What is Age?

Well, I've now been to more book signings than movies this year. I look at this as yet one more feather in my cap towards Ultimate Dorkdom. My husband brought me a glass of water last night while I was lying in bed, and he was at a loss as to where to set it down because of the 17 books (and he counted them) on my nightstand that I am currently reading. I love books!

My brief interchange with a quasi-celebrity went like this: my 12 year-old son and I stood in the bookstore line with a copy of Dave Barry's, I'll Mature When I'm Dead. When we got up to Dave, he asked for whom he was signing the book. To which I told him that it was for Mike, my husband. So he wrote in the book, "Mike, Do NOT grow up - Dave Barry." And I said to him, "That's perfect, I'm married to a child." To which he turned to my son who was holding up his cellphone to take a picture and said, "So who is this?" And I said, "That's the child's child. He's the only one that can work the cellphone camera." We all had a good chuckle out of that, then we sat down to listen to Dave tell us excerpts from his book. It was a pretty packed house, and Dave was very funny. My son was CRACKING UP. Until this point, Patrick was pretty much along for the ride, hoping that I would buy him something later. People sitting in front of us were actually turning around to see my son laughing so loudly. I looked around the room, and Patrick appeared to be the youngest person there -- by a lot. This observation got me thinking about why that might be. If you have been following this blog, you know that my kids partake in their fair share of kid-specific activities: everything from scouts to camp to their homeschool band. But my kids are equally comfortable around a variety of age brackets, and I think this is yet another wonderful aspect of homeschooling.

Starting with homeschool park days, kids all play together with a variety of ages -- there are toddlers all the way through teenagers. I remember one of my first impressions of homeschooled kids is how sweet they were with all the other kids at park days and not cliquey at all. Homeschooled  kids get used to welcoming new families into their group all the time so they are not standoffish with newcomers like some schooled children are. These park days are often pretty unstructured so the kids become resourceful at starting and making up new games to play, unlike P.E. classes at school where the activities are directed. Even when they go to their homeschool enrichment program, they have many multi-age classes. Right now, my kids are knee-deep in group-work building a medieval castle, a cardboard boat that they will be sinking sailing in next week, a balloon orchestra for the talent show, a reader's theater, chorus, and band performance, and that's all just this week! Sometimes they are the youngest in a group, and sometimes they are the oldest, but isn't this how it is in the real world? Don't we work with people that are all different ages? We must get along with all of them. We are not segregated by our chronological age. I'm always puzzled when I'm filling out something for one of my kids that asks what "grade" they are in. My 10 year-old is technically in 4th grade, but she looks 14 years old, acts out imaginative games like an 8 year-old, enjoys going up for children's story-time at church with the 6 year-olds, works out of an 8th grade math book, and knows her Greek mythology like a 54 year-old college professor. So what grade is she in? Here's where it just doesn't matter in homeschooling -- you can be in whatever grade you want. So on top of getting along with all different age kids, my kids also seem to really like adults -- or atleast their parents. I don't know if this is because we spend so much time together with them day in and day out, or if it's just because we are way-cool (I'm sure that's it.) However, I certainly never wanted to hang out with my parents when I was a kid, and I have to think that there is a closeness that develops between the parent and the child when the parent is also the teacher. I wouldn't trade these years for anything!

The Journey of Stuff

Since my mom is getting out of the girl scout business, we spent last Thursday with all the girl scout families cleaning out and moving all the girl scout stuff out of our garage. My mom decided that since it was also Earth Day on Thursday, April 22nd, we could also show them a short documentary called The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard. It is about where our stuff comes from, what happens when we throw it away, how it is affecting the environment, and how we are on a dangerous path which is using up all our resources. If you haven't seen this film, and you also have a lot of stuff, you can  watch it free on the Internet at : http://www.storyofstuff.com/. We also have her new book, The Story of Stuff, which includes all her research on the subject for 10 years.

The first problem with our ways of making stuff, is the fact that we are running out of natural resources to make the stuff with. Almost one third of the worlds natural resources have already been consumed and thrown away. I would really like to know how long it will take to consume the rest of the world's resources at this rate. It is obvious that our way of making stuff needs to stop. It is even more vital that we stop putting so many chemicals in our stuff.

