GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #49, Vol. 9 No. 1.
Date of Issue, Feb. 1, 1986.

Things are looking brighter here now that we’ve had a chance to adjust and get organized.  More details in the story following this one.
Good news on the publicity front.  Patti O’Toole of the Family Circle stayed for several days with the Maher family in Wakefield and visited our office, and says that her article on homeschooling will appear in a late August or September issue.  It will include our address, and just maybe will cause a spate of inquires and new subs.

In February, My husband and I will combine a visit to relatives with a trip to Raymond and Dorothy Moore’s one-day "homeschooling leadership meeting" in Princeton, NJ.  The Moore’s say, "A special moment of memory will be reserved for John Holt.  Many very religious people have sharply criticized him, often very unfairly.  We will publicly acknowledge the powerful influence John had on the home-school movement."  Plans are to stay with Nancy Plent and Susannah Sheffer, and I look forward to seeing a number of GWS friends.

Nancy Fiero, a local homeshcooling parent, will represent Holt Associates on a panel at the "Whole Life Expo" in Boston on Feb. 2.  The topic is "Preschool Education and the Whole Child."

There’s a fascinating article in the Dec. ‘85 Atlantic called "The Case Against Credentialism."  Writer James Fallows makes some powerful observations about the rise of the educated, professional class, and how this contributes to mediocrity.  Worth looking up.

Homeschooler Penny Barker (OH) tells us that her daughter Britt was chosen as one of Teenage magazine’s "100 most interesting teenagers in the country."  The magazine’s blurb reads, "’I'm too busy doing things to read about them,’ says Barker, who has been out of formal school since the fourth grade.  Her primarily self-devised formula for home education has allowed her to apprentice with the local veterinarian, study applied biology on her family homestead, and write freelance articles for magazine publication." Britt was nominated for the honor by Pat Stone, associate editor of Mother Earth News.

You’ll find a new feature in this issue - a 4-page highlight of selected items from our "John Holt Book and Music Store" catalog.  Throughout the year, we plan to focus on different sections and topics.  We can also use this as an inexpensive mailer to send to separate address lists, and so reach people who may like our items even though they are not interested in homeschooling.
Some people are wondering if we are still having the Open House at the office.  Yes, indeed, at the usual time: the second Thursday of each month, from 6-8 PM. And you are welcome to come in any weekday to browse through our books; there’s usually someone here from 10-5.
—Donna Richoux

RESPONSE TO JOHN HOLT TRIBUTE
From David Slezak (VA):

…Thanks much for GWS #48.  It was a superior issue bringing together the past and present of the homeschooling movement.
I would encourage you to continue printing information and anecdotes about John Holt’s life and work in every issue.  that will help keep him and his memory alive.  I attended a meeting of some Virginia homeschoolers in Charlottesville last Sunday and was amazed to find several people who had never heard of him.
Please send ten copies of GWS #48.  Enclosed is $9.50 plus a little extra…

MEMORIES OF JOHN

Nancy Plent (NJ) wrote in the Unschoolers Network #19:
…I first "met" John Holt through a phone call on my birthday in 1977.  We had just learned that GWS #1 had been published, and were very excited…My awe soon vanished as John chatted pleasantly with me for several minutes.  When I asked him what he could tell me about the legalities of homeschooling in New Jersey, he replied, "Why, nothing.  We were hoping you folks would tell us!"  It was my first inkling that we were going to have a colleague in John, rather than a guru feeding us directives.

…His observations cut to the heart of things, one of the reasons why his opinions were so valued.  In the early days, we had carefully (and nervously) cultivated a dignified, serious image with the press.  Then we came across some families handling things in what we considered a flamboyant manner, almost gleefully daring the school to give them a hard time so they could "go public" and show them up.  We felt sure they would come across in TV or news stories as irresponsible, and therefore would get a lot of media attention.  While we were concerned, we also felt we couldn’t tell others what to do.  John’s answer was simple.  "You can’t pretend to the media that there are no nuts in this thing, because there before their eyes IS one.  Just trust in your own good works to speak for themselves and don’t worry about what others do."

Another time when John asked how a particular workshop had gone, I moaned that some people had let us down, failing to get things ready that they had promised.  I sighed and guessed that next time I’d just have to do it all myself if I wanted to see it done.  John listened carefully to my woes and launched into a story about Gandhi, the gist of which was that you have to trust people "until they become trustworthy."

But the time that defines the man most clearly to me is a walk we took to the top of a hill one year at the Homesteaders Festival.  John was a great walking companion.  I usually drive people crazy once in a woods or meadow, pointing out things I notice.  John was right in there with me, and we interrupted each other a dozen times to point out wildflowers or small creatures darting past.  When we reached the top and turned to look out over the view, John scanned the hills and murmured " A thousand shades of green" as his eyes swept the trees on the hills beyond us.  He said it again before we walked down, an almost involuntary expression of wonder at the magnificence and complexity of nature’s midsummer show.  He stopped often to feel the warm sun or admire the scene below us.  I noticed later that he did this often in other settings, too, particularly where little children played nearby.  He never missed a word of conversation he was in, but his eyes followed children as they played, and he smiled a lot.  His enjoyment of the world was quite contagious.  I thought about him daily this fall, and tried to make time often to enjoy the lovely days, wishing, in the way we do when someone we love dies, that I could enjoy it twice as much to make up for him not being able to…
______
Danette, Bridget, and Socorro Finn (7, 6 & 4) dictated the following to their mother, Kit, as their tribute to John:

John was a good friend.  He seemed like family to me.  I played with him and I talked with him.  John writed books, and him played on the cello.  He played a violin, too.  He showed how to play our violin.  He played "Guess the song" with us.  We guessed "Twinkle Little Star."  John made a magazine.  A lot of people made a magazine.  John was the boss.  It was him’s idea.  We worked too.  We carried things and stapled.  We took packages to the post office with Steve and Ross.  I bringed John a package and him gave me a kiss.  We copied papers on the copier.  I stapled my finger once.  I put postage on packages and I weighed them.  John typed on his typewriter.  Sometimes he fell asleep on his typewriter.  When he typed he put on his earphones and he didn’t close the door.  He talked on the telephone.  Then he closed the door.  We had a typewriter too and we typed.  but our typing wasn’t a magazine or a book.  Sometimes it was a letter.  Sometime I’m going to make a book.  John said I could make a book.  I like to be with him.  He was our John Holt.  He came to our house.  He slept in Danette’s room. Once Corrie stuck a penny to his head with spit.  It stuck ’cause he was sort of bald.  She was really little.  He said she was learning.  He didn’t yell.  Him never got mad at us.  We watched the gymnastics on TV together.  I told him I plan to be in the Olympics. he said he’d come and cheer for me.  He was going to come and visit us.  I was going to show him my cartwheel.  We were going to play the violin together.  I was going to show him my new room.. But he died.  He got cancer.  Him was too sick.  He took his body off.  He went off to heaven.  I want John! John! John! John!  John is by best friend.  He has to take care of Anna. And he can’t come and visit us.  It’s really sad.  I love John and Anna.  Anna got in an accident and got dead too.  Her went with John.  I don’t like my friends dying.  John was good at hugging.  I can’t hug him any more.  I can’t sit on his lap any more.  Nobody else likes to eat peanut butter and applesauce sandwiches with me.  John liked to talk too and he never called me motor-mouth.  John was a grown-up and a person.  I miss John.  He’s still my best friend.  You can love a person even if he has to take his body off and go off to heaven.

THANKS FROM VAN DORENS

We would like to thank all of you who have expressed your sympathy to us for our Anna’s death.  We very much appreciate your concern.  It really has helped us more than we can say to know there are so many of you who care.  It has shown us that GWS, and the homeschooling movement, are more than a network for exchanging information.  This is a group of people who really understand that we are not just a collection of individuals but people who can support and help one another, and who do so.  Thank you. - MARY, MARK AND HELEN VAN DOREN

HOMESCHOOLING A BLIND CHILD
From Kathy Klemp (see Resources):

…When I suggested homeschooling as a possibility until a better placement could be made for our 9-year-old son who is blind, school personnel told me I couldn’t do that unless we belonged to a fundamentalist religious group.  Not knowing any better, I trusted this person who has worked cooperatively with us for several years.  Thus, our son went back into his old school setting and our summer’s work to help him become an independent young man slowly wasted away.
One month after school started I went to observe our son in his classroom.  I was appalled at what I observed.  His behavior was atrocious (not at all like the child we know at home).  The teacher was not only failing to discipline him effectively, but even made excuses for his behavior when I discussed it with her.  No wonder our son failed third grade last year in spite of his above average intelligence!  He was well on his way through another year of failure, as evidenced by his lack of academic progress.

My husband and I decided that something had to be done immediately.  Further communication with the school proved to be futile.  By the end of that week we notified the school that he would no longer be attending their classes and would be enrolled in our home-based program.  By this time I had finished my homework and was well informed of our legal rights.

…Our homeschool is now in its fourth week and going very well.  Our son’s behavior is very manageable again and he’s so much more relaxed.  It will take a long time for his self-image to change but I see signs of change already.  Academically, he is progressing rapidly and really learning.  While he could not (would not) complete seven addition problems in 15 minutes in his former classroom, he has now learned his times tables through 6X12 and completes 25 multiplication problems in 20-30 minutes.

Although we are doing well, I am anxious to find resources which can supply the special services our son needs, i.e., braille instructions, cane training, etc.,  I have written several letters and I’m beginning to receive some encouraging responses.  I would like to know if there are any other homeschoolers who have blind children, and if so, how they are obtaining the special services for their child…
[From a later note:] …Regarding braille instruction, I am taking a correspondence course offered by the Library of Congress and therefore have the manual I need to look up anything my son can’t figure out.  The NATIONAL FEDERATION FOR THE BLIND offered a seminar for parents of blind children which was very informative and encouraging.  This group of blind people will support us in any way necessary with personal assistance as well as group support…The sold us a cane that day and gave us the basic instruction so our son can now travel more independently…

SPECIAL SERVICES AVAILABLE

From Sandy Stock:

…I am a registered occupational therapist with experience in the public schools - learning disabilities, emotionally disturbed, autism, and other developmental disabilities… Public Law 94-142, the federal "Education for All Handicapped Children" act, does provide for "related services" - occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech - and these are available even if the child does not attend public school.  As a public school therapist, I have provided services for children in private schools.  This may be something that homeschooling parents of handicapped children may want to investigate.  School therapists are generally used to working closely with parents, developing programs to be carried out at home.
…In many states, the schools are required to provide services for students age 0-21; some from age 3-21, or 5-211.  The parents will probably have to demand the services; usually the public schools will do as little as possible.
…Copies of PL 94-142 could be obtained at a law library - perhaps another reader could do that and send one to GWS (my life is quite chaotic right now, as I am moving).  I would suggest contacting the local Director of Special Education.  If the child is not in school, an evaluation can be arranged and treatment provided, if appropriate…

CAN FOSTER CHILDREN HOMESCHOOL?

Deirdre Cox (IL) wrote in the 9/85 HOUSE newsletter:

…A Burning Question Has Been Answered - or at least one of my burning questions.  I talked to several families who homeschool and who do foster care, and none of them have let the agency in question know that they homeschool their own children.  Well, that is too much trouble for me to go through, so when I went down to Catholic Charities to investigate their program we discussed foster care and homeschooling, and came to the agreement that (1) if the child desperately did not want to attend school and (2) if the natural parents were in agreement that I could homeschool, then as far as Catholic Charities was concerned, it was OK with them - just in case anyone else had those sorts of thoughts.  It was my impression that you don’t have to be Catholic to go through Catholic Charities foster parent program…

ON PARENTS LEARNING
From Kathy Purdy (NY):

…Janet Williams (GWS #46) wanted to know how mothers’ lives have changed since beginning homeschooling… I am starting to shake the idea that there are certain things I’m good at and certain things that I just can’t do.  I realize that I’m capable of far more than I gave myself credit for in the past.  That’s one of the reasons I’m typing this letter.  I took typing in high school and barely got up to 30 wpm.  Ever since then I have described myself as someone who "can’t type very well," someone who just doesn’t have the knack for it.  Long, frustrating hours in college typing essays and term papers, where the spelling (i.e. typing) had to be perfect, confirmed this perception of myself.  But since I have been reading some of John Holt’s stuff (HOW CHILDREN LEARN, HOW CHILDREN FAIL, TEACH YOUR OWN, and most recently, back issues of GWS), I am realizing how much of this desire for perfection hampered my first attempt to learn to type.  So now I am trying to type without looking and without worrying about typos and I expect that my typing will eventually improve…
_____

Another reader writes:
…I had an interesting experience a couple of months ago.  I was attending a gem and mineral show, and there were a number of artisans making various kinds of jewelry, as people watched.  One fellow was making a "lost wax" tree.  The "lost wax" process is used for making silver castings, each of which is unique…  You can shape a figure by adding lots of tiny bits until you get what you want.  Trees are easy to make because they lend themselves to being formed by tiny bits, especially by amateurs.  It is a process that takes at least a half hour by someone who is skilled.

Well, the fellow was sitting there making a tree, and I was watching him, fascinated.  To learn lost wax is one of many little goals in life I had set for myself.  After I watched him for awhile, he asked me if I wanted to try it.  I was truly astounded because, in general, people tend to be very proprietary with their equipment, myself included.  But I thought it would be fun to try, and in any case, If I learned it on this day, I wouldn’t have to pay someone a sum of money to take a class.  It looked as if I could learn the essence of it in one session, and the rest I could glean from books, if I got the necessary equipment.  So I decided to try it, and I sat there for quite awhile making a tree.  I was right proud of my tree; it really looked good.

The man told me that he often asks people who are interested if they want to try to make a tree.  He said that they almost never agree to do it!  I thought this was very strange, although I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised; after all, I have been living in this society for about 40 years, but the fact was, I did not expect to hear this.  I naturally assumed that people are as eager to try new things as I am.  This is in spite of the fact that most people I know won’t read books to learn anything either.  Well, while we were sitting there, at least a half a dozen people cam and expressed intense interest in what I was doing.  The man asked several of them if they wanted to try it.  In fact, he strongly urged them.  No luck.  I also asked some of them if they wanted to try it, and none of them did!  I almost thought I had a customer one time, but alas! not.

At any rate, this got us involved in a conversation about why people are afraid to try new things.  We didn’t make any profound observations about the nature of the universe, I am afraid, but it occurred to me that nearly everybody in our society is a product of the schools.  It seemed logical to both of us that the schools do something to people that makes them afraid to try new things.  Maybe it is penalizing people for guessing, and for being wrong.  Maybe it is the intense competitiveness, naturally due to a disparity of ages…

All of this, of course, leads one to notice how pervasive the fear of new experiences is in  our society.  Whether it be the casual passer-by who won’t make a lost wax tree, or my electronic music composition teacher who uses her synthesizer with aplomb, but is scared to death of computers (in my mind, machines of the same ilk!).  I have run into it everywhere I turn, most especially now that I am paying attention.  But it has been my experience that the homeschooling parents I know, who have been at it for more than two years, have lost this fear to a large extent and are reaching out to embrace the world…
_____

From Barbara Gauthier (Ont.):

…Over the last year, I have been following correspondence courses.  My aim is to redo my science and math courses form high school and get the best marks possible.  I hated high school when I was younger and, therefore, only did enough work to get through.  The courses are put out by the Ontario Ministry of Education and the entire high school curriculum is available.  Unfortunately, these courses are not yet available to people of high school age.  Hopefully, by the time the kids are that age, they will be able to follow these courses at home (if they are still homeschooling) if they intend to go on to universities.  For myself, I am hoping to get as far as medical
school and continue on to psychiatry.  Fortunately, the government provides a Single Parent Allowance which we have learned to live on quite comfortably.  It allows me to stay home and study with the kids.  It is just amazing how I am enjoying math and how simple and logical it is.  There is nothing wrong with learning algebra, geometry , trigonometry, etc., the problem is that the schools force people to learn it whether they want or need to or not, and without any choice of when or where or how they learn it…

LET THEM DISCOVER

Sharron Lerew (PA) wrote in her family’s newsletter (see story elsewhere this issue):

…Lloyed and I took the "How to Listen So Kids Will Talk and Talk So Your Kids Will Listen" workshop last spring.  One of the big revelations I got from that workshop was that when I notice that someone does not understand something or is misinformed about something that it is not necessarily my responsibility to teach them or correct them; that if they eventually learn it themselves it will be theirs - not mine.  A beautiful example of this happened during Jenny’s pot-holder spurt.  During the first few days she was making "random" pot holders.  I love pattern in everything and had a terrible time not hinting to her that something exciting would happen if she would put colors on the loom systematically.  I resisted and about the third day she came up to me with the biggest smile and behind her back a patterned pot-holder.  She was so thrilled.  And she had discovered it herself!  Of course after two days of her making that same pattern I was once again tempted to suggest that a different system would produce a different pattern.  Luckily I’m learning to resist these temptations when I notice them…

PERCENTILES ARE MISLEADING

From John Meyer (see "Additions to Speaker Bureau"):

…In reference to the letter from Kitty Semisch (VA) in GWS #47, I wish to make some comments about assessing children using standardized tests, and the interpretation of results from such tests.

Homeschoolers should be particularly aware that the use of percentile scores to interpret standardized tests can be very misleading because percentiles are NOT evenly spaced quantities.  For example, the "small" difference between the 2nd and the 16th percentile is, from a statistical standpoint, as significant a difference as is the "larger" difference between the 16th and the 50th percentile.  Assessment specialists generally consider the "average" range on a standardized test to lie between the 16th and the 84th percentiles.  (Technically Speaking, this is the range from a negative one standard deviation to a plus one standard deviation from the mean, i.e., a Z Score of -1 to +1.)  In any meaningful sense of the term, children can ONLY be considered to be above or below "average" if their scores fall OUTSIDE of this range.  Consequently, any regulation which demands that a homeschooled child perform above the 40th percentile or be returned to a traditional classroom can only be interpreted as absurd.  Unfortunately, I am familiar with situations where a school district has placed kids into classes for the handicapped because their test scores were near the 25th percentile - still well within the "average" range!…

PARENT PROTESTS TEST SET-UP

From Mary Ann Daniels (NY):

…It was with such sadness we learned of John’s death.  I wrote him over two years ago to thank him.  Judy (now 11) was labeled hyperactive/learning disabled.  We solved the "hyperactive" problems with Feingold’s Diet, and we didn’t feel Judy was "learning disabled."  She wouldn’t do her schoolwork - she hated it.  At the ages of 5, 6, and 7, she had enough fortitude to follow through with her hatred of paperwork and refused to do it.   She drew pictures of horses and unicorns on the back of her mimeographed worksheets, made up songs and sang them, about the subjects of the paperwork, and outright refused to have anything to do with ABC order or anything tedious.

This is our third year of homeschooling.  I love it!  It was as Donna stated in Issue #46 of GWS, to a mother whose daughter only wanted to play: "It will quite likely take as long for the effects of school to wear off as the number of years that she was in it."  Judy was in school for three years and the barriers she built up just began coming down this year.  Suddenly learning is becoming something which is beginning to be fun.  She actually loves math now.

…On the gloomy side, we moved into a new school district last winter and were required to go in for testing.  Judy got nervous and blew it.  I then received a phone call form the principal.  When I told her I placed no significance on the tests she was a bit shocked, as she is a "test" person.  To top that off, this fall we received a letter from the C.O.H. saying we could get a "free" education for our previously handicapped child.  I can hardly believe that our child’s progress is being judged by one standardized test.  They never asked to see her work or anything…  I started researching the standardized test in my sister’s teaching text books.  All I found were statements such as "It is doubtful that the results of standardized tests can be accepted with great confidence."
I then got angry and sent them a letter letting them know it…  I also cited Judy’s experience with the testing situation itself: writing answers in the booklet first instead of the answer sheet, being nervous, not completing the test, getting involved in a little incident with a boy, the classroom not being quiet like she is used to, etc…  I requested that they send me a sample of the CAT and a sample of the PEP Writing Test that she has to take this spring.  I also  asked for arrangements to be made for her to take the test in a quiet place.

