Mom Is Teaching

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This next scrawl of mine assumes that you guys have either not read the book (The Case Against Homework by Sara Bennett Nancy Kalish), are reading the book now or are waiting to win the book in the contest. 

There were places in the book where she took answers from various teachers, parents, students and innocent bystanders and quote them.  It is obvious that they feel much the same I do about these quotes but they were much nicer than I’m going to be.  And, for those of you are thinking about homeschooling but haven’t yet decided, you are teetering on the fence, waiting on something to convince you that one way is better than that the others, this is a section that may send you running to the school to retrieve your children. 

Like I said, the quotes come from the book, but the co-authors were kind in their shock over these answers.  Some relate, some don’t, but either way, they are all shocking in much the same way.

The discussion here is how a teacher comes up with homework assignments.  We’ve already discussed that there is no class in college that teaches you this.  I’m not even going to label the quotes with the person who made the statements, just my true feelings.

1.  “I see how much time it takes the slowest child and the quickest workers, divide that in half, and then assign work that should take from one to two hours.

Pardon me here but what the hell kind of method is that?  That’s how you decide which kid has to sweep and which one has to wash dishes, not how an entire class of kids are affected. ……grrrrrrrrrrrr

2.  I base it on how long it takes my own daughter (who is in the same grad as I teach) to complete her assignmetns in a focused and uninterrupted manner.

And, does this teacher actually believe that these children are being sent home to a focused and uninterrupted place.  In any way possible?  This is nuts, her daughter could be a genius or border line mentally retarded, she doesn’t say but either way, what kind of gauge is that?

3.  I just plain guess.

I would like to say that this is the method that most of my teachers through the years used.

I’m going to leave this one at this point because I had the beauty of small schools where the teachers worked together, they took into consideration church nights and extra-curricular activities and worked our homework around that.  That doesn’t mean it was any better than anything else, it just means that they used the “I just plain guess” method and they tried to take a few of the communities issue into considerations.

Discuss.

I’m not going to pretend that I have any clue what-so-ever how a homeschooling parent would teach that previous lesson.  But, I suspect that the method I mentioned might work really great in that matter.  If I were thrown into homeschooling tomorrow, that’s what I would do.  I would go through the map with the child, discussing a little about each state that we might already know or that we can look up and learn.  That way, the child has a better idea of what a state represents other than just a spot on a map.

And, the parent could help the child go through the labeling process with the student reminding them of the small pieces of information that he/she had just learned about each state.  I see this as beneficial because let’s suppose your child lives in Gainesville Florida.  You are homeschooling and you are to this unit.  You 8- year-old has been begging to go snow skiing.  But when you try to explain to him/her that you can’t actually go snow skiing where you live and it is quite a long way to travel in order to do so. 

As you were labeling your map, you could show your child where grandma and grampa live in Nashville Tennessee and also remind them how long it took the last time you drove to see them.  Remind them of the various bathroom stops and the number of miles traveled, etc.  Then, you could jump to Colorado and show them that in order to snow ski they would need to visit a place such as Denver Colorado.  Look what your child has learned and learned the location of:  state of Florida and capital, state of Tennessee and capital and state of Colorado and capital.  The student is so much more likely to remember this because it relates to something the child is already interested in. 

In a classroom setting the teacher could do this as well, the problem being the number of students and the ability to know their students and their likes and dislikes.

In that example, I would be able to teach my child many states and capitals just be using the knowledge they already have and adding to it.  The knowledge is so much more likely to be retained. 

Fast forward 20 years and this young adult still hasn’t been snow skiing but he has won a free airline round trip to anywhere.  He/she knows exactly where he/she wants to go:  Denver Colorado.  And, because you had the opportunity to teach seasons and such, he/she can plan their trip accordingly since he/she learned at a very young age that driving from his/her home in Gainesville Florida to Denver Colorado would probably ruin his trip.

Lesson learned.  No homework.  Child can then be left with blank maps to work through and a labeled map to check his progress.  Learning so much more than simply regurgitating knowledge back onto a piece of paper. 

Discuss.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about abolition of homework all together.  This is most definitely the premises behind the book The Case Against Homework by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish that I’ve discussed in great detail.   I’m going to go out on a limb here and shoot out an opinion that’s somewhat different.

As long as the definition of homework means that a child is sent home with “work” to do that could be done in class and is not necessarily to reinforce learning, then it is considered non-sense to me and shouldn’t be used.  However, as a college grad, there is one skill that I feel is more than is vital…learning to study.

I spent my high school years with teachers sending homework home with us and declaring it a way to “learn to study” when in indeed, it was just busy work, it didn’t reinforce any skill because most of it I did while I was talking on the phone.  Learning to study is a skill that is different for almost everyone.  Everyone learns differently and everyone learns to retain knowledge differently.

I actually knew friends who would go home, on their own and write their vocabulary words over and over to reinforce them.  They would write sentences with their words because they knew we would have to do that on the test.  They learned from this.  Me, that’s the exact kind of work I did while chatting up someone on the phone thus…I learned nothing from it.

