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Show B2 7 - If ttt Monday, January 3. 2005 HERALD Home school Why do parents homeschool? Continued from B l analysis released earlier this year by The National Center For Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education gave the following breakdown based on a survey from 2003: 1 31 percent said they homeschooled because of concerns about the environment of schools. jt 30 percent said they wanted to provide religious or moral instruction. 1 16 percent said they were dissatisfied with the academic instruction of other schools. 1 9 percent gave other reasons, such as family unity and An cracks in public schools and who move around a lot in military families. They are children whose parents are worried about violence or bullying in the schools, want to instill certain religious or moral values in their children, get into fights with school districts, and can't or don't want to shell out money for private schools. Sometimes they come from unlikely camps r people like Nancy Schaaf, executive director of Dayspring Centre for Arts and Education in Maryland Heights. She was a strong believer in public schools and volunteered a few days a week at her son's school. But she couldn't ignore the fact that her son, now 12, who and a quick was learner, didn't get much attention in the classroom. "The teachers in the public schools are becoming very, very swamped with a lot of paperwork and dealing with special-need- s kids who are being added to the classroom," she said. "My child was going to school for seven hours a day and not getting any attention. He was losing his excitement for learning." Still, she wasn't sure she l. could devote herself to ' - ..." DAILY vhi 'It' ' . individualized teaching. 7 percent said their child had a physical or mental health 1 problem. 7 percent said their child had other special needs. 1 The National Home Education Research Institute, based in Salem, Ore., estimates that well-behav- ! j: . 1.7 million 1. V "I never really thought I could do it," she said. "I have graduate degrees and stuff, but I didn't think with my older children I could really do it." Hodges also worried that home schooling wouldn't fit into her own career aspirations. But she found a perfect compromise at Dayspring, where Amoree attends an s academy for two days a week. Hodges is now on the board at rt home-schoolin- g home-schooler- Day-sprin- g. W"- - Schaaf's son aj60 attends the academyujajjd she him m her office and at home at nighyf Indeed, as the people who home-schobecome more diverse, so d&fce ways in which they do it. Sl4home-schoo- l at the old-- f asljoMned way home. Others supplement home lessons, with classes, band, choir, bowling leagues, and assports through home-schosociations or community centers or colleges. At the most g structured are places like that mimic a school setting a day or two a week. At the other end of the spectrum is "unschooling," an unstructured type of home schooling that is directed by the child. Some parents home-schofor just a few years, often sending their children to a traditional high school so they can get a standard diploma, play on varsity athletic teams, and reap other benefits. Some home-schoone child, but not others. As home schooling moves from the fringes closer to the mainstream, it is clear it has gained many supporters but exactly how many is difficult to measure. Many fiercely resist documentation and have fought in Illinois and Missouri for liberal laws that do not require to notify their school district or the state that they are teaching their children. "Looking at the number of calls I get, the amount of interest is just soaring," said Margaret Porch, who leads the St. Charles Christian Home Educators. She gets about 10 calls a week during the summer from people thinking about home schooling, she said. Estimates from various groups reinforce that home schooling is on the rise. According to estimates from the National Center for Education Statistics, about 1.1 mil lion students, or 2.2 percent of school-ag- e children, were d last year. That is up from 850,000 students or 1.7 percent of students in 1999. home-schoo- GARY Kevin Bacon's FRIEDMANLos Angeles Times work in the role of a pedophile in "The Woodsman" is garnering awards chatter. Bacon their hands in front of their faces as if it were a horror film. Not that there are any images of molestation; the tension is all psychological. Bacon's performance is a crutch-freutterly unsentimental attempt to show that there are no monsters, only people who have done monstrous things. And that it is very difficult, though not impossible, for such people to overcome their pathologies. "I don't think he is going to 'get cured,' " Bacon says of his character. "It's like an addiction, so it's