Homeschooling

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The Public Option

November 16, 2009 in Homeschooling | 11 comments

Another reason to homeschool is revealed in this conversation between mother and daughter:

“How many movies do you watch a week?”

She thought a bit, counting up on her fingers and trying to remember. “Oh–I don’t know–five or six, maybe more. We watch t.v. pretty much every day in at least one class and any time we have a sub they put in movies or something. We watch stuff like Mythbusters a lot and call it chemistry.”

She paused a moment then said, “At least it’s not like my history teacher who flirts with girls in the class then shows us pictures of himself without his shirt on and talks about his tattoos.”

You can read the whole frightening post at Scribbit.

Avoiding Evasion

September 23, 2009 in Homeschooling, Ideas, Montessori, Parenting | 16 comments

Rational Jenn wrote today about one way children learn to evade: their parents implicitly teach it to them by Parenting by Authority. To Parent by Authority is to expect obedience from your children. “Because I said so,” is the leitmotif of this parenting style. Sure, we may all do this on occasion. Each time we do it, it is a mistake, but the real harm comes when a child is implicitly told over and over again that what he perceives, thinks, feels, and judges, is irrelevant – that what matters is what the authority figure demands.

I’ve been thinking about the same issue, but in regard to education. Since Sammy started Montessori, I’ve been reacquainting myself with all the good reasons I had for choosing this type of school for her. One of those reasons is that Montessori is the only widely available educational system that does not Educate by Authority.

Everything about standard schools is geared towards obedience. Teachers decide what the students will learn, when and by what method. Grades are the major form of feedback, but they do not measure everything the student has learned, only what the teacher has decided is important. There is no freedom for the student to pursue a special interest deeply. Busywork replaces the quest for real understanding. One of the worst features of standard school is the system of grading on a curve, which pits students against each other in unhealthy competition, where one gains at the expense of another, and actual achievement in relation to reality is irrelevant.

Everything about Montessori is geared toward independence. Students interact primarily with their environment, not with the teacher. The students enter a prepared environment of materials that are appropriate for their age. They are free to choose whatever “work” interests them at the moment, focusing on it for as long as it interests them. The teachers are guides, serving only to demonstrate the use of the materials when necessary, or to gently point a floundering child in the direction of purposeful activity. For preschoolers, almost all work is hands-on. At this age, the students do not have the capacity to connect abstract lecture to concrete reality, at least not when learning something brand new. They need to learn with the hand as well as with the mind.

The Montessori method recognizes that external reward systems such as grades are not necessary, and even harmful. Children naturally want to learn. Anyone who has observed small children can see this. The reward for good work is in the work itself, and in the accomplishment. Montessori materials are self-correcting – the children know whether they have done the work correctly without relying on a teacher’s stamp of approval. The blocks of diminishing size must be stacked up from biggest to smallest or the tower will not stand. The cylinders of diminishing size must be placed in the proper holes, or they will not all fit in the puzzle.

Discipline in a Montessori school is almost a non-issue. There is no need for children to sit quietly and listen to a teacher. They are free to roam about the classroom and to interact with each other as they see fit. Because the work holds their interest, they are generally focused on a task, and not seeking attention or looking for an outlet for their energies. The rules that are in place are natural, for the purpose of working in a group setting: children must never interrupt others’ work, must put their materials away when finished, and generally follow the rules of social decorum that adults do. But within those limits, they have a great deal of freedom.

One important freedom Montessori children have is the freedom to make mistakes. Instead of a big red “X” on their paper, children who make mistakes get feedback from reality: from the materials they are using. If a child tries to stack the blocks and fails, he is not judged by any other person. The tower just falls. That is enough. His own, internal motivation is what will drive him to try again, and his primary guide is his own mind. He must make the connection that the smaller blocks go on top before he can build the tower. He may observe the other students and possibly the teacher building the tower, but nobody is telling him what to do. He is free to try again immediately or to wait. There is no external pressure motivating him.

