Smrt Lernins

Today’s question is from an anonymous commenter on Formspring. S/he asks, “How do you find time for your relationship with your husband when you’re so busy with your kids? In a world where divorce is common, how do you keep that spark there? What do you talk about in the evenings? Do you ever find homeschooling consumes you entirely?”

What? What’s that you say? I can’t hear you, as homeschooling has eaten my head. *crunch crunch*

In all honesty, homeschooling does sometimes consume me entirely. It takes up most of my morning and afternoon. Planning takes up a portion of my evenings. Homeschooling certainly takes up a large percentage of my thoughts. I spent a neat little chunk of time writing about homeschooling.

Homeschooling hasn’t been the biggest stumbling block in our marriage this past year+, though. The thing that has really been draining is parenting in general. I have spent the last five straight years pregnant, breastfeeding, or a combination of the two. We have three children, ranging in age from 17 months to almost ten, plus a beagle. Someone always wants something from me. I’m tired and drained, physically, mentally, and emotionally, much of the time. I’m tired of people touching me. I have stints of a lot of anxiety, both generalized and specific. I can’t use the bathroom without a pottience or someone banging on the door, hollering through the door, sniffing and scratching at the door, crying “Mama! Mama! Mama!” outside the door, or getting into a fight downstairs. We’ve had one or more small people sleeping in our bed with us for the last four years. Mix that up with Officer Daddyman’s work (very late nights) and the homeschooling in the morning, and sometimes it does feel like the whole world, or at least the portion of it occupied by our children, is trying to come between us.

Keeping the spark is hard. A lot of the time, I couldn’t care less about the spark. I’m starved for a few minutes of intelligent adult conversation far more than I’m starved for romance. I sometimes trend towards not making enough effort, because I’m just too lacking in energy to care. Even in the less sparkful times, however, I always find Daddyman interesting. I like talking to him. I’m interested in what he has to say, whether it’s stories from work or explanations of a game system he’s working on. I like how he seems interested in all the probably-boring stuff I did during my day. I stay up almost every night until he gets home, even if that means forgoing a couple extra hours of sleep that I probably need. We spend a little time talking, maybe watch an episode of whatever show we’re watching on Netflix (right now it’s Studio 60 on Sunset Strip), maybe eat a little snack. Sometimes we have Quality Adult Time™ together. Sometimes we just have time together.

We have periods when we spend a lot of time together, periods where we drift too often to our separate computers, but mostly, I like Daddyman more than I like just about anybody else, and he seems to like me pretty well, and I think that’s what keeps us going. I like parenting with him, having general life stuff with him, having conversation (however trivial) with him. We actively work on getting it together and keeping it together. We’re honest with each other and we try to lay it all out there so nothing is hiding, building up resentment. Every once in a while, we have great big fights and great big make-ups, and that’s always nice, too, in the long run. It’s a work in progress, but I think any good marriage is. I want to keep working to find ways to make it better. I want to keep working to find ways to not just keep the spark, but to want to keep the spark. I see us making a lot of improvement in that area. I think it will keep getting easier.

Ultimately, I don’t think homeschooling is any more (and probably less) of problem in our marriage than any thing else. It’s a common interest and a shared project, and it means we’ll nearly always have something to talk about.

Care asks, “What do you think regarding using the library for materials? Is it worth going out and buying your own copy of all materials? Will the library (be likely to) have core texts and you can just use all their books? Is a blend a reasonable and feasible option?”

Many homeschoolers rely on public libraries for part or all of their materials. Public libraries can provide a perfectly valid way of cutting monetary cost while homeschooling. Depending on the size of your library system, the speed at which books can be ordered from other locations in the system, and your ability/willingness to travel frequently to the library to order, check out, and/or renew books (some systems allow online ordering and renewal), the library may be a useful part of your homeschool year…or it might be more trouble than it’s worth.

Adrienne Furness even wrote a book for librarians whose libraries see a high volume of homeschoolers, Helping Homeschoolers in the Library. Adrienne also has a website called Homeschooling and Libraries with great resources for both homeschoolers using the library and librarians assisting homeschoolers. Denise G. Masters also has some suggestions for ways library systems can become more accommodating to homeschoolers. If your library system doesn’t currently have any of these systems or protocols in place, find out if there’s someone you can speak with to start implementing some of these changes.

