Homeschooled Student Suspended for Making a Weapon in School

A ten-year-old homeschooled boy was expelled from classes on Tuesday after biting his breakfast pastry into the shape of a surface-to-air missile launcher, and authorities don’t know what to do with him.

Hezekiah Ezekiel Jeremiah Smith was expelled by his mother after biting his Pop Tarts into the shape of the popular FIM-92 Stinger Man-Portable Air-Defense System (MANPADS).

When his mother saw what he had done, Hezekiah said she got pretty mad.  “She told me, ‘just wait until your father gets home!’ I knew then I was in big trouble.”

“I went through 17 boxes of Raspberry Pop-tarts to put together that missile launcher,” Hezekiah explained.  “It took three boxes just to get the safety switch to work.  The smaller the part, the harder it is to bite it into the proper shape.”

“It kinda made me sick to my stomach,” he added.  “Near the end I was feeding my mistakes to the dog. I don’t think either one of us will be eating breakfast pastries for a long time.”

The NRA immediately responded to the suspension by offering Hezekiah a lifetime membership and a case of Tums.

The homeschool’s public relations spokesperson, fourteen year old college freshman Abigail Bathsheba Jedidah Smith, confirmed that her younger brother was expelled from home studies.  “He has the option of reapplying for admission at the start of the next school year,” said Ms. Smith.

 “That child!” his mother exclaimed, shaking her head. “I have half a mind to send him to military school, but I don’t want to encourage him.”

The problem, according to local school authorities, is that no one knows what to do with Hezekiah.  Dr. Julius No, superintendent of schools in Flintlock, refuses to accept Hezekiah into the local elementary school.  “I will not allow him to enroll in our school,” explained Dr. No.  “That young man is a threat to the safety of every child in our district.”

“Just imagine what would have happened if that missile accidentally launched in our school cafeteria,” Dr. No continued. “It could have hit another student.  Children might have gotten red sprinkles in their eyes.   

Students could have gotten raspberry filling stains on their shirts. I cannot jeopardize the safety of our children by allowing Hezekiah Smith to attend one of our schools.” 

The boy's father, Bob, thought the incident was ridiculous. “This is insanity. With all the potential issues faced by homeschools today, threats from bullies,  whatever the real issue is, it's a pastry, ya know?' he said.

For the time being, Hezekiah is spending his days on the family’s patio, reading books, and creating a life-sized replica of the Easter Island statues out of Spam.

“It’s okay,” Hezekiah explained. “I’m ten years old and a high school sophomore.  I can afford to take some time off.”

When the Teachers are the Bullies, It's Time to Scrap the Plan and Start Over

 "The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience."     - NEA Resolution #B-69

An Indiana grade school teacher was indefinitely suspended and her classroom aide was fired after it was learned that she put a diaper on a five year old student in front of his class because he was "acting like a baby."  The diaper was placed on the outside of his clothes.  You can read the entire story here.

For once, I have to agree with the NEA.  My children will never enjoy the "comprehensive educational experience" of being forced to wear a diaper on the outside of their clothing in an attempt to humiliate them for poor behavior. 

I Wish There Was a Little Warning

These are the days that test my soul.

These are the days that age me a week in an hour. They make me feel old.

These are the days where I question what it is I am doing each day, and the effectiveness of my efforts. It is April 23rd, and we are 122 lessons into the math year. There are only eight lessons and two tests remaining before my daughter’s first grade math year is completed. Today, my daughter still cannot remember that any number minus zero is that number. Friday, she could. Today, she cannot mentally add or subtract by one. Friday, she could. Today, she is guessing at everything.

It doesn’t help that she’s easily distracted. I just gave her a number line because she needed to add “0+9” and that completely baffled her. I told her to put her finger on “zero” and count nine numbers to the right. She got lost somewhere around three. Frequently, she forgets to stop counting at the number she’s adding. In the course of the past few minutes, 0+9 has equaled 14, 16, 11, and 12.

I started to write “29-10” on a small, hand-held, dry erase board, and before I finished writing she asked if we could write on the other side of the board. Why? Because the idea passed across her mind, and anything that passes across her mind must also pass between her lips.

It’s a rule.

That makes attending church a real gamble.

She also decided that she had to color in the circle portion of the numbers 6, 8, and 9. Since her coloring skills aren’t that well developed, she’s obliterated every number she has attempted to color.

We’re doing a lot of rewriting.

Just shoot me now.

In the course of this prolonged math assignment, I gave her a bag of interlocking counting blocks. The girl started correctly counting blocks, snapping them together, and completing math equations.

Who knew?

I wish my children came with a sign that gave me a hint of what’s in store for the day. I’d like a warning that my middle child is going to drag his feet about starting even the simplest of assignments, and that my day will be filled with embarrassingly flimsy excuses, such as, “Oh, I didn’t know if you wanted me to open my plan book.” That’s why it took an hour to start a cursive writing assignment. I’d like advanced warning that the key to completing the day’s math lesson will be allowing my daughter to count mini marshmallows, even if that means I have to run to the store to buy them. A hormonal-meter on my teenage son would be helpful, too. It would be nice to see a little red needle pointing to “Irrational and Grouchy” when he climbs out of bed so I won’t bother to insult him with unwelcomed pleasantries such as “hello” or “good morning.”

'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

I’ve been homeschooling long enough to know that there are days like this.

I just wish they came with a little warning.

