ImPerceptibility

Archive for the ‘Homeschool’ Category

I think I’m busier now than I was during the holidays. I’m fine with that. I’ve been having fun. Here’s a quick preview of what I’ve been up to and what’s to come.

I’ve been working on plans for something really cool that I’m doing in July. I’ll have a post about that in the next few days. The post involves Dan and his fat ass. At least the draft does. We’ll see how the final turns out.

I decided to re-do my youngest’s entire school plan. We’ve kept the same Math (Calvert) and Spelling (Sequential Spelling) because she enjoys both of those but I’ve ditched the reading, science, and history. She’s okay with them but she’s more of a hands-on project type of learner and what I was using was becoming more of a chore than a fun learning experience. So instead of breaking everything up into subjects I’m working on projects that incorporate all the subjects into fun hands on projects. We’ll see how they go and I’ll post some if they turn out as awesome as I think they will. If you’re curious, I’ll tell you that the first project includes making a guitar out of a K’nex box. But that’s all I’m saying until I see how everything turns out!

Our family has five birthdays in three weeks. It’s a busy birthday month. Happy Birthday everyone. Bring on the cake.

I organized my office. Not the whole office, just the messiest parts. I made notebooks for all my favorite projects. They’re complete with label and everything. MyHusband bought a new shelf and left it sitting in the hall so I took it, put it together, and it is now my shelf in my office. Snooze you loose. It looks all fancy in there now. I still have to move the cat box to work at my desk but it works for me.

I’ve been learning about Type 1 diabetes. My neighbors daughter, my daughters’ good friend was diagnosed in October and since I love her and she’s over here a lot I thought I should know more about it. She spent the night here a few weeks ago and it was so hard to help her with her insulin and try to stay calm and upbeat especially when I saw all the bruises on her legs from the injections. I managed even though I sat on the couch and cried after they went to bed. Since then I have been trying recipes for low-carb after school snacks and sugar free/low sugar baking. It’s a little harder since she’s a vegetarian and a growing/constantly hungry kid but I’m getting a few good recipes together.

And that is what I’ve been up to so far in 2010. What about you?

I haven’t talked much about the H word in the last year or so. There’s a very good reason for it. I was sick and tired of all the crap. I was tired of the labeling. I was tired of feeling the need to explain or defend my choices. I didn’t want to offend anyone or make them feel I thought less of them because they chose a different path. I was also having a hard time finding a way to talk about something that was so much a part of who I am and what I believe without it sounding either self righteous or contrite. So I removed my old posts and chose to ignore a very large part of who I am and what I believe. It was a mistake. I think my dwindling posts and general lack of enthusiasm for my blog attests to that.

It doesn’t matter if I want the label, and stereotypes, and judgments, or not. I am a homeschooler. I was a homeschooler before I even knew the word homeschooler and I can’t imaging myself in any other role. I truly believe that knowledge and education is not the responsibility of the local school board. It is your responsibility to educate yourself, as you see fit, by whatever means you have available. It is a parents responsibility to ensure their children have the skills to seek out and effectively utilize those means, for their own self-chosen goals. So, I’m putting my homeschool category back on my site and I will be adding to it when and if I have something to post. If you have a problem with that, I’ll find a nice place for you in between the mail order brides and the Viagra ads in my spam queue. Have a nice day.

My youngest didn’t start reading anything until she was seven. My oldest started when she was three. I worried about both even though I was convinced they were both perfectly normal. And they are. People’s brains work differently and my two children tend to go to extremes, usually in the opposite direction. It sure has been an adventure. I’ve enjoyed most of it.

My youngest has always been the baby of the family, the neighborhood, and most classes. She tends to enjoy that role and it takes effort to convince her to leave her comfortable spot and try something new. I haven’t been able to convince her to try harder books. So, yesterday I sat down with our huge stack of beginner readers and labeled them, (with my Sharpie marker. Yes, I sniffed it), according to reading level. Then I organized them from 1.1 to 2.9 and set forth a challenge.

