GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING 33                                               Date of Issue June 1, 1983

Since GWS #32 went to press I have spoken to many meetings that (because they were arranged later) were not listed on my schedule. On my April trip to California, along with listed meetings at Chico, I spoke in Marin County (wonderfully green after all that rain), San Francisco, Nevada City, and Eureka. On my May trip, along with the listed meetings, I spoke in Carson City NV, and San Diego. On a very quick trip in late May, I spoke to a number of good meetings at Georgia Southern College in Statesboro GA.

Thanks to a tremendous amount of good work by Nancy Plent and Meg Johnson (and in part to perfect weather), the May meeting of New Jersey home schoolers was a great success - over 200 people came, with many children of all ages. Eric Plent was our capable sound engineer, and Corinne and Melissa Johnson did good work at the registration desk.

On the way to California in April I appeared in Detroit on the popular local TV show “Kelly & Co.” On the day that the newspapers announced the report of the President’s Commission on Education (of which more later in this issue), Susan Stanberg of “All Things Considered” from National Public Radio interviewed me about it. The following day CBS “Sunday Morning” and the Donahue show both asked me to appear the following week, but since I was going to be on the West Coast I was not able to.

I have also been on radio shows in Saskatoon, St. Paul, San Antonio, and Boston. I also did one interview for the magazine Learning Today, and another for the largest English language magazine in Japan. Not sure yet when these will appear.

While I was in Sacramento, Jane Williams (CA) and I had a very pleasant and interesting meeting with Janet McCormack, the Private Schools Liaison officer for the State Department of Education. She was very interested, well informed, and helpful - she really knows how California government works. From what she told us, it seems likely that, for the time being at least, we will probably not be able to get any significant home schooling legislation through the California legislature. On the other hand, we may not need to; the home schooling picture looks much better than a few months ago.

Around the country, the picture remains mixed; in some states, home schooling has become easier, in others the state authorities still seem to be looking for ways to put a stop to it. It is still and probably will be for some time an important part of our job to convince the schools that home schooling is not a threat to them. In this connection, we keep getting good responses to my article in the Phi Delta Kappan (see GWS #32), one even coming from as far away as Germany.

Near the end of March I spent a weekend visiting the Wallaces in Ithaca, NY, and there saw the last three of nine public performances of Ishmael Wallace’s musical play (his second), “I Love You More Than A Grapefruit Squirts.” It was a delight, and a well-deserved success, interesting, dramatic, and very funny. I hope by the next issue of GWS to be able to offer tapes of the performance and a complete script.

More good news from the Wallace family - Nancy found a publisher for her book on home-schooling, the Swedish firm Larson, which is beginning to publish in the U.S. The book is called BETTER THAN SCHOOL, and will be published in November. Congratulations to Nancy and the family!

Here in Boston we have a big change in the office. Our old friend and colleague Peggy Durkee, whom many of you know in person or at least over the phone, was suddenly offered the job of Office Manager by the company she worked for before she came to work here, fourteen years ago, the same company that handles the mailing of GWS. It was an offer far too good to turn down, and one we could never hope to match here, much as we would like to. So she will have left by the time you read this.

Fortunately for us all, Pat Farenga, who will be getting married in August, was in a position to (and eager to) work full-time, so he will be taking over Peggy’s duties and responsibilities. For a while we will be even busier than ever here, but we are all sure that the transition will go smoothly.

Please note in the Directory that we have a new address for both the Canadian Alliance of Home Schoolers and Education Otherwise in Great Britain.

To those who found GWS #32 a bit hard to read, my apologies. I thought that green would be a nice colour for spring, but the ink turned out to be paler in print than I had expected from the sample. For the time being we’ll stay with the blue, which people seem to like, though we may try some other calories later.

You will see from the reviews that we are adding our first musical instruments to our mail-order list. Hope you like these; in time we may add others. — John Holt

JOHN’S COMING SCHEDULE

June 24, 1983: Center for Innovation in Education, Saratoga CA. Contact: Susan Iwamoto, CIE, 19225 Vineyard Ln. Saratoga CA 95070. June 28-30: 7th Annual Kephart Memorial Child Study Center Symposium, Univ. of Northern Colorado, Aspen/Snowmass, CO. Contact: Dr. Robert Reinert, KMCSC, UNC, Greeley Co 80639; 303-351-2691. July 21-23: Homesteaders Good Life Get-Together. Contact Sherrie & Norm Lee, Homesteaders News, Naples NY 14512. July 30-31: West Virginia Homeschoolers. Contact Jan Evergreen, Rt 1 Box 352, Alderson WV 24910. Aug. 1-2: Child Development Symposium, Assoc. for Research & Enlightenment, Virginia Beach, VA. Contact: Robert Witt, PO Box 595, Va. Bch. 23451; 804-428-3588. Anyone who wants to coordinate other meetings or lectures around these times and locations should contact Pat Farenga.

WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT RULING

From the Wisconsin News-Tribune & Herald, 4/27/83:

… A Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling Tuesday that the state’s private school attendance law is unconstitutional apparently will deter prosecution of at least four “home schools” in Douglas County.

The high court said the law is “impermissibly vague” and could not be used in prosecutions involving attendance or non-attendance at private schools.

The ruling could affect at least three children in the Superior School District who have been considered truant, according to Joseph Rogina, director of student services for the district. He said the children are attending private schools set up by their parents last school year but not sanctioned by the state.

Douglas County District Attorney Keith Peterson said similar cases have been raised in three other districts around the county, though charges are pending in only one.

… In Tuesday’s decision, the court directed that the Iowa County Circuit Court dismiss two misdemeanour convictions against Laurence Popanz, who was convicted of failure to send two daughters to a public or private school.

Popanz, a member of the Agency for the Church of the Free Thinker, Inc., had two daughters enrolled in the Free Thinker School, a private school in Avoca.

The local school district administrator refused to recognize the school as a private school because it was not listed in the “Wisconsin Nonpublic School District Directory” issued by the state Department of Public Instruction.

There is no requirement in state law or administrative regulations requiring that private schools be so listed, the Supreme Court said in a decision written by Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

“The administrator testified that the listing requirement was a matter of his own ‘professional’ standards,” she wrote.

“Due process,” she said, “requires that the law set forth fair notice of the conduct prohibited or required and proper standards for enforcement of the law adjudication.” _____

[JH:] This is the first case I know of in which a state supreme court has overturned such a law on grounds of vagueness, so it will probably be useful to continue to make this point and to cite this ruling in support.

NEW MONTANA LAW

The state of Montana has just passed a law which specifically permits home education. From an article by Ginny Baker in the newsletter of the MONTANA HOMESCHOOLERS ASSOCIATION (the actual words of the bill are underlined; other remarks are Ginny’s):

. . . [The law] will go into effect July 1, 1983, and will have the following provisions …

A child between the ages of 7 and 16 must attend a public school unless the child is “enrolled in a nonpublic or home school that complies with the provisions of Section 2″ of this bill.  “For the purposes of this subsection (f), a home school is the instruction by a parent of his child, stepchild, or ward in his residence, and a nonpublic school includes a parochial, church, religious, or private school.”  To qualify for exemption, Section 2 states “a nonpublic or home school shall:

(1) “maintain records on pupil attendance and disease immunization and make such records available to the county superintendent or schools on request.” The parent merely must keep these records, even if he does not immunize his children …

(2) “provide at least 180 days of pupil instruction or the equivalent in accordance with 20-1-301 and 20-1-302:” These sections define 180 days of instruction to include at least 2 hours for pre-school and kindergarten, 4 hours for grades 1 through 3, and 6 hours for grades 4 through 12 …

(3) “be housed in a building that complies with applicable local health and safety regulations.” It is the intent of the legislature that if your home is safe enough to live in, it is safe enough to hold your home school in. This subsection should have no effect on the home school except for local zoning laws for all homes.

(4) “provide an organized course of study that includes instruction in the subjects required of public schools as a basic instructional program pursuant to 20-1-111.” The homeschooler may provide his own course of study that includes these subject areas:  ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (grades K-6):Language arts (reading, writing, speaking, listening, spelling, penmanship, English); arithmetic (oral and written); science and conservation; social sciences (geography, history of the US, state history, agriculture, economics); fine arts (music and art); physical education; safety (including fire prevention); health education. JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL (grades 7-9): language arts, social sciences, mathematics, science, health and physical education, fine arts, practical arts (2 years). HIGH SCHOOL (grades 9-12): language arts, social sciences, mathematics, science, health and physical education, fine arts, practical arts (home economics, industrial arts, business, or agriculture), electives.

(5) “In the case of home schools, notify the county superintendent of schools of the student’s attendance at the school.” It appears the parent who operates  a home school must take the initiative to notify the county superintendent of the student(s)’ attendance at such school. Montana takes no census of school-age children. The legislature included this subsection because it felt it had to keep track of our children.

Home educators in Montana do not have to submit their children to testing of any kind. Nonpublic teachers do not have to be “certified.” The home school curriculum and textbooks need no approval by anyone as long as the parent affirms that they include the above mentioned subjects. Any parents who claim to teach their children at home yet do not are “non-schoolers,” not home schoolers, and would be liable for prosecution under the current truancy laws. I recommend that all home educators get a copy of Revised Law 20-5-102, MCA to keep on hand in case you are challenged by local authorities who are unaware of the change that legalizes home education in Montana …

VICTORY IN ALBERTA

The Calgary Herald, 3/17/83:

… A Calgary courtroom echoed with cheering Wednesday as a provincial judge found Pastor Larry Jones is not guilty of contravening School Act regulations by keeping his children out of a board-controlled school.

… Judge Douglas Fitch ruled it is “the right of every person” to give efficient educational instruction to his children …

He based his ruling on Section 143 of the act and Section 7 of the federal Charter of Rights.

Section 143 of the School Act “preserves” the right of parent to educate their children outside a certified school, he ruled.

The section says children can be excused from attending a certified public school if an application by parents is granted by a superintendent of schools, or a Department of Education inspector feels the children are being properly instructed at home or elsewhere.

But defense lawyer Phillip Carr argued there is nothing in the act which says parents have to apply for such an exemption. He also said Jones’s books have always been open for inspection.

“School authorities declined to send in their inspectors but (sent) school attendance officers” to explain to Jones he was breaking the law, Fitch said in his judgement.

Fitch also said Jones’s rights were infringed upon under Section 7 of the Charter of Rights which says “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

Since the school officials who challenge Jones’s right to educate his children are the same officials who decide, under Section 143 of the School Act if his school provides proper instruction, that contradicts the notion of “fundamental justice,” referred to in the Charter of Rights, the judge said.

… The judge also ruled that in broad terms, the School Act doesn’t infringe on freedom of religion.

One of the designers of the Alpha Omega curriculum, a Christian-based correspondence-type program which Jones uses, testified Wednesday the same curriculum is used in more than 2,000 schools in 20 countries.

Harold Wengert, also president of the Texas company which distributes the curriculum, said students who have taken the program often score much higher on university entrance exams than students who follow regular school-based programs.

Linda Matsalla, who performs psychological and educational testing for Foothills Educational Services, testified that an assessment of Jones’s three daughters who currently attend his school showed all three scored average or well above average on achievement tests set for their grade level.

In some areas the oldest daughter, Laura, and the youngest, Alison, were three grades ahead of the standards of students the same age in a public school.

“It was a good victory but it’s not over yet. We’ll still fight it,” Jones said, referring to charges which may yet be laid against him by the Department of Education for running his school …

PRESIDENT’S COMMISSION REPORT

The President’s Commission on Excellence In Education has recently issued a report, entitled “A Nation At Risk,” on the state of our public schools. In report card terms, they gave them an F. Among other things, they said that if a foreign country had done to us what our public schools have done to us, we might well consider it an act of war. Strong words.

What did the Commission recommend? Same old stuff - a longer school year, tougher courses, fewer electives, higher standards (code for “flunk more kids”), better teachers, more money.

A number of people, beginning with Susan Stanberg of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” have asked me what I thought about the report. Among other things, I said:

The report was no surprise. If you set up a commission to study U.S. transportation, and put on the commission only General Motors executives, naturally they will say that what we need is more cars, better roads, cheaper gas, etc. This commission, being made up of people in the school business, naturally said that the remedy for our problems was more school.

The report was nothing new. Every commission that has taken a broad look at the schools since the end of World War II has said exactly the same thing. We had national crises in the schools in the late ’40s, in the ’50s when Sputnik went up, in the early ’60s, again in the late ’60s, in the early ’70s when we went “Back To Basics” - that movement is now about ten years old - and almost continuously since then. There probably never was a time since universal compulsory public schools were invented when any overall look at what they were doing would have given them a good report.

The report will probably not do much of anything, but if it does, will do mostly harm. After all, if the medicine is what is making you sick, more of the same medicine will only make you sicker. The medicine, as I have said for many years, is Coerced, Controlled, Competitive Learning, which destroys most of the desire and capacity for learning of almost all on whom it is inflicted, even those who are good at school.

But, I was asked, won’t it do some good if we just spend more money on schools. No. If you start from Chicago to go to San Francisco, and assume that it is due south, the further and faster you go, the worse off you will be. The schools are operating on the basis of fundamentally wrong assumptions about children, learning, and teaching, and as long as they do, the harder they try, the worse they will do. They assume that children will not learn unless made to and cannot learn unless shown how, and that the way to make them learn is to give them a lot of disconnected little “facts” to memorize and punish them if they fail. This never worked and never will.

The correct assumptions, as our readers learn every day from their own experiences with their children, are that children love to learn, are very good at it, and, like scientists, do it by looking at the world around them, asking themselves questions about it, and making up or finding, and then testing, their answers to these questions. Efforts to coerce, control, and measure this process simply turn it off, for the vast majority of children. Until the schools learn this and act on it, they will remain where they have been for eighty or more years now - in serious trouble.

Aside from that, the effect of every one of these reports, and indeed all efforts to legislate improvement in education, is to take away from teachers the power to run their own classrooms as they see fit, and so to drive most of the best of them out of teaching, since they won’t stand for other people, most of whom have never done any teaching, telling them what to do in their classrooms and constantly checking up on them to be sure they do it. Telling teachers how to teach does not make bad teachers good; it only makes good teachers furious, and as the record shows, they don’t put up with it for long.

Will this report, and the Democrats’ hastily thrown together answer to it, help or hurt home schooling? Perhaps some of both. The report will certainly give us an answer to the schools’ claim that only they are competent to teach our children. But it may also breed a swarm of new curriculum requirements which could seriously limit our right to teach our children as we think best. Time will tell.                     - JH

ENCOURAGEMENT FROM CALIFORNIA

[JH:] I received a very encouraging letter just the other day from Dr. Lynn P. Hartzler, Program Manager, Alternative Education and Independent Study, California Dept of Education, 721 Capitol Mall, Sacramento CA 95814, saying in part:

… This is to acknowledge and thank you for your letter to Bill Honig, Superintendent of Public Instruction. Mr. Honig has asked me to write to you because I have been assigned the responsibility for alternative programs including home schooling. We concur with the observation that home and public schools may exist in a mutually cooperative and supportive relationship … At present there is much that can be done legally under the Independent Study option provided the local school authority adopts the required policy and procedures. Our position has been to encourage school boards and administrators to try to accommodate parents who request home schooling under the existing Independent Study legislation … _____

[JH:] Along with this, Dr. Hartzler sent me a copy of a letter he or she wrote to some parents who had written their Assemblyman, Don Sebastiani, about home schooling. This letter (a copy was sent to Mr. Sebastiani) says in part:

… We are pleased with your report of success in conducting a home school last year for the benefit of one child and the mother. There is no doubt that home schooling can be a fine experience especially for young children when the conditions are favourable, as they seem to have been in our case. It is our operational policy to encourage school district officials to attempt to accommodate parents who are willing and able to conduct home schools to do so via the Independent Study process. This is a legal option for citizens in California which safeguards school interests while allowing home schooling on a conditional basis … This office will be pleased to supply parents and school officials information and assistance in taking advantage of this option … _____

[JH:l I think California families would be wise to explore and pursue this Independent Study option before considering registering their own homes as private schools, for reasons I discuss in the article “Private School Option,” page 24.

SOUTH DAKOTA AMENDS LAW

[DR:] I wrote to the South Dakota legislature and to some GWS readers in that state, trying to find out more about the 1981 home-schooling law and the possible repeal that we mentioned in GWS #32. Shirley Frederick (SD) wrote back:

…The S.D. law you refer to is better known as the Christian Schools bill. It was promoted by various religious groups that wanted to set up schools without meeting state requirements for accreditation. Home schooling was included in the bill. The legislature agreed … as long as the children were to be tested annually and demonstrated academic progress.

The sponsor of the original 1981 bill came back to the legislature in ‘83 to amend the law - apparently the supporters of the original bill didn’t keep their end of the bargain and some children received no instruction whatsoever. Other children received dogmatic training under harsh conditions. The ‘83 fight was bitter - harsh words, name-calling, recriminations, bizarre demonstrations, and shady tactics. Legislators supported by the S.D. Education Association tried to require teacher certification for the “Christian schools.” The compromise bill passed on the last day … _____

[DR:] The staff attorney at the S.D. State Capitol sent a copy of the amendments as they were passed in the 1983 session:

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:

Section 1. That S. 13-27-7 be amended to read as follows: 13-27-7. All applications for excuse from school attendance shall be on a standard form acknowledged before a notary or two witnesses. The form shall be provided by the state superintendent of elementary and secondary education. If the application is granted, a certificate of excuse also provided by the superintendent of elementary and secondary education shall be issued by the president of the school board having jurisdiction over the district in which the child has school residence, stating the reason for the excuse and be for a period not to exceed one year. Upon a showing by the superintendent of elementary and secondary education that a child excused from school attendance pursuant to S. 13-27-3 is not being instructed in compliance with 13-27-3 the school board may immediately revoke the child’s certificate of excuse. All tests scores required by S. 13-27-3 shall be kept on file in the public school of the district where the child has school residence. If subsequent achievement test results reveal less than satisfactory academic progress in the child’s level of achievement, the school board may refuse to renew the child’s certificate of excuse.

Section 2. That S. 13-27-3 be amended to read as follows: 13-27-3. A child shall be excused from school attendance, pursuant to 13-27-2, because the child is otherwise provided with competent alternative instruction for an equivalent period of time, as in the public schools, in the basic skills of language arts and mathematics. The parent or guardian of the child shall identify in the application the place where the child shall be instructed and the individual or individuals who will instruct the child. The individuals are not required to be certified but the state superintendent of elementary and secondary education may investigate and determine if the instruction is being provided by a competent person … The child shall annually take a nationally standardized achievement test of the basic skills. The test shall be the same test designated to be used in the public school district where the child is instructed and may be monitored by a designee from the local school district where the child is instructed. The test shall be provided by the school district where the child is instructed. The superintendent of elementary and secondary education or his designee may visit any alternative education program at reasonable times during the school year.

Section 3. That Chapter 13-27 be amended by adding thereto a new section to be read as follows: If a child of compulsory school age [who] has been attending an unaccredited school in another state or country or (who] has been receiving alternative instruction pursuant to 13-27-3 enrols in a public school in this state, the child shall be placed at the child’s demonstrated level of proficiency as established by one or more standardized tests. However, a child’s placement may not be in a grade level higher than warranted by the child’s chronological age assuming entry into the first grade at age six … [A similar provision for secondary students follows.]

MORE LEGISLATIVE NEWS

CALIFORNIA: According to Jane Williams of the CALIFORNIA HOME EDUCATION CLEARINGHOUSE, some home-schoolers discussed the possibility of home-school legislation with a State Assemblyman, an assistant to a State Senator, Janet McCormick of the Department of Education, a couple of lobbyists, and the general counsel for the Seventh Day Adventists. The general advice was that any homeschooling bill would be unlikely to pass, partly because the California Teachers Association was very powerful. They also advised that homeschooling legislation might bring more problems to the home-schooling movement, in the form of controls and aggressive opposition.

ILLINOIS: Deb Martin of HOUSE writes, “Yes, we are aware of the ‘Informational Report and Preliminary Recommendations Regarding the State’s Relationship to Illinois Nonpublic Schools’ [GWS #31]. There have been hearings throughout the state. What disturbs us most about this is that they want to make it mandatory for all nonpublic and home schools to register with the state. It is voluntary now … We are suggesting that people write their senators and representatives … There is another study, ‘Phase I Mandates Studies Final Staff Recommendations Presented to the Illinois State Board of Education Planning and Policy Committee.’ In this they are trying to redefine schooling. Some of our people have appeared at hearings on this. The definition of schooling is a formal process which has as its primary purpose the systematic transmission of knowledge and culture, whereby children learn in areas fundamental to their continuing development. ‘Formal’ and ’systematic’ are the words we object to. Also in this report they want to lower the mandatory school age…”

KANSAS: Jeanne Kasten writes, “Several months ago I was told about a group of homeschoolers in Wichita, and I attended a meeting in February. About 30 adults came… There was some discussion of a bill which was pending which would have put restrictions on private schools and would have been bad news for those who had established private schools of their own … We all wrote letters the following week and the bill never even made it to committee.” Jeanne continued, “After the meeting … I threw out the idea of writing our own bill, based on the ‘legislative proposal’ in GWS #30. Several people jumped at the idea… At the March meeting … we spent the time familiarizing ourselves with the proposal … I have written about half a dozen letters since that March meeting - to the Eagle Forum, to the lawyer who handled a home-schooling case, and to others I think might be interested. So far I have no responses. Anyone who wants to contact me on this may write or call (316-263-0225) … ”

LOUISIANA: Rep. Louis “Woody” Jenkins writes, “Regarding the Private Education Deregulation Act here in Louisiana, it is true that for a time I urged people to utilize the ‘private school’ option in the act, instead of the ‘home study’ option in the same law. This was because the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) was attempting to impose additional regulations on home study parents, contrary to law … BESE did rescind its regulations and institute a simple, one-page home study application form. Now I urge parents to use either the private school or the home study option. BESE is approving all home study applications.

“With respect to the possibility of the attorney general or some judge ruling that one-child private schools at home are illegal, the Louisiana attorney general has already ruled that they are legal under the Private Education Deregulation Act…”

MINNESOTA: From Issue #1 of the Minnesota Home Schooling Association Newsletter ($5/year): “A major topic at the last few meetings was the possibility of introducing a bill to the Minnesota legislature to provide for home schooling. We took John Holt’s model bill as a starting point. It was decided not to introduce a bill at this time for three reasons: first, it would be difficult for home schoolers to agree what should be put in the bill since each of us has diverse philosophies of education; second, a friendly legislator did not recommend we do this because once the bill was introduced it could be amended into something we don’t want; third, one of the MHSA members gave (out) a copy of Arizona’s home schooling law which makes many restrictions on home schooling which limited the freedom we wish for ourselves…”

NEVADA: Kathy Erickson [GWS #32] wrote in early May that the testimony on March 29 before the State Legislature Education Committee “was surprising -we had 150 to 200 more people than we expected. The bill, we hope, will be out of Education Committee and on the Assembly floor this week. Then we will have testimony in the Senate. But the Legislature will close at the end of the month so we are pressured for time…”

NOTES FROM DONNA

New Reprints: We have two new reprints available here. One is John’s “Legislative Proposal” from GWS #30; the other is a summary of the Massachusetts home-schooling situation that Tim Chapman put together before he left. Each is available for 10c (SASE required if you are not buying other material from us).

Questions: A reader asks if anyone knows where to pursue a doctorate in alternative education (including independent study and home schooling). Another reader would like to hear about any home-schooled twins, especially about the question of whether they grow too dependent on each other.

Thanks: Rena Caudle writes, “We want to thank you all very much for printing the article [GWS # 31] about Jeremy,” who had a brain tumor. “The response has been wonderful. It has been great for the kids.” Rena had the marvellous news that Jeremy had spontaneous remission” - at present there are no signs of the tumor.

I sent some books and magazines to Dr. K. D. Chauhan [”Request from India,” GWS #29] and he wrote that when the children opened the package, “They were dancing here, having each copy of books and magazines in their hands and singing with joy and pleasures a unique wonderful and beautiful song with music of their own country hand instruments and drums in a circle … After half an hour they became quiet and absorbed in magazines and I was pointing and hinting to make them understand…” Dr. Chauhan especially appreciated the National Geographics we sent and hopes we can get more. It you can, please send materials to him at the Jagdish Society, Post Unjha 384170, N. Guj., India.

Finally, thanks to all those who have made a contribution, large or small, to our “Gift Sub Fund.” Because of you, a dozen families are receiving GWS who could not otherwise afford it. When you give us extra money and say, “Keep the change,” that’s where it goes, and we hope these gifts will continue to come in. - Donna Richoux

ORGANIZATIONAL NEWS

All addresses will be found in the “Home Schooling Groups” list at the end of this issue. New groups on the list include: LEARN, which publishes the Rainbow Review, Bloomington IN ($5/yr); MICHIGAN ASSOCIATION OF HOME EDUCATORS; SAN FERNANDO VALLEY HOMESCHOOLERS ASSOCIATION.

ARIZONA: According to the ARIZONA FAMILIES FOR HOME EDUCATION newsletter ($4/yr), the group will have a convention July 16, at Centennial Hall, 201 N Center, Mesa.

ARKANSAS: From the CHRISTIAN HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION: “We have a fast-growing group across our state at the present time. Several families have been challenged in various cities at the municipal court level, have appealed the unjust rulings to Circuit Court. None have reached Circuit Court trial yet… We have also had to fight proposed legislation this spring which would have defined private and parochial schools and placed several state “standards” upon all education, effectively shutting down home education. House Bill 554 ended up being referred to an Interim Education Committee between now and the 1985 legislative session … We have published two issues of a statewide newsletter ($10/yr).”

CALIFORNIA: Last year John Boston (CA) began organizing a “telephone network” across the state which was useful in alerting home-schoolers about legal news and events. If you would like to take part, write him or phone 619-749-1522.

FLORIDA: We have received information from the ADVANCED MINDPOWER INSTITUTE, 12522 Holyoke Av, Tampa FL 33624, a non-profit organization and church with home education as a major religious principle.

ILLINOIS: Deborah Martin of HOUSE wrote, “You recommended that if home-schooling groups form, they stay very informal … Our HOUSE groups have varied. The Chicago and the Lake County groups have usually had very informal meetings without an agenda or meeting topics. However, I found our DuPage County group needed to take a more formal approach or people who had previously attended meetings, or people who were actually home schooling, would not return … I have found it helpful for myself to have an agenda of group things to discuss. However, this has taken an awful lot of energy on my part … I am looking forward to this summer as being a time of more informal meetings, possibly an open house …

IOWA: Barb Tetzlaff writes, “Our group O’KIDS (Organization to Keep Iowa Deschoolers Strong) is really growing … At our first meeting we had 49 adults and their children in attendance. It was really beautiful to see all the children socializing so nicely’ Our son, Josh, said that it was the best day of his life’ … We’re planning a picnic for Independence Day …

NEW YORK: Peter Ackerman, now in Connecticut (RFD 1 Box 306, Kent 06757; 203-354-7003) says he gathered a great deal of information about the New York City school bureaucracy, regulations, etc, that should be most useful to would-be home-schoolers there, and he hopes they will contact him.

OREGON: From HOMESCHOOLERS OF LANE COUNTY: “We have formed a homeschooler group here in Eugene, involving about 10 or so families. It is a very informal and loose-knit gathering which we hold once a month … At these meetings we share our homeschooling experience and any information involving legal or public school issues and whatever else people want to discuss. We also form field trips … Each family will share with other families, one or two days a month, their particular field of expertise or interest. So far we have families willing to share home computer courses, first aid, goat care, typing, chemistry, nutrition, Spanish, bread dough art, baking, sewing, building, and farming…”

UTAH: The UTAH HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION’s Third Annual Convention will take place June 23-24 with guest speakers Raymond and Dorothy Moore, and Richard and Linda Eyre (advisors on President Reagan’s Committee for Financing Elementary Education).

