A Prayer Request for a Homeschooler

I’d like to ask everyone for their prayers this morning. 

Michelle, a homeschooler who writes over at Eagle EyeAcademy, had a niece in a bad car accident last week.   Bailey broke her clavicle and pelvis in three places.  Last week she had surgery to repair her pelvis.  Doctors inserted one plate, eight screws, and external hardware.  Yesterday, Bailey had surgery for her clavicle.  Doctors inserted one plate and seven screws.   This young lady has a long road of healing and physical therapy in front of her. 

Michelle will be on the road to Iowa from the west coast in order to help her family.

Please say a prayer for Bailey’s recovery, for guidance for her doctors and nurses, for strength for Bailey’s family, and for Michelle’s safe travels to Iowa.  I will keep you updated on Bailey’s progress as I receive news. 

Thanks!

Happy New Year

Arby was standing at the stove cooking dinner, listening to the sounds of the kids playing in the living room, when the house became deathly silent.  He heard General Mayhem say, “Oh, Captain Chaos!  Oh, Captain Chaos!  I am SO sorry!  Are you okay?”  Captain Chaos wasn’t answering.  It was one of those parenting moments when you have to choke down the rising panic, force yourself to remain calm, and face the unknown.  Our source of perpetual sound and motion was silent.  As he turned from the stove, Captain Chaos walked into the kitchen, walked directly up to her dad, and held out her hand.  He reached out, and she deposited her two front teeth in his palm.  Flashing a bloody smile, she said, “General Mayhem kicked my two front teeth out.”  Then she threw her arms straight in the air and shouted, “YES!”

You read that correctly.

Our little girl had her front teeth kicked right out of her mouth and she was celebrating.  If her teeth were a football she would have spiked them.  Apparently, while play fighting, General Mayhem performed a front snap kick at the exact instant that Captain Chaos leaned forward.  He claimed he barely touched her teeth with his big toe.  The resulting double extraction was fine with Captain Chaos.  She hates “wiggly teeth.”   Both were already loose.  General Mayhem saved her the effort of playing with them until she could pull them out with her fingers, something she did earlier in the year with a lower tooth. 

That’s our boy girl!

Captain Chaos charged into 2011.  Last January she walked into her bedroom, saw an Eveready CR2032 wafer battery on the floor, and thought, “Hey, that looks good enough to eat!”  Why did the Eveready CR2032 wafer battery look good enough to eat?  We’ll never know.  The girl isn’t saying.  We’re just happy that she told her mom after she enjoyed her snack.  That gave the ladies an opportunity for an extended ambulance ride while the driver became lost and took them to the wrong hospital.  Captain Chaos enjoyed three days at Children’s Mercy and a procedure to remove the battery that was lodged in her esophagus.  Blessedly, the battery was dead, so it did not discharge in her body.   Two months later, at her annual cardiac exam, Dr. Drake told her he had read her recent medical history.  “What did you eat?” he asked her.  Tired of lectures on what she should and shouldn’t put in her mouth, Captain Chaos dropped her chin to her chest and replied with equal parts resignation and disgust, “A battery!”  

And we always thought it would be one of the boys who kept us visiting the emergency room.

2011 was a busy year.  The Boss travelled more last year than any other year in her twelve years at TRAC.  She started a second Masters Degree program, because you can never have enough degrees.  She’s studying geospatial information systems through the University of Denver.  For the first time in a decade Arby understands what she is talking about when she speaks of work.  That’s because he understands the word “map.”  The Boss also started an American Heritage Girls Troop. The boys have Boy Scouts.  We wanted a scouting experience for Captain Chaos.  She loves it.  AHG is a Christ centered girl’s scouting program “dedicated to the mission of building women of integrity through service to God, family, community, and country.”   Their first meeting was held in September.  The troop filled to capacity on the first night and has been very active this fall.  Between work, school, and scouting, The Boss has been very busy, so she suspended her karate studies. 

General Mayhem’s feet made it to the end of 2011 without causing any more trouble.   It was during the summer of 2010 that his big toe and its nail parted company on a water slide at General Mayhem’s Ark water park.  The new nail required more real estate than its predecessor, so it grew in.   The subsequent infections required frequent trips to the podiatrist.  His foot finally healed last July, after he repeatedly soaked it in warm Epsom salted water in hopes that he would be healthy enough to swim in the hotel swimming pool on his Space Camp trip to the Johnson Space Center in Houston last July.   Honestly, some parents have to talk to their teenagers about safe sex.  We have to talk to ours about safe toe.  General Mayhem started his freshman year of high school last August.  He advance to Life Scout in Boy Scouts, and became his troop’s Assistant Senior Patrol Leader.  He’s looking forward to testing for his Black Belt in Karate this March.  It’s been a long journey.  He started the martial arts when he was in the first grade.

Major Havoc’s favorite memory of 2011 was fishing with Grandpa Mares in Wisconsin.  Major Havoc loves fishing, a trait he did not inherit from his father.  Arby fishes like his dad. That involves maliciously drowning live bait while pre-battered fish jump into the frying pans of fishermen a few feet away. Major Havoc will catch fish with anything on hand, including string tied to a stick or to a soda can.   He’s done both last year.   Santa brought the Major his first fishing pole in December.   Major Havoc became a Webelos I in Cub Scouts last year, and enjoyed camping with his den.  He’s still studying Karate.  He tested for orange belt in December.    The results will be announced soon.

