Page Two
OTHER LOCAL NEWS
Addresses for all home-schooling organizations are listed in the back of this issue.
ARIZONA: From an article headlined “Home-instruction program earns good marks in first year” in the Arizona Republic, 10/2/83: “Richard L. Harris, school superintendent in Maricopa County, said he is pleased with the achievement test scores of the approximately 150 children in the county who were instructed at home last year. Of that number, 14 failed to show adequate progress on the California Achievement Test, Harris said. After testing by a psychologist, four of the 14 were denied home-schooling exemptions. I was surprised there were as few as 14 who seemed to be having problems,, Harris said. . . I think the parents who are teaching at home are courageous. They,re challenging us (the public schools) to do a better job. . .,”
The article also said the state had administered 314 proficiency tests to parents wishing to teach their own children, and 214 of those passed. It was unknown how many who failed retook the test later and passed.
FAMILIES FOR HOME EDUCATION published the longest directory we,ve seen yet in a local newsletter - 99 families in the greater Phoenix area.
CALIFORNIA: A campaign to place the “school voucher” initiative on the 84 ballot has been started. For information, contact PARENTS CHOOSE QUALITY EDUCATION, 1537 Hood Rd, Suite D, Sacramento CA 95825; 916-921-0575 or 444-8725.
Evella Troutt of the L.A. COUNTY CHRISTIAN HOME EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION writes, “We are affiliated with a statewide network dalled CHRISTIAN HOME EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION which is directed by Karen Woodfin and Susan Beatty. We are not locked in with any particular Christian church - most of our members would fit into the historical evangelical framework. Our main efforts have been directed at establishing local support groups, and providing basic guidance and information to prospective home-schooling families. We would be happy to work with any families you wish to refer to us. We do have a county newsletter which is directed toward local news of support groups and field trips. . .”
Janet McCormick, the California State Department of Education Liaison to Non-Public Schools, expects over 5,000 private schools to register with the state in 1983-84, says Pam Pacula in Home Centered Learning, 10/83.
GEORGIA: About 400 people attended a home-schooling conference featuring Dr. Raymond Moore on Oct. 24-25, according to Connie Shaw of GEORGIANS FOR FREEDOM IN EDUCATION.
HAWAII: From Barbara Hussey (HI): “We are a growing group of families here interested in home schooling. . . For now (and this is from a district superintendent of schools), there is no state policy on policing home-schoolers. It is allowed as long as basic requirements are followed: (1) Registration with the Department of Education; (2) 4-year college degree (which we don,t have, but which we feel we can overcome as we have many years in college); (3) Submission of a basic program outline to the district superintendent.”
IDAHO: Elizabeth Good writes, “It appears that the State School Board here in Idaho is gearing up for a legislative offensive against home-schoolers in the next session of our legislature. The attorney general was asked by the State Board of Education to render an opinion on the state,s compulsory education law as it relates to private and home schools. . . One legislator is drafting a bill based in part on the Arizona law which includes the yearly testing of home-schooled children. Many of the home schoolers are in favor of his bill because it makes us legal., Others of us have a totally different philosophy of testing, and could not in good conscience support such a bill. . .”
INDIANA: The Summer Bulletin of the HOME EDUCATION RESOURCE CENTER listed what it called “an excellent booklet for IN home-schoolers,” entitled INDIANA LAW AND HOME EDUCATION, available from: EDUCATION DATA, 6401 Velmar, Ft. Wayne IN 46815, SASE suggested.
IOWA: Barb Tetzlaff reports in the O!KIDS! newsletter that the state has appointed a committee to study home-schooling and non-approved Christian schools. A neighbor of the Tetzlaffs, Dr. Gordon Shipp, President of Faith Baptist Bible College, is on the committee, and they loaned him materials on home education, including GWS. Some quotes from the paper he submitted Sept. 16: “I could not detect one single force that prompted home education. I did find a dedicated group of people that were making real sacrifices to educate their children. They were fine people within their communities. They were not hermits, nor were they withdrawn. Many of the parents were not highly educated themselves in formal processes. They were good communicators and expressive. . . Let us allow them their freedom. . .”
