Disspelling the Doubts of Homeschooling

This month, I decided to google search for some topics for a post. One of the most popular topics I found was about how bad homeschooling is. So, I thought I'd dispel some of these doubts about homeschooling.

1) The first anti-homeschool result I found was from http://www.ehow.com/list_6603210_reasons-against-home-schooling.html. It said, "It is difficult to understand how a parent or parents can provide their children with the same level of academic opportunity as an entire staff of trained professionals. They must depend upon a self-planned curriculum or those they have found elsewhere. Each curriculum varies widely in efficacy and can lead to different levels of learning. A school setting offers specialists in each field, including music, art and speech. As bright and dedicated as a home educator might be, he/she simply cannot fill all of those roles." You don't need a curriculum to teach. We actually only have two curriculum we use, one of which we use rarely. The rest is just things like writing blog posts, or taking music lessons. No one person is filling in all the roles. Many people are filling in all the roles.

2) Another search result took me to a site called http://teacherrevised.org/2009/05/30/the-case-against-homeschooling/ Number seven on the list said, "God hates homeschooling. From my side, to take your faithful children out of schools is to miss an opportunity to spread the grace, power and beauty of the Lord." Theoretically Jesus was homeschooled. At the time Rome didn't have free schools, and you can't say a guy who was born in a hay trough was rich. So who schooled him? Exactly, his parents.

3) The next site I found was a site called http://www.educateexpert.com/argumentsagainsthomeschooling.html. My favorite argument from this site is the third argument. It says, "You need to think about when it comes to the arguments against home schooling is the distraction factor. If a child is schooled at home, the result can be that the child does not take their studies seriously, especially when a parent is their teacher. This behavior could thus result in poor grades." True they could be distracted, but that doesn't mean they'll get bad grades. Even as I write this post, Rebecca's computer is playing the annoying, almost jazzy music that comes with her Kitty Care video game. I think that's distraction enough. Yet I still write this blog post, and the last thing I'm thinking about is watching her play her game. It is still possible to work at home without distraction, you just need to know how to avoid being distracted. Don't adults get distracted at their jobs, too, and have to learn how to deal with it?

4) The next anti-homeschooling thing I found was the third or fourth comment on http://www.pjnet.com.my/ftopict-3660-.html. It said, "I personally dislike homeschooling because it deprives the children from interacting with other kids their age. This does limit their social skills." I think people against homeschooling take the term to literally. They think that we only school at home. However, I honestly think we school more away from home than we do at home. With the many field trips and events between our two homeschool groups we really only homeschool at home on Thursdays, some Fridays, and Saturdays. That's four out of seven days that we are interacting with other homeschoolers. So, socialization isn't a problem.

If this blog post didn't dispel some of the doubts about homeschooling I don't know what will.

Massacre Grounds

Thanksgiving Tuesday is coming to a close here at our house, and we'll be working on turkey leftovers for the rest of the week. We celebrated early due to the homeschooling parents' crazy work schedules, but the good news is that both Mom and Dad will be off for Christmas this year for the first time in three years. Woohoo!

While the turkey was in the oven, we took a short hike to the Massacre Grounds along the northwestern slope of the Superstition Mountains off of First Water Trailhead. The Tonto Forest Rangers have closed the dirt access road to the Massacre Grounds, but the trail can still be reached by parking in the Crosscut Trailhead parking area, and heading southeast along the dirt trail following the many rock cairns. Here are a few shots of the ones I photographed along the way. We all thought this was a cool way to keep track of a pretty unused trail. We never saw a soul the whole afternoon. The entire trail with the new trail access is about 5 miles round trip with approximately a 1000 foot elevation gain with great views. We could see Four Peaks and even the Phoenix skyline distantly to the far west.

