I’ve heard the phrase “it takes a village to raise a child,” but I didn’t realize that this included friends writing to newspaper columnists for advice on behalf of parents.

Newark Star Ledger, Newark, New Jersey, 9 January 2007, Teen has lost interest in attending school

My friends have two daughters, 15 and 11 years old. The 15-year-old went to an all-girls, private boarding school last year and did okay, but, during the summer, decided she didn’t want to go back, so they had to rush to get her into public school. … The parents are fighting about her and are worried that their other daughter might be influenced by her sister’s behavior. Any advice on what they might do?

The part that brought this to my attention was the inclusion of:

[The mother] wants her [daughter] to go to college, but because the girl doesn’t want to go to school, she [the mother?] is looking into home schooling.

Apparently that’s the reason for a non-family member to seek advice for someone else’s children. Using a private school, or keeping the girl in school doesn’t seem to have been of concern to the friend, despite that attendance appearing to be related to the girl’s malaise.

She says she is too tired to go, but on the weekends, she hangs out and parties with her friends. She has seen a doctor, who said she is depressed and put her on an antidepressant. It hasn’t changed her behavior.

The advisor is of the opinion that:

Permitting the daughter to miss school, doing her homework and pursuing home schooling avoids facing the issues of why she doesn’t want to go to school.

For voluntary activities the feeling of a participant that he or she no longer wants to do the activity is enough to allow that person to go on to something else. There may be ambivalence about whether or not to continue, depending on how much investment has been made in the activity, but ultimately the person doing the activity has a choice of whether or not to continue, or to change direction.

With school, there is no choice for young people who have not yet received a diploma. Like it or not, school is a requirement and “pursuing home schooling” may be a way for the girl to continue with her education while either sorting through, or healing from, whatever it is at school that is causing her depression.

If the depression is caused by a situation, isn’t one way to alleviate the stress to remove oneself from the situation?

Like the doctor providing the advice, I’m using a distance-crystal-ball to make guesses about a girl I’ve never seen. However, if even one of the parents feel that homeschooling could be a way for the girl to qualify for college, why is a friend trying to bring his or her opinions to bear in what is a family matter?

Also, why is a doctor buying into it? Perhaps Miss Manners could do a column on this column.

Chelmsford Independent, Concord, Massachusetts, 21 December 2006, Home for the holidays

The Baxter family probably doesn’t have too much left on its Christmas wish list because they got everything they wanted when Lt. Col. Brent Baxter returned home from Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago.

Brent, who had been overseas for about five months, reunited with his family on his son’s, Josiah, 14th birthday.

…

Brent and his wife, Lisa, have seven children, from Elise, 2 1/2, to Lindsey, 15. All of the Baxters’ children are home-schooled.

“[Home-schooling was] something that Lisa had her hands full with when I was gone,” said Brent.

But, Lisa was always able to turn to Friends of Grace, a home-schooling group based in Chelmsford, for help.

…

And, although he may not have been at home, Brent still lent a hand.

“I helped with homework, from 8,000 miles away,” he said. The Baxters’ oldest son, Josiah is studying biology. Their oldest daughter, Lindsey, 15, is studying physics. Six of the children are learning to play the piano on a Yamaha upright; Brent is also learning to play.

The Baxters found that home schooling fits the military lifestyle, because they have to move every couple of years.

“We don’t have to worry about a child halfway through high school; having to pull them out,” said Brent.

posted by Valerie

Quality Counts 2007: From Cradle to Career: Connecting American Education From Birth to Adulthood, the 11th installment of Education Week’s annual report on state education reform was posted this week at the Education Week’s website.

From the Press Conference announcing the report, author Lynn Olson stated:

Quality Counts 2007 begins to track state efforts to create seamless education systems from early childhood to the world of work by looking at performance across the various sectors, and at state efforts to define students’ readiness to succeed from one stage to the next. He continues on to explain that the new Chance-for-Success Index ” provides a state-focused perspective on the importance of education throughout a person’s lifetime. It dramatically illustrates why states need to pay attention to human capital development at every step along the way if they want to have a vibrant economy.

