After you decide to homeschool, I suppose you can expect to be discouraged and/or doubt if you're doing the right things in your homeschooling or even the right thing by homeschooling at all. I think it's healthy, in some ways, to constantly be reevaluating what you're doing to make sure that it's making an impact, that your child is learning and that everyone is happy and satisfied with the progress.
What I miss as a novice homeschooler is the input of seasoned homeschoolers. I knit and crochet and reading some of the issues novice knitters and crocheters face, I kind of chuckle sometimes. The simplicity of the answer to a seemingly complex problem (to the newbie) is something astounding. And I'm sure the same applies to homeschooling. I'm always looking to connect with folks who have been there and done that with this homeschooling thing. Especially folks of color.
Some questions I ask:
How much should I push when he says he doesn't want to do something?
How rigid should I be in my scheduling? Should I schedule in "chill-out" days?
How do I keep little brother from interfering with our learning?
How do I plug in the holes when I'm teaching something I'm not quite 100% confident about or just not comfortable with (like learning about snakes)?
It takes a little faith to believe that I'm doing the right thing. Most important for me to remember is that I can find opportunities to teach him in every situation. I just have to keep my mind about me.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Capturing and Capitalizing on Interests
I agree with the theory that the best way to teach a child is through his/her interests, that is, finding the things that intrigue and captivate a child the most and using that to teach a myriad of concepts and ideas.
One of the hallmarks of being Z1 is capriciousness, though, but not in that he jumps from activity to activity. Rather, Zion will focus all his energies on one particular interest for extended periods of time and then refuse to be bothered with that activity again. For a long while it was puzzles and all he would do all the time was this puzzle and that puzzle. I bought tons of puzzles and found a great site with all kinds of challenging puzzles only for him to decide one day that puzzles were passe. The same with many other things. So I'm learning that once he demonstrates even an inkling of an interest in something, I have to be at the ready to capture that interest and capitalize on it. I often think that this is certainly one thing that school could not offer him. How could a teacher with 15 to 25 kids, even with the best of intentions, be so focused on my child that she would notice the first buds of interest? Could he/she deviate from her curriculum/pacing guide to capitalize on it?
Currently, Z1 is fascinated with birds. Chris will often throw chunks stale bread into the backyard and you should just see the delight on Z1's face when the birds descend to eat the bread. He gets so excited and scolds the squirrels for "stealing" the birds' bread. He's also taken with butterflies and has spoken about getting a net to catch them. So yesterday at our library, we found a few good books on birds and butterflies although I'm hoping to check out some more at the children's library two towns over. I want to get him some kind of net to catch butterflies with too. As he was hanging out as his friend's house last week, I noticed that Z1 enjoyed playing with a lacrosse stick. I don't see why a Lacrosse stick couldn't double as butterfly net. :) However, a real butterfly net is hardly expensive.
One of the hallmarks of being Z1 is capriciousness, though, but not in that he jumps from activity to activity. Rather, Zion will focus all his energies on one particular interest for extended periods of time and then refuse to be bothered with that activity again. For a long while it was puzzles and all he would do all the time was this puzzle and that puzzle. I bought tons of puzzles and found a great site with all kinds of challenging puzzles only for him to decide one day that puzzles were passe. The same with many other things. So I'm learning that once he demonstrates even an inkling of an interest in something, I have to be at the ready to capture that interest and capitalize on it. I often think that this is certainly one thing that school could not offer him. How could a teacher with 15 to 25 kids, even with the best of intentions, be so focused on my child that she would notice the first buds of interest? Could he/she deviate from her curriculum/pacing guide to capitalize on it?
Currently, Z1 is fascinated with birds. Chris will often throw chunks stale bread into the backyard and you should just see the delight on Z1's face when the birds descend to eat the bread. He gets so excited and scolds the squirrels for "stealing" the birds' bread. He's also taken with butterflies and has spoken about getting a net to catch them. So yesterday at our library, we found a few good books on birds and butterflies although I'm hoping to check out some more at the children's library two towns over. I want to get him some kind of net to catch butterflies with too. As he was hanging out as his friend's house last week, I noticed that Z1 enjoyed playing with a lacrosse stick. I don't see why a Lacrosse stick couldn't double as butterfly net. :) However, a real butterfly net is hardly expensive.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Whose job is it to teach you what you need to know?
So I was conversing with a friend of mine and she brought up a very valid point: "Our education system sucks. We don't teach financial literacy in schools."
