Today I took two of my kids to a nature program in one of the state parks.  They meet every Thursday for 2.5 hours for the month of July.  I decided to sign them up to give the week a bit of structure, so that there would be something special to look forward to each week in addition to whatever other trips and activities I plan. 

It was a very nice program, though my 9 yo seems to enjoy grumbling about the activities I plan.  I almost don’t hear him anymore, or I just laugh at him when he tells me how bad it was.  Tonight my 7 year old daughter told me she thinks he complains because it’s fun, because they were together at the activities and he was having fun the entire time.  They hiked, played games, did crafts, and learned useful information – and every minute of it is science.

 While they were busy with their activities, the other three kids and I went to the two acre playground just a few minutes walk away.  The 6 year old took the 2 year old around, up and down slides, climbing and jumping up and down the different things available – usually he doesn’t get to play the part of big brother because he has so many older siblings around who do it better than him.  He told me that it was very hard (though having been the youngest for almost 4 years, he has the typical personality of a youngest child, of everything being too much work), but at dinner, when we went around the table and everyone shared the best part of their day, he said taking care of his little brother at the playground was his favorite thing! 

When we picked up the 7 and 9 year olds, they were excited to share with me one particular piece of information they learned on their hike.  The naturalist pointed out berries that were edible to the group, and mentioned that a lot of people like to can them.  You know that didn’t escape their attention!   A few minutes later, they pointed out the berries, called wineberries.  We spontaneously decided to extend our outing and do some berry picking.  We picked about a quart of berries.  It wasn’t too much when I think of canning them, but when I think of buying a quart of raspberries in the store, it seems like a lot!

And the picking of the wineberries themselves was like an activity.  I don’t mind spending time on things like this because I treat it like a fun part of the day, not a chore to get through.  They have thorns, though, and my 26 month old had a hard time getting to where the berries were without getting pricked. I ended up spending most of my time finding canes for him to pick from that were isolated from others, so he could reach in without hurting himself.  We’ll pick some next time we go, and hopefully more will be ripe so that we can gather a bunch while we’re out.

Avivah

It seems that libraries all over the country have motivational summer reading programs, to encourage kids to read during their summer vacation.  And since everyone agrees that reading is a good thing, these programs must be a good thing, right?

 I don’t think that they’re bad, but I don’t particularly care for them.  When my kids were younger, I didn’t sign them up for it, but now that they’re older and have asked to do it, I agreed.  My concern about reading programs is that the stress is on external motivation – the underlying message is, ‘read a book so you can get a prize’, though they supposedly are saying ‘read a book because reading is fun’.  There’s no difference if you read a 30 page easy reader or a challenging thick novel, so if someone is focusing on reading a certain amount of books to get points or prizes, they’re going to read the short and easy books. 

I love reading, and am constantly broadening my knowledge of many things thanks to my reading, and want my kids to also love reading.  The environment in our house is very book friendly – we read books to our littlest kids, have oodles of books around of our own and from the library, and continue reading out loud as a family as the kids get older.  As a result, my kids all enjoy books.

I think external motivation cheapens the value of what you are trying to motivate a child to do.  The underlying message is, ‘reading by itself isn’t fun, so we’ll give you prizes because that’s the only way to get you to do it’.  There’s a place for that, since it might pull in reluctant readers and help them find that reading is enjoyable.  But it tends to demotivate, or only works for the duration of the incentive program.  I remember participating in a school reading contest in fifth grade – I watched as kids who never read copied titles from the classroom library onto their forms and filled up their sheets.  Seeing that, it became obvious to me that the contest wasn’t going to be based on who actually read and what they read, which was supposedly the point.  I was an avid reader, and I went over to the shelves and copied down the titles of books I had read before the contest started – I still remember feeling wrong about the whole scenario.  The kids who didn’t read were cheating, the kids who did read were cheating.  And for what?

I want my kids to be lifelong readers, who want to read and enjoy reading.  I don’t want them to have the on/off pattern that has been demonstrated to be the norm with these kind of contests.  In order to ensure that they challenge themselves in their reading, I have a selection of books that my kids need to read from each day for a certain amount of time.  These are all good books, but they also have more complex sentence structure and vocabulary than they might choose on their own. 

So why do I let my kids participate in the summer reading programs? Because my kids already enjoy reading and they aren’t allowed to change their reading standards just to participate.  My kids have mandatory daily reading time (in addition to the free reading they do on their own), and if they want to write down those books on their library reading lists, that’s fine with me.