The biggest change at home last year was in our homeschool.  We added Captain Chaos as our third fulltime student last fall at the same time that General Mayhem started his freshman year of homeschool high school.  Teaching three at home changed the dynamic, but this is our eighth year of home education.  It gets easier each year.   Last year, Captain Chaos spent half a day at our local public school taking art, computers, gym, and music classes along with her therapy.  Some of them were successful while others less so.  She had to learn that she could not vigorously shake the computer monitor in computer class when it wouldn’t talk for her, and that she shouldn’t exit programs with which she was bored. She was quite adept at getting herself kicked out of gym class, too. Captain Chaos is fun to work with.  Her learning style is a lot like General Mayhem’s was at that age. Major Havoc is at the point of the school year where he has completed some of his third grade work.  He will start fourth grade math, spelling, and vocabulary after the holiday break, which effectively makes him a 3 ½ grader.   General Mayhem is working hard in his course work, and still prefers learning at home rather than attending our local public school.

It was with a bit of sadness that we ended the year without George, aka The Big Fuzzy Rock.  Our 11 ½ year old husky/lab mix spent a great deal of his life curled-up and asleep in the back yard.  He developed an extremely bad case of arthritis that left his hind legs paralyzed.  Properly medicated, he was bright and alert, but walking was a real drag.  We made the difficult decision to put him down after Thanksgiving.  George was a good beast.   We added George to the family when General Mayhem was four.   It was General Mayhem who named George weeks before we knew whether the next dog would be a boy or a girl.  “What will you call the dog if it is a girl?” we asked him.  “George,” he replied.    After George’s departure, our black lab Reggie immediately claimed her spot as canine queen of the household and chief chicken herder.  We still enjoy our flock of birds.  

2011 was a year filled with blessings.  We hope that yours was, too.  We hope you had a very merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year.  We pray your life will be filled with God’s blessings. 


Arby, The Boss, General Mayhem, Major Havoc, Captain Chaos, and 2nd LT Henry Flipper

Trumping the Socialization Card

Saturday night, The Boss told me an entertaining story about a homeschooling conversation she had Saturday afternoon. The conversation took place in the Fellowship Hall at our church, where twenty American Heritage Girls between the ages of six and sixteen were working together to bake pies and cookies for shut-ins and people who will attend our church’s Christmas holiday meal. There was a lot of laughing and joking taking place. The girls were loud and clearly having fun. Some of the younger kids completed their work and started a game of tag while the others continued baking. Almost half of the girls in the troop are homeschoolers.

The Boss was working on troop paperwork at a table where Jillian sat with her mother. Jillian is in-charge of camping for the troop. She had said something to her mother along the lines of “They homeschool their children,” or “The Boss is the one I told you about. She homeschools her kids.” Her mother (a friendly, plump, white-haired senior citizen) responded with hesitant approval. “I guess it is okay, as long as they get out and spend time with other children.”

Yes, she played the socialization card.

The Boss stopped what she was doing and turned to Jillian’s mother. “Do you see the girls mixing pie crust at that table over there?” She pointed to a table where six girls were in various stages of mixing and rolling pie crusts. “Three of those girls are homeschooled. Can you tell me which ones?”

Then she directed Jillian’s mom to the group of younger girls who were playing at the far end of the hall. “Do you see those girls over there? Half of that group is homeschoolers. Can you tell me which ones?”

In neither instance could Jillian’s mother separate the homeschoolers from the non-homeschoolers.

“I’m really tired of the socialization argument,” the Boss concluded. “Cleary, homeschoolers get out and interact with their community.”

Enough said!

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.

"Amy" Speaks Out in Defense of Homeschooling

I remember when the command career counselor paid me a visit in the McMurdo bakery. I was 22, a second class petty officer in the US Navy serving in Antarctica, and I was less than a year from being discharged from a five-year tour of duty. When the Radioman Chief asked me about my future plans, I politely told him that I was leaving the navy to attend college. His reply was to tell me how he left the navy after his first tour of duty, attended college, dropped out, and returned to active duty. He honestly thought that he had a convincing argument to make me reenlist. I may have been less than politic when I replied, “So, what you are telling me is that since you failed, I will too?” The conversation quickly soured, and Chief never spoke to me again. I went on to fail miserably, graduating with honors and teaching professionally for seven years.

I recently encountered the same quality of thinking in the comments of two articles concerning homeschooling written by Jeff Mangum and published online in the Pomerado News. Mr. Mangum is a “Poway [California] resident, attorney and former PUSD board member.” In his original article, “To homeschool or not to homeschool,” Mr. Mangum attempted to offer a balanced analysis of the pros and cons of homeschooling. I believed his analysis was seriously flawed, and wrote my lengthy response in the comments section. Because of length restrictions in the software of the comments section, I was forced to leave my response in four separate comments. It was obvious from one of the replies, as well as Mr. Mangum’s second article, that three fourths of my response was completely ignored. I quickly realized that ignorance was a preferred tactic in the Pomerado News homeschooling discussion.