I wonder when parents send their children to school what they think the school is responsible for doing. I had a professor once who likened school to an emergency room. You, the injured person should not have to be a doctor to get world class, professional treatment. Likewise, parents shouldn't have to do anything special to get their children a world class education. Back then I totally agreed. These days, however, I am more inclined to think that school is more like going to your regular doctor and not the emergency room. I personally believe that if you are ill, you should have at least some idea going about what it could be. When you are diagnosed, you should be very aware of the treatment options and the side effects of each option. You should be free to say this is not working or I'm not comfortable with that treatment. And you should be free to go to another doctor without penalty or guilt fairly easily. You should have a say and power in your own health and treatment.
The same goes for education. Most of us don't vote on curriculums or dictate what should be taught. Even though so many of us agree that having Black history relegated to the shortest month of the year is an affront, we can also agree that unless we're willing to go to Albany with a brand new curriculum we drew up, that's not going to change. If you want your children to know Black history or any other history aside from the standard spiel, you're going to have to do it. Now, I will say that many parents do take an active stand to ensure the quality of children's education. In poorer neighborhoods, however, this is rarely the case. I know, I know, these parents sometimes work 2 and 3 jobs. Many mothers are single and all that. I get it. But I'm going to be a little hardline here and say one word: priorities. You may not be able to make every single PTA meeting but you can make some and you can call and ask for the minutes of the meeting. You can drop in every once in a long while or call or e-mail to let the teacher know, "Look, I'm busy but I care." My local school here of over 500 students has a hard time pulling 25 parents for the PTA. Will my sons be going to that school? No way. But I digress.
What exactly do we expect schools to teach our children? What did it teach you? Yes, I learned to read and write but not everyone who graduated with me could. Did I learn to think critically? No. Did I learn any valuable life skills? No. I graduated from high school to go to college. Graduated from college to get a job. When I didn't get a good enough job, went back to school to get another job. Even graduate school where I was supposed to be getting trained specifically to be a teacher did not prepare me for teaching. I would have been much better equipped to have spent those years learning from a master teacher. Because there's more to teaching than curriculum and lesson plans. How does your child psychology class translate to when you're in front of 30 kids?
So, it's safe to say that schoolkind of prepares us to get jobs. That's it. The rest, well, it's up to you.
I'm not the originator of that idea either. If there's nothing else I got out of graduate school, it was that public schools were originally conceived as places where everyone could get blended into the fabric of American society, in other words, Americanized. Get with the program. Being Americanized meant embracing the American dream, the idea that you work hard, so hard and then you enjoy. We all know that's not necessarily true but it keeps the system running nicely. Keeps those on top securely on top and those on the bottom securely on the bottom. School has always served a political purpose. And politics go hand in hand with economics.
So why would schools then start to teach us financial literacy? We can't even get schools to teach the histories of all peoples, to empower students in that way. If schools all of a sudden started teaching people how the economy really works, how to be financially literate, how to make sound money decisions, who would this system prey on? Whose blood could it suck? If we all knew a couple of years ago what a bubble we were in and all decided back then to remove ourselves from the bubble, start spending real money, start sowing in order to reap, it never could have gotten so out of hand. But we didn't. Most of us have never learned because that's not what school was set up to do. And we've never critically looked at the school structure to determine exactly what the point is, to realize what it can't and won't do for us.
I don't believe that school truly educates. We learn there. We learn facts. But we are not educated to become thinking, critically thinking adults. It's why Fox News exists. It's why all news that shamelessly distorts the truth or makes glaring omissions still exist. And why most of us suck it all in without a second thought. We've never been educated to understand that everything, big and small, needs a second thought.
I'm certainly not anti-school because my sons may need to go to school one day. I'd prefer a charter school or another type of private school with a different focus and a different, clear mission that I agree with. But if it is that public school ends up the only option, I know that I have my work cut out for me in terms of educating my sons. I tend to think that folks who never did well in school didn't do well because they couldn't be boxed in, couldn't get with factory schooling, i.e. put "x" into a child and get "y" out. For young Black boys, especially, this formula has been failing over and over again. I cannot simply depend on schools to teach them what they need to be successful in this world. No one should, really.
So whose job is it to teach you what you need to know? It seems like today we are realizing quite painfully that ignorance is not an option anymore. Each one of us is responsible to a very large degree for getting and assimilating the information we need to make it. We know we've been used as pawns in this system. And we've allowed ourselves to be for the promise of the American dream. But today we have to refuse to be victimized anymore, look at everything with intense scrutiny, open up our minds and for once, not be afraid to think. Not be afraid to embrace critical thought. Even if it's painful and even if it hurts our pride.
It's our job to teach ourselves what we need to know to survive.