WASHINGTON: A group of homeschoolers, with the assistance of attorney Michael Ferris, have started the HOME SCHOOL LEGAL DEFENSE ASSOCIATION (PO Box 1219, Olympia WA 98507). According to its brochure, “In the event that any legal action (or threats of legal action) are brought against a member family, the association will furnish free legal representation through the attorneys on staff or retained by the association … Basic cost is $65 per year…”

WISCONSIN: Sue Brooks writes, “Chris Mayou and I are going to publish the Wisconsin Regional Coalition of Alternative Community Schools Newsletter beginning sometime in July … I only hope it works - organizing has been difficult here due, in part, I think, to great differences in philosophy which seem to keep folks at arms’ length … Folks can send legal info to Chris (W8229 Tower St, Onalaska WI 54650) and general info on meetings or short paragraphs describing their dealings with their school district (please name that district) to me. Subscription orders ($10) can also be sent to me (Rt 2 Box 230, New Auburn WI 54757) … ” - DR

AN ALLY IN COLORADO

Was delighted to hear the other day from my old friend Edward Pino in Colorado. Ed was for many years the Superintendent of the Cherry Creek School District (suburb of Denver), known nationally as one of the most innovative and by any measures successful school districts in the entire country. He retired from that post ten years ago, but is still active, energetic, and very interested in home schooling. I asked him to find out for us what he could about the legal and administrative situation in Colorado. He very quickly replied with the following useful and encouraging information:

1) The Colo. Dept. of Education “Monitors” home schooling families, currently estimated at about 114, but essentially the Board’s function is simply to provide information.

2) “Colo. law leaves responsibility to local boards, both authority and responsibility. Colo. law is very flexible and open to home study…” The State Dept. of Ed. has no authority either to permit or forbid home schooling, though of course they can always try to influence local boards to move one way or the other.

3) “Six boards out of 181 districts in the state have chosen to disapprove of home study for various reasons … if you want more help on this, let me know.”

Since Ed is very well-known and highly respected among Colorado educators, his advice and help are likely to prove very helpful. Perhaps together we may before long find ways to bring around those few presently hostile school districts. A useful first step might be to put into the hands of the superintendents and board members copies of the Phi Delta Kappan article and our legislative proposal.                     - JH

SUPPORTING PUBLIC SCHOOLS

From Pamela Pacula (CA):

… Not knowing that I would not be sending my 4-year-old son to the local public school, a neighbour called and asked me to help a group of mothers in their fight to keep the school in our area open.

The public school facility near us is in a very beautiful, serene location, surrounded by rolling hills and trees. The buildings are fairly new, and the children can see the lovely surroundings from inside their classrooms. I thought it was a shame that the children in our community might not be able to spend the better part of their days at this particularly beautiful school site, and was more than happy to help the other mothers take a survey to present to the school board.

As I called people from the list, some asked me as many questions as I asked them. When they found out that my son would not be going to public school, they invariably asked: “But why are you helping with the survey? Why do you care if the school remains open or not?”

I told them that I cared very much! I reminded them that the children who go to public school are part of the same society my-children live in. They will become the adults my children will encounter when they enter adulthood -so how can I not care about their education, their health, and their happiness?! The people I spoke with were very pleased that I was willing to help.

I want others to know that I’m not being “elitist” or saying “To heck with society” by choosing to home school my child. I’m merely exercising my right to choose how my child is educated and raised. While helping with this survey I made some new friends in the non-home-school community. They saw that I was eager to help their children and they were supportive of my right to home school my child.

… Four and a half years ago … I decided that when my youngest went to school, I would volunteer to teach French in his class … Although I have since become firmly convinced that home school is best for Brian, I still intend to volunteer (with Brian) to teach French at a local elementary school. I love the French language, I enjoy teaching young children, and feel it would be as beneficial to Brian and me as to the children … _____

[JH:l Many thanks to Pam for this very important letter. We are of course very eager to hear from parents whose local schools are working with and helping them; but we are equally eager to hear from parents who have found ways to cooperate and work with their local schools. For Pam is right - for a long time, the schools are going to be there, and most children are going to be going to them, and what happens to them there is going to affect the lives of all children, including home-schooled ones. It would be very short-sighted for us to assume that the worse things get in the schools, the better it will be for home schooling. Quite the reverse.

BUYING OUR BOOKS HELPS

A reader told us that she and others she knew thought they were doing us a favor by not buying books from us - they thought we didn’t make any money from the books we sell and so they were saving us time and trouble. Well, let’s clear this up without further ado. We do indeed make a profit on sales of books, and even at present levels of sales this profit makes a useful contribution to our total income. If we could double, and then double again, our book business, it would go a long way toward making GWS self-supporting, instead of depending very heavily, as we do now, on the uncertainties of the lecture and publishing business. There is no reason why we should not do this, since the list is already good enough so that many people, if they knew about it, might order many books from it even though they had no particular interest in home schooling. Many people have told us that even though the Boston area is a great educational center, we offer a more varied and interesting set of books for and about children than they can find in any local bookstore - and we have many more good books and materials that we plan to add to the list as soon as we can.

In short, one of the easiest and most useful things that people can do to help GWS is to put our book list into the hands of as many people as possible, or otherwise make it known to them. To save on printing costs, we are designing a special short version of our list that will include descriptions of our most popular books. These will be ready by the time you read this, and you could help us a great deal by ordering a quantity of these short booklists (20/$1) and giving or sending them to people you know or with whom you have contact.

One possible thing to try - put classified ads in small local papers or magazines, asking people to send you a self-addressed stamped envelope and perhaps a small sum, 25c or so, to help cover the cost of the ad. For anything you can do along these lines, thank you very much - and if you find some particularly effective ways to distribute these lists, please let us know. Another reader wondered how long after we reviewed a book in GWS could she still buy it from us. We continue stocking all titles as long as we can get them from the publishers, and only a few have gone out of print. Of course, many of the current prices are higher than what you’ll find in the back issues of GWS. You can always get a free copy of our latest booklist by sending us a self-addressed, stamped envelope. - JH & DR

LIFE AT HOME

Kathy Lorimor (IL) writes:

… We are now home-schoolers, and each day I think of a new benefit to our chosen course. Since Lisa is only kindergarten age now, she will not be required to enter school for two more years, when she is 7 …

This past summer Lisa taught herself to read and do math problems. In the past month she got interested in sign language, so we found a book at the library, and she is teaching herself. She has learned how to look words up in the Table of Contents and then find the page that she wants. She spent most of her birthday money to purchase the book, since the library couldn’t let us keep it indefinitely. Her main desire for her birthday was a world map puzzle, since the US puzzle she received at age 4 is too easy. She daily practices 1-1/2 hours on her cello with me, and then does up to an hour of piano on her own. Heather and Heidi are now 3 and watch Lisa very carefully.

… My husband and I have noticed that the girls have stopped asking, “What can I do?”, but more often say “May I … ?”, “Will you help me…”, and “Where can I find … ?”. They have become self-motivated in the home environment … _____

From Connie Colten (CA; GWS #29):

… A few months ago, Shawn (8) is riding his bike on a weekday when two policemen stopped him and asked why he wasn’t in school. He replied that he goes to home-school. The police wanted to know what that was. Shawn told them that his mom teaches him at home. When they wanted to know why, Shawn told them it was because homeschooling was better than public schooling. That concluded the conversation as they didn’t ask him for his name and address. The whole thing didn’t seem to bother Shawn at all, but I must admit that I was a little upset …

Now, as to what the boys have been doing. Chris (11) has been on a NANCY DREW reading kick. He also has read all of the LITTLE HOUSE books. He found out some relatives are making money on the stock market so he and his father read about stocks and have some pretend shares to check in the newspaper. He is still very interested in sports and spends time watching games, sorting his playing cards, reading books about sports figures and playing the various games outdoors.

Devin (4) seems most interested in numbers lately. Chris taught him to play War with cards, and he quickly learned the lower and higher values involved there. Next he watched Chris and a friend play Stratego and became obsessed with the game, wanting to play three to four times a day for two months … Now he watches the digital clock, calling out the numbers. He also bought a book that he can “read” aloud, so he trades his story for the ones he wants us to read to him.      Shawn has been spending his time and money fixing up his bike. He saves and shops to get the equipment he wants. Money has taken on a value to him now that it didn’t have

We were interviewed by a freelance writer on homeschooling. Chris and Shawn were very pleased to be questioned about their opinions. So far the article hasn’t been published. Before the interview was finished Chris was interviewing the writer about being a writer!

Our homeschooling group meets weekly. It has offered an opportunity for social interaction for the boys as we moved here fairly recently. We have done some field trips with the group: visiting a vet’s office, touring a bakery, picking apples, and going to the beach.

An art project of making pinatas was a disaster. Each boy wanted to make his own. We ended up covering very big balloons, so we paper-mached for days. They dried funny and finally after a little painting, I came out on the porch to find the boys had smashed them open to get the goodies’ I was glad to see the end of the whole project.

The boys have also been involved in my prenatal care. They come to the check-ups at the midwife’s. They listen to the baby’s heartbeat, have been shown how to measure the heartbeat and how to measure my iron count. We borrowed some childbirth films from the library to view … _____

From Miriam Mangione (NV):

… Shanda (11) is doing fine at home - migraines have disappeared! We use the “open book” method for Calvert and employ other short cut methods as it’s all non-essential information. She didn’t like “learning to type”; however, she did learn the finger placement and does type when she wants to type up a play she wrote, etc. She spends most of her time reading, reading, reading; writing poetry, plays, cartoons; doing all the work in the house, yard, car repairs, fix-it jobs and child care; and just about everything else we do, she does too. The only time any of us were ever bored was when we were in school. Creativity leads to further creativity, so at home one thing just leads to another and we’re always busy - even if it’s just thinking.

Other than exceptional programs we watch very little TV. And I especially hate the Saturday fare of cartoons - I never liked them as a child - so they are never on. Shanda used to watch them years ago but I found she could not break away from their mesmerization and her temperament would change. Now she spends Saturdays at dance class and dressing up her baby sisters in costumes at home and they imitate her dancing, among other activities. Anything but cartoons!

We film a lot of their activities on our video camera and they watch themselves more than anyone else on television. Only thing is that the two-year-old doesn’t know why she isn’t on other people’s televisions when she visits. She has an excellent vocabulary for a two year-old and I think much of it came from just watching herself and the adults around her repeating their words and actions. We don’t use it for any “educational” purpose; for us it’s the best entertainment on TV! … _____

From Pam Gingold (CA):

… I have a 6 1/2-year-old son, Jeremiah, who is unschooled. I helped him learn how to read a couple of months short of his fifth birthday (I taught him phonics and he readied himself by doing jigsaw puzzles for two months straight - literally, he only wanted to do 150-piece puzzles day and night, then he picked up a second grade book and started to read). Now he reads at sixth grade level and spends 2-3 hours a day at it. We have thousands of books and magazines at home and we also go to the library every two weeks so he is free to dig up whatever information he can find. Mostly he is interested in historical fiction, biographies, and science.

He also thinks long division is nothing but great puzzles to figure out, and as far as adding and subtracting goes, he “looks it up in his head.”… He learned to write making NO NUKES signs and sometimes helps in the Alliance for Survival office doing mailings. He’s sure we can stop war, he hates racial discrimination, sexual discrimination, etc.

… I feel great about homeschooling … Now I know that if I know something I can teach it (if someone wants to learn it). It doesn’t matter that I got rotten grades in high school and I didn’t go to UCLA. I taught my neighbour’s 8-year-old son to multiply and divide in 15 minutes yesterday and his wonderfully trained teacher couldn’t get him to learn his times tables (he didn’t know what he was learning them for). I like things to make sense so I always make sense out of things for children … _____

Madalene Murphy (CT) wrote:

… We began the school year rather structured because that’s what Emily (8) suggested, and, although we hate to admit it now, we were more comfortable with that. The structure began to decay after the third day, until by Thanksgiving it had metamorphosed into a bulletin board with index cards that could be rearranged into any order and most cards were open to substitution or negotiations one of Emily’s favorite cards was a research question - sometimes very simple (”Was FDR a Democrat or a Republican?”), sometimes more complex (”How do frogs croak?”) - which would send her on a search through our encyclopedias and other available books, and would often result in her finishing the encyclopedia entry even after she found the answer, and then looking for more books in the library on the subject, or at least involving Tom or me in a lengthy discussion (”What is a Democrat, anyway?”).

…Christian (6) is beginning to read and it is a beautiful thing to watch. In one of my “What if the school board … ?” moods I’ll think for a moment that we should do some phonics exercises but then I listen to him and I realize, as he tries a new word, that he has learned a lot of phonics just by reading. Besides, we tried a beginning workbook for a while last fall until he looked up one day and said, “These sentences are really boring.” He is primarily interested in woodworking and made all the Christmas presents he gave last year, ranging from spool holders to a box for his sister’s doll clothes.

Clare (3) is involved in all the activities (even in the typing of this letter, as evidenced by the dots above). She decided that one of her goals for the next year would be to learn to read.

One of our primary sources of educational materials has been tag sales. About a month ago I picked up a “chemistry set” for $1.30 at one - no chemicals, just lots of beakers, test tubes, racks, and such. The kids have spent a couple of days, all day, messing around with them, mixing oil, water, flour, and dish detergent, recording what they observed. They want to expand this throughout the year.

We parents have found homeschooling demanding, primarily because we have had to change our value system. The more we learn about learning, the less time we spend over teaching. Ultimately, however, we are impressed with how efficient homeschooling is; in Emily’s case, the elimination of the emotional static caused by school releases an impressive supply of energy that can keep her going from morning to till night, pretending, arguing, fooling around, and even helping.

After spending a rather lonely winter in the sense that we seemed to be the only home-schooling family in the immediate area, we were quite surprised last spring to start getting phone calls from people who were interested in taking or keeping their children out of school. Many of them have now joined our GWS subscription … _____

From a New Jersey reader:

… Homeschooling has given my children (8 and 6) and me the freedom and opportunity to accompany my husband on his many business trips. This takes a lot of coordination and patience on all our parts, but what better way for the children to learn those attributes! My husband’s business plans are never set in stone, so our time schedules are always in limbo.  A three-day trip can turn into a week or may be cancelled at the last minute altogether. We trail a pop-up camper behind our van and cut expenses by camping when possible. I’ve always wondered what went through bellmen’s heads when they see us to our hotel room followed by all our camping equipment. Finding an appropriate place to open up a wet tent in the middle of Chicago, Richmond, and Washington D.C. has been quite an experience, too! We’re solving that problem and other inconveniences by purchasing a small R.V.

No matter where we go we can find a museum or historical site of interest. The children have grown an appreciation for their country’s growth from visiting such places as Plymouth, Williamsburg, Old Salem, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, many national parks, and presidential Libraries … Both keep journals of their trips, and it’s interesting to note the natural improvement in penmanship, sentence construction, grammar, and especially in their desire to write in general. They now don’t think twice about sitting down and writing plays, stories, or poems.

Our trips have also influenced the children’s play habits. More times than not, they will pretend that they are inventors, presidents, or park rangers instead of always playing school or nurse in stereotypical roles… This carries over when we go to the library. Without my suggesting it, they usually seek out books having to do with a trip we just took or are planning to take. This could be anything from a geology book to a biography …

Our new TRS-80 colour Computer has taken the place of trips for the winter months. In three weeks’ time, our son has learned enough to start programming. He started learning by systematically completing a chapter a day. By Chapter 7, he decided that he knew enough for his present needs and now types to his heart’s content, and uses the index to find what specific language he needs. Our daughter’s interest comes in spurts. She often feels threatened because her older brother progresses rapidly and is a self-proclaimed expert at programming. So she sits back, watches intently, and learns by observing what we do.

Seymour Papert wrote a marvellous book in 1980 called MINDSTORMS: CHILDREN, COMPUTERS, AND POWERFUL IDEAS [DR: we sell it here for $6.25; see John’s review in GWS #24]. I strongly recommend this book to all GWS readers even if you don’t have or plan to buy a computer … Papert presents some approaches for making computers have a more humanistic relationship with mathematics. He discusses not only what the computer can do, but also offers a perspective on. the process of learning itself … _____

From Debbie Hart (MI):

… We just took a 4-day trip to visit a homeschooling family 150 miles west of us. They have six children (2-11 years). With my three we had quite a houseful, but we all enjoyed ourselves very much.

… The children are so creative and have such imaginations that I know soon they will outdo me in my artwork. They already can observe things that it has taken me years to learn, things like perspective and shadowing of their pictures. I’m finding that I am re-learning my own art skills. I was always taught to copy and do exactly like the mimeographed sheet said. If I used my own imagination I was punished for not following instructions. Now I am trying to un-program myself from these “rules”. . .

My husband, Steve, is working on a wind generator and so both boys are learning all the mechanics of that. They build their own models along with him and sometimes even give him ideas …

We have started building a passive solar greenhouse/house. It’s earth-bermed and will be compost-heated. The kids are learning how to construct a house (us, too, actually). We do a little at a time since our funds are short, but we are learning a lot …

This summer we are going to let the kids have a sort of vacation, sending them to others’ houses for a couple of weeks or so. I want them to be exposed to different environments that we can’t provide, like our friends who play piano and other instruments, just so they know not everyone is a crazy artist like me or an inventor like Steve (he likes making different energy-saving devices). Maybe they need to get away from us once in a while and find out that just about every household has some sort of chores to do. Or that you have to do a little preparation before a meal can be made. Sometimes they think they are the only children who have to pick up clothes and clean their rooms. They like helping once in a while, but if you push it, it’s “Do I have to?” Usually they come around when they tell me they’re hungry and ask me for something to eat; I just say, “Do I have to cook?” They get the idea after a while … _____

From North Carolina:

… We are entering Year Three of home school. As a single parent, sole supporter of our family and this venture, I must say home education has been difficult and terribly frustrating on many occasions … but, in the long run, promises to be well worth it! Our approach has varied from Calvert with Advisory Testing (we lasted six months), to Clonlara with whom I was completely independent (even when I should have sought assistance!), to Horizons in Atlanta for this year. Horizons offers the same type of service as Clonlara, but is only 5 hours away.

I’ve had a tendency in the past to look to unschooling as a panacea for all child rearing difficulties - thus, I’ve often become disheartened when “life wasn’t perfect” and have erroneously blamed normal disruptions on unschooling. It’s taken me two years to get over this tendency, but I think it’s perhaps my most crucial lesson - i.e., brothers will disagree, kids will have mood fluctuations, teenage years do cause more emotion, houses get very messy when occupied by active people all day, my energy does have a limit - we all need R&R, our own space, etc., at times! …

YOUNG WORKERS

Sharon Hillestad (MN) writes:

… Holly (14) visited California friends for three weeks. They took her to Mexico with them on a church trip. A group of people journeyed to Baja to work on an orphanage. Holly took care of small children, painted fences, stacked wood, and distributed clothing to some Indians. She saw some of the worst poverty on the continent. She also saw a lot of caring people trying to help. She is determined to do it again next year and has set money aside for it. She wants her 12-year-old brother to go along next time. I think it is good social studies and I wish everyone else could do this or something similar. She will never take our relative prosperity for granted again.

By the way, she had studied Spanish from the tapes you recommended in GWS #20 [LIVING LANGUAGES, available from Publishers Central Bureau, 1 Champion Av, Avenel NJ 07131]. She was able to speak the language as well as the high school students who studied two or three years in school … _____

Jenni Williams wrote in the PA Unschoolers Network, #6:

… Working at the Public Library in Gettysburg was an educational experience which boosted my self-confidence. I enjoyed helping others and the easy work. Other librarians at the library were surprised to find someone who is my age (12) being a volunteer. They didn’t know quite how to handle it. Since I had experience with the children’s librarian during the summer student apprenticeship program, she agreed to have me as her volunteer. The things I had to learn were to catalog books, put them in correct alphabetical or numerical order, how to properly check out books, magazines, etc, for others. The work involved shelving books, checking out articles, typing overdue notices and book orders, and slipping books (putting correct card in pocket when book is returned.)

I would recommend working at a library to anyone who is willing to use the time and energy … _____

From Elaine Mahoney (MA; GWS 23):

… The girls (15 and 13) have a new interest and job opportunity. They have been working part-time in a consignment shop earning $4.00 an hour. They are also helping me to landscape our lawn. We have never, ever done anything like this before but have discovered that when there is a will, there is a way. We are digging up 3/4 of the grass, planting ground cover. cutting small trees, and planting flowers. I suggested to the girls that they go into the landscaping business, but they just grinned and walked away …

HOME-SCHOOLED TEENAGERS

Vera Smith (ID) writes:

… It’s been a year now since we decided to take our two teen-aged boys out of school, and so far, so good. They seem to be learning at their own pace and with a lot more interest than while they were in school. They do the things that we feel are important to their education and then they have more than enough time to pursue their own interests, gardening, model building, and such.

… Believe me, it’s not the easiest age to work with because their interests are so wide and I’m just not up on everything they want to know and study. If it weren’t for Time-Life books, National Geographic books, and sundry others, I’d be in a fog. I’m wading through Carl Sagan and David Attenborough. I’m in a sea of English history. I’ve battled at Gallipoli, and I’ve gazed at Gandhi. I threw my tea bags into Boston Harbor and had a cup of coffee with Thomas Jefferson. If the boys don’t learn anything from this experience, I’ll at least be well-read and able to speak intelligently on a number of subjects including black holes, neutron stars, and thermonuclear fusion. Too bad such things don’t crop up in our everyday conversations.

… We have a family-owned business and each boy gets a turn at working in the offices answering phones, making out repair orders, and scheduling appointments. It’s good experience for both and they get an idea of how to deal with the public … _____

From Carla Emery in Idaho:

… It’s too bad I went through 16 years of home schooling myself without the guidance and support of your magazine. Over all those years I tried just about every variation on that theme you can imagine, including hiring a certified teacher to come to my nome every day. Technically I was supposed to assistant-teach under her supervision, but, really, she taught under mine because after all I was providing her paycheck. It’s been quite an adventure and my seven wonderful children thoroughly disprove the many bad prophecies they’ve been offered. The family is growing up fast now. Instead of alphabets, I have to worry about sex education and driver’s ed! …

ASKS ABOUT TEENS

Several readers have asked to see more about teens in GWS. In particular, one mother writes:

… We are having a good experience with home-schooling - have been doing it for about six years.

… I have noticed a growing restlessness in our 13-year-old. He’s not a person who has great social needs - needing to be with others much - but he is feeling lonely, isolated. He does city soccer, local theater, swim team, etc, etc, but still really has no friends his age. I don’t think he’d need but one… He’s always hated school but this need is pushing him toward school. He knows the need might not be filled there and yet school is a focus of activity with kids his age …

… Do home-schoolers with kids age 12 and up find the children do become more restless, more aware of their isolation? Do most homeschooled kids return to school about that age? Are we, as parents, missing opportunities to keep the momentum going for home study?

Is there anything we can do to help fill this gap? So far pen-pals don’t do it; activities like working with kids in a play for a month don’t do it. We don’t get together with other home-schoolers or have family friends with kids their age. That would help, I’d think.

… I wonder if we’re missing opportunities for participation in real-life activities like part-time jobs that the kids like, etc. (not necessarily paid).

We are apprehensive about homeschooling high school. We would do it if we had a miserable high school student, of course, but I almost think the kids should at least try high school. We can’t provide tennis team, chorus, band, chemistry lab …

It would be easy if you had a child who was sure that he wanted none of that stuff. Maybe we shall just let the kids go and find out, maybe that’s it. Maybe they’re beginning to long for school and need to go and have a basis for comparison.

I do think teens have different needs than the young home-schoolers and I wonder about ways of meeting them… I want to know more about what other teens do, have done, etc. If they continue learning at home, do they content themselves with trade-offs (”I can’t be on the tennis team but neither do I have to take tests”)? … I’d like to hear more from home-schooled kids who decided to go to school - did it fulfil their needs? …

LIFE AFTER HOME SCHOOL

Eileen Trombly (CT) wrote about her homeschooled daughters Lori (now in college) and Amy:

… Thought you’d enjoy reading an article written by Lori concerning her presence at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. For both Lori and Amy, “life after home schooling” has been super-charged with their dreams becoming realities. Lori has already been offered a position at O’Neill for next summer and was given her own studio this summer. Even though we’re minutes from the theater she sleeps nights at the mansion provided for the convenience of the N.Y. critics, etc. She often works late hours and is completely immersed in what she does. She looks, feels, and sounds totally healthy.

Likewise with Amy. She has done so well [at the school of the Hartford Ballet, a top professional company] she’s already been recommended to dance in the company class this fall.

Their self-esteem is sky high and, as parents, Spencer and I feel great satisfaction in their happiness …

WORKING WITH ADULTS

A follow-up to “Tutor in the Tropics,” CWS #17:

… To briefly refresh your memory, you received a letter over two years ago now from me, then a New Alchemist interested in, among other things, worms. My wife and I had just accepted a position as personal tutors of a twelve year old boy who resided on his parents’ privately-owned atoll of tropical islands (complete with library, tennis court, windsurfs, swimming pool, airplane, cooks, maids, launderer, etc.). You very kindly responded with a multitude of thoughtful suggestions.

… It was a time of tremendous personal growth for each of us, of meeting some of the most interesting people we’ve ever encountered, of deepening as well as heightening our sense of harmony with the natural world, and of cultivating one of the most moving relationships (with the boy) I can recall.

Prior to this mutually educational experience, I was ambivalent about home schooling my own prospective children. I am now convinced that no other form of education could be more beneficial, not only for my children but for my wife and myself as parents as well.

The educational background of the boy we tutored has almost solely been personal tutors. From the boy’s perspective, his situation is akin to home schooling; he has never known a traditional classroom, peer pressure, nor any of the other associated phenomena. It was clearly to his advantage.

… As the boy was eventually destined to attend a European international school (which he did beginning this year), we had certain academic standards to take into account. Although this had to be a major focus in our curriculum, my wife and I would also routinely invite him to take part in our own current “pet projects.” A couple examples of these were surveying and documenting the (previously unsurveyed) marine corals and fishes inhabiting the reef encircling the main island that we lived on, and carrying out some experiments a New Alchemy colleague requested on the freshwater ecology of a pond there. I believe the boy’s eagerness to participate in projects such as these stemmed mainly from his experiencing our dedication to and love for such work. I share your philosophy that a younger person will tend to “learn best and most if his/her learning grows out of being associated with someone in serious adult work, not just school stuff.” How well and much that person learns seems to me to be in direct proportion to how passionate that “someone” feels about his or her work, whether it be baking bread, building boats, or responsibly raising children …

HOME-SCHOOLING IN LOUISIANA

From a very encouraging story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, 3/28/83, sent to us by our friends Mary and Walter Marschner:

…The Marschners and the Andersons are two of 17 local families [JH:the Marschners wrote above this, “Many more”] continuing an old-fashioned practice that is resurfacing as a trend of the ’80s: home schooling.

The Louisiana legislative act allowing home education of children is now in its second year - and though some parents have tried the system briefly and declined to continue, others are sold on the living room-as-classroom concept.

“One of the prime advantages is family closeness,” says Mary Marschner. “We do so many things together as a family now.”

“It allows concentration,” adds her husband, Walter Marschner. “With 40 kids, you get one kid with a problem and you’ll have trouble meeting his needs. If one of our kids has a special need, we take all the time necessary to get it right.

“And flexibility - Jemmy was invited to a wedding in Mexico in the middle of the ’school year’ - but what a wonderful educational opportunity. She spent a month there.”…

“It doesn’t take as much time as you might think,” adds Anderson, who says her six years as a teacher were not much of a preparation for her present situation. “Now I’m not boxed into a certain time of day for a certain subject. Everything becomes a learning experience, and I’ve always loved learning. And it’s easier for parents to teach today because there are so many materials available.”

The home study movement has spawned a whole industry of support materials. Entire curriculums are available by mail. Parents can order individual texts, workbooks and tape cassettes on every subject imaginable. Guides to educational programs on TV are available, as well as accompanying workbooks. National news letters offer the latest information on home schooling legislation, civic action, and educational materials.

Jimmy and Andreas [Anderson] both say they do not miss daily association with other teens … They pursue a number of extracurricular activities that, they say, provide plenty of outside companionship …

As of February of this year, Louisiana Department of Education figures record 500 students throughout the state enrolled in home study - up from 265 at the same time a year ago … Assistant Director of the Bureau of Elementary Education Diane Reynolds … estimates that the figure will rise to 600 by the end of this school semester …

As the law currently stands, there is virtually no way to judge how well home schooling is working … The department can not oversee curriculums, review exams, test students or monitor home study in any way … “With no monitoring,” [says Reynolds] we can’t say if it’s working. Probably some parents are doing a fine job. But it certainly isn’t helping every child - I can’t say that all 500 children are getting a quality education. ”

Yet it is unbelievably easy to qualify for the home study program. Applicants simply fill out a one-page form listing the names and addresses of parents and names and grades of children. The form contains a pledge signed by parents stating that they will provide their children with an education “equal to the public system” and a school year of no less than 180 days. Parents need not tell the board of education what curriculum they will follow or what materials they will use. The application is renewed yearly and, if correctly completed, is approved routinely by the department.

