Who says homeschoolers aren’t socialized? Check out all the signatures from his co-op friends!
*A friend of mine, who shattered her pelvis last year falling from her attic, refers to herself thusly. Gravity is a harsh mistress for the non-flying set.
Monday went pretty darn well for our first day of trying to homeschool with a broken arm. Captain Science read one short book on Greek history and one short book on Greek gods. He did three chapters of grammar and was able to take a short review quiz online. We did a chapter of Life of Fred about Roman numerals. I wasn’t actually that familiar with them myself, so together we made a chart of units, tens, and hundreds. He did a little writing with his left had and dictated some answer to me. We had a nice time!
Homeschool co-op was ok, especially because martial arts was canceled due to Officer Daddyman having mandatory firearms training (hey, you want your cops to have regular refresher courses in that!), but by the end of the day, Captain Science was tired and very sensitive. He cried during his film making class, because his classmates wouldn’t listen to him and because he was given a small role due to group concerns about his broken arm getting in the way.
We’ve had a lot of success with naps this past week, but today was a bust, as we weren’t home until 3:30. No nap = extra sensitivity from both boys. Joy! Even Babypie is a little cranky from lack of a proper nap, and I’m cranky from lack of them having a nap.
We’re struggling to get a follow-up appointment for the Captain’s arm. It’s all “leave a message” and pass the buck and “no, this isn’t who you call!” I’ll be glad when this mess is all over.
Captain Science started back to schoolwork today, hampered somewhat by his cast, but in good spirits. He’s reading some books on Ancient Greece and Greek gods, then we’ll do some grammar. He can use the mouse well enough with his left hand to take a grammar quiz online. Hopefully we’ll have an appointment for the orthopedist soon, but it’s been hard to get someone on the line for a referral. I’ll be sure to let everyone know the surgery/no surgery verdict!
The cast gets a lot of attention. Everyone wants to know what happened and the reaction to hearing that the Captain fell out of a tree is generally, “Are you going to climb trees again?” with a hopeful tone. After all, tree-climbing is one of those parts of childhood that seem to be disappearing.
Because we’ve only encountered this one type of response thus far, we were a little surprised at the reaction we received by a family at the local pick-your-own apple orchard yesterday. They were the stereotypical fundamentalist homeschoolers, a grandmother, mother, and daughter (18-20 by the looks of her). All three were in long, frumpy skirts, “modest” shirts, and the mom and daughter had very long hair. The mother wore the classic denim jumper and a messy bun, clipped w/ a butterfly clip. The daughter had a stringy braid, an ankle length plaid wool skirt, a long-sleeved turtleneck w/ the sleeves rolled up (as it was in the 70s-80s), and a long chain necklace with a cross and what appeared to be one of those “I won’t ever have sex ever ever or even go on a date” rings. They couldn’t have been more obviously fundamentalist if Jesus himself hadn’t flown from the sky carrying a banner that said “FUNDIE!!!”
We were up in the orchards. Officer Daddyman was getting a few more apples for us off the tall trees, since he’s a giant and we aren’t, so the kids and I were sitting under a shady tent. All of the kids decided piling up in my lap would be the way to go, so I had a giant boy, a small boy, and a baby girl sitting on me. Fundie Mom smiled at us and asked Captain Science how he’d broken his arm. He said, “I fell out of a tree!” I explained that he’d been climbing the tree in our yard and had fallen out. Fundie Mom nodded.
“Was he being disobedient?” she asked.
Uh, what? Being disobedient? How is that relevant to a broken arm? Was the implication that I’d pushed him out of the tree for not minding? Or that God had knocked him out to punish him? I made it clear to her that he was allowed to climb the tree and he was a very good boy who minded me well. I was baffled, so I changed the subject to one I figured we both had in common.
“Luckily, we homeschool, so I don’t have to worry about him falling behind,” I said. Her face brightened, and so did her mother’s.
“K-12,” Fundie Mom said, pointing to herself. “I went to 4-year college, too. And my daughter was homeschooled k-12 and just started college.” Then, of course, the natural question. “What curriculum are you using?”