Some products have been known to have up to one hundred thousand synthetic chemicals in them of which none have been tested with other chemicals we use in day to day life. Pillows, some blankets, and mattresses are good examples of this. They are doused in B.F.Rs (Brominated Flame Retardants), otherwise known as a Neurotoxin, otherwise know as a toxin that kills brain cells. A pleasant thing to rest your head on for eight to ten hours a night! Adding chemicals to products also ruins the environment. Although a lot of the chemicals leave the factories in the form of products, even more chemicals leave as pollution. The United States alone admits to releasing more than 4,000,000,000 lbs. of pollution each year.

The next part of the journey of stuff, is actually buying the stuff. This is often no problem for the average American as they buy stuff all the time, but who said we were really buying the stuff. Part of the documentary was about how we don't really pay for the stuff we buy. One day she was walking to work and wanted to listen to the radio so she went to Radio Shack and bought a radio, for five dollars. As she listened to it, she began to wonder how the radio could cost her five dollars. She learned that the metals were likely mined in South Africa, The Plutonium was drilled in Iraq, the plastics were probably made in China, and the whole thing was probably put together by some fifteen year old in Mexico. Either way, it made me think that I can't even get a bus ticket that would take me to the next city with five dollars let alone across several countries! I wonder how they have enough money to pay the workers.

The final problem with the journey of stuff is how we are getting rid of it. Corporations have long ago mastered the art of scamming customers. Two of their most useful ones are planned obsolescence, and perceived obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is when the corporations try to make an object break, become archaic, or useless as fast as they can. The sad part is, it works. Ninety-nine percent of all the stuff we throw away was purchased less than six weeks ago. Perceived obsolescence is when the corporation tries to convince you to throw away perfectly good stuff by making it look out of fashion. In other words both planned and perceived obsolescence means "designed for the dump." After the corporations have convinced you to throw away an item, it is then dragged out to the curb where it spends the night with all the other junk awaiting its fate. Our unfortunate can of garbage is then taken to a landfill that is just a big hole in the ground. The junk then gets either buried in the landfill, or burned in an incinerator and then buried in the landfill. Although both methods are extremely dangerous to the environment because of the possibility of any water in the landfill becoming leachate (an extremely toxic material made as water trapped in the landfill is blended into the toxic chemicals) and flowing into ground water supplies and poisoning them. Incinerating trash before burial is even more dangerous to the environment. Do you remember all those toxic chemicals that were in all that stuff that was just thrown out: the Neurotoxins and the B.F.Rs in the pillows, mattresses, and blankets? Well, they were just incinerated and the chemicals were changed into the super toxin called Dioxin (deadliest toxin known to science) under the high heat. So just throwing away stuff is not as simple as it seems.

In her new book about the story of stuff, an example of one of the things she does for school presentations is she takes a soda can, places it on the table, and asks the students, "What is it?" If the can is on the table, they say, "It is a soda can." Next, she throws the soda can in the trash can and asks the students, "What is it now?" If the same can is now in the trash can, they say, "It is trash."  She pulls it out...it's a can. She puts it back in...its trash. So trash isn't the condition of an object, it is whether or not it is in the trash can. Another way of explaining this theory is that what one person thinks is trash, may not be considered trash by another person. Also in her book, she talks about being in Bangladesh and seeing an old shampoo bottle she threw in the trash later the next day pulled out of the trash and with the addition of wheels it was now a child's toy car. When my mom looks in my room, all she sees is "trash." My favorite Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows poster = trash to her. My dad's slightly battered acoustic guitar = goodwill item or garage sale item or dumpster contents. Plans for a hydraulic engine system that I plan to earn a million dollars with = fire place food. Kirby pinata I made out of paper mache = art box, garage or any other place on earth (or not) where she will never have to look at it again. These are only a few examples. If I were to list all of the stuff she has an urge to give away, throw away, or light fire to, I would have to start a whole other blog.

However, this blog is about what our family is doing in our homeschool "mystery." So what we are doing this month is trying to figure out how we can stop environmental problems. We also went to Earth Day at the Chandler Environmental Education Center and International Migratory Bird Day at the Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area. I think it would be nice if people would celebrate Earth Day past April 22nd.