The Massacre Grounds take its name from the alleged massacre of the Peralta mining family by the Apaches around 1848 because the Apaches held this part of the Superstitions as a sacred place of the "Thunder God," and the Peralta family continued to mine there and transport the gold back to their home in Sonora, Mexico. There are many different versions of the story, but it is thought that after the massacre, the Apaches dumped all of the Peralta gold in this area, and subsequent miners have attempted to locate it here. As with all of our Tuesday trips, we try to make it as educational as possible, and we frequently remind the kids, "Hey, you could be in school right now," but they really liked this trip to the Massacre Grounds on Turkey Day because of the relation to the massacre of  "Alfred the Turkey" (I don't know why they started naming the turkeys -- we buy them wrapped in the grocery store just like most people do.) Anyway, Happy Turkey Massacre Day, for those of you that have not yet celebrated! Hope you, too, can enjoy a nice Thanksgiving hike!

Being Weird

"But homeschooled kids are just weird!" 

(sigh)

No, we've never heard that before! 

(aahhh... the smell of sarcasm)

As we're sort of starting to wrap up our year-long project-blog of providing just a little window into "our homeschool mystery," I'm considering topics that I haven't yet hit on. I know our tag cloud is fairly long, but I wanted the kids to see some of what they have accomplished in one year, and I also wanted readers interested in certain topics to be able to find them. The tags increase in size as we return to those subjects, and I see that "socialization" is nice and big! If you click on the socialization tag, you will see all the times we have referenced the socialization process when writing about our homeschool journey. I enjoy reading them all back to back since I like stories about times with our friends.

So I find that even if I'm able to convince the doubters that homeschooled kids are, in fact, plenty socialized, I still get the, "but they're weird" response. So I officially give up! That's right, for those of you that know me, miracle of miracles, I'm not going to argue this one! I do believe that homeschoolers eat, sleep, and breathe just like everyone else in this world, but I will accept the "weird" title. If being weird means that we make our own paths and don't follow the crowd, then I'll take it! There's no coincidence that I'm timing this blog post with Halloween, a holiday that I've always enjoyed. To me, there's something so fun about dressing up and being silly and weird for a night. It's the only night of the year that we "get to try on something new" for a change, and it's accepted by most of society. I think it would be nice if we could embrace that philosophy the rest of the year.

I have three favorite blog articles on the subject of homeschoolers "being weird." The first is "The Weird Homeschool Girl Goes to School" by Tammy Takahashi where she points out the irony that if schooled kids are so accepting of people who are different, then how come they don't help the weird kid at school?
Here's a link: http://www.justenoughblog.com/?p=1468

I also like her article, "School Pot Calling Homeschool Kettle Black -- Acceptance is not taught in school" which has one of my favorite quotes, "School is not better simply because you went to school." As someone who also went to school, can I please be spared of one more person telling me, "Look, I went to school, and I turned out fine." Yes, I get it -- it's possible. I'm only trying to present that homeschooling is also a viable option for turning out "fine."
Here's a link: http://www.justenoughblog.com/?p=1735

The last article is from the blog, Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers, and the post, "Why Are Homeschoolers So Weird and Unsocialized?" attempts to define what it means to be "weird," followed by one of  my favorite poems by Robert Frost. I also encourage you to read the comments after the post so you can get an idea of the kinds of things people say to homeschoolers all the time. Do parents of schooled kids endure this much hostility towards their decision to send their kids to school?
Here is the link: http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com/2008/08/why-are-homeschoolers-so-weird-and.html 

Return of the Tadpoles

Along time ago, about three or more months, I went kayaking with my family at Watson Lake. While we were there, Patrick and I caught six tadpoles. While we were catching tadpoles, I spotted a tadpole that had actually started growing legs. It was even bigger than the frog that we saw earlier. Patrick nearly caught it, but the tadpole escaped too quickly. We put the others in an old water bottle we found in the car so we could take them home. When we arrived at home base, we left them in their water bottle on the porch. We had decided not to move the tadpoles into something bigger until Patrick and I got home from Eagleridge the next day. Now you are to hear the more recent story of the "tadpoles."