So, if a teacher is willing to spend instructional time teaching a student various methods of learning, then the actual homework that is given reads like this, “study for vocabulary test”.  And, as many of students I’ve talked to say, “I skip those assignments all together”, but the truth of the matter is, these students are also earning extremely high grades, so somewhere down the line, they are spending time studying.

I’m going to give you an example of what I would say is a teacher helping a child learn to study.  You can give me your thoughts on this method in the comments as I’m anxious to see what you have to say, even Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish. 

Ok, my example goes like this: 

Instructional Time has been spent discussing the states and capitals of the U.S. and where they are located.  There is a huge map on the wall and the students have access to see it during the day when they have free time.  An empty map is given to the children during class and they have 3 options for filling in the map:  one they can use their textbook and find the answers, they can use the map on the wall and find the answers or they can wait until the teacher goes over the map on the wall and fill in the answers.  The first two ways would make a great in-house assignment but not at home because if the student forgets his/her textbook, what good is the assignment if the child has no resources at home.

One study habit that the teacher puts out there for the students to help them learn is that she also has a blank map on the wall.  The students as a class group or in small group with a student leader (alternating the leader) points to the empty map and the other students try to identify the state and the capital.  Naturally, this can’t be done if the student hasn’t put some time into “studying” before hand. But it makes for great socialization skills and helps the students learn.  You know, the first one to get it right gets to pick the next state.

Sidenote:  One of my junior high teachers who basically never gave homework would work through using his instructional time and then he would do games to help us learn.  One of his games was he would pull down the blank map, split us into two teams and have us compete against one another.  It wasn’t a free for all because he would start with one team, the person in the front seat.  If that person missed it, the other person in the front seat had the opportunity to get the point.  If he/she go it, that team got a point, if not, he went to the second person in the row for an answer.  He would go back and forth so that everyone had to participate but it was somewhat competitive.  He even did this on occasion and instead of breaking us up into teams, he would give you an extra point if you knew the one that he pointed to when it was your turn.  It worked great and rarely even had to take his work home to study.  He had given us every learning opportunity during class plus every opportunity to retain the knowledge.

Another method of studying would be the teacher providing the student with copies of an empty map to take home along with their already “correctly identified map”.  That means that the teacher had to make the effort to check everyone’s map, not just assume that the child did it right because she told them to use the book or the map on the wall.  Many children simply can’t copy straight from a book or it takes them an eternity.  So, the teacher might find that on the final night, giving out a copy of the U.S. map that she has correctly labeled and then giving the students access to blank copies to study from.

Another tip that I think would be beneficial is for the teacher to also leave the map blank, number the states, give a child a copy of the number and state and capital that corresponds and then give the child a copy of the blank map numbered.  And, possibly give them a different one numbered differently.

Now, if a child takes that assignment home, he/she doesn’t need anyone to help them (or shouldn’t and realize I am assuming no learning disabilities here).  They can sit down and use the various methods with which to study.  My reason for loving this method is the child doesn’t have to lug a text book home which is something I always hated and I know many children still do.  Have you ever seen those kids coming out of the building with the back pack weighing them down?

This to me would be one proper way to teach the skills in class, the teacher spending instructional time going over the U.S. map and helping the children label it, giving them opportunities to learn with their peers or alone and finally giving them a study method to employ at home.

My reasoning behind this method is because students have to find their own niche’ for study habits before he/she gets to college and their life would be much easier if it was accomplished before high school. 

Study habits are in - homework is out.

Discuss.

I know that many times it seems I’m talking out both sides of my mouth.  And, the truth is, I do not, in many cases, have a concrete opinion.  I was raised in public school.  My father taught the entire 19 years of my life in public schools.  He was a huge advocate for public school workers (teachers, bus drivers, other support personnel, etc).  For me, public schools were number one and the only people who received homeschooling were either a)sick (either terminally or from a surgery; b) expelled from school for behavior or c) religious zealots.  So, understand that I still believed this until just recently. 

I don’t know how many of you know the in’s and out’s of why schools are pushing our children.  As I said recently, it isn’t one individual teacher, system or state that’s pushing, it is a push nationally.  And, with that, I’m going to go over into what is known as AYP or Adequate Yearly Progress.  Now, when this Accountability Report comes through, everyone is affected.

Holly sent me this yesterday and I didn’t address it  but the more I thought about it, I know I can lend some first hand information on this subject.  And, I think nearly everyone will be surprised.  Here’s her quote:

“Schools must meet AYP for each year…if they don’t then they must bring in all the people to help them meet the AYP and parents have the right to move their kid out of an school that doesn’t meet AYP.”

Before I tell you about a school that doesn’t meet the AYP Standards, let me tell you where I’m coming from with the state of affairs in schools where I live.  Only 83% of schools in Alabama meet AYP standards.  The following came out of the Birmingham News in August of this year.

“A report released this morning said 1,140 of 1,367 schools met all of the goals required under federal Adequate Yearly Progress standards.
Among those that did not meet the goals, 137 schools were identified as needing improvement. Of those 137 schools, 73 will be required to notify parents that their children may transfer to other schools within their school systems.

A school is identified as needing improvement when it fails for two years in a row to show improvement in the same category — such as graduation rate or attendance goals. “

 

In the county where I live, the general average falls from the 83% above to 80%.  There’s way more to that pie than I’ve given you here, but that’s a basic overview. 