If your budget is significantly constrained, you have free and easy access to a great public library system, and your homeschooling philosophies/methods don’t call for a lot of consumable materials, the library may be just the ticket for you. My personal experiences have not made me into a huge library-for-homeschool enthusiast, however. I’m of the opinion that buying your own copies of materials is almost always worth it. Libraries aren’t my first choice for homeschool materials for many reasons, such as:

1. Time is money, especially with multiple children. Using the library as a source for all or most of your homeschool materials can greatly decrease the monetary cost of homeschooling, but the trade off is a potentially huge increase in the time cost of homeschooling. Every minute spent driving to and from the library is a minute that can’t be spent elsewhere. Every minute spent trying to locate the books on a library shelf (sometimes being thwarted when the book isn’t actually there) is a minute that isn’t going to actually reading the books in question. Can this time be well spent on these endeavors? Well, sure, if you can carefully plan your week around your library time. As each of my children begins homeschooling, however, I suspect our time is going to become an increasingly valuable resource, one that I can’t see spending on a lot of library back-’n-forth. I can order books online at night, during snack/lunch time, or when the kids are at outside lessons or playdates,  which makes that the more time-efficient one.

2. Library books are not meant to be consumable. If you’d like to keep checking books out from that system, you can’t mark in/on, tear pages from, or in other way “consume” a library book. Yes, I’m looking at you, Tank.  I enjoy making notes in my books. I like to be able to dog ear a page if I need to. While I discourage margin doodling (Captain Science is a notorious doodler), I want my children to be able to take a note, underline a word or passage, or work through a problem on the page if they need to. We do have some books, like Life of Fred, that I don’t allow marking-up, but most of our curricula is of the consumable variety — meant to be written in. The benefit of a writable/markable curriculum is that it cuts down on the number of binder and folder filled with looseleaf paper, which, incidentally, never actually stays in those darn binders.

3. You’re really not supposed to photocopy that copyrighted material. While I’m not the Queen of all Ethics (I’m sure some of the software on my computer isn’t entirely on the up-and-up), I do feel that one should purchase consumable materials for home use, rather than photocopy the pages that aren’t expressly marked “for reproduction” and use the photocopies. When you do that, you’re reducing the number of sales for that particular publisher/writer, and guess what? If they don’t have enough sales, there won’t be another volume or companion book or edition of that material!

4. My library doesn’t have it. “It” being pretty much anything that I want to use for homeschooling. Sure, I could rearrange my academic plans based on what’s in the library (or available free online), but that seriously limits what materials we can cover. While my public library system has multiple copies of The Well-Trained Mind (various editions) to help a homeschooler get started, it doesn’t have a single book in the Life of Fred series, anything by Michael Clay Thompson, or any of the beautifully-illustrated DK Publishing history books. I can find supplemental books there, but nothing that makes a thorough enough curriculum for my gifted child, who really does need the challenge and creativity of the curricula we have chosen. We went through quite a few options to find what worked for us and not a one of those options was available in our public library system.

5. It only saves you money if you don’t rack up fees. We…um…yeah, kind of misplace library books sometimes. We have a kinda-sorta system on making sure those books don’t get lost, but someone always snags one from the “library books go here” spot and carries it off, then it doesn’t get turned in with the other, or somebody forgets the date the books are due, or somebody assumes somebody else renewed those books whilst s/he was at the library last time, and before you know it, we’ve got $20 in fees on all of our library cards and have to start checking things out under pseudonyms (which takes us right back to that ethics thing, people).  We already do this with our pleasure reading books to the extent that it’s usually cheaper for me to just buy the damn book outright.

6. I’m a book junkie. For those homeschoolers among us who are book junkies, it’s not enough to just read the book. We have to own the book. A big fat bookshelf is ever so much more satisfying than a big fat wallet, don’t you think? I love the smell of books, the feel of books, the lovely weight and size of a trade paperback (as opposed to library-bound hardbacks or thumbed-apart cheap paperbacks).  Books are my dear friends and my precious treasures, but a loaner book from a library can never be more than a passing acquaintance or another man’s rhubarb. I get something of a high from opening a FedEx/UPS box with a new book inside. I derive great pleasure from my shelf of curricula (and even have great dreams of one day arranging it all by topic, like Patchfire’s shelves).

