Reading and Watching

We started Romeo and Juliet after falling in love with this movie. It's the real deal, y'all. Shakespeare's actual play...not a paraphrased or kid's version. The process of reading it is a little painful, but worth it. The rest of the items below are a few of our books and movies for the week.

I had a dream. I had an awesome dream.

Anyone who follows Here in Idaho knows I'm a little bit crazy. I get excited about projects, get started, never finish, then get excited about something else. It's what I do.

So I wanted to invest in real estate...but guess what? I've got a buck fifty to my name so it's not going to happen. Fair enough. Then I had an idea. An awesome idea. A way to make a little change AND teach the youngins about business. Here it is:

A CANDY MACHINE.

That's right. You heard me. The kids and I are starting a vending business. By 'business' I mean one machine, in one location, that will probably only make five dollars a month. Irregardless, it's a good idea. Because the kids will help pick out the machine, price the candy, scout a location, run the numbers, service the machine, count the money, deposit the money and be little entrepreneurs. Start-up will be less than two hundred dollars and the kids are PSYCHED. Ava, God bless her, even had the idea for a penny pressing machine...which we can't afford at the moment but might be a worthwhile goal. Personally, I want one of those gravity tunnel machines that you see at museums. A girl's gotta have goals.

So you don't have to be a homeschooler to teach your kids about money. This will be a side project, probably only requiring our attention one Saturday a month. But can you imagine a better way to teach about enterprise? I can't. And if you read this entry over at Here in Idaho, you know I'm all about preparing our kids to be self-reliant.

We hope to be able to buy this machine next month. I'll keep you updated.

Berry Interesting

Last night the superintendent of our school district hosted a meeting aimed at assessing the needs of homeschoolers in the community. He made it very clear that homeschoolers are welcome to use school services and participate in extra-curricular activities. What the??????

Two years ago, when I pulled Charlie out of school, I was aware that there was a provision in the Idaho Code of All Things Educational that homeschooled children should be able to participate in standardized testing with their public school peers. Fair 'nuff. Testing time came and I called the school and said, "Whutsup? I wanna test my boy." And they were all, "Uh-uh. You cut your ties with us forever. You can test him your own damn self." And I was all, "I know my rights! This here code says you have to test my child!" And they were all, "Oh no we don't. It is left to the discretion of the district if we want to test and no we do not want to test so goodbye."

Click.

Cut forward two years. The new superintendent is holding a meeting welcoming homeschoolers. He says the district will be open to testing homeschoolers AND we can join the band, go to art classes, take calculus, etcetera. This is good news to me. For one thing, I don't use grades. Testing will be an integral part of making sure my kids are performing at and above grade level.

Don't use grades? you say. No, I don't. We're pretty loosy-goosey. I don't know how I would apply numbers to their work when I make them redo everything until it's right. I test, I assess, I drill, I quiz verbally...I do lots of things. I just don't grade with numbers. But some homeschoolers do. And they brag about their '4.0' grade average. I don't get it. But...to each his own.

Back to the post. Testing is important. Standardized test scores will play a large role in our kids' transcripts when it's college time, especially since we won't have grades to speak of. On the other hand, don't get me started on the over-testing being done in the public schools. Good golly. Don't get me started. So...here's how I handle testing.

For reading level I pull three different online assessments and test the kids myself. All three were found at this website. I just keep a notebook listing the dates the tests were given and how they did.

Up to now we've never participated in standardized testing. But last spring I signed up with the Idaho Coalition of Home Educators so that Charlie will be able to take the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. And it sounds like he will also be taking the Idaho Standards Achievement Test at the local school this year. Nice.

Testing is a good thing.

PS - I'm trying of getting out of the habit of bragging about test scores. This is so my kids won't tell everyone, "I'm in the X grade but I'm really a genius and my mama told me so because I read at X level."

Another reading recommendation

I loves to read. I feel empty and worthless when I'm not in the middle of a great book. I should probably tell a psychiatrist about that last statement.

So I love to read and here is my proof: my Amazon wish list. Once you get past the very sophisticated and exceptionally smart movies, you'll see page after page of VERY intellectual books. Let me tell you about one of them.

I read Last Child in the Woods this summer. At the heart of the book is the assertion that modern children are too sheltered, too entertained, too guarded from nature, and are suffering because of it. The author links lack of exposure to the outdoors to ADD, behavioral problems, and a general lack of connection with nature.

From Publishers Weekly
Today's kids are increasingly disconnected from the natural world, says child advocacy expert Louv (Childhood's Future; Fatherlove; etc.), even as research shows that "thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can... be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorder and other maladies." Instead of passing summer months hiking, swimming and telling stories around the campfire, children these days are more likely to attend computer camps or weight-loss camps: as a result, Louv says, they've come to think of nature as more of an abstraction than a reality. Indeed, a 2002 British study reported that eight-year-olds could identify Pokémon characters far more easily than they could name "otter, beetle, and oak tree." Gathering thoughts from parents, teachers, researchers, environmentalists and other concerned parties, Louv argues for a return to an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world. Not only can nature teach kids science and nurture their creativity, he says, nature needs its children: where else will its future stewards come from? Louv's book is a call to action, full of warnings—but also full of ideas for change.

