Creating a Cooperative Learning Center: An Idea-Book for Homeschooling Families [Paperback]

Katharine Houk (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2000

Creating a Cooperative Learning Center is a practical, realistic, yet inspirational guide for homeschoolers desiring a gathering place designed specifically to enhance the home education experience. The guide tells the story of a center founded by a few dedicated parents where now over eighty home-educated children flourish. Within its pages are ideas for group activities, classes, workshops, field trips, community service, special projects, and more. In addition, there are actual copies of bylaws, incorporation papers, surveys, registration forms, parent and youth agreements, lists of helpful publications and resources - all reprinted so you can get a head start. If you build it, they will come!

Editorial Reviews

Review

If you've ever said, "There's just nothing for homeschoolers in our area," this book is for you. - Anita Barth -- Eclectic Homeschool Online, 2001

Katharine Houk is an experienced home education leader [who] provides solid and practical knowledge. - Ted Wade -- Gazelle Publications web site, 2001

Katharine Houk provides a thorough road map for people seeking ... details necessary for creating learning centers that enhance homeschooling. - GWS -- John Holt's Bookstore, 2000

About the Author

Katharine Houk has been educating her children at home and in the world since 1983, and during this time has been an activist, speaker, writer, and organizer of educational events. She is co-founder of The Alternative Learning Center, a cooperative which offers classes, workshops, field trips and other adventures for families involved in home education. As executive director of the nonprofit Alliance for Parental Involvement in Education (ALLPIE), she has provided information about educational options and enrichment to thousands of parents. Katharine lives in New York State, where she is involved in art (design in fibers), writing, and community ministry (interfaith work).

Product Details

• Paperback: 189 pages
• Publisher: Longview Publishing; First edition (July 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963609637
• ISBN-13: 978-0963609632
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,900,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a find! A practical guide to cooperative homeschooling!, October 19, 2001

By 

Ann Fisher (Carson, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creating a Cooperative Learning Center: An Idea-Book for Homeschooling Families (Paperback)

Homeschooling naturally leads many families to organize social gatherings, learning clubs, study circles, field trips, art classes, sports, and other shared activities.

But if your group doubles or triples in size, and the phone rings off the hook, what will you do then? Wouldn't it be great to set up a cooperative learning center in the community where members can share in the learning adventure together?

Katharine Houk's book presents a successful model that can be duplicated in other communities. Katharine's group founded their cooperative learning center years ago and it remains successful to this day. This book tells the story of how they did it, including some of the problems and solutions. Steps from the very beginnings of the group are discussed, leading you down the path toward creating your group's cooperative learning center.

The book includes philosophies, copies of bylaws, samples of registration materials, fees, examples of course offerings, surveys, rules, and samples of the forms they used.

As a homeschooling parent who participated in several cooperative learning centers over the years, centers that got started well but didn't last, I can recommend this book whole-heartedly. This book has the nuts and bolts you need to launch a successful cooperative learning center.

Where was this book back when I needed it?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars just ok - check it out before you buy, May 30, 2007

By 

Bugs Mama (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating a Cooperative Learning Center: An Idea-Book for Homeschooling Families (Paperback)

This was just ok. In general I felt the author just went off rambling and didn't really present much info that could be truly applied to creating your own co-op. Most of it seemed to just point out the growing pains this particle group was facing and how in the end they might be splitting up in smaller factions again. It does list in the back of the book all the classes they created at one time or another (so you might get some ideas from that), their bylaws and a couple surveys but nothing amazing and that you couldn't come up with pretty quickly on your own (or Googling).

I would have been more interested in hearing about how the organization was structured at different points in time. How they divided up the work loads. It seemed like they each just picked a class to sponsor and then were fully responsible for it (maybe not but it wasn't clear).

Some highlights:

They assigned children over 7 clean up duties.

They provided on site mailboxes for member to member communication (ie file folders in a cabinet).

They had mandatory meetings to determine classes offered the following semester.

They enforced that an adult had to be present while a child was in a class.

Their location, classes and general organization changed as the families and size changed.

AND That trying to contain so many homeschooling families could definitely lead to conflicts of interest since so many that choose to hs are choosing to 'do it their own way' in the first place.

It isn't that I didn't find any information in this book but it was a far cry from what I was hoping for and I doubt I will go back to it for anything in the future. There wasn't anything I really feel that I need to share with my emerging co-op.

My suggestion is to check it out from the library before you purchase it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, July 4, 2009

By 

Midnight (IL, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creating a Cooperative Learning Center: An Idea-Book for Homeschooling Families (Paperback)

This book is full of ideas and encouragement. I really appreciated that this book included forms and letters used by The Alternative Learning Center--not only does that give a good guideline, but it creates the opportunity to evaluate once again what you are either considering or trying to do.
Even if you aren't looking to create some kind of center, but just want to get together with friends in a more organized way, this book will help. There are so many good ideas and helpful nuggets here.