Tales from Cat's House of Homeschooled Kits!

I’ve been thinking a lot about education, and learning. We, the royal we, say we want to children to have a good education. That isn’t the same as wanting children to be life long learners. It seems to me that education is about content, while learning is about skill and ability. This fits into the whole idea of content standards. This isn’t learning, this is what a student should know by a certain grade. Learning is a whole other deal. 

Learning is the process by which we education ourselves, it is the bridge. To learn is to know how to read, write, and calculate. If I acquire these three foundation skills, I can learn any content I find interesting. On a deeper level, learning is access. If a student, has these basic skills they have access to knowledge. As the saying goes, knowledge is power.

If I can read even at the 5th grade level, I have access to the news around me in newspapers. If I can write, I can respond, file a complaint, make a plan, or leave a note. Calculating allows me understanding and control of my own money, and time. That is a tremendous amount of power both personally and community wide.

When students have trouble learning, we blame the skills but maybe the content is the issue. When I wanted a pony I read everything about horses. It didn’t matter that reading was time consuming and difficult for me. I wanted to know it all, how else can a young girl persuade her parents if she can’t answer every question. That’s loads of motivation. My reading improved for sure but that wasn’t what I was thinking about. Some people need that consuming motivation to get them really moving with a new skill.

There has to be enough skill to have basic access. Then practice takes over and the skill improves. The idea is to get struggling students to want to cross the bridge. For my own kids the topic was video games. For my sister it was history. For my husband it’s space. Everyone has something. Watch your learners and talk to them. You are sure to find out their hot topics.

It can be diagramed like this:

PERSON __________SKILL_________MOTIVATING CONTENT

Student  _________reading________ Harry Potter

Grandparent ______writing________family stories

Father________calculating_________allowance 

When your learner or you, for that matter, are having difficulties with something new, diagram your bridge and see if you are putting the right skill to the right content. You may need to shift things around for a specific content to be accessed. This is where learning types, knowing how you or your student learns, is important. A student my write well but must first hear information before using it in writing. That’s another topic. 

A side benefit of this process is learning connectedness. Students often ask “Why do I need to know that?” or “When am I going to use this?” When individuals see how skills and content are connected, they are less resistant undertaking new assignments. They also make connections between new and prior knowledge much faster. This goes a long way to making learning enjoyable and life long.

When you sit down with your student, learner, whoever, ask “Is my goal to acquire new content?” If the answer is yes, then choose the skill that best bridges the gap. If your goal is to practice a skill, find the most entertaining content to get the student over the skills bridge. Then have at it. Either way, students will be more motivated and gain a deeper understanding of how and why they learn.

In her blog Just Enough and Nothing More, Tammy Takahashi discusses the question “Is homeschooling better than school?” You can read her post here. This is such a vital and topical issue and I think it is at the root of such red herrings as socialization and “real world” integration. I call these red herrings because there is sufficient evidence to show that a person who attends park and recreation classes, goes to conferences, is in 4-H, Scouts (boy and girl), garage bands, website development, church groups, teen clubs, and kitchen sink development* are clearly getting along and in the real world. It follows if a person is doing this in the “real world” then they must be integrated into society.

The root to all of this is the “grass is greener” fear. What if what they have is better? If I send my kids to public school, are they missing out? and if they are, what are they missing? What do homeschooler’s do or have that my kids don’t? These are all great questions and there are no easy answers. The fear is real. I totally understand that. When we chose to homeschool I was plenty afraid. I feared what public school would do to my sensitive 5 year old son more. I wanted to fit in but not at the cost of that beautiful boys creative mind and silly sense of humor. In short, I wanted him to be himself and fit in.

It’s no wonder I felt confused. Think about America itself. Mainstream society has a real bipolar reaction to homeschooling. On the one hand they fear what is not the norm. By norm I mean the thing that most Americans are doing. If you or I are doing something on the periphery of society we must be duplicitous in our actions. That’s a pretty heavy assumption. How many Shakers are there, and do people see the worst in them? If I follow and don’t succeed, it’s my own fault for not creating my own out of the box solution. Talk about U turns!

That 180 degree turn of thought is pervasive. Mainstream America showers accolades on homeschoolers they feel are “amazing” and truly accomplished. 1997 Scripps  Spelling Bee winner Rebecca Sealfon and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelp come to mind. These individuals and many others, are true Americans because they have taken the reins of their lives, showing the hard work, grit, and perseverance lead to success. Blazing a new trail is as American as panning for Gold, taming the West, and going against King George III by creating a Declaration of Independence.

As with so many things, when it’s something most people want it’s good and if most people don’t want it, it’s bad. Be original, be an individual, don’t follow what others tell you to do, question authority. We say these things but we don’t mean them, at least not for all Americans. We back that up and even ensure it by keeping some schools back by underfunding, poor management, and institutionalized class warfare/racism. 

I am harsh. I mean to be. As a teacher in a public school for adults, I have seen how insidious these factors are. They are so embedded in the system most people aren’t even aware that they are recreating them. A look, a glance, ridiculous watered down texts, moving at the speed of the slowest student, teaching to middle, teaching to the test, lack of multicultural administrators, are just some ways kids are shut down in poor areas. Poor areas are often where new immigrants are because it’s cheaper there.  The system turns round and round and round. 

Those who break out and choose to make informed choices about their children’s education are instigators. We follow Forst’s path less taken and we are judged for it. Follow, follow the others, so I the mainstream parent, don’t have to question what I’ve chosen for my kids. Did I even choose? Well that’s what every family does. Those issues are not my issues. 

The main element missing here is choice. My husband and I made the choices we made to meet the needs of our family. We considered our issues. If a person is worried if one is better than the other, that is an issue they need to address. They need to see that they can make a choice and if they choose to stay where they are, excellent. Self determination means that, determine for yourself. Do your own souls searching, research, discussing, whatever. Take a good look at your grass. Do you like how green it is?  Ours is green enough for us.

Thank you Tammy for getting me thinking.

* kitchen sink development has yet to be proven but I had to get “kitchen sink” in there somewhere.

I am a public school teacher. I teach adults that have not finished high school. I can also help students prep for the GED. In the public school system, I am used to meeting standards, and state testing requirements. For my own boys, I integrate as much as possible.

People ask me why my boys are so smart or know so much. I know they are pretty clever guys but I also know that they learn something when they are interested. By following their lead, they cover more ground and go to deeper depths than any public school classroom would allow. I think if every student could be trusted enough, they would reach thier full potential without question.

Trust is the biggest part of this equation. It is difficult to work in a profession where we are told to be the authority and the givers of information to let students lead. For me it makes perfect sense but at work, it is a big NO NO. Students are to be controlled, managed, and spoonfed state adopted text based information.

I teach a very diverse population. Many are second generation Mexican American, and now Russian. There is nothing less relevant to a new immigrant than a story about a white middle aged man who is contemplating suicide. Yet, there is little latitutde in changing curriculum. Trust the books, that is what the state says and many teachers follow.

When we ask the question “Why students aren’t leading in education?”,  we must be ready for the answer. We don’t give them exeperience and trust enough to lead. How can they know thier worth if they don’t know how to develop passions and interests?

My boys know that they are trusted to get work finished, to spend money wisely, to make good decisions. They succeed because they can and they do. When they don’t they learn from that to. My husband and I follow and bridge the gaps. The blessing of homeschooling is the trust.  Trust your children, trust yourself.

THis is my first blog on A2Z. I hope you all enjoy reading it. You can check out my other blogs and websites at:

http://catbaaloo.com

http://dyslexicat.catbaaloo.com

http://cats9thlife.blogspot.com/