This trust in children’s innate (or, I would prefer to say, natural) desire to learn, to achieve, and to grow – in short, to be good – is analogous to the Positive Discipline principle of Assuming Positive Intent. You should assume, barring any evidence to the contrary, that your child is trying to solve a problem but just doesn’t have the skills yet, or has forgotten how. For example, if your toddler is banging his fork on the table, he’s probably not trying to irritate you. He might be hungry and not know how else to tell you, or he might be exploring the sound or the feel of the vibration of the fork. Your job is not to discipline him, but to try to read his signals with the assumption of positive intent, and to guide him towards the actions that will accomplish what he wants. A teacher’s job should not be to force learning upon the child. The child already wants to learn. What he needs is freedom within limits, and guidance.

Why are Parenting by Authority and Educating by Authority so prevalent? What in the world makes anybody think that children need to be disciplined and forced to learn? There is so much evidence against this, that I can only guess that a deeply rooted premise is at work, and I suspect that it is the idea of Original Sin. I’d like to explore this idea more. I think it has enormous implications for parenting and education. I know that I have unconsciously accepted this premise. I fight it consciously, but it will take a lot more work to fully root it out. But I already see myself thinking about ways I might homeschool differently that I envision it now. Instead of telling Sammy what subject we will study for a semester, I may purchase all the materials I think are appropriate and set them up in a way that she can begin to explore them on her own, and see where it leads. I might break up the day into two, 3-hour study blocks, as they do in Montessori. I might let Sammy go a whole week studying only one subject, or I might require only that math be studied every day. I’m not sure yet. But I see two principles that can guide me: Let Reality be the Judge, and Trust Internal Motivation.

Reading Update

August 9, 2009 in Homeschooling, Montessori, Parenting | No comments

Yesterday, Samantha spelled the words “Sam,” “cat,” “Adam” and “Jinx.” Adam wrote them on the ground with sidewalk chalk as they sounded them out together. She needed help isolating the sounds, but as soon as she heard the sound, she knew what letter it was. The only one she didn’t get was the “i” in Jinx because she’s only learned the short “i” sound so far.

We’ve continued to use Starfall and we also practice while driving around town or at meals. Sam knows all the standard letter sounds now, although she’ll still forget “l” and “r” sometimes, mostly because she has a hard time pronouncing them. I do think that this work of isolating sounds is going to help her pronunciation, and even her vocabulary because she’ll be able to distinguish words more clearly now. I didn’t think she’d be able to reverse the process and name the letters based on the sound – we’ve never worked on that directly - but she did it with ease. She is also “reading” everything she sees – food packaging, signs on the road, stuff that comes in the mail. Usually “reading” means that she’ll name some of the letters and maybe make their sounds. Sometimes it means opening a book she knows well and telling the story from memory as she turns the pages. I thought it was cute when Sam insisted that there was an “x” on my computer screen and it took me a while to figure out she meant the red “x” icon to close the window.

Next, I’m going to try reading Montessori Read and Write, by Lynn Lawrence, and next month I’ll talk to Sam’s Montessori teacher about where to go from here. It’s amazing to see Sam learning so much so quickly, and taking such obvious pleasure in the process.

Medical Exams Required for School Enrollment

August 7, 2009 in Homeschooling, Ideas, Parenting | 1 comment

Does your state require that students entering public school have a comprehensive medical exam within one year before starting school? Mine does (Virginia). I’d never heard of such a thing. It doesn’t apply to Samantha, but I saw it on the standard immunization forms her Montessori school gives out prior to the school year, so I looked it up. This is above and beyond immunization requirements. Before entering kindergarten or elementary school (public only, as far as I can tell), kids must have a comprehensive exam that screens for problems with:

HEENT (head, eyes, ears, nose, throat)
Lungs
Heart
Neurological
Abdomen
Extremities
Skin
Genital
Urinary

There are also hearing, vision, and dental screens required, and the child’s BMI and TB risk assessment must be recorded.

Worst of all, there is a developmental screen where the child is assessed for:

Emotional/social
Problem solving
Language/Communication
Fine motor skills
Gross motor skills

All of the results must be recorded by the physician on a form and given to the school. In other words, to the government. I was shocked! Do you think that access to those records is kept strictly limited? Check out paragraph C:

C. Such physical examination report shall be placed in the child’s health record at the school and shall be made available for review by any employee or official of the State Department of Health or any local health department at the request of such employee or official.

