Clearly, I'm not above bribery

On George's agenda when we woke up today was finishing the final exam for his EPGY 4th-grade math class. He had nearly finished it yesterday but ran out of time before we had to leave for a dentist appointment. He had left the long division section until last, because it's the thing that is the toughest/least fun for him. Although he had only one question left to do today, he really didn't want to do it! He had worked so intensely on this over the last several days (reviewing before starting the actual test) that I could see he was just having trouble getting ready to face it again today. Usually we do math first thing in the morning, and I'm pretty strict about it, but I let him read for a while instead (A Wind in the Door).

I had told him that when he finished his exam we'd celebrate by having afternoon tea (believe it or not he had actually been asking me for this for some time). But not even the lure of scones and whipped cream could entice him to the table to do that one last problem. I told him that he could read until 10:00, and then he'd have to stop and do his math and clean the cat boxes. At 10 he cleaned the boxes as requested, but I could see in his face that he was dreading facing the math, and I didn't want him to be approaching it with that kind of attitude--he was really down, worn out, exhausted, and it just didn't seem like he had it in him to do it.

So I thought fast and came up with a plan. I told him that the second he was done with that problem I was going to take the can of whipped cream and squirt it right into his mouth. His whole face lit up, and he asked, "Really?!" He couldn't quite believe that I was going to do it. I told him yes, I was, and that he'd better have a napkin ready because I was going to squirt so much in there it probably wouldn't all fit. He was utterly delighted by this proposition, and raced to the table. Before he started he looked at me one more time and said, "You're really going to do that?" And I went and got the can and said, "Yes, and I think you need just a little shot before starting, don't you? Open up!" and I squirted a small dollop in there. The sparkle in his eye had returned, along with his motivation. He powered right through that problem, and checked over his work on the rest of the exam, in record time. He got his mouthful of whipped cream, as promised. Followed by tea (from my grandmother's tea pot, in cups from her tea set), scones, jam, and of course, more whipped cream. It was lovely, and I was so proud of my little scholar.

I know, I know--using food (sugary, *bad* food, at that) as a reward for math is probably not the very best idea. But hey, sometimes you really just have to go with what works.

After tea we tidied up a bit, and then went out to the opera, for a musical version of Little Red Riding Hood (which we both loved--it was hilariously entertaining). After the opera we came back home and spent the rest of the afternoon hosting a little pool party for some homeschool friends. (Phys Ed, you know. Plus, as people seem to love to remind us, homeschooled kids need their socialization!) Probably it will have been the last pool party of the season, as the weather seems like it's taking a turn for the colder.

All in all, another great day in homeschoolville.

Making it work... or So far, so good

I've been telling myself that we're easing into a full schedule, but I think it's time to call it what it really is: an experiment with unschooling. So far, I'm loving it, and so is George. I'm realizing more and more just how intense last year was, even at the end when we were homeschooling full-time. Our schedule was jam-packed, and very hectic. George was only doing two classes online, but in addition to that we were doing lots of classes and lessons and activities locally, plus he had a fairly heavy chore schedule at home. Plus, he was shuttled around a lot from place to place with many different caregivers/tutors, because of my schedule. Plus, the two courses he was doing online were pretty intense....

So, we're taking it a bit easy. Math (EPGY, online) is the only academic thing we're doing in a formal way. We'll be starting back up with his recorder lessons soon, and the homeschool field-trip schedule is picking up, and Friday we'll also be starting a homeschool swim/gym program at the YMCA that includes a Spanish class as well. Oh yeah, and George has also joined the church choir, which is actually a pretty serious choir with a big musical education component. We'll also be checking into Tae Kwon Do. Whew, doesn't sound like we'll be taking it so easy for much longer!

Our morning routine usually goes something like this: we wake up early, before either of us is really ready for breakfast, and we often start out watching some sort of social-studies-themed documentary. There's an endless supply to TiVo on cable, and many of them are quite interesting. He's a pretty sophisticated viewer, and often likes to dissect both the presentation and the content with me, so he's also getting an education in rhetoric and the media! Then we have breakfast and tea, during which we either do a round or two of Mad Libs (great for reinforcing the parts of speech, even though to be honest he has had those down pat for quite some time) or play one of his math card games (although he's doing pretty advanced math, his math facts can still use some reinforcement). After breakfast he does some household chore or other while I clean up. It's usually about 9 or so by this time, and we head to the computers--he to a desktop in his stepsister's room (it's the least-worst of the house computers) and I to my laptop, in the same room. He does his math, and I start on my work. At this point I choose something to do that doesn't require uninterrupted concentration on my part, as he sometimes either has a question or needs a little redirecting (his mind can wander a bit, particularly when the computer gets slow or when the work gets a little too easy and he starts embellishing to make it more interesting).