The last time I taught in the public school system was in 2005 and I taught high school biology in a school that had not met the standards set in AYP and was labeled a Target Assistance School.  What this meant was, the teachers in the school were being evaluated by a team of “experts”* and given “better” methods than the ones that the teacher was using.

Now, first of all, I was the maternity leave teacher.  I was there 9 weeks (lady had 3 weeks extra that she had been donated by other employees from sick leave bank).  So, why they were, in my opinion, wasting their time continuing to hound me, I’m not sure.  When you take into consideration that I am not a biology highly qualified teacher, heck I’m not even a biology teacher (chemistry is where my minor is but I’m not certified in that either), I saw very little reason for them to be evaluating me when they could have been working with some other long-term teachers.  But they did.  And, it was not fun. 

I know that sounds like a child saying “but that’s no fun” or “it’s boring” but the fact of the matter is, all the teachers felt that way.  And, in my opinion, with good reason.  Basically, the “experts”* would come into your classroom and observe an entire block (which was 90 minutes - our school system no longer works on a block plan).  At the end of the block, the “expert”* would fill out an evaluation form on you, tell you what to change and where you needed to focus and then you had to sign off on it. 

Now, for some of you sitting there, you are thinking, well, good, accountability is good.  And, I agree, accountability is good.  But this method was like Chinese torture.  There were many facets of the evaluation, but one segment in particular read: Homework Assignments.

This “expert”* would go through your lesson plans and check your homework assignments, he/she would also evaluate your method of using the homework from the night before.  Basically, the form insisted that homework be given EVERY NIGHT.  The other part of the evaluation that is pertinent here is that this person would insist that you were involved in instruction the entire 90 minutes.  Students were not allowed to work on the homework assignment in class but you were also expected to give a class assignment that you worked through with individuals as they had questions.  FOR 90 MINUTES AND THEN HOMEWORK EVERY NIGHT. 

I’m going to cut this off here, but I’m going to get into this in detail in some of my thoughts on Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish’s

The Case Against Homework because this very issue is something we’ve addressed here quite frequently lately and I hear it every day when I go to pick up my son.  Plus, I joined the crowd of homework haters yesterday when I saw that my kindergartner had homework.

*Experts - the experts were retired teachers that had been hired by an outside company to go into the schools twice a week and perform these evaluations.  These teachers had no more expertise than the ones in the classrooms with the exception of teachers like me and brand new teachers.  Many times you had an “expert” evaluating a teacher that had been teaching 5 to 8 years more than the expert.  Does this not sound a bit skewed to you?  And, who was paying for this?  The school system was footing the bill to this consultation firm who had hired these experts AND these experts were also drawing from their retirement.  Does any of this not strike you as odd? 

**I have my evaluation forms somewhere.  When I find them, I will scan one and post it for you to see.  They were on carbonless paper so I may have to work with it to make it readable, but I will do that soon.

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Everything I’ve written thus far about public schools and homework seems very negative.  But, I want to make sure everyone knows and understands that I know I can’t do the job of a teacher.  I’ve tried, Lord knows I’ve tried.  I tried one year, quit for a couple, tried for 2, quit for a couple, tried one year, quit, until I had amassed five years.  I simply am not cut out to be a teacher.  So, please don’t get the impression that I am downing one teacher in one school or anything of the like.

And, that last sentence is exactly where the problem lies.  It is not that your child’s teacher is doing this, every teacher is doing it.  It is not that your child’s school administrators are pushing your child’s teachers to push the kids harder and further.  It is not even just your child’s system.  As a nation, we’ve lost our minds thinking we can push these little tots into being grown doing grown-up skills at the ripe age of 7.

I just chatted with someone in email.  I know she won’t mind me sharing but just read this…

“This weeks homework for 1st grade:

Study for spelling test and sight word test on Friday

Then choose four of the five activities to complete by Friday:

Alphabetize a set of four words

Read her weekly story they are doing in class from her reading book (they bring it home on Monday..return it on Friday) and then write if its fiction, non-fiction, or realistic fantasy. Then answer end of chapter questions orally to an adult.

List 5 words using the “bl” blend sound

Work a set of 10 math addition problems

Write to complete sentences using at least two weekly spelling words.

Last week one of the activities was to label out sentences with verbs, nouns, adverbs, and adjectives.”

People, come on.  When is this kid suppose to play with her Barbie’s?  Midnight?  And, you know what I’m going to say next right?  They do this to these kids and then complain because the kids don’t get enough sleep.  I am the very first to yell foul when I think a kid is sleep deprived.  But I know exactly what happens.  These kids actually need some time to play and for many of them it is through organized sports. 

I played organized sports from the time I as 12 until well after I crossed that graduation platform.  So, these kids want to play and in order to do that, they have to practice.  Practice then delays homework which in turn delays sleep AND WHAT DO YOU GET?

You get a kid that is too tired to even tell you what he does know.  And…….and the blame gets put on organized sports.  They (as in the folks who are pushing pushing pushing our babies to the brink) always want to holler that the kids are sleep deprived because of organized sports, or dance classes, etc.