Avivah

I debated about whether to share this with your or not, as it might gross some of you out.  But I’ll just warn those of you who are squeamish not to read any more, and if you decide to read anyway, well – it’s your choice.

Yesterday our cat caught a mouse, a large mouse.  Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t eat them (because they’re perfect complete packages of feline nutrition), so he deposited in the side yard.  My kids saw him put it there, and asked me if they could dissect it. 

I can’t say that I enthusiastically agreed to this idea.  Frankly, it was slightly outside of my comfort zone, but I didn’t say no.  I try to say yes as much as I can, especially to potential learning opportunities.  Remembering the memorable and educational dissection I did in high school, I kind of half nodded while slightly gagging.  They didn’t need more than that before they raced back outside excitedly.

Three of the kids dissected the mouse.  (Don’t ask me what they used, I didn’t watch and didn’t ask.)  They showed the rest of us what they learned.  It was very, very fascinating.  They found five mouse embryos inside – each about the size of a large pea.  By looking closely, you could see clearly the shape of the mouse it would be, though they weren’t fully developed. 

They took a picture with the digital camera to bring it in to show me – and with the camera, we were able to zoom in on the picture already taken and see minute details.  They didn’t have a book, but based on their knowledge of human anatomy, they identified the placenta, and looked at the other organs.  They were able to identify the heart, and probably could have figured out which were the intestines, etc, if they had more time.

You never know when an educational opportunity will present itself.  Hands on learning!

Avivah

I’ve been feeling very fractured in terms of time lately, pulled in too many directions with the new time demands involved in having my 14 year old son home for part of the day.  It’s great having him home, but it has really changed my schedule and I haven’t yet integrated the changes in a way that feels smooth to me.  So that’s why I haven’t been posting much recently.  Plus, by the time everyone’s asleep and it’s quiet enough to sit down, I’m so tired that I hardly have any intelligent thoughts left! 

Anyway, this week I watched a documentary on dvd with the kids called ‘Maxed Out’.  (I was able to get it at the library.)  It’s only the second time I’ve shown them a dvd in this kind of format – the first time was Supersize Me.  Maxed Out is about credit card spending in the US, and a look behind the scenes at credit card industry and its victims.  I thought it was well done, definitely had a strong emotional pull, but it was lacking balance in terms of adequately defining the problem and the solution. 

Afterwards, I asked my kids what they thought the message was.  My eleven year old said it seemed like credit card companies were killing people.  That gave us a chance to discuss what techniques the makers of the presentation used to make it so emotionally effective, and to see what the agenda of it was.  But more important was the talk we had about the danger of irresponsible and uncontrolled spending when using credit cards.  Many of those who were portrayed sympathetically were preyed upon, but I don’t doubt that the majority of them used credit cards irresponsibly.  That’s the part they didn’t show in the film that was crucial but missing.  And I know that some of the experts interviewed believe in personal responsibility (from reading their books), but they obviously edited out any reference to consumer responsibility because it wasn’t part of their message.  It was all about the people as victims – no one has a credit card forced into their hands, and even if they did, you don’t have to use it!

I want my kids to understand the motivation behind the credit card industry, and that was effectively accomplished with their film.  But they need to recognize that people don’t become victims of credit card companies by standing by passively.  Kids need to know what they can do to avoid credit card debt and the kind of sad things that can result (some shown in the film).  Feeling like a victim leaves you feeling helpless, but when you know you can do something to improve on the situation, you feel empowered.

When a person uses credit cards, it’s been proven that they spend more than they buy with cash, because there isn’t the same consciousness of spending money when using plastic.  That’s why credit card companies want their terminals in every possible location, even for small purchases, because they know people will buy more.

When you combine that with the desire for immediate gratification, you have large numbers of people buying things they can’t afford because they want it now.  So lesson number two for my kids is, you have to be responsible when you spend your money, and the first part of being responsible is having enough money to buy what you want.  If you don’t have the money right now, then you shouldn’t buy something.  It may be old- fashioned to teach kids not to buy something until they have the money for it, but that’s what I tell my kids.  It’s okay to wait for what you really want.  It builds self-control, discipline, patience, and responsibility, and when they finally get whatever it is they are saving up for, they’ll appreciate it in an entirely different way. 

