The rat race of preschool applications to get the “best school” must be nothing short of exhausting.  Observing a two year old’s parents resorting to résumés and other slick tricks portraying their little ones as evolving Einsteins stresses me out.  The absurdity of a school “allowing” parents to write a huge check to attend seems ‘other world’ to me now.  Kids should be kids and babies should certainly be allowed to be babies.  It’s a shame our government doesn’t reject the pressure to institutionalize our little ones, instead promoting Zero to Five/Preschool for All programs. Parents need to count on their common sense to protect their child’s well being and uniqueness.

Rachel Figueroa-Levin posted in the Urban Baby Blog that her two year old will remain a two year old, not a model of the perfect student.

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The Kellogg family of 14 now follows kayak trails and events across the country with the use of a 35 foot RV on the road.  The video below makes me smile and brings back mom memories deciphering the chaotic levels of children’s voices and cries.

The Kellogg Show/Family documents their adventures.  There is plenty of coverage across the country too.

From the Denver Post in October:
Colorado family of 14 kayaking throughout the U.S. By Jason Blevins

“Everything we have done comes from wanting to be free,” says Susie, who started home-schooling the kids a few years ago when a rigid schedule began pinching family playtime.

They’ve been kayaking only a few years, but Grady, 16, and Brody, 15, closed the season ranked third and fourth in the junior freestyle kayaking World Cup point series, and Kenny, 12, won the cadet class in the national freestyle championship in Idaho.

From Denver’s KDVR Fox 31 in November:

Family of 14 selling Colorado home, will live on the road and pursue dreams By Jon Bowman

All of the kids buy into this ‘simpler way of life’ their parents are moving toward. All but one of the children, 18-year-old Kerry, the oldest daughter, are being home-schooled. Kerry graduated from Glenwood Springs High School last spring.

“I am so ready for this,” said Kerry. “I am over Glenwood, I just want to enjoy new adventures and see new places.”

From the UK Mail Online
Kellogg family children to be home schooled as mom and dad drive them across the United States
By James Nye

The Kelloggs claim to have set off for the same reason the pioneers did:  Freedom — from ordinary lives.By James Nye

‘This is what freedom is,’ Dan said, waving his hand at the open road. ‘You go after it.’

Last summer, the family spent two months testing the waters of the RV life, touring 22 states and competing in nearly every junior kayaking competition in the country.

Good wishes for the kayaking competitions and I am sure this family will have loads of fun getting there.

Another family is also planning a road trip this year.  Pioneer Woman‘s website asked a good question about the legalities of
Homeschooling on the Road?

I’m sure more feedback for this family would be appreciated. (Ree Drummond’s recipe for the Perfect Iced Coffee is appealing too.)

Gotta love these families following their passions.

A free John Holt book Escape From Childhood: The Needs And Rights Of Children is available for download on Pat Farenga’s site.

This Kindle book is only available until midnight tonight.

An excerpt:

No human right, except the right to life itself, is more fundamental than this. A person’s freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought, even more basic than his freedom of speech. If we take form someone his right to decide what he will be curious about, we destroy his freedom of thought. We say, in effect, you must think not about what interests and concerns you, but about what interests and concerns us.

We might call this the right of curiosity, the right to ask whatever questions are most important to us. As adults, we assume that we have the right to decide what does or does not interest us, what we will look into and what we will leave alone. We take this right largely for granted, cannot imagine that it might be taken away from us. Indeed, as far as I know, it has never been written into any body of law. even the writers of our Constitution did not mention it. They thought it was enough to guarantee citizens the freedom of speech and the freedom to spread their ideas as widely as they wished and could. it did not occur to them that even the most tyrannical government would try to control people’s minds, what they thought and knew. That idea would come later, under the benevolent guise of compulsory universal education.

While not specifically about homeschooling, an article by Brian Gresko, a stay-at-home dad and writer, explains his view that childhood is under attack by the very people who should be protecting it: parents. His article In Defense of Childhood: Let Kids Be Kids! explains:

Many of the most important skills are untestable — imagination, general optimism and lightness of heart, the capability to love another creature, to empathize and demonstrate compassion. These are things a child can’t bubble in on a Scantron sheet, and yet cultivating these attitudes matters more in determining how my son will exist in the world and what kind of contribution he’ll make with his time on Earth.

Read the entire article at the link above.

Debbie Harbeson ponders some questions about labeling children in her post, Homeschooling as a Method of Child-Proofing, on her Freedom and Fun blog:

“I’ve recently discovered Peter Gray’s Freedom to Learn Blog and I enjoy reading his perspective on learning. His most recent post, ADHD and School: The Problem of Assessing Normalcy in an Abnormal Environment makes the case that problems resulting in ADHD diagnoses may have more to do with the schools than any actual “problem” with the children diagnosed.

“This topic is interesting to me because I’ve encountered it in different situations (on a purely anecdotal basis of course).

“As a homeschooling parent, I met many families over the years whose children were having great difficulty in the school environment and were told their child had ADHD. Yet when they removed their child from school, those problems either went completely away or were lessened so tremendously, there was no need for any medical intervention.”

