Tales from Cat's House of Homeschooled Kits!

There is a saying, I’m not sure by who, that goes something like this “Life is what happens when you make plans.” I think learning is the same way. We make schedules, evaluate curriculum, find classes, and so many other things. All the while, learning hasn’t stopped. This year is a perfect example.

My oldest is in high school. This is his first year and to fill some gaps where we didn’t have a subject matter expert (SME), we enrolled him in an online high school. We spent so much time focusing the content. Was he getting all the support he needed from his cyber teacher? Did all the links work? Was he online for enough time? In the end, we spent more time discussing pacing.

It turns out that the real lesson was making sure the work load was spread evenly over the entire semester. My son learned how much he could do in a day before he was overdone. He learned that sometimes nothing online works so you have to go back to the actual book and write things down, OH NO!

I learned that handing over responsibility for something doesn’t mean I’m not off the hook. This semester, the teacher graded things so slowly that often we had no idea what concepts needed more work and what were okay. We are still waiting for some scores to come back.

While I know some biology A and pre-algebra B made it in his brain, what my son really took away from the term is that doing what you can when you can makes a difference. I learned that too. What can I do to support him? What can I do to encourage him over time and not berating him when things fall behind? Once again, my son is the designated student but we all have access to the learning, and we didn’t even need to plan it.

In talking with my mother this week, I had a thought about how we learn. My mother teaches art at a state university. We were talking about how learning is such a natural process. One of use had talked with someone who was concerned that they couldn’t get all the information thought to be essential into the students brains. Like they had to be force-fed or something.

I blurted out, as I often do. “They already know how to learn it.”

Then I considered why I thought and said that. 

Major thought number 2. It’s just like walking. No one has to tell a baby how to walk. They figure it out for themselves, like talking, eating, and everything else. Parents are there to help them when they fall, to cook dinner, read them books, and more. In short, parents are facilitators. 

People come fully loaded at birth. They are programmed to study their environment, try new things, and gain new insights. Being in a “learning environment” shouldn’t be any different. Teachers “best practice” is as the bridge to what the students need or want to learn. Oh and don’t get me started on all the eduspeak. 

I am so frustrated and angered by the Education Tribes need to create more ways to “teach children to learn”. They know how to do it. They don’t need another test that they are taught to pass. When students are left to interact all these things come up on their own. My kids have been homeschooled since the beginning using this bridge to learning method and they always score in the above average or advanced sections on STAR tests, when they take them. 

It is my growing opinion that educators need to feel important. If a student does so  much on their own, what is the teacher doing? How are they important? Facilitated learning requires a lot embeded curriculum in the learning environment. It is hidden and teased out as students access it. Teachers are important because they can create that environment. However, they don’t. Like a person yelling at a someone who doesn’t speak their language, thinking if I’m louder, they will understand, school systems stick to this false structure of testing, lingoism, and classes grouped by age.

My own elementary experience was in an open education classroom. It was multi grades and abilities all in one room. Everyone talking to everyone else. It was stimulating and spectacular. Everyone worked at their own pace and guess what, we all felt good about who we were. Most of those I still keep in touch with have gone to college and surprisingly many are homeschooling their own. 

As a public school teacher, the pain of seeing kids going from bright eyed to glazed over is like a punch in the stomach. I see my kids going on and doing more and more and more. Their eyes are bright. They want to learn more. They do learn more and they always will. Their software is already loaded.

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 was never so happy as the day I found out I was pregnant. After a doctor told me that I may have difficulty getting pregnant and that I may never have kids at all, to find I was pregnant sent me to the clouds. A baby! A family! Fourteen years later I have a contrary, mustachioed (thin but he cut it off with scissors), filibustering young man. 

On the one hand I am so frustrated! Every inch is an argument. My husband has offered to build the wheel of pain from Conan the Barbarian. His friend suggested military camp. Teaching was difficult, now he refuses my help in any form. He yells when I ask if he needs help “NEVER ask me if I need help!” and yells if I don’t “You NEVER ask me if I need help!” 

What can a parent do? What can I do?

It happened that one of the homeschool listserves I subscribe to had a parenting of teens thread. Not a moment to soon. Parents described their children, young adults really, as aliens, moody, argumentative, withdrawn, you name it. Hey, I have one of those too! A glimmer of hope. 

The subject came up about books. One book came up over and over. I figured there must be something in this book if over half of the posts referred to it. I bought a used copy on Amazon, Parent/Teen Breakthrough The Relationship Approach by Mira Kirshcenbaum and Charles Foster, Ph.D.. 

I must come clean. I have a book buying problem. I have shelves full of self help, eating issues, how to write better, teach dogs, parent kids, draw ocean animals, you name it books. The idea of buying another book is like adding a new brick to the foundation of a home that is never built. I don’t seem to read them once they are in the door.

This book is different. I can open it and read a page, a paragraph, or a single sentence and get something out of it. I read large sections some days, I read a few lines on others. It’s like the book doesn’t want to pressure me into reading it. Weird! and yet I keep reading.

And it works! I used the ideas and concepts right away. I use them every time I think of them.  He argues less, does more, smiles more, and lets me give him a hug now and again. My son is changed. I’ve changed. We are growing up together, not apart. We are a family growing up together. I love my teenage son, I’m keeping him.

I’ve had difficulties getting online and logging on to the blog to post. I’ve gone over and over stuff. I couldn’t think of what I was doing wrong. Ironically, this wasn’t the only part of my life I was having trouble with. My kids were getting rebellious about getting things done. My eating was out of control. My sleep was non-existent. 

One afternoon, I was talking to my son because I was  frustrated. He is 14 and he didn’t want to do anything that I wanted him to do. I’d tried the “You won’t get to play video games” approach to gain compliance. At wits end, I said in plain talk, “I’m frustrated. I don’t know how to talk to you to make sure this work gets done. ”

*insert magical transformation here*

My son got up and did what he needed to do to be done. That night I had a dream about over eating. Two days later I can log in with no issues and write a post. Sometimes it’s the acknowledging  that something isn’t working and letting it go that gets things done. 

Another great day! My kids did all their work with no hassle. I’m online. I’m not hungry.

I have two sons. We started homeschooling them at the beginning. They are now 12 and 14. I call them kits because they love  cats and the Warriors book series. My name is Catherine and some call me Cat. I thought the whole idea was pretty clever.

The kits are now in 7th and 9th grade. I am proud of the young men they are becomming. I love that they are following thier own loves and passions. That was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to homeschool.

Several key events in my life changed how I saw myself and the world around me. I didn’t like these changes, but like so  many other things didn’t notice them until much later in life.

In junior high my parents got a divorce. My mother had taken me to lunch, a rare occasion after she moved out of our house. She asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I said, boldly, that I wanted to be a dog trainer. Her response nearly verbatum “People who work with dogs are people who can’t get along with other people.”

In high school I decided to be a veteranairan. It satisfied my mother and my father just wanted me to learn to use comptuers. This was 1981, computers were just coming into the mainstream. I earned a C in biology and was told by the teacher that I was not smart enough for chemestry.

 I’d spent year trying to please people and do what I thought they wanted. I was years getting back to writing, making art, and being with my dogs, the three things I loved the most as a kid. When my first son was born, I knew that I never wanted those kinds of statements to stop them from doing what they loved.

The kits and I have changed my husband too. We are all doing what we love. Now he as the freedom to do what he loves too! Everyone wins!

Why did you choose to homeschool? Think about it.