Mom Is Teaching

This was originally written and posted on Purpl4 Trail but some things are just too good to mess with.  So, hang on as Purple Train entertains us once again.

PurpleTrail is a brand new way to organize and manage parties, get-togethers, events and meetings. With it’s fresh perspective, PurpleTrail brings together some of the best features and experiences to help you easily manage your event.

Short video Tour - http://purpletrail.com/pt2/cons/mkt/tour/

Since the trend has become save not spend our money, many of us aren’t going out as often as we’d like to.  But that doesn’t mean we have to fore go a social life completely!  Instead get innovative and find creative ways to stay in with your friends.  You can start by creating a dinner club.

A dinner club is a great way to keep in touch and get a meal out! Get a group of friends together that enjoy some great food and wine.  Rotate houses monthly.  The person hosting is responsible for a modest dinner and the guests are responsible for dessert and drinks. Establish some ground rules like the meal can’t cost over x amount per person and the wine can’t exceed x amount per bottle to keep everyone on the same page (and from going overboard!) You can bring the kids along and let them play or consider hiring one babysitter for all the kids as the adults enjoy a meal together. You can split the cost of the sitter with everyone who brings their children.

To much mix it up, try creating various themes like “Italian feast” and make Italian food, bring Italian wine and maybe a little gelato for dessert! Or  a ” comfort food”  theme where you serve mac n’ cheese, and some hot fudge sundays.

As for some activity ideas, you can play board games, watch family friendly movies or play some old favorites like charades or pictionary! Check out PurpleTrail’s printable games for some great group entertainment ideas!

Fabulous and Single? A dinner club is still a fantastic way to keep your social life going without spending your paychecks on $12 cocktails.  Each time your group meets, invite everyone to bring a friend, that way you are constantly meeting new people.

If you don’t want to make it a dinner club, make it a dessert club or wine club instead.  Any kind of club that everyone is interested in putting a little effort into will be fun.

Keep everyone on the same page by using PurpleTrail online invites.  It’s easy to communicate and coordinate a bring along list with PurpleTrail. Bon Appetite!

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.

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.

I am 100% dedicated to the fact that unacceptable behavior by children is from sleep deprivation.  I don’t know when exactly I made the decision that sleep deprivation was so horrible.  I’ve always loved to sleep.  I’ve had issues with insomnia and sleep apnea, but I love to sleep.  And, my body doesn’t function well without adequate sleep.  For that matter, few people function well when they are sleep deprived.

So, with that, I go back to my fact that children do not get enough sleep.  Many parents start at a very young age allowing their children to stay up late even though they  know the child won’t get adequate sleep before rising the next morning.

I’ll use this personal story as an example.  One of my cousins works swing shifts.  So, since the time his first child was born, the child and the mom slept on the same schedule with the father.  Then, when the child started to school, it was as if someone slapped them in the face.  The child has a horrible time with going to be early and rising early, even though my cousin and his wife made great strides and forced him, it really was a long battle.

And, any parent of a newborn will tell you that getting up and down all night with a baby leads to sleep deprivation and that in turns causes people to wear their clothes backwards (like I did yesterday) out in public, put the soap in the fridge and the cheese under the bathroom cabinet, etc. 

And, 2 of my daycare children belonged to a man that I knew really well.  And, I told him that I knew within the first 30 minutes of those children being in my daycare what time they went to bed the night before.  Of course he looked at me like I was a dork.  I didn’t mean I knew if they went to bed at 7 or 7:30 or 8.  I knew if they went to bed at 8 or 11 or worse, 12. 

When I wen through a sleep study was when I learned that I had sleep apnea.  With the help of a CPAP machine, I now sleep better.  But, in the initial test, I never entered the last stage of sleep.  They hooked my brain and body up to the computer and watched it all night.  I never made it to the restful stage of sleep.  That, obviously is a problem.

The man who did my test said that his daughter had sleep apnea and she had been tested at the Children’s Hospital in Birmingham.  She too, at the lovely age of 6, sleeps with a CPAP machine.  He said her behavior improved 10 fold when she was sleeping with her CPAP machine.

So, do your research, learn how many hours of sleep your child needs depending on their age.  I can almost guarantee that most of our children, even my own, don’t get adequate sleep.  So, if sleep deprivation makes adults wear their clothes backwards, it obviously affects children and their behaviors as well.  Aren’t you just a little more irritable when you don’t sleep well?

I found a chart, I’m going to try to add it here and link to it so you can see it for yourself.  So, check this out and tell me if you child gets enough sleep or not.