The anti-homeschooling arguments were the usual clichés that can be summed up in one word: socialization. We’ve read and heard them all before, and answered them repeatedly here at THA. In discussing whether or not homeschooling was advantageous, Mr. Mangum wrote that, “the homeschool community has strenuously opposed mandatory standardized testing. As a consequence, there is simply no reliable data available to compare the academic performance of homeschooled students to public school students.” That’s just wrong. But when I cited Dr. Lawrence Rudner ‘s 1998 study Homeschooling Works and Dr. Brian Ray’s Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics, both sources were simply dismissed in the follow-up article “Readers speak out – loudly – on homeschooling” as ”statistically flawed and unreliable.” That made them, in Mr. Mangum’s opinion, not worth mentioning. It’s amazing how some people who truly believe that they are rational, reasonable thinkers simply dismiss out-of-hand that which is inconvenient. That’s ignorant.

The basis for most of the anti-homeschooling comments appeared to be anecdotal. This shouldn’t be surprising. What is left after you dismiss the studies? I particularly enjoyed the commenter who wrote, “When I homeschooled my daughter, I learned that distractions at home make it difficult to accomplish much, even with a motivated student. (My daughter credits that year of being home-schooled for having destroyed her good study habits.)” Basically, what that commenter wrote is that since he failed at homeschooling his daughter, the rest of us will fail, too. With apologies to Michelle over at Eagle Eye Academy, that person is a prime candidate for a career in the Navy.

I’m not going to rehash standard replies to the anti-homeschooling arguments. If you desire, you can read the two articles, and my replies, here and here. Please let us know if you leave a reply. You will find that in his second article, Mr. Mangum changed my name from “Arby” to “Amy.” Anonymity, you know. Because I tried so hard to hide my name when I left my original comment. Four times.

Sigh.

This Homeschooler Has Style!

You would think that since I am home teaching my kids every day of the week, I’d have a clue as to the latest styles and trends and where my kids learn of them. You’d think. You’d be wrong.

 

Captain Chaos awoke last Monday morning and begged me to put her in a dress for her trip to the therapist. Then she promptly accessorized with my old Midwest Airlines hearing protection ear muffs and an old hunting bow. The kids painted them for me. And yes, I wore them on the ramp at MCI for five years.

A week earlier she decided to dress herself, including black shoes, pink Capri’s,  a green shirt that reads “90% Angel,” a superhero cape, a baseball helmet, and a stick horse. 

I fear she’s inherited my sense of style. 

But the best of the week has to be the Turkey Crown.

 

Any princess of any value absolutely must wear a turkey crown.   After resolutely petitioning me for 24 hours to make a turkey crown, I sat down with her yesterday morning to craft the fowl diadem.  She wore it all day, along with her princess gown.  If only I had video of her shouting “Kia!” as she practiced karate in this royal attire. 

Have a good weekend, every one!

The Guilty until Proven Innocent Act

I’d like to propose a new bill for the New Jersey state legislature. Titled the “Guilty until Proven Innocent Act,” my bill would require all public employees (people who receive all or part of their income from tax-payers in the form of a state, county, or municipal salary) to submit an annual audit of their finances to the local media, as well as publish the results of the audit online. Any politician who maintains a campaign fund separate from their private finances must annually submit an audit for their campaign, too. These public employees will also be required to submit an annual letter of intent to continue receiving tax-payer funded salary and benefits, as well as a portfolio of financial records and materials including, but not limited to, an itemized list of financial expenditures, and samples of purchases, investments, stocks and bonds, or other financial transactions.

Maybe Loretta Weinberg will sponsor it.

State Senator Weinberg is the legislator who sponsored S-3105, the bill that would require New Jersey homeschoolers to submit to the local school district an annual letter of intent to homeschool, an extensive portfolio, and proof of an annual physical by a medical doctor for each homeschooled child. The local school district is the eyes of the state, able to peer into the family in ways the US Constitution prohibits police and prosecutors. S-3105 is Senator Weinberg’s second attempt at passing such legislation. The first was eight years ago. Both came in response to horrible situations where parents claiming that they were homeschooling their children were, in fact, physically abusing them. In both cases, children died. The logical conclusion to such situations is that all homeschoolers are potential abusers, and so must prove to the state that they are not if they wish to continue homeschooling. The Guilty until Proven Innocent Act applies that same logic to public employees.

If you Google the terms “New Jersey,” “politics,” “Governor,” and “corruption,” you will find enough reading to fill your time until the second coming. From former Governor Bob Corzine (refused to release his income tax returns during his 2000 election campaign for the US Senate; head of now bankrupt MF Global holdings; gave $441,600 in personal money to convicted Democratic machine Boss Joseph Ferriero) to Assemblymen Daniel Van Pelt (convicted, along with 19 others, in an FBI sting for money laundering and racketeering), and many in between, New Jersey gives both Chicago and Washington, D.C., a genuine challenge for the title of Dirtiest in Politics. It is not my intent to trivialize the tragic deaths of children, but if a couple of abuse cases amongst the thousands of New Jersey homeschooling families justifies the intrusion of the state into all homeschooling families, then the criminal actions of some state employees and politicians, which affects far more lives and occurs far more frequently, justifies the same level of scrutiny. In politics, money is everything.

