My love of history began when I was a very small child, so that, by third grade, I had decided I would grow up and become a history teacher.

I am a "real teacher" in every sense of the word. I received my B.A. in History with Secondary Education Social Studies Teaching Certification from Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, in 1977. In the past, I have privately tutored students from elementary grades through adult, both English and non-English speaking. I have tutored in a variety of subjects, including social studies, composition, and phonetic reading (using Romalda Spalding's The Writing Road to Reading). I have also tested student abilities in reading, phonetic decoding skills, reading comprehension, and spelling.

My book ALL HANDS ON FOR OKLAHOMA! (authored and published by me for use in the 4th grade home school environment) has been used by private, public and home educators in elementary grades through high school.

Since 1996 I have been a teacher/tutor, working in tandem with services provided by Parents Educating Teens Home Extended Classes, a service organization.  At this and previous P.E.T. locations, I have taught classes with a college preparatory level of academics in History, Geography, Government, Logic, Philosophy and World View, English Composition, Thinking Skills and Organizational Skills for home educated students in grades seven through twelve. I have also taught Understanding the Times, as well as a class in Logic, Philosophy and World View, to high school home educated students as well as adults and college students.  Students who complete my college preparatory level academic classes are usually well prepared for success in college and other personal endeavors, and they sometimes CLEP out of college subjects that relate to classes they have taken from me

I also offer classes that are for transcript purposes only. In other words, they are not as intense, and the work load is not as heavy, as my college prep level courses. I also offer a variety of correspondence courses.  I am offering a class for 4th, 5th and 6th graders that will meet every Thursday.

My husband is employed by a surveying company. He and I have been married almost thirty years. Our adult son was home educated through sixth grade, attended private Christian school 7th through 12th grades, and completed a B.S. in Political Science from OSU, Stillwater. He is employed full time in the political arena, and is enrolled in a university graduate studies program.

MRS. BOND'S INCORPORATION OF LEARNING MODALITIES

I go to great lengths to teach as many concepts as possible using all three of the basic learning modalities - vision, hearing/speech, and touch. As a result, depending on your student's learning modality strengths, your student may have assignments or classroom learning experiences that he/she believes to be fruitless -- while at the same time, another student may find the same assignment/experience personally rewarding and productive.

WHY ARE MRS. BOND'S CLASSES STRUCTURED THIS WAY?

When I originally created classes for Parents Educating Teens Home Extended Classes in 1996, a core group of veteran home school parents asked me to create a specific type of classes for their students. (This group included families who are currently serving in the roles of administration and administration staffers. The group also included P.E.T. families who are still part of P.E.T.) They wanted me to meet with their students for class time every Monday. However, as parents, they also wanted to continue as primary instructors for their students by teaching their own students, one on one, Tuesday through Friday of each week, using instructions I created. Also, they wanted me to assign specific types of work and grade most of the work. They asked that I integrate as many subjects as possible into each class. For example, they wanted American History to also include American Geography, principles of American Government, English Composition, world view and philosophy, organizational skills, time management, character training, and so forth.

Over the years, P.E.T. administration and administration staffers have asked me to add certain classes, make changes to certain classes, and so forth, resulting in the design of the classes I teach today. 

All of my classes have been created by me. I rarely use publisher's teacher guides because I find them boring.

MRS. BOND'S EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY, CONTENT AND METHOD

I believe that all truth originates with the Biblical God, and I begin much of my teaching with the Biblical account of Creation, regardless of where a textbook begins, or what philosophy a textbook holds. I also believe that every aspect of human endeavor, including school curriculum and school work, should be governed by the precepts of God's Word, the Holy Bible.

I believe that God is a Trinity -  the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit -   and that simply through faith in the Son, Jesus Christ, one obtains salvation and is promised an eternity in the presence of God the Father. Jesus Christ acts as our High Priest, an intercessor between Believers and the living and Holy God.

I believe that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, inspired Word of God in its entirety.

Students will most certainly experience the Biblical Doctrine aspect of my educational philosophy in much of my teaching, including but not limited to my teaching of the Ancient Civilizations, the Middle Ages, the Protestant Reformation, the Enlightenment, the founding of the American Republic, governments, philosophies and world views.

For many years I have incorporated philosophy, method and content from an educational approach called the Principle Approach. The Principle Approach is a large part of the baseline for many of my teaching practices. I do not follow or adhere to it strictly, but rather I adapt portions of it, when able, to my class structure. You will find its content stressed more heavily in some of my classes, less in others, simply because of subject matter. Also, your student may not see all of the concepts listed under this section in one class. However, those students who are in my classes for multiple years often experience/learn many pieces of these concepts and are able to see how they all fit together, forming an educated mindset, giving them useful tools, and thus equipping them for future endeavors.

