HS Comments on the Fly

I am surprised that anyone would give anything that Robin Sampson (aka Robin Scarlata) has done a negative review. And yet, remarkably, it has happened.

The following quotes come from Eclectic Homeschool Online, and they are about Robin’s book, The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach.

Mrs. Sampson presents the Hebraic educational model in a well-researched and thorough manner. Her treatment of the Greek/Classical educational model stands in stark contrast as biased, superficial scholarship. I wouldn’t accept the imbalance in resources from either of my high school age students, and I certainly expected better from Mrs. Sampson. A great deal of these chapters amount to a thinly veiled attack on what the author perceives as the evil of classical education. Her campaign runs into problems with the details.

Her repeated use of poor logic antagonizes the very people (classical homeschoolers) she’s trying to convince. Her classical education bashing rests on the unstable foundation of a number of logical fallacies.

… she assumes that other homeschool parents can’t recognize the propaganda in these chapters. Perhaps this is because she doesn’t recognize that it IS propaganda.

Ouch! I think that’s gonna leave a mark.

But that’s not all! Eclectic Homeschool Online points us to John Mark Reynolds at Scriptorum Daily who gives The Heart of Wisdom Teaching Approach a thorough tongue lashing.

These groups attack a straw man by arguing against “Greek education” and advocating “Hebrew education.”

… [I]t is easy to demonstrate … that good intentions on sites like “Heart of Wisdom” combined with bad information are not going to help the Christian home school movement.

It is an abuse of history to argue that the varied educational methods that produced thousands of years of Church leaders are simply “pagan.”

The problem with the “Heart of Wisdom” argument is not the intentions, but the reasoning.

Which Greeks? The atheists? The ones who welcomed Paul at Mars Hill (Acts 17), because he had the answer to their philosophical questions that had prepared the way for their reception of the gospel? The Platonists? the neo-Platonists? The Cynics? The Stoics? The Epicureans? They agreed on so little that making a chart of their beliefs as a unified whole is absurd.

One would be hard pressed to find a single doctrine on this chart that would command a majority of Greek philosophical support. It should disturb home school folks tempted to believe these folks that [Robin’s] chart is just wrong . . . not wrong from a worldly point of view, but wrong factually.

The fact that this chart can rapidly be shown false not just in some small details … but in almost every point should cause the home school mom to lose faith in it.

The Heart of Wisdom folk risk reading books to educate their children in a way that guarantees that their children could not write the books they are reading.

There’s a lot more that is said at Scriptorum Daily. Robin Sampson and the homeschooling parents who use the Heart of Wisdom program are really taken to task.

Not to change the subject very much … here’s a recent interesting and instructive post on Robin’s blog for you: Should Homeschoolers Teach Logic? (This might be a better link.) Yeah, we did and will, but who knows if they should. Does it really matter all that much? I should get started on it with my daughter; the end of the school year is looming. We used Traditional Logic with my son and my daughter will go through it also. We only use Book 1 because … um … maybe it’s because I kind of listen to my kids and let them decide on a great many things pertaining to their education once they are upper teens. My son took one look at the second book of Traditional Logic and said that it went into it further than he was interested in going into it. I think that part of it was the format changed a fair bit and the lessons seemed to be less practical than the first book. But that was a few years back, and my memory is fuzzy.

If you want to buy it:

Traditional Logic, Book 1, Student (35% off special, limited time only)
Traditional Logic, Book 1, Key
Traditional Logic, DVDs (24% off special, limited time only)

Traditional Logic is easy to use, simply set up, takes about a semester. I just threw it in with the English class. It’s decent training for the mind. If your student wants to learn logic, and many do, then it’s probably the best product on the market for homeschoolers. For those homeschooling for reasons other than religious, the religious flavor of the program is probably skippable in the first book of the series but not the second.

T. R. Fehrenbach wrote a short commentary on the education of journalists, but I think it can apply to people in general who are serious about education … you know, like homeschoolers.

A degree in journalism can help you get a job and teach you some skills but the best journalists, I think, have degrees in history, economics, philosophy, English, or science.

Education has little to do with making a living; a great deal to do with understanding the species and the cosmos. We tend to mistake trade-school training (law, medicine, journalism) for education. Nor is education information that can be Googled….

You’ve heard that one before, right? You know, it’s similar to that old saying that goes something like, “Education is not about learning how to make a living, but about learning how to live.”

A good editor should never be unread in Shakespeare, the Iliad or the Bible.