Guess what we got in the mail Saturday?  We got a nice letter and a copy of the CAT and PEP test.  The psychologist also told me to contact the principal to make special arrangements in the spring for a suitable testing environment.  When we looked through the test we were amazed.  Judy should come through with flying colors.  We did the first twenty words of vocabulary and she got only two wrong (and our school year isn’t even half over yet).  Our conclusion is that Judy is above grade level.  So, with a little bit of luck everything should go really well this year…

CREATIVE TEST ANSWERS
Another good testing story from Eda LeShan’s book THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST CHILDHOOD (see GWS #48):

…At the age of six, when I was given my first intelligence test for entrance into a progressive school, I was later asked by my mother what I had thought of the test.  I reported that it had been all right, except for one very puzzling question.  I said that the teacher had asked me to draw a lion between a chair and a pail drawn on the test page; I didn’t think I could draw a good Lion, so I had drawn a daisy instead.  When my mother said, "But, Eda, they probably wanted you to draw a line between the chair and pail," I replied, "Oh, but that would have been to easy!"

…It later developed that on a simple arithametic question, "When the fox ate two little rabbits, and then he ate two more little rabbits, the fox had eaten —- little rabbits," I gave as my answer, "The fox ate the poor little rabbits."  When my mother suggested that I should have said "four rabbits," I replied, "Oh, but Mommie, the poor rabbits!"

COURT NEWS

_____
South Bend (IN) Tribune, 1/19/86

…A Berrien County (Michigan) judge has upheld the conviction of Berrien Springs woman who said she did not send her son to school in 1974 because of religious beliefs, but he also has criticized a lower court for delays which kept the case pending for 11 years.

In the interim, the 7-year-old boy has become an 18-year-old adult who is attending college and is old enough to vote.

…Although he upheld the verdict, [Circuit Judge Chester J. Byrns] criticized the sentence imposed in Berrien District Court against Judith Jones, then Judith Waddell, and set aside a ruling that she pay $1,000 in costs.

Jones was arraigned Jan. 16, 1975, on a charge of failing to send her son, Brett Waddell, to school from Sept. 8, 1974, to Jan. 14, 1975.

…Jones claimed that she kept the boy out of school because of her religious beliefs expressed by Ellen G. White, a 19th century prophetess of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

…[Judge Byrns] wrote that Jones’ beliefs concerning sending her son to school is not shared by all Adventists and there is no official church position on school entrance age.  In fact, Byrns said, the overwhelming majority of Adventists do send their children to school at the required age.

In reversing the sentence that Jones pay $1,000 in costs, Byrns said that costs are of ten waived entirely in cases where a public question, such as constitutional rights, is involved…  He said courts must not chill  sincere constitutional claims and defenses by assessing heavy penalties when the claim is denied…
_____

The Firminghams of Pontiac, MI (GWS #47 & 48) have agreed to place their children in an approved private school while they appeal their case.  Because of this, contempt of court charges were dropped.

Meanwhile, Pat Montgomery reports in the December Learning Edge that two families in Oakland County have been summoned to appear in court for "educational neglect," even though one family had already returned their child to school, and the other is supervised by two certified teachers.  The truant officer of Oakland County says he intends to take every homeschooling family in the county to court, "two at a time so as not to tie up the court system."

FEARS HARASSMENT FOR "TRUANCY"
From Gayla Groom-Slatton (OR):

…I work with an attorney who is in charge of representing the city of Portland in any truancy problems that arise.  I asked him how the police determine who is a truant.  He says that they basically just confront kids who are out and about during school hours, take them to one or another Horrible Public Institution (I’m Paraphrasing), and call their parents.  This is awful.  I realize that the majority of truants are out looking for trouble, at least the ones the police would likely be looking for.  But how can I protect my kids, when they get old enough to be out and about on their own, from being summarily picked up and escorted in a police car to a police station or juvenile home or whatever, and left there until the "authorities" can get a hold of me or my husband?  How can I keep the authorities from bulling and harassing my children?  If it is not the law that a child has to be in school during certain hours, then why are the police enforcing such a law?  Surely they can find better things to do.  I remember one encounter I had with the law when I was a teenager, and although I’d done nothing wrong, the terror of the situation was all out of proportion to reality.  I suppose that’s the point…

[DR: Any response, readers?  I can’t ever remember someone telling us that the police had harassed homeschooled children, but it may have happened.  My hunch is that if a child is reasonably verbal, and is going somewhere or doing something in a purposeful manner, not just hanging around, then there’s not likely to be a problem.  "We’re homeschooling, and I’m on my way to my French lesson."  My guess also is that most homeschooling parents don’t allow their children the sort of far-ranging play during school hours that they would permit at other times, that children are either close to home or out on a specific mission - with their parents, if younger, or alone, if older.  Is this accurate?]

N.Y. TELLS LOCAL DISTRICTS

When I wrote the "How To Get Started" story for the last issue, I said we never heard of a state department of education official passing along names of those who inquired about homeschooling to the local school districts.  Well, there’s a first time for everything.

A Long Island family reports that if you ask the New York State Education Department in Albany for the new guidelines on homeschooling, a copy of the state’s reply is sent to your local superintendent.  This did not pose any problem for this particular family, but they felt that others should be alerted.
Rather an unpleasantly officious action of the State, I must say.  However, as we have also said before, if you are concerned about giving your name out, you can arrange to make inquiries through a non-homeschooling friend. - DR

LOCAL NEWS

ALABAMA: Lee Gonet of ALABAMA CITIZENS FOR HOME EDUCATION says the group has decided to forego supporting any homeschooling legislation for 1986.  "There is too much of a possibility for a bad law to be passed that we would rather wait until we hold a stronger position.  In other ’safe’ states the mandatory attendance laws had been ruled unconstitutional before any homeschool legislation had been enacted. [DR: for example, GA & WI.]  In two prior cases (Hill v. State, 1981, and Jerniigan V. State, 1982) our courts ruled that Alabama’s school attendance laws were constitutional.

"so until the Alabama Education Association holds a weaker position in our House and Senate and/or we prove in court that the state of Alabama has a minimal interest in our children’s education, we will not actively push for a new law concerning home education.  This does not mean that we will not be lobbying this coming year.   The group decided that we will be putting our energy into communication and education of the general public and our legislators through letters, phone calls, and personal contacts, with the thought of the 1986 elections in mind…"

ARKANSAS: The state is enforcing strictly the clause in the new homeschooling law (GWS #46) that says homeschooling families must file their intent notices by august 15, says the ARKANSAS CHRISTIAN HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION.  Families cannot remove children from school in mid-year and begin homeschooling.  ACHEA plans to address this problem in the next legislative session.  Furthermore, if a homeschooled 6-year-old turns 7 during the school year, the state is saying s/he is truant unless the family filed the August notice.

CALIFORNIA: A law passed in October, SB 695, revised the procedures that allow students from grades K-12 to take community college courses.  If the community college approves, a child may attend part-time or full time, and the college will be able to collect state aid money.  Full-time attendance satisfies the compulsory education law.  Parents of children not in school can petition the president of the community college directly.

COLORADO: A recent Denver Post article says that Rep. Mike Bird, a homeschooling parent himself, planned to introduce a bill that would eliminate the state’s authority to approve home study programs, and allow for alternatives to standardized testing, such as evaluation by a certified teacher.  Students who weren’t progressing after two years of home study could be forced to return to public school.

The NORTHERN COLORADO HOME SCHOOL ASSOCIATION newsletter listed four districts that seem to reject homeschooling requests automatically: Westminster, Aurora, St. Vrains, and Pueblo #60.  Families should know that they have the right to appeal to the State Board of Education.

CONNECTICUT: The CONNECTICUT HOMESCHOOLERS ASSOCIATION is preparing a phone tree so members can act quickly if possible adverse legislation is introduced.
DELAWARE: Homeschoolers have told me on the phone that there is some uncertainty as to whether it would indeed be wise to introduce legislation (GWS #48), or whether most families are content with the existing law.

GEORGIA: About 400 parents attended a GEORGIANS FOR FREEDOM IN EDUCATION seminar in November.  Guest speaker was a State Department of Education official who talked about the first year under the recent homeschooling law.

KANSAS: Bonnie Sawyer writes in Kansas for Alternative Education, "Last session the House Education Committee tabled action on any home school legislation, pending a decision on a case on appeal before the Kansas Supreme Court.  The appeal has since been dropped and is no longer a factor in the Committee taking action.  Therefore, the Committee could act on HB 2009, 2090, and 2178 at any time…  a major concern is that the committee will take HB 2178 and amend it with some of the unacceptable conditions contained in 2008 and 2080…

"This will be an election year for the House, and some Representatives may want to avoid controversial issues.  One positive point: the legislators have heard from homeschoolers!  Representative Louis has received many comments from other legislators about the amount of mail they have received.
"While [2178] may not be a perfect bill, it is one that the lawyers felt they could defend us with in court if it were passed.  This appears to be our best option."

LOUISIANA: From the newsletter of CITIZENS FOR HOME EDUCATION - NORTHWEST CHAPTER: "The new [education] department head, Sue Starling, has been very gracious and helpful with homeschool families.  The majority of the renewal applications have been recommended for approval, but some have needed additional verification of eligibility…  According to Cathi Edwards, the applications that were accompanied by test scores were recommended for approval without questions.  Those families who chose to develop their own programs rather than use the curriculums familiar to the educators, such as A Beka, are being asked to submit additional materials.  In these instances, submitting the standardized test scores would be the quickest means of verification.  Even if the child scored lower than his grade level this is no cause for concern as the department is looking for progress."

MAINE: Barry Kahn (ME) writes, "The biggest bizarre news in my life is that I am running for the Portland School Committee.  After 37 years of quiet apolitical life, I’m going public.  As I told one of my friends, even though my kids don’t attend public school, they live in the same town - and play with - all the kids who do.  If I can make school a little more sensible for all those kids, I’ll be content."

MARYLAND: The MARYLAND HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION was unable to find a sponsor for a one-paragraph bill that would have only required homeschoolers to file a notarized affidavit stating that the child is receiving "regular, thorough instruction in the studies usually taught to children of the same age."  So they are now supporting a modified version of Florida’s law, which delegate John Gary of Anne Arundel county is willing to introduce.  Under the bill, parents would keep a portfolio of records and work, and provide an annual assessment in any of a variety of ways (test, certified teacher evaluation, correspondence program evaluation, etc.).

MICHIGAN: The Learning Edge reports that close to 1,000 attended the homeschooling rally at the state capitol in Lansing on October 23.  The rally was organized by INFORMATION NETWORK FOR CHRISTIAN HOMES.
MINNESOTA: Sharon Hillestad of the MINNESOTA HOMESCHOOL NETWORK felt that the Dec. 12 hearing before the Senate Education Committee went well; many homeschoolers attended and presented good testimony.  However, Ellen Loegering says the additional January hearing did not go so well.   Senator Pehler, the chairman of the committee, has drawn up an interim bill that would set up a Task Force to write the actual bill, and would in the meantime impose requirements regarding curriculum and testing.  Various educators testified on behalf of this bill.

Ellen says that when the legislative session starts Feb. 3, Pehler’s bill will be formally introduced, as will be the homeschooling bill drafted by the Berean League (GWS #43), and more hearings will be held.

MISSOURI: FAMILIES FOR HOME EDUCATION says the "Academic Freedom" bill, allowing homeschooling with no restrictions, has been introduced in the legislature by Sen. John Schneider of Florissant and Rep. Ronnie DePasco of Kansas City.
NEW YORK: Katharine Houk of the HOMESCHOOLERS EXCHANGE was invited to take part in a Jan. 16 conference of "education leaders" in New York State, the purpose being to improve relations between public and non-public schools.

OKLAHOMA: Joyce Spurgin sent us a news story in which the Oklahoma education Association listed a dozen legislative goals, one of which was "On the home-school issues, the association opposes any schools without certified personnel and accreditation from the state Department of Education."  Oklahoma has been one of the most peaceful states for homeschoolers ever since 1922 when the State Supreme Court decided Wright v. State.  Joyce has written her representatives and is sending copies of the clipping to other families in the GWS Directory, and I imagine the various homeschooling organizations across the state are also taking action.

PENNSYLVANIA: An article in the Lancaster Sunday News, 11/17/85, shows how much school superintendents vary in their handling of homeschool requests.   Dr. Curtis Rohm of Solanco says his district has granted permission to homeschoolers for many years, and has had "pretty good experiences."  Donald Bissinger of Hempfield says, "I won’t allow it…  There is no home school that can match the quality of education in a public school."

WISCONSIN: On Nov. 15, the Senate Education Committee held an informational hearing on the 1984 homeschooling law.  Roger Sunby of the Dept. of Education and other educators said that the law did not provide any assurance that children were being educated.

In January, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards convention considered a resolution to ask for more regulation of homeschoolers.  Donna Mahr tells us that several homeschoolers were able to attend, distribute copies of the existing law, and speak about the legal standing.  The resolution was tabled until next year’s convention.

Donna, a former school board member herself, says she has told her local schools, "If you want the state to regulate me, I will go to the state and get them to regulate you" - and she feels this has a strong effect, as local control is very important to school officials. - DR

PUBLIC DISAPPROVES OF HOMESCHOOLS?

From Karen Furuhjelm (NH):

…I found an article in a local paper that states "The public (73%) thinks that the movement toward homeschooling is a bad thing for the nation."  Need I point out that it is unlikely that this 73% has seriously considered the issue for more than thirty seconds, and has done no research into the how, why, and why not of homeschooling?  This sentence was the last sentence in a 230-word article, and the only mention of homeschooling in the entire column.  Furthermore, the internal evidence suggests that this article and the survey upon which it was based were most likely prepared and paid for by the National Education Association, although there is no official responsibility given…
[DR: Karen sent the entire article, which is just as she describes it.  It was a report on the "17th annual Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools" and says the results of the poll were to be published in the September 1985 issue of the magazine Phi Delta Kappan.  Perhaps a reader could look this up and send us a copy?  There may be some useful information given on how the item was worded, who was polled, and so on.]

LOBBYING & LETTER-WRITING

Here is advice and experience from two homeschooling newsletters that may be useful to anyone involved in a legislative battle.  First, from the PENCIL Sharpener  (PA):

Letter Writing:  Representative Pitts [sponsor of the homeschooling bill] has said on many occasions that five personal contact and ten letters from homeschooling families in a particular district will get that vote.  In our work up to now, we have been struck by how unfamiliar many legislators seem to be both with the concept of homeschooling and with HB 1478 itself.  We cannot blame busy legislators for this; rather, we must make it our business to inform them.
Writing letters, especially to members of the Education Committee, continues to be one of the most important things you can do.  Below is a list of all members of this committee, and we urge you to write to them, particularly to Chairman Gallagher, who has, as Rep. Pitts says, "life or death power over the fate of the bill."  Many letter-writers have already gotten evasive, non-committal responses from various legislators.  If this has happened to you, we strongly suggest that you follow up with another letter, this time insisting on a substantive response.  You can still be polite (and it is always important to be) while asking your representative to identify his or her particular concerns about the bill so that you may address them.  We have fact sheets available on Teacher Certification, Truancy, Achievement Tests, Socialization, and The Present Law (send us a self-addressed, stamped envelope) and you are welcome to send these to legislators or to use the facts within them in your letters.
In your letters, remember to be brief, polite, firm, and above all, personal - that is, emphasize what the passage of the bill would mean to you and your family.  Stress that you are not attacking the schools, merely hoping to secure the right to homeschool.

Finally, do continue to send us whatever responses you receive, as we forward these to Rep. Pitts and keep our own list as well.  If Rep. Pitts knows what the legislators are saying to you, he is able to identify which ones need more convincing, and he puts his staff to work doing just that.
Lobbying:  After visiting the offices of two representatives on the day of the rally, we are convinced that Rep. Pitts has not underestimated the value of personal visits.  Many legislators are simply unfamiliar with the bill and have no clear or realistic notion of who homeschoolers are.  Their lack of information, supplemented only by a few negative stories sensationalized by the press, seems to lead them to imagine families who might keep their children at home and then "refuse to educate them," and this in turn makes them wary of supporting House Bill 1478.  Tom Eldredge, president of PARENT EDUCATORS OF PENNSYLVANIA, made the point when he spoke at the rally that the parents whom legislators fear are really hypothetical parents.  We need to show legislators that homeschoolers are concerned, dedicated and reasonable people, interested in the best education for their children.  It is not difficult to do this, and legislators are interested in speaking with intelligent and concerned voters (which all of you are).  So do visit a legislator  who is still undecided or opposed - either your own, or a member of the Education Committee - and bring your children.  Don’t waste the time of a legislator who has already promised to support the bill, but do write a brief thank you.  And do let us know what happens!…
_____

And from Kansans for Alternative Education:

…The most effective means of communicating with our elected officials is by letter.  When writing to legislators, it is important to remember the following:
1.  KEEP LETTERS SHORT AND TO THE POINT.  The nicest available paper and envelopes should be used.  Do not use notebook paper.
2.  GRAMMAR AND SPELLING.  It is essential that all letters be free of spelling and grammatical errors.  This is extremely important because we are arguing that parents are capable of deciding the educational standards of their children.  So please have someone proofread each letter for grammatical and spelling errors.
3.  BE NEAT.  A handwritten note carries the most weight.  However, if you have difficulty in maintaining a neat letter, use a typewriter.  [DR:  My own feeling is that a neatly typed, one page letter will probably pack more punch than multiple pages of large handwriting.]  Do not use pencil.
4.  INCLUDE ONLY ONE ISSUE IN THE LETTER.  Do not bring up other issues when writing about home education.  If you are concerned about several issues, address these in separate letters.
5.  ALWAYS USE YOUR OWN WORDS.  When writing your letters, don’t copy someone else’s wording.  Always use your own ideas and arguments.  They are the most effective weapon you have.  Most legislators read personal letters they receive but are not impressed by and will not read form letters.
6.  WRITE YOUR ADDRESS BELOW YOUR SIGNATURE.  Many times legislators want to acknowledge receipt of your letter.
7.  KEEP TRACK OF YOUR LEGISLATOR’S VOTE ON ISSUES YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT.  If he votes as you suggested, send him a nice thank-you.  If he does not, let him know you are disappointed and ask for an explanation of his vote.
Your note to you legislator should include:
1.  The bill number along with a short description of the subject of the bill.
2.  Your position - support or oppose.
3.  Two or three brief reasons supporting your position.
4.  Your recommendation of action to be taken.
Your letter will make a difference…

PLANS HER OWN DAY

A parent wrote in the newsletter of HOME SCHOOLS UNITED (NV):

…Our 9-year-old lost her enthusiasm for daily study; she just wanted to watch TV and play all day.  We decided to put her in charge of her own learning program by requiring that after breakfast and her morning chores, she was to tell us what her study plans for the day would be and to then get started on them.  We didn’t have to remind her once.
All we did was ask her what her plans were and it was obvious that she had already thought it out.  She got busy right after her chores.  And her work seemed better, too; there weren’t as many mistakes.  I have heard that other homeschoolers were "self-directed" but I never really understood that concept until trying it with my daughter…

WHAT HE WANTS TO LEARN

More from Kathy Purdy (NY):

…Last year our oldest son Teman (5) was enrolled in Yamaha music school.  He has been teaching himself to swim in the kiddie pool across the park (he can dogpaddle with his head in the water) and I asked him which would he prefer, going back to Yamaha or swimming lessons.  He said he’d rather go to Yamaha because he already knows how to swim!  I then asked him what else he would like to learn this year, and he told me:

1) how to ride a horse
2) how to drive a car
3) how to control trucks (i.e. operate earth moving machinery such as bulldozers)
4) how to use a saw
5) how to use a chain saw
6) how to do monkey bars
7) how to climb a tree (which he taught himself shortly thereafter)
8) how to use a hammer
9) how to put a wall up
10) how to read
11) how to nurse (feed) a baby a bottle
12) how to write words
13) how to build a house
14) how to fix a book
15) how to make toys
16) how to hold a baby without leaning on an armrest
17) how to help my dad
18) how to help my mom
19) how to cook
20) how to use a food processor
21) how to go down the fast slide without getting hurt
22) how to go down the fireman’s pole
23) how to put up a ceiling
24) how to change a baby’s diaper
25) how to put up pictures
26) how to have music lessons on a guitar

My husband is replacing the plaster walls in the boys’ room with sheet rock, and many of Teman’s "how-to’s" reflect this.  I have been reinforcing the children’s paperback books with clear, adhesive shelf-paper and this is what he means by "fixing books."  He has a 2-month-old baby sister…  The rest are self-explanatory, though I suspect 10, 17, and 18 were included by him to please me more than anything else.

