Homeschooling

[LadyShea]

Looking for thoughts and opinions on alternatives to public education. I have been reading about Waldorf, Montessori, Enki (sp?), free schools, Friends Schools, homeschooling based on these as well as secular homeschooll curriculums and various other educational philosophies. Waste of time and money? Serious improvement over public education, especially with No Child Left Behind in place (what are the real consequences of NCLB anyway?)?

[Petra]

Zoe went to a Montessori pre-school, and it was most excellent. She really thrived there, and if we'd had Montessori available in our area to continue with through primary (elementary) school, we would have stuck with it for sure.

I don't know much about the others (if anything at all), but I can heartily recommend Montessori, without a moment's hesitation. Brilliant.


:yup:

[LadyShea]

Niece did Montessori preschool as well and it was excellent for her. Unfortunately they have no programs in my area, but I would possibly consider homeschooling based on their philosophy. Obviously we are a long way off from kindergarten, but I have just been a-linking the last few days and this was one topic of interest.

Initial research indicates the only legal homeschooling option in my state is if it is with a "church school". That can't be legal, but that is the requirement. Huh.

[Petra]

You never know, by the time Cade is old enough to be at kindy, etc, Montessori may have arrived in your area. Fingers crossed!


Y'know, I think you'd make an excellent Montessori teacher, LS. :)


One of the nice things about a group of kids doing it together is the interactions and the way they celebrate things like birthday rituals an' stuff for each other. Puts them with their 'peers', y'know. And it's so delightful to watch them all share in that learning experience. It's lovely. :)

[livius drusus]

Initial research indicates the only legal homeschooling option in my state is if it is with a "church school". That can't be legal, but that is the requirement. Huh.
That might not be as scary as it sounds. I Googled looking for Reggio schools in Alabama, and found The Renaissance School (http://www.renaissance-school.org/AboutUs.htm). They integrate some great approaches like Reggio and Montessori into their program, and they offer cover school services for home schoolers.

[LadyShea]

That might not be as scary as it sounds. I Googled looking for Reggio schools in Alabama, and found The Renaissance School (http://www.renaissance-school.org/AboutUs.htm). They integrate some great approaches like Reggio and Montessori into their program, and they offer cover school services for home schoolers.

I found several similar hands-off "church" schools, formed specifically to fulfill the state's requirements without offering/pushing a curriculum, nor requiring a statement of faith. You choose your own curriculum, OR NO CURRICULUM. Homeschoolers under church cover schools are not subject to any requirements by the state...no grades, no tests only attendance. If you choose to go to the museum every day, that's attendance. Wow, that's really heavy when you think about it...you could do truly anything you wanted.

Renaissance sounds interesting.. I truly don't know that I have the patience to homeschool, but stranger things have happened.

[The Lone Ranger]

For what it's worth, practically every public-school educator I've known has insisted that NCLB is an absolute disaster. Of course, that's hardly a scientific survey, but it seems that the more you know about NCLB, the less (http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070531/POLITICS/705310350/1026/SCHOOLS) you like it.

Cheers,

Michael

[Javaman]

Some links for you if you wanna check 'em out:

MONTESSORI HOMESCHOOLING (http://www.montessori.edu/homeschooling.html)

The Montessori Method (from the Home School Learning Network) (http://homeschoollearning.com/approaches/montessori.shtml)

[trientalis]

Here's a book that might be useful for teaching Montessori preschool exercises at home, Teaching Montessori in the Home: The Preschool Years by Elizabeth Hainstock. It's available on amazon (but I don't know how to do the special link thingy, so you'll have to check it out yourself. Sorry). It tells you how to make your own equipment which is cheaper than buying the real stuff.
Hope this helps.

[LadyShea]

I am bumping this old thread of mine, because the homeschooling idea has actually become a serious discussion in my household. Yes, he's only two, but that two years has flown by, and I want to think about it now, and have a plan.

Hubby and I have one main disconnect, that I would like to hear others' opinions on before I share my POV with y'all, and that is whether traditional school is necessary, or optimal, or helpful for proper socialization/social development

[1Samuel8]

If you give a damn about what I think, my comment is simple: do it... if you have the time.
Homeschooling requires an immense commitment on your part and if your able, do it. I think you should be proud of yourself.

Also, decide for yourself what you actually want your kid to learn. [Myself, I think a lot of bullshit is force-fed to kids too early in both public and private schools.]

Check out this site: http://www.unschooling.com/ for different perspectives on the expectation of child education.

[Corona688]

Tradidional school socialization made me what I am. That is, forced socialization with people who wished I was dead and devoted suprisingly large amounts of time to making me miserable. I'd count that style of socialization as a negative point against public school.

[godfry n. glad]

Two things...Since everybody is giving glowing recs to Montessori, I'll note that I've several childbearing friends who've availed themselves of a variety of Montessori programs locally. They all really like it, but the kids all go through a "gear-grinding" session when they attempt to transfer into other mainstream educational programs, public or parochial. It seems though, that Montessori students still do better than those involved in public education only.

I have very good friends who did not like the offerings of the public, or religious parochial (Catholic, Episcopalian and Adventist) locally, so they, and a smallish group of parents started their own Waldorf School. They liked it and it continued to grow to the point that they had to purchase an old public elementary school to house their eventual high school program. Their primary interest was developing their children's "creative" aspects. From the outside, it looks to me to have far too little emphasis on hard science and too much emphasis upon arty stuff....insufficient balance. But both children have gone on to university. All I have to say is that Rudolf Steiner is the genesis of the Waldorf program, and he's way too woo-woo for me.

Then...homeschooling. My SO had both of her sons homeschooled by her husband, who had a teaching degree along with a degree in outdoor recreation. They had seven plus acres with a creek and were always active. Plus, mom is a mechanical engineer, so they got their maths and sciences. They also had their technology desires fulfilled to excess, thanks to her weakness for new gadgets. The problem was that dad died of esophageal cancer during their early high school years (an education in itself), so mom placed them in an expensive private school to complete their education. Her assessment: Home schooling can be great, but it will collapse upon the weight of the teachers' weaknesses. She's glad the boys got some writing experience with a doctorate in English at the private school, because between her and her husband, that was the primary skill set they had ignored. The boys are great...really decent and reasonably intelligent. One's in college, and the other decided to get a commercial driving license to earn a living in the short term. They're both nerds to the max, complete with some social retardation, but I doubt they'd have fallen any further from the tree in a public setting.

[lisarea]

How much socialization do kids really get in public schools, anyway? Most of the 'socializing' when LM was in school amounted to sitting quietly even though he was bored. (I even had teachers tell me this was some kind of life skill.) He had friends at school, but he met most of his good friends just hanging around riding bikes and stuff.

Anyways, in some states, IIRC, homeschooled students can participate in public school activities like sports, and even in some classes. If that's not available, there are other options, too, like city sports leagues, those homeschooling field trip dealies, community center classes, things like that.

If I could have homeschooled the Little Muffin, I would've done it in a heartbeat.

[Adam]

Most of the 'socializing' when LM was in school amounted to sitting quietly even though he was bored. (I even had teachers tell me this was some kind of life skill.)

Well, it certainly describes at least half of the meetings I go to pretty accurately.

[lisarea]

Most of the 'socializing' when LM was in school amounted to sitting quietly even though he was bored. (I even had teachers tell me this was some kind of life skill.)

Well, it certainly describes at least half of the meetings I go to pretty accurately.

Yeah, but as skills go, sitting there is kind of a crap one. The real skill is getting out of them. Maybe I should teach some kind of class in doing that.

In fact, I'll be happy to provide 'getting out of meetings' lesson plans for interested homeschoolers.

[Uthgar the Brazen]

Most of the 'socializing' when LM was in school amounted to sitting quietly even though he was bored. (I even had teachers tell me this was some kind of life skill.)

Well, it certainly describes at least half of the meetings I go to pretty accurately.

Yeah, but as skills go, sitting there is kind of a crap one. The real skill is getting out of them. Maybe I should teach some kind of class in doing that.

In fact, I'll be happy to provide 'getting out of meetings' lesson plans for interested homeschoolers.

Hell, if you can set up a correspondence course, I'd gladly take the class.

[Adam]

Would we get extra credit for cutting class?

[lisarea]

Would we get extra credit for cutting class?

Not 'extra' credit, no. You just fail if you show up.

[LadyShea]

Well, it seems like anytime I bring up homeschooling, someone yells "socialization". To me, school is such an artificial society, it's hardly analogous to "real life".

Basically, in school, you are socializing with people because you are the same age and live in the same neighborhood. It also doesn't teach to socialize with people of different socioeconomic levels (for the most part same neighborhood=same SE), different backgrounds and experiences, different ages etc. and your pool of possible friends aren't based on similar interests or compatible personalities. Just kinda doesn't make sense to me that it is necessary, or even preferable.

[lisarea]

Well, a lot of homeschooled kids are spazzes, but it'd be a mistake to assume it's all causation.

School is probably better socialization than certain types of homeschooling parents provide, but I don't think it'd be an issue for you.

[Adam]

To me, school is such an artificial society, it's hardly analogous to "real life".

Basically, in school, you are socializing with people because you are the same age and live in the same neighborhood...not because you have similar interests or compatible personalities.

If you replace "are the same age and live in the same neighborhood" with "have similar skill sets" that sounds very similar to most work environments. I dunno if that's what you had in mind when you said "real life" but, when you come down to it, most of us spend nearly half of our waking lives socializing with people for no better reason than that we happen to work in the same place.

I don't really have a strong opinion here. I just don't think the "school is nothing like real life" argument is very convincing. To me, school is very much like a great deal of what I encounter in my so-called real life. You go there because you have to, you do things because the people in charge want you to do them, you put up with a random assortment of people you don't care for, and you learn to sort out the people who are worth getting to know and carve out some mental space for your own interests.

I've seen several studies that claim homeschooled kids have no socialization issues, so there's that, but I've only ever seen them at pro-homeschool sites, so I'm sort of suspicious, but it's really not something I've investigated deeply, since I don't have any children, and don't have any immediate plans to do so.

[Corona688]

To me, school is such an artificial society, it's hardly analogous to "real life".

Basically, in school, you are socializing with people because you are the same age and live in the same neighborhood...not because you have similar interests or compatible personalities.

If you replace "are the same age and live in the same neighborhood" with "have similar skill sets" that sounds very similar to most work environments. Unfortunately, they're not even remotely equivalent.

I hated school. Hate hate hate. But I love real life. They're nothing like each other.

[ChuckF]

I got what I consider to be a very good education at a small, rural public school. K-10, I was with the same people across three different schools, and I made some good friends. It was also very much a my-dad-grew-up-with-your-dad example of small town networking. But looking back I think that my parents were vastly more important in the 'socialization' process.

I'm an only child, and I grew up with my parents, my parents' friends, and their children, who were for the most part also only children. So I basically always sat at the grown-up's table. In school I had a hard time connecting with many kids my own age because I felt like I didn't speak their language. It was very easy to converse with adults or other kids like me, thanks to my home environment.

[Adam]

If you replace "are the same age and live in the same neighborhood" with "have similar skill sets" that sounds very similar to most work environments. Unfortunately, they're not even remotely equivalent.

I don't follow. What aren't?

[LadyShea]

Well, a lot of homeschooled kids are spazzes, but it'd be a mistake to assume it's all causation.

School is probably better socialization than certain types of homeschooling parents provide, but I don't think it'd be an issue for you.


I don't think there's a causal factor. I just don't think public school is all that necessary for learning how to socialize or whatever it is people keep yammering at me about. They act like without traditional schools, kids are kept in a box or something. My kid, now, at 2 socializes with all kinds of people; his age, our age, new agey hippies, Baptists and and everywhere in between, below, and above.

[LadyShea]

If you replace "are the same age and live in the same neighborhood" with "have similar skill sets" that sounds very similar to most work environments.

Yes, but that is usually due to your chosen path. You have similar skill sets for a reason. I have worked with people from all different SECs, different age groups, hell even different countries of birth and found that because we shared the same career, we had things to talk about to an extent.

Same age and neighborhood just doesn't seem the same to me.

[Ensign Steve]

I think if you have the time and resources, you should do it. Mostly because of all the nightmare stories of "zero-tolerance" at public schools that I read on reddit.

[LadyShea]

Here's why I like the idea of homeschooling

1. Anything goes in Alabama. I can choose any curriculum, or no curriculum/ let the kid decide (unschooling as someone mentioned earlier), or mash a bunch of stuff together. We can take advantage of local community colleges, correspondence courses, the various expertises of friends and family etc.

2. Although I personally seemed to do well within traditional schooling on the surface, I hated it. I was often bored and tended to not have grades that reflected my actual knowledge because I hate busy work, or assignments that has no useful purpose. If I could get 100% consistently on the weekly test, why do I need to turn in the stupid "use this word in a sentence" worksheets? So, I knew the words (or whatever) but didn't always get A's because I refused to do the silly homework (had a great discussion with my English teacher on that). Anyway, if allowed to do things my own way without inefficient added bullshit, I pretty much always excel. I guess I hate the whole "teaching to the average" issue with no room from differences in thinking and ability.

Again, they are in the same class because they are the same age, not because they have the same abilities or learning styles.

Kiddo is proving to be scary-assed smart, but with a unique learning style and I have a feeling he will be way ahead by the time he starts school, but also that he might not "fit" academically.

[godfry n. glad]

I guess I hate the whole "teaching to the average" issue with no room from differences in thinking and ability.

Hey, with NCLB, that's even worse, because it's the "slowest" student in the class who determines the pace. It's guaranteed to make everybody else kill time. It's the "bad side" of "social advancement" (i.e., advancing students despite their having not demonstrated a proficiency in the skill sets being taught).

Again, they are in the same class because they are the same age, not because they have the same abilities or learning styles.

Lowest common denominator. That's who the public school teacher teaches to these days, in the name of "anti-tracking". Remember "tracking"? I was lucky in that about age 11 (7th grade), I was identified as having language and computational skills several grades beyond most of my age cohorts, and I was "tracked", throughout my remaining school career into "EE - Educationally Enriched" classes....this was pre-TAG. That's all "no-no" now, for fear of stigmatizing the "slow" (read: average) kids. When I became a public school teacher in 1990, the big deal was how fragile high-school students' self-esteem was, particularly when they were informed that they'd pissed away all their time in class cleaning their nostrils. NCLB is a mechanism to make public schools look even crappier than they should be.

Kiddo is proving to be scary-assed smart, but with a unique learning style and I have a feeling he will be way ahead by the time he starts school, but also that he might not "fit" academically.

I'd bet that the learning style is not as unique as you think, just different than yours. One of the benefits of being exposed to a lot of different teachers is that students get the opportunity to work with differing teaching styles (which usually match their learning styles). You can do the same with your child through bringing in other friends to teach discrete lessons in topics which you don't feel particularly adept. You can try to adapt to the child's style, but it's not easy, and I'm not convinced it's adviseable.

I agree with several here that the two of you could do quite well with home schooling, but you've got to know it will take a great deal of time and energy on your part. If you can impart a love in learning and suppress the fear of failure (where much more lasting lessons tend to be learned), your child will go a great distance in educating themselves. Just remember that self-esteem is learned through overcoming challenges which seem daunting to the student, not by getting good grades when they are undeserved.

[LadyShea]

Kiddo just seems to get stuff without us really teaching it. It's like he learns by osmosis. The other day he brought a book to me and recited several pages, and it was the first time I had ever seen it. None of his primary caretakers recalls reading that particular book to him, so I assume he had it read to him once or twice by a visitor. He suddenly sang the ABC song for the first time the other day, with like two mistakes...we hadn't been working on it or anything, he just "got" it at some point.

Anyway, I think he's unique based on my interactions with other kids his age.

[lisarea]

I don't think there's a causal factor. I just don't think public school is all that necessary for learning how to socialize or whatever it is people keep yammering at me about. They act like without traditional schools, kids are kept in a box or something. My kid, now, at 2 socializes with all kinds of people; his age, our age, new agey hippies, Baptists and and everywhere in between, below, and above.

I wouldn't rule it out completely, but I don't think it's a major factor in most cases, and I don't think it'd be a factor at all in yours. Most of the time, it's probably just correlation to people who homeschool to better shelter their kids, and kids who are homeschooled because they have existing social problems.

Anyway, he's a smart kid, so you're going to end up having to homeschool him no matter what. Public schools just aren't set up for that.

And if you do send him to school, odds are that on top of teaching him yourselves, you'd end up spending extra time and effort on damage control as well, to counter the effects of the boredom, pointlessness, and just outright wrongness of the things they'd be teaching him there.

[ShottleBop]

Well, it seems like anytime I bring up homeschooling, someone yells "socialization". To me, school is such an artificial society, it's hardly analogous to "real life".

Basically, in school, you are socializing with people because you are the same age and live in the same neighborhood. It also doesn't teach to socialize with people of different socioeconomic levels (for the most part same neighborhood=same SE), different backgrounds and experiences, different ages etc. and your pool of possible friends aren't based on similar interests or compatible personalities. Just kinda doesn't make sense to me that it is necessary, or even preferable.

Same "SE" really depends on where the school draws from. We live in an area that includes very expensive homes as well as a large number of apartment units and less expensive homes. We see kids from a fairly diverse range of SEs, and from different places in the world.

[LadyShea]

Same "SE" really depends on where the school draws from. We live in an area that includes very expensive homes as well as a large number of apartment units and less expensive homes. We see kids from a fairly diverse range of SEs, and from different places in the world.

Oh understood, it depends on where you live.

The high school he would attend draws from a larger, more diverse area, (but not by much, and certainly not from different places in the world) but the feeder elementary schools are neighborhood specific. That's what I was thinking of.

[Qingdai]

I don't know much about it, but "Unschooling" is a movement that may interest you.

[Brimshack]

I would recommend replacing the question of whether or not schools teach socialization with one about whether or not you can provide that while homeschooling? I suspect a few extra curricular activities (a team sport or two, perhaps) would provide an excellent environment to learn anything that might be missed in the schools.