I’m not even sure what a “local health department” is. Who are all these people who would have access to my daughter’s personal information? How could I possibly hold them accountable? The records might as well be kept in Wikipedia.

A quick Google search tells me that this is not uncommon. It looks like at least Nebraska, Kentucky, Connecticut, Florida, and maybe many other states have similar laws. What I can’t tell with the quick search is whether they require that the results be reported to the school, or if one just needs to submit proof that the child has had a medical exam. Either way, the laws are another example of the nanny-state gone mad. But the idea that, in Virginia at least, the government has this type of sensitive data for every person attending public school and that I’ve never heard a soul complain about it is mind-blowing.

Another good reason to homeschool.

The Right Way to Begin

July 16, 2009 in Homeschooling | 7 comments

I’ve definitely maxed out on the homeschool conferences for now. Attending them was extremely helpful for me – so helpful that I don’t need any more help for a while. I’m really starting to feel like I can do this.

As I mentioned, Susan Wise Bauer and her mother Jessie Wise spoke at the most recent conference. They are the co-authors of The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. (I waited to buy it at the conference, thinking I’d get a discount. I did, but they still couldn’t beat Amazon’s price. Damn.) Susan Wise Bauer’s keynote address was an inspiring and enjoyable talk about how parents can and should remain intellectuals. I attended 3 of Jessie Wise’s presentations. She wasn’t the greatest speaker, but I did enjoy her talk, ”The Good Reader: Teaching Reading from Birth On.” It was especially relevant because…

Samantha is ready to start learning to read!

We’ve started playing Starfall, a free online phonics game. (Thanks, Rational Jenn!) Sam can’t work the mouse yet, so I do it for her. (Any recommendations for games to help her learn the mouse?) She started picking up the letter sounds quickly, and I can see the light bulb going on when the game puts letters together and sounds out the words. She loves it, and she’s spending even more time “reading” her books lately. I’m sure we’ll continue to use Starfall, but I want to be methodical about phonics so I’m quickly trying to find a more formal program to use with her. The first step is continuing to teach her all the letter sounds, but even there, if I hadn’t had Starfall’s help, I would have been telling her that “t” says “tuh” instead of just the first part of that sound, just the “t” part. I want to make sure I do this right.

Jessie Wise has a program called The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading. Based on her lecture and flipping through the book at the conference, it seems to be very well thought-out, but not very flexible. It gives a full script for the parent/teacher to follow. I suppose I could adjust it. It’s also a very inexpensive option, so it’s at the top of my list right now.

I also bought a used copy of The Writing Road to Reading, based on a recommendation for this “Spalding Method” of learning to read. It is a phonics-based program, but you do writing and spelling right along with the learning of the phonemes. I skimmed the book and the approach didn’t appeal to me. I know Sam is not able to write letters yet; she just drew her first triangle a few days ago! However, I might use the instruction for writing the letters when the time comes later. It is very precise and the method is highly structured which I think is important.

I did a bit of research on the Internet but didn’t see anything that struck me as better than the Ordinary Parents guide. Since we have Starfall for free, I’m not looking for a game-based program or any bells and whistles. I also don’t clearly understand what Sam will be doing at Montessori in the fall. I know about the sandpaper letters, but I think she’ll move quickly beyond that. If you have a suggestion for a good phonics program, please let me know.

Of course, the first thing I did after the conference was to start reading “The Well Trained Mind.” I’ve only read the first few chapters but I know that I am going to use this book as my homeschooling bible. This is the structure that I’ve been looking for! Although I don’t agree with all aspects of Classical Education, it does have the 2 most important elements at its core: hierarchy and a focus on teaching content (facts), especially in the early years.

It respects the hierarchy of knowledge by using history as a guide to the order of learning, which is what Lisa VanDamme does at her school (though probably not in the exact way outlined in WTM). Subjects are studied in historical order, but you spiral through history a few times during the 12 years, getting to deeper levels with each pass. So, for example, you would teach biology in grades 1, 5, and 9, each time presenting more advanced material. (If you’re interested in this approach, I repeat my enthusiastic recommendation of Ms. VanDamme’s lecture course, The Role of Hierarchy in Education.)

