Homeschooling: A Family’s Journey

We started the day with a pleasant chat with Dr. Alvin Augustus Jones. He began by asking about our initial quotation from Mother Teresa “We have done so much for so long with so little, that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing,” and why we had chosen this. The spirit is so close to us that it was difficult to explain at first. Given that the Missionaries of Charity have a house in Plainfield, just blocks from where we were living, their way of life was a fact of life for us. Mother Teresa’s words sum up our experience in home schooling, too. Whether homeschoolers feel overextended financially. temporally, or intellectually, Mother Teresa’s example can help one persevere.

Outside our window this morning, a red cardinal plays hide and seek among the red leaves scattered on the first tree to turn. Every year, this tree is first to turn. Enjoy the day.

(Martine)

We’re happy to note that we’ll be guests of these wonderful radio hosts:

Dr. Alvin Augustus Jones Friday, August 22, 8:30AM ET

The Journey Home with Diego Mulligan Wednesday, September 10, 5:35 MT (7:35 ET)

Family Matters with Caroline & Jacquie Thursday, September 18, 1:00PM ET

The links will take to sites where you can locate a local broadcast station or listen live online. We’re looking forward to great conversations about homeschooling and about our book. Hope you can join us!

(Greg)

We are thrilled to be part of this week’s Carnival of Homeschooling, but have been so busy following the links from the other posts on the blog midway that we haven’t taken time (til now) to pick our favorites. Here they are so far:

Janice Campbell hosts the Carnival of Homeschooling this week. We really enjoyed seeing these ideas, some new, others reminding us of things that we had forgotten we knew.

Carletta Sanders discusses Homeschool Games on Successful Homeschooling, mentioning chess and Scrabble in particular. These are two favorites at our house and we love the idea of using the chess timer for the Scrabble game. (We have a couple determined players who take an excruciatingly long time in order to maximize the score.)

I just sorted through our collection of games. I love finding old games, no longer readily available, at yard sales. We acquired Scrabble Rhebus and Scrabble Duplicate Crossword this way. Even Monopoly works well for reinforcing math skills and especially for reinforcing cooperation (our kids break the rules and make loans to each other to keep everyone in the game.)

We were excited to see the posting by Sarah Scrafford regarding The U.S. Department of Education’s Recommendations For Online Students posted at Online Universities.com. With three in college and three to go we need all of the information we can get from such a reasonable source.

Plus, we love Janice Campbell’s own post: Add a Microbusiness to Your Teen’s Curriculum. We have tried this before and hope to again. The kids are always looking for a way to raise money. She lists some great resources for children getting into this.

Janice makes one point which I agree with so strongly: “Athough I granted him credit on his transcript for what he learned, I didn’t teach him any of it– he found out what he needed to learn, and studied and practiced on his own. If he had waited for me to figure it out and create a “class,” we may never have gotten past…”

So many people seem to think that children can only “learn” what they are “taught”. If ours had waited for me, they wouldn’t be so far. In homeschooling, it is not about “No Child Left Behind”, but “How Far, How Fast—Don’t Wait for Mom, Please.”

Most exciting for the boys was the post from Silvia at Po Moyemu–In My Opinion. She describes her daughter’s project, making Slingshots. The only problem is, these are illegal in New Jersey. Another reason to do as Blaise urges, “let’s just move to Missouri”.

Then I saw the idea for a mobile, A Floating Inspiration Board from Melissa on her Pink Paper Peppermints blog. I too, lack enough wall space. We won’t talk about flat spaces. Up to the ceiling, and beyond! I am going to make one the centerpiece of the school room this fall. Teachers decorate bulletin boards—homeschoolers take a multidimensional approach.

(Martine)

No one could call Louie Free conventional. Host of The Louie Free Radio Show (billed as The Intelligent Alternative: Brain Food from the Heartland) he invited us to discuss homeschooling and our book for almost an hour today. The show will soon be available in Louie’s archives.

We really enjoyed the theme music for the interview: Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall. Great choice, Louie!

What songs best capture the spirit of your approach to homeschooling?