Once he's done with his math, I pretty much let him go off and running with whatever he wants (um, except for watching tv), while I focus more intently on my work. Some days he pours over these Greek mythology/monster cards that he has, making up games with them but also drawing all sorts of interesting parallels and conclusions about the various gods and creatures. He's definitely learning the basics of Greek mythology better than I ever did in grade school (this also due to his love of the Percy Jackson book series). Other days he writes stories and comics. Most days he also reads voraciously, as he has always been wont to do. And yes, I even experimented with letting him play his favorite computer game for much of the afternoon (Poptropica). He actually got bored with it, and with playing on the computer in general, which I never thought I'd see!

At some point in the afternoon I take a break for phys ed, and I either twist his arm into going on a walk with me (he rides his scooter), or we play tennis, or swim (those days are numbered!), or some combination thereof. Then later in the afternoon, when school has let out, he often plays with the kids from the neighborhood, while I continue working. I'm teaching in the evening this semester, so my husband can cover most of those hours with him, and I have various sitters set up to come over during those times when I have office hours/meetings/other obligations (usually in the afternoons, so most days our morning routine can stay intact).

Although I won't deny that it's a lot for me to handle, I will say that it's working out much better than I feared. I can actually get quite a lot of work done with this set up, because George is really great about leaving me alone when I tell him I need it. Part of that is due to his temperament, but I think it's also that I spend that quality time with him first thing in the morning, which starts his day out right.

If I had time, I'd read a bunch of books about unschooling, and would feel like I really knew what I was doing.... But actually, I do feel like I know what I'm doing! I'm both following my instincts regarding what my kid needs, and doing what I need to do to make it work for me as well. Come to think of it, that's pretty much been at the core of my parenting since George was a baby.

I'm sure our approach to schooling will continue to evolve over time. Homeschooling, like parenting, is definitely a process. For now, he's thriving, and it's working for me. I'm good with that.

Back to (un)School

Well, September is here, George is done with summer camps, and we're back to homeschooling--not that one ever really leaves it. But back to it in a more deliberate way.

As I look to the school year ahead, I feel excited, hopeful, and relieved. Excited because this is our first year where we're starting out from the beginning with the plan of full-time homeschooling, and I kind of almost know what I'm doing now, so it's easier to feel excited rather than terrified by the possibilities. Hopeful that this will be his least traumatic school year in quite some time! There's not much competition in that category, unfortunately. It's really been one trauma and/or massive upheaval after another in recent years. This is where my relief comes in: this is the first year (out of the last three) where I will be focusing all of my efforts on educating him, rather than on working with some teacher who doesn't get him and doesn't like him, or on pouring my energy into starting a school. We began full-time homeschooling at the end of last winter, but I was already exhausted at that point from working on the Montessori school, and was also trying to regain my composure/balance/sanity after realizing that yet another difficult road had led us nowhere. It feels good to be getting a fresh start this year, and to know that the outcome of my efforts is ultimately not dependent upon anyone else but George and me.

I guess I also have just the slightest twinge of regret--that my mammoth efforts to start a school over the last two years were all for naught. Not entirely true--I think that the Montessori school may be up and running as a preschool still. But I didn't set out to start a preschool; what this community desperately needs and what I wanted to help create is an alternative school (Montessori or otherwise) from the elementary level on up. As intensely (insanely?!) as I worked over the last two years to start one, I suppose I mostly did it for George, but I also derived a sense of satisfaction from the idea of building something that would benefit the entire community. Oh well; it didn't work out that way. Moving on... and feeling mostly quite good about it.

We're easing into a routine with the homeschooling. I'm going to stick with my plan of being rather unschooly, at least to begin with. While we will be starting various types of lessons and local homeschooling classes later this month, and will develop an informal "curriculum" in other subjects, for now we're focusing just on math, which is the subject we'll be covering in the most formal way. He has started back up this week with his online CTY/EPGY class, and has so far been doing a great job with it, despite the fact that it is not his absolute favorite.

Funny--even as I write this, I'm beginning to feel a bit intimidated by the thought of an entire school year stretching out in front of us, by the thought of juggling full-time homeschooling and a full-time career. Not to mention a busy household and a rock band. Eeeeek! But no, I can do this! I really can! At least, I sure hope so. Wish me luck.

