Turning a shortage into a glut
1 hour ago
Friday, November 20, 2009
Great Answers to Difficult Questions about Death Book Review by ChristineMM
Title: Great Answers to Difficult Questions about Death: What Children Need to Know
Author: Linda Goldman
Publication: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2009
Genre: nonfiction
ISBN: 9781849058506 (paperback)
Full Retail Price: $14.95
Author Linda Goldman is a counselor that has years of experience in grief counseling. The author states this one book is to be used by both counselors with their clients as well as by parents with their own children. And therein is the biggest fault I have with this book. It tries to be too much to too many people in too few words. It works best as is for counselors. For parents, this book should be expanded.
I was interested in reading this book because I’m a mother of two children (now 12 and 9). I have found very little information available to help me with advice and ideas for how to help my children cope with the grief associated with long-term illness and death of loved ones. In the last four years, I’ve had to use my common sense in helping my children grieve with the loss of four close relatives and some others.
Another important thing to know about me relevant to my opinion of the book, is I’ve received training for counselors for past volunteer work I did in a technique called Active Listening. I recognize this technique is what the author uses although she never discusses it or teaches the basics to the layperson-parent reader. Something about this technique in general should have been included in the book.
This book is basically a question and answer list organized by chapters. A child asks a question and the author provided an answer. A person untrained in Active Listening may not ‘get’ why the author chose the responses the way she did. These responses seem perfect for counselors to use but some are too distant and cold or too short if said by a parent!
Two of the most glaring topics of concern to parents in the book are the questions about God and Heaven (each topic has one chapter). Some of the answers the author gives would go against some people’s religious views. Why the author did not just tell parents to insert their view on that topic rather than to say some of what is said surprised me.
The chapter on Heaven was troublesome. One question on page 31 involves the child saying they believe the dead person is with God in Heaven. The response is a bit condescending and doesn’t affirm what the child feels and believes, which actually goes against the Active Listening technique. She says “It might help to feel better if you think God is taking care of Sam.” First of all a parent should discuss their own worldview and present it as either their belief or as a fact they believe in a more direct manner.
Regarding God and prayer, I found it offensive that the reply to a question about blaming God for the death allowed the child to indeed blame God. Never in the main section of the book was solstice suggested to be found in prayer or trusting in God’s decision that it was time for the person to pass, that God must have a reason but we humans don’t know his reasons. Instead of using prayer to find peace, this therapist has various art and craft type projects that they suggest the child do. On page 103 in Appendix 1, it is suggested that the child “perform a ritual for your person. You can light a candle, plant a flower, blow bubbles, say a prayer, or send off a balloon”. That is the only time when prayer is mentioned in the book, which seems a shame.
An example of something that I found creepy and against the beliefs of many religions was the suggestion that the dead person may actually be a butterfly or a bird or a breeze that they encounter in nature (pg. 34 and 37-38). Why is it right for a counselor to suggest that a human is reincarnated into a force of nature, an insect or a bird but not to suggest that God and Heaven is good? If my child asked me the question about a butterfly being the dead person (reincarnated) I’d have a very different answer for my child, the same answer applies to my current Christian worldview and also applied to my former Atheist worldview.
Perhaps one thing I learned from this book is if I ever send my kids to a counselor I’ll be sure to pick one who shares the same religious worldview as our family!
As a Hospice nurse told me, grieving doesn’t start when the person dies. Grieving starts when we find out the person is dying. So to never touch upon the dying process seems ridiculous, another major fault I have with this book. There were several questions about sudden death (murder, car accidents, and pedestrian accidents). However there were NO questions applicable to a person who was sick and dying for a period of time.
I’ll tell you what’s scary for a child, that they know a relative is getting good medical care for a disease but they wind up dying anyway. Why was that not discussed in the book? How can a parent tell a child to trust their medical providers if they couldn’t heal their loved ones? Or if the therapies they get make them suffer in pain or cause them to be sick (chemotherapy).
Another missing topic was an elderly person who slowly becomes frail and dies ‘of old age’ (as two of our relatives did). The simplest and most easily accepted thing for a child to understand was not in the book: that death is actually peaceful for the person who was in pain and suffering in the end of their life due to their illness or due to being extremely frail from old age. How that question was absent is beyond my comprehension, especially when so many had scenarios of sudden death.
My favorite part of the book was the use of active listening, a technique I like and the urging to be honest with children and to tell them the facts, not to lie or try to hide things. The best information is in the ‘concluding thought’ which is just one paragraph at the end of each chapter—what a shame that the best nuggets of information are so limited.
The book is too short. It is 112 pages in total with only 73 pages of questions. The page size is small, the font is large and there is plenty of white space on the page.
More information would have been of use to parents such as the effects of grieving on children after the death occurs. This is contained on two pages of bullet points in Appendix 2 but honestly deserves one or multiple chapters not just a list.
I’m rating this book 3 stars = It’s Okay although I was close to rating it 2 stars = I Don’t Like It. I wanted to love the book due to the fact that this is a niche topic with not enough books or materials available for parents at this time. I just feel it falls short for parents; it is best for counselors.
Disclosure: I received an uncorrected proof galley edition of this book from the Amazon Vine product review program for the purpose of reviewing it on the Amazon.com website. I am not allowed to resell or give away this away. I have not received any payment to write that review or to publish it on my blog.
Note: This is a shortened version of my original book review. I had a hard time cutting the word count down!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Homeschool Challenges Change As Our Children Grow Older
Today I got sidetracked from my plans and wound up surfing homeschool blogs that were new to me, blogs that were nominated for various categories of blog awards for the Homeschool Blog Awards.
There are so many blogs of families with little kids! Okay, okay, so when I started this blog I was one of them. Back then my kids were aged 4 and 7. These families seem so happy, almost gleeful over the smallest things.
In the local homeschool community it seems that homeschooling starts to taper off in middle school. I mean, formerly happy homeschooling families start enrolling their kids into school, for various reasons. Some enter their children in the upper elementary grades. Yes, people are always starting off schooling and then pull their children out, I know that. But things are just different homeschooling older kids. Some of these changes make families change their mind about homeschooling. It usually has to do with academics getting harder and kids not wanting to learn or strife between parent and child about doing the lessons or in some cases the kids begging for more social time with kids their age.
How is my life different than these families with much younger kids?
Here are a few ways in which we're different now than the way our family used to be:
1. There is more of an urgency to get certain academic work accomplished. I have less than six years until my older child starts college. In the beginning the road before college seemed so far away. In fifth grade the switch flipped from "we have tons of time to homeschool so enjoy the day, we'll get to it someday" to "there are X number of years left before we're done".
2. Some of the academic work that must be done if preparing for college admissions is not all fun and games to teach. Sometimes work just has to be done and even the most creative thinking does not provide me with a fun way to study the subject.
3. At some point in fifth and sixth grade the number of things that suddenly are not learned simply and easily increases. Learning starts to take more effort. Effort is not always met with joy and excitement. Thus the homeschool mom sometimes has to play the part of the strict school teacher.
4. Puberty begins and the hormones affect the homeschooling as well as the family relationships. Developmental changes occur. Kids are no longer in that stage of living to please mom. Kids become more independent minded. They start to question authority and push limits more. Homeschool lessons can be in the mix of what the child and parent battle over. Parents of schooled kids often struggle with kids over homework and other family life. Now imagine puberty combined with the entire education of the child not just homework completion deadlines.
5. The children have different social needs. They want more time with friends. In my area kids are very busy. Sports, especially travel sports for elementary and middle grade kids, can take up a lot of time. This makes friends unavailable sometimes. At times our schedule doesn't jive with their friend's schedules.
6. It gets hard to choose what to do and what not to do. My boys have so far chosen to do Scouting. This is a big commitment. The shift from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts in the middle of grade five is a big change. For example often there are two weekends a month with Scout activities including a 36 hour or so camping trip. Sometimes it is my kids who are too busy to see their friends.
7. My kids want more learning experiences with other kids. We try to do some of these with homeschooled friends of theirs. However often if behaving in the class and being quiet et cetera they don't get enough social time with those friends. Thus just doing classes together is often not enough time with them to cultivate the friendship. Homeschooling families often will not allow social time with friends on weekends, saying it is family time or time to see the father (who works days during the week). Only allowing social time for friends Monday-Friday afternoon is hard if the days are packed with homeschool academics, sports and/or Scouts.
