Child vs. Lesson Plan

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Barb

My youngest nephew is seven, and a very bright child. He loves science, and keeps busy at home with educational toys that would bore or overwhelm many boys his age.

Up until recently, he did very well in school. But his second-grade teacher expects her students to sit quietly and read; she thinks he has a problem with this so she’s been sending notes home about it, which is upsetting him and his mother.

As I said, he’s seven and he’s a boy. Sitting quietly and reading is not his natural behavior. I’m not saying he shouldn’t learn this, but I’m sad that his current inability in this area is affecting his grades.

But that’s school. The teacher plans a learning experience for the entire class; those who can’t do what she says will be graded down.

Don’t think this only happens in school. When I was homeschooling, especially at the beginning, there were times when I found “the perfect curriculum” at a homeschool convention, brought it home, made lesson plans using it, and watched my children for signs of “delight-directed learning” or whatever the catchphrase was on the cover….but was disappointed to see none of that on their faces. That’s when I realized that they didn’t do well with the curriculum. I had to learn that children learn best when the subject is presented in a way that works for them…..which may not be the way that works best for the teacher.

Ultimately, gearing materials toward the child’s interests, intelligence level and developmental stage is what works. Successful homeschooling parents learn to do that for their children. Teachers, even very good teachers, can try to do that but how do you accommodate the needs of 30 children from a variety of backgrounds? You can’t.

That’s why homeschooling is so successful, especially once we stop trying to be a school and concentrate instead on giving each of our children what they need at a particular point in time.

Sales of Home Education Tools on the Radio

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Barb

Every morning when my alarm goes off, and whenever I’m in the car, I listen to Chicago radio. It’s a lifetime habit I can’t break, even though I left Illinois several years ago.

Chicago radio is overloaded with ads. Some of them are played over and over, so they must be successful. I assume whatever’s being advertised on Chicago radio is something that’s probably popular with a lot of people, since a big city usually has a good cross-section of the population.

Lately I’m hearing a lot of radio ads for a DVD series that teaches children to do math. If you knew nothing about public education today, you might wonder why advertisers think there’s a market for such a thing. But as the public schools continue their downward trajectory, more parents are seeing a need for math help for their kids. A DVD is something they can put in front of their children without getting too involved themselves, or so they hope.

Technology is slowly changing the face of education. Today’s kids have access to so much educational material on DVDs and the Internet, via tablets and laptops. More and more parents are realizing that their children can have a good education at home, without the distractions of the classroom, or the dangers.

Think I’m exaggerating about that last part? I wish I was, but it scares me to think about how easily and quickly I came up with these stories from just this month:

Teacher with child porn on FBI Most-Wanted List

Iowa teacher admits to sex with four of her students.

Utah teacher charged with raping student.

Illinois teacher pleads guilty to sex with student.

California teacher pleas “no contest” to sex with 14-year-old student.

Maryland teacher arrested with child porn.

California special-ed teacher fired for running porn sites on school computer.

Two married female NY teachers investigated for “inappropriate relationships” with student athletes.

Florida teacher’s assistant charged with aggravated child abuse.

NY teacher fired for kissing student, exchanging 1400 texts.

Texas teacher fired for molestation denies it, saying she doesn’t even like touching black children on the hand.

OK, that’s enough or I’ll lose my lunch. I find it especially depressing that most of the perpetrator teachers listed above are women. Ugh. Bottom line: today’s schools are definitely dangerous places for children.

A Homeschool Tempest in a Teapot

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Barb

So the press has found some dissatisfied homeschooled adults. This must make them so happy. Nothing like a little controversy to boost your website traffic.

It makes sense that there will be some homeschooled adults who are dissatisfied with how they were raised. Just looking at the populace at large, what percentage are unhappy with the way they were raised? Probably a good portion, judging from the number of self-help titles published over the years for readers trying to get past their problematic childhoods. Why should homeschoolers be any different?

In this particular case the focus is on a certain type of homeschooling family, known collectively as Quiverfull, according to the article. (That name stems from a book very popular among Christian homeschoolers in the 1990s.) This has been a trainwreck in the making for some time. I knew several families like those described in the article; given their strict beliefs, particularly as they applied them to their daughters, rebellion was inevitable. After all, once your girls get out into the world and discover that there are options in addition to marriage and motherhood, some of them are going to want more choices.

When my first book (Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers) was published, I had trouble getting a booth at a certain homeschool conference to sell it. I couldn’t even get a response from those running the conference. I was later told by someone in the know that the problem with my book is that it encourages girls as well as boys to become independent adults. The families running the conference didn’t want their girls to get any ideas, I guess.

Now, I don’t agree with their mindset and my husband doesn’t either. We homeschooled all our children, daughters and sons, with the intent of helping them be all that they could be. Personally I think we can trust God to lead each child to the right career; those that think all girls should be trained only to be wives and mothers ought to give some thought to how God used Corrie ten Boom and Amy Carmichael.

