In the Beginning...

There were goals and hopes and dreams. And if I dare use the word...resolutions.

This year my resolution is to read more. But not just more. Read a book a week. In order to make that easier, I've joined with some other people to keep me motivated and accountable. There are also a few challenges that I can participate in. For instance, I've been trying to read Susan Wise Bauer's History of the Medieval World for a long time and it's just not getting itself read. I joined a challenge to read a chapter or two a week and I'm more optimistic that it'll happen. Plus I got the audio book on it and my runs have been taking me ninety minutes which is more than enough time to listen to a chapter or two.

Even better, I have already finished my first book. Hurray for me! It's actually the book for book club which I'm hosting in February. Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. It's the story of families living in the Annawadi slum in Mumbai, India. I'm still processing this one. The writing flows very well. In some cases I got so caught up in the story that I forgot the book is about real people living a life I can't imagine in a real place. I almost wanted it to be dry and boring so I could put it down and tell myself it's okay, it didn't really happen like that. In the same vein, I can't really tell you my favorite character. It just seems weird to call the people in the book "characters" when they are real people. But there were some that I felt like I connected with better than others. Sunil was one of them. More than Abdul and his family, Sunil seemed young and like he needed a mother's care. Maybe that's why I connected with him. I have boys a similar age that are just starting their major growth spurts. When he realized that he was growing, I found myself tearing up.

So many questions left by this book. What should the roll of charities be? If I wanted to donate or help change things, would I be able to with all of the corruption? Are there solutions to the poverty found in the slums or is it just a byproduct of globalization that we should accept and live with? Would their lives be worse without globalization?

Mostly though, what's happening now? What are these families and individuals doing now? How did Abdul's court case end up? Overall this was one of the best written books I have read in a long time and I would recommend it to others with the caveats that there is bad language and the subject matter can be disturbing.

I've Figured it Out

I have been trying to figure out what I really felt about Harry going to school. It's been an unsettling feeling. One that was stronger than me just missing him during the day but I'm not wandering around weeping (anymore). It's been hard to put my finger on it, to name the feeling.

Today though while talking to some friends, I figured it out. I miss the sense that we were a team. I miss that while I was definitely in charge of school and lessons, we made decisions on exactly what and how he'd learn together. I miss being able to explain to him why it was important to do something, beyond "the teacher said so."

And if I may put words in his mouth, I'd say that he misses that too. That I treated him not exactly as an equal, but as a partner in this whole education thing. He trusted that when I gave him an assignment, there was a reason behind it.

We don't have that partnership anymore. All I know is what he will tell me and honestly, that's not much. (He is 13, after all.) I know that I'm so very lucky to have had it for so long. Here's hoping we find our footing again soon. Together.

A Homeschooler Goes to School

This is a post that I've been wanting to write for a few weeks now. It's about Harry returning to school in eighth grade after being homeschooled since second grade. But there is a problem with me writing about that. I want to be sensitive and protective of Harry and what he's going through, but as you can imagine, it's a major change for our family and for me personally. So I will write briefly about my reaction to Harry going to school.

I miss him. I miss Harry during the day--joking with him, telling him to sit down and do his work, and just having him around. I like my kids (not saying that people that send their own kids to school don't) and it's nice to have him around. Beyond missing him during the day though, I miss the big blocks of time that we used to have to hang out. He now has very little time to just be. Right now he's in soccer, piano, and Scouts. That along with homework every night means that a lot of our interactions are just about school and getting stuff done. So I miss time with him.

I have a lot of feelings about how I could teach ______ better, what ever ______ is. Which is true for some things--English, Language Arts, even Science, and not for others (Geometry). But really, it doesn't matter. I'm kind of hoping I can supplement at some point, but it will have to be really informal since, as I said above, he has no extra time.

On the other hand, he's doing fine in school. He enjoys being there and has a group of friends that he hangs out with. He's learning to juggle different teachers and their differing expectations. He's getting involved with clubs after school and making even more friends there. 

Overall, Harry's doing well. There's a lot more in that "well" though than I'm saying. There are things that I love (Model UN) and things I don't (homework). There are things he loves and doesn't love and there are things we both can improve on. And I guess that's kind of normal. 

Pathetic, I Know.

I could feel really bad about not writing on this blog for six months, but I'm not. Things change and I just don't have the time to devote to writing two blogs. (I have a personal blog that I don't link here.)