Our own picks:

Patti Smith performing People Have the Power:

And of course, Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall:

Barry Lynn, host of the radio show Culture Shocks interviewed us today. In a forty minute segment, Lynn disputed the notion that people can homeschool without teaching credentials, insisted that public schools are doing just fine for most kids, and challenged homeschoolers who don’t like something about their school system to stay in the system and change it instead of homeschooling. Listen to the interview on Barry’s show today on the following stations:

• Washington, D.C. — WMET, AM 1160 AM, time: 4:00PM
• Los Angeles, CA — KCAA, AM 1050, time: 1:00PM
• Monterey, CA — KRXA, AM 540 AM time: 1:00PM
• Cameron, TX — KTAE, AM 1330, time: 3:00PM
• or hear the interview online at http://www.cultureshocks.com/

This is the first of several media interviews we’ll be doing. We would appreciate your feedback. Thanks.

(Greg)

Update — the interview is now available as an MP3 or as a podcast at the Culture Shocks website. It is show number 1231. Find it at http://www.cultureshocks.com/shows/2008/08/18/greg-martine-millman/

We are about to embark on one of my family’s favorite adventures—a used book sale. This one, run by the Somerset Hills Association of American University Women, is one of the largest in our area and has been one of the richest troves recently.

We usually go on Friday evening, when it is pretty quiet, but have never been there on the last day (Saturday til 3 pm). The children are fondly anticipating a bag sale.

Coincidentally, I spent a chunk of this past week reorganizing our bookshelves in our school area. This should have had three effects: 1) make room for new books by weeding out old, with the idea that we only bring something into the house if we take an equal quantity out; 2) uncover all of the lovely books that we have that we have not had time to read, and organize them by subject so that I can make a plan; 3) remind me how many of our finds are just languishing on the shelves unread.

Instead, we had this effect: 1) Two bags of books probably will be donated somewhere. We did not make the donation cutoff for this book sale—only Greg did, and has thus earned the right to bring back about six boxes of books. Perhaps we could start a family clearinghouse to market stuff credits, along the lines of the pollution credits that corporations exchange?

2) We uncovered a lot of books, and I marvel at how many treasures we have. Through the years I have discovered some of my favorite authors from used book fairs: We discovered works by Helen Cresswell, “The Bagthorpe Series” on a table of book discards at the Plainfield Public Library during one of our visits. A discarded children’s reading textbook, decades old, yielded up Eleanor Farjeon’s “Elsie Piddock Skips in Her Sleep”, which was so beautifully written that I began watching for her work.

Our first big family booksale, and Joey’s first outing as a baby, was at a Plainfield Friends of the Library Sale. There Anna found a complete course in art appreciation published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, complete with plates and dust jackets, for ten dollars. I have collected a number of beautiful art books since then for pennies, including details of the Sistine Chapel, the work of Rembrandt, Picasso, and a number of gallery pamphlets for modern artists, at the AAUW sale.

Many of our best finds came from Plainfield Library sales,which is no surprise, considering what a cultural center Plainfield has been. When the library shed the vinyl record collection, we acquired our music collection. We also found a number of Caedmon recordings of poets reading their own work (50cents per LP). If I could rig a machine to record CDs from albums I would give these far more use; it is hard to find twenty minutes to sit still and listen.

3) By the end of the week, we had uncovered many languishing books, but already family members were squirreling them off to their individual bookshelves—Lena with Calculus books, Billy with anything remotely related to debate, as they work in anticipation of the fall.

Our homeschooling friends remind each other of upcoming book sales and compare finds. We would love to hear from any gentle readers who would like to share a book sale triumph. What is your favorite book sale? What is your favorite/ best find so far?

(Martine)

The California appeals court that, in February, ruled that parents do not have a right to homeschool reversed itself today and unanimously ruled that they do. One attorney close to the case phoned us today and said with relief:

“The unthinkable has happened — we won. Private homeschooling is on a better footing than it has ever been on in California.”

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

After hearing from an array of objectors that included state education officials and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the court agreed to reconsider the case and issued a new ruling today that reached the opposite conclusion: State law allows home schooling, although children can be required to attend school if they’re being abused or neglected at home.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had vowed to allow home schooling through legislation if the court did not act, praised the ruling. “This is a victory for California’s students, parents and education community. This decision confirms the right every California child has to a quality education and the right parents have to decide what is best for their children,” he said. “I hope the ruling settles this matter for parents and home-schooled children once and for all in California, but assure them that we, as elected officials, will continue to defend parents’ rights.”

