Tag: Teach Them Diligently Homeschool Convention

More Trade Workers Needed To Close ‘Skills Gap,’ Expert Tells Nashville Homeschool Convention

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

The U.S. is facing a “skills gap” that will only get worse unless more young people develop an interest in trade jobs, experts say. Homeschool guidance counselor Phylicia Masonheimer delivered that message to homeschoolers  and their parents over the weekend at the Teach Them Diligently homeschool convention in Nashville. It was a message very familiar to fans of television host and narrator Mike Rowe. Rowe told Tucker Carlson on Fox News last month that there are 5.6 million job openings in fields that typically do not require a bachelor’s degree. The former Dirty Jobs host said that taking vocation-technical training out of high schools contributed to the skills gap by teaching students that the best path to success is a college degree. “If you really want to make America great again, you gotta make work cool again,” he said. Rowe runs a foundation that provides scholarships and information to get more people interested in trade jobs. The mikeroweWORKS Foundation aims to address “the country’s dysfunctional relationship with work, highlighting the widening skills gap, and challenging the persistent belief that a four-year degree is automatically the best path for the most people,” according to the foundation’s website. Many others are also increasing efforts to highlight the…

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Zan Tyler Tells Nashville Homeschooling Parents: Appreciate Freedoms But Be Alert To Government Overreach

Wendy Wilson

Homeschooling wasn’t always as accepted as it is today. Zan Tyler has stories about parents who tried to keep it a secret. Some pulled down their blinds and didn’t let their kids outside during the day. One family bought Catholic school uniforms for their children to wear out and about, as if they had been pulled from school for a doctor’s appointment. Another family would pile their kids in the car in the morning and drive off as if they were going school, only to have the kids duck down for the trip back home where they were really being schooled. Tyler has her own remarkable story. In 1984, when she set out to homeschool her oldest child who was a struggling reader, she was threatened with jail by the South Carolina superintendent of education. The late Sen. Strom Thurmond personally intervened on her behalf and cleared the way. It was a pivotal moment in a journey that Tyler never could have imagined as a young woman, when she was determined not to have children or be a teacher. She had studied economics in college and was planning on law school. But then she married and started a family. When…

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Winston Churchill Has Much To Teach Us Today, Tennessee Historian Tells Nashville Homeschool Convention

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

  The life of Winston Churchill is rich with lessons about perseverance, a speaker at a Nashville homeschool convention said Friday. Bill Potter, a historian at Landmark Events in Columbia, Tennessee, spoke at the Teach Them Diligently convention being held this weekend at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. Landmark Events offers historical  tours, conferences and retreats from a Christian perspective. Potter said Churchill, the conservative prime minister of Britain during World War II, persevered despite many hardships and setbacks in his life. The amount of perseverance he cultivated was extraordinary, Potter said. “It’s not something most people automatically have.” While not an orthodox Christian, Churchill was taught to appreciate biblical principles by his governess, who he greatly respected. He was largely ignored by his parents who sent him off to boarding school, where he wrote them letters asking them to visit him to no avail, Potter said. Churchill later served in the armed forces as a soldier and also worked as a war correspondent. He went on to become a member of Parliament, where his concerns about the growing power of Hitler in Germany were dismissed by other government leaders. But his tough anti-Nazi stance caught the attention of Hitler,…

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Encouraging Homeschoolers To Become Entrepreneurs

Wendy Wilson

  Rhea Perry beamed as she related the success stories of an organic farmer, a videographer, a horse trainer and a coach to Amazon sellers. Their stories are all the more bright because they achieved their success as pre-teens and teens, said Perry, who spoke Friday at a homeschool convention in Nashville. Perry led a session on entrepreneurship at the Teach Them Diligently convention being held this weekend at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. Perry has her own business, Educating for Success, Inc. in Lexington, Alabama, that helps homeschooling parents and students start their own businesses. Perry encouraged parents at her session Friday to help their children develop an entrepreneurial spirit. She advised allowing children to be involved in setting their schedules and choosing their books. She also emphasized the importance of ensuring that children become independent at completing chores. When parents manage everything for their children and do everything for them, they won’t develop the self-reliance and motivation they need to become good entrepreneurs, Perry said. Children who are creative and curious and show a knack for leadership by the questions they ask should be treated carefully “so you don’t break their spirit,” Perry said. That’s too often what happens…

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Lamplighter Offers Entertainment and Moral Instruction All In One at Nashville Homeschool Convention

Wendy Wilson
Tennessee Star

It’s hard to imagine Mark Hamby sitting still long enough to read a book. On Friday, he zipped around energetically at a Nashville homeschool convention to drum up enthusiasm for his business, dashing from one person to the next to strike up a conversation. Sure enough, he confessed to not liking books when he was a kid. “I used to hate to read,” he said. “Reading and I didn’t go together.” That makes it all the more interesting that his business is books. More than 20 years ago, he started Lamplighter, which publishes out-of-print novels from the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s. His booth at the Teach Them Diligently convention being held this weekend at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center is piled high with them. “Every book we publish has to personally captivate me,” he said. “They must be something that will have kids on the edge of their seats.” They also must teach moral lessons and draw readers to Christ, said Gamby, who developed a hunger for great Christian literature when he became a Christian at age 22. He looks for books that have strong themes of endurance, faith, hope and love. The books he publishes were popular at the…

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