Snow Play!

If my kids were in public school, they would not have had the opportunity to drop everything to go outside and play in today's first stick-to-the-ground snow, which both arrived and melted within about 2 hours.  I did have to cut their snow play short, though, because we had to leave for a playdate with my friend and her 5-year-old twins... but if they were in public school they would not have had that opportunity either because in school 6-year-olds only spend time with other 6-year-olds and 3-year-olds only spend time with other 3-year-olds.  So ages 6, 5, and 3 would not have been permitted to mix and have three and a half hours of free play together.  That would be anarchy, right?  :)

PS.  Sorry again that I haven't written much lately!  My hard drive is full and I can't fit any new pics onto it to put onto the blog until I back up some crap and delete it to make room.  I've also reached my limit on free online photo storage for the blog, so I am going to either have to pay a small monthly fee to be able to add more, OR find time to learn how to somehow host images elsewhere for free.  So I have been procrastinating on dealing with that.  Sorry!

Movie Review: "Waiting for 'Superman'"

Last night, Shane and I watched "Waiting for 'Superman'". It's a documentary on the public school system in America - basically an exposé on how/why it is failing - and it offers suggestions on what can be done to bring about change. I watched it because I've heard it mentioned a lot lately, and I was curious what solutions it offered to solve the problem - especially to see if it made mention of homeschooling and if so, what light it was presented in. Unfortunately, homeschooling was not mentioned even once so I was disappointed there. However, the movie does do an excellent job of very clearly illuminating one major facet of the problem, which is: the teachers. Specifically, that it is nearly impossible to punish or remove "bad" teachers, and that there is no way to reward or provide any kind of incentive for "good" teachers, because of the restrictions in place as a result of the teachers' unions. I think this is a very good point. Desks, walls, books, technology - none of that stuff matters if you don't have a decent teacher in charge. Some teachers are very good, some are mediocre, and some are quite bad. The system treats them all as equals, though - "a teacher, is a teacher, is a teacher." In what other professional field in the world is your job performance completely irrelevant to your continuing to be employed?! And few other jobs have a higher level of responsibility attached to them - job performance absolutely SHOULD be relevant! I watched this thinking, "How can any parent trust these people - this system - with their kids? How can they even let them walk in the door?" The way the whole system currently works is an outrage.

That being said, I don't think that is the only problem with the system. The documentary follows several young students and their families in different cities across the country, showing their struggles with the school systems (from inner-city to high-income districts), with dedicated parents fighting for their kids to get the best chance at a good education. But it does not show or make any mention of the kids whose parents are not fighting for them. What about the kids whose parents wash their hands of any responsibility for their kids' educations, and just say, "That's the school's job, not mine." To me, that's even more of an outrage, and it makes me feel very hopeless. I don't know what can be done to fix that, although my heart hurts for those kids who are being short-changed by both their schools and their parents. There is no mention at all in this movie of the function of parents or the breakdown of the family unit in our society today as being part of the problem.

Then there is the actual methodology that is used, the whole institutional framework, the inflexibility of the curriculum... the list of problems with the system goes on and on. The movie doesn't really touch on any of these either, other than one quick mention of a teacher who was getting amazing results after teaching math facts to her students by making them into a rap song that the kids enjoyed and memorized. So she used a different method of teaching than the standard method and it worked better? Shocking! That's the kind of stuff homeschoolers do all the time.

Overall, I think this movie was very well done. It definitely reaffirmed for me that I have made the right choice in rejecting this deeply flawed, broken system. Even though I think the scope was a bit too narrow, and I don't agree with all of the solutions offered (one of which is longer school days - NO!!) it is totally worth taking the time to watch and I highly recommend it.

Big Picture

Here is a thought-provoking video looking at the big picture of the educational system. It was posted in one of the homeschool groups I follow - just had to share. Very well done... WOW.

From the "Experts"...

I have to vent about this before my head explodes. I just watched the following clip from PBS's "Need to Know" series, entitled "Big Thinkers on How to Fix American Education". You can watch it here:

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

Or, if you like, I'll give you a summary of what I heard. Basically, each "expert" thought that the problems with the education system can be resolved by focusing in their own particular fields. The head of the American Museum of Natural History thinks we need to focus on science. The President of the New Teacher Project and the head of the National Education Association (Teacher's Union) both think we need to focus on teachers, the former on teacher evaluations and the latter on recruiting, training, and hiring practices. The head of the Asia Society thinks we need to "partner with Asia" and focus on "cultural literacy". Do you see a pattern here? None of them had any specific, concrete suggestions, just vague generalities. The most baffling comments were from a professor at Stanford University. She says that states that have been successful have "forged a consensus... set a path... and kept it going." What does that even mean?!?