Some parents avoid even that minimum of regulation by setting themselves up as private schools … Parents who wish to operate their own schools simply write to the state department of education at the beginning of the school year stating when the year will begin and the number of students enrolled …

Better assessment of the program may be possible in years to come, as children who are products of home schooling enter colleges or return to public schools. In the meantime, say educators, the movement is here to stay …

LETTER FROM MISSISSIPPI

Sandi Myers (MS) sent an article from a local paper about her family’s homeschooling (GWS #28), and wrote:

…I was surprised that we did not get any crank calls from the article. We found two other homeschooling families and have talked with them but not gotten together yet. I also got many calls congratulating us on what we are doing. Being in an area where the schools are recognized to be poor sure does promote understanding of our choice. The nicest thing by far about doing the article is feeling like we made two real friends in the reporter and the photographer. Both were young, single girls who felt that some day they might choose to allow their own children to learn at home.

Of the two families we talked to, one has eight children, ranging from about four to fourteen. The oldest children went to school a year or so, but they have been homeschooling since then. They seem to do much as we do with occasional emphasis on doing “studies” but for the most part just living and enjoying all the very natural learning that goes on.

The mother of this family and I laughed about how we encourage getting down to studying specific subjects at specific times out of pressure we feel from outside sources. My own children have gotten very good at recognizing this and they become very solicitous to me - giving me backrubs, helping with anything I am trying to do, asking if I would like to talk about it, and so on; but rarely getting down to doing whatever I had “suggested” they do in whatever timetable. And, of course, their response meets the actual need better than what I had suggested would.

… We received a call from an encyclopedia salesman who was very complimentary but was just sure she had the very thing we needed! She came out to show us her wares, and we found her to be like so many educators in that she would ask questions, but they were designed to bring about the answer she was looking for, not asking for our real thoughts. At one point, she asked if we knew the bird that flies the highest. We all thought and guessed, and none guessed right, so she astounded us with the right answer - a goose had been spotted at 26,000 feet, above the Himalayas. The kids and I immediately started to wonder about special adaptations birds in general must have to fly where people cannot breathe without supplemental oxygen, or perhaps just birds in that area, and of course she didn’t have the answer. To her, the little piece of information she could present to dazzle us was the whole issue - to us, finding out how they do it, and what species do it, and so on is the issue. I hope my children never lose their curiosity, and I have them to thank for the reawakening of mine …

RETIRED TEACHER SUPPORTIVE

Debra Stewart (WA) sent this letter which appeared in a local paper a few days after an article about the Stewarts’ home-schooling:

… In regard to Sunday’s article about the Stillaguamish Learning Center, I question why the state officials can’t leave these people alone.

Speaking as a retired teacher with many years of experience, I thrilled to read about parents with that much interest in their children’s learning. One of the problems of the public schools is to find parents who have time or interest to give to their children’s learning.

It seems ridiculous that the state officials would demand home inspections. If the homes are safe for the children to live in when not studying why wouldn’t they be safe for the shorter time when they are studying? The rules Tom Anderson, deputy attorney general, is trying to enforce there were made for larger groups of children. It seems as though he is trying to harass these people.

Here is a group that is doing much more than average parents to see their children get the type of education best suited to the child. They are hiring a certified person to test the children to be sure they are accomplishing scholastically. The children seem to be ahead of their contemporaries in the public schools with no cost to the taxpayers. The parents aren’t begging the state for money to help. They aren’t complaining about having to pay taxes to help other children have schools. My respect goes out to them.

It is my opinion that as long as the children are achieving, in the way this article purports, Tom Anderson should use this time and energy toward trying to help the neglected children who can’t seem to fit into the public system.      - Evalyn Pflueger, Snohomish _____

[JH:] Letter like this could probably be published in many papers where home-schoolers are having troubles. In general, letters to the editor are very good ways to reach the public.

FRIENDLY ADMINISTRATOR

Denise Hodges (IL) writes:

… I wrote up our curriculum and sent it to the regional superintendent in August. Haven’t heard a thing from him personally. …My husband Don teaches at a public school. Recently his superintendent approached him and said, “I hear we’re fellow administrators!” Don didn’t know what he was talking about until he remembered we jokingly listed him as our principal (because he’s not here all day!), when we filled out the form to register as a private school. Anyway, the superintendent went on to say that the regional superintendent had told him about our school and he was “very impressed” with our curriculum! So it looks like we’ll have no problems!

SINGLE PARENT HOMESCHOOLER

From Pat Tennant (CA):

… We have a friend who is a single parent raising her 7-year-old son. She is a licensed day-care person because that allows her to have some income and also be home with her son. But this is a low-income job so she uses some government services such as Medi-Cal. Because of this she has to meet once a year to have her “life reviewed” by a welfare person. This year, because of her son’s age, she had to bring proof that he was enrolled in a school. We had agreed a while back that if she needed coverage we would enroll Mark in our school - he is enrolled but is at home with his mother. So, for her meeting with the welfare person, we gave her a letter stating that Mark was enrolled in Lothlorien. When the welfare person saw this she remembered reading about the home-schools in the paper so she called the county schools office and asked if this school was a legal school. She was told that it was. She asked if it was one of the schools that was allegedly illegal and was told that no action was being taken at this time and until such time when action was taken, these schools were considered legal and that it was fine for Mark to be in that school …

DISCUSSIONS WITH EX-HUSBAND

From a mother in Kansas:

…I am interested in hearing more about divorced parent situations in which one disapproves of home schooling. I was pleased to see it mentioned in GWS #31. I am just going ahead with my own plans to keep my almost-6-year-old son out of school (he’s legal until age 7) but am apprehensive about what big guns an otherwise friendly but in this case very traditional father might use. My tactics have been as follows: I know I would not be polite while discussing something I feel so strongly about face to face with him, so I wrote a series of essays for him explaining my beliefs and hopes, and inviting his participation and support. It was in a series because many people will not read much at a time, especially about a subject they don’t want to know about. These essays I doled out to him at intervals of a week or two. Then when all four of us met (my spouse is behind me on the issue), there was a known basis for discussion. In my case this was not the road to unanimity, but at least I initiated controlled and less emotional debate than might have been generated by misunderstanding. I have now suggested that my ex-husband and I meet to begin negotiations toward some middle ground, but he is visibly terrified of confrontation and has not yet responded. Maybe these ideas will help someone start the ball rolling. It has been extremely difficult to be cast as revolutionary by family and friends, so this step-by-step process gives the chaos a semblance of order …

JOB VS. HOME-SCHOOL

From Deb Martin (IL):

… The price of keeping one parent home most of the time with a child can be high if the parent is giving up a job. I know there are certain advantages in giving up a job that probably outweigh the disadvantages, like not having to pay for child care, cheaper transportation, clothing, food, not to mention the emotional cost for the children. In our case I had a 2 1/2-year-old and a 5-year-old and a new baby, I felt overwhelmed trying to teach the 5-year-old and handle the rest. We seriously considered putting our 5-year-old into Montessori school. We ended up keeping him home, however, for a couple of reasons. First of all, I decided that what I wanted to do most was to teach my own children and it was worth the cost to make that possible. So instead of spending money to have someone else teach, we are spending money to have a junior high school girl come in for two hours each afternoon to help do housework and relieve me so I can focus some time on our 5-year-old. The second reason I felt OK about this was a phone conversation with a Montessori teacher and teacher-trainer, who was also teaching her children at home. She that if I read to my children day and made materials and equipment readily available to them, I would be doing as well as if I had my children in a Montessori school …

NEW HOME THROUGH GWS

From Jane McClung in Texas:

… While I was reading GWS #28, I found the letter from Susan Corcoran, “Found a Home,” which referred to the letter in GWS #24 about the Greenwood Forest Association. Over Christmas we drove over 900 miles to Missouri to see the last remaining 10 acre parcel.

… When we arrived at that dirt road, all I could say is “What have I gotten us into this time?” as we stopped every few hundred feet to assess the road situation. We learned later the road has been there since the Civil War. It was full of big rocks, holes, water, etc. -  we drove for 45 minutes in those woods before we found a living soul. We were beginning to wonder if someone wouldn’t find us until the spring! What an adventure! Finally we found some humans and they directed us to the Paxton family’s cabin. What lovely and intelligent people we met as they took us around to meet the neighbours. They really lived in cabins, teepees, etc. While we were visiting, the sun went down and they lit their lanterns. I’ve never had someone say to me, “Come closer. Let me push the lantern closer to you so I can see your face while we talk.” I always felt I was born in the wrong century. The experience was like being transported back in time to a simpler life and one that was compatible with our beliefs in home birth, home school, and a more home-centered philosophy.

We stayed three days, even spending one night on our 10 acres in 20 degree weather to be sure it was right for us. We loved it. Then we signed the papers and everyone hugged each other. We didn’t just get land in the deal -we got wonderful neighbours and a unique lifestyle too …

We are busy planning what kind of home we’ll build. Michael, 4, has volunteered to paint it red. We hope to return to plant fruit trees in the spring …

DEALING WITH THOUGHTLESSNESS

… One aspect of home-schooling that concerns us is the child’s feeling of being different from others. We live in a residential area surrounded by a group of all-American elementary school kids, who already make rude remarks about our son being a baby because he is not in kindergarten (which is not compulsory). He loyally espouses home-schooling, but admits he does feel bad when they set him apart. — A Kansas parent. _____

… I am eleven years old, and am in my fourth year of home-schooling… One of the girls in my neighbourhood thought I was having school at home because I was retarded! She had asked her dad about me having school at home, and that’s what he said. It took a lot of talking to her to get that out of her head. — Lisa Holway (OH). _____

… A friend of his age told Shawn that Shawn couldn’t spell since he didn’t take spelling tests! — Connie Colten (CA). _____

[DR:] Sad to say, learning to deal with ignorant and cruel remarks is something all children have to do as they grow up, whether they go to school or not. It’s important for home-schooled children to realize that; if the issue wasn’t home-schooling, it would be something else, sooner or later -appearance, clothes, vocabulary, diet, possessions, beliefs, etc. People have many different reactions to the pain inflicted by such thoughtlessness; many, of course, decide to conform, to be so much like everyone else that no one could possibly notice them. Being different takes courage.

In GWS #15, John wrote, “From the age of 11 I felt left out, and never more so than when I was in school … I think I would have been better off if I had felt, and been, somewhat less left out than I was. But it gave me the independence and moral courage I needed to do things in my adult life that most people weren’t doing, to follow work that seemed important.”

I’m sure many parents have discussed this issue with their children, and I hope more readers will write us about how they’ve handled situations like these.

BLAMING THE UNCONVENTIONAL

Denise Hodges (IL) wrote:

… I have found that when you go against the status quo, that area of your life becomes the scapegoat for anything that goes wrong. At La Leche League meetings we often discuss how when there is anything wrong with a breast-fed baby, people (especially the pediatrician) will suggest that there is something wrong with the milk (not enough, too much, not the right kind, etc) when in fact it usually has nothing to do with that. Maia still nurses frequently and I often hear, “She cries because she’s still nursing” or other such-nonsense, as if weaned 3-year-olds never cry!

Now home-schooling falls into this category, too. I’m hearing things like, “Lucas is crabby because he knows he should be in school,” or “He fights with the neighbour kids because they are jealous of his not being in school,” or “Lucas doesn’t know how to get along with kids because he’s not in school,” etc. So, home-schoolers beware! If your kid gets warts or hiccups, someone may tell you it’s because he’s not in school! … _____

[JH:] I used to say to teachers, when you do something the old way, if (as usual) it doesn’t work, everyone blames the children; if you do it a new way, and it doesn’t work - or even if it does - they blame you.

GOING BACK TO SCHOOL

From Lisa Holway (OH), who was home-schooled for four years:

… Next year I will be in seventh grade, and will be going to Hilliard Middle School.

The main reason I want to go to middle school is to meet other girls my age. I’m a little worried about how people might accept me at first, but hopefully after the first few weeks we can be good friends.

… Home schooling has been a great experience for me, and I don’t think I would have missed it for anything. But I need to grow and change, and going to middle school is just one of my ways of doing that. Other people might rather stay at home, and that is fine. We’re each doing our own thing, and enjoying it!

One great advantage of having school at home is the time you have to do the things you want to do like reading, writing stories, drawing, cooking, playing the guitar, etc … What I like about home schooling is having your mom around to talk to, ask help from, have fun with, and do things with. But whether you have school at home, or go to a public school, the important thing is to be happy wherever you are … _____

From Sharon Hillestad (MN):

… Holly has signed up for the 9th grade at Hastings Junior High. She literally skipped 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. It took less than 15 minutes to get her back in school in Hastings. Last year she tried to enroll in junior high in Huntsville, Alabama. The school secretary told her she couldn’t come to school without records. Holly told her that she hadn’t been to school for two years but the woman kept insisting on records. So that was that …

[DR: Since this was the first time we had ever heard of a homeschooler having trouble trying to get back into school, I asked Sharon if they had tried going over the secretary’s head to someone with more authority to bend the rules. She replied, “Holly did her own inquiring in Alabama and did not go past the secretary.”]

PART-TIME SCHOOL

Janet Williams (PA) writes:

…My children are all doing well. I am holding my own despite having two pre-adolescents. Why is there so much fuss about adolescence? The real killer for me has been 9-11.

Jenni has come out of that stage beautifully. She is very together and has managed a hybrid of school and home. She can hold her own when there are problems in school (she doesn’t get hostile or teary or frustrated anymore). Last June she told the Middle School principal that she would be willing to return to school fulltime IF he would approve her skipping 7th grade and moving into the 8th where most of her friends are this year. He said no. She said, “Then I will be home again.”

Her schedule is as follows: Monday - 1st period Computers, then home. Tuesday: 1st Industrial Arts, 4th Recess, 5th Lunch, 6th Science, 7th Phys. Ed. 8th Art. Wednesday: 1st Speed Reading, 4th Recess, 5th lunch, 8th Chorus. Thursday: 1st Spanish, 4th  Recess, 5th lunch, 6th Science, 7th Phys. Ed, 8th Bi-weekly clubs. Friday:     home all day.

….Periods when she is not in a class, she works independently in the library or computer room.

… The three days seem just about right for Jenni. She does most of her school homework while she is there. She is more responsible about it than she was last year. It is such a pleasure not to have to nag and pressure her. It did not do either of us any good …

ON GUILT

To a parent who had many concerns about the issue of home-schooling, John wrote:

… Your letter raises an issue of great importance, to which I have given much thought.

We have printed and will print stories from people who want very much to teach their children at home but for one reason or another have not been able to find a way to do so. Sometimes we or other GWS readers have been able to suggest a way out of the dilemma, sometimes not, in which case we consider how to make school less harmful to the child until a solution can be found. Meanwhile we say, “Be patient, keep hoping and trying, between us we will sooner or later turn up something.”

But I take it this is not quite what you want. You say, “My point is that an ideal viewpoint can become a source of guilt rather than a source of support to the very people who believe in it.” True; Mothering magazine, to name only one, prints many letters from women who feel badly because they were not able to have a home or natural childbirth, or to nurse their children, or to spend as much time with them as they would like. Mothering and other magazines usually reply as we do above, by telling people to do the best they can and keep trying for something better. But some people seem to be telling us that we should not say so strongly that natural home birth, or breastfeeding, or home schooling, or whatever, are good for children, because it makes all those people feel bad who for whatever reason didn’t or don’t do it. Well, I’m sorry they feel bad; I often feel bad about a lot of things I have done or haven’t done. But our job is to say what we think is best for children and help people come as close to it as they can.

Later you say that your daughter is in first grade, by her own choice. I’ve said often that if children and their parents are happy with their schools, I’m delighted. It is only if they are unhappy that I urge them to think about home schooling. But I gather this is not the case with you and your daughter … As long as your daughter is thriving and happy in school, why should guilt arise? If, on the other hand, the day comes when her school stops being a good experience and starts becoming a bad one, then you may have to make a choice, for a while at least, between some things you want very much to do and the health, happiness, and growth of your child. Perhaps this conflict can be avoided, perhaps ways can be found, as indeed they often can, to make it possible for both of you to have what you most need. But if a choice has to be made, surely there is no question as to which must come first.

You write of “…the insinuated philosophy that happy families spend lots of time together.” It’s not insinuated, and it’s not a philosophy, in the sense of a theory; what we print are reports by real people about how they actually live their lives. You write, “How about happy families that have lots of different interests, activities and outlets and come together at dinner or whenever - with many exciting things to share?” There have been many such letters; if most letters are about families together, it is because most homeschooled children are still quite young. If the parents who write to us stress as much as they do how much they enjoy their children’s company, it is largely because so many of the people they meet say things to them like, “How can you stand to have your children around all the time?” etc.

A bit earlier in your letter you wrote, “I wish you would stress differences in maturation.” We stress, all the time, that children do not grow according to timetables, and that the best time for children (or adults) to learn or do things is when they are most eager to learn or do them, not when someone else’s theory says they should be done. You speak of “…a precocity syndrome.” There’s no “syndrome”; we print what people tell us about their children. If many of these sound precocious, it is only because all children, when not pressured or afraid, are in plain fact far more intelligent and capable than almost anyone thinks possible.

An old friend of mine and of GWS once criticized us for writing so much about “super-kids.” In practically the next breath he told us (showing us many photos, which I wish we could have printed) about his 15-year-old son, who on his own, working from books, without any previous experience, and without any instruction, advice, or help, built a small but complete house. I said to him, “Now who’s talking about ’superkids?’ How many fifteen-year-olds do you think build their own houses?” He laughed, and admitted the point, which is that even people who really like their children get so used to them, take them so much for granted, that they may fail to notice what remarkable things they do - and all children do remarkable things. We are not in the business of saying that some children are more remarkable than others. One of the reasons you never see any talk in GWS about “gifted children” is because we insist that all children are gifted. We don’t encourage people to wonder or worry about whether their children are less or more gifted than others; quite the reverse. We say, enjoy them for what they are.

We like to print and will continue to print what people tell us about the remarkable things that their children do. After all, we confront everywhere, among school people and the general public, a widespread conviction that children are lazy, incurious, incapable, untrustworthy, and just plain bad, and that they will never learn or do anything good unless made to. Here at GWS we do our best to combat and change this attitude, by printing stories that prove that children are curious, capable, extremely good at learning, and eager to do things well and to make a useful contribution to the life around them. To stop printing such stories because some people might find in them reason to feel ashamed of their own children would be a serious and self-defeating mistake. Every good thing done by any child helps break down the popular myth about all children’s badness and stupidity, and so works for the good of all children, especially home-schooled children. Reading such stories should make our readers, as they make us, feel not ashamed but reassured, glad, and proud.

In this issue we tell about an 18-year-old Canadian cellist who has already made a commercial recording and appeared with major orchestras. Should I, a struggling amateur cellist of almost sixty, resent her talent and feel shame because I can’t play as well and probably never will? No; I say, “Three cheers for her”‘ and go back to my own cello and work a little harder. All we can do is do the best we can. If we do that, we have no cause to feel shame.

Well, in any case, we are not going to stop printing good stories about home schooled children. And if and when we print stories about people having problems, as we do when people (rarely) send us such stories, it is to help them find ways to solve these problems, rather than to relieve other people of whatever burden of guilt they may have laid on themselves.

I hope this letter may somewhat lessen the problem of guilt for you and other readers. In any case, it should make our own position a little more clear …

LETTERS ON LEARNING DISABILITIES

Thomas Armstrong (LATEBLOOMERS EDUCATIONAL CONSULTING SERVICES, PO Box 2647, Berkeley CA 94702), who is writing a book on learning disabilities, writes:

… I was excited to get so many wonderful replies to my letter in GWS #28 about latebloomers and the “learning disabilities” scam. Many parents wrote in sharing stories of their lateblooming children who were spared the scars of special education (labelling, testing, and “cure”) by homeschooling and through the patience, faith, and trust of these parents in the natural growth processes of their children. I thought I’d share some selections from these letters with you and your readers. I’m still eager to hear from parents about their lateblooming kids and from any and all who are willing to speak out against the distortions of the whole “learning disability” movement… _____

From a letter that a Wisconsin parent sent to Mr. Armstrong:

… I have a very interesting child who is definitely a “late bloomer.”…Seth seemed slow to master physical and mechanical skills, but would often suddenly learn a whole group of skills in one to two days. At 9 months Seth did not sit up, crawl, scoot, or walk. In one week, shortly before he was 10 months old, he learned to do all of them … As he neared 3 years of age, Seth occasionally spoke a single full sentence but did not use any other words or gestures on a regular basis. By this time his younger sister was beginning to speak well. Again I became concerned. Suddenly Seth began talking and talked constantly … At 4 his physical skills were really lacking. He couldn’t catch a ball, hop, or even run very well. Stupidly I let friends persuade me to enroll him in a special pre-school program for “slow learners.” It was neither a good nor a bad experience. Toward the end of the year, Seth made another of his miraculous advances, was suddenly doing everything he should be and was tired of preschool. I stopped sending him, but attributed his gains to the program. Looking back I realize that it was not the program at all, but Seth’s pattern of learning … Seth was 7, he couldn’t read at all, still wrote many words backwards, his sister, his only friend, decided she was tired of playing with boys, another dark time for Seth. His physical coordination fell way behind his sister’s. She began to lose her teeth - he didn’t. But by now we had faith in Seth. We basically left him alone. The result, Seth lost 6 teeth in one week, developed a fascination with reading and suddenly shot ahead of his sister who we were sure would read before he did, began to make friends, became an ace at badminton, and can never get enough math problems to work. But he was almost 9 years old before all this happened … _____

Pearlene Gavlik (NH) wrote:

… In previous school years, Sherry had been core-evaluated, placed in Title I and Chapter 766 programs. None of them really helped to a large degree. In my heart, I never really believed she had a learning disability … While attending school she had a very low tolerance frustration level, a very hostile and sarcastic disposition, no memory retention, and no desire to learn at all. She hated to read, would refuse to read assigned chapters for homework, and most of the time would go around with a retarded look on her face.

In my home-study program, I’ve tried to give her a lot of space, not pressure her to learn, and be patient with a non-judgemental attitude. After about nine months of this, remarkable changes started occurring. She was becoming more thoughtful with a pleasant disposition, did not need her friends any more to amuse and distract her, her mind started getting more creative and she demonstrated more patience in her projects. Now she loves to read. Lately she’s been reading a book a day. She’s excited about learning all about dinosaurs, insects, herbs, gardening, astronomy, mineralogy, wildlife, trees and plants, birds and fish, canning foods, sewing, Egyptian kings and relics, ancient Rome and Greece … _____

From Freda Davies (Ont.):

… My son, ex-husband, brother and father were all placed in one or another of the above categories [”learning disabled,” “slow,” “lazy”] by the school system and the scars show on all of them. I think I have managed to counteract some of the ill effects on my son by taking him out of school. He is now nearly 12 years old and has been “unschooling” since age 8. During Kevin’s three years in school, he almost constantly begged me to let him stay home. The only part of school that he liked were recesses and a few other occasions when he was able to choose his own activities. He had (and still has) a strong aversion to any organized learning programs including such apparently innocuous ones as swimming or skiing lessons … At about age 10 Kevin made a sudden leap in his reading ability [See Freda’s letter in GWS #17]. From reading only a few words, he jumped to whole sentences, often containing fairly difficult words. He still reads mainly comic books, saying that “chapter” books are too boring … Kevin has no trouble doing math calculations in his head or using a calculator to solve more complex problems… He does very little writing except occasionally when he wants to write a business letter to the Lego corporation. Building with Lego sets is his great hobby and he often has questions or complaints which bother him until he writes and gets an answer from the company … Besides Lego, Kevin likes making taped “radio” programs either by himself or with friends … _____

And from an Alaska mother:

… My lovely sweet Anette, now 10, was labelled SLD [Specific Learning Disability] in first grade … We went with the option of placing her in the SLD program, halfway through first grade! I know it’s like crying over spilt milk but I wish I’d never done it … She spent a lot of “sick” days, especially when I went into the classroom to help once a week. I knew the teacher felt I was catering to her when I’d let her come home with me. You see, I was beginning to feel something was wrong!

… We then moved to our present home in the woods, 7 miles from school… We were able to qualify for Home Correspondence. That was terrible! I was constantly battling the teachers who felt, it seems, that all children learn the same! … As winter went along … things went from bad to worse! The work was intense, the pressure also. I no longer felt like a mother, but a witch!… Needless to say, Anette learned little and in the end refused to even work, blocking out all learning …

We went totally on our own the following year. They (the correspondence advisors) sent us a requisite for having your own school from the state laws; but have never bothered to see if we carry it out. We’re in our second year now. With Anette, I let her totally alone. Never did I give her an assignment or pressure … She now reads, picks up a book, even a comic book. She loves the Cuisenaire rods, we follow the series as she asks me to do it. Enjoys math this way … Better late than never! …

ON “DYSLEXIA”

Mary Maher (MA) wrote:

… I must tell you that while reading TEACH YOUR OWN, I became very excited over what you had to say about dyslexia. I have a vivid first grade memory of trying to copy the number 5 off the blackboard onto my paper. I saw the 5 correctly, but was unable to make my hand write what I saw. I was only able to make it backwards. I was terribly frustrated because I could see my five was not the same as the five on the board … _____

[JH:] Just the other day I watched a child trying to make a 5. She got the horizontal line OK, then the vertical line, but when she started to do the curved part, she couldn’t get it to go the right way. Then when she saw it was going wrong, she tried to reverse it, which made it look even worse. She was very frustrated. Fortunately, no one was pushing her to “do it right” - she didn’t even see me watching. She has plenty of time to wait before trying it again.

LATE-BLOOMING READER

From Debbie Jones (ID):

…It’s hard to believe we’ve been home schooling for four years now. This year we have seen many rewards that we’ve had to be patient for … Our Cori who is almost twelve finally took off in reading. He has been frustrated and discouraged since his school experiences (second grade). He didn’t enjoy reading and didn’t read on his own. Well, I read to the family quite a bit. We go to the library frequently. We read ourselves a lot. And this last year he would occasionally read a story or book to the other children. I was amazed at his improved ability. “All those years of working with him finally paid off,” they would say in school, but that isn’t it at all; he didn’t read at all for almost two years! Then a friend introduced him to the “Choose Your Own Adventure” series. BALLOON TO THE SAHARA and MYSTERY OF THE MAYA were two of the first ones he got and read and read and read. Recently he read some articles in Mother Earth News on raising chickens. And he just finished MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN, a very good book that I’m sure is at about the sixth grade level, according to the grade level people. If he was tested any time over the last few years you know what the verdict would have been: “He’s terribly behind. He’s not being taught!” etc …

A DOWN’S SYNDROME CHAMP

From Elaine Bechtold (see Resource List for Down’s Syndrome at the end of this issue):

…Our daughter’s 4-H project earned her the 1982 champion poultry trophy for Wright County and a state fair trip.

This girl who has Down’s Syndrome can now read the newspaper. Her reading ability helped her function at the state fair. She spent seven years in public school (Trainable Mentally Retarded) class where reading would not be taught. The past 4-5 years she is in a Christian day school where she is challenged just like everyone else. Here she is learning and progressing every day …

COMPETENT KIDS

From Marilyn Hall (CA):

…A note on 2-year-olds. At 27 months, with a 3-month-old sister, Michael: cracks eggs, chops vegetables for soups and steaming, stirs soups or vegetables on stove; puts butter on tortillas for quesidillas - has not burned or cut himself and I have done both in the same time he’s been cooking with me. He can use a screwdriver and knows the Phillips from regular, and removed the handles from my cupboard doors and only reluctantly replaced them; took the phone apart (I put that back together); took apart all the toys with screws (these are tiny screws - 1/2″ long). He took the torn webbing off my lawn chair - worked diligently for 2+ hours, occasionally asking for help with a screw too tight for him to loosen … He is delighted in being useful. He helps me make biscuits and bread and granola. He is respectful of real danger and mindless of parent fears. He touches the cold stove, but not the hot burner.

He only in the last three months has allowed us to read to him; before that he was only interested in the covers or flypapers and absolutely refused, closing book, leaving, etc.  He then chose four books and would let us read only those four for two months, and then suddenly was interested in others - I read a new book through and he simply sits. On the fourth or fifth reading he points to a picture or anticipates a word in the text. On Reading #10 or so, we hardly finish the book because he points out everything. Then on to a new book. He picks out books he likes and only occasionally indulges adult preferences … _____

From Elizabeth Swift (VT):

… It’s great to have a publication supporting children’s competence. I used to think we were the only ones who allowed our under-two-year-old to use a real hammer. He also uses (at 4) a real screw driver. He can take the reflectors off the truck and put them back on all by himself and nobody taught him. We just discovered him doing it.

