Video Wednesday

Just a bit of humor for the homies.



Have a wonderful evening and I'll see you in 2009.

Bedside Table Reading

Many of my friends (both homeschoolers and not) talk about the pile of books teetering on their bedside tables. I'm no exception. My bedside table looks like a miniature, poorly organized, library. Today, I'm going to let you look and tell you what I'm currently reading.


On the top of the pile is Shakespeare: To Teach or not to Teach by Cass Foster and Lynn G. Johnson. I'm thinking about reading Henry V with my boys this year, culminating with seeing a live performance this spring. Cass Foster abridged A Midsummer Night's Dream, among other Shakespeare plays, and I thought he might have some insights on how to teach Shakespeare to my kids.

Next on the pile is Sense and Sensibility. This is the book I'm currently reading to wind down just before I go to sleep. This is probably the 3rd or 4th time I've read it. Jane Austen just never gets old.

Third down is a brand new book I put on my Amazon wishlist and received as a gift. I'm very excited to read it, although I've barely opened it yet. It's The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric by Sister Miriam Joseph. The trivium is one of the bases for classical education, so I'm trying to get a better picture of what the teaching the trivium entails.

Next down is a book that is always on my bedside table: The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto. I'm chipping away at this book, which is fascinating, yet frustrating (for its lack of citations). I think this is a must read for the "big picture" view of what we're doing by homeschooling.

The next three books are aspirational reads more than anything: Ovid's Metamorphoses, Virgil's Aeneid, and Plato's Republic. Ovid and Plato are for my own edification, so I rarely actually get to them. I just plain don't like the Aeneid. I only have one more section of it to read, though, so I might make it a goal to finish it before the new year.

I would love "Bedside Table Reading" to become a regular post on this blog. Please take a picture of your pile of books (whether it's on the bedside table or not), make a list of the books and, if you have time, make some comments, and then send it to me at homeschoolingrevolution [AT] gmail [DOT] com.

Video Wednesday

This video has nothing to do with homeschooling, although my daughter tells me stories like this all the time and she happens to be homeschooled. She doesn't speak French, though -- not yet at least.


Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

Video Wednesday

I thought this video was appropriate for the season.

Time for the Revolution

I’ve been thinking a lot about time.

We’re always so busy, running from park day to drama practice to art class to hockey games – and we’re one of the less busy families I know. Experts are always telling us how moms (and I’d apply this to homeschool dads, too) need to make time for themselves. You know, for exercise, a massage, “me time.” I think the experts are right that we who take care of the day to day needs of the family as a career tend to forget to our own physical and mental needs.

This is not the type of time I’ve been thinking about.

Most homeschooling parents I know try to take time to find the right grammar curriculum or the perfect science program. We spend hours considering what our kids’ strengths and challenges are and tailoring their education to fit each individual child. We often feel rushed and pushed into making some of these decisions, and I, at least, sometimes jump into “crisis mode” and choose things for my kids that will do for the interim while I look for something better. I often wish I had more time to analyze what I do each day with my children.

This, also, is not the type of time I’ve been thinking about.

I’ve been thinking about taking time to plan the revolution.

I’m talking about “big picture” thinking. What is the purpose of what my family is doing? What are its implications? What type of world am I trying to create? Face it, what we’re doing is not the norm and does not create the same reality for our kids as for the kids who are institutionally educated. They aren’t going to have the same shared experiences. This makes a difference in how our children are going to treat, and be treated by, the rest of our culture.

The founders of our country didn’t just think about what the American Revolution meant right then, in 1776. They were thinking about the future and what they were creating for the long run. They met for 15 years hashing out the details, first, of parting ways with Britain, and then they continued to meet to hash out what the new country would look like. They took time to plan the revolution.

I don’t think there’s a right way to do the planning, though. For me, it means spending a lot of time reading about a whole slew of subjects, including philosophy, history, politics. I read a lot of blogs and books on homeschooling. I talk to my homeschooling friends and belong to homeschooling online lists. I also just spend time thinking (or “daydreaming” as my kids call it). But I don’t spend nearly enough time doing these things because there is laundry to be done and food to be cooked. I firmly believe that revolutionaries shouldn’t have to do house work. But somebody has to do it.

And somebody has to plan the revolution.

Video Wednesday

My posts have been rather sparse lately, and this Video Wednesday will show you why. My kids and some of their friends were in a production of "A Midsummer's Night Dream" and I've been busy taking them to rehearsals, running lines with them and, of course, making costumes. The cast is all homeschooled kids between the ages of 5 and 14. They met once a week for a couple of hours for 3 months to put this together. The production was directed by Andrea Parker who runs Arizona Homeschool Theatre Group.

The scene presented here is "The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby," the play within the play put on by a group of silly mechanicals for the wedding of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, and Hyppolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. Enjoy!

Video Wednesday -- Thursday Edition

I hope everyone is not all hung up about having Video Wednesday on a Thursday.

Thanksgiving

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, the day we set aside to show gratitude, I’ve put together a list of things we secular homeschoolers have to be thankful for. Feel free to let me know of any others you can think of.