[LadyShea]

Basically the whole "socialization" aspect is a moot point to me...I think there are plenty of opportunities to interact with people outside of a school setting...sports and clubs and such. It's my hubby who isn't convinced yet, he thinks it's important, and I have no evidence or anything to show him yet. I gots time to work on it, just wanted to see if my thinking was way off.

[seebs]

I would go so far as to call it counterproductive.

How often outside of school do you find yourself carefully segregated from anyone even a year different from you in age?

There's simply no evidence that "traditional school" is doing anyone any good in terms of learning social rules, and a great deal of evidence of it being harmful.

Consider this: So far as I know, studies on this aren't turning up any noticable differences in average outcomes, right?

And a fair number of homeschoolers are psychotic loonies who don't want their kids learning science, and the one I know who went through that was intentionally isolated from anything like normal human society.

So! We have a group of which some substantial subset is doing crazy harmful things. And, on the average, it comes out about as well as the "traditional schools". Conclusion: If you are not a ravening nutjob, it will be better than the traditional schools.

[godfry n. glad]

Basically the whole "socialization" aspect is a moot point to me...I think there are plenty of opportunities to interact with people outside of a school setting...sports and clubs and such. It's my hubby who isn't convinced yet, he thinks it's important, and I have no evidence or anything to show him yet. I gots time to work on it, just wanted to see if my thinking was way off.

I'm with you. Some of my friends came from school, others came from the neighborhood. I think if you encourage participation in activities which, at school, would be called "extracurricular" (because the schools can't provide them unless at extra cost to the student), then they should have ample opportunity to socialize.

"Socialization", particularly at the pre-school age, is not much more than bringing crowds of drooling kids together to exchange viruses to take home to the family. Small children are very effective vectors.

[Caligulette]

When I lived in Tacoma Park, MD, there was a group of parents and kids who were homeschooling- they'd get together for big field trips and play dates. The kids ranged in age from about 7 to the teens. It was neat because the teens had a chance to be teachers to the youngsters, and the youngsters had a chance to hang out with big kids, and all the parents got a chance to socialise as well. If there are like-minded, or similar-minded people in your area you might consider that.

[Ymir's blood]

Beating the dead socialization horse, but it's taken longer for me to 'unlearn' what school taught me than the years I spent there.

[Julie]

You'd be amazed at home many kids you find swimming at the pool at noon on a friday afternoon...and if you go back week after week, your kids even get to make a group of friends...friends that have a wide range of ages and back grounds...

I don't homeschool, it's just not an option for me anymore, but It was always something I wanted for the kids. I do a lot of work with them in the summer, and after school and what not...My 8 year old dosn't even realize I'm teaching him things half the time...it's just playing with Mommy :)

[Julie]

oh...Thought I should post this...it's a great website for printing off pages to work with and they have preschool ones.

Kidzone - Fun Facts for Kids! (http://www.kidzone.ws/)

[Goliath]

Depending on the quality of your local public schools, homeschooling might be worth considering--if you have the time for it. It will probably require one parent to stay at home (I'm not sure how else it would be possible, tbh).

Other than that, I can't tell you a hell of a lot, since I teach at a university, not in a secondary, middle, or elementary school. I've had a handfull of students who I knew for sure were homeschooled (either because they told me, someone else told me, or because I was their advisor and thus knew from their advising record). They've ran the gamut from wonderful to abysmal.

[Bella]

I don't think one is necessarily inherently better than the other - it depends on where you live and what your resources are. I really am against the either/or kind of argument and instead would like to look at it more from a "what is viable for my family?" A child with certain learning disabilities would function better in a school or learning environment where there were specialists there to help him or her progress... something that most home school situations don't (or rarely) provide. Likewise if you have a really learning-progressed child.

My public school did only one thing right: if you were above average in certain areas, you could bump up to take classes with people who were at 'your level.' I took English and writing classes at the high school when I was eight and special-ed math classes because my dyslexia made math difficult. There was a special bus that bussed kids back and forth between the schools at different times so you could take advantage of this. It was quite nice, but something I don't think happens much anymore.

[TomJoe]

I suspect a few extra curricular activities (a team sport or two, perhaps) would provide an excellent environment to learn anything that might be missed in the schools.Plus, you never know ... that team sport might be able to pay for college (or a part of it).

[LadyShea]

Depending on the quality of your local public schools, homeschooling might be worth considering--if you have the time for it. Our public schools are pretty good in our area actually. It's the whole public education system I dislike.

It will probably require one parent to stay at home (I'm not sure how else it would be possible, tbh).

Who says learning must take place from 8-3 Monday through Friday? Another attractive aspect about homeschooling is that school is always in session...on weekends, on trips, at night. If you choose not to use a specific curriculum, or unschool then specific "sessions" would also probably not be followed.

And, from what I have read it takes less time per day, even if you're following a strict curriculum such as traditional school, because it's one kid, not 30. Homeschoolers report that they can do a whole day's worth of "school" in a few hours. Anyway, I work from home, and my Mom is the primary caretaker and is on board, and hubby is pretty flexible. Not sure what the situation will be in 3 years of course, but we'll see.

They've ran the gamut from wonderful to abysmal.

Probably just like traditionally schooled kids, I would guess.

[LadyShea]

Bella, when i was in school we had "combination" classes, students from say 1st and 2nd grade in one class so we could learn closer to ability level.

Niece is taken out of class for two hours a week for gifted education. That's it. The rest of the time she sits bored.

There seem to be few creative or progressive programs these days...due to lack of funcing or NCLB or whatever.

[cappuccino]

When I lived in Tacoma Park, MD, there was a group of parents and kids who were homeschooling- they'd get together for big field trips and play dates. The kids ranged in age from about 7 to the teens. It was neat because the teens had a chance to be teachers to the youngsters, and the youngsters had a chance to hang out with big kids, and all the parents got a chance to socialise as well. If there are like-minded, or similar-minded people in your area you might consider that.

People are still doing that in Takoma Park, I just moved away from there last month after a year living in TP. That area has to be among the most liberal and hippie place I've ever seen and I loved it. I'd see groups of kids with their parents out on exploration trips, it was pretty neat to watch. I lived near Spring Park and they had just completed landscape work where they added a new creek and established a wetland ecosystem all for the purpose of restoring the area to its former condition and to serve as an educational park for the town's children.

They are quite devoted to their children's education and up-bringing.

[LadyShea]

For the most part, currently, homeschoolers fall into two categories...hippies that are into unschooling, Waldorf, and other alternative learning philosophies OR religious conservatives that don't want their kids exposed to secular ideas or our evil society. I'm afraid here in Alabama, most are of the latter type, and therefore not likeminded. My friend plans to homeschool, but is very, very, very crunchy. I am sure we can come up with a number of things to do together, but many of our ideas will be disparate

It is becoming more mainstream though, and there is more and more support for homeschoolers available and universities etc. are accepting homeschooled kids quite readily.

[Julie]

I must say that there is a lot of the waldrof school that I love. I love the things that the children play with...But I'm sure I've mentioned my love of play silks and wadorf dolls before. Hell I love the waldorf dolls so much I learned how to make them. I'm intrigued by their learning physolophy...but I also know that that learning style would be a HUGE disaster for my children. But we do hugely incorporate their toys into our daily life.

[wildernesse]

In my mind, it doesn't matter how good the school is if the parents don't value learning and aren't involved in the child's education. I went to a small, rural school system that gave me a decent, basic education--although I will say that the majority of what I learned that was important was socialization. There is nothing that I learned in school, book-wise, that I couldn't have learned at home--and on my own, because I once had some kind of vacuum-like brain which was really kind of ridiculous. (Unfortunately, it seems to have taken leave during law school, but what can you do?)

What I learned at school was socialization, and I can tell you that I needed it--although other kids may not need this kind. Being at school taught me that I had to take turns, shouldn't make people feel stupid, should keep my mouth shut at least part of the day, that being right is not always enough, and the difference between ruling and leading. In other words, peer pressure helped make me bearable and MUCH more diplomatic. This is certainly a YMMV scenario, though. Could I have learned these things at home? Maybe--but being a loud-mouthed, brainy, argumentative child with dictatorial tendencies was not seen as a negative by most of my family (most of the time).

[Plant Woman]

There are many venues for socializing your child. Little league sports, special interest clubs, 4-H, summer camps, etc. I was going to say boy scouts, but I don't like their politics. A child doesn't have to be socialized with others everyday.

[Mendeh]

Hey, just to pitch in...

I went to a Montessori school from 2 1/2 til 7, and had a ball. Then I went to a state school and was hopelessly bored for a year til my parents sent me to a private school with a more difficult curriculum.

I was also home-schooled for two terms when I was ten, before I started secondary school.

I think you should definitely teach your kid to read as early as possible, because it's really not difficult to pick up if exposed to it constantly, pretty much from day one, and it's a huge advantage. I'm visiting my folks at the moment and I've just asked my mother about this, and she's pretty sure I was reading simple things independently from about 1 1/2.

Most of the Montessori system is really just common sense, from what I remember of it. Use objects (e.g. beads) to learn to count, and then use them as counters in order to do sums. Learn to read by sounding out the words, a la Sesame Street. Tie your laces. Draw a lot. Build stuff with Lego. Learn music by learning to sing.

If you're stuck for a Montessori school in your area, I don't think you'll have trouble doing it yourself, if you've got time.

On the other hand, I'd be more reluctant to recommend home-schooling for older kids, purely because I found it could get quite lonely. I also think there's something to be said for being in a work environment with your peers.

[256 colors]

LadyShea, have you checked out the Atheist Parents forums?

AtheistParents.org • Index page (http://www.atheistparents.org/forum/)

Scroll down to "Education" and you will find a subforum for Home Schooling. A sticky thread there recommends Delta Education (see site: Delta Education: leader of inquiry-based, hands-on science curriculum, science kits, science supplies, and innovative educational programs and materials; classroom and teacher resources, math manipulatives, and science literacy for grades K-12 Instructional Materials California Adoption (http://www.deltaeducation.com/) for details). You can post there to ask questions and get advice.

Personally, I believe that home schooling requires a lot of time and commitment that I personally can not give. Mister Stopper and I decided to live in a small town with nice public schools. We are mostly satisfied with the quality of the education they are receiving, although we do not understand the "new math" that the kids are being taught. We are fortunate to have a positive public school experience here. Our kids are doing very well.

For homeschoolers, I applaud your dedication. There are a lot of tools out there for you. I have heard of a virtual school: secularhomeschool.net (http://www.secularhomeschool.net/) This program has all the materials for homeschooling without religion.

ETA: One of my chat friends is using a virtual charter school: http://k12.com/ Friend says "It's not available everywhere. Well, you can get the curriculum regardless (and it looks quite good from what I can see), but if your state doesn't have a virtual school you have to pay for it."

[LadyShea]

I am mostly attracted to eclectic schooling...not truly unschooling but not following any specific curriculum either.

Thanks for the thoughts all :)

[LadyShea]

See what I mean...how the hell could I have started this discussion 2 years ago when in my head it was just like a few months back? Time fucking flies.

Kiddo is 3.5. We just ordered him some mega huge super special Transformer because we told him we would when he visually recognized the entire alphabet. He does now. He will tell you that day and night is caused by the Earth's rotation. He can identify several dinosaurs and tell you if they were plant or meat eaters. He knows what a sinkhole is. He knows what an aglet is. He knows his address. He is the youngest in the Tae Kwan Do class and has done everything asked of him there for his age group, and made friends (IOW social skills seem on track).

Because of his January birthday, he will be almost 6 when he is allowed to start Kindergarten here. I really, really don't think they will have much to teach him by that time. I have already predicted to hubby that Kiddo will be reading within a year, as he asks me to point to the words as I am reading them so he can follow along.

Home education is still at the front of my mind and I am reading everything I can about it. If anyone has any updated thoughts or anything, I'd love to hear them

[BDS]

What IS an aglet?

(Just kidding, actually I know.)

[Adam]

I think your kid is smarter than I am. That may explain why I don't have a special super huge Transformer. :sadcheer:

[LadyShea]

Next time someone asks you to do something they think is difficult, but you know is easy for you, Adam, tell them your reward must be a Bumblebee the size of a small dog.

Kiddo will probably be a lawyer, he comes up with ironclad contracts

[BrotherMan]

What IS an aglet?

(Just kidding, actually I know.)

Ah, but did you know...

The plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister!

Topically-applied fluoride doesn't prevent tooth decay. It does render teeth detectable by satellite.

There was a magic bullet! It was forged by Illuminati mystics to prevent us from learning the truth!
http://www.vicsage.com/jlu/jlumugshot.jpg

[Sock Puppet]

My only updated thought is that public-school Kindergarten, at least at my daughter's school, is waaaay more advanced than I would have dreamed of giving it credit for. When I was in school back in the mid-Permian era, I was bored silly by Kindergarten, because I already knew all the crap they were struggling to teach us. I don't think I learned a damned thing until second grade or so. Nowadays they cover at least what used to be covered through all of first grade, all in K.

Oh and as for important but little-known facts,

Ben-Gay is not a suitable lubricant. Don't let the name fool you.

[LadyShea]

My only updated thought is that public-school Kindergarten, at least at my daughter's school, is waaaay more advanced than I would have dreamed of giving it credit for.

What kinds of things is she working on? And how is she doing?

[LadyShea]

Schools aren't really so much about just sitting at desks any more, though I guess it depends on the school. And there is nothing preventing people whose kids are at school during the day from continuing educating them in the evening, just informally. Kids are absolute learning machines.

Hi Miisa thanks for the response. I have strong feelings about this, and have researched it for 2.5 years, but want to discuss it so moved your post here.

I am not sure where you are, but most areas in the US don't even offer field trips, art, or music anymore due to budget cuts. Kids are carefully segregated by age, not ability, and sit in overcrowded classrooms, at a desk, in front of an underpaid teacher for 6 hours a day.

Attendance laws have gone Medieval, so taking a family trip when it's convenient for working parents, rather than the school schedule, can get you in court for truancy- regardless of the child's performance.

Not sure what, if any, important changes have been made to NCLB, but as it was schools were teaching to the tests, meaning those with high ability are being left behind.

No, I'd rather travel, meet people, make, cook and build things, and follow and challenge my child's pace and interests, than have him stuck following some other kid's pace and nobody's interests.

[Ensign Steve]

I'm glad you moved it, cuz I was done talking about it in that thread but I still had more to say. I have a specific example of my childhood neighbors (the homeschool family I mentioned in the other thread) because to this day it sticks in my head as a very effective lesson. It has to do with using math fractions to halve recipes (which is pretty elementary, but I'm talking about seven- and nine-year-olds).

In their home, being taught by their parents, they did their paper lesson in fractions (yes they had paper lessons, not unlike the lesson plans you can download or purchase today), and then immediately went to the practical application thereof. They went and baked a bunch of cookies, but they intentionally halved the recipe so that it would apply to their math lesson.

When I was in elementary school, we had a similar lesson, but it just played out differently in the school environment. We had the math lesson in the classroom, and for a homework assignment we had to choose a recipe and re-write it on poster boards as the original, the half, and the double. (Is this a good time to mention that this is in the US where we use 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup, as opposed to liters and centiliters, etc.?) Then bring it in the next day and share it. We didn't even make the food! WTF.

Maybe it comes down to the type of learner I am. I am very much a learn-by-doing person, and always have been. In math, it was like, fuck the lecture let's get to the homework. It's the same for me at work and with programming. I don't learn in the abstract, I need to get my hands dirty.

So in my case, nearly all the time I spent at school was a waste of my time. Which is like six hours a day. Fortunately for me, my parents also were very engaged in my learning and they continued to educate me outside of the classroom, but not every school-taught child has that. Imagine if I could have spent and extra six hours a day not being bored and fidgety and instead having an actual real education. That's what I saw in my neighbors and I envied it.

As far as "what do bible puppet shows teach us?" well, it's fucking literature. It doesn't have to be the Bible, it can be Shakespeare or classical Greek. The point is these children, aged seven and nine, were designing costumes, sets, learning the stories, acting the roles. They weren't just sitting and reading a chapter for homework and answering a bunch of trivial comprehension questions the next day. They were seriously engaged in the literature.

I don't know. I'm rambling. I just really hate the way education has been institutionalized.

[LadyShea]

In 4th grade we did a unit study on Japan. We cooked food, made kimonos, learned a scaled down, simplified version of tea ceremonies, etc. In 5th grade we wrote and recorded a radio play, and wrote and staged a marionette show (though we didn't make the marionettes). Anyway, seems to me some elementary schools , at least the ones I went to, were more progressive 25-30 years than they are now. My niece has never reported anything hands on or even remotely interesting.

All the cool stuff, for me, ended in middle school though. Once I hit 6th grade and we went to lectures and textbooks only, I skated on raw intelligence and learned what I wanted to outside of school. I was a hell of a library researcher back then, and could find anything in the card catalog.

[LadyShea]

I just really hate the way education has been institutionalized.

This is the sticking point for me. My kid is special to me, nobody can care about him or know more about him than we can, and no institution can adapt to him as an individual. In a classroom he is 1 of 30, and will be taught the exact same things, in the exact same way as all of them, whether that method or those subjects are what he needs to thrive and grow or not...because that's what schools do.

[Nullifidian]

I've thought about this a lot, both as an aspiring professor and someone who toyed very briefly with the thought of becoming a K-12 teacher. The conclusion I've regrettably come to is that John Holt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holt_%28educator%29) was right, and nothing will change in the public school system because we've got the system society wants.

The problems with a conventional public school education are enormous.