7. Friends make great lending libraries. Patchfire has loaned or gifted me with a great deal of curricula. I, in turn, am prepared to pass along the stuff that didn’t work for us (or is just too young for us) to other homeschoolers.  Patchfire loaned me all of her Greek/Roman materials, and when I give it back to her, it will be accompanied by all the Greek/Roman materials I purchased. Reciprocity amongst a homeschooling community can be one way to cut costs without completely giving up that library. In this way, any book has the potential to help many families. Plus, it makes for a great excuse to get together with other homeschoolers. We’re planning a “Curriculattes” meeting for homeschooling parents to drink coffee and show off or swap curricula. Free or cheap stuff AND a night out? You can’t tell me that isn’t better than a library.

8. Libraries want you to be quiet. Tank, people. I have Tank. I really don’t think I need to explain it any better than that, do I?

9. Sometimes I get a bad case of the gonnas. As in, I’m really gonna make it out to the library this time…if I get around to it. I procrastinate. I put things off.  I drag my feet.  I know this about myself. If I rely on sources outside my home as my primary educational tools, my poor kids are going to be making do with crackers and magazines some weeks, because as much as I think I’m gonna make it to the library each and every week, I know it’s not actually gonna happen. I was also gonna do a lot of art projects and a ton of field trips this year, but without careful pre-planning, that didn’t happen, either. If I were to use the library with great frequency, I’d have to stick very rigidly to that color-coded schedule! I could do it if I had to, but I’d have to overcome a whole passel of gonnas to get there.

10. Have I mentioned I have three kids? I know, I know. Plenty of moms with way more kids than I have pile them into their white conversion van once a week and trot them meekly and quietly into the library to make excellent use of the facilities and resources. I am not those moms, however. Coordinating Captain Science’s need for certain books with Tank’s hands-on curiosity with Babypie’s “you’ve set me down and now I’m going to run off” isn’t my idea of a great time. It’s enough of a pain when we go for pleasure reading.  If I’m trying to locate specific books on the shelves for Captain S., it’s harder to corral Babypie, and Tank is piling up picture books on the reading table, and…ACK! Smrt Mama starts approaching a Smrt Meltdown of her own. Daddyman is usually the one who ends up taking Captain Science (and sometimes Tank) to the library for free reading books, and that works just fine for us.

The long (very long) and short of it is that we haven’t had the need or inclination to rely primarily on the library for our curricula, but that certainly doesn’t mean it couldn’t work for you or anyone else. Learn what your public library system has available to you and develop a schedule and system that allows for regular visits and timely returns of materials…and when you do, please let me know!

That’s what the [Smrt] Homeschooler thinks about using the library. What do you think? How do you and your family use the library as a part of homeschooling?

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Amelia asks, “If you’re going to homeschool for preschool next year, what will that look like? Will it look different from the usual parenting of a preschooler?”

We’re definitely home preschooling next year. We haven’t re-enrolled Tank in his current preschool and he’s quite excited about “doing homework” (he used to call it “table learnin’”) with Captain Science and (more importantly, to him) with Patchfire’s Fabulous Boy, whom Tank swears he is going to either grow up to marry or to crush (with requisite iron-fist-of-Stalin crushing hand gesture). Even if we didn’t have plans to homeschool Tank, we’d have to start doing something during Captain Science’s school time, because Tank wants so badly to be homeschooled, too.

Another reason I want to homeschool is to make sure Tank doesn’t have gaps in his basic knowledge. Because Captain Science was so bright in most areas (he was reading at 2), his teachers either didn’t notice that he didn’t have certain important skills or thought that, because he was so gifted in other areas, he would either catch up or the skills weren’t that important. As a result, Captain Science never really learned how to hold scissors properly or cut well, to hold a pencil correctly, or to trace a straight line. It’s been an uphill battle to instill those skills in my now-9-year-old. I don’t want Tank to end up the same way, so I’ve carefully compiled a list of skills I want to make sure he has, and will address each of them in turn.

While any of the skills we’re planning on working on next year could be taught through the informal daily routine of parenting, Tank will have a short instructional period every school day to work on these concepts more formally.

We’ll start with the cheap and simple, using Kumon workbooks for the basic skills like tracing and cutting. We might also use them for some beginning math skills. Tank is already pretty good with numbers and does simple arithmetic using fingers or objects. We’ll probably also find some “fun” math activities to do with him.

On the recommendation of several homeschooling friends, I’ll be using The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, which is co-authored by one of the authors of The Well-Trained Mind, for teaching phonics and other reading skills. I’m also considering getting the flashcards that go with this book. We have a magnet board and a fairly good collection of magnet letters, so as much as the idea of something like this magnetic phonics teaching set appeals to me, we’ll probably stick with the letters we have.