Just looking at this, my children do not get enough sleep.  We are experiencing a sleeping battle right now and instead of going to sleep by 7:30 like they should be, they are pushing and pushing and sometimes it is 8:30.  They don’t have to get up til 7 though and usually they both wake up before the alarm clock goes off.  Either way, I still believe their behavior would be better if they would give it up and go to sleep closer to 7:30.

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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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I had a comment on the last post that showed me that I was being misunderstood.  I commented back but finally decided it was worthy of a post all its own.  Here is that post:

Wow, I had no intentions of making the post sound like I think I am better than public schools.  I don’t even know where to start with explaining to you where I was trying to go with my post.  First, let me say that I had no reservations about taking him out of school this early and going on vacation before you commented that you thought it was too early.  And, then, I got scared.  So, Wayne suggested we ask his teacher who said (not a direct quote here, just summarizing) that because he had been in daycare/preschool that he was good with the schedule, he stayed on tasked, he transitioned well and wasn’t having a problem at drop-off and that she didn’t see that it would be a problem.
So, I went with her thoughts.  As for me checking him out early last week, that wasn’t a reward for him as much as it was for me.  As you know, we live in the boonies of no where and I had to be in “town” for an appointment (prior to the time we went to McD’s).  So, if I had not taken him with me, I would have had to make the 30 mile trek back and forth.  Normally my mom would have been available, but she had her chemo treatment and wasn’t able.  So, I did what I had to do.  Also, I don’t believe in rewarding behavior that is expected.  He is expected to behave in his classroom and he will be punished if he isn’t.  I know that some behaviors warrant simply rewarding with small items for good behavior.  But in my opinion, some behaviors are expected and not reward behaviors.  And, proper behavior at school is one of those.  I’ll deal with him at home differently, but he will not be a pain the arse to his teacher, ever. 
Now, I was raised in the public school system and you know that as well.  My dad taught in a public school for 19 years and was a huge advocate for educators in Alabama as well as nationally.  I taught in the public schools.  However, I think I’ve told you before and if I haven’t, I can’t imagine why but the schools around here?  They don’t hold a candle to the schools in Georgia.  I remember just reading the paper when I lived in Atlanta about on-goings at the schools.  I know from all the things that we’ve talked about before with your preschool knowledge that the pre schools here don’t hold a candle to that either.  That doesn’t mean I am anti-public school.  As a matter of fact, I am very much in favor of public schools.  There is no way Walker could function in a home schooled environment and even more than that, I couldn’t and don’t want to do it. 
Now, that said, there are plenty of kids who couldn’t thrive in public schools for some reason or another (outside the obvious ones) and need the home schooling option.  We had 3 choices of schools to put Walker in because there are no zoning laws here.  And, therein lies the problem in our area (remind me and I’ll post that topic later)…well, it is a place to start anyway.  But we had 3 choices and we chose the one with the highest national standard scores.  Which you and I both know that standardized tests are not the greatest source for information either.  My cousin graduated from one of the schools that we bi-passed.  She had earned the “highest grade point” award every year of her first thru eight grades.  Then in ninth grades, the kids from where Walker goes transferred in for high school.  She was immediately knocked off her pedestal by 3 of the kids from the school where we chose to put Walker.  That says something…..it wasn’t just a coincidence.  How do I know that, because my cousin who transferred just this year was in the exact position except she was transferring in and immediately the kids didn’t like her because she and her peers that transferred in were making better grades.
I can tell you right here and now, I would be hard pressed to home school my own child past probably the 4th or 5th grade in some subjects.  The year I taught seventh and eight grade life and earth science was a freaking nightmare.  I knew the subject matter, but teaching it wasn’t what I was trained to do and I was lost.  Also, the school where Walker goes is a school that I worked in, I know what goes on in that building and I know that compared to other schools I’ve worked in, that place really is as good as their scores say they are.
And, I may have used this example already but when I found out the class that Walker was going to be in and the class that his best friend was going to be in, I knew immediately that class selection wasn’t just something that had to be done.  His best friend’s mom teaches at the school, she teaches special education.  She and I both requested that the 2 boys not be in the same room.  She openly said that she had no control over who either of them got for a teacher and didn’t care and I felt that way as well.  Hindsight though, there was some thought put into the process and it wasn’t simply a matter of pulling names out of hat. 
Walker needed a teacher who would not tolerate his meltdowns or his desire to be silly and clown around yet would push him to keep learning more and more.  His friend needed a teacher that could tolerate his getting under the chair for the first week or so and under the table and just truly acting goofy alot but that would teach him without having to force him to be serious.  Both children got the exact teacher that fit their personality.  Even the 3rd teacher of kindergarten wouldn’t have worked for either of them, the 2 choices for the 2 children were made with the child in mind.  Now, that’s quality public education and it is right here in my back door. 