And things have really changed in the last little bit. My 13yo, Harry, started 8th grade at our local middle school. Sam, the 11yo is still homeschooling, and the girls are in 4th and 1st grades at the local elementary. As things change the way I process and work through what's happening also changes. This blog will reflect the changes in our lives. I'm hoping to write more, but there are no guarantees.

If...

Apparently "if you could rule the world" questions are popular for seventh graders. Harry's question for today was, " If you were the Macrocosmic Potentate and could make three changes in the universe, what would they be?"

1. Change it to the Harry Potter world with the caveat that it's after Voldemort's death.
2. Free education for everyone "so they can make something of themselves."
3. Any haircut they want. (We had just talked about North Korea and how the men have to have the same haircut as the leader.)

 I think he's covered all of his bases.

Fun with Pathogens

I made some cornstarch clay and we made dangerous viruses, bacterium, molds, and fungi.

Black Death

Strep

Rhinovirus

Bread Mold by Emma

Bread Mold by Annika

Ringworm

The whole dangerous lot of them!

After we finished, Annika and Emma decided to make some less-dangerous creations. This is a little town. The big tower is a guy's house. The spaghetti noodles are the stairs and they go in a spiral.  The big yellow part is another home--according to Annika it's "an infinite home." The yellow guy in the middle is basking in the sun. His house has the red roof. I love it.



Emma's creation. There's no story here, but it's really cute. And sparkly, but not like a stupid vampire sparkly. Cool little girl sparkly.

And I didn't come up with the idea on my own. It's from the Penn State Center for Nanoscale Science. I didn't have any pipe cleaners (I know, what kind of homeschooler am I?!) so we substituted twist ties on the strep and spaghetti for the rest. It's not furry or twisty, but it worked pretty well. Tomorrow Harry is going to write little paragraphs on why the shapes are important. He doesn't know this yet, but I'm sure he'll be excited.

School and Girls

My eight-year-old goes to regular, plain-old third grade. She likes being there and the year I homeschooled her with the boys was so unproductive that I felt like I had no choice but to send her to school. For the most part I'm okay with her being in school. It's a built-in community and there's a lot to be said for that. When we moved to the area we are in eleven years ago, we picked the area partly because there was a neighborhood school, so we've known a lot of the people at the school for a long time now.

Today was Crazy Sock Day at school. I got a call reminding us about that last night, so I told Annika. She has some pretty fun socks--rainbow striped ones that I thought she'd want to wear. This morning though she chose another pair of cute, long socks, but plain blue ones. I asked her why and she said that she just changed her mind.

That's fine. She picks out her own clothes--I have about a dozen better things to do each morning. But on the way to school she asked me three or four times if I was sure that it really was Crazy Sock Day. The poor thing was so worried that she would be the only one with crazy socks that I started to worry.

My sample size is small and she's my oldest girl, but I'm worried that her little spirit, that thing that makes Annika, Annika is disappearing because of school. I recognize so much of me in her that it's worrisome. I don't want Annika to take her cues from these other girls that don't have her best interest in mind. The little mind games are already starting in her third grade class.

So, what do I do? For right now, assume that homeschooling her is not an option. I won't guarantee that it never will be, but for right now she's staying in school. I feel like I've given her responses to the things she's already told me happen, but I can't anticipate everything. I want her to have the confidence to be goofy if she wants to be, to wear crazy socks on days that it's not even crazy sock day. I  want her to tell her friends that she's going to be whoever she wants to be, whenever she wants to.

School. It's crazy. And not cute like crazy socks.

Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak" and Pornography

A long time ago I decided not to get into arguments over the internet. If I feel strongly about something I'll say my piece and move on. I'm pretty good about following that rule, but sometimes I just can't let something go. Last night was one of those times.

A right-wing sensationalistic "newspaper" found out that some middle schoolers in Florida were assigned the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Some parents got upset when the realized that the book is about a girl that was raped between her eighth and ninth grade school years--she was 13 when the rape occurred. The book follows her through her ninth-grade year. It's a painful book to read; the girl is so young and the violation so major. But it's a well-written book. It's written in the vernacular of high-school students and talks about the cliques and hypocrisy that can exist in high school. It's clearly not the only book on rape and it's not at all a handbook on what to do after you are raped. It's a book that follows this one girl after she was raped.

The "newspaper" found great glee in calling Speak "child pornography (they used the words probably ten times in a short article.)." It pulled out quotes from the book that use the word "abortion" or "pissed." A group of homeschoolers got up in arms about this book of child pornography based on this article. It was soundly condemned and people that would consider letting their children read it were considered to be lax parents at best.

