c- Is Enki Accredited
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Is Enki an accredited homeschooling program?
The simple answer to this is “No, we are not accredited.” Why? Again a simple answer: manpower and time - not program issues. To the best of our understanding, the association that accredits homeschool programs and private schools is actually very flexible as far as programming goes. I do not think we would have any problems meeting their standards (especially since the Enki program has been approved in this country and in Canada for private school status, and in the U.S. for charter status). Since this is also true of Waldorf, it seems that those who have substantially adapted their programs have done so more as a market issue than as an accreditation issue.
So why not get accredited? To be an accredited homeschool program someone from Enki would have to track and evaluate each enrolled child’s progress. That is a huge undertaking and not one we can juggle at this point, and parents likely could not afford. Over the next few years we hope to see more and more teachers doing the Enki training. When there are more teachers, there may well be some that would like to take this on. If so, and when the materials are far enough along that we can oversee the teacher’s work, we would be happy to look at offering accreditation for those who want it - many homeschoolers will not want to give up the freedom that goes with being evaluated; others may not want to pay the extra costs.
Many school systems require that someone from the state do a yearly evaluation of your child’s work. So far, this has gone well for Enki families. A parent in Florida recently sent us this note: I did want you to hear that the girls had their FL required end of the year evals with a certified teacher. The teacher I use was a PS teacher for 14 years then left to HS her girls who are now 12 and 17. She was completely impressed with Ruby’s second grade work. She said in all her years of reviewing curriculums and portfolios she had never seen a more integrated approach and added that whoever designed it really understands how children learn.
What are the drawbacks for your child in not using an accredited program? The only real drawback will be that you don’t have an outside standard. You can purchase additional consultation time to be sure you are on track, but you can also just use the skills charts that are on both the website and in the books to determine your child’s proficiency - then you can use consultation time to address problems, rather than to evaluate.
Neither later schools, nor colleges will care how your child was schooled - actually they will be more interested in the unusual approaches. They will care mightily about what the child has learned and how adept his learning process is. They will care a lot about his ability to use his time constructively.
So, are state standards useless? No. We actually use them as a double check to be sure we are making our choices intentionally to meet the child’s development and to bring forward our underlying worldview, and not because we have overlooked something. I would recommend that anyone interested in seeing how that unfolds look at the skills charts on the web and compare these with your state standards - you can then see where we move ahead and where we delay to build a stronger foundation; then you will have the information to decide what is of concern to you.