Thank You for Your Editorial Feedback, Please Return to Your Regularly Scheduled Math Assignment

I glanced at Captain Chaos' math paper yesterday afternoon. I am slowly transitioning my first grader from closely supervised instruction to slightly more independent work. Let’s face it, after working with her on simple addition and subtraction equations for four months, she should be able to complete one digit problems on her own. When I checked her paper, I was looking to see whether or not she had properly numbered the clock face on problem number 3. She had, with the addition of her well stated feelings concerning the problem.

"Poo!"

There’s never a dull moment with this girl.

Occupy Math Work Sheet - The Homeschooling Protest

My children are an active, energetic, and imaginative lot. Frequently, our days are filled with the adventures of super heroes, kings, and queens, questing against the villain du jour. In order to prevent these adventures from consuming our entire day, I find that I must be a bit of a task master. Keeping this lot focused on their school work is a challenge. If I allowed them to have their way, we would have too much home and not enough school. Let’s face it (and this is not a criticism of my homeschooling brethren), we aren’t unschoolers.

So, after we completed our third page of math this morning, Captain Chaos decided that she needed a break. She didn’t ask for a break. She gave herself a break. She jumped out of her chair and ran to her bedroom.  The girl reappeared a few moments later wearing her super hero cape and mask and carrying two Twister Hoopla rings.

“I’m off to slay the dragon!” she exclaimed, running through the kitchen to the basement steps. As shedescended the steps she cried, “Not a real dragon. The plastic dragon!”

This came right after her OMWS math protest.

The Occupy Math Work Sheet movement is a daily affair that begins with the Captain deciding which problems she will and will not agree to complete, as well as deciding whether or not she will write her answers in the spaces provided by the evil, greedy, corporate math teachers from Saxon. When she doesn’t want to complete her math work, the Captain will write the largest, sloppiest numbers she can possibly create, frequently obliterating the equations below and to the sides of the problem she is answering. Since I have stock in erasers (there’s a lot of money to be made in BIG ERASER), there’s always a large square block eraser on hand to obliterate her protest numbers. At some point during each worksheet, she will look at an upcoming question, draw a squiggly line through the problem, and write “Bah!” (her version of “Blah!”), in vain hope that I will allow her to skip that exercise.

Today was no different. The Captain began her math day writing humungous numbers. After the obligatory erasing she settled into a more cooperative mood, completing three pages of math exercises. She abandoned all efforts at cooperating when she saw a row of addition problems at the bottom of the third page. While I was refilling my coffee cup, she drew her squiggly line through the equations and wrote “blah.” Returning to the table, I once again deployed BIG ERASER. After much complaining, she started the problems. As she wrote her final answers I heard her mutter, “I’m writing the biggest numbers that I can write.” And she did. Across the bottom of the page. Because this girl is going to make her feelings known no matter what.

I’m just happy she doesn’t have any drums.

Crank - An Arby's Archives Repost from 11/7/07

cur•mudg•eon kərˈmʌdʒ ən - [ker-muhj-uh n]
–noun
A bad-tempered, difficult, cantankerous person
[Origin: 1570–80; unexplained; perh. cur- repr. CUR ]

—Related forms
cur•mudg•eon•ly, adjective

—Synonyms grouch, crank, bear, Arby, sourpuss, crosspatch.

I’ve often wondered what my children will say when they put their heads together as adults and complete the sentence, “Dad is a...” I wonder how long it will take them to figure out that underneath all of the layers of Dad, underneath all of the one-liners, the wrestling on the floor in the middle of Kmart, his obsessions over baking the perfect loaf of bread and making lump-free gravy, and a multitude of other quirks and idiosyncrasies, there lays a crank. At heart, I’m a really grumpy person. I was born a toothless, wrinkly curmudgeon. It’ll just take another 30 or 40 years for my features to catch-up.

Yesterday I had one of those days that are ideal for blogging about if I can get up a good head of steam, but I have no steam today. I’m steamless. I lost all of my steam yesterday. It was one of those days where I found myself spinning in circles. Captain Chaos took the opportunity of my being momentarily distracted by laundry to locate a large purple crayon and a freshly painted wall. Her artwork extended from the base of the basement stairs to the very top. I’m thinking that if I can teach her to sign her name at the bottom I won’t have to wash off her artistic endeavors. While I scrubbed away her mural she went into our classroom and began her daily task of dismantling the shelves. While I cleaned up her mess in the classroom she ran into our den in order to stand in front of the TV and wet her pants. In the middle of all of this came the perfectly normal cries of “Dad, I need some help with this problem!” I cleaned her up, helped the General, and then took the opportunity during the momentary lull in the action to cut and hang a few small pieces of drywall for my a-little-bit-at-a-time basement remodeling project. Captain chaos decided to help by using my drywall saws as drum sticks and then dumping a bucket of drywall screws on the classroom carpeting.

Major Havoc made his presence known. His one goal in life yesterday was to play Mousetrap with his brother and then ride bikes. He made his wishes known by asking every thirty seconds, “Is he done yet?” There was no amount of alternate activities that I could offer that would distract him long enough to give me five minutes without saying, “No, not yet.” and “I’ll tell you as soon as he is done.” And so the cycle of clean a room, move on to another room, have the previous room messed-up by the kids, teach a lesson (and yesterday was a day for remedial work) and get something productive accomplished like doing the laundry was dotted with six “accidents” by the Captain and I spent a good portion of the day fighting the urge to dive head-first into a quart bottle of Old English 800 which you can still get for a dollar forty at the local distillery complete with mandatory brown paper bag wrapping.

Whew!

