I mean no offense to the nice teacher calling to inquire about Rebecca, but the message itself made me laugh when she said, "We're practically on the other side of the world from you," in relation to where the school is located: distance to the school = 22 miles, distance to my work = 38 miles, distance to Mike's work = 29 miles, distance to the pediatrician = 27 miles, etc. Seeing a pattern? If 22 miles away is, "the other side of the world," then I would like to know how this program plans to broaden my child's scope of the world? So I looked again at the handout they sent home with Rebecca on the first day back to her homeschool enrichment program. The program meets once per week, all day, and some sample sessions are: "Snap It" - take pictures using iPhoto complemented with creative writing (CHECK: Does making her own vacation DVD this summer using iDVD count? How about writing and publishing her own posts for this blog?) "Fold It Up" - learn about Japanese art and origami. (CHECK: I think she earned a girl scout badge for origami because I remember the two of us one day making oodles of origami creatures to take to a meeting. How about our recent trip to the Phoenix Art Museum and checking out the Asian Art display? Her haiku notebooks she keeps?) "Flying High" - the principles of flight and designing a structure that will survive launch into orbit. (CHECK: Challenger Space Camp? The rocket she built and launched with her dad, the cub scout leader?) I'm sure these activities would be great if she wasn't ALREADY doing them! If she needed a break from the boring classroom where she was already way ahead of the rest of the class, then I would sign her up. However, here's where I want to make another case for homeschooling: I designed the curriculum with my child's individual needs already in mind!
New day and I'm still trying to figure out if I'm challenging my "gifted" child. I've decided to analyze what we're doing for signs of "gifted." Here is a true sample window into my world this morning:
- Around 8:30AM wandered out to find Rebecca on the couch reading Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. She's excited about reading this book because she wants to partake in a book club with her friends, and this is the book they're reading. "Did you eat breakfast?" I say. "Yes, I had Nutella on toast, watermelon, and milk," she says.
- I make tea, and check to see if I'm up on Facebook Scrabble (a.k.a. "Mommy's teacher lounge.")
- Patrick wanders out and pours himself a bowl of Raisin Bran and a glass of orange juice. He sits at the table and starts reading his 933-page Philip Pullman novel that he selected for himself at Half Price Books earlier in the week. I laugh at parents struggling to find "A.R." (Accelerated Reader) books from the school's list when this process is so easy, and I want to brag for a minute: they both had near-perfect reading comprehension scores on their standardized tests without ever taking a single "A.R. comprehension test."
- Everybody's done with breakfast, and we decide it's time to start math. We spend nearly an hour on the following problem from Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra by Stanley F. Schmidt, Ph.D.: "Snow stopped breathing (he is an army sergeant that has kidnapped Fred, our main character through the math book, who is a five-year-old college math professor), and the nurse indicated to the doctor that there may be something wrong. The doctor concurred and ordered that Snow be given some medicine. What he said to the nurse was, '30 cc of 25% cough medicine,' figuring that if Snow would cough, he'd have to start breathing again. The nurse ran to the cabinet and found two bottles. One of them was too weak. It only contained 20% of the cough medicine by volume. The other bottle was too strong. It was 35% of the cough medicine by volume. The nurse had to mix the two together to get 30 cc of 25% medicine. (A "cc" is a cubic centimeter. That's about the volume of a small sugar cube.) How much of each were used?" This math question led us to pull out a bottle of Robitussin, a bottle of Axe (we didn't have another cough medicine), and a medicine syringe, as we did a physical demonstration of what was being asked. They made legends, devised an equation, added the values, discussed the hypothetical possibility of whether or not this medicine would solve Snow's medical issue, and they argued like all good 10 and 12-year-old siblings do. In the end, they solved the problem.
- After math, they went to work on writing blog posts for Our Homeschool Mystery since we have a loose goal of one blog post per month, and they haven't done one for August yet. While they write, I write too, as I am doing right now. I can't think of a better way to motivate them to write, then for them to watch me do it, as well.
I asked Rebecca if she wanted to go to the gifted school because ultimately we have a democratic household. Her response: "I would miss my friends." I said: "But maybe you could make new friends?" Her response: "The kids in that class are all nerdy boys, one annoying girl, and one sassy girl." Well, that sounds fun! After her first day back to her two-day-per-week enrichment program, the first thing she wanted to tell me when I picked her up was how she led the class around to all their rotating classrooms because she had "memorized the map" and knew where everything was (they are at a new campus.) This was the most fun part of her day. She enjoys being the leader. She likes it when her peers ask for her help with things. Why would I want to put her in a class where she is no longer the leader? When she gets in the "real world," will she not be with all walks of life -- followers and leaders? So . . . for all those people that criticize homeschooling for segregating children, I say to you: school segregates children! Homeschooling allows kids to learn at the pace and level appropriate for each child, and they can then make friends the way the rest of us do: through common interests, clubs, groups, church, sports, and shared social time together.
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