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Homeschooling

BERJAYA

Family values

Homeschooling 36 Responses »
Oct 282010

I talk a little bit about our homeschooling philosophy (I think most of those archives were taken down in the Great Archive Removal Project a couple of months ago) and I talk a little bit about the practicalities. I don’t talk all that much about homeschooling and our values because I think values discussions are challenging to do in a way that’s respectful and don’t put other people on the defensive.

I want to try to find a way to talk about it to explain why coming by and telling me that you hope that I will consider sending my children to school is as offensive to me as coming by and saying that you hope that I will consider renouncing my Judaism.

I know for a lot of people school is school and that most people don’t have the strong feelings about school that I have but there you go — I have them. And so for me, our schooling choices are as central to our belief system as our religious choice. Actually in some ways, I am less rigid about our family’s religious identity than I am about our school identity and that’s because our religious identity doesn’t dictate what we do with our lives five days a week (not counting homework).

Now I understand that for lots of people school decisions don’t carry this kind of weight and that for lots of people homeschooling just looks like an alternative educational choice so I am telling you that for my family we are willing to do an awful lot to live out our values. Like, for example, give up a great deal of earning potential because we would rather have our kids home than have money. Berdawn says that finding Madison a school that fits her learning style is possible in Columbus (and I say, no it’s not — not if you take into account our values about how her learning style ought to be met) but that it might “take much effort” and I just wanted to say, you know what takes more effort? Homeschooling. And we are doing that anyway because we believe with all of our hearts that it is absolutely better than any other schooling choice that’s out there for our children.

If we weren’t homeschooling, I could have a regular job and we could have a regular income. I could focus totally on school or get into a great exercise routine or have a super clean house or write that book I’ve been wanting to forever. I could have a whole lot if I sent my kids to school only, see, none of it is worth sending my kids to school. I would rather be over-stretched and stressed and pinching pennies because I can see how my kids are thriving and joyful and learning exactly the way I think it’s best for them to learn.

You want to give me schooling advice? Don’t bother because I didn’t ask you. I guarantee that most (but certainly not all) homeschoolers have done way more thinking and research about education than most (but certainly not all) regular schoolers. Why? Because it takes way more effort than doing what everyone else does. Because people question our motives, reasons and sanity and we have to be prepared to counter criticism and concern from friends, neighbors and family members. And finally because we homeschool in part because we are very very very interested in child development and education and we read this stuff for fun.

Just as it would be hard for many of you to keep your kids home (because of practicalities, because you don’t want to, because you think school is where kids should be), that’s how hard it would be for me to send my kids to school, (because of practicalities, because I don’t want to, because I think home is where my kids ought to be). This is why I don’t wander by blogs and tell people they should try my lifestyle on for size. It’s rude, it’s not helpful and it assumes I know better than you do. But if you ever want to talk about homeschooling as a possibility, I’d be happy to chat. You know where I am. You know how to reach me.

Madison Homeschooling Update

Homeschooling 25 Responses »
Oct 262010

Madison decided early last week that she wanted to go to school. Now I’ve always said if the kids wanted to go that they could go but sometimes when homeschooled kids say they want to go they mean it and sometimes they don’t. So I asked her what about school sounded good to her so we could discuss this. She said that for one, she thinks it sounds nice to wake up early. (She usually wakes up at about 8am on her own but yesterday she slept in until 9:40am — I don’t know why. Maybe she’s growing.) I said this surprised me because she doesn’t generally like being woke up for a soccer game or religious school but that this was ok, I could start waking her up earlier. Then she said she thinks it would be really fun to pack her lunch so I said that sounded good, too, and I would get her a lunchbox she can pack. She wants one with a thermos; she thinks this sounds nifty. Finally she said she would like to have tests and she would like those tests to be mazes and I said this sounded good, too, so we went out to the grocery store and bought her one of those coloring books with activities inside. She is very happy to have it and it’s kept her busy a couple of days. I asked her where she got these ideas about school although I figured it was because her cousin started. She said no, it is because she plays school with her dolls in the dollhouse sometimes and they make it look really fun. She also had all of her babies lined up the couch with paper and pencils so they were going to school, too.