I’d add in mythology, too. I’m sure there are more topics to add in, but our society seems to be riddled with mythological references. I think you could just buy a copy of The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy to cover the topic of mythological references for a teen. If the goal is to get the main mythological references, I think it might be overkill to have them read Hamilton’s Mythology, though one of my students did and I was required to in high school.

The journalist unschooled in science [who writes about] science or the reporter on politics who has never read Machiavelli are often the blind misleading the blind.

Ha. Good use of misleading, huh?

And that last quote, my friends, is why I don’t write about politics — I’ve never read Machiavelli. Nor do I intend to. But these two books do look good: What Would Machiavelli Do: The Ends Justify the Meanness and Ross King’s biography of Machiavelli. There are so many books I want to read. I wish authors would just take a break so that I could catch up.

T. R. Fehrenbach’s complete commentary can be read online.

Okay, maybe it is not obscure to you, but I cannot remember ever reading it.

John Holt was interviewed by Mother Earth News way back in the first half of 1980, I presume, since the article was published in the June/July 1980 issue of the magazine.

Here are a few tidbits to whet your appetite:
(”PLOWBOY” is the interviewer for Mother Earth News.)

Formal education usually squelches the love of learning.

HOLT: Let me just say that most of what I know I didn’t learn in school, or in what people call “learning situations”. I don’t owe anything to formal education for my love of language, reading, and music. I had those interests before I went to school, I lost a lot of them in such institutions, and I’ve managed to get them back since.

PLOWBOY: Wait a minute! You lost your love for learning while you were attending school?

HOLT: That’s right. Take reading, for instance. I taught myself to read when I was four or five years old . . . even though hardly anybody read aloud to me. I just looked at all the signs on the streets of Manhattan’s East Side, where we were living . . . until, one day, I noticed a store that always had shirts in its windows and realized that the letters over that shop must have spelled “laundry”!

That was the first word I taught myself to recognize. I don’t remember what the second word was, but I do recall that I liked to read, so I read lots of books that were too hard for me . . . which is the only way anybody ever gets to be a good reader. I even finished all of The Three Musketeers and other classic books of Alexandre Dumas–long, long books–in a single summer when I was about ten.

PLOWBOY: You must have been a good classroom student.

HOLT: Well, I knew how to “play the game”, so I never had any difficulty with school. But I got bored with it as I got older, and –by the time I reached high school–I wouldn’t read a book unless it had been assigned. I didn’t start reading for my own pleasure again until eight or nine years after I got out of the Navy.

Adults don’t trust youngsters.

HOLT: I’m afraid that plain truth is that most Americans don’t really like children . . . even their own! Adults don’t trust youngsters, and school is an institutionalized expression of that fact. To put it another way, one of the foundation stones on which schools rest is a great big rock that says children are mostly no damn good.

PLOWBOY: Do you really believe that most adults–even parents–actually do not like children?

HOLT: I know that’s true . . . I’ve spent a lot of time observing how society treats children.

What should homeschooling be like?

PLOWBOY: Can you expand on your concept of what home schooling should be?

HOLT: I think that learning is not the result of teaching, but of the curiosity and activity of the learner. A teacher’s intervention in this process should be mostly to provide the learner with access to the various kinds of places, people, experiences, tools, and books that will correspond with that student’s interest . . . answer questions when they’re asked . . . and demonstrate physical skills.

I also feel that learning is not an activity that’s separate from the rest of life. People learn best when they’re involved with doing real and valuable work, which requires skill and judgment.

These concepts are my basic philosophy of learning–and are mirrored in my magazine, Growing Without Schooling–but I’m in favor of having people teach their chidlren at home and don’t insist that they have my reasons for doing it or even follow my methods. As a result, the readers of Growing Without Schooling, or GWS, include a variety of people . . . ranging from leftist counterculturists to right-wing fundamentalists.

Teaching is not a mystery.

PLOWBOY: But aren’t a lot of parents nervous about trying to educate their youngsters themselves? I can imagine someone thinking, “I don’t know how to teach!”

HOLT: I run across that fear all the time, and in people with Ph.D.’s just as often as in Joe Blow from Kokomo. I tell such folks that teaching is not a mystery . . . anybody who knows something can help anybody else who wants to learn it. In fact, what passes for official “teacher training” often makes people much less effective educators than they would have been if they hadn’t had it.