Guilty until proven innocent.

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.

Comparing Homeschoolers with Public Schoolers

Our good friend Cindy from Get Along Home, posted an article at High Country Mom Squad this week. It raises a concern that many of us homeschoolers struggle with from time to time. Comparing. How do our kids measure up?

Should we compare our kids with their public school counterparts? Cindy (in classic Cindy fashion) digs into that question in this GREAT post. Here's an excerpt. But definitely don't stop here...go read the rest!!

A few weeks ago I was talking—more accurately, moaning–to my husband about our second-grader’s lackluster progress in math. I’m not really sure what to try next, or if we just need to stick with what we’re doing, so I was just kind of thinking out loud about my options. My husband, because he likes to know these kinds of things (geeks like data, you know) asked how David’s progress would compare to that of school children his own age. So I did what any rational, confident homeschooling mom would do when faced with such an innocuous question: I freaked out.

KEEP READING...

Homeschoolers are Amazing!

It's always refreshing when someone from outside the homeschooling world shares some positive thoughts about homeschooling and homeschoolers. 

Years ago, a public high school teacher friend of ours told us that he could always pick out the kids in his classes that had been homeschooled prior to entering high school.  He said that he had found that homeschooled kids had a level of social and academic maturity that went far beyond the level of maturity displayed by the other kids in his classes.  He had found homeschooled kids to be much better equipped to handle the academic AND social pressures of high school.  That sure was nice to hear from a public school teacher.  While most homeschoolers don't "need" reassurance from their non-homeschooling friends, it's sure encouraging to hear it from time to time! 

For the last several years, it has been my privilege to help administrate the social media outlets for a large homeschool curriculum publisher.  During that time I worked closely with social media expert, Ryan Egan.  Though Ryan didn't come to his job with a background rich in homeschool knowledge or experience, his focus on ministry and his passion for people very quickly became very evident to every homeschoolers that he began to interact with on a daily basis.  The homeschoolers that got to know Ryan on Twitter and Facebook soon realized that they had a great friend and advocate in him!

But it would seem that while we were being encouraged by Ryan, he was learning from us. During his time working in the "homeschool world" (he recently moved on to a new job), Ryan discovered a few things about homeschoolers.  A recent post on his blog, Homeschoolers are Amazing--What I Learned from Working for a Homeschool Curriculum Company, shares some of what he learned from us.

Let me tell you what homeschoolers aren’t:

• Unsocialized – Kill this stereotype immediately.  The majority of homeschoolers I interacted with were easy to talk to, easy to work with, and had kids that could hold intelligent conversations with adults while still being able to play with infants and toddlers.
• Behind the times – There are some incredibly tech and web-savvy people homeschooling their children.  To be honest, many were utilizing way more technology than the average family does.
• Boring – In a word….no.  Many of these families do more in one year than many families do in an entire lifetime.
• Lazy – Many people think that homeschoolers don’t work hard and just want to let their kids slide through education.  That is SO far from the case.  You would not believe the organizational skills everyone has and the immense concern for making sure their children are properly educated.

It's a wonderful...and very encouraging post!  There's more, so I would encourage you to go read the rest of what Ryan learned about homeschoolers during his years working for a homeschool publishing company!

Thanks for being a part of our world for 3 years, Ryan!   We think you're pretty amazing, too!

The Needs of the One Cannot Define the Needs of the Many

A writer by the name of Libby Anne wrote an excellent essay on growing up as a homeschooled child in a Christian patriarchal family. The title of her essay is “My Life as a Daughter of Christian Patriarchy.” It is a well written, refreshingly (and painfully) honest, and enlightening piece of writing that you can find here. Libby Anne explained and discussed the issues she faced growing up in a Quiverfull family. While explaining the challenges she faces as a young woman who disagrees with the religious tenants of her childhood, she made a startling and dangerous statement when she blamed homeschooling for the lifestyle in which she was raised.

The Quiverfull movement is a branch of the evangelical Christian community that strictly adheres to the standard of raising daughters to be helpmates for, and subjugated to, husbands and fathers. Boys are raised to become the head of the household and providers for a family. There are stringent rules for behavior in this movement that clash with modern sensibilities concerning life in a free and democratic society. Unsurprisingly, Quiverfull children are not allowed to interact with modern society in the same manner of the average American child. Frequently, Quiverfull girls are denied a college education, the rationale being that they don’t need one since they don’t need a career outside of the home.

Libby Anne wrote:

“By now, you may be wondering, how is this possible? How can parents indoctrinate their children in this way? The answer, I would argue, is simple: homeschooling. By homeschooling, these parents can control every interaction their children have and every piece of information their children come upon.

“By homeschooling us, my parents could completely control what we learned.”

But, homeschooling is not the issue here. The responsibility for Libby Anne’s childhood and the problems she faces as a young adult rest solely on her parents and their spiritual and lifestyle choices.