If she ever becomes truly unhappy about being at home (instead of just curious about school) we’ll put it on the table. Realistically, she does not want to go to school. For one thing Noah informed her that she will likely not allowed to sing while she works because it will disturb the other students. Madison is a great one for singing while she’s thinking and honestly it’s one of my favorite things about working in the same room with her. Also she chatters off and on while she works and it is a very happy background to my day. I like to hear her and to chat back when she’s actually including me versus talking to herself.

She definitely wants different things than Noah wanted at this age. She likes direction more than he does and she sometimes needs more help finding things to do. She doesn’t whine about being bored but she comes around to hang on me more often. Since my desk is now in the kitchen, she is pretty happy to sit at the table and work on a project I set up or play in the family room, which is open next to where I work. Packing away toys to get out and put away again is way more important for her than it was for Noah, too. She likes new ideas and appreciates my input while Noah wanted nothing to do with me and my big plans. She also likes some academic help but not on a consistent basis. Like she’ll be gung-ho to work on some LEARNING activity one day but will be totally disinterested the next. She is the same with her skills acquisition — she will know something then forget although she has an amazing memory for facts and does some very impressive abstract problem-solving.

Her two favorite things to do are art and what the preschool teachers call dramatic play — she is always pretending. She loves her dollhouse, which she’s supplemented with people from our old Fisher-Price toys and various Playmobil and the McDonald Madame Alexander dolls we’ve picked up at thrift stores. Lately she’s also been doing an awful lot with her stuffed animals. Beanies were Noah’s favorite thing at this age, too, as were his tiny PVC Pokemon guys. (It occurs to me that the Pokemon guys were his stand in for the kind of play Madison is doing with her dollhouse only he never put them in HIS dollhouse; he put them in the 70s era Fisher-Price fire station and castle.) Noah liked to hide his people away and he was very quiet when he played, listening to story CDs. Madison listens to her story CDs, too, but she talks out loud the whole time she plays. I love listening to her people bicker and work things out — she is all about relationships!

I've got homework

Homeschooling 13 Responses »
Sep 302010

So this one blog post I’ve been meaning to write I haven’t had time to write. Arranging the screening and getting the word out has been a huge timesuck plus we’re organizing a big online event in November and I’m about burned out on emails and phone calls. Burned. Out.

We’re talking about middle childhood right now in my Life Spans classs and I’m making note of all the assumptions we make about kids that really may say more about kids in the context of school than they do about KIDS. By which I mean that when studies naturally focus on peer relationships in school, which is a very specific context for peer relationships, those studies might miss out on the fact that peer relationships in school may be the default experience but it is not necessarily TRUE the way that a babies need to suck is TRUE.

There are a lot of similarities between what I’ve seen of my own son’s middle childhood (Madison is just getting there so I can’t say for certain about her) and what the book says about middle childhood but when it comes to some of the peer experiences, I see a lot of differences, especially around the gender assumptions.

I think researches ought to look at homeschooled kids some. I know it’s hard because homeschoolers tend to be so different. It’s not as neat and tidy as looking at schooled kids, who have so many similarities in their environments. Homeschool families come in all shapes, colors and sizes not to mention philosphies and practices. Still, it might illuminate some of what they’re seeing in schooled populations.

Around here kids do tend to group by age and gender but not nearly as much or as rigidly as this book says most schooled kids do. Instead kids tend to group around activity and interest and availability. The book describes the recess activities I remember where girls stand around and talk while boys play sports but this isn’t true in homeschool. Kids play with the kids who show up so big kids play with little kids and girls play with boys and sometimes they do sex or age segregate but most of the time they do not. Most of the time you just have packs of kids who are kinda around the same age (or ability) running around or standing around.

Now I’m not saying that homeschool is more TRUE anymore than school is more TRUE; I’m saying that it would be a mistake to assume that school is TRUE because it is more typical. Looking at atypical families (homeschoolers) might bring insight to more typical experiences (school). Because maybe it is not true that most kids naturally sex segregate to the point where most boys will actively avoid speaking to a girl unless they have to (see this chart); maybe that is true when you put large groups of same age children together for six hours a day. I’m not critiquing school here, mind you, I’m just saying that maybe this is true in that setting but not true in another. I have not seen that behavior in our homeschool community so I question how TRUE it is as normal child development. (Again, not arguing that child development is more true or natural in homeschool than it is in school; I’m just saying it may be different.)