I wonder when parents send their children to school what they think the school is responsible for doing. I had a professor once who likened school to an emergency room. You, the injured person should not have to be a doctor to get world class, professional treatment. Likewise, parents shouldn't have to do anything special to get their children a world class education. Back then I totally agreed. These days, however, I am more inclined to think that school is more like going to your regular doctor and not the emergency room. I personally believe that if you are ill, you should have at least some idea going about what it could be. When you are diagnosed, you should be very aware of the treatment options and the side effects of each option. You should be free to say this is not working or I'm not comfortable with that treatment. And you should be free to go to another doctor without penalty or guilt fairly easily. You should have a say and power in your own health and treatment.
The same goes for education. Most of us don't vote on curriculums or dictate what should be taught. Even though so many of us agree that having Black history relegated to the shortest month of the year is an affront, we can also agree that unless we're willing to go to Albany with a brand new curriculum we drew up, that's not going to change. If you want your children to know Black history or any other history aside from the standard spiel, you're going to have to do it. Now, I will say that many parents do take an active stand to ensure the quality of children's education. In poorer neighborhoods, however, this is rarely the case. I know, I know, these parents sometimes work 2 and 3 jobs. Many mothers are single and all that. I get it. But I'm going to be a little hardline here and say one word: priorities. You may not be able to make every single PTA meeting but you can make some and you can call and ask for the minutes of the meeting. You can drop in every once in a long while or call or e-mail to let the teacher know, "Look, I'm busy but I care." My local school here of over 500 students has a hard time pulling 25 parents for the PTA. Will my sons be going to that school? No way. But I digress.
What exactly do we expect schools to teach our children? What did it teach you? Yes, I learned to read and write but not everyone who graduated with me could. Did I learn to think critically? No. Did I learn any valuable life skills? No. I graduated from high school to go to college. Graduated from college to get a job. When I didn't get a good enough job, went back to school to get another job. Even graduate school where I was supposed to be getting trained specifically to be a teacher did not prepare me for teaching. I would have been much better equipped to have spent those years learning from a master teacher. Because there's more to teaching than curriculum and lesson plans. How does your child psychology class translate to when you're in front of 30 kids?
So, it's safe to say that school
I'm not the originator of that idea either. If there's nothing else I got out of graduate school, it was that public schools were originally conceived as places where everyone could get blended into the fabric of American society, in other words, Americanized. Get with the program. Being Americanized meant embracing the American dream, the idea that you work hard, so hard and then you enjoy. We all know that's not necessarily true but it keeps the system running nicely. Keeps those on top securely on top and those on the bottom securely on the bottom. School has always served a political purpose. And politics go hand in hand with economics.
So why would schools then start to teach us financial literacy? We can't even get schools to teach the histories of all peoples, to empower students in that way. If schools all of a sudden started teaching people how the economy really works, how to be financially literate, how to make sound money decisions, who would this system prey on? Whose blood could it suck? If we all knew a couple of years ago what a bubble we were in and all decided back then to remove ourselves from the bubble, start spending real money, start sowing in order to reap, it never could have gotten so out of hand. But we didn't. Most of us have never learned because that's not what school was set up to do. And we've never critically looked at the school structure to determine exactly what the point is, to realize what it can't and won't do for us.
I don't believe that school truly educates. We learn there. We learn facts. But we are not educated to become thinking, critically thinking adults. It's why Fox News exists. It's why all news that shamelessly distorts the truth or makes glaring omissions still exist. And why most of us suck it all in without a second thought. We've never been educated to understand that everything, big and small, needs a second thought.
I'm certainly not anti-school because my sons may need to go to school one day. I'd prefer a charter school or another type of private school with a different focus and a different, clear mission that I agree with. But if it is that public school ends up the only option, I know that I have my work cut out for me in terms of educating my sons. I tend to think that folks who never did well in school didn't do well because they couldn't be boxed in, couldn't get with factory schooling, i.e. put "x" into a child and get "y" out. For young Black boys, especially, this formula has been failing over and over again. I cannot simply depend on schools to teach them what they need to be successful in this world. No one should, really.
So whose job is it to teach you what you need to know? It seems like today we are realizing quite painfully that ignorance is not an option anymore. Each one of us is responsible to a very large degree for getting and assimilating the information we need to make it. We know we've been used as pawns in this system. And we've allowed ourselves to be for the promise of the American dream. But today we have to refuse to be victimized anymore, look at everything with intense scrutiny, open up our minds and for once, not be afraid to think. Not be afraid to embrace critical thought. Even if it's painful and even if it hurts our pride.