“I bet you can’t read all these books by the end of April.” I told my youngest. Then I showed her the reading level and explained what it meant.

“You mean I’m reading little first grader books?” my big second grader asked.

“That’s the grade level but anyone can read them. They’re good books. You have to read them in order.” I told her then walked off.

By the time she went to bed she had finished the first three. She has never read more than one book in a day before. She likes to pace herself. This morning she read another and has grand plans for a read-a-thon with Daddy tonight.

I guess a little peer pressure isn’t a bad thing. Who wants to be reading first grade books when you’re a second grader. I think that’s something that is missing in the homeschool setting. There isn’t a way to judge your own progress. She didn’t see a point in challenging herself more because she had no idea that she should.

On the other hand, I challenged my oldest to read an average of 20 pages a day for the month of April. She laughed at me and told me she could read 50. She tends to over-do then become frustrated because she doesn’t have an idea what’s expected from a fifth grader.

I don’t want my children to be under-achievers. I don’t want them to be over-achievers either. I just want them learn to work hard and to the best of their abilities. There must be a balance in there. I hope we can find it.

Chris from O’Donnell Web has set up what he calls a self-service blog carnival for thinking homeschoolers.

The idea behind Thinking Homeschoolers is to give us an excuse to think and write about something other than curriculum decisions or the latest dumb ass statement from HSLDA. (If you are offended by the HSLDA comment you really shouldn’t be here.) Every two weeks we’ll release a new topic. Any homeschooler that wants to write about that topic simply does so on their own blog and provides a link here.

Thanks to Chris for getting this started. One of my biggest concerns when I was deciding if I would homeschool was the almost complete absence of any opinion other than those of extremely conservative Christian homeschoolers. Some of the craziness was a bit frightening. Luckily I found Chris’s blog and a few others and it gave me hope. I have had other people e-mail me with the same concerns. I think this could be a great place for the rest of us to step up and let others see the true face of homeschooling.

So far the first assigned topic is Do you feel like you pay too much in taxes? for tax day April 15th. The next topic will be on April 30th and it will be open ended based on National Spank Out Day / National Day of Reason / Prayer. I think I might have a few things to say about that. The remaining weeks are open for suggestions. If you’re a thinking homeschooler, or you’re planning on becoming one, head on over and join in. It’ll be good for you. I promise. We can even be creative. Maybe Chris will serve beer.

Today I was thinking about the moment I became a homeschooler. It wasn’t when I mailed the NOI or when I decided to homeschool my kids. That was the moment it became official. I was thinking about the moment the thought became a primitive idea. It then grew, like the science experiments in my childhood closet, into something real and tangible. I was in seventh grade.

Mr. W. was my teacher and he was well known as a loud man. We would hear him yelling so loud that our teacher had to close the door. Tales of him picking up a student and his desk and slamming it up and down on the floor was a common recess story. Him grabbing a stack of comic books from a disinterested student and tossing them out the window was another. I don’t know if these stories were true but we believed them. We were all afraid of him by the time we got to seventh grade. I think he liked that.

He was a properly raised southern man. He called all the girls darling and all the boys young man. He demanded the boys keep their shirts tucked in and the caps stayed off in the building. He never yelled at the girls. Sometimes when we were particularly annoying you would see his nostrils start to flare and he would look up the sky and yell at god, but he never yelled at us. I remember being afraid that one day he would snap and kill us all. I had a crazy imagination like that. I suppose I still do.

Anyway, the moment I started my journey to become a homeschooler started in his classroom. It was the day after we had a substitute teacher. When he returned he told us the substitute has written that we hadn’t behaved well while she was there. I looked at him and knew he was lying. I knew the substitute hadn’t written that because it wasn’t true. I sat there angry as I had ever been. One after one he bullied my friends into raising their hands and admitting they had misbehaved while he was gone. I decided I was not going to raise my hand.

