5 posts tagged “homeschooling”

Okay! Just climbed the homeschool equivalent of Mount Everest and have to share. I finally finished (except for final editing) three of my four children's annual reports for their transcripts. Sadie, entering her last year of high school, has the job of putting together her own "credit report forms" for high school credit so I just have to deal with the middles and little.  Each year, as the rush to summer fun arrives, I put it off and obsess about it daily until it is done. I fret that if anything were to happen to me before I filed this document with our umbrella school that my children would... I don't know... forget how to read? have to all go back to kindergarten? not know anything? Of course, it's all on paper and in my head, but every single cotton pickin' year, the idea of it hangs over my head like the proverbial sword of Damocles. Each day that goes by is just another day that I didn't get the dxxn things done.

Every year I wish I were organized and on-top-of-things like this:

Organized files

Yes, in my perfect world, all the information I need about my children's aptitudes and accomplishments would be neatly alphabetized, placed in color coded folders, ready to be recorded.

Then I woke up from that dream.

Our lives are much too frenetic and fun filled (yeah, right... maybe frantic might be a more apt "f" word) to keep up with it all. Okay, the real deal is that I am frightfully organizationally impaired. And so my dining room looks like this instead:

Paperwork

Yes. I must go through our calendars, my phone organizer, various scraps of paper and all the books we used during the year to get it all down on paper. (And I don't even list all the hundreds of novels and trade books we read together and individually.)To be honest, I do use a template of what they should have learned during this particular school year and then edit that according to the truth. Okay, so little Lola Foxmill didn't master long division this year; she did learn all about characterization and theme. You get the idea.

Once I have finished, I then borrow my kids' brain space and see if I have left anything out in terms of activities, classes, museum visits and plays. The usual reaction is, "Wow! I didn't even remember all that stuff. I really learned a lot this year!" Since we tend more and more toward unschooling, where we count everything as a potential learning experience, and dispense with curriculum as often as possible in favor of experiential learning and real books, it all comes together.  

The end result, (that would be NOW!) is that I am a happy mommy, feeling full of myself and my children's accomplishments, ready at long last to fully enjoy the summer break. Until tomorrow. When I have to start planning for next school year. *Sigh* 

I found this piece on one of my lists this morning and it put my thoughts into words pretty well. That and the fact that anytime I find myself wholeheartedly agreeing with a Bible quoting conservative from a Southern state, I have to jump right on it. The novelty of the thing is just too wonderful to be missed. See what you think...

 *SONNY SCOTT*
 
6/8/2008  Daily Journal
 
You see them at the grocery, or in a discount store.
 
It's a big family by today's standards - "just like stair steps," as the old folks say. Freshly scrubbed boys with neatly trimmed hair and girls with braids, in clean but unfashionable clothes follow mom through the store as she fills her no-frills shopping list.
 
There's no begging for gimcracks, no fretting, and no threats from mom.The older watch the younger, freeing mom to go peacefully about her task.
 
You are looking at some of the estimated 2 million children being home schooled in the U.S., and the number is growing. Their reputation for academic achievement has caused colleges to begin
aggressively recruiting them. Savings to the taxpayers in instructional costs are conservatively estimated at $4 billion, and some place the figure as high as $9 billion. When you consider that these families pay taxes to support public schools, but demand nothing from them, it seems quite a deal for the public.
 
Home schooling parents are usually better educated than the norm, and are more likely to attend worship services. Their motives are many and varied. Some fear contagion from the anti clericalism, coarse speech, suggestive behavior and hedonistic values that characterize secular schools. Others are concerned for their children's safety. Some want their children to be challenged beyond the minimal competencies of the public schools. Concern for a theistic world view largely permeates the movement.
 
Indications are that home schooling is working well for the kids, and the parents are pleased with their choice, but the practice is coming under increasing suspicion, and even official attack,as in California.
 
Why do we hate (or at least distrust) these people so much?
 
Methinks American middle-class people are uncomfortable around the home schooled for the same reason the alcoholic is uneasy around the teetotaler.
 
Their very existence represents a rejection of our values, and an indictment of our lifestyles. Those families are willing to render unto Caesar the things that Caesar's be, but they draw the line at their children. Those of us who have put our trust in the secular state (and effectively surrendered our children to it) recognize this act of defiance as a rejection of our values, and we reject them in return.
 
Just as the jealous Chaldeans schemed to bring the wrath of the king upon the Hebrew eunuchs, we are happy to sic the state's bureaucrats on these "trouble makers." Their implicit rejection of America's most venerated idol, Materialism, (a.k.a. "Individualism") spurs us to heat the furnace and feed the lions.
 
Young families must make the decision: Will junior go to day care and day school, or will mom stay home and raise him? The rationalizations begin. "A family just can't make it on one income." (Our parents did.) "It just costs so much to raise a child nowadays." (Yeah, if you buy brand-name clothing, pre-prepared food, join every club and activity,
and spend half the cost of a house on the daughter's wedding, it does.) And so, the decision is made. We give up the bulk of our waking hours with our children, as well as the formation of their minds, philosophies, and attitudes, to strangers. We compensate by getting a
boat to take them to the river, a van to carry them to Little League, a 2,800-square-foot house, an ATV, a zero-turn Cub Cadet, and a fund to finance a brand-name college education. And most significantly, we claim "our right" to pursue a career for our own "self-fulfillment."
 
