Famous final scene

This is it.

Saturday we formalize the end of our homeschool journey. My youngest is graduating.

If you had told me eighteen years ago that: a.) I would still be homeschooling in 2014; and b.) the thought of being finished brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat; I would have been certain that you were mistaken or insane, or both.

But we're done. And I really still can't quite believe it.

All of the fears. All of the doubts. All of the stress. Conquered.

All of the walks. All of the conversations. All of the laughter. Remembered.

Some things could probably never be explained to others: Elven smiths. Will Smith. Aerosmith.

Unschooling.

Other things are easily understood: Apologia Biology. Key To Math. Eyewitness books.

I have more to write in coming weeks, but for now, what I want to say to those of you who are in the thick of it or just beginning is this:

YOU CAN DO IT.
YOU CAN DO IT.
YOU CAN DO IT.

And it is worth every minute. Every tear. Every worry.

You can do it.

Think in terms of bridges burned
Think of seasons that must end
See the rivers rise and fall
They will rise and fall again
Everything must have an end
Like an ocean to a shore
Like a river to a stream
Like a river to a stream
It's the famous final scene.

--Bob Seger

The best thing

I've been asked twice recently what the best thing about homeschooling my kids has been. In both cases, these women were looking for outcomes. They wanted to hear about a positive result while they are in the thick of multiple little kids, picking curriculum, managing household routines, trying to overcome family objections, and all the rest that can go along with homeschooling your children.

I always start to answer this question and then switch answers midway through. Often more than once. Because there isn't any one best thing. There are lots of elements that are all tied in together, but they are different things.

The best things now are different than the best things ten years ago. Ten years ago, when my kids were 7, 9, 12, and 16 the best thing was probably how much fun we were all having together. Five years ago, when my kids were 12, 14, 17, and 21 the best thing was probably that homeschooling--and foregoing most attempts at recreating the kind of "socialization" that kids get in school--meant that the teen years were far less stressful than I had expected. My kids still liked me most of the time. I still liked them most of the time. I wasn't having to deal with most of the attitude problems that I had seen and heard about others dealing with. My 17 year old saw my twelve year old as a buddy, not as a pest.

There were times when the best thing--honestly--was not needing to get them up and out the door to the bus. Pack lunches. Find homework.

Today the best thing is the people that I see my kids becoming. They are each themselves--and know something of who that is--in a way that I never achieved until I was about 40. They have a better sense of their strengths and a better understanding of their weaknesses. I love their closeness. I love to wake up in the morning to hear my two college students cracking up together before they leave for class. I love the way all three "boys" can't get to the page fast enough when there's a new picture of their niece on Facebook, and the sounds they make when they see it.

The best things have never had to do with academic outcomes, although there are positives there. The bests are about life, family, faith, relationships. Maybe this is because for us homeschooling quickly became less a way to "school" than a way to live.

Making sure that they learn everything, or not

So back to the topic of my last post, kind of.

I needed to address the email that asked me "how, as an unschooler, I made sure that my kids learned everything they were supposed to learn."

The answer, while multi-faceted, is simple.

I didn't.

Oh, I worried about it. I had folders of scope and sequences, lists of must-read books, and pages of state standards. Every once in a while I would panic and consider ordering a school-in-a-box so that my kids would know what they were supposed to know.

Then, over time, I became more secure in the knowledge that while they may not know what some educrat deemed that they should know, they would most certainly know what they needed to know. And if they didn't they would know how to find it out. And that they were learning so many things that were beyond the scope and sequences or beyond the wildest dreams of the standards writers. (I've gotta admit, sending that first unschooled kid to college, on a full merit scholarship, and watching her excel academically did a lot to boost the confidence for the rest of the journey!)

Yes. There will be holes in their knowledge. But EVERYONE has those. I don't care where you went to school, how many books you've read, or how many degrees you have, there is something that I know that you don't. There are things that my 17 year old knows that college grads don't. There are things that my husband the engineer knows that I have no desire to know.


There are things that they might have learned if we had followed curriculum "A." There are things that they might have learned if they'd gone to school. But there are also, undoubtedly, things that they have learned that they might not have in those situations.