The thing is, none of these parents had ever read it. They probably hadn't even heard of it until the article was brought to their attention. When I spoke up and said that I had read it and there was absolutely no graphic retelling of the story and even if there had been, it was a description of a rape, their response was that talking about rape or sex in any way, shape, or form is pornography. 

This is wrong. I'm not saying that everyone should run out, buy the book, and hand it to their five-year-old. I'm saying that in the proper context and with guidance an 8th grader should be able to read this book.

Here's another thing about Speak. My copy of the book has an interview with the author at the end. She was asked if she had any surprising reactions to the book. She said that her most surprising reaction was from boys. They were surprised that rape actually hurt the girl so much. 

Let me repeat that. Boys were surprised that raping a girl actually hurt the girl. 

That is why we need this book. So that boys can see, in a safe place, that rape hurts girls. How in the world are we failing to teach boys that rape hurts? How in the world are we failing them that badly and how in the world are we failing our girls as well? 

For that reason alone I think that every boy and girl should read this book. It's fiction, I recognize that, but it's description of what this girl went through and will go through for years is spot-on. In Speak, Melinda literally cannot speak because of what was done to her. 

We need to speak up. Speak is not child pornography and if you use it as pornography it's a good thing to know so we can keep you away from our children. We need this book. We need to make sure our boys know that rape hurts. We need our girls to know where they can go in order to be listened to.

We need to do better. 

Week 1A

I've learned over the last few years that the first week of school never goes like I want it too. Getting back into the swing of things always takes longer than I expect or want it to. So last year I decided to give myself two weeks to accomplish the things I think should take one. It worked last year and it took a lot of stress off of my, so we did it again this year.

Annika and Emma both started at a local elementary school on Monday. Annika went there last year and is now in third grade and Emma just started kindergarten. You read that right...my baby is in kindergarten. So far I'm doing well, but just thinking about that is strange. I remember days that I thought I'd never see the end of preschoolers, potty training, and that chaos. And here I am, at the end.

The girls were really happy to both start and be back at school. And because we were friends with the principal (who is now gone) from the school, they got good teachers and classes. While I would like to homeschool the girls, I'm happy with the teachers they have.

Now to the actual homeschoolers in the family. Harry is in 7th (!) grade and Sam in 5th. As much as I can't believe I have a kindergartener, I really can't believe I have a 7th grader.

This is kind of an important year for Harry. Next year he will go to 8th grade at the local middle school and then onto high school at the school down the way. He's looking forward to school and I'm looking forward to new things for him, but I'm not thrilled that he's going to school. But it is what it is.

My plan for the year is to firm up his writing, continue in math, and do more science and history. Harry enjoys history, so he's working his way through Human Odyssey. We won't be doing a lot of projects and fun work because I want to focus on other areas. Science has always been a hodgepodge because Harry reads so much, so I'm not real worried about that. But I have printed some New York Times science page articles and the lesson plans that go with them. I want him to read those and we'll work on some of the projects and questions. Harry is technically doing Algebra I this year. He's actually working through So You Really Want to Learn Maths and the Key to Algebra books. And for Language Arts...we have a variety of resources to use. Like I said, I want him to work on his writing--he writes well but hasn't done much in the way of papers. We have the 4th level of Michael Clay Thompson's language arts program which includes a book called Advanced Academic Writing. AAW's lessons are meant to be a little more long-term than just write a paragraph and move on. They are designed to give Harry the chance to research and then write a longer paper. I think it'll be perfect for preparing him for more writing. He'll also work on Writing With Skill level 2 when it comes out and the poetry, grammar, and vocabulary in the MCT level.

I've already taught one child 5th grade, but that child is nothing like my current 5th grader so I get to start over planning again. I keep saying that Sam is incredibly smart, he just needs a way to let people know that. I've worked for a few years to build up his confidence and help him learn to make decisions. This year I'm requiring him to use these skills. I'm not letting him get away with not answering or not doing something. Of course I'm not an ogre, so there are incentives and other ways I plan to get him to do what he needs to. Anyway. He's using Math Mammoth 5 for math with a supplement on geometry and measurements. Language Arts is MCT level 3 minus the writing. I did the writing book with Harry last year and wasn't impressed. Instead he'll use Writing with Skill level 1. Science will be So You Really Want to Learn Science and history is History Odyssey. Sam likes projects where Harry loathes them.

They will be taking classes at the charter school. Harry has a full day there and Sam will take some classes there but focus again on pottery. He really loves pottery.

And that's the overall plan for the year. On to Week 1B...