The day after we went to Eagleridge, we spent our day studying tadpoles. We learned what they like to eat, how long it takes for them to turn into frogs, and other helpful things about tadpoles. We also tried to figure out what type of frog would come out of our tadpoles, but we couldn't find our type of tadpole. That's when we found out they were not tadpoles at all. Our dad had suggested they were this from the beginning, but we didn't believe him. After a little research we found the truth. These animals live in large groups. We saw some real tadpoles swimming around with them which was why we thought they were all tadpoles, but they weren't. We had caught a group of minnows!

Just this week we went to Flagstaff to see some fall color. We wanted to go to Hart Prairie, but it was closed so we just drove around in the mud pretending we had four-wheel drive. :) We had decided to bring the minnows with us so we could drop them off in one of Flagstaff's lakes. We wanted to put them in something similar to their environment. When we were done driving through the aspens, we started driving to Lake Mary. We turned of onto this dirt road thinking it led to Lake Mary. We drove on this street that wasn't even on the map for an hour to only get about two miles. During our nice drive, we thought we had passed Lake Mary and were on our way to Mormon Lake. Then we thought we had passed Mormon Lake when we got out of the dirt. We saw this horse while we were going one way off the forked road, but he kept telling us to go the other direction. In the end he was right.

We ended up at Lake Mary where we deposited our minnows. We weren't even sure if they were alive, but we didn't fret over it. We arrived home late on a school (Eagleridge) night. That was okay though because we learned a lot from this trip. This is one of the ways a homeschooler learns. By experiencing! I also learned never to catch my pets again.

The Mystery of the MIM

Yesterday we went to the new Musical Instrument Museum (MIM for short) with our homeschool group. Before we went into the museum, while we were standing in the courtyard, we learned from the tour guide that the entire building was made from sandstone shipped from India. She also told us that it took six years to collect all the instruments that are in the museum. I found it very interesting how they used different classes of instruments to organize our presentation, how each part of the world has all different types of instruments, and how they acquired the biggest stringed instrument in the world for this museum.

For the first part of the tour, there was a small demonstration on the different categories of musical instruments. These categories are: Aerophones, Membranophones, Electrophones, Idiophones, Corpophones, and Chordophones. The museum classifies these instruments in these categories to better understand how they are played. The best Example of these classes is the Theremin. It Makes sound by sending an electronic signal to an ampliffier when it's magnetic fields are disturbed. So, the Theremin is an electrophone.

Another thing that made the museum interesting was all the different types of instruments they had. It seemed like there were at least two instruments from every country in the world. That's more than 390 instruments from around the world. Other wise know as enough instruments to give a musician a headache trying to remember them all. Along with these instruments they also had some historic ones on display including one of the light up drums from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Peace Piano, Eric Clapton's guitar "Brownie", and a couple of amplifiers that Dick Dale blew up. Who knew a broken amp could be considered historic.

My favorite instrument in the museum is the Octobass. It is a 12 foot tall three stringed Double bass that is so deep that it can barely be heard by human ears. Only three were ever made, and there is only one person in the western hemisphere who can play one. After we got home, Omar Domkus (the parent who set up the tour and he is also a bass player) sent us a YouTube video of someone playing the same Octobass. It sounded like a dying whale.

Another thing I noticed about the tour was the fact that the tour guide seemed to think we didn't know much about instruments. During our second run through the museum, (the tour guide seemed to be rushing us through the exhibits) the tour guide met up with my dad and I while we were looking at the electric guitars. She told us about how on the web-site they had a whole curriculum on how electric guitars and amps work. My dad then explained how we had just finished building one (picture of the guitar we built is below), and he told her that I work the sound board at our church. The look on her face was priceless.

This concludes the mystery of the MIM: Idiophones don't mean the maker was an idiot, broken amps can be historic, and the tour was most likely made for public school groups.

Happy Emergency Nurses Day!