Something I am going to put in the formal schedule, just to make sure I don’t put it by the wayside, is art. Tank loves all arts and crafts. He loves to paint, draw, glue, model, and make ridiculous projects out of various substances. Patchfire and I have talked about doing art class with our small boys, so that will satisfy both Tank’s need to have a class with FB and my need to make sure he has art regularly.

I’m also going to make sure I address some of those things that he might otherwise miss as a homeschooled student, things like knowing his parents’ names, address, phone number, and how to react in a fire or other emergency.

The most noticeable difference between days where I’m home preschooling and the days when I’m just parenting a preschooler will be that he will feel like he’s having school time. I don’t have to keep records or worry about him making tremendous academic strides, but I can give him a way to be closer with Captain Science and feel included.

That’s how the [Smrt] Homeschooler plans to do preschooling at home!

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Karen asks, “What will your kids do without an annual yearbook? Even elementary schools have them nowadays.”

Elementary schools offer them. I do not buy them. Twice-yearly pictures were enough. I barely gave enough of a flip about the other kids in Captain Science’s class to buy the class picture. I certainly did not ever give enough of a flip about the other kids in the entire school to buy a yearbook. I am not a cash cow and do not appreciate being milked by anyone other than my nursing baby.

Really, when is the last time you opened up your yearbooks? How much meaning do they really have to you in adulthood? I think I look at mine every few years, mainly when I need a reminder of how much I hated high school and 99.97% of the people in my graduating class. Yearbooks are a $50 way of remembering a time period that I actually wish I could effectively block from my memory. High school days were not my glory days. I don’t look on them fondly. I don’t wax poetical while poring over black and white pictures of people who mostly grew up to be the kind of people I add on Facebook and summarily delete, because they are just that insufferable. You will not see me weeping over a lack of a yearbook.

Should my children express a longing for something of this nature, I’ll gather together all of their homeschooled friends. We’ll do photoshoots, get photobooks printed, and they can all sign each other’s photobooks. They’ll be classier, less expensive, and full of only the people they liked and want to remember, rather than the overpriced remembrance of people he barely knew, didn’t particularly like, and won’t bother to keep in contact with after graduation.

And that is what a [Smrt] Homeschooler has to say about yearbooks.

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Daisy asks, “Should I join a homeschool advocacy group like HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association)?”

In a word, no.

Please forgive me if I become too wordy or impassioned, but this particular topical splinter has been digging into my brain for a while now. What comes out might not be pretty. As a secular homeschooler, I’m not ever going to be on board with the HSLDA. As a liberal homeschooler, I’m not ever going to be on board with the HSLDA. Honestly, as a homeschooler in general, I’m not ever going to be on board with the HSLDA.

HSLDA is a religious group and has, in my opinion, some rather sinister ulterior motives that go much further than protecting or extending the rights of homeschoolers. It’s not just “rah rah, homeschooling!” but a lot of unpleasant cause mixing — they’ve either directly worked against, encouraged members to work against, or celebrated legislation outlawing/limiting gay marriage, gun-free school zones, abortion, and more. Not only does this stand against things I believe in, ethically/morally and politically/legally speaking, but really crosses the line from supporting homeschool to intervening in the lives of others — ironically, the very thing they seem so convinced the government is set on doing. A 2004 article in the Boston Globe addresses many of my concerns with the organization and what I feel is an exploitation of homeschooling families and homeschooled children to push the HSLDA’s ultraconservative agenda.

When I think of major legal or social issues that might impact homeschooling, gay marriage isn’t something that springs to mind. The HSLDA seems to think it’s terribly relevant to homeschooling, however, as they sent an email to their mailing list asking if members would support amendment to ban gay marriage and later posted a Q&A page on the importance of a federal ban on gay marriage. I haven’t yet had someone else’s marriage, gay or straight, in any way affect my ability to homeschool my children, but I guess it’s possible I’m missing something. Does the mythical Gay Agenda now include “outlaw homeschooling” along with “destroy the sanctity of your marriage” and “corrupt your children” “go to work,” “raise a family,” and “live my life?”