8. My kids and other kids we know like to do sleep-over's. This seems to give enough social time with their (not homeschooled) friends (who allow social time on weekends and use summers for social time). However this interrupts the family's schedule. The weekend winds up conforming around the kids. For example if we are trying to get a house project done or do a bunch of errands but we have a guest for 36 hours or so this doesn't always work out unless the kids can play unsupervised while we do the house project. Another challenge is they usually stay up way too late, or even just talk in the dark, so then they are tired the next day. I don't have a simple solution other than try to only do sleepovers about once every eight weeks or so. If my kids had it their way they'd have a sleepover every week. (Starting in fifth grade I myself spend every single weekend with my best friend and sometimes also with our other friends as a bigger group.)
9. There are many good outside classes and events that my children can take now that they are older. Around here many classes don't start until age 6. It is hard to choose the best of the best. Often we overbook the kids as it is hard to say no to a great opportunity. Yet running around from appointment to appointment can make for a harried lifestyle. I thought homeschooling was supposed to prevent a frenzied family life just by default. Come to find out to have calm and open schedules requires a constant concerted effort.
Time is spent addressing learning disabilities. This can be visits to professionals or home therapies.
Time is spent dealing with medical things and most commonly, orthodontic braces on the kid's teeth! This can mean up to four visits a month for a family. This takes time and energy to fit in between everything else!
10. If too much is done to outsource classes or do field trips it is hard to get the other academic work done at home. Yet when outsourcing basic courses, I'm reminded of how inefficient it is. In other words we can do more work at home than if I pay for a course and drive the kids to take it with a teacher. I save money and time by teaching some course material at home. The kids have more custom tailored learning experiences with curriculums and books chosen to suit them best. Yet it sometimes is not easy to teach them at home OR sometimes I'm not as disciplined about actually doing the lessons so it can be tempting to just pay a teacher or join a homeschool co-op and say the child was taught that subject at the class by the teacher. Sometimes the amount of content covered in a class is not sufficient or doesn't result in as much learning as we hoped it would though.
For example one friend asked me to give feedback on her homeschool plans. There was nothing for the topic of science. She said, "I'm counting that nature class as our science." My reply was, "But that class you use is a total of eight hours of instruction for September to January 1. Eight hours of science instruction for half of the academic year is not really equivalent to what the public schools are teaching! And a nature class is not covering other topics like magnets and biology and chemistry and physics and many other things!". This mother had wanted her homeschool content to exceed the academics at public school, that was one of her main reasons to homeschool in the first place, yet the home education she was crafting seemed inferior for the subject of science.
11. The homeschooling community is a bit incestuous in my area. We see lots of the same people. Not everyone gets along (sometimes the kids and sometimes the mothers). We sometimes get on each other's nerves especially if we see a lot of each other and if any problems occurred. Some people are quick to forgive and some hold grudges for a long time (both kids and the mothers).
Since things we do are basically all optional I'm trying to keep my kids happy by avoiding activities with certain other kids such as keeping away from a kid with an impulse control problem who has been hitting and hurting other kids. Who would willingly put their child, the victim of a bully, with a bully?
Another example is avoiding kids who wreck a learning experience due to bad behavior. Why should I pay for a class that will be disrupted yet again by one or more certain kids who have stressed the teacher out in the past (that the teacher was not able to handle). My kids get frustrated having good behavior for themselves in a paid class when they'd like to tell off the other kid. If the kids were in school they'd have no choice but to deal with whomever was in their classes. But with options with homeschoolers it is sometimes better to just avoid certain people and have a happier life. This is a pain in the neck to deal with. It involves things like finding out that a certain class is available but keeping it a secret from certain families, or calling my friends to see if I can talk them into putting their good kids into the class with my kids. It can be time consuming and exhausting at the same time.
12. Homeschooling allows us to be close to our kids. This means for example, my kids tell me stories of what goes on. Sometimes this upsets me (but I have to just let it go or get over it) and other times the situation is unacceptable. Also due to homeschooling I'm often around the other kids and I have witnessed things firsthand. If my kids were in school or on a school bus I'd have no clue of these things if my kids didn't tell me of them. Some of my friends with kids in school hear stories long after they are over or from other people not their own kids, so it cannot be assumed that schooled kids tell their parents everything, even things like being bullied verbally or physically.
13. Lastly we can custom create group classes and field trips for homeschoolers. Yet I have learned the hard way that this can be very stressful. It is not as simple as setting a date and time. This can wind up being political and some problems with people can cause so much stress that sleep is lost or friendships are fractured and may end altogether. In other cases, homeschooling parents used to customized things for their kids can be very demanding of the organizer in an attempt to customize it best for their child or even for other family members. It is impossible to customize a class for ten different kids, for example but sometimes every family wants things changed to do this and not do that and to change the time to suit the nap of their younger child, so forth and so on. They make demands like change the time to earlier or later or better for their preference for a lunch time or shorter class or longer class or longer schedule or shorter or want it cheaper or study things more deeply and on and on.
I have seen this happen so many times I hardly ever state an opinion to the organizers, I'm just happy they are doing the work, not me! I'll take sub-optimal things just out of gratitude that I'm not the one dealing with it.
Blogging About Homeschooling
The last thing is that on this homeschooling journey I have had some crazy things happen to me. Some make good stories but I can't share them. Even though some of you may benefit from learning from my mistakes or from issues I've seen happen, I can't share them or I'd risk alienating myself from everyone. Some things are passing issues, something really upset me but we're over it, we've moved on, and to make it permanent by blogging it would possibly do more harm than good.
So homeschooling older kids is sometimes not all peaches and cream. Sometimes things are a bit rougher around the edges or the days have more problems and worries than we want. I'm sometimes just trying to get through the real life situations and have no time or energy to put to writing about them let alone publishing them on this blog. I'm too busy having moved on to the next challenge to think about or write about last week's issue, even though it would have made for interesting reading.
So even I am winding up to be one of those homeschool moms of older kids who suddenly become quieter and retreat a bit back from being a super enthusiastic cheerleader for homeschooling to being more focused on my family's daily life. Yes, even I'm starting to keep my mouth shut except when making desperate calls to my closest homeschool mom confidants to vent or ask them for sage advice.
There are so many blogs of families with little kids! Okay, okay, so when I started this blog I was one of them. Back then my kids were aged 4 and 7. These families seem so happy, almost gleeful over the smallest things.
In the local homeschool community it seems that homeschooling starts to taper off in middle school. I mean, formerly happy homeschooling families start enrolling their kids into school, for various reasons. Some enter their children in the upper elementary grades. Yes, people are always starting off schooling and then pull their children out, I know that. But things are just different homeschooling older kids. Some of these changes make families change their mind about homeschooling. It usually has to do with academics getting harder and kids not wanting to learn or strife between parent and child about doing the lessons or in some cases the kids begging for more social time with kids their age.
How is my life different than these families with much younger kids?
Here are a few ways in which we're different now than the way our family used to be:
1. There is more of an urgency to get certain academic work accomplished. I have less than six years until my older child starts college. In the beginning the road before college seemed so far away. In fifth grade the switch flipped from "we have tons of time to homeschool so enjoy the day, we'll get to it someday" to "there are X number of years left before we're done".
2. Some of the academic work that must be done if preparing for college admissions is not all fun and games to teach. Sometimes work just has to be done and even the most creative thinking does not provide me with a fun way to study the subject.
3. At some point in fifth and sixth grade the number of things that suddenly are not learned simply and easily increases. Learning starts to take more effort. Effort is not always met with joy and excitement. Thus the homeschool mom sometimes has to play the part of the strict school teacher.
4. Puberty begins and the hormones affect the homeschooling as well as the family relationships. Developmental changes occur. Kids are no longer in that stage of living to please mom. Kids become more independent minded. They start to question authority and push limits more. Homeschool lessons can be in the mix of what the child and parent battle over. Parents of schooled kids often struggle with kids over homework and other family life. Now imagine puberty combined with the entire education of the child not just homework completion deadlines.