It doesn’t take a homeschooler to be a rigid and controlling parent. Many of us know of children who were or are raised by strict, domineering mothers and fathers. Two of my public high school classmates lived in such a household. Judy and Teresa were very smart girls. They graduated near the top of our class. Their every movement was also controlled by a father who demanded that if school dismissed at 3:15 they should be at home by 3:30. Boys were not allowed to call their house for any reason whatsoever. The girls were allowed out with groups of other girls once in awhile, but with a very early curfew. Dating was forbidden. They were not allowed to attend school dances, including prom, and other activities where boys were present. Weekly attendance at mass was mandatory. The church youth group was their only approved, non-school, coed activity. Would it be a surprise to learn that one of the girls rebelled at age 18? She left home, moved out of state, and got pregnant with her boy friend. Would it be a surprise to learn that she struggled with her self-image, lacked self-confidence, and had weight problems? Would it be a surprise to learn that she was estranged from her parents? Children who are raised in controlling, patriarchal families come from all educational backgrounds.

Libby Anne was raised in a patriarchal, Quiverfull family because her parents made a conscious choice to raise their children in such a manner, not because they chose to teach their children at home. Homeschooling was a tool they used to achieve their ends. It was an instrument for achieving a desired result. Can homeschooling be used to lock children away from the modern world while simultaneously indoctrinating them into an extreme religious lifestyle? Unfortunately, yes it can; but, it is irresponsible to lay the blame on homeschooling. Doing so errantly feeds the arguments of home education critics who believe that all homeschoolers are attempting to indoctrinate their children in radical Christianity while sheltering them from the real world. It ignores the thousands of secular homeschoolers who simply wish to provide their children with a better education than the one provided by their local public school. It ignores the needs of parents who choose homeschooling to address their children’s special needs, needs that the local school cannot or will not meet. Homeschooling is not Christianity, Christianity is not homeschooling, and allowing the two to become intricately intertwined in the public eye serves neither the homeschooling movement nor Christ. Libby Anne’s story will become the example du jour for those people who wish to outlaw home education for everyone. Her story cannot be allowed to become another arrow in the homeschooling critic’s quiver.

My heart goes out to Libby Anne. I am grateful that she shared her story. It is an important story. I know that regaining one’s voice and speaking out is a necessary step in the recovery process when one person feels like their voice has been silenced. Libby Anne did so eloquently and powerfully. I hope and pray that she finds peace with her past and her parents.

Communication 101

My daughter is a slob: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. Just look at her room.

Her books are scattered across the floor, adorned with underwear, shoes, a Mr. Microphone, and toys of every sort. My in-laws have a favored picture from The Boss’ childhood. It’s a pair of nylons draped across a football. My daughter is headed in that direction. You can see a baseball cleat a short distance from the girl’s polka dotted Minnie Mouse dress. There’s a reason our daughter is called “Mini-Me.” So, I wasn’t surprised that her room was trashed when I entered it yesterday. She was playing on her bed when I stood in the doorway.

“Hey, Captain, why did you throw all your books on the floor?”

“Because mommy told me to,” she replied.

“Your mother told you to? I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, she did.” The Captain jumped off her bed and walked to the pile of books. Pointing at them, she said, “Mommy told me to put all my books on the floor right here.”

The problem was that she was so earnest in her delivery that I doubted she was lying, not that my daughter isn’t capable of looking me straight in the eye and denying something I watched her do. Her survival instinct is well developed.

“That’s kind of strange,” I told her. “We’ll have to talk to mommy, because you have a perfectly good book shelf right here with empty shelves where your books should be.”

“You do that!” she sang, before returning to her bed.

Now, the reason she was so confident in her mother’s instructions was because her mother did indeed tell her to stack all of her books on the floor in front of the book shelf. They were cleaning the room together while the boys and I were camping. My wife told our daughter to pick up all of the books that were already on the floor and stack them in front of the book shelf. The Captain missed that critical portion of the directions, “that were already on the floor.” Confidently believing that she understood her mother, Captain Chaos happily pulled all of the books off of the book shelf and dumped them on the floor where they remained until I cleaned her room today. I needed to do something while waiting for my tattoo appointment.

So, today’s homeschooling lesson comes from Communication 101. Make your directions perfectly clear the first time, or your husband will be stuck cleaning up the child’s understanding of what you meant.

Where the Homeschooler Socializes the Socialized

I fell in a vat of chocolate.
I fell in a vat of chocolate.
What’d you do when you fell into the chocolate?
Laly do dum, laly do dum day.

Months of planning came to fruition last weekend when our Boy Scout Troop took our Webelos I & II’s from our Cub Scout Pack camping at Camp Bromelsik in Lawrence, Kansas. The camping trip was designed to help the cubs complete some requirements for their Arrow of Light award, give them an idea of what camping will be like when they cross over to the troop, and act as a recruiting tool. When the Webelos return to school and tell their friends that they learned how to throw a tomahawk last weekend, other kids might become interested.

I yelled fire when I fell into the chocolate.
I yelled fire when I fell into the chocolate.
Why’d you yell fire when you fell into the chocolate?
Laly do dum, laly do dum day.

Our troop has 4 homeschooled scouts. Our Cub Scout pack has two homeschooled scouts. One of them is Major Havoc. That means that scouting is one of those critical opportunities for the homeschooled boys to be socialized by their public and private schooled peers. This is where they will learn to give and receive wedgies, snap towels, swear, spit, and make inappropriate comments about girls. Homeschooling critics often fret about homeschooled children missing these opportunities, you know.