Egg Drop

Egg Drop at the house of George's-former-teacher-who-now-homeschools. Day one (of two): kids utilized materials from the recycling bins, plus tape and glue, to construct a container that would protect an egg from cracking even when dropped out a second-story window.

Day two, one week later: time for the drop. THREE... TWO... ONE...

Oh, the suspense...

Success!!

Photos!

Ok, clearly I need to do a Blogger tutorial to learn how to arrange these photos better, but since it has taken me a month to get the photos up here in the first place, who knows how long it'll take me to get around to the tutorial...

The CTY Awards Ceremony at Siena College, held last month

And a little further down is George's recorder concert, the following day; it was the third thing I was proud of him for but didn't get around to writing about in my Proud Mama post. Held at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation... where, incidentally, his recorder concert for his school-that-closed was held (and also where one of the schools we set up in the aftermath held classes for the 4 days it lasted!). This concert in some ways felt like "coming home", because it reminded me that not everything that we loved about that school had vanished from our lives. Adding to this sense was the fact that several of the kids from that school participated in the concert (they, like George, have continued to take lessons with the recorder teacher from the school). Plus, many of George's new homeschool friends were there, so it was a nice union of past and present for me, and probably for him, too. It was part of a life-goes-on-in-many-wonderful-ways closure that felt kind of therapeutic, and that I knew I would not get from attending the hearing about the school that was held yesterday.

George's favorite part of the concert: running around outside in the labyrinth afterwards, with old and new friends.

I have many, many more pictures to post, but I'm running out of stamina and will have to do it later!

Letting Go

This Friday is the retrial for the dissolution of the amazing alternative school that George attended for several glorious months during the last half of first grade and the very beginning of second grade, before the school went under in September of 2007—in a rather spectacularly destructive way—due to financial mismanagement and incompetence. The school's going under was totally devastating for many people, not the least of whom George, and myself. In some ways, we have been trying to regain our balance ever since. Let me explain.

It would be an understatement to say that George has had a difficult time at school since, well, preschool. He has been quite unhappy in most of the classrooms/schools he's been a part of; a discussion of why would take too long but the most major factor is that he’s really, really advanced intellectually, and craves intellectual stimulation, and most of his teachers just didn’t know what to do with him. He loves learning and loves a challenge, and gets very discouraged and acts out in various ways when he’s not being engaged or challenged in school. First grade was truly miserable—he was forced to sit still (“criss-cross applesause” or cross-legged on the floor) for 90-minute blocks while the teacher went over the letter sounds, day in and day out. He was already reading Harry Potter and the New York Times at that point, but the teacher insisted that the fact that he knew how to read didn’t mean that he understood the mechanics of the letter sounds (actually, he truly did understand). The more she insisted he sit through these excruciatingly easy and boring lessons, the more unhappy (and uncooperative) he became. I did everything I could do to work with the teacher and the school to try to find a workable solution, all for naught. If you know me you’ve probably heard the story more than once; if not, you can fill in the blanks. It was abysmal. George was crying and begging me on an almost daily basis not to make him go to school, and had even slipped into a sort of depression.

That’s when I finally listened to some friends of mine who had been telling me how great their daughter’s alternative school was. I must be honest, I didn’t like the sound of “alternative school”. (Don’t ask me why, when I was hating his traditional school at that point.) I thought it sounded lightweight, and all hippy-dippy, like a bunch of kids sitting around making daisy chains or doing whatever they wanted. I wanted rigorous academics. I wanted structure! How else would my kid learn anything? But I was desperate. I figured I might as well at least go visit the school. Was I in for a surprise.

When I got there, in the mid-morning, the director didn’t seem to have much to say—she wanted me to go observe the (multi-age, early elementary) class in action, which she said would speak for itself. When I walked in, they were transitioning from one activity to another, and the teacher had them do a short series of sort of yoga exercises to stretch but also to help them reorient themselves and be ready to focus on the new activity. I was intrigued, to say the least.

Next she had them sit in a circle. They could sit in any position they liked; it didn’t have to be “criss-cross applesauce”—they just had to sit, as she explained, in a way that didn’t block anyone’s view of the center of the circle. It made perfect sense—order was requested, and indeed required, but not for some arbitrary, unarticulated reason. It was so that everyone could participate fully. I was liking this more and more with each passing minute.