1. The Internet.

Whether or not Al Gore invented it, the internet is a boon for secular homeschoolers in so many ways. It’s how we research curricula and homeschooling methods. It’s where we find information on box turtles, Napoleonic era warships, and anything else that happens to catch our children’s interest. It’s where we can get free math worksheets and out-of-print books. Most importantly, it’s where we can find and connect with other secular homeschoolers through blogs, and websites, and, if we’re lucky, find a local support group to build a community.

2. Curriculum Choices.

When I first started homeschooling 10 or so years ago, there were very few curricula to choose from. There was Calvert, there was Saxon, but not much more. The number of homeschool specific curricula available now is astounding. I’ve looked at 10 and tried 5 Latin programs alone!

3. Libraries.

Well, this one is not quite fair. Everybody should be thankful for public libraries. But homeschoolers in particular benefit from libraries because we read so many books. Think of all the extra money going out the door if we had to actually pay for everything we read! Libraries also have programs for children and teens, which can help them build community with others, not just other homeschoolers.

4. Homeschooling Support Groups.

As I’ve written before, I believe one of the keys to successful homeschooling is a support group. I’m lucky to have such a group where we can meet in person once a week or more, but I think that online groups might fill the bill for some people who are the lonely secular island in a sea of religious homeschoolers.

5. Religious Homeschoolers.

They are the reason we have the right to homeschool at all. In my experience getting secular homeschoolers organized together for a specific, finite purpose is kind of like herding cats (as my Dad would say). You can do it, eventually, but neither the herder or the cats are happy about it. This is where religious homeschoolers have been, so far, better than the rest of us. They’ve been organized and systematic in their advocacy for homeschooling. They’ve put together grassroots lobbying groups and legal defense organizations to focus solely on keeping homeschooling legal and as few laws regulating us as possible. We owe a great debt of gratitude to these groups.

Video Wednesday

I absolutely promise this blog won't become just a place to post videos. But it IS Video Wednesday, after all. I really like this one. Enjoy, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled post to bring you this very special video

Well, in all honesty, we've all just got a nasty cold here and I don't have the energy to do a post. This video also has nothing to do with homeschooling, unless you could adapt what this dancer does into an unschooling curriculum.



For more on this video click on this link.

Frugal Friday

I've mentioned before at least one book that's available totally online -- John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education. There are other entire books available online, too. The Baldwin Online Children's Literature Project makes available books that are in the public domain. Many of these books are very old -- pre-1923, but there are a few more recent books on this site, too. I've used this site for a couple of books and found it very easy to use. You can print out entire books or just parts. You decide what font you want and whether you want the pictures printed, too. I look to this site first whenever I need an out-of-print book and have usually found what I need.

Please comment if you know of other sources for free books online.

Video Wednesday

First, you need to go check out the video on Homeschool The Revolution. I am, indeed, feeling a little demented today, so I thought I'd share this pop-punk/ska video with you. If you don't like your kids to hear the word "suck" used in this context, use earphones or turn down the volume.

Group Hug

Every Tuesday, at 1:30 in the afternoon, you can find the kids and me at a park – like clockwork. The park location changes weekly, but the day and time does not. This is when we connect with the community that nourishes us, consoles us, supports us. It’s our homeschooling group park day.

I can’t say enough about how great Tuesdays are. The kids wake up and immediately cheer. Just a couple of hours of lessons and then we’re off. We see our buddies and play and argue and share snacks and talk. It’s as important for me as it is for the kids. We get to be surrounded by our friends and feel normal for a change. Nobody asks us about “socialization” or tries to surreptitiously quiz the kids to see if their education is adequate.

Sometimes, we stay at the park until dark. The kids will often split into groups based on age and gender, but every once in a while, the whole group of them – maybe 10 to 15 of them – will work together on a huge project. One time they built a gigantic civilization in the sand, complete with a river to assist with trade, nature preserves, and a religion (Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster).

While all of these activities are going on, the grown-ups chat and complain and challenge and reassure each other, sometimes stopping to wipe away some tears or mediate a conflict. It’s a diverse group of parents. I would never have met many of them if we hadn’t come together with our mutual desire to educate our children ourselves. They are some of the best friends I have ever had.

Studies have shown the mental and physical health benefits of having a strong support system. I think it is imperative for homeschoolers -- who, as Charlotte so aptly stated in her essay, are often on the fringe of society – to have this kind of community. We all need to have people to commiserate with on a regular basis, people who understand the situation.

This group didn’t happen overnight. We’ve worked really hard over the last 5 or so years to get a good core group of families. Things have sometimes been a little rough when we didn’t all agree about the form or direction the group should take. We’ve made mistakes but we’ve always tried to rectify them quickly and, most importantly, together.

With the children growing older – we have several teenagers now – we’re looking to expand and change a bit to meet the needs of the kids. My family has started to attend another wonderful group’s park days, trying to make new friends at a time when friends are becoming so immensely important to my 12 year-old son. We’re hoping to get the teens and tweens from both groups together for some fun, age-appropriate activities. Making this transition to include what would usually be the “high school crowd” is going to be a challenge. But it is so worth the effort.