The focus on content comes from something called the Trivium, the ancient Greek method consisting of 3 stages of learning: grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, which are geared to the abilities of the mind at that stage. The grammar stage emphasizes the memorization of facts, the dialectic stage teaches logic, and the rhetoric stage moves into argument, debate, and written expression.

I don’t buy the sharp distinctions of the Trivium, but I do agree that students must first learn facts before they have any ability to analyze, let alone to express formal opinions. The most damning thing about standard schools is not their propaganda or lack of academic rigor, but the demented methodology that asks a 3nd grader to write an essay on his opinion of the United Nations. This emphasis on “self expression” is not just pointless; it teaches children that ideas have no connection to facts. Is it any surprise that college students seem to be a bunch of know-it-all know-nothings? That’s exactly what we’ve asked them to be from grade 1.

So I do think the general course of Classical Education makes sense, but I would put it differently: First you must have data, then you must move to more abstract knowledge using reason, then you must learn how to work with those abstract ideas to come up with your own insights and learn how to apply all of this knowledge to further your own life. I probably won’t keep the stages as distinct as would be done in true Classical Education, and I don’t see “logic” and “rhetoric” as the ultimate focus of the later stages – just as added elements. I’m sure I’ll incorporate all kinds of other ideas into my homeschooling as time goes on.

This last conference also cemented my intention to teach Samantha Latin starting in 4th grade or so. I don’t plan to teach her any other foreign languages as part of her core education, though she could do that as extracurricular study. Adam and I are excited to learn Latin right along with Sam. We’ll probably do that work in the evenings as a family. How great is that!

So, I feel like my new career as homeschooler has officially begun, and I’m much more excited about it than I ever thought I would be. Somehow, all my bouncing around in life has brought me to this fantastic place. I’m really not sure how that happened.

Another Homeschool Conference

July 10, 2009 in Homeschooling | No comments

Today and tomorrow I’ll be attending another homeschooling conference. This one is a Northern Virginia group, whereas the last one was for the entire state. Still, there’s enough homeschooling going on around here that even this organization was able to get Susan Wise Bauer as their Keynote Speaker. She is the author of The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, which is my next homeschool read, for sure.

I also just finished listening to Lisa VanDamme’s lecture, The Role of Hierarchy in Education. Ms. VanDamme runs a school in Southern California which is a model for what I want Samantha’s education to be. Her writings and lectures have taught me more than anything else what a real education should be. At the school’s web site, you can sign up for The VanDamme Academy’s newsletter, Pedagogically Correct, which is a great way to get a taste of what Ms. VanDamme’s method is all about.

Homeschooling Conference

June 12, 2009 in Homeschooling | 4 comments

Wow! I actually learned quite a bit at the conference yesterday. First, I learned that god is everywhere. At least, he is at one of these events.

Religion aside, I really got a better feel for how to start tackling the homeschooling thing. First, there was a workshop on understanding Virginia homeschooling law. I had read the law itself and a couple of summaries, but the hour-long presentation really answered my questions about small details. There were also a couple of “how to begin” type courses which ranged from mind-numbingly boring to mildly helpful, and a course on the major types of homeschooling: traditional, classical, unit studies, “the living book,” the principle approach, and unschooling. None of the categories struck me as exactly what I want to do, but it’s nice to have a framework when searching for materials to use.

The exhibit hall was 90% Christian. I know a huge amount of homeschoolers do it for religious reasons, but I was still shocked. I managed to find six or seven interesting vendors out of the hundreds there. I also got a great tip from a woman selling a grammar program. When I joked that it would be a long time before my 2-year-old would be ready for grammar, she suggested that I buy a set of those accordion files that are numbered 1-12 for the months, but use them to file away ideas for each grade level. I thought that was a great idea, as I’m quickly outgrowing my current system of pasting ideas into a single Word document with no organization whatsoever.

I managed to buy only one thing: a book called Slow and Steady Get Me Ready by June R. Oberlander, which is just a collection of weekly activities for birth to age 5, using common household items. I doubt that I’ll follow the week-by-week structure of it, but I’m always looking for ways to do fun, challenging things with Sam.