MARYLAND: Manfred Smith sent back issues of the MARYLAND HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION newsletter and wrote, “I have just discovered that you are not on our current maling list! I,m very sorry! You probably have been wondering what is happening here in Maryland. . . When I read in GWS #35 that the Hjembo family was introducing legislation on home schooling, I became very concerned. Our law is fine the way it is (at this time). . . We have sympathetic people in the State Dept. of Ed. Introducing a law would set forces in motion (teachers are very strong in MD) that our few numbers would be hard pressed to stop. I,ve talked with the Hjembos - their legislator was interested, but is not willing to do anything right now. . .”
MASSACHUSETTS: Mario Pagnoni (MA) and Elaine Rapp (NH) have given two seminars on home-schooling in Haverhill, MA and Manchester, NH. Mario is giving a slide show and demonstration on “Home Computers and Home Schooling” Feb. 12, 9-noon, at Northern Essex Community College, Haverhill.
MICHIGAN: The MICHIGAN ASSOCIATION OF HOME EDUCATORS has started a newsletter, $10/4 issues. Some quotes from its first issue: “15 months after starting this organization, we have the names of over 800 homeschooling or interested families. . . [At] the Conference in Lansing May 21. . . the final headcount was 940 people. Of those that turned in the questionnaire, 50% were currently educating their children at home. The response given most often by families who weren,t educating their children at home was that their children were too young.”
Pat Montgomery of CLONLARA SCHOOL sent us a clipping from the Detroit Free Press about a State Representative, Timothy Walberg of Tipton, who is teaching his children at home. Walberg is on the state House Education Committee. Pat says, “An associate of Walberg met him in the House chambers when this news broke and told them that he was very upset because Walberg was doing home schooling when, in fact, this other fellow wanted to be the first Representative doing it!”
MISSOURI: Saralee Rhoads of FAMILIES FOR HOME EDUCATION wrote, “The MO/KANSAS HOME EDUCATORS group disbanded a couple years ago, and general consensus was that the state would leave us alone if we kept a low profile. Well, they didn,t. Last year a bill came up which would have made all home educators in our state guilty of a misdemeanor until proven innocent! As a result, our group was formed, and has been growing ever since. In July we had 200 members, and now there are 300+ on the mailing list. We have conducted a study on the nature of home schooling in our state, and are preparing for further legislative battles. . .”
NEBRASKA: Gary and Marilyn Miller (NE) formed a support group of homeschoolers in August. Marilyn writes, “We have grown to 70 families on our mailing list, many of whom have withdrawn children from the school system and are facing litigation. . .”
NEW YORK: Harold Ingraham of CALUMET SCHOOL writes, “A network of sorts among New York State unschoolers now exists. I say of sorts, because I abhor the idea of centralization. Therefore, I merely set out to instigate a contact system of like-minded persons. . . Anyone who writes or calls me asking for area contacts will be given the name of their area,s contact leader. A self-addressed stamped envelope will do the trick. I have also suggested that the area leader run a small notice in the local newspaper. . .”
O
HIO: Ruth Kirchhausen (OH) wrote, “Lynne Leffel asked me to let you know that they did get permission to teach Matthew and Jessica at home. The Geauga County superintendent signed the agreement. . . Also another family in the county got a permit by claiming a religious exemption, neither of the parents having college degrees. So it seems the Leffels, court experience last year (although they were found guilty of truancy) has proven to the superintendent the seriousness of these home-schooling parents and he has grudgingly accepted their presence this year. . .”
ONTARIO: Anna Myers is coordinator for a new organization, ONTARIO HOME SCHOOLERS; newsletter, $10/year.
QUEBEC: Another Canadian group, the QUEBEC HOMESCHOOLING ADVISORY, has started a newsletter ($2/year). They sent us a copy of proposed education legislation in the Quebec National Assembly; we don,t know how different it is from the current law, but it does mention as an alternative to school attendance, “receiving instruction at home equivalent, in the opinion of the school board, to that provided at school.”