Embrace the education choices you've made, whatever they are, unless they aren't working for you. If that's the case, make adjustments. But don't make changes to answer someone else's expectations. That's the way to crazy.

The choices we make

I was sure that I had written this post, or something like it, before. An email conversation and a Facebook discussion came together in my mind to create this topic, but I was certain that elements of it had been written before. I spent a long time looking through two of my blogs. Then I realized. I didn't write about it; I spoke about it. (Back to that in a minute.)

I got an email last night that is like others that I've gotten in the past. The mom who wrote it had been reading my blog and wanted to know if it was okay to ask a few questions. (The answer to that is yes. I like dialogues far better than monologues.) The main thing that she wanted to know was how, as an unschooler, I made sure that my kids learned everything they were supposed to learn.

At the same time there was a conversation on my Facebook wall about potential negative effects from a widely used medication. There were those who were giving it to their children, for a specific reason, and while they were--of course--concerned about potential side effects, they also had other concerns if it wasn't used.

These may seem completely unrelated, but I think that they have something in common. We are constantly making choices about every aspect of our children's lives. Each choice that we make has potentially good and bad outcomes. Each choice makes other options impossible. Choosing to give one medication for a condition means that others aren't used. It means hoping for the good that is supposed to come from the medication and being aware of potential dangers.

In the same way, when we choose to educate our children in a certain manner, we may close some doors. We choose based on the positives that we hope for and, at the same time, are aware of the potential negatives and paths not taken. One example that always comes to my mind is that by continuing to homeschool through high school we lost the opportunity to continue to participate in team sports. But the kids decided that it was worth it.

So we make choices. We do what we think is best. We pray for good outcomes. We evaluate as we go along.

And sometimes we decide that a post is really two posts. And that we will write the post that we thought we already wrote, and answer the email question tomorrow.

About that whole socialization thing

This post is several years old. I posted it on my regular blog. But I felt the need to revisit it here. Additions will be made in color.

The company you keep

This post has been rattling around in my brain for months. It was finally shaken loose by some things Gatto said about school and family, and some conversations with friends.

First: My kids are far from perfect. Those of us who are Lutherans understand this, but I felt like it was a necessary disclaimer given what is coming. This post is a response. It is a response to questions I have been asked many times, by different people. (And continue to be asked; thus the revisiting.) It is difficult to write, because I know the imperfections of my kids and our family. I don't have all of the answers. But these are the answers I have.

The question has been some variation of,"Your kids are so nice/helpful/polite/well-spoken. You all get along so well. They all get along so well. They read all kinds of good books. How have you done it?" (My kids are also opinionated and argumentative. Stubborn. And sometimes lazy. So there.)

My first answer is, I've had a lot of help. In fact, in many ways that is my answer. (YES!) The other is that I have resisted two urges that I have seen in the homeschool community, both of which are--in a way--reactions to the larger society. The first of these is the urge to control. The second is the urge to mimic school socialization.

The urge to control comes out most frequently as limits on time spent doing various activities: Watching TV, playing with toys, playing with video games or on the computer, reading for pleasure, playing musical instruments, or just laying in the back yard daydreaming. The other form is limitation of content. We did this to a very, very small extent, mostly vetoing kids TV shows full of snotty attitudes. (Can I just reiterate how glad I am we did this?)

The urge to control comes in large part from the checklist idea of education as tasks to be completed. It places higher value on some activities than others in a way that is often arbitrary, based on some outside idea of worthwhile activity.

My kids didn't have time limits. So one day they might have done nothing but play legos while watching musicals. On Monday Bethany might have reread Anne of Green Gables for the 15th time and played the piano for four hours. On Tuesday she might have spent all day playing Zoombinis and playing in the back yard. There were days on end where none of us left the Oregon Trail. In later years the boys might have spent six hours playing Age of Empires and then turned on the news. This post isn't about what they've managed to learn. That one is still to come. This is about why I believe they've become who they are. (And it really was like that. Exactly.)