First off, the authoritarianism of current public schools is appalling. Systems of surveillance, police officers (who are either armed or in possession of "less lethal" methods of crowd control like pepper (http://www.wral.com/news/news_briefs/story/5271221/) spray (http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/01/one_person_arrested_six_treate.html) and tasers (http://jonathanturley.org/2009/06/05/can-you-hear-me-now-police-officer-tasers-high-school-student-in-dispute-over-use-of-cellphone/)), and draconian "zero-tolerance" policies do end up teaching children something: how to obey. And if they don't learn how to obey to the satisfaction of the pigs, well, bad things can happen.... (http://www.feministing.com/archives/007831.html)

For those unlucky enough to be living in poor communities, especially in cities, the schools are operated like prisons. Education Secretary Arne Duncan was notorious for this shit when he ran the public schools in Chicago, which means that it is not likely to improve in the immediate future.

I feel like taking a shower after going through all those links again. :(

Academically, schools are bound up by dozens of needless, stupid regulations from their state legislature and the federal level which de-professionalize teaching and make learning difficult. NCLB is a case in a point, but many states have similar regulations all to make schools "accountable". A good friend of mine is a teacher at an inner-city school in Miami where they even send bureaucrats into her classroom to confirm that she's teaching 'correctly'. She's not ever been sanctioned, she's not a poor teacher (in fact, she's being entrusted with not only the AP European History classes but also Honors English), but they do it anyway just because the city and state demand it. And on those days absolutely no education gets done, because there is no point in common between what a bureaucrat thinks education is and what education really is.

As my friend is an expert in history, not literature, this will be her first time teaching these honors classes. In prepping for the class, she's run into a little bit of a problem: the city schools can tell her how to teach down to the minute, but nobody knows what she is allowed to assign in her class. Neither she nor I have been able to figure this out. :facepalm:

One problem with setting arbitrary standards of "progress" for the purpose of standardized testing is that it prevents remediation. All over the country, students who fail math courses are shunted back into the same math courses they just failed. No attempt at remediation is made or even considered. May I invoke the proverbial definition of insanity here? At the college level, we're having to put the students who never got remediation through it, which is one reason why a bachelor's degree is becoming the new high school diploma (and consequently a master's degree is the new bachelor's).

There's also the problem of how much gets taught in the U.S. public school that is either false or useless. Most U.S. history classes, even world history classes, are useless because they're so anemic. Anything potentially "controversial" is carefully scrubbed from the textbooks and something suitably warm, dry, and boring is put in its place. There are still classes that teach old myths as fact (e.g. that George Washington was offered the position of a monarch and turned it down) and major historical issues are either misrepresented or omitted (James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me is a very good critique of this).

Back when I was in high school, I faced the same thing. You might think that being in an AP U.S. History class would mean that I'd be learning real history instead of triumphalist garbage, but you'd be wrong. Fortunately, especially when it came to the Civil Rights Movement, my teacher was a 60 year-old Black woman who had marched in the South during the fifties and sixties, and so we got real history from her own mouth and didn't need to get a truncated and whitewashed account from our history books.

Political pressures were brought to bear in another way in that class. The "don't ask, don't tell" policy was still a controversial issue, especially in San Diego which was half a military town between the Navy and the USMC base at Camp Pendleton. I wanted to do my major paper for the class on the post-Stonewall gay rights movement. My teacher knew, however, that if word got out that she'd be blasted by the local right-wing blowhards for indoctrinating students in the "gay lifestyle". Yes, it would have been my own choice for a paper topic, but facts don't stop these people. So she encouraged me to write a different paper topic, which I did, and eventually wrote the one I first thought of for an undergraduate class.

She was right to worry. Even as recently as this year, a student was told that she wouldn't be allowed to deliver a report on Harvey Milk. (http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/may/21/1n21ramona00477-ramona-girl-blocked-giving-talk-ha/) According to school officials, it would be tantamount to teaching "sex ed" and would require parental permission slips from the fellow students. Seriously.

My last objection to any form of traditional schooling, public or private, is the way in which it tends to suppress curiosity. I'm sure all of us have known our share of bright children who entered school and suddenly turned apathetic (or been them). It's no accident. A couple years ago, I had a very long break and didn't need to be in class for over two and a half hours. Sometimes I'd go to the library, sometimes I'd just sit outside, and sometimes I would go to the Birch Aquarium on the UCSD campus. One day at the aquarium, I saw a teacher leading her elementary school students on a field trip. There was absolutely nothing to her lesson plan except to tick off boxes once they saw an animal on their list. Unfortunately, she was too ignorant to even do that and couldn't identify a "sea nettle" (ctenophore) because it wasn't identified as such on any of the aquarium displays. But the worst part came later, when one of her students was looking at a display on cladistics. He pressed one button, and the whole display lit up (to demonstrate a plesiomorphy, an ancestral characteristic shared by all the taxa on the display). The teacher's response? "Don't press all the buttons at once!"

The student hadn't, and he said so, and I stuck up for him. I gave a brief impromptu discussion of cladistics to tell him and the teacher exactly why the whole panel had lit up. But even if he had pressed all the buttons at once, what business was that of the teacher's? That's hardly the most critical issue here. The point of these displays is to encourage young people to have a hands-on experience of the science and to think about the science while they're doing it. If they want to press all the buttons on a board, LET THEM. The lesson shouldn't be about conforming to this teacher's arbitrary, unstated standards for "proper behavior" in an aquarium.

I think that if I hadn't been there, the lesson that student would have taken home is that being curious is wrong and puts you on the teacher's bad side.

[Ensign Steve]

I thought of something at lunch! Why do I always think of something at lunch?

Okay, the thing is, I get why there is public school, and I get why the government requires that children go to school. Education is necessary, and it should be free, and children should be required to have it and not go work in the mines all day. This all makes perfect sense to me as a defense of public schools. I think public schools are just great (except for the ways in which they all suck, as Null pointed out) in a situation where that's the only choice a kid has. Working parents, uninvolved parents, whatever.

What really sticks in my craw is when the state goes around and says, "No, you can't homeschool your kid. Your kid can't sail around the world for a year (or backpack across Europe or whatever the fuck) because he is required to attend school." As though they think their option is somehow better than any alternative education they could get outside of the school. When really, it should be a last resort.

[LadyShea]

Thanks Null! Great post!

In my research, I recently read (or heard? seems mebbe I saw it on TV) how our educational system has not fundamentally changed since the days of the industrial revolution, so, in effect, we are teaching our kids to be good factory workers, and not great thinkers and innovators.

That gave me an "aha" moment, as it pretty succinctly sums up all my thoughts and feelings about the public school environment.

Thoughts?

[livius drusus]

"This exhibit opposes any prophetic pedagogy which knows everything before it happens, which teaches children that every day is the same, that there are no surprises, and teaches adults that all they have to do is repeat that which they were not able to learn."

-- Loris Malaguzzi, one of the founders of the Reggio system, re The Hundred Languages of Children (http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/100exhibit.htm) exhibit put on by the infant-toddler centers and pre-schools of Reggio Emilia

[Miisa]

Thanks for copying this here, I didn't even know about this thread.

Our schools are not too dissimilar here; budget restraints, disinterested parents, underpaid teachers, no separation into levels, combined with late starts (age 7, formally) and no real possibility of alternatives (such as private schools or homeschooling), yet Finnish kids do amazingly well in international tests.

This old article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/sep/16/schools.uk) tries to explain why. Highly-regarded and highly educated (even though low-paid) teachers, student participation, stuff like that. I have frequently heard stuff like "homogenous culture" thrown as a reason by non-Finns, but that is not as extreme as assumed, certainly not to the cities.

I think basically educated, knowledge-driven parents will foster similar kids, regardless of the level of "formality" of their education. I see the schools as a great place for my kids to learn the basics, practise over and over what they need to know (and I basically don't have the patience to do with such repetition), socialize with other kids, learn from being in a group, have someone with a trained eye monitor their progress to make sure they are at least on an average level in all subjects, and otherwise pick up the skills and knowledge I may not know or have little interest in. And when I am with them they learn about stuff that is not (perhaps yet) in their curriculum, though usually science and other stuff I am passionate about.

I do not trust myself to give them as well-rounded an education as I feel the combination of home and school can do, so the very thought of it being completely up to me is daunting and rather horrifying to me. There is soooo much I don't know, or am misinformed about.

And I have found the home has a huge influence in comparison, maybe just because the school is so impersonal and unyeilding. For instance: my kids take religion in their state schools. Evangelical Lutherism, basically. I could have opted out, but didn't, as it is a part of their culture I know I will not be teching them, yet one I feel they would be worse off not knowing about.
Yet at home I am teaching them to think critically. So they come home having learned all those bible stories and still think they are just that - stories. Win/win, I'd say.

[LadyShea]

I do not trust myself to give them as well-rounded an education as I feel the combination of home and school can do, so the very thought of it being completely up to me is daunting and rather horrifying to me. There is soooo much I don't know, or am misinformed about.

This scares a lot of people I think. But, from the perspective of my own autodidactishnish, by knowing how to read well, and knowing how to find and analyze information, one can learn just about everything taught in public schools.

I am comfortable with everything but advanced math and science, and by the time we need them I should be able to find the needed resources...whether dual enrollment in community college or whatever. Reading, history, basic science and math? Not a problem.

[LadyShea]

BTW YAY! And thank you! This is the kind of lively discussion I have been desperately seeking and not finding.

[lisarea]

I honestly don't think anyone in my family has had a good experience with the education system. It's always been more about figuring out a way to get it over with than it has been about learning or anything.

Of course, the one I'm most familiar with is the Little Muffin. The whole time he was in school, I was just trying to figure out ways to minimize the damages. I couldn't afford private school, and I didn't have the option of homeschooling him, but if I could have figured out a way to do either one, I would have in a heartbeat.

His kindergarten teacher actually warned me that he was going to get chewed up and spit out by the school system, too. He consistently scored at the 99th percentile on every standardized test he took, and he was just an engaged, interested, curious little boy all around. So you'd think maybe the schools would welcome that and have some kind of options available for a kid like that, right?

Well, no, they didn't. If anything, I got the impression that they figured he was already scoring as high as possible on their assessment tests and bringing up their average scores, so they really didn't have any motivation to do anything for him.

We switched schools a lot trying to find something that worked. Some were better than others. Some teachers figured out ways to engage him. Sometimes, he'd get in some program or another. But for something like math, they literally did not have the necessary resources to teach him. He had one math teacher who put him in the role of tutor/teacher's assistant; and for fifth and sixth grade, a special short bus would come to pick him up to take him to a local college campus to take AP math classes with honors level high school students.

Which was good, except that after that, the schools didn't have options available for him, so he actually had to go backwards and take math classes that he'd already skipped ahead of years before. Which: No big deal. He can just skate, right? Nope. He'd come home with shitloads of excruciatingly dull, repetitive 'worksheets' as homework, and he not only had to fill in all the answers, but some of his teachers required him to 'show his work,' so even when he could look at the shit and do it in his head, he had to sit down and write out all the discrete steps in some prescriptive form that the teacher had determined was the 'correct' way to do it.

Interestingly, my brother and I had almost exactly the same experience in high school ourselves. We both took the same 9th grade advanced placement math class at the same school with the same teacher, and he accused us both of cheating when we did parts in our heads and didn't need to write out all the simple arithmetic in the middle, or even when we wrote down our process but not exactly the way he had it in the answer key. I suspect that the teacher didn't actually know that you could do math except by rote. I just took it because I was very shy and couldn't defend myself, but happily, my brother fucking OWNED THE GUY in class. He got up at the board and the teacher started throwing questions at him, and he'd just write the answers on the board. My brother is fucking awesome. (Although I'm sure the teacher asshole never thought to reconsider his accusing me.)

And pretty much everyone was accused of plagiarism in school when we'd write papers that were better quality than they expected. I once had a teacher say in front of the whole class, after an oral report, "Nice job, Lisa. Next time, don't just copy from the encyclopedia." And the LM once got an F on a (very good, well-written) paper he wrote about Karl Marx based on the single comment, "Where's your voice?" The implication of that was pretty fucking clear.

The LM was just as much a special needs student as a kid with a learning disability is. He deserved accommodations as much as anyone, but they didn't really have anything to gain from accommodating his needs, so they didn't. I even had one teacher tell me, when I complained about the volume of busywork, that doing dull, repetitive tasks for hours every day was an important skill for his future career.

As a matter of fact, I deserved better too. In second grade (I think--maybe 1st), they considering skipping me ahead a grade, but chose not to because I was already younger than my classmates, plus I was really small, which was causing me problems fitting in. Then, for the crime of looking out the window while she was talking, my teacher decided by fiat to put me in some kind of horrible special ed class instead, with incredibly disturbed kids--like not just learning disabled kids, but kids who bit. My teacher from the previous year called my parents and told them to get me out of that school before I got killed. So they did, and they put me in a private 'open' school for a couple of years, which they really couldn't afford. I tested out at the top of the grade ranges they offered, so I did not have a curriculum. My parents paid a premium for the privilege of having the school system leave me the fuck alone for two years. I did not take a single class in that time. I had a little romance, caught some snakes and stuff, and (my mom just reminded me of this the other day) I just left the campus whenever I felt like it and fucked around downtown. But you know what? After that, I went back to public schools, right into the advanced placement classes, and didn't miss a thing.

Every time I see one of those dumbassed bumperstickers that says, "If you can read this, thank a teacher," I just want to run them off the road and pound their fat smug little faces into hamburger.

We do need public schools, but the way they are now and apparently have been since the mid 60s at least, they're really not functional even as a last resort. We need more options, including homeschooling, but also including reasonable state school options for every student.

[LadyShea]

The LM was just as much a special needs student as a kid with a learning disability is.

Ding ding ding...super point made ITT

[livius drusus]

I just took it because I was very shy and couldn't defend myself, but happily, my brother fucking OWNED THE GUY in class. He got up at the board and the teacher started throwing questions at him, and he'd just write the answers on the board. My brother is fucking awesome.

You don't fool me. I saw that scene in The Omen II. LISAREA'S BROTHER IS THE SON OF THE DEVIL, Y'ALL.

[Kael]

This is something I've started to think about, with my daughter about to turn two. It's also rather relevant to me because teaching is something I'm thinking about doing as a career, but I find myself torn between fear and revulsion of getting bogged down in the muddle of modern public schools and the hope that I might be a good enough teacher to break through that muddle and help some kids actually learn.

I haven't checked what the legal options are for homeschooling in my State, but I'm pretty sure we won't be able to afford most private schools, so at the very least I will want to supplement the education she will get from a public school, and hopefully keep her curiosity alive and well.

[LadyShea]

Yay Kael! Some people thought I was nuts for thinking about this when he was only 2

Could you aim for teaching at a private school? Sometimes they give free tuition to their instructors kids. Just one possible option

[LadyShea]

Although I disagree with the HSLDA on pretty much everything, they have good easy access resources to the various state laws

http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp

[BDS]

I hated public school. I hated the regementation, the authoritarian teachers, and sitting still for so long. Besides, I came from a family with six kids in it, and had my own built-in social group there.

My son loved school. He is an only child, and I think he liked the social life school offered. Also, he was good at school (so was I, until I stopped trying because I hated it so much), and he liked getting straight "A"s and being told he was smart.

Since your sun is an only child, LadyShea, it might be something to consider. You could try both, and see which one he likes best. I'd recommend taking his advice.

[Nullifidian]

Then, for the crime of looking out the window while she was talking, my teacher decided by fiat to put me in some kind of horrible special ed class instead, with incredibly disturbed kids--like not just learning disabled kids, but kids who bit. My teacher from the previous year called my parents and told them to get me out of that school before I got killed.

:pissed:

I guess I should be lucky my 2nd grade teacher didn't think to pull that shit with me.

My second grade teacher had a very novel pedagogical approach (at least I hope it was). If students failed to get the answers right on the worksheets she passed out, she then passed the same worksheets out the next day, and the day after, and the day after that, until everyone could meet her standards. I was always faster than the rest of the students, and would finish the worksheet packets for the day in around an hour, but soon I was able to do them from memory.

With nothing else left to do, I read. This greatly disturbed my teacher because I was NOT paying attention and—even worse!—I was reading things that were not age-appropriate. :faint: Children reading books that were written at an adult reading level freaked her out. It's not like I was reading anything particularly scandalous either. I was reading classic English-language books: Verne, London, Conrad, Stevenson, Defoe, Haggard, Kipling, Doyle, Melville, Scott, Richard Henry Dana, etc. Anything with the flavor of an adventure story. The most 'scandalous' things I ever read were Agatha Christie mysteries and Ian Fleming's and John Le Carré's spy novels.

When she saw me reading them, she would stomp over towards me and wrench them out of my hands. Needless to say, it didn't become very long until I got bored. Then I would try to keep myself entertained by moving around or whistling to myself, and that would make me a 'distraction'. So off to the counselor's office, where I would be pronounced completely normal and polite and sent off with a note for my teacher asking what the hell I was supposed to have done. Repeat this for over a dozen times during the course of the school year (my teacher never made the connection between confiscating books and my boredom) and finally I was sent to a counselor who worked for the San Diego School District. This woman had a Ph.D. in psychology and the first question she asked was "Has this child had an IQ test?"

(Luckily I grew up during the 80s. Now the first question would be "Is this child on Ritalin?")

So she administered the IQ test, and finally they had their answer. I was sent off to a tracked program for students with "genius level" IQs called "Seminar" and only rarely had the problem of being bored in class again.

[Nullifidian]

Thanks Null! Great post!

In my research, I recently read (or heard? seems mebbe I saw it on TV) how our educational system has not fundamentally changed since the days of the industrial revolution, so, in effect, we are teaching our kids to be good factory workers, and not great thinkers and innovators.

That gave me an "aha" moment, as it pretty succinctly sums up all my thoughts and feelings about the public school environment.

Thoughts?

:alarm: Pomo ITT! :alarm:

What you've just described was a point made by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.

While it did deal with the prison as an institution, Foucault's larger point was concerned with power relationships and what they implied for society. It's one of the great sociological works of the 20th century.