5. The children have different social needs. They want more time with friends. In my area kids are very busy. Sports, especially travel sports for elementary and middle grade kids, can take up a lot of time. This makes friends unavailable sometimes. At times our schedule doesn't jive with their friend's schedules.
6. It gets hard to choose what to do and what not to do. My boys have so far chosen to do Scouting. This is a big commitment. The shift from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts in the middle of grade five is a big change. For example often there are two weekends a month with Scout activities including a 36 hour or so camping trip. Sometimes it is my kids who are too busy to see their friends.
7. My kids want more learning experiences with other kids. We try to do some of these with homeschooled friends of theirs. However often if behaving in the class and being quiet et cetera they don't get enough social time with those friends. Thus just doing classes together is often not enough time with them to cultivate the friendship. Homeschooling families often will not allow social time with friends on weekends, saying it is family time or time to see the father (who works days during the week). Only allowing social time for friends Monday-Friday afternoon is hard if the days are packed with homeschool academics, sports and/or Scouts.
8. My kids and other kids we know like to do sleep-over's. This seems to give enough social time with their (not homeschooled) friends (who allow social time on weekends and use summers for social time). However this interrupts the family's schedule. The weekend winds up conforming around the kids. For example if we are trying to get a house project done or do a bunch of errands but we have a guest for 36 hours or so this doesn't always work out unless the kids can play unsupervised while we do the house project. Another challenge is they usually stay up way too late, or even just talk in the dark, so then they are tired the next day. I don't have a simple solution other than try to only do sleepovers about once every eight weeks or so. If my kids had it their way they'd have a sleepover every week. (Starting in fifth grade I myself spend every single weekend with my best friend and sometimes also with our other friends as a bigger group.)
9. There are many good outside classes and events that my children can take now that they are older. Around here many classes don't start until age 6. It is hard to choose the best of the best. Often we overbook the kids as it is hard to say no to a great opportunity. Yet running around from appointment to appointment can make for a harried lifestyle. I thought homeschooling was supposed to prevent a frenzied family life just by default. Come to find out to have calm and open schedules requires a constant concerted effort.
Time is spent addressing learning disabilities. This can be visits to professionals or home therapies.
Time is spent dealing with medical things and most commonly, orthodontic braces on the kid's teeth! This can mean up to four visits a month for a family. This takes time and energy to fit in between everything else!
10. If too much is done to outsource classes or do field trips it is hard to get the other academic work done at home. Yet when outsourcing basic courses, I'm reminded of how inefficient it is. In other words we can do more work at home than if I pay for a course and drive the kids to take it with a teacher. I save money and time by teaching some course material at home. The kids have more custom tailored learning experiences with curriculums and books chosen to suit them best. Yet it sometimes is not easy to teach them at home OR sometimes I'm not as disciplined about actually doing the lessons so it can be tempting to just pay a teacher or join a homeschool co-op and say the child was taught that subject at the class by the teacher. Sometimes the amount of content covered in a class is not sufficient or doesn't result in as much learning as we hoped it would though.
For example one friend asked me to give feedback on her homeschool plans. There was nothing for the topic of science. She said, "I'm counting that nature class as our science." My reply was, "But that class you use is a total of eight hours of instruction for September to January 1. Eight hours of science instruction for half of the academic year is not really equivalent to what the public schools are teaching! And a nature class is not covering other topics like magnets and biology and chemistry and physics and many other things!". This mother had wanted her homeschool content to exceed the academics at public school, that was one of her main reasons to homeschool in the first place, yet the home education she was crafting seemed inferior for the subject of science.
11. The homeschooling community is a bit incestuous in my area. We see lots of the same people. Not everyone gets along (sometimes the kids and sometimes the mothers). We sometimes get on each other's nerves especially if we see a lot of each other and if any problems occurred. Some people are quick to forgive and some hold grudges for a long time (both kids and the mothers).
Since things we do are basically all optional I'm trying to keep my kids happy by avoiding activities with certain other kids such as keeping away from a kid with an impulse control problem who has been hitting and hurting other kids. Who would willingly put their child, the victim of a bully, with a bully?
Another example is avoiding kids who wreck a learning experience due to bad behavior. Why should I pay for a class that will be disrupted yet again by one or more certain kids who have stressed the teacher out in the past (that the teacher was not able to handle). My kids get frustrated having good behavior for themselves in a paid class when they'd like to tell off the other kid. If the kids were in school they'd have no choice but to deal with whomever was in their classes. But with options with homeschoolers it is sometimes better to just avoid certain people and have a happier life. This is a pain in the neck to deal with. It involves things like finding out that a certain class is available but keeping it a secret from certain families, or calling my friends to see if I can talk them into putting their good kids into the class with my kids. It can be time consuming and exhausting at the same time.
12. Homeschooling allows us to be close to our kids. This means for example, my kids tell me stories of what goes on. Sometimes this upsets me (but I have to just let it go or get over it) and other times the situation is unacceptable. Also due to homeschooling I'm often around the other kids and I have witnessed things firsthand. If my kids were in school or on a school bus I'd have no clue of these things if my kids didn't tell me of them. Some of my friends with kids in school hear stories long after they are over or from other people not their own kids, so it cannot be assumed that schooled kids tell their parents everything, even things like being bullied verbally or physically.
13. Lastly we can custom create group classes and field trips for homeschoolers. Yet I have learned the hard way that this can be very stressful. It is not as simple as setting a date and time. This can wind up being political and some problems with people can cause so much stress that sleep is lost or friendships are fractured and may end altogether. In other cases, homeschooling parents used to customized things for their kids can be very demanding of the organizer in an attempt to customize it best for their child or even for other family members. It is impossible to customize a class for ten different kids, for example but sometimes every family wants things changed to do this and not do that and to change the time to suit the nap of their younger child, so forth and so on. They make demands like change the time to earlier or later or better for their preference for a lunch time or shorter class or longer class or longer schedule or shorter or want it cheaper or study things more deeply and on and on.
I have seen this happen so many times I hardly ever state an opinion to the organizers, I'm just happy they are doing the work, not me! I'll take sub-optimal things just out of gratitude that I'm not the one dealing with it.
Blogging About Homeschooling
The last thing is that on this homeschooling journey I have had some crazy things happen to me. Some make good stories but I can't share them. Even though some of you may benefit from learning from my mistakes or from issues I've seen happen, I can't share them or I'd risk alienating myself from everyone. Some things are passing issues, something really upset me but we're over it, we've moved on, and to make it permanent by blogging it would possibly do more harm than good.
So homeschooling older kids is sometimes not all peaches and cream. Sometimes things are a bit rougher around the edges or the days have more problems and worries than we want. I'm sometimes just trying to get through the real life situations and have no time or energy to put to writing about them let alone publishing them on this blog. I'm too busy having moved on to the next challenge to think about or write about last week's issue, even though it would have made for interesting reading.
So even I am winding up to be one of those homeschool moms of older kids who suddenly become quieter and retreat a bit back from being a super enthusiastic cheerleader for homeschooling to being more focused on my family's daily life. Yes, even I'm starting to keep my mouth shut except when making desperate calls to my closest homeschool mom confidants to vent or ask them for sage advice.
The Thinking Mother Nominated for a Blog Award
Today I stumbled across the fact that my blog, The Thinking Mother, has been nominated for a blog award:
Homeschool Blog Awards
Category: Best Current Events, Opinions or Political Blog
There are 13 blogs nominated for this category.
Voting is open, here is the category I'm nominated for.
If you feel mine is the best on the list take a couple of second to vote. It’s anonymous, requires no registration and voting is very simple to do. Just click and vote.
Carnival of Homeschooling Week 203 Published
The Carnival of Homeschooling week 203 was published this week at A Pondering Heart.
This Carnival provides a lot of homeschool-related reading. Take a look!
If you have a blog or a website and write about homeschooling I encourage you to consider submitting an entry to this weekly blog Carnival. For information on how to make a submission, see here.
Enjoy!
Technorati Tags: Carnival of Homeschooling, homeschooling, homeschooling information, blog carnival, homeschooling support.
Carnival of Homeschooling Week 202 Published
The Carnival of Homeschooling week 202 was published this week at Janice Campbell’s blog.
This Carnival provides a lot of homeschool-related reading. Take a look!