We’ve seen recently how important it is to encourage this independence. Grandma was here last week and was stifling the independence we are encouraging. We had a real series of blow-ups between her and Gabriel until I made it clear to her that, yes, he was allowed to pour his own juice, set the table, help peel potatoes, decide whether he needed boots on or not. I’m sure she believes we’re letting him “rule the roost,” but I see all of this as encouraging him to make his own decisions …

[From a later note:] Grandma may be beginning to see things our way. She just gave Gabriel his own eggbeater (regulation size) so that he can make pies (using instant pudding and graham cracker crusts) all by himself. He loves making the pies and loves the compliments they produce … _____

A California reader wrote:

… May I tell you some of the things that my son does day in and day out, everyday, which I notice that most mothers do not allow their children to do? I am not proud that he “does” something, but I feel a little sorry for other children who do not even have the basic freedom to move as human beings in their own homes (something must be wrong).

At two years, he: - selects a cassette tape to play; puts into tape player. - does gardening: plants seeds, waters, conditions soil. - finds aluminum cans outside, collects them to be recycled (on his own, I don’t point them out). - watercolor painting, etc, (gets out own materials and puts away nicely) . - butters a peanut butter sandwich from jar (with knife). - washes dishes, puts on rack to dry; sweeps; mops up spills; cleans table with sponge. - does errands: gets/finds things; puts things away in shelves, drawers, etc. - plays drums, ukulele, flute, hand cymbals, sometimes organ - seriously, with rhythm, etc. - brushes own teeth; washes face, hands, dries them; hangs up towel; etc. -feeds himself and is allowed to be a little messy (aren’t we all) but he cleans it up.

… Oops! Also forgot that he plays outside all day long without supervision from me on playground equipment, in games with older children. But most children under five years are not allowed outside for any period of time by themselves. If they do manage to make it outside, it is with Mother shouting, “No. No,” etc.

… On a different subject, I have found that photo-essay adult books seem to be the best and most interesting for my son now (the library  kiddie books were just too weird). These are the books that deal with  flowers, wild animals, fish, dogs, etc. They are interesting to me, also (The “kiddie” books were not) …

SKYLER AT 2

From Meryl Runion (FL):

… Skyler (2) has changed a lot since my last letter [GWS #29]. He’s a mixture of very dependent and boldly independent. He still has to help much of the time but he’s gone for stretches, too, visiting the boy next door. He sings, sings, sings, and he’s much more reasonable.

Now that he has a social life of his own, I actually have occasional moments to do things without him. It’s a funny feeling … We live at the end of a dead-end street so I can let him go out without supervision. I check on him from time to time but he doesn’t seem to want to go farther than next door, anyway. He and the four-year-old run back and forth every half hour or so … I think it’s good for his self-esteem for him to be able to come and go without me on his tail.

I remember when we lived in Thailand, we were in a resort that had cottages. There were about 15 adults on staff and a girl about two years old running around. The whole six months we were there, I never figured out who her parents were (someone told me later). She was very charming and happy and also very able to look after herself. She was comfortable with all the adults. I was so impressed with what a nice thing it is for a small child to be able to wander freely without an adult watching (and usually judging) her every move. She never did fall into the ocean.

Skyler is still nursing, nursing, nursing. I never like to push Skyler into or out of things and it just hasn’t seemed appropriate to cut back at any point. I still don’t use sitters for the same reason. Even so, my neighbours are noticing that the clingy child who always wanted UP is coming into his own and being very independent. But he keeps coming back for “MY MILK”‘

I used to read a lot while he nursed but now I read to him. It’s funny, I would just as soon he learned to read late, rather than early, but I find myself reading to him two hours a day while he nurses and he’s got a lot of books almost memorized. I used to dislike Mother Goosey type books, saying they were too silly. But then I obtained an album of Mother Goose. He loved it and used to ask to hear it all day long. Now the Mother Goose books are his favorite. If I try to read a verse he knows there’s a tune for, he’ll insist I sing it, and I’ve had to make up tunes for many of those I don’t know tunes for.

He sings a lot during the day - but so do I. We’re not a musical family, I don’t play an instrument and don’t put the radio or stereo on much and yet music is a big part of our lives. So many things inspire me to song - the squeak of a swing, the sound of the washer, some situation that reminds me of a passage of a song. Skyler is the same way. He rides down the street on his trike singing “TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR” so the whole neighbourhood can hear. I think it’s great because it’s so joyful. What I want Skyler to gain most from his early education is a sense of joy and delight.

… Skyler doesn’t help as much since he has his own life now but he’s still there much of the time. Sometimes I hold him up to reach the clothesline so he can hang the clothes. He still sits on the vacuum - it hasn’t broken yet. Some things he gets very upset if anyone else does. But generally he’s more reasonable now. He doesn’t get upset when I won’t let him do something impossible and dangerous (with a few exceptions - he’s dying to drive the car). He’s happy with only a small part of a job - when we scoop grains at the store, I can fill the scoop and aim it in the bag as long as I let him tilt it that last little bit. I tie his shoes up to the very end and then he pulls the loops through. I think even that small involvement prepares him to do the job…

The neighbours are less of a problem now that Skyler is more reasonable. My next door neighbour was warning me Skyler would be a juvenile delinquent because I didn’t spank him when he bit her son, but now they play together pretty well. So far, at least, the “terrible twos” are a piece of cake compared to l 1/2. It doesn’t take the same energy I used to expend constantly trying to redirect (distract) him. Now I can ask him to put something back and he does. And some habits have dropped off without too much effort - I was able to put the knobs back on the oven, I was able to put my books in the shelves (I can even take him to the library), the trash can is no longer suspended from the ceiling. Some day I’m sure the chairs will remain upright - now they are always knocked over, but we walk around them and put them up when we need them, assured that this too will pass. Oh yes, he doesn’t even walk on the tables at restaurants anymore.

When my friend tells me her son (now 3 1/2) shares because she worked with him on it, I smile a little inside but also feel sad her son doesn’t get any of the credit. She’s sure all of his virtues exist because she put them there. I’m convinced they’re there because they’re natural. So we try to set good examples (I never walk on the tables of restaurants or at home), tolerate what we can, gently ask him not to do some things and if we need to, we distract him.

Sometimes of course we need to physically prohibit some activity. That’s when I’m so glad he’s nursing. When he gets upset and mad at me (for example when I don’t let him use the garden hose to water the rug in the living room), he takes his comforting from me, so we’re brought back together immediately. Nursing is his source of comfort and it’s hard to be mad at someone who’s giving you milk. “I like MY MILK,” he says …

2-YEAR-OLDS’ LANGUAGE

From Lezlie Long (OR):

… One of the things I’ve noticed about Richard (2) that’s different from Robert and Rebecca is that anything he says has to be perfectly correct. If he wants his coat from the car, it’s: Rich: Me go to car and to get my coat? Me: Yes. Rich: Can me go to car and to get my coat? Me: Yes. Rich: Can me go to the car and get my coat? Me: Yes. Rich: OK.

Then he goes and gets his coat. This can be very frustrating when it takes five minutes to get his sentence correct and you know what he’s saying but he just has to say it right. Once I got good and mad at him and picked him up and took him with me rather than stand there patiently and listen. Of course he was heartbroken and cried for 30 minutes which made me madder so I was snapping at everybody. Now even if I’m irritated, I take the time to listen to him. It’s hard but it’s worth it … _____

And from Chris Laning (CA; see GWS #27, “Unrelated, But Family”):

… Leah has grown two whole clothing sizes in the past six months and her language is growing by leaps and bounds. Other kids come to play with her and Larry three mornings a week, and she goes to a friend’s house the other two. We really notice the difference on those days when she doesn’t have playmates. She wears us out instead! We just can’t keep up with her two-year-old energy. We have FINALLY found some other people who think it is perfectly natural to nurse a child until she is three or even older, if she still wants it. Most of the comments otherwise have been, “Aren’t you afraid she’ll get too clingy and dependent?” (No signs of that yet!) She does almost always want to nurse when going to sleep or when she’s just waked up. If she wakes up alone in the bed she almost always cries - seems to feel very lonely and abandoned.

We are astonished at the length and complexity of the sentences she’s coming out with. She and I were curled up on the floor, pretending to be cats (a favorite game), when she said “Turn off light!” I said, “But cats can go to sleep with the light on, can’t they?” and she replied firmly, “People turn light off when people go to sleep in beds.”

… It is delightful to hear her talking away, often just to herself. experimenting. Fortunately she seems to enjoy it when we laugh at what she said! The other night, after searching for her papa and finding him in the bathroom, she came out into the living room and announced, “Papa brushing her teeth.” She thought that over for a minute and then said, “Papa brushing his teeth,” which seems to have been more satisfactory.

… We try to keep an ear open for times when she’s tired of grownups always being the ones that know all the answers. She does get quizzed on things, and most of the time doesn’t seem to mind it, but occasionally will say “I don’t know” when what she seems to mean is “I don’t want to answer.” We do try to teach her that her body is her own and that she can always say no if she doesn’t want someone to touch her (doctoring being the only exception) -we have to be sure we don’t assume we can walk into her mind without her permission, either …

LEARNING THROUGH PLAY

Janet Williams wrote in the PA Unschoolers Network #6:

… Katie (4) has spent the better part of the winter absorbing phonics and playing with letters. She developed a game of alliterative speech. First she began with reciting nursery rhymes - with modifications. One of her favourites was “Dary dad a dittle damb.” (Oh, the delight of the forbidden fruits!) Then we started speaking to each other in the “language” of a given letter. On B day, I would ask, “Bate, bhat bould bou bike for breakfast?” On S day, she would ask, “Som, slease sive se sa srink.” The whole family would get into the act. When Kate would ask questions in her letter-talk, the replies would come back in letter-talk.

Over and over, I am struck by how easily we learn if we “play” with something instead of “working” at it. All five of our children learned to read by playing with letters and sounds as Katie has. All five have learned ease with the typewriter/computer keyboard by using and playing in their own “improper” manners. All five are comfortable with the computer logic because they played tricks on each other. (Did you know that we are now capable of electronic teasing?) All five learned about numbers by playing number games in their heads, in UNO, in YAHTZE, in the endless “How old will I be in x years?” Then, “Amy is 3 years older so she will be y (x + 3) then, right?” All five have absorbed Spanish and sign language from Sesame Street and now French from Mom.

… BUT I still hesitate (what if I’m wrong?) over pronouncing Hawaiian or Russian names. I still grit my teeth every time I approach the typewriter. I still have only the vaguest ideas about the computer. I still think 1 am so poor at languages - even though Catherine, my French friend, tells me how good my accent is. It seems that learning the RIGHT way (be it phonics or math or typing or French) becomes more important than DOING it. The pressure of judgement destroys the pleasure of joyous doing.

So let your silly beginning reader slaughter the phonics in his reader. (We recently had the absurdly unprofessional experience of laughing ourselves to tears over the INTENTIONAL mispronunciations and gibberish that were read from the pre-primer. I am sure that a reading expert would say it was wrong, but we had a GRAND time … and that child is reading more each day.) So let your six-year-old develop her hunt-and-peck typing. So let your four-year-old say, “Aqua, s’il vous plait.” It will all sort itself out in time if we just LET THEM BE. Playing and doing are the beginnings of learning. Don’t criticize the acorn for not being an oak yet …

MAKING THEIR OWN RULES

More from Lezlie Long (OR):

… When the family went to town after Christmas, we picked up a “Super Master Mind” that was on sale. I saw all those ads saying what a terrific game it was. Well, it is! It has lots of coloured pins that one person takes five of and arranges in a covered area, and the second person guesses or “decodes” them. Robert (5) kept begging to play with it so I finally let him. He made designs with the coloured pegs. After watching Ken and me play several times, he asked to play. Total frustration! The game is too advanced for him. He finally talked me into letting him play with Rebecca (3). So I set them all up in the living room and went into the kitchen to work. Pretty soon I heard “Yeah! Becca, all right! You won!” Rebecca comes running in to tell me she won. She was so excited and proud! I went in to watch them, and what they did was pick one colour for all five pegs and all they had to do was guess which colour. It took each of them five or six tries to get the right colour but then there were cheers of “You won! You won!” They never keep track of how many tries they take; to them, it’s not important. Robert tricked Becca once and slipped in an extra colour. It took forever for her to figure it out. When she did they both laughed but have not tried to do that again … _____

From Kath Raymond, 3700 NE Van Buren, Minneapolis MN 55421:

… I saw one evening that Seth (then age 4) was really having no fun playing “Candy Land” and neither was I, of course - it’s not that great a game. So we began to make our own rules. We played it backward, we traded places, we let Seth take as many turns as he felt would make him happy - we had a good time. That was my first experience of the fact that we were the controllers now. I don’t know who made the rules on the cover of a boring box game - so why was I following them?

Since then we have questioned so much more. We’re coming up with our own answers - all ours - and that feels great!…

LETTING GO OF TV

Mary Lee wrote in the Winter ‘83 Western Pa. Homeschoolers:

… We cast our TV into the attic this past Saturday … I would say the most influential part of the whole deciding process… was Justin.

Justin had destroyed a dollhouse I had been working on for some time -pushing out windows and breaking furniture. This was quite out of character for him and he showed no remorse. He even seemed proud of his “accomplishment.” I was quite disturbed and felt he should be punished, so Reese and I decided no TV for 24 hours. Justin has always been fond of TV and watched it often more than I liked him to watch. In those 24 hours, I saw a child who often threw temper tantrums after a TV session, turn into a sweet cooperative little boy, the boy we knew Justin to be. (We couldn’t understand these recent changes in behaviour.) He played happily outside that day, “read” his books, built magnificent block castles, really helped around the house, took a short nap only to arise refreshed (he used to wake up cranky and mean), ate better than usual and generally knocked old Mom off her feet.

TV was brought back the next day, old behaviour resumed, and I pointed it all out to Reese, who was beginning to notice too. We also talked about our own habit of turning on the TV when wanting to avoid a certain chore, or person, or when not wanting to make an effort to find something more creative or constructive to do. We also wondered what effects TV was having that we weren’t recognizing. I knew TV made me dissatisfied with my life even though I like my life - explain that one!

So Saturday, for one week, up to the attic went the old TV. You know we honestly, truly - I do not lie or exaggerate - have not missed it. Justin asked about it once a day for three days, and has not since.

And behaviour is changing. We are reading more, talking more, going outside more, becoming more involved in outside activities, and generally becoming more human. We’re more satisfied, seem less cranky, go to bed earlier, and thus feel better. So, sorry, TV lovers - I think the Lees’ TV shall stay in the attic until we decide to sell it! …

INSTEAD OF TEACHING

A letter from Nancy Edmondson to Susan Richman in the Winter ‘83 Western Pa. Homeschoolers:

… I thought your idea about going ahead and working on the alphabet book alone without trying to draw their interest purposely was helpful. Thinking of that the other night, I got out a puzzle and started doing it on the kitchen table. I might have met with resistance had I suggested they might want to help me. So I said nothing, but before I even had all the pieces turned over, they were there eager to help …

KIDS WATCH PARENTS LEARN

Suzanne Alejandre wrote:

… In moving to Germany, Rich and I learned a valuable lesson in what it is like to be a two-year-old child … We could not communicate, everything we did was a new experience. Just buying groceries was a hard task. All the products were packaged strangely. We couldn’t recognize them by sight, we couldn’t read the labels, and we couldn’t ask anyone! Then when we had decided what to buy, we were not familiar with the money…

We had to learn each task as we were doing it and we experienced all the frustration that goes along with the process of figuring things out. At the same time, we experienced the exhilaration of a simple, completed task. I can still remember the joy of going through the “correct” steps of buying a loaf of bread in a bakery. I came home and recounted the entire dialogue to Richard. I was so proud of myself!

… Even more important for us as a family was that our (then) 2- and 4-year-old sons were often with us through these experiences. They learned as much as we did by watching how we handled situations. they’ve seen me throw fits just as they have! They’ve seen me angry, fearful, crying, ecstatic, everything’ - all the range of emotions … It is an invaluable experience for a child to watch their parents go through the stages of learning. Rarely will they disrupt - they honour what you are experiencing because they have recently been there. They understand and are watching intently to see what you will do to make things work out.

Sometimes they even help. Recently Rich went downtown with Niko because a pair of gloves he had bought already had a hole in them and they were-still quite new. When they got to the register where Rich was to make his complaint, Niko whispered, “Daddy, the word for hole in German is ‘loch.”‘ And, actually, that helped because Rich hadn’t known the word! …

LEARNING FROM TRAVEL

Christine Gajzago wrote in the Australian newsletter Otherways, 3/83:

… I’d like to talk more personally about the experiences Ami (6) and Pablo (2 1/2) and I had while overseas. Our aim was to enjoy ourselves and see and do as much as possible … I see no reason why learning should not continue in the same way at home as it did on our trip. With all that concentrated novelty of experience, away from the many distractions and routines of home life, I could see our learnings and discoveries more clearly than usual. Our trip served to magnify, perhaps, what normally goes on at home.

Most people have said: “It’s all right to stop lessons while overseas because it’s so ‘educational’ and such a rare event. But at home children need structured input because they wouldn’t learn enough otherwise.” I disagree with this view. Often I wonder if behind it lies a lifestyle that may be dull and circumscribed for children and/or does not involve children in the daily ebb and flow. I know this from personal experience. If I am rundown and too preoccupied with my own problems, Ami and Pablo usually let me know. Boredom and frustration set in once they have finished their independent activities and they need external recharging …

The grandest palaces in Europe were not an insurance against ennui if my children’s momentary needs for playfulness, energy discharge, food and rest were not met. I noticed from the start of our trip that everything was enjoyed from the context of playfulness. Playfulness does not necessarily require another child but any playful, interesting, energetic, amusing, available person.

Ami and Pablo learnt much on our plane journey to Europe. For instance, the length of the trip reinforced the idea of the distance between Australia and Germany. Even when Ami missed her daddy during the next three months, she did not ask for him, realizing he was too far away. We spoke a lot about the geography of the world which was becoming real now, about how planes work, about many things. But all this was in response to questions and while we played or she chatted to passengers of different nationalities. Ami became very excited about a Philippino girl with whom she played up and down the aisles and the Philippines really became a place in her inner map of the world. Especially after our 5-hour delay in Manila! Since then Germany, Hungary and England have also become concrete reference points in her inner map …

From the start I discovered that there was little point expecting Ami to be enthused about everything I was or to realize that she was in a once-in-a-lifetime situation. She and Pablo lived, and still do, very much in the present … It took time and some effort to respect Ami’s pace and style of learning about the world. Once I did, we enjoyed ourselves more … When I tried less, I experienced more and generated more excitement …

And Ami did become ecstatic and creative and active so much without any prodding at all. From the moment we landed and entered the German landscape Ami was agog with excitement. “Look! Look!” she would say over and over as we passed mountains and forests and pretty chalets with shuttered windows and geraniums in profusion, and castles that looked like fairytales.

She asked questions over and over like - “What was this room for?,” “Where did the princess sleep?,” “Who painted that picture?,” “What is that painting (usually one with strong emotive or religious imagery) about?” The very same situations that aroused excitement or deeply absorbed her in long reverent silences, did not excite her if I chose to point them out at the wrong time.

Of course since we spent most of our time with distant relatives in a Bavarian village, she needed no prompting to learn German and she learnt with great speed in the daily context of play with children who spoke only German. She picked up a strong English accent while we were in England in a matter of days too, even though by this stage, she also spoke German with me sometimes. In bed at night she did her “homework” and rehearsed new words and phrases with me. Some times she would ask me what certain words meant that she had heard and not understood that day … I saw over and over how children regulate their own learning and learn best that way. Adults learn a second language best when they need and want to use it. Why do we expect children to learn anything well any other way?

…Ami wanted to be a princess in a castle (and was) - she wanted to be dressed appropriately and when she became a princess, her face exuded radiance. She became part of her surrounds, part of the past - not just a passive, detached observer. She also needed to extend herself physically wherever she was - to run up and down spiral tower stairs, to hide in the turrets on a castle wall, to explore and climb over and through the beautiful scenery - not just gaze at it.

And everywhere, a landscape or special place took art importance when it was associated with special people … _____

Gwendolyn West (TN) wrote in a report on her family’s home-schooling:

… Our trip to England and Wales was a marvellous experience for the whole family. The boys readily figured out English money, subways and which double-decker to catch to go where. They loved Dover Castle (we studied feudal times and read King Arthur before we left) and the Tower of London with its crown jewels and rooms of armour. When we were out in the countryside in Rye, Sussex, we stayed in an old smuggler’s hideout, an inn remodelled in 1420. Our room was in the peak, full of beams, the lovely and authentic Elizabethan architecture surrounding us. Jason was in awe of Stonehenge (we studied that previously, too), and both boys found the ancient Roman baths of Bath fascinating.

But perhaps best of all may have been staying in our Evans family homestead (my maiden name) that dates back to the 1200’s when King Edward II is thought to have hidden prior to being murdered; an official stone marks the spot. Here we stayed one night under down comforters in the chick-walled farmhouse. The boys had “high tea” complete with cakes, biscuits, etc., that my Evans relatives lavished on us as if we were royalty. They also gave us traditional meals of lamb and porridge! The boys played with the rural Welsh children, who were intrigued with meeting Americans, and lots of questions were exchanged with answers on both sides. The Welsh accent is very strong, and we all worked at comprehending it. While I attempted painting my old family homestead, about ten Welsh children gathered. Friendly and warm, they had many questions. They invited Jason and Nathan into a “den” (fort) they had made, to walk down the rocky footpath to the river, to climb trees, etc. My boys learned the internationality of children everywhere. They had a wonderful time. They also played with the Evans’ donkey, cats and dog. We explored the area. It is a blustery, green, hilly country of unspeakable beauty, and I know the boys felt this, too.

They loved the experience of London taxis, double-decker buses and of their dad driving our Hertz car on the left-hand side of the road. They became masters at helping us conquer roundabouts and all road signs and were amazingly quick to spot a castle. (Their father, I might add, drove, to my surprise, like a true Briton!) …

LANGUAGE THROUGH ACTION

[DR:] A few years ago, some foreign language teachers began using a new method called “Total Physical Response,” or TPR, and home-schoolers might like to adapt some of its basic principles for their own use. As a GWS reader writes:

… The book LEARNING ANOTHER LANGUAGE THROUGH ACTIONS, by James Asher, Ph.D. ($10 from Sky Oaks Productions, PO Box 1102, Los Gatos CA 95031). subtitled “The Complete Teacher’s Guidebook,” intrigues me. He says this method of teaching foreign languages was invented from closely observing how children and infants learn language, and he says adults can learn this way even faster than kids, because of having a larger vocabulary to start with … Imperative statements are the key. Also it’s important not to intimidate students by requiring them to repeat words; rather, as far as speech goes, the students remain passive as long as they want, and, of course, testing in the usual sense is not done either.

Standing together with the students where s/he can be seen by them, the instructor gives a verbal command and immediately carries out that command him/herself, encouraging (not forcing) the students to do likewise. Initially, these are simple imperative statements, like “Sit down!” “Stand up!” “Jump!” “Turn around.” Gradually, more and more elaborate imperatives are issued (involving body parts and common objects in the vicinity) which can be directed to individual students, e.g., “Joe, go touch the door!” “Lee, hit your knee!” “Marie, run to my desk!” The next stage is to introduce compound sentences, questions, and humour, but keeping to the imperative form, e.g., “Run to the door and slam it shut!” “Will you bring me your book?” “Did she slam the door?” “Joe, lie down on the floor and go to sleep!”

… When the instructor knows what words students know, s/he can ask them individually or in groups to pass on a “command” to the teacher or other individuals or groups … The book gives rather detailed step-by-step instructions, which can, of course, be varied considerably, but I think many readers would find a wealth of good ideas in it … _____

[DR:] You can find a slightly longer description of TPR methods in an article by James Asher in Psychology Today, 8/81. Dr. Asher recommends that instructors not ask students to speak until the 12th hour of training, at the earliest, and when they do speak, that students not be interrupted with corrections as long as their speech is intelligible. He describes several experiments in which students who learned with the TPR method remembered more than those taught by conventional methods.

RAVE REVIEWS

Jane Filstrup [”Bilingual Family,” GWS #30] writes:

… Thank you for sending the neat little tape of John’s trip to Sweden [TRAVEL DIARY Vol. I; $6 + post] … You know Emma and Burton (5) are bilingual, by an artificially constructed home program in French. Somewhat to their sensible father’s chagrin - “This thing is going too far!” - they are learning Italian from a recorded course. That is why they commented when their father found them listening raptly to this unconventional tape diary, “Oh, this is the friend of those children. We put it on when we got boring of Italian.” HOW HOW HOW did John know a travel diary would be so appealing to (at least non-TV watching) young people? It must be the verisimilitude that hugs them in. Hearing sounds of the environment is interesting - one waits for them. Imagine, that is a SWEDISH police car whistle; maybe the kind Siowall’s and Wahlools police darted around in (me); what happened to the car? (Burton).

Asked point-blank what they take away from the tape, my son says, “Ca me fait penser que je suis sur l’avion” (It makes me feel as though I’m on the plane), while Emma says, “Maman, je fais semblant que je suis en avion” (I pretend I’m on the plane, too).      I’m not sure whether I want to wire us up to do a tape diary in Paris this summer, but my book will definitely recommend it to other parents travelling with children of all ages. And if anybody MAKES one, my children, for two, would love to hear it’…. _____

Susan Richman (PA) writes:

… We love the STEWART PIANO PRE-SCHOOL BOOK (GWS #31)! Jesse has really been enjoying playing piano since we’ve received the book - he plays “Hot Cross Buns” all over the piano, and has discovered major chords all over (without the 1-3-5 chart, just discovered on his own, he thought they sounded so pretty.) We’ve been writing out lots of simple songs in numbers, noticing similar patterns in different songs, such as that “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Why Doesn’t My Goose” (an old round) both end with 5-4-3-2-1.

It inspired us to get our old piano repaired and tuned, and both boys thoroughly enjoyed seeing the old piano tuner at work, seeing the inside working of the piano. Made me realize that the piano is just a sort of “magic” instrument with no rhyme or reason to it, until you get to see all the fascinating inside mechanisms. I know Jesse and Jacob never imagined all those felt hammers, strings, and connecting rods were inside our old upright! So glad you found out about the Stewart books … Very fun to do at home -certainly less expensive than LESSONS … _____

[JH:] About Jesse discovering major chords - that’s how and why human beings invented our musical scale and intervals - because they sounded so pretty.

YOUNG VIRTUOSO CELLIST

[JH:l The Jan./Feb. ‘83 issue of Music Magazine has a story about the oustanding young cellist Ofra Harnoy, who    at 17 was the youngest first-prize    winner in the 31-year history of the New York Concert Artists Guild, and who has already made a commercial recording and will soon play with several major orchestras. In the article she says, “When I was very young I grew up with music every day. Either my parents were playing or there were records on all the time. They tell me that when I was two years old I would break out in tears when I heard sad music being played.” When she was six her mother gave her a quarter-sized cello, and she immediately began playing under her violinist father’s instruction, “There was no one there to tell me that it was difficult, so started playing in all the positions right away.”

This is what I tell all the people I know, young or old, who take up the cello, and what my experienced piano teacher friends Phyllis Jansma (of Stewart Piano) and Norman Hess tell all their pupils - play all over the instrument, and in all the keys. Don’t get the idea in your head that some parts of the instrument are harder than others, for on the piano and the stringed instruments, at least, it is not true. (Of course, it is true for most wind and brass instruments, where the high notes are definitely harder to play.)

When beginners think of their instruments as things on which and with which they can explore, and have adventures and make discoveries, they enjoy their playing more and make much more progress. Music approached in this spirit does not have to be drudgery, even for rank beginners.

Later the article quotes Harnoy as saying, “I don’t have a teacher now. When I occasionally go back to Orloff or Pleeth it is to exchange ideas and renew inspiration. Even though I will always be learning, I’m not being taught.”