What does abortion have to do with homeschooling, exactly, outside of the topics of health or religious belief? The HSLDA has an entire page on their site celebrating “partial birth abortion” ban. HSLDA president Michael Farris hopes, in his own words, that “homeschooled young people will help reverse Roe v. Wade.” Again, I’m curious as to what Roe v. Wade has to do with mathematics, science, language arts, or any other aspect of home education. How is Roe v. Wade, or abortion in general, an issue that should be addressed by a homeschooling organization?

Why does an organization charging around $100/year in membership dues, supposedly to pay for legal defense for homeschooling issue, instead shunt that money into stopping abortion or gay marriage, or championing non-homeschool-related political causes in general? HSLDA funds the National Center for Home Education, which is a lobbying organization, and Generation Joshua, which is designed to indoctrinate homeschooled students into the Farris’s specific set of conservative beliefs and recruit them for conservative grassroots movements.

Additionally, the HSLDA, champion of the “rights” of homeschooled parents, is also absurdly afraid of children having rights of their own.

You’re better off knowing your own rights and retaining your own counsel, IMO, unless you want to fund the above. Obviously, I’m addressing a general “you,” or more specifically, answering the question of whether I would join the HSLDA, because I certainly wouldn’t want to fund the above. Even some of my politically conservative, Christian friends won’t join the HSLDA, because they feel uncomfortable with the degree of political involvement and the related pressure on member-families. Sadly, the HSLDA presents itself as the only game in town and the only group standing between homeschoolers and terrible, crushing demise at the government’s hands. Yes, homeschoolers do have it pretty rough in some states, but the intrusive, rabidly conservative approach of the HSLDA strikes me as a way to worsen, rather than improve, conditions for homeschoolers.

Daisy also asked about joining the HSC (Homeschool Assoc of CA). This group appears to be inclusive and to genuinely focus on advocating for the rights of homeschoolers. If you really feel that joining a legal/advocacy group is important, the HSC sound like a much better bet to this [Smrt] Homeschooler.

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Christi writes, “I’ve considered home schooling my eldest for middle school, since our local middle school is really bad, and we can’t afford private school. The trouble is, even with my degree in education, I have a hard time just helping her with her homework. She gets frustrated, rolls her eyes, throw tantrums, and then I get irritated with her and give up. Have you dealt with any of this and how did you get past it?”

That’s a reasonable concern and on that many parents contemplating homeschooling seem to have. You’re touching on the very thing I feared when the possibility of homeschooling Captain Science was first brought up for consideration. We battled over homework nearly every night. I’m not being hyperbolic here, either. Almost every single school night devolved into fussing, yelling, tears, arguing, nagging, and/or fits over the completion of homework. If I couldn’t get him to finish an hour of homework without that sort of drama, how on earth could I manage to get him through a full day of school work? Were my days going to be nothing but a constant struggle to accomplish even the smallest tasks? Was I setting us both up for a complete breakdown of our parent-child relationship?

Well, take a deep breath in, Christi. Now let it out. Relax and be assured that none of the above worries have come true.

Your daughter spends most of her day at school. She’s probably up and out the door pretty early, spends a full day at school, and then comes homes only to do more school work. Of course she’s not happy about it. Who among us enjoys putting in a full day at the office, then coming home to spend an additional hour or more of what should be your time with family on work-related conference calls, paperwork, or, for a more accurate comparison to the majority of homework, a busywork review of your day’s tasks? Sure, some people like bringing their work home with them, but most people want to leave work at the office.

Newsflash! So do your kids. They also seem to understand instinctively what Harris Cooper, a professor of education and psychology at Duke University who is an expert on homework, has discovered through research: that there is very little evidence that most homework (reading and short assignments to prepare for tests excluded) in elementary school helps kids learn. In other words, all that work really is a waste of your child’s time and yours.

During her school day, your daughter may be interested and engaged in the materials. Her interactions with her teacher might be very positive. This positivity could carry over to the home education environment, with you in the role of the educator sharing new knowledge with your child. Or, it might be that she’s very unhappy with the teaching style, classroom dynamics, speed at which materials are covered, etc. and you could help reengage her with her education by finding the right curriculum and by providing a safe and secure environment in which to learn. As the homeschooling parent, you aren’t being put in the position of having to be a prison guard jangling the keys while your kids serve an unpleasant sentence issued by a teacher, a sentence over which you’ve had no input.