If you have a blog or a website and write about homeschooling I encourage you to consider submitting an entry to this weekly blog Carnival. For information on how to make a submission, see here.
Enjoy!
Technorati Tags: Carnival of Homeschooling, homeschooling, homeschooling information, blog carnival, homeschooling support.
Carnival of Homeschooling Week 201 Published
The Carnival of Homeschooling week 201 was published this week at The Informed Parent.
This Carnival provides a lot of homeschool-related reading. Take a look!
If you have a blog or a website and write about homeschooling I encourage you to consider submitting an entry to this weekly blog Carnival. For information on how to make a submission, see here.
Enjoy!
Technorati Tags: Carnival of Homeschooling, homeschooling, homeschooling information, blog carnival, homeschooling support.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Blustery
It was cold and blustery!
Photo taken 11/22/2008 by ChristineMM at Rock Harbor, Orleans, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Great Movie Teachers About Racial Inequality and American Medicine
The other day while my son and I were sick I decided we'd watch "Something the Lord Made", a movie which I stumbled across on our DVR's list of free movies. I recall hearing about the movie but honestly didn't know much about it.
The long story short is my nine year old was busy doing something so he missed the first half, overhearing it only. My twelve year old and I were engrossed in the movie. I had to pause it a few times to discuss the topics as this topic of Civil Rights and racial inequality in America has not yet been in my children's homeschool lesson plans. The topic has been discussed here and there as it pertained to our real lives and current events. However it was clear to me that my twelve year old hadn't previously "gotten it".
The movie is absolutely fantastic. It starts in the 1930s. An African-American man has graduated from high school and has worked with his father for seven years as a carpenter in order to save money to attend college and hopefully, medical school. The bank crashes and he lost all his money. He had been hired as a janitor for a doctor doing research and winds up being his lab assistant. They work together to develop the first open heart surgery. He never does make it to medical school. His learning is all self-taught and under an apprenticeship. Despite the laws he is basically practicing medicine (in a lab on animals) without a license. He struggled financially to make ends meet on his meager salary limited partially due to the fact that he is black and is classified as janitor level staff despite doing the same and more work than the white doctor. Later the Civil Rights Act is passed. Not to be missed is the fact that this man did what he loved despite not becoming rich and even making less money than if he had some higher paying day job to pay the bills.
We discussed a lot about this movie. Animal rights, experimenting on animals, and medical ethics and experimental surgeries. We discussed working at one's passion even when it is not making a person rich. We of course talked about racial inequality in America and the Civil Rights Act. We also discussed the priest's objection to the idea of heart surgery and the medical profession's first fear of attempting it. We talked about college education in America, barriers to accessing it, and how learning can take place outside of formal schooling but real work experience doesn't always allow a person to do a job legitimately (for full pay). We discussed people taking credit for the work of others and also about working as partners and as a team.
My twelve year old begged to watch the movie again but with the whole family. He wants my husband to see it and to talk about it as a family. As a family we gathered tonight to watch it with my husband. This time I'm making my nine year old see the whole thing.
In future homeschool history lessons we will study this time period and we'll explore these topics more deeply.
I think this movie is a great introduction for kids to the topic, so long as they can handle the topics. There are some very mild surgical scenes which are nothing compared to medical reality shows seen on cable TV today. There are a few profanities here and there, one or two times the F word is used. There is a dramtic scene when we are not sure if the baby girl will survive the first open heart surgery performed on a human.
I think this is a great example of a fine movie that can be used for educational purposes as a homeschooling lesson as well as an excellent conversation starter.
The long story short is my nine year old was busy doing something so he missed the first half, overhearing it only. My twelve year old and I were engrossed in the movie. I had to pause it a few times to discuss the topics as this topic of Civil Rights and racial inequality in America has not yet been in my children's homeschool lesson plans. The topic has been discussed here and there as it pertained to our real lives and current events. However it was clear to me that my twelve year old hadn't previously "gotten it".
The movie is absolutely fantastic. It starts in the 1930s. An African-American man has graduated from high school and has worked with his father for seven years as a carpenter in order to save money to attend college and hopefully, medical school. The bank crashes and he lost all his money. He had been hired as a janitor for a doctor doing research and winds up being his lab assistant. They work together to develop the first open heart surgery. He never does make it to medical school. His learning is all self-taught and under an apprenticeship. Despite the laws he is basically practicing medicine (in a lab on animals) without a license. He struggled financially to make ends meet on his meager salary limited partially due to the fact that he is black and is classified as janitor level staff despite doing the same and more work than the white doctor. Later the Civil Rights Act is passed. Not to be missed is the fact that this man did what he loved despite not becoming rich and even making less money than if he had some higher paying day job to pay the bills.
We discussed a lot about this movie. Animal rights, experimenting on animals, and medical ethics and experimental surgeries. We discussed working at one's passion even when it is not making a person rich. We of course talked about racial inequality in America and the Civil Rights Act. We also discussed the priest's objection to the idea of heart surgery and the medical profession's first fear of attempting it. We talked about college education in America, barriers to accessing it, and how learning can take place outside of formal schooling but real work experience doesn't always allow a person to do a job legitimately (for full pay). We discussed people taking credit for the work of others and also about working as partners and as a team.
My twelve year old begged to watch the movie again but with the whole family. He wants my husband to see it and to talk about it as a family. As a family we gathered tonight to watch it with my husband. This time I'm making my nine year old see the whole thing.
In future homeschool history lessons we will study this time period and we'll explore these topics more deeply.
I think this movie is a great introduction for kids to the topic, so long as they can handle the topics. There are some very mild surgical scenes which are nothing compared to medical reality shows seen on cable TV today. There are a few profanities here and there, one or two times the F word is used. There is a dramtic scene when we are not sure if the baby girl will survive the first open heart surgery performed on a human.
I think this is a great example of a fine movie that can be used for educational purposes as a homeschooling lesson as well as an excellent conversation starter.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Lovely but Problematic
Japanese Barberry, Berberis thunbergii. Invasive plant in Connecticut, many planted as ornamental shrubs in yards and they've spread to the woods. More information here. The foliage turns orange and red in autumn and even in November some still retain their foliage.
Today our family took a nature walk for some fresh air. I had fun also taking photos.
Photo taken 11/15/09 by ChristineMM in Fairfield County, Connecticut.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Free-Range Kids Book Review by ChristineMM
Title: Free-Range Kids: Giving our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry
Author: Lenore Skenazy
Genre: Nonfiction, parenting
Publication: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Imprint, 2009
ISBN: 9780470471944 (hardcover)
Full retail price: $24.95
My Rating: 5 stars out of 5: “I Love It”
Summary Statement: Humor, Facts and Common Sense Combined
When I began my parenting journey I wanted to do all the right things, to keep my child safe and healthy. It wasn’t until a few years down the road that I started realizing that by following all that advice my children’s lives were very different than my own childhood. I started recalling how I spent my youth, with much unstructured and unsupervised play outdoors with neighbor kids and realized my kids were missing out. I also realized that I’d not be the person I am today if my mother supervised all my play time, followed me around and monitored all my conversations with my friends. When asking around to friends and even neighbors, everyone echoed back the same advice and recommendations. They weren’t ready to go “free-range” yet. The neighbors wouldn’t allow their kids to play outdoors unsupervised, even with a group of kids. I was back at square one.
Yet kids growing up indoors with constant parental or adult supervision and more screen time than “outside in the real world” time seemed just wrong. I didn’t want my boys to be helpless wimps into their preteen and teen years. I wasn’t interested in raising children, I wanted to raise adults. I started looking for someone who said these things, and had a hard time finding any. Well, Lenore Skenazy is that voice.
Skenazy is a journalist and a syndicated columnist but she became famous around the globe when her story hit the mainstream news. She was the mother who let her nine year old son ride a New York City subway alone and was labeled the “world’s worst mother”. Internet discussion boards were afire with the debate about “would you let your child do this” and asking if this was neglectful or dangerous.
This book is a wonderful summary of some parenting commandments that Skenazy hopes will help today’s parents give their children a childhood like the one we had. Fourteen chapters outline fourteen commandments. A humorous discussion of the topics and some common sense advice is given. The fact is the danger of what may go wrong is not usually what does happen. The media, parenting experts and other well meaning people hype up the fear and scare parents stiff.