After dinner, we attended the activity that General Mayhem and the Boss had been waiting for, for an entire week. Last night was the General’s first-ever Boy Scout meeting. We finally found a Boy Scout troop in a five-hundred mile radius of our home that doesn’t meet on Monday nights. On Monday nights the General has his Karate class. It was love-at-first sight for the kid. He walked in, was assigned to a patrol, and instantly started learning about extreme cold weather survival tips for the camping trip that he is attending this weekend while I absorbed Boy Scout sticker shock and the knowledge that I, too, would be enjoying Jack Frost and the great outdoors from Friday night until Sunday evening. I fought the overwhelming urge to shout “You’ve gotta be #$%*%$# kidding me!” It was so cold last night my nipples had stiff nipples. The novelty of cold weather camping wore off twenty years ago when a group of Aussie survival specialists dropped me off with four other guys, two shovels and an ice saw, on the arid plains of Antarctica with the line, “We’ll come get you sometime tomorrow.” We had plenty of snow, plenty of ice, and plenty of sunshine to build an ice house for five and start thawing dinner.

The General looked at me expectantly and asked “Can I go?” and I flashed a reassuring smile that hid my initial deeply seated skepticism and otherwise sour outlook on a weekend sitting with nine complete strangers in sub zero temperatures for two days and confidently said, “We’ll talk to your mother,” knowing full well that she would say, “I’ll pack your bag.”

We returned home and talked to his mother and sent him to bed. I hit the wine bottle for a couple of glasses of White Zinfandel, safe in knowledge that drinking liquor from a bottle that has a cork is far superior and more socially acceptable than consuming a liquor that is stoppered by a screw-cap.

The funny thing is that the Boss knows the cranky side of my personality and she loves me in spite of it. I’m blessed that way. We talked about the coming weekend and she let me say everything that I wanted to say, knowing that I wasn’t really putting up a fight about going camping. I just had to get the crankiness out of my system. It had been a long day. She listened patiently and assured me that I will have a good time and then said, “I’ll pack your bag.” So I’m going camping this weekend.

My biggest fear in acknowledging that I am, at heart, cranky, is that we tend to have our true natures exposed and magnified in our elderly years. I do not wish to be an old difficult person dependent upon my wife and children for care only to have them dread being around me because I am cranky. So I work regularly on approaching life through prayer and humor, softening my otherwise surly disposition. It has to be working. I don’t think the Boss would have me if it wasn’t. And my little girl, who wormed her way into my heart the first time I held her, can soften the distempered beast with a quick smile and a soft “Daddy!” in her sing-song voice; although, I still reserve the right to stand in front of her TV set when I’m 96, wet my pants, and skip merrily through her house.

Hey, Homeschoolers! Where Do You Send Your Children To Learn To Be Bullied?

I’ve always been staunchly opposed to homeschooling because I think schools, public or private, teach kids how to function in society as much as anything else.

-Kara Moore

Author Kara Moore listed her reasons for preferring a public school education over homeschooling in a benign essay titled “Is homeschooling the wave of the future?” on the Charleston Daily Mail’s Mommyhood Blog page. There’s nothing in her writing that is particularly troublesome for the homeschooling community. She isn’t an activist bent on outlawing home education. Mrs. Moore stated that her children are in a “quality” public school, and that if they lived in an area of the country like “Memphis or Washington, D.C.,” she might be more aware of a need to homeschool. She invested no time defining what makes a “quality” school or why Memphis and D.C. area schools fail to meet that standard. Her ultimate concern is whether or not public schools are simply a baby-sitting service while maintaining that (wait for it) “there’s an important socialization aspect of school.” Then, in the comments section of her post, she revealed the value of a public school education based on her memories of school life and the lessons she learned. None of them are academic.

She wrote:

I mean things that happen outside of lesson plans. I mean getting up at 6:30 to wait for the bus and sitting in pep assemblies and dealing with mean girl cliques and learning to eat school lunches when you’ve always been a picky eater, learning to take standardized tests in freezing cold classrooms, dealing with teachers who seem to have it out for you, or worse, who bore you. When I list them, they sound like the worst parts of school, but those are things that really prepare you for living in society with others. IMHO.

She added:

Though I want to be clear that I think there’s an excellent chance you’re right and I’m wrong.

I’m always fascinated by the “learn to deal with bullies” concept as expressed above. Where do people think members of “mean girl cliques” go to at night? Do they head home to sit and wait for the dawning of a new day in order to return to school and be a mean girl? Most bullies don’t leave their meanness in their school locker when they leave school at the end of the day. They participate in society outside of school, bringing their meanness to Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, church youth groups, athletic teams, the local park, etc. Homeschoolers get to learn to deal with jerks after school, where it isn’t a distraction to learning.

Most of the things that Kara Moore described as being valuable learning experiences are, in fact, simply distractions that prevent meaningful learning from taking place. Pep assemblies? Teachers who bore you? Teachers who dislike you? If that’s what people remember the most from attending 13 years worth of public schooling, then there is something seriously wrong with public education. Most students mentally tune out of classrooms where they dislike a teacher, or where they know a teacher dislikes them. And if taking tests in a cold classroom is critical to the academic and emotional development of my children, I will gladly turn off the furnace this February when my kids take their Iowa tests.

I educate my children at home because I want them to receive a high quality academic education. I want them to learn history without the political biases many public school teachers bring to the classroom. I want my children to master the skills they are being taught. I want them to learn critical thinking skills. Their education is tailored to their areas of interest as well as their overall ability levels and discipline specific ability levels. Why would I send my children to school for any reason other than receiving the best possible education? Preparing them to interact with society once they leave home? That’s a parent’s job.