This may sound a little melodramatic to those of you whose children have always been homeschooled or whose homeschooling experiences weren’t preceded by negative public schooling experiences, but those of us who started homeschooling in response to bullying teachers who seem to punitively assign busy work can tell you that is exactly what it felt like many nights. It actually reached a point with Captain Science and his third grade teacher where I did finally declare some of the work to be pointless busy work that I didn’t care if he finished or not, because I got so tired of having to enforce rules I didn’t set and harass him through worksheet after pointless worksheet.

In the homeschooling environment, my reluctant homeworker has become a (usually) willing homescholar. Our daily materials aren’t busy work. It’s not worksheets to send home in order to have something to grade or give the appearance of actually teaching when I’m not. I have the power to make it interesting the first time through…and the first time through is the only time through, if he demonstrates mastery of the concepts!

Just a warning: you may have to do some deprogramming to get these positive results. Take a relaxing summer off and start the school year with positivity. Find out what parts of her day she most enjoyed, what aspects of education worked best for her, and let her know you’ve taken that into account when planning the curricula. If she balks, take it slow, and reassure her that she doesn’t have to worry about grades and tests, just about learning the materials and enjoying them. Don’t let it turn into a power struggle. You can always quit and come back to it the next day, which is better at the beginning that leaping right into the head-butting.

Ultimately, I think you’ll find how little homework and homeschooling have in common.

Daisy asks, “How do you keep Babypie busy (and Tank when he is home) while you are teaching?”

Babypie is an uncommonly easy baby, so entertaining her has not been a problem thus far. She’s happy to wander around, nibble on a snack, play with her toys, and just generally observe our school lessons. The biggest problem with Babypie isn’t that she is herself distracting, but that Captain Science is often distracted by her. He loves her so much, and if he so much as looks at her, she always gives him the biggest, hammiest grins, which means he’ll keep smiling and talking to her instead of doing his work. This can be a problem.

The solution has been to set up multiple work areas for different needs. We have our school room, where my computer, the books, and homeschool materials all live. The desk has chairs on both sides so Captain Science and I can both sit at it. This is my base of operations, where I explain the lessons, go over the work (pointing out things that need correction or asking Captain Science to explain how he came to certain answers/conclusions), or do discussion/instruction portions of work. When Captain Science needs to read without Babypie milling about the same room, or if he needs room to spread out materials (science labs at home, for example), he goes into the gated kitchen to work at the table. When he needs a quiet place to work on math, grammar, writing, etc., he goes down to the roll-top desk we have set up in the craft room on the basement level. The desk is tucked around a corner so there’s not a direct line of sight to upstairs (he can’t see what the smalls are doing, they can’t see and bother him) and it muffles the sound a bit. That works really well and allows him to get work done with varying levels of family interaction as needed.

The Tank is…well, more of an issue. The main day he’s home during intense instruction is Friday, so I have to work hard to make sure he isn’t bothering Captain Science. I sometimes set him up with a movie or show on the opposite level of the house from where Cpt. Science is working. Sometimes I send him up to his room or down to the playroom for a while. When all else fails, he will happily sit at a table with markers and color on paper, himself, or the table. He’s easy to keep busy for short periods of time, but he likes something never every 15-30 minutes. Luckily, he really wants to start homeschooling with us, so I am going to begin phasing in some “table lernin” (his word for work done at a desk/table) for him to do on Fridays, which will give me another way to keep him occupied.

Our big challenge will be next year, when Tank isn’t re-enrolled in preschool and is preschooling at home. I’ll probably have to rotate their work (and play) stations around several times each day to keep Tank interested and out of Captain Science’s hair. I’ll try answering this question again next year and see what I’ve learned!

That’s how the [Smrt] Homeschooler entertains her smalls!

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Lisa M. (who asks some of the best questions), asks, “Do you follow the public school year? As in, break during the summer? Or do you school all year long?”

For this, our first year of homeschooling, we opted to more or less follow the standard public school schedule for two reasons: 1) The Tank is enrolled in a preschool that follows our county’s public school schedule and 2) as the change from public to homeschool was already such a big one for Captain Science, I wanted to keep the schedule as “normal” as possible. We do school Monday through Friday (with the occasionally Saturday catch-up in the event of a sick day). Our year started the same day as public school this year and will end at roughly the same time, officially-speaking.

Some notable exceptions for us have been the length and frequency of breaks. We don’t take off for teacher workdays or most of the one-day holidays (like MLK day). We only took W-F off for Thanksgiving. We did take two weeks off for Christmas, but that turned out to a less-than-ideal situation, as Captain Science didn’t adjust well to the lack of clear definition between home vacation and home school. Instead of a full week for Spring Break, we’re taking a few days for a combination family trip and field trip (Captain Science is touring Icarus Studios to learn how MMORPGs are made).