Next she put the materials for their new science project in the middle of the circle, and asked them to try to figure out what their next experiment was going to be, and how the materials were going to be used for it. They were really having fun with this, coming up with some interesting guesses and building on each other’s ideas. When they ultimately figured it out, she then asked them to try to guess how the experiment would turn out. After several kids had offered their thoughts, one very precocious girl raised her hand and said, “Why don’t you just tell us what’s going to happen?” I was really wondering how the teacher would respond to that one! I thought she might even get flustered. I was thinking about how much George’s teachers seemed to dislike it when he asked them why they were making him do a particular activity. Ha, did I have a lot to learn—about alternative education in general and this teacher in particular. She actually welcomed the question, and was genuinely glad that the student had asked. Her answer was that she wanted them to learn to think like scientists, and that this is exactly what scientists do—they come up with experiments and then they hypothesize about the results before they carry them out. Brilliant!

The discussion continued for a while longer, until everyone had had his/her say; then the teacher told them to get their writing notebooks, find a seat somewhere, and write down their hypotheses and expectations. Since it was a multi-age and multi-ability room, some kids were able to write a paragraph, while others could really only draw pictures. She went around the room while they were working on this and helped each child individually; the ones who were writing a paragraph got instruction/help on punctuation and sentence structure, while those who were just learning to write got help sounding out and writing down a word or two. Anyone who needed it also got suggestions about handwriting, etc. She also wrote on the board some key concepts relating to the experiment, and made sure everyone knew what they meant. This whole thing was a revelation to me. No handwriting worksheets. No copying down random sentences off the board. No fill-in-the-blanks. No seating charts. And yet, boy, were the kids learning! They were learning scientific concepts, scientific thinking, writing, penmanship… each at his or her own level. They were also learning how to work both together and independently, and were required to be respectful of their classmates and teacher, but weren’t expected to follow any arbitrary or senseless rules. It hit me how much closer this educational approach was to my parenting. I could imagine George really thriving in this environment. At that point, there was pretty much no turning back for me! I brought George in for the afternoon and he loved it as much as I’d hoped and figured he would. He never went back to his public school (except briefly to say goodbye and get his things).

Fast forward to the following September. Two weeks into the school year, a letter went home with the kids, informing us that the school was out of money and was going to have to shut down at the end of the month. WHAT?? We knew the school was in some trouble but the Board had obviously lied to us regarding the extent of the woes. We had been assured explicitly and repeatedly that the school had enough money to stay open for at least one or two years, and that all sorts of things were being done to ensure that it would be around for the duration. We had been asked to pay our tuition for at least half the year in advance, which we did. But the $5500 or so that we lost was nothing compared to the utter devastation we felt at the loss of the school we loved so dearly. (Don’t get me wrong—I could absolutely use that $$ now.)

At that point, when the school closed, I felt like we were thrust into limbo. When I told George the school was closing he burst into tears and begged me not to send him back to public school. The only other private schools in the area are religious, and have a very traditional approach to education; as such they didn't seem like a good fit for him. I didn’t think homeschooling was really an option for us at that point. So we set about doing the logical thing(?), and tried to start a new alternative school. That is a very long story and this story is already getting long enough… let me just say that we ultimately ended up with a Montessori school—which George too quickly outgrew. It's been a real roller coaster ride, and has been exhausting in so many ways. Now here we are, homeschooling. Mostly I love it (though it would be a lot easier if I didn’t also have to work), but I still mourn the loss of that school. I guess I can’t quite explain why it meant so much to me and how much its going under still upsets me if I think about it.

Anyway, they are having a hearing to decide something about the assets of the school—the building hasn’t sold, so the debts have continued to accrue. If the building does ever sell, once the mortgage and the lawyers are all paid off it’s highly doubtful that there will be any money left to reimburse parents who prepaid tuition. This hearing was to have taken place last month but due to some technicality it was postponed until this Friday. I went to the courthouse for it last month, hoping to get some sort of closure (if not at least a small percentage of what is owed to me). But I got no sense of closure—and I don’t think it was because of the postponement. I don’t know if I’ll ever really get a sense of closure on this.

What do I want for closure? I want my $5500 back, yes, though I know I won’t get it. More than that, I want somehow to erase the anguish and heartbreak we went through when we found out the one school that was really right for George was closing in two weeks, and that he wouldn’t even be able to have one full year there (let alone a whole scholastic career). I want to have back the tremendous amount of time and energy I expended working to set up a new school that would take that one’s place. Well, actually, what I really want is to have that amazing school back, but that's clearly not happening.