TEXAS: The newsletter of the TEXAS COALITION FOR HOME EDUCATION reports, “Governor Mark White has appointed Ross Perot to head a special education commission to study the Texas educational system. . . His preliminary recommendations include the following: (1) that children should start school at age 4, (2) that school hours should be lengthened, and (3) that children should go to school year-round. . . Please write Ross Perot today and express your views (Address: EDS, 7171 Forest Lane, Dallas TX 75230).”
WASHINGTON: In GWS #32, we reported that Washington home-schoolers were fighting and supporting several education bills in the state legislature. The outcome, as reported in the Unschoolers, Project: “Truancy H.B. 282 died in the House Rules Committee. . . H.B. 492, a bill that would have extended the compulsory school age, died in the Education Committee. . . S.B. 4095, a parental rights, bill that Debra (Stewart) did not think had a chance to get out of committee, went farther than in the last two years. . . It was caught in a time crunch. .
Next year we have been promised an Interim Study Committee, to examine the present law for constitutionality. . .”
A new home-schooling group in the Spokane area, the FAMILY LEARNING EXCHANGE, has started a lengthy monthly newsletter ($18/year). - DR
THOUGHTS ON “DAY AFTER”
I watched “The Day After” with my friend, neighbor, and editor Merloyd Lawrence, and a small group of her friends. I found the film very well done and often very moving. Early in the film I noticed a surprising reaction in myself. The suspense, as we waited for what we knew would happen, that the bombs would go off, became so unbearable that I began thinking in the back of my mind, “Hurry up, set it off, I can,t stand the waiting.” Later it occurred to me with real fear that many people may have begun or may soon begin to feel that way in real life - since it,s coming sooner or later, let,s get it over with.
After the film was over we all agreed, as has been pointed out in many news stories, that the film enormously underestimated the damage that would have been done by a nuclear attack of that size. The bomb over Kansas City would probably have started a very large firestorm, and at that time of year there would have been enough vegetation in the fields so that the storm would probably have burned its way all the way to and through Lawrence. Most of the injured would have been in very much worse shape than the ones we saw, many of them with massive burns, and many of them blinded like the little boy, since the reflex which makes us look toward a bright light is a very hard one to repress. Radiation sickness in its more advanced stages causes acute diarrhea and vomiting, which was not shown and was only once even hinted at. The problems of raising food would have been far more severe than what was suggested; not only were those farmers, tractors electrically burned out, but they had no fuel, no seed, and none of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides without which our large scale agriculture cannot grow crops at all.
And as my brother-in-law put it, “Whose cellar was that horse in?” Where did that healthy horse come from?
A day or two later I talked on the phone with my sister in New Mexico. She told me that a number of young people in her town who saw the show had an interesting reaction, one I would not have expected. The special effects in the show, particularly the pictures of the injured and dying, were so much less bloody and horrible than the special effects these young people are used to seeing in the crime and horror films they regularly watch that they were bored and disappointed. “Is that all?” they asked. “Is that what all this fuss was about? Big deal!”
Many of you will have already learned from articles in the press about the danger that Carl Sagan in the panel spoke of after the film. There seems to be very strong evidence that even a small (small?) nuclear attack or exchange involving as little (little?) as 100 megatons, would throw so much fine dust and smoke into the upper atmosphere that for several years the temperatures at the earth,s surface would be greatly lowered, probably to well below freezing. Scientists from many countries, including Russia, who have seen the figures and the arguments seem to agree that this is so. I would add something that I have not yet seen in print, that even a much less drastic reduction in average year-round temperature, perhaps as little as twenty degrees, would be enough to reduce our agricultural output by eighty or ninety percent.