Read the rest of Debbie’s good post at the link above.

The Alliance for Childhood doesn’t like the new Common Core Standards proposed by National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

From Alliance’s Newsroom:

Citing “Grave Concerns,” Experts Condemn Proposed Core Standards for Young Children

“The proposed standards conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades,” the statement says. It calls for the withdrawal of the proposed K-3 standards and the creation of a new consortium of teachers, scholars, and scientists to design more appropriate guidelines for early care and education.

The group argues that the proposed standards will greatly increase the amount of didactic instruction and standardized testing in literacy and math in the early grades, and will “crowd out” other important areas of learning. Young children “need to learn about families and communities, to take on challenges, and to develop social, emotional, problem-solving, self-regulation, and perspective-taking skills,” the statement says.

There is little evidence that the approach taken by the core standards for young children leads to later success in school, the group argues. Existing state standards have led to a heavy emphasis on skills-based instruction with little or no time devoted to child-initiated learning, according to recent research.

The Alliance suggests “parents, teachers, and others to register their concerns about the standards at the official site, www.corestandards.org.” They have issued:

An urgent call to action: Most Americans are unaware of the threat to healthy early childhood education posed by the K-12 “core standards” announced on March 10 by the NGA and CCSSO. Public comment on these national standards will close on April 2, an appallingly small window. The time to act is now.

What’s wrong with the standards: Existing state standards for kindergarten and the early grades have already ramped up rote learning, didactic instruction, and standardized testing and nearly driven out hands-on active learning and play. The new standards will intensify these inappropriate and unhealthy practices.

A few comments from the signers:

“The common core standards will perpetuate current ineffective methods rather than leading to much-needed reform in early education,” says Joan Almon, a former kindergarten teacher and Executive Director of the Alliance for Childhood. “Young children learn best through hands-on approaches that combine teacher-led activities with child-initiated learning and play.”

~~~
“I support this statement whole-heartedly,” says Professor Katz, of the University of Illinois. “Research indicates that while early formal instruction of preschool and kindergarten children may appear to show good test results at first, in the long term, in follow-up studies, such children have had no advantage. On the contrary, especially in the case of boys, subjection to early formal instruction increases their tendency to distance themselves from the goals of schools, and to drop out of it, either mentally or physically.”

~~~
“The people who wrote these standards do not appear to have any background in child development or early childhood education,” says Professor Emerita Stephanie Feeney of the University of Hawaii, another signer. “As written, these standards could have a very detrimental effect on young children. I strongly urge that they be rewritten to reflect what is known about young children’s development.”

These standards matter to homeschoolers because “48 states, 2 territories and the District of Columbia committed to developing a common core of state standards.” When the inevitable calls for more regulation of homeschooling come, it will be demanded that homeschoolers be held accountable to these standards too.

The Alliance’s Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health and Education Professionals can be read here (pdf). You can also read statements from 35 signers here (pdf).

My daughter Sophia, the one who wears a princess dress to pick slugs out of the woodpile so she can feed them to the chickens, seemed content with Brian’s answer about meat. She was curious enough, too, to come out on the morning when Tom the butcher came to visit. We got an anatomy lesson right there, one we aren’t likely to forget.

Life’s most important lessons never end when you live on a farm Appeal-Democrat – Rose Godfrey

Not so fast: Home schooling trumps full-day kindergarten Jun. 18, 2009 The Globe and Mail Amira Elghawaby
Research shows home-schooled kids outperform their public-school peers. So why so is there little or no financial encouragement for parents to take it on?

Seated beside a mom with coiffed hair, polished nails and an elegant suit, I listened wide-eyed as audience members talked about a world I had totally misunderstood and stereotyped.

They talked about children who weren’t being challenged at school – one daughter came home crying, begging her mom to let her stay home and “teach” herself. Another parent described a school that just didn’t know what to do with her rambunctious boy, so she decided to take over. He excelled.

While I’m not so interested in governmental “financial encouragement” (strings are always involved), I’d rather ask, why is there little encouragement for homeschoolers from the official educational world? Home education means parental involvement is at its max, children are interested in learning….everything a teacher would want in their classroom. That is the point, right?

It works at home, so why the attempts to interfere, as in Graham Badman’s Report to the Secretary of State on the Review of Elective Home Education in England ?

Headcounts via compulsory national registration, along with vested interests monitoring and analyzing why families home educate seems oppressive. As Badman acknowledges “England is the most liberal in its approach to elective home education“, he’s doing everything in his power to change that with his recommendations.

His suggestion of a “statutory definition of what constitutes a “suitable” and “efficient” education” seems very limiting and unimaginative, at best. Following that recommendation with a demand for “the right of access to the home” and “the right to speak with each child alone if deemed appropriate ” would be formidable to one’s personal living space. (That space also serving as the safe place for families to land.)

In Elghawaby’s article, she asks a logical question about the Canadian government’s Early Learning Advisor wanting drastic governmental actions such as daycares moved into the schools for a “seamless day” . (By the way, what would sustain and improve an employee’s chances of staying in the government industry? Could it be more “Early Learning” programs funded by taxpayers? Just sayin’….) From The Globe and Mail:

In England, a three-year study concluded that home-schoolers achieved better results in both literacy and mathematics. Home-schooling movements are growing there, as well as in Germany, Japan and Switzerland.