I was surprised at the range of activity he was interested in and at the powerful desire for mastery, both of himself and the world around him, that his list revealed.  I’m glad I asked, because now I make a point to include him in activities I might otherwise have felt "too busy" to help him learn about.  I could write another whole letter on the temptations of being too busy when raising children ages 5, 3 3/4, 2, and 2 months, but it’s taken me four days to type this much so I think I’ll save it for another time…

SECOND GRADE WITH J.P.

From Kathy Mingl (IL):

…At some point, maybe during the summer, because we’d stopped practicing with him and he thought we were done, J.P. (7) had decided that since he now knew how to read, he should be able to do it as well as Tony and I can.  (He wants to read science-fiction and mystery stories - the heck with Dr. Seuss.)  When it didn’t work that way, he couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and to top it off, he was shocked to discover that his friend Andy, who’s half a year younger than he is, can read better than he can!  Poor guy - when school-work time came and I asked him to read something, he went nuts.  It would be funny if he just wasn’t so hard on himself (and hard to live with!) when he gets that way.

I did not laugh, and I promised to help him get to the point where he feels he can read as fast and as well as he wants to.  I pointed out that reading is a skill and anyone can improve - even Daddy and Mommy.  (I do all right with words I know, but I have a terrible time with foreign words and scientific terms, for instance.)  That cheered him up; he always loves to hear about grownups having trouble with anything, especially his mother…

Most of his trouble was just that he was upsetting himself about it.  With that taken care of, he was anxious to do schoolwork.  I asked him if he’d run into anything else he couldn’t do or wanted to do better and we started making a list.  Those became our goals for schoolwork, and after we had spent some time writing down everything we could think of, I began to have him choose "targets" for the day out of them (targets are used in Scientology classes), and check each one off as we did it.

Our pattern was falling into place.  Learning, of course, goes on all the time.  His hamster has babies and we discuss reproduction and genetics, and look up how to take care of them.  We make cookies and I show him how to read and add fractions.  He notices that a car passing ours from the opposite direction seems to go faster than when we go past a parked car, and we discuss physics and relativity.  He helps me with an art project and we discuss and experiment with techniques.  We cut out Halloween decorations four at a time with a razor knife and discuss cutting methods, multiplication, and first aid.  (There are many ways of getting educated!)  This is the best time to introduce subjects from his Clonlara curriculum, pointing them out in actual action, but one thing I notice is that J.P.’s own questions and projects seem to parallel what he’s "supposed" to be learning.  Of course, his list of "goals" doesn’t show all that he’s doing - roller skating, building projects, map-reading, science experiments, etc.  These things wouldn’t come up, probably, unless he ran into some sort of trouble with them.  Each day we talk about what he’s been doing and add any new goals he’s thought of.

In hindsight (I admit that we’ve just been making all this up as we go along), this seems like an eminently logical plan, if I do say so myself.  He gets the idea first from doing something he’s interested in so the purpose is there already, we address only the matters he has questions on, so it’s not arbitrary, and since it’s his goals we’re working for, discipline is automatic - if he wastes my time I just threaten to quit helping him.  This is evilly effective, let me tell you.

We’re using an excellent phonics book that was recommended by Sharon Hillestad (MN) - PROFESSOR PHONICS GIVES SOUND ADVICE by Monica Foltzer, M. Ed.  It’s cram-packed with just about every rule, key and reason known to the English language, and though it was too overwhelming for J.P. last year, now that he’s reading it’s just what he needs.  J.P. likes mysteries, so we joke that he’s the detective and this book is his "detective manual" to help him spot the "clues" in his reading.  I try to have him practice on stories he already knows, to keep his speed and confidence up.  He especially likes to drive me nuts with joke and riddle books - the more I protest, the more he reads!  Sometimes he wants to read the same book several days in a row, just because it’s a good story and he didn’t "get all the juice out" the first time.  I’m concentrating on his reading just now, and only hitting the other subjects lightly, because (a) it’s what he’s most concerned about, and (b) more and more, his grasp of the others is going to depend on his ability to read.  As he gets into writing and typing he’s beginning to notice spelling, so I’m going to introduce him to some of the principles of it from his phonics book.

I don’t know if there’s a connection, but as he’s learned to read, J.P.’s also taken an interest in musical note reading.  His grandpa’s out of town, so we marked all the keys on the piano, and he spotted that they are all arranged in alphabetical order (another new interest).  He’s always liked all sorts of musical instruments (he has a harmonica, and a recorder, violin, concertina, flute, and clarinet from garage sales), but up until now he’s been satisfied with them as toys and hasn’t cared if he could make songs or just noises with them.  Lately he’s been getting more scientific about it, so we bought him several of the "Mel Bay" instruction book series - they’re not very expensive ($2.95), and they have all kinds, all "Fun with ___" titles, which is exactly what J.P. had in mind.  We do a few pages at a time for his schoolwork and he learns the proper fingering and so on, and is very pleased with himself.  Sometimes he practices and sometimes he doesn’t, and I would never force him to.
There’s been some discussion about that in GWS, in regards to "discipline."  I do make J.P. finish what he starts, because he has trouble with that, but what I think you have to go by is his own original intention.  J.P., for now, is just playing to have fun, and if I see hem getting rather "dug-in’ and confused, as he did the other day when he first got his harmonica book and tried to figure it all out, I’ll even send him off to make some more "noises."  (As to help somebody, you have to help them do what they wanted to do, not what you think they ought to want).  Of course, I don’t believe he’s wasting his time - he’s getting familiar with the instrument, finding out what it can do and what he can do with it, and then the book will make more sense.  I think what he’s really studying is music theory, correlating it all together.

Arithmetic we attack from several different angles, mostly in the form of games (such as "basketball" for adding a continuous score), and projects like cooking, where the application is obvious.  We’ve been doing some drills to help him recognize various coin combinations at a glance, and I’ve promised to do some others with him to get him faster at reading his clock ( he built one himself, out of an inexpensive battery-operated clock motor, a piece of wood I helped him drill out, and some stick-on numbers he bought - real easy).  He goes around telling everyone what time it is, and if he wants to watch TV, I make him look it up in the TV guide.  He always objects, but it does seem to keep him in control of it, rather than letting him turn into a zombie.  I know some people believe that any TV is too much, just as some believe in completely avoiding sugar.  I limit J.P. on both, and try to teach him self-control.  (One thing that’s turned him off of TV somewhat is my pointing out that it’s a grownup plot to make kids sit still and stay out of trouble - now he gets suspicious if I ask him if he’s going to watch cartoons.)  He uses his clock to check when his programs start.

…When he wanted to try cursive writing, I had him practice by signing his name all over the house, leaving his signature on the bottom of chairs for his grandchildren to find, and playing with the cake decorator tube and some leftover frosting when we made cookies.

We also helped him open a saving account and gave him a check to deposit in it - he practiced for days so he could endorse it and sign the card (money always inspires him), and was he impressed when he got his very own bankbook with all those wonderful deposit and withdrawal slips in it!  Even so, although he could form the letters one-by-one, he didn’t make the real breakthrough until just the other day - he had read a little storybook he’s always liked, straight through, all by himself (such an exciting business itself, that he nearly bounced all the bedsprings out of my bed!), and I suggested that he might like to sign it, as a book he had read.  Boy, did he approve of that idea!  He started making his name, letter by letter as usual, and suddenly he was writing it - smoothly in one continuous line.  He was so excited he almost went into orbit, and autographed everything in sight.

I’m sure everyone who’s been homeschooling for a while recognizes that "airborne" feeling when a kid’s understanding suddenly ignites, and there’s so much significance in the air it raises the hair on the back of your neck.  I thought of John then, and thought I knew what made him such a great teacher and communicator - he loved that feeling himself, and wanted to share it: the thrill of discovery, the joy of understanding, the aesthetic of learning that "touches the spirit."

Whenever I try to explain something to J.P., I look at my own feelings for the truest and simplest way to put it.  Suddenly, translating it into its primary elements for someone else, it comes together for me, and I learn it too.  Then I go and find Tony and tell him about it - homeschooling is going to get us all educated, yet?

9-YEAR-OLD’S OPINION

From Shaina Dow, age 9:

…I homeschool because Mom and Dad wanted me to.  They didn’t think that school was a good place for me.  I wasn’t learning and I was being treated badly.  One time somebody took a boy’s car and the person who took it put it in my desk.  The teacher thought I did it.  And one time I asked to play jump rope and some boys ran by and knocked me down.  In class I didn’t work fast enough so I had to stay in after lunch, or get yelled at, or had to put my head down on my desk or had to stand against the wall at recess.

I was in first grade when I stopped school.  Homeschooling was hard when we first started.   We had trouble with it because I didn’t do my work.  Homeschooling is getting easier now because we don’t do things like the school does.  I get to play more now.  I ride my bike.  I go for walks.  I get to stay overnight at Grammy and grampa’s.  I go to the museum, too.  I like to draw, read and play house.  I still have to do lessons.  I get them done quickly sometimes and most of the time I get them done slowly, but I don’t get into trouble.

I do lessons like reading and writing workbooks and social studies, stories, math, science and English.  My mother corrects my lessons with me and reads books to us like the Children’s Bible, Will Rogers, and Laura and Mary Ingalls books.  Daddy helps me with my math.  I helped Daddy put up wallpaper and build the back porch.

Some of my friends feel bad because I’m homeschooled and they aren’t…  It makes me sad to think they would leave me out, but it doesn’t change my feelings about homeschooling.  I still want to homeschool.

WHEN KIDS WANT SCHOOL

We get a few letters each year from people who are torn because, although they would like to homeschool, their young children want very much to go to kindergarten.  Here are follow-up letters from two such parents.  From Sue Strong of Calif.:

…I felt certain that school would be wrong for my daughter…  She had a little bit of sadness about a week before school started, especially about not being able to ride the school bus.  Some friends and acquaintances and I organized an activity group for homeschooling 5-year-olds which meets 12 hours a week (she goes 3 or 6 hours).  This helped, especially since one of her old friends is in it.  It’s reassuring not to be the only homeschooler she knows, and she also likes having somewhere to go where she can bring a lunchbox!  She is now not only thriving as a homeschooler, but is even proud to identify herself as one.  We are all happy and I’m so glad I followed my intuition…
 _____

And from Patti Pitcher (ME):

…When I wrote early this fall, Becca (4) was desperately desiring school (i.e. friends)…  She said if we let her go this year to pre-school then she would want to stay home next year for real school.  We consented, only because she was so miserable and lonely and because it was so important to her - not because we necessarily agreed with the school situation.
At first, she loved it.  Two weeks later she liked it.  Four weeks later, she liked it but…  Six weeks later she refused to go because "there is too much fighting and the kids are mean to me and because we don’t get any time to really play…"

During this time, my emotions ran just about opposite to Becca’s.  At first, I felt horrible - guilty and a failure.  Then I was outraged at the seemingly immediate behavior changes I noticed in Becca.  She started showing, for the first time, sibling junk with Laura (1), she became incredibly sassy, she couldn’t entertain herself any more and was constantly bugging me to read her a story or tell her a story or play with her or… (any of which are fine in moderation, but this was extreme).  I was horrified at the results of just a few days and weeks in school, but was determined to cope…  By the time six weeks had rolled along, I was getting a much better handle on how to help mediate this situation and actually saw growth in Becca’s abilities to deal with adverse conditions.  I still didn’t like her being exposed to that junk, but I had come to terms with it.

When she announced that she wouldn’t go to school any more, I was floored.  Apparently her curiosity was satisfied.  At this point, she is completely comfortable and excited about home school.  Every once in a while, she wants to play school and sets up little chairs for recitation, etc.  she loves to answer arithmetic questions she knows or read out loud any of the books she has memorized.  It is definitely a game, though, because outside of this context, those kinds of questions are a no-no.  Her behavior problems have pretty much disappeared, too…

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY

From an article called "Superbabies" by Sarah Ban Breathnach, in the Sacramento Bee, 8/19/84:

…Child psychologist David Elkind, author of THE UNHURRIED CHILD says, "As far as superbabies are concerned… it’s clearly parent need, not child need, that is pursuing this.  An infant does not need to be swimming at 3 months or using flashcards at 6 months…  Parents may convince themselves that infants need it but as far as I can tell, it’s parent need, no question."
What do young children need?  Child experts say if parents really want to help their infants utilize their remarkable capacity for early learning, they shouldn’t push flashcards and toddler computer courses.  Instead, parents should offer young children the opportunities, resources, and most importantly, encouragement for creative play.

"Play is vital to a baby’s development," says creative play specialist and author John J. Fisher III (THE FIRST WONDROUS YEAR, YOUR TODDLER and YOUR PRE-SCHOOLER.)…  "A lot of study has been done on the play behavior of animals.  Animal play is the way baby animals prepare for their adult roles," Fisher points out.  "Kittens, for example, will swipe at rubber mice, acting out skills that as adults they will need to survive.  There are a lot of theories that it’s the same with humans.

"Play is the way a child practices all the skills that he will need some day:  the physical skills, the emotional skills, and the cognitive skills.  Adults tend to think that play is what children do to simply amuse themselves, but play is everything children do; when they investigate their physical environment, when they make social contact, all of it can be called play.  It’s how a child learns and grows and the parent can make valuable contributions right from the start."

Fred Rogers, creator and host of the Emmy award winning "Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood," says that "one of the most misleading phrases in our language is child’s play.  We use it to suggest something easy to do, something trivial.  But it’s not - not by any means.  When children play, they are working.  For them play is both a serious and necessary business."

…Rogers discusses the role of play in depth in his book MISTER ROGERS TALKS WITH PARENTS…  "Over the years I have come to think of play in a way that makes it a very serious matter indeed," Rogers says.  "I think play is an expression of our creativity; and creativity, I believe, is at the very root of out ability to learn, to cope, and to become whatever we may be.

…"Artists, writers, musicians, dancers seem to be drawing heavily on play to do what they do…  Mathematicians play with numbers and formulas, scientists play with hypotheses and experiments…  Business people play with corporate structures, trying out new combinations of all the many things that determine profit and loss.  One way to think about play, then, is as the process of finding new combinations for known things - combinations that may yield new forms of expression, new inventions, new discoveries and new solutions."
…One child development expert who shares Rogers’ assessment of the importance off creative play… is America’s pre-eminent pediatrician, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton (INFANTS AND MOTHERS)…  It is the element of self-choice, so inherent in playful activities, that makes creative play so important…  "Creative play ought to come from the child," Brazelton says.  "For instance, if a child is learning to walk and stand and you’re there to back her up, give her support with all the things she’s trying, then you know what excitement it lends to whatever she’s already excited about.  And so it seems to me that your job as a parent is to watch her and see what is coming from her."

"Now, I’m aware of all those parents of superbabies who say, ‘Oh, but the child wants to learn’ (with flashcards).  Well, maybe.  But maybe it comes from the parents first and the child picks it up in order to get positive reinforcement from the parent."

Right now, Brazelton says, our culture is "under a terrible head of steam.  Maybe it’s in a kind of reorganizing process in face of the new technological explosion.  Parents in a way are trying to prepare their children for whatever they might be heading for and so in this vacuum the over-emphasis on cognitive development is occurring…  A child’s main job is to get himself or herself together and get on the road."

…Furthermore, there are dangers in superimposing early learning programs on young children.

"Eventually everybody will learn something from this superbaby stuff, but I think parents ought to consider the cost now," Brazelton says.  "I think there is a paradigm for this too in Japan, where Japanese child development specialists are very concerned about the pressure they have their children under with the early learning programs they have set up."

As a result of all the early pressure on their children, the suicide rate has risen alarmingly among Japanese adolescents and during the third or fourth grades children "begin to flounder - with negativism and resistance - when they get to the point where they are in control instead of their parents."
…"The young child plays from early morning until he goes to sleep at night.  It is the most natural way for a child to use his capacities, to grow and to learn many skills," Frank and Theresa Caplan write in their classic, THE POWER OF PLAY.

And while computer companies like Atari (advertising their new educational software aimed at preschoolers) claim they have only  just begun revolutionizing child’s play, and articles instructing parents on how to raise a superkid assault us at every turn, making us feel anxious about whether or not we are doing the best for our children, it is worth remembering.  "It takes time to grow," the Caplans wrote.  "A childtime to experience the magic of one’s own growth and development."

If we really want to give our children a healthy and happy head start, old-fashioned playtime, not computer-time, is the activity they need, for child’s play is the work that "begins in delight and ends in wisdom"…

COSMETICS ARE JUST PROPS

From Kitt Finn (VA):

…I was bothered by the comment in GWS #47 about the little girl who wanted to play with dolls and try out makeup (GWS #46).  The comment suggested she might get interested in the history of cosmetics.  Well, maybe, but I doubt it.  The cosmetics are likely just props and not the content of her fantasy…  Most little girls like to play with cosmetics.  They’re pretending to be adults.  A lot of adult women like to play with cosmetics, too.  The fantasy of glamour is probably pretty similar.  The child probably doesn’t spend any more time in fantasy than anyone else.  We adults just don’t fantasize aloud.  She plays dolls with her friends, who presumably go to school, partly because that’s what they want to do.  Part of her choice is for the dolls but part is for the friends.  The amount of time spent will be limited by her friends’ availability.
…The child’s lack of interest in her mother’s activities may be real or it may be a lack of enthusiasm for the apprentice role.  Danette (7) loves to cook but has no interest whatsoever in helping me cook or being taught how to cook.  She wants to be in control…

ACCEPTING THEIR LEARNING

Robin Asher (NY) wrote last year

…I have avoided writing about my experiences with homeschooling, because we have had so many ups and downs.  I think I’ve been waiting for it to turn out all right so I will be able to write "they all lived happily ever after" at the end.

…We are all still getting over that long contact with the schools, and I’m only now realizing how pervasive the effect was.  No matter how appreciative a teacher tries to be, she or he must, by the nature of his job, concentrate on what a child is not doing; assignments not completed, courses not taken, days of non-attendance, questions not answered correctly.  S/he is not free to ignore these lacks.  At home, as chief of police in charge of making sure my kids "made it" in school, I found myself doing the same thing.  If someone was reading a book, I found myself asking, "Have you done your homework?"  If it was a nice day, and someone was playing the piano, it was, "It’s a beautiful day outside." (Hint, hint.)  But if they’d been outside all day, then, "What about piano practice?"

Now that we have home school, the girls are getting better at insisting on their rights to pursue their interests.  I still worry about their missing whole hunks of experience [DR: John Holt commented here, "Everybody misses whole hunks of experience"] and I do try to provide opportunities to try thing they might not do on their own.  I think some reluctance to try new things is a result of all those years of having their undeeds pointed out to them.  I am the one, perhaps in the stiffness of my 37 years, who has the most trouble handling the fact that any one of my daughters may turn down flat an opportunity to learn something or go somewhere I think is marvelous.

I am learning to focus on what is going on, by being willing to experience the fact that a long list of alternative activities are not going on.  What if someone spends an entire afternoon thinking?  I ask myself, do I really want her not to think?  Supposing someone doesn’t want to write anything?  That’s not the point.  What is she doing?  Riding a bike?  Playing with dolls?  Talking to people?  Nothing wrong with any of that.  That is the point…

INFLUENCE VS. COERSION

From the notes that Theo Giesy (VA) sent us of the keynote address she gave at the Mid-Atlantic Homeschool Conference, 6/28/85:

…Many parents have problems distinguishing between influence and coersion, especially people who have had a major break or conflict with their own parents.  They don’t want to do to their own children what their parents did to them.  In an effort not to coerce they try not to guide or influence at all.  That is neither possible not desirable.  A parent has a sense of values built on years of experience to offer his children…  But children also need to know that they can examine and judge and make decisions for themselves, and that those decisions will affect their lives.

…When Danile was about 7, she let me know, with some triumph in her tone, that she had gotten a piece of gum behind my back.  I said that I was sorry that she felt that way.  I explained that the only reason that I objected to the chewing gum was that it was not good for her teeth.  I pointed out that it was no less harmful to her teeth if I didn’t know, and that while I would be sorry if she damaged them, they were her teeth and she would have to live with them, that basically it was herself she was harming.  I could not prevent her getting gum.  I could only teach her what the options were.  The choice would have to be hers.  She seemed to understand that going behind my back accomplished nothing.