This very high probability of what Sagan called “the nuclear winter” seems to me to contain a very strong possibility of hope. For it is simply not true, as Schultz and Kissinger said after the panel, that preventing nuclear war has been the #1 aim of our government, or any government. The superpowers have from the beginning always thought of nuclear war as a possible option, an acceptable if costly and dangerous way to get something they could not get any other way. Both sides dream - fortunately, it has so far been only a dream - of a day when they could, if they chose, drop nuclear weapons on their enemy without having to worry about any being dropped on them in return. In the jargon of the times, this is called a “credible first-strike possibility.” This is what all this talk about so-called Star Wars weapons - anti-missile lasers, etc. - is about. If we could just find a way to destroy all enemy missiles in the air, dream the military leaders, then we could drop ours without any danger of retaliation.
The “nuclear winter,” if this is accepted as being true or highly probable, should put an end to such foolish dreams, and might well give us the reason and impetus the big powers need to do what so far they have never done, despite their talk, which is to get serious about winding down and rolling back the nuclear arms race. For if it is the case that your own nuclear weapons will kill you, no matter where they go off, then even the most hard-nosed general or fanatic hawk (on either side) will soon have to agree that talk about “superiority” or “first-strike capability” or even “equality” makes no sense. A weapon that will kill the person who shoots it, no matter where he aims it, is not a weapon. If 100 megatons, exploded anywhere, will be enough to wipe out most life in the Northern Hemisphere, then even the feeblest wits should be able to figure out that stockpiles of 10-20 thousand megatons make no sense.
So out of all this gloomy talk may come a message of real hope. Let us do what we can to make it so. - JH
FAMOUS UNSCHOOLER
Simone T., age 13, wrote in the 10/83 Hostex Exchange:
. . .Agatha Christie was eight years younger than her sister and brother, Marjorie and Louis. When it was time for them to go to school, their mother, Clarissa Margaret Beochmer Miller, firmly believed in education. Marjorie was sent to a boarding school, and Louis was sent to public school. When it was Agatha,s turn to go, her mother,s views had changed. She now believed that education destroyed a child,s brain and was ruinous to eyesight. Her mother tutored her at home, but she was sent out for certain special classes - art, singing, Swedish exercise, and cookery - just like I am.
Agatha Christie started writing very young. She used to tell stories to her mother every night. One night her mother told her to write the story down instead. Agatha next tried poems; then she wrote a long novel. She said some of the early writing wasn,t too bad, but the whole thing was pretty poor. She later had much encouragement from Eden Phillpotts, a near neighbor, who was also a writer. . .
Her first whodunit, THE MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, was an attempt to outwit her sister. Marjorie had challenged Agatha to write a mystery that she couldn,t figure out after reading the first chapter. Agatha succeeded in stumping her sister. . .
TWO “SPECIAL ED” KIDS FREE
From Larraine Falk (IL):
. . .I have been educating my son, J.D. (9 1/2), at home for 1 1/2 years. Many times during those years I have wanted to write and thank you for your inspiration. . . If it wasn,t for you, GWS, and TEACH YOUR OWN, we would not have found out about home-schooling, or had the courage to do it.
J.D. always loved learning, he is very curious and creative, and was reading by age 4. By 2nd grade, he read on a 7th grade level. However, while he was in school, I saw his creativity drop. He no longer did art projects at home. He refused to do any work in school unless it interested him. If pressured to do the work, he erupted into tantrums which the teachers were not able to handle and he was sent home. I was truly perplexed by the whole thing as I knew him to love learning.
In the middle of the first grade, we put him in a private school, thinking that the public school was the problem. Things improved, but not greatly. We started meeting with the principal who was also a clinical psychologist. We followed eagerly all of the suggestions of the principal. Most of the time I intuitively felt they were bad suggestions. However, this person was an expert in child development and I was only a concerned first-time parent. Therefore, she must be right. At any rate, her suggestions did not help much.
In the beginning of second grade, the private school would not take him, so we put him back in public school, this time in the behavior disorder class, which was the only way they would take him. Things became much worse. He was being sent home from school several times a week for tantrums. All of the progress he had made in the private school disappeared. At this point we were desperate. We hated parenthood, our only child, ourselves. It was sheer hell. The “experts” even told us we were bad parents and J.D. would probably end up institutionalized.