I. Loved. This. Book. I loved it so much that I took it to heart, and started letting my children spend more time unsupervised outside. I've called moratoriums on movies and video games, for the sole purpose of forcing outside play. We've spent time at just about every park in town, and I'm planning a hike before the end of the summer. This particular book has nothing to do with homeschooling. It's more about parenting. And the consequences of electronic parenting.

Buy it. Or check it out of your library. You won't be sorry.

Socialization is for suckers.

This here post is gonna be what we bloggers call a 'rant.' So get yo'self ready.


The number one objection to homeschooling is an all-encompassing word call 'socialization.' I hear it all the time. Maybe you knew some homeschool kids growing up and they were a little freaky deaky. Maybe they were hyper-religious and believed the Smurfs were of the devil. Or they weren't allowed to listen to secular music. We all knew somebody, homeschooled or not, who was just weird. I'm here to tell you that homeschooling does not inherently cause poor socialization, and to think it does would just be silly. Here's why:


A public school education creates an artificial social structure. Never in your life, in your whole life, will you be surrounded by people who are the same age as you. Not at work, not in religious life, family life or in any other scenario will you be socially tied to people because you were born the same year. But the problem with public school socialization is not that kids are grouped together in this way, it's that this structure lends itself to negative socialization. Which is my second point.

I was a jerk in the seventh grade. Junior high, in my estimation, has absolutely no social value in the development of a person. Somehow this structure turns sweet little girls and boys into monsters. My number one fear in these years was being mocked or embarrassed in any way. And to avoid this, I would participate in the mocking or embarrassment of other kids. Everybody has a story from these years. Will has stories, my sisters have stories, everyone EVERYONE became someone's victim or someone's bully. And what is the value if this time? I see none. Because you will never again in your life deal with this kind of treatment, unless you're an enemy combatant of some sort. And if you are willing to subject yourself to hazing as a free-thinking mature adult, then I'm sure you got your psychological motivation in your junior high years.

Parental control is diminished in a school structure. This, in itself, is not a bad thing. I realize as a homeschooling mom, I will have to create situations where my kids can actually choose their own friends. I also have to let them go outside, unsupervised, so they can get away from me for an hour or two everyday. But when I think back on every good kid gone bad, it almost always stemmed from an association with another good kid gone bad. And those relationships were formed at school. I think it's quite possible to give kids too much freedom, too many opportunities to screw up. But the line between hovering over your child's every breath, and letting them go smoke the doobie behind the bleachers after school is a broad one. And by staying home, I made that line a whole lot harder to cross. I consider this an advantage, not a detriment. Yes, there will be problems. And yes, a rebellious kid is going to find a way to rebel, no matter what. Homeschooling just removes a couple of weapons a kid has in terrorizing their parents.

Homeschooling can ultimately create a very nurturing and healthy social environment. The most important social unit is the family. Without strong families, every part of society begins to crumble. I would rather my kids leave childhood with a vivid picture of how a family works together than whatever social skills they could have gained in a public school. Because, ultimately, their very happiness will depend on it. They will need to know how to work through problems with their spouse, how to be self-sacrificing, how to parent effectively, how to budget, how to maintain a household, and most important, how to live with other people day in and day out without giving up on them. The most successful people in the world could stand to learn this lesson. And I want my kids to get that from me.

We'll do soccer, church, VBS, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, gymnastics, music lessons and countless other things to get my kids around other children. But here's a little secret: kids are born socialized. They don't need artificial venues to teach them how to play or talk to other children. Many objections to homeschooling are valid and worth considering. But, in my mind, socialization isn't one of them.

The Privileges of Homeschooling

I WAS going to start school in about three weeks, on the 20th. This seemed reasonable, the public schools don't start until after the 1st, but they don't get out until mid June. We like getting out at the end of May.

But I've changed my mind. My kids have joined a neighborhood street gang, and I figured I should let them enjoy the rest of their summer with their homeys rather than disrupt their illicit activities.

This is a milestone for us. I let the six year old and the four year old bike down a few houses to play with their new friend, Helen. I watched out the window and bit my nails as they disappeared behind the hedges, praying I was still a good mama for letting my baby girls travel the mean streets of the Westwood subdivision all alone. They stayed at Helen's house for ONE WHOLE HOUR. Do you understand how quiet my own home was? How confused and alienated I felt with my girls bugging someone else's mama?

Eventually I retrieved them, inviting Helen over for the afternoon, secretly jealous that her house was so much cleaner than mine, resolving to get some cleaning done during the lunch hour.

What does this have to do with homeschooling? Two things:

First, I've changed the course of our entire year on a whim. Last year we went to Texas for the month of September and did school there. I anticipate that someday we will do a massive global trip of epic proportions and we will do school on the road. Homeschooling gives you a great deal of freedom and flexibility. I like this.

Second, my kids have friends. Not a ton of friends, but several really good friends. I know their friends' parents, I've been to their homes, they've been to our home and I'm genuinely surprised at how active our social lives have become. Sometime it's a little exhausting. At some point I'll do an entire post on the myth of homeschooling socialization, or lack thereof, as the topic warrants an entire post.

For now I need to clean my house. Helen might come over.