Smrt Lernins

“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” — Voltaire

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Who am I?

Who am I, to tell you what you can and can’t teach your child?

Who am I, to tell you that you must teach things that I believe in or be forbidden to teach?

Who am I, to tell you that because I am a secular homeschooler, that you must educate your children secularly or be forbidden to teach?

Who am I, to tell you that because I am a classical homeschooler, that you must educate your children classically or be forbidden to teach?

Who am I, to tell you not to impart your religious, moral, ethical, ideological, etc. beliefs to your child?

Who am I, to tell you to lie to your child and tell them that what you believe to be true isn’t true (whether or not I think it’s true)?

Who am I, to tell you that you must teach all values and all beliefs to be equal, whether you believe them to be or not?

Who am I, to tell you that what you teach must be regulated carefully, because you might teach the “wrong” thing?

Who am I, to tell you that what you teach must be regulated carefully, because someone else might teach the “wrong” thing?

Who am I, to legislate for everyone what is the “wrong” and what is the “right” thing?

Who am I, to legislate morality?

Who am I, to legislate belief?

Who am I?

Here’s a hint, I’m not Jean Valjean.

PhD in Parenting has been writing about homeschooling lately. She currently lives in Germany, where homeschooling is illegal and children are under legal compulsion to attend public school. Today, she wrote a post about different schooling methods and how she views them through the lens of the “right and duty to learn.”

On the whole, I found her opinions on homeschooling to be quite positive, but I take issue with some of the concerns she mentions in her post:

At the same time, there are things that concern me about home education:

• I worry that parents who homeschool for ideological reasons may be shielding their children from the realities of the world (other belief systems, other cultures) and their selves (sexuality, gender issues, personal expression), which I believe is dangerous for the individual and for society.
• I worry that a small minority of parents who homeschool for ideological reasons may be doing so specifically to pass on discriminatory and hateful viewpoints to their children.
• I worry that parents who take their children out of school out of frustration with the school system (generally or for their specific child) may feel forced into home educating their children when really the school system should be changing and adapting to address those concerns.
• I worry that children who grow up under the guidance of the most gentle, patient, loving and inspiring parents without being exposed to teachers who are strict, ineffective, jerks, play favourites, or use coercive methods may not learn how to deal with those types of people before entering the workforce and may be at a disadvantage (although to be fair, a lot of today’s schooled youth aren’t dealing with them themselves anyway – they are getting mommy and daddy to do it for them).

You all know how I feel about the “school as a place to learn to toughen up for the ‘real world’” stance, so I’ll just link to my comment I left on the PhD in Parenting blog and leave it at that.

What about her other concerns, like the idea that parents who homeschool may be doing so to instill hateful or dangerous ideologies in their children? How harmful is “immersing [our] children in [our] beliefs and shielding them from others?” Are parents really more or less likely to attempt to instill their ideologies in their children based on where their child schools? Are homeschooled children more likely to be racist, bigoted, etc. than their institutionally-schooled counterparts? To what extent should the State or the collective get to choose the ideologies to which your child should be exposed?

And what about her assertion that “in most cases [parents choose to homeschool because] there are perfectly reasonable and factual things taught as part of the school curriculum that the parents do not want their children to learn (evolution, birth control, homosexuality, other religious beliefs)?” Was this a motivating factor for you? For the homeschoolers you know? To what extent? Was it because the curricula covered topics you felt were inaccurate or inappropriate? Was it because the curricula were too religious or not religious enough?

And finally, what about her statement that she “believe[s] more strongly in the child’s right to an education than [she] do[es] in the parent’s right to raise their children any way they want?”  Is a child’s right to a specific set of academic knowledge greater than your rights as a parent to pass on your morality, ethics, culture, or ideology? If you’re an unschooler or (I am warming to this term) “life learner,” do you think the child’s right to an education is more or less important than his freedom to make his own decisions, even if those choices are towards the less academic?

I know my answers to these questions. I’ve read some of the exceptionally thoughtful comments to her blog (like Kelly and Kim @ Beautiful Wreck’s). Now, I’d like to hear yours.

Babypie (who, at 14 months, is becoming less and less of a baby) has a busy work day.

Babypie’s babywork–our word for her daily self-assigned tasks–takes up a significant portion of the day that she doesn’t spend sleeping, nursing (which she now calls “thises,” as in, “I want this one”), playing with her brothers, or eating. Babypie has quite the work ethic and doesn’t believe in taking summers off.

