HS Comments on the Fly

Amish young people attend Amish schools until 8th grade is complete; then they go to work, often under the eye of their parents - you know, as in an apprenticeship. However, New York state labor officials claim that the Amish are violating state labor laws.

The apprenticeship model has long been a successful system of training people for jobs. When I was in high school, I left school at lunch time and went to work. They gave me credit for my on-the-job training. This is as normal now as it was in A.D. 1000 (to pull a number out of the air though I’m sure I could use B.C. instead).

To be able to work, the Amish young people under 18, who attended Amish schools run by Amish teachers until the end of 8th grade, would have to secure working papers that are approved by a school district superintendent.

Some people want to keep young people in the classroom to reserve jobs for adults. This is why some folks think that U.S. schools originally began offering classes to young people until age 18 (grade 12) - to keep them out of the work force. In this case, “(The [state] official) said his department had received some complaints from local contractors….” Who knows what the contractors’ motives are? It could just be that the local contractors also want to be able to hire young people aged 14-17. The articles doesn’t give their reasons.

Here’s the two articles that give all the facts:

Article 1 tells the whole story up to December 11, 2006.

Article 2, published today, tells that a lobbyist is now helping out the Amish.

This, I suppose, could eventually affect homeschoolers who are training their youngsters to work in their own home businesses. It could affect unschoolers, too, who may run their own businesses. Laws vary from state to state and also vary by the job being performed. Anyway, I guess it’s something to be aware of. Lobbyist Duane Motley, in Article 2 above, agrees.

Is there a difference between homeschoolers who homeschooled first and then became famous* and homeschoolers who have to homeschool because they became famous? I think so.

The Pierces homeschooled first. See and hear them on YouTube.

Jaden Smith homeschooled first. See him in Pursuit of Happyness.

Christopher Paolini homeschooled first. See his movie Eragon.

I think homeschooling can provide opportunities that classroom learning usually can’t or won’t. If more young people homeschooled, I think that society would be so much richer.
* famous used loosely

There’s a pic over at History Is Elementary of the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull.

That blogger wants a visitor to identify the battle and then tell something unusual about it. I’m doing it here because I don’t want to get a blogger account just to enter a “Wordless Wednesday” contest. If an actual prize was in the offing, then I might be willing to get a blogger account. After all, I’m as mercenary as the next guy.

So, I’ve identified the battle - Bunker Hill. And the unusual part is that the Battle of Bunker Hill occurred on Breed’s Hill. I learned that from one of my favorite authors, Albert Marrin. I read his Revolutionary War book to my children back in 2000 or 2001.

If you hurry you might be able to be the first to identify it since there isn’t a right answer listed yet - zero comments so far.

Won’t it be extremely embarrassing if I’m wrong and it’s a painting of something else? Stay tuned.

UPDATE: I answered at 6:30 AM EST. It’s now 4:48 PM EST, about 10 hours later, and someone (out of 7 comments) did offer what I believe is the correct battle name, they haven’t mentioned the unusual feature requested by History is Elementary. Battle of Bunker Hill should be called the Battle of Breed’s Hill. So, I’m still waiting to see if I’m correct.

Alice, next time I’ll try deleting all my cookies, but I couldn’t leave a comment at your site. Who knows why?

You are so funny. You sound like Kate Winslett? Okay. I’ll take your word for it. Did you read the article about the Queen’s accent changing? Some researchers compared 50 years’ worth of Christmas recordings of Queen Elizabeth II. Supposedly her accent has become less posh.

On the topic of Stonehenge (the pic you posted), did those people climb the fence? Is that barbed wire I see in the foreground?

Home education relevance: Cultural awareness, elocution

Yes, another young driver has been loosed on an unsuspecting public.

She passed her driving test!

I can now stop desperately trying to figure out if we had covered everything. I was obsessing.

Here’s the big secret of our success: Do a lot of practice driving in the neighborhood where the driving tests are usually given. Being familiar with the streets you’ll be driving on during the test is a real advantage. We even practiced driving in and out of the DMV parking lot, etc.

Here’s a detailed article about unschooling in Sharon, MA:

‘‘I’m unschooled. I basically control what I do,’’ said Finklestein, whose second theater production, ‘‘The Laramie Project,’’ closes this weekend.

‘‘I would not be doing any of this if I was still in school. I wouldn’t have time.’’