Deep down, however, we know that our generation has eaten its seed corn.We lack the discipline and the vision to deny ourselves in the hope of something enduring and worthy for our posterity. We are tired from working extra jobs, and the looming depression threatens our 401k's. Credit cards are nearly maxed, and it costs a $100 to fuel the Suburban. Now the kid is raising hell again, demanding the latest Play Station as his price for doing his school work ... and there goes
that modest young woman in the home-made dress with her four bright-eyed, well-behaved home-schooled children in tow. Wouldn't you just love to wipe that serene look right off her smug face?
 
Is it any wonder we hate her so?
 
Permission to reprint from the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo, Mississippi

Okay, so he sort of lost me with the Chaldeans and the Eunichs.  Is that like a sexual reference? Did I just write an oxymoron? Not having a rural background I had to think about the seed corn statement but it works for me in a folksy, homespun sort of way. I'd use it myself somewhere but no one I know would get it.  

So just to clarify, the dress is not homemade (only because I don't know how to sew) but I am looking pretty different from the "norm" depending of course, on the neighborhood. My girls are not  braided (two out of three wear the scarf) and my kids are not that neat and clean most of the time. But yeah.

Some people do see it as a rejection of their choices. Sorry. I am not rejecting their choices Only they can do that. What I am doing is making the best choices for my family. This is the only go at it that I will have. Ethically, and morally, I must make the decisions that I believe will make my children grow up to be strong, smart, critical thinking leaders who love God and behave in a manner in accordance with our religion. I refuse to raise them to be unthinking consumers who gobble up the earth's resources and mire themselves in debt to keep up with some marketing genius's idea of what they should own, drive, buy and wear. Oh, and the fact that they actually value learning for its own sake and see reading as a viable recreational activity, that's a bonus.

Besides, I have never had a problem going against the grain.  

I read a piece the other day about the proliferation of rental storage space. It seems it is a very fast growing industry. Certainly here in the North East, there seems to be a new storage complex opening each week. I even read a novel called Self Storage by Gayle Brandeis in which storage facilities take center stage and serve as a metaphor for life and love. 

As citizens of a wealthy first world country, we have houses that are bigger than ever, filled to the rafters with so much stuff we oftentimes end up storing it elsewhere and starting over. In our consumerist, aquisitive society, our first resonse to many events is to shop. Religious holiday? Shop. Secular holiday? Shop. National tragedy of epic proportions? Shop. 

Many of us attempt to fill the voids in our souls with material goods. I, myself, have been known to engage in "retail therapy" albeit of the garage sale/thrift store variety for the temporary thrill and narcotic of the "perfect find and the perfect price".

As we grapple with this issue at my house, I share this link with you:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/ by Annie Leonard. It is brilliant in its simplicity, clear and thought provoking. My children and I got a lot out of it and had a number of great conversations about it. Even a few aha moments. As in, "Oh that's why mom would rather shop in thrift stores than WalMart."

"It can't be said too often: We get better at using words, whether
hearing, speaking, reading, or writing, under one condition and only
one -- when we use those words to say something we want to say,
to people we want to say it to, for purposes that are our own." John Holt

The importance of  communication cannot be overstated. It is a basic human need to be heard and understood. It ties into our need to connect with others. I would add that it's equally vital to be informed; to have enough knowledge to not only communicate, but to have something worth saying. All the communication skills in the world won't mitigate the fact that you are talking about something vain or shallow. (Disney Inc. take note.)

One of the ways we have fostered not only communication but the aquisition of knowledge in our children is with a technique Sandra Dodd http://sandradodd.com/unschooling calls strewing. I came upon this term the other day and have latched on to it. I happily realize I have been doing this forever and never had a term for it. So thanks Sandra.

Basically it means that I have thrown things at the kids forever. It's why we have countless shots of our little dear ones as toddlers with books, magazines, newspapers in their hands. It always made me laugh; they look so serious as if they could really read what was printed there. But the point is, they have all grown up from their earliest memories surrounded by the written word, the spoken word, art. They have listened to stories read to them, radio programs, and anything else of interest to them. We have magazines in the bathroom. (I actually got this from my friend P. who when asked how she got her boys to actually READ Smithsonian or National Geographic, replied that she leaves them in the bathroom because what else are they going to do in there?).

Strewing also applies to word games, jigsaw puzzles, music tapes. I realize my kids have very eclectic tastes and "strewing" is the reason why. N. who is 9, is equally happy belting out songs from "The Jewish Odyssey" in phonetic Hebrew, as she is singing along to Joan Baez or show tunes. All the while they are learning culture and history. 

It's all about broadening their horizons. Putting it out there. Making it available. Strewing their path with the interesting, appealing, unique, thought provoking and off beat.

The second and vital part of the whole equation is conversation. We talk about what we read, see and experience. Everyone gets to express an opinion, to ask questions. It's an amalgamation of Socrates and Charlotte Mason as we discuss, analyse, teach, dissect, debate. This not only helps us all to understand what we experience, but to decide what we think about it.  The added benefit is that I, as the facilitator, have a chance to see what to "strew" next to further the discussion or teach  something that's missing. 

Maybe my children won't become Renaissance people but that was never really the goal. If they become informed, responsible Muslims, interesting citizens of the world, it will be enough.