ENDLESS CASSETTES

When John and I met Barry Kahn (ME) at the Massachusetts Suzuki Conference in Boston recently, he told us about “endless cassettes,” devices used in Suzuki training which he thought had exciting possibilities for use in other sorts of learning as well. The cassettes look ordinary but are designed in a special way so the tape loops around to where it began, and so will play the same thing over and over and over until you shut it off. In the Suzuki program, tunes are recorded on these loops, and played often so the children learn them by heart.

The cassettes come in 3, 6, and 12 minute lengths, and can be ordered from ABILITY DEVELOPMENT, Box 887, Athens OH 45701. Besides music, Barry thinks they would be great for learning languages, or anything requiring memorization. Recently I had to learn some lines for an acting class I was in, so I taped the scene and played it back a number of times; if I had an “endless cassette,” this job would have been a little simpler. Please let us know if you try these gadgets and if you come up with any other uses for them. - DR

TEACHING ADULT TO READ

Dean Schneider (PA) writes:

… I’ve been working in a local literacy program since July. Bill, the man I tutor, is 48 and never learned to read. He grew up in South Carolina, and his father always put him to work instead of teaching him or sending him to school. The adult literacy program is simple in concept, similar to a learning exchange. The YMCA acts as the administrator and compiles a list of volunteers and matches each volunteer with a person who is registered and seeking help learning to read.

I’ve been happy with my tutoring with Bill. He’s learning to read and I’m seeing my same old methods work as well for an adult as they have for children [See Dean’s letter in GWS #15, “Advice on Reading”].

Bill and I simply sit down for an hour or so and read together. When we begin a new story, I read the story aloud first so he hears what it’s about, then he reads whatever amount of the story he can before getting tired or frustrated. I sit next to him telling him words or giving him clues whenever he gets stuck. We read the story several times until he knows the story fairly well, then we go on to the next. And when he reads on his own at home, he’ll read the current story and some of the prior ones for practice.

We started right out reading real books. At first we read simply children’s books. I especially like the MONSTER series published by Bowmar/Noble (4563 Colorado Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90039) and the fairy tales published by Ladybird (Hutchinson Books Inc, Chestnut St, Lewiston ME 04240). After reading just a few of these together, I decided to move to the JUNIOR GREAT BOOKS program, series 2 (Great Books Foundation, 40 E Huron St, Chicago IL 60611) - a much more difficult set of stories, but very good and Bill seems to like to push himself to read harder books. He enjoys working on a story until he gets it right,” as he says. There’s no need for reading to be one long line of steady progress: there are plateaus and leaps.

I have yet to see a better general statement of how people learn to read than James Herndon in HOW TO SURVIVE IN YOUR NATIVE LAND. He says, “Reading is best taught by somebody who can already read and who knows and likes the kid… sitting down with the kid with a book and reading to the kid and listening to the kid read and pointing out things about sounds and words as they go along,” and perhaps talking to him about the book and what is going on in it. This is basically what I do with Bill. It works as well with an adult beginner as it does with a child.

The “phonics” work I do is simple. It’s partly tied in to the 19 “clues” I give as shown in the list below, and occasionally we’ll take a break from the story we’re reading and spend five minutes or so on variations of words from the story. For example, rat, sat, fat, mat, brat, that; came, same, tame, shame, blame; mean, bean, lean. There’s no particular reason for choosing a certain word for this exercise except that, in the beginning, it should be a common sound. I don’t try to do everything all at once. I only list a few possible variations, and I don’t try to “cover” every sound he’s unfamiliar with. I allow him time to assimilate his growing vocabulary and skill. I simply pick a couple basic sounds to work on for a few minutes, then we get back to reading the story. I do, however, keep an informal chart of the little lists of variations so we can review from time to time. Later on, I’ll pick a sound on the list to expand further. For example, I might do fear, feast, beast, beat, meat, peat, peace, please, etc. We’ve been reading together twice a week since July and we’ve only accumulated a couple of pages of these phonetic variations. Yet, Bill’s recognition of words and ability to figure them out goes beyond such a limited range of sounds. He seems to have absorbed some general rules for figuring out words from the limited phonics work we have done; in other words, he uses phonics for what it is - a clue to what a word might be, and one way to look at a word (i.e. by the sound.)

I’m not against teaching phonics, at least when done in this manner and by syllables or whole words, but I don’t agree with teaching phonics right away to a beginner. It’s like trying to teach outlining before a student knows how to write. Get the person reading a lot first so he begins to see patterns, to relate unknown words to known words, and has a stock of known words you can compile for little charts. How can phonics make sense until the learner gets a sense of the terrain, of what it’s all about, a sense of patterns, a familiarity with lots of sounds and words through just reading. Sure, you can force phonics down students’ throats, but that’s just a measure of your willingness to be authoritarian, not a measure of what is truly useful for the learner. Phonics should come after the student is already reading quite a bit. This early reading is mostly through a “sight” vocabulary and an acquired sense of phonics. Bill learned from easy but good books which he read over and over, a few pages at a time until he had learned to read particular books. Each book he learned made it easier to read the next since he was acquiring an increasingly large sight vocabulary. Then, a bit of organized instruction in phonics can help a person consolidate what he knows so far and be a basis for further learning. But still, you don’t need much phonics instruction (if any!). We will continue to read and re-read stories and accumulate new phonics lists.

In the following chart, I list some of the “clues” I give when Bill gets stuck as we read together. These are clues only; if Bill doesn’t get the clue and is still stuck, I simply tell him the word he’s having trouble with. I do not sneak lessons into our reading time together. The only “lessons” I do at all are the variations on sounds I described above.

Clues and Aids to help a reader get unstuck:

- Read the story for him first, so he hears it, knows what’s coming, and hears your model of how it should be read fluently.

- If he looks confused after reading a section, even though he reads it correctly, reread it for him.

- Just tell him the word so he’ll keep going.

- If the unknown word is the same as a word he’s seen before, say, “It’s the same as this word up here” and point to both words.

- Tell him a word that rhymes with the unknown word. Tell him “you know this part of it” (such as “out” in “outstretched” or “ten” in “tender”). Cover the unknown part to show the known part by itself; then, cover the known part and see if he can figure out the unknown …

- Just say “Skip it,” or “Skip it and come back to it when you’ve finished the sentence.” This helps him figure out words through the context of the sentence. You can also re-read the sentence for him, up to the unknown word.

- “Take a guess.” Sometimes beginners are afraid to make a mistake, so they don’t risk taking guesses. I’ve found that guessing at unknown words loosens him up; besides, more often than not, his guesses are correct or at least close. If he learns to make guesses, he will do the same when he reads alone and will not get stuck as often when there is no one right there to read with him …

HER OWN READING IMPROVES

Judy Thompson in Washington State wrote to John:

… I had been unable to read, or told I couldn’t, for so long I really must have subconsciously believed it. I am 42 years old and after reading what you said in one of your books - I don’t remember which one but you said kids shouldn’t be made to worry about what they didn’t know when they read - I tried it out on my 7-year-old girl after she had been on Dick and Jane for two years and hadn’t been progressing hardly at all. Well, I dropped reading altogether and two weeks later, she picked out a book several levels above what she had been reading and just started to read and didn’t worry about what she didn’t know. She read much better than before, probably because she wasn’t worried about the unknown.

So this made me think of what I always did. I only read what I knew I could read. So, I got something I wanted to read and I was surprised how well it worked. I read very slowly and still do, but I understand and retain everything. I started to love to read when before I hated to. I never thought I would ever say I love to read but I do. And I thank you for letting me see that I could …

I have a father who with tears in his eyes said to me, “I guess I am just dumb.” He works on cars, built a house when first married, most of it himself, drew out the plans himself. He welds, made a sawmill by using odds and ends and was self-employed for most of my life at home … He was a logger and I used to help him on Sunday. He cleared 3 acres of land and built barns, a shop, chicken coop, greenhouse, had a small farm - cows, chickens, garden. Made a real high swing for us kids. Got wood for the house. And yet he felt dumb …

BUYING STANDARDIZED TESTS

From a parent in Massachusetts:

… Last year I mailed away for the free standardized test catalog described in GWS #26 (Bureau of Educational Measurements, Emporia State U., 1200 Commercial, Emporia KS 66801). I then ordered the Metropolitan Achievement Test for 6th grade, and the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Levels 9-14, which covers grades 1-6. Each set includes a teacher’s guide and answer sheet. The cost for both sets was about $17.

It is helpful to know which tests your school uses, such as Iowa, Metropolitan, etc … Each level has many different forms (JH, H, AB) so it is unlikely you would get the same test your child would be taking in school. I ordered the tests on my husband’s school letterhead paper, but nowhere is it stated in the catalog that only educators can purchase these tests.

I think they’re useful if your child is required to take the tests each year. You can get a good idea of content, format, and scoring … The answers are recorded on a separate answer sheet by colouring in a circle:

No. 5     1 2 3 4 0 0 0 0

It is easy for a child to lose his or her place, and then all the subsequent answers would be wrong. This happened to my child at school, and he felt so pressured knowing he only had a certain amount of time to complete the section that he became unable to find his place, and just continued to fill in any circle so the teacher wouldn’t be angry. After practising at home this year, he felt more confident about taking the tests.

It was helpful for me to see the range of skills that are tested: Vocabulary, Reading, Spelling, Capitalization, Punctuation, Language Usage, Map Reading, Reading Graphs/Tables, Use of Reference Materials, Math Concepts, and Math Problems.

Of course, you’re much better off never having to take these tests at all. But if you have to take them, as we do, then you might find buying them a worthwhile investment …

(DR: Did anyone else buy their own tests? Please tell us about your experience with them.)

GETTING GOOD MATERIALS

From Leslie Westrum (WI):

… Recently visited a local pre-school and was tremendously impressed -mostly, I realized, by the equipment. Michael and I have allotted in our family budget about $300-400 per year for our “education fund” (so far we’ve never spent that much in one year, but it’s there if we need it.) Our friends think we’re crazy to spend so much on the kids - and yet they send their own kids to a pre-school - costs them about $800 per year per child! (Some here would cost closer to $1,800 per year.) For that amount of money the kid gets to take his turn with a dozen or more kids at using the great school equipment, and the day there is very regimented - and the kids come home tired and bored and flop in front of the TV - no energy left …

Our plan - so far working out just beautifully - is to provide good, sturdy, attractive equipment (I hesitate to use the word “toys” for our school things) and more importantly to provide a peaceful non-competitive atmosphere and lots of cuddling and individual attention.

It has been my experience that children (like adults) learn more easily when given attractive tools to work with - so I’m critical, I admit, of the things I choose for “Rabbit Mountain.” Madeline (now 2 1/2) loves our set of 170 coloured blocks - wooden ones with a lovely feel to them and nice bright calories. They’re made by T.C. Timber and will probably last forever! James (1-1/2) prefers Duplo Blocks (made by Lego) because he can snap them together and they don’t fall down.

… We took Madeline to an educational supply store and she chose an alphabet frieze for the wall - caps and lower-case letters from A to Z and animals from alligator to zebra. She loves pictures on the wall, but then so do the rest of us. So now we have all those letters and animals marching across our living-room wall, I’m sure the instructor from my interior decorating class would weep …

Our new townhouse has a big back yard and a sandbox (very dilapidated). We had one week of warm weather here last month, and spent most of the week in the back yard. What a delight! … Michael has drawn up plans to re-build the sandbox and also to build a climbing structure for the kids.

Funny - I used to think that only schools or very, very rich people would have all the educational things we’re accumulating, but we’re not really a school, and we’re certainly not rich - it’s just a matter of priorities and preferences. Some people buy cigarettes, some buy tempera paint. Some pay a pre-school, some create one. I realize, for instance, that our kindergarten blocks cost a bit (around $50) and I could have made perfectly good blocks myself - but I’m not eager to cut, sand, and paint little blocks. On the other hand, I’m awfully eager for good weather so we can cut, sand, put together and paint our climbing structure which will cost about $100, and I wouldn’t even consider spending the $600-800 to buy one of those! (And of course we’ll have lots of small leftovers for a birdhouse, squirrel feeder, maybe some kid-sized benches) …

COOPERATIVE LIBRARIES

Many home schoolers have said to me, “There are so many books on your list that I would love to buy, but I just can’t afford them.” For this and other reasons it might be useful for home schoolers in a given area, even if they live far enough apart so that they only see each other once in a while, to join forces to make a home school library. A number of families could decide what books and materials they wanted. If they already had some kind of common gathering place, they could pool their money, send in their order, and have all the books delivered to that place. But it could work just as well if each of, say, six families ordered one-sixth of the books, and then every month or two passed their books along to the next family in some regular rotation, so that by the end of the year everyone would have seen all the books.

Some such arrangement could make it possible for groups of families not only to order more books from us, but other good books which we do not carry (because we cannot get a retailer’s discount on them), like the splendid books put out by the National Geographic Society or the Sierra Club. And under such an arrangement families could subscribe to many more good magazines than any one family could afford, like National Geographic, National Geographic World, Natural History, Ranger Rick, Smithsonian Magazine, Science 83, Odyssey (a child’s magazine of astronomy), Cobblestones, Homesteader’s News, Mother Earth News, and many others.

Of course it would save families money and perhaps trouble if they could persuade local public libraries to buy the books they wanted. But where libraries are not able or willing to do this, the families could, as just described, have their own library.

Elsewhere in this issue we talk about ways of cooperating with schools. I can imagine a situation in which some of the members of this book-buying-and- sharing group would be teachers in schools. In such a case, as part of their regular rotation, the books and magazines would spend part of their time in these teachers’ classroom libraries. For that matter, there is no reason why some non-homeschooling families might not also be part of this cooperative library. It would among other things be a good way for them to meet some home schooling families, and vice versa. One way of finding such families might be to write a letter to the local paper. On second thought, it may be wise not to let this library group get too large, or the task of coordinating it, keeping track of books, etc., which someone will have to do, may become too much of a burden.

If some of you try, or are already trying, this joint library plan, we’ll be grateful if you will let us know how it works out. - JH

ITALIC WORKBOOKS

Ann Bodine wrote in the N.J. Family Schools Newsletter:

… There is finally an excellent Italic handwriting series designed especially for children and sufficiently self-instructional to be ideal for home schoolers. There is a book for each grade level from K through 5, one for adults and older children (who already know how to write) who want to learn Italic, as well as a manual which gives a rationale for Italic handwriting, discusses the historical development of alphabets, left or right handedness, and techniques for increasing speed and developing a personal handwriting style. The children’s workbooks are artistic and interesting. Each book costs $3.95 ($3.16 for schools) and there is a $1.50 per order handling charge. Order from Portland State University, Division of Continuing Education, Box 1394, Portland, OR 97207 …

[DR: We were interested to learn that the Portland school system has adopted this handwriting method for its elementary schools.]

WRITING CONTESTS

From Sharon Hillestad (MN):

…Holly decided to enter a writing contest conducted by Avon publishers. It is for teenagers to write about teenagers. She is writing a book … So far she’s written about 4,000 words. I do the typing. First prize is $5,000 plus 6% royalty. Even if she doesn’t win she will learn a lot about sentence structure, punctuation, and writing dialogue. She is using Louisa May Alcott as her role model. She has a great start.

… The rules for the contest, from the January issue of Seventeen:

1. Last date to accept completed manuscripts, Sept. 30, 1983. 2. Each manuscript should contain 30,000 to 50,000 words. 3. Manuscripts must be typed, double spaced, single side. 4. Enclose a letter giving short description of novel with manuscript along with name, address, telephone number and age. 5. Eligible ages, 13 to 18.

For more info: Flare Novel competition, Avon Books, Rm. 413, 959 8th Av, NY NY 10019… _____

[DR:] I heard about another contest GWS readers might like to enter, the annual Young Playwright’s Festival. The winning one-act plays are given a full-scale Broadway production at the Circle Repertory Theater (111 8th Av, NY NY 10011). We’ve written to the theater asking about age requirements, rules, etc, and will pass along whatever we find out. If readers know of other such opportunities for children’s writing, please let us know.

COMPUTER LETTER FOR PEN-PALS

From James Pagnoni (MA), age 10:

… I used our Apple to get pen pals from all over the USA. First I typed a general letter to make contact with kids my age who, like me, are taught at home. Here’s a copy of it:

Dear XXXXX, I picked your name out of “GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING.” I am ten year’s old and my brother is seven. We are home schoolers. We like board games, sports, reading, piano, and electronic games. I am doing this letter on an Apple II Plus computer. Do you have a computer?

We used to go to school but now we don’t. Do you go to school? What kind of school work do you do? Hope you write back. Your friend, James Pagnoni

Then I used the Apple Writer II to edit it and to input the different addresses and to make letter-perfect printouts. If a pen pal wrote back, I responded with a more personal reply. Now I have friends from as far away as Virginia, South Dakota, and California. And I am expanding my search for friends to other countries. (I’m waiting to hear from places like Japan and Australia).

My friend from California has an Atari @00, an Apple II Plus, a Commodore 64, a Vic-20, and is thinking about getting an Atari 1200. But most of my pen pals don’t have a word processor but want one.

I enjoy computer pen pals because I “meet” new friends and learn about other places. My dad likes it because it also makes me practice my writing skills. And my little brother Joey (who uses the word processor too) says “the best thing is when you erase your mistakes the paper doesn’t scrunch up and tear.”…

WRITING, READING, SPELLING

Toni Lenhardt in Oregon writes:

… After receiving a Valentine card signed, “To Brooke, Love, Dawn Star,” in Dawn’s handwriting, my daughter Brooke decided she wanted to write a letter. I thought to myself, sure, you don’t know how to write the alphabet, let alone words. I recalled several months before I tried to teach Brooke how to write ABC’s and she wasn’t interested. But now she was ready; she had asked for help. She dictated the letter to me and I printed it out. Brooke copied my letter onto her own paper. The letter S was hard for her, but without asking me how to do it, she traced what I had written to get the feel of it and then wrote it on her paper.

… She’s written four letters now … This was Brooke’s letter to Jessica who was looking for a pen-pal (Jessica’s request was in Debra Stewart’s Unschoolers Project):

Dear Jessica, I love ballet. I am 4. I have a baby sister, Rachel Leigh. She was born at home. I cut the cord. I’d like to be a pen-pal. Love, Brooke

… Brooke has started to make her own books - from words on index cards and pictures. She staples the left side and has a book … She put “Mr. Mr. Blossom I like you” on page 1; then “Blossom” (& picture). 3rd page was “Crocus” (& picture); 4th page, “Bluebell too”; 5th, “Happy Spring & Rainbows too” (picture of rainbow); and she made up a tune, singing and dancing and turning pages … _____

Penny Gillie (IN) wrote in the 5183 Rainbow Review:

… Sometimes the nicest times in our home-school are unplanned and unexpected. I was washing lunch dishes while Meegan, age 5, played with magnetic letters on the refrigerator door. Since she was asking me what sounds various letters made, I devised a spur-of-the-moment exercise that we both thoroughly enjoyed. Using the letters at and a variety of consonants, I made-up a story about Mat and Pat, employing as many other words ending in at as I could. Every time I came to an at word, I would tell her the appropriate consonant. She would find the letter, place it in front of at, and sound out the ensuing word.

When we had exhausted our at story, we switched to et. We had such a good time with the et-story that she suggested combining the two, so our third story was about Mat and Pat and their search for a pet. The possibilities go on and on … _____

A good suggestion from a reader who has trouble spelling:

… I have found that a Thesaurus is much more useful to me than a dictionary because I often do not know the second or third letter of the word I want, but most times can recall a word that means the same and find it that way, or quickly scan a list in the index, if I have no idea …

THE POWER OF LETTER-WRITING

[DR:] An article in the Greenpeace newsletter (2007 R St NW, Wash DC 20009) reminds me that one of the best ways home-schooled children can practice their writing skills is by writing real letters, not just to friends but to government officials, companies, newspapers, etc. The article reads:

… Another success story … As of April 3, 1983, the Turkish dolphin kill has been prohibited. Your letters were the key to giving an endangered species of dolphins a change at survival.

… A British group that visited Turkey last year … brought back the shocking news that fishermen there were killing an average of 60,000 dolphins per year. Conservationists leveled an international writing campaign at the Turkish government, which was subsidizing the hunt, to demand that it be abolished. After receiving thousands of letters, including one signed by 32 members of the U.S. Senate, Turkey gave in.

We can tell you time and time again how important your letters are, but nothing tells it better than a victory like this. We would like to thank … the many Greenpeace supporters who made it possible … _____

[DR:] There’s a long list of issues that young people might feel strongly enough about to write letters - the environment (pollution, endangered wildlife, land use), peace, world hunger, honesty in government, discrimination, product safety, individual freedom, saving old buildings, and so on. There are many organizations connected with each of these issues that will be more than happy to tell you where your letters will be most effective, and to give you background information.

For example, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL (304 W 58th St. New York NY 10019) depends on letter-writing as a tool in preserving human rights, and as it happens they have just begun focusing on the imprisonment, torture, and killing of children in political struggles around the world. Some excerpts from the organization’s literature, describing how it works:

… AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL … founded in 1961 … has worked to bring about the release of tens of thousands of “prisoners of conscience” - people imprisoned and often tortured for holding the wrong political views, expressing the wrong opinions, believing in the wrong religions or belonging to the wrong ethnic groups … Once we have learned the identity of a prisoner of conscience, our research department in London investigates the case and digs out as many facts as possible about the prisoner’s background, details of his or her arrest, trial (if the prisoner was fortunate enough to get one), and imprisonment.

If the prisoner is “adopted” by Amnesty, our members write to him when possible, to his family and friends, to the officials in charge of his prison or his case, to the news media in his and other countries - even to the heads of state and government leaders.

Such measures - mild though they may seem - have aided in bringing about the release of thousands of prisoners of conscience in many countries… In recognition of its efforts, Amnesty International received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 …

_____

[DR:] Organizations like Greenpeace and Amnesty International usually ask for contributions for their publications, but if you are truly interested in one of these issues yet cannot afford to pay, you should not let that stop you. I imagine that if vou wrote to these groups anyway, saying that you would like to support their cause by writing letters, they would send you information if they possibly could.

Children who think their letters will not be taken seriously because they are children can always type their letters. No need for them to mention their age unless they want.

The organization BREAD FOR THE WORLD (32 Union Sq. E, NY NY 10003) has an excellent pamphlet on writing effective letters to Congress. Of course, readers will find this advice helpful in writing to their representatives about many issues, in particular about home-schooling. Some excerpts:

… Only one out of every 10 US citizens ever writes a letter to his or her congressional representative, senator, or to the President. The other nine remain silent for reasons such as “Congresspersons don’t read their mail” and “One letter won’t make any different anyway.” The experience of Bread for the World has proved these notions incorrect.

… Congresspersons are the first to acknowledge the increasingly important role played by letters from their constituents:

“My mailbag is my best ‘hot line’ to the people back home. On several occasions a single, thoughtful, factually persuasive letter did change my mind…” - Morris Udall, Representative from Arizona.

“Someone who sits down and writes a letter about hunger … almost literally has to be saving a Life…” - Paul Simon, Representative from Illinois.

… Bread for the World is a grass roots lobbying movement that uses letters as the primary tool in shaping legislation. For example, an estimated 250,000 letters were generated in support of the Right-To-Food bill. As a result, this resolution was voted out of the committee where it had been held up and was passed by both the Senate and the House.

RULES OF THUMB … Rarely should a letter exceed one full page. Write your own views in your own words … Concentrate on one issue per letter … Don’t threaten or demand … Be constructive. If a bill addresses a legitimate problem but proposes the wrong solution, express this and then go on to give your view as to the correct approach… On occasion, you will be writing on a subject about which you have greater knowledge or access to information than your representative. Share such information by sending background papers and newspaper articles … _____

[DR:] About this last point - John often does this, sending to the Massachusetts senators copies of magazine articles that he thinks they should know about.

Writing to business companies can also be useful. I read somewhere recently about a teacher who always had her class send letters of complaint, suggestion, etc, to companies during the first week of the schoolyear, because when the replies started coming in two or three weeks later, the children became excited and developed a new respect for the power of the written word. If you make clear your disappointment over a particular product or service, many companies will send you a refund or a discount on future purchases. You can always write to the president of a corporation if you’re not sure who else to write to; if the address is not on the product, you can find usually find it in the reference section of a library.

We’d love to hear some stories about letters that readers (especially younger readers, but not only them) have written that have made a difference, that have produced some kind of rewarding or unlooked-for response.

AN ELECTRONIC TYPEWRITER

Since I travel so much, and like to type, I have long wished that someone would invent a truly portable electric typewriter. A Japanese company named BROTHER has done it, and their EP-20 is one of the most useful tools I own. It is less than two inches thick, weighs only a few pounds, and can run off regular house current or four D-sized batteries - which last a long time. It is so quiet that you can type without disturbing people close to you, or waking up people who are asleep. It uses a dot matrix printer, which means that you can’t make carbon copies, the type has the typical dot matrix look (some publishers will not accept manuscripts done in it), and the print is not very bold (though it is perfectly readable).

Perhaps the most astonishing thing of all about this little machine is that it has a fifteen-space correcting feature. When you type in the CP (”correcting print”) mode, each letter you type appears at the right hand edge of a 15-space liquid crystal display, like the ones on small calculators. Only when a letter moves off the left hand edge of the screen is it typed on the paper. Everything on the screen can be changed, either deleted or added to. Once it gets on the page, it can’t be fixed, of course, but the 15 spaces allow you to catch mistakes and even to change your mind about a word or two. All other machines with this correcting feature cost at least twice as much as this one.

The machine has another feature I have not seen on any typewriter at any price. There is a second shift key (green) which when pressed gives you an entire keyboard’s worth of extra characters. The smart Brother people, wanting to sell their machine in all countries, have used these extra keys for the accents and special letters used in such languages as French, Spanish, Swedish, etc. and also for symbols for different kinds of money. It would be very useful for people writing in some of these languages.

But the most interesting thing to me about this typewriter is that it is so fascinating to children. I have had it with me when I have visited several families with children, and they just can’t get enough of it. Something about its small size, and the correcting screen, has great appeal for them. They all say, “I’m going to get one like that!” Because it is small, and quiet, and correctable, and has no keys to jam up, I think it might be an ideal child’s typewriter.

Along with the disadvantages of the dot matrix printer, it has one other disadvantage. It uses a special ribbon cartridge, which for the amount of typing you get from it is fairly expensive. They cost $3 each, and I think will last for about eight or ten single spaced pages - I haven’t measured exactly. I don’t think it would be a sensible machine to use as a full-time home typewriter, if you do a lot of writing - one of the larger correcting machines would do better. But if you travel a lot, and like to write when you do, or if you have children, it seems to me almost ideal.

The list price of the typewriter is about $200, but in today’s news section of the Sunday New York Times I see that 47 STREET CAMERA - of whom we wrote in GWS #32 as being a very good source for cameras, tape recorders, computers, etc. - is selling it for $160, which seems a very good buy. Their mail order address is 36 E. 19th St., New York NY 10003, and you can call them toll-free at 800-221-7774. I would even be tempted to add this machine to our own mailorder list, except that we could never buy in large enough quantities to meet the prices of these big discount stores.

Another company which sells this typewriter (along with many other interesting products) is JS&A, One JS&A Plaza, Northbrook IL 60062. They charge $10 more for the machine, but they give an unconditional 30-day money back guarantee, so if after trying it you feel it’s not for you, you can send it back.

If I had to choose between getting a child one of these typewriters and one of the $100 computers, I would certainly pick this typewriter.    - JH

LEARNING FROM COMPUTER GAMES

Herb Kohl wrote in Changing Schools, Winter ‘83:

… I have had arguments with teachers over the use of computer games in the classroom. They resist the games (even the same teachers who will use frilly versions of drill programs) because the children seem to be having too much fun to be learning. Of course they’re having fun! And despite what many teachers feel, they’re learning too.

I said this to a group of teachers recently and received a challenge which seemed to me more hostile than pedagogic. “If they’re learning, then tell us exactly what they are learning by playing computer games. How can what’s learned be tested? How does it fit in the curriculum?”

Whenever someone throws a question like that at me, I step back and think about specific children and specific instances where it was clear that something was being learned. In the case of computer games, what came to mind was:

The time I saw a very frightened, demoralized boy sit for two hours and conquer a complex game that required considerable dexterity and a bit of thought.

Another time when a girl I know learned enough chess from a computer to beat her father.

A time when a twelve-year-old I have worked with, and who the school calls “educationally handicapped” and “hyperactive,” worked his way through a space game that required weighing the relative values of fuel supplies, weapons, and speed, while charting his position on a map with 16 different segments. This same boy could not sit still in school for more than ten minutes.