Foucault argued that the switch to prisons as a ubiquitous form of punishment represented a break with the idea of sovereign power. Sovereign power, as used by Foucault, is a kind of power that is expressed in recognizable ways through particular and identifiable individuals. These individuals are the visible agents of the sovereign's power and recognized as such by themselves and the community (e.g. the Sheriff of Nottingham). This makes it easy for a rebel (e.g. Robin Hood) to publicly identify the agents of sovereign power and attack them.

Sovereign power is also typified by its intermittency: taxes may be levied, armies may be mustered, and criminals may be punished publicly in order to provide a demonstration of the sovereign's power, but most of one's life feels beyond the control of the sovereign.

In contrast disciplinary power 1) is diffuse, coming from everywhere and acting on everyone, 2) is invisible and pervasive, making it difficult to locate and thus resist, and 3) affects all aspects of living within its scope, subjecting everyone and everything to the possibility of scrutiny and supervision.

Foucault's symbol of disciplinary power is the Panopticon, Jeremy Bentham's design for prisons. Bentham proposed that the cells of a prison be arranged in a circle around a central tower. In this central tower, the guards would sit, observing everything that occurred through wooden slats that were designed to confuse the prisoners about when, where, and by whom they were being observed, diffusing the effect until they accepted that they were always under surveillance.

Foucault also traces the development of the prison to capitalism and rationalization. Instead of a grossly disproportionate and torturous penalty visited upon a single individual, the criminal would be shut away from "proper society", thus defining proper and improper societies by exclusion, and he would be "rehabilitated" into the "proper society" at large by being trained to rise, eat, work, and sleep when he was told to. In short, he was being trained to be a perfect cog in the industrial machine.

Schools are like that too, and Foucault analyzes them as paradigmatic examples of disciplinary power. The way that students are regimented and pushed through schools is no accident, in Foucault's view, as it trains them to accept the kind of disciplinary power that maintains capitalist representative democracy as a stable institution. Foucault calls this "the internalization of the disciplinary function" and the 60s radicals knew it as "the cop in your head".

Even I have felt the cop in my head. It wasn't until I deliberately broke the law, and knew I was going to do it, by engaging in a die-in in a recruitment center that I finally was able to kill the cop in my head. Every time I had been arrested before that, it was always unintentionally. Even though I knew there was always a risk of arrest in every protest, I had never done anything that made that result certain.

So if you're at all interested in the issue of prisons and schools, and how they resemble one another, I'd recommend this book very highly. Personally, I think it's one of the ten greatest books I've ever read.

[Kael]

Anecdote: I had a teacher in sixth grade that I thought did a good job with me. I've always been above my age's 'recommended' reading level (which I think is a load of bullshit, but hey), and we were assigned a book report one time where we were given a list of books to choose from, read, and report on. This list was comprised of such stellar pieces of literature as selections from The Babysitter's Club and Hardy Boys series. I begged my teacher to provide something more interesting, and she gave me Last of the Breed. It was quite enjoyable.

[LadyShea]

Jesus the Babysitters Club? I guess my elementary wasn't that bad...we could read any Newbery award or honors books. I still buy Newbery winners for my niece.

[LadyShea]

Repeat this for over a dozen times during the course of the school year (my teacher never made the connection between confiscating books and my boredom) and finally I was sent to a counselor who worked for the San Diego School District.

I've probably told this story but oh well. When my bro was in kindergarten, my mom got called in for a meeting with the principal and the school psychologist. They were worried that he was dark and twisted and needed help because all of his paintings were in black.

My mom asked him why he painted in all black, and he said by the time he got to the paints (the whole class shared big bottles at that time) that was the only color left. I don't remember why he always got to the paints last...my mom seems to remember they were seated in alphabetical order, and she sent them to the paints by rows, and our last name was at the end of the alphabet. Maybe he just wasn't willing to push and shove to get to the yellow first or something, he was small at that age.

Anyway the point is the school people didn't even ask the kid about his paintings to start with.

[Adam]

That must be why I don't see the big deal with institutionalized schooling. It took me until high school to get sent to the counselor for being supposedly disturbed.

[Angakuk]

And pretty much everyone was accused of plagiarism in school when we'd write papers that were better quality than they expected. I once had a teacher say in front of the whole class, after an oral report, "Nice job, Lisa. Next time, don't just copy from the encyclopedia."

Same here. I had a teacher in sixth grade that marked me down on a paper because she thought I had plagiarized from the encyclopedia. My mother (God bless her) took the relevant volumes of the two encyclopedias we owned and dared the teacher to find a single passage that I had plagiarized. Give credit to the teacher, when she couldn't find any actual evidence of plagiarism, she revised the grade.

I had a Kindergarten teacher who reported to my mother that I was looking out the window instead of paying attention to what she was saying to the class. My mother suggested that she test me to see if I was paying attention. Again, credit to the teacher, she did just that. On a subsequent occasion when I was looking out the window, instead (supposedly) of paying attention, she asked me to please repeat what she had just said. I did, letter perfect. She never again complained that I was not paying attention.

The moral of this post is that it pays to pick parents who will go to bat for you when you are in the right.

[erimir]

I honestly don't think anyone in my family has had a good experience with the education system. It's always been more about figuring out a way to get it over with than it has been about learning or anything.I guess I was pretty lucky to have a relatively good experience in public schools. I went to school in Shaker Heights, OH til I was 9, which is one of the better public school districts in the US, before moving to North Carolina. At the time, I didn't think of this as a good thing, since I had heard that NC was ranked 48th in education in the US. Ha.

But it wasn't that bad, as I'll explain.
He consistently scored at the 99th percentile on every standardized test he tookYup. Those things are very easy.
We switched schools a lot trying to find something that worked. Some were better than others. Some teachers figured out ways to engage him. Sometimes, he'd get in some program or another. But for something like math, they literally did not have the necessary resources to teach him. He had one math teacher who put him in the role of tutor/teacher's assistant; and for fifth and sixth grade, a special short bus would come to pick him up to take him to a local college campus to take AP math classes with honors level high school students.I was put in the "AG" (academically gifted) classes starting in 4th grade. To be honest, I never thought they were particularly interesting. I can barely remember what we did, but it wasn't really that challenging.

I also occasionally had separate assignments from the rest of the class, including projects. While other students in 4th grade were being given spelling tests with "they're" "their" and "there", I was getting words like "intrepid" "discombobulated" and so forth.

In middle school they wanted to skip me past 7th and 8th grade and put me in high school, basically because they wanted to get rid of me. My parents didn't want me to because they thought it would negatively affect me socially and because I was already small for my age (and I am still short to this day, heh). Fortunately, NC has a law that public schools are required to provide for students with special needs - including the academically gifted. So my parents complained, and so they put me in 8th grade classes, including the geometry class which was otherwise only advanced 8th grade students. And in 8th grade, I was bussed over to the high school (yes, in a full-size schoolbus, and I was the only person in it) to take over half my classes there (pre-cal, computer math, honors biology, chemistry, etc.) and even when I was at the middle school I was in a sort of independent study class.

When I got to high school, I took some of their AP classes, including the highest math they normally offered, in 9th grade. The next year I took distance learning classes for multivariable calculus.

And then I went to NCSSM (NC School of Science and Math) which is a public, competitive-admission, residential magnet school which only costs a few hundred dollars a year for student fees (no tuition or housing costs). This obviously was not much like your average public high school, and we did some interesting things, including reading the Gospel of Mary and Nietzsche in one class, for example, and various advanced level math and science classes (evolution, genetics, molecular and cellular biology, discrete math, number theory) as well as having some interesting art classes available (I took photography).

Of course NCSSM has its own issues with authoritarianism, but it's mostly on the part of the administration and not the teachers (teacher-administration relations at NCSSM haven't always been the friendliest).
He'd come home with shitloads of excruciatingly dull, repetitive 'worksheets' as homework, and he not only had to fill in all the answers, but some of his teachers required him to 'show his work,' so even when he could look at the shit and do it in his head, he had to sit down and write out all the discrete steps in some prescriptive form that the teacher had determined was the 'correct' way to do it.I did have a little bit of this even at NCSSM... I complained to my chemistry teacher (Dr. Allen, I'm sure ChuckF and Naruto remember her) about how long and repetitive the homework assignments were, and she said that while I didn't require that much repetition to get the process down, other students did... so I still had to do it. Oh well. I got a 5 on the AP Chem test tho :shrug:
We both took the same 9th grade advanced placement math class at the same school with the same teacher, and he accused us both of cheating when we did parts in our heads and didn't need to write out all the simple arithmetic in the middle, or even when we wrote down our process but not exactly the way he had it in the answer key.I also had an experience like that in 8th grade, taking pre-cal at the high school.

I would read novels during class, and when I turned in my assignments, I would leave out most of the arithmetic steps, and she would mark me down for this. She didn't say this to me, but she apparently told my parents that she thought I was cheating. However, after the first test, where I got all the questions right, and my neighbors did not, she apologized to my parents.
My son loved school. He is an only child, and I think he liked the social life school offered. Also, he was good at school (so was I, until I stopped trying because I hated it so much), and he liked getting straight "A"s and being told he was smart.Of course, while kids like being called smart, wasn't there a thread here that was about a study that found that children who are constantly told they're smart become slackers, because they get the idea that the really good thing is to be able to get by on intelligence alone, rather than hard work?

I'm a bit of an example of that really...

[LadyShea]

Of course, while kids like being called smart, wasn't there a thread here that was about a study that found that children who are constantly told they're smart become slackers, because they get the idea that the really good thing is to be able to get by on intelligence alone, rather than hard work?

Well, but slackers how? Slackers when? My dad (genius, slacker) once told me that lazy people, that are also intelligent, usually find ways to do shit more efficiently, or more quickly, and therefore are kinda innovative.

I was a total fucking slacker in school (well skater), but not in my real life where my efficient work rewards me with food and shelter, and my independent learning rewards me by fulfilling my curiosity.

What did I get from hard work at school? Oh wait, I didn't work hard, and I still got their rewards of a high letter grade.

[Dingfod]

Hard work is overrated.

[Ensign Steve]

Well, but slackers how? Slackers when? My dad (genius, slacker) once told me that lazy people, that are also intelligent, usually find ways to do shit more efficiently, or more quickly, and therefore are kinda innovative.


I had a boss forever ago who used to tell me, "You're so lazy!" because I would figure out ways to automate repetitive tasks, like figuring out how to do mail-merge rather than cutting and pasting addresses into individual letters. She said it with a smile, though, because I consistently took 8 hours of work and did it in 2, and had more time to do more work. Yay. Anyway, that's how I got into computer programming. I hate when shit gets tedious and repetitive, so I'm immediately looking for ways to automate processes.

[LadyShea]

Yeah I hear ya. Over the years I have worked with, and even managed, enough people who could follow the shit out of written procedures, or follow explicit directions, complete routine stuff, but had no idea or interest into how those procedures were created or why the directions were given as they are, and couldn't cope with any variances, that I came up with a name for them...taskers.

Taskers are useful for printing x number of y, or finding all instances of A on a report, or entering this data into these fields, but they don't know why they are doing it, or what the data shows and therefore couldn't come up with a better way to do it to save their lives.

[Dragar]

Lady Shea,


I had a shit time in school.

In primary school (UK, so pre-11 years of age or so) it became clear I was pretty smart. I was excitable and constantly talking (adults would remark on this a lot, but it was many years later until I'd realise the meaning!). I was obessed with dinosaurs (how many seven year olds would tell you they wanted to be a paleontologist when they grew up?). I loved computers, and was very good with them. I devoured pretty much the entire school library and swathes of my parents' science-fiction and fantasy collections.

I was also small, and asthmatic. I didn't watch the same TV programs the other kids did. I didn't have the same sense of humour. I was teased horribly for not sounding the same (I didn't have the local Yorkshire accent, and still don't unless I put it on - people often think I'm from the rich, south end of the country rather than the North).

I had fairly severe emotional issues, that were eventually diagnosed at being a result of boredom at school. I threw regular, sometimes violent, tantrums at home. I was severely unhappy. The school suggested to my parents I got an IQ test; I came out somewhere in the upper few percent of the population and off the scale in verbal reasoning (I mean this literally, the man doing the test explained the scores did not extend high enough in certain areas).

After that, I attended high-school one day a week for...some period of time that my memory fails to recall. I guess I'd be two years younger than the start of high-school, so about nine or so? Eventually I went to that high-school, aged ten.

I was less bored with school, though looking back the only subjects I actually enjoyed were science, mathematics, religious education (should have been called comparitive religion and I had an excellent teacher) and english literature. Unfortunately, I was a year younger than the rest of the year, and still socially abyssmal. I dreaded non-school-uniform days because I was mocked for the clothes I wore (probably a big part of why I have little confidence in selecting socially accepted clothes for occassions to this day, hate fancy-dress, etc.).

I lived a fairly long way from my school, so even if I'd been accepted by the other students, I would have struggled to meet them. I hung out with the other social outcasts, and pretty much the dominat lesson I came away from at school was that the majority of the members of the population did not want my company, and a large number of them took great pleasure in making me miserable. I was very lonely.

In college (two years of study, ages 16-18, not American college - we call that University) I was still the smart-kid everyone thought was weird. I hung out with goths, grunge, and heavy metal fans (despite enjoying Simon and Garfunkel and not any of those styles - they would just nod and smile). They were the first people who actually seemed to accept me, and some took the time to point out the socialising mistakes I made and help me understand the complicated social rules they all took for granted. Worried about clothes, one of the friends I made took me clothes shopping and pretty much picked out an entire wardrobe of nice-looking clothes.

University was better, but I still don't 'fit' in the same sort of way a lot of people do. Having a pre-selected wardrobe of clothes that didn't get me mocked on sight helped.


My sister was teased badly at school, and my mother took her out and home educated her until college (age 16). She's significantly better adjusted than I am, socially. We've both got degrees (her in the humanities, myself in the sciences). My mother worked her ass off for both of us, in different ways. Teaching my sister was a lot of work, and a huge responsibility. That was a heavy emotional burden, and you really need to make sure you're prepared for it.

Two data points, make of it what you will. School can absolutely suck for some kids. It took me until the age of seventeen, having been in school since the age of five, to actually learn some social skills - and only because people took the time to explain certain social rules to me (sometimes literally, explicitly). School is not a sure-fire way to teach these things.

[LadyShea]

Hey Null...the "Cop in your head" line has stuck with me, then I got a full on example in my 11yo niece this weekend. I requested an interlibrary loan of Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison today.

Thanks again

[Demimonde]

Bumpage reminded me. I heard a program on NPR today which talked a bit about sight words. I don't know how much TV or Movies you guys watch, but they spoke about little things that can help. Mainly close captioning the TV. Through repitition they see the words with the spoken language. Seemed like an easy smart thing.

[lisarea]

Took me a minute to figure out why you were calling LS "Bum-page."

[LadyShea]

Bumpage reminded me. I heard a program on NPR today which talked a bit about sight words. I don't know how much TV or Movies you guys watch, but they spoke about little things that can help. Mainly close captioning the TV. Through repitition they see the words with the spoken language. Seemed like an easy smart thing.

I made little signs and put them around the house, like "Front Door", "Pantry", "Closet", etc. same idea I think, having words he knows visually represented during daily activities. He knows all the letters, and can name them, and he knows that those letters together spell whatever the word is. Sort of passive learning.

[BDS]

Quick! Somebody take the label gun away from Lady Shea, before she hurts someone!

[LadyShea]

Shut up! I only made a few! And I wrote them...first time I've actually written something with a pen in like a year.

[Sidesaddle Gal]

Although I disagree with the HSLDA on pretty much everything, they have good easy access resources to the various state laws

http://www.hslda.org/laws/default.asp

I was going to suggest that anyone who chooses to HS should join them.

I HS'd ds for several years and the membership paid for itself in free legal fees because I had to fight the school district every year. Would have cost me a small fortune to pay my personal attorney.

So even though I don't agree with a lot of their POV on issues, they do know homeschool law and are johnny on the spot with support.

My son started in public school - K - 2nd grade. It was a nightmare. Seemed like for three years, all I did was fight administrators who wanted to drug him. And by the way, he isn't/wasn't ADD...just bored.

He did several years in a Democratic/Sudbury school. It takes a huge leap of faith to send your kid to a Sudbury school...but the reward is ginormous.

We finished up with homeschooling for a variety of reasons.

The socialization argument is a pretty weak one, IMO. The HS kids I've known over the years were quite capable of interaction with people from a variety of backgrounds, cultures, ages, etc.

A friend of mine told me yesterday that her 9 year old was given detention for talking in the lunch line. :stunned:

Really? Talking in the lunch line...yeah...public school is really the place to learn socialization. :unbelievable:

[LadyShea]

Sidesaddle Gal, what state do you live in that you had a legal battle?

[Sidesaddle Gal]

Sidesaddle Gal, what state do you live in that you had a legal battle?

I'm in PA.

Here, it's very different district to district. Some superintendents welcome and support home schoolers, some are indifferent as long as you do all your filings on time, and some are openly hostile to homeschoolers.

I had to deal with the latter. Throughout each school year, it usually took a few letters from HSLDA to get the superintendent to back off, but the hostility was still there.

I was so jealous of friends of mine - their 3 sons were invited to play on their district's football team. I had to get a lawyer to write a letter so we could get books from the school, which state law requires they provide upon request. :fuming:

[LadyShea]

Your local district broke state law? I probably would have happily fought them myself, but I am like that.

Luckily my state is very easy...I would have to enroll in a church cover school, and send notice to the district. The law states that they are not allowed to question it.

[Sidesaddle Gal]

Your local district broke state law? I probably would have happily fought them myself, but I am like that.

Luckily my state is very easy...I would have to enroll in a church cover school, and send notice to the district. The law states that they are not allowed to question it.

That was the mildest issue I had with them. The things I had to deal with when I turned in his evaluations at the end of each year...ugh.

[LadyShea]

Yeah, I have heard some states make it way tougher than others. In my state we have no testing or evaluations or required curriculum. Once enrolled in a church school (which there are plenty that are just legal cover schools and totally hands off) only attendance and enrollment is turned in to the state.

