Another person's view of home-schooling

I cut and copied this from another person's facebook. The author is Collette Deneault/Oldham
My views on homeschooling were the typical concerns:
(1.) I felt they weren't being socialized (based on one family I knew
whose kids did not know how to socialize.)
(2.) I felt they couldn't possibly be learning as much as I was
"teaching"……..I was sure every kid was dying to know their
multiplication tables through music…..
And (3.) to top off my ego, I was sure that I was doing a much better
job with 25 kids, than a mom could possibly do one-on-one with no
curriculum bought materials.
Then it happened. I became a grandmother and my grandkids were going
to be, not just homeschooled but unschooled. This required some re-
direction on my part. But fortunately, I didn't need too much
persuasion as my last few years in the classroom were convincing
enough. This together with reading lots of books, magazines and sites,
I was able to re-define what education meant to me.

First of all, teaching to the test had become the cornerstone of
"teaching". And if a student scored lower than a 4 on standardized
testing, he/she would be pulled out for extra "help". Any time for
planning fun activities got taken over with the recording and
analyzing of data. I slowly went from teacher to secretary in four
years. Each day became more cloned until everyone had to be on the
same page in order to compare/contrast. More workshops were brought
into the school, business consultants were hired (education having
become a business I suspect), and more curriculum was put into our day
with nothing removed. Recess was slowly taken away and kids were
forced to read or at least hold a book…..to help state scores.
Eventually, the school day was extended by a half an hour, a double
guarantee that more structured time would definitely help scores. No
school wants to be a school in need.

At one point in my teaching career, I decided to graph actual
"teaching" moments. Not necessarily learning moments but "teaching". I
came to the realization that I had about 2 hours a day where I had all
the kids at the same time. Pull out programs, designed to help kids,
were doing anything but that. Whether they needed it or not, these
kids were removed from a rich literature discussion and were made to
sit around a round table learning the sounds of the vowels and reading
rhyming books with absolutely no plot and no interest level. Anyway,
of those two hours of "non-interrupted time" in my class, kids were
still going in and out of the room for various reasons (nurse, school
store, bookmobile, banking, bathroom etc.). Moreover, any "new"
concept from our richstate driven curriculum was not necessarily a new
concept for everyone and for some it wasn't even important. Educating
children at school was practically becoming synonymous to torture for
both the teacher and the student. So you can imagine when the concept
of unschooling came up, I was more than ready to embrace a system of
learning that could indeed be called learning (and keep my grandkids
out of this bureaucratic mess).
And now back to my 3 original concerns:
(1.) I now see that socialization in a classroom may not be the
socialization you want your kids to model. Besides, contrary to
belief, there's little time in the day for kids to be kids and no time
in the day for kids to interact with adults. In a school setting,
adults are the people who tell kids what to do. A teacher does not
have time to have a conversation with each child every day. A home/
unschooled child, on the other hand, learns to communicate with
everyone, no matter what the age. I've come to realize and more
importantly witness, that socialization in the real world happens in
the real world and not behind closed doors with a bunch of other kids
the same age waiting for a teacher to tell them what to do. I'm
speaking from experience. I did that. I'm guilty! I'm glad I'm living
long enough to see the other side of the coin.

(2.) Yes, I now realize that kids at home ARE learning at home and as
a matter of fact, they are learning much more at home. They may not be
learning the government regulated curriculum, but who says you have to
read at 6, study eskimos at 7, egyptians at 8, the solar system at 9
and the constitution at 10. And when's the last time someone asked you
what 3/4ths of 7/8ths is? I find it much more rewarding to have my 6
year old grandson (who can't read yet ….and is not coded for this
"flaw"), to come flying in, in the morning to show me how his magnet
under the table moves his magnet over the table. From this we had a
discussion on magnets that would have taken me a day to set up in a
classroom and two days to deliver to a 3rd grade class, (certainly not
to be taught to a 2ndgrade class).

(3.) Lastly, yes, my ego took a much needed face lift. I no longer
believe that my 30 plus years in the classroom was more beneficial to
any child whose parents chose to homeschool. If I had to do it over
again with my own kids, it would be really wonderful to not have to
wake them up from a warm bed, stuff breakfast down their throats and
put them on a noisy bus only to be delivered to some other adult who's
in charge of 25 other kids, and then have them sit there all day being
told what to learn with little socialization. And in addition to
sitting on a hard seat most of the day next to some kid who may be
annoying, they all must walk down the hall quietly, hurry to eat, rush
outdoors to play in a 15 minutes recess disguised as socializing in a
sea of kids who are exactly the same age. Very realistic! And you
mustn't forget the kids who never get recess because the teachers keep
them in for extra help or better yet, take away their recess as a
punishment OMG! This really really does happen!

