In Response...again, and twice. How nice!

I should've cut this in half - it's freakin' huge. I'll leave this up a while, maybe all week, if you want to take it in stride. (Lengthy as this is, it does not take up the entire opening page here...)

Becky68 posted the other day, linking here, re: homeschooling. I found her words to be helpful and inspiring, actually. (Now I'd like to pick her brain!)

Margalit's last comment here also sparked some ideas and I'd like to put those out as well.

Here is the disclaimer that I'm likely to wish I'd included when I'm through. ("Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer") Now that that's said, on with the show.

Margalit mentioned that her son was offered incredible
opportunities through going to school, complete with technological
gadgets and other materials more affordable on a school's budget
than a home's and trade learning that isn't exactly suited to
in-home study (ie, glassblowing). I'm genuinely thrilled to hear
stories like that.

In response, again, I have to say that I feel fortunate. It's either I
say that, or I go all egotistical and call myself smart. Between The
Man and I, we know a great amount of incredibly talented people.
We've already called on a few of them and are sure to call on
others, for their assistance when we need it. From interviews to
hands-on "lessons," we've managed to create the environments
needed to settle their curiosities. For those topics that we don't
have any connections to personally, I've never had trouble calling
up any place, be it public (ie, zoo, museum) or private (a business)
and setting up a time that's convenient to bring the gang over for a
session of ...learning.

This, I suppose, gets into more of the shyness Becky68 talks about
in her post. The way she describes herself and
her family, I think my own mother would fit in just like a bug in a
rug. Mother's incredibly socially "retarded" - in that she not only
dislikes making small talk with strangers, she adamantly loathes
running into people in public that she knows. (In "Top This,"
Becky, I think my mom beats out yours. *grin) Seriously, I saw
that in my mother at a very young age and determined, like all
girls do throughout the growing up years ...and beyond, to never
be like her. The only danger that's come of that decision is the
strange responses I get from other shoppers when I actually reach
through to the back of the orange juice display waiting for the guy
in the ad to put a jug in my hand fresh from the grove and then
mutter, "Well, it works in the ads..." Then again, I also had
incredibly outgoing, socially fearless friends through high school.
So, who knows?

Margalit's biased three times over, it turns out. Not only has she
homeschooled two kids, she's also taught at both the high school
and college levels! ...Yea, I'm humbled. :) I am curious though if
the teaching positions were before or after the homeschooling
episodes. Back to "Top This," Margalit, you win. :)

Margalit went on to talk about her daughter who apparently is
incredible with physics. (Something I still am not satisfied with
my knowledge of!) But in this earlier comment,
she mentioned that her daughter "refused to cooperate and do any
work whatsoever." And, "I do not believe in unschooling..." This
sounds similar to Becky68's story about how things went between
herself and her mother, at least in my mind. I'm imagining two
scenarios in which Mother needs to see progress and Daughter
feels pressured to produce it. Of course, that's where the stories
seem to split. "Unschooling" isn't the easiest thing to define,
without that single line, "no grading." Of course, the core issue
here to me is more about how to get a kid to do work that's
necessary to continue learning. I don't have any problem with
unschooling, myself. In fact, we utilize every opportunity we can
find to teach our kids whatever lessons can be learned. I've been
told by an ex-second grade teacher that my method of schooling
then is called "situational learning." ...okay...? We do book work,
we do hands-on, we do "situational learning"/unschooling when it's
appropriate. Learning is learning, regardless of the set up. As
adults, we unschool all the time, every day. Find a problem, take
an angle, try to solve it and maybe we do, maybe we fail. Either
way, we've learned something new. And we're less likely to forget
the knowledge because it was direct-experience learning. Why not
promote such awareness in the kids? And that's not forceful,
either, not hardl...I'm tangented. Crap!

The trouble most people (that I've met in person) have with
unschooling is a lack of trust. Wait, don't go ballistic yet. I don't
mean that there's a lack of trust between parent and child. There's
a lack of trust in the information being absorbed. Math - every day
subject - is a good example. Most of those who lack the trust want math done in timely fashion, on paper, and graded. Math, after all, is a (nearly) exact subject - there's little room for error, therefore, it should be among the most important subjects being graded versus simply accounted for. The other side is that math is also a very method-based subject. That is, the basics don't change. If I want to determine how fast the first train is travelling in order to pass the second one at 'x' there are not that many ways in which to do it. Any way that produces the right answer three times in a row is acceptable. What's important then becomes the process, not the grade. And trusting that a kid is comprehending a process is a damn hard thing to do...until you're used to it and the kid's proven him- or herself. If the process is understood today but forgotten in three days' time, it's not been learned and needs more focus. The same if the grade today is an A but next week is a D. (Disclaimer re: "Unschooling is the way to go!" goes here.) As for getting a kid to do the work that is necessary when there is no interest or even worse, obstinance, take a break. Breathe, come back later and find a way that is either mandatory with a huge gold star at the end (pay off for the kid for time "suffered") or arrange to do the same learning in a more interesting way, even if still on paper.