What saves this book from being condescending, patronizing or boring is the humor throughout the book. Parents are not made to be stupid for having followed the expert’s advice, for example. Skenazy compares what is typical in America to how parenting is in other countries and it seems we Americans must be crazy with fear and worry. In fact, we may be out of our minds. Skenazy urges us to stop trying to control everything, because the fact is, we just can’t. In fact, failure and making mistakes is good for children.
There are 33 pages in the “Safe or Not” chapter that examine a topic with studies to prove that the thing is not as dangerous as we think it is. Statistics are given. is research and information to back up Skenazy’s encouragement to lighten up, loosen up and to relax.
The conclusion chapter is excellent. This chapter I’ve written notes in the margins and circled quotes. This is the section that made me feel like I was sitting down with a wise mom-friend.
“Childhood is supposed to be about discovering the world, not being held captive. It’s not about having the world pointed out to you by a DVD or a video game or by your mom as you drive by. “See, honey? That’s called a ‘forest’. Can you spell forest?”
We want our children to have a childhood that’s magical and enriched, but I’ll be that your best childhood memories involve something you were thrilled to do by yourself. These are childhood’s magic words: “I did it myself!” (page 193)
To my knowledge this is the only book on the market discussing this topic. There are books that talk about the problems that over-indulgence creates and some about raising boys that asks parents to give their boys more responsibility and more freedom. But Lenore Skenazy is the only one talking about how both genders, starting at birth. She says what we’re told to do just goes too far and how the media over-exaggerates the dangers. If you don’t believe the validity of what she says, there are thirteen pages of source material used to back up the information. There are three pages of books, movies and websites in support of the free-range parenting lifestyle.
This book should be read by all parents of young children. The focus starts in the baby years so the sooner a new parent can read it, the better. The book seems to cover kids through about twelve years old. The book does not focus on raising teenagers and issues regarding independence and freedom in the tumultuous teen years when the stakes and the situations are a bit different (i.e. looser apron strings when kids may start experimenting with tobacco, drugs, and alcohol).
I found this book enjoyable to read. It is an easy, fast read filled with humor.
I highly recommend reading it for a breath of fresh air.
This would make a great gift for the overly-worried mother you know. If not as a baby shower gift, how about presenting it as a gift at a child’s first birthday?
I rate this book 5 stars = “I Love It”.
Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book from the publisher and agreed to write a review of it for publication on my blog. I received no money to write this review.
The Grapevine Won
Photo taken by ChristineMM on 11/14/09 in my yard, in Faifield County, Connecticut. Not digitally altered. copyright ChristineMM, 2009
Some Thoughts About Homeschooling, Unschooling and Gaps
I have some thoughts that have been swirling around in my head for years that I want to write into a cohesive essay that wraps it all up nicely and makes sense. Since I keep procrastinating writing it, it hasn't happened yet. So today I decided to post something short and just state my ponderings. I fear if I don't just write this in a rough form and publish it, it will be one of those ever-being-edited pieces.
I used to fear that saying some of this might offend some people, may anger them or may bring criticism and stress to me. However, I'm not certain that is the case.
I invite your thoughts about this topic. I await your feedback in the comments.
----
A fallacy of American public education is that the students get a thorough (and deep) education of what they need to know before adulthood. It seems that just about everyone realizes that there are gaps or that some material jumps from here to there, covers things too shallowly or fails to connect the dots. However the same people who know this tell themselves and others that the education system is a very good one. Not many parents think their school system is sub-par. Everyone thinks their schools are "one of the best". Yet when I ask some parents what their schools have taught their kids that year, they usually don't know, or can list just a couple of topics.
The same people who think the public school has gaps fear that homeschoolers will have gaps. The most troubling are the teachers, school administrators and the legislators and others with government jobs. I think they want to hold homeschoolers to a higher standard then the public schools. Most would be happier if homeschooled kids were enrolled into public school so they could "ensure" that a high quality education was being given, while out of the other side of their mouth they state the inadequacies of that same system. They are happy to accept gaps, shallow teaching "a mile wide and an inch deep" and "teaching to the test" yet don't want this to happen to homeschoolers. I find this double-standard odd.
The only sense I can make of it is that more trust is put in the "expert" professional teachers who have training to teach, so if gaps or an imperfect education occurs at their hands, it is acceptable to them. This makes no sense to me. Some of them consider it dangerous to risk that a homeschool parent-teacher has full control of the child's home education and that the child may have gaps. Often their concerns are based on imagined outcomes of imagined homeschooled students that exist "out there" rather than looking at real information about individual children.
I saw examples of proof of this mindset at a public hearing in Connecticut. Legislators heard stories from homeschooled students and their parents about what their home education consisted of and they grilled them about their experiences. Some replied that while that person's individual story is wonderful, surely they are the exception not the norm. Even when hearing story after story, some people still clung to a fear about vague homeschoolers that must exist "out there". I've come to believe this is in their imagination only. I bet that the few cases of real educational neglect are rare. And the 'just average' or failing students in public school are real statistics known to the schools and the government.
Few homeschoolers want to have gaps in their children's education. Gaps may occur due to pure oversight, ignorance on the parent's part. Sometimes a gap may occur because the parent didn't place much stock in teaching that topic. Or maybe they just run out of time. Or they think they have covered a topic deeply enough but someone else begs to differ.
Most homeschoolers and unschoolers say they want their children to learn how to learn. Some say they want their children to enjoy learning. Some say they want their children to have a curious mind. Most probably want their children to know how to research things they want and need to know about (extending this practice into adulthood ideally).
Some homeschoolers and unschoolers know the joy that can happen with deep learning on a topic. If this is in line with the child's own curiosity and if this is learner-driven then it seems like seventh heaven. This is the stuff that unschoolers dream about. Some homeschoolers pull their children back a bit. A parent recently shared a story about wanting to do Ancient History in one year but the entire year could have been only about Ancient Egypt due to her child's passion. After spending many months on it she pulled the child back and moved on with the homeschool lessons to other topics in history, leaving additional Egypt studies to the spare time. I had a very similar experience with my older son in his Kindergarten and First Grade year.
I have heard stories from unschoolers about some odd or obscure topics their children wanted to learn about and were allowed to spend tons of time doing. These have been things like teaching themselves Japanese and fully researching anime and manga at first but sometimes winding up more interested in Japanese culture and history in the end (way more than any public high school teaches). A teen I know has studied Japanese and is now learning Chinese and Hindi. Some of these homeschooled or unschooled kids may not be learning other topics that are typical for kids of that grade level compared to public school's scope and sequence. I have repeatedly heard a story of a local unschooled boy who spent years making origami and turned out just fine. Yet some who did this have gone on to attend good colleges and have good productive adult lives. How?
My latest theory is that a child with intense interests and deep curiosities does "learn how to learn". By being allowed to study what they want, to almost obsess on a topic, when this is internally driven, they teach themselves how to learn or have a little guidance from the parent on how to research or access information or opportunities. Sometimes in pursuit of this information or by seeking to do real work in the community these children and teenagers interact with subject matter experts in niche fields. In this way they interact with adults on a level that most middle school or high school students do not do at that age. If able to mentor or apprentice under adults, they learn specialized information as well as important social skills and indeed learn "how the real world works" as it relates to that field. A child who loves history and works at a living history museum with the public will learn a lot about mainstream Americans in their interactions with the visitors, for example!
Taking it to the next level, my theory about unschoolers in particular is that while they may have begun learning about topic X at a later age (reading, math, writing composition or something else typically taught in public school), but they do learn some of it, however much must be learned to get them to the place they want to be. That could be college or it could be some other life path. Some of what they may have struggled to learn in their homeschool or unschooling experience if the parent forced it on them was avoided. All negativity surrounding coercion to learn that topic was avoided. This allowed a more positive 'mental state' (for lack of a better descriptor) which may help the child's continued pursuit of learning in a positive way.
Unschoolers and homeschoolers who have a gap in a certain topic may never need that information. Depending on what the gap is, some things are good to know, some might be helpful to know, but some things may never be used in a practical way in one's adult life. Some topics may help a person better understand something else but are not always recognized as being problematic. For example if a student is weak on history or parts of history they may not realize that something happening in the US Government today is a violation of the US Constitution so they may not question the government's authority to do this new thing that some people oppose. Lacking information about the Crusades, a person may not realize that some people in today's world are still fighting that war, and that they themselves are seen as the enemy just for residing in a Christian nation.