Guest Post -- My Homeschooling Roots

I am so excited to have our first guest post here at TRBAH. This essay is written by my dear friend, Charlotte Raby. Charlotte is a homeschooling mom of two brilliant girls and is also the author of A Breed Apart, 2002 Clara Award, http://www.readerseden.com/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=105.

I have been a die-hard homeschooling mom for many years. Yet I don't know how the initial urge came upon me or how it settled into conviction nearly ten years before my children were born. I had accredited it to a friend who said, while in the midst of planning her wedding, that she would home school her future children. Suddenly, I knew without a doubt that I would, too, and became utterly committed in that instant. But how could that be? I had never heard of homeschooling.
Or had I?
It makes sense that somehow, the homeschooling idea had been planted long before and that my friend's comment triggered recognition of my deep rooted belief. Yet, the impetus of what has structured my family's lives for the last twelve years has remained a mystery until now.
Recently, one of my daughters came home from an activity humming a tune that she had learned from her friends, and which she said she couldn't get out of her head. I knew the song very well and sang it for her. She wanted to know more about its source, so my husband and I shared with our two daughters one of our favorite childhood television shows --The Addams Family. As we laughed together, I was a little disconcerted to find myself feeling a communion with the kooky Addams Family. I dismissed it as a wistful nostalgia that one often feels when revisiting their past. However, as the feeling continued to grow, a truant officer arrived at the Addams' home to explain why Gomez had to send his children to school. Gomez replied, "Why have children if you're just going to send them away? I'm against the whole thing!" And then it hit me: the Addams Family homeschooled!
It got better. The parallels of their life style and attitudes to those of modern homeschooling families are uncanny. Truly. My husband asked if I was sure that I wanted to equate homeschoolers to the Addams Family, and I understood his meaning. Like the Addams Family, homeschooling families are considered the fringe of normal society, those strange people with unfathomable motives and ideas who spend every waking moment with their children, who are shunned and feared by others.
But, that's just the point.
Sending their children to school never occurred to the Addams Family as it also often never enters the minds of their modern counterparts. That we will keep our children at home is understood from the beginning, or becomes a strong desire as the time to send them away looms ever nearer. As Gomez said, "I don't think I can stand to be away from them, Morticia!" Maintaining family connections throughout the day feels right. Indeed, Gomez explained to the officer how Mamá (the grandmother) educated the children, especially in music, art, ballet, and history, while Uncle Fester worked with them in science. Most modern homeschooling families emphasize many of the under-funded and more humane aspects of society, like the arts and the sciences. True, we do it without dynamite and daggers (well, most of us do, anyway), but the fact is that homeschooling is a family affair.
Just as Morticia, an accomplished horticulturalist, includes her children in the feeding and care of her poisonous and carnivorous plants, and Gomez includes them in planning toy-train crashes and the mechanics of dungeon torture devices, homeschooling parents include their children in all aspects of their own daily lives and hobbies. In addition to regular academic subjects, homeschooled children are exposed at an early age to all of the humanities, in-depth science, a multitude of field trips and experts, museums, finance, logic, cooking, sewing, robotics, gardening, Latin, Chinese. And all of this is usually done before the end-of-day bell rings in traditional schools, but often naturally continues into the evenings and weekends.
The home of the Addams Family is a natural history museum, with a two-headed turtle, a preserved Hun warrior and giant Kodiak bear, and other taxidermy specimens and items of interest. Wednesday, their six year old daughter, breeds thoroughbred spiders, and Pugsly builds things. A typical homeschooling family's home looks much the same, with most surfaces covered by the children's various projects, such as breeding worms, dioramas, hundreds of books, bugs, rocks, written reports, musical instruments, owl pellets, goat hearts, mummifying chickens. The kitchen counter holds their experiments on gases; the dining room table displays their physics experiment on magnetic motors. And of course, all of this is mixed in with their parents' paraphernalia of various hobbies and interests.
The Addams Family enjoys their evenings together in the family room, at work on their own projects, communicating openly. Morticia might be knitting while Gomez has a drink and cigar with the newspaper; the children play on the carpet and Lurch plays the harpsichord. A homeschooling family looks much the same. The mother might be knitting while the father will have a drink with the paper; the children play on the carpet and play the harpsichord.
Both families often allow their children to seek out their own activities and gifts, without being bound to traditional roles and modes of thinking. When it comes right down to it, the Addams Family is bonded, loving, communicative, and supportive. The adults love their kids, they love being with them as much as possible, and they love talking with them. The family enjoys a hands-on approach to nearly all of their learning endeavors. I felt such a strong sense of connection to little Wednesday, when she learned about Marie Antoinette from Mamá and had Pugsly chop off her doll's head before they ran gleefully out to the cemetery to bury her.
Mystery solved.
I can't wait to find out what I learned from The Munsters!

Video Wednesday

I hope you enjoy this little ditty!