Let's Hear from the Homeschooled

I stumbled across this video while conducting research on homeschooling. It’s a funny video well worth the five minutes it takes to watch. So, grab your favorite beverage, lock the kids in another room (give ‘em a worksheet – that’s what “real” teachers do), relax and enjoy!

The Ignorant Among Us

“A lot of them [homeschooled children]are demented when they're homeschooled. They are afraid of children. They learn to be scared of other children. It’s all about mommy and daddy telling us everything.” 

- Joy Behar, The View

November 2008

One possible response:



Your thoughts?

Do You Trust Your Instincts?

The biggest challenge in raising a special needs kiddo is deciding when to intervene with extra help and when to let a kid be a kid. I err (by choice) on the latter. The Boss is excellent at stepping in when a little extra help is needed. Our decisions are made with lots of discussion, prayerfully considered. I trust my wife’s instincts, which is why I agreed to her wishes over the last couple of years where our daughter’s education was concerned. The end result was that Captain Chaos spent far more time than I was comfortable with in our local elementary school. This year I decided to trust my instincts. We scaled back our time at the local school to only speech and occupational therapy. That made our daughter our third fulltime homeschooler.

I’m in my eighth year of homeschooling, but in some ways it feels like my first. Those same concerns (Can I do this?) that I experienced in my first year resurfaced when I realized that I was solely responsible for the education of my special needs daughter. I don’t usually define the Captain as “special needs.” She’s simply my daughter in the same way that my sons are my sons. She’s my child. I adore her. Where her education is concerned, there are other issues that must be addressed. Teaching her is not as easy as was teaching General Mayhem. I learned very quickly in this young school year that having three children with three distinctly different learning styles makes for quite the instructional juggling act. Of the three, the Captain needs the highest level of one-on-one instruction. Ultimately, the biggest question we had was whether or not we would be able to use the same curriculum with Captain Chaos that we used with her brothers. My gut told me the answer to that question was, “Yes.” I’m glad that I trusted my instincts.

Yesterday, Captain Chaos took her first math test. After spending the first nine days of the school year sitting by her side while she completed her math lessons, I spent most of lesson ten in another room while she completed the test on her own. We’ve suspected for a while that the Captain likes to keep her intelligence a closely guarded secret. She let that secret slip with this:

We are thrilled!

I learned two things about teaching my daughter from this test. The Captain caught her own mistake on the first tower. She corrected her mistake by writing X’s on the boxes that she should not have colored. Later on, she told her mother that her mistake bothered her a great deal. The Captain possesses a level of self-awareness about the accuracy of her work that she does not demonstrate on a daily basis. The second point of interest came from the third tower. At first glance, it appears that she sloppily colored two squares when she should have colored three. If you take a second look you will see that she colored four, put an X through the fourth box, and then decided to erase it. For reasons too silly to explain here, Dad hasn’t allowed her to use the block eraser very often. She doesn’t have much practice. She doesn’t have much control over the eraser, either. Lesson learned. Let the girl erase.

Captain Chaos will take her first grammar test tomorrow. It's the same curriculum we used with the boys. I’m hoping for similar results. Good instincts, prayerfully considered. Trust them.

Fighting the Good Fight

It is a spectacularly poor piece of writing. A Mr. Brent Applegath of Vernon sent a letter to the editor of the bclocalnews.com to express his views concerning the benefits of a public school education over homeschooling. No new ground was covered in the arguments against homeschooling. The author believes that classroom teachers have special training, are passionate about providing only the best opportunities for their students, and provide opportunities that homeschoolers cannot provide. “Obvious pluses such as learning with friends, sharing in discussions where many varied opinions are offered, diversity of subject matter, resources, technology and working to make a school a community are aspects of public education that are not as readily available to homeschooled children.” I’ve seen this line of reasoning before. The thing that bothers me about his letter, and kept me revisiting it over the course of the weekend, is the author’s complete lack of desire to share his interests with his children.

“As a parent, I think the instruction of my children is better left to others who are qualified. I have found this when providing opportunities for music lessons, skiing and snow boarding instruction and driver training. These activities are all things which I am proficient at yet lack the proper qualifications to deliver the instruction. In short, I am not passionate about teaching my children old how to play guitar, drive or ski. The amount of whining and arguing is not worth the effort.” (Emphasis mine)

I wonder how many homeschooling critics share Mr. Applegath’s lack of passion concerning their children’s education, whether the subject is music, ski lessons, and snowboarding or math, history, and science. He appears to be saying that since his children can be difficult, they’re not worth the effort. It’s simply easier to let someone else do the hard work. It is easier to send a child to school and let someone else influence them than it is to wage a war for the child’s heart, mind, and soul. The cover story for that position is, “I am not qualified to teach my children.”

Several years ago, I came across an explanation for anti-homeschooling criticism that appears uncannily accurate in light of Mr. Applegath’s statement. Author Sonny Scott, writing in a Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal article titled, “Home-schoolers Threaten Our Cultural Comfort,” offered an excellent reason why homeschooling is disliked.

Why do we hate (or at least distrust) these people so much? Their very existence represents a rejection of our values, and an indictment of our lifestyles. Those families are willing to render unto Caesar the things that Caesar’s be, but they draw the line at their children. Those of us who have put our trust in the secular state (and effectively surrendered our children to it) recognize this act of defiance as a rejection of our values, and we reject them in return.