I find programs such as these provide a great springboard for discussion, which is why I don’t have a problem using them as educational material with the kids, even though the answer they presented was more governmental control.  I don’t need to show them things that agree with my perspective on life, because part of what I’m trying to teach them is how to evaluate information.  This film was definitely worth watching – it isn’t intended for kids, but my kids benefitted, and an adult audience would definitely benefit from it!

Avivah

Okay, so you all know that we put our ninth grade son in a private high school this year, after seven years of homeschooling.  And he has been doing incredibly well for the most part.  Except for the part where he’s doing really, really badly.  There are a variety of factors, which I can’t really get into here.  But that’s what I went to speak to the principal about.

I’ve been paying close attention to this situation from the beginning of the year, but was reluctant to jump in and take over.  But finally my husband and I agreed that we needed to take steps to deal with the issue.  I told the principal that I want to homeschool him for the four afternoon classes – one of which he’s doing fairly well in, one is a complete write off because there’s a new teacher who can’t control the class, and two that he’s doing poorly in.  I told him that I don’t expect the school to bend to meet my son’s needs, but I’m not willing to watch him spend hours every day and put in the effort and not get the education I want him to have. 

The principal countered and said that the school will do whatever they can to make it work for him.  Knowing that this flexibility only exists in words and won’t extend to anything meaningful, I thanked him and told him that it won’t help.  The school day is obscenely long – my son is up before 7 am and out the door by 7:30, and gets home at 8:45 pm.  Then he does homework and studies for tests, prepares lunch for the next day, or just relaxes a little – until midnight.  On the days he’s off, he totally crashes – he just falls asleep on the couch for hours in the middle of the day, something he’s never done before.  I told the principal that the day is very long – too long.  By 3 pm, when these classes begin, he’s put in a full day and done well.  He just doesn’t have any energy or motivation left to keep him going in the later classes.  Will the school shorten it’s school day? Clearly not. 

So the principal tells me it must be some social or emotional problem, because he doesn’t raise his hand to ask questions and sits in the back of the class.  I didn’t expect it to be hard to understand that a kid who doesn’t want to be there and isn’t understanding all the material doesn’t want to participate.   Why look for deep psychological motivations?  It’s pretty obvious what’s going on to me. 

Anyway, back to the principal.  He told me I could hire a tutor to work with my son in the class he’s struggling with.  I told him that was unreasonable, given the long hours and the private school tuition we were already paying, that there literally was no available time for tutoring and even if there was, I wasn’t going to do it.  Then he suggested that he only take the first two classes, drop the second two, and come back for the night.  I pointed out that picking him up from school at 5 pm and then having to begin working with him on his most difficult subjects wasn’t realistic or fair to him. 

He admitted he had a bias, that kids need the social structure of school, and asked me how I would handle the credit documentation.  I didn’t bother pointing out that my son was the best behaved in every class (that’s what all the teachers say, I’m not just saying that), had no behavior issues, and got along with all the kids – the social thing is so ridiculous that I just don’t have patience for it.  I’m at the point in my life that I’ll just let anyone look at my kids and they can judge for themselves how they’re faring in dealing with others.  If they want to ignore the obvious, why should I bother pointing that out?   And I didn’t mention that he’s in school to learn, not for vague ‘social’ stuff.

I told him how I’d deal with the credits, and then told him that my biggest concern is that my son gets the skills and education that he should, and that if I had to choose between him getting credits and getting an education (meaning staying in school, though I didn’t directly say that), I’d choose the education every time.  The skills and abilities are my priority, not a piece of paper.  He countered by saying that a student needs to be successful in school to be successful in life.

Now I’d been quite polite until now, and I remained polite.  I’m not looking to change his philosophy about education, just get my son out of a difficult situation into something that would work better for him.  But time to take off the kid gloves – I couldn’t let something like that go by.  So I told him, ‘I can’t disagree with you more.  There is never another time in a person’s life once they are outside of school that they need to spend hours a day in a place they don’t want to be, doing things they don’t want to do, with people they don’t want to be with – and to have absolutely no say about any of it.  And not only that, if you look around at the vast majority of hugely successful people today, the majority of them weren’t superstars in school.  There is absolutely no correlation between success in school and success in life.’  He reluctantly conceded the point.