So why isn’t any of this mentioned in Charles Pascal’s report on full-day kindergarten?

That question should be asked since there is a persistent drumbeat for birth to 5 year old programs by world leaders (and other interested proponents). If the agenda is for government oversight of babies and little ones prior to compulsory attendance ages, then families can start touting the glories of not starting academic training too early.

Much Too Early!
by David Elkind, Ph.D.

Although David Elkind is a professional educator rather than a “homeschooler,” his writing offers the wisdom of experience and research that can be of great benefit to any parents concerned about providing the right start for their children.

“Children must master the language of things before they master the language of words”
—Friedrich Froebel, Pedagogics of the Kindergarten, 1895

It works well when our little ones are nurtured by their families and other loved ones to live and learn. Those young ones have questions by the mile. They deserve the freedom to seek answers outside a classroom.

Lillian Jones’ thoughts ring true in her article: A Homeschool Curriculum for Preschool and Kindergarten

If you’ve been raising a child up to the age of “pre-school” or “kindergarten,” you’ve already begun homeschooling. In those early years, the most appropriate homeschooling activities are things that gently introduce a child into the wonders of his immediate world and the imagination. As Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge” – and those early years are the perfect time to provide an atmosphere where the child can freely dream and play and explore and grow in both body and imagination.

These are lots of things a parent can do to help a child develop a love of learning and searching – things that will carry through as a foundation for a life of joyful and successful learning. Most of these are things a parent does at one time or other anyway. A bonus is that your child will be getting a good foundation for later studies, even picking up some elements of reading, writing, and math!

If you read on in her article, her suggestions are educational and positive fun! As she concludes, childhood is short, fleeting, and so very important. Families can (and should be able to) do what works for their children’s learning needs. It should not be for a bureaucratic stranger’s satisfaction.

There you have it.

I caught an article by Adharanand Finn yesterday in the UK Guardian’s Mortarboard blog.  Finn pointed out an August ‘o8 article [No School Like Home] about 2 authors who had followed some homeschoolers around.  They discovered this :

Alan Thomas, a visiting fellow in the institute’s department of psychology and human development, and Harriet Pattison, a research associate, conclude that informal learning at home is an “astonishingly efficient way to learn”, as good if not better than school for many children.

“The ease, naturalness and immense intellectual potential of informal learning up to the age of middle secondary school means they can learn certainly as much if not more,” they say in How Children Learn at Home.

But back to Finn’s post, he reported that next week, Graham Badman (former Managing Director of Children’s Services at Kent Council) will release a government initiated Department for Children, Schools and Families “Independent Review of Home Education“.

(Home) school’s out forever? If Graham Badman’s recommendations for home tuition are adopted by the government, a whole way of life is under threat
Home educators have been feeling nervous ever since Graham Badman began his review of home education earlier this year.

The government’s announcement of the review came wrapped in sinister language about the need to investigate “claims that home education could be used as a ‘cover’ for child abuse such as neglect, forced marriage, sexual exploitation or domestic servitude”.

The Freedom for Children to Grow (Education Otherwise) site provides more details below, and that “Many home educators have a problem with the premise of the Review questions” mentioned below.  The purpose does seem a bit unsettling:

The government says that there may be safeguarding concerns around home educated children and that some people have said home education could be a cover for abuse and forced marriage. The question has been raised over whether home educated children can meet the 5 outcomes of Every Child Matters ie to be safe, to be healthy, to enjoy and achieve, to achieve economic wellbeing and to make a positive contribution.

No parent I know (homeschooling or otherwise), would think in terms of  5 outcomes for their child. Seems incredibly limiting, even as it could be a dangerously vague determination from a stranger wielding some power.

These Outcomes remind me of Northwestern University’s Kim Yuracko ditty on Illiberal Education: Constitutional Constraints on Homeschooling.  Her premise was this:

Modern day homeschooling raises then in stark form questions about the obligations that states have toward children being raised in illiberal subgroups. Surprisingly, the legal and philosophical issues raised by homeschooling have been almost entirely ignored by scholars. This paper seeks to begin to fill this void by making a novel constitutional argument. The paper relies on federal state action doctrine and state constitution education clauses to argue that states must — not may or should — regulate homeschooling to ensure that parents provide their children with a basic minimum education and check rampant forms of sexism.

My first reaction has generally been that these people need to get a real life, as their concerns certainly don’t seem to coincide with homeschooling families’ realities.  Finn also pointed out that: “Ironically, the very reason some parents take their children out of school is because they suffer abuse, through bullying, within the school system”.

Seems like the school folks would have better things to do with their time?  But yet, this review could recommend compulsory registration, along with minimal standards of education for homeschoolers.  That doesn’t seem likely with the strong network of United Kingdom homeschoolers pushing back.  But it will certainly take precious time away from their families contending with the issue.

Irony=Bureaucracy?