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August 22, 2005
Not Starting School Today
Today was the day that Henry would have started Kindergarten. I could go on and on listing the reasons why I'm glad he is not, but I'll stick to a few:
I won't have to get him to school everyday at 7:40.
He won't eat the crappy school food.
He will be able to play for more than the 30 minute recess period he would get during his 7 hour school day.
He can learn at his own pace.
KCB, the Redneck Mother, has a nice piece regarding not starting the school year.
Posted by Julee at 09:05 PM | Comments (1)
August 04, 2005
Square Dancing
Here is one family's list of 20 reasons they are homeschooling. While not everything on their list holds true for us, they are all good reasons - and funny too.
Why do we homeschool? Two words: Square dancingChristopher Smith
This month, homeschooling parents all over Tennessee have to pay homage to big Mother Government and justify their decision to educate their own children.I guess I don't mind homeschooler registration. It probably keeps a few loonies from hiring out their kids as window washers instead of educating them.
And this sort of thing just comes with the territory. Any time you step outside the norm you have to accept that you've got some explaining to do — to your family, your friends, your co-workers and that clerk at the grocery store who has an opinion on everything except the price of tea on Aisle 5.
But we're not just outside the public school norm. We're also outside the homeschool norm. Most homeschoolers around here homeschool for religious reasons — they're flat out tired of arguing with government bureaucracies about their faith.
That's not us either. Yeah, we're Christians, but that's not primarily why we homeschool.
So why do we homeschool? I'll give you 20 reasons.
1.No one, and I mean no one, has the right to teach my son how to square dance.2.Summer vacation can begin in January and end in March.
3.While I agree with the ACLU that religion has no place in public education, I don't think you can teach "character education" without it. I don't think you should teach sex education without it. And anyone who thinks you can give a child a complete education in science without discussing God doesn't know enough about the history of science. But I also believe God invented evolution, so my ideas aren't real popular among most homeschoolers either.
4.Waffle Stix, despite their standing on school lunch menus, are not food.
5.Public schools won't teach Latin to second-graders.
6.No Child Left Behind.
7.I believe history is linear.
8.I believe spelling, grammar and math have rules.
9.We know a lot of teachers, and long before we had kids we heard several earfuls about the wretched state of public education. It seems every attempt to spark a child's love of learning is beaten down by bureaucratic nonsense and disciplinary nightmares. Most teachers are saints, and it's a tragedy more parents don't acknowledge that.
10.No Child Left Behind.
11.Not every teacher is a saint. One told my niece many years ago that if a gay man sneezes on you, you die of AIDS. How's that for sex education?
12.I get to go on the field trips.
13.The public refuses to adequately support public schools. Kids should go to school to learn, not to hawk candy bars so they can buy textbooks.
14.A better student-teacher ratio.
15.No Child Left Behind. And how exactly does learning to take a test contribute to my child's education?
16.We have religious objections to waking up before dawn.
17.We can slow down and spend as much time as The Boy needs working on double-digit subtraction.
18.We can speed up and rip through spelling as fast as The Boy wants.
19.We can't afford back-to-school clothes.
20.To be ready for first grade, you have to excel at kindergarten. To be ready for kindergarten, you have to go to a good preschool. To be ready for preschool, you have to go to day care. At what point do we teach a fetus to square dance?
21.Socialization is overrated. If the socialization you get in public schools is so gosh-awful important, how did modern humanity survive its first 4,850 years without it?
22.Our complete K-12 Star Wars Curriculum. Did you know that the rise of Octavian to Augustus Caesar, Rome's first emperor, is actually based on "Star Wars," wherein Senator Palpatine twisted the Galactic Republic into an empire? Et tu, Darth Vader?
23.Watching the light bulb go on in your child's eyes when he figures out the concept of division.
24.It's not necessary to have sheriff's deputies roaming the hallways of my home.
25.Learning never ends — not at 3 p.m., not after homework is done, not on weekends and not on vacation.
I don't think homeschooling is for everyone. Heck, lots of parents welcome that 9 to 3 break from their kids. And many parents are so devoted and involved, they make public schools better for everybody, and I admire that.
But I'm not that patient.
No, until our society can stop the violence, pay teachers what they deserve, fund superior classroom technology, get past the arguments about religion, tailor education to individual children, abolish the bureaucracy and define "Waffle Stix," I'd just as soon do this myself.
Besides, we enjoy teaching our children. And that's reason enough.
Posted by Julee at 10:53 PM | Comments (1)
Space Shuttle Fever
Ever we since we watched the Discovery blast off last week, the boys have spent a lot of time pondering space shuttles, space staions and satellites. It's been a lot of fun to watch them incorporate it into their play. They made shuttles complete with rockets and boosters and a space station with their notch 'ems.
We definitely are going to have to take a weekend trip to visit Space Center Houston. If we can wait there is a home school overnight event there in February.
We found a couple of pretty good books at the library: The Day We Walked on the Moon and The Picture World of Rockets and Satellites.
And here are some of the more fun interactive websites where we have been hanging out:
Amazing Space
SPACE.com
and of course, NASA's website.
Here are a couple of pictures of the shuttle that the boys have drawn:
Theo:
Henry:
Posted by Julee at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)