A time when four ten-year-olds challenged me to play several computer games with them, and then wiped me out.

… In my experience, even the most avid game player eventually wants more from computers than just playing games. He or she eventually wants to MAKE games, to list and change programs, and to achieve that additional power which comes from understanding a machine and its language well enough to push it to its limits.

… I believe that through the programming of some simple games, just about all of the BASIC or PILOT computer language that one needs for programming competency can easily be mastered. In fact, this year I hope to work with a group of seven-year-olds and teach them the rudiments of programming this way.

A good game to start with is a simple number guessing game, or a graphics game. The game you start with, of course, will depend upon the qualities of the computer you work with. These days I work principally with the Atari 800 because I like its graphics and sound capabilities. It is a very easy machine to use with children because they can quickly see some elegant results of their work.

The challenge of my simple number guessing game is to program the computer so it will select a number from 1 to 20, and have the player guess the number. After we get that simple game written, the goal is to dress it up with sound graphics, to change the program so that numbers from 1 to 100 are selected by the computer, and to give the player hints.

All of this leads up to what I hold to be the central notion of gaming and programming - that there is NO SINGLE WAY to do things, nor even a single “best” way. Like playing poker or chess, programming is an ART, even though there is a structure to it …

LETTERS WANTED ON COMPUTERS

From Daniel Chandler (8 Burnet, Stantonbury 1, Milton Keynes, Bucks MK14 6AJ, England), who promises to share the results with GWS:

… I am writing a book with the title YOUNG LEARNERS AND THE MICROCOMPUTER for the Open University Press in England. It is to be both for parents and teachers in England and the US, and will discuss issues and practices, using as springboards the perceptions of kids themselves (up to age 12).

If your kids would like to describe how they’ve been using computers, I’d be very interested to hear from them (as well as from parents). As a deschooler myself I’d like to be able to use some good examples from alternative education … Any extracts will be gratefully acknowledged in the text.

…CONCERNS ABOUT COMPUTERS

From Lisa Boken (MA):

… Just a few quick thoughts on home computers - I love them, I hate them, they scare me, they lure me.

Like many of the “wonders of technology,” how much was researched before the masses were sold on them? … What about the problems that don’t surface for years? Decades?

There are those who see computers as the key to future success… Why, one parent actually wept and pleaded with a teacher of computer science in a middle school because her son’s future would be ruined if he didn’t squeeze him into is class.

… Our family has access to three computers. We have also attended local interest groups for computers in our area and what we see and hear and share thrills us and frightens us … We need people like you, John, to say, “Think about…”

So, what do we do - lock ourselves and our children up, away from technology until the implications are manifest? No … but think about the possibilities, picture (to the best of your ability) down the road a piece.

… I guess I feel strongly that our society is becoming less and less questioning and more and more accepting unconditionally … Look at the sacred cow, school, and how many years you and others have worked just to get people to question, to think … _____

From Shannon Bush (TN):

… I. too, am excited about the potential that computers have in making home-schooling and self-reliant living richer and even more exciting for us. But it is crucial that parents understand the biological hazards to themselves and their children that VDT’s (Video Display Terminals) may present. While there have been few conclusive studies yet, several are in progress, and one should not gamble with one’s health in the meantime. The information I am passing on here is from an article in the March ‘83 issue of Whole Life Times, by Barbara Bialick.

… Of 125 models that the U.S. Bureau of Radiological Health tested, 8 VDT’s emitted more X-rays than the legal limit. Some of these were recalled or taken off the market.

More worrisome … are the 8 clusters of birth defects and miscarriages that have been reported in North America since 1979 … Other factors in the workplace could be implicated, but one cluster seems to point the finger at VDT’s … The other suspected health effect of VDT’s is cataracts. A Scarsdale, NY opthalmologist, Dr. Milton Zaiet, is currently the only eye doctor in North America who will state openly that he believes that “VDT’s as currently shielded and constructed pose a grave radiation danger.”

… It is tempting for people who like their home computers to dismiss these problems as irrelevant to their situation on the grounds that they and their children certainly don’t spend eight hours a day at their computers. But might they not spend three or four occasionally? People who are really fascinated do … An hour or two a day of X-rays is worse for a growing nine-year-old than a fifty-year-old, as I know from the research I did a few years ago when they were building a nuclear plant near my home… _____

And from Kathie DeWees (VT):

… I happened upon the following “letter to the editor” in a local newspaper that I thought you might be interested in:

… Recently, President Reagan endorsed the idea that video games were ultimately going to benefit our country’s military forces. He suggested the maneuvering handles on the games were similar to those in miliary aircraft. And so because we have millions of kids zeroing in for the kill preparing to kill, developing the hand/eye coordination necessary to operate defense/offense systems, our president is pleased and I am horrified …

[Kathie resumed:] I, too, am horrified… if there must be all these computer things, though I don’t see why there needs to be, why can’t they be peace games, why must it always be for power and control and killing?

So many people are getting further and further away from our Mother Earth and the life and love that our planet stands for, and are so much into all this super technology that in the end stand for death and hate. I’m glad my family lives simply, without electricity, etc., and I’m glad to see our children building things from bark and stones and branches and playing in the stream and the snow. They are at peace with nature and I hope they can always be. They have yet to play a computer war game and I hope that can always be, though that will have to be their decision. I hope they can always love to watch the seedlings grow and the animals run free and feed the birds from their hands and not want to play war games that in the end lead to the destruction of all these wondrous things …

THE IDEAS BEHIND COMPUTERS

Truly successful inventions are likely to have ideas behind them; that is, they meet human needs which are not merely physical or economic, but psychological and emotional.

The automobile is a good example. It has profoundly changed the face of the world and the patterns of human life. From where did it get its magic power? Mostly from a dream, a wish, which human beings have cherished and pursued since ancient times, but found only in myths, like Pegasus the flying horse or magic carpets - the dream of going wherever they want, and many times faster than their feet or even a horse could ever carry them.

A middle-aged Danish woman, who had just bought the first car she had ever owned or driven, once expressed this dream as we drove through Copenhagen, still mostly untroubled by severe traffic jams. In a voice of true rapture she said, “I feel so free!”

That was ten years ago. Whether she still feels so free, I do not know. Living in Boston, where I can walk to most of the places I go and take public transport to most others, I feel more free because I have not owned a car in ten years or so and do not expect ever again to own one. In recent years I have said this to many people; almost without exception they have said to me, “Oh, you’re luck! I wish I didn’t have to own a car.” Recent figures claim that for most Americans the cost of owning a car is now over $4000 a year. Clearly an invention, a tool, which most people feel they have no choice but to own and which costs them many thousand dollars a year is not a liberating but an enslaving tool. It has added much more to our burdens and problems than to our pleasures. Most things that we really love to do, we could do without cars; the things we have to use them to do are mostlv things we feel we can’t get out of doing.

The computer is clearly another successful invention. Whether it will prove to be as enduring as the automobile, or be a liberating or an enslaving tool, it is too early to tell, but successful it certainly is. What are the ideas behind its success, what psychic needs does it fill? Two seem very clear.

The first is the Cartesian idea about which I wrote in my review of A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC in GWS #32, namely, that all of reality, everything that exists, is a machine, of which every part can be expressed as a number. The early educational psychologist Thorndike srated this flatly: “Everything that exists can be measured” - an idea which has corrupted and crippled education to this day. Or, as we might put it, anything we can’t count, doesn’t count. Computers powerfully reinforce the modern myth that anything and everything important can and can only be expressed in numbers. People have of course believed this for many years before anything like the modern computer was invented. But computers make it much easier to believe and much harder to oppose.

The other idea embodied in the computer is the idea that information can somehow be a substitute or judgement, wisdom, courage, faith, and luck - that if you just have enough pure facts at your disposal you can know exactly what will happen, and make happen what you want to happen. This need for absolute certainty and absolute control, while understandable enough in a rapidly changing and dangerous world, is a weakness and a sickness. Like the wish for unlimited mobility, it is also long enshrined in myth. The ability to know the future is one of the things which human beings have always craved and for which many have been willing to sell their souis to the devil. Since on the whole we do not believe the truths that come down to us in stories, but only what moves pointers on dials, we still persist in the folly of thinking that we can can get the best of that bargain.

One reason I am more fearful than hopeful about the future of computers is that I find it hard to see how much good can come of an invention which so strongly depends on and reinforces two such bad ideas. The first idea, that everything that exists can be measured and that whatever we can’t count doesn’t count, is from a scientific point of view absurd; from any conceivable religious point of view, it can only be called blasphemous, and it is astonishing that so few religious thinkers point this out. The second idea that information can replace judgement, that if we have enough facts we can’t go wrong, is equally silly, and is contradicted by every day’s news. Within the last quarter Pan American Airlines announced what the financial columns said was the largest quarterly loss ever reported by an American corporation. Yet we may be sure that Pan Am had as many and as good computers, and as much raw information, as its rivals. Where it failed was in not knowing which of its information was important, or in making wise use of it. This is something that in the nature of things computers cannot do.

Not believing in faith or judgement, we don’t believe in souls, still less the Devil. But if the busy makers and sellers of computers could convince us, as they are doing their best to, that with their machines we can really know and control the future, we might be willing to make any changes in our laws, customs, morals, ideas of right and wrong, that computers might seem to demand, not least of them the right to privacy, to reveal no more of ourselves to the world than we wish to reveal.

Let me be a bit more specific about these dangers. I have said that an important freedom for me is the right not to own a car - or for that matter, a television set. So far the government has not tried to denv me these choices. But there are already strong signs that it may soon try to deny me the choice of not owning a computer or spending time learning how to run it. A very slippery, tricky, and sinister little phrase is beginning to make its way, I should say force its way, into our language - “computer literacy.” It has appeared in practically every statement about education that I have seen in the past six months. A recent Christian Science Monitor story reports: “Both [Calitornia State Superintendent of Education] Honig’s proposal and one put forward by Democratic State Sen. Gary Hart … would require … one year of computer training for a high school diploma.” My friend Ed Pino from Colorado told me just yesterday that already sixteen colleges require their entering freshmen to buy a computer, and 120 make some kind of computer training a requirement for admission.

What is it that these educators want to compel students to know? Probably a modest amount of computer vocabulary - names of computer hardware, etc. - most of which I have learned from a little casual browsing in computer magazines - and the ability to do some simple programming in BASIC. But BASIC is even now hardly ever used for any serious business or scientific purposes, and within a decade it will probably be useless. For many years the ability to type well has been a very valuable skill - I count it one of the most useful things I have ever learned. Even now it is a great deal more useful for most life purposes than the ability to do simple programming. But no schools, though they might have been wise to do so, have ever made typing a graduation requirement, or colleges made it an entrance requirement, or demanded that all their students own a typewriter. No doubt the makers of typewriters are kicking themselves for not having ever thought of the phrase “typewriter literacy.” But then, typewriters never pretended to be more than a handy tool to write things with, instead of some magical way of knowing and controlling the future.

Who is going to be allowed to decide what people shall be compelled to know about computers? Who will write the textbooks for all those “computer literacy” courses? In all probability, the same people who are making and selling the computers. Will the students be taught to be skeptical about computers and cautious about buying them? I doubt it very much. Will they learn, as in my casual browsing I have learned, that most computer hardware is incompatible with most other hardware, and that most of the people who sell this hardware either don’t know that or won’t tell you? Or that the first word processing program put out by IBM for use with their personal computer was so bad that they soon had to withdraw it? Or that nothing done in homes (as opposed to businesses) economically justifies buying a computer. Or that when you buy a new model computer you will probably have to wait two or three years for the necessary programs to go with it? Or that businesses should not spend more than about one percent of their annual gross income on a computer? Or that at all price levels computers have been and are plagued by serious problems of reliability, and that most of the people who sell them do not know how to or will not service them? All this seems extremely unlikely. What is much more likely is that the schools, which have long been teaching Science-Worship, will now begin to teach Computer-Worship.

There’s an old Arab saying that if you let the camel’s nose into your tent you will soon have the entire camel. We have allowed into our tent - our society, our laws, our schools - the nose of a very large, determined, clever, unscrupulous, and in the long run possibly dangerous camel. Unless we are very careful, we may soon find ourselves obliged by law to buy whatever the computer industry wants to sell us. I still think there is a chance that computers may become, in Ivan Illich’s phrase, “convivial tools,” which, like bicycles, typewriters, and cassette tape recorders (to name only three of many), serve and empower their users, instead of, like autos and TV, burden and diminish them. But it will have to be up to us, not the computer industry, to make sure this happens. We at GWS will have more to say, from time to time, about how we may do this. - JH

IF YOU START A SCHOOL

Nancy Plent wrote in the New Jersey Unschoolers Network:

… My two years with an alternative school, 13 years ago, were exhausting, discouraging, and emotionally draining … I’ve learned that home schoolers often want to start schools. It was an upsetting discovery at first. I wanted to shake people by the shoulders and tell them how GOOD they had it without that complication.

…But many parents feel a longing for “something more,” some replacement for the special children’s place that school represents. As Eric grows, I see that he will probably want “something more” at some point, too. I’ve started wrestling with the painful ghosts of that school experience to see if I could decide where things went wrong, and if it seems possible to have a parent-run school which would bring pleasure and excitement instead of stress.

… Children and adults should maintain and run their “school”. Some time should be spent each day in adults and children working together on the physical maintenance of the school. No adults giving assignments and children doing the work, or hiring outside maintenance people. This idea comes from Dr. Raymond Moore, and is being practiced in private schools at all levels including college. Two boys at our alternative school refused to pick up after using things and were indifferent to any project we tried to get them involved in. They felt the adults should do the picking up. (Fair enough, actually, since the projects were all adult ideas.) When their family later moved to a commune, an old warehouse in need of lots of fixing, the boys were viewed as potential workers and welcomed on adult work crews. Their mother reported that their attitude was entirely different. They felt they belonged in this place, were needed, and had a voice in decisions.

A school should either share a building or run a business. Money problems can tear a sctiooi apart. If you’re in constant danger of having to close down, can’t buy any materials, etc, the school becomes drudgery. If you make tuition high, parents often demand unreasonable things of the school (”because after all, I’m sacrificing a lot to send my child there”). A sense of parent sacrifice makes the children feel guilty about enjoying the school. One school I know got a grant to run a health food co-op and expanded it into a store. Every effort should be made to keep expenses low or income stable.

Someone has to be in charge. This was an unpopular notion In the 60’s. Our school was started by an energetic mother of five with hundreds of ideas and a hang-up about being an “authority figure.” We spent hours in meetings, hashing out small things which she could have simply decided. We didn’t know what direction we were going in. We wanted her to set the course. The confused atmosphere that some alternative schools project comes from this kind of “Well, what do YOU think?” lack of leadership. If a school is a group effort rather than the brainchild of one energetic person, at least have people,in charge of different areas … A lot of energy is released when somebody has to go-ahead to act upon cheir ideas, right or wrong … _____

[JH:] I agree 100% that the children and adults involved in a school -or learning center, club, whatever you want to call it - should do all the physical work of maintaining it. At the Friskole in Copenhagen this has been the rule from the first day. The one thing all children are expected to do is do their share of cleaning up, repairing, and cooking, and the interesting thing is that no children, even the most disturbed, angry and rebellious newcomers, ever refuse to do it. It makes them members of the community they need so much to feel a part of.

PRIVATE SCHOOL OPTION

Many, perhaps even a majority, of the people who are teaching their children at home, are doing so by calling their own home a private school. Since in many states private schools are virtually unregulated, this has seemed the easiest way to go, and indeed we here at GWS have long recommended it. But I am beginning to feel more and more strongly that in the long run and even in the short it may not be the best way to go, and that the best way to go, if we can do so without making unacceptable concessions, is to reach a friendly and cooperative agreement with the local schools, of the kind we have often described, in which the children are registered with the school and can use as much of its facilities as they want, and in which the school continues to receive whatever state and federal aid it gets for its regular pupils.

The trouble with the private school option is that though it looks easy on the face of it - just fill out the simple form, and there you are - in the long run it is unstable. The public schools, that 100+ billion industry, with great political power in Congress and the state legislatures, must and always will see as an intolerable threat to their existence any home school arrangements which deprive them of the state (and perhaps federal) aid which is an increasingly important part of their budgets, and deny them the right to exercise any kind of educational control over what goes on. They will never stop trying to fight such arrangements, and in the long run, and not just because of their money, they will probably be able to persuade most legislatures, and most federal courts, to take their side. Even those legislatures (LA, AZ) which have passed what look like strong pro-home schooling laws could very easily be persuaded to repeal them if the schools could only manage to turn up one or two cases of gross neglect or abuse or educational incompetence by home schooling families - and sooner or later, as our numbers increase, there are very likely to be a few such cases.

In most of what we might call the private-school states, we home schoolers are in a kind of cold war relationship with the schools. On any given day there may not be active hostilities - they may not actually be taking any families to court - but they are likely always to be thinking about ways in which they might do it. This makes the situation of home schoolers more precarious than it ought to be; we never can tell when some court (as in Virginia and Florida) or some state Attorney General, or some educational official, as recently in California and Washington, may not suddenly be able to pull the rug out from under our feet. We have to keep thinking, “What might they try next, and if they do, what are we going to do about it?” instead of thinking about something more interesting - how to help our children grow up into the world.

Here in Massachusetts we don’t have the private school option (since private schools must be approved by the local public schools). What we have is much better - a situation in which a growing number of school districts are cooperating with home schoolers and in the process getting to know and trust them. Every year the number of districts grows in which superintendents and school boards can say, “Yes, we have home school families, and they’re doing a fine job, and we like to help them all we can.” Families whose school districts feel this way about them don’t have to worry about what this or that judge or state official may say. As far as anyone can be secure in this world, they are secure, at least in their home schooling. And, of course, they are able to use, if they want, those expensive school facilities which they could never duplicate and which their taxes help pay for. - JH

ON “DISCOVERY PROCEEDINGS”

From Theodore Amshoff (see “Friendly Lawyers,” this issue):

… In reference to the inquiry you made on Page 20 of GWS #32 concerning the use of discovery techniques in home education trials to ascertain test scores, etc., several problems present themselves. Normally the process of submitting written questions which must be answered by the opposing side (called “interrogatories”) is available only in a civil trial. Discovery proceedings in criminal trials are much more severely limited in most states.

… Juvenile courts in many states conduct their proceedings under the civil rules of procedure instead of the criminal rules. Thus, interrogatories may be available in that situation.

Even in the criminal context, some discovery is usually available under the laws of every state. We have been quite successful in our representation of home schoolers in securing Court Orders, even in criminal cases, compelling the prosecutor to furnish test data from the local public schools, as well as state test norms. In our experience, as a practical matter, judges have been much more willing to uphold the constitutional rights of home schoolers where they have been given evidentiary assurance that the children are receiving an education comparable or superior to that of their public school peers.

Obtaining such information in a criminal proceeding usually involves pre-trial motions to the court in order to secure appropriate orders for such discovery. We have done this in several states.

Incidentally, as a general principle, I wholeheartedly concur with your advice and recommendation against the filing of civil damage suits in the federal courts against the local school superintendents and other education and law enforcement officials … While it is possible that some set of facts someday might justify such action, I have not yet seen that case. Other remedies are certainly available which have far greater strategic prospects for success.

For example, the same statute (42 USC S.1983) also provides for the granting of injunctive relief, and may be coupled with an action for a declaration of rights. Relatively speaking, I believe this remedy to be far more appropriate to home school situations, and might be a recommended strategy in those areas where state court precedent is strongly against home schoolers, thereby foredooming a family’s prospects in a state court criminal prosecution.

Needless to say, each schooling case is unique, and merits careful consideration of the alternatives applicable in each situation with competent legal counsel …

MICHIGAN SCHOOL CASE

[DR:l We got a copy of the court decision described in “Important Michigan Ruling,” GWS #31, and quote some of the relevant portions below. In case you’re interested in how to obtain such documents, what we did was write to the County Courthouse in Saginaw, the city closest to the towns mentioned; someone there forwarded our letter to the Court Clerk of Ingham County in Lansing, who asked us for $5 for photocopying.

SHERIDAN ROAD BAPTIST CHURCH, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH BRIDGEPORT, et al, Plaintiffs; vs State of Michigan, Depirtment of Education, and Phillip E. Runkel, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER, Docket #80-26205-AZ

… Held in the Circuit Courtrooms, City of Lansing, County of Ingham, state of Michigan, on the 29th dav of December, 1982. Present: Honorable Ray C. Hotchkiss, Circuit Judge

… In July of 1980, Defendant, Michigan Dept. of Education, filed a complaint with the Superintendent of Public Instruction seeking suspension of the operation of Sheridan Road Christian School and the Bridgeport Baptist Academy. The complaint alleged that the schools failed to comply with the requirements of 1921 P.A. 302, S. 5; MCLA 388.555; MSA 15.1925.

On Dec. 6, 1980, plaintiffs filed the present action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of 1921 P.A. 302 (hereafter referred to as “the act”) and allege that said act is contrary to the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States and Article 1, Section 4, and Article VII, Section 1. of the Constitution of the State of Michigan.

The purpose of 1921 P.A. 302 is clearly stated in the preamble to that act. It provides;

“AN ACT to provide for the supervision of private, denominational and parochial schools; to provide the manner of securing funds in payment of the expense of such supervision; to provide the qualifications of the teachers in such schools; and to provide for the endorsement of the provisions hereof.”

Under Section 1 of this act, the superintendent of public instruction is given supervision over all private, denominational, and parochial schools. This section further provides that the sanitary conditions and the courses of study in religious schools must be of the same standard as provided by the public schools. Under Section 3 of the act, all teachers employed by non public schools must be certificated and must submit to an examination to obtain a certificate.

… Section 5 provides for investigation and examination of records of non public schools by the superintendent of public education to determine whether that school is in compliance with the act. This section also provides that refusal to allow an investigation or examination of records is sufficient cause to suspend the operation of the school.

… This Court is of the opinion that the religious beliefs of the plaintiffs are sincere and that the education of their children in schools which conform to their religious beliefs is an integral part of the churches’ religious mission. This Court is further of the opinion that the regulations imposed on the schools by 1921 P.A. 302 interfere with the practice of plaintiffs’ legitimate religious beliefs.

Freedom of worship is among the fundamental rights which are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Consiitlition from infringement by the state … The basic purpose of the free exercise and establishment clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is to see that no religion is favored, sponsored, commanded, or inhibited … Only the highest state interests, and those not otherwise served, may overbalance the legitimate claims to the free exercise of religion (Sherbert v.Verner, Wisconsin v. Yoder).

…The State of Michigan’s interest in universal education can only be classified as a state interest of the highest order. To implement the responsibility for education, it is necessary that the state have power to impose reasonable regulations. However, even the state’s interest in education is not above the balancing process when it impinges on fundamental rights like the free exercise of religion.

Section 3 of the act requires that all teachers employed by non public schools must be certified by the State of Michigan. Under MCLA 380.1531, the State Board of Education is responsible for determining the requirement for teacher certification. One requirement is that a candidate must hold a degree from a college or university with an approved teacher training program. Another requirement is that a candidate must complete a certain number of hours as a student teacher under the guidance of an experienced teacher.

The purpose of teacher certification in Michigan is to insure a minimal level of qualification for teachers, and to provide some minimum standards to address things a teacher ought to know in order to avoid harm or detriment to children.

Defendants’ expert witness, Dr. Judith E. Lanier, stated that without teacher certification, there would be no safeguard or mechanism to represent the State’s interest in the education of children by qualified instructors. However, Dr. Lanier admitted that she was aware of no specific research linking teacher certification with better teachers. Dr. Lanier also stated that she did not believe Michigan’s teacher certification program has resulted in overall success in performance by Michigan students.

Dr. Donald Erickson, an expert in the field of education, testified that there is a distinct lack of consensus on the method to be used to train teachers. Dr. Erickson further testified that the factors that make certain teachers more effective than others are unknown.

Dr. Erickson stated that schools that employ only certified teachers are generally less effective when effectiveness is measured by student achievement. He criticized Michigan’s teacher education system which he felt imposed certain mechods of teaching at the expense of others. Dr. Erickson further testified that he believed teacher certification to be one of the weakest steps to guaranteeing educational quality.

Another expert in the field of education, Dr. Russell D. Kirk, testified that the requirements for teacher certification in Michigan are excessive in number and that the requirements for teacher training institutions are too restrictive. Dr. Kirk was of the opinion that the certification requirement produces mediocrity in the teaching profession and does not improve the quality of teaching in this state …

Defendant contends that the need to insure minimum standards for teaching in private schools constitutes a compelling state interest and that teacher certification is a reasonable means of assuring that state interest. The overwhelming weight of evidence presented, however, shows that teacher certification does not insure teacher competency and may even inhibit teacher competency.

Defendants have failed to show that teacher certification is a reasonable or effective means to carry out a legitimate state purpose. Further, this court is of the opinion that teacher certification causes excessive government entanglement with religion.

This Court is of the opinion that 1921 PA 302, Section 3, MCLA, is violative of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and is, therefore, void and without effect.

… Plaintiffs object to the requirement that the courses of study must be of the same standard as the public school. The “general school laws” of the state do not specify any particular courses, but allow the local school boards to determine the courses of study in their districts …

State official, Paul DeRose, testified that the Department of Education makes a judgment as to what is comparable in terms of curriculum offered by non public schools. Mr. DeRose further testified that non public schools must be comparable to public schools in the same district but may not be comparable to public schools located in a different school district. Mr. DeRose was unaware of any guidelines for local school district officials in evaluating non public schools.

Jack R. Newton, Superintendent of the Bridgeport-Spalding Community School District, testified that it was within his power to evaluate the curriculum of non public schools to ascertain if that curriculum was comparable to the public schools in that area … Mr. Newton admitted concern with the loss of $2,000 in State Aid for every student who leaves the public school and enrols in area non public schools.

This Court fails to see a compelling state interest in requiring non public schoolry to be “of the same standard” as public schools in the same school district. Such a scheme does not insure uniformity in che quality of education in the state because the school districts throughout the state are not required to be comparable. Further, such a scheme does not insure even a minimum degree of quality in education; it merely requires that non public schools be as good as, or as bad as, the public schools in the district.

…This Court is of the opinion that Section 1 of 1921 PA 302 causes excessive government entanglement with religion and does not forward any compelling state interest. It is, therefore, the opinion of this court that Section 1 of 1921 PA 302 is unconstitutional …

METRONOME AVAILABLE HERE

SEIKO ELECTRONIC METRONOME (Available from Holt Associates; $63.50, postage included). A metronome, as most readers probably know, is a clock-like device which beats time, by giving a click and/or flashing a light, at whatever speed you want, from 40 to 208 beats per minute. It is an indispensable tool for any serious student of music, and has been used by virtually all musicians since it was first invented by Maelzel. I have tried out a number of metronomes since I first began making music, and of all the ones I have seen this compact and versatile little machine is the best. In its case, it measures about 5-1/2 X 2 3/4 x 1 1/3 inches, and weighs less than half a pound. It will give you an A to tune with, at any pitch from 440 to 445 cycles (useful if you want to play with a recording, or a piano, that is not tuned exactly to A 440). It will beat time with a flashing light, or a sound, or both. The sound can be at low level or high level, and atc high level is strong enough (not true of most small metronomes) to be heard over loud instruments.

One of the most important features of this metronome, one I have found in few others, is that it will not only beat time but, like a conductor, will give you the first beat in the measure. You can set it for measures of anywhere from two to six beats. When it is set for, say, a three beat measure, it will flash a red light and give a high-pitched sound for one beat, then a green light and a lower pitched sound for the next two beats, and so on for as long as it runs. I have found this very useful in trying to play music with (for me) complicated rhythms - if I skip a rest, or don’t hold a rest or a note long enough, this machine will cell me, where a conventional metronome might not. It is, as I say, like having a little conductor on the music stand.

We will send the metronome to you with its 9 volt transistor radio battery installed. When the time comes to change the battery (easily found in drugstores, etc.), you will find the battery cover a little bit stiff to open. Push with your thumb, as the instruction manual says, and don’t be afraid to push hard - you can’t hurt anything by doing so. When you put the battery cover back on (the metronome will work OK with the cover off), push down and in on the little arrow and the word “Open.” You don’t have to worry about putting the battery the wrong way, because you can’t - the clips are designed so that they will only go on the right way.

There’s a foolish printer’s mistake in the instruction booklet, which is not of any importance but may puzzle you. A photo of the back of the metronome points out the battery cover and the prop-up stand, but the labels are reversed.

