that came with his new IEP.

The school my son was enrolled in accepted me for my student teaching session, and then hired me as a resource teacher in 2015. In this capacity, I have taught students individually as their resource teacher, and have taught art classes, and this year I began teaching a math class for math essentials to help prepare students for pre-algebra. In addition to teaching others, I continued to teach my son up until the 8th grade. He is truly a success story and I am so proud of him. He has transferred over to the local high school and is doing very well academically. He has worked hard to learn effective strategies and is utilizing them in the new setting to his own success.

In the past 10 years of teaching, I have accumulated information I can now share with others. Because I am a homeschool parent and I have a teaching credential, I can speak to teaching quality education at home. - something we are all transition to across the globe.  As difficult as this journey has been so far, we can use this as an opportunity to learn from each other. I want a place to offer some of my experience to parents and educators who may suddenly find themselves in need of it.

My circumstances have evolved in the past 4 years.  My son returned to "brick and mortar" education.  He did very well in this setting except for a lack of challenge.  We as a family feel that we continued to homeschool him but with the public high school providing his curriculum.  This freed us up to pursue our interests as a family and leave much of the bookwork to the school system.  This worked well for us for the most part.  My son graduated at the top of his class in 2023.  We are very proud of his accomplishment and he is now headed to Oklahoma University to study Mechanical Engineering.  He is one of the many non-traditional schooled success stories.

I currently have what I consider to be a very challenging job.  I teach Algebra 2 to special education students at one of the largest high schools in my state.  I spend most of my time dealing with trauma issues, behavior, study skills, relational skills and illegal drug issues.  This is a far cry from the homeschool world but each year I am growing and learning how to best serve my students and meet them where they are to grow their math and life skills. 

My biggest piece of advice is to tell parents that your student will learn out of your relationship. If you are fighting and pulling your student through this process you will want to think outside the box. Try something different other than nagging, fighting and threatening (I am a mom too). Successful strategies are partly dependent on you and your child and - to some degree - your existing relationship. Ultimately, your teaching successes will become their learning successes, and when you achieve those milestones - big and small - you will be amazed at the level of fulfillment and joy for learning you will both feel. Here’s to getting you and your student on the same page and through this school year together!