Some years later after we were taking ballet, the children asked if they could go to the restaurant near the ballet studio and buy junk food like the other kids did.  I asked what they meant by "could they."  I said that I would not beat them, put them on restriction, throw them out of the house or quit speaking to them if they did.  They had their own money and they had legs.  Of course they could go.  However, I could not honestly say that I did not mind or that I did not believe it mattered to their bodies if they ate that stuff.  My opinion was strong but the only consequence would be to their bodies.

In the school decision, we tried to help our children understand as fully as possible exactly what was involved.  We discussed the advantages (there were some at times) and disadvantages of school attendance.  When each child was sure that for him the disadvantages far outweighed the advantages, we discussed the legal situation…  We explained the possibility of court action being brought against us.  We also explained that if we lost in court we could give in and put them back in school if necessary to avoid unacceptable consequences.  They wanted to be sure that there would be no chance of their being taken from us.  I felt that they made a very responsible decision.

…When I first thought of this topic, I was thinking about my own children and the decisions they have made.  But as I worked with other kids, I saw again how quickly it works to treat them as responsible people.  As wardrobe mistress for a ballet company, I found that at the first performances, the dressing room was a disaster area.   No one had been around to suggest that it was each person’s responsibility to take care of her own costume, or that there was a need for something to be done.  They acted as though they believed that costumes were packed and transported, and dressing rooms cleaned, by magic wand or elves.  Once they were told exactly what was involved and how much difference each person’s contribution made, they co-operated well.  By the second performance things ran very smoothly.  A friend put it very well when she said that she was establishing the feeling of working together to accomplish something worthwhile, rather than trying to force them to do something against their wills…

REWARDS: PRO & CON

From Kathy Lorimor (IL):

…I read with interest the two articles in GWS #45 about rewards for music practice.  We have also had to deal with this issue, not only with music lessons, but in many areas of life.  I enjoyed reading of families who had been able to use limited rewards for positive reasons.  It seems our society thinks that children will not do anything without some type of incentive.  While widespread use of rewards can be counterproductive, we have tried to utilize those which are to our advantage and have ignored those we have felt useless.  The children are constantly bombarded with offers to participate and win prizes.  We try to help them make wise choices.

This summer the library is sponsoring a reading program with incentives that I felt were better than the average.  One of the prized is a pass to the Wildlife Prairie Park west of Peoria.  Another prize is a pass for an hour long cruise on the Julia Belle Swain Steamboat that spends the summer here on the Illinois River.  Each week the girls are required to read and report on 5 books.  Our weekly jaunt to the library has become a favorite event, and it has been exciting to watch the girls grow as they discover new areas of interest.  It took the incentive of a contest for me to be willing to make the extra trip to town each week.

In our Suzuki practice we occasionally use some rewards.  It is never used as a bribe, but mostly to help make the practice time more fun.  Heidi, especially, looks forward to HUG practice when, after each song, she hugs me so hard that I fall on the floor.  Sometimes the small encouragement of a reward helps them to get over a particularly difficult section of the music by making the necessary repetition less of a chore…
_____

And from Denise Hodges (WI), whose 10-year-old is back at school after three years at home:

…The thing I’m most upset with is this reading incentive programs they have.  If he reads three books in a month he gets a ticket for a free pizza at Pizza Hut.  If he’s the first one every month he gets a button, too.  It’s changed his whole approach to reading.  He used to read dozens of books a month because he loves to read!  Now he picks out three easy, crummy books from the school library, reads them all in study hall, and bugs us the rest of the month to take him to Pizza Hut - where we NEVER go as we are very particular about our diet and food additives and all…  Worst of all, after he reads those three books he doesn’t read any  more till next month!…

[DR: As John once said in an interview: "You can train nursery school youngsters who love to draw pictures to stop drawing them, simply by giving them gold stars or some other little bonus for a couple of months - and then removing that artificial motivation."]

CUTTING THE CORD

From Wendy Baruch:

Three months into third grade Shane decided he was ready to home school …now.  I’d been talking about it, and thinking about it, for almost six months.  Finally the anticipation of freedom grew too large for him.  He wanted out, he wanted to be home, and if I didn’t make good my intentions, he would lose his faith in me immensely.  As much as I’d thought about it, it wasn’t until his unhappiness was this real that I could do it.  For Shane, I had to cut the cord of my dependency on public schools.

We talked about how in a home school nobody teaches you.  I told him he’d have to decide what he wanted to learn and then learn it.  I promised to help him whenever he needed it.  He really liked that.  I cautioned him that it would be a lot of responsibility to have complete charge over his own destiny.  He assured me he could handle it.  Of course I knew he was too young to realize the magnitude of what I was asking him to take on.  But it was only through discussions like these that I could investigate that magnitude.  After all it was really me who would be guiding his learning experiences.  Could I do it?  Did I want to do it?

I kept trying to imagine what home schooling would be like.  How much time would I have to spend with him?  Would all my own creative needs and projects suffer with this new responsibility?  Did I even want to have him with me all day long?  I kept grappling with these questions while devouring issue after issue of GWS.  Having all those back issues and indexes was a real asset.  The personal experience of each family’s struggle confirmed my views about learning and schools, empowered me with the understanding that I was not alone.
I already knew from my own life that learning was constantly happening.  I already knew that most schools were unnatural in their teaching methods.  I remembered how broken my spirit was, and all the daydreaming I had to do in school to keep alive.  Still, as little schooling as I’d had it took a long time to understand why I was dependent on elementary school for Shane.  How is he going to get the basics?  Wasn’t it school that taught me to read?  What if he doesn’t want to do anything?

What if he doesn’t want to do anything?
This was the culmination of  my understanding/  This was the last strand before the cord snapped.  Deep inside me I had located the place where schooling had marked me.  I believed what they wanted me to believe.  The unwritten law of schooling is that without it we’d all be ignorant.  Ours would be a society of derelicts.  It’s truly obnoxious yet completely ingrained, and we believe it.  It took me a lot of investigating to find the source of this stronghold in my mind, and just… let it… go…

For the next issue, I plan to write about how it seemed to me that Shane didn’t want to do anything for that first year, and the emotional turmoil that we went through in ourselves and with the authorities.

FITTING ON THE TRACKS

From the foreword that John Holt wrote in 1972 for a book called SOMEWHERE ELSE:

…At a meeting - very pleasant - of (mostly) sociologist at Harvard, someone said to me, "But if we educate children in the way you propose, how are they later going to fit on the tracks laid down by society?"
The question showed me that  he understood very clearly what schools are for - to make people think, as they had made him think, that the tracks that make a society of any particular moment are not only the best tracks, but the only possible tracks.  His remark was a perfect illustration of what Ivan Illich was to say some years later about how the institutions of our society dominate not only our lives but out imaginations, not only what we do but what we even think we might or could do.

I didn’t say any of this to my questioner.  What I said was, "They’ll make new tracks!" From their expressions it was clear that most of them had never thought of this.  "And after all," I went on, "where do you think the present tracks in society came from?  They weren’t always there.  They didn’t fall from the sky.  Somewhere, back in the past, someone made a track, did something that had not been done before - usually because everyone who considered doing it, if anyone did, thought it was impossible or crazy."

Societies are constantly making new tracks.  If they don’t they freeze up, get hardening of the arteries and joints, corrode, decay, and die.  All of which our society is quite clearly in the process of doing.  The question is, can people…make enough new tracks, and fast enough?  Can we find new ways of living, thinking, learning, working to replace those which have quite obviously ceased to work?  Nobody knows…

TEACHERS WORK WITH FAMILIES

[DR:]  We have raised before in GWS the question of how teachers can work with homeschooling families.  Surely there are people who have knowledge they want to share with others (and earn money in the process); and surely there are homeschooling parents who would like to be able to draw on these other adults as resources (and are willing to pay for this service).  How do they find each other, and how do they make arrangements that work out for all concerned?
So I was interested to receive the following from Kim Solga of northern California:

…My business is primarily in the field of art education.  I operate a mail-order supply center for home arts materials;  I also teach seminars on art education to homeschool groups and write and illustrate articles for a variety of publications.  I am a certified teacher, and currently a commercial artist in addition…

I’ve taught both children and adults for the past twelve years.  KIDPRINTS, my home art study guide, was written while I was teaching printmaking and art history to gifted/talented students in a large California school district…  I adapted them to home use with preschool and elementary age students.  After several months of use and evaluation from homeschooling families in California and Oregon, the six-week Special Introductory Unit was created.  This is being expanded to a full year of art study with printmaking, sculpture and drawing, and will be available this spring…

I developed the ART AT HOME seminar in response to many requests from families who were using my KidPrints Introductory Unit.  The seminar is both a research and promotional vehicle for KidPrints.  I love teaching, and the seminar is enthusiastically received by participants, so it is rewarding all around.  I arrange the workshops through independent homeschool organizations, parenting groups, and public schools, and would enjoy taking the class nationwide in the future…
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Kim’s sister, Kathy Means, is another teacher who works with homeschoolers.  Kim sends this article she wrote about her:

…After five years of teaching elementary school, Kathy Means left her classroom position in order to stay home with her newly-born son…  Three years (and another baby) later, Kathy is still an at-home mom, and the entrepreneur behind EDUCATIONAL SERVICES, a successful, multi-faceted home-based business in Mountain View, California.

There are as many sides to Educational Services as there are to Kathy’s teaching and administrative skills.  She tutors students from elementary through high school level.  She arranges seminars throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, teaching many of these workshops herself.  She contracts with schools to administer their standardized tests, evaluates the results and arranges follow-up conferences.

…Homeschool customers make up a large part of her business.  When first approached by a new homeschooling client, Kathy discusses the reality of teaching at home.  She stresses the time commitment and importance of providing a well-rounded program.  She then assists in their curriculum analysis and decision making, helping each family schedule their curriculum within a weekly program.  Kathy is continually available by telephone for those quick  questions on teaching methods, the how-to’s of teaching.  She meets regularly with each family to aid in the evaluation of their school programs.  She also provides seminars for the enhancement of the parents’ teaching skills.  Social interaction among the homeschooled children is yet another aspect of Kathy’s business; she plans field trips, programs, and activities…
"I began with tutoring as my mainstay," says Kathy.  "In fact, I was tutoring in the early mornings and late afternoons long before I stopped full-time teaching.  My first homeschool client approached me for advice while I was teaching in a second grade classroom."

Through low key advertising, such as flyers in local schools, business cards, and satisfied customers, Kathy’s independent business began to grow.  "Once I had established myself as a tutor and consultant, I was contacted by a private ’satellite’ school needing a homeschool coordinator in my area - someone to supervise several homeschool families.  I now contract with this school, as well as with individual families, to provide monthly supervision of educational programs."

Kathy bases her fees on $20 an hour.  Individual homeschoolers and tutorial clients hire her services as needed, from a single hour to several hours per month.

"Home Schooling At Its Best," a monthly guide for teachers, homeschoolers, and parents, is a new adventure for Educational Services.  "At this point, subscription money is returned to the project and used for promotion and production.  By next year I hope to be benefiting from some income."
…Educational Services was started with little capital investment.  The "tools of the trade" have been purchased as need and income allowed.  A resource library is now available for clients, with a wide variety of materials including an Apple computer, educational software, and a Canon copier.  Educational Services owns a complete video system, and Kathy regularly tapes seminars…  A metal storage shed, set up within her garage, is her home office and houses most of these resources.

Kathy divides her schedule into an appointment week followed by a work week.  Appointments include group meetings with homeschool families, conferences, and field trips.  The work week includes telephone conferences, record keeping, office work, research, and production of "Home Schooling At Its Best."  Scheduled tutoring hours run throughout the month.
Educational Services now provides a monthly income easily equal to the school teacher’s salary Kathey left behind, with less time invested and the many advantages of being one’s own boss…

LETTERS ON TEENS

Evelyn Tate of Nevada (GWS #41) and her daughter Amy used the University of Nebraska High School correspondence course for a year, but told us in the spring of 1985 that the local public school was being too demanding in its insistence that Amy follow a rigid timeline.  The family contacted a private Christian school and arranged for Amy to attend there part time.  In November, Evelyn wrote:

…The Chrisitan school we had written about is a two-and-a-half hour drive from us, but worth it all.  Amy has to be there once a week on campus where she receives counseling and her new assignments.  She spends the day in class and has made some wonderful friends.  They have already made plans to visit us at Tahoe for skiing!

…At first we had to deal with a lot of tension and fear left over from public school.  Amy would approach her assignments with the attitude of, "I don’t know what they want from me!"  She’d be literally tied up in knots and it would take days to complete one assignment.  We talked to the vice-principal and discussed the whole public school trauma and Amy’s reaction.  He was an absolute dream.  He saw to it that her schedule was lifted so that she wouldn’t feel pressured by it.  He said he was far more concerned with quality work than with quantity.  We couldn’t believe our ears.  Amy has always been a perfectionist and schedule demands would throw her behind, then the hysteria would set in.

…She got to help in the school office and learned a lot about office machines and procedure.  She felt welcome, and they let her know she was capable.
…Now we are in the second quarter, and we have a scholar full of enthusiasm and confidence.  She is even taking on more work than her schedule calls for because she is having fun doing it and isn’t afraid of falling short any more.
…The school is giving Amy credit for her regular visit to the library where she does research and sometimes aids the children’s librarian.  She also gets credit for babysitting. The principal said students should get credit for learning how to be adults.

Now our gal sits for hours reading and then finding more books with additional information so that she can know her subject and not just parrot information.  She enjoys every minute of it…
_____

In GWS #47, Lesley Stevens said that her teenage daughter felt like she was being punished when she was taken out of church school and taught at home.  Alma Moon Novotny of New Jersey responds:

…After having read and heard complaints about adolescent behavior from the parents of home-, private- and public-schooled children, I am mystified that Lesley Stevens attributes the change in her daughter’s behavior to her church school.  It could just be that she’s 13 1/2.

Of course we expect our children to question our values, but somehow, we don’t expect them to question our real values.  Now, really, what fun is it to question whether navy blue is an appropriate color or the healthfulness of broccoli when you can get such a terrific reaction on the subject of premarital sex?  If anyone knows how to get us, it’s our kids.

…I’ll bet her daughter came in and expressed her new-found knowledge in the most provoking manner possible, and it was simply impossible for the mother not to react in an threatened way.

…I really don’t think homeschooling per se is the answer to the problems of adolescence.  I think adolescence is a problem in and of itself.  Frequently the social atmosphere of schools compounds teenagers’ difficulties, and they are more than grateful to be let loose.

But this doesn’t seem to be the case here.  In fact, Lesley Stevens now has a problem (running away) that she didn’t even have before.  I always looked on the homeschooling movement as being about giving children more choices and more control of their lives.  If I were her daughter, I’d feel punished too.  And I’d be especially hurt that when she wrote about my "friends", she would see fit to put quotation marks around the word.

The parents of teenagers who write to this newsletter and say they are not suffering a lot of conflict also usually tell us how many projects their children have outside the home: college courses, real work, apprenticeships, and other independent experiences.  They seem to be pleased to let go.  Of course, their kids may be more tactful and sensitive in the way they deal with their parents, and so their parents have more confidence in them.

But I don’t think anyone hits a happy medium in adolescence.  Whenever someone tells me how horrible it is to live with a teenager, all I can remember is how much worse it was to be one…

LEERY OF AUDUBON TRAVEL

Merritt Clifton, a friend of John’s who is now doing environmental reporting in Vermont, wrote:

…I noticed a plug for the AUDUBON SOCIETY EXPEDITION INSTITUTE in GWS #46.  From my own recent experience with them, I’d say they’re well worth avoiding.  Early last summer, Jim Swan of ASEI invited me to address their symposium on "The Earth as a Living Organism" at Amherst, on the subject of media and ecology - how environmental issues are covered or not covered, why, and what can be done about it.  Although I was given complimentary registration, I attended completely at my own expense otherwise.  To be blunt, it turned our to be the most chaotic assembly of pseudo-scientific faddists, dilettantes, and just plain lunatics I’ve encountered in many a year…  Many of the more bizarre guest speakers had been expedition leaders or had other affiliations with ASEI…  If anyone else there was actively, seriously engaged in environmental work, I didn’t meet him or her.  As a whole, the confab was much like Anthropology 1-A, as taught by New Age crackpots, who seemed to believe the ills of the world could all be solved if we’d just return to the rituals of South Seas savages.  I’d rather ride around hell on a bicycle than spend several months with such-like on a bus…

COLLEGE COURSES AT 13

The Huntington, IN Herald-Press, 9/1/85:

…The expression "it’s all Greek to me" will soon take on new meaning for 13-year-old Daniel Lewis of Huntington.
That’s because Daniel has enrolled in a class in ancient Greek at Fort Wayne Bible College, and expects to soon be reading and writing the language as well as his older classmates.

Daniel’s first class session was last Thursday.   His is taking the four-hour class for full college credit.
Meanwhile, Daniel is continuing to study math, english, history and other junior high and high school subjects in the "home school" taught in his home by his mother, Brenda.

Daniel has not attended regular schools since Mrs. Lewis started teaching him and his brother, Matt, two years ago.  Home schools are permitted under Indiana Law.

"I’m looking forward to it," Daniel says confidently about studying Greek in college.  "I’ve always been interested in ancient Greece."
…Professor Arlan Birkey said he finds it exciting that a 13-year-old will be in his class.  He said the best way to learn a foreign language is to start at an early age, and pointed out that many scholars of the old Greek language began studying when they were young.

"I don’t think he’ll have any problem," Professor Birkey said of Daniel’s chances for success.  "It’s exciting to see a person with the appetite for the study of language that he has."

Daniel got his first taste of Greek through his homeschool classes.  He liked the subject and wanted to continue it.

At first, his parents tried to get a tutor for Daniel but were unsuccessful.  Then, they decided to try Fort Wayne Bible College, and the solution they came up with was for Daniel to enroll in the college’s regular New Testament Greek class.

The college agreed to accept Daniel after learning that tests conducted at St. Francis college show he can be considered a gifted student.  Daniel also received a recommendation for the class from his youth pastor…
"Applying was quite a process," Mrs. Lewis recalled, praising the "open-minded" attitude of the college and its academic committee.

"It was unique because of his age," she added.  "Normally they would have asked for his high school credits but he didn’t have any.  We were very pleased when they said they would accept him.  It’s pretty exciting to have a 13-year-old going to college."…

SINGLE-PARENT FAMILY

By Wendy Razzell in the British newsletter Education Otherwise, 6/84:

…I thought that it might be worthwhile to write a piece about my experiences as a single parent with children out of school, in any case any others are wondering if they should try this.

We first decided to deschool after I separated from my husband four years ago and at the time I didn’t have the confidence to take sole responsibility for Josephine and Luke’s well-being, so we joined a rural community where there were other deschooled children.

A year late we were again living as a one-parent nuclear family in Sussex with the children back at school.  After the freedom from institutional life, the return to a school-oriented existence was claustrophobic and depressing to us all.  It still seemed as if some kind of community  would be the only suitable environment for us if we were going to deschool again.  The image of us incestuously closeted together day after day in a small town house, in an area where all the other kids were at school, just didn’t seem feasible.  And I had little idea what I’d do with them on my own.  But we did know that school wasn’t right.

…So we wrote away to and visited various groups, and in the summer of 1982 moved up to the West Coast of Scotland to join a community in the making where there were other deschooled children.  Our existence was extremely basic, living in a caravan in this remote spot, without running water or electricity.  It was a physical, outdoor life, except for times when the winter gales blew for days on end.  It wasn’t a situation conducive to formal working, though Luke kept his hand in at Maths and Jos started to work sporadically on three Wolsey Hall "O" Level courses.  We read lots of books aloud to pass the long winter evenings and enjoyed the beautiful countryside.  The children made camps and treehouses, looked after the animals and started badminton, dancing, and music classes.
It had become clear that we weren’t going to settle there, though, and had to look for yet another home.  We moved the caravan to a much more sheltered and accessible site on the land of another EO family in the area, the Springthorpes, and spent the spring and summer happily and more comfortable (with the miraculous benefit of running water).