[livius drusus]

Confessions of a home-schooler | Salon Life (http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/09/28/confessions_homeschooler/)

[LadyShea]

Thanks liv! Any reactions to or thoughts on the article to share with the class?

[erimir]

I thought it was interesting that he mentioned the demands on women, but didn't discuss how it could be made not sexist, or homeschoolers that were trying to divide the efforts equally, or where the father was the teacher, etc.

[LadyShea]

Well, quite frankly, the fact that a man even wrote that article is surprising. I haven't been a mom for long, but in that time I have heavily researched and sought views/support* on infertility, adoption, attachment parenting, discipline, and all aspects of education and development...and the whole parenting world is dominated by women.

As my husband was a full time dad and primary caretaker, I felt there was a huge lack of people who could relate. He doesn't necessarily seek it like I do, or feel a loss for it though.

*This includes forums, Yahoo groups, books, newsletters, extensive blog reading, real life discussions, email discussions with relative strangers, etc.

[livius drusus]

Hey! Are you practicing on me? :narrow:

I thought it was interesting article and am looking forward to the rest in the series. For some reason, I was most fascinated by his description of the off-hours schooling, like the kids staying up all night to study astronomy, or the kid who goes to bars and parties with his parents and the intertubes got all mad about it.

My fascination probably stems from my early bedtime for many years. I was big on sneaking back down the first few steps to eavesdrop or even just listen to whatever show my parents were watching on tv. I think staying up all night to watch the skies would have been the most amazing treat ever to me.

[LadyShea]

Of course I am practicing. Well, though I have agreed on Kindergarten*, I am at the very least homeschooling Kiddo now, and will definitely enrich and supplement his education (and possibly damage control) when he does go to school.

*I am pretty sure that once he starts school, hubby will see that I was right all along and Kiddo needs to not be there, but that's still 2 years off and Kindergarten won't kill him.

Anyway, one of the main draws for me is that nighttime, vacations, weekends, whenever and wherever are all "school". With the draconian attendance laws these days, I feel stifled by schedules we are not yet even subject to. How cool would it be to see my son WANT to do astronomy all night?

[lisarea]

I haven't even read the whole article yet, but it does hit on some pretty salient points early on. (That means salty!)

The defensiveness issue in particular. It's always kind of telling when people interpret someone else's decision as a challenge or an attack on them. Homeschooling is particularly susceptible, I reckon. People seem to feel like they have to defend their choice not to do it.

I used to get similar reactions from people when I was vegetarian, and I didn't have a TV. I avoided bringing those things up unless I was questioned directly or if I needed to know if there were hot dogs in something, but almost every time they did come up, someone would get ridiculously pissed off about it. Some guy once threatened to contact social services because I was raising my child without a TV in the house. I was like, "Yeah, you really should." (In fact, I'll bet if I brought one of those things up in a different context, someone here would jump on me about it still.)

Homeschooling seems to get similar reactions. Some people probably just associate it with crazies, but others want to attack your choices as a way of justifying their own, almost as though they feel guilty about them or something. They're just plain defensive.

(And I would have loved to homeschool my kid, but I really didn't have the option to opt out of regular school when he was young, and when he got older, he didn't want to do it. Most of the stuff he actually learned was outside of the school system, though.)

People are just big stinking busybodies about parenting. No matter what you do, some asshole is standing behind a bush somewhere waiting to jump out and tell you why it's wrong. And for the most part, that needs to stop. There are actual, real live bad parents out there who are happily fucking their kids up every day, and the vast majority of them aren't showing up in discussions about the finer points of homeschooling.

[Nullifidian]

Some guy once threatened to contact social services because I was raising my child without a TV in the house. I was like, "Yeah, you really should."

Erm...did he explain why he thought that raising a child without a TV was equivalent to neglect or abuse?

I'm trying to imagine the thought processes going on there and failing.

I don't watch TV either. Should I report myself for self-abuse?

:circlejerk:

[BDS]

There are actual, real live bad parents out there who are happily fucking their kids up every day, and the vast majority of them aren't showing up in discussions about the finer points of homeschooling.

How is a kid supposed to learn that wolves only kill the sick and weak caribou, and are actually good environmentalists who protect the cycle of nature, which, prior to humans, was in perfect balance, if the kid doesn't watch nature shows on TV?

Actually, it's not hard to figure out why parents are defensive. All parents (well, almost all) want desperately to be good parents -- and all of us know we COULD be better parents than we are (just like we COULD be better at anything we do than we are). So many parents see another parent talking endlessly about home schooling, or living without TV, or vegetarianism as an implicit criticism of their own parenting style. And, let's face it, lisarea, some vegetarians, home schooling parents, or parents who deny their kids TV ARE just a tad holier-than-thou about it -- so even if you weren't, your fellow travellers may have created SOME of the defensiveness you mention on the part of more traditional parents.

I don't watch TV either. Should I report myself for self-abuse?

Only if you practice self-abuse during the hours when the rest of us are watching TV.

[godfry n. glad]

There are actual, real live bad parents out there who are happily fucking their kids up every day, and the vast majority of them aren't showing up in discussions about the finer points of homeschooling.

How is a kid supposed to learn that wolves only kill the sick and weak caribou, and are actually good environmentalists who protect the cycle of nature, which, prior to humans, was in perfect balance, if the kid doesn't watch nature shows on TV?



Uh....Watching old reruns of Cheers, and having Cliffy explain it in relation to beer-drinking?

[lisarea]

Some guy once threatened to contact social services because I was raising my child without a TV in the house. I was like, "Yeah, you really should."

Erm...did he explain why he thought that raising a child without a TV was equivalent to neglect or abuse?

I'm trying to imagine the thought processes going on there and failing.

Well, it didn't make sense at any level, really. If it had, I wouldn't have been so cavalier about the threat. That's a really horrible thing to say to someone.

It was a pretty typical argument, which assumed a lot of facts not in evidence. People assumed that 1) I was sheltering him from something, 2) raising him to be some maladjusted socially inept pariah, and 3) that he was barred from watching television at all.

None of which was true, and none of which I ever hinted at. We just didn't have a TV. He watched TV at other peoples' houses and he was about as far from sheltered or maladjusted as a kid gets. I just didn't think we needed a TV, mostly. The funny thing was that the vehemence of some people's objections solidified my decision. If they were taking such offense to us NOT having one, there must be something pretty insidious about television!

Anyway, like I said, it made no sense. Even if everything he said were true, it's not the kind of thing you get your kid taken away for.


I don't watch TV either. Should I report myself for self-abuse?

:circlejerk:

No need to report yourself. I've reported you already, and the DA is pursuing charges similar to those that Jack McCoy used against that one guy without the TV on that episode of Law and Order.

But you don't know what that is, though, do you? Because you don't have a TV! HA HA!

[Ymir's blood]

raising him to be some maladjusted socially inept pariah
Not that there's anything wrong with that. :glare:

[LadyShea]

So many parents see another parent talking endlessly about home schooling, or living without TV, or vegetarianism as an implicit criticism of their own parenting style. But the defensiveness and/or unprovoked attacks aren't even usually prefaced by "endless talking"

I did not endlessly talk about my diaper choice, in fact I didn't even mention it until asked, because it never occurred to me that what I put on my baby's ass would cause someone else distress! Apparently diaper brands are big discussion topic amongst "more traditional" parents -because two totally separate people asked us which brand we planned to use, then both freaked out and criticized us when we answered we were using cloth. And, they used the exact same sneer "Oh I can't wait to see how long that lasts! You'll go disposable after the first poop!" Even after he was out of diapers another person decided it was high time she told me just what she had thought about my cloth diapering. WTF?

Oh and I used washcloths instead of Wet Wipes here at home. My one SIL, whose whole family uses Wet Wipes IN THE SHOWER, about came unglued.

I swear some people were just dying to dictate how to be parents to us because they had kids first. I got lists of shit I absolutely had to do/use/buy...everything from little single use packages of formula (twice as expensive as a can) to specific clothes detergent to waterproof lap pads (which I got for a gift...I use them for the dog beds). We didn't buy a changing table, that was another round of "Are you crazy!". Our choice not to spank...questioned. Timing for solid foods? Questioned.

No, I didn't talk endlessly, I did my research and made my choices and some people were pissed off that I didn't run to them every second for advice and suggestions. My merely not seeking their wisdom caused defensiveness.

Now, all these same people absolutely adore my son, and think he is a great kid, so my choices are no longer looked at skeptically (at least to my face). I guess they figure I did something right.

[erimir]

I don't watch TV either. Should I report myself for self-abuse?Only if you practice self-abuse during the hours when the rest of us are watching TV.Well, he's gotta be entertaining himself somehow...

[lisarea]

So many parents see another parent talking endlessly about home schooling, or living without TV, or vegetarianism as an implicit criticism of their own parenting style. And, let's face it, lisarea, some vegetarians, home schooling parents, or parents who deny their kids TV ARE just a tad holier-than-thou about it -- so even if you weren't, your fellow travellers may have created SOME of the defensiveness you mention on the part of more traditional parents.

Oh, really? How many people have you known who preached about that endlessly? I can think of exactly one person I knew who preached vegetarianism and acted like a jerk about it, and she wasn't even really vegetarian. She was just a big attention whore.

Most people don't mention it at all unless it's particularly relevant or if questioned directly, much less talk about it endlessly.

And even if some significant percentage of other people did, that's no excuse to attack people for their personal choices, particularly when they haven't said anything to you about what they think of your choices or asked for your input. The mere fact that people assume your choice is a threat to their own indicates that they're a little insecure, to say the least.

Make excuses all you like, but I never mentioned any of that without good reason--either because it was the topic at hand, or more often, on direct questioning--so the people who went all crazy on me were completely unjustified and completely out of line. In fact, I'm fairly convinced that there really aren't all that many evangelists out there at all, but just a lot of insecure assholes who made stupid assumptions just like the ones they made with me.

As far as homeschooling specifically, It's perfectly normal for someone who is homeschooling their child to spend a lot of time thinking about and discussing it. People put a lot of time and effort into it. In that case particularly, it's just stupid to assume that any mention of it is intended as a critique of your choices.

[Adam]

Most people don't mention it at all unless it's particularly relevant or if questioned directly, much less talk about it endlessly.


I don't think I've met a preachy vegetarian since high school, which doesn't count, but I've met a number of people whose attitude about not owning a television was...well, "preachy" is probably a bad word...more holier than thou, or like they expected some sort of congratulations for keeping the demon picture box out of their home. They're not the majority of no-TV people, by any means, but they're vocal enough to account for the perception that people without TVs are preachy about it, I think, or at least the ones I've met are. It probably helps that most of the people who don't own TVs don't color our perceptions at all, because they don't fucking talk about it unless it's relevant.

[Charmion]

I did not endlessly talk about my diaper choice, in fact I didn't even mention it until asked, because it never occurred to me that what I put on my baby's ass would cause someone else distress! Apparently diaper brands are big discussion topic amongst "more traditional" parents -because two totally separate people asked us which brand we planned to use, then both freaked out and criticized us when we answered we were using cloth. And, they used the exact same sneer "Oh I can't wait to see how long that lasts! You'll go disposable after the first poop!" Even after he was out of diapers another person decided it was high time she told me just what she had thought about my cloth diapering. WTF?

Oh and I used washcloths instead of Wet Wipes here at home. My one SIL, whose whole family uses Wet Wipes IN THE SHOWER, about came unglued.

People don't realize how much money they could save by changing to cloth diapers. It's nice to know that they're available with snaps or Velcro tabs that are adjustable. I found an article about cloth diapers. It also mentions reusable cloth wipes.

Cloth Diapers (http://www.stretcher.com/stories/02/02nov11a.cfm)

I haven't really looked in Google for baby things until now. Of course, not being a mother might have something to do with it. There's so much out there that I've never heard of before.

403 Forbidden (http://www.cottonbabies.com/product_info.php?cPath=98&products_id=1279)
Cloth Diapering Dictionary - Diaper Pin (http://www.diaperpin.com/dictionary.asp)

Watching Diane Keaton's "Baby Boom" should get anyone in the mood.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000542C9/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=6304112254&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0BBSEWDDK4ZC1N31KTMP

[Charmion]

Double post

[Ensign Steve]

Most people don't mention it at all unless it's particularly relevant or if questioned directly, much less talk about it endlessly.


I don't think I've met a preachy vegetarian since high school, which doesn't count, but I've met a number of people whose attitude about not owning a television was...well, "preachy" is probably a bad word...more holier than thou, or like they expected some sort of congratulations for keeping the demon picture box out of their home. They're not the majority of no-TV people, by any means, but they're vocal enough to account for the perception that people without TVs are preachy about it, I think, or at least the ones I've met are. It probably helps that most of the people who don't own TVs don't color our perceptions at all, because they don't fucking talk about it unless it's relevant.

Then you have the people who jump to the wrong conclusion when you say you don't have a TV. There have been plenty of times in my life where I just haven't had the cash to purchase cable (and I've never lived where you could get broadcast channels over the antenna, so no cable = no tv) and that is really the only reason. I would still sit for hours on end in front of the demon picture box, but before it was with VHS tapes, and more recently it's been with shit I downloaded from the internet. But, yeah, I worked at Blockbuster (hooray! free VHS tapes) when Friends came out, and we were schilling t-shirts and giant cappuccino mugs with the logo on it, and I had no idea what it was. And I definitely got the, "Oh, you're one of those" reaction from people. Meanwhile I'd go to the bar on Sunday nights just to catch The Simpsons.

My point is the satellite guy came over yesterday and hooked up my DVR and my long nightmare is over.

[Adam]

:lol:

I've gotten some of that, too, I guess. Before I had a DVR, I watched very little television, and people always assumed it was because I had some kind of weird moral opposition to the demon picture box or something. It's not like I brought it up all the time, but people would ask me if I'd seen show X or Y or whatever and after two or three iterations of "no, I didn't see that one either", I'd tell them that I didn't really watch much TV and they'd sometimes react like I was pulling the holier than thou thing. I had a TV, and I liked watching it, I just couldn't be bothered to remember what times the shows I liked were on and make sure I was home to see them.

[LadyShea]

I'd tell them that I didn't really watch much TV and they'd sometimes react like I was pulling the holier than thou thing.

See! You don't even have to be holier than though about it for people to get defensive...the simple act of not making the same choices or doing something differently is enough to set them off.

Imagine that, only in reaction to just about every choice you made (at least parenting wise).

[Kael]

I remember LS said something unkind about disposable diapers once, in some thread or other. I tried to get offended, since I use disposable diapers, but couldn't be arsed to bother. Since I'm the one who cleans up most of the baby poop around here, I'll do it the way I like, which is the way that involves the least washing of poop-covered cloths possible. I don't get why people would be offended by someone choosing to use cloth diapers, though, I think they're a great idea if you can stomach it.

I also don't have TV, but that's just because I spend all my free time on the computer, so it's not like I'm against demon picture boxes as a general rule.

[Ensign Steve]

OMG! Holier than thou!

:skittles:

[Kael]

Computer > TV

I can't help the way things are.

[JoeP]

I haven't even read the whole article yet, but it does hit on some pretty salient points early on. (That means salty!)

:bunnythrust:

[JoeP]

Also, :groupthankshug: for today's posts in this thread. Much lol.

[LadyShea]

I remember LS said something unkind about disposable diapers once, in some thread or other. I tried to get offended, since I use disposable diapers, but couldn't be arsed to bother.

Toxic shit bombs? I was exaggerating for effect, which is probably obvious.

I think this is where the difference lies: If you think I am crazy for using cloth...okay. If I think you're crazy for using disposables...okay. We can discuss the pros and cons of each or express our "why"s or whatever.

Actually moving from "This is my strongly held opinion" to " I am personally offended by your choices" is a different matter.

[BDS]

Oh, really? How many people have you known who preached about that endlessly? I can think of exactly one person I knew who preached vegetarianism and acted like a jerk about it, and she wasn't even really vegetarian. She was just a big attention whore.

Most people don't mention it at all unless it's particularly relevant or if questioned directly, much less talk about it endlessly.
.

I've known quite a few vegetarians who are militant about it (although there are far more who are not). The militant vegetarians I know have been big animal rights supporters, and think that eating animals is evil. One guy I worked with (and occasionally went on business trips with) hated going to non-vegetarian restaurants, because (he claimed) watching people eat meat sickened him. I was actually friends with this guy (sort of), although he was annoyingly self-righteous about a great many of his political positions (and his atheism) -- not just vegetarianism. When we traveled together, I always let him pick out the restaurants - and it was quite fun because we went to some ostentatiously hip places. Upscale vegetarian restaurants (I discovered) attract droves of beautiful women.

As far as child-rearing is concerned, a great many parents (including me) talk endlessly about their kids. It's normal. But insecurity is normal, too. Many parents are touchy about any hint of criticism of their parenting, because they see it as a critique of their children. "We don't have a TV, because I think it's better for kids to read more," seems harmless, but it's not that far away from saying, "You're kids are illiterate morons, and its your fault because they watch TV all the time." By the way, my parents didn't have a TV when I was a kid, because they wanted us to read more. I did have a TV, but since my own kid was (and is) perfect in every way, I never worried about child-rearing techniques. I relied on dumb luck.

[Qingdai]

A part of the problem is that every parent is trying to undo the mistakes of their parents, and trying stuff their parents never tried.

I can't remember the phrase exactly, but there is nothing so militant as a new convert.

I don't think a lot of us are comfortable in our parenting skills, partly because peers and/or research is a stronger influence than our own up-bringing, than traditions. Also most of us don't really interact with children until we have our own. Steep learning curve.

[lisarea]

"We don't have a TV, because I think it's better for kids to read more," seems harmless, but it's not that far away from saying, "You're kids are illiterate morons, and its your fault because they watch TV all the time." By the way, my parents didn't have a TV when I was a kid, because they wanted us to read more. I did have a TV, but since my own kid was (and is) perfect in every way, I never worried about child-rearing techniques. I relied on dumb luck.