The family was very sweet, other than the weird question about disobedience, and I didn’t want to get into a secular vs. religious homeschooling discussion, so I demurred with, “Oh, we’re mixing and matching.” We all agreed that was the best way to go about it, and I told her I was comforted to see a family where two generations had been homeschooled throughout and gone on to be successful in college. She told me that she’d gone to nursing school, so her college program was “something rigorous…not for something like an English degree.” Ok, so that stung a little bit, but the intent was good, and it really was reassuring to see college-educated homeschoolers (and also reassuring to see college-educated fundamentalist women)!
When I got home, I had to immediately ask another homeschooling friend (we’ll call her Snowbird) what the question about disobedience might have meant. Snowbird, whose religion is certainly one most people would consider fundamentalist, has the virtue of also being an exceptionally bright and reasonable woman. I jokingly refer to her as the “fundie translator,” who can make sense out of something that is completely beyond my understanding.
Snowbird said, regarding the disobedience question, that Fundie Mom was probably making an assumption that “a reasonable parent wouldn’t let their kid in a tall tree” and hence, he must have been disobeying — she says that it’s more of a Baptist/Pentecostal fundie idea, but there is an idea out there that if children obey their parents completely, God will protect them, so that if they get hurt, it must have been because they were being disobedient. Such a weird notion. She also said that, had I also been of that particular religious bent, that I would have likely spanked him for being in the tree, regardless of the broken arm, because the arm was just a consequence and he still needed a punishment. I must say, the mind reels. Still, I’m so very glad that not all fundamentalist believers are like that — Snowbird is proof that you can be devout without being INSANE or violent (she’s also proof that you can be devout without teaching your kids young earth creationism or other crazy Christian non-science. Have I mentioned I adore her?).
Anyway, it wasn’t God, but a fright followed by gravity, that knocked Captain Science from the tree. It did lead to this interesting learning experience for me, though I’d probably take the unbroken arm and no learning experience, given my druthers.
This week started off so well, but ended on a down note. Nothing like building up momentum only to have your kid take a tumble out of the tree.
Monday was an exciting day, full of pouring rain and flooding yards. Captain Science reviewed his two Egypt chapters for History, choosing three important facts from each period to write down as a study exercise, wrote his final draft of his ten Egyptian god paragraphs, did chapter 4.4-4.6 in Growing With Grammar, and did his final section of exercise 1 in Writing Strands: rewrite something you’ve already written and add more detail. He chose to rewrite one of his Egyptian god paragraphs.
Tuesday, the homeschool co-op was canceled due to heavy rain, so we did a chapter of Life of Fred and did music appreciation, learning about Georges Bizet.
Wednesday was a spectacular day for homeschooling, despite it’s unfortunate end. Captain Science got right up and was highly motivated. He did his Ancient Egypt Venn Diagram and correctly placed all but one of the facts (he couldn’t decide where “pharoahs were living gods” should go). He did 4.7-4.9 in Growing With Grammar and started on Exercise 2 of Writing Strands, completing days 1 & 2 (prewriting) and day 3 (writing sentences with greater detail). I was quite impressed by his detailed sentences. He’s developing a real knack for descriptive language! After he was done with all his work, he went outside to play, and promptly fell out of a tree.
With a freshly broken arm that we are hoping will not require pins are our one-week check up, I decide that the rest of the week should be taken as sick days. He’s doing some reading, but mostly relaxing. We accomplished a lot on the 3/5ths of the week we had for work, however, and I’m currently developing a writing-free curriculum for next week, so his arm can heal. We’ll start reintegrating some writing after we’ve gotten the all-clear from the orthopedist.
The Tank only had a day and a half of school this week, too, as flooding closed our county schools and his preschool goes on the county calendar. He was sent home early on Monday and had class on Thursday. He seems to still be working on the letters A and B. We got some fun color and number workbooks for him to use on days when he doesn’t have school, but Captain Science does, so he can do some “Table Learning” while the Captain works.
Babypie continues in her quest to learn to crawl, but not there yet. She’ll be six months old on Sunday. The horror!
While reading the Well Trained Mind forums, I came across this little gem. Classical unschoolers? Really? Their group’s description says the group is “for those of us that love the idea of a classical education but also follow a more relaxed, eclectic, unschooling path.”