In summary:

A day in the life of my grandkids would go like this: Happy engaged
kids learning everything they WANT to know, eating when they are
hungry and resting when they are tired.

A day in the life of a schooled child: Happy or unhappy kids engaged
or not engaged in learning or not learning, eating when they may or
may not be hungry and unable to rest if they are tired.

IN SCHOOL I believe that

Some kids learn all the time

All kids learn some of the time

But not all kids learn all of the time

But for unschooled kids, they ARE learning ALL of the time. They are
living life and learning everything that need and want to learn.

The choice is evident to me!

Collette Deneault ~Teacher for 30 plus years & Grandma to 5

Jeopardy

So....last night at 7:30pm Connor and I hurried home from Tae Kwon do lessons so that Connor could tryout for the kids' Jeopardy Game. A few months ago, we saw that tryouts for the TV show Jeopardy were going to be in our area in Feb., and we signed Connor up to take part. At 7:45pm sharp we logged into our account. We watched the clock tick down. All Connor had to do was answer 30 questions correctly (each within 20 seconds) and he would be entered into the pool of contestants considered for the show next year. If he was drawn from the pool, he would be interviewed and go through another round of questions in NYC. We just decided it would be fun, and a learning experience. Yes, it was. Nervously, Connor waited for the game to begin. About 4 minutes into it, he started yelling and calling himself an idiot. Oops. What happened? Well, instead of hitting the "submit" button after each question was asked, he realized (after 10-15 questions) that he was hitting the "skip" button. When he figured out his mistake, it was too late to do anything but exit out of the game. Of course, he was upset and disappointed, but really, the odds of him actually getting onto the show were slim anyway. He did, however, learn the importance of reading the directions carefully, even on a timed test.

The Box

I am a traditional, linear thinker. If I have a project to do, I plan out the project, buy the materials, write it on the calendar, and complete the project in the "normal" linear way. I plan out almost everything, and our calendar is enormous (color-coded by child) and it carries Biblical weight in our home. If it's not on Mom's Master Calendar, it is not going to happen. In fact, the activity simply doesn't exist. Poor Cheng (our exchange student) has found that out the hard way this year!! Unfortunately for me, my organized way of tackling things often contradicts with Connor's outside the box thinking. Take yesterday's lunch, for instance. In the cupboard I have at least 10 cans of soup. Connor asked me around noon if he could have soup for lunch. Sure, no problem. I went upstairs to shower. But does Connor open up a can of soup and microwave it, like I expected? Of course not. He decided to create a new type of soup. He opened up a can of V-8 juice, added garlic, hot pepper flakes, crispy onions (that I bought to put on top of a salad), and a few other magical ingredients. Granted, he ate his creation and he was happy, but things like that drive me crazy. He even wrote his new recipe on a card and named his soup. I just had to hold my breathe, count to 10, slowly exhale, and remind myself over and over that I should not stifle his creativity. I even managed to comment on his interesting compilation of flavors, instead of yelling. It helps me to remember that people thought Einstein was retarded, and that Galileo was crazy; Connor just can't seem to do things in the "normal" way. This is WHY we home-school. If he was in public school full-time they would manage to make him conform, or he would fail. God grant me patience.

China trip

Lately, I've been spending unbelievable amounts of time coordinating our trip to China. Connor has been diligently studying Mandarin, and we are all counting the days until we bring our new sons home. We've decided to stop doing the daily "SAT Prep" questions that we do for half an hour a day, and spend even more time on Chinese. Today I found that I can custom order M & M candies with phrases and photos. I'm thinking of buying some to give as gifts while in China. Connor can write out the Chinese characters for Thank You, for instance, and we can have them printed on the candy. Might be fun. Also, Connor called Canon to request the manual for our camera, and then he spent quite awhile figuring out all its functions. He already knows more about operating the camera than I do, and I've owned it 7 years! I didn't even know it could tape short videos!! I told him he can have the camera in China, and that proved quite an incentive to learn photography. Cooking is another thing that has captured Connor's imagination lately. He made hickory bark syrup last week, and everyone loved it so much that it's gone already. It's better than real maple syrup, and not too difficult to make. Next up, homemade bread. Yum.

Performing Arts

Tonight I took Connor to the performance of the Harlem Gospel Choir at SUNY Geneseo. I have to admit, at first I wasn't thrilled with the idea of spending a Sat. evening away from my husband, listening to gospel music with my son. That said, it was a wonderful, uplifting, and exciting evening. We even bought the Choir's Cd and had it autographed after the show. To be entirely honest, I probably would have skipped the concert tonight (David had a headache and did not want to go), except that I knew that I needed to fit a few more "performing arts" into Connor's curriculum. I'm not a big art, music or theater person, and I sometimes attend performances a bit grudgingly. I do always enjoy them in the end, however. I can't help but notice how home-schooling forces me to do things I don't want to do, and it is always a good thing. As a matter of fact, I recently read a quote (and I don't remember the author) that went something like this: "You should do something you don't want to do every single day, just because you don't want to do it. That way, when you are forced to do something you don't want to do, you will just tackle it as a matter of habit. "