School-to-Work, Outcome Based Education, Goals 2000, and reports such as Cradle to Grave continue to insist that the federal government can demand more of parents and pile more and more adult like responsibilities on babies through teens. Each year they continue to pile standard upon standard upon the backs of young people in an attempt to raise the bar and produce better workers. Within school reform many have attempted to imitate home education via the new public cyber schools, but even they are public schools at home that still fall under the NCLB mandated cast iron cookie cutter standards. These standards continue to weigh heavily on the backs of older children and to now insist on state standards for each state for preschoolers as well seems to border on abuse in my estimation. Do they have proof positive that these actions will cause no harm?

Before adding yet more standards, shouldn’t we stop and evaluate the affects that the already heavy standards have had on young minds and bodies?

A September 11, 2006 NEWSWEEK article, The New First Grade: Too Much Too Soon, by Peg Tyre reports that, “Kids as young as 6 are tested, and tested again, to ensure they’re making sufficient progress. Then there’s homework, more workbooks and tutoring.”

The article is five pages long and it is well worth the read. Here are just a few key points:

In the last decade, the earliest years of schooling have become less like a trip to “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and more like SAT prep. Thirty years ago first grade was for learning how to read. Now, reading lessons start in kindergarten and kids who don’t crack the code by the middle of the first grade get extra help. Instead of story time, finger painting, tracing letters and snack, first graders are spending hours doing math work sheets and sounding out words in reading groups. In some places, recess, music, art and even social studies are being replaced by writing exercises and spelling quizzes. Kids as young as 6 are tested, and tested againsome every 10 days or soto ensure they’re making sufficient progress. After school, there’s homework, and for some, educational videos, more workbooks and tutoring, to help give them an edge.

Some scholars and policymakers see clear downsides to all this pressure. Around third grade, Hultgren says, some of the most highly pressured learners sometimes “burn out. They began to resist. They didn’t want to go along with the program anymore.” In Britain, which adopted high-stakes testing about six years before the United States did, parents and school boards are trying to dial back the pressure. In Wales, standardized testing of young children has been banned. Andrew Hargreaves, an expert on international education reform and professor at Boston College, says middle-class parents there saw that “too much testing too early was sucking the soul and spirit out of their children’s early school experiences.

In my opinion, there are many at our Federal and State Capitals who seem to believe that they have “the plan” that will best serve America’s children. It seems to me that it is our fundamental responsibility to make every effort to assure that no one, (not even those attempting to improve “human capital”) should, suck the soul and spirit from our children. Just as those objecting in Wales, many have been saying no as well in the U.S. via this petition calling for the dismantling of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Many times those in education reform refer to the successes they have seen in home education and some even attempt to duplicate them, but I’m afraid they keep missing WHY home education is so often successful. Home Education provides each individual child the opportunity to run, jump play and enjoy their childhood. They are not viewed as potential “human capital”, but as human beings with the fundamental right to live and learn in a way that best suits them. Home Education allows the child’s spirit and soul to soar and to grow. Home Education allows each family the freedom to nurture each individual child in a way that best meets their needs. The standard is what is best for the child, not a federally mandated one size fits all directive. The minute you try to legislate it something that replicates home education, you lose a basic fundamental freedom and begin to squash the joy that comes with following one’s heart, playing and learning when ready rather than when dictated how and when by the state.

Let’s just say no to any childhood experiments and say yes to what works – let’s just let them be little!

posted by Mary N.

Indianapolis Star, Indianapolis, Indiana, 28 December 2006, Tweens in transition

…

Being a tween (ages 9-12) or early teenager is a lot trickier than it used to be. By the time children reach high school, many already have begun dabbling in high-risk behavior.

About 21 percent of eighth-graders have used illicit drugs at least once, according to the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy. Some 6.2 percent of young people have had sex before turning 13, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most juvenile crime occurs in the late afternoon — after-school hours when many tweens and teenagers are home alone.

…

Janet Panoch, 41, Zionsville, says she didn’t decide to home-school her two youngest children for the purpose of keeping them out of trouble, but that’s a side benefit for her daughter, 11, and son, 8. “I see other kids in the neighborhood walking home from the bus and letting themselves in, so they’re home alone after school,” she said. “I guess that’s OK for some kids, depending on the child.”

Panoch’s children, on the other hand, are always under her watchful gaze, and she’s able to control who they see and what they watch on television.

