We’ve devoted a lot of space in recent issues of GWS to the question of community - what is it, how can we find or make it, what would we want it to be like if we could have it?  For this issue, we decided to take the dis-cussion one step further and ask, “How can we make our communities - the ones we have and live in right now - more welcoming of and accessible to children? What sorts of changes might we actually consider making?”

In inviting several readers to think about these questions, I gave them explicit permission to be speculative, wishful - to write about what they would like to see happen even if they could not always see how to make it happen.  This is unuaual for GWS; we tend to be strongly biased in favor of stories of what has happened, what people have tried or done or experienced. But the departure from this bias was deliberate.  GWS reader Peter Bergson, who has for many years helped adults recover and children maintain their creative problem-solving abilities, says that the history of inventiveness, of creativity, shows that truly new and workable ideas come to people only after they have allowed themselves this kind of wishing.  To invent something new, we have to be able to think in farfetched, even crazy terms, to say, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could have something like this?”  We wouldn’t have airplanes if people hadn’t been able to say, “Imagine something that would allow us to get from place to place by flying!” - which must have seemed a pretty far out idea at the time.

Of course, really making change does very definitely involve thinking about how to put ideas into practice.  We can’t generate lists of wild ideas and then stop there.  But we can’t get anywhere until we generate those lists, so with this issue of GWS we’re taking the first step toward thinking about how to make accessible, welcoming communities for children and, by extension, families.  And in fact, even within the context of these wish lists, the writers in this issue have come up with many practical ideas about what we can do to make those wishes real.  Sometimes they offer examples of what has already been done as well.

A few words about why we spend so much time talking about community in a magazine that’s ostensibly about education.  John Holt wrote in 1971: “I do not think we can treat as separate the quality of education and the quality of life in general… I am saying that truly good education in a bad society is a contradiction in terms.  In short, in a society that is absurd, unwork-able, wasteful, destructive, secretive, coercive, monopolistic, and generally anti-human, we could never have good education, no matter what kinds of schools the powers that be permit, because it is not the educators or the schools but the whole society and the quality of life in it that really edu-cate.  This means that whatever we do to improve the quality of life, for anyone, and in whatever part of his life, to that degree improves education… The best and perhaps only way to prepare the young to work for a better world is to invite them, right now, to join us in working for it.  We cannot say, `We will concentrate our efforts on making nice schools for you, and after you get out you can tackle the tough job of remaking the world.’ …What [people] need above all else is a society in which they are to the greatest possible degree free and encouraged to look, ask, think, choose and act; and… making this society is both the chief social or political AND educational task of our time.”

If society as a whole is what educates, we cannot think about working for better education without thinking about working for better communities in which to live, work, play, teach, and learn.  In a way, this makes the task seem bigger, more imposing.  But defining it this way also gives us a great range of possible course of action, a great many things we can actually do. Of the many possible ways to work “in the field of education,” I suspect that working for stronger communities will be not only the most effective but also the most satisfying.  –Susannah Sheffer

OFFICE NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS —————————

[SS:]  Merloyd Lawrence tells us that her collection of John Holt’s writing about young children learning, now titled LEARNING ALL THE TIME, will be out this fall.  Addison Wesley’s tentative publication date is November 1989.  Merloyd has done an impressive job of making a book out of these various pieces of writing (many of which were first published in GWS).  Ohio State University Press will then bring out the collection I’ve been editing, LIFE WORTH LIVING: SELECTED LETTERS OF JOHN HOLT, in the spring of 1990.

Since our last issue went to press, we’ve had some nice publicity - a couple of good articles in local newspapers, which led to an invitation to speak on a radio show and several inquiries about homeschooling and our work. Pat Farenga spoke at the CONNECTICUT HOMESCHOOLERS ASSOCIATION conference on April 29th, and I led workshops at the MARYLAND HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION conference on April 15th, where I was able to see many GWS friends.  The MHEA conference, organized by Manfred Smith, successfully incorporates workshops for children into its program each year; others interested in organizing that kind of event might want to use this conference as one model.

We appreciate the inquiries about possible speaking engagements that we’ve received as a result of our mention of this in GWS #67.  We hope that still others of you will take us up on this as well.

We were lucky to have the very valuable help of Kim Kopel (MO) in the office for a week in April.  Kim had never worked in any kind of office before helping out in ours, and her week here made her think that she might like to do this sort of work in the future - another reminder of how important it is for young people to have a chance to see adult work from the inside.

Several of you seem to be using GWS to make connections with others these days, which is always very gratifying to see.  We’ve been forwarding a lot of letters, passing on a lot of responses, helping people get in touch with one another.  Beth Kaseman (WI) writes about the Focus on “What Teens Want From Adults” in GWS #68:  “We, as homeschooled teens, are a small number of people, but we seem to share a lot, and it’s great to read each other’s stories in GWS.”  Communities aren’t always made up of people who are all in one place.

A plea from the Directory department: If you’re entering your name into the Directory, please take care to fill out the entire form.  We’re getting entires that give the parents’ first names but not last names, or street addresses without the city, state, and zip code.  Sometimes we’re able to look this information up, but it takes time.  Other times we have no way of looking it up at all.

We still have many labels with our new address available for sticking in copies of John Holt’s books in local libraries.  We get quite a few inquiries from people who have read John’s earlier books, and we con’t want to lose these people, so please consider helping us by asking us for address labels and then putting them in your library’s copies of the books.

Massachusetts reader Daphne Slocombe writes:  “I would like to strongly recommend to anyone who is dithering about whether to buy the back issues of GWS to get them.  They are invaluable.  Most of the material is not in the least out of date, and won’t be in the future - wonderful stuff about how people (of any age) learn, socialization, approaches to different specific subjects, use of television vs. doing without, choosing work, and so on. Best of all are the images of the lives of homeschooling families.  Often these families have evolved an unusual, lively, healthy unity of learning, work, friendships, and play.  It was hard for us to get together the money for the back issues, but I’m so glad we did.”  Excellent advice - we couldn’t have said it better ourselves!

NEWS & REPORTS ————–

VICTORY IN NORTH DAKOTA

On April 7th the governor of North Dakota signed House Bill 1421 into law, making it possible for parents who are not certified teachers to home-school there.  North Dakota had been one of the three states that required homeschooling parents to be certified teachers, but in recent months the requirement was suspended in the other two states, Michigan and Iowa (see GWS #67, #68), and with the passage of North Dakota’s HB 1421 there is now no state with this requirement.  (But this could change - see Minnesota news, this issue).

The new law, which will go into effect on July 1, says that a parent is qualified to supervise a program of home-based instruction if

“the parent is certified or certifiable to teach in North Dakota; has a high school education or has received a general educational development cer-tificate [GED] and is supervised by a certified teacher employed either by the public school district in which the parent resides or, if requested by the parent, by a state-approved private or parochial school; or has passed the national teacher exam given in North Dakota, or in any other state if North Dakota does not offer such a test.”

The NORTH DAKOTA HOME SCHOOL ASSOCIATION comments that there is no definition of “certifiable” in the law.

The law requires homeschooling parents to teach the state’s required subjects at least four hours a day, 175 days a year.  Parents must keep an annual record of the courses the child has taken, academic progress made, and any standardized tests results.  Parents file an annual statement of intent with their local superintendent at least thirty days before the beginnning of the semester during which the family plans to homeschool.  The statement must include the names and addresses of the parents and children, the children’s birth dates and grade levels, “the intention of the parent to superivse home-based instruction,” the parent’s qualifications, a list of courses or extra-curricular activities in the public school district in which the child will participate, and an oath or affirmation that the parent will comply with the provisions of the law.

Annual standardized testing is also required.  From the law:

“A standardized achievement test used by the school district in which the child resides or, if requested by the parent, a standardized achievement test used by a state-approved private or parochial school must be given annually to each child receiving home-based instruction.  The test must be given in the child’s learning environment and must be administered by a certified teacher employed by the public school district in which the parent resides or, if requested by the parent, employed by a state-approved private or parochial school.  The cost of such testing must be borne by the local school district in which the child resides if the test is administered by a certified teacher employed by a public school district or by the parent of the child if the test is administered by a certified teacher employed by a state-approved private or parochial school.  Results of such testing must be provided to the local public school superintendent.

“If a child’s basic composite score on a standardized achievement test falls below the thirtieth percentile nationally, the child must be profession-ally evaluated for a potential learning problem.  If the multidisciplinary assessment team evaluation determines that the child is not handicapped according to the eligibility criteria of the department of public instruction and the child does not require specially-designed instruction according to the rules adopted by the department of public instruction, [the parent may continue to homeschool], upon filing with the superintendent of public instruction a statement, from an appropriately licensed professional, that the child is currently making reasonable academic progress…”

Parents who don’t file that statement in such cases won’t be home-schooling legally.  If the “multidisciplinary assessment team” does determine that the child in question is handicapped, “but not developmentally disabled,” the parent may continue to homeschool if he or she files an “individualized education program plan, formulated within rules adopted by the department of public instruction, indicating that the child’s needs for special education are being appropriately addressed by persons qualified to provide special education or related services.”

Finally, if a local superintendent determines that a child is not “making reasonable academic progress consistent with the child’s age or state of development,” the parent must be notified of this conclusion and the basis for it, and the parent must “make a good faith effort to remedy any deficiency.”  Failure to make this effort constitutes a violation of the law.

The law also has a clause about state aid which may interest those in other states: “For purposes of allocating foundation aid and other state assistance to local school districts, students receiving home-based instruc-tion shall be deemed enrolled in the school district in which they reside if the student is supervised by a certificated teacher employed by the public school district in which the parent resides.”

Clinton Birst of the NDHSA tells us that several factors contributed to the passage of the bill: national publicity given to homeschooling court cases in the state and attempts to deny homeschooled children the right to partici-pate in the state spelling bee; support from homeschoolers at a rally on February 28th; effective testimony from Joyce Swann, a homeschooling mother of ten with only a high school education, and Carl Fynboe, former president of the Washington Education Assocation, whose testimony was about the academic performance of homeschoolers; pressure from the Home School Legal Defense Assocation; legislators’ concern about fines that had been imposed on home-schooling families; the fact that the Attorney General’s office drafted the original version of HB 1421; and the lobbying efforts of homeschoolers.

Readers wanting more detailed information should write or call the NDHSA, PO Box 539, Turtle Lake ND 58575; 701-448-9193.

MANDATORY KINDERGARTEN IN ARKANSAS

The February-March issue of UPDATE, the newsletter of the ARKANSAS CHRIS-TIAN HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION, reports that homeschoolers were unable to defeat two identical bills making kindergarten mandatory in Arkansas.  The bills passed, and the new law lowers the compulsory school age in Arkansas from 7 to 5.  Parents who choose not to send their children to kindergarten at age 5 must sign a waiver with their local school district, and children who turn 6 on or before October 1st of a given year will be evaluated (by the school district) to see whether they should attend kindergarten or first grade.

Tom Holiman of the ACHEA writes that it is not yet clear what that last clause will mean for homeschoolers.  They are particularly concerned about whether it will affect the part of the current homeschool law which says that homeschoolers do not have to be tested until age 7.

INDEPENDENT STUDY IN CA

Elizabeth Hamill wrote in the April/May issue of the NORTHERN CALIFORNIA HOMESCHOOL ASSOCIATION NEWS:  “Homeschool Independent Study Programs (ISPs) conducted by public school districts in California are in immediate danger of being eliminated by the governor’s budget next year.  In a reaction to per-ceived misuse of state apportionment aid and high student/teacher ratios, the Legislative Analyst has recommended that language be added to the 1989-90 State Budget Bills (SB 165 and AB 250) to cut funding and eliminate ISPs for most homeschoolers currently enrolled.”

Enrolling in a public school Independent Study Program is now one of four available ways to homeschool in California.  Elizabeth Hamill writes that she and Roy Hanson of the Christian Home Educators Association met with Dr. Lynn Hartzler of the Alternative Education Unit of the State Department of Educa-tion to ask how likely it was that the legislature would approve the Analyst’s recommendations.  Hartzler told them that the Department of Education clearly opposes these recommendations, and that he didn’t think educational reforms should be made through the Budget Bill.

Senator Gary Hart, chair of the Senate Education Committee, has intro-duced Senate Bill 1563, which would also affect Independent Study Programs by tightening some of their requirements.  Districts would have to set limits on student-teacher ratios, for example, and would set up screening criteria to determine whether the ISP is the best placement for the particular child.

Elizabeth Hamill comments: “While these more stringent guidelines might make participation in the ISPs less appealing to some homeschoolers who prefer more freedom and less structure, the passage of SB 1563 might make it less likely that the legislators would approve the Analyst’s recommendation that many of the ISPs be eliminated altogether…  According to NCHA’s 1987 survey of California homeschoolers, about 11% are participating in public school ISPs.  There are several reasons why we all need to join ranks and support these programs whether we are participating in them or not.  If the state sees that ISPs can be easily eliminated, then they might get the idea that other types of homeschooling will be even more vulnerable.  We need to show them that we are unified and willing to support each other…”

GROUP FOR “CHALLENGED” KIDS

Marilyn Conover (HCR #1, Box 98, Swiftwater, PA 18370; 717-839-9972) writes:

My husband and I have four children, the youngest of whom has Down Syndrome.  Two months ago in the PENNSYLAVANIA HOMESCHOOLERS newsletter, a mother wrote in wanting to contact parents of EMR (Educable Mentally Retarded) and TMR (Trainable Mentally Retarded) children who were homechooled.  We started corresponding, and found others who were doing the same, and others who were considering it.  Last month in THE TEACHING HOME magazine, there was a letter from a family of a young child with spinal bifida who wanted to home-school, and several families around the country contacted them.  Things took off from there very rapidly!

One woman from detroit suggested a name for our loose-knit but growing group - CHICKS (Christian Homeschoolers Instructing Challenged Kids for His Service).  Right now, we are just a telephone and letter support and informa-tion group.  We don’t have any meetings, or print our own newsletter, but we can help others who are going through what we did, and offer suggestions rele-vant to our children’s special needs that more general support groups may not be able to deal with.

We’re sure that among your readers are people who could benefit from knowing that others are doing the same thing.  Parents of children of any age or disability are welcome.

[SS:] I asked Marilyn whether the group’s name meant that it was limited to Christian homeschoolers, and she said that it did not; the group is open to all.

OTHER LOCAL NEWS

For addresses of state and local organizations, see GWS #66 or our Home-schooling Resource List, available for $2.

KENTUCKY:  Homeschooler Libby Morley tells us that truant officers claim that some truants are hiding behind the cover of homeschooling, so to speak -that some people are neither sending children to school nor complying with the home school law.  A group calling itself the Kentucky Homeschool Congress (c/o Jeff Sanford, Suite 700, 10101 Linn Station Rd., Louisville 40223) met in March and set up committees, with the goal of presenting a positive image of homeschooling to the truant officers and the legislators who may be moni-toring this situation.

MAINE:  A note in the March issue of the ReMAINEing AT HOME newsletter says that two homeschooling bills have been introduced this legislative session.  LD 108 would make it possible for homeschoolers to submit their applications to either the state or the local superintendent, rather than to both as is currently required.  The other bill would make into law the current guidelines for non-approved private schools (including home schools).

In the April issue of the newsletter, Steve Moitozo writes that LD 108, the bill they are currently focusing on, has been heard before the Education Committee, and that when he testified at the hearing he focused on the dis-crepancies between school districts’ requirements.  Steve writes that he has received almost ninety local school district policies from homeschoolers around the state (he had requested copies so that he could prepare his testi-mony) and discovered that most differ significantly from the state’s home-schooling law.  (Ch. 130).  Many have no written policies at all, which is a violation of the law, and some make demands - such as the submission of weekly lesson plans - that the law does not require them to make.  Steve says that these discrepancies make the need for uniform, statewide standards all the more apparent.

MINNESOTA:  HF 928, a bill that proposes to restore the teacher certifi-cation requirement to Minnesota’s homeschool law, has been introduced into the legislature this session, according to the Spring issue of THE HOME SCHOOL COURT REPORT, the newsletter of the HOME SCHOOL LEGAL DEFENSE ASSOCIATION. The bill also requires the person providing instruction to submit information to the superintendent by October 1 of each year, including evidence of state certification, an annual instructional calendar, and a quarterly report card for each child.

HSLDA adds:  “According to the author of the bill, it was drafted in response to some homeschoolers who refuse to give notice pursuant to the pro-visions of the existing law.”  If the bill passes, it would make Minnesota the only state currently requiring homeschoolers to be certified teachers.

NEW HAMPSHIRE:  In GWS #67, we wrote that the Department of Education was reviewing the current homeschooling regulations, and that several groups were working on drafting new ones.  The proposed new regulations, at that time, were very restrictive, requiring that parents be certified and that children be tested, and allowing for home visits from school officials.  Elaine Rapp of the NEW HAMPSHIRE HOME EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION now tells us that the drafting of new regulations has been postponed because of objections from homeschoolers, and that some new legislation is likely to be proposed next year.  Meanwhile, the old regulations are still in effect.

NEW YORK:  Katharine Houk wrote in the April issue of the HOME SCHOOLERS’ EXCHANGE:  “Home education representatives have been meeting with Deputy Com-nissioner Lionel Meno and Assistant Commissioner Joan Bourgeois once a month at the State Education Department in Albany to review the current home instruction regulation… At the meeting on  April 10, much discussion was devoted to setting up a framework for submitting information to the local dis-trict.  Because some superintendents either don’t want to have to deal with homeschoolers or have trouble accepting home education as a legal and valid form of education, we also discussed ways to remove the reponsibility from the shoulders of the local school district.”  When this group comes up with a pro-posal, they will present it to representatives of school boards and superin-tendents, who will be able to make revisions.  The final draft will be pre-sented to the Board of Regents.

