The Question I was Dying to Answer

No one has asked me any doubting questions about homeschooling since I became confident in my answers. Until today. I finally got to answer the most dreaded (perhaps because it's the most absurd) of all.
My neighbor took a break from weeding to join me on the front porch where I was strapping my rollerblades on my one year old. (And their education is what is of most concern??)
Out of the blue she asked how long I intend to homeschool. Until it no longer works.
Do you have a projected grade in mind though? 12th.
How will that work with socialization though? I try to get out with my friends occasionally.
She laughed.
How will you do it without going crazy? I laughed and told her, while hugging the 5 year old who is most driving me batty, "The kids keep me sane".

Ah yes. Socialization. Whose socialization is most in jeopardy? Mine of course! With 2 sports a season and a dozen kids in the classroom (well, 4 at least - hopefully more), I think alone time for every one of us is of more concern than socializing.

Step Back

This spring and early summer we did a Story of the World coop with a couple friends. We read and narrated the chapters in book one on our own, then got together weekly to do the projects from the activity guide. It was wonderful and the kids loved it.

Until we went on vacation for 6+ weeks and got behind. We have been in a mad rush to catch up before our next get together with our friends and the kids are not enjoying having history stuffed down their throats. Hurrying through is pretty contrary to the point of homeschooling and has led me to a lot of rambling thoughts on our methods.

Does it matter if we are caught up? I want to continue the activities with our friends but maybe it's not as important that the activities line up with our reading. Maybe I can just say "remember when we did...." Or maybe I shouldn't be doing history at all yet. We basically started 1st grade this summer but according to Charlotte Mason, I shouldn't be doing any academics until age 6.

So should I stop history on chapter 10 and wait until January? If I do that, will I start over or pick back up on Chapter 10? Part of that decision depends on whether we do this coop I've been tying myself in circles over. If we don't do the full coop, our little coop will end in a couple weeks and it won't matter if we're caught up but if I do it, we need to catch up on history.

But we could still scrap some of the other academics until January. We could go back to more of a preschool type curriculum. Or would we need to do at least kindergarten to satisfy my husband who is still scared the town is going to knock down our door if we aren't rigid and structured despite the lax laws we enjoy in this state.

Any classical or CMers out there with opinions on 5 yr olds?

Work Box Hiatus and Soap box on what learning really is

Ok, not really a hiatus but if anyone is reading this blog hoping for a view of what school actually ends up looking like, I should tell you the change of plan we had last week. Wednesday night long after he was in bed, Prince asked if we could go to a specific museum tomorrow. I told him if the weather was nice, we could. Shockingly, it was, so we did.

The place was MOBBED with school groups so we weren't the only ones leaving school for other educational pursuits. Thursday was also the last day of the classes for homeschoolers this museum teaches. We ran across the homeschoolers a couple times but I could tell the difference between their activities and the public school's version of "quick look, learn, let's move on, we have a schedule to keep". I believe classes like this, taught by others are very beneficial. My kids were in one earlier this year. However, my kids learned a LOT more by exploring on their own, at their own pace, than the kids who were shuffled through by hurried adults.

In the afternoon we had both soccer practice and a tball game so that was it for our day.

On Friday we spent the morning at tennis. I read a book today by a homeschooler who admitted her physical education program is severely lacking and it made me chuckle. My kids are currently doing 3 sports (all w/in 12 hrs this week!) and I cannot possibly imagine a life where PE was neglected!

In the afternoon we had our Story of the World history coop which I promise to blog about next. And THEN we went to a science class provided by a local nature center through a grant at the library. Busy couple of days huh? Friday we covered PE, history, science, and even math if you include trying to figure out how to squeeze more hours into a day.

Social Behavior as construed in a school

"And when Maxine confronted the teacher directly, shouting in class and drowning her out, she was punished in some routine way and was again deprived of the individual response which would have meant much to her...

This last sentence is worth thinking about. What are these routine punishments? A teacher might only say something like "We don't do that kind of thing here." More likely there would be demerits, or stayins after school, or trips to the principal's office. In all of these the point is that the child is made to feel, not that he has annoyed real people by breaking into a real conversation, but only that he has broken some rule, interrupted the working of the organization. What comes from the teacher is not a protest, not a personal cry of outrage "Maxine, why do you have to interrupt all the time when I'm talking?" but only orders, threats, punishments.