Also, when I say that our school year will end when the public school year does, I don’t mean that we’ll stop doing school. I just mean that our official ‘09-’10 school year will end after 180 days of schooling, as stipulated by state law, and that 180 days is up at around the same time that our county’s public schools let out in May. We won’t be done with school work by far, however. Our year is broken into three semesters and all three are “in session.” Fall and Spring have been more traditional, while Summer will be broken up by camps and trips, include a baseline of daily work for maintenance sake (math and grammar), and may involve a unit study or two.

Next year, I’d like to start balancing our school year a little better, spreading our out breaks, taking a shorter break for summer and over Christmas, but having more frequent 3 or 4-day weekends. Depending on what happens w/ Officer Daddyman’s work schedule, we might even rearrange our week to match with his for maximum family time! I love the complete customization of our schedule. We have to do school for 180 days, but we can take those days whenever (and however) we want!

That’s how the [Smrt] Homeschooler’s calendar looks!

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Today’s “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler” post is something of a cheater topic, as the person who asked the question was heavily involved in helping me sort out the answer. Still, I think my process could be helpful to other people, so I might as well answer this question somewhat formally.

Patchfire asks, “How did you choose your approach to homeschooling?”

First, I have to give a tremendous amount of credit to Patchfire. When I was first considering homeschooling Captain Science, she never one tried to talk me into it or convince me to use any specific approach. I know she was really hoping I’d make the decision to homeschool. I know she was hoping I’d choose a classical approach. Despite that, she constrained herself to only answering the questions I asked, only giving her opinion when I requested it, and also being honest about the challenges. For that, I am truly grateful, because I don’t have any doubts or regrets about the decisions we have made. I know they were our decisions.

Deciding on classical homeschooling was actually remarkably easy for me, though building up the courage to choose curricula and develop a schedule was hard. I have several homeschooling friends, both in person and online. I looked for the families whose children were most like Captain Science in temperament, ability, and learning style, and then assessed whether I liked how they were learning, how much they were learning, and whether or not I found them to be pleasant and well-rounded individuals.

The winner, hands down, of the “most like Captain Science” and the “most like how I’d want Captain Science to be in the future” was Patchfire’s Eclectic Girl. I loved the things she was learning, the methods by which she was learning, and wphat an enjoyable child she seemed to be overall. Plus, she and Captain Science are like two scrawny, brainy little peas in a pod, so it seemed like an easy choice to give credence to methods that worked well for her.

It was also fairly easy to choose an approach because I knew what approaches I didn’t want. I’ve never been a big fan of unschooling, at least as I’ve seen it modeled in the “real world” (or by online folks like Sandra Dodd of the “I’d rather have dentures than have memories of my parents forcing me to brush my teeth” school of thought). My personal experiences with Montessori weren’t great and I’m just not a centers kind of girl. Waldorf/Steiner? Yeah, not going with any approach that so strongly advocates a delay in reading. Unit studies sound great for some areas or topics, but I couldn’t see myself developing an entire curricula around them.

However fringe or hippie I might be in some areas of my life, when it comes to education, I’m fairly traditional. I value reading and writing, and yes, I think those are skills that should be developed earlier rather than later. I value thorough mathematical education, which includes things like knowing the multiplication tables. I think memorization and recitation are important skills for every person, skills that I have found useful on many occasions in my adult life. I value rigorous, evidence-based science education. I value history education that is both broad and deep. All of these values pointed me towards a classical approach to education.

I would recommend that every prospective homeschooler read The Well-Trained Mind first, even if classical education doesn’t sound like something that would float your boat. It’s the most thorough resource on what children should (or could, at least) learn and on what and how much to introduce when. You might read WTM and love it like I did, developing your own classical curricula for your child. You might say “Eff this noise!” and chuck it into the back yard for your chickens to eat. You might take parts from WTM and parts from other places. Whether or not you strictly define yourself by someone else’s approach isn’t the issue — I’m sure some of the most rigorous classical homeschoolers might consider me to be classical lite, as we haven’t yet started Latin (though we do a Latin-based vocabulary) and we don’t to that many fabulous extracurriculars. You just need to find a place to start if you’re trying to decide how to choose your approach to homeschooling. The rest will fall into place after that.