Again I don't think any parents set out to have gaps intentionally.
In order to have time and energy to learn deeply and intensely about subjects, whether they are a more mainstream topic or something obscure, strange, or just go so deep as to be accused of being a 'nerd' or 'geek' by some people, it is a fair bet that the person will have gaps in some other area. There is only so much time in the day. When trying to live a normal life with family, extended family, having friends, doing Scouts and/or sports, and just living life, there is just so much time. So the thing is, I think gaps are inevitable.
The only way to try to avoid gaps is to force everything to be learned in a shallow manner. This brings us to the discussion about who decided what should be taught, how deeply and at what age or grade? There are many opinions of this. The more rigorous academic plans almost seem impossible to do comprehensively. Classical home education comes to mind.
Homeschooling parents sometimes find their children don't fit the mold of the ideal homeschooling method they chose for their children. Is it fair for me to push a classical home education focusing on a liberal arts education, heavy literature and an in-depth study of history on a son with a knack for science who desires to be an engineer? I have found that making time for special things like the FIRST LEGO League and the Science Olympiad with its bridge engineering competition got in the way of 'the basics". So what gives? Which thing should be focused on? Should we not build on our children's strengths, nurture their talents and use our homeschooling freedom to do such great educational experiences?
This brings me to unschoolers. The question of who is unschooling is problematic for me. An unschooler I know who wears the label proudly is doing heavy academics with curriculums, online classes and community college courses because the teen wants to work in computer science. Why does she get to use that label? Why is she welcomed with open arms into the unschooling community?
With my engineer wanna-be son, when I put a course in place for him to get him on track for college admissions for that major I have been told by others that I'm a "school at-homer" and a "traditional homeschooler" and that I'm doing "classical homeschooling". If we are going to be so strict with labels I don't think I'm living up to the classical homeschooling model enough and would have to hide for cover as an eclectic homeschooler.
When my three year old was teaching himself to read and wanted help at age four and begged for me to use "Alpha Phonics". An unschooler told me that because I was helping my child to read we were not unschooling. She also said that the age was too young for a child to read and that I may damage my son by letting him read, harming his eyes, specifically. What she must not understand is it is nearly impossible to stop a child from learning when they are learning things they want to learn.
I think what I'm doing is straddling the fence between unschooling and traditional schooling. I'm trying to give my kids a decent home education so they can function in society, such as being able to read, analyze what they read, have logical and critical thinking. I want a firm foundation in the three R's. Yet I want my kids to love learning, learn how to learn, and to have time to pursue their own interests (no matter how obscure or weird).
I want my kids to be able to pursue the path of their desire and if that includes college I need to explain to them the pathways, some take years. Rather than wait for my child at age 16 to teach himself what the path to an engineering degree is, I found out and told him. I'm structuring his home education in a way to pace out this learning to a reasonable and do-able, easier pace rather than a frantic scramble at the end. I'm trying to craft a unique education for my kids yet still meet the expectations of outside parties (colleges). I live in a state lenient about homeschool government monitoring--if it was tighter I'd have to deal with all that too.
If I am helping my son pursue his dream, am I not aiding him in unschooling? Only one of my friends said to me that she thinks I'm really an unschooler. Indeed that is the path I started out on when my kids were younger. I had read about unschooling and was greatly inspired to begin homeschooling by the most radical of unschoolers.
Some of the unschoolers I know are the most judgmental people I know in the homeschooling community. They like to pigeon-hole and label others, especially those they have decided are not in their circle. Some have told me they feel that certain other people in my local community are judgmental about them being unschoolers and they say they hate feeling judged. They say they want tolerance. Yet they judge the others and they are intolerant of the others. I honestly don't think they realize their hypocrisy.
This labeling and pigeon holing and casting out, excluding and including is all negative in my eyes. I wish it could all end. This is why I usually speak about homeschooling in a general way. When I say the word homeschool I mean everyone who is home educating, no matter what the method. I don’t' care how others homeschool, but would like their children to be functioning members of society as adults, not a burden on society. So whatever path they take, whatever they teach and why is up to them so long as they can function and so long as the children are not being neglected or harmed in any way in the process.
I like educational freedom. I want people to have choices. Yet those working toward a goal like college admissions for a certain degree have to straddle the fence between custom designing a life that includes taking full responsibility for the child's education with its myriad of options for different learning experiences and also fulfilling the expectations of others in the real world.
I find trying to straddle the fence very difficult. I have just two children with very different goals and learning abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. To have a customized experience for both is time consuming and takes a lot of energy. Past attempts to do the same work for both kids has not been good for either child so I don't know how larger families manage this to be honest. I believe in identifying weak areas and trying to boost them up. I believe in finding the strengths and talents and nurturing those too. I want my children to have their own interests and have time to pursue those. I want to cover the basics. I want my kids to do some unique things that schooled kids cannot do due to the limitations of the institutional schooling they attend.
It is hard to do all the basics in a thorough way plus have time for a child's own interests and then to do great extra stuff like have my children attend filmmaking classes, script and film a short movie with a team of kids. I want a harmonious home life with a laid back atmosphere, where home is a sanctuary from the nutty world outside our door. Yet trying to do all that I want lends itself to a more hectic, crazed life that I'm trying to avoid.
There is a lot of give and take with homeschooling. If we do this, we can't do that. This takes time, we don't have time for that. This thing costs a lot of money, we don't have money then to do that. Must this thing be done now, or can it wait until next year? But if the program doesn't have good attendance this year, maybe it won't be available next year. If we don't get in with the new FIRST LEGO League team now we will be shut out of that team next year. Is it necessary to do four things now or is choosing just two more reasonable? The poetry writing class is unique, but now we lost time on practicing writing a basic book report which seems to be the public school's obsession for years. My child practices drawing and is a master with collage but his spelling stinks, and the poetry writer teacher may be horrified to see my homeschooled child's spelling and wonder if that is a reflection on an overall sub-par homeschooling experience.
And that last thing is the kicker: the judgment. The judgment of outsiders that we have to contend with all the time. We are being judged by other homeschoolers in our local area, judged by our relative and neighbors, or the teachers we pay to teach some of our kid’s unique topics. We need encouragement while on this path so we'd all help the homeschooling cause if we stopped judging each other. And the biggest and most important judges are the ones who hold the gates to more important things in our children's future: the colleges and the employers. What they will think of our kids when judgment day comes is something that is on our mind for years beforehand, for some, even in the preschool-at-home years.
I'm not sure if I'll ever find the balance while straddling the fence. What's even harder is trying to find the balance when I know I'm being watched. Some days it feels like I'm under a magnifying glass. Every move my children and I make is being evaluated and judged by many people. Others often hold my kids to a higher standard for academics and also for their behavior. The judgment can be on a minute to minute basis, not based on a once a week test score, or a quarterly report card. Judgment can be on something years into the future, such as wondering which colleges wind up admitting our children.
To handle all the judgment, we homeschoolers need support and encourage each other. One way homeschooling parents can help other homeschooling parents is to reduce judgment and increase tolerance for the ways we choose to use our educational freedoms within our unique home-schools. If I promise to not assume that your child didn't know the answer to the question of which years the Renaissance was because they didn't raise their hand in the homeschool field trip to a museum will you promise not to think my twelve year old child is stupid due to his sloppy penmanship? Can we make that deal?
I used to fear that saying some of this might offend some people, may anger them or may bring criticism and stress to me. However, I'm not certain that is the case.
I invite your thoughts about this topic. I await your feedback in the comments.
----
A fallacy of American public education is that the students get a thorough (and deep) education of what they need to know before adulthood. It seems that just about everyone realizes that there are gaps or that some material jumps from here to there, covers things too shallowly or fails to connect the dots. However the same people who know this tell themselves and others that the education system is a very good one. Not many parents think their school system is sub-par. Everyone thinks their schools are "one of the best". Yet when I ask some parents what their schools have taught their kids that year, they usually don't know, or can list just a couple of topics.