OHIO:  Pat Montgomery wrote in the April issue of THE LEARNING EDGE, Clonlara’s newsletter, that the Standards Committee, a group of school offi-cials, state heads, and homeschoolers that had been appointed in 1987 to establish a home education section in the Ohio Revised Code, met for a final time on March 7.  The committee will present its “Rules or Excuses from Com-pulsory Attendance for Home Educators” to the State Board of Education, and there will be a public hearing about it in May or June (check with the Depart-ment of Education, or Ohio homeschooling groups, to see whether the hearing has already taken place by the time you receive this issue of GWS.)

The committee’s rules allow parents to qualify as homeschoolers in sev-eral ways: by holding a high school diploma or a GED, or by working with some-one who holds a bachelor’s degree.  Parents can also choose among several methods of evaluation: standardized tests, a written narrative (written by someone else) saying that the student has made progress, or some other form of evaluation that both the parent and superintendent agree upon.

TENNESSEE:  The TENNESSEE HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION has introduced two bills into the House and Senate, according to issue #16 of the HOMESCHOOLING FAMILIES newsletter.  HB 1300/SB 34 would allow homeschoolers to take the GED or the state’s high school proficiency test at any age, and upon passing it be exempt from further homeschooling requirements.  Currently, students in Tennessee are only eligible to take the GED if they have legally withdrawn from school, are 18, 17 and pregnant, in jail, or in the job corps.  Home-schoolers in other states have written about this problem of ineligibility for the GED, so we are interested to see what happens in Tennessee.  If any other states are making progress on this front, please let us know.

HB 1301/SB 36 would allow church-related schools to act as umbrellas for home schools through 12th grade, instead of only through 8th grade as is currently the case.  Church-related schools would then be allowed to grant high school diplomas to home school students who complete their requirements.

THE RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE: IN A GEOGRAPHY BEE…

Anne Brosnan (NY) writes:

I saw an article in the April 1989 issue of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine about the National Geography Bee, a geography bee for school kids to help them learn geography.  I was really mad because I thought homeschoolers couldn’t enter it, and I wanted to because I like geography.

So I wrote them a letter saying I didn’t think it was right (or fair) to try and teach all the kids in the United States geography through the schools, because every kid in America isn’t in school.  And I thought that there was no way a homeschooler could ever enter the bee, because, for one, the final level of the bee was done in the schools.  But they wrote me a letter back saying that the 1990 bee would be open to “students being taught at home” and that they had put me on their mailing list.

I am sending you a copy of the letter I received because I thought you might be interested and because a lot of other homeschoolers might want to know about it and get on the mailing list.

[SS:]  The National Geography Bee is open to children ages 8-15.  For more information, write National Geography Bee, National Geographic Society, Washington, DC  20036.

We’d like to hear from others who, like Anne, have written letters ques-tioning homeschoolers’ eligibility for these sorts of activities.

…AND IN SKIING MEETS

We’ve received several articles aboutanother homeschoolers’s attempt to be allowed to participate equally in an outside activity.  From the 3/6/89 BURLINGTON (VT) FREE PRESS:

A 16-year-old homeschooler and his family have launched a campaign to change a Vermont Headmasters’ Association rule.  Peter Johnson uses running and skiing as his physical education program in his home school.  This is the second year he has competed at local public high school meets after getting permission from coaches apparently unaware of a rule against his participa-tion.  Home schools and reporting private schools are not allowed to compete on the grounds that the home schools might provide unfair competition if they had intensive training programs.

…[Johnson has] found support among high school coaches in his effort to change the rule.  A cross country subcommittee of the association voted to ask another committee to look into changing the bylaw excluding home schools. And Essex coach Rob Powers invited Johnson to ski at the Vermont Classical State Championship Feb. 24 in Stowe.  Powers said that although the event was sponsored by the Headmasters, he and the other coach organizing the event decided to open a special guest category for Johnson.

…[Powers] said he could understand that they want competition to be fair, but in Johnson’s case he felt the rule just didn’t apply.  He said home-schoolers should be allowed to petition for membership, and then each case could be reviewed individually for `fairness’.

…The Johnsons argue that their arrangement does not provide unfair com-petition, especially when weighed against some of the private schools that specialize in athletics.  Approved private schools can join the Headmasters’ Association and compete in its tournaments unless they compete in other cir-cuits.  “If we’re legal academically in Vermont, which the state says we are, why should we be discriminated against athletically?”  asked Nancy Johnson, Peter’s mother…

CALENDAR

JULY 14, 15, 16, 1989:  National Organic Farmers Association Summer Con-ference in Williamstown, Mass.  GWS reader Luz Shosie will be doing a home-schooling workshop.  For information:  Julie Rawson, RFD #2, Barre, MA  01005; 508-355-2853.

SEPTEMBER 23:  La Leche League of Kentucky area conference.  May include a speaker from Holt Associates.  For information:  Jennifer Nunn, RR #2, Box 911, Hawesville, KY  42348.

We are happy to run notices of major homeschooling and related events, but we need plenty of notice.  Deadline for GWS #70 (events in September or later) is July 10.  Deadline for GWS #71 (events in November or later) is September 10.

CHALLENGES & CONCERNS ———————

DOESN’T MIND ISOLATION

More from Anne Brosnan:

I am writing to you about isolation since I know it is an issue you talk about in GWS sometimes.  A lot of people would think that when we lived in a cabin in the Minnesota woods with our neighbors a mile away we were more isolated than where we live now, in the suburbs.  But it’s not true.  Maria, my friend in Minnesota, two years older than me, is still my best friend, even though there are a dozen girls my age around here, yet we hardly ever see each other.  Of course we say hi to each other and wave, but, except for one girl, we never call each other up to play or anything.  We don’t “not like” each other; I guess it’s just because I’m different from them, but I don’t really know.  I don’t mind being different and isolated (I know I am), in fact, I kind of like it.  I have my friend Maria, my sister, and all my pen-pals.

I don’t think it would make a difference if I started going to school, either, because the kids and I are different in other ways, too.  Instead of talking on the phone and talking to each other in person, I find it easier to write.  I’m not saying I can’t talk to people, it’s just I’m better at writing it out.  That may be one of the reasons I have better friends in pen-pals.

Another reason is just difference in tastes.  They’d rather listen to rock music while I’d rather listen to classical, etc.  They’d rather watch movies while I’d rather read.  Even when they do read, their taste in books is different.

Once when we went to the library we asked the librarian to help me find a good book.  So she started finding all the books someone my age is supposed to like, and I waited patiently for her to finish because I knew these books weren’t good books, they were the books everyone else was reading because they wanted to be like everybody else.

I don’t understand why they are afraid to be different.  They’d probably like it if they decided to like what they, themselves, like, instead of what somebody else does.  I’d like to say to them, “Hey, look at me!  I’m different! I like it!  I have friends!  It’s OK to be different!”

AN OPEN LETTER TO INQUIRING ADULTS

Anneke Chodan (NY) writes:

It seems like hardly a day goes by without someone asking me, “And where do YOU go to school, child?”  At first , when asked, I’d say, “You tell them, Mom.”  Now, I just answer with some variation of, “My parents teach me at home.”  The reaction is almost always eyebrows shooting up and the question, “You mean you don’t go to SCHOOL?!”  “No,” I respond, “I don’t.”  Then, almost invariably, the interrogation follows.  “Is that legal?”  “Are your parents teachers?”  “Do you have any friends?” and on and on.  It’s come to the point where I feel like saying, “It’s really none of your business!”  I don’t say that, of course.

How I would love to be able to write a letter that would be seen by everyone in this country, if not seen and understood by the entire world, that would explain about homeschooling and put these silly questions to rest.  It would be something like:

Dear Everyone, Being homeschooled for a fourth year, I have heard every common question and comment about homeschoolers.  While I am sure you mean no harm, I am starting to feel like a broken record.  Perhaps all your questions will be answered in this letter.  Maybe, as well, the comments about homeschooling and homeschoolers will stop because of this letter.  I sincerely hope so.

Many families, such as our own, homeschool because they believe that stupidity is in either individual schools or the entire system.  For example, while I was still in school, there was a teacher who sent home a notice with mistakes in it that my mother would never have let me get away with even when I was in second grade.  That teacher was the one that I would have had for third grade.  Several other similar things had happened and my parents just decided that they had had enough.  After that school year, I was taught at home.

Homeschooling parents are not sheltering their children from the so-called “real world.”  After all, what is the real world?  Certainly not being cooped up in a room with twenty-five other kids your age for about six hours, having to wear the most up-to-date clothes, people not speaking to you because you don’t have a Cabbage Patch doll, writing in math workbooks, or everyone using the same handwriting style.  These are all part of school, and while there is nothing truly wrong with anything I have just mentioned, they do little or nothing to prepare kids for the real world.

Another group of people that I wouldn’t mind seeing less of are those of you who say something that boils down to, “Your parents will get in trouble for this!” or “That’s impossible, you HAVE to go to school.”  These comments are foolish and I am tired of them.  Nevertheless, I have to keep explaining that no, it is not against the law.  In fact, it is not only legal, but sur-prisingly common.  There are several local support groups of homeschoolers, each containing many members.  In addition, there are some who, like my family, just stick it out without being part of any group at all.

On this subject, children do not need school to live or to be successful adults.  An education, yes.  School, certainly not!  In fact, some of the school “education” is totally worthless.  Furthermore, I have seen that many children “educated” by schools are quarrelsome or snobbish.

The last of the annoyances to homeschoolers, also the most common, is the well-meaning people who ask, “But, what about the socialization aspect?” or “Who will take her to dances and parties?”  This is irritating for four reasons.  The first is the fact that the law never said that children must be taught reading, writing, and socialization.  The second is nobody will die from not going to every local social event.  The third is that half of the socialization in school is either negative or the foolish sort of thing that I mentioned earlier in this letter.  The last is that there are many people in the schools who have less of a social life than I do and are never ques-tioned.  Why?  Because, of course, they’re in school. Yours Truly, Anneke Chodan

WHEN THEY SAY THEY WANT SCHOOL

Susan Pitman (NB) writes:

Hansi Whitelaw’s “What if She Wants to Go to School?” (GWS #67) sparked a memory for me.  My daughter Sarah has always been a very social person, and when she was 5 she said she wanted to go to school.  I got her to talk about why she wanted to go.  Her main reason was that she wanted to have lots of friends to play with.  I recognized her social needs but I honestly didn’t think the playground at school would meet them in a constructive, positive, growth-enhancing way.  So I told her, after listening to her pleas and demands to go, that she could not go now and that I did not want to discuss this again until she was 10.

Sarah is now 8, and I feel she has grown in self-awareness and self-confidence.  Now I am ready to say yes to her if she wants to go to school. She could now handle a school situation and make the decision for herself about whether to go or to remain at home.  She has had more chances to discuss with other children what school is like.  She has visited the school building after hours, but while there were still students having to line up or stay in rooms, etc.  One day we were walking down the corridor of an elementary school and a teacher was yelling pretty nastily at a boy.  Sarah got quite upset and wanted to know why she was talking like that to him.  I said maybe the teacher was tired, had had a hard day, etc.  Sarah turned to me and said, “Mom, I wouldn’t want to be him.  He must feel awful!”  I agreed with her.  I wouldn’t have wanted to be him either.  But a little voice inside me reminded me that I had been him once and that it did feel awful.  It made me feel that I have given my children quite a gift even if it isn’t always perfect.

Last year was the first year Sarah had to be registered with the Depart-ment of Education.  When the representative came to our house for the yearly visit, Sarah monopolized her time for well over half an hour discussing books, math, trips, stories, her personal file, etc.  When she was asked about being taught at home she very promptly and confidently sopke up and said that she always wanted to stay at home and have Mom teach her.  This response was good for me to hear, but it also made me think about how I would have felt if she had said the opposite.  Would I let her, or any of my children, go?  I found I had to sort out what was mine and what was theirs, and it was a very bene-ficial exercise for me to do.

And from Kathy Dolezal (MN):

This is in response to Hansi Whitelaw (GWS #67) whose 5 year old wants to go to school, and Susan Weintrob (GWS #67) who wants to hear about children participating in school programs.

Our family started homeschooling when my children were 10 (Katrina), 7 (Maryrose), and 4 (Theresa).  Both Katrina and Maryrose liked public school and were “very high achievers.”  But Bob and I had seen a surprising change in Maryrose in first grade.  She had always been a sociable, carefree, happy, and creative child.  As the year progressed, she became more and more nervous, always striving for perfection.  She did not want to homeschool.  She wanted to be in school with her friends.  Bob and I simply told her that she had to try homeschooling for one year, and after that we would review the situation. Our children, also, are used to making their own decisions, but in this case we felt strongly that Maryrose could not see what was happening to herself. After one week at home, she told us that she wanted to homeschool through high school.

Katrina made her own decision to homeschool that year.  Each year since then Katrina and Maryrose have made the decision to school at home.

I agree that children often do know what’s best for them.  However, it’s virtually impossible for decisions to be made without being influenced to one degree or another by peers.  Adults (sometimes) have a background of exper-ience in dealing with peer pressure and a comprehensive view of society that children just don’t have because they haven’t been around as long.  Children need to hear adults’ opinions and sometimes they needs us, at least temporar-ily, to make decisions for them.

Theresa had been wanting to go to school “like her big sisters” from the time she could talk.  We sent her to preschool two mornings a week hoping it would satisfy her desire to go to a real school.  It didn’t.  She was adamant about wanting to go to public kindergarten.  We compromised.  She went to pub-lic school kindergarten, but stayed home for first grade.  As second grade approached she “sort of” wanted to go back to public school because that’s where her friends were.  We started a homeschooling group that met once a week and Theresa decided to stay home.  She may or may not stay home next year.  I certainly want her to stay home and will try to convince her that staying home will be in her best interests.

In December, Katrina started attending public school part-time.  Origi-nally, she wanted to take clarinet lessons and participate in after-school activities.  The superintendent told us this was possible.  We discussed the subjects she was interested in taking and talked to the public school teach-ers.  Some of them were much more open to having her in their class than others.  Some of their teaching methods were more to Katrina’s liking than others.  She ended up taking science (which she’s always liked but hadn’t pursued much on her own) and art.  For the second semester she chose science and life skills.  She’s also taking clarinet lessons and has joined the eighth grade band.  I think the fact that she freely chose to take these subjects is significant.  The public school has become a community resource for her.

Since she started part-time school, Katrina’s contact with school friends has increased.  She now has more in common with them.  This has met another need that surfaced this year - more contact with age-mates.

In short, I believe every situation and every child is unique.  If it’s working, pursue it; if not, change lanes.  We try always to leave options open.  It helps to remember that no decision is irreversible.

Maryrose is now 11.  I asked what she thought about our decision to keep her home in second grade even though she wanted to go to public school.  Here is her reply:

I’m glad my parents made that decision for me because I don’t think that at the time I was capable of making that choice.  I was only looking at a few advantages and looking at one big disadvantage of homeschooling - not seeing my friends every day at school.  Also, I thought people might think I was silly or stupid for doing something different, like (as my friends called it at first) “not going to school.”

Next year, or maybe the year after, I might go to school part time like my 13-year-old sister.  This year I went to the public school for one day with a friend.  I found it interesting.  They certainly had some stupid rules.  It was OK but I prefer homeschooling.

As far as friends go, I have two best friends who are really nice.  I have many other friends, too.  Some of them even home school.  None of my good friends minds that I home school.  They’d like me to come back to school, but they’ll be my friends and like me even if I don’t.

For some people, homeschooling might not be right, but for me it is.  I’m glad my parents made that first decision because otherwise I might still be struggling in the public school system.  I enjoy working at my own pace and making my own decisions about what I’ll learn and how I’ll spend my time.

WHAT TO DO WHEN HUSBAND DISAGREES

Angela Decoteau of Louisiana writes:

I have seen many letters in GWS concerning children who wish to attend school.  I wonder if this is truly a desire of these children or a concern that they will become misfits, dummies, or what have you if they remain at home.

My own son Dean, who attended kindergarten in public school, has now been homeschooled for two years, free to learn, dream, and play to his heart’s con-tent.  Although I have tried to keep my comments about school positive, he has repeatedly told me how much he hated it.  When he announced his desire to attend school this coming year, I was surprised, to say the least.  Further questioning soon revealed the truth behind his decision.  It turns out my husband had promised him a gun (something he has been wanting) if he went to school, and told him that he would be a dummy if he stayed home.

Homeschooling has not been well received in my family, including my hus-band.  I have offered them literature, told them of Dean’s progress and his status on the last standardized test, but they all shrugged it off or made some excuse about why it wasn’t as good as public school.

For instance, Dean took the CAT but the public school gave the SAT, des-troying any chance Dean had to show them how well he was progressing.  He has also learned many things not on these standardized tests, but this is consid-ered nil since he hasn’t yet learned to read and write proficiently.  We have tried to have “school” with workbooks in math and English, but I have found that he does not (and who does) learn that way.  He would also become very frustrated if he didn’t know the material before working in the book.

I am concerned about Dean’s psychological well-being and fear that he will grow to hate education if he goes to school.  I feel my husband is fight-ing with his own feelings of having wasted his school years.  He was often told he was stupid for not doing as well as he could have.  He is also under great pressure from his father for not forcing me to send Dean to school. I would like to hear from other homeschoolers who have had similar prob-lems.