However, we wanted to avoid another caravan winter and, failing to find a cheap enough house in Argyll, we arrived at our present address in the Borders last August.  Here we were, finally in the situation that I’d been running from for several years - just the children and myself in a house on our own, out of school, and in a totally unfamiliar part of the world into the bargain.  And it’s actually fine and all my previous doubts seem unfounded.  In our small neighborhood community there are four other families with children at school or due to go, but it isn’t a problem at all.  We’ve been completely accepted.
We had a small trauma in the autumn when the LEA, after a short visit, wrote to say that they were not satisfied with the education being given.  This has since been resolved after we explained in detail what we were doing and our reasons for it and I emphasized our shared commitment to carrying on with EO.  They are not very used to home-educated children in this traditional region and also doubted, I think, whether I’d be able to keep going as a single parent for the necessary five years until Luke is 16.  They were also skeptical about how we could tackle science subjects to secondary standard and whether they would be deprived of computing experience.  I assured them that if either of the children wanted to pursue the sciences academically we could do that with the help of correspondence courses.  We got a Spectrum computer and Luke’s already taught himself from books a great deal more, I think, than he would have learned at school, where access to computers is very limited for his age group (Jos is totally uninterested in computers ).

This challenge to our whole way of life was shattering but it did concentrate our minds and we’ve had a productive time since.  We’ve adopted a much more definite structure with approximate school days and hours, doing regular maths, French and projects, and Jos working hard on her "O" level correspondence courses, as well as a lot of music and crafts.  We still debate how far we should be influenced by society’s exam-mania…  Learning French verbs doesn’t have much to do with speaking to French people and you wonder just when knowing how to manipulate an inverse matrix is going to matter.  But he marvellous thing about home education is the freedom to respond to these kind of doubts and experiment with shifts in approach in a flexible way.  In any event, there’s no doubt that Jos and Luke are infinitely happier and livelier than they were at school.

My fears of being very isolated and having no personal freedom haven’t been borne out at all.  We have made some very good friends of other Borders EO families and, because there’s no rigid school timetable, have the time and energy to go out a lot.  Jos’ and Luke’s ages (14 and 11) must help and a single parent with younger children might need the support of reliable friends to make it possible to go out alone regularly.  The older they get, the less they are dependent, and the more they are good companions who share jobs, problems, and laughs.

Earning money is obviously difficult for the EO single parent.  We live on Supplementary Benefit and so far have managed.  Swapping work and help with friends in an informal way has helped enormously and is much nicer than buying services.  I hope to fit in a few hours paid work too, soon.

So I’ve now been a single parent both with children at school and out of school and without question find the latter best.  More than anything I appreciate the relationships between the three of us being so much fuller and more relaxed than when Jos and Luke were at school.  Their personalities then seemed to be subdued and shrouded in fears and tensions that I could only dimly understand.  School does seem to drive a wedge into family relationships and when this is removed life can flow so much more easily and naturally…

AMERICAN HOMESCHOOLERS IN SPAIN

In earlier issues of GWS, Suzanne Alejandre wrote about her family’s learning adventures in moving from California to Germany, where she and her husband worked for Berlitz.  In 1984 they moved to Spain, partly because they could find no way to keep their children out of school legally in Germany.  Suzanne wrote about the latest move:

1984:  …I feel much more comfortable dealing in Spanish than I thought I would.  In Dortmund whenever I tried speaking Spanish, German would come out of my mouth!  But once here with Spanish sounds all around me, the Spanish in the back recesses of my brain is coming forward.  Richard is already fluent so he has handled the major things, but I can hold my own when I need to.
The first week we were here, Niko (7), Lee (5), and I ventured downtown on our own - we took the metro stop near our apartment and I got us downtown, but when it was time to come back, somehow I got turned around and I wasn’t certain which direction to take in the subway, and I couldn’t find the chart that is normally posted.  After some hesitation which Niko and Lee sensed, I decided to ask for directions in one-word sentences.  It worked and we got home fine.  The next time we went downtown, when it was time to come back, Niko started telling me which way to walk…  I later realized that he had decided to be in charge and each time we go somewhere now, Niko notes which way we are going and has been able to lead us home…

I think Niko and Lee have it the hardest right now because they speak no Spanish and they miss Germany and speaking German.  Every day they spend an hour or more listening to story tapes in German.  We stocked up before we left, thinking that would be one way for them to retain their German.
One thing that has helped as far as finding playmates - we bought a battery-operated toy submarine.  At the playground there is a shallow pool to play boats in and one time we were there, a boy had one of these submarines.  We were all fascinated by it.  The next day we checked at the general store across the street and they had one…  That evening the playground was packed and both Niko and Lee sat close to me on the park bench.  I asked them if they were going to try the sub.  After a few minutes Niko blurted out, "I won’t know what to say if someone takes it."  So I told them that "No" in English is the same in Spanish…  That did it, up they got and they became so involved in watching, chasing, and playing with the sub that they forgot to be intimidated by the crowd.

Later that evening another boy came who had the same submarine; the three boys played and played, and when we finally left, Niko said, "See, I played with someone without speaking."  I asked him if he remembered doing that when we first moved to Germany (Niko was 4 and Lee was 2).  Niko answered no, and so as we walked home I reminisced about how they’d played without speaking and how they had gradually learned German by listening and copying the German children’s words.

Before this experience, I think Niko had been thinking it would be a long time before he could play with someone besides Lee…  Now it seems to have given him some hope as far as fitting in at the playground…

Lee has it easier - he’s not such a worrier and being two years younger, he finds it easier to play without talking, BUT, he still thinks we’re going to go "home" (Dortmund).  No matter how much we explain, he can’t understand, and I think it’s because we left so much behind in temporary storage.

…While in Germany, we realized there was more than one "German" language and now in Spain we are learning about the different languages here: Catalonian, the Basque language, Gallego, etc.  Each has its own separate grammar, it’s not like speaking Spanish with an accent!  As we learn about the languages, we learn about history, too, since the development of languages is all tied to the early movement of people.  Many of our Berlitz students know that history - so, again, we are learning so much as they practice their English!  You can’t beat our job for gathering information.  I complain about the pay but then I stop and think, "I’m actually getting paid for this??"…

1985:  …We have already lived in Spain for a year and a half - incredibly fast passage of time.
…Niko (8 1/2) runs all kinds of errands for us now.  He goes to the bakery and buys bread.  He goes to the tobacco shop to buy stamps, to the market for milt, etc.  For all of these he must speak Spanish, of course, and use pesetas.  He is really good with money - knows the prices of things, change, etc.  He also likes to calculate the peseta-dollar exchange - Rich showed him how to figure it on his calculator watch.  He can go in both directions now.

Niko speaks English, Spanish, German, a little Catalan and a little French, now.  His English has become dominant again (when we lived in Germany, German was dominant).  Because it has been such a long time since he has used German, he has lost a lot.  Due to finances we weren’t able to hire anyone for German conversation, but now we have.  An Austrian young woman comes for an hour a week to chat with Niko.  We are going to increase it to two hours now that they are comfortable with each other.  She said that Niko understands everything but has difficulty speaking - no fluency.  We are considering visiting friends next summer in Germany and that would cure that real quick…  Niko learned Spanish by playing continuously in the same park with the same friends last summer.  He started French (his favorite language) last summer by taking a short Berlitz course - 5 days per week, 1 1/2 hours per day in a group of five people all conversation.  Again, now that we can afford it, we have a private teacher come once a week for an hour for a one-on-one French lesson.  Catalan, Niko is picking up from his soccer club (we are in Catalonia and there are two very distinct languages her, Castillian Spanish and Catalan).

1986:  …I work every morning at Berlitz (good method, lousy pay) and Rich works most afternoons at a private Spanish school (bad situation, excellent pay) and in between we have private students - either they come here or we go there.  Somehow with all of this we have it arranged so that one of us is always available for Niko and Lee.  Occasionally they accompany us to a class or sometimes we have a student at home while the other one of us  is at another student’s home.  When that happens and the boys need something, they just interrupt us in the study - the students never mind - they enjoy hearing "real" English.

Rich and I figure that we spent an apprenticeship time at Berlitz - we learned that to teach a language, you must build a relationship with the student.  Somehow that student must want to talk to you.  We know how to teach people a minimum of vocabulary, but what is more important is the rapport that you build.
…Niko’s German chats have turned into Niko and Lee German chats - for some reason two weeks ago Lee said he would stay in the class and now he is included too.  Karin is very friendly and the hour goes quickly for them all.  The last class they played cards (in German, of course).  I set out games and storybooks - there are always too many things to do, which is good.  They seem to be building a friendship with her (as Niko is with his French teacher as well) as I had hoped…

HOME-SCHOOL ON MEDICAL VOYAGE

From "Marimed:  A Family Voyage Becomes a Health Crusade," in Whole Life Times 12/85:

…Theirs was a storybook life: he a successful corporate lawyer with degrees from Harvard and Boston universities, she a gynecologist/obstetrician educated at Wellesley College and Tufts University.  At 33, they had a comfortable home in an affluent suburb of Boston and could frequently be found sailing their yacht in the waters around New England.

The decision to leave, they admit, was a bit rash.
In December 1979, David and Lonny Higgins and their two young children - Jessica, now 7, and David, now 12 - set sail on a journey that continued for five years, taking them from Main to Japan on a 96-foot schooner they had rebuilt for the trip…

"The trip, in the beginning, was really very personal," Lonny recounts.  "It was a way to take ourselves into the world and to be a family."  Nevertheless, she wrote to major U.S. drug companies telling them of her plans to donate healthcare services along the way, and asking for supplies.  "We were flooded; I was shocked!" she says.

They outfitted their traditionally rigged schooner, Deliverance, as a home and added a treatment room equipped for minor surgery.  Savings, the sale of their house, and some independent income enabled them to afford the journey.
David had always felt going to sea would be a good experience for the children.  The sailing life teaches discipline on several levels, from learning to travel within the limitations of the boat and weather conditions to keeping the deck tidy.

Life for the family was not vacation-like.  The Higginses and crew (mate, boatswain, cook, and engineer) rose at 7 AM and by 7:30 were cleaning the deck and polishing brass.  Breakfast was at 7:30, and school for David and Jessica started promptly at 8:30, letting out at noon for lunch.  The daily routine continued through 6 PM dinner and 10 PM lights out.

The children studied correspondence courses modified and administered by their parents, sometimes augmented by a tutor.  "It’s been a tremendous turn-on for the kids to be educated by us in a living classroom," Lonny says.

"We made studies relate to their experience," David explains.  "We used math to teach navigation and science to learn how to predict weather."
"Solving a geometry problem might mean going upstairs and measuring angle with a sextant to find out exactly where we were in the middle of the ocean," Lonnie elaborates.  "A social studies question could be, ‘How did the Polynesian people come to live here?’"

Brother and sister became very close, according to their parents, unusually so for siblings five years apart.  A profile in Islander magazine (5/13/84) described both children as outgoing, polite, independent, and adventurous.
…Medicine, at least as Lonny practiced it, turned out to be a great way to make friends, although it sometimes took several days for local people to overcome their shyness and approach the boat.  David and Jessica’s play with neighborhood children often broke the ice.

"If they feel comfortable with you, they’ll bring their children to the boat," Lonny told Islander.  "Then word gets out, and other people come to you."
Although Lonny never asked for payment, patients often brought her fresh picked fruit or homemade food.  And the communities they visited protected the Higginses from intrusion or harm.  The one time in such a place that an item - Jessica’s knapsack - was taken from the boat, it was returned the day after the Higginses let the community know that it meant a lot to her.

This episode profoundly impressed the children, "especially in comparison with the only other time something was stolen."  That happened in a wealthy resort area on the Australian coast: the outboard engine that powered the family’s dinghy from ship to shore was stolen and never returned, even after a $500 reward was offered.

…While Lonny offered medical care and training, David and the crew members would repair outboard motors for local fishermen, or help with community projects like the salvaging of marine equipment from a grounded ship.

By the end of the first year, they realized that the best way to experience each place they docked was to live and work there for at least a few months.  And as their trip grew form a planned two years to five, so did their commitment to the people they were meeting.  "Now we believe we have a moral obligation to help the people of Micronesia obtain better health care," David says.

…In a project to teach local women about health care, "the first thing I did was make the midwife the chief of the clinic," Lonny says.  I focused on teaching her the skills so that she could teach her patients.  It had the effect of boosting her stature.

"This is also the most effective way to use the health-care dollar," she notes.
Her respect for the people she has worked with has been reciprocated.  On Roatan Island off the coast of Honduras, for example, a 78-year-old midwife took her through the jungle, showing her plants used to regulate labor and to treat various ailments.  Later the midwife sent a seriously ill man to Lonny for treatment…

"TEACH SOMEONE TO FISH…"

Caroline Walker wrote in the Education Otherwise newsletter, 10/85:

…I have always wanted to educate my children at home and now I find myself in the fortunate position of being obliged to do so.  We have the great privilege to live in a South Indian village and have for the past five years been leaning abut the life of the rural poor.

There is a well-known slogan…  "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day: teach him to fish and you feed him for life."

I think we have to look closely at this statement and try and work out its implications.  Things are not always as simple as we would like and in the field of development they tend to be very complex indeed.  Perhaps we could examine some of the assumptions implicit in this seemingly admirable piece of advice.
Suppose you are a native of a rich western country.  You are concerned by all the appeals made by charities on TV, in the papers, by flag day tin-rattlers.  You tend therefore to see the Third World (for want of a better term) as a great mass of poor helpless hungry people stretching out their hands to you, asking for some of your hard-earned cash.  Now you come across this statement; suddenly everything is clear.  Your contribution of 50p in the tin is not really useful; it is only one fish - the poor man will be back tomorrow asking for another one and there will never be an end to it.  Now you can feel justified in stopping such donations; instead of 50 pence here and there, it seems that you (or someone else) need to make just one larger gift - "50 pounds will teach a man in Senegal to fish" or whatever - and then the Third World will stop bothering you.  You can carry on in your comfortable lifestyle and know that you have done your bit for world poverty.

"teach a man to fish and you feed him for life" - does not this conjure up visions of the genial western expert breezing in with a couple of good lectures entitled "Improved fishing techniques using alternative technology in the Gambia"?  And does it not also suggest that the poor ignorant natives were just sitting idly by the side of rivers and lakes full of fish; starving because no white man had yet come to teach them how to catch them?  All you need is to pay your expatriate to run a few courses and they will all be fed for life.

Those of us working here know, and many in the rich world I am sure suspect, that it is not that simple.  In the first place it is generally pointed out by those who study the Third World in depth that poor people do no need any lessons on how to feed themselves.  The poor are extremely ingenious and resourceful in their ways of gathering food.  It is common for us to see ladies plucking wild greens by the roadside; children getting wild fruits from old wayside trees; boys collecting fat white ants as they swarm out of their holes at certain seasons, to be fried and sold sweetened the next day; I have even seen a group of woodcutters in the forest chase and kill a panogolin (an armadillo-like creature) and with great difficulty and the loan of our penknife remove its scales to roast and eat it.  And since we are talking of fish, when there is water in the rivers and reservoirs children can be seen every day after school catching a few tiny fish to add to the family’s evening meal.

As we have learned more about the life of the rural poor we have become more and more irritated by this particular slogan with its subtle overtones of white supremacy and Third World inferiority.  It is trotted out over and over again and I have not yet once, in all the development literature I have read, seen it criticised for the way it perpetuates the old damaging stereotypes which continue to block genuine and effective communication between rich and poor.
I would like to suggest that we discard such simplistic notions.  Why not admit that the rich world can only maintain its comfortable lifestyle precisely because the poor countries remain poor?  It is not the poor nations that need teaching - it is us in the west who need to learn how to live with less, how to use less of the world’s resources, how to be more sharing and generous and loving to our neighbor…

TRIP ACROSS U.S.

From Ruth Matilsky (NJ):

…We were gone all summer on a three and a half month, 10,000 mile jaunt around these United States.  It was an amazing experience.  Neither Jacob (3) nor Sara (6) wanted to come home.  They were terrific.  It was interesting to see how they enjoyed each new place that we got to and how they improvised to make playtoys, since we brought very little with us.  We had books, an art bag, a couple of toy cars, and that’s about all.  Sara collected the corks from the wine bottles we emptied and made dolls out of them that she shared with Jacob.  In the Grand Canyon, where the ground was sandy and gritty, she made rock art and drew sand pictures on the ground.  In the most disgusting, miserable hotel that we had to stay in one night when we had car trouble, they made a "house" out of chairs and spent hours playing.

They got used to sleeping in a tent and became real helpers when we made it clear that we expected them to share the work.  Sara was quite interested in the historical aspect of the places we visited.  It was gratifying.  It was a TREMENDOUS amount of work.  Jake wasn’t even toilet trained when we left and I was washing diapers across America.  In Big Sur I knew he was ready and I told him, "Mommy is done with diapers."  He accepted that and stopped needing them.  Hallelujah!

…We bought a tent we could stand up in with huge windows on all four sides.  We rented our house to a family from Japan, sold our Mazda car to a family from Long Island and packed our 1972 Ford LTD (with a trunk larger than our kitchen.)
…Our very first night out we had an incredible thunderstorm and Jacob slept through the night for the first time in his life.  In Memphis, Tennessee, we woke up at sunrise to the most amazing symphony of birds that we’d ever heard.  It was like the Philharmonic at Tanglewood, and we never heard anything like it again on our trip.

…We did our only "primitive" camping in New Mexico (the nearest water was a mile away and there wee no picnic tables).  We camped high on a hill while everyone else in their R.V.’s  ringed the lake having parties.  There was no sense of ecological concern here - people took their four wheel drives into places that were unbelievable difficult to walk, let alone drive, and there was broken glass everywhere.  But we were far enough from the madding crowd to relax.  And the next day as we packed up, a herd of goats and sheep came through our field grazing.  The sheep bells were ringing.  This made a big hit with the kids.

…No picture can ever explain the Grand Canyon. We stayed a week at Mather Campground.  It was still early enough in the season so that there was no problem with reservations.  (For those of you who are unaware, to camp these days you need to make reservations through Ticketron - one of the things that makes America great.) …Terry and I took turns riding bikes out to watch the sunrise each morning.  That was wonderful.  The kids loved the shuttle buses, so we used them in the daytime to see the canyon from different places.  Each spot is unique and this was fun for all of us.  Jake was particularly impressed with a beetle that he found at the canyon and both kids got tremendous pleasure out of the garbage trucks that came through our campsight.  This was the time that things meshed for us on the trip.  We had gotten into our routine, the kids had an idea of what was expected of them and were actually beginning to help.  We were slowing ourselves down.  Our routine included long lunches during which Sara did sand drawings, Jacob helped her, we watched our prairie dog peek out of its hole, and Terry and I relaxed.  I also started to appreciate the intense beauty of the desert flowers.

…At Yosemite, we camped on a hill, in an isolated grove, across the road from the most beautiful river I’ve ever seen.  We parked the car and didn’t get into it until we pulled out over a week later.  There was a store within walking distance and we just stayed put.  Terry and I took turns hiking and the kids were content to play at the edge of the river or to climb the giant boulders that were in our campground.  Toulumne Meadows has many hiking trails - long, short, hard and easy.  It was the first time that I ever had the opportunity to hike alone and feel safe.  And EVERYTHING was beautiful…  We met Sam and Mary and family, a homeschooling bunch from Florida who were on a month long cruise.  They settled down in the adjacent campsite.  The setting was complete…

EARNING T.V. PRIVILEGES

From Jed Purdy (WV), age 11:

…Many people have written to you on the subject of kids watching too much TV.  At our house we have a method.  My sister and I receive "TV time," for instance, if we get the mail (it’s a 2/3 of a mile walk).  We receive a 1/2-hour of "TV time" and with that we can watch one 1/2-hour of TV.  We also receive time for cleaning, working, etc.  We sometimes receive the same amount of "TV time" as the amount of time we worked.  We don’t have to pay for educational TV or TV that an adult is watching.

It has caused me to outgrow cartoons very quickly.  I now watch only one show that I have to pay for.  My sister also watches less.  I thought it up last year and we are all happy about it.  Kids may dislike it at first but should settle down quickly.  I never minded it since it was my idea, but my sister didn’t like it at first.

We originally kept "time tickets" but now keep track of it on a piece of paper by the TV.  I drew up a contract stating our rights and the laws of "TV time."  It helps to settle disputes.  Some shows are educational to one person and not to another.  For instance, "Ripley’s Believe it or Not" is informative only to me, therefore I do not have to pay for it…

T.V.-WITH NO RESTRICTIONS

From Jocelyn Maskerman of Quebec:

…I began to wonder about the role of TV in children’s life when our second child came back from nursery school (age 4), shouted at me to bring food, and turned on Sesame Street.  This went on for several weeks before I tumbled on to the fact that this was his way of saying that nursery school was not the Good Thing several neighbors had implied, and Kenneth was under pressure there to climb a ladder and paint and do other Good Things that all children love to do.
…We finished the basement and put the TV there and read in the living room again.  Now anyone who wants to watch TV has to meet the set at the appointed time and fixed place without impinging on the rights of others to quiet or conversation.