I’m seeing several problems with the concept of “classical unschooling,” the primary one being that these people seem to have a fundamental lack of understanding of what a classical education is. It isn’t just studying about the Greeks and Romans, especially “by way of self-directed reading and watching videos.” In fact, by Susan Wise Bauer’s (author of The Well-Trained Mind) definition of classical education, learning primarily through videos in and of itself negates the idea of the education being classical. Classical education, through her eyes, is “language-focused; learning is accomplished through words, written and spoken, rather than through images (pictures, videos, and television).”
So how, then, can unschooling be classical? Taking a few elements of classical education, such as learning about Greek history or to speak Latin, doesn’t suddenly impart structure or form to unschooling. It doesn’t fill in the huge gaps of education that can arise from making the child the final arbiter of what s/he should learn.
A child who is unschooled until middle school and is then thrust into a classical curriculum is at a serious disadvantage. While I believe a classical curriculum can be started at any age, an unschooled child will probably have a greater difficulty than, say, a public schooled child in adapting to a rigorous, formal curriculum. Do they really have the foundations upon which you can build a good education? How much catch-up will you have to do to even get the child to the age-appropriate logic stage, when they haven’t had one whit of grammar stage education? If you know you want to educate classically later, why completely unschool now? Do you really think that, come sixth or seventh grade, your child will be willing and able to sit down for formal instruction and that you will be willing and able to offer it?
I think the group’s description sums it up neatly, actually. They “love the idea of a classical education,” but are unwilling or unable to put in the time and effort needed to give their child this education. A 17-year-old working through Saxon Algebra because she realizes she wants to take the SAT, a 10 year old who is only now learning any grammar because he’s only now willing to “pick it up,” a mother logging hours spent on “various activities” so she can fabricate a transcript — these are not examples of classical education. There’s nothing classical about that. Back-applying the “classical” label to half-assed schooling efforts in order to make you feel better about what you’re doing doesn’t actually make the education classical, rigorous, or good.
If you want your child’s education to be classical, educate them classically. Don’t steal the label to dress up what you’re doing if it isn’t an accurate description. If you’re so proud of being an unschooler, just call yourself an unschooler.
I think there’s sometimes a misconception that because one self-identifies as a “secular homeschooler,” that means one is not religious or does not believe in God. While that’s certainly true for some secular homeschoolers, I know I’m not alone in believing that there is some greater power out there. The big difference between me and a religious homeschooler is that I don’t feel the need to interject my spiritual beliefs into my educational curricula.
I don’t, for example, think God has a place in a science class, because a belief in God is just that, a belief. It’s not a scientific theory. There is no evidence backing up the existence of God. I don’t think this means God doesn’t exist. I just think it means that God’s existence, being unquantifiable, doesn’t belong in a science text along with chemistry, geology, physics, and biology. Likewise, I don’t want God to make an appearance in a math book. I don’t want history filtered through the perspective of religious (any religion) bias. I don’t want every literature example to be Biblical or derived from some other religious or religiously-inspired source. I don’t want handwriting workbooks that ask my son to copy Bible verses to perfect his cursive. God is in my heart and I believe God is part of everything…and that’s enough for me and my child. I can appreciate the awesome subtlety of God; I don’t need the pervasive blatancy of religion in my homeschool curricula.
Though I believe in God and consider myself at least a somewhat spiritual person, I am also, at my very core Secularist. I want my government and my education free from the constant, pressing influence of religion. Religious dogma interferes with education. It discourages the pursuit of evidence-based knowledge. Educating children only through religion, or making religion a major part of everything they learn, hobbles them. It limits their ability to think abstractly and creatively. It closes their minds to other perspectives. Because they have been discouraged from basing their knowledge on fact, they are disadvantaged when it comes to making judicious decisions based on facts they are presented. They have been told what to believe, but not how to come to beliefs through evidence or experience.
I want my children to believe in God. I really do. I think that belief in some sort of divine presence or greater universal force provides a lot of comfort and joy in life. I think spiritual mysteries are worth exploring. I think religious/spiritual rituals and ceremonies have a lot of value, both for individuals and for cultures. I just don’t feel the need to dictate these things to my children, to inundate their every subject with my beliefs until they can’t separate education from religion. I will talk to them about God when it’s relevant, not at every turn, at every waking moment. I won’t insidiously slip bits of religious doctrine into subjects that don’t call for a religious perspective.