Eventually only me and two people who had been absent the day before were left. He then tried to get my friends to say that I had misbehaved. I sat there staring at the wall across the room and holding my hands tightly in lap to keep them from trembling. They sat there with their hand half-heartedly raised staring at their desks. He eventually realized I wasn’t going to raise my hand. He told me I’d learn a valuable lesson when I had to leave the room knowing I wasn’t taking responsibility for my action when everyone else was being honorable and staying for detention. I sat there looking at his wild eyes and flaring nostrils wondering what was wrong with me and thinking I was screwed. I did walk out of there and every step was like torture.

Once I made it outside I ran with my backpack bouncing against my back and I hated him. I hate school. I hated every person in my class. I hated my parents for making me go to school. By the time I crossed the main street I decided he was terrible person and I was going to tell him so.

The next day I dreaded going to school but I did. I found three copies of the answer to a test question tucked in my desk. He had given it to the students to reward them for their honesty. As he passed out the tests he mentioned that the people who had stayed after school wouldn’t have any problems with question number five. He turned around and looked at me. I was a quiet, well-behaved student. I never got in trouble. I knew how to play the game. But something inside me changed that day. I told him I didn’t need the answers to his test because I already knew the answers. I knew all the answers. I didn’t even have to study. Then I sat there scowling at him. It wasn’t quite the tirade I had planned out in my mind but it was something.

He stood there with his mouth hanging open for a minute then he went and sat at his desk with his head in his hands while we took the test. I was worried that I wasn’t going to make it home alive.

Now, all these years later, my hands still tremble just a little when I think about that. There’s a little lump of anger and I keep pausing to rub it with my fist. It’s located directly under my xiphoid process. I know that’s the correct name of the bone because after that Mr. W. would photocopy pages of his college text book and let me draw diagrams of bones and muscles in my notebook while he taught the lessons the school board decided we needed to learn. When I think about that, the lump changes to something else. I’m not sure what. Maybe that’s my homeschooler lump. I’m not sure.

I was walking down the hall at Liberty Town Arts Workshop this weekend when I spotted the title of a newspaper clipping hanging on the wall.

Help Mold Your Kids into Artists

I paused. I tilted my head to the side and re-read it. Then I used foul language in public.

“Mommy, you said a bad word out loud instead of in your head” my youngest informed me.

“I know. I tend to do that when I see something asinine”

“Mom! You did it again.” I giggled and we continued walking.

I looked the article up online and the article itself was fine. My children have taken classes at Liberty Town and they have great classes and wonderful teachers. I just can’t get past the title.

Children are not lumps of clay. They don’t need their true shapes modified to fit the spec sheet titled ‘proper shape of a child’. They are certainly not in need of being molded into artists. I’ve never met a young child that wasn’t an artist. Don’t believe me? Give any child a pack of markers and a blank wall.

Unfortunately, as they get older, all of their innate ability and their true nature is trampled on with attitudes like the one that would title a newspaper article with the words ‘Mold Your Child into an Artist’. It makes me sad. It make me hope for the day when kids don’t have to eat meat to get pudding.

Yeah, I’m going there. Humor me.

Reading – (Titles and Addresses)

What’s the title of those Christmas CD?

Lets see who sent us Christmas cards.

Meteorology – Go check on-line and see if there is any chance of snow.

Science – (The Scientific Method review)

1. Why is the green sugar bottle empty?
2. There are green finger prints on the counter and some sugar spilled on the floor.
3. Did someone eat the sugar?
4. Stick out your tongue.
5. Your tongue is green. Did you eat the sugar?
6. I can’t believe you ate all that green sugar. You know your going to poop green now don’t yah?

Botany – Why are all the leaves falling off my poinsettia?

Personal Responsibility – Yes, they are pretty but if you pull off any more you’ll be buying me a new one with your own money.

Budgeting – Yes, they do put poinsettias on sale right before Christmas. That wasn’t the point.

Technology – What exactly are the features of a new iPod and how would you use them if you got one?