Camp-outs and Camp-ins

There are many ways to learn through every day life. You can learn from cooking, cleaning, camping, traveling, eating, playing, and just plain living.You also learn from making mistakes. My family likes traveling and camping so you can guess that it's one of our main sources of learning.

It's quite easy to learn from traveling and camp-outs because it exposes you to different things. While you're there, ask your parents if you can visit a local museum or visitor center or search the web before leaving. I remember when my family and I went camping in Oregon, and we visited the whale watching center in Depoe Bay and learned about whales and whale migration. Camping is also a great way to learn about nature. When I was four years old, I went to Lyman Lake with my family, collected leaves in a journal, and later tried to figure out what type of tree it came from. Now, I write in my journal or draw what I see while we're camping. It's great to write about my travels so I can remember them without a camera. The writing is also part of my schooling so I can learn correct punctuation, spelling, and grammar. I love camp-outs because of the learning.

One of the other things I learn on camp-outs is outdoor skills. Back in October of 2009, I went on a beach camp-out with my friends and family. I learned fire safety, how to escape from a riptide, how the tides follow the moon which determines high tide and low tide, and how shark attacks are very rare. Since we were camping in California, we also learned about the animals in that area. I also go on camp-outs with my girl scout troop. One of the first camp-outs I've been on with my girl scout troop was when we went to Lost Dutchman State Park were we learned that if you're camping during a lighting storm you should go inside a car because it has rubber tires, to always hike with a buddy, and how to put up a tent. On another camp-out with girl scouts we went horse camping. There we learned all about a horse's body, how to take care of a horse, and how to ride a horse. I also find myself very lucky when it's time to ride the horses. It started back when my girl scout troop went to ride horses for a badge workshop. I got to ride the best out of three horses, Callie. It happened again at horse camp when I was supposed to ride Sassy Gassy (who, by the way, I'm deathly afraid of) but she turned out to have a hurt hoof so I got switched over to Daisy, who I found to be the best horse on the ranch. None of this would have happened if I hadn't camped in the great outdoors.

You can learn a lot from camp-ins, too. Now you're probably wondering what a camp-in is. Sometimes it means to stay in a hotel, but in our case, it's sleepovers, slumber parties, etc. Most camp-ins teach you about what no to do. Sometimes they include eating too much sugar before bed and feeling sick the next morning, running around the house and hurting yourself, and staying up late then being crabby the next morning. The most important thing I've learned is that you should not eat more than five pieces of chocolate before bed and zero before breakfast, but don't get me wrong, I love camp-ins. All your friends coming over to play games and eat candy, it's so much fun, and you learn stuff, too!

As you can see, I have learned a lot from my camp-outs and camp-ins. It is very sad that the Arizona State Parks are closing due to budget problems. Many of these campgrounds that I have visited will be closing or have closed already. To learn more, go to http://www.azstateparks.com/.

How I Was Taught to Ski by Beaverman

By now I think I may have already mentioned this to anyone actually reading this blog, but last week I was taught to cross country ski by a beaver. Or a man. Or a Beaverman. I'm not sure.

It was an unexpected twist to the snow adventure that my son and I took last week. It all started after my "unsocialized" homeschooled son worked at the church rummage sale all day without his parents around: one was working and the other one was peddling Girl Scout cookies. My son was picked up on the front porch at 5:00AM, and he did not return home until 3:00PM that afternoon so he had plenty of time to check out the merchandise. He was assigned as a "floater" at the sale, relieving the other youth for their breaks, but found the "Sporting Goods and Hardware" section to be in particular need of help. Apparently, he spotted a snowboard being sold for the whopping price of $5. Having been taught from an early age never to pass up a bargain, he bought the snowboard, brought the thing home, and for every day afterwards was snowboarding in the living room. This is what happens when you are brought up as a desert rat. This is also what happens after Shaun White sweeps the Winter Olympics just weeks before the snowboard is spotted, and you are a homeschooled kid who has just spent the last month using the Olympics as the basis for geography, history, and science lessons. (I'm adding another link here for a good science site.) This is the second time we have used the Olympics in our homeschooling adventure; the first time was the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I was recently "organizing" homeschool stuff (ha ha, the task that never ends) and came across the 50+ page "Educational Kit" that I printed off during the Beijing Olympics (x 2 kids = 1 printer cartridge), and I'm just so thankful that we didn't get knee-deep in the Chinese "fuwa" mascots again because that was a lot of ink! Remember them? They looked like little Pokemon, but they were a fish, a flame, a panda, a bird, and an antelope. All color ink, by the way. So this year's Olympic studies concentrated in the online.