During the drive to the campsite, Major Havoc requested that I play my Smothers Brothers CD. Specifically, he wanted to hear Chocolate, a perfectly silly, clean, song about a man falling into a vat of chocolate. Two lines into the song and the van became silent. My camping hardened boy scouts were leaning towards the van speakers, straining to hear Tom Smothers explain why he yelled “FIRE!” when he fell into the chocolate. When they heard the answer, laughter erupted. Hours later, I knew that I had successfully warped another generation of children when I walked past a campsite deep in the woods and heard scouts singing I yelled fire because no one would save me if I yelled CHOCOLATE! I can cross off another entry on my bucket list.

It appears that the homeschooler socialized his fellow scouts instead of the other way around. Now, I don’t agree with the commonly accepted definition of socialization as it is used in discussions of homeschooling; but, in that context, the social misfit of the group - an 8-year-old, homeschooled, Christian boy - entertained his peers with a song that contained no swearing, no derogatory comments of any kind, without sexual references or suggestions of violence.

They enjoyed The Saga of John Henry, too.

Let’s hear it for the homeschooler!

Jenna

Baby Jenna died today.  She was nine months old.  At 9:40 in the morning she passed away quietly in her mother’s arms in a hospital in Indiana.   I’ve been praying for Jenna for a few months.  Praying for a sick child is not something to brag about, so I kept it to myself, unless I was encouraging others to pray for her, too.  I do not know Jenna or her mother.    I have few details about her illness.  She had a heart defect and was a candidate for a heart transplant.   Her doctors did everything they could for her.

I have a soft spot for cardiac kids.  My daughter was born with a congenital heart defect that nearly took her life when she was four months old.   When she was sick I witnessed something that was utterly amazing.   She received prayers from around the world.  I cannot begin to describe the feeling of having complete strangers contacting me to tell me that they were praying for Captain Chaos, that their churches were praying for Captain Chaos, that their relatives were looking for updates on her condition.  It was a good thing, too.  In the heat of the battle, praying was very hard to do.  I prayed.  I prayed earnestly, but I was mentally and emotionally numb during a great deal of the experience, and if God was answering me, I couldn’t hear it.  It took all of my power to make it through each day and digest the diet of complicated medical information that had become my daily fare.   Praying for Jenna was far easier, far more satisfying, and far more cathartic.   I prayed with a clear head.  I prayed with confidence.  I prayed with peace of mind.

I received news of Jenna’s passing from a cousin through a Facebook message.  While I wrote a response to her message, Captain Chaos decided she was hungry.  Against my directions not to forage for food, she climbed onto the kitchen counter, opened a cabinet door, and knocked a jar of instant coffee off of the shelf.   It fell onto my USS Portsmouth coffee mug, an irreplaceable souvenir from my submarine days, and chipped off a huge section of mug, instantly transforming it into a pencil holder.   And in that moment I was reminded of a lesson I have learned over and over again since bringing my daughter home from the hospital.

I prayed for this.

When your child is near death, you pray for their survival.  There is little else about which to think.  I wasn’t praying for her first steps or her first day of kindergarten or her first date.  I simply prayed for her to remain with us.  That meant, of course, the good with the bad.   Throughout the years, with all of its challenges, with the View Master disks in the aquarium and her love for eating dog food and the writing on the walls with permanent marker, I kept remembering how hard I prayed for her survival.  My prayers were answered, answered positively, and I would not be ungrateful.  It didn’t alleviate my frustration but it did prevent me from getting angry.  And the goldfish got to see Mount Rushmore.

After her timeout, and after her lunch, I returned to the computer to complete my message to my cousin. Captain Chaos decided that it was time to show me her Hula Hoop skills.  She stood next to me wearing her “kajamas,” gyrating violently to keep the hoop spinning.  Of course, her kajama pants were a bit too big for her, so after five or six revolutions they slid down past her bare butt, causing her to burst out laughing while dropping the hoop to pull up her pants before she started spinning again.  She just might be learning a bit of modesty, but obviously not enough to stop and put on underwear before continuing.    

With the start of the school year a few days away I take great delight in adding my daughter to the class as my third fulltime student.  I take great delight in her enthusiasm for life, expressed last Wednesday night at Cabela’s where she walked into the bargain basement with her mother, pointed to a black rifle on display, and said, “Oh, yeah! Let’s take that baby out and see what she can do!”   I marveled at her sincerity today when she walked up to me and apologized for breaking my coffee mug.  She’s learning.  It’s wonderful.

My heart breaks for Jenna and her parents.  I shed a few silent tears before asking God to help them.  I’ve walked a mile in their shoes, but their journey is far harder than anything that I’ve ever gone through.  Because baby Jenna died today. 

Interesting....Take a Look and Share Your Thoughts

Via: Online College Source

Teach Your Children Well (The Musical)

With our apologies to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young we present the Homeschool version of:

"Teach Your Children Well"

(Lyrics courtesy of Arby)

(Go ahead, sing along...you know you want to!)

You, who teach your kids,

alone at home,

you must be crazy!

You must, work twice as hard.

Your children need you.

You can’t be lazy!

Teach, your children well.

Most lessons aren’t, self-explanatory.

Some things, they learn alone,

but preparation, is mandatory.

Don't assume they know the “whys.”