But, here is, I believe, a huge part of the key. We didn't "do" "socialization." The s-word is the big bugaboo in the homeschool community. Everyone knows that homeschooled kids overall do well on tests, etc., but "WHAT ABOUT SOCIALIZATION?!" We've all heard it. Generally the answer is, "We have groups. We get together. Etc., etc., etc."

We didn't. We didn't do homeschool groups. Or scouts. Or 4-H. Patrick's sensory issues made large groups of kids torture. Part of the time we lived where there were no groups that we were compatible with, when there were groups at all.

Of course the kids have had friends. They played one-on-one with neighbor kids, were on soccer teams, and made friends at church. As they've gotten older they've developed friendships with other homeschoolers, often those who live elsewhere that they met through Higher Things or other church-related functions. But the social activities that they've been a part of have been family-oriented. They have been socialized by our family and friends. They have been socialized by adults who we like and admire and have chosen to spend time with. I firmly believe that one of the worst aspects of conventional schooling is the division by age and the imposition of barriers between child and family.

This part is important: As a result of our not being group-oriented, I think we have missed out on some of the attitudes and behaviors that come from kids socializing each other. They grew up socializing freely with those older and younger than them. They didn't learn that their parents are uncool know-nothings and that younger siblings were pests to be avoided.





(Andrew has had more group time with other kids than the others combined. He's taken more group classes. And his extroversion demands people time. But there have been times that we have needed to pull back from certain activities or relationships because we could see negative effects. It has been hard, but it has proven to be for the best.)

As I said above, we've had help. Our older kids have helped socialize the younger ones. I love seeing Patrick's civilizing influence on his younger brothers. Their grandparents and other relatives have had their parts. The hours that the kids have spent in the company of various pastors, both formally and informally, has had a tremendous influence on their thinking. Being a part of the life of the church, trained and useful, as acolytes has helped the boys to deal with the forced uselessness of that time that society calls adolescence. The women who are my friends have had a profound impact on my kids. I love it when I see a glimpse of Susan, or Lora, or Lori, or Jacqui--and these are just the glimpses I see the most--in something one of the kids says.

So that's my answer, I'm not saying other choices are wrong, but I've been asked what we've done. And this is it.

Addendum: One could get the idea from part of this that I was a permissive parent. Not really. I've always been pretty much of the "you behave or else" school of parenting. My kids had chores and did them. They learned that there are places where you need to sit still and be quiet, like church and the symphony. They learned that restaurants are awesome places to get yummy food, but you have to sit in your chair and behave like a big boy if you want to stay and eat the yummy food. Freedom to make many choices didn't mean freedom to be selfish pigs. As Patrick points out, I taught them to make wise decisions.
 

It really was like that

Over the last several years I have found myself becoming a bit of an unschooling advocate. There have been lots of, "What did a day look like at your house?" emails and conversations on email lists. There are been young moms on the verge of how-can-I-do-all-this despair.  There have been evenings with glasses of wine and questions, evenings when I found myself being quizzed by a circle of moms and wondered, "Why on earth are they asking ME?!"

(Of course, I do know why they are asking me. I have grown and almost grown kids who seem to have turned out okay. They are finding success in college and life beyond. They can use an alarm clock. They have reasonable standards of personal hygiene.)

I have often feared, when I have heard myself cited by someone else, that I didn't paint an accurate picture of our lives. That I made it sound looser than it was. Easier. Better.

It has been reassuring for me to talk to my kids about it. To hear their accounts of their childhoods. To hear them explain to others what it was like being unschooled. (Yes. In hindsight, I can admit that aside from a few panic-stricken moments, we have been pretty darn complete unschoolers.)

I wasn't exaggerating.

It has always made me nervous, this dispensing of homeschooling advice. I have always tried to emphasize--as anyone who has heard me speak formally, or heard me talk about homeschooling more than once can attest--that homeschooling, like parenting, is an individual thing. What works for each kid and each family may be different. And yet, when it comes right down to it, I do think that for many people, in many situations, unschooling is best. So when I am asked my opinion, that is the direction I tend to lead.