Baby Steps

June 11, 2009 in Homeschooling | No comments

I’m going to my first homeschooling conference today. (What a coincidence! I guess it’s that time of year.) It’s run by Home Educators Association of Virginia (HEAV) which seems to be a terribly religious organization. Still, I need to start somewhere and this conference is free to me, as a parent of a pre-schooler. The conference goes on all weekend but I’m just going to attend the newbie presentations and check out the exhibit hall today. I’ll report back tomorrow. Now I’m off on the 2 hour drive to Richmond!

(Incidentally, I’m pretty sure this is the longest I’ll have ever been away from Samantha. Her dad took her to day care at 10:30, and I won’t see her again until tomorrow morning. I still remember the days when I’d have to fight milk-leakage and extreme anxiety when leaving her for a few hours. I wonder what part of me will ache this time. Probably my face – it’s so used to smiling and laughing that the relaxed state might feel odd.)

Should Students Use the Internet for Research?

May 19, 2009 in Homeschooling, Ideas | 8 comments

Stephen Bourque at One Reality wrote recently about his love-hate relationship with the Internet. In the “hate” post, he brings up an interesting point about students using the Internet for research, saying that teachers should discourage use of the Internet for research until college. As a future homeschooler, I gave some thought to what he said. (I’ll count on you to read Stephen’s post now to get the full context for the rest of mine.)

I agree that a “report” pulled from one source without any digestion of ideas is pointless. But use of the Internet is not the cause of this problem. Students do the same thing with books all the time. The student can learn what resource to use for what purpose by the guidance and feedback he gets from his teacher. Maybe we’re all becoming inured to incompetent teachers who can’t tell the difference, but I’ve graded many essays and I think the difference between a regurgitation-essay and an essay that involved critical thinking is usually quite clear, barring clever plagiarism. If a reasonable teacher can’t tell the difference, then the whole assignment may have been misguided. If you want the student to learn to do the research and use his mind, you must find a way to judge that effort. That might mean skipping the report and doing something completely different, but I suspect that is usually not necessary.

You can usually (but not always) get in-depth information and can “follow your nose” on the web – you just have to want to do the work. The student who took the lazy way using the Internet in Stephen’s example would probably not do the work he describes with the books anyway. I see no difference here between books and the web – it’s a matter of motivation.

In regard to the “flat” information of the Internet, I partially agree with Stephen. When I Googled “first scene of wagner’s ring” the first hit was a Wikipedia entry that described the four-part opera and included the facts Stephen presented. Links were included that would probably lead to the same kind of information you would find in books. However, there is no table of contents or easy way to know what is relevant – the student would have to click around until he figures out the hierarchy of the information on his own. This method of organizing, in my own mind, the “flat” information presented to me on the web is a difficult process and sometimes I actually fail. I had this exact problem when trying to research the Paleo diet and “diseases of civilization.” Finally, I had to turn to a book, which gave me a clearer, but still imperfect understanding of these ideas. Shouldn’t a student, with a lot of guidance, be given the opportunity to learn to use his judgment in the same way?

The second hit brought me to a page that looked like a blog entry with a title “Wagner’s Ring: A Guide For The Willing But Perplexed – Part III” and a subtitle of “First Day: Das Rheingold – Prelude and Scene 1.” I started reading and had no idea what was going on. My first thought was, “I need to go back to Parts 1 and 2 if I want to understand the context of this.” And I could easily have done this by using links. Then I would have had to decide if the information was relevant and reliable. Shouldn’t a properly educated 12-year-old be able to do the same thing?

Regarding reliability, students using the Internet must understand that not all information they find will necessarily be true, so they need to judge the source. However, this is no different with books. Students too young to use this judgment need guidance from an adult. With books, that guidance might be, “Use the encyclopedia,” and an explanation. With the Internet, it might be, “Check for multiple sources.” Or, you might start compiling a list of resources with the child, categorizing them into groups such as “reliable,” “semi-reliable,” “unknown,” and “not reliable.” You can explain how you make that determination for each one, which would give the child a good inductive way of learning how to make the judgments on his own. Then you can help the child develop a process to verify unreliable information. (I put Wikipedia into “semi-reliable,” and would check other sources if I had no prior knowledge of the subject.) This is not an easy process and it requires a huge mental database of knowledge about sources and what makes them credible. The only way to build that database is to start working with sources – to gain firsthand experience of the process.