This is great news not only for California homeschoolers but for education across the United States. A few months ago, it looked as if a state renowned for launching national trends was going to suppress homeschooling rights. Now it has affirmed them. Let freedom ring!

(Greg)

Sometimes it’s just good to be alive. First, I read last week about graphic novels profiling the candidates, i.e. comic books by some of the top artists depicting McCain and Obama as superheroes: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/07/mccain-and-obam.html

Now we have Dover’s paperdolls:

http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-mccain—obama-election-paper-dolls.html

Does this bridge the gender gap or create one? At least we can’t say that we don’t focus on what the male candidates are wearing (as was the criticism sometimes when Hilary was still in the race). What a great way to introduce us all to the political process.

Dover promises to have extra outfits available for the candidates. Plus they’re “collectible” so it could be an investment, too.

(Martine)

I was traveling in China during June and early July, and found a surprising degree of curiosity about and even enthusiasm for homeschooling. As readers of our book may know, several of our children play with the Music from China youth orchestra. Based in New York, the orchestra traveled to Shanghai this year to practice and play with the Shanghai Children’s Palace orchestra. On the way to Shanghai with the children, I stopped for meetings and interviews in several Chinese cities.

In Shanghai, a newspaper editor told me that China could learn from American homeschoolers how to include morality in the curriculum. He talked about Run Run Fan, the teacher who not only left his students in the classroom and ran away during the Sichuan earthquake, but later insisted in blog posts and debates that he had a perfect right to do so. China’s netizens rose to Fan’s defense, and the editor saw in this support evidence that China’s population has lost its traditional moral sense. “China needs homeschooling,” he said. Although homeschooling is now illegal in China, some small private schools are beginning to return to China’s tradition of small classes, close personal relationships, and an emphasis Confucian moral instruction.

In Beijing, another editor said that he would like to homeschool his daughter, so that she would have a chance to read the great books, not only China’s but those of the West, and really engage with them instead of merely preparing for tests.

Tests have long been the focus of China’s educational system — beginning with the Imperial Examination System — and access to higher education, jobs and so forth still depends on success at the gaokao, China’s supremely high-stakes test . Raymond Zhou of the China Daily wrote of the gaokao:

What I mean to say is, this system of selecting the brightest for the institution of “proud sons of heaven” is at best a loophole-ridden sieve that often fails to separate wheat from the chaff and at worst a smothering bag for real talent.

It depends heavily on memorization of cut-and-dried snippets of textbook knowledge that most youngsters tend to gobble up without chewing and tasting. If anything, it is a fertile ground for conformity.

He went on to say:

I want to say to all the gaokao students: if you achieve a high score and get admitted into the school of your choice, my congratulations; but if you don’t live up to your parents’ expectation in a one-size-fits-all test, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure. There are so many things about you that gaokao cannot test, and you may well excel without participating in a flawed educational structure.

Is the time ripe for the birth of a Chinese homeschooling movement? It would take some creative structuring to comply with the laws, of course, and enough people willing to cock a snook at the gaokao and forge their own way.

The web site of New Jersey’s Courier News and Home News Tribune reports:

Kevin Fritz is one of two U.S. students to win a spot in February’s National Taiwan Science Education Center competition in Taipei after a May competition in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair held in Atlanta … Fritz and his sister, Kathleen, 13, have been home schooled for the past six years. Kevin was in 5th grade and Kathleen was in 2nd grade when their parents, Pat and Carl, a statistician and owner of township-based Fritz Consulting, started … “The public school services which were being offered to them didn’t match their needs,” Pat Fritz said. “Academics became the reason we decided to home-school — we needed to provide a more challenging academic environment for them…”

But in this case, academics doesn’t mean textbooks. Kevin Fritz, for example, contacted an expert in his field of interest, and offered to work as his research assistant. The article is well worth reading for insight into how the Fritz family used homeschooling freedom to create their own educational path.