You're illustrating my point nicely with that embellishment.

[Adam]

Toxic shit bombs? I was exaggerating for effect, which is probably obvious.

I think that was aimed at me, too...at least "toxic shit bomb" was my user title for a while after that thread...and it made total sense in context, as we were talking about my cluelessness regarding the whole diapering scene.

[BDS]

You're illustrating my point nicely with that embellishment.

You're welcome.

[Ymir's blood]

I don't watch TV or listen to the radio. :P

:snob:

[BDS]

I didn't allow my child to read books, but he was encouraged to watch as much TV as he wanted. (How come you never hear that one? I'm going to start using it.)

Also, we never talked to each other, feeling that verbal communication is limited. We held our most intimate conversations using semaphore flags.

[JoeP]

I don't watch TV or listen to the radio. :P

:snob:

And look at you.

(:speedy::chelmet::ecat:)

[Ymir's blood]

:mememe:

[Sidesaddle Gal]

I didn't allow my child to read books, but he was encouraged to watch as much TV as he wanted. (How come you never hear that one? I'm going to start using it.)

Also, we never talked to each other, feeling that verbal communication is limited. We held our most intimate conversations using semaphore flags.

I can top that. Communication with my kid was limited to grunts and the occasional eye roll. And that was from my side of the conversation.

[Adam]

Pfft! I locked my kid in a closet and forbade him all human contact until he was 18, so as to avoid all the corrupting influences of the world.

[LadyShea]

So I read Discipline and Punishment as suggested by Null. It reinforced my own personal views that the public school system, as is, is nothing but a training center for societal robots that follow instructions to he point of needing direction for everything. It's no wonder so few people are innovators and problem solvers...we don't teach them to do anything but stand in line, sit quietly, and memorize a bunch of shit!

I know, for a fact, that many regions tried to be progressive in the 60's and 70's, but various Federal and state statutes limited what could be done. When it was obvious that the US lagged behind other countries in fundamental ways related to education, instead of "Maybe we need to be even more progressive and creative and totally overhaul everything" it was decided no, we needed more rules, more hours, less creativity, less autonomy and have made the schools into mini-prisons.

Hubby and I finally had a no holds barred discussion, and though through compromise agreed that Kiddo will, at the very least, step foot into a Kindergarten classroom, we are both willing to pull him at the first sign that it is a bad fit. Before I wasn't sure how much time hubby expected me to give to "trying it out".

When that happens (I am sure it will therefore no ifs), I hope this church cover school (http://dsacademy.org/index.php) is still running, because I totally dig their philosophies

[godfry n. glad]

Hey, LS....

I'm trained as an educator. I tend to think of public schools as 'social indoctrination centers'. Around here that's fairly clear, because businesses always yap about how the kids coming out of the schools these days can't compete in the workforce....or require significant retraining before they can. They want compliant, coercible and largely unquestioning (except to gain clarity as to their proper role) workers, not idealistic dogooders steeped in unrealistic expectations like civil and human rights and economic parity. All to many public school districts degrade themselves attempting to meet this 'market expectations'.

That said, it might be useful to have an understanding of it. One gained from exposure and regular debriefing by parents and other critics.

Aside from that, I have friends who sware by the Montessori program....but I know nothing about it. I also have friends who dedicated much of their parental lives supporting and developing Waldorf schools, including helping erect a Waldorf high school from an old, abandoned public middle school. They are both parents with an abiding interest in encouraging the development of 'creative' skills in the arts and crafts.

I don't know if they have such programs in your region, nor do I know enough about them to recommend them, other than to suggest looking in to them.

The one thing I do know about the Waldorf programs is that they are based upon an educational theory developed by Rudolf Steiner. Steiner, in my estimation, is an anthropoligical fraud, basing typifications of earlier human development based upon his esoteric flights of fancy...his 'intuitive knowledge'.

[LadyShea]

They want compliant, coercible and largely unquestioning (except to gain clarity as to their proper role) workers, not idealistic dogooders steeped in unrealistic expectations like civil and human rights and economic parity. All to many public school districts degrade themselves attempting to meet this 'market expectations'.

While camping, my brilliant 11yo niece corrected my son on a factual error...in a story he was telling that he made up on the spot. I told her he was using his imagination and not to discourage him, and reminded her of her own huge imagination as a small child. I asked, rhetorically, what had happened to her creativity. She immediately answered "I think school took it from me." then looked kind of panicked and added "Don't tell my principal I said that". OMG she was with me and her hippy grandmother, in the fucking woods, and she was paranoid of the pigs finding out she criticized them?

Then, we were taking a hike and I wondered aloud at the mushrooms, and was just commenting and questioning things, and she said "We haven't learned about X in school" or something. I had to ask her "Can you learn anything when you're not in school?" Her immediate instinct was to say no...then she thought about it a minute. I had to give her an "assignment" to photograph and identify some stuff to get her interested in what we were seeing. Again, WTF?

Last WTF. We stopped for lunch on our way home and at the self serve soda fountain she asked me "Am I allowed to have a suicide?" I said "Allowed by who? Do you think I care what you drink? Do you think the restaurant would have a self serve fountain if they were concerned about the drink choice?"

That said, it might be useful to have an understanding of it. One gained from exposure and regular debriefing by parents and other critics.

Elaborate please.
I am a product of public schools, I am the main female figure in my nieces life as her mother lives in another state. I have been researching this issue for years (somewhat focused on gifted education for my niece, as well as wondering if my experience matched other adults who were "gifted", and now on my son). Do you feel I need more exposure? When you say debriefing, who should I question and what questions would you suggest?
Aside from that, I have friends who sware by the Montessori program....but I know nothing about it. I also have friends who dedicated much of their parental lives supporting and developing Waldorf schools, including helping erect a Waldorf high school from an old, abandoned public middle school. They are both parents with an abiding interest in encouraging the development of 'creative' skills in the arts and crafts.
We don't have alternative/non-traditional education programs nearby...and even if I wanted to drive 40 miles, I can't afford a private school.

Also, when I say creative I mean creative thinking, creative problem solving, innovation. I am not the least bit artistically inclined, but I have friends and family who are and they expose Kiddo to that.
I don't know if they have such programs in your region, nor do I know enough about them to recommend them, other than to suggest looking in to them.

The one thing I do know about the Waldorf programs is that they are based upon an educational theory developed by Rudolf Steiner. Steiner, in my estimation, is an anthropoligical fraud, basing typifications of earlier human development based upon his esoteric flights of fancy...his 'intuitive knowledge'.
I have researched Montessori and Waldorf quite a bit, and found that although there are some good aspects of both, many of the adherents are militant about them and that's a big turn off. Like Waldorf discourages teaching reading skills before age 7, I think that's bullshit and am following my kids lead. Talk to a full on Waldorf parent though, and encouraging my kid, based on HIS interests and abilities, is abusive because he isn't 7. WTF is the point of alternative programs if you are only going to adhere to a different set of dogma?

My choices are public school or homeschool through a "church" cover school. Since Alabama is completely hands off (no testing, no subject or grade requirements, etc.) I would be free to use any curriculum or no curriculum or make my own mishmash. I can't tell you how much that appeals to me.

[Qingdai]

Yeah, I wonder how much of that is local school culture and how much of that is the age of the child, I recall the middle school years as being particularly conformist.

My niece from Florida, after I used the word discouraged, told me they weren't supposed to use fancy words in school. I told her it was precise not fancy.

[erimir]

My niece from Florida, after I used the word discouraged, told me they weren't supposed to use fancy words in school. I told her it was precise not fancy....wtf?

I mean, I know I didn't have the greatest schools ever, but seriously... I can't imagine being told not to use a longer word in school (assuming I was using it correctly). Especially not one as mundane as "discourage."

Maybe Florida just sucks.

[Qingdai]

Yes, it was a WTF for me too.
Especially since her mom and dad are college professors.

[LadyShea]

It may be the age, I know, it just about killed me though to hear her talking like that. Her dad is THE nonconformist. I want to save her from the establishment!

And WTF? My 3.5 year old uses fancier words than discouraged!

[LadyShea]

Yes, it was a WTF for me too.
Especially since her mom and dad are college professors.

Did you mention it to them? I ask because I hesitate to mention this shit to my bro...as a single dad he is under enough pressure ya know?

[livius drusus]

discoooouraaaaged

[LadyShea]

Tonight he used a fancy word, while we were reading a dinosaur book :) The book used the phrase "ate leaves"...my kid busts out "Oh, whateverasaurs were herbivores"

[Qingdai]

Yes, it was a WTF for me too.
Especially since her mom and dad are college professors.

Did you mention it to them? I ask because I hesitate to mention this shit to my bro...as a single dad he is under enough pressure ya know?

I didn't have to as she was right there!
She laughed and said something vague. I know she's unhappy with school in Florida, but I think she feels trapped. She works full time and both parents travel frequently due to their biology/hydrology consulting work. Also their mortgage went upside down, so they can't move.

[Ensign Steve]

Tonight he used a fancy word, while we were reading a dinosaur book :) The book used the phrase "ate leaves"...my kid busts out "Oh, whateverasaurs were herbivores"

Dumb kid. Whatverasaurs were carnivores. :hoot:

[godfry n. glad]

That said, it might be useful to have an understanding of it. One gained from exposure and regular debriefing by parents and other critics.

Elaborate please.
I am a product of public schools, I am the main female figure in my nieces life as her mother lives in another state. I have been researching this issue for years (somewhat focused on gifted education for my niece, as well as wondering if my experience matched other adults who were "gifted", and now on my son). Do you feel I need more exposure? When you say debriefing, who should I question and what questions would you suggest?


I, too, am the product of public schools. But I'm also the product of parents who believed that education continued outside of the schoolroom. They made reading material available in the household, helped me get a library card and encouraged me to use it, made sure that I had project materials and tools available at home (within our constrained budget), and regularly discussed school and 'current events' topics at home. If I was working on a personal project and needed help, they would try to refer and advocate amongst family and their friends for somebody who was versed in whatever it was I was interested in at the time to offer me advice and assistance.

What I am suggesting is that public schools may need to be relied upon, but the active parent(s) can engage in ongoing, "What did you do in school today?" debriefings. It means attempting to correct and extend what is happening in the public school classroom.

It's not a great approach, as monitoring can be inadequate and a child trapped in a social situation where they are bored out of their skulls, day upon day, can develop undesired behavioral responses. All activities may not be totally or accurately conveyed. And, you are handing your child over to another adult...for the expressed purpose of altering their behavior. You gotta worry about the potential interactions and what they are teaching.....But that happens most anywhere; public schools just accentuate many of the more worrying influences.

I'm basically suggesting that public schools be checked and augmented. It's not ideal, by any means, but for some parents who can't provide a home or alternate educational situation, it is an option. It does require vigilance on the part of parents and a willingness to intercede to work with the learner and to advocate for the learner. It's the parent(s) committing to active participation in their child's education. That, in my estimation, works best when the parent(s) are familiar with the idiosyncrasies of not just public education, but the specific district, school and teacher set with which the learner deals.

Like it or not, there is a significant section of the populace which does not care, other than to have a handy place to warehouse their kids during the day.

The best thing for any child's education is the active and involved interest of their parents. After that, I'd say that available reading materials, activity materials and tools were important.

[BDS]

"What did you do in school today?" .

"Nothing much."

[godfry n. glad]

"What did you do in school today?" .

"Nothing much."

Yep.

"All activities may not be totally or accurately conveyed."

My father's response when I started using that phrase was that I needed a job, since I wasn't learning anything at school.

[LadyShea]

But I'm also the product of parents who believed that education continued outside of the schoolroom. As was I

They made reading material available in the household, helped me get a library card and encouraged me to use it, made sure that I had project materials and tools available at home (within our constrained budget), and regularly discussed school and 'current events' topics at home. If I was working on a personal project and needed help, they would try to refer and advocate amongst family and their friends for somebody who was versed in whatever it was I was interested in at the time to offer me advice and assistance.

I am already doing all that godfry. We have an actual library in our home, just outside Kiddo's room, and he has his own shelves full of books. He has his own library card already and asks the librarians to help him find things he is looking for (they dote on him too). We read with him every day, and we ensure he has plenty of hands on experiences; stuff like the turtle nesting and hatching, nature hikes, historic tours, science and math via cooking and crafts, etc.

I guess what I am asking is do you think I need to do more, or not send him to school at all and just continue home education, or send him to school and provide outside enrichment... or are you discussing education in general and are not being specific to my personal situation (which is a great discussion as well, I am just trying to tailor further responses)?

[godfry n. glad]

I am already doing all that godfry. We have an actual library in our home, just outside Kiddo's room, and he has his own shelves full of books. He has his own library card already and asks the librarians to help him find things he is looking for (they dote on him too). We read with him every day, and we ensure he has plenty of hands on experiences; stuff like the turtle nesting and hatching, nature hikes, historic tours, science and math via cooking and crafts, etc.

I guess what I am asking is do you think I need to do more, or not send him to school at all and just continue home education, or send him to school and provide outside enrichment... or are you discussing education in general and are not being specific to my personal situation (which is a great discussion as well, I am just trying to tailor further responses)?

Yeah, I have been trying to be broad in my response, rather than address you specifically.

I personally think your kid has a head start over the average kid attending a public school. You are already doing far and away more, educationally, for your child than most households in the US. The sad fact is that way too many households don't have much in the way of reading material...or any other alternate to television, actually.

I think you are already doing more than the average.

The only reason I can see for you to send him to a public school is to 'experience the public school system' and become 'socialized in his community'. There are other ways to do this, but I'd guess that public schools offer the widest spectrum of exposure to social diversity.

I think if you want your child to experience wingnuts, drudges, doofi, and the panoply of human frailities, as they most certainly will as adults, it might be worthwhile to experience them up-close and personal on a daily basis in a public school setting.

I heard one parental wag state that they'd placed their child in public school to get exposure to the community germ pool and develop antibodies. I'm not sure one can carry that analogy to the intellectual level....

Otherwise, make sure your child is developing basic writing and computational skills and practicing them. I think 'life skills' and creative outlets present themselves with natural development and should be addressed then. I like to suggest 'tactile learning', playing with materials and tools, because I think it gets the short shrift, particularly in public schools (I suspect because it was considered to have been a lot of 'working with parents at home' tactile learning). Crafting is a great introduction for more of that, so you're in the boat there, too.

One potential problem for you specifically, is what are you going to do when the child outgrows the teacher? What do you do when you need instructional skill in something you and hubby can't provide directly? When your child is young, it's one thing to be able to meet their intellectual demands. When they begin dealing in more complex knowledge, will you be comfortable in all areas you might have to face, or do you have an adequate set of resources with which you are comfortable with providing that extra-parental instruction?

[LadyShea]

One potential problem for you specifically, is what are you going to do when the child outgrows the teacher? What do you do when you need instructional skill in something you and hubby can't provide directly? When your child is young, it's one thing to be able to meet their intellectual demands. When they begin dealing in more complex knowledge, will you be comfortable in all areas you might have to face, or do you have an adequate set of resources with which you are comfortable with providing that extra-parental instruction?

I kinda planned to just wing it. If Kiddo is autodidactic, then I can buy books on most any subject, even textbooks. If he needs or wants formal instruction, then he will probably be old enough to choose going to public school or even dual enrollment in community college. Between hubby and I and friends and family, we are good up to advanced math and sciences. Hubby and dad might even be able to do both of those through high school levels.

[wildernesse]

The best thing for any child's education is the active and involved interest of their parents. After that, I'd say that available reading materials, activity materials and tools were important.

My mom, whose career has been in public school education, would whole-heartedly agree with this. Nothing can replace involved parents, whether children go to public school or not.

[JoeP]

"What did you do in school today?" .

"Nothing much."

That's so old generation (us, in other words).

Now it's

Me: What did you do at school today?

Little Miss JoeP: Stuff.

[Clutch Munny]

My niece from Florida, after I used the word discouraged, told me they weren't supposed to use fancy words in school. I told her it was precise not fancy....wtf?

I mean, I know I didn't have the greatest schools ever, but seriously... I can't imagine being told not to use a longer word in school (assuming I was using it correctly). Especially not one as mundane as "discourage."

Maybe Florida just sucks.


Mun... dane?


Actually, we're about overdue for a new poster at FF to tell us that they're not impressed with big words, and that they didn't sign up to learn Latin, when someone writes et cetera in a post.

[LadyShea]

Who didn't sign up to learn Latin, Clutch? Did I miss that one?

[Clutch Munny]

Ah, I can hardly remember. Maybe Dire Wolf? Or one of the libertarians? There's been a few, I think.

ETA: Oh, and she who cannot be named.

[LadyShea]

* LadyShea wards off evil

[Ensign Steve]

WHO? SWEETIE?
:loud:

[ChuckF]

EXORCIZO te, immundissime spiritus! :popebull:

[Clutch Munny]

That balloon tag better not be searchable, red shirt.

[erimir]

Mun... dane?Yeah, you and your fancy long words... and your short, difficult words...
Actually, we're about overdue for a new poster at FF to tell us that they're not impressed with big words, and that they didn't sign up to learn Latin, when someone writes et cetera in a post.Wait, I thought it was "excedra"!

(but who really writes that out instead of etc.?)

But in Doc X's case, he really is using Latin words to obfuscate and appear superior. There is a difference between not using an 8th grade vocabulary and being obscurantist.*

*Is the word obscurantist too abstruse?

[Kael]

Is the word obscurantist too abstruse?
Indubitably, you supercilious linguistic miscreant!

[Qingdai]

Thou odiferous folly-fallen minnow!

[Ensign Steve]

Mun... dane?Yeah, you and your fancy long words... and your short, difficult words...
Actually, we're about overdue for a new poster at FF to tell us that they're not impressed with big words, and that they didn't sign up to learn Latin, when someone writes et cetera in a post.Wait, I thought it was "excedra"!

