20 months later

It's been 20 months since I've written on this site, and some of you might be wondering whatever happened to Connor. Well, in June 2010 we visited the local public school to see if Connor wanted to return. He was there less than 30 min. when he begged me to get him out of "this place." He HATED it. He felt it was full of a bunch of "morons" and refused to even sit for the exams to determine an appropriate grade level for him. Instead, after a vigilant search, we chose to send John, Connor and Ben to Lima Christian School. What a fabulous place! The school bumped Connor up a grade and then put him in the accelerated classes too. At the same time, they were able to completely customize a curriculum for John and Ben. With only 4 other students in Ben's class (and an average of 16 students per graduating class) all the boys receive a customized, almost as good as home, education. Praise God.

April 2010

Wow! I can't believe I haven't blogged in over a month!!! I was blogging on our adoption site, and, of course, we were in China for almost 3 weeks. That is its own story, and you can read about that on Petersadoption.blogspot. com. Our home-schooling has taken a strange twist. I say strange, only because it was completely unexpected. Connor is seriously considering returning to public school. Every year at this time, we begin to look at next year's curriculum. John and Ben, our newly adopted sons, have been going to Geneseo Central everyday now, and I think Connor feels "out of the loop." In the interest of saving money, I've cut back on several of the extra-curricular lessons, and now Connor has (maybe) too much time at home alone. Or maybe he just wants to be more like his brothers. Whatever the reason, Connor says he wants to go back to "regular" school next year. One part of me is relieved (I could go back to work full-time, and we need the money), but another part of me is disappointed and sad. I asked Connor to name the advantages and disadvantages of public school, and he admitted that home-schooling has a ton more advantages than public school. However, when he compiled his written list on his blog, he made certain that the pro and con lists are equal in length. I think he's just forgotten the inconveniences of public schooling. For instance, last week he told me that he was "into" his writing piece and was going to just write most of the day. I reminded him that if he was in public school he would not have that flexibility. As a matter of fact, if he were in public school he would have been assigned a specific writing topic, and he would have a specific outline to follow. I can't imagine how Connor would fare in such a constrained situation. Like most creative people, Connor is a fabulous writer, when simply left alone to write for hours. Then later in the week one of his friends (also home-schooled) called and wanted to come over to play. It was around noon, and normally I would have said yes. We could finish his work in the evening if necessary. Instead, I decided to tell Connor that he can't even call his friend back until after school. I told him that at public school you can't just decide to call a friend, and you certainly cannot have a playdate in the middle of the day!!

Upcoming Trip!

It's Saturday, but Connor is doing school-work all day because of our upcoming trip to China. He has to finish his vocabulary up to lesson 10, and he is spending extra time on Chinese lessons too. Of course while we are in China he will be learning a TON of stuff, just not the things I have listed on my IHIP plan.

On the cheap

Now that we are adopting two children, I've been trying harder to home-school on the cheap. There are many families that do not spend a ton of money on tutors and lessons, and they do not lack for educational resources. I know it can be done, I just didn't spend enough time trying to save money, and I never took the time to add up exactly how much I spend to home-school. When I add up all his lessons, books, tutors, curriculum materials, field trips etc., I spend as much on Connor as we do to send Austin to a private school. Yikes! We do need to economize now that our family is expanding. Recently, I discovered how much money I can save by taking Connor to the library in Rochester, instead of to the bookstore. Our public library in Geneseo is quite small, so up until last month I would let Connor order books online, or I'd take him to the bookstore every week or so. Well, as I mentioned before, Connor reads constantly, and I'm spending a fortune on books. On Tuesday, I returned 18 books to the library, and I let Connor check-out 9 more. That will get us through the next two weeks. I also took him to the bookstore to buy books for our China trip. I read online that Borders gives its educator's discount (25%) to home-schoolers, with proper ID. I saved $26.00 on one trip to the bookstore with my new educator's discount card!! I'm also starting to cut coupons and shop for groceries at Tops, instead of Wegmans. Last week I entered my name in a drawing, and we attended a performing arts show in Rochester because I won the tickets. That show would have cost us $150.00 or more. Yep, I'm going to cut-back on nonessentials while still giving Connor the best education possible.

The one who has the most words...

Walking out of the library today, with our arms literally overflowing with books, a woman stopped to say to Connor, "Wow! That is a whole lot of books for one little boy." I replied, "Don't worry. He'll read them all before they are due back at the library. " She walked around the van specifically, just to tell Connor her philosophy on life. She said, "You know who wins the game of Life? The one who has the most words. " Yes, it was a little strange, but interesting too. I often tell Connor that it is important to write well because people have changed the world with their writings, and I think that is sort of what this woman meant today.

Books

The other day Connor blogged (entitled My Wish Upon a Star) that he wished that he had more time to just read books. I find that rather humorous, considering that we checked 18 books out of the library when we last went to Rochester, and he finished all but one of them within the three week loan period. Yes, he definitely gets enough time to just read. He reads while he's eating, he reads while we are in the car, and he reads for at least an hour every morning, before our school day officially starts at 9am. I'm grateful that he enjoys books, and considers reading a reward, rather than a punishment. When we get home from Tae Kwon Do today, I'm going to let Connor go online and order a bunch of books to take with us to China. I don't want to risk losing Library books, and we should bring soft-cover books to lighten up the luggage. All I have to do now is figure out how many books we can jam into a carry-on bag!

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