BAD TEST QUESTION

Charlotte Morrison wrote in the February-March issue of the Tennessee newsletter, HOMESCHOOLING FAMILIES:

Christine Wilkie’s letter about testing [”Strange Answers,” GWS #66] reminded me of a paper my son brought home from public school kindergarten. It was a picture in which they had to mark all the round objects.  There was a round sun in the sky, a van with round wheels, and some other round objects all dutifully marked.  He had also “incorrectly” marked the van’s steering wheel, which was shown as a half circle in the windshield.  Every steering wheel in his experience was round, so his imagination had filled in the unseen portion.  To be fair, his teacher marked it right after first marking it wrong.  But I started thinking.  How many other teachers would mark it wrong simply because the “experts” said it was?  And what about a child with even more imagination than my son who might try to mark the van’s two other invi-sible wheels?

HOMESCHOOLING WHILE MOTHER IS ILL

Paula Heimbach (PA) writes:

As a homeschooling mother of three children (2, 6, and 11) I was asked the question, “What do you do if you get sick?”  How do I teach if I’m ill, in other words.  I never really thought about it until I had my wisdom teeth out recently.  I think when the parent is temporarily unable to perform his or her daily tasks, having the children home comes in handy.  They have a sense of pride in being able to help.

When I came home from the oral surgeon’s, my family was instructed not to leave me alone for the next several hours.  My husband had to go to the store, so he told our 11 year old, Jeff, to sit by my bed.  Jeff was reading for a while, then he offered to play my Tchaikovsky tape for me.  He knows I enjoy it and don’t have much chance to listen to music.  Later, he practiced some math.  I thought that if he was in school, he would miss the chance to mini-ster to members of his family.  He is in the real world here at home, and learning important lessons in life.  I think school tends to cut children off from family life.  Everything revolves around “what do I need for school” instead of the family’s needs.

SPOILING THE MOMENT

Wendy Wendt (MN) writes:

While riding in the car yesterday, I listened as my 9 year old son prac-ticed a tongue twister over and over again to himself: “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?  He would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.” After several tries, he said it perfectly and I immediately said to him, “That was good!”

Right away I could see the surprise and disappointment on his face and he said to me, “You’re acting just like a teacher and I’m supposed to be your student.”

He was right.  Although I hadn’t consciously meant it to sound that way, the words had just popped out.  I was excited to see that he had accomplished a goal of his own making.  In reality, though, I had nothing to do with him deciding to practice that rhyme or his being able to say it fast and correct-ly.  It was of his own choosing and doing and I had unintentionally spoiled the moment for him. He had practiced that rhyme for himself, not for me, and I took the joy of it away by implying that I had something to do with it.

I apologized, but how I wish I could take the words back.  I wish I had not said anything and just let him enjoy the moment for himself as John Holt talked about in GWS #4 (”Batting Practice”).  Like John, I hope I, too, can remain quiet the next time.

DIFFICULT SCHOOL EXPERIENCES

We don’t usually devote much GWS space to school horror stories, although our mail is full of them, believing that it’s better to use the magazine to talk about positive and constructive alternatives.  Sometimes, though, stories about difficult school experiences remind us of what it is that we’re trying to live without.  Also, the stories below are from people who have not let the difficult experiences top them from trusting their own judgment about what is right, and, ultimately, from finding an alternative. —————————————————————————–BULLYING ON THE SCHOOL BUS

Monica Green (OR) writes:

When I was 8, I went to public school.  Everything went fine except for the bus ride when some girls got on board and decided to pick on a little kid. The little kid was me.  The girls were about as old as I am now (12) and I was pretty little.  On the way to school, this big girl sat behind me and starting bopping my head, and threatened to beat me up.  I was really scared.  And a big boy in front (about 14 or 15) said gross and disgusting things and asked me dirty questions.  Just to be safe I had to answer them, or else he would also, I guess, beat me up.

I had to put up with this on the ride to school and back every day.  It was getting so bad that I was also failing my school work, and my second grade teacher kept saying, “Oh, she’s doing just fine,” when I wasn’t.  I got really mad at the teacher and talked to my mom about it.

I went through so much stress that I got earaches, headaches and stomach-aches.  I couldn’t eat or sleep and every morning I would wake up crying and screaming.  I got so sick that I missed a whole lot of school.

Mom found out about all of what I told you and my mom and dad pulled me out of school.  That was when I started homeschooling.  Then in third and fourth grade I went to a Seventh Day Adventist school.  It wasn’t so bad but in fourth grade the teachers got too strict so I was pulled out of there and in fifth grade I did homeschooling again.  It worked out great, but I didn’t do so well on the test I had to take.  Now I’m in sixth grade and it looks like I won’t have to take the test, so I’m more relaxed.  I’m glad I can home-school, and I have pen-pals who are glad to homeschool also.

MOTHER TAKES RESPONSIBILITY

Tracy Crocker of California writes:

I found that when I relinquished my daughter Michelle to public school education, I lost too much control of her upbringing.  Her formal education began at a very early age, with a combination kindergarten and daycare center. I remember hating to pick her up each day because I felt that the teachers were lying in wait to tell me the horrible things my child had done that day. Her most often repeated and worst offense was throwing up her lunch.  She didn’t like the heavy starch-based food this daycare center served.  It took me some time to determine, though, that the vomiting occurred because the teacher forced Michelle’s food down her throat because she refused to eat it. When I learned this, I told Michelle not to be disrespectful, but when she didn’t want something on her lunch tray she should say, “No thank you.”

The next day the teacher confronted me, looking like Michelle had commit-ted murder.  “Do you know what Michelle did today at lunch? She pushed her plate away and said, `No, thank you.’”  I was young, meek, and a total coward. I simply shook my head and said, “You’re kidding,” effectively leaving my daughter alone to fight her lunchtime battles.

One afternoon I was handed a permission slip when I came to get Michelle. Clearly, I was expected to sign without questions, but I asked some anyway and determined that it was for Michelle to go to speech therapy.  When I asked why Michelle needed speech therapy I couldn’t find anyone to give me an answer.  I finally tracked down the speech therapist herself and was told that Michelle had trouble saying her “S’s.”  Further prodding produced the infor-mation that Michelle would most likely outgrow the problem.  In a rare moment of parental assertion, I refused to sign the permission slip for speech therapy.

A week later when I picked Michelle up she was alone in the huge play-room, and in tears.  “Mama, I have to stay in here while everyone else gets to go to speech therapy.”  I tried to undo my mistake, but no amount of plead-ing could get Michelle into speech therapy at that point. Homeschooling for me, then, is about parental empowerment and the taking of responsibility.

TRIED SCHOOL AND DIDN’T LIKE IT

Bart Brush of New York writes:

We have been teaching our boys (aged 9 and 12) at home for three years. The older one, Scott, went back to school this year for seventh grade - his choice.  He finds it boring and “stupid,” and can’t wait to return to home-schooling next year.  His best subject, and the only one he says he likes is ninth grade algebra, which we were able to place him in because of his extra progress at home, because he was one of eight kids his age to get a perfect score on last year’s standardized math tests, and because he got an 86 on last year’s eight grade math final.

His worst and least tolerable subject is English.  The teacher’s style is traditional, with lots of dittoed skill sheets - library skills, vocabulary, etc.  Not very much writing or reading.  In twenty-five weeks of school, the class has read one book, four short stories, and two books individually for book reports.  The teacher’s idea of writing is doing a “big” piece every three-four weeks, with nothing in between.  Scott hates English and doesn’t find time to read anything other than his textbook assignments.  This is a boy who, at home, read 3-4000 pages a year and wrote a page a day in his journal. When I suggest to his teacher that more emphasis be placed on reading and writing and less on vocabulary, grammar, library skills, etc., she says, “That would be nice, but we have so much material we have to cover.”  I’ve suggested to his teachers that instead of textbook assignments, it might be appropriate, once in a while, to assign a well-written history book or historical novel, a biography, or a real book about some aspect of the history of science or math. The response, again: “There’s so much material we have to cover.”  Materialism has taken on a new meaning!  We took our sons out of school when our older son’s three fourth grade teachers sent home the following “material” for home-work: one page of colonial costumes to color, one page of state symbols (state bird, tree, etc.) to color, one dinosaur to color, and a title page of a writ-ing assignment to color - all within two weeks.  These were not drawing assignments; they were mimeoed outlines to color in.  Needless to say, we don’t use this kind of material in this homeschool program.

WATCHING CHILDREN LEARN

HISTORY TURNS OUT TO BE FUN

From Diana Baseman (PA):

In our official curriculum for this year, I said that we were going to be studying American history, so I’ve been reading Olivia (11) some biographies of Americans, like Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.  I decided to this - it wasn’t Olivia’s decision - but she has really enjoyed hearing about these people’s lives, and we’ve had some good discussions.

Olivia Baseman adds:

When I first heard that my mother was going to read me that American history, I was excited, but then, a little later, when it was almost time to start, she told me about it again and I said, “Oh, I don’t want to do that.” I was really pessimistic about it.  But then when we actually started reading, I really got into it, especially the historical novels.  JOHNNY TREMAIN is my favorite of what we’ve read so far.  I’ve often been pessimistic about some-thing having to do with schoolwork, and then when we actually do it it turns out to be fun.

VOLUNTEERING AT THE MUSEUM TOGETHER

From an article that homeschooler Luz Shosie (CT) wrote for THE NATURAL FARMER:

…Jonathan (9) and I have been working as volunteers at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.  Last year we were behind the scenes in the entomology department.  We counted, sorted, and helped prepare insects for the teaching collection.  The entomologist we worked with truly appreciated Jonathan’s help and was eager to answer his questions.  This year we are docents in the Great Hall of Dinosaurs.  We sit with a cart with fossils that people can handle and ask questions about.  The Museum’s Director of Public Education is experimenting with a new way of teaching - rather than the formal lectures they have been doing, she is encouraging staff and volunteers to use a more conversational way of conducting classes and tours.  She is delighted to have a young person who can answer and engage children in discussion, and Jonathan is delighted to be doing real work in the real world.

USING ALTERNATIVE COOPERATIVE SCHOOL

Mika Perrine of Wisconsin writes:

I attend an alternative school called Penokee Mountain Cooperative School once a week.  We take certain months off, though, so I’m still pretty much homeschooled.  Penokee has been around since 1980.  It started out as a pre-school and has evolved into a resource center for homeschoolers, with a micro-scope, games, books, tapes, and toys to check out.  All the teachers are either parents of the kids enrolled or volunteers, and they offer different classes.  For example, this session we have writing, genealogy and skiing. Most all the kids (about twenty of them) have known each other since they were 5 or 6, and we’re all pretty good friends.  We’ve put on about one major play a year, which is lots of fun.  Our most recent play was about how the white people made treaties for the Indians to sign and tricked them into giving up their land in the process.  My mom is teaching a class on writing, and I wrote a 21-page story about a boy who meets a prisoner and finds out he’s not really mean.  It’s going to be typed and I’m making it into a book.

I have been homeschooled all my life and I really like it.  I take Suzuki violin lessons and I know how to read music (I might even join a quartet!).  I entered a lego building contest this month and built a baseball game.  I didn’t place, but it was lots of fun.  I collect stamps and I’m also very interested in genealogy - I’ve gone back eleven generations on my family tree.

RECOVERING FROM SCHOOL

Sadie Britt (GA) writes:

I took my daughter Katie, now 7, out of the first grade in February of 1988.  It was wonderful to see how she blossomed at home.  I know that I’m far from perfect - too disorganized in some things and too anxious about others. But even so, I know that academically and spiritually Katie’s done better at home than she would have at school.  Her self-esteem was steamrollered in school.  Other children were better than she was at drawing pictures, so she stopped drawing.  She burst into tears when she had to show me a report card full of C’s (in the first grade!).  She wrote slowly and with difficulty, and often left whole words out of the exercises they copied off the board.  She’d learned how to muddle through and finish the job any old way.  And she’d been arbitrarily placed in the lowest reading group.  Over the summer she’d started stumbling through THE CAT IN THE HAT, but somehow her teacher deter-mined that she “didn’t recognize that the printed word wasn’t the spoken word” and that “there are things we must do before we can read.”  In Katie’s case that meant circling the picture that began with the letter “D,” etc.  At that time I was totally flabbergasted.  I told the teacher that Katie could already read a little and asked her to reevaluate her.  But she just smiled profes-sionally and gave me a pamphlet telling me what I could do to help at home.  I was pretty intimidated.  We tried to work with this situation for six months.

All’s well that ends well.  Katie is now happily reading whenever she wants to.  I can’t imagine anything more ludicrous than forcing my happy little reader to read a set passage in an idiotic “reader.”  Leaving her alone to find her own way in math, though, felt like abandoning her in the middle of the Amazon.  Well, I’d never abandoned her about the reading.  I’ve always been a bookworm so reading together has always just been something we always did.  Some day I hope sharing math will become natural, but right now it’s still something I make her do.  I couldn’t force it on her if she didn’t enjoy it sometimes, but I know she resents the coercion.

We’ve decided to have third grade at home too.  GWS has given me a lot of encouragement.  I’m relaxed about things now.  I doubt Katie would’ve asked to stay home next year if I’d been the doubt-ridden, anxious harridan I was at first.

I’d always regarded homeschooling as a temporary measure.  At first I’d planned to return Katie to conventional school in second grade - then third grade - now maybe fourth.  Katie’s father has never lived with us, but he does try to stay involved and he has never approved of her being at home.  He thinks I’m on the lunatic fringe and that I’m going to make Katie weird.  He honestly thought Katie would have been better off muddling through and feeling stupid, because she’d “be learning to function in a group.”  This for a child who’s been in full-time daycare most of her life!  He thinks I’m depriving her socially.  Poor Kate - for a gregarious child, it was torture in school to be in a room full of children she wasn’t allowed to talk to.

I am a single parent.  I wouldn’t be able to homeschool if it weren’t for the Baylor Plan.  I’m an R.N. and working Baylor means I can work two twelve-hour shifts on the weekends for full-time pay and benefits.  It’s exhausting but it’s worth it.  I even get to be a human being.  I’m playing the piano and reading eighteenth-century literature.

ADVANTAGES OF BEING AN OLDER READER

Jean Jakoboski (CT) writes:

Justin (9) is a late bloomer in reading, and I want to share some of the blessings in that.  We were asked how Justin picks out books in the library. When asked, Justin says, “I know what I want.  I look at the pictures.”  Gift number one:  knowing what he wants.  I don’t remember having much of a sense of that myself at 9.  An example:  THE MONEY GAME by David Ericson.  The cover shows dollar bills.  Justin is drawn to this book because of his general interest in policework and, more specifically, in counterfeiting.  Lo and behold, it’s the first book he’s been able to read aloud himself, forty-four pages, minimal pictures.

I am continually impressed with the books Justin finds for me to read aloud to him.  I wouldn’t pick them out for my own reading; I probably would-n’t pick them out for Justin either.  Gift number two:  expansion of my own interests and knowledge.  An example is a book we’re reading now, SAM COLT AND HIS GUN: THE LIFE OF THE INVENTOR OF THE REVOLVER, by Gertrude Hecker Winders.  This Junior Biography is written in a way that keeps my interest as well as Justin’s.  Even though Colt was born close by in Hartford and we’ve driven by the Colt Building many times, it never occurred to me that someone making guns might have an interesting story.  And an interesting story it is! If Justin read on his own a lot, I would be missig so much.  It would prob-ably take more effort on my part to remember to read aloud, too.  As it is, I consider his ability to listen phenomenal and worth taking note of.

LEARNING TO READ, PLAYING WORD GAMES

Ellen Shipley (CA) writes:

Billy now reads books with few pictures and fifth grade heroes (he reads faster than I do!), but his comfort level is probably at the Berenstain Bears stage; when he’s had too much of the former, he retreats to the latter.  He consults his GOLDEN BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA almost daily, as topics catch his fancy. We ordered it straight from Western Publishing for $85, and it is the best investment we could have made in his education.  It is up-to-date, colorful, chock full of photographs and diagrams, with entries one-page or shorter.

Billy and his daddy play word puzzle games that involve addition and sub-traction.  (”If there are four riders on four horses, how many legs…?”) Billy has invented his own symbol for “take away” that looks like a wagon to pull the number away with (Bill, his father, didn’t want to rush into for-malized symbols, so he hadn’t shown Billy the subtraction sign yet).  Billy does his own problems spontaneously, using his little wagon.  Lately Bill has introduced the concept of multiplication, just to test the waters, and Billy is intrigued.  They also write coded letters to each other using a simple numbers-for-letters substitution code, which gives Billy endless practice writing.

Hangman has become his favorite game.  We play it on the backs of place-mats in restaurants while waiting for our meal.  We’ve also developed a verbal version, using hand signals for the unfortunate hanged man, which we can play on walks.  To steer away from the morbidity of the hanged man, I developed a variation I call VOLCANO, which builds up to an eruption in seven stages, if the word is not guessed beforehand.  Billy is pretty good at guessing and making up the words.

HOW TO HELP WITH SPELLING

Mary Adams of Colorado writes:

I found a way to help my 12-year-old daughter, Rebecca, with spelling and punctuation.  Rather than memorizing rules, she is learning by repetition and logical application.

Rebecca had written a story.  She wanted me to type it and asked me to correct the punctuation and spelling, which I did.  I wanted also to improve her writing, and when I tried to change it, she went to her room.  I was left at the kitchen table knowing that that hadn’t worked.  When she reappeared to finish typing, I did what she asked and no more.  She asked me to read what she had written aloud so that she wouldn’t have to look from the paper to the typewriter.  At that point, I was feeling uncomfortable.  I asked myself, “Am I doing too much for her?  Will she learn from this?”  But as I read the words aloud I saw that hearing them this way made her spell from memory, and if she didn’t know a word, she asked me to spell it.