While I did agree with a few bits and pieces of what these people said, I really didn't see any evidence of "Big Thinking" going on here. Everyone considered the problem in terms of their own focus areas and didn't go any further beyond. I didn't hear any talk of HOW TO ACTUALLY HELP CHILDREN LEARN. The only person who almost touched on this was the representative from Kids Count, an organization for disadvantaged kids. She thinks we need to focus on birth through age 5, and prepare kids better before they start school. While I agree with that statement, I strongly disagree with her assertion that educating kids is a "pocketbook driven" thing, and that people with more money prepare their kids better. I assert that people who care about learning prepare their kids better, regardless of income levels. My pocketbook is pretty darn tight, and I am doing a fine job of teaching my kids, thank you very much. SO many parents nowadays just wash their hands of any responsibility for facilitating learning in their kids and just expect the school system to do everything for them. THAT is the problem, and dumping more money into the school system won't do a darn thing to change it.

In my opinion, the flaws within the system lie in the rigid institutionality of it. There is no flexibility to adapt to different learning styles, skill levels, or interests. Teachers have zero flexibility on what they teach or how they present it. You will learn what everyone else your age is learning, in the same order, by the same method, at the same time. Period. I think that school, for many kids, is simply tolerable, tedious, or outright tortuous. I would love to see some real experts address that.

True Story From My Public School Experience, or: How I Saved My House By Peeing My Pants

One day in second grade, I was sitting at my desk and suddenly I had to go. I was just about to ask my teacher, Mrs. Sparhawk, for permission, when another child raised his hand and asked if he could use the restroom - and was completely berated for not going during the regularly scheduled bathroom break, which was just a short while before. Like that boy, I did not yet need to go at that time, so I didn't avail myself of the opportunity. Big mistake. After hearing the other child get yelled at, I was now too terrified to ask. I tried to hold it. The harder I tried, the worse I had to go. Finally, I could wait no longer. I remember I was wearing a short corduroy jumper and tights - an outfit that did very little in the way of liquid absorption - and I could hear it loudly trickling onto the floor. I remember seeing kids' faces as they turned around in their seats and stared at me. I was then marched down to the office, and the secretary called my mom to bring me a change of clothes. I sat there, wet and uncomfortable and humiliated, for what seemed like hours. What was taking her so long? Finally she arrived with my clothes and with a story that made me feel much better about what had happened. She had left work to go home and pick up some clothes for me, and when she got there she discovered that the house was on fire! The fire had started in the chimney and just that one fireplace wall was burning yet. So she was able to call the fire department, and they arrived and extinguished the fire before much damage was done. If I hadn't had my accident, the fire would likely have progressed much farther before anyone noticed. So instead of being upset with me, my mom was overjoyed! I was a hero! I had saved the house!

What got me thinking about that experience was a book I just finished reading called "Dumbing Us Down" by John Taylor Gatto. He was a public school teacher in Manhattan for 30 years, who won multiple "Teacher of the Year" awards, and he wrote this book as sort of a whistleblower to the public school system about what really goes on in a classroom. He says that he teaches children emotional dependency:

"By stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors, and disgraces, I teach kids to surrender their will to the predestinated chain of command."

and intellectual dependency:

"Good students wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. It is the most important lesson, that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives. The expert makes all the important choices..."

As I read these descriptions, my mind instantly went back to my memory of this event. Thinking back on it from my current point of view as a parent, I am appalled at that teacher's behavior. I understand that in order to manage a room of 30 children, there has to be order and routine, but a person's biological needs can't always fit into a prescribed schedule. To berate and terrorize little kids for needing to use the bathroom at an inconvenient time for her - well, shame on her. I asked my mom about it the other day. I said, "What did you do? Were you livid? Did you give them an earful or what?" and she said she had no idea about the cause of my accident. Maybe I was too ashamed, or maybe I just didn't know how to put it into the right words at the time, but she didn't know about it until now.