Anyway, time had come to take the kid to the snow so we decided to try cross-country skiing, but we brought the snowboard along. The thinking here was that if we got really good at cross-country, then we could take on the half-pipe later in the day. We are nothing if not optimists. The other thing at work here was the fact that the one and only time I went skiing, when I was just about the same age as my son, I ended up riding the ski lift downhill after a little mishap where I failed to get off at the top. I'm still recovering from the humiliation of arriving alone back at the embarkation spot with my skiing companion laughing his way down the hill. I will try downhill skiing again when I get good enough to ski to the top.

So we arrived at the Flagstaff Nordic Center all set for a day of "easy" cross-country skiing, and I encountered yet another skiing obstacle: I couldn't get the ski on. There were seven of us enrolled in the beginning class, and they all got their skis on prior to the instructor's arrival at the meeting spot. So when the instructor walked out there, all six of them were there (my own son had already disowned me), but I was about 20 feet away at the ski put-on place frantically trying to shove right boot into right ski to no avail. Here's where I first encountered Beaverman. I had heard stories about the infamous half-man, half-beaver Scottish hobo, but I hardly expected to find him in the Coconino National Forest teaching ski lessons (although stranger things have happened to me.) I'm sure it was him. When I master adding photos to the blog, I will post a picture of him, but he was most certainly my cross-country ski instructor, taking time out of his busy day munching wood to get me skiing. Thankfully, Beaverman also got my ski on.

But my troubles did not stop there. As it turns out, Beaverman quickly identified that I had not yet mastered walking. So while my six other classmates were already far ahead, Beaverman removed my skis, and instructed me to "walk around for awhile" until I got the feel of it. I have a long history of sitting in the back of the class, never asking questions, figuring stuff out for myself, etc. so I was really happy to have all this extra attention! It was so great to have come all this way to walk around in the snow! I think Beaverman sensed there was some hostility because after my walking demonstration he said, "Here, come give me a hug, you're doing great! What do you do for a living?" I said, "I'm an emergency nurse." To which he said, "Oh, well there are no lives to save here today, we're just having a good time." Hmph.

Things did get better, and as soon as I got my skis back on, I pretty much ditched Beaverman. At the end of the class, my son and I did a loop trail, on skis, and it was really fun. So I'm recommending cross-country skiing. Thumbs up. We also stopped at Montezuma Castle, and we're still pondering how it is that Montezuma Castle and Notre Dame Cathedral were built the same year. It's mind boggling. Here are some photos to compare:

The Scarlet Letter "H"

I still find it very difficult to tell people that I homeschool my kids, and I've been doing it for three years. I've been told that it gets easier, but I haven't noticed that yet. You'd think that with estimates being close to two million homeschooled kids in the United States, people would have a better acceptance with the idea of homeschooling, but I think homeschoolers are still hotly prejudged.

One of the benefits of homeschooling is that we can do "school" whenever we want, and we are able to make use of the less-crazy hours of the day to schedule dentist and doctor appointments, go shopping, and have fun. Unfortunately, it's during these "school hours" that we encounter the most ridiculous questions. They usually start with, "Is school out early today?" and end with, "But how do you know if they're learning anything?" when we attempt to explain our lives.

I've thought of different ways of handling these questions such as: handing the questioner a pre-printed fact sheet, answering my new response: "See my blog," or just deflecting altogether: "We're happily living the lives of morons." Better yet, maybe we should just go out in public with the big scarlet letter "H" for "homeschooling" around our necks so everyone knows our crime.