The Principle Approach attaches all of academic learning to seven basic principles, which are indicative of the Principle Approach philosophy. Below I have listed the seven principles, and for each principle I have included one or more social studies examples of the principle:

1. PRINCIPLE ONE: God's Principle of Individuality - You are unique, Christian Idea of Man vs. Pagan Idea of Man, Magna Carta, The English Bill of Rights, Jamestown vs. Plymouth

2. PRINCIPLE TWO: Christian Principle of Self Government - Learning to be self-governed, Colonial Church Governments

3. PRINCIPLE THREE: Christian Character - Communism vs. Free Enterprise, Christian Behavior Under Persecution

4. PRINCIPLE FOUR: Conscience is the Most Sacred of all Property - Your Conscience, John Locke, Martin Luther

5. PRINCIPLE FIVE: The Christian Form of our Government - Magna Carta, The Pilgrims, John Locke

6. PRINCIPLE SIX: How the Seed of Local Government is Planted - Role of Colonial Pastors, Role of Founding Fathers

7. PRINCIPLE SEVEN: The Christian Principle of American Political Union - Continental Congress, Declaration of Independence

CONTENT: Primarily I use Bob Jones textbooks. (For Oklahoma History, I use a secular text.) Families with certain religious affiliations sometimes find Bob Jones textbooks to be offensive (particularly families in the Mormon or Catholic religions, though I have had students of both the Mormon and Eastern Orthodox faiths). When applicable, I also incorporate materials from Principle Approach publications and other publications including, but not limited to, secular newspapers and Christian periodicals. As a result, your student will probably have outside reading, even though he/she will also be working with a textbook in most of my class.

METHOD (I) NOTEBOOK METHOD: I incorporate the Principle Approach Notebook Method, even though I have dramatically changed it in order to adapt to the one day a week classes I teach. Students in most of my classes maintain a notebook for the duration of the school year. See my Supply List for initial instructions. The notebook    

must be kept in a certain order, and be kept clean, neat, and always free of stickers or other decor of any kind. It houses a syllabus, all notes, and all completed work and grade sheets. It is graded four times during the school year, with each grade being worth 200 points. (Student notebooks are not graded in my Logic/Philosophy/World View Class.)

In I Corinthians 14:40 we read, "Let all things be done decently and in order." And Colossians 1:17, in speaking of Jesus Christ, says that "by Him all things consist." Our God, a Trinity composed of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, is a God of order, stability and truth. These are some of the principles that guide me as a teacher, and that I want to pass on to my students.

Through the Notebook Method, combined with the use of an in depth syllabus (covering all work for class and home for the duration of the class), students learn orderliness, responsibility, personal discipline, the value of following instructions, respect for property, self-control, time management, etc. As a parent, you can readily access information needed to home educate your student, Tuesday through Friday, and you have all information needed to figure final grades because your student's notebook has been maintained.

METHOD (II) THE 4 R'S: To the best of my ability within the parameters of the classes I teach, I use the 4-R's of the Principle Approach. In March, 1985, James Rose, then President of the American Christian History Institute, wrote in The Teaching Home periodical, "The Principle Approach begins by restoring the 4-R's to teaching and learning."

  1st R - The Researching of God's Word to identify basic principles.

  2nd R - The Reasoning from these Biblical principles to their identification in the

    subjects of the curriculum. (World View)

  3rd R - The Relating of Biblical principles to each student, to Christian character, to

    Christian self government, to the stewardship of God given talents. (Relate the

    information to what you know and who you are.)

  4th R - The Recording of the written record by each student of the individual

    application of the principles.

METHOD (III) SOME SPECIFICS ON ASSIGNMENTS: No Progressive Education method, content or philosophy is employed. Assignments, teacher directed and created by me, are meant to enhance and mature the students' learning, comprehension and thinking processes as they apply to the class topic, and all three learning modalities are incorporated for many of my students. To this end, my methods closely resemble four of the five stated learning components espoused by the Spalding Education Foundation (Romalda Spalding's Writing Road to Reading phonics program) - oral language development, reading comprehension, writing, literary appreciation - even though I employ these on a different level, for somewhat different purposes and for older students, the success of these concepts in my classes continues to prove their value.

(Students enrolled in my elementary or junior high classes, correspondence courses, classes taken for high school credit, or  Philosophy and World View Class may not necessarily receive the benefits of all I have detailed on these pages.)