If everybody starts homeschooling …

HOLT: Home schooling is not a threat that’s going to overturn the whole school system. Most people are never going to try it . . . they don’t like their children enought to want them around all of the time!

Of course, there’s a whole lot more where this came from! And there’s a completely different article at NaturalChild.com.

Many moons ago, my then soon-to-be husband told me that our children would be homeschooled. I silently disagreed because I thought, “How could I do the job of a teacher who is trained for the job? How could I presume to do her job?” I figured that I had plenty of time to get things sorted out and get those future kids in school.

Funny thing is … I’m the one who got sorted out. One day I was reading Mothering and came across an article about homeschooling titled “Homegrown and Homeschooled.” Here’s the part that convinced me that homeschooling was probably something that would be good for us.

According to Bronfenbrenner and others, children in the first 10 to 12 years of life are better taught at home; they are also far better socialized at home…. Positive sociability is characterized by altruistic and principled attitudes and is firmly linked with the family. It is demonstrated in both the quantity and quality of self-confidence, self-respect, and self-worth deriving from the values and experiences provided by the family at least until the child can reason consistently. In other words, children who work, eat, play, rest, and interact each day with parents more than with peers sense that they are part of the family corporation–that they are needed, wanted, and depended upon. Such children are more often thinkers rather than mere repeaters of other children’s thoughts. [Because they are] independent and self-directed in their acquisition of values and skills, they largely avoid peer dependency.

I didn’t save this article and was surprised to find it online. It starts on Page 1.

I do not have to nag my daughter to practice her piano. I never have. Amazing*, but true!

She wanted to take lessons for a long time, but we put her off for all the usual reasons. Finally when she did get lessons, she was so happy that she just has not had a problem getting practice in. Maybe a lot of kids are like this. Maybe she has an inspiring teacher. Maybe … anything. It is all just so Alfie Kohn-esque. Yes, I read his book PBR back in ‘94/’95. I can’t say I agree with it all, but I still remember, albeit vaguely, the story of the child and violin lessons. So, the reward, for my daughter, I presume, is in the playing of the piano. I don’t have to bribe her to play. And I also don’t have to nag. It’s been her choice all the way, which is a relief to me.

I have, however, bribed/rewarded my children. Used consciously (with a little thought) rewarding children seems harmless and sometimes beneficial. So I don’t think that people are “punished by rewards” in every instance. I do think that piano playing could be damaged that way though.

For us, it worked well to give the kids a 50-cent credit every time they read a chapter book. When they saved up enough credits, we’d go to the bookstore and they could pick out one educational book. I didn’t care if it was literature or non-fiction or activity. It just had to have the essence of “education.” The 50 cents wasn’t enough of a carrot to make them read non-stop like crazed bibliophiles, so it really didn’t change their everyday behavior. But it was a sweet little bonus that they appreciated and anticipated. Plus, by making the reward a book, I think I was helping to show that learning was the ultimate reward of reading. Maybe. I hope that makes sense. I suppose I’d have to increase it to $1 these days, though.

Threats of bad grades never worked around here. My unthinking comments came out, “If you aren’t careful, you’ll get an F.” I was always caught unaware when I got a blank stare as a response to my comment. It’s a weird thing, to me, to not be motivated by getting an A or an F. It’s what I was taught by the classroom schools I attended. But grades were not motivational in our homeschool, which I think was a good thing, because I do believe in learning for the sake of learning.

Anyway, this was my daughter’s recent recital piece. See the pic? A little dark, huh? That’s too bad because on the cover is a neat painting of “Festivity given to the Sultan’s wife in the Seraglio,” which doesn’t seem to be showing up any where else online so I can’t link it. She played one of Mozart’s Sonatas. Okay, for the musical readers, it’s Sonata in A Major, K. 331 for the piano by Mozart with a whole bunch of notes/comments which are edited by Maurice Hinson. She played it well. She didn’t, however, dress up like homeschooler Lauren, whose mom blogs, did for her recital in an exquisite blue dress. Wow! Go and see for yourself. Regrettably, I lost all the stuff off of my camera that I took at my daughter’s recital. ::kicking self::

*Maybe no one ever nags their kids to practice, but somewhere I got the idea that nagging occurs all too often.

I always love to hear how homeschoolers are perceived. We are all so different, yet so many folks lump us together and call us “the same.”

From an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education:

The last hurdle in the admissions process for home-schooled students is persuading colleges that they have the social smarts to get along with their traditionally educated peers.

