The Seattle Times
Friday, May 2, 1986

These schoolchildren feel right at home

by Constants Angelos
Times staff reporter

School begins for the five Gordon children with the pledge of allegiance, a prayer and singing "America the Beautiful" and "Holy, Holy, Holy" - in the family classroom in the family home in suburban Redmond.

Their father, Allen Gordon, a custom furniture-builder whose shop is a wall away, teaches Bible study and helps with math.

And their mother, Elaine Gordon, covers all the rest, from geography to grammar and science.
The Gordons are among what educators say is a growing number of parents who have chosen to become homeschoolers, teaching their children themselves. No one knows for sure how many home-schoolers there are in the state, but estimates range from 2,000 to 10,000.

About 1,000 to 1,200 people are expected to attend the First Annual Washington Homeschool Convention tomorrow at Woodway High School, 23200 100th Ave. W. sponsored by Greater Seattle home-schooling support groups.

The Gordons will be among the convention exhibitors. They will be demonstrating and showing videos of the recording album and program they developed on exercise and physical education for home-schoolers, or for any families who want to exercise together, for that matter.

The convention coordinator, Carolyn Kunard of Everett, says participants will be able to choose workshop sessions ranging from tips on teaching math, testing and different 'curricula to using computers and music in home teaching. About 40 exhibitors of home-schooling curricula, materials and aids will be displaying their wares along with the Gordons.

The Gordons, who settled in Redmond last June from California, have nothing against public education, "but for my children I want a different kind of education," says Elaine Gordon, whose own formal schooling in New York City consisted of attending a Catholic school and a private finishing school.

"Home-schooling is not just book work," she continues. "It's teaching them how to be morally right, to be upright citizens and a voice in this country."

The children - Sean, 16; Heather, 15; Shavawn, 12, and Paul, 4 - wear school uniforms of blue sweaters and slacks for the boys and plaid skirts for the girls. There's also Jonathan, 7 months, in the school's nursery.

Why uniforms at home? "Because I want to teach them order and discipline in their lives ... and to be neat, , to take care of themselves," Elaine Gordon says.

The Gordons are fundamentalist nondenominational Christians who attend a Baptist church, Allen Gordon says. "We are trusting in the Lord," he explains.

Elaine Gordon uses accelerated Christian education curriculum materials from a Texas distributer.

In 1985, the Legislature enacted a home-schooling law that permits parents to teach their own children if they register them with the nearest public-school district and if the parent has had at least a year of college or teaches under the supervision of a certificated teacher. The child also must be tested each year.

The older Gordon youngsters are registered with the Lake Washington School District. Eleanor Hi I, a district teacher, checks their progress periodically.

"She gives the kids an outside contact," the mother says. "I feel, too, I have nothing to hide."
The school district has been very cooperative, the mother adds. The desks in the family classroom were loaned by the district, and district athletic programs are open to any of the children, she notes.

In three weeks, Heather will take the General Educational Development test, expecting to earn the certificate which declares she already has mastered the equivalent of a high-school diploma.
Heather's predisposition is literary, maybe a career in journalism, Elaine Gordon says; Sean's gifts are in art and linguistics. A career in the mission field as a Bible translator may beckon him, she adds.

"I want my children to be voices for good in America," she says firmly. Heather and Sean are her stepchildren by her husband's first marriage.
Heather says she doesn't feel cheated that she isn't in a regular school. "We go to church on Tuesday night and to a high-school group there ... We go on outings, camps, rallies and get to meet other kids," Heather says.

Elaine Gordon says she encourages other families to consider home-schooling.
"It's no longer public school or private school," she says. Teaching at home is "really the best way to educate your children."