The same people who think the public school has gaps fear that homeschoolers will have gaps. The most troubling are the teachers, school administrators and the legislators and others with government jobs. I think they want to hold homeschoolers to a higher standard then the public schools. Most would be happier if homeschooled kids were enrolled into public school so they could "ensure" that a high quality education was being given, while out of the other side of their mouth they state the inadequacies of that same system. They are happy to accept gaps, shallow teaching "a mile wide and an inch deep" and "teaching to the test" yet don't want this to happen to homeschoolers. I find this double-standard odd.
The only sense I can make of it is that more trust is put in the "expert" professional teachers who have training to teach, so if gaps or an imperfect education occurs at their hands, it is acceptable to them. This makes no sense to me. Some of them consider it dangerous to risk that a homeschool parent-teacher has full control of the child's home education and that the child may have gaps. Often their concerns are based on imagined outcomes of imagined homeschooled students that exist "out there" rather than looking at real information about individual children.
I saw examples of proof of this mindset at a public hearing in Connecticut. Legislators heard stories from homeschooled students and their parents about what their home education consisted of and they grilled them about their experiences. Some replied that while that person's individual story is wonderful, surely they are the exception not the norm. Even when hearing story after story, some people still clung to a fear about vague homeschoolers that must exist "out there". I've come to believe this is in their imagination only. I bet that the few cases of real educational neglect are rare. And the 'just average' or failing students in public school are real statistics known to the schools and the government.
Few homeschoolers want to have gaps in their children's education. Gaps may occur due to pure oversight, ignorance on the parent's part. Sometimes a gap may occur because the parent didn't place much stock in teaching that topic. Or maybe they just run out of time. Or they think they have covered a topic deeply enough but someone else begs to differ.
Most homeschoolers and unschoolers say they want their children to learn how to learn. Some say they want their children to enjoy learning. Some say they want their children to have a curious mind. Most probably want their children to know how to research things they want and need to know about (extending this practice into adulthood ideally).
Some homeschoolers and unschoolers know the joy that can happen with deep learning on a topic. If this is in line with the child's own curiosity and if this is learner-driven then it seems like seventh heaven. This is the stuff that unschoolers dream about. Some homeschoolers pull their children back a bit. A parent recently shared a story about wanting to do Ancient History in one year but the entire year could have been only about Ancient Egypt due to her child's passion. After spending many months on it she pulled the child back and moved on with the homeschool lessons to other topics in history, leaving additional Egypt studies to the spare time. I had a very similar experience with my older son in his Kindergarten and First Grade year.
I have heard stories from unschoolers about some odd or obscure topics their children wanted to learn about and were allowed to spend tons of time doing. These have been things like teaching themselves Japanese and fully researching anime and manga at first but sometimes winding up more interested in Japanese culture and history in the end (way more than any public high school teaches). A teen I know has studied Japanese and is now learning Chinese and Hindi. Some of these homeschooled or unschooled kids may not be learning other topics that are typical for kids of that grade level compared to public school's scope and sequence. I have repeatedly heard a story of a local unschooled boy who spent years making origami and turned out just fine. Yet some who did this have gone on to attend good colleges and have good productive adult lives. How?
My latest theory is that a child with intense interests and deep curiosities does "learn how to learn". By being allowed to study what they want, to almost obsess on a topic, when this is internally driven, they teach themselves how to learn or have a little guidance from the parent on how to research or access information or opportunities. Sometimes in pursuit of this information or by seeking to do real work in the community these children and teenagers interact with subject matter experts in niche fields. In this way they interact with adults on a level that most middle school or high school students do not do at that age. If able to mentor or apprentice under adults, they learn specialized information as well as important social skills and indeed learn "how the real world works" as it relates to that field. A child who loves history and works at a living history museum with the public will learn a lot about mainstream Americans in their interactions with the visitors, for example!
Taking it to the next level, my theory about unschoolers in particular is that while they may have begun learning about topic X at a later age (reading, math, writing composition or something else typically taught in public school), but they do learn some of it, however much must be learned to get them to the place they want to be. That could be college or it could be some other life path. Some of what they may have struggled to learn in their homeschool or unschooling experience if the parent forced it on them was avoided. All negativity surrounding coercion to learn that topic was avoided. This allowed a more positive 'mental state' (for lack of a better descriptor) which may help the child's continued pursuit of learning in a positive way.
Unschoolers and homeschoolers who have a gap in a certain topic may never need that information. Depending on what the gap is, some things are good to know, some might be helpful to know, but some things may never be used in a practical way in one's adult life. Some topics may help a person better understand something else but are not always recognized as being problematic. For example if a student is weak on history or parts of history they may not realize that something happening in the US Government today is a violation of the US Constitution so they may not question the government's authority to do this new thing that some people oppose. Lacking information about the Crusades, a person may not realize that some people in today's world are still fighting that war, and that they themselves are seen as the enemy just for residing in a Christian nation.
Again I don't think any parents set out to have gaps intentionally.
In order to have time and energy to learn deeply and intensely about subjects, whether they are a more mainstream topic or something obscure, strange, or just go so deep as to be accused of being a 'nerd' or 'geek' by some people, it is a fair bet that the person will have gaps in some other area. There is only so much time in the day. When trying to live a normal life with family, extended family, having friends, doing Scouts and/or sports, and just living life, there is just so much time. So the thing is, I think gaps are inevitable.
The only way to try to avoid gaps is to force everything to be learned in a shallow manner. This brings us to the discussion about who decided what should be taught, how deeply and at what age or grade? There are many opinions of this. The more rigorous academic plans almost seem impossible to do comprehensively. Classical home education comes to mind.
Homeschooling parents sometimes find their children don't fit the mold of the ideal homeschooling method they chose for their children. Is it fair for me to push a classical home education focusing on a liberal arts education, heavy literature and an in-depth study of history on a son with a knack for science who desires to be an engineer? I have found that making time for special things like the FIRST LEGO League and the Science Olympiad with its bridge engineering competition got in the way of 'the basics". So what gives? Which thing should be focused on? Should we not build on our children's strengths, nurture their talents and use our homeschooling freedom to do such great educational experiences?
This brings me to unschoolers. The question of who is unschooling is problematic for me. An unschooler I know who wears the label proudly is doing heavy academics with curriculums, online classes and community college courses because the teen wants to work in computer science. Why does she get to use that label? Why is she welcomed with open arms into the unschooling community?
With my engineer wanna-be son, when I put a course in place for him to get him on track for college admissions for that major I have been told by others that I'm a "school at-homer" and a "traditional homeschooler" and that I'm doing "classical homeschooling". If we are going to be so strict with labels I don't think I'm living up to the classical homeschooling model enough and would have to hide for cover as an eclectic homeschooler.
When my three year old was teaching himself to read and wanted help at age four and begged for me to use "Alpha Phonics". An unschooler told me that because I was helping my child to read we were not unschooling. She also said that the age was too young for a child to read and that I may damage my son by letting him read, harming his eyes, specifically. What she must not understand is it is nearly impossible to stop a child from learning when they are learning things they want to learn.
I think what I'm doing is straddling the fence between unschooling and traditional schooling. I'm trying to give my kids a decent home education so they can function in society, such as being able to read, analyze what they read, have logical and critical thinking. I want a firm foundation in the three R's. Yet I want my kids to love learning, learn how to learn, and to have time to pursue their own interests (no matter how obscure or weird).
I want my kids to be able to pursue the path of their desire and if that includes college I need to explain to them the pathways, some take years. Rather than wait for my child at age 16 to teach himself what the path to an engineering degree is, I found out and told him. I'm structuring his home education in a way to pace out this learning to a reasonable and do-able, easier pace rather than a frantic scramble at the end. I'm trying to craft a unique education for my kids yet still meet the expectations of outside parties (colleges). I live in a state lenient about homeschool government monitoring--if it was tighter I'd have to deal with all that too.
If I am helping my son pursue his dream, am I not aiding him in unschooling? Only one of my friends said to me that she thinks I'm really an unschooler. Indeed that is the path I started out on when my kids were younger. I had read about unschooling and was greatly inspired to begin homeschooling by the most radical of unschoolers.