One of the other schools that I mentioned?  They aren’t even accredited.  I know of 4 kids who transferred out after the 2nd or 3rd grade and were almost a full grade level behind.  It happens.  That doesn’t mean all public schools are bad.  It doesn’t even mean that that particular school is bad.  It is just the facts.  As I said earlier, public school in Alabama is no where near what it is in Georgia.  Georgia ranks 39th, Alabama ranks 48.  48th out of 50, DC, New Mexico and Mississippi are the only places where it is worse.  That is a statistic right there that says a lot.  Now, it doesn’t mean that public schools are superior to home schools or vice - versa.
Also, I think that you have misunderstood when I talk in depth about parents teaching their children.  I honestly believe that there is way more for a parent outside of the school setting, to teach their children, regardless of whether they are home schooled or public or private schooled, parents have that responsibility and too many (and I know you as well as you know me, we both feel like we do our part) have just pushed that to the wayside and said, let someone else teach them.  I know that Velcro is the reason why kids don’t know how to tie their shoes as early as they did 35 years ago when I learned.  The reason is because my mom, the adults and the older children in my family taught me how.  The teacher didn’t teach me that, and it wasn’t necessarily her responsibility.  But many parents choose Velcro shoes more for the factor of not having to “teach” their child something.  THAT’S WRONG!  Period.
I do not know one single person in my real life that home schools right now.  Only 25,000 kids in Alabama, or there about, are home schooled.  I did have a cousin who home schooled her children.  Why?  Because she wanted religion to be part of their education.  How did she do it?  She simply went through an on line home schooling site and then the children did their own thing at their own pace while she worked 12 hours a day.  Neither of them graduated and I talked to one of them in an instant message when she was in the ninth grade and I could hardly read what she was trying to say because she couldn’t spell easy words.  So, I didn’t right that post for it to be pro or con anything.  When I say parents need to teach their kids, I mean they need to teach their kids outside of what is formally known as “school time” whether they are the one doing the formal schooling or someone else is, there’s way too much that parents are slighting their children out of.
I can’t find the statistics for the number of children that are home schooled in Georgia but I know it is much higher.
Just a side note, Walker’s teacher sent me his work yesterday for him to do next week.  I don’t know how well we will do with it, but he will do his school work.  Neither I or Wayne feel qualified but we will figure out a way.  Just from that, I know she isn’t concerned about him getting behind.
So, I hope this doesn’t seem that I raked you over the coals and I definitely didn’t dismiss your comment on the “going on vacation” post.  I went straight to his teacher and she even said he would be fine.  I knew he already knew some of his multiplication facts but she sent a note home yesterday saying she thought he knew them all through 3.  I knew he knew some of them.  However, the conversation goes like this, me:  “what is 3 X 4?”  him: 12; me:  what is 4 X 3?  him:  you know I don’t know the 4’s yet.
He is eager too learn.  There is so much he can learn in public schools that I could never teach him at home.  But, there’s also lots to be learned by exploring your world too.  Is the beach considered an educational trip.  Probably not, but will he be reading or at least trying to read every road sign all the way there, while we are there and all the way home?  Yep.  Will his mom and dad help him?  Yes.  Will his mom and dad go nuts trying?  Yes because our short trips into town right now of 30 miles are straining my brain because all he wants to do is learn more stuff.
I’m going to say this again.  I appreciate your comments more and more.  I feel like I know you more personally than most of my Internet acquaintances and you can guarantee that every piece of advice you gave me regarding daycare/preschool was taken and used.  If I didn’t use it for some reason, it was because it simply wasn’t possible in our little town of less than 14000 people.  And, yes I am the one that has actually taught in a public school (and a private church school for that matter) but as far as the knowledge of what is going on and what is being done to help kids, you have already proven that you know more than I do.  It has been a long time since I was in a public school, but I do know that you have seen, heard and been more involved than I have.
So, if anyone else out there took my post to be a bashing of public schools, it certainly wasn’t.  I’ve already received an email from someone who assumed I was bashing home schooling and one who thought I was bashing private schools and religious schools.  I’m not bashing anyone.  I just want you to remember that whoever teaches your child the “formal’ education, they can only do so much, we, as parents have to pick up the slack and teach our own children a lot of life skills.
Since this is so long, I’m going to make it a post as well.  And, please remember, I’m not here to bash anyone, I’m hear to teach you stuff I know, learn from you the stuff you know and then together we can teach our children what we all know.

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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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