That’s how the [Smrt] Homeschooler chose her approach to homeschooling. Good luck choosing yours!

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com

Today’s “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler” is less of a question, and more of a request.

Marci writes, “I want you to do a post on how you possibly think your child will be able to handle hard situations if they aren’t exposed to them in public school at a very young age. You know the whole comment about, ‘they’re going to have to deal with moronic/mean/belittling…people someday so they might as well learn now.’”

I will start out by saying that I have never met an adult who is a better person due to belittling as a child. Cruelty doesn’t produce character. Suffering through meanness doesn’t make a stronger, better person. Bullying doesn’t create well-rounded individuals who are able to deal with day-to-day challenges. Removing a child from a damaging (mentally, physically, or emotionally) situation isn’t teaching him to “run away from his problems.”

The premise that bullying in some way “toughens up” children, helps them develop “thicker skin” or become “less sensitive,” or teaches them about the “real world,” is faulty and dangerous. Imagine trying to apply those same ideas to adults. Should an adult accept physical or verbal assault in order to develop a thicker skin? Should adults accept sexual harassment in order to become less sensitive? Should an adult accept discrimination or racism simply because it’s “part of the real world?”

Of course not. Adults are not expected to accept these kinds of behaviors, because they are unacceptable. The only situations under which most adults are willing to accept assault and harassment is when the adults feel powerless — fear of losing a job, fear of retaliation, fear of being called a liar. Why should my goal as a parent be to create situations where my children feel powerless? Treating bullying as a character-building experience for a child makes no more sense than treating domestic violence as a character-building experience for an adult. Domestic violence isn’t stopped by teaching the woman to make quips, hit back, or focus on her many positive traits to help her stand up to her abuser, because to do otherwise would be “running away from her problems.” It’s not stopped by telling the victim that it’s “just words” or that she needs to “toughen up.” It’s stopped by getting out and staying out. Why do so many parents fall into the trap of thinking that bullying, which is just another form of abuse, doesn’t merit the same solution?

As an adult, if someone calls me names, swears at me, physically threatens me, or just downright annoys me, I have the freedom to get up and walk away. I am not obligated to accept mistreatment. I am not obligated to accept abuse. I am not obligated to tolerate idiocy. Walking away from an unpleasant or intolerable situation may involve making a sacrifice, but I have the power to do that. Unless I am bound physically (such as through incarceration) or legally (as with military enlistment), I always have the option to weigh the costs and benefits of tolerating or rejecting any given set of circumstances. I can choose my place of employment, my recreational activities, and my social group (which is very rarely based solely on age). A child in a public school setting, however, has no choice over his classroom “peers,” his schedule, or even his presence there. How are the social lessons learned under those circumstances analogous with the social lessons I will need as an adult? Short answer: They really aren’t.

Yes, there will be times when my children will have to smile and nod at idiots, brush off an insult without reacting, or even deal with a bully. They won’t be learning the skills necessary to do that within the contrived, age-segregated “social setting” of the classroom. They’ll be exposed to a much wider age range (though homeschool co-ops and the many other social activities in which we participate), where they will have the model of older children and have to be the model to younger children. They will also witness their parents dealing with frustrating situations politely and tactfully, even if we grumble about them later. Sometimes, they’ll see us ignore harsh words from someone who isn’t worth the effort we’d have to make to respond. We’ll talk about why we choose to engage and why we don’t. We’ll explain that sometimes you fight and sometimes you walk away.

How will our children learn how to deal with tough or unfair situations that deserve a fight? When we are dealt with unjustly, they’ll see us modeling appropriate anger and indignation (one real world example: I was asked by a security guard at a water park to stop breastfeeding my infant), appropriate immediate responses (ex: I didn’t bless out the security guard, but instead clearly and politely recited that state laws protecting my right to nurse my child there, and then spoke with the manager), and appropriate longer-term responses (ex: I worked w/ the manager on implementing training for employees about breastfeeding laws and including pro-breastfeeding language on the water park’s website).

I can’t think of a single situation in my life where having been bullied or forced to deal with idiots in a manufactured setting has been of any great benefit. I have tapped the tools I learned from my parents, Girl Scouting, my Model United Nations team and other wonderful sources on many occasions to great success, but not once have I thought, “Gee, I’m so glad I was belittled by my peers!” I’m pretty sure my kids can manage without that particular brand of education, too.

And that’s what the [Smrt] Homeschooler has to say about that.

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com