I am not sitting in judgment of Mr. Applegath. I am not going to waste a moment’s time wondering about whether or not he loves his children. That would be silly. I am completely incapable of relating to Mr. Applegath’s statements about participating in his children’s education. His lack of passion for teaching his children is as foreign to me as is Mandarin Chinese. Passion. That's a powerful word. If I am anything, I am passionate about my children and their education. What concerns me is that if the expressed sentiments about child rearing are as common as are the weak arguments for preferring a public school classroom over a homeschool, what does that say about the world in which we live? What does that say about the society in which we are raising our children?

He Said/She Said #2 - How Has Your Teaching Changed?

"He Said/She Said" is a new feature here at The Homeschool Apologist.  It started when Linda and Arby met for the first time.   Today we present our first reader submitted topic.  It came from The Boss. She wrote:

Since you've both got a number of years of homeschooling under your belt, Arby is starting his 8th year and Linda's starting her *phlwash* th year, I'd like to know what you've significantly changed from the first year (or two) to now. For example, if an unnamed HS dad never wrote out lesson plans or organized early on but now finds himself writing out entire years and organizing history lessons to coincide with certain times of the year, that would be a significant change. I'm curious...

She Said:

Where do I begin?

Let’s start with the obvious. 

First, I was 28 then.  I’m 48 now. 

My hair was brown then.  Now it’s gray.

I was short then.  And…well…I’m still short. 

Okay, so not everything has changed.  But the fact is, in the 20 years since my homeschooling journey began, there HAVE been many significant changes in how I homeschool.  But more important than what has changed is the reality that I have changed.  And inevitably, it is the changes in me that have brought about the biggest changes in the way I homeschool. 

I’m older…and hopefully wiser.

I definitely apply more wisdom and “real world” experience to my teaching than I did when I was in my twenties.  I find that the decisions I make are more intuitive and less agonizing than they were back then. Consequently, I second-guess myself much less.

I’m more confident.

Age and wisdom have increased my confidence.  In the beginning, I was always looking for validation.  I wanted proof that what I was doing was working.  Today, I’m confident in my abilities and in the superiority of homeschooling.  And I never—and yes, I mean never—doubt the effectiveness of my homeschooling. 

I’m more relaxed.

I think this little truth has brought about the most significant change in how I “do” homeschool.  In so many ways, how I approach homeschooling—our schedule, our curriculum, actually, our whole life—is so much more relaxed than it was when my daughters were young.  Several factors—an unexpected (and difficult) pregnancy at 40, a new baby, and three moves—all within a period of 18 months—played a huge role in forcing me to realize that school happens, even when I can’t make it happen!  Life itself is learning.  When you’re with your children 24/7, you can’t help but teach them.  It just happens.  Of course I still teach very intentionally as well, but at times when that’s impossible, it’s okay.

I’m less rigid. 

When we first started homeschooling, I was pretty locked into my image of the perfect homeschool.  We always did school five days a week.  We always did every problem on every page.  We always finished every book.  We had a desk for everyone.  A schoolroom with stacks and stacks of books and resources.  Maps and penmanship posters on the walls.  An American flag in the corner and the pledge of allegiance every morning.  These days you’d be hard-pressed to find evidence that a homeschooler lives in my house.  Partly it’s because no longer have room for all that stuff.  But mostly it’s because I’ve realized that most of it is overkill.  At least for me.  Homeschool doesn’t rule my life anymore.  My life rules my homeschool. 

I’m more adventurous.

I used my first curriculum for 9 years.  I used my second curriculum for 10 years.   But in the last 2 years I’ve tried curriculum, methods, and resources that I never dreamed I would use.  I’m branching out.  I didn’t think I would ever do that.

Yes.  I’ve changed.  But despite the changes, I really don’t believe I’m a better homeschooler today than I was in 1990.  I’m just different.

He Said:

I know why The Boss asked this question.   She’s witnessed firsthand the single biggest change in my teaching over the past sixteen years.  Quite frankly, she’s surprised.   This year, more than any other year teaching either professionally or here at home, I’m lesson planning.   A lot.  I’m scheduling our work to not only insure that we cover all of our lessons in two 18 week semesters, but I am also organizing our material so that it makes more sense in the school year.   I’d love to share with you some pedagogical insight or fascinating educational theory to support this change in my teaching style, but I’ve never had much time for the Ivory Tower approach to education, either during college or since.   My reasons for planning or not planning a lesson are practical. 

I’ve never been much of a lesson planner in part because I was never taught how to write a lesson plan.  I graduated with honors from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a BA in the Teaching of English, and a complete lack of training for and practical experience in writing lesson plans.  That doesn’t say much for the university.   I never found this lack of experience detrimental to my teaching.  I never felt the need to plan my lessons for the same reason that I do not write outlines as a part of my writing process.  That’s not how my mind works.  My best instructional work came when I was thinking on my feet in front of a class.  I trusted my instincts, my knowledge, and the material at my disposal.  They served me well.  When I transitioned from classroom teacher to homeschool instructor, I stepped down from teaching high school English to teaching second grade everything.    I figured that if I couldn’t teach the second grade without elaborate planning, someone needed to shoot me. 