This may seem quite a lot of money to pay for a little device that doesn’t do much except say “click-click-click.” But, as I said, it is an extremely important musical tool, which you will use in many ways. If you and/or your children are seriously studying any of the major instruments, you will spend a great deal more than this in only a few years, on lessons, strings, repairs, sheet music, recordings, and the like. Even the cheapest metronomes cost about half as much as this one, and its convenience and extra features make it well worth the extra money. I am very glad to have one for my own use, and strongly recommend it. - JH

TWO INSTRUMENTS AVAILABLE HERE

AULOS SOPRANO RECORDER (Available from Holt Associates, $10.00 including postage). When I first thought of adding a recorder to our music list, I asked several of my recorder playing friends what companies made the best plastic recorders (the ones in wood are much more expensive) . They all said, “Aulos.” So we tracked down their catalog, found they make a whole line of recorders -soprano, alto, tenor, etc. - and, again on the advice of friends, picked this one to start with. I am not a recorder expert, but it seems easy to blow, accurate in pitch, even in sound, and pleasant in tone. It is one of the best beginning musical instruments for children or adults, and in fairly large and musically active cities like Boston you can often find groups of people to play with who specialize in recorder music. Also, it is a no-worry instrument; short of running over it with the car, it is pretty hard to hurt it. So it’s OK to leave it lying around where anyone who feels like it can pick it up and tootle on it.

PIANICA ($47 incl. postage). For some time have been small and inexpensive ment, for families to own or have access to board instruments are certainly the easiest something about music notation, harmony, etc. As an experienced piano teacher once put it, “A piano is a perfect teaching machine; what you see is what you get.” Also, it is one of the easiest of all instruments for young children to make some kind of sound on. Action leads to results, which little children like and need. And by their own investigations they can learn a lot about how (musically) a keyboard instrument works. Unfortunately, not everyone can find or afford a piano. One inexpensive electronic substitute I like very much is the Casio VL-10, a tiny synthesizer, great fun to play with and to compose tunes on. But it won’t play chords, and the cheapest machines that will play them cost $150 and more - and usually don’t sound very good. Also, the Casio probably wouldn’t stand much rough treatment. (For older children, it may still be worth looking into.) Then we found the Pianica (Piano + Harmonica). As with a harmonica, you blow into it, in this case, through a flexible pipe that fits in one end.  The air makes notes by vibrating little metal reeds, and you pick the notes you want by pressing down a key or keys on a piano-type keyboard, two and a half octaves wide. The Pianica is cheaper than other instruments of this kind, and sounds better - the pitches are accurate, the tone pleasant, and the chords actually sound like chords, and not, as on many expensive electronic instruments, like discords. Erik Sessions, who is a good violinist and pianist, was in the office from Iowa the other day, and he had a good time with it. I think you and your children will too.                     - JH

NEW BOOKS AVAILABLE HERE

THE DOLL BOOK, by Karin Neuschutz ($8 + post). This book is subtitled “Soft Dolls and Creative Free Play,” and is about both of those - how, if you can sew, with or without a machine, you can make soft dolls for children, and the many kinds of things children can do with them (and other simple objects), The dolls themselves are inexpensive, not hard to make, and completely charming - I can well imagine how much children would love them. But the book itself would be well worth its price just for what the author says about play. She understands clearly and illustrates vividly what I say in HOW CHILDREN LEARN - that children use play as a way of exploring the world and making as much sense as they can out of it.

Later, talking about fairy tales and what children can get out of them, Neuschutz says something I have long felt, without quite being able to put it into words:

… To give children realistic everyday stories in books with the motivation that that’s how many children today live - that Charlie lives in an apartment building, that his mother and father often fight, that this is what it’s like to be in a hospital or at the dentist’s or in a barn or in Antarctica - is actually to fool both ourselves and the child. No film or book can show a child how it is.  Only the reality that we ourselves experience can show us the workings of the outside world …

At the very end of the book Neuschutz talks about what to do when a favorite doll gets worn out. Ask the child if it’s all right to take the doll to the hospital, and if so, tell the child that when it gets all well and comes back it won’t look exactly the same. Then re-make as much of the doll as is worn out, keeping the old head and face or perhaps only the hair. The doll can be almost totally new, but to the child it will be the same old friend. It reminds me of the story of the old woodsman who, showing a friend his house, pointed to an axe behind the door, and said, “I’ve had that axe all my life; it’s had three new heads and seven new handles.” That’s how children can feel about fixed-up old dolls, and why these simple soft dolls are so nice.

It occurs to me that, using the patterns in this book, some home schoolers might make a small cottage industry out of making these dolls for others. They’d make lovely presents.

This book, by the way, is published by Larson, the company that will be publishing Nancy Wallace’s book. The book is very well made, with a sewn binding (I can’t remember the last book of mine to have one - publishers these days usually just glue the pages together at the spine of the book, which they call a “perfect” binding).

CONCISE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MUSIC, Ed. by Michael Kennedy ($10.45 + post). 724 pages of fascinating information about composers, both famous and obscure, together with lists of their works; also many compositions (listed by title), performers, musical instruments, musical terms (the ones, like allegro, piu mosso, etc., that you would find in written music), music theory (harmony, ornaments, etc.), musical history, and just about anything that might interest anyone who likes “classical” music. (A few great jazz players are mentioned, but only a few.) An excellent reference work for serious students, and a delightful book just to browse in - every time I pick it up to look up something, I find myself reading about a lot of other things. Of the one volume dictionaries of music I have seen, much the most complete and readable.

PETER AND THE WOLF ($5.35 + post) and THE NUTCRACKER ($5.35 + post). Two famous ballet stories, charmingly illustrated in colour, with selections (written for piano) of some of the best known and most beautiful music of each, so that as adults or children read the story they can play some of the music along with it. Thus, from PETER, we have the songs of Peter, the bird, the duck, the cat, the grandfather, the wolf, and the hunters. From NUTCRACKER we have Harlequin and Columbine, the Waltz of the Snowflakes, the Mice, the Dance of the Flutes, the Chinese Dance, and the Waltz of the Flowers.

THE STORY OF FERDINAND, by Munro Leaf ($3.15 + post). The classic story of the little Spanish bull who would rather sit quietly smelling the flowers than fight. The black and white pen and ink illustrations by Robert Lawson have great life and vitality, almost more colour than if they were in colour. A wonderful story.

By the way, the same pair did another book called WEE GILLIS which though equally good is unfortunately out of print. It is about a little Scottish boy who learns to play some bagpipes that no one else can play. If you ever see a copy in a second hand bookstore, snap it up - and if there are extras, please get some for us - we’ll buy them from you at cost.

DESTINATION MOON, $4.45; EXPLORERS OF THE MOON, $3.55; THE SHOOTING STAR, $4.45. Three more in the great series of Tintin comic books (see GWS #29 and #25). Can’t add much to what I’ve said before about these: ingenious and exciting plots, lots of slapstick humour of the kind that kids like, plenty of interesting dialogue, and accurate, detailed, and often quite beautiful drawings - kids may not think much about colour and composition in their comic books, but they probably respond to them, and they certainly add to the pleasure of any adults who read these books aloud (or by themselves).

Herge wrote these books when people were first talking about going to the moon, but before anyone had gone there, so much of the “science” he had to make up out of his imagination. Events may have outdated some of it, but not enough to bother most young readers.

May I repeat what we said in GWS #29; if any of you are interested in foreign language versions of the Tintin books, please tell us. We have had one or two requests for Tintin in the original French, but so far there has not been enough demand to warrant stocking even a French edition.

THE MAN WHO KEPT CIGARS IN HIS CAP, by Jim Heynen ($4.50 + post). Many books on our list are unusual and beautiful, but this book, suggested by home schooling friends in Yucaipa CA, is one of the most unusual and beautiful of all. It is a group of forty-one very short stories, really just accounts of incidents, in the life of a small, un-named farm community. The central figures in the book are a group of boys, who appear in all the incidents. We are not told how many there are, or their ages or names - they are only called “the boys.” Only rarely will the storyteller even single out one as littlest or biggest. In my mind’s eye I see perhaps three or four boys, the oldest of them not much more than ten. But this is only my guess; the story-teller does not tell us, nor do the few pen and ink illustrations.

In fact, only three characters of the many in the book are named: Maggie, a little girl with an extra toe; Moley, the midget shoemaker; and the stallion Bayard. This lack of names, of people or places, gives these short tales an almost mythic quality - they might have happened anywhere, they could be happening anywhere, anywhere at least that human beings grow food and raise animals and live in small towns. Many of the tales are about the daily realities of farm life, animals being born, getting sick, dying. Others have to do with life and death, happiness and grief, in a much larger sense. To give a hint of their flavor, here are some quotes:

… When the boys went to one neighbour’s farm to ask him if they might pick some of his apples, they could not find him anywhere … Finally - in a very dark corner of the barn - they saw him. He was praying to his-animals.

On his knees with his hands crossed in his lap. Praying to a piglet, a dog, a cat, and a bull calf. He had fed each of them their own kind of food, so they were quiet as he prayed.

He was saving, little animals with four feet on the ground, teach the rocks to lie in their places, tell the oceans never to rise and the mountains never to fall. Little ones, give your gentle ways to me.

The boys slipped away and went to wait in the yard. When the man came out of the barn, they asked him about apples. He brought a large basket and said they could fill it with the ripest and largest apples from his trees. Not only that. He said they could keep the basket to carry feed to their animals.

… One night the boys were getting ready for bed. I smell a girl, said the smallest boy. There aren’t any girls here, silly, said the biggest boy. They started looking anyway. Under the beds and inside drawers. One of the window curtains moved a little and the smallest boy said, See, there! That was a girl!

But there were no arms or feet, only the curtain moving a little. The boys went to bed without finding the girl. Still, they could not sleep because they smelled the girl. The smell got stronger.

After a while, in the dark, one of them said, It’s not a girl, it’s a lady. It smells like a grown lady.

They turned on the lights and looked for the lady. But she was not there.

Back in bed, they lay listening and smelling the strange smell. It’s not a girl or a lady, one of them said. It smells like an old, old woman.

Again, the boys turned on the lights. The curtain was still moving. This time they saw something. It was dust, blowing in through the window. So they closed the window and went back to bed.

After that, they fell asleep.  The last story in the book, called “Death Death Death,” might be (and is probably meant to be) a kind of parable of modern life. On a hot summer day, playing in the yard, the boys suddenly become aware of the smell of many dead creatures.

… Death, Death, Death, said one of the boys.

There were dead animals all over the farmyard - if they’d look for them… And this was not unusual. Things die. It’s just that the boys happened to be noticing it all at once …

Look. One of the boys pointed to the sky. They were not alone, noticing all the death. A chicken hawk was circling overhead. Circling over the whole farmyard. This place stinks like dead everything, said one of the boys. There’s only one thing to do about all this death, said the smallest boy … But I will let you find out from this wonderful book what that was.

WELL, THERE’S YOUR PROBLEM, by Edward Koren ($3.65 + post). This is a book of cartoons, all originally published in The New Yorker, done by one of my favorite cartoonsts. If you see The New Yorker often, you probably know his work - many of his drawings are of large, incredibly shaggy, rather solemn looking animals, and all of his drawings are in ink, in a great many slightly wiggly lines, as if his hand shook a little when he tried to draw. Just about every cartoon in the book makes me laugh aloud when I see it, and the cover and title drawing, which I first saw many years ago, has made me laugh ever since, not just when I see it but when I even think of it - I won’t give away what it is about. All in all, a lovely mixture of the gently satirical and the absurd. I’ll think you’ll have a lot of fun with this, our first cartoon book but not, I hope, our last.

THE AMATEUR NATURALIST’S HANDBOOK, by Vinson Brown ($7.15 + post). This splendid book was first published in 1948 and went through fourteen printings before the author prepared this thoroughly revised edition. By way of describing the book and what it is for, I can’t do better than quote the author himself:

… This book is for all who like the out-of-doors and would like to know more about the many interesting things they see … In this book you will be given suggestions about how to go about your work so that you will learn more and more as you go along, and you will be given information about a number of tools useful in studying nature, many of which you can make yourself. The study of each of the great sections of nature is so arranged that there are things to learn and do for the Beginning, Student, Advanced, and Explorer Naturalist…

The table of contents will give an idea of the wealth of facts and ideas to be found here. INTRODUCTION: The Trail Of The Naturalist; What Nature Study Is; Ideals Of A Naturalist; Nature In The City (each of these chapters has sub-sections of its own). THE BEGINNING NATURALIST: Animals and Animal Collecting; Plants and Plant Collecting; Rocks and Minerals and Their Collecting; Climate; Beginning Ecology. Then additional sections, each with chapters and sub-chapters, on THE STUDENT NATURALIST; THE ADVANCED NATURALIST; and BECOMING AN EXPLORER-NATURALIST.

The first two sections of the book take up about 100 of its 400 or so pages, and would alone be well worth its price; even if we look at it only as a school science textbook, rather than the source of interest, pleasure, and knowledge that it is, we can find enough material in it to enable home schoolers to satisfy almost any school’s science requirements well up into the high school years. Any child who knows a good part of what is in here will know much more about science than almost any children of her or his age. But the book is too interesting and beautiful to be used as a textbook - so many pages this day, so many pages that. It is a friendly and helpful guide to seeing and understanding more of the world around us.

About a third of the pages of the book are illustrated; many of them, like those in Eric Sloane’s books (DIARY OF AN EARLY AMERICAN BOY, etc.) have many illustrations. Almost all of these are done in pen and ink, and with the loving accuracy and attention to detail that we see in Sloane’s drawings. The artist signs himself only “Don G K.” Astonishingly, the book does not name him - about the only thing in it that I can find to criticize.

Seeing in the contents that the next-to-last chapter in the book, “The Naturalist as a Scientist,” contained a sub-chapter, The Scientific Attitude, I looked to see what Brown had to say about that, and was relieved to find that he is not a science-worshipper or busy science-promoter and grant-grabber, but a true scientist, in the old and very best sense of the word. He says:

… The scientific attitude recognizes first that truth is what is being sought; second, that no ways should be missed that might help find the truth; and third, that what may seem to be the truth at one time may later, under the advance of new facts, prove to be something less than truth … All in all, a fascinating book, for adults or children, a book to sharpen our eyes and fire our imaginations.- JH

Editors - John Holt & Donna Richoux Managing Editor - Pat Farenga Subscriptions and Books - Mark Pierce Office Assistant - Mary Van Doren

FLASH - Laurie Huffman of the UTAH HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION tells us that a bill that would have required home-schoolers to be tested annually was defeated following a deluge of letters and phone calls in protest.

Copyright 1977 Holt Associates, Inc.

Growing Without Schooling - Issue #36

The Jan./Feb. issue of Mother Earth News, which should be out about the time you receive this GWS, will carry an article by me about how to home-school. It will also recommend and quote from Nancy Wallace’s new book BETTER THAN SCHOOL (see GWS #35). I will also write an article for The Progressive about what I call the metaphors of education; not sure when this will appear. And I am talking to the editors of Phi Delta Kappan about doing another article for them, about some simple and inexpensive ways to make the schools a little bit better.

On Sat. Nov. 19 I spoke to a state-wide meeting of school boards in Nevada, saying why I thought it would be in their best interests to allow and support home schooling, without imposing too restrictive conditions. The audience was polite though not enthusiastic. Later the President of the state board of education said to them that there was no longer any question of the state forbidding home schooling, it was definitely legal, and the only question to discuss was under what conditions would it be allowed. For the time being the state seems ready to tell people that they can teach their kids at home as long as they do exactly what the schools do, a condition which most home schoolers (and I) would find too restrictive and not acceptable. But it is encouraging that they are at least no longer thinking about trying to forbid home schooling altogether.

On returning from my Nevada trip, I and our friends the Maher family taped a too-brief TV show with Steve Allen, musician, comedian, and one of the big stars of TV a decade or so ago. He did not learn until he reached the studio that he was going to be the interviewer for our show, so had no time to prepare; but even on this very short notice he asked good questions and was fun to work with.

While speaking in Philadelphia, I met my hosts seven-year-old daughter, Amanda Bergson-Shilcock, who entirely on her own started and runs “A’s Bakery.” It is all her show; she makes and puts up posters, collects orders, buys the raw materials, bakes blueberry muffins and three different kinds of (delicious) cookies, fills the orders, collects the money, everything. I hope in a coming issue of GWS to tell, or to have her tell, her story at greater length.

We are happy to say that in recent weeks we have had the largest volume of book orders in our short history. Thanks for using us. As we,ve said before, one small but really helpful thing you can do is show or send our book list to as many people as possible.

I am leaving immediately for a 10-day trip to the Midwest, which (thanks to some organizing by GWS readers) includes talks at Eastern Illinois U., DePauw (IN) U., Indianapolis, Chicago, Northbrook IL, Kalamazoo MI, Ann Arbor, and Oakland U. (Rochester MI). I will be back in time for the Dec. 8 Open House, and a Dec. 12 meeting with Providence, RI homeschoolers. Ñ John Holt

GRANT COLFAX DOING WELL

From the San Francisco Examiner, 11/6/83:

SCHOLAR WHO NEVER WENT TO SCHOOL LIKES HARVARD Ñ AND IS DOING WELL Ñ It,s a long way from the coastal mountains of Mendocino County to Harvard Yard, but except for a touch of homesickness and normal freshman jitters about grades, Grant Colfax is making the adjustment just fine.

“Things have calmed down pretty much,” said the 18-year-old who drew international media attention after he was admitted to Harvard even though he had never attended school.

Colfax and his three younger brothers received all of their education from their parents at their mountaintop home near Boonville (CA) . . .

Colfax said the media blitz surrounding his first two weeks at Harvard was “embarrassing.” He went from never having watched television to appearing on “The Johnny Carson Show” (”which convinced me I don,t want to be in show biz”), “Good Morning America” and more than a dozen other radio and TV shows.

When he arrived in Cambridge, he was besieged by reporters from as far away as Australia and Germany. CBS wanted a TV crew to follow him during his first day of classes. He refused, explaining, “I figured I had enough to worry about.”

. . .”The change (from studying at home) hasn,t been that bad,” Colfax said. “There is a lot of work. . . The quantity of it. It requires a lot of organization. I have to learn to calm down at times. I have to learn I can,t learn every detail like I could at home.”

That lesson came swiftly. “After my first chemistry test I came out almost in tears because I had done so poorly,” he said. “I felt so bad I called home and told them I might not make it.” His intuition was correct. He got only 54% of the answers right. But on the Harvard curve, that was good enough for an A; 39% was worth a B on the test.

His midterm grades in his pre-med course of studies were an A in math, an A in Spanish and an A-minus in chemistry.

Colfax was one of only nine students selected for a freshman honors seminar on psychological issues in medicine. “There were 90 applications,” said Dr. David Funder, a psychology professor who conducts the seminar. “I wanted to find people able to work independently, who didn,t need to be spoon-fed, who were well-prepared.”

Colfax more than met those qualifications, Funder said. “He,s very energized and well-organized,” the professor said, describing him as a “pretty remarkable young man.”

. . .His lack of formal schooling and the social interchange associated with it haven,t hampered him, Colfax said. “I,m pretty outgoing”. .

“The main thing I miss is the quiet,” Colfax said. “It,s never quiet here. It makes you very tense. I have to get away from it a lot.”. . .

NOTES FROM DONNA

Looking back on our sixth full year of publication, I must say it was an eventful one for the staff. Two left (Peggy and Tim), one got engaged, then married (Pat), one had a baby (Mary Van Doren). Mark Pierce got pneumonia in September and was out for a week; in his absence we hired Mary Gray, who had been volunteering for us, and now both she and Mark are working on the book orders and subscriptions. Mary often brings her lively 5-year-old son Christopher to the office.

Time for a big end-of-the-year “Thank you!” to everyone who has worked as a volunteer for us. Special credit goes to: Mary Maher, for proof-reading GWS and typing letters; Marilyn Pelrine, for mailing renewal postcards every two months; Kit Finn, for proofreading the big Directory in this issue. Other local volunteers who have helped this year in the office or at home include Mary Silva, Mary Steele, Mary Pelrine, Pam Mitchell, Terry Burch, Mario Pagnoni, Ann Gilbert, Danny Desai, Fran Castelluccio, Sue Mojica, Jan Wrotnowski, and their families. Typists outside the Boston area included June and Allen Conley, Bob Post, Nanda Hills, Zeke Cameron, Cheryl Richardson, Kate Gilday, Jeanne Finan, Mary Friedl, Gary Floam, Diane Kephart. Thanks also to the families such as the Prices (Susan, Matt, and Faith) of Florida who helped while they were visiting Boston.

I was surprised at how many entries there were for our “Free Logo Drawing” Ð 78, not counting duplicates (we only allowed one entry per family). The lucky winners were: Randy Pierce, Texas; Freda Davies, Ontario; Nancy Spector, Alaska; Y. Hanus, New York; and Rebekah Cohen, CA. - Donna Richoux

A WIN IN GEORGIA…

There have been two important rulings concerning home-schoolers in recent weeks, one win and one loss. First, the win. As reported in the Atlanta Constitution, 10/26/83:

. . .The Georgia Supreme Court overturned the state,s compulsory school attendance law Tuesday, calling it an “impermissibly vague” statute that fails to define a private school.

In a 4-3 decision, the court issued the ruling in response to an appeal by Terry and Vickie Roemhild of Stephens County, who were arrested two years ago when, for religious reasons, they insisted on teaching their children at home instead of enrolling them in school.

. . .Under the compulsory attendance law, students aged 7 to 16 must attend public or private school. Although the law is clear in its definition of public school, it only vaguely defines a private school. As a result, many home schoolers have complied with the law by registering their homes as private schools.

“Although we agree that the word school, clearly puts one on notice that an organized education must be provided to the child, there are many questions concerning the scope, nature, and place of the education which are left unanswered by the state. . .” said the ruling, written by Supreme Court Justice Richard Bell.

. . .Rusty Sewell, executive counsel for the governor, said Tuesday,s decision means that the law is now in limbo. “Probably what it means is that you couldn,t prosecute under that law if someone is teaching their children at home,” Sewell
said. . .

________

[DR:]  The Justices, legal reasoning concerning “vagueness” drew heavily on the Wisconsin Supreme Court case Wisconsin Vs. Popanz, from which we quoted at length in GWS #34.

Connie Shaw of GEORGIANS FOR FREEDOM IN EDUCATION writes, “The overturning of the compulsory attendance law has created a mixed chorus of government and non-government reaction. A new law will most likely be voted on in this next legislative session which begins Monday, January 9, 1984. Our time is
short. . . If we are to influence our Georgia legislators in forming that new law to include home education, then we must combine forces with all home educators.” The organization urges all Georgia readers to contact their legislators.

________

. . .A LOSS IN MINNESOTA

The second ruling comes from Minnesota. On Aug. 31, a District Court upheld the conviction of homeschooler Jeanne Newstrom of Bemidji. Some quotes from that ruling, written by Judge Saetre:

. . .The main thrust of Mrs. Newstrom,s defense relates to Subd. 2 of M.S. 120.10 and that her “qualifications are essentially equivalent to the minimum standards for public school teachers of the same grades or subjects. . .”

The qualifications for minimum standards for public teacher are. . . a bachelor,s degree which must include a completed course in elementary school teaching and licensed as an elementary teacher by the State Board of Teaching.

Mrs. Newstrom has the equivalent of one year of college in general courses, none of which include any courses in education. Mrs. Newstrom acknowledges her lack of formal training and qualifications but claims that nonetheless she is qualified to teach her own children and offered evidence to compare the results of her daughter,s education with the performance of children in public schools. The trial court sustained objections to this evidence on the ground that it was irrelevant to the issue of whether the defendant was qualified as a teacher. We agree with the trial court,s ruling. The comparison would best be mere conjecture in so far as Mrs. Newstrom,s qualifications to teach are concerned. The trial court construed the word “qualifications” to mean educational qualifications acquired by formal education as well as informal training and correctly ruled that (whether) Mrs. Newstrom was in fact a good teacher or not was irrelevant. . .

Appellant simply does not realize or appreciate that every parent does not have complete freedom in selecting and determining the manner in which her children are to be educated. . .
__________

[DR:]  However, the Minnesota State Supreme Court has agreed to review the Newstroms, case, and attorney John E. Mack is hopeful that the Popanz (WI) and Roemhild (GA) decisions will be influential. Mr. Mack asked John Holt (among others) to file an amicus curiae brief on behalf on the Newstroms, and John agreed. He plans to write more about the weaknesses in this ruling in GWS #37.

OTHER COURT NEWS

Ann Mordes (FL) wrote in the FLASH newsletter:

. . .We are happy to inform all of you that the case in Monticello (Jefferson County) against parents who were operating a “623″ incorporated school was dropped due to “lack of evidence.” The attorney was informed the day before the hearing was to have taken place. . . [DR: The families involved were Gilbert and Theresa Silveira, and Ross and Gloria Johnson.] I,d like to compliment them in their choice of an attorney, Joseph P. Dallanegra, Jr.  Mr. Dallanegra prepared a most thorough and truthful law brief. It was enough to educate not only the State Attorney, but also the Department of Education. . .

__________

A news story reprinted in the Iowa newsletter O! KIDS!:

PARENTS ACQUITTED ON TRUANCY LAW CHARGES -A Muscatine couple who withdrew their children from school to set up a home study program have been acquitted of charges that they violated Iowa,s truancy laws.

Ronnie and Nancy Shuler were accused by Muscatine school officials of failing to provide their three children with an educational program taught by a state-certified teacher and equivalent to public schooling.

But in a ruling filed Tuesday, Muscatine County District Associate Judge James A. Weaver said he was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the Shulers, home study program fell short of meeting those legal requirements. . .

__________

[DR:]  In GWS #34 we mentioned briefly that the Kirschenman family of Moorhead, MN had won their court case, but that was all we knew. Since then, the Kirschenmans have subscribed to GWS, and Shirley Kirschenman (MN) writes:

. . .I am enclosing a newspaper account of the results of our evidentuary hearing last spring. We WON! Our handicapped child was neglected and worse Ð abused Ð in the local public school. It was just awful what was going on in that classroom. . . He has improved 100% since getting him out of there. I have enjoyed teaching him. . .

At the time we had charges brought against us we did not know of your group or of others, but some of the home-schoolers elsewhere in Minnesota saw the account in their papers and got in touch with us. I must say they were a big help in helping us win the case. Dr. Moore gave us a lot of help and I also had information from John Holt which I gave to the judge as an exhibit. . .

__________

From the local newspaper article Shirley sent:

. . . Becker County Judge Sigwel Wood has ruled that a Moorhead couple does not have to send their 11-year-old mentally and physically handicapped son to Moorhead public schools.

. . .The Kirschenmans have been teaching Stephan at home since they removed him from public school in May 1980.

The judge also held that the compulsory attendance law did not apply in this case. Wood said the laws concerning education of handicapped children provide that parents may send a handicapped child to a school of their choice.

“In this case, Stefan is attending a school. . . insofar as he is being educated at home in all  of the common branches as required for mentally handicapped child, and further. . . Mr. and Mrs. Kirschenman do have qualifications which are essentially equivalent to the minimum standards for public school teachers of the same grades or subjects,” Wood wrote.

Mrs. Kirschenman has a nursing degree, worked as an Army pediatric nurse and also taught nursing at a California college. Mr. Kirschenman is a North Dakota State University engineering professor.

. . .Assistant Clay County Attorney Cathy Mills said the county will probably not appeal the case. Mills said Wood,s finding that the Kirschenmans are qualified to teach Stefan precludes any appeal. . .

__________

Other news in brief:
Awaiting trial: Jimmy Wilson, Vanceboro TN; attorney, Hugh D. Cox —The Millers, Maryland Line MD
Awaiting ruling: The Wilkie family, Alpena MI
Case appealed by state: Sheridan Road Baptist School, near Saginaw MI (GWS #31 and #33).

GOOD NEWS: WA, KY, MS, FL

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10/7/83:

. . .Some parents could legally teach their children at home for the first time in state history if an experimental home-study program is approved today. The state Board of Education is expected to act on the proposal. . . [DR: they did approve it.]

. . .Parents from the Stillaguamish Learning Exchange [see “Helpful Schools”], a two-year-old education cooperative headquartered near Arlington, said they would like to take part in the experiment. They said they would expect to be evaluated like any private school.

About 150 Stillaguamish students are taught at home by their parents who are assisted and supervised by certificated instructors. The program was approved by the state board in 1982, but when the board learned this summer the program was a home-study project, it withheld approval.