Too Cool for You

A few weeks ago, my husband showed me an article from the New York Times called “The Anti-Schoolers.” The article describes the decision a woman, Joanne Rendell, had made to not send her 5 year-old son, Benny, to kindergarten. Ms. Rendell, who is a novelist, had written a post for the website Babble, discussing her family’s choice to “unkindergarten.” In her post, she describes the ability they have to go out whenever they like (to bars, of all places) and to go to Europe on the cheap fares because they don’t have to work their schedule around a school schedule. She also describes a play date where all the kids get extremely muddy while playing and the parents discuss homeschooling while drinking beer. Ms. Rendell makes it clear that her choice to unkindergarten is their choice for now and she and her partner may decide to send Benny to school at a later date. Her post is beautifully written and brings out the absolute joy of having a 5 year-old child and being able to live life as you choose.

What struck me the most was not the New York Times article or Ms. Rendell’s blog. What struck me the most were the comments to her original post. Out of the 249 comments posted when I looked at the blog, 112 were negative, 112 were positive or somewhat positive (I took even one positive sentiment as a positive remark), 20 were commenters snipping at each other or saying nonsensical things, and I apparently overlooked 5 comments, which I’m not going to take the time to revisit.

The vitriol was palpable from the 112 negative comments. Some called for Child Protective Services to step in to take care of Benny. Most were absolutely astounded at the Ms. Rendell’s selfishness (“THE MOST SELFISH PARENTS I HAVE EVER COME ACROSS!”). Others, of course, mentioned that Benny will never be properly socialized (although one sympathetic commenter noted, “Benny is missing out on hours of standing in line, waiting, being told to put his head down because the kids are too noisy, being told to be quiet, and being forced to sit quietly in his seat.”). Quite a few talked about Benny needing to find out what it’s like to live in the REAL world (‘Not everyone in the world gets up around mid-day and spends their waking hours comfortably numb”). One comment talks about how the author is negligent because she’s not preparing Benny for “cutthroat global competition for increasingly rare jobs.” There is a long discussion of how people who homeschool and unschool must be rich because normal people have to send their kids to school so they can go to work (I wish this was true).

A couple negative comments struck me as strange because they were from self-proclaimed unschoolers saying that Ms. Rendell is not unschooling properly because she has never read a John Holt book. I’ve read John Holt books and I think, although I can’t absolutely know, that even John Holt would not say you need to read his books to successfully unschool. I would love to know what other unschoolers have to say about this seemingly dogmatic objection.

I think, though, that one positive commenter hit the nail on the head when he or she asked, “is the problem that her kid out-cooled your kids?” This question illustrates what I think is the basis for the commenters’ anger. Nobody is the boss of Joanne Rendell. She and Benny are rebels, not willing to let the schools tell them when they should go to bed and when they should play in the mud. For some reason, this lack of obedience to some higher power, whatever that power may be, makes many who do obey normal societal structures downright nasty.

Why would this be? Is it because they feel guilty because they didn’t question authority and think things through adequately before following the customary practice of enrolling their children in school? Are they jealous of the way those who unschool disregard the traditional wisdom of mass education? Do they wish that they had the guts to take their kids out of institutional education, but they’re too afraid to do it now? Are they just lazy and it’s just easier to criticize than to consider the implications of unschooling? Really, why would they care so much that they would spew this kind of malevolence at Ms. Rendell?

I wish I knew.

Frugal Friday

When you can't get a book you need at the library, what do you do? There's always a second-hand book store like Half Price Books. It's often hard to find books in stores like that, but you can find some really good deals if you are willing to take the time to search through the shelves. Another option is to get an educators' discount at bookstores like Borders and Barnes & Noble. All you usually have to do is show proof that you are a homeschooler -- like a copy of the affidavit we have to file here in Arizona -- and you will receive a discount card that is good for a year. Both Borders and B&N give a 20% discount on materials, excluding DVDs and periodicals, used for educating your kids. At least once a year, those stores also have an "educators week" when you can receive an even better discount.

When I was first homeschooling, those stores didn't offer us the discount. We've made some progress!

Video Wednesday

This is pretty funny. I don't think that's their real mom, though.

You're not the Boss of Me

Most of my friends happen to be homeschooling parents. Sometimes, however, I have to converse with adults outside the homeschooling world. These conversations are what have helped convince me that secular homeschooling, particularly, is a revolutionary act.

Here are some examples:

One or more of my children has participated in the local Little League for about 6 seasons. As a conversation starter, most parents ask which school my kids attend. We all know what my answer is.

Well, one time, one of the moms involved in this dialogue with me said,”You know, I believe the schools have become a sterile environment since all religion has been removed from them.”

All sorts of thoughts were whirling around my head at that moment. I kept telling myself to be quiet and to just nod and smile. But then I said it. “You know, there is that nice section in the Constitution about the separation of church and state.”

The other mom nodded and smiled. And never said another word to me the whole season.