Also? I know that there are certainly zillions of exceptions to what the book and chart say for kids who ARE in school, too. The book might argue that such exceptions are outside of the norm and I might argue that they are only outside the norm of SCHOOL and perhaps we need to understand that school is a cultural institution and so when we talk about child development, this is another time we need to really get that we’re talking about our culture’s imapct on child development and not assume that it is simply TRUE.

Napping homeschool girl

Homeschooling 10 Responses »
Aug 252010

Every once in awhile Madison just CRASHES. I knew today would be one of those days because she woke up whiny and it just got worse as the day wore on. It culminated with her in tears on the couch because of something she said to someone when she was four that she doesn’t remember but she knows was mean and the guilt — after two years — was finally overwhelming. So first I told her that even the nicest people do mean things sometimes and that she IS one of the nicest people I know and then I tucked her into bed and lay down with her for a few minutes. It’s been an hour and a half and she’s still sleeping.

Today would be her first day of school if she was going to our neighborhood school across the way. Or maybe yesterday would have been, I don’t know because the schools in our district got to choose which of those two days to start and I didn’t bother to get the details. We get a little foot traffic from kids in backpacks in front of our house and sometimes minivans park there if there’s an assembly of some kind.

We hear the school “bell” (it’s really a buzzer) go off, too, and all the kids romping on the playground. It makes for a nice nieghborhood-y feel.

Tomorrow I start school and I was thinking about how a lot of the moms on Facebook/Twitter have been counting down the days/hours/minutes until their kids go and I thought it’d be funny if Noah was doing the same thing about me but no one would get it since pretty much all his friends on Facebook are either kids or homeschooling parents of his friends. I feel like that was a potentially hilarious piece of satire that will never get to be.

Every year I ask the kids if they feel left out when they know other people are going to school and every year they say no. They say no while sitting in their jammies knowing their schooled peers are already at their desks so it’s likely not a fair context for the question. I did ask Noah once on the last day of school when there was a huge fair out on the playground field with bouncy houses and a DJ and he said, “But see how happy they are that they get to LEAVE?”

Listen, there are downsides to homeschooling mainly for me but the kids are awfully happy about it.

When people ask me if they should homeschool

Homeschooling 1 Response »
May 272010

I am not a hard core homeschool activist and I don’t strongly identify as a homeschooler. We homeschool and it defines our experience but it does not define my identity. (The kids, on the other hand, might say something different.) I also think homeschooling brings a whole lot of problems with it and if you don’t 100% (or at least 95%) believe in what you’re doing, those problems aren’t worth it.

Now we love homeschooling here. We’ve been very happy with out experiences so far. We’re also very one-day-at-a-time about it and as Noah heads into what will be eighth grade, I have no idea if he’ll homeschool for high school or not. (I know he wants to go to college and so next year we’ll be working on identifying his options to help him figure out how to do that.)

Here are the problems I’ve had with homeschooling (this is a very personal list and in no way assumes anyone else has or will have these particular problems):

  1. Finances. We really need to be a two-income family and homeschooling limits our ability to do that. Fortunately I have a fairly portable career so this issue isn’t as daunting as it might be otherwise.
  2. Time. Because we need to be a two-income family, I am constantly, constantly stretched. Honestly I think grad school would be a vacation.
  3. Support. I have wonderful homeschooling support. I have wonderful working support. I have wonderful writing support. These three support systems rarely meet and for an introvert, juggling several support systems (not to mention adoption support, transracial support, Jewish support, etc.) is challenging. If I was less introverted or needed less support, this wouldn’t be an issue. But I am and I do so it is. There are days when I don’t fit in anywhere and then I’m lonely and self-pitying. Don’t worry — I get over it but I do have those very very bad days.

Like I said, I love homeschooling and I don’t regret our decision for a minute but it’s not for everyone. Usually I tell people who ask if they should homeschool that they should do whatever they want. Because if they WANT to do it, likely their kids will be fine. I think happy, loving parents tend to make for happy kids, generally speaking, and no one ought to be a martyr. The other thing I tell them is that school is there if they want it; homeschool is there if they want it. None of us has to make a definitive decision and I know many parents and kids who have gone back and forth depending on what makes the most sense right then. So it’s not as do or die as it sometimes seems.

Anyway. These past couple of weeks have been a lot more juggling than usual and when an already very busy parent asked me if she should homeschool the other day I said, “Well, probably not.” And I wanted to refine my answer a little bit. More like, “Who the hell knows. Give it a shot, what the heck. Or not. It’s all good.”

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