Our first year of homeschooling was a monumental challenge.  The fact that we survived to homeschool for seven more years is a miracle in itself.  When we started, General Mayhem was in second grade, Major Havoc was about to turn two years old, and Captain Chaos was four months old.   During our first month of homeschooling, back when we were so broke that we couldn’t afford to buy any curriculum and we scrabbled together whatever we could find for free, Captain Chaos was diagnosed with her heart defect, was hospitalized, and had surgery.  General Mayhem, confused and frightened concerning his sister, realized that we weren’t bluffing when we told him we decided to homeschool; consequently, he decided to be as uncooperative as possible in hopes that we’d abandon this homeschooling silliness and send him back to his beloved parochial school.  The Boss lived at the hospital five days a week.  I took weekends.  The Major was silently stressed beyond belief.   The boy did not talk at all, but he sure did scream.   When the girl came home two months later, every waking minute of each day was consumed with medicine, feeding schedules, therapy appointments and doctor visits.  We squeezed teaching into the gaps.  Three months later we moved across the state line to Kansas.   It was a good thing I could think on my feet and teach the second grade with an eclectic curriculum.  My experience provided the skills to navigate these rough waters.

Back when I was only teaching one child, I was correct about my need to lesson plan.  When the Boss and I came up with a wild idea of having more kids, we screwed up a perfectly good non-plan.  Throughout the years, reality dictated changes.  The girl is a healthy if not slightly delayed seven year old who just started first grade.  The Major is in 3 ½ grade.  He’s a happy and chatty eight year old boy.  The General is in his first year of high school.  As we’ve progressed from the perfect storm that was our first year of homeschooling to now I’ve learned a lot about what my children need.  Through trial-and-error, tears, frustration, disbelief, doubting, yelling, laughing, tremendous amounts of prayer, and a brief yet spectacular failed attempt at public schooling, I have learned that General Mayhem needs closely supervised, structured teaching.  That takes resources, good time management, and a lot of planning.  The more we plan, the better he performs.  Add two additional children in two different grades and without a carefully planned schedule, dad would lose his mind.
I’ve become a lesson planner out of necessity.  The first two days of this new school year still left me feeling like a plate spinner at the circus, but a well planned plate spinner.  There is no way that I can keep everything straight in my head.  I must have plans written down.   If truth be told, I’m not planning lessons as much as I am scheduling material into time slots each day.  We are blessed to be able to purchase our curriculum.  That makes life easier.  I use teacher’s guides when they are available, and when they add good material that isn’t found in the accompanying student’s book.  Every little bit helps.  

The Boss sees lesson planning as the biggest change in my teaching over the course of…yikes…fifteen years of teaching both professionally and here at home.   She’s correct.   I guess you can teach a young dog new tricks.     

If you have a question that you would like to see us answer, leave it in a comment or send us an email.  We'd love to hear your thoughts!

The Rare Grey Striped Albino Rhinoceros

Teaching Captain Chaos is a lot like trying to get Governor William J. Lepetomane to sign a bill into law.  “Give us a hand here,” Governor Lepetomane commanded.   As Lieutenant Governor Hedley Lamarr grabbed the governor’s hand and guided it through his signature, Lepetomane announced, “Work, work, work!  Work, work, work!” while looking everywhere and anywhere except at the bill in front of him.  Life imitated art yesterday when I told Captain Chaos to color a rhinoceros. 

It was a simple Language Arts assignment.  On a sheet of paper there were different shapes.  Inside each shape was printed a letter of the alphabet.  She needed to color all the shapes with consonants in them green.  All the shapes with vowels in them were colored grey.  If she colored all the shapes properly, there would be a picture of a rhinoceros standing in the jungle.  Captain Chaos understood the concept.  The problem was that she was more interested in anything and everything going on around her than on the art assignment in front of her.   Her hand moved as if it had a mind of its own, while she looked around the room and spoke about one of her brother’s video games, a fly in the kitchen, the squirrel running across the phone line in the back yard, and cumquats.  I only kept her interest by coloring a little bit of green for every little bit of grey she managed to smear on the paper.  I discovered that my daughter has an amazing ability to repeatedly drag a crayon back and forth across the same segment of paper without ever branching off to uncolored sections.  She completed her assignment with a nice rendering of the rare Grey Striped Albino Rhinoceros.

Of my three children, Captain Chaos is the most easily distracted.  She has the shortest attention span.  She also has physical challenges that make holding a pencil or a crayon difficult; consequently, she tires easily.  This causes her to lose her concentration.    I have to be aware of the need to chunk her work into smaller bits so as to not lose her attention.  This is easier to do at home than it would be in a classroom full of children: 24 individual sources of distraction for my daughter.  Our local elementary school wanted to greatly increase the number of hours Captain Chaos spent in school this year.  I politely declined their offer.  She will only attend Speech and Occupational therapies.     It wouldn’t take much time for my daughter to become a major distraction for a classroom teacher and the other students.   Seeing the success that we are having teaching her here at home, I am grateful that we have the freedom to homeschool in our country. 

Some Days It's Easier Not to Ask "Why?"

The first day of school did not start with the traditional “First Day of School” song, a song with no discernable melody that The Boss and I boisterously sang while clanging pan lids and pounding on toy drums to wake-up our children.    We broke with a seven year tradition and gently roused our young learners.  They began their day with a prayer and a breakfast of pancakes with bacon.  Naturally, the girl asked for noodles, because a day without Ramen is a day not worth living.   

This morning was interesting.   The dynamics of our homeschool day changed dramatically this year.  We now have three fulltime students.  There’s a part of me that feels like we are back in a comfortable groove.  It’s just another day of homeschooling.  There’s a very real part of me that feels like we are back on day one of year one.   Balancing the diverse needs of a high school freshman, a third grader, and a special needs first grader is challenging, harried, spastic, fun, and loud.   We started our day with a prayer for patience and guidance and cooperation, but I’m not certain the children understood that it was meant for them, too, since the 14 year old boy who can cook for himself over an open campfire and sleep comfortably in a snow bank and throw a tomahawk twelve feet and hit a playing card nailed to a tree stump had a near meltdown over the rules for hide-n-seek with his younger brother while they took a short break from studies. 