My dental hygienist is a personal favorite "questioner." I've gone to the same hygienist for over ten years. Being the dental snob that I am, I actually request her when I make appointments, and she keeps notes on what equipment to use on me. If she ever moved or retired, my teeth would probably fall out of my head. Plus, I like her. However, I think it's because I only see her every six months, and where I always remember every conversation I've had with someone, she can never remember that I homeschool my kids. We usually get started slowly. It usually goes a little something like this:

"How's work?" (She knows this because it says I'm a nurse on my chart.)
"Busy, everybody decided to get drunk and go to the ER over the weekend."
"Oh, do you only work weekends?"
"And Mondays, some Tuesdays."
"Oh, so what do you do the rest of the week?"
"I homeschool my children."
(She backs away from the teeth scraping with a puzzled look.)
"But how do they get their socialization?"
(This is fun to give a one-liner to when your mouth is full of sharp objects.)
"Well, they've done scouts, ballet, Irish dance, hula dance, tap dance, church, choir, youth group, chess club, soccer, baseball, basketball, golf, karate, archery, science classes, art classes, drama classes, music lessons, play in a band, gone away to camp numerous times, and go to a homeschool enrichment program that is essentially a 'school' 2 days per week."
"But aren't they missing something?"
(Here's where I give the puzzled look. Seriously? Am I really being asked this?)
"Like what?"
"Like tests, how do you know how they're doing?"
(Wait a second, I guess she gave up on socialization.)
"I let my kids take the AIMS (Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards) test every year, and they always pass despite the fact that I have not taught from the test the whole year as the schools do."
"But how will they get into college?"
"Colleges love homeschoolers because they are self-starters. There are also community colleges, online universities, ACT tests, and SAT tests that can get them where they want to go."
"I just can't imagine doing that."

I can't tell you how many conversations I've had that have gone just like this!!! And then I'll have the same conversation with the same people again! Homeschooling is still an idea that people just consider "weird" despite whatever evidence there is to the contrary. Compounding the problem is that many homeschoolers remain quiet about their practices for fear of losing their right to homeschool. If you're interested in seeing how this right has been threatened, there are many cases documented on http://www.hslda.org.

Secrets of the Old Schoolhouse

I think it's important to start at the beginning. My kids did attend school initially. My son did two years of preschool, then kindergarten, 1st grade, 2nd grade, and half of 3rd grade. My daughter did two years of preschool, then kindergarten, and half of 1st grade. It was from these experiences that we made the decision to homeschool. There was not any one incident that left us running from the school system, but rather a culmination of my observations as a parent volunteer at the school, and my conversations with their teachers (including two years in a row of my relevant questions making the teachers cry during parent-teacher conferences!) The only other contributing factor towards our decision to homeschool may have been my undergraduate education in the teaching of English, but I feel strongly that homeschooling parents do not need a teaching degree to be successful with their own children. However, in my case, my education probably gave me the confidence I needed to actually pull them out of school.

Besides the usual stuff I always heard in our parent-teacher conferences, "Your kids are very smart, very quiet, and very well-behaved," I found the parent-teacher conferences to be a real window into what was going on there. Prior to the parent-teacher conference, there is back-to-school night where your child basically finds out what the teacher looks like and what side of the room he/she will be sitting on. Then there is the generic information sent home about rules and homework policies. But the parent-teacher conference is the first time we get to sit down with the individual who is going to have an enormous impact on our child's life, and really discuss how and what our child is doing in school. I prepared for my parent-teacher conference by providing a short reading list for the teacher (LOL) and including a copy of "Twenty Tips for Teachers" from the book The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine N. Aron, PhD. Apparently, teachers do not take warmly towards suggestions from parents on how to better handle their children. In my current field, this is called continuing education. Also in my current field, I strive to create an individual plan of care for each patient's unique health problem. Yet throughout my kids' time in the school system, I was continually reminded that my children would not be learning anything unique to their needs, but instead what the rest of the class needed or what was mandated by the school district.

When my daughter started kindergarten she was already reading. Despite this fact, her daily homework centered around learning the sounds of the alphabet starting with the letter A the first week, and continuing each week through the letter Z. On the first night of the week she would need to write the letter A a few zillion times. The next night she would have to find items around the house that started with the letter A. The following night she would have to glue items around the letter A, and so on through the week. I began to ask Rebecca if her teacher knew that she could already read. Her reply: "I don't know Mommy, there isn't anything to read. She reads to us." I suggested to Rebecca that since she was shy with her teacher, that she make it her goal to get the teacher to notice that she could already read so that possibly she could *practice* that skill at school. The phonics homework continued and still no reading work. When I had my first parent-teacher conference I asked her teacher if she knew that Rebecca could already read. She said she knew this fact, but since there were only three readers in her class, she needed to concentrate on getting the other kids reading by the end of the year. The teacher felt that Rebecca really only needed to work on getting over her shyness this year because, of course, shyness is something one can simply just choose to stop doing! By the way, she is still pretty shy and so am I, at times, and I'm nearing 40!