I had tried to teach Rebecca to read phonetically but she became frustra-ted.  She learned to read by reading.  I’ve been concerned about how she would learn to spell if she didn’t know phonics.  But I’m coming to believe that, as Herbert Kohl said in READING, HOW TO, you can learn to spell by spelling.  So I don’t insist that she look the word up in the dictionary or sound it out.

I noticed previously that when Rebecca was typing or even rewriting a story in which I had corrected the punctuation, she didn’t usually see the corrections.  So this time when I was reading the words I said, “Capital T for `The’ at the beginning of a sentence, and `period’ at the end.”  I would also add reasons for punctuation:  “If you use a capital letter, you know it’s the beginning of a thought.”  “A comma goes where you hesitate.”

We typed her next paper the same way.  This time she know how to capital-ize, which confirmed that she is learning step by step through this method.

BECOMING A WRITER

Ilana Goldman (IL) writes:

Because he was born into a family of book lovers, books were always an important part of Gideon’s world.  During his infancy, we spent countless hours rocking and reading in our rocking chair.  Even when we read to our-selves, he is regularly exposed to models of people who really enjoy reading.

When Gideon was almost 3, we created his first book.  I made it from some pieces of paper stapled together, with a construction paper cover.  On each page he made a scribble, and then he decided what the scribble meant and I wrote it down in his own words.  In a few instances I helped him a little with a question or a suggestion, but it still stayed his thing.  (The book is called “The Roly-Poly Box” and describes how he found a sleeping lonely box that became his friend and was full of presents for him.)

When, soon afterwards, his friend had a birthday, we decided to make a book for her as her present.  This time Gideon’s scribbles were intended to be writing.  After each sentence he told me what he wrote, and I added a trans-lation and an illustration.  The book was titled “What happened to Julia” and ended with Gideon and Julia being Snow White and a dwarf and singing “Hi Ho Hi Ho”…

By now Gideon was thinking of himself as an author, and I became his illustrator.  Our next project was inspired by a book that Gideon received from his father.  The book was about nightmares hiding in closets, and for a while Gideon became rather scared of closets.  A friend gave him a Magic Wand to get rid of the nightmares, and Gideon spent a whole day “poofing” out those nightmares and doing other magic with his wand.

When Gideon plays he likes to give me a narrative of his activities, and I soon realized that we had the makings of a new book.  I found that by com-bining his boundless imagination with my minimal writing skills and my grow-ing illustrating skills we can come up with really neat stuff.

People often ask me how am I going to teach Gideon reading and writing. I am convinced that it is much more important to help him love books, and have the confidence that he can create original work.  Armed with such atti-tudes he will naturally be interested in acquiring the tools he needs -reading and writing skills.

I love watching how Gideon teaches himself.  When he was 2 he received a letter game from Grandma.  For several days he would run to anybody in sight with a letter in his hand and ask what it was.  After memorizing the names of all the letters he started recognizing words on signs and store names.  At 4 he has a list of words he can recognize, but he is the first to tell you that he cannot read yet.  I find it interesting that he can make that distinction between the ability to recognize some words and the ability to read.

Gideon has had many opportunities to use our computer.  He is quite com-petent at getting into a program such as MacDraw and using its various op-tions.  When typing, he randomly presses the buttons and then asks me to read what he has written (and has great fun hearing things like kvghlvv). Two weeks ago while playing like that he announced that he was going to write his name, and proceeded to do so.  Then he went on to write the names of the rest of us.  He was having some trouble with the vowels, but got all the consonants right. (We did not correct him but answered his questions when he asked.)

Today, as I was working on this article at the GWS office [SS: Ilana spent two weeks in February volunteering here with her children], Gideon de-cided he was going to write an “I”, and he did - trying several versions until he got it right.  Then he proceeded to draw a person - head, body and legs. Up until today, he would only scribble (except one memorable day right after he learned the letters, when he made an “S” and then a “G”, neatly, offhand-edly, and has never repeated it since).

Gideon’s progress is erratic.  I have no idea when he will be reading and writing “for real”, and I don’t really care.  I love observing him work at his own pace, and I have such a good time in the process.

RETHINKING THE TEACHER’S RED INK

Nancy Wallace (NY) writes:

I look back on my school papers, all marked up with the teacher’s red ink, with a kind of horror.  And I look back on my schoolish stilted prose feeling resentment for all the harm that my teachers did to my writing.  I took such care to get everything right that I lost all sense of the flow of my words, and all sense, if I ever had any, of what I most wanted to say.

My children, Vita and Ishmael, were raised in a family of writers, but in obvious reaction to my own schooling, I left them to figure out the mechanics of writing on their own.  I didn’t even teach Vita how to shape her letters, but perversely waited to see what she would do on her own.  By the time she was 6, she had given me a clear understanding of how she expected me to respond to her writing.  When she wrote for herself (in her journal), our family, or other close friends and relatives, she wanted no help and no sly comments about the fact that she paid no attention whatsoever to spelling and punctuation.  She trusted us to decipher her messages, and when we didn’t, she figured that it was simply our loss.  When she wrote to people less intimate, though, she expected me to correct even the smallest error, and she laid the responsibility entirely in my lap.  What she hated most was having some stran-ger call her invented spelling “cute”, and she trusted me to protect her from that.

Sitting back and hoping that she would eventually change her attitude made me nervous, since there was no way that I could be absolutely sure that she would.  To trust her was an act of faith.  But, of course, the reason that I can write about this at all is that now that she is older, she has taught me that it was worth the risk.  She finally did take an interest in writing correctly, the way she took an interest in joining the adult world in other ways.  At first unconsciously, but later very consciously, she began trying to reconcile her own spelling and punctuation with the spelling and punctuation that she saw in real books, and she managed, simply because she felt it was her responsibility to do so as the best way to communicate her ideas.

Often, now, she sits at the typewriter, with a pen and correcting tape at her left, and with a big dictionary at her right.  Sometimes she calls me over to ask whether I think a comma or a semi-colon would be more appropriate or to ask how I would break up a sentence to make it more readable.  We are now becoming real writing partners.  I ask her to proof my stuff the way she asks me to proof hers, and although it’s always a sensitive job to critique another person’s writing, I know that when she turns to me she is demanding honesty.  I am frankly picky, not just about correct grammar, but about style. Sometimes I worry that I am no different from my old teachers with their red ink.  I wonder how I can applaud a teacher who “just lets her students write” when there I am, saying to Vita, “I’d chop this sentence up here and perhaps take out a few of the redundant adjectives,” or “Don’t forget that necessary has two s’s.”

All this questioning of myself and all my discomfort about my seeming double-standard came to a head last week when a sixth grader from one of the local public schools sent me a report on homeschooling that he had written for his social studies class.  It was typed, and came complete with attached charts, graphs, reference lists, and related xeroxed articles that he had dug up from homeschooling publications.  Circled in red, on the title page, was a 98, with a word or two of praise written, also in red of course, underneath.

Actually, the report was wonderful.  It was full of useful information and interesting personal opinions, the writing was clear and concise, and even the graphs and charts were useful.  There were many spelling errors, though, and some major grammatical errors, yet the teacher didn’t mark one.  In fact, except for the title page, there wasn’t a red mark on the entire report.  I found myself feeling angry - almost as if the teacher had abused this child -and yet I was confused about why I felt this way.  I mean, here I was feeling bothered because a teacher hadn’t done the very thing that had supposedly helped to make my own school life so miserable.  “How can this be?” I kept asking myself.  Then, finally, I understood.  When the teacher graded my friend’s report - in fact, when she assigned it in the first place - she was in effect saying, “I will take responsibility for your writing.  I will decide what and when you should write, and I will decide the ultimate worth of the writing.”  Although it was clear from his ebullient style that school hadn’t managed to crush my friend’s writing the way it had mine, he couldn’t help, under the circumstances, but value the teacher’s opinion of his work more than his own.  He couldn’t help but (on some level anyway) turn over the responsi-bility for its grammatical correctness to her.  If the teacher didn’t mark any errors then presumably, he must have thought, there weren’t any, especial-ly when she awarded the writing a top grade.  Unlike Vita, who both conscious-ly and unconsciously took responsibility for her writing over the years, by matching what she wrote with the writing that she saw all around her, my friend, as soon as he entered school, no longer had to look so carefully at “real ” writing - his teachers let him know that they would tell him what was right and what was wrong.

No wonder, then, that I was angry at this teacher, who had taken respon-sibility for a child’s writing but then didn’t have the honesty to admit it by pointing out the ways that it could have been improved, or the energy to sit down with him and go over the writing with the respect and seriousness that it deserved.  When a teacher gives assignments and grades her students’ work, she needs to acknowledge that she has in an important way taken over the responsibility for that work, and deal with the consequences.

MORE ON FOREIGN-BORN, ADOPTED BOYS

Jackie Adema of Hawaii writes:

In response to Rusty Taylor’s letter in GWS #67 about homeschooling two foreign-born, adopted sons:  All four of our children are adopted.  The older two are from Korea and have been with us since they were three months old. Seth is 13 now and we began homeschooling him in second grade.  Nicole is now in fifth grade and she has never been in a formal school.

Our younger two boys, Andrew and Joel are the ones who fit Rusty’s des-cription.  They are from the Philippines and were 3 and 4 when they joined our family.  They did not speak any English at all.  We never had any problem com-municating with them, though.  They may have understood more English than they spoke because some English is spoken in the Philippines, but we were told they did not know English.  They learned very quickly from our other children and the neighborhood children.

During the first two years that Andrew and Joel were with us I did very little in the way of formal schooling with them.  We read to them and they played outdoors a lot.  We felt they needed to learn a lot of English words in their speaking vocabulary before we could teach them to read.  They are active, outdoor boys anyway and it seemed a shame to coop them up with too much schoolwork too soon.

Last year I put them into the A Beka kindergarten curriculum.  The summer before that I introduced them to letters and reading in a fun way by using the Sing, Spell, Read and Write program for just a short time each day.  They were able to finish the kindergarten material by noon each day so they still had a lot of time to play.  This year they are just finishing the A Beka first grade material.  They are reading the assigned readers easily now and are at that stage where they try to read all the street signs and television credits by themselves.

We think homeschooling is best for all four of our children but we are especially glad that we have had this option for Andrew and Joel.  We feel strongly that if they had been required to enter a regular school at age 5 or 6 they would not have done well at all.  They would not have known enough English to keep up with the class and might have been labeled slow learners early on.

THINKING ABOUT GUESSING

Stephanie Judy (BC) writes:

I’ve been thinking lately about guessing in response to questions or problems.  Some guesses spring from an intuitive source, and can lead to dis-covery or innovation.  But in many educational settings, we hear lots of wild guessing that grows from panic or fear or shame - the tendency to give some answer, any answer, no matter how ridiculous, rather than be forced to admit that he or she doesn’t know or doesn’t remember or doesn’t understand the question.

In our family, we’ve coped with this up to now by avoiding situations that encourage wild guessing.  However, my daughter Tess and I recently start-ed using the Spalding WRITING ROAD TO READING program, with its constant re-view process.  To discourage wild guessing, we’ve adapted an idea from Lore Rasmussen’s NOTES FOR TEACHERS.  One of her students thought this up, and we changed it a bit to suit our needs.

I took five manila mailing envelopes, and wrote the following captions on the outside:  (1) I’m certain.  I’m sure.  I know that I know.  (2)  I’m fair-ly certain.  I’m pretty sure.  I think I know.  (3)  I’m not sure, but I’ll take a guess.  (4)  I’m not sure, and I’d rather not guess.  (5)  I’d like to think about it a bit more.  In our daily use, these have been shortened to Know, Pretty, Guess, No Guess, and Think.  We numbered the envelopes at first, but later took the numbers off so they wouldn’t imply degrees of “rightness”.

When we review the WRR phonogram cards, Tess first sorts them into the envelopes, and then we go through each envelope, taking them in any order she wants to.  When she writes phonograms from dictation, she writes the phono-gram (without seeing the card) and then tells me which envelope to put the card in.

We haven’t been doing this for too long, but my impression so far is that wild guessing has been completely eliminated.  I am surprised at how rarely she uses the “I know” and “I’d rather not guess” envelopes.  It seems to me that she uses “I’m pretty sure” for many cards that appear to be “I know” to me.  The “I’ll take a guess” envelope seems to catch the cards that used to be wild guesses, and she nearly always gets them right, or if not right then at least very close.  If she guesses and doesn’t get it right, it is usually clear to me where the confusion is.  This is a wonderful change from wild guessing, when guesses are sometimes so far off that you have no idea where the difficulty is.  Our reviews are also calm and companionable - I don’t feel as if I’m testing her all the time.

Here’s the best part:  After we took the numbers off the envelopes, I wanted to mark them in some way so we could see at a glance which was which. I thought about it for several days, but couldn’t come up with any appropriate symbols or drawings.  I turned the problem over to Tess, and she immediately drew a closed circle on #1, an almost-closed circle on #2, and so on, up to a bowl shape on #5.  How beautiful.  When we know, our knowledge may be per-fect, but it is also closed.  When we don’t know, we are still open.

LEARNING FROM CHILDREN’S PLAY

NOT UPSET ABOUT FAILURE

Sue Radosti (SD) writes:

It’s funny how we adults assume that we have so much to teach our child-ren about self-discipline, handling frustration, being patient, etc.  Watching my two-year-old Adrianna’s current obsession with manipulative toys (legos, puzzles, blocks), I envy her patient efforts at diffcult tasks.  She is so much more concerned about the experience of doing than about the end product that she will try and try to do something impossible (e.g. putting a puzzle piece in the wrong place, turning it every which way to try to make it fit) and yet show no sign of being upset over repeated failure.  Sometimes I get frustrated watching her and have to resist saying, “No, no, no! You can put that block on top twenty more times and it will fall off twenty more times! Give up!”  But she doesn’t care.  The task is still pleasurable, the explor-ation is still very worthwhile to her, so it’s important that I don’t impose goals on her play:  “Let’s see how tall we can build this tower.”  That will come soon enough, although of course I hope that keeping her out of school will help her retain some of that openness in her explorations.  She would also do well to ignore my own fuming, fretting, fussing example!

COOPERATIVE PLAY - MAKING NEW RULES

Janise Wooten (AZ) writes:

I’ve noticed a very interesting phenomenon among homeschoolers in our group.  Because they take care of many of their own needs without adult inter-ference, they don’t tend to need referees in the games they play.  Nor do they tend to play by conventional rules.  When they are with each other their main focus seems to be to have fun rather than to win.

A week ago I watched Joseph, 11, and Brian, nearly 9, play with some other homeschoolers in a basketball game.  I almost cringed when I saw the double dribbling and the traveling, until I realized what was happening.  The younger and older children alike (from about 16 down to about 8) were playing together without any pleading from the parents for the older ones to include the younger ones.  Every now and then an older child would gently remind a younger traveler or double dribbler that in basketball one needs to keep bouncing the ball and not run with it.  But there was no penalty; the game just kept right on going, very different from the way it would have if there had been a referee and the game were a “real” basketball game.

Joseph, as he read what I am writing, just said, “Yeah, a lot of basket-ball players don’t get to play because there are only the best ones and they all have to play a certain way. When we were playing our game at the park some teenagers (from outside our group) came by and somebody asked them to play. Then they kept on doing slam dunks and only threw it to the best players.  It was boring because I never got the ball.  Even the younger kids got to have the ball before.  After the teenagers came my younger brother quit because he never could get the ball.  When my mom came to tell us it was time to go, I didn’t want to go because I wanted to beat them.  Before they came I did not want to beat anyone because I had fun anyway.”

Perhaps the kids from outside our group just did not know how rewarding and fun it can be to include everyone of all ages - even people who run with the ball.  Nor, perhaps, did they realize the fun they were missing out on by focusing on competition.  Could it have been that in school they had learned always to go by the rules, no matter what the cost (I’m sure they had no con-scious idea that there was even a cost involved)?

I’m certainly not saying that the homeschoolers did not use any rules before the kids from outside our group joined them.  On the contrary, they used many of the rules of basketball.  But the difference was that they felt free not to use rules they saw as irrelevant or had simply not yet learned. They were also very tolerant of others (usually the younger ones) who did not know as many rules as they did.

RETHINKING “SCHLEPPING CHILDREN AROUND”

From Susan Shilcock (PA):

I’ve been thinking recently about chauffeuring children.  So often I hear people say, “Oh, I have to schlep my child all over,” complaining about being the suburban mother who taxis her children all over.  And then people who enjoy living out in the country may complain that to do anything they have to get in the car and drive forty-five minutes.  All of those complaints are valid, and I’m certainly someone who, with four children, does a lot of driv-ing to activities in the course of a week.  We’re all really happy with those activities that the children are involved in, but it certainly does involve a lot of car time.  Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about that car time, and about the positive side of it.

Last week I realized, all of a sudden, that our times in the car are sometimes our very best times together.  Often what happens is that something inspires a conversation - maybe there’s some construction in the road and somebody asks, “Why are we stopping here?” - and that may lead to a whole dis-cussion of the use of township taxes to repave the highways, why things get held up in the government of the township, why some people want something built and others don’t, and all sorts of things that I wouldn’t otherwise have thought of bringing up.  I find that the four children have their own ques-tions, all at different levels, that they seem almost compelled to ask about this sort of thing.  They ask, “Why would somebody not want to build a road once they started building it?  Why would the township spend that much money and then stop?” and so on - the conversation can go on and on.  I think the fact that we’re all a captive audience in the car, all necessarily together for that finite period of time, contributes to this.  So I’ve found the time in the car to be a wonderful time for family discussion, and I’ve come to value it.