It's expresso.

[Watser?]

Ah, I can hardly remember. Maybe Dire Wolf? Or one of the libertarians?

That's lolbertarians :lolhog:

[livius drusus]

Confessions of a home-schooler | Salon Life (http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/09/28/confessions_homeschooler/)

Part two is out (http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/10/19/o_hehir_homeschooling/). This time the kids dress up as Greek gods and go to the Met. :lovey:

[LadyShea]

Haha

Article (http://www.homefires.com/articles/mind_the_gap.asp)

Did you know that if you went to school in one state and your spouse went to school in another state, you didn't have the same history lessons? One of you has a "gap" in their education. It's true! I was conducting a workshop on homeschool resources at a Link Homeschool Conference and mentioned that fourth graders in California public schools study California history. Students learn about the California missions and, for some reason, build sugar-cube facsimiles.

One mom interrupted and said, "I'm from Pennsylvania, and we studied Pennsylvania history and built sugar-cube steel mills." A dad spoke up, "I'm from Alaska and we built sugar-cube igloos." Someone else said, "We didn't study missions either, we studied Egypt and made sugar-cube pyramids."

As you can see, it isn't studying history that matters, it's building something with sugar cubes that seems to be of universal importance across national curriculum standards for fourth graders.

[Ensign Steve]

My missions were paper mache, thank you very much! :hmph:

[LadyShea]

I made my Mission from cardboard and covered it in plaster of Paris, so it was totally stucco and authentic like. I even cut out red posterboard roof tiles and glued them on individually. I win

[Ensign Steve]

How's it going with the easels and markers and flip-chart paper? Was that in this thread?

[LadyShea]

Oh Frankie is still working on the pirate ship, so we haven't built the easel yet. My list of projects is enormous

[Ensign Steve]

Pirate ship?! :headasplode:

[BDS]

Personally, I'm in favor of the Schartz-Metterklume Method of home schooling. It is described here:

Schartz-Metterklume Method,a short story by Saki [H H Munro] (http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/372/)

[erimir]

We never built anything out of sugar cubes.

I don't remember ever making any replicas of any particular iconic building... Certainly not in any history class. We might have made some kind of building replicas in, you know, art class...

[LadyShea]

Pirate ship?! :headasplode:

Dude. There is a 23ft long double decker pirate ship with a telephone pole mast, bridge, ladder, etc in my backyard.

[Ensign Steve]

Dude.

[Kael]

That is so incredibly awesome, LS.

[godfry n. glad]

Sugar cubes?

I did my fort in popsicle sticks. Then we did the wooden match thing, too. Timber was king in these parts, even down to indoctrinating the fourth graders. It sounds like a lot of you fell under the sway of the sugar lobby...:noid:....they stole Hawaii, y'know

[LadyShea]

I have been working on a preschool curriculum to start in January, as I want to try something more structured than we have been doing.

I am going to incorporate the http://www.fiveinarow.com/ concept

[Ensign Steve]

You'll receive honest, real-life answers from other moms who have successfully gone before you on the journey of homeschooling. Other programs have elaborate philosophies and glowing educational objectives, but Five in a Row has the solid testimony of 50,000 moms who have discovered what works- and what doesn't. Five in a Row produces extraordinary results... for ordinary moms... in the real world.

So ... no dads then? :P

[godfry n. glad]

Dude.

Serious...Dude cubed.

[Zehava]

Pirate ship?! :headasplode:

Dude. There is a 23ft long double decker pirate ship with a telephone pole mast, bridge, ladder, etc in my backyard.

I want to come over an play when it's done. :beg:

[LadyShea]

As with all things in networked parenting, homeschooling is definitely gynecentric. Flat out more moms take care of kids than dads. And yeah, it sucks, since my hubby is the primary caretaker.

[Ensign Steve]

As long as it doesn't bother him, I guess. I used to get bugged on behalf of dudes in weight loss that nearly everything is geared toward women, until I got over it.

[LadyShea]

As long as it doesn't bother him, I guess. I used to get bugged on behalf of dudes in weight loss that nearly everything is geared toward women, until I got over it.

I got bugged a bit, until I remembered, he isn't the one joining Yahoo groups and going to forums and doing all the research and such, it's always me. He doesn't seem to need or want to know what other people are doing or thinking.

Partially, that's just how we roll...I do the research and he implements things, but partly he just goes with what he feels is best, often based on my suggestions that he completely trusts. He doesn't second and third guess everything like I do.

[LadyShea]

We never built anything out of sugar cubes.

I don't remember ever making any replicas of any particular iconic building... Certainly not in any history class. We might have made some kind of building replicas in, you know, art class...

Well, apparently the mission building is universal in CA. ES and I lived in different districts and she's younger than me.

Where did you go to school?

[Ensign Steve]

I went to private school. :^^

We also took field trips to the missions themselves. San Fernando and Santa Barbara, that I can remember.

Hey, LS. Look at the kind of shit your kid will be missing out on if you don't send him to regular school:

School cracks down on Facebook "meep" obsenity :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Nation (http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/1881293,facebook-obsenity-meep-111209.article)

(okay the "meep" is hilarious. the crackdown is stupid.)

[LadyShea]

Um, they chose a nonsense word to use for purposeful disruption, so the school thinks the word itself is the important point to address? Yeah, I am sure the students will have a very difficult time choosing another disruption tactic, like all going "Sh" in unison.

Score 1 for the students, the school looks stupid.

[erimir]

I went to elementary school in suburban Cleveland til halfway through third grade, and from then on in semi-rural North Carolina (Pinehurst).

There aren't any real cool things to make to represent NC or Ohio anyway. I guess you could make plantations in NC, but that could be a bit... insensitive.

[LadyShea]

You could build a tobacco barn out of twigs

[Kael]

I remember having a bridge-building contest in some grade or other, using toothpicks and glue. As I recall mine did fairly well in the testing phase, where we checked how much weight they could handle, but I don't remember if I won or not.

[LadyShea]

Another book discussing our schools, sounds like some of the ideas we have discussed ITT. My library doesn't have it yet, but it sounds interesting.
Weapons of Mass Instruction (http://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Mass-Instruction-Schoolteachers-Compulsory/dp/0865716315/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258143011&sr=8-1)

Here is an interview with the author
John Taylor Gatto | Touch The Future (http://ttfuture.org/authors/jtgatto)

They were coming from the very center, Alexander Inglis, around the First World War, wrote a book, it’s very, very hard to get, called “Principles of Secondary Education”. In one section, he lists the purposes of what we call schooling. There’s six - everyone is illuminating - and hair raising.

The first is to make people predictable so that the economy can be rationalized. You can do that if people are predictable. Yet, history has demonstrated over and over and over again that we’re not. So the very first purpose or goal of institutional schoolings is to make people predictable.

[Beevetene]

what necessary words..., a remarkable idea

[LadyShea]

To what are you referring Beev? Or should I call you Bot?

In topical news, we have chosen the Math U See (http://www.mathusee.com) curriculum for ...well math. Hubby is even in the swing now and reviewing stuff for me.

Oh, and I made 2 word groups exercises out of construction paper and did them with with Kiddo in two days, words ending in "at" and words ending in "all" ,and he's on fire. Damn this kid is smart.

Oh and sos hubby...he knotted a 7ftx5ft climbing net for the pirate ship. Knotted it by hand! Like he's a fucking fisherman or something.

[Qingdai]

Or like a sailor, arrrgg!
:seacaptain:

[wildernesse]

My friend who is homeschooling her child just wrote a post about how her kid (he's 3? maybe?) loved using Fridge Phonics and the lessons from Teach Your Child to Read in 100 lessons. FYI.

[LadyShea]

Yeah the math curriculum was way easier than reading.

I am torn between 100 Easy Lessons, 20 Easy Lessons, and Blumenfeld's Alpha-Phonics. I have spent weeks reading reviews, as my liberry doesn't have any of them (may head to the book store this weekend and take a look)

Definitely getting The Bob Books ASAP though.

[LadyShea]

This documentary kinda goes with the whole Foucault and Buccaneer line of discussion

THE WAR ON KIDS (http://www.thewaronkids.com/MAIN.html)

[Gonzo]

Schools aren't really so much about just sitting at desks any more, though I guess it depends on the school. And there is nothing preventing people whose kids are at school during the day from continuing educating them in the evening, just informally. Kids are absolute learning machines.

As someone just finishing his trials with public schooling: I'll be the first to say we do a lot of staring forward and even more doing nothing. We have a "what did you learned today thread" here and everyday I retrace my steps in the Escanaba High School (supposedly one of the best districts for education in the UP): I learn a lot of nothing. I learn most of everything in my freetime, albeit there are some exceptional teachers around: most of them plain suck at what they do. Maybe I'm just growing tired, but I think public schooling could be elevated to a better format.

We do, however, have a very nice Library.

[Gonzo]

I saw The War on Kids Guy on television (it escapes me what program it was - Maybe Cobert Report?) I dug what he had to say.

Schools really have been designed to make children into drones for factory working and war and even more to accept the standard belief that Human society knows best for you. They pound this illusion into our heads of what we are and what we're suppose to do with our lives (typically work until we're dead). They're many objective seems to be infiltating our heads then reforming our Egos into this self-confident, ambitious, worker-type. Everytime I scratch my name onto something with a pen I feel even more illusioned at what I am and what they want me to become. It can be an alienating enviroment if you don't accept it as real. Institutions drive me wild. It's all a set-up, man. A set-up!

Here are your instructions, now follow them without question. You must attend by law.

Obviously I made it out with the ability of skepticism very much intact, but it doesn't look to be that way for some masses of peers who just move along and do what they're told, and they'll do that their whole lives.

I want a school system that has a philosophy and not an agenda.


I'ma fall off my rocker.

[Gonzo]

oh and I EAT HAIR FROM THE DRAIN NO MOM I WONT GO TO BED IM GOING TO PRESS MY STICKY NECK ONTO GRANDMAS LISTLESS ARTHRITIS LEGS.

[TIM BREWER 2012]

[LadyShea]

Interesting related article

Seven Sins of Our System of Forced Education | Psychology Today (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200909/seven-sins-our-system-forced-education)

In my last post I took a step that, I must admit, made me feel uncomfortable. I said, several times: "School is prison." I felt uncomfortable saying that because school is so much a part of my life and the lives of almost everyone I know.

[Ymir's blood]

School certainly felt like a prison to me. I shudder to think what it must be like these days, with the zero tolerance garbage, metal detectors and whatnot.

[LadyShea]

Third installment in Salon's series

Why our kids don't go to kindergarten - Home Schooling - Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/life/homeschooling/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/03/15/home_school_3)

[livius drusus]

It's the orthodoxy that has created homework for 5-year-olds, along with the expectation that they should be able to sit at a desk for hours at a time (or risk losing their 20 minutes of "choice time," which you and I once knew as recess).
What the what? That is completely insane to me.

[LadyShea]

I don't think it's only NY either. Back in my day Kindergarten was half day and had naptime, here it is a full day with full coursework and homework.

What I really don't understand is what they are doing all day that they need homework too. I have looked at the local school curriculum, and it seems to me Kiddo is even with the Kindergarten and we only "work" like 45 minutes a day, and that's cumulative over a bunch of small sessions.

[livius drusus]

I had a great time in Kindergarten. Lots of playing and reading stories and napping. I had a great time in nursery school too, where I had to wear this adorable little smock thing all preschool kids wear in Italy that looks like something from a Heidi book.

I don't remember doing anything like coursework until first grade, and that was richly interspersed with story time and activities and whatnot.

[LadyShea]

I was accelerated about halfway through Kinderfarten to a K/1st grade combination class (full day), but all I remember from the Kindergarten was like painting and playing ball and hopscotch. Maybe we learned the alphabet.

[JoeP]

Homework at kindergarten?

Is this to make up for all the stuff they're not going to learn in US secondary schools (or whatever you call them)?

[LadyShea]

According to the experts cited in the article Joe, homework and drilling in Kindergarten is counterproductive to learning.

[Ensign Steve]

It seems clear from a variety of statistical and anecdotal evidence that home schooling has grown rapidly in recent years, and that includes what is often called secular home schooling, meaning home schooling not primarily motivated by religious or moral concerns.

Ugh. LadyShea, can you please get them to stop saying shit like that? It seems like moral concerns would be a huge reason to do secular homeschooling in the first place.

Damn, I can't even leave a comment, cuz the thread is closed. :sadcheer:

[Crumb]

But god=morality. Don't you know that?

[LadyShea]

The comments are almost as interesting as the article.

[Rationalia]

With kids who have been subject to both hyperstructured over-academicized conditioning (in charter school) and bullying by urban thugs-in-training (regular public school), I now participate in a vibrant, individualized effort to homeschool.

The homeschooled kid is a happier, busier and more accomplished student than ever. I'm afraid moral training per se doesn't enter into it, but somehow she's doing fine anyway.

[Qingdai]

Here is our kindergartener's day:


"What is a typical school day for kindergartners?
Kindergarten classrooms are scheduled differently. Here’s a sample of
a full-day program:
Morning Message
Calendar
Shared Reading
Math
Writers Workshop/Reading Groups
Lunch and Recess
Read Aloud
Stations (individual and group activities in 3 or 4 areas
including literacy, math, science and social studies)
Specials ( “extracurricular activities” such as library, PE, music,
and art that are scheduled on a weekly or bi-weekly basis)
Dismissal "

And yes, there is homework. He gets homework from preschool, but it's not stuff you have to turn in, it's worksheets and ideas for learning outside of school.

We get books to read (from the library), with suggestions for different book activities (For example "Try looking at each of the pictures and have the child describe what is happening in the picture" a worksheet with pictures and words to color or trace and suggestions such as "take a moment to look for the signs of spring in your yard or neighborhood." "Ask your child which foods begin with the letter L").

I think to some extent, the teachers are trying to encourage not plopping your child in front of the TV while you get your drink on, but that just may be in my neighborhood.

[Angakuk]

Damn social engineering!

[LadyShea]

These comments are from the Salon article, there are several more along these same lines. I saw the same argument at a homeschool thread at Pharyngula too.

Every person like you who opts out of the public system weakens it for those who have no other option. Public schools need the articulate and motivated middle class who will want the public school their kids are at to do well and will contribute time, effort, money and encouragement, which benefits the school for all pupils.
I'm disappointed you don't send your kids to the public schools. You and your wife are just the kind of parents we need fighting for ALL our kids to have the opportunity you're fortunate enough to be able to provide for yours. Get out there on the front lines, soldier. Even if you don't send your kids, get out here and fight for the other kids, too.

"I wish with all my hear that home-schooling parents would put their time and energies into improving their local public schools."

That is the crux of the problem.

Home-schooling serves one's individual children. Understandable, but so selfish.

Supporting the local public school serves *all* the children.

It's about community and citizenship, instead of "my kids deserve better!"


My soon to be niece in law is doing graduate studies in child developmental psychology. Within seconds of the topic of education being broached she said "You are going to have to fight to get him what he needs". My SIL said the same thing, as she had spent years "working within the system"(school board meetings, PTA, class mom, etc.), but she never mentions actual results. My other SIL is fighting now to get her dyslexic son the services he is supposed to get by law.

My mom fought from within the system and backed me up when I took up my own sword. Others have told their stories here of themselves or their parents fighting from within the system. So, 40 years minimum of trying to change the system from within and what is the result? More fighting? Fuck!

I have no problem working or fighting with bureaucracies, if I can win, or at least facilitate improvements. But I really, really don't want my one and only kid to be cannon fodder here and this ain't a hill I want to die on- unless it's absolutely necessary. It's not necessary...I don't need to, and I don't want to spend my son's whole childhood battling stupid or filling out forms or whatever I would be up against. Yet not only do some thing I should feel guilty about that, but I do feel a pang dammit!

[JoeP]

According to the experts cited in the article Joe, homework and drilling in Kindergarten is counterproductive to learning.
I was making a joke. :sniffle:

And yes, there is homework. He gets homework from preschool, but it's not stuff you have to turn in, it's worksheets and ideas for learning outside of school.

We get books to read (from the library), with suggestions for different book activities (For example "Try looking at each of the pictures and have the child describe what is happening in the picture" a worksheet with pictures and words to color or trace and suggestions such as "take a moment to look for the signs of spring in your yard or neighborhood." "Ask your child which foods begin with the letter L").

I think to some extent, the teachers are trying to encourage not plopping your child in front of the TV while you get your drink on, but that just may be in my neighborhood.

Homework for the parents ... that I can relate to.

[Ensign Steve]

Here is our kindergartener's day:


"What is a typical school day for kindergartners?
Kindergarten classrooms are scheduled differently. Here’s a sample of
a full-day program:
Morning Message

I read that as morning massage. :massage: I was like, "Damn, what kind of hoity school do your kids go to?!" :stunned:

[Rationalia]

Those with the view that pursuing homeschooling is blindly self-centered and that working to improve public schools is likely to be fruitful are very unrealistic about what drives this country's institutions. They also ignore the glaring fact that a child has only one one childhood with one elementary, middle and secondary education.

Intense academics for toddlers, homework in kindergarten and standardized testing requiring curricula designed for the tests are all products of an educational system that seeks to please anxious overachiever parents and data-driven politically motivated educators. People navigating their way through early childhood have bigger developmental fish to fry than getting a head start on college prep, but this fact is completely ignored in today's climate.

Playpen-to-grad school achievement fever keeps kids who are not best served by overwrought group indoctrination (due to learning challenges, above-average abilities, behavioral issues, etc.) too discouraged to be in the running for future spots in college and in the best-paying industries. In that sense, it does what the American system has been doing from the beginning.

The conservative power base's successful campaign of revenge on the teaching profession for having the protection of unions (by framing school systems as financially wasteful and forcing testing that makes teachers "accountable") and the forcing of full inclusion of the aforementioned kids who cannot successfully walk the mainstream classroom line have ruined public school systems across the country.