I would have just passed off this mom’s distaste for me as a basic distaste for snarky remarks if this next conversation hadn’t occurred with another mom during the first game of the season. We had the initial part of the discussion wherein I state that my child doesn’t attend school and then she says something like, “Oh, I could never do that,” and then I assure her that she certainly could. Same old, same old. But then she asks me what church I attend. I tell her that I am basically a non-believer and haven’t gone to church since I left home at 17. She raises her eyebrows and then excuses herself from continuing the discourse -- forever.

When I thought back over the 12 years I’ve been homeschooling, I realized that these discussions are only two examples of the dozens of the same sort I’ve had in that time.

I started wondering at the revulsion that seems to come not so much from the fact that we homeschool, but more from the fact that we don’t homeschool for religious reasons.

Then it hit me.

These people are upset with me because nobody is the boss of me.

As I’ve described before, I believe that mass schooling has become a replacement for religion. Parents buy into the structure and rules and live their lives accordingly. I had a parent describe an outside school reading program to me – a certain number of books required at certain graded levels, comprehension tests that need to be passed with 80% of the questions correct or the book doesn’t count, all administered by the parent – and when I acted horrified at these onerous rules, she looked shocked and told me how great the program was. So when I say that my kids don’t go to school, many parents are offended that I am, in essence, rejecting the organizing principle of their lives

But then, they think, it will all be o.k., if my religion tells me what to do. When they find out it doesn’t, it blows their minds.

I’m speaking, of course, in broad generalizations. There are a lot of people who don’t have a problem with secular homeschooling. But the incidents I’ve described happen more often than not.

Secular homeschoolers pick their level of structure, from using a boxed curriculum all the way to no curriculum. But we pick these levels of structure based on our needs and those of our children, not based on societal norms or religious expectations. For my family, at least, I’m hoping that my kids’ background in homeschooling will help them, eventually, feel confident in their ability to control their own education.

I guess that’s really what makes it a true revolution, right? We’re producing a future generation of people who can think for themselves.

Imagine.

In Which I Flip-flop

So, based on conversations I've had with other homeschooling parents and the thoughtful comments on this blog, I've decided to go back to saying "secular" homeschooling rather than "inclusive" homeschooling when discussing someone's motivation for homeschooling. So, to make it clearer, for purposes of The Revolution begins at Home (this blog):

The word "secular" will be used when the primary motivation for homeschooling is something other than religion.

The word "religious" or the term"religiously motivated" will be used when the primary motivation for homeschooling is religion.

That is all.

Frugal Friday

Today's tip is from LBS, my friend in Houston. She suggests looking at curricula online to get ideas for the kids' reading in various subjects. For instance, I've been looking at the book lists on the History Odyssey site to help me figure out what Iulius and Lucretius might be able to read for history at their specific levels. Then I can get the books at the library.

I've also started to look at the graded book lists at local charter schools to get level-appropriate ideas. I've found that homeschooled kids tend to read a whole lot more than schooled kids, so we need all the suggestions we can find!

Video Wednesday

I really liked posting the video last week. There are a ton of funny homeschooling videos on youtube, so I thought I would share another with you. I do realize that the song is a Christian rock song and that there are things that don't apply to many of us, but, as I always say, inclusive (secular?) homeschoolers and religiously motivated homeschoolers are more alike than different!

A change and some definitions

After some consideration, discussions, and a lot of resistance, I have changed a part of the title of this blog.

I really like using the word "secular" when talking about non-religiously motivated homeschooling. "Secular" basically just means "of or relating to the worldly or temporal" (Websters Unabridged Dictionary). When talking about our homeschooling support group, I like to use "secular" simply to distinguish our group from the religiously based groups. Many members of our support group are deeply religious, but choose to homeschool for reasons other than their spiritual beliefs and choose to belong to a non-religious group.

When I first set up our website, one of my friends told me that I should use the word "inclusive" instead of secular because I would be alienating the families who are religious but don't want to base their homeschooling on a religious structure. I pretty much poo-pooed her concerns (sorry AG). Then, in a discussion with another friend on Friday, she mentioned that a lot of people won't even consider joining a "secular" homeschooling group because they interpret that word to mean "anti-religious." As much as I despise etymological relativism, I'm now bending to popular will.

I am going to try my best, from now on, to use the term "inclusive homeschooling" instead of "secular homeschooling."

This now leaves me in a conundrum, however -- what term do I use instead of the terms "Christian" or "religious" when denoting homeschoolers other than inclusive ones? Although I believe that inclusive homeschoolers and religiously motivated homeschoolers have more commonalities than differences, I do believe that there are a few fundamental, important differences (which is why I specifically denote that inclusive homeschooling is a revolutionary act). What would be a good short-hand term to use instead of "religiously motivated?" Or is that the best term available?

Discussion please.

Let's Get Started Again

The weather is finally getting cooler here in the Desert Southwest and our park days have started again. Although we've been going full force on our lessons since August, I haven't had the gumption to start up this blog again. It's not that I don't have ideas -- I have a million of them. I think it's just that I don't know where to begin. I've decided, then, to start with another person's ideas. It's an obvious choice. Enjoy!