I’ve also been thinking about carpooling.  We’ve always tended to do a lot of the driving to activities; our children haven’t been involved in many car pools, although there are a few families that we do trade driving with. But one of the advantages of being the parent who drives, when you’re driving your own children and their friends, is that you get to hear, and almost eavesdrop, in a positive way, on the children naturally relating to each other as they’re involved in their own conversation in the back seat.  You have a chance to see how your children see themselves in relation to their peers -are they quick to jump in with a joke in conversation, are they the ones com-ing up with ideas, and so on.  Our children are sometimes quite different with other children, outside the family, from the way they are inside the family, so I’ve appreciated those glimpses into that - which I’m not as likely to get when they have friends over and are off playing in another room.  I wouldn’t want to sit nearby and listen to their conversation in that kind of situation, because I certainly value their privacy, but I feel like in the car they know I’m there even if they’re not paying much attention to me.

Another advantage to being the driver is that because I get to see the children just as they come out of the activity - ballet or violin lessons, for example - I get a good sense of how it went that day, just by seeing how they are when they’re fresh from the activity.  It can give me a more immediate sense of how they’re responding to the lesson, what kind of mood it leaves them in, than I might get if I waited to ask about it later.  So for that reason, too, I really don’t mind being the one to pick the children up at these outside activities, and I’ve even come to appreciate being able to do it.

CHILDREN IN THE WORKPLACE

IN THE FOOD CO-OP

Mary Van Doren (VA) writes:

Until last week, my husband Mark worked at the local food co-op.  The girls and I fairly often went with him.  It’s a co-op with working members so there are often children there working with their parents for a few hours a month (including several homeschooling families).  When we went in we would go for a whole day, and almost everyone who works there has made it a point to tell us how much they enjoy having us there.

Helen (5) does a lot of work.  Greta (3) does more playing, but did help Mark stock shelves the last time we were in.  She was very careful about doing it neatly.  Helen does stock work (with other people, usually), labels coffee bags, bags produce, helps sweep, prices incoming items.  Once she helped mark some advertising flyers that were to be sent out (they had been dated wrong). One day Helen went in with Mark for a half a day, without me and Greta.  She has worked with several adults there besides Mark and me, both store employees and working members.

If we get hungry, there’s always food available, and if the children get restless we can go for a walk to the nearby business district or to the local branch library, about half a mile from the store.  There are also parks near-by, but the children like being in the store so much that we seldom leave for long and have never bothered with the parks.  Playing outside is something they can do all the time at home.

The other handy thing is a kind of hammock chair in the co-op office. When the girls get tired they can sit there, alone or together.  There is always someone working in the office, and they know that they have to be quiet and out of the way when they are there.

Even though Mark doesn’t work at the co-op anymore, I think we’ll prob-ably still stop by from time to time to work - we all enjoy it so much.

I also have a little job cleaning a cottage here on the farm where we live.  Our landlords rent it to vacationers on a weekend or weekly basis.  The children come with me when I get it ready for the next folks coming in.  They often help with the work, and otherwise keep themselves busy playing in the yard - there are wildflowers and a stream and rocks to climb - a nice place.

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We’d like to hear stories about children learning from other children -siblings or friends learning from each other informally or in more formal tutoring situations.  Thanks! —————————————————————————–

JOHN HOLT’S BOOK AND MUSIC STORE ——————————–

A MATHEMATICAL MYSTERY TOUR by Mark Wahl

In our homeschooling adventures we have been attempting to find a way to alleviate what we find to be everyday mathematical drudgery.  We can grocery shop, use recipes, and balance the checkbook only so many times before these activities become less than stimulating.  We were at the “I don’t want to do any more math - let’s go outside and pick some flowers” stage when A MATHE-MATICAL MYSTERY TOUR appeared.  We have found it to be a fun-filled alterna-tive to the mathematical tasks we were engaged in.

Author Mark Wahl, as our tour guide, has planned many intriguing adven-tures based on discoveries he has made about the relationship between mathe-matics and nature.  Pinecones, sunflowers, and pineapples are some of the tools we used on our first adventure into the land of number relationships.

It hadn’t occurred to me to look to the pinecone as a way of increasing my awareness of the relationships between numbers and nature until the author pointed out that the scales of the pinecone form families of curved patterns called helices.  These same helices are present in the pattern of seeds in the center of a sunflower, in the arrangement of the hexagonal bumps of a pine-apple, in the spiral created when one pulls the petals off a daisy, and in DNA.  There are many helix patterns within the pinecone itself - some spiral-ing lazily to the point of the cone, others circumnavigating the cone several times before exhausting themselves.  One shallow pattern of scales contained only three curves, another had five, and yet another had eight.  When I had completed this counting I arranged the numbers in order of value - 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 - and realized that the sum of any two consecutive numbers would be equal to the next number in the sequence:  3 + 5 = 8, 5 + 8 = 13, and so on. These sequences, Wahl tells us, are called Fibonacci numbers, and they exist almost everywhere in nature.  I thought to myself, “How wonderful!  There actually is order in this universe of ours!”

Other chapters touch upon the relationship of hexagons to the universe, the number secret of the bees, the Greeks and their Golden Ratio, mathematical art forms (star explosions, seashells, jewels), the pyramid, and the moon. Reproducible worksheets are incorporated into the chapters at appropriate places, and the book includes a Teacher’s Guide which, unlike many textbook teacher’s editions that only give answers to the questions, lists secondary activities and gives related food for thought.

As is the case when going on any adventure into unfamiliar parts, when taking a mathematical mystery tour you’ll need to bring a compass:  your curiosity and willingness to open your mind to a new way of thinking about number relationships.  This is a trip worth taking.  –Ann Barr

THE KNOW HOW BOOK OF BATTERIES AND MAGNETS by Heather Amery

FUN WITH ELECTRONICS by J. McPherson

I wish I had had THE KNOW HOW BOOK OF BATTERIES AND MAGNETS when I was 6 or 7.  It is a great book for that age range, or for someone who is just starting to fool around with circuits and light bulbs and such stuff.  It has a lot of neat projects as well as some basic explanations of what is going on. A younger child might enjoy magnetic fishing and racing cork boats, but there are also projects an older child might like to do, for example a stop-and-go traffic light and a morse code transmitter.  In fact, my 9-year-old sister is excited about building the robot with flashing eyes.  Each project has step-by-step instructions with each step consisting of a colorful picture of what you’re supposed to do and then a description underneath.

Most of the projects are made from household goods.  They increase in difficulty - the first describes some magnetic tricks, and the last is an electromagnetic tow truck.  The book shows a picture - mostly photos but some-times line drawings - of what the finished project looks like.  You can learn a lot by doing the projects in this book.

FUN WITH ELECTRONICS is for an older kid or a kid who is more experienced in the field of building electronic gadgets, someone who already knows how a circuit works.  It is a small book but is filled with many good projects that introduce you to soldering and LEDs (light-emitting diodes), transisters, and a few other electronic components.  The projects include a burglar alarm and a minature radio.

After the projects, the book tells you how the components work.  This book has more in-depth explanations than THE KNOW HOW BOOK OF BATTERIES AND MAGNETS.  For example, it explains how a current flows, with the electrons traveling from atom to atom.  The projects are formatted in much the same way as THE KNOW HOW BOOK.  There are colorful pictures of what you are supposed to solder or whatever and underneath are directions in writing.  One project that I really like and am planning on building is the potted plant tester.  It is not just a toy; it is actually useful.

I highly recommend this book for people who would like more challenge than THE KNOW HOW BOOK provides.  It is easy to read but gives good informa-tion (even a clear description of how to solder, if you haven’t done that before).  I learned some things about LEDs that I didn’t know before.  In fact I said that I wished I had this book so often while I was looking at it for this review that my mom bought it for me.  –Christian Murphy

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CLUTTER’S LAST STAND by Don Aslett

This book was given to me several years ago as a gift.  I reread most or all of it at least once a year for inspiration.  It has helped improve our family life a great deal, and I can’t recommend it too highly.

Don Aslett is a professional cleaner, and a lecturer and author of sev-eral books on cleaning.  His contact with many people who have had house-cleaning difficulties led him to the conclusion that clutter is the biggest problem in maintaining a home.  I agree.  As he states, and as I found to be true when I took a good look at my home and my life, a great deal of time is spent on junk - cleaning it, getting it out of the way, moving it from one place to another, shuffling through it to find a needed item.  It takes up space, time, and energy, which are too precious to be wasted.

Aslett has written a manual on why and how to get rid of clutter.  His discussion of junk goes beyond old newspapers and inconvenient knitted kleenex box covers - he talks about junk vacations, cars, routines, books, clothes, food, and even people.  He doesn’t tell us which of our things are junk (though he does have some opinions on it).  He says, “Anything that crowds the life out of you is junk.  Anything that builds, edifies, enriches our spirit -that makes us truly happy - regardless of how worthless it may be in cash terms - isn’t junk.”

So we have to make our own decisions.  But Aslett certainly brings up some important considerations, a number of which I had never thought of.  One example is, “Too good to use is junk.”  How true that is.  His discussion of this helped me let go of some things I had been clinging to even though they were never used - too nice, too fragile, too old to use.  They still had to be kept clean, moved, worried about, etc.  In other words, they were more burdens than assets.  Another tricky area (especially for homeschoolers?) is all the stuff that “might come in handy” for some unknown project in the future.

In the first chapter of CLUTTER’S LAST STAND is the Junkee Entrance Exam, a self-test to see just where we stand junk-wise.  The first time I went through it several years ago I rated in the fourth range (out of five!). Almost hopeless.  When I went through it after some serious consideration and de-junking, I rated one level higher.  Now I’m yet another level higher.  With a little more work, I’ll be de-junked.

This self-test isn’t important in itself, but I find that it really does reflect my progress.  I really am doing better.  Moving twice since I first read the book helped a lot - it’s easier to get rid of stuff than it is to haul it around.  Even so, I find that I need to rotate toys and some clothes into storage periodically, and we do still have more things than we really need.  But, for the first time ever, we can keep our house fairly neat.  Even when something comes up, and the house is neglected for a few days, it seldom takes more than a half hour to put everything away.

Don Aslett’s style is relaxed and amusing, very easy and enjoyable to read, even though some of the things he helps us see about ourselves can be a little painful.  A lot of the sting is taken away by his personal examples. He’s not just showing us our foibles; he freely admits his own, too.  His main focus is always on helping us free ourselves from useless things, to concen-trate our energies on the parts of our lives which are most meaningful, especially the people who are important to us.  I hope CLUTTER’S LAST STAND can help others as it has helped us.  –Mary Van Doren

RISING FROM THE PLAINS by John McPhe

This book contains two stories intertwined - the story of a family and the story of the land where the family lived.  It gave me such an interesting perspective on history.  The story of geologist David Love’s parents comes from Love’s memory and from his mother’s unpublished journal.  His mother, Ethel Waxham, went from Boston to Wyoming in 1905 to be a teacher (and she ended up homeschooling David for much of his childhood).  There she met and married John Love.  This seems so long ago to most of us - not within our lifetime.  It’s a period that fascinates many of us.  So many things have changed in the last century.  It’s a life that is long enough ago to be mostly inaccessible to us now, but still within the memories of a few; our grand-parents may have had similar experiences.

The other focus of this book, the geological history of central Wyoming -the history of the earth - is clear to those who know how to read the signs. Now we’re not talking about decades but about hundreds of millions of years. Such vast expanses of time seem mind-boggling to me and make our concentration on the happenings of a hundred years ago seem trivial somehow.  Recent history is closer to us and may be more comfortable in a way.  The juxtaposition of the two kinds of history in this book makes both special.

Another aspect of this book that I found to be particularly interesting was the technical language and obscure vocabulary that McPhee uses.  Person-ally, I think he could have simplified things some or explained more without losing any of the significance of the information; indeed, I feel that more understandable language would have enhanced the geological explanations. While reading, I didn’t look up any words; I didn’t strain to get the meaning of everything.  It was lovely exercise for me - I skipped the words I didn’t know and still felt that I got a pretty fair understanding of the geology of that area.  I couldn’t describe much to anyone, or give many details, but I still learned a great deal and enjoyed it.

What especially struck me about this was that this must be what happens with many beginning readers.  I think of the account of Vita Wallace reading LITTLE WOMEN many times over a span of many years.  When she first read that book she may very well have skipped over a lot of things that she understood later.  These reflections allowed me to read this book more freely than I might have if I had let myself be constantly frustrated.  As I reread much of this book to write this review, I found that I understood rather more than I had before.

This book also showed me several ways in which the study of geology can explain how the environment affects our lives, and how our ways of life affect the environment.  Woody asters imported to Wyoming are drawing selenium, a toxic metal, from the rock, and making it available to other plants; animals and people are being poisoned.  Deposits of oil, uranium, and other substances are being found and exploited in some very harmful ways.

The earth is constantly changing.  It only seems stable to us with our short-sighted view of time.  We are so preoccupied with our own affairs that we don’t have much of a sense of the life of the planet.

As I thought more about RISING FROM THE PLAINS, I came to the conclusion that it is not two stories after all.  It is David Love’s story, with the focus on two major parts of his life - his family background, and his involve-ment with the geology of the land he is from.  That part of Wyoming is his earth in a way that is almost no one else’s.  He has a fascination with it, begun in his youth, and a strong understanding of it that reaches far into the past and touches the present.  A wonderful story in many ways, with a fright-ening look at what exploitation of resources is doing to the earth.  –MVD

THE PIANO HANDBOOK by Gregory Pond

The King of Instruments can be a Great White Elephant for anyone who has purchased and moved a piano only to discover that it requires hundreds of dollars of work to play properly.  This 50-page handbook is a great aid for avoiding such disappointment, and it is also an invaluable reference book for anyone who owns a piano but doesn’t understand how it works and how to care for it.  The author is a professional piano technician, but he writes for the layperson, even a layperson who can’t play a piano.  The book starts out by defining terms: spinet, console, studio console, upright, baby grand, etc. and moves immediately into the business of “how to.”  We learn first how to check the outer structure of a piano, then the inner structure, then the keyboard, action, and tone.  Each “how to” is accompanied by clear photos with arrows or letters placed in them, detailed diagrams, and straight-forward text.

While all this is geared to the non-professional who is in the market to purchase a piano, either used or new, it is very useful for anyone who owns a piano and wants to maintain it.  For instance, you can evaluate what is caus-ing the symptoms of your piano problem (misaligned hammers, too shallow or too deep a dip in your keys, new, oversized tuning pins in an old piano), refer to the chart of approximate repair/replacement costs (labor included) in the back of the book, and know pretty well if your piano tuner is giving you a good deal.

But the strength of this book lies in its information for the piano pur-chaser.  Price ranges for new and used pianos are given, as well a lists of questions you should ask piano deals and private piano sellers.  Armed with a flashlight, measuring tape, and this book, you will eliminate much of the guesswork in purchasing a piano, even if you have never played one.  This handbook will help you get a good piano whatever your price range, and a good piano will provide you with a lifetime of music.  Not a bad investment for $6! –Pat Farenga

GOOD WORKS:  A GUIDE TO CAREERS IN SOCIAL CHANGE Joan Anzalone, ed.

Sometimes we get calls or letters from young (and not so young) people interested in finding what John Holt would have called “work worth doing,” but unsure of how to begin or where to look.  There’s a lot to say about this, some of which we’ve said already - that you should go directly to the people doing what you want to do, for example, rather than thinking that you have to get lots of schooling first.  For those who may not know where to find people who are doing, in this case, social action work (ecology, consumer protection, governmental reform, civil rights, and so on), GOOD WORKS is a good place to start.  It’s a thick directory of groups and organizations in all parts of the country, and it gives useful information about each one:  its stated purposes, its recent projects, how it gets its funding, whether it takes part-time employees, volunteers, or interns, and how to apply.

Worth the price of the book alone is the section of profiles of people who have found work in social change.  Often, it’s difficult for young people to hear about any ways of finding adult work besides the traditional school-and-career-ladder path.  These profiles are of people who have found jobs that they believe in and care about - or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that in many cases their jobs found them as they did what seemed to them to be impor-tant work.

If any GWS readers - especially older homeschoolers, who may be particu-larly interested in finding out about the options this book describes - use it to find work, we’d be interested to hear what happens.  –Susannah Sheffer

FOCUS: MAKING COMMUNITIES MORE WELCOMING OF AND ACCESSIBLE TO CHILDERN -A COLLECTION OF WISHES ——————————————————————————-

NEIGHBORHOOD CONSCIOUSNESS

From Maggi Elliott (WV):

1.  I’d like to see a return to neighborhood consciousness.  All these townhouses - such an empty feeling!  All that real estate clears out every morning, to be reinhabited, cellularly, at night.  The nuclear family is under enormous strain.  Everyone’s so lonely trying to do it all, and by themselves. The family and neighbors that used to help out back when we had community are gone.

I’d like to see townhouse communities developed that feature built-in community.  They could have a centralized kitchen where working parents could go to get fed with their kids, morning and night.  Hire a cook, or better yet, rotate the cooking chores.  Such a housing cluster could also have a day care facility for old parents and young children.  Again, neighbors could take care supervising, or all could pitch in to hire a professional.

2.  Neighborhood consciousness can also mean pride in the area and owner-ship of its problems.  Ecological and landscaping efforts are ones in which people can volunteer and work together, demonstrating to the kids the impor-tance of caring for the land and teaching them how to cooperate, build, and husband.  Kids can watch and participate in tree-planting, tending community gardens, erection of habitat for wildlife.  Neighbors of all ages can really assume many of the activities now co-opted by the city, like putting up traffic signs and filling potholes, instead of griping that the city never gets around to it.