Babypie’s babywork includes, but is not limited to:

Climbing onto the time out chair, standing there, and shouting, “MAMA!” (it’s important that someone checks up on me, obviously)
Rearranging Daddyman’s clear bins to use them as steps to reach Daddyman’s box of change, ID cards, and knickknacks
Climbing onto any boxes left in the living room (and possibly getting stuck)
Pushing any baskets around the room
Carrying shoes from one side of the room to the other
Putting items into baskets and dumping them out
Moving the rocking chair

While we were in Chicago, Babypie’s babywork included:

Stacking and unstacking the laundry baskets
Pushing the stool across the kitchen and back
Pushing the rolling office chair around the entire living room

You can see that she works very hard. If we had a cat, I’m sure she’d have to move it. It’s funny that the baby works harder and with less complaint than the older children, especially Captain Science. Maybe I should start letting him self-assign chores.

Or start moving furniture.

Today was our first day of our Peace Begins at Home/Pennies for Peace class. We started at around 10:15 and went through to about 12:30.

We all started the morning together by watching the 12 minute video about the program. Even the little ones sat still for it (mostly). I talked to them about what a penny can buy here and in Afghanistan and Pakistan, demonstrating by putting pennies into the big glass jar. We then broke into our two groups, <8 and 8+.

The little ones (under age 8 ) read Listen to the Wind with Ms Mel, drew pictures about what they learned (the Tank drew a bridge, but he said Dr. Greg really was walking on a ladder), and the talked about what it means to be good people. They were about done after that, so Ms Mel and Ms Gretchen took them outside to run around for a while.

The four big kids (8+) are reading the youth edition of Three Cups of Tea. It’s edited from the original version to include less about Greg Mortenson’s personal life and political ideology, and to include an interview with Amira Mortenson, his daughter. We talked a little about the first few chapters, and then did an activity from the grades 4-8 lesson plan where the kids wrote down things they knew about the US, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, then things they wanted to learn about, and their predictions for the answers to their questions. There’s also a space for the answers, once they find them. We talked a little bit about the connection between the US and the other countries, a little about the war in Afghanistan, and about religious extremism. The children (two boys, two girls) were shocked to hear about conditions for people, especially women, under the Taliban.

The next thing we did was look at a map of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The children outlined both countries in different colors, then found the US, Afghanistan, and Pakistan on a world map and colored those countries in the same colors they’d used to outline them on the other map. We talked about how far away Afghanistan and Pakistan are from us, but how, despite the distance, we’re connected in many ways. We reconvened w/ the little kids for lunch and then watched a short video on the geography of the region.

The little children went outside to play, so the big kids and I made a “recipe” for building a school. We imagined starting on a barren piece of ground in a mountainous, rural region, and what we’d need to make a school and to get the supplies there. It started simple, with bricks…would the cart them in or make them? They decided to make them, so they needed mud or clay. They needed concrete, but decided to import that using a “heavy truck,” until they got to the river, when they decided they’d need a boat, too. For roof tiles, they though they could use recycled metal from vehicles or even old cans, if importing roof tiles wasn’t cost effective. We talked about the things we’d need to overcome a lack of running water (pipes bringing it up from the river?) and electricity (manual tools or generators, which they felt should be solar-powered). The list was pretty long — two columns, with notes about the origin of all the materials — and they ultimately decided that the most important thing on the list was money!

I think they really enjoyed today’s lessons. Not completely sure what we’ll do next week. We’ll focus more on the book and on cultural things about the region. Friday, I’m hoping to do something with food!

I always think I’ll drink a third cup of coffee in the morning. Coffee is an important part of my day, especially my homeschool day, because it gives me a personality and enthusiasm. The third cup of coffee is a goal for which I strive daily. I fix an 8-cup pot in the morning, which pours just slightly over three of my Longaberger coffee mugs. The pink coffee mug holds a central role on my desk.

Despite my love for coffee, however, I seldom get around to drinking that third cup of coffee. In fact, the two I do drink tend to be rather tepid before I finish them. This is partially by design — I don’t like my coffee scalding hot anyway, and the kids have a bad habit of knocking my coffee all over themselves or my lap, so I put an ice cube into it as soon as I pour it — but partially because someone is always interrupting my coffee-drinking.

By the time I finally get around to that third cup of morning coffee, the coffee has started to burn in the pot and it’s noon and too close to afternoon coffee time to fix another pot of coffee, because preparing three pots of coffee before 3pm just makes it look like I have a problem. Sometimes I try to get around all of this by pouring the extra cup into a go-cup and stashing it elsewhere, but it inevitably ends up ice cold and barely sipped. A waste of two scoops of coffee grounds. A waste of a perfectly good cup of coffee.

Today is one of those rare days when I actually managed to pour the third cup. It sits, unfinished, on my desk, room temperature. I’m drinking it anyway, because sometimes, even a small a win is still a win.

I’m the errant Smrt Mama, who went away to Chicago and almost didn’t make it back.