Odds and Ends and Confessions

Wow, what a month. It started out with my whole family (except Aemelia) coming down with the hacking, coughing, feverish flu. Then we had out-of-town guests and Little League season is in full swing. What's a homeschooling mother/blogger to do? Here are just a few thoughts I had during the last month and a couple of confessions I feel compelled to post.

WHAT I'M READING

I'm currently reading John Taylor Gatto's An Underground History of American Education. I'm really enjoying this book, more than I enjoyed his speech at the HENA conference, even. He lays out the argument that forced schooling has always been promoted by the businessmen and corporations that benefit most from keeping the populace fairly ignorant. I certainly don't agree with everything JTG says -- he's definitely a libertarian and, for some reason, he seems to think religion belongs in the class room -- but he seems to have some really good points. I say "seems" because the major problem I have with this book is that he doesn't footnote anything. He lays out a bibliography (not alphabetized, of course), so I guess I'll have a lot of reading to do before I can know if I agree with his conclusions. You can read An Underground History of American Education online for free on this website, but I'm old school when it comes to books and bought the ink and paper edition. I didn't see it listed in either the Scottsdale or Phoenix library systems (hmm, I wonder why).

WELL, THAT'S MUCH BETTER

My neighborhood school decided to paint their six foot iron fence blue. I guess nobody can feel imprisoned by a Caribbean Blue fence -- no, really, I called the school and they called it Caribbean Blue.

I'M CONFUSED

I once, as an adult, took a class where the instructor said that children should be taught in schools to raise their hands when they don't understand something, not when they do. I was astounded at the correctness of his statement. The teacher should be more concerned with the students who are having troubles than with the kids who understand the subject.

So, recently, I read somewhere that the high-stakes forced testing that our government currently requires in publicly funded schools impacts the funding of these schools. Apparently (and this is my very simplified understanding) the better the students do on these tests, the better the chance the school has of getting extra funding. Does this sound backward to anyone else but me? Shouldn't the schools that have poor test scores get more money? The government should be more concerned with the schools that are having troubles than with the schools where the test scores show what a good job they're doing.

CONFESSION #1

I am firmly against forced testing in schools. I have stated before and I'll state it again, right now, that all one of these tests shows is whether the child is prepared for the specific test given. Tests prove absolutely nothing else.

But, then, I guess I just forced Iulius to take a standardized test. My thinking is that I would like Iulius to go college one day, and he needs to get used to taking these types of tests in order to get into college. To give myself credit, I decided to have him take the National Latin Exam because Latin is something Iulius enjoys and does quite well in. The first time he took a practice test, it was clear that these types of tests were a foreign concept to him -- he missed 15 out of 40 questions and took less than half the allotted time to finish. He stuck with it, though, and continued to prepare for the test. He ended up only missing 3 questions on the real test and received a purple ribbon and a certificate for outstanding achievement, or something like that. I am, of course, proud of his accomplishment, but I feel very conflicted about having made him take the test. There, I've said it and I feel much better.

CONFESSION # 2

Sometimes, after a full morning of lessons, I'll call the kids to lunch and notice Aemelia is still in her nightgown.

On My Soapbox

So, I've been mulling over the Monday homeschooling segment on the Diane Rehm Show. I'm really happy that NPR is talking about homeschooling, especially the impact of the recent California appeals court decision (please listen to the show and read the court decision if you can), but I think the guests illustrated a problem I see within the homeschooling community: we, as a group, apologize for not sending our kids to school.

The guests on the show were a homeschooling mom, a lawyer from HSLDA who is a homeschooling dad, and Professor Rob Reich from Stanford (much more about him in an upcoming post). The mom and the lawyer were well spoken, but they were constantly on the defensive. Someone calls in and asks the stupid "socialization" question, and the mom says, "That's a good question!" and proceeds to list the ways she socializes her children (because, you know, it's important to socialize homeschooled children with "regular" kids). The professor says that strict regulation of homeschooling, including frequent forced testing, is needed and the mom and lawyer say, "We test our kids." The lawyer from HSLDA literally says that HSLDA does not oppose testing (HUH?). The professor says that the state should review curricula used by the homeschoolers, and the mom says, "Well, we use Calvert!" Someone questions how anyone could possibly be qualified to teach all levels from elementary school through high school chemistry, and the mom says "It's all right here in the curriculum!" They are apologizing for doing something they supposedly believe in enough to appear on a national program!

I started thinking about what my friends and I would say if asked these same questions. I would say to the "socialization" question, "Don't bother me with that stupid question unless you can explain to me why you accept that a 7 year-old 1st grader is "adequately socialized" when she is surrounded by all these other cool 7 year-olds for 7 hours a day, yet is not allowed to speak with any of them except during a 1/2 hour lunch period and a 15 minute recess!" SH would say, "The only thing a state-administered test measures is how well prepared the kid is for that particular test. " LB would say "Curriculum? Who needs a curriculum? You don't need a curriculum in the real world." JJ would say, "You must have had a really poor high school education to not be able to guide your child through all of his high school courses!"