We like to celebrate holidays here at Our Homeschool Mystery so today we are celebrating Emergency Nurses Day! Cheers to all the great Emergency Nurses out there! I feel so lucky to be one of them! Every working day is a new and different adventure with people from all walks of life... patients with delayed care, intoxicants, language, cultural, and educational barriers... we see everybody!

We see patients BEFORE a diagnosis is made, and we are the ones that deal with patients and families in their time of anxiety from the "not knowing."

We shift gears on cue... never knowing what is going to walk through the doors next!

We have FUN! We play charades in triage when the patient does not know what meds he takes... "Little blue pill... sounds like... starts with... 2 syllables... rhymes with..."

We're crafty... ever see our "stinky feet" combat creations?

We also love patient makeovers... "We had to cut all your clothes off of you, but we're sending you home in these donated clothes... the hot pink biker shorts are a new look for you, sir."

We're resourceful... "Oh looky, I found the one last vein for an IV that you DIDN'T already use for your heroin!"

We're the cheerleaders... "You're a natural with those crutches -- it's like you've had a broken leg your whole life!"

I have to think that many of these emergency nursing skills are a lot like being a homeschooling mom... adaptable, strong, fun, crafty, resourceful, and encouraging. But most of all, we just CARE about our patients, much like we CARE about our kids, and that's why we do it, and it all seems easy for that reason.  :)

September News Now!!!

This September must have been the most exciting yet tiring September in my life (I think.) We started going to a new homeschool group, the youngest member of the Murphy family (our best friends) slept over for the first time, I started a new instrument, and, well, I'll just let you hear the story yourself.

We'll start with VHE (Valley Home Educators.) This is the new homeschool group we have joined. When we went to the kick-off meeting, I met a bunch of people my age. A few of them I already knew. At the kick-off we had a potluck lunch. After a few hours of chatting, all the kids around the ages 10 and up (as long as they were kids) went outside for the TNT meeting. TNT stands for teens-n-tweens. Every year in November, they have a yard sale to help a charity. This year will be there fourth annual, or that's what I remember. The next week we went to the Sea Life Aquarium with the rest of the group. We saw many different fish and sea creatures. During the tour of the of the aquarium, we answered questions that were painted on the wall. Then we scratched out the answers on the cards they gave us to turn in and get a sticker. Some facts I learned from the trip were that lion fish are one of the most dangerous fish, that manta rays are most closely related to sharks, and much more. At the end of the tour, Brenna and I played in the tubes with Ailish. Then I went to Brenna's house for a sleep-over. On the second day of the sleepover (the day I was going home) Brenna was going over to one of her friend's house to help her do something. While she was gone I babysat Ailish. It was fun.

A few weeks later, Brenna, Ailish, and Devin came over to spend the night for five days. It was exciting since it was Ailish's first time sleeping anywhere, but home. During our un-sleepover, (Ailish chose not to sleep at night, every night, but the first one) we took Ailish and Brenna to my French horn lesson. I should probably put more detail into this picture. Back in the second, or maybe the first week in August, I went back to my two-day-a-week enrichment program, Eagleridge. As you know, (or should know) I play flute in our Monday band. Actually I used to play flute in band. This year we added a lot of flutes. We took up 1/3 of the band all put together. Mr. Hink, our band teacher, mentioned one of us playing French Horn. I told it to my mom and she said I probably should try it because she remembered when she was a girl, she played flute and she knew this girl who played French Horn and had always wanted to switch, but her mom said no. So I switched and I'm glad I did. It has been six weeks and both my band teacher and my French horn teacher said I'm doing great for a kid that started six weeks ago. I really enjoy it.

Just this Wednesday I went to Open House and Mr. Hink told my parents about how good I was. At Open House I performed a song with  my fellow classmates, about 1/4 of them. We also did a hand clapping routine like the one from the Kleenex clapping commercial with 6th grade Wed., 6th grade Fri., and 5th grade Fri. It was great. I did the clapping almost perfectly. It has been busy, busy around here, but September was fun.