So, I don’t think I’ll go to the courthouse this Friday. I’ll be busy anyway, as George is in a homeschool production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that’s being performed at a local Faerie Festival. A truly wonderful experience that he never would have had were that school still in existence. There are many, many things I love about homeschooling, and now that I’m really done with trying to set up schools in the area I am finally beginning to find my rhythm with it. I’d like to think that I can educate my son as well as that school could have, but honestly, I can’t say that I’m certain I can. I’m sure as hell going to keep trying, though.

The Spleen

I'm still trying to wrap my mind completely around homeschooling. Heck, I'm still wrapping my mind around parenting, and I've been doing that for nine years now. Just when you think you have things figured out, the kid grows up a little more and you have a whole new set of things to figure out. That's pretty much been happening with homeschooling as well, in these several months that I've been doing it full-time. So I get the feeling that I could be trying to wrap my mind around this homeschooling thing for the foreseeable future.

One of the things I'm constantly weighing in my mind is how unschooly I want to be. In theory, I love the idea of unschooling. In practice, well, actually, I really love it in practice, so I guess it's the theory after all that gives me pause. I should be clear that what I'm thinking about here is what is going to be best for my son–I'm not trying to figure out what the be-all-and-end-all-holy-grail of homeschooling is for everyone. What I'm struggling with is what is the best way to educate my kid. This is a huge, huge question that is way too big for one post, so I'm just going to try to focus on one or two aspects of this right now, spurred by a conversation George and I had yesterday:

George: What does the spleen do, Mom?
Me (distracted, putting away the dishes): Hmm, I don't know.
George: Let me guess–you're going to tell me to take a science class to find out.
Me (glad that he remembered the clever answer that I'd forgotten): Right.
George: What science class would that be? Biology?
Me: Um, yes, biology.
George: But Mom, didn't you take biology?
Me: Yes, I did.
George: Then why don't you know what the spleen does?

Ok, my biology class was a long, long time ago (in what now feels like a galaxy far, far away). But this brought home an interesting point for me. What was the point of my taking biology all those years ago? I knew I wouldn't be a scientist. I didn't like science, in fact. I did well in it (because I was a super-achiever and worked as hard as I needed to in order to do well in everything), but ultimately, what good did it do me? Why did I bother, and unless my son finds it truly interesting, why should he bother? Shouldn't he spend his time pursuing things he's deeply passionate about, since there are so many of them? Isn't this part of the beauty of homeschooling? (Actually, he's the one who asked about the spleen, so he may end up being passionate about biology. Just humor me; I'm trying to work this out.)

On the other hand, I would never argue against learning even just for learning's sake. I think most subjects or disciplines you study do you some good, even if you don't retain much knowledge of the actual material. I think that each discipline requires you to learn how to think in a slightly different way, or to see the world in a different way, and I do believe that that is valuable. Because if you turned it around on me and told me that a kid who was interested only in science shouldn't have to study the humanities at all, I'd disagree with you very strongly. I think that an education should be well rounded; I really do. And I do want to make sure that George is exposed to science in case it turns out that he loves it as much as he loves literature and history. But if he doesn't really love it all that much, does he truly need a full course in biology? Might it not be just as good or even better for him to learn some philosophy of science, some history of science, and to learn something about how scientists approach problems? And of course, to learn where to go to find answers to questions such as "What does the spleen do"? (If I hadn't been distracted by putting the dishes away, I would have jumped right on that. Note to self: have George research the spleen next week.)

Anyway, as time goes by, I'm feeling my mental pendulum swing back toward more unschooling. Fortunately, I will never have to worry about George's reading skills–he's already reading at pretty much an adult level, currently working his way through The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series and several Shakespeare plays (the original texts with a facing-page modern-day adaptation) though of course he also reads plenty of kids' books. I have seen that with the tremendous amount of reading he does across such a wide variety of topics, he is educating himself more than adequately in most subjects--for example, he spent an afternoon in my husband's fifth-grade classroom recently and carried out a fifth-grade American history project perfectly well without even having to consult a book. (This was actually a great relief to me, because I have not been consciously focusing on social studies with him at all, but it seems to be getting learned anyway.) And with his passion for science fiction, he's actually learning something about some branches of science (mostly astronomy, I guess, which he'll also get a dose of this summer at camp at the local planetarium). What is really left is math–something I don't think he's going to pick up by reading or osmosis, and something that I do consider to be fundamental, as a sort of basic "language" of the sciences.

So what I've come up with as my new plan for the next few years (um, until I change my mind again!) is that I need to make sure he keeps on reading in, and writing about, a wide variety of subjects, and that he keeps learning math. And while I will certainly always encourage him to broaden his horizons in all sorts of directions, beyond that, I may kind of leave it up to him.