These things still baffle me.   In fact, there is a lot about homeschooling that still baffles me, but instead of asking why, I think I will just accept that it is.  Life is easier that way.

God101

“My biggest problem with homeschooling is that it makes it very hard to teach leadership because you're isolated.”

                                                                                                                -Seth Godin

Seth Godin is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, public speaker, and marketing guru who has a lot to say about education, starting with his belief that modern public school education was an industrial revolution conspiracy between business and government based upon the fear that businesses would run out of a pool of workers needed to man productions lines as well as run out of people who would buy the goods being produced.  The goal of public education was to create a large pool of compliant factory workers while teaching “kids that the best way to fit in and feel good is to buy stuff.”  ₁

Speaking mostly about college level education, Mr. Godin wrote that there are two different kinds of schooling.  There are classes where “you learn technique, facts and procedures,” and classes “where you learn to see, learn to lead and learn to solve interesting problems.”₂ The second type of class is preferable to the first.  It “is where all real success comes from.”₂  Unfortunately, the first type is easier to find.   According to Mr. Godin, “The first type of schooling can even be accomplished with self-discipline and a Dummies book.”₂   

“The sad thing is,” he continued.  “We often conflate the two. We think we're hiring someone to do the second type, a once in a lifetime teacher, someone who will change the outlook of stellar students.  But then we give them rules and procedures and feedback that turn them into a type 1 teacher.”₂ (emphasis mine)

Mr. Godin believes that teachers are the key to a good quality education.   “Why is it that the rest of the teachers were competent at giving exams and getting us to do well at those exams, but didn’t teach us enough to change us?” he asked.   “The system has hamstrung teachers, handicapped those that want to stand out and make a difference… I think we can’t wait for the teacher’s colleges to change, or the schools to change. We need teachers to care so much that they can’t stop pushing until they create change in the students who really need (and deserve) it.”₃

In an interview with Barbara Bray, Ms. Bray asked, “Education tends to be a top-down driven model where administrators, standards, policies, and test scores drive what teachers teach. How do you see education changing with this model where the individual sets their agenda?” 

Mr. Godin replied, “As a student in a digital world, tell me again why I need the building? The administration? The system?  I don’t.  And as accreditation becomes less meaningful because it’s easier to test the student than to test the system, the top heavy organizations will falter. And fast.”₃

“It’s sort of pathetic how we’ve abdicated responsibility to a leaderless system that’s actually accountable to no one in particular.”₃

So, why would a man who values thinking outside of the box and is so critical of public education also be critical of home education?    Why would he boil down his criticism of an educational process that addresses all of his concerns with the observation that what is wrong with homeschooling is that it doesn’t teach leadership?  

Mr. Godin told Lee Stranahan that schools “don’t churn out people who are creative and innovative and interrupt and ask questions.”  Schools are “a complete failure.” When Mr. Stranahan mentioned that he homeschools his children, and homeschools them for some of the very reasons Seth Godin mentioned in his criticism of public education, Mr. Godin ignored the topic. He stated that Lee’s children were lucky to have him, but then continued speaking about public schools rather than discussing the very real potential for homeschooling to address his educational concerns.

In an interview with Avi Solomn at Boing Boing, Seth Godin expanded his thoughts on homeschooling, saying

“Well, I think we need to ask a different question. School's been irrelevant for a while. The question is what do we want school to do? What do we need to create in our next generation? And I've argued we need to create two things: we need to create leaders, and we need to create people who can solve interesting problems.

“Anything we do in school that doesn't help with those two things we should stop doing. So homeschooling isn't necessarily the answer, unless homeschooling is going to come up with a way to work on those two problems. My biggest problem with homeschooling is that it makes it very hard to teach leadership because you're isolated. But with the right parents, it is much better at teaching people to solve interesting problems. My argument is that every parent should homeschool at night, and then send their kids to school during the day. The homeschooling at night should consist of intelligent conversation, asking difficult questions, as opposed to watching television.” ₄

Education should not be so narrowly defined as to be mainly concerned with producing leaders and solving interesting problems.   Those are elements of a greater whole.  Why does a man who believes that school is irrelevant (and has been for awhile), who believes that students no longer need the building, the administrator, or the system, also believe that students should still go to these places each day?  It’s a repeat of the argument that no matter how poorly public schools perform, they are still better than education being taught by a loving mom or dad in the safety of the home.    I’m willing to bet that Mr. Godin has not spent much time interacting with the homeschooling community.   If he had, he would have seen many of his concerns being addressed.  But from a marketing standpoint, we’re being noticed.  People are talking about homeschooling.  The better we do, the more successful we are, the easier it will be for future generations to experience the joy of education at home.  

1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea5IgyVd3_U

2 http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/two-kinds-of-schooling-348.php

3 http://living.the-environmentalist.org/2010/01/interview-with-seth-godin-about.html#page2

4 http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/16/interview-seth-godin.html

Homeschooling Works!

Okay, so can we have a praise God moment? 

Each week at the end of karate class, the entire class says, “I promise to respect my parents.  I promise to listen to my teachers.  I promise to never misuse my karate.”   It is our karate oath.  Last week, our sensei gave the class a homework assignment.  We were asked to write the karate oath on a sheet of paper and bring it to class. 