So he agreed that I could take ds out for four hours, if I got him back in time for the evening class.  And if I got permission from the other principal, who is responsible for a different part of the curriculum.  So off I go to the other principal, who fortunately was in and had time to speak with me.  This principal loves my son – he told me he’s a real asset to the school and student body, can’t say enough good about him.  He was very surprised to hear how poorly he was doing in the two classes I mentioned, since he knows he’s a smart and motivated student.  I explained the situation to him, and he understood my concerns, but told me he doesn’t have the authority to release my son from that part of the program.  Who does?  I inquire. The board.  The problem is, that the only reason they allow something like this is when a student has special needs that the school can’t meet.  And since ds is in honor classes, the argument that he has special needs isn’t going to go over well, because the response would be to put him in a lower class. 

So he said he’ll have an answer for me in a week.  Interestingly, both of the principals mentioned in passing that the tuition might be an issue – meaning that I would want to pay less if he wasn’t there for all of those classes and that had to be taken into account.  I told them that the tuition has been paid for this year, and we have no desire to get a refund at all.  Just a desire to get our son in a situation where he’ll be learning again.  Then I was told that they’re afraid to set a precedent that other parents will want to do what I’m doing.  I found that amusing, as I know full well that very few parents of high school boys want to pull them out of school and be responsible for them academically, especially as that means dealing with their child for hours more a day. 

As I said before, you have to look out for your child.  No matter how wonderful someone else is, your child isn’t their child.  All I care about is what’s best for my son, not what’s easiest for me, or my ego.  Both of these principals are wonderful people – really, good quality people.  But they have to juggle other agendas besides my son’s interests when they make decisions.

Avivah

I realized that I’ve hardly written anything here about homeschooling, even though that’s a big part of our life.  So today I decided to share some of what we’re doing. 

I don’t believe in using a boxed curriculum, because a family can easily lose the flexibility and fun of homeschooling when they get caught up in a program like that.  I also don’t like the idea of trying to do whatever the schools are doing, which is based on the assumption that whatever the schools are doing is the best thing to be doing.  So I create our curriculum myself. 

This has meant different approaches in different years, but for the last 2 – 3 years, I’ve been using whatever historical period I want to cover as the spine for our reading, and occasionally writing.  I find that it ties things together well and naturally integrates history in a way that isn’t usually done.  Don’t you remember history being the most boring topic in school?  But as a homeschooling mom, I’ve learned how fascinating history actually is.

This year, I decided to do American history, beginning with Christopher Columbus.  My basic approach is to choose some nonfiction books on an appropriate level for each child and some historical fiction books for each child.  Then I make up a list for each child of what books need to be read in what order, so that they can independently learn without needing to wait for everyone to be ready.   Everyone is simultaneously learning the same material but on different levels. I get picture books to read with the kids who aren’t independent readers (and they’re so interesting that often the older kids listen in :)), so all of us comfortably can discuss whatever we’re learning.  I’ve also found historical videos to watch with the kids that have been a very helpful supplement to our studies. 

Here’s an example of how it works.  We’re currently studying the French and Indian War, (which was pivotal in changing the face of America, leading directly to the American Revolution – I never knew anything about it before :)).  We watched a four hour dvd by the History Channel (from the library) over a period of time.  Meanwhile, the kids were reading fiction books like Calico Captive, Calico Bush, The Ransom of Mercy Carter, Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison, Sign of the Beaver, to get a view of what it was like for the pioneers of the frontier, the native people, those who fought for Britain and France, those who were taken captive by natives and what their lives were like. 

Together with this, we read factual books about the buffalo, lives of the pioneers, and Native American life.  We watched a reenactment of a buffalo jump after reading about it (when large numbers of buffalo were driven over a cliff in a hunt), and watched a couple of videos about different Native American tribes and their history.  We’ve had many discussions about what we’ve read, why things happened in the way they happened, and though provoking talks about different aspects of what we’ve read. 

I’ve found this an enjoyable and natural way for all of us to learn together.   The kids use the books I assign for their mandatory reading time (an hour daily), so I know that they are reading quality literature during that time.  We use the videos or dvds for our free time, never during our morning learning times.   I’m also hoping to make a trip to a living history place to further boost up all that we’ve covered.  Colonial Williamsburg is having a special price for homeschoolers for the next three weeks, and I am longing to take advantage of it.  The kids know so much that they could really benefit from interacting with all of the reenactors.  But it’s so far away that the costs involved in that trip right now are too high. 🙁  So I’ve been researching places closer to home that we could go.

Hopefully this gives you a clear enough idea of my approach to be helpful!

Avivah