It's our job to teach ourselves what we need to know to survive.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Learning the Days of the Week
I'm still trying to work out what our approach to homeschooling will be. I'm pretty sure I won't unschool but I don't want to do school at home. It will probably be some kind of mix between what Z1 is interested in and what I'd like to see him be able to do. The whole point of homeschooling for me is to achieve a nice balance of ambition/drive to learn and enjoyment/comfort in learning. I keep educational benchmarks (i.e. what he should be doing in what grade) in mind while being loose and flexible.Anyway, back to learning the days of the week. To start, I made a YouTube Playlist called Days of the Week. From that, Z1 has learned the names and order of the days of the week quite easily. Now we are working on learning what day it is, and then, logically, what yesterday was and what tomorrow will be.
We're also getting familiar with a calendar. So much drama with the calendar! I couldn't get to stick it up there with tape at all! It kept coming down. Chris found some kind of putty at Target and it works like a charm. (Don't you just love a useful man?) So every day, on our whiteboard we write the day and date and then stick up the corresponding number onto the calendar taking the opportunity to count from one till that day. We then write on our white board what yesterday was and what tomorrow will be. We describe the weather and write it up along with a cheesy illustration that I draw. Then we talk about what we'll do that day and write it. Sometimes in the space that's left, we practice writing numbers or writing his name.
I like the rhythm. I can be quite regimented though so I'm trying to be relaxed. Yesterday, Z1 just wasn't in the mood so I just did it myself and put it up there. No big deal. I think it's important in and of itself to have it up there, for him to see it.
I'm hoping to get some words on cardstock that describe the weather so he can match it with an illustration. Some felt might come into play with that somehow. I'm still thinking.
Photo Credit: "Original Calendar" by mamako7070 on Flickr.com.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Won't your kids be socially retarded or just plain weird?
Is probably the question I'm asked most frequently when I mention that we'll be homeschooling. There are excellent articles out there on this very topic and this post will be a collection of the ones that I find striking so I'll be updating this post regularly and it will probably turn into a linklist on the sidebar.
Read this one yesterday: Education or Schooling . . . yes you have to make a choice.
More to come . . .
Read this one yesterday: Education or Schooling . . . yes you have to make a choice.
More to come . . .
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Homeschooling Resources
So, after lots of thinking, weighing the pros and cons, it's finalized: we are going to be a homeschooling family. It's been a complex decision and I've had to take a lot of things into account. Negativity from friends and family has been one thing that has led to my reluctance to fully embrace homeschooling but I'm finally comfortable and secure in my decision. There are a myriad of reasons:- I don't agree with the philosophy of public schools and I can't afford or don't have access to private/charter schools whose philosophies more closely match mine.
- I could overlook philosophical differences more easily if the public schools offered top-notch educations but in my town, unfortunately, that is not the case.
- I am willing (and able) at this moment to homeschool. We are able to make ends meet on one income right now and hope to be able to do continue. Utilizing relatively free resources (library and internet) and making wise curricula purchases, we can keep the budget for homeschooling low.
- I know I can offer my children the type of education I want them to have, maintaining their love and joy of learning and exposing them to things that they might not otherwise be exposed to (African and World Histories being a top priority).
- I can address my children's specific needs and honor their gifts and talents while maximizing their time and mine. I believe that way too much time in school is wasted. And while I'm devoted to my children, there are areas of myself I am looking forward to developing as the children get older.
- Starfall--excellent site that teaches reading readiness (letters and sounds, etc)
- Letter of the Week Preparatory Curriculum--This is the *free* curriculum we are currently using. We are on Week 13 currently. Sometimes we take longer than a week but no more than two.
- Fisher-Price--nice collection of educational (and strictly fun) games which help build motor skills, hand-eye coordination
- Preschool Themes and Lesson Plans--A real go-to resource that supports the curriculum we're using very well
- Count Us In games--games that teach counting/number sense
- Funschool Preschool--games and learning activities
- Letter Coloring Pages
- Online Jigsaw Puzzles--builds acuity, hand-eye coordination, motor skills
- Typical Course of Study--lists what a child should typically study/master in each grade.
- The state's curriculum is readily available online.
I'm still hoping to find a homeschooling group for support and social stuff. I know I will.
One question: since I pay school taxes in my town, why is it that if I choose to homeschool my town refuses to provide services to my child (if he needs it) and refuses to allow him to play on sports teams (not that my town sports teams will actually exist in two to three years the way things are going fiscally for this town) or be involved in any extra-curricular activities? Maybe I'm missing something that would help me understand.
Photo Credit: "Homeschool" by ForeverSouls on Flickr.
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