My daughter is trying to pick out her recital song for this year. So we’ve bought two different books (book 1, book 2) in hopes of finding one she’s dying to play in public. So now I’ve got two books to cover with clear contact paper. One of them we’ll be taking to Office Depot over the next couple of days to get the binding cut off and then spiral bound so that it will lie flat. Ah, the thrills, the chills.

We’re still reading Marrin’s General Lee book aloud. I can’t remember the title; it’s out in the living room on the end table, and I’m too lazy to go get it. I’ll look it up and link it for you. Surprisingly, North & South, you know that old 80s TV mini-series, actually has some educational value. I haven’t watched N&S, however, a friend lent my daughter the DVD set, which she watched. Apparently, the writers hit many of the War Between the States highlights in the movie because my daughter kept surprising me, while we were reading the book, by knowing … oh, I don’t know, stuff like whether Gettysburg happened before or after Bull Run.

Mila 18 is also a read aloud we’re doing. I think I made an error when I selected it, though, since it’s not half as good as when I read it about 20 years ago. Sure, we’re getting a lot of WWII Polish info, but something is not clicking. I’m tempted to switch to a historical novel set in Florence or Venice since that would tie in well with our (pipe-dream-inspired-pie-in-the-sky) trip. However, if the dollar keeps falling, then maybe Poland will be where we end up going. I could live with that. I’d like to visit eastern Europe.

So, what else has my daughter been doing for school? Oh, yoga - not in a class, but with DVDs and also with just her little white-wired device stuck in her ears.

Hey, we got some third-hand Oregonian pumpkins from some friends. One of them is white. That seems weird to me, but what do I know? That makes me think that they might be from heirloom seeds. They are ultimately (third-hand) from some people who fed us purple potatoes. I am not kidding. Purple potatoes. I think they’re called “blue,” but they were purple on my plate. I suppose I’m the last person to hear of purple potatoes, but they were a new thing for me. They were beautiful on my plate and tasted delicious. So, we’re going to freeze up the pumpkin for pies here pretty soon.

Okay, there. I managed not to complain once about teaching my daughter to drive. I’m positive that I never want to help another person as they learn to drive. She’s a fine driver, but if I were to do it over again, I’d send her to public school for driver education like we did my son. I’m not sure why I dislike it so much; I can’t put my finger on it.

When we were studying Rome many eons ago (8? years), I ordered a coin for next to nothing off of eBay. I think I paid about $7 total, including shipping.

I’ve still got it. We never did clean it even though the seller sent instructions. It’s from Macedonia and has “Constantine” written on it. I believe it to be authentic. I imagine lots of folks are selling similar coins right now on eBay.

It’s not like the kids learned a whole lot from it, but it was a unique way, I thought, to enhance the time we spent learning about Rome. I think, though, if I had to do it all over again, I would buy two coins and give each child a coin of their own to keep instead of treating it like something precious and tucking it away in my desk. I think the kids would have enjoyed having their own Roman coin and carrying it around. Ah, regrets. (I think I need to make another category for entries and file this entry under “Regrets.”)

UPDATE: I went and searched eBay and posted links to auctions of Roman coins over at the bottom of the righthand column.

Do you ever think that some people view homeschoolers in the same way they’re portrayed in the Geico caveman commercials? You know, “So easy a homeschooler can do it.”

I think a few people might. Sometimes. Not consciously, but sometimes. Well, maybe not.

But I think the commercials are hilarious, and I’ve added a “Motto” (subject to change at my whim) over on the top left. But you can click below; the link will take you to YouTube so that you can view a couple of the commercials.

Look what happens when a homeschooler is voted into the state legislature in Montana:

The chairman of the [Montana House Education] committee for the 2007 Legislature will be Constitution Party Rep. Rick Jore of Ronan, who wants to abolish compulsory attendance of public schools and believes federal funding for education is unconstitutional.

Jore refers to public schools as “government schools” and says parents should be given more power to choose whether to have their children educated elsewhere.

“What I’m talking about is recognizing the authority of parents to guide the educational process of their children,” he said Thursday….

Jore will be sponsoring a bill to abolish compulsory attendance at public schools, saying the state should not require attendance at its schools. That decision is up to the parents, he said, who must take responsibility for educating their children.

Jore, whose five children are home-schooled, said he’s not against public schools, but that he does not think they need more funding from the state.

