These Testimonies come from members of the Gracey Family and are meant to give you some background.
In telling the story of the home schooling movement, we are telling the story of our parents, and the great love they had for learning. Both of them wanted to go on to college, but were prevented by exterior obstacles. From an early age they taught us to start saving up for college. I don't remember there ever being a question of whether or not we would go to college, not that they would insist! But it was the expected path. Both of our parents attended all PTA meetings at school. Mom would visit our classrooms from time to time during school to see how we were doing and talk with the teacher. If any of us needed more help, she would tutor us at home. One of the reasons they wanted to start home schooling us was that they could see the school was lowering its standard of education.
POSTED BY BONNIE (SR MARY OF THE SACRED HEART) JAN. 23, 2011
Mexico is a very old historic town. The school, once a military academy, has a long history of which we were proud. We loved being a part of this village and school. We were members of the school band, chorus, and sports. We participated in dances, games and events. We were challenged by many of the teachers we had, who were truly dedicated to forming their pupils and giving them an education. Mr. Proud and Mr C were so enthusiastic about English grammar and literature that you couldn't help but have at least some appreciation. The same was true for others. But remember, this was the end of the sixties and the beginning of the 70s. New methods were being implemented in the school, methods of "free learning" where the students decided whether or not they wanted to come to classs, and the teachers decided whether or not they wanted to teach the material, or talk about other "revelant" things. It was not an easy transition to go from school, where we were active in language, music, art and sports, to go into home schooling. Adding to this transition was the new district principal, Elvin Pierce, who decided to make an example of us as a warning to other parents should they even think of home schooling their children. We do not know what happened to Mr. Pierce, but we know many of our school friends fell by the wayside as a result of these "modern" tactics, becoming pregnant before graduation or getting into drugs. From what we hear, Mexico School has never regained it's teaching excellence since then.
POSTED BY BONNIE (SR. MARY OF THE SACRED HEART) FEB 6, 2011