When George dropped out of Grade 2 he was keen on numbers, and the prices and the jolly razzmatazz of "The Price is Right" did a lot to cheer him up.  With 22 channels to choose from he was now able to watch four shows a day.  The TV Guide provided the real incentive to read.  Here I was able to gain an insight into TV as therapy.  Safe from the noisy violent crowd in the classroom, he was  able to watch people smiling and happy - the other side of the coin as it were.  Another time I noticed Kenneth was addicted to "Charlie’s Angels" (where three curvaceous females do detective work) and watched religiously every evening.  When I met his Grade 2 teacher I realized this, too, was his attempt to redress the balance - not all females were demanding and dictatorial.  When I found myself (at a rather bumpy period in my marriage) taking refuge in watching M*A*S*H, it was subconsciously because the nearly all male cast offered more positive models than my partner just then.  Much later I read Norman Cousin’s book "Anatomy of an Illness" where a very sick man virtually cured himself by watching funny movies.  I am convinced the amount of TV watched is in direct proportion to the amount of unhappiness in one’s life.

Several people, of course, were appalled that a kid should drop out of school and watch "The Price is Right" four hours a day!…When John Holt in Toronto in June 1981 invited questions from the audience, one of them was "My homeschooled child watches five hours of TV a day - any comment?"  His reply was to get rid of the TV.  This does strike me as throwing the baby out with the bath-water.  Believing with A.S. Neill that "freedom works," I observed and waited.  We made no restrictions on the kids except to mention that they would probably find shows after 9 PM boring.  They respected our recommendation, and ask permission for exceptions.

Oh, the JOY of being woken up at 6:30 AM on a Sunday morning when an excited 6-year-old arrives with a bound and a whoop: "Mom! Dad! I know how a water pump works!" followed by a loud and lengthy explanation.  Why is University of the Air on at such an uncivilized hour?

…The children have become more discriminating.  Their tastes have moved from "The Price is Right" to more intelligent quiz shows and nature programs.  The younger child, more sociable, used to rush home from Grade 1 determined to watch "General Hospital" (sic!).  I did watch some of these - the script was trite: "You know my father never loved me!" sobs a girl - perfect fare for a sympathetic 7-year-old.  How adults can watch the cliched acting is beyond me.  Certainly with the choice of fine (mainly British) dramas we can now value acting as a high art form, have developed an appreciation of directing, and can recognize camera-work as excellent or sloppy.  The kids, too, have wondered how films are made, gaining more insight into this 20th century art form by the age of 10 than I had at 30.

The commercials.  Many parents here find themselves at odds with the demands on their pocket, and the wish to satisfy their kids.  I’ve had requests to buy this toy and that cereal and have often complied.  The kids have invariable been disappointed.  At the age of 7 George confided in me: "You know, the people of Kraft tell lies - they say their cheese is best, but I like X brand better."  After about the age of 7 kids recognize commercials for what they are.  Just last night I said, "That (new food) sounds lovely, shall I buy some?"  There was a chorus of "Oh, Mom, you know it’s junk if it’s on TV!"  I slunk away!
The question of violence has upset many parents.  At first I, too, was horrified when a visiting 4-year-old insisted on watching "Gilligan’s Island" where Gilligan was sure someone was out to kill him, and was nervously trying to hide.  However, I understand that children under the age of about 8 have no real conception of death, and the titillation of dangerous predicaments (when one’s life is safely sanitized or suburbanized) as in games of cops and robbers ("Bang!  You’re dead!") or in fairy tales (eating a poisoned apple, or what is more violent than a wolf eating your grandmother?) is understood by small kids as fun because of the release of the happy end.  I must say, in this regard TV is highly moral.  Violence is used against the bad guys and the good ones emerge victorious.  (Often older adults who have experienced real violence in life usually have no wish to watch further violence on TV)…

I watched my kids carefully after "The A Team," "Dukes of Hazard," etc., and apart from chasing each other up the stairs immediately after, I could detect no wish to watch more of the same (in fact, they are now complaining it’s the same thing every week) and absolutely no change in character - in fact, school attendance wrought more change in personality than TV…

I’m sure it’s a question of control when the schools deplore the amount of TV watched by their students - it interferes with their control over what is learned.  Parents object because it can interfere with their control and organization of their children’s lives.  The anti-TVites remind me of the outcry after the invention of printing 500 years ago: "It’s immoral, unnecessary!  It will give people revolutionary ideas! corrupt their minds! ruin their eyesight! waste time and prevent them from doing useful work!"…

SPECIAL LUNCH DAYS

Theo Giesy (VA) writes:

…About five years ago I started having "lunch days" to give special time of individual attention to each child in turn (their ages then 8-15).  One day a week, not always the same day, is set aside for me to take one of my children out for lunch.  When we started, all four of my children were still living at home so each one got to go every fourth week; now, with two at home, each goes every other week.

The child gets to pick the restaurant, within reason.  Many restaurants have lunch menus much cheaper than their dinner prices so expense can be kept reasonable.  We go to a wide variety of restaurants, including favorite Chinese, Mexican, and Italian restaurants.

During lunch we have a special time together.  Sometimes we go shopping afterwards.  Sometimes if the restaurant is in a mall, the other kids will ride along and shop during lunch.  But lunch is for just one child to have special time alone with me.

No matter how busy or hectic life gets, we always observe lunch day.  When life seems too busy and it is tempting to skip "just this once," that’s when it is most important to take a little time out to give some special attention and to catch my breath.  That enforced break makes a big difference.

In months with family birthdays, we change the schedule if necessary so that the child with the birthday gets to go to lunch the week of his birthday.  On rare occasions the best friend of the child is invited along.  But the main idea is one-to-one time…

UNBEARABLE-DUE TO CHEMICAL

A reader wrote to the parent of "Hard To Live With," GWS #43 & #47:

…I, too, have a difficult child - my older son…  You mentioned that most of the families who responded to your letter suggested a natural diet.  Tim has been on Feingold since he was a little more than a year old, with mixed results.  We have found a greater determining factor in his behavior to be, not his diet, but his environment - and here I may be able to help you.
A year ago, when things were more or less bearable in our relationship, we suddenly came to a crisis.  Within the space of a few days, we installed a new bathroom cabinet (full of particle-board), had our condominium units painted, and had a long visit by my mother-in-law from overseas (a smoker).  Within the space of a week or two we watched helplessly as our son degenerated from a mostly lovable child to a raving lunatic - I mean violent, destructive behavior, and 90% of it was directed at his grandmother (even though from the beginning they got along fabulously, and when away from her he claimed to miss her).  It reached the point that I had to move out with the children and spend several weeks with my parents.

During that time, since I suspected a connection between the smoking and our son’s behavior, and at the suggestion of a friend with similar problems, I took Tim to an allergist specializing in clinical ecology.  That trip has literally changed our lives - probably saved Tim’s (I know - pacifist though I am - I would have broken down and killed him!).  The doctor diagnosed a formaldehyde allergy - or "sensitivity," for those who want to quibble about the meaning of the term allergy.  Formaldehyde was the common element in the particle board, the paint, the cigarette smoke, and, incidentally, the host of scented products my mother-in-law uses, plus, to my dismay, countless other products in common use everywhere.

Skeptics say, "How can allergies cause behavior problems?"  A clinical ecologist would answer that the brain is an organ just like the skin or lungs and so can also be affected by an allergic reaction. If you can imagine a severe case of hives on the brain, you can imagine my poor tortured son.
Anyhow, the mother-in-law has gone back home and we have even moved into an older rental home with dramatic results.  We have our sanity back.  Or did, until the onset of cold weather a couple of weeks ago - now, with the furnace running, we have problems again.  Unfortunately, all rental houses seem to have gas furnaces.

We are building a house in the country, using low-formaldehyde materials and no gas appliances, so hopefully when it is completed peace may be restored.
If you would like to look into the allergy/behavior question, there are many books now you may want to read such as:
ALLERGIES AND THE HYPERACTIVE CHILD, Doris J. Rapp, M.D.; Simon & Schuster.
NONTOXIC & NATURAL, Debra Lynn Dadd; Tarcher/St. Martins (a directory of safe products).
WHY YOUR HOUSE MAY ENDANGER YOUR HEALTH, Alfred V. Zamm, M.D.: Simon & Schuster…

QUERIES

Here are more questions we hope some of you will respond to.  We will forward all answers to those who asked the questions, and we plan to print the most interesting replies:

…Has anyone out there experienced any problems with homeschooling-related stress?  I honestly thought I’d be the last person to have stress build-up, but this fall I began having a variety of physical and emotional symptoms which indicated a severe stress overload.  I have had to do a lot of examining of my lifestyle, and I am forced to conclude that my present homeschooling situation is indeed quite stressful.
I didn’t have any such problems when I was teaching my 10-year-old daughter at home, but this time the homeschooler is my 7-year-old son, a most obtrusive child.  He is a world class talker and question asker, and is very persistent…  Naturally I want to be responsive (that is, after all, one of the reasons why we kept him home), but feeling constantly stressed is talking its toll…
Our situation (alone in the country with no support group or phone) is one I know a lot of you share or have shared.  These circumstances can help the stress become self-perpetuating.  When you no longer have the energy or concentration to teach or even interact, you take on a lot of worry about doing a poor job, particularly if you are basically the child’s only resource.  If any of you have had to deal with this, I’d really appreciate your letting me know how you coped. - S.J.

…Does anyone have any personal experience with using the Clonlara home education program or any other non-religious home education program?
I have been getting curriculum guides from my local public school, which works fine for some subjects such as math, spelling, phonics.  With reading and writing, I totally let my daughter decide what to do.  She usually is very inspired in those areas (she is 8).  With science and social studies I sometimes get stuck with no inspiring project to lead us.  I thought a home education program may help during those times. - V.L.

…Do you folks know of any good books on preparing children to stay by themselves? - R.S.

…One thing I want to ask GWS readers about: my in-laws’ biggest objection seemed not to be the home school so much as that the kids will become too dependent on me; they’ll be too much with their mom.  This is bad for kids, they say…  In addition, my in-laws insisted I would become (perhaps already am) too dependent on my children and will never be able to relinquish them…  They see homeschool as simply an excuse for me to stay abnormally attached to my kids.  I reeled with that one.  And I’ve heard the argument from two other people, one a psychologist.  What do others think?  Has anyone else had to deal with this?  I would very much like to hear from parents who have older home schoolers…  Did you have a problem in letting them go, or they you? - T.H.

PREFERS THE BRITANNICA

Catherine Murray-Flaherty writes:

…I would like to help correct some wrong information about the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA.  Diana Moskal (GWS #47, p.30) says that Britannica does not have any entry for John Wilkes Booth.  In our set, which is the 1984 printing of the 15th Edition, there is a one-third page entry on him in Vol. II of the Ready Reference set and further entries on his role in the Lincoln assassination (Vol. 10), and on his Shakespearean roles (Vol. 3), in the Knowledge in Depth set.
We bought these encyclopedias about a year ago.  The township in which we live has no public library.  The County bookmobile comes by once a week, but our experience with it has been that  we’ve "lost the moment" on some of our son’s interests due to delays in getting books through the bookmobile.  I wanted to have some kind of comprehensive reference readily available so that our son would see that we could still learn at home even though he was enrolled in first grade at a school.  (My husband is not totally against homeschooling - only for us.)  We already had a set of the World Book Childcraft books and were finding that they did not even begin to answer some of his questions when we tried to use them.

When we looked at the sample Britannica books and literature that the saleslady brought out, we found the Britannica had changed a lot from what I had remembered from my school days.  (I used the Britannica a lot during school because my high school English teacher would not accept World Book references for anything.  And, I admit this did influence my decision to buy Britannica).  The Britannica has been given a major rewrite, making most entries clear and easy to read.

…In my opinion, the "Micropedia" Ready Reference Set of the Britannica compares favorably to the World Book, and the "Macropedia" Knowledge in Depth gives the plus of more depth on a subject.  To my knowledge, the Micropedia and Macropedia are always sold together.

…The only disadvantage that I saw to the Britannica was the price - it cost us about $300-400 more than the World Book would have.  However, the prices are apparently flexible and must depend on the commission the salesman chooses to make…  It was like buying a car.  When we hesitated, the price came down.  When we still hesitated, as set of books called the "Annals of America" was included; This 25-volume set contains the original writings of American historical figures…  Since both my husband and I are fascinated by American history, we considered this a deal and signed on the bottom line…

SELF-TAUGHT READERS

From Donna Faturos (PA):

…For several years I have been reading GWS and hearing about how many children learn to read, and read well, without all of the effort schools put into it.  It sounded wonderful, especially the idea that I wouldn’t have to beat myself silly teaching, but I had this nagging feeling that it may work for others, but never for me.  I read aloud a lot to our three boys; and with Joseph (6 1/2), our oldest, I would occasionally play word games of our own creation.  I was rather surprised this morning to hear Joseph reading a Dr. Seuss book, one we’ve never read to him, to Joshua and Benamin!  It really does work!  All of my worry was apparently in vain…
_____

From Suzanne Alejandre in Spain:

…The biggest news - Niko has realized that he can READ.  He will be nine in March and, of course, Rich and I have read all along about late readers in GWS.  We have tried to follow the idea that Niko and Lee will read when they have a need.  We have books everywhere and we are often reading, so it would have been very strange for Niko never to read.  But, as with all things, we had our doubts and the accompanying worry that maybe Niko wouldn’t read.  But, somehow, Rich and I have kept our mouths shut and it happened as it should.
For the past couple of years, probably once every three months or even less, Niko and Rich or I would take time to have Niko "read."  That is, instead of the normal procedure of us reading to him and his brother, we would read and he would repeat.  It never lasted long.  Niko never thought he could read, and so he didn’t see the point.  For a long time Niko has been able to read separate words but not any combinations.  Then, I remember last summer we worked from "The Three Little Pigs" - for some reason Niko wanted to read that to me.  But, he still wasn’t convinced that he could read.  He knew he had just memorized the story and that somehow reading was different.  A few times I explained the idea of phonics - telling him that each letter had a sound.  We also talked about the differences between reading in English, German and Spanish, since both German and Spanish are completely phonetics (and he speaks them).

Two weeks ago, however, I was sitting in the living room, knitting and Niko had an Asterix book in his hand.  I don’t know if Asterix is popular in the States.  It is a comic book series about the adventures of Asterix and his sidekick Obelix.  The setting is in Europe during the time of the Roman Empire.  anyway, Niko and Lee love the books and we have different ones in various languages including ones that Rich and I can’t read (Danish, French, and Swedish - we collect books!).  by chance, Niko was holding one in English.  I suggested that he sit by me and read to me while I knitted.  The chemistry was right, and Niko started to read and in a few moments his face was beaming and he said, "I CAN READ."  He was amazed and ecstatic.  Finally it all clicked.  I told him that he had been able to read for a long time but he didn’t believe it.  Now he believes it and knows that he can read.  Asterix has enough easy words that he knows - so he reads all the simple words and I say the more difficult words softly and he repeats them.  We have quite a rhythm.  Normally, he reads about six pages and then goes off to do something else…

KIDS TEACHING EACH OTHER

Susan Shilcock wrote in the PENCIL (PA) newsletter, Winter 85:

…When Amanda (9) decided she wanted to learn to dive, she asked me for some help which I was happy to offer.  On three different occasions I did a demonstration dive, made a few comments, told her the part she was doing well, and left the rest to her experimenting.  But with each try she became more frustrated and claimed she’d never learn how to dive,  I didn’t know how to teach diving, and she didn’t want to learn anyway.

Then one day, watching her friend Katelyn (7) dive, Amanda asked Katelyn to teach her how to do it.  She took instruction and criticism from Katelyn easily.  She was willing to persevere even when she was doing belly flops.  She showed no frustration, just serious attention to the parts of the dive she was trying to improve.  In only 15-20 minutes, Amanda had changed her perception of herself from non-diver to diver.  Katelyn had guided her over the humps in a way that I had been unable to do.  Halfway through the diving lesson Amanda said, "Hey Katelyn, you teach me how to dive and I’ll help you with your reading.  I know you’ve been working on reading and I’ll be happy to help."  So this trade of skills was born.

Katelyn accepted Amanda’s offer, and Amanda set to work writing and illustrating a personal book for her friend.  She gave Katelyn a choice of themes, all based on Katelyn’s interests, and Katelyn chose gym.  Amanda and Katelyn attend the same gym class so it was easy for the story to include lots of familiar names and references, such as "Patty goes to gym class every Thursday" and "Patty checked the chalk box for her missing barrette."

To prepare for her work on the book, Amanda had asked Katelyn what she liked and disliked about beginning reading books.  Katelyn had said, "Well, something I really don’t like about fist-reader books is that they just have sentences that don’t make sense to me and they don’t have a story.  They just say, ‘Amanda goes to school.  It is fall.  Amanda has a friend.  The end.’  I like there to be a story."  Seven-year-old Emily, listening to the conversation, added, "Yeah, there’s not a happy ending or a sad ending - it doesn’t have an end!"
So Amanda made sure that her book had a real storyline.  The Gym Book is about fifteen pages long, has one or two sentences per page, and each page contains a large stick figure illustration.

Katelyn was able to read the book the first time through with almost no help.  When Amanda asked Katelyn, "What did you like best about the book I made you?"  Katelyn responded, "I liked the illustration with the bubble coming out of Patty’s mouth and the remarks she made, like ‘Still, no barette’  or ‘No, not in the chalk box.’  That was funny."

"Did you have trouble with any words, or could you figure them out in connection with the story, like ‘Thursday’ because we both go to gym on Thursday?" Amanda asked.

"No, they weren’t too difficult," Katelyn answered, "But I had to work to figure some out and I liked that.  The words weren’t too easy and I liked that."
"Would you like me to make you another book, maybe about sewing or ice skating?" Amanda suggested, and Katelyn said eagerly,
"Oh, ice skating - that would be fun.  And maybe I could make you a book and maybe you could help me."
So now Katelyn is writing When Katelyn was a Little Girl and Amanda is her spelling consultant.

It seems to me, as parent and witness to these episodes, that there really are situation in which a child is unable to accept input from a parent or another adult, but is willing to hear the same information from another child.  I’ve often suggested that families consider actually hiring another child to tutor a particular skill or subject, and from all reports this has been successful.  I think it’s helpful, whether the arrangement is a formal one complete with fee or a casual exchange between friends, that everyone view it as a short-term experiment, not as a life-long decision.  If Amanda had really felt herself responsible for teaching Katelyn to read she might have been so overwhelmed that she would not have known where to begin.  This particular trade was actually a series of well-timed moments during which a child’s sensitivity, care and special perspective of a friend’s learning helped the friend reach a new level of skill…

It’s interesting, also, that both Katelyn and Emily were emphatic about their dislike of beginning readers.  The books with words easy enough for them to read are boring non-stories that they view as demeaning.  The books with more interesting storylines often have too many words per page which discourages the beginning reader.  Homemade books fill a major need here because they can be tailored to each child’s interests and can include challenging words that have special meaning for the reader (like trampoline, vault) and which can be figured out…

VISION EXERCISES CAN HELP

Sherie Richardson wrote in the ARIZONA FAMILIES FOR HOME EDUCATION newsletter, 10/85:

…We had a child who, since second grade (age 7) had been having trouble with her reading, reading comprehension, and spelling.  We tried to get the schools to retain her in second grade as soon as the problem was obvious to us but they could not/would not do it.  We paid a special tutor and that helped for a while but as soon as the tutor was out of the picture for a few months and new materials were presented to her, the same problems seemed to surface again.  We tried all we knew to help.  We had her read aloud to us, we drilled on spelling words, we had award charts for books read, and set aside so many minutes of reading time per day.  We drilled on vocabulary, asked her question about what she read, and asked her to tell us what she had read in her own words.  We made her use a book-mark or other straight edge under her reading to help her keep her place.  After five years of this and a child with low self-esteem and a nasty remark every time we mentioned practicing one of the above techniques, we were very frustrated.