And, at the same time, they are being pushed to color in a goofy bubble.  I took AP classes with the same 5 or 6 kids for my junior and senior year.  I made the same grades they made - A’s.  I know in my heart of hearts that only one of them had a greater intelligence level than me.  But, when we took college entrance exams, I would bomb. 

Coloring in the bubble is just not my gig.  Here’s an excellent example.  When I graduated from high school, taking the ACT as a junior was advised because they would “give” you a point for taking it a year early.  So, I did what all the other kids did, I took it early.  Out of those classmates, there was a 34 (high score being 36), 32, 30, 28 and a 18.  Guess who scored the 18? 

I don’t color bubbles well.  I took a class in test taking and the next year I scored a 24.  But, I sat in class with those smarty-pants above and I made the grades all on my own.  I didn’t get anything easy and to be honest, none of us did.  But, they were better at being analytical - two of those were girls, two were boys and then me (a girl by the way). 

So, what I’m getting at here is a bunch of rambling and off topic stuff.  But, my point is, do we want to teach our kids how to take a test or how to actually retain some knowledge?  There is a company out there that can teach you how to increase your scores a lot.  I took the class and later took the class to be a teacher of the course.  It is ridiculous. 

This class for the teachers shows you how to take a standardized test and know very little but score very well based on analytical thinking and basically mind-reading the producer of the test.  Big deal, I can decide whether the answer is a, b, c, d, or e based on the answer to the last 3 or 4 questions or the next 3 or 4? 

And, that accomplishes?  Nothing in my opinion.  Give me the opportunity to tell you what I know, I believe I could have scored just as well as my peers.  The tests I had to take in college to get into the “Teachers” program was all essay based with the exception of one part of the language assessment.  I did really well.  My graduate courses…..they didn’t ask me if the answer was a,b,c,d…they wanted to know if I had read the material, understood the material and knew what I was talking about. 

Ok, this is way too long and I’m going to post it.  I may break it down later into separate posts but I am anxious to hear responses so I’m going with it for now.

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As I’ve mentioned I’ve been reading The Case Against Homework by Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish.  I made notes through-out the book as I read it and some of them seem pointless now as I go back and look, but others are definitely issues that I can add too.  I want to get this written before I start reading the second part of the book, so unfortunately, you get bullets.  And if I know me, some of the bullets will have its own bullets and it may even take me a few days.  But, I just think it is important.

Remember, most of this applies to public schools, public school teachers and public school students.  However, you can learn so much, it is worth it to read it just for the research.

And, not only that, I grew up in a different generation and I never had the amount of homework that children today lug home day after day.  So, excuse me if I approach some of this with snark.  And, if you are a public school teacher that has or will have one of my children in your room, bare in mind that I am the person writing this, not one of my little cherubs. 

• The purpose of homework in the first place.  In the book you will read example after example of children who bring unbelievable amounts of work home with them each night.  Here’s some of my main thoughts on this matter, some I’ve already mentioned in a previous post, others are brand new:
  • The homework is for the child not the parent.
  • Yes, parents need to be teachers so that their children are able to learn by mimmicking many of their behaviors.
  • The parent who sends her child to public school  however, should not be responsible for all of the child’s learning.  Basically, parents shouldn’t be forced to homeschool their children at night. 
  • In most cases, the parent has worked an 8 hour job, and the kid has done just the same.  A child’s work is to learn and most of them have been in school all day doing just that, learning.  The parent nor the child wants to take on a second job at night.  Both parties need to be allowed to rest and relax after a hard days work.
• Have you ever watched kids as they come out of school buildings around you?  Most of them have a backpack on their back that weighs substantially more than what is healthy for them to carry.  I have a cousin in the eighth grade and up until she was in the sixth grade, her mother would carry her backpack inside and then go inside in the afternoons and carry it out.  This sixth grader was small for her age, but if her backpack was too heavy for her to carry, chances are she had too much homework in the first place.
• I wrote just last week about children who are suffering from sleep deprivation.  It is extremely common in our schools right now for kids to act out simply because they aren’t getting enough rest.  And, they aren’t getting enough exercise.  The two go hand in hand.  The child comes straight home from school and starts homework.  That sometimes takes all evening and the child eventually goes to be too late.  Now the kid had no time to burn off energy needed to be tired, they are mentally exhausted but have you ever had one of those nights when your brain was tired but your body didn’t really feel tired.  Well that’s exactly what happens to our kids, then the next day, they take any opportunity they can find to be active and then….then they end up in trouble.
• How many hours a week do you work at your regular job?  For most folks it is 40.  Your child basically spends 40 hours a week doing school work to besides homework.  Now add an extra 2 hours of work to their work day because of homework.  Now your child has worked a 48 hour work week.  How well do you function when you are forced to work 48 hours in five days and maintain a level of expertise that is almost impossible.  Heck, you do it so well, you could probably stand to work a few  hours over the weekend, maybe during your vacation you could paint the house or something.  Come on, give me a break. 
• The j-o-b of a child has 2 components.  One of those components is to learn.  Children are natural sponges.  They are going to learn from their surroundings.  If they have adequate rest, they are going to continue to take in pretty much everything that is put in front of them.  Their other j-o-b is to play.  Yea, you read it right.  A child’s job is to play.  Playing, pretending, even organized sports to some degree allow a child to perform his duties as a child.  So, why, as adults are we not simply letting those children take responsibility for their j-o-b’s?  I have not the answer for you here, I just know that somewhere down the line, someone became misguided and our children are missing out.
• And, that brings me to this statement by the authors of The Case Against Homework, “Learning is maximized and made most efficient and effective when you allow a period for consolidation.”  People, that is not brain surgery.  How well do you perform your job on Monday if you spend the entire weekend doing laundry, cleaning bathrooms, cleaning floors, painting the house, mowing the lawn?  Don’t even answer that because you and I both know that we have a saying called TGIF and for most of us, we mean that weekends are meant for vegging not working.  Well, guess what, children need that same opportunity. 