Source: Billings [Montana] Gazette

This should be interesting to watch. Maybe. The article does say that Jore’s appointment as chairman “… brought howls of protest Thursday from public school leaders….” Additionally, the Montana Human Rights Network used the words “outright ideological warfare” when Jore was named committee chairman.

We’ve got all of these web pages online:

• Social Skills and Homeschooling (quoted study link)
• No Thank You, We Don’t Believe in Socialization!
• The “S” Word
• Socialization: A Great Reason Not to Go to School
• Common Objections
• The Hickmans’ Comments
• Fact Sheet
• Socialization: Rules vs. Respect

Any one of those eight web pages is available for anyone to read. There’s also this book available: But What About Socialization? Answering the Perpetual Home Schooling Question: A Review of the Literature.

And yet comments like this still abound:

Mark Mickelsen, director of communications for the Utah Education Association, said because of the lack of socialization with other students in their own age group, often these home-schooled students who return to public school can’t handle the social demands placed on them.

To which social demands is Mark Mickelsen referring? Seriously. Which ones? What goes on in those public schools that can’t be handled by the average homeschooler? “Social demands” — sounds drastic, doesn’t it?

Mickelsen goes on to say:

“When they enter society or go back to public school they are thrown into a public sector again and dealing with diversity and other challenges,” Mickelsen said.

Of course, I’m squinting my eyes at the words, “When they enter society….” Since when are homeschooled students not a part of society?

More from Mickelsen:

“The problem is their ability to interact socially is impeded because they’ve never had it before.” (emphasis mine)

What? Never had what before? I’m not sure Mickelsen is completely clear here. Is he saying that homeschoolers have never had the ability to interact socially before?

Another assertion by Mickelsen:

In public school, he said, there are problems in each stage that prepare the student for the next steps in life. Without this, home-schooled students are eventually thrown into social situations that they couldn’t possible [sic] be prepared to deal with.

Okay, exactly which situations? Truly, I’d like to know. I’m not in the halls of academia day in day out like Mickelsen is as the director of communications for the Utah Education Association, so I haven’t seen these home-schooled students being thrown into impossible social situations. So, did my 13 years in a public school situation prepare me for all social situations? I think he’s implying that it should have, and I know it didn’t. I mean, it’s not like public school prepares students for every social possibility - meeting the President, international travel, funerals, breastfeeding. But the world didn’t come crashing down around me when I ran into sticky situations. Wait, I take that back. I got dumped by my boyfriend at the puzzle table in Kindergarten; the world did crumble that day.

Okay, it’s time to wrap this up; I’m beginning to ramble.

Lastly, Mickelsen states:

“Even with a top-rate education in the home, you can’t add the social aspect,” he said. “It’s to the home-schooled students [sic] detriment.”

It’s just his opinion - one man’s opinion. There are no studies that prove that homeschooling is more socially detrimental than other forms of education - online schools, private schools, or public schools.

Those will be my last comments on socialization. It’s a foolish argument against homeschooling. I won’t even talk to people about it. I am just embarrassed for people who bring it up because I know they haven’t even taken the time to educate themselves before questioning our family’s well-researched decision. I know I can’t teach them anything, so why even discuss it? It’s better to just find some common ground on another topic.

Mickelsen’s quotes courtesy of BYU NewsNet.

I found John Taylor Gatto’s discussion of driver training as it applies to education in general rather timely. This bit demonstrates Gatto’s unswerving (good pun, eh?) clarity:

Notice how quickly people learn to drive well. Early failure is efficiently corrected, usually self-corrected, because the terrific motivation of staying alive and in one piece steers driving improvement.

Yes, I feel like my life has become overrun with driver training. Actually I think that being gone from the home for 4-5 hours every day is too unnerving. I’m not getting my usual work and play done, and I’m all off kilter. I miss my walk with the dogs, our read alouds, and our lunchtime movie. Plus I’m not getting any time in on my update of my Latin/Greek roots book or a few other projects that I should be making headway on.

Our textbook for driver training: Drive Right. Recommended.

In South Jersey some students at Woodrow Wilson High School fear for their lives and may turn to homeschooling.

My daughter is still working on learning to drive. We spent about three hours yesterday out on the road and working on parallel parking.