If they told you, you would cry,

and then shake your head and sigh,

because you love them.

And you, of tender years,

don’t know as much,

as you think that you do.

And so please, listen carefully.

Your parent’s words,

Are not just voodoo.

Learn, your lessons well.

School isn’t hell,

that just slowly goes by.

So tell, your folks your dreams.

They’ll help you learn,

how to achieve them.

Kids can’t learn it all themselves.

Mom and dad must teach them well.

So buy your teacher’s guide and sigh,

because you love them.

Teach Your Children Well

Everyone who has ever read this blog knows that we're all about homeschooling here.  You know I don't spend much blogging energy defending the "educational system" as a whole.  I am much more likely to defend homeschoolers and their right to teach their children as they see fit.  As a general rule, I don't believe that professional teachers are better equipped to teach children than parents are.

However, I've had a rant building up over a number of months.  Years even.

But first a little background.  First, I am a veteran homeschooler.  I have homeschooled my four children for more than 20 years.  Second, I work on a part-time contract as a homeschool consultant for Alpha Omega Publications (AOP), a large homeschool curriculum publishing company.  I represent AOP at homeschool conventions all over the country, as well as help to administrate AOP's social media presence.  (Oh, and by the way, yes, it is Alpha Omega's curriculum that Arby's wife hates!)  

As a homeschool consultant, I answer lots of questions about homeschooling in general and about AOP's curriculum in particular.  I am usually a pretty strong believer in the adage "the only stupid question is an unasked one."  However, there's one question in particular that I'm getting a little tired of hearing.

"Are your Teacher's Guides really necessary?  I mean I think I can do 4th grade Math!"

Now, I know I'm gonna step on more than a few toes here, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.

Yes, teacher's guides can be expensive and I know that lots of families are necessarily trying to save money these days.  And yes, that mom probably does know how to do 4th grade math.  But does she really know how to teach 4th grade math?  And is knowing how to teach really that important for homeschoolers?

I'll get back to the actual question of the necessity of teacher's guides in a few minutes, but first I want to address the more important issue of why I'm so bothered by the question to begin with...and keep in mind I've been asked this question more times than I can begin to count!  Over the months I've grown more and more convinced that the question itself is a sign of a bigger (and somewhat troubling) issue.  It seems there are growing numbers of homeschoolers who are trying to take the "easy road" to homeschooling--a road that costs little in terms of time and/or money.  But children cannot teach themselves.  While I believe that most parents can do at least as good a job (and often better) as most trained teachers can, the fact remains that teaching a child at home is a job not to be taken lightly.  It requires a tremendous level of commitment.  It can cost a great deal of time and money.  If a homeschooler isn't willing or able to spend a lot of money, the commitment in time will likely go up significantly.  And for parents who don't want to (or can't) spend large amounts of time, the financial commitment should go up considerably.  

I am a trained teacher.  But when I started homeschooling I didn't make the assumption that my teacher training meant I could do it all on my own.  I used the resources that were available to me to assist me in teaching my own children.  Over 20+ years of teaching my four children at home, I purposed to equip myself to educate my children.  I spent countless hours learning how to be a good homeschooler.  I spent money on resources that I knew would help me teach them.  I learned Algebra and Chemistry so that I could teach it to them.  I read books that I never wanted to read so that I could discuss them with my daughters .  I invested a great deal in my children's education.  And that investment has paid off in the lives of my children.

The changes in the homeschooling movement in the last 20 years are staggering.  Those changes are mostly good ones.  But in my opinion, they have created a problem as well.  The exploding growth of the homeschooling movement and the plethora of available resources may have created the illusion that homeschooling is "easy."  And it may be easy to homeschool, but it definitely isn't easy to do it well.  By choosing to homeschool, parents are taking full responsibility for the academic development (and futures) of their children.  I don't believe it is possible to overstate the importance of the task at hand.  It is a huge, life-impacting decision.  Parents who purpose to homeschool should also purpose to do everything in their power to do it well.

So, what about Teacher's Guides?  Are they really necessary?  Unfortunately, I can't answer that question for every parent.  Some parents may be equipped to teach without them.  But in many cases, the use of a teacher's guide is the most effect way to ensure that a child will receive the instruction they need to fully grasp the content of the lesson. Even trained teachers use teacher's guides.  They are, in many cases, the main source of instruction. It puzzles me why so many parents insist that they are unnecessary.

So is the question of the necessity of teacher's guides really the right question?  A far more important question to ask is this:

As a homeschooler, what is your goal?  Is it simply to homeschool?  Or is it to "teach your children well?"

Indiana Homeschoolers Beware: The Police May Enter Your Homes Whether Or Not You Allow Them To

Imagine, that you are at home teaching your children when the front door of your house is forcefully opened and in walks a police officer and a social services worker.  Without a court warrant, without establishing probable cause, they gain access to your home, demand to interview your children away from you (which may or may not involve visually inspecting your children in a state of undress), and demand access to your curriculum, record plans, and grade book.  And you have no legal right to resist.  

Does that sound farfetched? 