I’m going to close this here because the next part I have on my mind requires a little bit more of my own thoughts.  So, until next time……….

The other night at the tattoo place, I was sitting waiting my turn.  There was a couple across the way from me who had came to Panama City Beach in an effort to flee New Orleans.  The couple was relatively young, that I could tell by looking.  But further conversation took me deep into a conversation that I never dreamed I would have in a tattoo parlor, in Panama City Beach Florida at close to 10 PM.

I’m not even sure how the subject came up, I think she mentioned her children, I asked about them and she indicated that she had five children.  Their ages ranged from 3 to 11.  It was fairly obvious that the children weren’t with her but I wasn’t going to just be blunt and say, ‘well where are the little chaps” so I listened to what she had to say about them.

Side note here:  I was holding the book The Case Against Homework by Sara Bennet and Nancy Kalish but I don’t think she had noticed that at this time. 

Anyway, she barely got the words “they range from 3 to 11, but we homeschool and they are with their dad right now.”  I was immediately drawn to her, of course, she had information that was definitely useful for me.  As it turned out, she was an Army brat and apparently at one time called New Orleans home.  She later moved to Nevada but in the last year she had returned to New Orleans.  Thus the need to get the heck out of there this week. 

What she told me was simply fascinating.  It may or may not be that interesting to you since many of you homeschool and we’ve yet to talk about schedules and time of the year for school sessions, etc.  But, because of the work schedule of the children’s father (which she didn’t tell me), it works best for them for them to handle their school time from January through August.  Then, the children go to their father’s and stay and they swap the visitation schedule.

I was stunned.  I grew up in the house with a public school teacher, remember that.  And for me, the year starts in August and ends in May and those months in between are simply extra credit.  I mean that literally, if you did well from August to May, you had a free summer, but if you didn’t, summer school was waiting on you.  I had never entertained the idea that school could go from January to August.  How is that my little brain was so closed and couldn’t imagine such a thing happening?

She explained to me about going to the zoo, the arboretum, grocery shopping and having the kids weigh stuff, compare prices and the like.  She continued to tell me that her belief is that children are like sponges, they want to learn, they want to create and as long as you give the little ones an opportunity to see and do, they will learn. 

Now, duh, that’s not rocket science.  But as I’ve mentioned to you before, the only home schooled children that I know in real life didn’t even make it to graduate.  And, neither of them have been able to hold down decent jobs.  I was mesmerized by our conversation and when the guy told me it was my turn, I was a bit disappointed.  I was learning so much from this lady.  She couldn’t have been over 26 or maybe even 27 years old though.  Still I absolutely loved listening to her.

She doesn’t follow a set curriculum and her thoughts on education reminded me much of what Meg L said in this comment regarding her role in homeschooling.  Meg L and the lady in the tattoo place both said, I’m a facilitator, I’m a coach, I’m someone to lends directions.

It was totally a wow moment for me.  TOTALLY!

I remember when I entered the ninth grade.  I had gone to a small school with less than 100 students in 9 grades (K-8).  That means I have a special place in my heart for small schools.  It also means that when it comes to the idea of sending my own children to a school that resembles the one I attended or send them to one that is much bigger, I simply straddle the fence.

I know that as a student from a really small school, I received so much individual and undivided attention in so many areas.  The memories I have are boundless.  When I transferred, I transferred to a high school where students came in from three or four feeder schools.  The school I attended was a feeder school but not to the high school I attended.

Side Note:  Remember, I moved to my dad’s when I was 13, I finished the last 2 months of eighth grade in the school where I had been a student since the third grade. 

So, when the subject is broached by experts as to which is better, small numbers in one school where individual attention is rampant or big schools like the one we were fed into after we finished being elementary and junior high students. 

I can find arguments for both and when I was asked in the past, I almost argued that there is no way I would trade my education with 17 other kids and one teacher all day long.  But, as it is now, the schools this size are few and far between because of operating costs.  Also, it means that the students in these small schools don’t get all the added benefits.

What added benefits you ask?

Well, besides the ability to socialize with a larger number of people.  And, if you read my post on school bullies, you know that I basically had class with the same kids, year after year, all day long and there was no escaping the bully and her followers.  The more I learn about bullies, the more I realize just how bad I was bullied.  And, had I been a student in a larger school, I might have had an opportunity to escape these people at least a few times a day and maybe even all together some years.  And, then, my mind returns to how personalized my instruction was for the most part. 