From a personal response Maxine might learn many things: that people can and do talk seriously to each other, that their talk means something and is important to them, that they can feel it as an attack - as indeed it is - if someone tries to stop them from talking. But in a regular school there is no such real talk. The teacher talks about what is in the curriculum or lesson plan; the children play - or perhaps refuse to play - whatever parts are set out for them.
...
I have never seen more true mean spiritedness among children than when they were in a school and a class in which adults tried to prevent or, if they could no prevent, to selttle all their quarrels. Nothing was ever trully worked out, settled, finished."

(What Do I Do Monday by John Holt pg 49-51)

I have often thought, the one drawback to homeschool, is not learning to sit still and listen. Not following all the rules. I didn't think about how construed those rules are. They learn rules of social behavior from real interactions. They learn to sit and listen in Primary, and even when mom is working with sister. Day after monotonous day of school lectures is never recreated outside of school. You are more likely to get a boss who reacts like mom, than like your school marm. Kids must be left as kids in order to actually socialize.

Why Is That A Required Subject?

"The other day a pleasant and problably kindly coach and swimming instructor told me about some child who hadn't wanted to swim, but he had made him, and the child had learned and now liked it, so why shouldn't he have the right to compel everyone to swim?

There are many answers. The child might have in time learned to swim on his own, and not only had the pleasure of swimming, but the far more important pleasure of having found that pleasure for himself. Or he might have used that time to find some other skills and pleasures, just as good.

The real trouble, as I said to the coach, is this: I llove swimming, and in a school where nothing else was compulsory I might see a casxe for making swimming so. But for every child in that school there are dozens of adults, each convinced that he has something of vital importance to "give" the child that he would never get for himself, all saying to the child, "I know better than you do what is good for ou." By te time all those people get through making the child do what they know is good for him, he has no time or energy left.

What is worse he has no sense of being in charge of his life and learning or that he could be in charge, or that he deserves to be in charge, or that if he were in charge it would turn out any way other than badly. In short, he has no sense of his identity or place. He is only where and what others tell him he is."

John Holt, What Do I Do Monday? pg 41

Forced Learning

"Schools, teachers, parents all believe that their job is to make learning happen in children, and that if it happens it is only because they made it happen. I have known parents who became anxious and angry whenever I told them about something their children had done on their own initiative and for their own reasons. These people, like many teachers, had to believe that anything good the child did or that was in him came and could come only from them. It is as if we all dream of seeing in print, someday, a statement by some famous person that all he is he owes to us. "

John Holt What Do I Do Monday pg 40


I am not responsible for my children learning. If I put the burden of responsibility on me, then I am the one responsible, I am the one required to do the work. It is my responsibility to foster in them a love of learning and provide experiences and materials so they can do the learning themselves. You cannot teach what one does not want to learn. You will only learn that which you seek for yourself. Schools force rote memorization in lieu of true learning so they can reap the credit for all they "taught" the children. If the children do not really learn it, that is their own fault. Pshaw.

Continuum of Experience

"We talk about school as a place where people teach (or try to) and others learn (or try to, or try not to) the "skills" of reading, or arithmetic, or this that, or the other. This is not how a child (or anyone else) learns to do things. He learns to do them by doing them. He does not learn the "skills" of speech and then go somewhere and use these skills to speak with. He learns to speak by speaking.

When we try to teach a child a disembodied skill, we say in effect, "You must learn to do this thing in here, so that later on you can go and do something quite different out there." This destroys the continuum of experience within which true learning can only take place. We should try to do instead in school as much as possible of what people are doing in the world."

John Holt, What Do I Do Monday?

Why Homeschool aka Homework

"Youngsters listening to a classroom lecture can choose not to take notes, or take poor notes, or be diverted by an attractive member of the opposite sex. Or be seduced by balmy weather, or be engaged in heavy daydreaming. But homework is the ground zero of study. In the privacy of the home, the textbook or assignment has to be focused on and mastered. It is the core discipline of scholarship, the lonely pursuit of knowledge."


The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools, Gross, Martin L

Gross was extolling the benefits of homework and asserting that schools need to assign more homework. If homework is the crux of learning, why do they waste 8 hours a day in school? Homeschool cuts out the wasted 8 hrs and just gives the 3 hrs of homework that Gross asserts is where the real learning takes place anyway.

Window for active mind and Love of Learning

"Prior to puberty, children can absorb information. But the independent concept of intellect-intelligence stored up, then arranged in equational form-begins at puberty. From thirteen on, intently for perhaps five years more, the mind is extra active, more so than at any time before or after, developing methods of taking in, processing, and organizing information.

If we miss that early opportunity, and we generally do in public middle and high schools, we may never again be able to ignite the instinct of scholarship. By not acting on that glorious chance, we leave many students permanently marred by boredom and without the love of learning."

The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools, Gross, Martin L