Unschooling has not been the whole story of our parenting and our family life, but it has shaped it. It has influenced the way I deal with my kids. It made me evaluate what was really important and taught me to value their input into those decisions. It made me look differently at the whole concept of what it means to be a success. It taught me to treat my kids as full-fledged people whose opinions about their own lives matter far sooner I would have otherwise.

It gave me lots of years to enjoy life with my kids, on our own agenda. And it really was like that.

SAT Rant

My 17 year old took the SAT today. He's planning to take Latin at the local university this summer and during his senior year next year, so it was time for the test.

He prepped a little. He practiced some essays and reviewed a bit of math. The multiple choice English wasn't a worry. But the essay. Oh, the essay.

Bethany, our oldest was lucky. She took the SAT before the addition of the very subjective, all-too-often-PC essay. Our second, Patrick, had to write it. His handwriting may have been his downfall, but he scored a three out of six, predicting the mediocrity of his college writing. Those who know Patrick are laughing now. He is an excellent writer. He has style. And he knows his stuff. But that doesn't necessarily translate well into a five paragraph formulaic essay on the social value of reality TV.

Jonathan did a little better. And he's writing well in college. But was there really any value in his essay score? Or in the pile of practice essays he wrote expounding on one fluffy topic after another? I doubt it.

Andrew wrote his today. He is sworn to secrecy by the college board on what the topic was, but every single past question has required the student to take a position on some inane question. It wants the student to write a very specific kind of essay of a sort that only a few people are really good at, without extensive coaching. And what is the point of that? What does it demonstrate?

Of course, I have issues with the value of standardized testing anyway. But this one element, graded by some teacher who never will meet these students, evaluating answers to some boring question, written to try only to fill a template, seems to me the least valuable of all. Writing isn't something that should fit in a box. The best writing has style and personality. It is built on knowledge or on having something to say.

We'll know in a few weeks how Andrew's writing stacked up. But, frankly, I don't really care what some anonymous grader thinks. I already know Andrew's strengths and weaknesses. I know that he is perfectly capable of writing a readable piece that gets his point across. We've jumped through the hoops. Now back to spending his time in a worthwhile manner.

One more unschooling post

"Is it really possible for kids to grow up to be doctors or lawyers or brain  surgeons if they do not learn in scheduled/controlled ways?"

This is a question lifted from a Facebook conversation. I decided that the answer needed to be a blog post, because it was getting too long. Besides, Facebook conversations are fleeting things, and this question is not unusual.

The short answer is yes. If that is what they want to do.

I have four kids, 14-23. When my kids were younger, I used to worry about things like this. I used to worry that they wouldn't get up to an alarm. That they wouldn't be able to function in class. (I'm not going to rehash our unschooling style in this post. There are some glimpses in the past four posts. Or here on my homeschooling blog.)

My first reassurances came in the forms of my friend Susan's kids. A few years older than my oldest, they had been unschooled and were doing well in the world of work and college. That helped. As my own kids got older, I saw them each developing interests, devouring books, getting out of bed early on cold mornings for choirs, classes, and other commitments.

When Bethany could see the SAT looming, she buckled down and did two years of math in a few months. She got awesome SAT scores and a full academic scholarship. She went to classes, worked hard, had a part-time job, sang in a couple of choirs, taught piano, and graduated with a 3.98 GPA with a major in history and a minor in English. This is a girl who was unschooled from fourth grade on. She devoured books, played with her brothers, watched movies, and played piano. That was pretty much her life for nine years. After graduation she was debating grad school options, but really wanted a break. Because of her writing skills, the history department let her know about a paralegal job that was available, which she applied for, and got.

She could easily choose to become a lawyer. Her grades, skills, and work ethic would get her there, no problem. She's not likely to choose that path, however, because what she really wants is a nice Lutheran husband and family. :)

Oldest son, about whom you can read in my old blog posts was our second graduate. He was our reason for homeschooling. He was a delayed reader and has sensory integration issues. He is now a college freshman majoring in history, pre-law, with a 4.0 thus far.

