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!

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.