Under the state,s attendance law, children from the ages of 8 through 14 not enrolled in either a private or public state “approved” school are considered truants.

The home-study proposal from the state Superintendent of Public Instruction would establish two one-year experimental programs administered through a public school and a private school.

The parents would tutor their own children under the supervision of a certificated teacher, who would be hired by the school.

Teachers would train parents to be tutors and monitor no more than 20 children. Each parent and student would meet with the teacher for at least one hour per week and keep daily progress records. The state superintendent,s office would audit the program annually. . .

__________

From Barb Soper (KY):

. . .I had been told that the process of becoming a home school might take some time and trouble, so I immediately sent for your back issues (to glean all pertinent information) and called Mr. Pat West, Jr., the Superintendent of Non-Public Schools in Frankfort. Within a few days, I was shocked to receive all the necessary information and an application form!. . . I immediately called the local health department and the district fire marshal,s office to request that they inspect our designated school area. Although I had been told that the officials who would be certifying (or, Lord forbid, not certifying) our school were very hard to please and downright rude, I was thoroughly impressed with the courteous, helpful and supportive response from both offices. . . By the end of July, I had received a 100% rating from the health department and the approval and commendation for cooperation from the Fire Marshal!

By the second week in August, our school had become approved by the State Department of Education, and my only other obligation was to notify the County Superintendent of Schools of the children,s names and addresses by October 1, which I did.

Our school was sent data bank forms (which are sent out to all Kentucky schools) inquiring about our curriculum, schedule, philosophy, materials, etc., which I had been told by another home-school family to expect [see GWS #35]. They had told me that I only needed to write N/A across the forms and return them or even throw them away! As I read through the forms, however, I realized that it might be helpful to the State Board of Education if I took the time to reply and to write down the philosophy behind our family,s decision to learn at home. . . As I counted the number of books in our home and listed all of the wonderful things we have been learning together, I became more and more aware of just how committed we all are to our home school. I felt very proud of my children as I reviewed the many accomplishments they have made already. For example, the 7-year-old has taught himself to read with confidence; the children save their own money to help support their new Mexican foster brother, with whom they correspond and have decided to learn Spanish for; the children help teach art classes at a local nursing home and have “adopted a wonderful gentleman to be their “grandfather”; we have taught ourselves the rudiments of Cuisenaire rods, and are learning Latin; the children are carefully raising gerbils and keeping records of the successive generations, eating habits, and all pertinent information that they can gather to go into a book they hope to publish. . . and on and on!. . .

My proudest moment came when I received a phone call from Mr. West only a few days after I had returned the data forms. He was kind enough to call me personally to commend our family on the fine program we had developed and to offer encouragement, praise, and any help we might need in the future. I nearly wept with gratitude for his kindness and understanding, and I realized that the many negative responses to our decision to try home-schooling must have been hurting me more than I had realized. . .

__________

[DR:]  Becky Howard (AR) sent us a copy of the new 10-page Mississippi compulsory education law, and marked the sections related to home schooling. Looks like the Mississippi legislature went out of its way to protect the rights of home-schoolers. (Does anyone know why? Someone must have put a lot of effort into getting these favorable passages included in the bill.) The relevant parts:

. . .SECTION 21. . . (2) The following terms as used in this section are defined as follows:

. . .(e) “School” means any public school in this state or any nonpublic school in this state which is in session each school year for at least 155 school days, except that the “non-public” school term shall be the number of days that each school shall require for promotion from grade to grade. . .

(i) “Nonpublic school” for the purposes of this section shall mean an institution for the teaching of children, consisting of a physical plant, whether owned or leased, including a home, instructional staff members and students, and which is in session each school year. This definition shall include, but not be limited to, private, church, parochial and home instruction programs.

(3) A parent, guardian, or custodian of a compulsory-school-age child in this state shall cause such child to enroll in and attend a public school or legitimate nonpublic school for the period of time that such child is of compulsory school age, except under the following circumstances:

. . .(c) When a compulsory-school-age child is being educated in a legitimate home instruction program. . .The parent, guardian or custodian of a compulsory-school-age child attending any nonpublic school. . . shall complete a “certificate of enrollment” in order to facilitate the administration of this section.

The form of the certificate of enrollment shall be prepared by the State Board of Education and shall be designed to obtain the following information only:

(i)  The name, address, and date of birth of the compulsory-school age child;

(ii) The name and address of the parent, guardian, or custodian. . .

(iii) A simple description of the type of education the compulsory-school-age child is receiving and, if such child is enrolled in a nonpublic school, the name and address of such school; and

(iv) the signature of the parent. . .

For the purposes of this subsection, a legitimate nonpublic school or legitimate home instruction program shall be those not operated or instituted for the purpose of avoiding or circumventing the compulsory attendance law.

. . . (9) Notwithstanding any provision or implication herein to the contrary, it is not the intention of this Section to impair the primary right and the obligation of the parent. . . to choose the proper education and training for such child, and nothing in this section shall ever be construed to grant, by implication or otherwise, to the State of Mississippi, any of its officers, agencies or subdivisions any right or authority to control, manage, supervise or make any suggestion as to the control, management or supervision of any private or parochial school or institution for the education or training of  children, of any kind whatsoever that is not a public school according to the laws of this state; and this Section shall never be construed so as to grant, by implication or otherwise, any right or authority to any state agency or other entity to control, manage, supervise, provide for or affect the operation, management, program, curriculum, admissions policy or discipline of any such school or home instruction program. . .

__________

A home-schooler in Florida wrote to Ann Mordes of FLASH:

. . .The day after I talked to you, Mr. Jones (Health and Rehabilitative Services intake counselor) called and said that I had to have a certified teacher in order to be operating legally. I, of course, told him that he was misinformed, which he very heatedly denied. I asked him where I could see that requirement in writing, and he said Chapter 39. I asked him what it said exactly and he replied that all children must attend school between  the ages of 6 and 16. I asked him where it said that any private school had to employ or have on its staff a state-certified teacher, to which he replied that he did not know right off but that he would find out. We ended our conversation with his assurance that he would let me know where to find a statute supporting his statements. I had also during the course of the conversation mentioned the H.R.S. manual,s definition of “truancy” which he said was not accurate. I asked him to please look it up to make sure. He said he would. He also said that we were definitely going to (you guessed it) COURT! I was chagrined. Immediately upon my hanging up the phone, I started to worry and wonder what I was going to do.

Not fifteen minutes later the phone rang. It was Mr. Jones who told me, very nicely, that I was right about everything that I had said! The definition of truancy, that there was no requirement for any private school to have on its staff a state-certified teacher, and very few other requirements. He went on to say that as far as he could ascertain I was operating within the law (I had mentioned that I was open to the public and that we are supported in part by tuition and/or gifts) and that as far as he was concerned the case was closed and his report to the State (?) would say just that. He asked for a copy of my attendance records and said that was all he needed. . .

A few minutes later I received another call, this time from the school social worker, who apologized for all the trouble and frustration I had been put through. She said that it had been equally frustrating for them as they have received no help or legally-supported information from either the school board or the Dept. of Education. She asked me to send her copies of the papers I have and said that she would be very grateful. She also said that she hoped the role of the school board would be a more supportive one in the future. She also assured me that if she learns of anything I need to be doing to be in compliance with the law she will let me know.

I am taking your advice to get everything in writing. . .Thank you also for putting me in touch with Mr. Dallanegra (attorney). We are arranging for him to conduct a seminar in this area soon. He gave me some advice also and even dictated the affidavit he advised me to send H.R.S. instead of the attendance records that they requested. . .

[DR:  See also “Success in Florida,” GWS #28, page 4.]

INFORMAL SCHOOL IN CALIF.

Karen Olin Johnston (CA) wrote:

The SAN FERNANDO VALLEY HOMESCHOOLERS, of which we are members, has really been growing! At recent meetings we,ve had as many as 13 mothers and 23 children. . . Over the summer we met a few times rather informally, at parks and at the beach. As the school year approached, some of the older children expressed the desire to go to school, to be with kids their age. We decided to organize something among our own children to fill that need. So at present we are having these things happening:

Once a month we meet at a park, all ages welcome; and also famlies just considering home-schooling are welcome. While the children play and get to know one another, us mothers give each other moral support, share resources and news info, discuss GWS, swap stories, etc.

Once a week, part of the group (mostly 7-12 years old) meet at alternate houses for a more formal “school day.” Everyone involved agreed that they were much more eager to sit down to do math or writing if there was someone to do it with. The first week, one mother led singing and beginning music notation lesson with the whole group; then one group worked with Cuisenaire rods while another group solved math problems with some Montessori materials. After lunch the whole group played a game to open them up to creative writing, and on the side there were one-on-one experiences going on with a home computer, the piano, and puzzles. Two babies and two four-year-olds just merged right in alongside the older children.

We,re also planning “field trips” once a week. . . Last week we visited a park which was the estate of a silent-movie star. It had farm animals, old western-style home, nature trail, etc. . .

One thing we,ve all noticed is how well these kids play together. There is virtually no whining, tattling, or fighting. . . One time you,ll see a 10-year-old playing with a 22-month-old, and the next time you see her she,ll be involved in a game with an 8- and a 12-year-old. . .

Our only level of organization is a telephone tree, which operates in a complete circle, so that anyone can instigate communication with the group. Also, as one family had already set up their home as a private school with an affidavit last year, many of the older children are “enrolled” in it this year, as some sort of protection. . .

OTHER LOCAL NEWS

Addresses for all home-schooling organizations are listed in the back of this issue.

ARIZONA: From an article headlined “Home-instruction program earns good marks in first year” in the Arizona Republic, 10/2/83:  “Richard L. Harris, school superintendent in Maricopa County, said he is pleased with the achievement test scores of the approximately 150 children in the county who were instructed at home last year. Of that number, 14 failed to show adequate progress on the California Achievement Test, Harris said. After testing by a psychologist, four of the 14 were denied home-schooling exemptions. I was surprised there were as few as 14 who seemed to be having problems,, Harris said. . . I think the parents who are teaching at home are courageous. They,re challenging us (the public schools) to do a better job. . .,”

The article also said the state had administered 314 proficiency tests to parents wishing to teach their own children, and 214 of those passed. It was unknown how many who failed retook the test later and passed.

FAMILIES FOR HOME EDUCATION published the longest directory we,ve seen yet in a local newsletter - 99 families in the greater Phoenix area.

CALIFORNIA:  A campaign to place the “school voucher” initiative on the 84 ballot has been started. For information, contact PARENTS CHOOSE QUALITY EDUCATION, 1537 Hood Rd, Suite D, Sacramento CA  95825; 916-921-0575 or 444-8725.

Evella Troutt of the L.A. COUNTY CHRISTIAN HOME EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION writes, “We are affiliated with a statewide network dalled CHRISTIAN HOME EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION which is directed by Karen Woodfin and Susan Beatty. We are not locked in with any particular Christian church - most of our members would fit into the historical evangelical framework. Our main efforts have been directed at establishing local support groups, and providing basic guidance and information to prospective home-schooling families. We would be happy to work with any families you wish to refer to us. We do have a county newsletter which is directed toward local news of support groups and field trips. . .”

Janet McCormick, the California State Department of Education Liaison to Non-Public Schools, expects over 5,000 private schools to register with the state in 1983-84, says Pam Pacula in Home Centered Learning, 10/83.

GEORGIA:  About 400 people attended a home-schooling conference featuring Dr. Raymond Moore on Oct. 24-25, according to Connie Shaw of GEORGIANS FOR FREEDOM IN EDUCATION.

HAWAII:  From Barbara Hussey (HI):  “We are a growing group of families here interested in home schooling. . . For now (and this is from a district superintendent of schools), there is no state policy on policing home-schoolers. It is allowed as long as basic requirements are followed: (1) Registration with the Department of Education; (2) 4-year college degree (which we don,t have, but which we feel we can overcome as we have many years in college); (3) Submission of a basic program outline to the district superintendent.”

IDAHO:  Elizabeth Good writes, “It appears that the State School Board here in Idaho is gearing up for a legislative offensive against home-schoolers in the next session of our legislature. The attorney general was asked by the State Board of Education to render an opinion on the state,s compulsory education law as it relates to private and home schools. . . One legislator is drafting a bill based in part on the Arizona law which includes the yearly testing of home-schooled children. Many of the home schoolers are in favor of his bill because it makes us legal., Others of us have a totally different philosophy of testing, and could not in good conscience support such a bill. . .”

INDIANA: The Summer Bulletin of the HOME EDUCATION RESOURCE CENTER listed what it called “an excellent booklet for IN home-schoolers,” entitled INDIANA LAW AND HOME EDUCATION, available from: EDUCATION DATA, 6401 Velmar, Ft. Wayne IN  46815, SASE suggested.

IOWA:  Barb Tetzlaff reports in the O!KIDS! newsletter that the state has appointed a committee to study home-schooling and non-approved Christian schools. A neighbor of the Tetzlaffs, Dr. Gordon Shipp, President of Faith Baptist Bible College, is on the committee, and they loaned him materials on home education, including GWS. Some quotes from the paper he submitted Sept. 16:  “I could not detect one single force that prompted home education. I did find a dedicated group of people that were making real sacrifices to educate their children. They were fine people within their communities. They were not hermits, nor were they withdrawn. Many of the parents were not highly educated themselves in formal processes. They were good communicators and expressive. . . Let us allow them their freedom. . .”

MARYLAND:  Manfred Smith sent back issues of the MARYLAND HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION newsletter and wrote, “I have just discovered that you are not on our current maling list! I,m very sorry! You probably have been wondering what is happening here in Maryland. . . When I read in GWS #35 that the Hjembo family was introducing legislation on home schooling, I became very concerned. Our law is fine the way it is (at this time). . . We have sympathetic people in the State Dept. of Ed. Introducing a law would set forces in motion (teachers are very strong in MD) that our few numbers would be hard pressed to stop.  I,ve talked with the Hjembos - their legislator was interested, but is not willing to do anything right now. . .”

MASSACHUSETTS:  Mario Pagnoni (MA) and Elaine Rapp (NH) have given two seminars on home-schooling in Haverhill, MA and Manchester, NH. Mario is giving a slide show and demonstration on “Home Computers and Home Schooling” Feb. 12, 9-noon, at Northern Essex Community College, Haverhill.
MICHIGAN: The MICHIGAN ASSOCIATION OF HOME EDUCATORS has started a newsletter, $10/4 issues. Some quotes from its first issue: “15 months after starting this organization, we have the names of over 800 homeschooling or interested families. . . [At] the Conference in Lansing May 21. . . the final headcount was 940 people. Of those that turned in the questionnaire, 50% were currently educating their children at home. The response given most often by families who weren,t educating their children at home was that their children were too young.”

Pat Montgomery of CLONLARA SCHOOL sent us a clipping from the Detroit Free Press about a State Representative, Timothy Walberg of Tipton, who is teaching his children at home. Walberg is on the state House Education Committee. Pat says, “An associate of Walberg met him in the House chambers when this news broke and told them that he was very upset because Walberg was doing home schooling when, in fact, this other fellow wanted to be the first Representative doing it!”

MISSOURI: Saralee Rhoads of FAMILIES FOR HOME EDUCATION wrote, “The MO/KANSAS HOME EDUCATORS group disbanded a couple years ago, and general consensus was that the state would leave us alone if we kept a low profile. Well, they didn,t. Last year a bill came up which would have made all home educators in our state guilty of a misdemeanor until proven innocent! As a result, our group was formed, and has been growing ever since. In July we had 200 members, and now there are 300+ on the mailing list. We have conducted a study on the nature of home schooling in our state, and are preparing for further legislative battles. . .”

NEBRASKA:   Gary and Marilyn Miller (NE) formed a support group of homeschoolers in August. Marilyn writes, “We have grown to 70 families on our mailing list, many of whom have withdrawn children from the school system and are facing litigation. . .”

NEW YORK:  Harold Ingraham of CALUMET SCHOOL writes, “A network of sorts among New York State unschoolers now exists. I say of sorts, because I abhor the idea of centralization. Therefore, I merely set out to instigate a contact system of like-minded persons. . . Anyone who writes or calls me asking for area contacts will be given the name of their area,s contact leader. A self-addressed stamped envelope will do the trick. I have also suggested that the area leader run a small notice in the local newspaper. . .”
O
HIO:  Ruth Kirchhausen (OH) wrote, “Lynne Leffel asked me to let you know that they did get permission to teach Matthew and Jessica at home. The Geauga County superintendent signed the agreement. . . Also another family in the county got a permit by claiming a religious exemption, neither of the parents having college degrees. So it seems the Leffels, court experience last year (although they were found guilty of truancy) has proven to the superintendent the seriousness of these home-schooling parents and he has grudgingly accepted their presence this year. . .”

ONTARIO:  Anna Myers is coordinator for a new organization, ONTARIO HOME SCHOOLERS; newsletter, $10/year.

QUEBEC:  Another Canadian group, the QUEBEC HOMESCHOOLING ADVISORY, has started a newsletter ($2/year). They sent us a copy of proposed education legislation in the Quebec National Assembly; we don,t know how different it is from the current law, but it does mention as an alternative to school attendance, “receiving instruction at home equivalent, in the opinion of the school board, to that provided at school.”

TEXAS:  The newsletter of the TEXAS COALITION FOR HOME EDUCATION reports, “Governor Mark White has appointed Ross Perot to head a special education commission to study the Texas educational system. . . His preliminary recommendations include the following:  (1) that children should start school at age 4, (2)  that school hours should be lengthened, and (3) that children should go to school year-round. . . Please write Ross Perot today and express your views (Address: EDS, 7171 Forest Lane, Dallas TX  75230).”

WASHINGTON: In GWS #32, we reported that Washington home-schoolers were fighting and supporting several education bills in the state legislature. The outcome, as reported in the Unschoolers, Project: “Truancy H.B. 282 died in the House Rules Committee. . . H.B. 492, a bill that would have extended the compulsory school age, died in the Education Committee. . . S.B. 4095, a parental rights, bill that Debra (Stewart) did not think had a chance to get out of committee, went farther than in the last two years. . . It was caught in a time crunch. .
Next year we have been promised an Interim Study Committee, to examine the present law for constitutionality. . .”

A new home-schooling group in the Spokane area, the FAMILY LEARNING EXCHANGE, has started a lengthy monthly newsletter ($18/year). - DR

THOUGHTS ON “DAY AFTER”

I watched “The Day After” with my friend, neighbor, and editor Merloyd Lawrence, and a small group of her friends. I found the film very well done and often very moving. Early in the film I noticed a surprising reaction in myself. The suspense, as we waited for what we knew would happen, that the bombs would go off, became so unbearable that I began thinking in the back of my mind, “Hurry up, set it off, I can,t stand the waiting.” Later it occurred to me with real fear that many people may have begun or may soon begin to feel that way in real life - since it,s coming sooner or later, let,s get it over with.

After the film was over we all agreed, as has been pointed out in many news stories, that the film enormously underestimated the damage that would have been done by a nuclear attack of that size. The bomb over Kansas City would probably have started a very large firestorm, and at that time of year there would have been enough vegetation in the fields so that the storm would probably have burned its way all the way to and through Lawrence. Most of the injured would have been in very much worse shape than the ones we saw, many of them with massive burns, and many of them blinded like the little boy, since the reflex which makes us look toward a bright light is a very hard one to repress. Radiation sickness in its more advanced stages causes acute diarrhea and vomiting, which was not shown and was only once even hinted at. The problems of raising food would have been far more severe than what was suggested; not only were those farmers, tractors electrically burned out, but they had no fuel, no seed, and none of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides without which our large scale agriculture cannot grow crops at all.

And as my brother-in-law put it, “Whose cellar was that horse in?” Where did that healthy horse come from?

A day or two later I talked on the phone with my sister in New Mexico. She told me that a number of young people in her town who saw the show had an interesting reaction, one I would not have expected. The special effects in the show, particularly the pictures of the injured and dying, were so much less bloody and horrible than the special effects these young people are used to seeing in the crime and horror films they regularly watch that they were bored and disappointed. “Is that all?” they asked. “Is that what all this fuss was about? Big deal!”

Many of you will have already learned from articles in the press about the danger that Carl Sagan in the panel spoke of after the film. There seems to be very strong evidence that even a small (small?) nuclear attack or exchange involving as little (little?) as 100 megatons, would throw so much fine dust and smoke into the upper atmosphere that for several years the temperatures at the earth,s surface would be greatly lowered, probably to well below freezing. Scientists from many countries, including Russia, who have seen the figures and the arguments seem to agree that this is so. I would add something that I have not yet seen in print, that even a much less drastic reduction in average year-round temperature, perhaps as little as twenty degrees, would be enough to reduce our agricultural output by eighty or ninety percent.

This very high probability of what Sagan called “the nuclear winter” seems to me to contain a very strong possibility of hope. For it is simply not true, as Schultz and Kissinger said after the panel, that preventing nuclear war has been the #1 aim of our government, or any government. The superpowers have from the beginning always thought of nuclear war as a possible option, an acceptable if costly and dangerous way to get something they could not get any other way. Both sides dream - fortunately, it has so far been only a dream - of a day when they could, if they chose, drop nuclear weapons on their enemy without having to worry about any being dropped on them in return. In the jargon of the times, this is called a “credible first-strike possibility.” This is what all this talk about so-called Star Wars weapons - anti-missile lasers, etc. - is about. If we could just find a way to destroy all enemy missiles in the air, dream the military leaders, then we could drop ours without any danger of retaliation.

The “nuclear winter,” if this is accepted as being true or highly probable, should put an end to such foolish dreams, and might well give us the reason and impetus the big powers need to do what so far they have never done, despite their talk, which is to get serious about winding down and rolling back the nuclear arms race. For if it is the case that your own nuclear weapons will kill you, no matter where they go off, then even the most hard-nosed general or fanatic hawk (on either side) will soon have to agree that talk about “superiority” or “first-strike capability” or even “equality” makes no sense. A weapon that will kill the person who shoots it, no matter where he aims it, is not a weapon. If 100 megatons, exploded anywhere, will be enough to wipe out most life in the Northern Hemisphere, then even the feeblest wits should be able to figure out that stockpiles of 10-20 thousand megatons make no sense.
So out of all this gloomy talk may come a message of real hope. Let us do what we can to make it so. - JH

FAMOUS UNSCHOOLER

Simone T., age 13, wrote in the 10/83 Hostex Exchange:

. . .Agatha Christie was eight years younger than her sister and brother, Marjorie and Louis. When it was time for them to go to school, their mother, Clarissa Margaret Beochmer Miller, firmly believed in education. Marjorie was sent to a boarding school, and Louis was sent to public school. When it was Agatha,s turn to go, her mother,s views had changed. She now believed that education destroyed a child,s brain and was ruinous to eyesight. Her mother tutored her at home, but she was sent out for certain special classes - art, singing, Swedish exercise, and cookery - just like I am.

Agatha Christie started writing very young. She used to tell stories to her mother every night. One night her mother told her to write the story down instead. Agatha next tried poems; then she wrote a long novel. She said some of the early writing wasn,t too bad, but the whole thing was pretty poor. She later had much encouragement from Eden Phillpotts, a near neighbor, who was also a writer. . .

Her first whodunit, THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, was an attempt to outwit her sister. Marjorie had challenged Agatha to write a mystery that she couldn,t figure out after reading the first chapter. Agatha succeeded in stumping her sister. . .

TWO “SPECIAL ED” KIDS FREE

From Larraine Falk (IL):

. . .I have been educating my son, J.D. (9 1/2), at home for 1 1/2 years. Many times during those years I have wanted to write and thank you for your inspiration. . . If it wasn,t for you, GWS, and TEACH YOUR OWN, we would not have found out about home-schooling, or had the courage to do it.

J.D. always loved learning, he is very curious and creative, and was reading by age 4. By 2nd grade, he read on a 7th grade level. However, while he was in school, I saw his creativity drop. He no longer did art projects at home. He refused to do any work in school unless it interested him. If pressured to do the work, he erupted into tantrums which the teachers were not able to handle and he was sent home. I was truly perplexed by the whole thing as I knew him to love learning.

In the middle of the first grade, we put him in a private school, thinking that the public school was the problem. Things improved, but not greatly. We started meeting with the principal who was also a clinical psychologist. We followed eagerly all of the suggestions of the principal. Most of the time I intuitively felt they were bad suggestions. However, this person was an expert in child development and I was only a concerned first-time parent. Therefore, she must be right. At any rate, her suggestions did not help much.

In the beginning of second grade, the private school would not take him, so we put him back in public school, this time in the behavior disorder class, which was the only way they would take him. Things became much worse. He was being sent home from school several times a week for tantrums. All of the progress he had made in the private school disappeared. At this point we were desperate. We hated parenthood, our only child, ourselves. It was sheer hell. The “experts” even told us we were bad parents and J.D. would probably end up institutionalized.

. . .One day I was watching J.D. in swim class in the bleachers. The woman next to me started talking to me out of the blue, and told me about her son,s problems in school, and how she was planning to take him out of school and teach him at home. I had never heard of home-schooling. The idea hit me like a thunderbolt and I knew that it was the answer. I bought TEACH YOUR OWN on the woman,s suggestion and attended a home-schoolers, meeting in the area. Within a month we had taken J.D. out of school.

Two weeks after home-schooling began, many friends commented to me how relaxed J.D. seemed, how mature he had become, how loving and giving he was, how open and friendly he had become, etc., etc. This was after only two weeks! After a few months of home-schooling, our home life became very loving, warm, wonderful. My husband and I even started to talk about having another child. . . We had definitely not wanted any more children while J.D. was in school! Parenting was too awful. But it became rewarding, fulfilling, and enjoyable. So much so, that we now have an adorable baby girl, Alisa, 3 1/2 months old. . .

Alisa,s arrival has been perfect for J.D.,s emotional growth. He adores her and cares for her. J.D. can,t wait for her to wake up in the morning and be with her all day. Kids sure miss a lot of loving relationships with their siblings when they go to school all day long.

It took about a year for the school wounds to heal, for J.D. to become creative and fully interested in learning again. It has taken me about 1 1/2 years to be able to write about it or really talk about. . .

J.D. gets along with other kids so well now. Socialization in school was a very negative experience. School children seem to love being mean to the sensitive, intelligent ones. J.D. has no trouble making friends now. . .

__________

From Mary Ann Daniels, 7 Birchwood Trailer Pk, Fishkill NY 12524:

. . .You have ended three of the most horrible years of our lives. Our daughter is now a home-schooler.

Since she entered the door at kindergarten, she rebelled against paperwork. She went steadily downhill and me with her. She,s been in three different schools and hasn,t hit a teacher yet who could handle her. Last year we learned she was “hyperactive.” She was thrown on Ritalin by a neurologist. It didn,t help much, and when it was wearing off she had unexplained crying spells. I went to the library to learn more about “hyperactivity” and found Dr. Ben Feingold,s book, WHY YOUR CHILD IS HYPERACTIVE. I placed Judy on his all-natural diet, and we couldn,t believe the change that took place. Her behavior changed, her health changed -but her attitude about school didn,t.

I began reading your books and they helped me understand her better. In fact, your books made me reflect back on my own school years. I began to realize Judy was a lot like me -very selective in what she wanted to learn.

We had a lot of pressure put on us by her second-grade teacher to have her tested. . . Our guilt feelings made us go along with it. The psychologist told me she thought Judy had an auditory language processing problem. I had been told this when she was in kindergarten, but we felt all along her problem was motivation. . . I will never forget the day I had to be at the meeting to label her. I had all I could do not to cry, as I felt I was doing her an injustice. She is about as learning disabled as I am!

Around this time I was in a bookstore and TEACH YOUR OWN caught my eye. I bought it and can honestly say it was the best investment I ever made. I began building a case for Judy to be taught at home. I had kept everything on her (report cards, psychological reports, and my own log). At the close of school I sent an eight-page letter with fifteen enclosures to the State Department of Education requesting permission to home-school her. I had enrolled her with the Calvert School and listed all the texts to be used for her third-grade curriculum along with a week,s lesson plan. The State wrote and told me under the N.Y.S. Education Law I could teach her at home. I just had to present my program to the local superintendent for approval. I brought all the material I had prepared for the State to the superintendent. Two days later I received permission to teach Judy at home.

You can never know the relief I feel. I know my daughter can learn, and a lot better than she was learning in school. Three years of agony are over. Judy is no longer “learning disabled.” I started working with her four weeks ago and I have noticed a change already. She was convinced she was stupid, but now she sees she is learning. . .