Ok, that’s overstating it just a teensy bit, but I did go to Chicago (to visit my oldest friend and her brand new baby) and I did encounter an ever-so-slight problem with my return flight, in that my typically brilliant husband made a less-than-brilliant error in booking my return flight, and booked it FROM my city of origin and TO Chicago, which is less than helpful if I’m already in Chicago. Luckily, he got me onto a flight the very next day, and after 24 hours of not speaking to him, we’ve made a pleasant peace…based on the promise that he cannot get mad at me if I ever do something really dumb, like misplace his car for 24 hours.

Does anyone know where I could hide a car for 24 hours?

All this travel means that I wasn’t actually present for Captain Science’s final five days of “school” (which were about as educational as the last five days of public school, if you catch my drift) or for the Tank’s final school performance. While I can’t make up for missing Tank’s show, I can make up for the last five school days, which I plan to do this week through field trips and general fun. Does a trip to the Georgia Renaissance Festival count as a history lesson? If so, Captain Science is getting two history lessons, as he went w/ his uncle on Saturday and is going again on Sunday.

I’m working on my end of the year reviews, one for Captain Science (for record-keeping) and one for me (so you can point and laugh). Hopefully will get those up soon. All in all, I have to quote Tori Amos and call this a “pretty good year.”

I have not forgotten the “You Look Like a Homeschooler” contest, y’all. The pneumonia threw me off track and I have to get the prizes assembled, but will announce the winners in short order.

Captain Science’s assignment from Michael Clay Thompson’s Building Poems today was to write a poem based on a photograph. He chose Steve McCurry’s famous photograph of the Afghan refugee girl, published in National Geographic.

The Afghan Girl Her eyes are like a rainbow, yet her clothes are very tattered, then her hair has several messy spots. Is she no more than ten? Her countenance is frightening, her visage looks concerned. Her memories are troubled times. There’s nothing she has earned.

word

A comforting hug.

Today is National Teacher Day, which comes, somewhat predictably, in the middle of National Teacher Appreciation Week.

As homeschoolers, we are each our child(ren)’s teacher…excepting those unschoolers who eschew the word “teach,” of course. I’d like to take a moment to tell you teachers-in-your-own home how much I appreciate you.

Homeschooling isn’t easy. You do it anyway.

Your day isn’t done at 3 o’clock or even 6 o’clock — it’s not done until your children are all tucked in bed, and even then, you often stay up for hours going on plans for the following day or preparing for the weeks and months ahead. You don’t get summer vacation. You don’t get a two-week break at Christmas. You can’t draw a line between your job and your personal life. You can’t walk away from the work and the children when the day is done. You do it anyway.

You don’t get paid to do this. You don’t draw a salary and you don’t get a pension at the end. Your “salary” is intellectual growth of your children. Your “pension” is the well-adjusted, well-educated adults you have raised. Your “benefits” aren’t in the form of health insurance and paid leave, but in the amount of quality you spend with your child. The nest egg you’re building for the future isn’t financial. You do it anyway.

You don’t have a union. You have to scrap out the support where you can find it, through online forums or local homeschool groups. You have to be your own advocate, figure things out on your own, or ask for help from others like you. It can be an uphill battle the whole way. You do it anyway.

You don’t have a mandate from the State. You may even be at great odds with your state by choosing to homeschool. You fill out forms, jump through hoops, and then fill out more forms about jumping through hoops. You may have to put your family and your life up for scrutiny for someone else’s determination of whether you’re fit to homeschool. You do it anyway.

You don’t have someone developing an approved curriculum for you, setting academic standards for you, or giving you the exact information your children should learn. You don’t have it that easy. You have to figure it out on your own. You can’t just teach to the test, satisfied that the test scores will be the end to justify your means. You have to determine what you can use, what you can afford, what standards you will set for your children. You have to find a way to teach them everything they need to know for college and for life. You’ll probably miss a few things, and you agonize over which things you’ll miss. You do it anyway.

You don’t do it “their” way. Your job isn’t always respected. You don’t get special license plates. When someone asks you, “What do you do for a living?” your answer often isn’t what they want to hear. You’re subjected to a rigorous line of questioning about what you do and what you teach and why. Your motives are suspect. Your methods are scrutinized. Your rigor is challenged. You do it anyway.

Day in and day out, you do it anyway. You continue to educate your children, despite others’ misgiving, despite criticism and unwanted commentary. You invest time, money, and energy that you may not actually have in making sure your children have a thorough, meaningful education. You reach out to others like you and offer them help, advice, materials, support. You raise your children with character and creativity.

You’re homeschoolers. You don’t give up. You do it anyway.

Happy Teacher Appreciate Day, to my community of wonderful home-teachers. You’re loved. You’re appreciated.