Both of them are FAR more disciplined in their studies than I was my first time in college. I left high school having graduated 10th out of something in the vicinity of 400, with all of the requisite activities and honors. I had spent my entire school life succeeding in the system, and yet I crashed and burned fairly spectacularly in my first shot at college.

Our 16 yo--who has never known anything but unschooling--gets himself up every Sunday at 6:30 so that he can go acolyte at our early service. This has never been required of him. He chooses it. He sings with the Bach Collegium, just finished 10 weeks rehearsing for 3-4 hours a night and performing Joseph with the Fort Wayne Civic Theater, and this week winds up 12 weeks rehearsing for The Sound of Music with a local high school. He will graduate from high school knowing as much or more Biblical Greek as students at the seminary, and because we haven't been hung up on a school schedule he has attended many theological conferences with our pastor or at our church. Next year as a senior he plans to take a college class or two, just to get used to it and because they can also count on his high school transcript. He plans to become a pastor.

Our 14 yo may just become a doctor. Or he may be an entrepreneur. Or a professor. He really isn't sure yet. He had no interest in anything even resembling academics until he was 12. He didn't even like to read. The rest of my kids have been readers, so that worried me. I needn't have worried. He reads like crazy now and doesn't like to leave the house without a book, his Latin or his Greek, and his algebra. He probably spent more hours watching musicals and playing with legos than any child in history. He will probably start college classes his junior or senior year of high school, but that will be up to him.

I have normal kids. They are all definitely smart, but they aren't prodigies. They are just as stubborn and lazy as any kids on the planet. They did spend most of their childhoods doing pretty much what they wanted, except when I would make them help clean. But unschooling hasn't kept any of them from achieving anything, and I believe that it has helped them by allowing them to develop their strengths and interests and learn self-motivation.

More from the questioner: "I want my children to be driven,  motivated, curious, and smart. I want them to be able to argue, debate,  and win!"

You just described my kids. :) Seriously, much of that is parenting, no matter how you choose to school them. I believe that unschooling is more likely to produce curious, motivated kids if that is what the kids see in their parent's lives. Our kids have been surrounded by books and ideas. Our life is often one protracted discussion. I always made an effort to make connections between things--history, literature, current events, movies--so that the kids would grow up looking for connections. The kids used to watch me talk back to the TV, arguing with the news people or questioning the commercials. Now they do it, too.

Style

One of the ideas that Gatto mentioned that has really tickled my brain is that of "style." It was in the context of communication ability and how connections and associations provide opportunities.

He talked about how freedom and play lead to the development of individual style, and that a distinctive style is priceless. My immediate reaction was to think about my oldest son, not to the exclusion of the others, but because he has such a strong personal style. My thoughts then wandered through each of my own children and on to some of those of my friends. They each have it. They each have a uniqueness of expression that comes out in myriad ways: speech, writing, dress, interests, hobbies, musical preferences, college and career choices, and more. They are all comfortable in their own skins.

What a gift! I don't think I achieved any level of comfort in my skin, any real personal style, until I was in my mid-30's. My daughter's writing as a college freshmen showed an ease of expression that all of my fevered attempts couldn't achieve. My 16 year old wears a hat--not a baseball cap--and wears it with panache and proper etiquette, because it brings him joy.

Because part of my eldest son's personal style is a level of good manners seldom seen in most adult men today, he makes friends everywhere he goes. And it has rubbed off on his brothers--another post is coming...--which has helped them to make connections of many sorts, all of which enrich their lives in some way.

School squelches style. That's part of its job. You see it in the appearance of the girls going into freshman composition classes on a college campus: droves of straightened bleached hair, make up, tight jeans, tight t-shirts, flip-flops, slouched shoulders and a shuffling flip-flop walk. You hear it in the conversations. Those who dare maintain their own style in high school are usually the outcasts of one sort or another.

I loved Gatto's idea that style comes from play. I see it. In each of my kids I see echoes of their amusements in their personal styles. I see echoes of the world of Dyger, created by them when they were littles. I see and hear the influences of Jane Austen, Tolkein, and Dr. Seuss. I notice echoes of Darkwing Duck, Barbies & Legos, and the Zoombinis. I see Haydn and Beethoven and Clementi and Rush and Boston and Joseph's Dreamcoat and Les Miserables. And in their movements I see hours of soccer.