Parallel parking. Is it even necessary these days? My husband says that he parallel parks fairly often, but I don’t. I couldn’t tell you the last time I parallel parked. (Well, except for yesterday while demonstrating my great parking talent to my daughter.) I avoid parallel parking. It’s an anachronism. No. It’s worse than that because it’s never been truly necessary, not even a long time ago. So, yeah, I guess I have been boycotting parallel parking for some time. I will continue to do so. I call on you to join me.

Hey, I do have some hair left. I’ve not torn it all out. My daughter is driving well. However, traffic is a nightmare. If we had a decent bus system, we might be able to put this whole thing off until later. We’ve tried using it, but the buses are too infrequent, running at one hour intervals. But back to the traffic. Turning left out onto the boulevard in front of the driver testing facility is nearly impossible. There needs to be a light there.

My daughter has called all her friends, who have already taken their driving tests, and has learned these valuable tips:

• breathe in and out at a stop sign before continuing on
• put the car in park when you finish parallel parking
• don’t drive 25 in a 35 mph zone
• don’t pull out into a regulated intersection and wait while turning left

She’s a fine driver. I’m only worried about her passing the driving part of the test. Rumor has it that those who administer the driving test can be capricious. My son passed easily and with enough errors that you’d think he should have been flunked. To me, that makes no sense because we’ve heard stories of terrifyingly picky testers. So my daughter is preparing for the worst.

Paws for Patriots provides guide dogs to veterans who have been blinded serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Years ago, as a homeschooling project, the Walker family started training guide dogs. They’re currently on their eighth dog. It takes two years with the volunteer family before the puppy has been trained and socialized sufficiently to start six months of intensive training. After that, he can be given to a veteran.

Dogs-in-training come with a 140-page manual and about 50 commands to teach, but “mainly it’s love and attention,” Scott Walker said. That, and socializing the dog - getting it used to being around people, staying quiet in restaurants and just generally not being startled by whatever may come up in an average, or not-so-average day….

“This is just not taking on a pet,” Cowan [of Southeastern Guide Dogs] said. “This is socializing a dog that will lead someone for life.”

Source: Macon Telegraph

Here’s the link to the Puppy Raisers page in case your homeschooling family might be interested in this volunteer opportunity.

Melanie Fields’ English 291 class at Northern Kentucky University (yes, university!) was asked to write letters to the editor to showcase their persuasive writing abilities. They were published in The Enquirer.

This is an excerpt from Shannon Croxson’s response to an article on unschooling that had previously appeared in The Enquirer:

How do some parents believe that child-led learning is best for our children?

I don’t understand how a grown adult believes that another child can teach a child everything they need to know in life.

Oh, dear. I don’t think that Shannon Croxson knows what child-led learning is.

Read more here.

And just what does she mean by “… our children,” anyway? I am teaching and have taught my children.

The Journal in Martinsburg, WV, has just added a new reporter to their crew: Tabitha Johnson, homeschooler.

Here’s an article about homeschooling in Virginia, and here’s another.

Homeschooler Bindi Irwin has been nominated for the Most Inspiring Person of the Year, and the competition looks stiff.

The blogging chick over at Relaxed Homeskool posted like a load of pics the other day. The one with the guy in the red cape is like so totally my favorite. Doesn’t that look like Lucy with her Vita-Meata-Veg-amin in the backgroud. “Do you pop out at parties? Are you unpoopular?”

I hate crossword puzzles. I don’t think of them as “fun.” I have never enjoyed them, and I can’t imagine why anyone would include a crossword puzzle in a “game pak.” A crossword puzzle is a miserable excuse for a game. Additionally, they’re not a great instructional tool–at least not unless the student enjoys crossword puzzles. And then crossword puzzles are probably only good for reviewing knowledge already learned. I’m not saying that they can’t be used for good instead of evil, but they’re not a game. Ms. PacMan is a game. Galaga is a game. Monopoly is a game. Operation is a game. SSX Tricky is a game. Halo is a game. I’ve played games, and a crossword puzzle is by no means a game. Let’s not lie to our students.

Okay, so what brought on that rant? I read a press release about PixLit.com. They claim, “We give kids a fun learning experience complete with online videos and interactive games….” I went to their site and looked at the catalog which includes a “game pak” complete with a crossword puzzle and two matching games. Apparently, it’s free as long as you sign up and give them your name, address, phone number, etc. But I seldom trade my personal information for a few pseudo games, so I didn’t actually try out the “games.” Maybe they are enormously fun, but I am skeptical.