3.  If we must have institutions for very old and very young people, I support putting them together.  There is so very much that kids and elders can offer one another.  It’s insane to stuff them off in environments where they see nothing but “their own kind.”  Those elders who are able could tend the children; those who are physically limited could tell them stories or listen to their ideas.

4.  Every business or professional endeavor should have one day a week where kids can “walk in” and participate and/or watch things being done. Someone should be assigned the job of explaining activities and answering questions.  Or even better, the workers should know that they are freer that day to give their time to the youngsters in a generous way.  That way the employees and bosses can invite the kids to join in, try, help, etc.  After a kid has visited a particular business several times, he or she could appren-tice for a while.  This whole concept could be made an aspect of public schooling, so that school becomes more of a work/study operation.

5.  In a similar way, adults’ hobby clubs like photography, bird watch-ing, astronomy, should open themselves frequently to children, and kids with a real interest should be made members.  Adults need to see how good, how mature, how professional, and how creative kids can be in the world of adults. And how many fresh insights they can provide.

6.  Stores, banks, etc. ought to have step-up facilities (similar to ramps for the handicapped, but like solid wooden steps) that allow kids access to teller windows, cash registers, etc.  I think kids are often ignored not just because they’re kids (although this is widespread and pernicious), but because they aren’t noticed and can’t make eye contact with the adults in charge.

7.  In rural areas, farmers who are shoeing horses and mules, making molasses, shearing sheep, harvesting apples, pressing cider, butchering pigs, etc. could call a centralized hot line inviting observers and helpers of all ages.  The community could tap into this line to find out what kinds of things are happening each week.  The hot-line organization could employ facilitators who were familiar with the particular farming operation and also good at or-ganizing people.  This person would be on the scene to keep the whole happen-ing under control and make sure it is a safe and productive occasion for the inviting farmer.  Maybe it would be more attractive to the farmer if he or she could charge a one or two dollar admission.  The focus would be on passing old skills on to kids and growing new farmers/husbanders.

8.  I spent a lot of time as a kid at the Detroit Institute of Arts and came to view the museum as truly mine.  I’ve taken my own kids to the wonder-ful art museums of Washington and they have been overwhelmed, overstimulated, and, frankly, bored.  My conclusion:  the occasional young visitor to an art gallery needs a different experience from the frequent visitor.  Here’s what I’d do:

Build children’s wings that aren’t condescending, but are simply scaled and paced for kids.  Children don’t need to be touch-feely-squirm-through everything, and that’s what I mean by condescending.  So many “youth museums” are just playgrounds in disguise.  Kids need to learn to respect art as well as handle it.  The masterpieces should be displayed at kids’ eye level, and works should be chosen that engage children - speak to their fascinations. And by that I don’t mean just dogs and cats and other children, but war and surreal nightmares and blood and guts.  As a child, I spent a lot of time in front of a painting of a drowned nude woman being pulled out of the sea before the gaping jaws of a shark.  Brrrr!

Stools should be sprinkled around generously so that kids can gaze close-ly at technique or get a different perspective on the works.  Galleries should be intimate, and statues should be reproductions so that kids can touch.  And, maybe most important, there should be nice guards who like kids and love the artwork they’re supervising, who know the right point at which to intervene without putting the kids off, who are cool and restrained enough to be guards, but who also can answer the kids’ questions with enthusiasm and intelligence and yet without that gushy determination to improve their minds with which so many art mavens are endowed.

PLANNING FOR CHILDREN

From Kathleen McCurdy of FLEx (WA):

I would like to see activities such as concerts, classes, TV specials, political rallies, town hall meetings, and other such things not only allow-ing children but planning for them.  For instance, concerts are held late at night and people act upset when children are present, even though they are well-behaved.  And why can’t children accompany their parents to a class on cake decorating or motorcycle tuneup at the community college?  (I’m assuming the child is old enough to be genuinely interested.)  Maybe more people would come out to city council meetings or public hearings if they didn’t have to hire a babysitter for kids who would actually like to attend.

On the other side of the coin, so many activities that are planned for children exclude adults.  City parks’ programs for summer activities usually encourage parents to drop children off and leave.  Music, art, swimming lessons often do not allow parents even as spectators.  Or if they do, the adults are segregated in another area and expected to entertain themselves rather than pay attention to what is going on with their children.

In our community we have tried to change some of this.  I try to take my 10- and 14-year-old boys with me to any activity they are interested in. People who object get an earful!  Some of us have refused to attend events where children are specifically excluded without a reasonable cause.  Our children stood in line with us for hours waiting to get tickets for an up-coming presidential visit and political rally.  The tickets were scarce and some felt they should have been given to voting adults.  But our children are interested in politics.  They wanted to experience this part of the process.

We made arrangements at the YMCA for special swimming classes for fami-lies.  Parents could be in the water with their children, and the instructor helped the parents coach them.  When my boys wanted to join the music center’s boys choir, I asked the director if she objected to parents being present at rehearsals.  She said it would be OK.  I was able to go over the music with the boys at home and reinforce the things they had learned.

Another item on my wish list is work opportunities for children.  I would like to see special programs developed where children ages 12 to 16 could work to learn (apprenticeship), and employers would only have to pay half the hour-ly minimum wage.  Parents would be responsible for ensuring that safety meas-ures were compatible with their child’s maturity and experience, and perhaps pay for required insurance.  Along with this there should be a means whereby children could assume partial responsibility for business transactions they wished to enter into, perhaps with parents as cosigners to any credit agree-ment, etc.

We know of at least two families in which the children earn quite a bit through their paper routes and wish to pay for their own dental work, for example.  Yet the dental office insists on billing only the parent, choosing to ignore that the child wants to assume this responsibility.

NEWS FOR CHILDREN

From Christopher McKee (WI):

One of the things that I would like to see is a normal-length newspaper that is geared toward kids, written with a vocabulary that kids can under-stand.  Also, a good part of the staff on it should be children (supervised by an adult).  Many of the newspapers being published today are too hard to understand and/or they are full of stories that are of little interest to kids.  Currently I am getting a small classroom newspaper called SCHOLASTIC NEWS.  I like it but I wish it was longer.

I would like to have the radio show “Kids America” back on the air in my area.  It is a very nice show for children with news, music, comedy, and quizzes.  The only reason it was taken off the air was that it “interfered with the news.”  Well, how many news shows are there for adults?  Now, compare that figure to the number of news shows for kids.  If adults lose one news show it is not the end of the world.  But if kids lose one it is a big loss!

“HUMAN-FRIENDLY” COMMUNITIES

From Dale Vostitsanos (CT):

1.  Transportation:  Lessening reliance on the auto would accomplish many things.  Less traffic would reduce risk of injury to passengers and pedes-trians alike.  Environmental clean-up and maintenance would be promoted. “Traffic noise” as a background constant would be lessened or eliminated. Bicycle paths and walkways, even heavily used, promote interaction on a one-to-one scale, with no age limitations.  A “lowering of horizons” to an area accessible by foot or bike would cause a return of smaller neighborhoods, with local shops accessible to anyone - no need of an adult to drive.  (This would not only benefit children, but the elderly and physically handicapped as well.)  Increased contact would develop a greater awareness of a community of neighbors.  Once people again identified their neighborhood as home rather than as just a base from which one travels to other places, an aggressive reclamation/beautification/safety effort would likely follow.

This sort of arrangement is now generally found only in large cities, although it’s much more common in Europe (where, even as I write, the increas-ing influence of the car is destroying it).  In European cities, safer than our own, very small children are often sent to fetch the bread, milk, etc., thus taking on the family responsibility that they know is valued.

2.  Identification of neighborhoods.  This gives the child a broad-based sense of home, rather than thinking of just one building in an indifferent or dangerous setting.  Block organizations, common in the ’50s here in Connecticut, having at least one or two planned activities per year just for residents, call for extended periods of contact between neighbors, and close attention to welcoming newcomers and keeping aware of families with problems. An awareness of individuals leads to understanding and perhaps friendship.  A child is not likely to torment “mean old Mrs. Paine” if she has eaten the lady’s cookies at a picnic, helped her rake, knows that she is a person.

Most block organizations today are founded for anti-burglary reasons. This seems to me exactly the wrong approach - an intensification of suspicion and fear results, as the neighborhood is seen as an area vulnerable to attack. An organization with fellowship, beautification, and maintenance as its aim will bring neighbors in close contact in a positive way, and crime prevention will follow naturally.

3.  Ending discrimination.  Barring classes of people from anywhere, because of age, height, race, or physical disability, except for reasons of safety, must be ended.  Beaches, condos, all areas for people to congregate and interact should be open to all.

This area most strongly involves the crux of the problem of creating a workable community.  The rules are there because there are too many who will not use good judgment, or who seek to disturb the pleasure of others.  People can’t rely on children following rules, respecting others’ rights and prop-erty, or behaving responsibly.  Not only do many parents fail to instill positive social attitudes, they often neglect to supervise or correct their offspring.  Whereas in my youth, and still in southern Europe today, any adult present would not hesitate to speak up to caution or rebuke a child who mis-behaves, most Americans fear contempt, ridicule, or even violence if they get involved.  Children will not be accepted gladly into communities if they must be feared as potential hooligans.

Along with this goes the litigious trend in contemporary society.  If we wish our children to be permitted access, we must not only prepare them to act responsibly, but also accept that mishap may result.  So many restrictions are in place because a parent’s first question on hearing that Johnny has been in-jured while swimming in a neighbor’s pool is not, “Why was he there?” but “Why wasn’t your fence high enough to keep him out?”  Unless there is delib-erate negligence, we must be willing to accept that people of all ages take chances, children often take risks an adult would not, and injury or death may occur.  The current attitude of drying our tears on dollar bills makes every property owner suspicious of every potential litigant.

4.  Without a very basic restructuring of our thinking, our daily actions, and our way of life, we will never mold a healthy community that is not just “child-friendly” but “human-friendly.”  Taking charge of our own lives and actions and attempting to create the best life, with the least dis-ruption to the earth and other life forms, is obviously important to GWS readers.  If the rest of society will but join us, we have a chance.

THE NEEDS OF THE VERY YOUNGEST

From Sue Radosti (SD):

It seems to me that an acceptance of children in the community must begin with an acknowledgement of the needs of the very youngest.  I would wish for a diaper-changing table in every public restroom!  A small-scale toilet in large restrooms (such as at interstate rest areas) and a chair or bench for mothers with nursing babies would also convey a message of welcome to young children and their parents.  Simple outings such as a trip to the grocery store or to the mall are often more trouble than they’re worth to me because I know there will be nowhere to tend to our toddler Adrianna’s needs.

I’ve been very pleased by the warm welcome Adrianna has received at the public libraries here in Sioux Falls.  Her obvious love of books endears her to librarians, of course, but she is not a particularly quiet child, and yet we’ve never been frowned at or discouraged from reading aloud.  I sense that children are much more accepted than when I was small and terrified of libra-rians!

MM: We feel very strongly that consumers, potential patients, have the right to interview therapists without charge before entering into the therapy. Most therapists won’t do this, but we’ll give up to three interviews.  We encourage people to be very rigorous in their questions - they should try to find out what we believe, what we think therapy is.

SS: This is very analogous to what we say about teaching - both that it’s not something that only people who have state certificates can do, and that the person hiring the teacher, so to speak, should make an active choice - ask questions, find out what the teacher believes.

MM: I think if you’re going to enter into a therapeutic or teaching re-lationship you have to have the right to ask those questions.

APPRENTICESHIPS, TOY LIBRARY

From Mary-George Simonitch (CA):

I find myself wishing for some sort of organized apprenticeship program for young people who have an interest in a specific career, whether their desire is to be a car mechanic or an orinthologist, a computer programmer or a physician.  Many people enter intensive career training programs (college, technical school, etc.) only to find that the reality of the work doesn’t match their expectations.  I think young people would benefit greatly if they had a way of gaining more realistic views of the working world.  People in various occupations could allow youngsters into their sanctums in exchange for age-appropriate work, maybe on a contract basis.  I imagine that in almost every workplace there are tasks that could be done by inexperienced young-sters, and in some cases the young could do them better being more enthusias-tic by nature.

For a short time, when I was a teenager, I worked in my father’s office, sorting and attempting to make sense of his handwritten patient histories.  I found that I had no patience for that type of work.  I couldn’t read my father’s writing and didn’t know enough medical jargon to decipher it.  I had seen what it would take to become a medical secretary and decided it wasn’t something I would enjoy doing.  I also worked as a student teacher in a re-medial math class, an experience that helped influence my decision to educate my own children at home. Later, I spent a summer in uniform at Grand Canyon National Park, doing almost all the work of a seasonal “interpretive” ranger (leading nature walks, giving talks, dispensing information at the visitor center, picking up litter, etc.).  These work experiences were useful to my developing concept of self:  how I fit into the world as I perceived it.

Other examples:  one of my sisters, whose long-abiding interest was and is animals, worked when a young teen in a veterinary clinic washing the floors and feeding the patients.  She also spent a term helping a university zoology professor reorganize a collection of hundred-year-old stuffed bird specimens. At the time, she thought she wanted to be an ornithologist.  She is now work-ing on her master’s in wildlife biology, a science that studies mostly lively, healthy animals in their natural environments.

These were small-scale experiences, gained from connections through par-ents, teachers, and in the case of my ranger duty, a more ambitious program run by a non-profit group, the Student Conservation Association.  In fact, that organization is a good model for the type of thing I have envisioned. The SCA provides for the national parks and forests a needed service (finding them intelligent, enthusiastic volunteers), and it provides for its young participants the opportunities they need and desire.  It is funded by contri-butions from members (parents, former participants, and conservation-minded others).  It is free to participants, both workers and employers.  The young workers receive, in lieu of salary, transportation costs, room and board, and a summer’s worth of on-the-job training and independence.  It seems to me that many other occupational fields could set up programs such as this.  Or, more ambitious yet, a community organization could coordinate a program to include many varying occupations.

Another idea for introducing young people to the workplace is the open house, a concept that my community has used with unanticipated success.  Last year, our fire station, hospital, and post office opened their doors on spec-ified days to allow the public to see what goes on behind the scenes.  This sort of thing is valuable to everyone.  Other places that could have open houses:  libraries, grocery stores, gas stations - anywhere that something happens out of sight to everyone except those who make it happen. One last idea - my daughter Erin (8) thinks we should have a toy library in our community, run much like our book library.  To get a card, all one would have to do would be to donate a playable toy and return all borrowed material in good condition.  Of course, overdue fines would be charged and collected, donations would be encouraged, and taxes would be channeled (away from less worthy projects like mass education or nuclear bombs!) to finance our toy library.

The purpose, as almost every parent can guess, would be to reduce clut-ter, waste, and unneeded expense, and to give every child access to a wide range of playthings.  Being a curious family of limited means, we use our public library frequently (and pay our share of overdue fines).  When we find a book we particularly like, we purchase a copy.  A toy library could act in the same way, allowing children to see how much they really like and use a toy before the parents buy it.

I have a good many toys to donate and would give some to less fortunate children who needed a donation to get their cards.  My children, of course, would not be losing the toys they had donated.  They could check them out when needed (if someone hadn’t beaten them to it).  “Toy-boredom” would be consid-erably reduced.  And those few favorites we owned would be all the more valued once clutter was removed.

Of course, we’d have to convince the lawmakers that play is valuable, as valuable as free access to books.  And I’m not sure that is something we can accomplish in this century or even in my lifetime (I anticipate strong lobbies from the toy industry).  But maybe in Erin’s lifetime, adults will wise up. Maybe she will influence them positively to do so.  It never hurts to dream -without dreams, nothing could ever change and no one would learn anything new.

ALLOW OTHER ADULTS TO INTERVENE

From Jan Hunt of Oregon:

If I could change just one thing about our communities, I would end the taboo against intervention.  In fact, I would reverse the taboo:  no one would dare walk past a crying baby or an unhappy child - it would be considered terribly rude, self-centered, and unfair to ignore a cihld’s needs, both for the parents and for all bystanders.  Bob Franklin’s anecdote, in the chilren’s rights Focus in GWS #66, about the children in the restaurant being hit for wanting to share their artwork, is so depressingly typical.  I (and my close friends) witness abusive situations like this often, yet feel unsure about how best to respond.

Why should it be easier to intervene in the mistreatment of a pet dog than in that of a child?  Why are there so many more organizations like the SPCA than those supporting children’s rights?  Why is there only one country -Denmark - with a child ombudsman?

I would like to hear from GWS readers about successful interventions, in which someone has stood up for a child without antagonizing the parent.

WORKING TO STRENGTHEN CITY NEIGHBORHOOD

From Elizabeth Hamill (CA):

Belonging to a community seems to be a strong, fundamental human urge, part of our “continuum.”  Being somewhat introverted ourselves, my husband Michael and I did not really become aware of this need until we had children. Extroverts from the start, our children have always been happiest whenever our whole family is participating as part of a larger group, all working or playing together.  We couldn’t deny this natural need to bond first with the family and then with the community, or “tribe.”

We do belong to several communities in the loose sense of the word: groups of people who come together because of shared interests or values, such as the homeschooling community or the bluegrass music community.  There is a sense of fellowship and support when we come together.  But we don’t live near each other, and we don’t work together on a regular basis.  The children especially seem to need to belong to a group that is always right here, an integral part of our everyday lives.  Determined that the answer didn’t have to be schools (or cults or gangs for that matter), we began to wonder if the logical and immediate extension of the home and the family could be the neigh-borhood.