a question of ' how he's going to deal with his addiction. Every day of his life. And he only realizes that toward the end." Costars Kyra Sedgwick, Benjamin Bratt and Mos Def give the audience some emotional signposts by which to navigate, but the success of "The man" will depend entirely on audiences' reaction to Bacon's performance. Newmarket is going with the "Monster" marketing model releasing it in a small number of theaters Christmas Eve, then going wider as, the filmmakers hope, word of mouth builds. Many people, including Eastwood, were baffled when Bacon did not receive an Oscar nomination for "Mystic River," and "The Woodsman" came out of Sundance with terms such as "performance of a lifetime" draped all over it. "Oh I can't even think about that," says Bacon, with a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. "I have been down that road so many times and I have never won anything." Bacon was indeed left out of , this year's Golden Globe nominations and has never been nominated for an Oscar, which is fairly surprising. Ever since Continued from Bl pecially when sitting, as Bacon is, on the patio of the Chateau Marmont. Angelica Huston is at the next table over, Denzel Washington is on his way in; each greets Bacon with the relieved fondness of reunited tribal members. At 46, Bacon is looking very Industry, slender and sleek, with sunglasses in the shade and spiky hair. First he tells the e, story of how "The Woodsman" came to him. (Important movies never seem to come out of the normal process of agents sending scripts to studios.) In this case, a real estate developer Bacon occasionally sees on the West Indian island where he and his family regularly vacation asked him to read the script to see if it was worth an investment. Halfway through the read, he says, he "knew I had to play Walter." With Walter, Bacon is playing an unsympathetic lead completely without a net. As in Steven Fechter's play, the film offers no tidy explanation for Walter's compulsion no flashbacks to childhood abuse, no dysfunctional family or traumatic incident for the audience to hang on to. "I don't think it's as simple as that," Bacon said. "The decision was to not make it cut and dry if you say he was a sex offender because he was abused, that lets him off the hook somehow." Bacon, Fechter and director Nicole Kassell refuse to let Walter off the hook at all. Instead he dangles there, so close to falling that many people have watched certain scenes with his breakout role in "Diner," he has been labeled one of the best actors of his generation, and the man has been 52 mov- if you include the ies. Fifty-twuncredited roles; 55 if you count the three still in production. "I got into acting so I didn't have to be Kevin," he says. "The actors I admire are always the most versatile. And if I had a plan, which I don't, it would be to do something different as often as possible." Just after wrapping "The Woodsman," Bacon took a small role as a fey and ruthless hairstylist guru in "Beauty Shop," a Queen Latifah vehicle that mirrors the successful "Barbershop" franchise. Such a relief from the fearsome five weeks of shooting "The Woodsman." When you're playing a pedophile, there are ' no good days on the set, no breezy romantic scenes, no The most goofy difficult thing about inhabiting Walter, Bacon says, was waking up each morning "and knowing I was going" to have to be him again." After "Mystic River," the man without a plan actually intended to do something different, something lighter, maybe some big studio picture, certainly get away from the darker roles he has taken in the past the monomaniacal few years scientist in "The Hollow Man," the sadistic guard in "Sleepers." "Listen," he says, "I want to play the hero, kick some ass, kiss the girl. I'd love to do more comedy. Certainly I want to make some real money once in a while. But when I read the heroes, they don't have the character," he says. "The bad guys are just much more interesting." half-doze- n ' million chil- dren were home-taugduring school year, up the 2002-200- 3 as much as 13 percent from 2000-200The institute says that home schooling has grown about 7 percent every year for the last 4 years. Whatever the numbers, the movement is fueled in part by the Internet and the easy access it provides to thousands of resources. Just a decade ago, parents had to order textbooks through mail-ordcatalogs. These days, home educators can find curriculum guides and workbooks at Sam's Gub and Wal-Maas well as on the Web. As home schooling has grown, its infrastructure has become more sophisticated. There are magazines, thick newsletters, thousands of Web sites, class rings, bumper stickers, senior banquets, graduations, proms and yearbooks. Outside institutions are beginning to recognize as a marketable