It makes me glad that my kids have had lots of freedom. And that's another post.

Why unschooling?

I had a new experience on Friday. After 14 years of homeschooling, and 12 as a committed unschooler--the first two were spent trying to figure out what we were doing--I was in a situation where being an unschooler was applauded. Wow. John Taylor Gatto, former New York Teacher of the Year, was applauding unschooling parents.

That felt good.

I've spent years feeling like I needed to defend what I was doing with my kids. Even as our results have proved that unschooling works, I have experienced a doubling-down of criticism, especially from other homeschoolers. I've never asked for atta-girls, or pats on the back; so I was stunned by how nice it was to get that unsolicited affirmation.

Gatto said some other things that really resonated with me:

We live with "a palette of unexamined assumptions" including the idea that "lurking behind anything worthwhile is standardized tests, GPAs and college." These assumptions have "allowed us to become our own jailers." Wow, again. This is so true, and echoes many of the conversations that I've had in the past few years with people who think about education. Gatto pointed out that it is still true that many highly successful people--names everyone knows: Gates, Jobs, Dell, to name but a few--didn't go to college or dropped out.

We have come to value credentials over learning, and hoop-jumping over knowledge and understanding. And it is imprisoning millions in a cycle of under-achieving when they don't measure up and student loan debt when they do.

The way to break out: "There has to be a substantial amount of your educational program that only fits you." This is the key to unschooling. It is absolutely personalized. And it cannot be done in institutional school. It is not what institutional schooling is for. That has a different purpose.

This doesn't preclude college. In fact, so far both of my unschooled high school graduates have chosen to attend college, because it fits them. Both have chosen to be history majors, one added a minor in English, the other is considering German and political science as possible minors. But that is another post.

I think Gatto's quote also challenges us to consider what is "worthwhile." Our society seems to consider only material or career success as worthy of pursuit. I would argue that there are other pursuits equally worthwhile, which do not depend on tests and GPAs. Parenting, growing food, and working with the hands come to mind, as a beginning.

Gatto

These are a few posts that I put on my main blog last year, but I decided that I want them here, too.
Almost exactly a year ago, I posted some thoughts that I had upon reading John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction. Gatto has long helped bolster the "why" of our homeschool adventure. Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend a homeschool conference where he was speaking. The session was way too short, but I did glean a lot from his talk. I think it's going to make its way into a number of blog posts.

If you are a fan of conventional, institutional schooling, I'll again warn that you may not like what I'm going to say. I used to be a fan, but not any more. Gatto has done copious amounts of research into the history and background of American education. His many years as a teacher in public schools gave him a front row seat.

So what's the bottom line? Our government schools exist for the express purposes of destroying the imagination, weakening family ties, and separating children from their parents. They exist to create willing, unquestioning workers and consumers. Learning is incidental.

This is the background. The next few posts will include things that Gatto said and things that I've been thinking, and how they have connected.

Added: My friend Cheryl has some thoughts on Gatto, his book, and schools.

Why not post this here while I'm at it

I have received several requests over the years for a list of must-read books on homeschooling. Last week a friend suggested that this would make a great blog post. So here it is. There may be some newer books that are missing. Since we've been at this for fourteen years, some of these may not be the most current books. I'm sure there are other worthwhile books that I haven't seen, but each of these is a gem.

You'll notice that many of these books tend toward learning theory and the unschooly. Well, that's me. I would argue that it would be good for anyone, homeschooler or not, to read the Gatto books. And any parent would be well-served by reading the Moores, John Holt, and Cindy Tobias.

Better Late Than Early by Raymond and Dorothy Moore
This is a book that I wish every parent and teacher of young children would read. I read this as the stressed out mother of a non-reading seven year old and it probably saved my sons academic life and my sanity.

The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewellyn
This book isn't perfect, but as a homeschooling mom it really helped me to free myself from some of the school baggage I was carrying, and to free my children in turn.

Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
Weapon's of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto
I consider these the "why to" books of homeschooling. Dumbing Us Down helped to bolster my flagging courage early on by reminding me that what my kids were missing wasn't all that great. These books are especially helpful when you are having to deal with critical and skeptical family members or if you--like me--spend lots of time asking yourself if you are ruining your kids' lives.

How Children Learn
How Children Fail
Learning All the Time all by Jon Holt (You can find all three on this page.)
I didn't always agree with Holt, but overall found his writing about learning to make so much sense.

The Unschooling Handbook by Mary Griffith
The closest thing to a how-to book on this list. So many people want to know HOW to unschool. Mary Griffith gives lots of ideas and helps to paint some pictures of what unschooling looks like.

The Way They Learn
Every Child Can Succeed by Cynthia Ulrich Tobias
Both of these books are easy, quick, straight forward looks at learning styles and how to work with your child's strengths.

Homeschooling: A Family's Journey by Martine & Gregory Millman
This is the story of one family's homeschooling journey. Here is the review I wrote when I read it.

This is not an exhaustive list. I have enjoyed other homeschooling books over the years, but these are those that I believe are the most important and have contributed the most to our success and enjoyment of this journey. What are some of your favorites?

Why I'm not blogging here anymore

I have decided that I am not going to keep writing a separate homeschool blog.

It has always been a bit of a struggle. And it probably never really made sense for me to try to separate homeschooling from the rest of my life in the blogosphere, since I don't in my every day life.

I'm still going to write about homeschooling. It's just going to be on my regular blog:
IndianaJane's Journal.

How did I miss this one?

Today as I was checking out some of the blogs in the Homeschooling Blogroll in my sidebar, I came across one that referred to strewing and linked to this site.

I am not surprised that there is a name for this, or that Sandra coined it. (Sometime I'll have to write a post about Sandra and the HUGE impact that this person I've never met had on my kids.)
I am surprised that in the last twelve years I never heard it before.

It's such a perfect word for something we've always done, sometimes consciously, but even more often unconsciously. I'll be cleaning and come across a book that I know one of the younger ones is ready for. Lay it on the kitchen table. Almost invariably it will at least be looked at.

This is part of the reason my kids didn't have game boys and we don't have a dvd player in our car. The drive to wherever we may be going has things to be seen. There is always something to be learned. And the conversation has always been the biggest part of the learning.

I have a couple of friends who are pretty structured and have young kids who are having some difficulties in getting them interested in "school." Maybe some strewing would be just the ticket. It can be a great way to pique their interest, or possibly help them find an interest. (Of course, as parents we have to be ready and willing to help them follow those interests, even if they don't match up with the chosen curriculum.)

So I've added a new word to my homeschool vocabulary. What fun!

School and ADD/ADHD

Ned Vare has a post at School is Hell about a subject near and dear to my heart, ADD/ADHD.

I especially like this quote from his friend, Jerry Mintz, who has the website The Education Revolution.

You got a person who has a psychiatric illness in a public school that requires medication from a multibillion-dollar industry, but when you put him into an alternative school environment, not only does he not require the medication, but the disease seems to vanish and he does very well. The question is, then, where is the disease? And I have firmly, solidly come to the conclusion that the disease is in our schools. It's not in our kids.

Yes, yes, and again yes. Some people think and learn in a way that is not compatible with the way schools choose to teach. So their way of thinking is treated as a disease. They are drugged so that they can better conform.

I am the diagnosed ADD parent of two, possibly three, sons who would certainly have been drugged if we were part of the public school machine. It drives me crazy to see so many parents unquestioningly give their children--especially their sons--psychoactive drugs for most of their childhood because they are behaving like children. Why as a society do we try to shove children into a box instead of making the box fit the child?

For us, one of the huge benefits of homeschooling is that we have been able work with our children's strengths and around their weaknesses.

And contrary to the doubts of the critics we've faced, as pre-teens and teens the boys can all function just fine in a regimented classroom situation when they choose to do so.

Christian unschooling?