Math – (Addition, Multiplication, Fractions, Time)

Don’t just pick up 10 things in your room, pick up 10 plus 10 things. You don’t want Santa to think you’re a slob.

We’re doubling this recipe.

Spelling – There is no Wii in Christmas.

Yes, there is a Wii in Winter Solstice. We’re not celebrating that.

P.E. – (Endurance Training)

Go outside and run around with the dogs. All the delivery trucks are making them hyper.

And I was thinking we didn’t get any school done today!

I was tired this morning as I gathered all the supplies for the girls’ school and walked over to open the curtains. I didn’t want to have school today but I don’t always get what I want. Life is cruel like that. I grabbed my shield of responsibility and waved my banners of parental duty. The girls begrudgingly complied with my wishes. I pulled back the curtains. The sound of loud joyful screams assaulted me. This sound combined with the view outside cracked my shiny shield and torched my banner. I started screaming and jumping up and down.

Barefoot and in pajamas we ran around the kitchen table and preformed a dance. The dance was an odd mixture of native traditional, disco, and Pee-Wee Herman. We also sang a song. It was a primitive but effective song. It had one word. Snow.

Today my youngest daughter finished her addition practice in record time. We don’t keep time but it was fast.

“Wow! You finished that fast!” I said.

“Yup, because I cheated”

It always amazes me how honest my children are. At her age I knew how to cheat at school. I knew how to make sure no one knew about it as well. Every little mistake was marked with a red pen and too many mistakes made you a failure. I adapted to my environment. It was necessary for good grades and extra time on the playground. My kids don’t have that incentive. I’ve always made sure to reward effort not achievement. We don’t have grades. Mistakes are part of learning. They aren’t special. Why give them all the attention?

I stood there for a second trying to figure out how she cheated. Did she use her calculator? Get her sister to do it? Copy the answer page?

“How did you cheat?” I asked.

“I stored all the answers for addition in my head. When you gave me the sheet, I just wrote them down instead of counting them on my number line.”

“Ohhh!” I said trying not to laugh and pretending to be concerned.

“Yep, they’re all in there. I can cheat any time I want!”

She went giggling back to her room. I stood there wondering when my daughter became such a rebel. Cheating by memorizing all the possible answers. She is out of control!

These are the latest clay creation lovingly sculpted by my youngest. She was alone when she made them. She was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor with her tongue sticking out of her mouth and a look of concentration on her face that would put to shame ‘The Thinker’. If I had taken a picture, it might look like she was lonely. But she was content and happy. Lost in her own imagination. It was a beautiful thing. I dare anyone to say otherwise.

She was alone when she made these, but she wasn’t alone when we went and bought her clay. She discussed the clay choices with the person she calls ‘the pretty potter’ and decided she wanted the buff clay.

She wasn’t alone when her friends stopped by and oohed and ahhed over her small masterpieces.

She won’t be alone tomorrow when we take her sculptures to get ‘all fired up’ in the kiln. They might give her a tip or two and she’ll add it to her already large bank of pottery knowledge.

She won’t be alone when we walk around the studios and look at color choices. Nor will she be alone when she finally picks the perfect color.

After her pieces are glazed and fired she won’t be alone. She will give them to any number people that look forward to her little packages wrapped in hand decorated tissue paper.

She will be proud of what she has made and she won’t be alone in that either. I’ll also be proud because on her first week of school she

• Learned to ask more experienced people for advice
• Got all the supplies she needed for her project
• Gained more knowledge in something she loves
• Made decisions
• Interacted with people from age 4-64
• Became more confident in her own abilities

Not bad for a seven-year-old huh? That wouldn’t have happened if she didn’t have the chance to be alone. Being alone is important.

“All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” -Blaise Pascal

“For when a woman is left too much alone, sooner or later she begins to think; -And no man knows what then she may discover” -Edwin A. Robinson

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” -Mother Teresa of Calcutta

“None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself.” -Leonardo da Vinci

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be. -Anne Frank

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. -Albert Einstein

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude. -Carl Sandburg