I refuse to hand over control of my kids' education to the "experts." I choose to let my kids learn in an environment where they may attend to their bodily functions whenever their bodies dictate. I'm not saying that all teachers are bad, and I know they have an incredibly hard job... but not all of them are great. In the 12 years I spent in the public school system (I was moved up a grade in elementary school and therefore graduated a year early) I can count the "great" teachers I had on one hand. And whether a given teacher is good or bad, the deeply flawed system they must work under is unacceptable to me. Here's another illustration: at my local Barnes & Noble, there is a wonderful section of educational materials. There is also one shelf of books for school teachers, and one shelf of books for homeschoolers. There is a stark contrast between the two - the overwhelming majority of titles for school teachers are about managing children and keeping order in the classroom, and the ones for homeschoolers are actually about how to facilitate learning. Do I want my kids to be trained automatons who can mindlessly obey orders, or do I want them to actually use and expand their minds and enjoy doing so? For me, there's really no question.

Awkward conversation that I had tonight

I recently became a consultant for a company called Usborne Books & More (if you are not familiar with their books, they are FANTASTIC! Check them out here.), and I was working a book fair at an elementary school. Afterward, I happened to be walking out at the same time as the principal and we were chatting:

Principal: Do you have any children in school?
Me: I have a 1-year-old and an almost 5-year-old.
Principal: Oh, so the 5-year-old will be starting kindergarten.
Me: Well no, actually we are going to be homeschooling.
Principal: Oh.
*sound effect of crickets chirping*

And that was the end of the conversation. It was a tad awkward - I had to chuckle on the way to my car. Whenever I come out of the educational closet to someone, I always want to throw in, "But I'm not doing it for religious reasons! I'm not one of those "The earth is 6,000 years old" type of homeschoolers! I'm not one of them! I love science and reason!" I feel like that is the general perception of homeschoolers, and while I know there are indeed many who do fit into that category, I am really hoping to find some who are more like-minded to me. I will expand my thoughts on the subject sometime soon, but I'm not quite ready to come out of the spiritual closet yet...

Why? Part II

I have been thinking about it, and I have a few more "why's" to mention. Almost as strong as my excitement and enthusiasm for homeschooling is my distaste for the public school system. Both my husband and I agree that we are less than impressed with the public school educations we received. I remember finding most of my classes boring, tedious, and unchallenging. My younger brother, on the other hand, found it extremely challenging - he just couldn't physically sit still and focus - a problem that is often remedied nowadays with medication, but which I believe could also be remedied by just letting the poor kid MOVE throughout the day. I have read lots of stories of mothers who struggled to get their kids to sit still and listen, and then one day tried just letting them run around while being read to, and amazingly the kids were better able to answer questions about what they heard. They were actually able to focus and absorb the information better because their attention wasn't consumed by trying to be still. Having the flexibility to pick and choose tools and methods that will match my kids' individual learning styles, and allowing them the freedom to learn in whatever way is natural for them, was a very strong factor in my decision to homeschool.

My problem with the public school system is not with the teachers, but with the framework that they must work within. It's a system that was originally developed to create good, obedient assembly-line workers when the country was becoming industrialized. Not to teach people to think and love learning, but to teach them to respect authority and tolerate drudgery. There is little emphasis on innovation and creativity, rather, it's just a list of things some bureaucrats have decided kids must learn, and exactly when and in what order they should learn it. Little to no deviation is permitted. Teachers are under so much pressure to get their students to perform well on standardized tests, that the tests become the sole focus of everything, with the students cramming in tons of facts to be regurgitated and then quickly forgotten. This is not true learning. Many people are unhappy and frustrated with the current public school system, and it really baffles me when some of them think I'm crazy for deciding to reject it.

And so little of what is learned in school is actually useful in real life. I think kids should be able to function in the world after graduation; to do math, follow a budget, balance a checkbook. I know 18-year-olds who don't know how to cook themselves a meal or do their own laundry. What about acquiring marketable skills, or how to write a resume, or how to act at a job interview? I think the very most important thing a person needs to learn in their education is how to remain curious about the world, how to form questions and then research to find their answers, how to find ways to teach themselves what they need to know. Basically - that learning is not something that ends on graduation day.

I often say that the only thing I took with me from all of high school, that I use every day, is what I learned in 9th grade typing class. Well, that and my love of reading which stemmed from all the books I devoured in my free time. My very favorite school memory is of this sunny windowsill, in the back of the middle-school library, where I would hide out at lunchtime and enjoy some peace and solitude and escape into a good story. I remember actually feeling annoyed when my friends finally discovered my hiding spot, and then kept showing up there to talk to me!

This doesn't really inspire confidence...

I think it's a little sad that simply achieving "adequacy" is exciting enough to merit getting a banner to announce it!

Can you spot the misspelling here?

Hmm. This sign doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the public school system, does it? :)

(via neatorama)