This whole process is what critical thinking in research is all about. I think, at the right age and with the right guidance, the Internet is a 100% positive thing. It opens up whole new worlds of information to the child, and removes much of the drudgery of looking up mundane facts. The possible misuse of the Internet does not taint it as a tool. Stephen’s final paragraph expresses this same thought, so maybe we don’t disagree on anything but the age-appropriateness of the Internet. He says wait until college. I suspect a child can start using the Internet with guidance somewhere around 8-10 years old.

Since I have no real experience with this subject, I’d love get some comments, especially from teachers.

New Homeschooling Blog Carnival

March 9, 2009 in Homeschooling | 1 comment

Today, Kim’s Play Place hosts the first ever Academy of Science and Technology blog carnival, where ”we can share our experiences teaching and mentoring science and technology with children.” By the number of submissions, this looks like it will be a successful endeavor.

If you’re a homeschooler or you just like to supplement your children’s science education, take a look! There are also incredible photos of the Ring Nebula and Saturn using a 10″ telescope. Awesome!

Prepared Environment

December 3, 2008 in Homemaking, Homeschooling, Ideas, Montessori, Parenting | No comments

I’m in my third home since I took my course with Cornelia Lockitch and learned about the Montessori principle of the prepared environment. In the first house, I did things like set up a “shoe basket” for Sam to put her shoes away in, but not much else since Sam was just starting to walk and we were moving in a few months. In the second, I set up the basement as Sam’s playroom, putting her toys on shelves at her level and buying some kid-sized furniture. I put my office there too, so that we could both “work” at the same time.

This time, I’m trying something new. I’m integrating Sam even more into our household set up. We are in a three-level townhouse again, which really chops up the living area. But instead of relegating Sam to the basement, I’ve made the dining room her main play area, with our dining table in the eat-in kitchen (much more convenient anyway). Since I need to have access to my computer in small bursts as well as long stretches, I have to have it on the main level of the house where we spend most of our time. The basement did not work for me in the last house – it was just too much trouble to go down there, and I ended up using an old laptop in the kitchen most of the time. The need for an office on the main level sparked the idea to make our living room a “library” instead of primarily a TV room.

Adam and I do like to watch TV and movies, but we do it almost exclusively after Samantha is asleep for the night. We don’t leave the TV on while we are doing other things – we decide to watch and we make an event of it. It makes so much more sense to put the TV in the basement. We even have an extra refrigerator and microwave down there.

Our living room now houses my office and all of our books. Luckily it’s a big room! Adam has so many books and he loves to see them out on display. Although we’ll still keep most of Sam’s books in her bedroom where we do most of our reading, we are setting aside one shelf of each bookcase for her in the living room. I think this will become even more important as she gets older. We plan to get some cozy reading chairs, which will also serve to make the room work for those rare times when we invite people over. Still, it’s not a formal living room because it is open to the playroom (or should I call it Sam’s living room?) and there will be toys in view. Oh, horror! We have a child and there are toys in the house! What about clutter and toy encroachment? Well, part of the principle of the prepared environment is that the child should respect the order of the house and keep toys in their proper places. Having them in the main area of the house forces that issue for all of us. I’ll be sure to post updates about how I set up the play area and how it is working. Right now it’s just full of boxes.

Sticking the child’s area into a back room or basement may be necessary in some cases, but I think you need to be careful about why you are doing it. Are you acting on the premise that your child is a less important member of the household? Are you keeping the toys away from public areas so that you don’t need to teach your child to clean up, or because of some idea that toys are unsightly?

I’m very excited about this new set up. I think it will change the way we live. I think it shows respect for Samantha. I think it reflects my own family’s values instead of some second-handed idea of what a house should look like.

And there is still an extra room that I can turn into a classroom when the time comes. Yipee!