Sure, I made good grades, I’ve already mentioned that I had the highest grade point average for the entire year in the seventh and eighth grades but for the most part, that wasn’t a great honor then like it seems to be now, it only brought me more grief.  When someone would make better than me on one test or one assignment, they were constantly nagging and aggravating me about it.  And, when I was given my award, all the talk was about whether it was really true or did the teaches just feel sorry for me.  C’mon, I finished second in my class when I got to high school (which none of the others in my feeder school managed to do.)

So, that’s my argument for and against the small school setup.  Now, obviously the cons of the small school set up are the pro’s for the larger school way of educating.  And, I’ve given you at least one reason why the larger school students had things a little bit more under control.  But, they already knew their way around, they knew that the newbies were lost and they would take advantage of it.  (See later post on this as well).

But the benefits of attending one of the larger schools was much greater than just being more comfortable.  The benefits now include so many more opportunities for a child to take foreign  languages and higher maths at an earlier age.  Is that necessary?  I’m not sure, but it seems it must be or the world wouldn’t be pushing this on our children.  (See Stop Homework for more about this very issue)

I remember being in the eighth grade and being on my schools quiz bowl team.  We competed against eighth graders within the entire system.  Which meant, small school, big school, none of that mattered once you were seeded for the county wide quiz bowl tournament.  It was merely 8th graders versus 8th graders. 

And, I will tell you this, the kids on the quiz bowl team from the school that I chose when I entered the 9th grade, beat the living daylights out of us.  They had quiz bowl material, a real quiz bowl coach, and a set of quiz bowl equipment.  They could actually practice for “quiz bowl”.  Our quiz bowl team at the feeder school was chosen about 3 days before we competed.

This was part of why I considered that particular school when I made my decision for high school instead of the high school where my father taught .  I remember thinking how my parents had deprived me of the best education possible by sending me to a feeder school.  I immediately decided that bigger was better.

But, like any 40 year old, I can look back to when I was 13 and wonder if it was really as bad as I thought it was back then.  Are large schools better simply because they can offer more.  And, as Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish offer up in their book….is more necessarily better?  Are our children prepared for more more more? 

What about all the things I learned because I had such individualized attention?  One of the things that comes to mind when I was reading The Case Against Homework was that homework was assigned with teachers taking into account what other teachers were doing.  Were the students involved in a school event that night, then the teachers would let homework go that night.  Not just one of them, but all of them.  They took care to make sure that we weren’t sent home from extra-curricular activities with 3 hours of work to do for school. 

We never had homework on church night nor did we have homework over the weekends or holidays.  These teachers were even careful to not schedule tests on the same day as another teacher.  Finally, since the teachers were all in unison on what was going on, if we had extra time, they would encourage us to do our homework from their class or even another class. 

The teachers in my little school were able to help teach responsibility.  They would greet students at the door asking if they remembered their books or study notes.  And, students who needed specialized attention that would today be sent a’packin’ to special education, got what they needed in the classroom.  Teachers were free to help 2 or 3 students with their work while the rest of the class did their work and then did their homework for other classes. 

Not long ago I ran into a woman who had taught second grade at my little school.  She taught there until she retired.  She lived in that community her entire life.  When she retired, she started a career with the large university nearby  working with student teachers.  I ran into her at a school where she was visiting a student teacher.  We discussed the state of affairs in our schools at that time.  Her words filled my ears then and continue to fill my ears anytime the subject is brought up.  What was it that she said that I thought provoking and memorable?

She said, “You know, all this talk about learning disabilities and special education, we had kids like that when I taught school, but we managed, we taught them and we did it with love, true love, and that’s how those students got through.”

It rings viciously in my ears when people ask me when I’m going to medicate my son….?  (which is another post all together - because I’m not medicating my son for now)

Discuss.

Before anyone accuses me of being a dummy, I’ve put a lot of thought into this post, so just know I am not throwing this out here without any thought.

Ok, I do not think that I could adequately teach my child past the seventh or eighth grade.  And, again, not because I’m dumb, but simply because that’s a lot of material to be responsible for.  I’ve taught seventh and eighth grade Earth and Life Science before and I taught tenth grade biology as well.  I have a minor in chemistry, so I’m no dummy.

I keep reminding you guys that I’m not dumb, does that not just speak volumes about my self-confidence?

Anyway, even when I taught those sciences, I was only responsible for those classes, not the entire curriculum.  I know that curriculums are available in a lot of places.  I’m just curious if buying a curriculum and enrolling with the online schools or academy’s makes it any easier to teach all the academics? 

And, with that, I know that many of you have also traveled extensively and are believers (as I am) that traveling and learning is as important as sitting with a book in hand.  Seeing the Eiffel Tower is way better than reading about it for 12 years, right? 

Also, I do not consider this little trip to the beach educational for my child, just want to clarify that this is for fun, educational trips are what I’m asking about.  I am sure we could find many ways to make this an educational trip but the fact of the matter is, we all want to rest and relax and that is just what we are going to do.