Dear Bonnie Erbe,

Here’s some homework for you. Please read this article about successful Grace Sheffler who happens to have been unschooled.

I think that more and more homeschooling parents will switch over to online schools because it’s just a whole lot easier for some. Some parents won’t even start homeschooling because online schools will seem like a good idea. Here’s an example:

“It’s a lot better than trying to make the lessons myself,” said Courtney, who home schooled her sons - Cole, 7, and Kyle, 9 - before she discovered the academy two years ago. “Everything is already planned. I’m not reinventing the wheel.”

Now, truthfully, there’s no wheel reinvention going on around here. I can homeschool and not actually have to reinvent any wheels. It’s shocking, I know. However, not everyone has my “vision” of what education is all about, so some of those folks will use an online school. That’s reasonable.

With growth of 30 percent a year, online schooling is experiencing phenomenal growth. It’s really the wave of the future–or next week. I don’t put it under the heading “homeschooling” even though it can occur at home because many times it’s done in connection with the public school. But some would say I’m splitting hairs; others wouldn’t.Guess who doesn’t like online schooling?

Classroom teachers. (Are you as surprised as I am?) According to the article, some teachers unions are fighting back by filing lawsuits.

Source: journalnow.com

I was reading Cynthia Walker’s opinion piece in the Gilroy [CA] Dispatch where it states that only 0.62 % of high school graduates are placed in college-level math classes when they enroll at their local college.

I read “… .62 percent …” and thought, “Well, that got translated wrong. That’s less than 1 percent. That can’t be correct.” And yet it is! Less than 1% of Gilroy High School students who go onto Gavilan College are able to be placed in college-level math courses.

I’m wondering, “What is going on?” It’s not like they’re all at the beach instead of fiddling with x and y because Gilroy’s not near the beach. So I searched out the original article that Cynthia Walker was referring to: Most Grads Unprepared for Gavilan. The article didn’t tell me the cause of this deficit, but I did find out that these students have English as their first language. So. Hmmm.

Anyway, Cynthia Walker is a homeschooling mom who’s currently teaching at a homeschool co-op. She likes Saxon and used it with her students at her home. She explains why she likes Saxon in this article. At Live Oak Academy, the co-op’s name, she is required to teach from Jacobs and Foerster. She prefers Saxon.

In case you’re dying to find out, I taught my son out of Foerster. It’s excellent, imo, but doesn’t have spiral review. You have to make your own spiral review by doing the evens for each lesson and picking up the odds from previous lessons. It works just fine as long as the instructor has the few extra minutes it takes to plan a lesson.

If I had it to do over again, I would still use Foerster for Algebra 1 with my son—he didn’t get along with Saxon. However, with my daughter we’re using Teaching Textbooks (TT). My son used TT Alg. 2, but it was a bit too easy after Foerster. TT is an extremely simple product to use. Each book (Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Geometry, etc.) comes with a set of CDs to use on the computer that teaches lesson slowly and methodically and with good graphics. All examples are shown step by step and so are the solutions. It’s like a dream come true for the homeschooling parent.

We didn’t use Jacobs for algebra, but my son used it for geometry. He used the third edition, which is nice and colorful. Harold Jacobs really loves geometry, and it shines through in the problems he gives students. They’re so creative and interesting. The book is organized nicely also, making it easy to learn/teach from.

Cynthia Walker thinks that if Gilroy United School District (GUSD) would only use Saxon math texts that all its math problems would be solved. She does provide plenty of anecdotal evidence to demonstrate that her own homeschooled students were more than prepared for college-level mathematics after using Saxon mathematics texts. However, I don’t think Gilroy’s problems will be solved so easily.

Do you know why? It’s because homeschooling outcomes are not easily replicated in the classroom setting. What happens in the homeschool can rarely happen in the classroom. Mom vs. trained teacher. Doing the work on one’s own bed vs. at a desk in a room full of people. While eating popcorn vs. starving. Not to mention that there’s a better than average chance that the objectives and methods are going to be different, too, even though the same materials are used. I maintain that homeschooling outcomes are not easily replicated in the classroom setting. It’s nearly impossible. I doubt that the math textbook the GUSD is using is really the culprit.

Which puts me right back to the question I asked at the beginning: What is going on? Why are only 0.62 percent of Gilroy graduates entering Gavilan College prepared to perform college-level mathematics?