Becky68 talked of how she'd wanted to go back to school and how her mother simply refused to accommodate her. That, I don't care who I piss off, is wrong. It is automatically defeatist, in and of itself, as a decision by a homeschooling parent. (I might piss myself off for thinking that someday, who knows.) I'm not surprised to hear that this alone turned her 100% against the whole concept from that point on. The decision to homeschool must be a team effort, otherwise failure is eminent. The grand scale question then becomes, "who failed?" Did the kid fail for not complying? Was it parental failure to recognize the child's needs? Personal opinion, it's parental. Because any child can and will fail without the support of their mentors, those primarily being their parents.

As for Margalit telling me that I "...can't offer what the schools do" - that fires me up. First response outta me is, "That's bullshit!" But I know better, it's not. There are bound to be things to come up that I don't have a fix for, that I can't necessarily accommodate the curiosity and eagerness to learn about in the kids. But there are also things that I don't want to offer them, in any way, shape or form. It's interesting to note that discussions like this one rarely are both on the institutional angle AND the social angle at the same time. Institutionally, she's right. I'm not capable of just trotting out and lugging home an entire chemistry department, complete with the basic chemicals needed to produce an array of chemical compositions. (Nor do I particularly care for another hole in the wall!) Socially, she's wrong. I can and have offered my kids opportunities to not only make friends (for life?) and get bullied some, but they've also already set up cliques/bonds with their friends that any other kids do in any other school setting. Do I want them to have the institutional opportunity to be singled out and pegged by their superiors? Do I want them to have the opportunity to bring crack cocaine or meth into my home? Hell no, on both. Do they also have the opportunities for exactly these scenarios? You bet. Do I like it any more? Nope. :) So, what is there that I can't offer to want for? The chem lab, maybe. But beyond the science side, there really isn't anything else left. Oh yea, music. Well, that's covered already around here.

The idea of doing what a person tells you to do, when they tell you to do it, regardless of your excitement or interest was also brought up by Becky68 as a positive that the standardized schools teach that prepares a person for the working world where that's what most people do in their jobs. I have to disagree. I don't disagree that there are benefits to knowing when to shut up and move, but that's not what's being learned. What kids learn in that regard is that if they don't do what they're told, the teacher gets mad (humiliation), the parents are contacted (dread) and maybe there's even a consequential punishment (suspension.) In the work force, if the boss gets mad, there might be some level of humiliation, but it's nothing like what a teacher can put on a kid through their immature, often downright mean, peers. There simply are no parents to contact, but a higher-up might threaten to fire the person, but most of the time, there are write-ups and most people know how many write-ups it takes to get canned. As for suspensions, well, they hurt. But that's the whole point and usually they do the trick. Everyone screws up once in a while and there are always consequences. On the flip side, if a kid in my house chooses to not do what is set before them when it is a time of "do this now because it's necessary whether you like it or not" (which happen moderately often), that's fine. I will be angry, I will punish and I will speak to the higher-up...err, The Man, and he will deal with the kid, too. Ultimately, everyone gets out about even. The kid wins for not doing what's necessary at the time, but loses for having to complete the same exact task another time - the task does not get varied. We parents win for getting the task completed, though we lose for the time factor. Typically, the punishment is to do nothing else but sit silently (yep, at any age) without amusement, until the task is completed. It's usually done with vengeance, but it's done. When it doesn't go that way, but instead the work is done on another day altogether, that gets awarded with a very unenthusiastic, "Nice to see you completed it," which is followed by a discussion of the right and wrong ways to control oneself, at the next appropriate moment. None of these things are any different from what actually happens on the job. Actually, one situation unaccounted for - when the other kid opts to do the same job and get commended for the great job done. And that, too, happens in the work force.

The whole idea is simple, really. Making the decisions and putting
into action a scenario best suited to the family is what makes this
all so encompassing and fascinating...and difficult. Everyone needs
to learn things. There are a million ways in which to go about that
learning and another few million ways to choose from for where
and when to take the opportunities. Carmi* had posted over at
Becky68's as well, and he's right - to each their own. I do go on
and on about it, how great h'schooling is for us and how fortunate
we are to have the option to do it in the first place. None of that
reflectively suggests that I think everyone "sticking their kids into
standardized schools" is bonkers, or worse, cruel - not hardly. You
know your own kids. You know what they need and how to
balance it against what both you and they want for them. I sure as
hell don't! I know my own. And I guess that's my real disclaimer
here.
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Anyone mentioned in a post who is also on the blog list to the right, for it's shortness, I'm skimping on linking up. Just look to the right, Carmi's right there at the top. :)