So, the questions are this:

1.  At what age do you quit home schooling or do you go through high school graduation?

2.  What curriculum to you use?

3.  If you have used different curriculums over time, which ones do you like the best and why?

4.  What do you do if you are like me and don’t feel qualified to teach your child trigonometry or calculus (although I made A’s in both) or Anatomy and Physiology?

Discuss.

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The biggest complaint I hear from parents of children in public schools in my area is the amount of homework children bring home.  Now, I remember being in school, I’m old but not that old.  And, I remember having homework.  But, I had to carry all the necessary items for my homework home with me on a bus.  I had to lug them from the time school let out until the bus arrived at school which was about 40 minutes.  Then, another 30 minutes of pulling and tugging and dropping and picking them up while on the bus.  Then, the quarter of a mile walk from the bus stop to the house (this was before backpacks were an “item”).  The, I had to lug them back to my mom’s car when she picked me up after work, then lug them back in the house when I got home, do my homework, get the books together and lug again the following morning.

So, you know what?  I did as much as I could possibly do while I was at school.  Give me a free 5 minutes at the end of class, I’m getting that homework started and maybe finished.  Especially if I got 10 minutes at the end of my next class.  That was one set of books and notebooks that didn’t have to go home. 

But the kicker that I see these days?  Once I got all that hauling of books done and I was home for the night I HAD TO DO MY OWN HOMEWORK.  I am so not kidding when I tell you that 99% of the parents I talk to have this complaint, “we sit at the table and do homework every night for at least 2 hours”.  What’s this “we” stuff.  I didn’t have a “we” when I was doing my homework.  I had someone to ask if I was stuck on a question.  But for the most part, if I asked more than 2 or 3 questions, I was reminded that it was MY homework, not my moms or dads.

I hear parents talking about their child having to do these projects and how it took them (the parent) 2 hours to do that blame poster.  My eyes gape open like I just heard someone say the world has ended.  My parents never picked up a stick of glue or a pair of scissors for  any of my projects.  Not in 12 years did either of my parents say, “we have to do homework for ___ hours every night”.

I can almost guarantee you that neither of my parents even knew when I had homework and when I didn’t other than the stack of books I was lugging around.  Oh and for the record, I didn’t make a “B” until I was in the 9th grade.  And after than I only made 7 or 8 of them in the next 4 years.  And, I promise you, it was NOT because my parents had that “we have homework” mentality.

So, for you public school parents?  Please tell me and be honest which category you fit into. Do you just let your children do their thing answering an occasional question or are you one of those “we had 2 hours of homework” parents?

And, for you homeschool parents, how does homework even work?  I did read a couple of research articles where it discussed the importance of giving your children homework and believe it or not, the main topic of this article had a theme something like this, “yes you are home schooling your child, that does not mean you are responsible for standing over them or doing their homework for them”. 

I’m just wondering what part of that sentence the public school parents missed.  I’m completely bumfuzzled every time I hear that “we” phrase so I’m curious how that works in the homes where home schooling is the way to go and especially when there are children in more than one grade.  Teach me, as the time may come that I have to homeschool, I’m certainly not ruling it out.  I just need to learn more about it and you are the people who can teach me. 

So, please, let me know what you think?

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This is for the home school moms.  Since I shared my thoughts on how little instructional time it seems my child gets (and we will see for sure next week when we are home schooling him while on vacation), I wanted to know from you guys how much time each day to spend on what I call “instructional time”. 

See, my thing with home schooling is this, if I did it, we would never get anything else done because I would spend the whole day teaching stuff and my children would be close to killing me.  As it is, the oldest one is in public school and the 3-year-old is at home tying me to a chair playing with knives but mostly he is just agitating me. 

So, my decision to have “school time” sort of like he would if he were in the pre-K program that I had at my daycare seemed to be wonderful.  Except, once we get started, two things happened.  He doesn’t want to quit and demands my attention 100% of the day.  And, secondly, when I do convince him to go play in the road,  I still keep teaching.  Every thing we do, every move we make, I’m explaining stuff to him that is so over his head it is ridiculous. 

I’m not explaining it because he is asking either.  He wants my undivided attention yes.  And, yes, he follows me to the laundry room to unfold the clothes as I get them out of the dryer and fold them.  But, I catch myself explaining to him how the dryer works and how people used to wash their clothes with a washboard and a ringer.  And, of course, I lose him for a few minutes but the next thing I know he is saying something like, “if the electricity goes off, we don’t have to do anymore laundry do we?”  So, he has gathered the information somewhere about electricity and I’m sure I told it to him, but at the time, I didn’t think he was listening.

However, unlike my son’s kindergarten teacher who is sending kids to p.e. or to work on the computer or to sing songs in circle time, I have this kid attached to my leg wanting me to teach him all day.  And, unlike my son’s teacher, I have a visitor go with me to the bathroom every time I go.  I think he does it because he knows that at that point, I’m a captive audience.  Where else can I go?  I have no choice but to listen to what it is he has to say. 