“I can see the difference between the ones who are at home and my oldest daughter, who went to a private school,” she said. “She was much more peer-oriented and peer-driven. The younger ones aren’t as exposed to peer pressure and all that mass media stuff.”

posted by Valerie

Amherst Times, Amherst, New York, 8 December, Off to college alone, shadowed by mental illness

For Jean, as for many teenagers coping with mental disorders, just getting through high school was an ordeal. After experimenting with home schooling, a high pressure prep school and an outdoor learning academy geared to nature activities, Jean, a bright student with inconsistent grades but high SAT scores, decided to forgo her senior year and find a college that would take her without a high school diploma.

She was accepted at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., a nontraditional college of roughly 4,400 students that issues written evaluations in place of letter grades.

Sun Star, Davao, Philippines, 9 December 2006, Our home, our school

In addition, home schooling is legal in the Philippines. Students can take validation tests, the Philippine Educational Placement Test (PEPT) or enroll under the accredited home school programs of DepEd. Seeing the benefits of home schooling, she and Bion decided to introduce it to their kids earlier than they originally planned.

Alex consulted Amber’s teacher and she was assured that if ever her plans will not work out, her daughter can always go back to the school.

Parts of the article reflect a bureaucratically-influenced viewpoint such as, “Based on Alex’s research, there are no specific area requirements for a home school classroom.”  These comments are fairly common in news stories as it seems to be assumed by ‘civilians’ that anything to do with a child’s learning will be controlled by the government agency ‘responsible’ for education.  Overall, the article is informative and pleasant.

 

posted by Valerie

This story brings back memories for me about my youngest daughter’s time in second grade, and ‘classroom management.’ Although it wasn’t called having a “shoulder partner” as it is in the article, my daughter was also responsibile for the child she sat next to. He was named, “Reggie.” We lived in Munich at the time, but Heidelberg was our next home, so I’m familiar with the venue.

Reggie was a general disruptor in the classroom and my youngest was his classroom nursemaid. At the middle of the school year, I finally wrote to the teacher and said, “I know someone has to sit next to Reggie, but can another child do it now?”

San Antonio Current, San Antonio, Texas, 24 October 2006, Teach Your Children

Jennifer and Mark were serving in the U.S. Army in Heidelberg, Germany, when they decided to pull Nastasha — then about to begin third grade — out of the traditional school system. A few months earlier, when Natasha enrolled at her Heidelberg school in the middle of second grade, her teacher quickly informed her mother, “I just want you to know that I won’t have any time for your daughter this year because I have some boys in the class who cause a lot of problems. They take all my time.”

Jennifer had barely recovered from that jolt when Natasha began telling stories about being assigned a “shoulder partner” at school.

“The teacher would pair you up with whoever sat next to you, and whoever the smarter one was did all the work,” Natasha recalls. By Jennifer’s reckoning, her daughter was either doing all or none of the work for the team, and neither option was satisfactory.

The article is long, and interesting. It mentions the history of homeschooling in Texas, reasons for homeschooling, “statistics” (of course), the s-word, Family Educators Alliance of South Texas (FEAST), sports, styles of homeschooling, parent-work conflict, and “accountability.”

But homeschool critics fret that a system that demands no accountability from home educators offers no protection for children with irresponsible or misguided parents.

“In Texas, accountability has to do with the fact that you’re spending public money. Private schools are not accountable,” Kretzschmar counters. “When you think about it, you don’t need a license to be a parent, or to feed your child. So you shouldn’t need a license to teach them.”

One of the last articles I expected to see while leafing through the newly arrived AARP magazine (yes, I can get a senior discount) was one about homeschooling, but there it is, on page 13 of the November/December issue.

AARP The Magazine, Washington, D.C., November/December 2006, School’s In

For Laura Carter of Woodland, Washington, homeschooling three grandchildren, ages three to eight, is a family affair. Laura, 55, teaches reading, writing, geography, and botany; daughter-in-law Crystal handles history; and son Terry oversees math and science. She recalls the day kindergartner Leah had a reading breakthrough: “We were playing a phonics game. She sounded out a few words, giggled, and shouted, ‘I can read!’ For a grandma it’s a dream come true.”

 

The article is a nice one and demonstrates the help that can be gained from extended family.  I was happy to read it, until …

But is it good for the kids? The National Education Association’s official position is that homeschooling programs “cannot provide students with a comprehensive educational experience.”