Admittedly, a neighborhood isn’t always an obvious starting place for creating a sense of community.  We live in a dense urban metropolitan.  More often than not the people living around us don’t share many of our values, and they appear to have little in common with us other than where we live.  Most people weren’t born here, and don’t have roots or family ties here.  Many consider their current situation temporary, and look forward to moving on.

Still, we’ve come to have a vision that a neighborhood can - and should -be a community that meets our need to live, work, play and create together with other people who share a common goal.  We saw it when the kids first ven-tured outside to play and found themselves surrounded by indifferent, or possibly hostile, strangers.  We see it whenever our family is sitting alone in our house surrounded by thousands of other people sitting alone in their houses, all feeling isolated.

Just as we are always working to make our home an interesting, vital, and productive place to live, work, and learn, we decided we could work to extend this richness and vitality to make our neighborhood a more friendly and inter-esting place.  We imagined plenty of opportunities for working together with our neighbors where we could all contribute:  a neighborhood newsletter, a neighborhood clean-up day, a tree-planting project, a community garden, a volunteer service to help neighbors with special needs, a political action group to work with City Hall.  We could also envision plenty of opportunities for playing together with our neighbors:  a neighborhood softball team, for young and old, summer picnics in the local park, winter potlucks in the church, block parties where the street is closed and neighbors provide live music.

When we first began to formulate a vision of neighborhood as community, it seemed almost impossibly utopian and unattainable.  We hardly knew anyone’s name, and we weren’t sure we would even like them.  But we discovered the key almost by accident when we planted a vegetable garden in our very small front yard.  Since we don’t have a back yard, the boys would join me out front after supper on summer evenings.  While I worked in the garden they would play their banjo on the front steps, or play catch with Michael on the sidewalk. Sometimes neighborhood kids would wander over and join in.  Grownups out for a stroll would lean over the fence to talk about compost or aphids.  We learned people’s names.  Soon people began to call on us when their cars wouldn’t start in the morning or when they needed help moving in a new couch.  We started to feel that we could call on them as well.

Tentatively, we decided to have a block party.  We set it up, and lots of people came.  We met others who were interested in the neighborhood.  People talked about common problems like traffic and crime.  We decided to have a neighborhood meeting.  More people came.  We all went to the city council together, and they listened to us.  Soon we had lots of new friends and acquaintances, lots of new projects going.

Now there are a handful of us here who share a vision of what the neigh-borhood could be.  Sometimes we get together on each other’s porches or in each other’s kitchens and imagine where things might lead:  Suppose the church down the street would let us use some of their rooms on week nights for a community center.  We could have meetings, classes, musical groups, maybe a play… What if we all chipped in and bought that nuisance of a liquor store on the corner? We could turn it into a cooperatively run health food store, a coffee house in the evening, maybe a little bookstore in the back… Why not get one of us to run for city council?   …and so on.  The kids sit and listen, and then come up with their own ideas for a better neighborhood.  Why not close the street permanently, and have people park their cars at the corner?  Then we could have a big grassy soccer field where the street used to be, or maybe a farm.

We aren’t the first ones to think of building a community based on the neighborhood, and we aren’t the first to try.  (A very good book about this is COMMUNITY DREAMS:  IDEAS FOR ENRICHING NEIGHBORHOOD AND COMMUNITY LIFE by Bill Berkowitz.)  But it’s hard, and I think a lot of people give up.  People are so busy with the rest of their lives, neighbors don’t stay put, we really don’t have much in common anyway.  What keeps the vision alive for us is the wonderful impact it’s having on our kids.

They feel safe and secure now when they play outside.  They feel like they really belong here, and that makes it easy for them to make new friends. They’re learning to accept and value people with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, different income levels, different religious and philosophical values, and different lifestyles.  They are finding odd jobs for pay, like babysitting and yard work, as neighbors come to know and trust them.  They’re discovering people who work at home in the neighborhood, and visiting them in their workshops and studios.  They’re beginning to think for themselves about what makes a good and interesting community, and they’re developing leadership skills to help make these ideas happen.

We’ve come up with this slogan to use on the cover of the neighborhood newsletter, and I think it sums it all up:  “Front porches instead of TVs!” Maybe we should offer a prize every month for the best front yard garden.  We want to see more people come outside and talk to each other, to make the streets in our neighborhood come alive.

LIVING WELL WITH CHILDREN:  INTERVIEW WITH MARC McGARRY

[SS:] Marc McGarry, a psychotherapist at the Cambridge Psychotherapy Institute, wrote to us saying that he had long been an admirer of John Holt’s writing, and that his institute has always advocated some of the basic ideas in John’s ESCAPE FROM CHILDHOOD.  We were intrigued by this, and in early May I met with Marc McGarry to explore this connection.

SS: I’m curious about what it means, in the context of a psychotherapeu-tic institute, to say that you’ve been advocating John Holt’s ideas for years.

MM: HOW CHILDREN FAIL was given to me in fifth grade by a teacher I had. I was having a horrible time in school, so it was a very meaningful book for me.  Then recently I read ESCAPE FROM CHILDHOOD and was very excited to see that it seemed to be describing the Guest-Host way of raising children that Peter Gill, director of CPI, developed thirty years ago.

SS: What is the Guest-Host idea?

MM: Rather than having parents be rulers in the family, and kids pets or slaves, which we think has a devastating effect on the mental health of kids, the Guest-Host idea is that you treat your child as a beloved, honored, long-term guest in your house.  It’s a model, there are no hard and fast rules to it, but the idea is that you think, “How would I treat an adult guest in my house?”  You wouldn’t demand that the guest go to sleep at a certain hour. You wouldn’t demand that the guest go to school.

SS: John talks about a family he knew who tried to treat their child as an honored guest from very far away - the point being that although children are at first almost completely ignorant of how we do things here, it doesn’t mean that they don’t want to or can’t learn our rules and customs, and it doesn’t mean they don’t deserve our courtesy.  It’s interesting - and this is in ESCAPE FROM CHILDHOOD to some degree - to think about what happens when we use this model to determine how we will convey information when we need to. Often we adults find ourselves in situations where we do have to explain how things are done, but we have so many choices about how we can do that.  I remember thinking about this when I had a guest from Ireland.  He needed to use a pay phone, and seemed to be completely unfamiliar with our pay phones -he had no idea how to begin to make the call.  As I showed him what to do, I thought of how hard I was trying to be courteous, to explain something that was so obvious to me without condescending to him, and I thought that I should try to have this attitude and manner when explaining things to children.

MM: Yes, it’s all in how you do it.  And in the Guest-Host model, there are going to be house rules, rules that everyone needs to abide by.

SS: How do you feel about that, about parents having the right to say, “We’re the hosts here, so we make the rules”?

MM: I think it’s realistic, but again it’s more a matter of attitude.  An adult host can lay down certain rules for an adult guest without being dis-respectful.  And a host can let a guest know that what the guest is doing is disturbing to the household.

SS: What would be an example of that?

MM: Let’s say the kid keeps his room such a mess that it poses a roach problem for the entire house.  Then the parents can say, “This is a problem, this isn’t how we want to run our house, we need to do something about this.”

SS: I can see that a tension could come up in all of this if the child-ren, the guests, feel that nothing is wholly theirs.  Sometimes children say, “OK, the house is yours, but my room is my haven, it’s where I get to make decisions.”

MM: It’s a question of living together peacefully.  I would never tell a guest when to go to bed, but if the guest was being loud while I was trying to go to bed, I would ask them to stop.  We find that if you take the rebellious-ness out of these issues like bedtime, children figure out that it’s not much fun to stay up till all hours because you’re dragging around the next day, and they get used to going to bed at a reasonable hour.

SS: Yes, kids I know who have been able to make those decisions will say things like, “If I stay up too late I’m cranky the next morning.”  They know themselves well enough to go to sleep for those reasons, rather than because their parents are making them.  John was very interested in the connection between how hung up we are about kids’ bedtimes, and how as adults we’re such a nation of insomniacs.

MM: It’s amazing how sensible kids can be about these things if they don’t become issues of rebellion.

SS: An accusation against ESCAPE FROM CHILDHOOD, which perhaps has been directed at your Guest-Host model as well, is that all this begins to sound cold, distant.  Is there a place for close, loving family relationships in this model?

MM: Too often parents say, in effect, “You have to love me, that’s your job.”  Children are taught to feel guilty if they are angry at their parents, and they grow up feeling that some of their strongest emotions are wrong.  I think what’s lovely about the Guest-Host idea and John Holt’s ideas is that when you get away from that feeling of obligation, any love and affection that does grow between parents and children is real.

SS: You could also argue that anything we can do to smooth out those interactions about bedtime and so on, which are often a source of such irri-tation and resentment, will make our lives with children much pleasanter, much more conducive to those good feelings you talk about.

Back to the Guest-Host idea for a minute.  It occurs to me that a child could very well say that the crucial place where the model breaks down is that adults guests know the situation is temporary.  They may have to adjust to a host’s rules for a while - say the hosts go to bed early while the guests are night owls - but they know that soon they will be going home, back to a situation in which they control things.  But a child is a kind of permanent guest, which could be very hard.  What if the child feels that the adults’ rules and preferences are basically incompatible with his or her own?

MM: I think if there’s a serious, long-term incompatibility, the parents should do whatever they can to find another living situation for their kids.

SS: What about something in between a perfect situation and that kind of serious incompatibility?  I guess I’m interested in the consequences of the feeling, even in a fairly good situation, that one is always a guest.  When in that model does the child have a chance to say, “This is mine, I’m in con-trol here”?

MM: One important part of Guest-Host has to do with money.  We try to help kids become financially responsible for themselves early on - the parents provide room and board and pay medical bills and so on, but the kids will buy their own clothes and that sort of thing.  Parents and children will negotiate payment for chores around the house.  I know a family in which the child, at about 2 1/2, was doing tiny clean-up jobs for small amounts of money, and started buying her own socks.  So there’s a real feeling of autonomy there.

SS: The issue of household chores, and whether to pay for help with them or not, comes up a lot in GWS.  I think that some GWS readers feel strongly that the family is a team and that children should help out of a feeling of being part of that team, or of naturally wanting to join in what their parents are doing, rather than only because of the financial incentive.

MM: I’m glad you brought that up, because I don’t want to make it sound as if it’s just a mercenary thing.  Certainly if you treat your child with respect and affection, the chances are very good that the child is going to return this and want to help and join in.  I agree that that’s an essential part of being a family.

SS: You mentioned autonomy a moment ago.  What does it mean to say that a child has autonomy, within a family structure?

MM: I guess it means the freedom to make important decisions about your life, and the sense that you have some impact on things.

SS: What does all of this mean for your actual work with families?  What do you see as the therapist’s role in this?

MM: The therapist can be used as an arbitrator, an outside consultant, if there are things that the parents and children are really having trouble work-ing out on their own.  I found this very helpful when I was having trouble in high school.  My parents thought school was very important, and were very up-set when I did poorly.  They consulted with Peter Gill, and he convinced them to do a sort of modified Guest-Host with me.  They agreed to let me alone about school.  I didn’t do any better in school, but so much of the pressure was off.  It was no longer something for us to fight about.  I think my parents were relieved about that, too, even if they were still disappointed that I didn’t go to college.  So Guest-Host can really benefit both parents and children in that sense of eliminating the struggles.

SS: How is it possible to be a psychotherapist without traditional school credentials?

MM: A lot of people feel strongly that all therapists should be licensed. We disagree, because we don’t think therapy is a medical event, we think it is a philosophical or religious event, a matter of discussing life issues, and for the state to say, “This person can’t discuss important life issues, but this person can, because he’s taken certain graduate school courses,” is terrible.  I’ve seen plenty of people who have that traditional training but who treat patients terribly, disrespectfully.

SS: Is the idea that you don’t need traditional credentials a radical view held by your institute, or could you practice anywhere?

MM: There are some states in which I couldn’t practice, but in Massachu-setts it’s legal.

SS: It seems to me that it makes sense for it to be a matter of the mar-ketplace - since people are paying therapists a fee, they should be able to find out what they would be getting, and choose accordingly.  I guess what some people want to find out is, precisely, how many credentials the therapist has.  But I remember when I had to choose a physician on my health plan. There was a number you could call to get information about the various physi-cians, but all they gave you was a list of each doctor’s degrees.  This told me next to nothing, but it was all that was available.  It would be nice to be able to find out a lot more about these sorts of professionals before choosing them.

OLDER HOMESCHOOLERS ——————-GROWING INTO INDEPENDENCE

From Anita Giesy (VA):

My mom taught me, a long time ago, to listen to advice and then make my own decisions.  For example, I planned a driving trip to Massachusetts by my-self, five days after I got my license.  A lot of people thought I was crazy; others thought I was brave.  I hadn’t decided which I was.  I listened to all of them and decided to go, but I was still nervous until Danile, my older sis-ter, pointed out that if I got to Baltimore after a day of driving and didn’t want to go on, I could come back.  So between that and my desire to get to Massachusetts, I got up the nerve to leave.

I was going to Massachusetts to visit a good friend whom I met through John Holt.  She’s like a much older sister.  She tells me about her life and her experiences, about past relationships and trips she’s made.  She’s also teaching me about horses.

When I went on my trip my brother was amazed that our mom “let” me go. Now, the idea of Mom “letting” us do something is very funny.  Mom has always believed that we are intelligent people who could make our own decisions.  Mom does advise us and tells us what she thinks and why she thinks that.  And I love her for it.

When Danile was 17 she moved into her own apartment.  Mom and Dad were helping her pay for it.  Danile got a job as a waitress to add to the income she made from dancing and when she was 18 she came to Mom and Dad and said that she appreciated their help but she could handle it on her own.  Mom and Dad said that they were happy for her but that if she ever needed their help to just ask.  When you have that much support it is easier to go out on your own.  Susan, my other big sister, has a friend who is 21 and still lives at home and pays rent because his father believes that when you reach 18 you should pay your own way, and if you move out of his house you don’t move back in.  I’m not saying this friend is not doing anything with his life - he is. He’s in the Navy and wants to be a pilot.  But if you know you can’t go back it’s harder to go forward.

GETTING INFORMATION

We are always interested to hear about homeschoolers showing initiative in seeking out help or information when they need it.  Here’s one such story from Chelsea Chapman (AK):

I write to a former U.S. Olympic Equestrian Team trainer who writes to help me with training and riding our horses.  I started writing to her last fall when we were having trouble with the training of our Norwegian Fjord colt.  I got her address out of a newsletter put out by the Norwegian Fjord Horse Registry and sent her a letter asking how she dealt with her Fjord horses.  She mostly writes and tells me stuff about her horses and training methods and tack.

HOMESCHOOLING WHILE ILL

Denise Daily wrote in the Arpil issue of the ReMAINEing at Home news-letter:

My senior year in high school started with the promise of being no more than an extension of what my junior year had been.  Peer pressure, cruel com-parisons and bad attitudes, plus wading through my required senior subjects, is what I had to look forward to (at least in my mind).  High school had started out as a breath of fresh air, but three years later had become stif-ling to me.  I wanted to get the senior year behind me and get on with my life, but I didn’t have any real plans, as many of the kids didn’t.  Now I realize that I was suffering from “senioritis.”

Then something happened at the end of the first semester to change every-thing.  I had experienced some health problems during the first semester that caused me not to feel well much of the time.  By the time the semester ended, we learned that I would need to undergo a series of treatments in the hospi-tal.  I had missed some school because of this, but now I wasn’t going to be able to go for an undetermined period of time.  My mom talked to my dad and the school officials, and we all agreed that homeschooling for the second semester was the best solution.

Because several of my senior classes were lecture classes, we had to develop courses just for me that would meet all of my requirements for gradua-tion.  My brother, who’s in graduate school, suggested that I get lots of com-position to prepare me for college.  My mother is a free-lance writer, so we adapted a course to meet my needs.  Because I attend a private school, I have a required senior Bible course.  My mom has written and taught Bible classes for eighteen years, so no problem for us on that one either.  For my litera-ture class I am reading four classics.  I also have an algebra class.  That’s the hardest because I have always had trouble with math.  The very first week, as my mom and I were reviewing some things, she realized that my problem was not algebra but the fact that I did not know how to do long division and did not really understand fractions (this in spite of the fact that I am an honor student).  We’ve had to spend a lot of time reviewing, which I couldn’t have done in a classroom.  I’m beginning to feel like I can take algebra in college.

Oh yes, I am going to college next year.  My homeschooling has helped me focus on my future.  I am interested in nutrition and got to talk with a reg-istered dietician while I was in the hospital.  My mom has been encouraging me to think about home economics because I have a lot of interests in that area.  We talked to each other and to other people and I’m real excited about majoring in home economics with a minor in nutrition.  I think I’d like to teach.  I wrote to colleges, applied, and am waiting to hear now.

Although many people would think this couldn’t possibly be a good thing to happen in your senior year, it has turned out well for me.  It has been tough to be sick, but the homeschooling has given me the things I needed to make me better prepared for college than I was.  It all has made me more aware of my need to prepare for the future.  There is some anxiety lurking around in my head, but I’m really looking forward to the future.

HOW ADULTS LEARN

Pat Farenga writes:

In the Focus on making discoveries in GWS #67, John Holt, Peter Bergson, and Pat Montgomery talked mainly about children, but they made me think of the trouble I have learning concepts as an adult.  For instance, when I took over the bookkeeping at Holt Associates several years ago, I hadn’t a clue how double-entry bookkeeping worked.  My wife Day, Peg Durkee (from whom I in-herited the job), and John Holt all took a lot of time to explain and re-explain the concept of credits and debits and how they reflect the comings and goings of cash within a company.  I nodded my head, asked questions, but still felt uncomfortable with any entries I posted to our books.  When the trial balances or checkbooks didn’t balance, I would spend hours double-checking my entries.  I didn’t feel comfortable with double-entry bookkeeping those first few years, and yet when the accountants came in at the end of the year to audit and file our taxes, they told me that with a few minor exceptions I was doing a fine job of keeping our books clean and up to date.