Now, I’m attempting to work from home and do some writing.  But, have you ever tried writing coherent sentences when you have a three old laying across the top of the sofa with his feet over one shoulder and his head the other shoulder.  All the while he is saying, “1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 11, 40, 49, 50″.  And, that of course is my cue to stop writing and make him count correctly and here we are back to instructional time and not getting anything else done…all day.

So, I’m curious to know how the homeschooling parents handle educational time versus house chores time versus mommy or daddy time versus free time?  What kind of schedules do you go by, are you rigid, or do you do it as he child shows signs of being ready for “school” each day?  What about those of you who have children in different grades? How in the world do you get all that done AND manage to do laundry, cook meals or even make a bologna sandwich?  Do you find yourself involved in “instructional time” 24/7?

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Regardless of whether you homeschool, take your child to a public school or daycare/preschool, chances are you have a schedule.  So, I’m going to try to elicit some comments from the readers here about their schedules. 

I know that most of us make our schedules as a result of the way other events in our life are scheduled.  Obviously if you take your child to public school or daycare/preschool and you work outside the home, you have to get moving so everyone is at the desired location at the appropriate time.  If you are like me and you work from home, it is a little easier because I have the option of getting dressed, taking the kindergartener to school and then running errands before I return home to work.  Or, I can take the kid in my pj’s and come home and work from home until later in the day when I run errands and get dressed to pick up my child at school.

So, for me, these schedules are obvious that there are so many outside factors that interfere with schedules that most of us simply work around someone else’s schedule.

However, as I mentioned, the week of Labor Day, we will be taking Walker’s kindergarten lessons with us to the beach.  His teacher said she would get it al together and we could work through it.  She wasn’t at all worried about him missing a week.  My question for you, and mostly those of you who home school or have in the past, or even those who have taken a vacation and taken your child’s work along to do, is how do you do it? 

What kind of schedule to you go buy?  What do you suggest we try?  Am I delusional about the whole process in the first place?  Just give me your best advice.

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I’ve made it fairly clear that I believe the most important educators in a child’s life are the parents.  And, in some cases, the parents are substituted for babysitters, aunts, uncles, preachers, Sunday School teachers, etc.  But, the bottom line is, no matter how much outsiders try to take part in educating our children, I still think that regardless of whether the parents teach their children good habits or bad habits, they teaching is there, the teaching continues and the teaching is inevitable.

So, for the time being, I’m curious what you all will be teaching your children this weekend.  We tend to use weekends to do the fun things in life (now that we don’t own a daycare) and we have managed in the past to do the fun things like going to the Zoo, going to a water park, going to a small lake, or simply stringing out a sprinkler in the front yard and allowing the boys to play until dark and then start trying to catch firefly’s or moths or whatever.

Since we are on the verge of taking a trip to the beach in a week or so, I’m going to be on the outlook for buckets and shovels and the such.  Last year when we went and accidentally left all of our play things in a inflatable boat and then left it down near the back door of the condo.  And, naturally, someone else wanted the things.  I just hope we don’t forget our umbrella. 

And, the lessons to be taught this weekend will be the buying and preparation of our traveling supplies.  And, we can really teach a good lesson on buying in the off-season as we should be able to find quite a bit of stuff on sale. 

Then, the ability to contain ourselves and continue with life as the time nears for us to get in the car and leave.  And lastly, far and away, vacations lend themselves to many life lessons.  The lesson of being polite to the folks who open doors for you, or opening doors for someone else, the thank you and the please’s when people help you or you ask for help, the appropriate behavior for restaurants that we don’t frequent and possibly have different rules.

So, for those of you getting down and dirty with your homeschooling, I’d love some input from you on how you continue your lessons while on vacations.  Of course visiting the aquarium in my mind is one such way to ensure my children receive at least that lesson about water animals. 

We will be taking all of his school work and I have no worries about that.  Mini-me still takes a nap and that means that Ditto-Boy can easily do his lessons while Mini-me naps each day.  And, we plan to eat breakfast and lunch at the condo and that will give us plenty of time to continue our on-going study of manners and polite behavior.

This got a little wordy but my main purpose was to say, we are going on vacation.  We are taking our kindergartener out of school for a week.  We are taking his lessons with us.  Any suggestions from the experts who’ve been doing this kind of thing for way longer than I have.

I’m open to suggestions.

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The deal this week went like this:

I’ve made a deal to always go eat with him on Fridays.  But, we added to the deal this week.

*  If you get 4 Purple Bee’s (which mean he has been good), I will bring you a special lunch instead of eating lunch room food.

*  If he got a Yellow Bee (first level of warning), I would be coming to eat with him but we would eat whatever the lunch room served.

*  And, if he received a yellow bee, I would be spending the day in his classroom the next day and I would wear my belt.

(The key here is I was asked to volunteer on Tuesday anyway to help his teacher, but if he had received a yellow bee, I wasn’t going to tell him that part, I was just going to show up.)

Alas, we  have 4 days of Purple Bee’s and I will take him a special lunch tomorrow.  And, not only that, the 3 year old will be going as well.

AND, if he has a purple bee through physical education class, I am going to check him out and the three of us are going to go to McD’s where I can get so much more work done than I can at home with them begging me to do all kinds of things for them.

So, tell me, do you agree with my strategy or disagree with this strategy.

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