If you live in the state of Indiana, it shouldn’t.   The Indiana Supreme Court ruled this week “that there is no right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers.”  Writing for the majority in the decision, Justice Steven Davis wrote, “We believe however that a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.”   In short, the police may enter an Indiana citizen’s home unlawfully, and that citizen has no right to resist.  The court justified their decision by writing, “We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”  They continued, “…we find it unwise to allow a homeowner to adjudge the legality of police conduct in the heat of the moment. As we decline to recognize a right to resist unlawful police entry into a home, we decline to recognize a right to batter a police officer as a part of that resistance.”  In essence, they gave the police a master key into Indiana homes.   

The decision stems from a case where Fort Wayne, Indiana, police officers entered a home without knocking in order to serve a search warrant to two men with prior felony convictions.   The police believed that the men were armed, and that a no-knock entry was justified out of concerns for officer safety.   The Indiana Supreme Court decision went far beyond supporting a no-knock entry for police safety.   They gave police carte blanche to enter homes, telling homeowners that their only course of action is civil litigation.  

It will not take long before Indiana social services will team up with local police to gain entry into a home in order to investigate homeschoolers.  The HSLDA Court Report is filled with stories about social service workers across the country lying, threatening, bullying, and intimidating homeschooling families in order to gain entry into their homes, more often than not based on non-credible concerns that children are being physically or emotionally abused and/or educationally neglected.   The HSLDA regularly defends homeschooling families against such intrusions.  Social workers are known to threaten families with the removal of their children, while demanding the opportunity to interview children alone, away from their parents.  Sometimes these interviews include strip searches, ostensibly to look for signs of physical abuse.  Anything children say during these interviews can be and have been used against parents in court.  

Indiana homeschoolers have reason to be concerned.  

The court ignores the damage done when police unlawfully enter homes.  There is a loss of trust and respect from citizens towards law enforcement and government, which ultimately results in a loss of cooperation between citizens and law enforcement.   No amount of money can repair the damage done when citizens no longer feel safe and secure in their homes.  No monetary settlement can repair the damage done to our children when they are raised in world where their government can enter their homes and remove them from their families without probable cause, even if they are ultimately returned to their parents.

I would like to believe that the Indiana Supreme Court decision will be overruled by the US Supreme Court, but I would never have believed that any US court would rule as the Indiana justices ruled, since the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution clearly states that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”   We will have to wait and watch carefully. 

This decision is a dangerous precedent.  

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/14/indiana-supreme-court-rules-hoosiers-have-no-right-to-resist-unlawful-entry-of-their-homes-by-police/

http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/05/13/indiana-suprerme-court-issues-death-warrant-for-fourth-amendment/

http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/sbt-high-court-upholds-noknock-warrants-20110514,0,5565980.story

http://www.hslda.org/courtreport/V27N2/V27N201.asp

Sorry, NEA. Saying it Doesn't Make it So

Faced with growing problems in the public school system (falling test scores, over-crowded classrooms, etc.,) NEA officials continue to gloss over the issues and encourage parents and teachers to "suck it up and deal."  Rather than admitting and working to solve the problems that no one argues actually exist, the NEA just keeps chanting a mantra that goes something like this:

"As bad as the schools are, they're still better than homeschooling."

A recent mydesert.com post, As Class Sizes Rise, So Does Homeschooling, provides a mixed bag of opinions concerning public schools and homeschooling.  The article addresses the problems facing public schools, namely growing class sizes, and suggests that a growing number of parents are choosing to homeschool in order to escape the problems that school officials seem unable to solve.  While generally speaking, the post manages to provide a mostly positive view of homeschooling and homeschoolers, the NEA senior policy analyst that was interviewed for the article makes a typical "head-in-the-sand" statement that reveals the disconnect that exists between public school officials and public school parents' growing dissatisfaction with the status quo.

“The NEA believes home- schooling lacks regular interaction with caring, trained professional educators, which we believe greatly aids a child's social, emotional and intellectual development,” said Bob Tate, a senior policy analyst with the NEA. “(Home-schooling) provides no assurance of regular face-to-face interaction with peers in the structured setting of a school, which we believe is an important part of a child's development that cannot be fully realized through online or informal neighborhood interactions,” he added.

The assertions of public school officials that interaction with "trained professionals" is more important for a child's social, emotional, and intellectual development than interaction with his own parents is downright insulting.  And their continual insistence on the necessity of school-based socialization is laughable.  Their constant harping on these two factors in light of growing evidence to the contrary (see studies in linked article,) proves both their unwillingness to address the real issues that face their schools and a complete lack of concern for the needs of the students and families they are paid to serve.

There is an adage that expresses the belief that "blowing out someone else's candle won't make your candle burn brighter."  The NEA and many local unions and school administrators have long relied on the practice of attempting to blow out the shining candle of homeschooling in an attempt to brighten the glow of their own fading light.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work.  Parents aren't being fooled and increasingly, they are giving up on the schools.  They can see beyond the illusion.  As a growing chasm develops between the success of schools and the success of their homeschool counterparts, parents are waking up to the reality that the mantra doesn't ring true...simply chanting it doesn't make it so. 

Parents are beginning to demand solutions from our nation's school administrators and from the unions that control the money.  And until the self-proclaimed experts of "the system" stop ranting about the supposed short-comings of the competition and begin to own up to their own significant problems AND offer real solutions, the defection will continue.

Home Spun Comic #592

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