But just because I disagree with families who raise their daughters to be only wives and mothers doesn’t mean I think they shouldn’t be able to do what they’re doing. There is no agenda-free schooling anywhere. There’s an agenda in public school and private school just as there is in any homeschool. Parents are free to choose how to educate their children, and children are free to embrace or reject their upbringing when they become adults. The article I cited at the start of this post is merely an attempt to foment controversy, so don’t let it bother you too much.

The irony in all this is that many of the young women quoted in the article will someday change their minds. They’ll end up being stricter than their folks. I’ve seen it happen before. Some of the biggest rebels eventually turn into the strictest parents. People are funny, aren’t they?

One Busy Guy

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Barb

When I write about homeschooling and mention that all my children have pursued their own interests, I do mean ALL of them, even my youngest, who has Down syndrome.

I remember the social worker who told me, shortly after his birth, that he would watch his older siblings do things, but because of his innate lack of curiosity he wouldn’t do much himself. In fact, she actually said he would “watch the world go by.” As an involved parent with several years of childrearing under her belt, I found that very depressing.

Fortunately, it turned out to be wrong. In fact, by the time he was two or three, the family joke was that we were going to take him back to her office and let him loose so he could take the place apart as he did our house. Maybe then she would stop depressing other parents with her outlook.

The fact is that our son has plenty of curiosity. He expressed it physically far earlier than verbally. He was still pretty young when he began climbing into the refrigerator and the oven. He often narrowly avoided catastrophe when attempting to surf down the stairs or taste electrical cords. I once caught him trying to nuke his brother’s watch in the microwave. He was nothing if not intrepid.

These days he’s a young man. We’re no longer “doing school” as we did for so many years, but he manages to keep busy and most importantly, he pursues his interests. His days often begin with singing; this morning he burst into song along with Joseph in one of his favorite movies, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.” He sings with all the fervor (if not the enunciation) of a Broadway star. It’s a pleasure to hear him.

He also has his own ideas about getting exercise. While I coax him on occasional walks, and his dad takes him bowling every week, he loves to take time out from his day to dance along with the “High School Musical” gang. I think he must know all the dance numbers by heart now, and he works up a sweat trying to imitate the dancers perfectly. Most of the time he does this with his door shut, but occasionally he requires an audience and whoever happens to be at home obliges. It’s always a good time.

He also likes to work out, and will occasionally take over the hallway to see if he can top his record of push-ups or sit-ups. He has a favorite barbell he uses to work on his biceps, which he flexes for anyone who asks (or even if they don’t).

He has other interests, including his latest, using Skype with his big brother and infant nephew. Last week he tried Skyping with his best friend, who also has Down syndrome. Those guys had a great time.

He’s so busy pursuing his interests that he often doesn’t want to stop in order to go with me to the grocery (where he mans the cart and does the scanning) or on other errands. He usually lets me know I’m interrupting his day before giving in and coming with me. But as soon as we get home, he goes back to what he was doing before I dragged him away from it.

Other people don’t understand this. They ask me why he isn’t in a sheltered workshop or bagging groceries somewhere. Seriously, I don’t think he has the time!

Faith in Institutions vs. Self-Reliance

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Barb

One of the best predictors of homeschool success is whether or not you have faith in institutions*.

Most people do. They figure schools know what’s best for kids, medical personnel know what’s best for people, and government knows what’s best for everyone.

It’s easy to say that “I don’t feel that way!” But think about it. Do you figure if homeschooling doesn’t work out, you can always send your kids back to school? When the doctor’s prescription not only doesn’t help your child but makes him worse, do you immediately go back for a different prescription instead of educating yourself on the problem first? And when your government tells you it will handle its enormous debt, do you figure it knows what it’s doing and go back to your day? Because these are all signs of reliance on institutions.

Most of the homeschoolers I’ve known over the years have shared a distrust of institutions. Their school experience was not the highlight of their childhood and may have even been a catalyst for homeschooling their children. They take what their doctors say with a grain of salt and start doing their own research on their (and their loved ones’) health situations, which is why many of them are into homeopathy, follow certain ways of eating ranging from paleo to vegan, and often don’t want their children to be vaccinated. And they respond to their government’s casual reassurances about its financial future by stocking up on food, weapons and, if they have the money, gold.

I see this conflict between those who believe in institutions and those who don’t a lot lately, especially among homeschoolers. I hear from moms who are frustrated because those who run the homeschool co-op their kids attend aren’t being fair, or aren’t offering convenient-enough times or places for co-op classes. Sometimes there’s panic in their tone, and I don’t understand it. I went into homeschooling figuring I was going to have to do it myself, and proceeded accordingly. But these parents don’t see it that way. That tells me that they have too much faith in institutions, and I have to wonder about their commitment to homeschooling their children. I hope they won’t do like some and put their kids back in school, until something happens there that they don’t like and they pull them back out again to homeschool them. That’s not really fair to the child. Kids need consistency, and they’ll find that in the home if their parents are able to provide it.

From what I’ve seen, parents who instinctively distrust institutions are better suited to long-term homeschooling. There’s a self-reliance there that’s lacking in those who trust so-called experts more than their own God-given common sense.

*I’m using the term “institutions” as a catch-all that includes organizations, bureaucracies, teams and organized groups.