These are GOOD answers, these are answers that get to the heart of the problem. Our school system is like a religion that we're not allowed to question. The paradigm (as EG would say) is that school is good and everything else is suspect. What if we shift the paradigm and when someone asks, "Why don't you send your child to school," you answer, "Why do you send your child to school." Make them look for the answer.

My message to Diane Rehm is that if she wants a real discussion about homeschooling, she should invite John Taylor Gatto to her show.

And any one of my friends.

Frugal Friday

My brother, of all people, mentioned that my earlier post made it sound as if only affluent families can homeschool. I actually watch my homeschooling expenditures very closely and I know many people who successfully homeschool on a limited budget (most homeschooling families are one-income homes). I've asked my friends to send me tips which I will share in a regular "Frugal Friday" post.

The tip I received most often, and one I use all the time, is to use your local library. I'm always amazed at the books I can get from our library. I can't always get what I want, but the library helps limit what I have to buy. In our library system, I can find a book at one branch and have it transfered to the branch closest to me so I can pick up everything at one place.

Many libraries even have special programs for kids, too. One friend takes her 12 year-old daughter to their local branch library to participate in a "stock market" club where the kids play an online stock market game. She also told me that there are book clubs available for kids. These programs are for all kids, not just homeschoolers, so homeschooling kids can socialize with school kids, too.

I'd like to thank SG for agreeing to be interviewed for this post!

It's An Institution

We live about a mile away from the local elementary school. My neighbors have frequently acted shocked when I say I homeschool, because the local school is supposed to be so wonderful.

My kids sometimes have Little League practice at this school. The first thing Lucretius noticed about the school is that none of the classrooms have any windows. In order to make up for this problem, I guess, they've put in some little gardens and some signs that say things like "Self-Esteem Street" and "Diversity Garden" (I am not making this up).

There has always been a 4 foot chain link fence around the playground, which, I would think is pretty standard in schools. When we first started going to the school there was a little gate that you could go through to get directly to the playground. A couple of years ago, the gate disappeared, but the kids could still drop their gear bags over the top and climb over the fence, which I gladly helped them do. Then I would wind my way through the school to get to the playing field. I figured that the school must have had some trouble with people coming in after school and messing with the playground equipment and wanted to make it a little more difficult to get in.

Last week I noticed that the chain link fence has been replaced by a six-foot wrought iron fence all around the play area. It, quite literally, looks like a prison fence, although it has no barbed wire coiled on top. It suddenly occurred to me that this fence was not put up to keep people out of the playground -- I have never noticed any graffiti or broken playground equipment.

This fence was constructed to keep the children in.

There's more than one way to butter your toast

I've been homeschooling my children for over 11 years and I've seen a lot of very successful methods to allow kids to learn. Some methods involve actual teaching, some involve discovering your child's interests and responding accordingly, and some are a little both.

My method involves a lot of teaching, although I watch my kids intently to see what works and what doesn't. I have three children, ages 11, 9, and almost 6, so the method I'm describing is mainly for my 11 year-old, although I'll also talk about the changes I've made to fit the other two.

I would call myself a Classical Homeschooler. Within that designation, there are a couple of different schools of thought, and I tend toward the more traditional type of classical education. After a lot of research and debate, I started out using the book The Well-Trained Mind, by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. It's a fantastic resource for curricula and other publications to use. It's kind of a "how-to" book on how to homeschool your child in the classical method (they also describe ways to supplement a schooled education as well). The authors warn the reader not to try to implement everything they recommend. I, however, made the rookie mistake of trying to do everything the exact way the authors told me to. I discovered, by trial and error (0f course), what worked for my oldest as time went on. I don't think he's too terribly damaged by my attempts at super schooling! For reasons I will describe in another post, I now think of The Well-Trained Mind as a neoclassical curriculum.

I was introduced to a more traditional way of education when I attended the HENA Conference last year (2007). I met Drew Campbell, who wrote The Latin Centered Curriculum, and spoke to him and some other homeschoolers who were following his method of teaching. It's a much simpler way, I think, to cover all the bases. I continue to use The Well-Trained Mind for its incredible history resource list.

So here's the basic curriculum for 11 year-old Iulius (not his real name -- he chose this as his "Latin name").

• Math -- I am lucky enough to have married a man with a Master's Degree in Applied Mathematics. He's currently teaching Iulius geometry.
• Latin -- Iulius has just finished the Latina Christiana series, which worked very well for him, although we often discussed the Christian implications of the program and put a secular spin on it. It uses ecclesiastical pronunciation, which Iulius is going to have to unlearn, although I don't think he'll have too much trouble with that. What's good about this program is that you can purchase a DVD instruction set, which is good for parents with limited Latin exposure. This is not the program I'm using with my other two children. I'm getting ready to start Iulius in Lingua Latina by Hans H. Oerberg. I'm not sure how this is going to work, but I've bought all the books I can think of, so I'm hoping for the best.
  