Classrooms are impossible combinations of students who can't learn together and teachers who are forced to spend most of their time dealing with behavior problems or learning needs that can't be met in a large group setting. The final nail in the coffin of potential effectiveness is an agenda to prepare for demanding tests designed for upper middle class students with average to superior IQs AND a learning style matching that of those who developed the tests.

So "selfish" parents follow the path that has the lowest potential for giving their kids the impression that life is about wasted energy and time, social stress (or even peer abuse), and mediocre accomplishment or failure. What would the country be like if more parents were that selfish?

[JoeP]

I agreed with you except for this paragraph, which I don't understand:
The conservative power base's successful campaign of revenge on the teaching profession for having the protection of unions (by framing school systems as financially wasteful and forcing testing that makes teachers "accountable") and the forcing of full inclusion of the aforementioned kids who cannot successfully walk the mainstream classroom line have ruined public school systems across the country.

That reads like a political statement in support of teaching unions. The conservative power base has done no good (although I question whether they've been "successful" at anything), but nor have teaching unions (as opposed to individual teachers). Are you supporting teaching unions?

[Rationalia]

I agreed with you except for this paragraph, which I don't understand:
The conservative power base's successful campaign of revenge on the teaching profession for having the protection of unions (by framing school systems as financially wasteful and forcing testing that makes teachers "accountable") and the forcing of full inclusion of the aforementioned kids who cannot successfully walk the mainstream classroom line have ruined public school systems across the country.

That reads like a political statement in support of teaching unions. The conservative power base has done no good (although I question whether they've been "successful" at anything), but nor have teaching unions (as opposed to individual teachers). Are you supporting teaching unions?I don't support the errors and/or wasteful practices some unions have been responsible for in the past; I don't think unions (including teachers' unions) tend to speak particularly well for their constituents. Still, given how many communities, states, and Congress undervalue and seek to underpay teachers, I can clearly see how union representation came to be used. And I do think it is highly likely that part of the reason many teachers have stayed in the profession long-term is that their positions and salaries have been protected (or at least defended) by unions.

Seeing the possibility that this interchange is headed for a debate on the value and/or usefulness of unions, I will not derail the education discussion here. Organized labor exists for a reason, as do the complex machinations of well-funded employers. Suffice it to say I am not a social or fiscal conservative, and we might save ourselves some time.

[LadyShea]

According to the experts cited in the article Joe, homework and drilling in Kindergarten is counterproductive to learning.
I was making a joke. :sniffle:


I'm sorry don't cry. I was heading for a :fuming: with the comments and therefore was immune to humor...it's a bad trait I have.

[Qingdai]

Here is our kindergartener's day:


"What is a typical school day for kindergartners?
Kindergarten classrooms are scheduled differently. Here’s a sample of
a full-day program:
Morning Message

I read that as morning massage. :massage: I was like, "Damn, what kind of hoity school do your kids go to?!" :stunned:


The kind of hoity toity school where over 41% of the kids qualify for reduced or free lunches due to poverty.

That is another problem with home schooling, despite saving money for not having to go to work, it's just not feasible for our family to not have two working parents, so home schooling just isn't an option.
Unless one of us loses their job(s) and we have to go live in the woods or something.

That leaves for many of us a problem of an inadequate public school system with no other options. It's not that other parents are selfish, or whatever blame or guilt one wants to wave around as the red herring it is, but just as one doesn't want ones' child only chance at education being inadequate, one doesn't want one's society to be inadequately educated.

Sucks to be poor.

[LadyShea]

Home-schooling serves one's individual children. Understandable, but so selfish.

Supporting the local public school serves *all* the children.

It's about community and citizenship, instead of "my kids deserve better!"

I have been thinking about those comments all weekend, because something was niggling at me that I didn't see immediately. It's this!

Don't we all make choices in order to provide our kids with the best we can with what we have? Does the author choose to live in the smallest, least expensive home he could find since some people can't afford better? Does the author drive the cheapest car he could find because others cannot buy one that's better? Didn't he probably choose the safest neighborhood he could afford despite children living amongst criminals?

Why is it only in education we must suddenly cease to want to provide "better" for our kids (better of course being totally subjective) and prioritize community and democracy?

[LadyShea]

That is another problem with home schooling, despite saving money for not having to go to work, it's just not feasible for our family to not have two working parents, so home schooling just isn't an option.
Unless one of us loses their job(s) and we have to go live in the woods or something.
It's possible for some to make it work, even with two working parents, but that depends on the availability of people to help. We can make it work by having Kiddo babysat for a portion of each day (about 4 hours)...my mom 2 days, his mom 2 days, the neighbors 1 day.

If I may ask, what do you do with your kids during the summer and school breaks? Is it possible to extend that to all year? Is it possible to change your schedules?

Of course you may not have any of these options, just brainstomring a bit. Shit happens and I may not always be able to do what we are doing now, and I know that the public school system will give him the basics if needed.

That leaves for many of us a problem of an inadequate public school system with no other options. It's not that other parents are selfish, or whatever blame or guilt one wants to wave around as the red herring it is, but just as one doesn't want ones' child only chance at education being inadequate, one doesn't want one's society to be inadequately educated.

Sucks to be poor.

Well, at the very least you will be able, and eager, to supplement. Let the school do the basics and you provide the rest. Also, your kindergartner's day looks pretty darned good, better than adequate. Do you feel the school is not good?

And yes, poverty sucks hard.

[Demimonde]

I'm probably not going to be able to afford to homeschool my kids either. Unless I can pull a bestseller out of my hiney. :pipedream:

But Contra is a teacher and once I graduate I'll most likely teach as well. Once we have kids, we'll have to fight both as parents and educators. At least we'll both have summers off for enriching solo time.

LS, I think that as vocal as you are here and elsewhere you are doing your part to help communities on this issue. Far more than the average cupcake slinging PTA mom. :hug:

Don't let the bastards get you down.

[Qingdai]

We're scheduled, relative/family childcare using to the max already. Just not an option. Also I am cheap as hell, so there isn't much to cut.

During breaks and holidays either I have off (I work at a school) or he goes to park and recreation camps, which are very inexpensive (around $40 a week) for part of it.

I've started trying to do projects around the house with him to work on his fine motor skills and it's takes about two hours of prep and research for half hour of things I can do with him.
I can multitask, but early childhood education is not my forte.
Also one of the things he is having trouble with is socialization skills, which confounds me. Especially since it's things like sharing and playing with other children.

I don't mind being poor, but the flight from public schools (which I am more disturbed by private schools than home schooling, really) and the public policy that determined that teachers are the only problem, not the school system requirements and lack of community support for good parenting and other societal ills we face should be dealt with on any level. OK now I'm tired and just rambling.
Good night.

[JoeP]

Unless I can pull a bestseller out of my hiney.

* JoeP makes a note not to handle any book from Demimonde
:dump:
3:abook:

[Rationalia]

Why is it only in education we must suddenly cease to want to provide "better" for our kids (better of course being totally subjective) and prioritize community and democracy?Because people who are chronically frustrated and/or undereducated make good candidates for the work-intensive but plentiful jobs that those in the upper echelons don't want.

Keeping people afraid of or hopeless about striving keeps the lower and middle echelon workers coming, and the constant distraction of the exaggerated challenges they face prevents them from noticing the situation.

[lisarea]

That's a larger problem, I'm sure, but I don't think it's fair to assume that's a motivation for most of the people who say that.

That's a pretty common line of reasoning behind arguments against private schools and other loopholes in the public school system. Many parents sidestep poorly performing neighborhood schools and desegregation, for example, by putting their kids in alternate schools--private and magnet schools, etc.--rather than busing them or sending them to their home schools. (And Denver still had busing schemes well into the 90s at least.)

So the default public schools are all too often populated with the kids whose parents didn't have the knowledge or the money to avoid them; and on the larger scale, it is a valid argument. The parents who have the means to be very involved with their childrens' schooling are using those means to remove their kids from the equation rather than working to improve their neighborhood schools.

And as LS pointed out, it's kind of unreasonable to expect parents to do any different. Things aren't going to change based on their efforts, and it's ridiculous to expect people to put their children on the front lines like that.

However, it's not really accurate to paint the critics as the wealthy upper echelon trying to keep the common man down, either. Generally speaking, they probably have similar motivations and interests as those who are sidestepping the crappy public schools.

[Qingdai]

I'm disturbed by the private school parents, because private school is generally very expensive. If that money was in the school system, say in the form of taxes, it would make a difference. Some of those same parents (for example some Catholic school parents I know) also protest paying more property taxes, where the money goes to school.
We all pay taxes for stuff we don't want, or use.

[lisarea]

My parents sent me to private school for two years, simply because they didn't have any other reasonable alternative, as the public schools had failed me completely and utterly. It was expensive, and it wasn't an expense they could bear easily, but they were faced with the real possibility of serious damage. And the private school I went to was an 'open' school, so they literally left me alone for two years. I didn't have a single normal class. My parents had to pay a premium for the privilege of having the schools leave me alone, and they also had to continue paying to support the schools that fucked me over so completely. And it wasn't just me, either. My brothers were also failed miserably at various points. My sister came out relatively OK somehow. And despite the years I spent fighting to get my son an education, he would have been better off in the long run if they'd just left him alone, too.

As far as I'm aware, my parents weren't terribly bitter about the taxes, but I wouldn't have blamed them if they were. And while I vote for tax increases to support our local schools, I eat some bitter when I do it, because they're taking my money to support a nasty, incompetent system that, for my family, has done a lot more harm than good.

So I recognize the need for a baseline standard public education that effectively serves some reasonably large percentage of the population, but I can't entirely blame people who complain about it, either. It's one thing to pay for something you don't necessarily want or use, and another thing to pay for something that has been not just a failure, but a persistent and active detriment.

[JoeP]

If that money was in the school system, say in the form of taxes, it would make a difference.

That's one side of the argument. The other side is that throwing money at a bad system is not going to make it better. (The same argument rages, over decades, on Britain's national health system.)

So the argument boils down to whether the public education system is basically good, just short of resources, or basically deficient (in whatever ways) and would waste extra public spending thrown at it. The answer is obvious ... to each individual ... no one agrees, and imho no one is prepared to change their mind.

I suppose piling extra controls and measurements on schools is an attempt to find which parts of the system work best, and then to throw money at them. I don't particularly trust that this is bound to lead to improvements.

[Rationalia]

That's a larger problem, I'm sure, but I don't think it's fair to assume that's a motivation for most of the people who say that.

...However, it's not really accurate to paint the critics as the wealthy upper echelon trying to keep the common man down, either. Generally speaking, they probably have similar motivations and interests as those who are sidestepping the crappy public schools.I might not have been clear in my most recent post. My comments in that post were in response to Lady Shea's question about why we seem to be expected to educate our children in the public schools, to the extent that we are accused of having no public-mindedness if we do not.

I was not making a direct connection between the critics of those who homeschool and my much more general reference to the upper echelon. The group I am considering when I use the latter term does not have to seriously consider using the public school system and probably has little occasion to comment on homeschoolers. I also did not claim that the net effect of educating the majority of Americans in public schools is the product of a focused intent on the part of the most privileged group. It is the case that the system turns out large numbers of people ill-prepared for extreme financial success or top leadership; the factors contributing are manifold and self-perpetuating at this point.

The most vocal critics of homeschooling are in fact people who are struggling with their own conflicts about using the public school system; I know quite a few of them. Some of them would like to homeschool but are not able to, some resent what they view as abandonment of the system by other parents, and some subscribe to the sentiment that homeschooling is a form of "putting on airs", implying that homeschooling families consider themselves special (an especially severe offense in a system that values conformity over all other characteristics).

While I do believe that these people are either willingly or unwillingly conceding to a sadly inadequate system, I definitely don't think they are either participants in or beneficiaries of the privileged class's use of the system.

[mickthinks]

Why is it only in education we must suddenly cease to want to provide "better" for our kids (better of course being totally subjective) and prioritize community and democracy?
It isn't only in education that we act selfishly if we advance our own children's interests above the interests of other people's children. However, not all decisions aimed at giving our kids "the best" are equally detrimental to others. Schooling segregated along class and wealth lines will always be a key contibutor to social injustice, I think. Driving a swankier car - not so much.

[Qingdai]

If that money was in the school system, say in the form of taxes, it would make a difference.

That's one side of the argument. The other side is that throwing money at a bad system is not going to make it better. (The same argument rages, over decades, on Britain's national health system.)

So the argument boils down to whether the public education system is basically good, just short of resources, or basically deficient (in whatever ways) and would waste extra public spending thrown at it. The answer is obvious ... to each individual ... no one agrees, and imho no one is prepared to change their mind.

I suppose piling extra controls and measurements on schools is an attempt to find which parts of the system work best, and then to throw money at them. I don't particularly trust that this is bound to lead to improvements.

Specifically in my neighborhood school there isn't money for toilet paper and other pretty basic things.
Looks like we aren't alone either.
Detroit School Asks Parents to Donate Toilet Paper - ParentDish (http://www.parentdish.com/2009/01/10/detroit-school-asks-parents-to-donate-toilet-paper/)

I don't expect public school to be the answer for all children, but it should be able to work for most children. I know in rural districts, for example, they aren't going to have the choices and resources for all students. In an urban area, such as I live in, they should be able to provide a variety of schools that do fit most children, though.
There are public open schools in my area, I think the teachers and schools have done a good job of meeting the educational needs of parents and teachers, it just keeps coming down to funding here.

[Clutch Munny]

My parents sent me to private school for two years, simply because they didn't have any other reasonable alternative, as the public schools had failed me completely and utterly.

My own experience was bad, but probably not as awful as yours, from the sound of it. But it sure made me an advocate for my own children in negotiating their way through the Canadian public system. I didn't want them to experience their curiosity and articulateness as a shame and a burden, the way I often did.

We have some excellent resources in our school system (locally, at least), both for kids with learning disabilities and for bored intellectually gifted kids. Sometimes these are the same kids, in fact. But (i) there are not enough resources and (ii) they do not always get delivered to the children who need them most. There are. e.g., enrichment programs, French Immersion programs, and (at the high school level) "magnet" programs for different schools that emphasize particular areas of excellence. Getting into any of these programs isn't hyper-competitive, but it does require at least a promising (relative to that program) kid and an involved parent.

It was made very clear to me by educational officials that parental advocacy plays a key role in having your children placed where they can best succeed in our public system. That in itself places children of non-activist parents at a disadvantage; but I didn't let my guilt over being good at getting my way in bureaucracies stop me from helping my kids choose programs they wanted and needed. (One line that worked well for me: "My kid loves learning and hates going to school. Doesn't that sound like something we should fix?" ) If none of these public school options had been available in my area, and moving were not possible, though, my wife and I would have considered homeschooling. Even though we are both trained and experienced teachers, this prospect would have struck us as pretty daunting, however.

[lisarea]

My parents sent me to private school for two years, simply because they didn't have any other reasonable alternative, as the public schools had failed me completely and utterly.

My own experience was bad, but probably not as awful as yours, from the sound of it. But it sure made me an advocate for my own children in negotiating their way through the Canadian public system. I didn't want them to experience their curiosity and articulateness as a shame and a burden, the way I often did.

We have some excellent resources in our school system (locally, at least), both for kids with learning disabilities and for bored intellectually gifted kids. Sometimes these are the same kids, in fact. But (i) there are not enough resources and (ii) they do not always get delivered to the children who need them most. There are. e.g., enrichment programs, French Immersion programs, and (at the high school level) "magnet" programs for different schools that emphasize particular areas of excellence. Getting into any of these programs isn't hyper-competitive, but it does require at least a promising (relative to that program) kid and an involved parent.

It was made very clear to me by educational officials that parental advocacy plays a key role in having your children placed where they can best succeed in our public system.

Well, certainly parental involvement would make a difference at least at some level. But I think a lot of the parent-blaming is motivated by educators trying to deny culpability.

My son should have been a shoo-in for a program they had in the Denver schools at the time where they'd identify highly gifted students in Kindergarten and put them on a specialized track through high school. He'd gotten 99th percentile on his assessment test, but he was rejected, and when I asked why, it turned out that they'd GOTTEN SOME OTHER KID'S SCORES IN HIS RECORD. This other kid scored around the 30th to 32nd percentile on his tests. So they averaged out the scores of my son and this other kid, and came up with a slightly above average score. They didn't have similar names, they weren't the same age. It was literally as though someone had dropped a piece of paper into the wrong folder and this was a mistake that couldn't be undone. (Notably, they sent me detailed and personally identifiable information about some random kid enrolled in the DPS, too.)

I wrote letters, I went to the schools, and I followed through every way that I could think of. I was cleaning out some old files recently and found a fat pile of those letters in which I pointed out that, even if those had all been my son's scores, a kid getting such wildly different scores should have been a red flag that indicated the kid needed extra help. So, if a kid were a very high achiever in other subjects, but couldn't read, the Denver schools would have just averaged out those scores and treated them like an average student, rather than a gifted student with a fairly narrow learning disability. The entire system was incompetent and poorly managed.

As it was, despite the countless hours I put into it, he was never admitted into that program. Instead, we cobbled together what we could. For a couple of years in grade school, he was enrolled in college-level math courses for high school students, so he'd get on a short bus to the local university. That backfired nicely when we moved to a 'better' school district when he was in 8th grade, and the AP math classes they put him in were basically repeats of shit he'd done in 3rd grade, and his English classes were actually even worse than that.

I know the system works for some people. I know some people are well served by it, and I know a kid with learning disabilities who is getting one-on-one personalized attention, and is in a special program that will follow him throughout his education. My son didn't have that option, despite the fact that his needs were at least as special as that kid's. And it wasn't because I was lazy or uninvolved. It's because the schools were.

So while I'm sure there are parents who are genuinely lazy and uninterested in their kids' educations, but being motivated and involved really doesn't make much difference anyway when you're dealing with systemic incompetence within the system; and I'm not going to fault parents who choose to remove their kids from the system rather than banging their heads against a wall trying to work within it.