In the end, secular homeschooling is about keeping the educational focus on education, not religious doctrine or spiritual ephemera. You can be a believer and homeschool secularly. You can even believe devoutly and homeschool secularly. If what you believe is right and good, and you model your devotion in your life through word and deed, your child will come around to it, even if you don’t teach her Jesus Math, Church-Tinted History, and Creation Science That Actually Lacks Any Real Science. Didn’t God give us brains so that we could use them?
I leave you with this taken-slightly-out-of-greater-context quote from Errett Bishiop (1967), which also addresses last week’s post about Christian mathematics curricula : “Mathematics belongs to man, not to God [...] If God has mathematics of his own that needs to be done, let him do it himself.”
Posted a bit late, due to a cranky Babypie who wouldn’t stay asleep to let me finish this post!
Captain Science had an unexpected and tragic lesson about gravity today when he took a bad fall out of our Bradford Pear tree (to which I affectionate refer as the “stinking rotting fish tree”). The Tank came running up to the house to let us know what happened. The Captain was white as a sheet and his lips were absolutely bloodless. His arm definitely did not look right. We packed the kids up in the Battlestar Galactogogue (our minivan), dropped The Tank off at my aunt’s house, and whisked Captain Science to the urgent care, where, after a still unresolved throwdown over his name in the records, the urgent care people pronounced his arm oh-so-very broken, with a side of “maybe that needs pins.” The Captain’s records were sent over to the children’s hospital so we could get him looked at by the orthopedist.
We loaded everyone back up into the Battlestar, swung by the house to pick up extra diapers for Babypie, and trekked ITP (that’s “inside the Perimeter” for you non-Atlanta folks) to the children’s hospital, and waited in an ER that was probably rife with flying pig flu germs. We finally got a room, Captain Science’s arm was put in a bright red cast, and we were finally sent home after several hours to await a phone call letting us know whether we’re going back tomorrow so surgery can be performed on the Captain’s arm to place two pins in the bone.
He’s currently conked out from the pain, trauma, and first-ever dose of Lortab (which comes in a liquid form, FYI). I’m hoping tomorrow doesn’t bring a phone call we desperately do not want. I’m currently cleaning my house at nearly 2am, because I’m still so shaken up that sleep doesn’t seem like an option. I have no idea how I’m going to modify our homeschool curriculum to allow for the Captain’s one-armed state, because of course, it was his writing arm that got broken. We’re skipping science lab tomorrow, but I don’t know how much longer after that he’ll need a break, how much work he’ll be up for, or how we’ll get around the whole “can’t use his writing arm” thing when writing is an area he really need to work on.
My poor, brave baby barely cried, after the initial injury, but he sure is scared about the prospect of surgery, however simple and brief. I know we’re secular homeschoolers, but if you can find a prayer (or even a positive thought) in your heart for Captain Science, we’d sure appreciate it.
I’m also a Helpful Mama, so you can feel free to print and use this stuff if you find it useful in any way.
Captain Science has finished Ancient Egypt, and because I’m always in search of a way to quiz him without really quizzing him, I made a venn diagram for him to sort out a list of people and places from Ancient Egypt into the Old/Middle and New Kingdoms. I uploaded it to Scribd. Check out my awesomeness!
This is the crossword puzzle I made to review the various Mesopotamian cultures. Much more fun than a fill-in-the-blank quiz, even though that’s essentially what it is.
This is an important question, and one that you should ask your children often. The answer changes, you see, and it’s important to keep abreast of these developments.
The Captain
“I’m going to work at an ice cream shop, to design video games, and to design Hot Wheels tracks with C____ (the boy up the street from Nana’s house).”
The Tank
“I go swimming and make scrambled eggs and go fishing.”
Patchfire’s kids also had good answers.
Fabulous Boy
“A racecar driver.”
Eclectic Girl
“I want to remake things so that they don’t require batteries or electricity to run them.”
When’s the last time you asked your kids what they wanted to be when they grow up? Take a moment and ask them…and then ask them what they think they might need to learn to get there. Not only is this a great way to learn more about kids, but it also shows that kids usually have no idea what they NEED to know to achieve the things they want to achieve.