• Greek -- We're working on the first book of Elementary Greek, by Christine Gatchell. This is a Koine Greek (sometimes called "New Testament" Greek) program, so I'm also looking at Athenaze, which is an Attic Greek program. Athenaze supposed to be more difficult and for older kids than Elementary Greek.
• Classics/Literature -- Iulius and I have just finished reading Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in translation. I'm researching the different translations of Virgil's Aeneid for our next epic.
• Writing/Grammar -- I must admit we're floundering a bit in this. I'm trying to teach Iulius, who happens to be a very good natural writer, in the progymnasmata method of writing. I'm trying to use the ClassicalWriting program, but I'm having problems implementing it. It has too much "busy work" for my or Iulius' taste, so I'm trying to streamline it a bit.
• History -- Iulius uses the history resource list for 6th and 7th Grade from The Well-Trained Mind. He's currently reading The Story of the Renaissance by Suzanne Strauss Art.
• Handwriting -- We use the Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting Series.
• Science -- We generally "unschool" science. My husband will demonstrate or talk about whatever scientific interests the kids show. We also like to do a lot of nature walks, which open scientific discussions.

For 9 year-old Lucretius, reading has been a little bit of a struggle. He's quite a good reader now, but lacks confidence, so that's what we're mainly working on. I won't start Lucretius on a writing/grammar program until the summer and he won't start Greek for another year or so. Otherwise, if I don't mention a subject, then I'm using pretty much the same thing with Lucretius and Aemelia that I'm using with Iulius.

• Math -- My husband works off of the Spectrum Math program for the younger two children.
• Latin -- a friend with a degree in Classics turned me on to The BigBook of Lively Latin, by Catherine Drown. You pay for access to the website and then print the chapters as you need them. I think at some point, the website will be published as a regular book. The website also has mp3 files for pronunciation (both ecclesiastical and classical) and has some games to play. Lucretius is just starting with Latin and we're going very slowly.
• Classics -- I'm reading D'Aulaires Greek Myths to them and referring to the Memoria Press guide to help round out the program.
• Reading/Literature -- I have Lucretius reading graded readers about things he's interested in. Right now, he's reading two pages a day in a DK "proficient readers" level book about the Trojan War. I've also implemented a 10 minute a day independent reading time, where I sit close by, so he can ask me questions. He really seems to enjoy this time.
• History -- We use Story of the World, by Susan Wise Bauer. Lucretius is in the 3rd volume right now. We also get outside books if there's something particularly interesting that we want to research.
• Spelling -- We use Spelling Workout from Modern Curriculum Press. Iulius used the series through the beginning of this year and really seemed to get a lot out of it.
  

Almost 6 year-old Aemelia gets the benefit of everyone else's lessons as well as her own. Her two most important lessons are reading and math.

• Reading -- She's zipping through Phonics Pathways by Dolores G. Hiskes. I'm also reading the Winnie-The-Pooh books to her as well as nursery rhymes and other fun poetry.
  

We're usually involved in a couple of read-aloud books, too. I'm reading them The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff and their dad usually reads a chapter of a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys book before bed.

I know this looks like a lot, but the kids are usually done with all of their lessons, including their piano practice, by lunchtime. Afternoons are spent at park day, art class, ice-skating, or just hanging out. It's important to me for the kids to have a lot of open time to do whatever they want.

A Revolutionary Act

School is a pervasive institution in our society. Children are expected to go to school each and every day, barring illness, from the time they are around 5 years old until they reach adulthood at 18. The teachers are with the kids all day long, 7 or so hours, and then the teachers send homework home with them. Parents are then expected to help with homework once the children finally get home. The kids have to get to bed on time and wake up at a certain time so they can get to school. Family vacations have to fall during official school vacations so the children don't miss too much subject matter. It's fair to say that a child's school controls not only every aspect of the child's life, but every aspect of a family's life, too. This control is expected, honored, and appreciated in our culture.

So, when someone decides to take his or her child out of school -- or never put the kid into the institution to begin with -- it can safely be called a revolutionary act. Most secular homeschooling families I know come to find out pretty quickly that taking their child out of school is cause for their friends and family to start questioning their abilities as parents and their standing as upstanding citizens in their communities. Acquaintances look askance at them and say things like "Well I could never do such a thing," with eyebrows raised. Conversations falter in an instant when the answer to, "where do your children go to school," is "well, they don't." Homeschooling families often lose friends and alienate family when they make the decision to pull their kids out of school.

The question is, then, why do it? Why would anyone risk that kind of ostracization? There are probably as many reasons as there are homeschoolers, but they all have to do with what is the best thing for each individual child and family. I started homeschooling simply because I love being with my kids. For me, I couldn't be happy with just seeing their first step, and hearing them say their first word. I needed to see them read their first word and solve their first math problem. I also figured that nobody could possibly know how to teach them better than their father and I could.

The goal of this blog is to explore the reasons why people choose to homeschool, the methods that work (or don't work), and the way secular homeschoolers create their own communities. I'm hoping to have a couple of regular bloggers, a lot of guest bloggers, and a ton of discussion in the comments.