It was about this time that someone told us about one of her child who was having some similar learning problems.  She told us about something that had helped her child: visual training.  We contacted an optometrist who did this special visual training and it has helped very much.  Although our daughter was negative abut it at first, her attitude started to change as she experienced and noticed changes and success in her reading and spelling abilities.
…Some of these exercises included following a swinging ball that was mounted from the ceiling with a string, repeating a group of unrelated letters that were presented on a flash card, drawing familiar items with eyes closed, writing spelling words with eyes closed,  giving directions for how to get someplace, or describing as specifically as possible a certain item or place…  We did the exercises every day - some three times, some five times, or whatever the doctor instructed.  We met with the doctor weekly at first…  It was such a special day when we discovered a couple of exercises that really seemed to be the ones that our daughter responded to and seemed to help her difficulties the most!
We have been pleased with this visual training and the difference it has made for our daughter…
_____

And Susan Richman (PA) writes:

…Very interesting that there were several letters in GWS about kids needing eyeglasses for reading.  I, too, got reading glasses as a child (13 years old, not an easy time to begin wearing glasses!) and definitely found that I once again began to love to read.  The strain was off.  Over the past several years (or I should say whenever my glasses break or get lost) I have been very interested in reading Aldous Huxley’s book  THE ART OF SEEING, that details the work of Dr. Bates on improving vision with eye relaxation techniques.  The ideas are always helpful.  I see that John was familiar with Huxley’s book, too, as he mentioned it in his review of "sleep shades" (GWS #46).

I also noticed that when Jesse began reading at 6 1/2 he often showed signs of eyestrain - rubbing his eyes, putting a hand over one eye, staring hard and not blinking often enough.  An eyecheck showed nothing "wrong," but I still was very concerned.  I shared the Huxley ideas with Jesse.  We both began palming our eyes before reading, and in between each page, we tried to consciously blink much more frequently, and generally tried to relax and not stare and strain.  It worked wonders.  His reading began to come much more easily, he stopped showing stress, and began to be able to read for much longer times without any problems.  This just might be another avenue for parents to look into when their children seem to have some eye and vision problem.

One of the basic ideas of Bates was that when we strain to see, fearing perhaps that the words might just fly off the page unless we nail them on with our eyeball - that’s when we see much worse.  I think perhaps that many early readers might have that fear about the few tenuous words they feel they can read, a feeling similar to what John described in NEVER TOO LATE when he went functionally blind when under the stress of reading music too fast.  I also remember seeing a photo somewhere of a classroom full of young Japanese children doing eye relaxation exercises before beginning their work for the day, so these ideas are being used in some parts of the world.  The exercises are very similar to yoga eye exercises, very soothing to mind and eye…

FAMILY NEWSLETTER

Sharron Lerew (PA) has sent us several copies of a family newsletter, the "Lerew ABC News," and when I asked her about it, she replied:

…Yes, we send our newsletter to family and friends.  And yes, at this point, the girls dictate their articles and I type most of them.  They usually try to type at least one, but the length of their articles is growing faster that the speed of their typing.  Jennifer (7) wrote some of her earlier articles by hand but began to feel limited by her writing skills and wanted to dictate the way her sisters did.  So for now that’s what she’s doing too.
We’ve only been doing this for four months and so far have done no revising of stories.  I’m writing down exactly what the girls say, punctuating as well as I know how to convey their words, and trying very hard not to correct grammar or suggest different wording…  I’d love to tell Dory (5) that she doesn’t need to start every sentence with "And."  But hopefully she’ll eventually see for herself that her writing would be more effective without the "Ands."
The idea for the newsletter was mine.  I’ve always felt weak in communication skills - especially writing.  I decided if we started just writing for fun when the girls were young that they might escape my writing phobia.  In addition I felt it might allay some of the mild apprehension of relatives about our homeschooling.

After three issues, I find that in addition to these original goals, it has many other benefits.  The girls are learning to mechanically put together a newsletter, too.  They cut and decide where to paste; they’ve all, even our 3 1/2-year-old, learned to run the copy machine, and they thoroughly enjoy collating and stuffing envelopes.  Each issue they do more.
For myself, I’ve found the major benefit is the monthly evaluation.  Without this paper that has a (self-imposed) deadline, I could easily put off "looking at what we’re doing" for months.  For example, after looking at out November issue, I was shocked at how much too much we were doing.  I knew it in my bones but this made me actually face it.  Of course, I’ve also never learned how to "cut out" things from my life.  But now we’ve discussed it with the girls and we’re all thinking of ways we can have more unstructured time…

ON CURSIVE WRITING

An AP story in the San Diego Tribune, 7/24/85, reprinted in the California CC-PALS newsletter:

…The smooth, flowing lines of cursive writing are a waste of school time, says a University of Iowa professor who argues that the homely blocks of printed lettering are all a child ever needs to learn.

"It’s important for teachers and parents to be aware that there’s nothing magic about cursive writing and that a child can go through life successfully without ever using cursive writing," says Beatrice Furner, an education professor who’s been studying handwriting for more than 20 years.
She said she first became interested in the problems caused by teaching cursive writing, or script, when she was a third-grade teacher.  "In a class with 20 to 25 kids, you’re going to have four or five with difficulties learning cursive and another group that makes the transition but doesn’t make it easily.  And it’s all so unnecessary," she said.

Furner said manuscript writing - sometimes called printing - was introduced in the United States in the 1920’s after studies in England showed that it was easier for children to learn to read because of the greater similarity between manuscript writing and the printed letter.
"Children who use it also tend to write more and enjoy it more.  And there is some indication that in the early ages it aids in learning to spell."
Further said educational publishers and tradition have convinced people that cursive instruction is necessary.  But cursive writing has not been found to be any faster or more legible than manuscript writing, and manuscript signatures are legal in most states, she said.

Many children have difficulty learning cursive writing because at the age it is commonly introduced, between 7 and 9, they do not have sufficient perceptual and motor development, she said.

Most commonly, the difficulty is in letters with strokes in diagonal relationship to the baseline - letters such as the cursive "k" and "x," Furner said. The result is that children may be turned off towards all forms of writing.

"Often the child will decide not to write, not to express himself or herself through written communication.  The child thinks ‘I hate to write,’ when it’s the manual task which is the problem," she said.
Furner said children would benefit if the time spent teaching cursive writing were devoted to something more useful.  With increasing use of computers in classrooms and in society, she said, now would be a particularly good time to promote the life-long use of manuscript writing…
_____

From Stephanie Judy (B.C.):

…I was interested in the comments about cursive writing in GWS #20.  I agree that it is not at all essential to learn to write in cursive, but I think it’s important to learn to read cursive, and I wonder if the easiest way to do this is to learn to write it (whether or not you ever use it).  I worked with a Japanese neurologist once, a visiting professor at U.B.C. medical school, who could read, write, and speak English admirably, but had never before seen cursive writing.  He was absolutely stymied by it, and had a miserable time with the nurses’ notes in the hospitals, colleagues’ memos, and so forth.  I worked with him for several hours, examining as many different styles of cursive as we could find.  The best solution, finally, was for him to learn to write cursive.  Once he understood the principle of linking letters, and the consequent distortion of the printed form which that sometimes entails, he was home free.  In a family, it would be simple for parents to write lists, notes, stories, and such in cursive for kids to read.  It might also be interesting to "invent" a cursive - just to fool around with linking every letter in a word to see what limitations develop…

JOHN HOLT ON WRITING

In 1980, someone sent John Holt a questionnaire as part of a survey on how writers work.  Here are some excerpts from his reply:

First of all, I have to say that the overwhelming bulk of my writing is in the form of letters.  Many of these I type myself, many of them I dictate onto tape, for others to type, as I am doing in this instance.  Most of what eventually found its way into my books began life as letters.  I think it would be a very conservative guess to say that I have written twenty times as much in letters as has been published in books, and the figure might be much higher than that.
…Quite often I will get an idea, sometimes no more than a single sentence, and I will scribble it down on a sheet of paper so as not to lose it.  These little scraps of paper accumulate in my pockets and on my desk and in other places.  Sometimes I will amplify them, expand them in larger notes or put them in a letter.  Sometimes they just sit around as scraps for quite a long time.  Sometimes I find a use for those scraps, sometimes not - I will come across a batch of them and realize that events have passed them by, that I have written the same thing later in better ways, or am perhaps no longer interested in saying that particular thing.

Certainly there is no week or even day in which I do not write something,  But, in answer to your question A, I have no idea how much.  It depends very much on the other circumstances of my work.  Obviously, on a lecture tour I don’t have much time for writing, I might only be able to scribble some rough notes about my lectures, or second thoughts afterwards.  But when I’m in Boston, working out of my office, I would say that it is a rare day that I don’t write at least four hours, and it is usually much more than that.

I prefer to write in the morning, but circumstances don’t always permit it.  If I go to the office, I am liable to find phone calls, people are asking me questions, the mail comes in and I look through to see if there’s anything of great importance that needs to have something done about it right away.  The result of this is that I may not get around to writing until the afternoon.  But I would very much prefer to work in the morning.  Indeed, I am dictating this in my room, actually, in bed, in my apartment.  It is now 9:25 a.m, and I began dictating answers to a great big bunch of correspondence at about 6 a.m.
…About organization, the only book that I can remember that began life on 3 x 5 cards was NEVER TOO LATE, the book about my musical experiences.  Actually, it didn’t even strictly speaking begin there - I think it began with my scribbling down on a sheet of paper, as fast as I could think of them, often only a few words at a time, everything that I could think of, musically, that had happened to me that might be of importance.  A kind of brainstorming session, if you know what I mean.  Later I began to put these ideas down on 3 x 5 cards, or slips of paper, adding to them as I went along.  Eventually there got to be quite a collection of stuff there and I began to turn it into a book.  But most of my books don’t begin this way.  They begin as letters…  I write things first, then later consider how best to organize them.

Yes, I sometimes suffer from writer’s block.  I usually try to combat it by writing in a different place.  Sometimes I have been able to overcome it simply by changing the size or color of the sheets of paper I write on.  Ordinarily I compose at the typewriter, but if and when I am blocked there, I may go back to working in longhand, very often in a stenographer’s notebook.  If I have been working at home, and get stuck there, I may work more in the office or vice versa.

As for qualities of good and bad writing, it is easy for me to answer that question.  Along the way, I will say that I think that 99% or more of what is called "professional" writing is bad.  We have about us many sinners against the English language, but of all these sinners, the greatest by far, in my opinion, are the academics.  I am sorry if this has any pejorative ring - it’s not accidental…  I think that most academics writing is dreadful.  Writing should, above all else, be clear.  I think anyone who wants or claims to be a serious writer has a moral duty to be clear, to write as plainly and simply as possible, to make her/his message understandable to as many people as possible.  I work very hard on this, and take great pride and pleasure in the fact that many of my books have been read, understood, and enjoyed by children under ten, or people with very little formal schooling.  My very strong impression of most academics is that they literally strive for obscurity, out of a mistaken, vain and arrogant notion that the harder their ideas are to understand, the more important they must be.  Academics, and indeed many other people literary and music critics, politicians, and other public figures, write mainly for display, to show the world or someone, that they are smarter than someone (or anyone) else.

Since I am talking about plain writing, I may as well give you the Holt Four Rules for plain writing.  I wish I could make a book out of this, like THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE, but since this will fit easily on a small scrap of paper I don’t see how I can puff it up into a book.  The rules are: 1) little words instead of big; 2) few words instead of many (note where number one and number two conflict, number one takes precedence); 3) active verbs rather than passive; 4) personal or concrete, rather than abstract, subjects for verbs; that is to say, words like Mary, John, she, he, I, you, it, dogs, cats, people, houses, cars, etc., rather than things like transportation, tendency, demographic projections, etc.  On the whole I would say that if a writer cannot turn a piece of prose into who did what, or who thought what, or who wanted what, that writer doesn’t know what s/he is talking about.  I assert that, except where technical vocabulary is concerned, there are no ideas, no true or serious or interesting or worthwhile ideas, that cannot be put in that plain form.  It is extremely hard work, which is one of the many reasons why most writers don’t bother to do it…

READING & WRITING IN SCHOOL

[DR:] A hint here and there that the educational establishment may be getting ready for a new fad: the idea that children learn to read by reading - even real books! - and to write by writing.  There was the "Becoming a Nation of Readers" report (GWS #45), followed by the abandonment by the Chicago schools of their painfully structured reading program (GWS #45), followed by the abandonment by the Chicago schools of their painfully structured reading program (GWS #47).  Shortly before that, there was some attention paid in the media to J.H. Martin’s "Writing to Read" program (GWS #37 & 38).  Below are some more pieces of evidence.

Whether or not schools in general come to embrace these ideas, homeschoolers certainly should be able to use these items as support for their own learning styles.

First, an article by Teresa Pitman in the ONTARIO HOMESCHOOLERS newsletter:

…I recently was invited to attend a meeting of CANSCAIP (Canadian Society of Children’s Authors, Illustrators, and Performers).  The guest speaker, who is the head of Scholastic Publishing, talked about how children learn to read.  Most of it is what John Holt had been saying for years.
The speaker began by pointing out that 35% of the adults in Canada are functionally illiterate…  Beyond this group lies another very large part of the population who can read but only do so if they have to…  Most of these non-readers are this way as a direct result of the methods used to teach reading in the school system over the past few decades.

These methods used the "technological" model of reading: teach the children the many individual skills need to learn to "decode" words, and they will be able to read.  If this did not work, the educators tried the "illness" model: kids who do not learn to read are sick (e.g. learning disabled)…
A lot of research has now been done on the results of these beliefs and this kind of teaching, and the research has shown that these methods were actually destructive…  How then can we help our children learn to read?

The speaker emphasized, and even wrote on the board in capital letters: LITERACY BEGINS AT HOME.  This new model is taken from the way children learn to talk.  Their home and family are like a laboratory for young children: they listen to speech, make attempts to copy it, to respond, and to play with words as they sort our the rules of grammar.  And the parents rarely correct their many mistakes; they just go on talking to the children and letting them figure things out.

Children learn to read the same way.  That means they should be in an environment filled with books, magazines, and words of all kinds.  They should be read to constantly, starting when they are babies.  The speaker recommended, in particular, reading traditional folk tales and poems which came out of an oral tradition and have a rhythm and repetition that help children remember them.

The speaker also emphasized that reading and writing go hand in hand (just as a young child learning to understand speech wants to talk and respond) and children should have many opportunities to write.
From these beginnings, and with an adult to answer their questions when they cannot figure out a word, children will naturally begin to recognize words and be able to make sense out of written material.
Another point he emphasized was that testing must be avoided.  He compared it to a two-year-old learning to talk; he or she would soon shut up!
…He finished up with a few critical comments about schools and teachers.  (In fact, two teachers who were in the audience got up and walked out during the presentation.)  Many teachers, he said, are actually illiterate themselves and are therefore unable to pass on reading ability to their classes.
Also, this approach must be very individualized, with different children picking up reading at different ages (just as they talk at different ages) and this is much harder for teachers to deal with than teaching a prescribed course from a packaged set of workbooks and readers.
Finally, he recommended a book entitled "Becoming a Nation of Readers" which summarizes the research and suggests appropriate steps for schools to take.
I found the whole talk so interesting that I could hardly sit still!  In my opinion, he offered a lot of support for homeschooling…
_____

And from "Early Literacy: Teaching the ‘Natural’ Way," in the Boston Globe, 12/22/85:

…[These] two teachers are using the natural language approach to reading that concentrates on stories that appeal to children instead of primers that conform to vocabulary rules.  This approach is the key to the Cambridge Literacy Project and is based on research that indicates that learning to read can come as naturally as learning to talk.
Literacy classrooms in Cambridge elementary schools surround children with stories in big print that teachers read aloud.  Pictures give clues to the stories in "books" made by children who paste together poster-sized letters and drawings.  The entire classroom is an invitation to children to imitate reading out loud.

…Reading should be a pleasure instead of a drill, said Don Holdaway, director of the literacy program in Cambridge.  And when it is a pleasure for the children, it is a pleasure for the teacher, too.
…The natural reading approach started 12 years ago in Auckland, New Zealand, when Holdaway and his colleagues were teaching migrant Polynesian and Maori children to read in the same classes with English-speaking 5-year-olds. [See "New Zealand Reading Works," GWS #47.]

The New Zealand teachers started with native jingles and chants and went on to new songs and stories in English, Holdaway writes.  Games and sound imitations from the stories being read aloud took the place of phonic drills.  Teachers gave the reader’s pointer to students so that they, too, could lead the class.  In an adjoining room, children played with books, drew pictures, and started to make their own books, using the few letters they had learned.
Pioneers like Sylvia Ashton-Warner, Marie Clay, Yetta Goodman, Frank Smith and Holdaway called their methods "Shared Book Experiences."  Holdaway said further research by William Martin, Jr. in the United States and in other countries confirms that using favorite books to teach reading instead of basic primers keeps motivation high during children’s fumbling attempts to learn to read and write and spell.  Holdaway, now an associate professor at Lesley College, was a visiting professor of English at the University of Western Ontario and came to Cambridge in 1983 to work with the school department on a system-wide approach to literacy in a joint program with Lesley…
A growing number of observers from half a dozen states and countries as far away as Israel come to watch the Cambridge Literacy Project in action…

LETTERS ON MATH

Lynn Middleton (Alta.) wrote:

…I thought that since the school board wasn’t bothering us, we would also not worry Jonathan (10) about doing math for awhile.  He always complained of headaches when he did math - and that his head felt "full."  When I tried to work with him, he did the same sort of non-thinking panicky guessing that John described in HOW CHILDREN FAIL.  After a couple of months without math he says things like, "Hey, if our magic show is an hour and each trick takes five minutes - we only need twelve tricks, right?"  Not advanced math, maybe, but he did it because he needed it, and it made sense suddenly.  Or when Benjamin (6) asked him how many seconds there were in a day, he answered after a minute, "Well, you would just multiply, wouldn’t you - 60 x 60 x 24!"…
_____

and from Ruth Matilsky (NJ):

…I used to teach the abacus to blind people when I worked at the Carrol Center for the Blind in Newton, Massachusetts.  In order to do this I had to really start to understand numbers myself.  I had always done the rote work and had never really thought about what I was doing.  Now I was teaching adults who already knew how to add and subtract (there were a few who didn’t and with them I don’t know  whether what I did is worth writing about) but most of them, like me, never thought abut why they were doing what they were doing.  For example, when you have a number like 253 that is really two hundreds, five tens and three ones, and you add it to 425, you are adding four hundred to two hundred, five tens to two tens and three ones to five ones.  The Japanese abacus that I used was a marvelous tool because I was able to clearly demonstrate what one was doing when one "carried" and "borrowed."  I would say "Okay, you want to add six ones, but there are not enough beads in you ones columns as you must add ten ones (one ten) and take four ones away."
All this may be meaningless without having an abacus in front of you, but it was a major breakthrough for me, and believe it or not, for many of the adults with whom I worked…

NOTHING SACRED ABOUT ARITHMETIC

Marta Clark (KY) wrote:

…We started our homeschooling regimen on Wednesday.  I spent half an hour helping Elena (6) read and then I showed her how to express addition on paper.  It was all easy (she has been able to do it in her head for a long time) until we got to double digit numbers.  She knows that twenty plus twenty is forty but she blanked out when I added up one column at a time (0=0=0, 2=2=4).  The fact that I got the right answer just made her more suspicious.  So I dropped it…
_____

[DR:] I wrote in reply:

…I don’t want to belabor the point if it’s something you already have figured out for yourself, but it looks pretty clear from what you say that that firs day, you shifted from showing Elena how to express on paper he mathematical thoughts, to trying to teach her a procedure, a system, for answering a question she had not yet asked!  If she know how to add 20+20 in her head, there is absolutely no reason why she should also have to learn to add it the way you tried to explain.  True, if she gets to the point where she wants to add numbers that she cannot add in her head, then she might appreciate a system that breaks it down into manageable steps.  However, what some homeschooling parents have told us is that their children can add large numbers in their heads, something the parents cannot do.  Why?  Because the only way the parents know how to add numbers is by that process you described, the columns and carrying business, and that system is practically impossible to do mentally!  Whereas the children, free from such limits, have invented their own systems.
Many people just don’t realize there is nothing sacred abut the methods they were taught to do arithmetic.   One way to prove this is to talk with someone form a foreign country about how s/he does long division, say, or subtracts with "borrowing."  It can be a physical shock to watch someone apparently do it all wrong, write things upside down and inside out, and still come out with the right answer!
What you might do is use the system mathematicians have developed for truly expressing their thoughts, that is, the number sentence or equation.  For Elena to write down 20 + 20 = 40 is for her to express something that really is true.  How she knows it is true, whether she does it in her head or counts on her fingers or draws dots on papers or writes the numbers one above the other and adds the columns, is immaterial to the truth of the statement.
If my child was subject to standardized testing, however, I would make sure that s/he understood there are these two ways of asking someone to add numbers, more or less as
         3
        +4            or    3 + 4 + _____
        —-

…Something really interesting about subtraction.  In some other countries, and even sometimes in various places or eras in the US, a completely different method for doing subtraction is used.  You write down the numbers to be subtracted the same way:
        82
        59
        —

And you start on the right.  However, when you hit a situation where you would have to do what in our system is "borrow," that is, when the bottom number is larger than the top number, as her 9 is larger than 2, you proceed this way.  You mentally add 10 to the top number, in this case making the 2 into an 12, and you subtract the 9, and write down 3.