“There is an assumption that kids who are home-schooled are strange, that their idea of having a good time is sitting in a tree,” says Mr. Reider, the college counselor. (source)

Don’t save even one important class or book for grade 12. Plan to get everything that you and your student feel is significant done before the end of grade 11.

Impediments to getting much of anything done in a student’s senior year could include:

• part-time job
• owning a vehicle which necessitates it being driven, etc.
• romance
• lack of interest
• desire to “just be done with school”
• college application process
• friend(s) with their own places who need to be visited
• friends with crises
• etc.

Don’t plan on your student having time/desire to learn how to make pesto, read a book just for fun that you’ve picked out, write a term paper, etc. So if it’s important to you or your student, get it done in grade 10 or 11. Don’t wait. Even if you find the time to do it in the last year, the ability to learn (and enjoy it) is affected by the items on the above list.

And I know that doing things too early is also not good. But not doing them at all is sometimes worse.

Timing. So much in life homeschooling is all about timing. Okay, life, too.

The Shepherds’ flock of 11* (almost 12) are featured in an article in the Daily Mail today. They homeschool in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England, which is north of London a bit. According to Wikipedia, Isaac Newton went to school there and Margaret Thatcher was born there. That isle’s got more history than you can shake a timeline at.

The Shepherd clan were also featured in an article back in April, before their trip to the States, which is chronicled with many pictures in their blog. They came to the States to tour with their Celtic folk-rock band Remnant which apparently plays predominantly in churches.

*Do ya’ think they’re tired of ever so clever quips like that yet?

Now that my students are nearly all grown and we’ve got such a short amount of time left for homeschooling, I look at some of the books I bought and mourn.

Why? Because they’re still in perfect or like new condition.

Why? Because I told the kids when they were 4, 5, or 6 that they had to be really careful when they looked at this book or that book and to have me get it off the shelf for them. I told them that the book was expensive and that we needed it to last through all the years that we were homeschooling.

That was a bit of foolishness on my part because the books didn’t end up getting read or used.

And now I am sad when I run across the really nice books in our bookshelves that haven’t been used.

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t be so worried about the books. If a book started looking a little ratty, I would smile with satisfaction. Books in a homeschool are meant to be read and used and loved. I’ve got pristine museum pieces instead.

Bring on the grandkids! I bet they’ll be able to make these books look a little more loved. I’m going to insist that these book are taken to bed, taken along in the car, taken out to the treehouse or hammock. These books will be enjoyed!

Just a few examples of the lovely, pristine books on our shelves that are waiting for grandkids:

• Random House Children’s Encylopedia
• Pirate (Eyewitness Books)
• Minn of the Mississippi
• The Body Atlas
• The Great Atlas of Discovery
• Wall Chart of World History

Yes, that’s the question of the day around here. Actually, I guess I should use the term “keyboarding” since it’s not considered typing any longer.

We’re in the throes of homeschool planning for this year. Yeah, we’re a little later than usual, but we’ll be okay. So we’re looking at typing keyboarding. (I am so stuck in the 80s. It’s keyboarding. Saying it aloud 10 times aloud to try to lodge it firmly in my middle-aged brain.) I’m trying to figure out what constitutes a good goal for speed.

70 wpm (words per minute) was an A back when I was taking typing class. But what about 2007? Have speed expectations risen? I know that Pam types 90 wpm and that Jim checks in with a respectable 65 wpm. So I guess somewhere in between 65 and 90 wpm would be fine. Maybe? At least for a student who’s definitely not going to make a career out of typing keyboarding.

Of course, I realize that I could go see what high schools require these days by searching online, but maybe you already know and would just leave a quick comment.

For years I’ve been having my children teach me (or each other) what they’ve learned, knowing full well that it’s one of the best methods of learning. You know, nothing strenuous … just asking, “Tell me something interesting that you learned” coupled with something like, “Really? How?” or “Why did they do that?”

So who’d have thought I’d find this quote on my box of tea yesterday?

To teach is to learn twice.

The box said it was by Joseph Joubert. I looked it up, and sure enough, Joseph Joubert wrote it around 200 years ago. You can find the documentation at this link.

Also on that page are two other quotes that I found startlingly apropos:

The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

No man can be a good teacher unless he has feelings of warm affection toward his pupils and a genuine desire to impart to them what he believes to be of value. ~Bertrand Russell

For the truly inquisitive, the quote is from the Celestial Seasonings Antioxidant Plum White Tea box — a very pleasant tea.