I was out tooling around in the blogosphere, looking at some of the homeschool blogs outside of my usual rambles. I found a post that Dana at Principled Discovery had made a couple of days ago about Christian Education and Unschooling. Both her post and the comments were very interesting.

As you know, I think that unschooling is perfectly compatible with Christian parenting. Christian education as a distinct entity is not something that I generally think about. Our churches have always had a Board of Christian Education that oversees the Sunday School, VBS, and day school where such existed. I know that isn't what they mean.

The sense I get is that many of them believe that there is a distinctly Christian way to educate. I don't.

I don't think of what we do as Christian education. In fact, I don't think of it in terms of education all that often. I think in terms of learning, certainly. But not education or teaching.

The one difficulty that I have with the underpinnings of the philosophy of unschooling is that it assumes innate goodness of children. I, of course, believe that my children were born sinful, as we all were, but I don't think that that has to keep us from enjoying the benefits of unschooling and the lifestyle that we enjoy.

Still unschooling

I don't give unschooling much thought. It's just what we do. But lately I've had several new homeschoolers asking me about it. I've had a couple of longer term homeschoolers who are to one extent or another relaxed ask me how we do a transcript. So it's been on my mind.

I keep feeling like we aren't really unschooling anymore, but it's really just that our unschooling has changed over the years. In the early years, it truly was all fun and games. Our life was very unstructured and we spent lots of time doing things like going to the forest preserve, playing games, and just messing around.

It isn't like that anymore. There's a lot more structure. The kids are taking classes. As each of them gets older and college looms, they have all started to think about their goals and what they want to do. This leads to deciding to zoom through chapters of math in a few days, tackling different subjects in science, and working on things like accounting and foreign languages.

But we're still unschooling. This is what they want to do. I'm helping them, but they are calling the shots. That's why there are still days--like today--when they serve at a funeral, watch some news, play a computer game, and read a bit. There are days like Tuesday when they played Bionicles, played a computer game, and read. But there are also days like Monday,when they went to Greek, did pages of math, and wrote reports on the Boxer Rebellion and Chinese Dynasties for history.

So it's different, but we're still doing it, and it still works.

It causes me pain

It truly does. Each Wednesday when I teach my class and I assign questions for them to answer, every unschooly fiber of my being rebels.

If I had my choice I would just let them knit, play with Bionicles, and do mock Mythbusters experiments the whole time. Each week the ""class time gets shorter. Each week the kids come armed with more of what they're interested in to share with each other.

I don't force "homework" on any of the kids. Some of them LOVE to research and find the answers. Some print out a Wikipedia article that they can barely read. Some never remember to find the answers.

I've had a couple of people ask me how *I* ended up teaching a class. I am doing it because we are trying to create a homeschool resource center for homeschoolers to use as they wish, and one thing a lot of them ask for is the opportunity for the kids to take some classes. And since I'm trying to help get this going, I'm teaching. Since I'm teaching, it's history.

So we'll continue. We have a couple more months to go. The kids are having a good time. My boys wouldn't miss it for anything.

I'm the only one having any trouble.

Hangin' with homeschoolers

If you know me you know I'm a pretty social person. So it's probably kind of strange that we have spent little time with homeschool groups in the past twelve years. That's not to say that we don't have friends who are homeschoolers, lots of them are, but we see them individually, not as part of a group.

We haven't felt like we needed the group experience. The kids never really seemed to enjoy going. They have their friends and we don't need a group for field trips.

For the past five months I have been teaching a world history and geography class for a group of homeschoolers. This is the first time in years that we have regularly been around a group of homeschoolers. I have enjoyed getting to know the kids and some of the moms. It is a pretty laid back bunch. (They have to be to deal with my crazy ADD style!) The boys are making friends and really enjoying the new contacts. It makes me think that maybe we should try again to find a group.

I thought of killing it

I seriously considered killing this blog.

I don't write here that much. I do most of my writing at my regular blog. But, at the same time, I like having this blog where I can focus on homeschooling.

So I have decided that I am going to keep it and actually write here on a regular basis.