NYS textbooks

I recently decided that Connor should work out of the "official" NYS textbook for Social Studies, "Mastering New York's Grade 5 Social Studies Standards." Previously, I was using Austin's 7th grade textbook, Call to Freedom, and it was getting a bit boring. Well today, Connor declared the new book dumb, and I tend to agree with him. For instance, there is a pie graph showing the percentage of exports from the US Colonies to Great Britain, Ireland, Africa, British West Indies, and Germany. The question asked is, "Using the pie chart above, which continent received the largest percentage of goods shipped from the American colonies in 1770?" Connor, naturally, pointed out that truly the answer should be Africa, since it is the only CONTINENT shown on the pie graph. Luckily, he realized that the correct answer is supposed to be Great Britain, which is NOT a continent, but a country. Yep. The book is going to be a problem. I'm just happy that he doesn't get totally frustrated and over-think these types of errors in books.

Interesting article today about how kids learn

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By SUSAN ENGEL

Published: February 1, 2010

New Marlborough, Mass.

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Hollis Duncan

THE Obama administration is planning some big changes to how we measure the success or failure of schools and how we apportion federal money based on those assessments. It’s great that the administration is trying to undertake reforms, but if we want to make sure all children learn, we will need to overhaul the curriculum itself. Our current educational approach — and the testing that is driving it — is completely at odds with what scientists understand about how children develop during the elementary school years and has led to a curriculum that is strangling children and teachers alike.

In order to design a curriculum that teaches what truly matters, educators should remember a basic precept of modern developmental science: developmental precursors don’t always resemble the skill to which they are leading. For example, saying the alphabet does not particularly help children learn to read. But having extended and complex conversations during toddlerhood does. Simply put, what children need to do in elementary school is not to cram for high school or college, but to develop ways of thinking and behaving that will lead to valuable knowledge and skills later on.

So what should children be able to do by age 12, or the time they leave elementary school? They should be able to read a chapter book, write a story and a compelling essay; know how to add, subtract, divide and multiply numbers; detect patterns in complex phenomena; use evidence to support an opinion; be part of a group of people who are not their family; and engage in an exchange of ideas in conversation. If all elementary school students mastered these abilities, they would be prepared to learn almost anything in high school and college.

Imagine, for instance, a third-grade classroom that was free of the laundry list of goals currently harnessing our teachers and students, and that was devoted instead to just a few narrowly defined and deeply focused goals.

In this classroom, children would spend two hours each day hearing stories read aloud, reading aloud themselves, telling stories to one another and reading on their own. After all, the first step to literacy is simply being immersed, through conversation and storytelling, in a reading environment; the second is to read a lot and often. A school day where every child is given ample opportunities to read and discuss books would give teachers more time to help those students who need more instruction in order to become good readers.

Children would also spend an hour a day writing things that have actual meaning to them — stories, newspaper articles, captions for cartoons, letters to one another. People write best when they use writing to think and to communicate, rather than to get a good grade.

In our theoretical classroom, children would also spend a short period of time each day practicing computation — adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Once children are proficient in those basics they would be free to turn to other activities that are equally essential for math and science: devising original experiments, observing the natural world and counting things, whether they be words, events or people. These are all activities children naturally love, if given a chance to do them in a genuine way.

What they shouldn’t do is spend tedious hours learning isolated mathematical formulas or memorizing sheets of science facts that are unlikely to matter much in the long run. Scientists know that children learn best by putting experiences together in new ways. They construct knowledge; they don’t swallow it.

Along the way, teachers should spend time each day having sustained conversations with small groups of children. Such conversations give children a chance to support their views with evidence, change their minds and use questions as a way to learn more.

During the school day, there should be extended time for play. Research has shown unequivocally that children learn best when they are interested in the material or activity they are learning. Play — from building contraptions to enacting stories to inventing games — can allow children to satisfy their curiosity about the things that interest them in their own way. It can also help them acquire higher-order thinking skills, like generating testable hypotheses, imagining situations from someone else’s perspective and thinking of alternate solutions.

A classroom like this would provide lots of time for children to learn to collaborate with one another, a skill easily as important as math or reading. It takes time and guidance to learn how to get along, to listen to one another and to cooperate. These skills cannot be picked up casually at the corners of the day.

The reforms suggested by the administration on Monday have the potential to help liberate our schools. But they can only do so much. Our success depends on embracing a curriculum focused on essential skills like reading, writing, computation, pattern detection, conversation and collaboration — a curriculum designed to raise children, rather than test scores.

Susan Engel is a senior lecturer in psychology and the director of the teaching program at Williams College.