group and are reaching out to them and their needs. The St. Louis Science Center sciholds Homeschool Days ence workshops on different topics once a month. The St. Louis Zoo is working on starting its own series this winter. Six Flags and Silver Dollar City both hold special days or discounts for Lindenwood University in St. Charles has advertised in some home-schoo- I to 2.1 home-schoole- rs ls home-schooler- home-schooli- Day-sprin- publications. . The school is seen as a good fit for many with its single-se- x dormitories and home-schoole- rs values-centere- campus. d John Guffey, Lindenwood's dean of admissions, said he's seen applications from take off in the last six to seven years. He receives a couple dozen a year, he said. "From our end, we see these students as very bright students, very capable of college work," he said.. At Washington University, the admissions office used to get just a handful of applications, but now it gets 40 to 50 applications from a year, admissions director Nanette Tarbouni said That's still a small by shver of the 20,000 applications Wash U. receives, but a growing sliver, she said. "There have been times when it's a little hard to be different," admits Katie Wightman, who is studying nursing at Missouri Baptist University. About 45 are dually enrolled there. But these days, she gets fewer stares and questions when she tells people she's she said. been Still, she wouldn't trade being d for a traditional school environment, especially given the stories she hears from her cousins about the home-schoole- rs ol home-schoole- rs home-schoole- rs home-schoole- rs home-schoole- rs home-schoole- d, " public schools. It's been an adjustment being in class where everyone is the same age, and where students pass notes to each other and play tricks on teachers by changing the clocks. She's baffled by one of her students who brags every time she gets a low grade. Her mother, Kris, said she never thought she would home-schowhen she started 15 years ago. "I thought it sounded like I fell off the turnip truck," she said. But she decided to try it wnen sne was living in a rural area where she didn't think the schools were up to par. She expected she would eventually send her children to traditional schools. Then she got hooked. Now she and her family run the Homeschool Sampler in downtown Kirkwood, near their home. It is one of about a dozen stores geared to across the country, she said. Inside, the bookshelves are filled with curriculum guides and workbooks many of which Wightman has tried out over the years. Cheery Christian music and a strong smell ' of potpourri infuse the store. The family's golden retriever, Sam, often lies by the counter. In the nearly three years the shop has been open, it's had 10,000 customers, many of them repeat, she said. Some come from remote rural areas in Missouri and Illinois. "When I opened, I expected to see a singular type of person walking through the door," she said. "But I tell you, one person t n oil lilr a Ya navt n Jo The store opens at noon, so Wightman can devote the morning to home schooling her children. The eight Wight- man children, except for often help out in the store. It's part of their education, learning computer skills, accounting, invoicing and more. At home, Wightman runs school-housa veritable teaching children ages 3, 6, 8, 12 and 13. Her older two take classes at colleges. "If anyone's looking for the easy road, this isn't it," she said. But it is very reward- - , ing." Wightman loves the flexibility that home schooling provides her family to take vacations, the quality time she can spend with her children, the camaraderie built among siblings, the ability for them to learn at their own pace, and the thousands of dollars saved on private school. "I am one of those people . home-schoole- home-schoole- rs rtj-t- t, one-roo- m e, . said. And with a she knows she still has a long way to go. "So I'm going to be doing this for another 20 years. And n J lit i aon get .retirement, sne said. A.1 4 1 home-schoole- Join Kim & Robbie on r I www.couaarblue.com ail 0 iHUHmM Milt Grapevine Radio tiif Weekdays Noon on 2:00pm A in Brooks is frttping many 5 . today.,1 ; yirn stotof lheeart , -cially frainsd aquipmanl and ' fan hc'it at' - '.faf many of 4 ' ttast symptoms that plagu vl ' today. The symptoms may includ migraines, headachas, tension In ?! Hi nck and thouldars, and not , !), Dr. Brooks roach sloping and lcturf. to halth car ' Dr. Craig L Ziering, D.O., has reinvented the microscope used in Microscopic " X Follicular ft . Ztmtf Sctpt TmSSIOF i Unit Grafting, today's most advanced procedure, to give you up to 3000 grafts and 7000 hairs in one ; session. Thais more hair transplanted at one time than ever before possible. 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