I created and examined financial reports every month, and later every quarter.  Yet I always had the uneasy feeling that since I wasn’t trained to be an accountant I could never know exactly what I should be doing.  For years I couldn’t just look at a financial statement and make decisions from it. It’s said that numbers don’t lie, but I’ve found that they also don’t neces-sarily make sense.  I couldn’t just trust the numbers; I had to keep checking them against real things in order to have them make sense to me.  Concepts like depreciation and accruals further confused me, and I handled them simply by taking the accountant’s word that these numbers should be entered in this fashion to make things work.  It was such a relief to me to read in Paul Hawken’s wonderful book GROWING A BUSINESS that he himself didn’t fully under-stand the overall concept of bookkeeping until he’d been running his success-ful businesses (Erewhon’s Food Stores and the Smith and Hawken Tool Catalog) for fifteen years.

It is only recently, after eight years of bookkeeping, that I feel com-fortable enough to trust the numbers my accounting system generates, or to find errors in the reports and determine how to correct them without going back to square one.  More important, I am able to explain the accounting pro-cess to others.  I’ve found that it works best to train people in a real nuts and bolts fashion:  deposits are entered as debits in this area, bills are entered as credits in this area.  As questions arise I’ll try to explain the overall concepts that underlie what we’re doing, but I find that the person must actually do the task at hand and begin to feel competent at it before I can effectively convey those overall concepts.

I know from my musical experiences, too, that the concepts of musical theory do not need to be consciously known in order to make good music.  Some of the best musicians I’ve played with had little knowledge of why their music sounded good, but they knew how to make it sound good.  I’ve been so intimi-dated by my inability to grasp certain musical concepts that it has taken me years of asking the same questions over and over before I could truthfully say, “I understand.”  How often I’ve said that untruthfully to my piano teach-ers, and other teachers, to avoid seeming dumb, is too embarrassing for me to remember.

A big musical concept that I failed for many years to understand (though I pretended to) is the so-called Circle of Fifths.  By arranging chords on a circle diagram according to how many black keys they have and then memorizing this circle, you can not only tell how many sharps and flats are in any key, but also figure out how chords logically progress from one to another in any song.  In the many music theory courses and lessons I’ve had, this concept is presented quite early on, if not first, and it is considered quite self-explanatory once the diagram is drawn.  But nothing has confused me more in music than this “clear” diagram.  First of all, this concept is called the Circle of Fifths, but when I read it left to right, as I do music and every-thing else, I plainly see a progression of fourths - C to F, F to B flat, etc. One of my favorite music teachers spent a great deal of time trying to clear this up for me a year ago, explaining how the fifths are created by the down-ward motion of the progressions, i.e. reading right to left, C to G, G to D, etc.  I protested that if this is the case, why confuse the issue by calling the concept something that is counterintuitive to the diagram.  He told me, “It really can be called the Circle of Fourths, and you can think of it that way, but then you might get more confused because chords tend to progress in fifths, not fourths.”

I recently turned for clarification to a wonderful book we sell here, HOW TO PLAY THE PIANO DESPITE YEARS OF LESSONS.  The authors introduce the Circle of Fifths concept at the end of their book, long after they’ve started you making music.  And they never refer to the concept as the Circle of Fifths; they refer to it as “progressions on the circle.”  Armed with their explanation, I’m now finding my way out of my confusion.

People speak languages without being able to articualte grammatical con-cepts, people run businesses, write books, make music, drive cars, use com-puters, and so on without a complete conceptual understanding of how these things operate.  Perhaps some day I will truly understand the big picture, the concepts, behind these things, but why should I wait until the big picture becomes apparent before I start doing them?  Why should anyone?

GEORGE DENNISON ON FREEDOM

From a transcript of George Dennison’s comments at an assembly of people involved in free schools in the 1960s:

Once you start looking for freedom, you’re lost.  Can you imagine finding it?  Hey, there’s freedom!  Over here!  Look!  But all you can see, you know, is people doing things.  What we mean is we’re not going to coerce anybody, either by force or cunning.  Force is cops and corporal punishment.  Cunning is what’s taught in the colleges of education - how to increase their “atten-tion span” - up to a maximum, you know, of sixty minutes, and then you destroy it by ringing a bell - how to “motivate” them, and so on.  But the absence of coercion isn’t visible either.  What’s visible, when things are going really well, is simply activities, activities of all kinds, especially, we hope, the kinds that harmonize energy, innate powers, and sweet reason.  The real touch-stone of freedom, you know, is not joyous people romping in the grass, but quality, first-rate work.  It may be slow to emerge, especially in the sense that I mean here.  But still, it is the touchstone.  Verve, style, grace, lots of content, lots of meaning.  You don’t reach this by regimenting people, or by having a lifestyle of freedom - which tends to be all style and no life -but by doing things, especially the things you can do with a whole heart.

…You don’t discover who you are… I don’t know where this vocabulary came from.  You see it all the time in proposals for free schools, “creating a climate of freedom so you can discover who you are.”   …When someone says, “I want to know who I am,” what he really means is that he hasn’t found the activities, the friends, and the loyalties that he can give himself to. These are not inside the self.  They’re all outside.  And you discover them by looking outside.  And when you find them, you don’t feel that you’ve dis-covered yourself, you feel that you’ve discovered friends, activities, and loyalties.

…I know of someone in Vermont who went around to hired businessmen, tradesmen, and professionals, and asked them if they’d take in apprentices, or at least have kids around and show them how things were done.  He said the initial response of these people was sluggish, and then enthusiastic.  All these adults were terribly bored, and they welcomed the idea of having kids around.  This seems like a promising direction.  You need the excitement and bigness of real life to bring out real things in adolescents…

OBSERVING VS. EVALUATING

Jan Hunt (who recently moved from BC to Oregon) sent us a copy of a letter that she wrote as a follow-up to a radio talk show with the BC Minister of Education.  Jan had called in to the show and had given a brief answer to the minister’s question, “How can homeschooling parents determine their child-ren’s academic progress, if not through formal evaluation?”  She then wrote the letter, from which we excerpt below, to give a more thorough answer to the question.

The assumption that homeschooling parents somehow lack awareness of their children’s progress, and therefore require formal evaluation of that progress, is undoubtedly related to the fact that homeschoolers function beyond the arena of the schools, and our philosophies and methods are not well known or understood.  It is with the hope of clarifying our theories and procedures that I have written this letter.

How do homeschooling parents know their children are learning?  The an-swer to this question is, to put it most simply, direct observation.  My hus-band and I have only one child (Jason, who just turned 8).  If a teacher had only one child in her classroom, and was unable to describe the reading skills of that child, everyone would be dismayed - how could a teacher have such close daily contact with one cihld and miss something so obvious?  Yet many people unfamiliar with homeschooling imagine that parents with just this sort of close daily contact with their child require outside evaluation to deter-mine their child’s progress.  This puzzles homeschooling parents, who cannot imagine missing anything so interesting as the nature and direction of their child’s learning.

…Any parent of a preschool child could tell you how many numbers her child can count to, and how many colors he knows - not through testing, but simply through many hours of listening to his questions and statements and observing his behavior.  In homeschooling, this type of observation simply continues on into higher ages and more complex learning.

There are many times in the course of a day when a reasonably curious child will want to know the meaning of certain printed words - in books and newspapers, on board game instruction cards, on package labels, in the TV daily weather message, on mail that has just arrived, and so on.  If this child’s self-esteem is intact, he will not hesitate to ask his parents the meaning of these words.  Through the reduction of questions of this type, the actual reading aloud of certain words, and the evidence of appropriate behav-ior associated with printed words (”Look, Daddy, this package is for you!”) it seems safe to assume that reading is progressing in the direction of lit-eracy.  This may seem to outsiders to be overly general, but homeschooling parents learn through experience that more specific evaluation is intrusive, unnecessary, and self-defeating.

…Interestingly, a child’s progress is not always smooth; there may be sudden shifts from one stage to the next.  Thus, formal evaluation given just prior to such a shift may give unfair and misleading information.  At a time when I knew (through a reduction in the number of requests for me to read certain signs, labels, and so on) that Jason’s reading was improving, I told him one evening that I was unable to read a book to him because of a headache. He said, “Well, you just rest and I’ll read a book to you.”  He proceeded to read an entire book flawlessly, at a level of more difficulty than I would have guessed he had been able to read.

Thus it sometimes happens in the natural course of living with a child that we receive more direct and specific information about his progress.  But it should be stressed that this is part of the natural process of “aiding and abetting” a child’s learning, and that requiring such direct proof is almost always self-defeating.  Had I required him to read that book, he might well have refused, declaring that he couldn’t read yet - because he would have felt the anxiety which anyone feels under scrutiny.  But because he chose to read voluntarily, and his accuracy was not being questioned, anxiety was not a factor…

RESOURCES & RECOMMENDATIONS —————————HELPFUL BOOKS

Madalene Murphy wrote in the spring issue of the PENNSYLVANIA HOMESCHOOL-ERS newsletter:

Although the learning in our house has never been limited by the scope or timetables of textbooks, we have found several textbooks or books to be help-ful starting-off points or guides in areas where we would easily bog down.

Christian (now 12) a couple of years ago decided he wanted to learn Latin, and we ultimately chose THE CAMBRIDGE LATIN SERIES and made it through Books I, IA, and B before he decided he wanted to learn something more modern, something people actually spoke.  We really enjoyed this series.  Each lesson begins with a set of line drawings with Latin captions underneath but no translations given, since it was easy to figure out what the Latin was saying. Christian began each lesson feeling confident about his ability.  The stories are entertaining but not cutesy and try to give a bit of the flavor of what life was like in the country and time that each book focuses on…  Now Christian cannot rattle off conjugations the way I had to when I started out in Latin in high school, but that was not our goal.  He did come away from these books with an ability to read some Latin, an awareness of the Latin roots of English and a much stronger grasp of grammar (subjects, verbs, and direct objects were no longer just labels, but necessary keys to unlock mean-ing) as well as a feeling of what life was like in the Roman Empire.  Last year his older sister Emily decided to use the series and moved quickly through - another example of the younger influencing the older.

These books are available through the Gessler catalog (Gessler Publishing Co., 55 W 13th St, NY NY 10011), a catalog filled with all sorts of resources for a number of foreign languages.  I highly recommend taking a look at it.

…Last year I discovered a spelling book that Christian didn’t mind working in and that fnally helped him do some basic organizing of the mass of sounds and syllables we call the English language.  It’s called SPELLBOUND, by Elsie Rak (available from Educators Publishing Service, 75 Moulton St, Cambridge MA 02238-9101).  It presents the basic rules clearly without muck-ing them up with directions about how to use a dictionary, games to play or whatever, and Christian’s spelling, which had been improving slightly over the years, took a great leap forward by the time he finished this book.  Instead of spelling tests with lists of words, which never seemed to help - he would spell the word correctly one day only to have forgotten it by the end of the week - the teacher’s manual to this book is a series of sentence dictations with words that he did not study individually but that followed the rules presented in the unit just finished.  Christian is now feeling much more con-fident about his own abilities in this area.

One last book I must mention is a wonderful one I discovered at a used bookstore although it is relatively new (1986):  THE MAGIC ANATOMY BOOK by Carol Doner (W.H. Freeman and Co.).  It’s the story of Max and Molly (twins), who are zapped by lightning and become small enough to travel through blood vessels.  In their adventures while trying to get out of the human body they have fallen into, they investigate most of the organs and systems of that body.  I bought the book for Clare (9), but Christian soon was deeply invol-ved in it and Emily (15) even picked it up and ended up reading the whole thing, saying, “Well, you know, I had to see if they ever got out.”  The illu-strations are a wonderfully colorful mix of reality and fantasy and very com-plex information is presented clearly because, I guess you could say, you were looking at it from the inside!  This is a book that can stand being read a number of times, and it has been in our family.

SMALL GLOBE

Stephanie Judy (BC) writes:

I had long wanted a globe for our house, but was unable to figure out how to afford a good one, and where to put it if I found one (we live in a tiny house and every surface area is pretty well staked out).  I talked to the head librarian at a local library, and he was willing to give me a very old one of theirs when they ordered new ones.  I was a little unsure about this, because the old ones were no longer very accurate in some respects.  Not long after, at a university bookstore, I found a small, up-to-date, real globe - not a toy, but a real globe for the current year.  It’s about the size of a soft-ball, maybe five inches in diameter, and it costs about $10.  The print is ex-tremely small, of course, but it comes with a round plastic stand that has a small built-in magnifying glass.  It’s certainly not as detailed as a big globe, but it answers basic questions, doesn’t take up much space, and is ex-actly the right size for working out models of eclipses and such.  It’s called the Replogle Escort, and is available from Replogle Globes, Inc., 1901 N. Narragansett Ave., Chicago, IL  60639.

COMPUTER NETWORKS:  UPDATE

[PF:] Some updates on the information about computer networks that we gave you in GWS #64:  Kit Finn (VA) is now managing a forum for homeschoolers on Compuserve.  Log on to Compuserve, enter the Education Forum, and go to section 16, Home and Alternative Schools.  Read a message, leave a message, do anything, but use this opportunity!  If there isn’t enough traffic on this national computer network (which most people can access for the cost of a local call plus Compuserve’s charges) this section will be taken off the ser-vice.

Jim Mayor, system operator for HUG (Home Educators’ Computer User’s Group, 301-937-2303, 2400b 8/N/1) tells us that traffic has been light on his Bulletin Board Service.  About thirty-five people have logged on since Jan-uary.  Jim has compiled some very useful lists of information, not just about homeschooling throughout the U.S. but also about home computer use.  His lists cover all types of computers and software, and are open to additions and sug-gestions from the public.  Jim also provides a bit of commentary with each listing.

Another note:  a great deal on some very useful software for IBMs and compatible computers is being offered in the June 1989 Damark International Catalog (1-800-950-9090).  It is a set of five printing programs:  Art Library 1 & 2, two discs with over 150 graphics to use in your own publications, and three layout programs:  one dedicated to designing signs and banners, another for making greeting cards, and another for making custom calendars and sta-tionery.  The cost:  $19 + $5 shipping.

INTERESTING CATALOGS

[SS:] While updating our Learning Materials List (available for $2.50) we received all sorts of catalogs and materials.  Two look particularly interest-ing:

THE AMERICAN AUDIO PROSE LIBRARY (PO Box 842, Columbia MO 65205) sells cassettes of contemporary authors reading and discussing their work.  The collection is quite extensive, and I can imagine families enjoying these tapes after, or while, reading these authors’ works.  Those of you who don’t have easy access to places where authors give readings may be especially interested in this catalog.

THE ANATOMICAL PRODUCTS CATALOG (available from Anatomical Chart Co., 8221 N. Kimball, Skokie IL  60076) has a huge collection of anatomical stuff -all sorts of very interesting and informative charts, posters, and models, and a few wackier items like an anatomical body suit (a leotard with bones, vital organs, etc. silkscreened on; the list of those who have ordered the suit in-cludes, in addition to doctors and anatomy instructors, “The Brave,” “The Socially Secure,” and “The Uninhibited”) and anatomical jewelry (pins in the shape of a real heart, for example).

Also, from the U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS (Washington DC  20402) you can order an incredible assortment of government publications on almost any subject you can think of.  A few random examples:  a chart of agricultural statistics for 1985, a booklet in which libraries respond to the “Nation at Risk” report, a guide to books on British country houses.  The list is amazingly extensive.  Subject bibliographies (list of all available documents on a particular subject) are available free.

HISTORY JOURNAL FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

[SS:] We received several copies of a new publication called THE CONCORD REVIEW.  It’s a quarterly review of essays by high school-aged history stu-dents, and the quality is impressive.  It looks like any other scholarly pub-lication, and it appears to take its writers seriously.  Writing for THE CONCORD REVIEW might be a nice opportunity for older homeschoolers (the editor specifically says that he welcomes contributions from homeschoolers) to exper-iment with this kind of formal writing with the knowledge that the final draft will be read by interested people.  I suspect that this publication would also be interesting to those who just want to read it, without planning to write for it, because the contributors write about controversial topics, and hold clear opinions, unlike the writers of many history textbooks.  THE CONCORD REVIEW, Will Fitzhugh, Editor, PO Box 661, Concord, MA  01742.

BOOK ON SPELLING RULES?

From Maggi Elliott (WV):

Has anyone seen a book on spelling rules in the last few years, or does anyone remember the name of an old one that I might get through an out-of-print book dealer?  I remember quite clearly, and so do others my age, that we were taught spelling rules in elementary school:  rules for doubling conso-nants, for sorting out ie/ei, the function of silent e, etc.

[SS: Madalene Murphy offers one suggestion on p. 26.]

—————————————————————————–GWS was founded in 1977 by John Holt.

Editor - Susannah Sheffer Managing Editor - Patrick Farenga Contributing Editor - Donna Richoux Editorial Assistant - Mary Maher Editorial Consultant - Nancy Wallace

Book & Subscription Manager - Day Farenga Book Shipper/Receiver - Ann Barr Office Assistant - Mary Maher

Holt Associates Board of Directors ———————————-Patrick Farenga (Corporate President), Mary Maher, Tom Maher, Donna Richoux, Susannah Sheffer

Advisors to the Board ———————Steve Rupprecht, Mary Van Doren, Nancy Wallace

GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #69, Vol. 12 No. 3 Date of Issue:  June 1, 1989.

Copyright copyright 1989 Holt Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.