        82
        59
        —
          3

Then you move on the next column, and what you do is, add 1 (always 1) to the bottom number, here 5+1 is 6, and then you subtract that from the top number!

        82
        59
        —
        23

…There’s nothing you have to do with this, certainly you are nowhere near the time to show it to Elena, but it’s just an interesting example of a very different - and in some ways, superior - system…
_____

Six months later, Marta wrote:

…I was not aware of the different systems of subtracting and doing long division, and found your notes quite interesting.  We have pretty much abandoned written arithmetic for the time being and have gone on with mental calculation.  Elena now understands the relationships of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and uses them to compute answers.  For example, if we are posing questions and I ask "What is 15 divided by 3?" she might attack it in a couple of ways.  She might know immediately that 2×5 = 15, so the answer is 5, or she might have to add 3+3+3+3+3, counting the number of 3’s on her fingers.

By the way, she always starts these sessions, and, if we start with easy things, she can work up to fairly difficult problems.  A few days ago, she started a session with a question involving division by zero.  We had to backtrack and do a few easier, more normal problems before she answers.  When dividing by 2, she gets the answer by adding pairs of numbers until she hits the right pair.  This can be quite time-consuming if she is trying to divide 42 by 2 and the first number pair she adds is 12+12.  But she enjoys the whole process as well as getting the right answer (unlike the class in HOW CHILDREN FAIL).  She is starting to work with fractions in the same informal way, mostly while we are cooking…

SCIENTISTS KNOCKS EDUCATION

Some thoughts from well-known physicist Richard Feynman, interviewed in U.S. News & World Report, 3/18/85:

…There’s a great deal of intimidation by intellectuals in this country of less intellectual people.  It comes in the form of pompous studies and pompous words to describe ideas that are fairly simple or have very little content.  If someone says they do not understand one of these ideas, they’re put down, which must be hard for those who don’t have too much confidence in their own intelligence.  People think that all the experts know what they are doing.
But most experts, whether in the stock market, education, sociology or some parts of psychology, don’t know more than the average person.  They may act as though they are engaged in real science.  They do studies, follow certain methods and have results.  They follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential.

…Take educational theory.  How do you know that people in schools of education don’t know anything about how to educate children - not that anyone else knows, either?  Well, are the schools improving?  Have educational systems gotten better as the years have gone on?  It’s very easy to see that the witch doctors are not curing most diseases.

…I sometimes feel that it would be much better not to educate our children in such subjects as mathematics and science.  If we left youngsters alone, there would be a better chance that, by accident, the kids would find a good book - or an old textbook - or a television program that would excite them.  But when youngsters go to school, they learn that these subjects are dull, horrible and impossible to understand.  When I went to school, I didn’t learn that math and science were dull because I knew before I got there that they were interesting.  All I saw was that they were dull in school.  But I knew better….
I once sat in a committee in California that chose new schoolbooks for the state…  The books said things that were useless, mixed up, ambiguous, confusing and partially incorrect.  How anybody could learn science from these books, I don’t know.

What happens often is that state bodies decide what ought to be in the curriculum on the basis of what so-called experts think.  This has a tremendous influence on publishers, who want their books to cover every single item on the suggested list.  Publishers try very hard to follow what states want, and in the end, the books are poor.  They don’t try to make subjects easier to understand.  They try to make it easier to know what to do to pass the test and please the teacher.  They’re involved in making sure that certain items are understood by children so that they can go on to the next course, which is designed in exactly the same way.
Someday people will look back at our age and they’ll think: "My goodness, how they tortured their children!  Year after year they wen to these schools every day for hours.  yet look how easy it is to teach.  But they didn’t know how to do it back then…"

COMPOSERS WRITE ABOUT MUSIC

From Joseph Fosco, 153321 Oak Rd, Oak Forest  IL  60452:

…I am a composer, and would be willing to try to answer questions your subscribers have concerning music.  In addition to composition I have studies and taught music theory.  I have also done much work with electronic music instruments to computer music and computer control of electronic music synthesizers.  As a performer, my main instrument is saxophone, but I also play clarinet, flute and piano.  I have studies tablas (Indian drums) also…
I must, however, require that anyone who writes requesting a response include a self-addressed stamped envelope.  I am currently unemployed…
_____

[DR: I suggested to Joseph that he contact homeschoolers in his area, perhaps inviting them to try out his instruments, and I asked him some questions about his experiences.  He responded;]

…I have been interested in John’s ideas for quite a while, but until I read NEVER TOO LATE I had no idea he was so involved with music.  I agreed so thoroughly with his ideas concerning education, then to read about his work in music made me feel that I might be able to help homeschoolers.
…Your questions about "life as a composer" were most interesting.  Thinking about how I grew up to be a composer was quite different than the way I generally think of my development.  As far back as I can remember I used to wonder how music was put together.  I can especially remember wondering about how musicians in a large ensemble knew when to start and stop playing.  When I eventually learned to read music, many of these technical questions were answered, but I still didn’t know how someone went about writing a piece of music.

I kept trying to figure this our, half expecting the answer to be like a mathematical equation (you do this, and this, and this, and you wind up with music).  It was quite a revelation to realize this was not the case at all.  Although there are ways to do certain things, putting together a composition is a very individual process.  Whatever a composer does is done to get the ideas across as clearly as possible…  I imagine writing is similar in this respect (for example, there is no one way to write a novel).  It may seem basic, but it takes a while to realize this, and longer to begin to understand the implications.

Your next question regarding what a composer does to support himself is one I am dealing with right now.  There are types of music that a composer can make a living writing (pop, commercial, movie, etc.), however, my music is not like this.  The music I write is generally considered a continuation of the classical tradition, but it sounds much different than what most people think of as "classical music" (by Bach or Beethoven, for example).  The great majority of composers who write like this earn their living by teaching in universities.  I’ve decided that I do not want to follow that path, so I am trying to find another job I am interested in.

Most concerts of contemporary music are at universities, all the performances I’ve had have occurred there.  One of the main reasons for this is that the universities have the performers necessary to play the music.  Outside the universities it is much harder to get performers.  This is one of the reasons I’ve been turning toward electronic music;  I’ll be able to play my music myself.

…I am not sure that a composer would have to go to music school to be accepted.  There are many opportunities to learn about all aspects of music outside school.  The hardest part would be finding others interested in the same things to work and talk with on a regular basis.  In music school, there are many composers around at approximately the same stage of development.  This is a tremendous help for all of them…
_____

And from Carol Hughes, 551 Sudbury Rd, Stowe  MA  01775:

…My husband and I are both musicians, and I have tried to take a long look at what we do that makes it possible for our children to be musicians, too.  Everyone takes it for granted that offspring will follow suit, but there are definite things a nonmusical parent can do for their child who shows a love of music.
The only irreplaceable aspect of music study is listening.  Regular listening to your local public radio station will expose your children to every kind of music and allow them to choose their own favorites…  As I write this letter, some folk music is on the radio.  My 7- and 5-year -old boys are lying around and listening quietly.  Music is in our home everyday.
…Music is like people - if you give yourself a chance to get to know a piece, you may like it, you may not.  Your local library is a great place to start for free.  Used record shops are good because you can get a lot of music for a little money.  Thrift stores, garage sales, library sales, etc.,. are all places I have found records.

Here is a list of suggested listening that a fellow homeschooler asked me for:
- Grand Canyon suite by Ferde Grofe.  This may be familiar form the background music for many cartoons, particularly storm scenes.  The "On the Trail" part is really fun to act out in dance movement.
- Symphony #40 by Mozart.  My son Evan has loved this since he was in my arms.  It is very fast music with gorgeous strings.  Mozart was a genius for making stringed instruments exciting.

- Night on Bald Mountain by Moussorgsky.  This is great music to paint to because it makes you want to do something with the energy it gets you in touch with.  Pictures just pop up in your mind effortlessly.
- Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin.  Beautiful music!
- Earth Mass by Paul Winter.  This is so moving…  One part begins with the cry of a wolf and gracefully moves into musical instruments imitating that sound - it’s really thrilling.
- Charles Ives’ music attempts to include folk themes and is very uninhibited.  This is not for those who find that modern music makes them anxious.
…Attend concerts, even of your local schools, churches, etc.  This observance of someone actually playing an instrument is, I am convinced, the one big factor that private lessons have to offer.  Occasional advice or tips should be all that is necessary to learn an instrument.
Making music is a priority over all other activities in our home.  If anyone, young or old, is playing, no one is allowed to interrupt.  We encourage them to improvise and imitate.  Formal lessors are rare and only given when asked for.
A lot of parents want to make their children take piano lessons or other music lessons.  I think this is a big mistake.  I tell such parents, if they ask, that if they take the lessons themselves, their children may end up asking for them.
The biggest advantage to homeschooling that I have experienced myself is that the doors I have opened for my children are open for me…  I now compose with complete abandon and no fear of theory rules…  If it sounds good to me, chances are it will to my audience, too…
_____

[DR:] Carol, too, says she would be happy to correspond with families who have questions about music.
Her point about going to school concerts reminds me of a letter someone sent some time ago that has since disappeared.  That family made a point of finding out when the local schools had concerts (glee club, junior chorus, high school band, etc.) as well as plays, talent shows, and so on, for they found their children really enjoyed seeing other children perform.  Such events are usually free or low-cost.

Carol’s emphasis on the importance of listening is supporting by the book DEVELOPING TALENT IN YOUNG PEOPLE, according to a review in the Christian Science Monitor, 1/6/86.  In this study of "120 individuals who had reached the highest ranks in such fields as music, sculpture, swimming, and mathematics… over half of the concert pianists came from homes in which the major musical activity was passive listening…"

P.E. THROUGH FOLK DANCING

Ellie Andrew (CA) wrote:

…As to Physical Education (GWS #45) in our homeschool - both my daughters are now in Scottish Highland dancing (with the kilts and swords and all that) which I found was good not only for P.E. but also social studies, as we learned about clans and tartans, etc., and creative arts - learning about spinning and weaving and how the wool tartans are woven on a loom.  As the girls get older we’ll be traveling more for competitions (there are even Highland games in Hawaii!), always a good excuse - I mean, opportunity! - for more Social Studies…

MAKING ROPE EQUIPMENT AT 6

More from Ruth Matilsky (NJ):

…Sara (6) is doing something I find quite interesting now.  We have never bought a swingset - for many reasons.  We have a single tire swing and at one time had a geodesic fun dome for climbing.  We are fortunate to have several excellent climbing trees and Sara climbs like a circus performer.  lately she’s combined an interest in knot tying with designing acrobatic equipment.
We have a lot of string around our house - I do macramŽ wall hangings and plant hangers and have (on very rare occasions) exhibited my work.  In recent years my macramŽ has been mostly confined to practical things - I macrameed a wrought iron staircase so our toddlers would not fall through, and I macrameed a baby seat.  Sara has taken the odds and ends of leftover string and made tarzan ropes and trapezes outside on our trees.  Some of her designs needed some help from me, because I wanted to make absolutely certain that they were strong enough to support her weight - so we are working together, but she is definitely the creator here, while I am the occasional laborer.  She ties pretty good knots and today she was working on a set of rings so that she can haul herself up and do somersaults in the air…

NEW BOOKS AVAILABLE HERE

THE CONTINUUM CONCEPT By Jean Liedloff ($8.95 + post).  As you have seen on the center insert of this issue, this marvelous book is back in print, and we are delighted to carry it once again.  We have reprinted the long review of it that John Holt wrote for GWS #13, and to that I will add only a few notes.

One is to underscore that it is due to John Holt’s efforts that this book and also BIOGRAPHY OF  A BABY, are back in print.  The publishing industry’s habit of letting good books disappear would often make John mournful or indignant.  Sometimes he couldn’t bear to read a book that he was told was out of print - what if he loved it?)  He felt particularly strongly about these two books and often talked about them with his editor, Merloyd Lawrence, who took the idea of reprinting them to Addison-Wesley.  Her work on behalf of these books is a boon to all of us.

Second, Jean Liedloff has written a valuable new introduction to the book, which brings up to date how people have adapted her ideas to fit modern society.  I think this eases the concern John had, that in the original she only touches upon how people might undo the damage done unknowingly in the first months of life.

Finally, I want to repeat what someone said once in GWS, that there is so much more in THE CONTINUUM CONCEPT than the single idea that babies need to be held.  For example, a large part is devoted to the toddler stages of gaining independence, and importance of other people’s expectations on one’s behavior.  Each time I reread this book I find more powerful ideas that I cannot remember seeing there before.  A great book to get, not only for yourself, but to give to friends and relatives. - DR

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BABY by Millicent Shinn ($8.95 + post).  I recently saw a story on TV about pre-natal education classes in California.  An example from one of the classes shows mothers who shine flashlights into their wombs and say, "Light," then turn the light off and say, "Dark."  The well-dressed professor who teaches the class said that he thought all the parents would have bright (no pun intended, I assure you) children as a result of the "lessons."  This made me think about the little person kicking around inside my wife: will you be OK in this competitive environment?  Maybe I should get the flashlight…
Fortunately, common sense prevailed and I went back to reading Millicent Shinn’s BIOGRAPHY OF A BABY, which was written in 1893, and just brought back into print.  Ms. Shinn was one of the first natural scientists to study the behavior of the human infant, and her detailed, affectionate, level-headed observations about her niece Ruth’s first year of life reassured me: children want  to learn and will do so without any coercive "motivating."
Shinn writes as a scientist gathering and presenting information, and while she is lovingly on Ruth’s side (rather than faking some detached scientific tone), she is meticulous in her observations, mixing anecdotes, facts, child psychology, and notes on motor development with ease and clarity.  Here she is writing about Ruth learning to associate ideas at five months:

She sat in my lap, watching with an intent and puzzled face the back and side of her grandmother’s head.  Grandma turned from her knitting and chirruped to her, and the little one’s jaw dropped and her eyebrows went up with an expression of blank surprise.  Presently I began to swing her on my foot, and at every pause in the swinging she would sit gazing at the puzzling head till Grandma returned, and nodded and chirruped to her; then she would turn away satisfied and want more swinging.

Here we seem to get a glimpse of the process I have spoken of, by which the baby gradually associates together the front and rear and side aspects of a person or thing, till at last they coalesce together in his mind as all one object.  At first amazed to see the coil of silver hair and the curve of cheek turn suddenly into Grandma’s front face, the baby watched for the repetition of the miracle till it came to seem natural, and the two aspects were firmly knit together in her mind.

THE BIOGRAPHY OF A BABY  is full of such interesting points and, as Dr. Brazelton mentions in his fine introduction to this edition (which is commemorated to John Holt), "Mrs. Shinn was making these acute observations and labeling them long before Piaget had described such cognitive processes."
Being a tyro to the baby business, I am fascinated (and somewhat grateful) to learn from this book that babies need water as much as mother’s milk: "Many a baby was treated for colic, insomnia, nervousness, and natural depravity, when all the poor little fellow wanted was a spoonful of water"; that "wee babies do not cry tears.  When they do, it does not mean any higher emotional level has been gained, only that the tear glands have begun to act"; and, "No ends of things can be trusted in the little hands, that ached for everything in sight, if only vigilant fingers hover close, ready to ward gently off any dangerous movement.  Sitting in one’s lap at the table, the baby may push and pull at many things not safe for him to lift; or he may be allowed to handle something safely tethered with a string.  Certainly the wider liberty of holding and handling he can by any device be allowed, the better; the instinct is very strong, and wholly healthy, and the thwarting of normal instincts is not good for anyone’s nerves or mind."

Millicent Shinn makes an important point throughout the book, one parents and educators cant pay enough attention to:

[Ruth] began to watch people’s motions carefully for long spaces of time - all through the process of setting the table, for instance - with a serious little face, and an attention so absorbed that it was hardly possible to divert her if one tried (which one ought not to do, for power of attention is a precious attainment, and people have no business to meddle with its growth for their own amusement).

One can see why this book was one of John Holt’s favorites; he quoted from it at length in HOW CHILDREN LEARN.  Here is science that is so lively and clearly presented that it easily transcends some of the outdated scientific ideas that Ms. Shinn was taught, such as that all babies are born deaf.  Fortunately she trusts herself as an observer more than she trusts the conventional child development theories of her time, and the record she left us is quite clear: Children are born adept learners, and outside of love and protection provided by their parents and others, they need nothing more than their personal freedom to make sense of their place in their world in their own unique ways, through vigorous visual, tactile, and emotional involvement with their environment.
The book is a deep breath of fresh air and common sense about child-rearing that arrived just in time for me.  Now I won’t have to buy batteries for our flashlight!
—Patrick Farenga

CHILDREN LEARN AT HOME, edited by Ro Krivanek 9$4.50 + post).  This 58-page book was put together from a survey of homeschooling families in Australia done by the ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION RESOURCE GROUP, a major Australian homeschooling organization.  It goes into the major questions about homeschooling - why, how, and what happens - very clearly and concisely.  There are especially good sections on structuring, flexibility, the evolution of approaches to homeschooling, the "socialization" issue, and the reality of homeschooling - the joys and the difficulties.

When John Holt decided we should sell this book, he noted, "It doesn’t say anything new, but it says it very well."  And he was right.  This is a very valuable little book.  It can be very useful, I think, for people who are curious about homeschooling; for those who are doubtful; for skeptical relatives; and for all of us who need positive support and encouragement from time to time.

A very important statement made at the end of the book:
Today [homeschooling] is preeminently a private matter, a practice of exercising choice in important life decisions where many people see no choice at all.  Beyond that choice, each family decides what home education is.
- MVD

WHEN YOU WRITE US

Please - (1) Put separate items of business on separate sheets of paper.  (2) Put your name and address at the top of each letter.  (3)  If you ask questions, enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope.  (4) Tell us if it’s OK to publish your letter, and whether to use your name with the story.

HOW TO GET STARTED

Here are some ways you can find out the legal situation in your state.
1)  Look up the law yourself, in a public library or law library (courthouse, law school, etc.)  Laws are indexed; try "school attendance" or "education, compulsory."  16 states have revised their home education laws since 1982 (seven of them in 1985), so check the recent statute changes.  We have printed or summarized these new laws in our back issues.
2)  Ask the state Department of Education for any laws or regulations pertaining to homeschooling and/or starting a private school.  In some states (particularly CA, IL, IN, KY) there are few regulations concerning private schools and so you can call your home a school.
If you are concerned about revealing your name and address to the state, do this through a friend.
3)  Contact state or local homeschooling groups; we printed this list in GWS #48.  We also keep the list updated and sell it separately for $1 as part of our "Homeschooling Resource List."  Some groups have prepared handbooks or guidelines on legal matters.
4)  Contact other families listed in our Directory.  However, they may suggest you do some of the above steps yourself.
5)  In general, it is not wise to start by asking your local school district; they usually don’t know the law either.  Better to gather the facts first on your own.  - DR

GWS was founded in 1977 by John Holt.
Editor - Donna Richoux
Managing Editor - Patrick Farenga
Subscriptions & Books - Steve Rupprecht, Sandy Kendall, Wendy Baruch
Office Assistant - Mary Van Doren
Editorial Assistant -Mary Maher

This archive is presented as a service to the homeschooling community by the editors of  Home Education Magazine © 2006 and is reprinted with permission of Holt Associates, Inc., © 2006. (All rights reserved)