Some of the unschoolers I know are the most judgmental people I know in the homeschooling community. They like to pigeon-hole and label others, especially those they have decided are not in their circle. Some have told me they feel that certain other people in my local community are judgmental about them being unschoolers and they say they hate feeling judged. They say they want tolerance. Yet they judge the others and they are intolerant of the others. I honestly don't think they realize their hypocrisy.
This labeling and pigeon holing and casting out, excluding and including is all negative in my eyes. I wish it could all end. This is why I usually speak about homeschooling in a general way. When I say the word homeschool I mean everyone who is home educating, no matter what the method. I don’t' care how others homeschool, but would like their children to be functioning members of society as adults, not a burden on society. So whatever path they take, whatever they teach and why is up to them so long as they can function and so long as the children are not being neglected or harmed in any way in the process.
I like educational freedom. I want people to have choices. Yet those working toward a goal like college admissions for a certain degree have to straddle the fence between custom designing a life that includes taking full responsibility for the child's education with its myriad of options for different learning experiences and also fulfilling the expectations of others in the real world.
I find trying to straddle the fence very difficult. I have just two children with very different goals and learning abilities, different strengths and weaknesses. To have a customized experience for both is time consuming and takes a lot of energy. Past attempts to do the same work for both kids has not been good for either child so I don't know how larger families manage this to be honest. I believe in identifying weak areas and trying to boost them up. I believe in finding the strengths and talents and nurturing those too. I want my children to have their own interests and have time to pursue those. I want to cover the basics. I want my kids to do some unique things that schooled kids cannot do due to the limitations of the institutional schooling they attend.
It is hard to do all the basics in a thorough way plus have time for a child's own interests and then to do great extra stuff like have my children attend filmmaking classes, script and film a short movie with a team of kids. I want a harmonious home life with a laid back atmosphere, where home is a sanctuary from the nutty world outside our door. Yet trying to do all that I want lends itself to a more hectic, crazed life that I'm trying to avoid.
There is a lot of give and take with homeschooling. If we do this, we can't do that. This takes time, we don't have time for that. This thing costs a lot of money, we don't have money then to do that. Must this thing be done now, or can it wait until next year? But if the program doesn't have good attendance this year, maybe it won't be available next year. If we don't get in with the new FIRST LEGO League team now we will be shut out of that team next year. Is it necessary to do four things now or is choosing just two more reasonable? The poetry writing class is unique, but now we lost time on practicing writing a basic book report which seems to be the public school's obsession for years. My child practices drawing and is a master with collage but his spelling stinks, and the poetry writer teacher may be horrified to see my homeschooled child's spelling and wonder if that is a reflection on an overall sub-par homeschooling experience.
And that last thing is the kicker: the judgment. The judgment of outsiders that we have to contend with all the time. We are being judged by other homeschoolers in our local area, judged by our relative and neighbors, or the teachers we pay to teach some of our kid’s unique topics. We need encouragement while on this path so we'd all help the homeschooling cause if we stopped judging each other. And the biggest and most important judges are the ones who hold the gates to more important things in our children's future: the colleges and the employers. What they will think of our kids when judgment day comes is something that is on our mind for years beforehand, for some, even in the preschool-at-home years.
I'm not sure if I'll ever find the balance while straddling the fence. What's even harder is trying to find the balance when I know I'm being watched. Some days it feels like I'm under a magnifying glass. Every move my children and I make is being evaluated and judged by many people. Others often hold my kids to a higher standard for academics and also for their behavior. The judgment can be on a minute to minute basis, not based on a once a week test score, or a quarterly report card. Judgment can be on something years into the future, such as wondering which colleges wind up admitting our children.
To handle all the judgment, we homeschoolers need support and encourage each other. One way homeschooling parents can help other homeschooling parents is to reduce judgment and increase tolerance for the ways we choose to use our educational freedoms within our unique home-schools. If I promise to not assume that your child didn't know the answer to the question of which years the Renaissance was because they didn't raise their hand in the homeschool field trip to a museum will you promise not to think my twelve year old child is stupid due to his sloppy penmanship? Can we make that deal?
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Now I've Got H1N1
Am resting up. So cold I took a hot bath to get the chill out of my bones.
Went to the doctor. Am on an anti-viral Relenza.
Had a ridiculous encounter at the drug store when they told me they were out of stock and could I wait 26 hours before picking it up? I said no, sorry I need it right away so I'd take my prescription to another store to get it filled now. The clerk (through drive-through window as I didn't want to expose anyone else to it), then said, "Did you know you have a $50 co-payment if you buy this?". I replied, "The amount of the co-payment is irrelevent if I need the medication I have no choice but to pay whatever the amount is. Please give me my prescription back. Thank you."
We are doomed to get this virus. It is so contagious. The doctor told me children can be contagious up to seven days before the first treatment and 7-10 days after the last day of fever. Adults are contagious usually one day before first symptom and about 5 days after last fever day. All people taking anti-viral prescription medications remain contagious during the course of therapy. Few families will keep children home in quarantine for 14 days or so. Parents usually cannot live in quarantine that longer either, especially if multiple children get sick and the period of illness spans over time.
We must empower ourselves with information in order to get the best care and the right treatment.
If I'd done what that clerk said and waited another 26 hours to pick up my medication I would have missed the important window of treatment as outlined by the CDC and as explained to my by the doctor: that the best outcome is when anti-viral treatment is started as soon as possible and especially in the first 48 hours after the first symptom appeared.
I don't know whether the clerk was ignorant or pushing some corporate sales policy to request that the customers not take their prescription elsewhere. My point is if I'd not held my own and done what she said my health could have been further compromised. It is not her place to get in the way of what the doctor has prescribed. This same thing happened to me with an antibiotic I tried to obtain there a few months ago. Another medication for a wart, I was told, would require a special order and many day's wait.
I went to the nearest pharmacy which was the same chain. Even as I did so I was kicking myself as I should have given the sale to a competitor pharmacy.
I'm working on getting well.
My older son is improving greatly now that he is on Tamiflu.
I'm crossing my fingers that my nine year old son doesn't get it next although I'm starting to think it'll be a miracle if he doesn't.
For links to treatment plans recommended by the CDC refer to my post a few days ago about Homeschoolers and H1N1.
Stay well readers!
Went to the doctor. Am on an anti-viral Relenza.
Had a ridiculous encounter at the drug store when they told me they were out of stock and could I wait 26 hours before picking it up? I said no, sorry I need it right away so I'd take my prescription to another store to get it filled now. The clerk (through drive-through window as I didn't want to expose anyone else to it), then said, "Did you know you have a $50 co-payment if you buy this?". I replied, "The amount of the co-payment is irrelevent if I need the medication I have no choice but to pay whatever the amount is. Please give me my prescription back. Thank you."
We are doomed to get this virus. It is so contagious. The doctor told me children can be contagious up to seven days before the first treatment and 7-10 days after the last day of fever. Adults are contagious usually one day before first symptom and about 5 days after last fever day. All people taking anti-viral prescription medications remain contagious during the course of therapy. Few families will keep children home in quarantine for 14 days or so. Parents usually cannot live in quarantine that longer either, especially if multiple children get sick and the period of illness spans over time.
We must empower ourselves with information in order to get the best care and the right treatment.
If I'd done what that clerk said and waited another 26 hours to pick up my medication I would have missed the important window of treatment as outlined by the CDC and as explained to my by the doctor: that the best outcome is when anti-viral treatment is started as soon as possible and especially in the first 48 hours after the first symptom appeared.
I don't know whether the clerk was ignorant or pushing some corporate sales policy to request that the customers not take their prescription elsewhere. My point is if I'd not held my own and done what she said my health could have been further compromised. It is not her place to get in the way of what the doctor has prescribed. This same thing happened to me with an antibiotic I tried to obtain there a few months ago. Another medication for a wart, I was told, would require a special order and many day's wait.
I went to the nearest pharmacy which was the same chain. Even as I did so I was kicking myself as I should have given the sale to a competitor pharmacy.
I'm working on getting well.
My older son is improving greatly now that he is on Tamiflu.
I'm crossing my fingers that my nine year old son doesn't get it next although I'm starting to think it'll be a miracle if he doesn't.
For links to treatment plans recommended by the CDC refer to my post a few days ago about Homeschoolers and H1N1.
Stay well readers!
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