The article continues about what homeschooling proponents note, but once the doubt is introduced, readers may continue to wonder, “… is it good for the kids?” 

The finish was nice, though.

Roger, Laura Carter, and Alice believe homeschooling brings them closer to their families and keeps the mind and spirit young. “Laura will graduate when I’m 81,” Roger says. “Until then, I’m sticking around.”

The families are continuing their adventure together and you can’t get much better than that.

I was working on a September collection of international articles about homeschooling, but this article from Israel deserves a blog post of its own. 

Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem, Israel, 31 August 2006, Learning without lessons

Most homeschoolers in Israel follow the less structured “un-schooling” model which does not provide a set curriculum but rather tailors itself to children’s individual needs (see box).

…

Prof. Roni Aviram, chair of the Center for Futurism in Education at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, encourages homeschooling as an alternative to what he believes is the failure of the school system in the Western world, and especially in Israel.

…

According to Zinigrad, families from across the socioeconomic, political and religious spectrum are members of the homeschooling flock.

“Anyone who says it’s something elitist or like a cult is wrong.” While in the past, homeschoolers might have been isolated, there are now homeschooling groups all over the country, including one that meets bimonthly at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, and there are several Web sites and email lists.

There is no typical homeschooling family. While many families in the Jerusalem area are Anglos, in other areas of the country this is not the case.

“We are not an example of a homeschooling family. We are an example of our family that happens to homeschool,” says Dina.

…

“It takes a [certain] type of personality… [the parent] has to give up a lot if she [or he] chooses to take care of them at home… She doesn’t have a life. Others would say a mother who chooses to do that, that is her life.”

Trachtman takes the latter statement one step further.

“Have there been days when I’ve wanted to run off to Antarctica? Sure. But even on those days I have reflected on the fact that I wouldn’t have traded a single moment of my life with another person on this planet.”

She’s not news, and the homeschooling of their children ended some time ago, but while I was working on the previous post, I ‘spontaneously’ thought about Penny Barker while mulling over the time that has passed since the signing of the Convention of the Rights of the Child.  Penny was one of the first Home Education Magazine columnists who influenced me.

Just for a lark, I searched for her name, and voila.

The Country School Farm

An Ohio Resident Farm Summer Camp for Children Who Love Animals

Britt, the oldest Barker offspring, from the beginning took a lead in every aspect of the life of the farm. While the horses were her special interest, her knowledge of all things domestic made her Penny’s valued colleague in the kitchen and garden. Britt’s vocations, when not at the farm, are writing, painting and piano performance. She is married to Shaun, who apprenticed at the farm for four years.

Maggie has a lifetime of experience in working on the farm and with children. As a young child she began with a small flock of sheep. She trained Border Collies as sheepdogs which sparked an interest in dogsledding. During the ’90s she raced her Alaskan Huskies along the US-Canadian border. Simultaneously, she and her brothers became wilderness guides and for eight years ran canoe and mountaineering expeditions in the northern and western states. Maggie sold her kennel in 1998 and took up naturalist sculpting. She spent two years at the Florence Academy of Art and in Carrara, Italy studying marble sculpture. Her work with animals is currently with service and stock dogs. She and her husband, Fabricio, a chemist, currently reside at the farm.

Dan, at age nine, cared for the poultry, raising bantams and layers. Along the way he developed an interest in the cello and, ran dog teams and was a wilderness guide in the 90s. He is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music and has a Masters Degree in Cello Performance from Sacramento State University. When Dan is not assisting with the summer farm program, he lives in Sacramento, has a cello studio in Davis, and performs with various California and Nevada orchestras.

Jonah, the youngest Barker, is very much a child-of-the-summer-farm-experience and, in fact, was literally carried around by visitors as a baby. Jonah became skilled in every aspect of the farm and program. His technical know-how in the workshop as well as at the computer makes him the one to whom everyone turns for answers. When not at the farm, Jonah resides in Columbus.

What a beautiful picture at the web site.

After reading so many ‘thou shalt not’ admonitions in articles about homeschooling, just looking at the Barkers’ web site refreshes me.  I’ve ended my workday on a positive note.

Thanks again, Penny.