My son had these same issues during his time in school. In 1st grade Patrick was (and still is) nuts about science. At the first parent-teacher conference I asked why the class did not do any science activities. His teacher told me that she wanted to do science, but that in 1st grade the science standards were so minimal compared to all the language and math standards that science would be limited. She then asked me if I would volunteer to help in the classroom one afternoon per week when she got started on science. My thoughts were, "Oh, this is probably going to get real messy, and she wants another body to help contain the mess and clean up afterwards." When I arrived the first time I was surprised to find that the kids were doing "science" worksheets where they identified people who use science in their jobs. I was the "scientist" as a nurse so I got to talk about what types of science I use in my job. The kids had a million questions about bones, blood, skin, you name it! Eventually the teacher had to cut me off from the barrage of questions, but I felt like I was getting cut off from my Oscar acceptance speech. Clearly, I was the most interesting thing that had happened in this class all year. The next week I arrived with my skeleton model, clay to make muscles, and my anatomy coloring book, but once we got going with looking at the skeleton, naming the bones, and pointing to our own bones, I was cut off again for another "science" worksheet, this one asking, "What does a bone do? Supports the body. What do teeth do? Chew. What is skin for? Protection." Good night. Seriously, that was the whole content of the worksheet, the rest was graphics of big-headed, cartoon-style children that they could color. Six year old kids want to do stuff, not fill in worksheets. Once again I felt like we were stopping before they might learn too much. I wanted to take a few of them aside and say, "Meet me in the hall after class, and I'll show you some more cool bones!"

One of my favorite memories from our school days, and the one that probably had the most impact on me, occurred when I had the daughter of Rebecca's teacher in my girl scout troop. Her teacher and her daughter carpooled with me on a troop trip to volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul homeless center. They were really impressed with all the troop trips we took to museums, multicultural activities we did, and desire to help with different problems in our community. We got to discussing the challenges of trying to teach school in a state where there is still a large percentage of second-language learners, yet an "English-only" policy, the struggles of the "No Child Left Behind" Act and how it concentrated its efforts on getting the lower performing students up to par, but did nothing to assist the upper performing students. Her teacher told me that when she reached 3rd grade she could test for the gifted program (which I have strong feelings against anyway), but that the gifted program met after school. So they sit all day bored in a classroom, and then go to an enrichment program during the time that they would normally have extracurricular activities such as sports, scouts, or a social life. By this time I had already toured both private schools and charter schools, and came to the realization that if we were to switch schools, then we would be spending all our time on the highway shuttling back and forth. I explained to her that I wanted my children to have an education that continually nurtured a lifelong interest in learning, rather than just the basics. Then her teacher said to me, "Kathy, the school is always going to cater to the lowest common denominator. If you want your children to have an education beyond the state standards, then you're going to have to supplement them at home." Wow. That really hit me. So I had to keep them home so they could get an education! What a concept!

I knew people that homeschooled. I thought they were crazy. I felt the kids must be missing out on so much. Then I observed some of their time with their friends at school. You know, that fifteen minutes of recess they get after they eat lunch in a crammed cafeteria. Everyone should watch this show at some point. The kids run around like lunatics. The quiet ones wandering around searching for a familiar face. This is the important "socialization" that my children would be missing if I were to pull them out of school. When I volunteered in Patrick's 3rd grade class, I walked around helping the kids with their work, while the teacher wrote names on the board for talking. We were a tag team, she and I, but why was I doing the teaching part? What about the technology available at the school, like the computers. Rebecca went an entire year without a working computer login. When I asked what she did during computer time, I was told she could work on "worksheets." Yippee!

And so we began our homeschooling journey at winter break in December 2006. Three years have gone by now, and we have a lot to say about the subject! More later . . .