Yesterday afternoon, I sat down with Captain Chaos, my six-year-old daughter, and asked her to recite the karate oath.  She did.  Then I gave her a piece of paper and a pencil, and helped her write her oath.  Please allow me to qualify “help.”  She did all the work.  I sat next to her, kept her focused, and guided her on “w” and “y," two letters that still give her trouble. This was a big test of her abilities.  Some of you do know, but most of you do not, that Captain Chaos had a stroke when she was four months old.  There was damage to both hemispheres.  Her left side was affected harder than her right, but there are muscle loss/motor control issues with her right hand.  For both physical and cognitive developmental reasons, we decided to hold our daughter back from first grade one year, and focus on three primary goals during this kindergarten year.  One was to teach her how to add.  The second was to teach her how to read.  The third was to teach her how to write. And yesterday she wrote:

This is a “Thank you, God!” moment.  This is an enormous achievement that is the result of years of prayer, therapy, hard work, and love.  This is the first time that our daughter sat down and wrote a sentence, let alone three.  My wife and I cannot help but remember looking at a very young girl on life support and wondering what the future would hold.  We looked at the Captain’s efforts yesterday and saw a blessing from above.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, God!

We know that as dedicated as our local school might be, they were not capable of giving the Captain the attention that she needed to get to this developmental milestone.    Our family has been blessed abundantly, and the ability to homeschool is one of those blessings.    Let’s all remain vigilant and work to keep homeschooling available to everyone.   

Homeschooling works! 

(An unsolicited addendum:  This is Linda, Arby's very devious blogging partner.  I love, love, love this post.  And I wanted some Hip Homeschool Moms to get a chance to read this amazing homeschool moment from one of the hippest homeschool dads I know.  Sooo...sorry, Arby.  You're now an honorary member of the Hip Homeschool (Mom) Hop.  I voted you in.)

Home Spun Comic #592

You can find more of Cristina's comics at Home Spun Juggling.

First Things First: David Mills' Weighs In On Home Education

David Mills, writing at First Things, offers an interesting look at home education starting with his ideas about Linda’s favorite question du jour for homeschoolers, the dreaded “S” word.   He wrote:

Some suddenly furrow their brows and purse their lips and declare their concerns about homeschooling, less often about the quality of the education as about the children’s (meaning, in context, our children’s, which is, you know, really rude) “socialization.” I sometimes feel I must surrounded by fascists, such is their apparent concern for making sure our children fit in to the society as it is.

Fewer people respond this way than they used to, or maybe I just don’t meet this kind of person so much anymore. Which is probably a good thing. My wife, who is much more charitable than I am in dealing with annoying people, answers them politely, and tells them about the homeschooling groups to which our children go several days a week and all the other activities they are involved in.

I have so far resisted the temptation to put my hand on their shoulder, look them in the eye, and ask, “Why are you under the delusion that I care what you think?” or to say something shorter and ruder and more, um, declarative. They are, after, being impertinent, and there is something in the self-asserted piety of their alleged concern for my children that really annoys me.

You can read the rest of David’s column here.  It’s worth reading, as well as the comments.  If you leave a comment of your own, please post it here, too.  We’d love to read what you wrote!

Homeschooler or Entrepreneur?

I was in high school the first time I heard a gas station pump jockey referred to as a Petroleum Distribution Engineer.  It was about that time that janitors became custodians.  I was a custodian during college, although I never figured out what I was in custody of besides a broom, a mop, and a toilet brush.  Sales clerks became associates, stewardesses became flight attendants, and the personnel department became Human Resources.  When I enlisted and chose the glamorous position of submarine cook, I quickly learned that according to the Navy I was a Mess Management Specialist.    I suppose that was apt.  I created a few messes during my time in the galley.  Now John Edwards and Ignaty Dyakov have taken the renaming of job titles in an entirely new direction.  Are you a homeschooler, or an educational entrepreneur?

Don’t fret!  I am not writing about the philandering former vice-presidential candidate, US senator, and deceased-child channeling lawyer John Edwards.  This John Edwards is “an education professional with nearly 30 years experience of teaching in schools in the UK, 12 of these in senior leadership, the last 5 years of which were as a Head Teacher of an 11-18 mixed secondary school in the South East of England.”  His educational writing is distributed by PR Fire, a press release distribution firm in England.  John’s co-author is Ignaty Dyakov, “an educationalist with more than 9 years experience of teaching in schools and Universities in the UK and abroad, 5 of these in education management working with secondary and university students.” 

Misters Edwards and Dyakov compared the qualities of an entrepreneur with those of a homeschooler.  Both the entrepreneur and the homeschooler are creative risk-takers, leaders, “vital contributors to the wealth and prosperity of the nation,” and people who do not “follow convention.” They wrote:

Entrepreneurs have been shown through research to be less likely to sacrifice their personal values than employed managers. So too, homeschoolers will often point to strongly held values and personal conviction to back their decision. Entrepreneurs, like homeschoolers also desire    independence, they often want to challenge themselves and, occasionally, entrepreneurship, like homeschooling, is borne of circumstances where there is little other choice.

I was afraid that the authors had wandered of their rather creative analysis of home education when they wrote that “homeschooling unquestionably involves risk, with obvious questions arising such as: Will the children lack socialization? Will they achieve as much as their peers?”  I would argue that sending our children to a public school involves far more risk than teaching them at home.  My fears were short lived.  They answered their own questions when they wrote that “research again suggests they suffer no ill effects on either count, with some compelling evidence pointing to much more positive outcomes.”

You can read the entire article here.

So, are you creative?  Independent? A risk-taker?  A leader?  Do you follow convention?  Are you a homeschooler, or an educational entrepreneur?