. . .One day I was watching J.D. in swim class in the bleachers. The woman next to me started talking to me out of the blue, and told me about her son,s problems in school, and how she was planning to take him out of school and teach him at home. I had never heard of home-schooling. The idea hit me like a thunderbolt and I knew that it was the answer. I bought TEACH YOUR OWN on the woman,s suggestion and attended a home-schoolers, meeting in the area. Within a month we had taken J.D. out of school.
Two weeks after home-schooling began, many friends commented to me how relaxed J.D. seemed, how mature he had become, how loving and giving he was, how open and friendly he had become, etc., etc. This was after only two weeks! After a few months of home-schooling, our home life became very loving, warm, wonderful. My husband and I even started to talk about having another child. . . We had definitely not wanted any more children while J.D. was in school! Parenting was too awful. But it became rewarding, fulfilling, and enjoyable. So much so, that we now have an adorable baby girl, Alisa, 3 1/2 months old. . .
Alisa,s arrival has been perfect for J.D.,s emotional growth. He adores her and cares for her. J.D. can,t wait for her to wake up in the morning and be with her all day. Kids sure miss a lot of loving relationships with their siblings when they go to school all day long.
It took about a year for the school wounds to heal, for J.D. to become creative and fully interested in learning again. It has taken me about 1 1/2 years to be able to write about it or really talk about. . .
J.D. gets along with other kids so well now. Socialization in school was a very negative experience. School children seem to love being mean to the sensitive, intelligent ones. J.D. has no trouble making friends now. . .
__________
From Mary Ann Daniels, 7 Birchwood Trailer Pk, Fishkill NY 12524:
. . .You have ended three of the most horrible years of our lives. Our daughter is now a home-schooler.
Since she entered the door at kindergarten, she rebelled against paperwork. She went steadily downhill and me with her. She,s been in three different schools and hasn,t hit a teacher yet who could handle her. Last year we learned she was “hyperactive.” She was thrown on Ritalin by a neurologist. It didn,t help much, and when it was wearing off she had unexplained crying spells. I went to the library to learn more about “hyperactivity” and found Dr. Ben Feingold,s book, WHY YOUR CHILD IS HYPERACTIVE. I placed Judy on his all-natural diet, and we couldn,t believe the change that took place. Her behavior changed, her health changed -but her attitude about school didn,t.
I began reading your books and they helped me understand her better. In fact, your books made me reflect back on my own school years. I began to realize Judy was a lot like me -very selective in what she wanted to learn.
We had a lot of pressure put on us by her second-grade teacher to have her tested. . . Our guilt feelings made us go along with it. The psychologist told me she thought Judy had an auditory language processing problem. I had been told this when she was in kindergarten, but we felt all along her problem was motivation. . . I will never forget the day I had to be at the meeting to label her. I had all I could do not to cry, as I felt I was doing her an injustice. She is about as learning disabled as I am!
Around this time I was in a bookstore and TEACH YOUR OWN caught my eye. I bought it and can honestly say it was the best investment I ever made. I began building a case for Judy to be taught at home. I had kept everything on her (report cards, psychological reports, and my own log). At the close of school I sent an eight-page letter with fifteen enclosures to the State Department of Education requesting permission to home-school her. I had enrolled her with the Calvert School and listed all the texts to be used for her third-grade curriculum along with a week,s lesson plan. The State wrote and told me under the N.Y.S. Education Law I could teach her at home. I just had to present my program to the local superintendent for approval. I brought all the material I had prepared for the State to the superintendent. Two days later I received permission to teach Judy at home.
You can never know the relief I feel. I know my daughter can learn, and a lot better than she was learning in school. Three years of agony are over. Judy is no longer “learning disabled.” I started working with her four weeks ago and I have noticed a change already. She was convinced she was stupid, but now she sees she is learning. . .