children learn at their own pace

We are having some issues with outside activities such as Cub Scouts and church due to homeschooling. It isn't that they discriminate against us because we teach our youngest at home, but they don't know what to do with a child who isn't in the proper age/grade slot compared to his peers. Timmy has had a very difficult time learning to read and is finally showing signs of speed and accuracy after starting his readers over again three times. We didn't start first grade until last January and are now in the final days of that grade. So he could be technically classified as being in the first or second grade depending on the subject and/or time spent on the enrolled curriculum; having a summer birthday doesn't clarify the situation. For activities I have placed him in 2nd grade and figure that it is better for me to demand that he be treated as such rather than let that decision be left up to someone else. Timmy will learn to read and do it well because he is a smart little boy and he lives in a family of readers and no amount of trying to hurry that along for someone else is going to work.    

gearing up and slowing down

Every week for the past month I have looked over the office supply store ad and circled super deals such as notebook paper and tissues for $0.01 each. My schoolroom now has stacks of supplies for each older child according to their (demands) list sent out by their schools. I guess I didn't realize how cheap homeschooling is until I was attempting to find every item needed and ended up spending hundreds of dollars on double sided tape, specially colored binders, and colored 4x6 index cards. We always just used cheap notebooks, dollar store pencils, and Crayola thin markers on sale at Walmart for $1. So, while the older ones are getting ready to start school, my youngest son has been doing schoolwork all summer....  

Late on Friday afternoon I called the counseling department of Seton, the homeschool curriculum we use. "I need some reassurance that I am doing the right thing by cutting back with my 5th child." I explained that Timmy had just turned 7 and was reading one painful word at a time. "Words like 'and', 'this', 'some', and 'know' take at least a minute to figure out. I'm getting a headache every day from banging my head against the wall in frustration!" I told the lady that my older boys also had a tough and long road on their way to reading prowess, and that Timmy had sort of fallen through the cracks in the past due to me having to spend so much time with the older children's schooling. "This past year was good, he has made a lot of progress, but it seems to be one step forward 3 steps back, some weeks."

She definitely agreed that he was young to be going into 2nd grade and the benefit of homeschooling was that the child can progress at his own rate. "Don't push it," she said. So I put away the reader and over the past week we have done 1 page of math, 2 pages of phonics, and 1 spelling lesson each day. His attitude has improved and the reading aloud he does do for phonics is faster and more confident than before. We will finish these three subjects before going back to the Faith and Freedom readers (a Catholic version of Dick and Jane). I will start some 2nd grade subjects in a few weeks, but not enroll him until he is completely finished with everything from this year. It doesn't matter how long it takes him to learn to read and subtract properly as long as he does get them eventually with as few tears shed as possible.   

wrapping up the school year, sort of

Will officially graduated from 8th grade last night and the girls only have to attend class until Friday, but school is still going on at home. 

Charlie only has about 1 week's worth of English left as well as CAT testing, but we just started a new biography of Robert Goddard from the Childhood of Famous Americans series and began reading Treasure Island aloud. 

Since Timmy didn't officially start 1st grade until January, he obviously isn't going to be finishing his work anytime soon, but I'm not worried about intruding on his summer vacation, his work only takes 1 hour per day max. Mary and I decided that she could use a little 8th grade prep work this summer in grammar and math so we will be doing that for about 30 minutes a day. 

Add to that workload swimming, piano, and riding lessons and it will already be a jam-packed summer, but I'll still cram in races, gardening, taking care of my chickens, and finishing up some quilting projects.

time keeps on ticking

One of the things that I recall every time I feel a little guilty about not blogging often is that since the big kids have started going away to school, 2 hours of every day is now spent in the car. That is 2 hours I previously spent quilting, reading, blogging, cleaning, and playing with the kids. Every day now is as regimented as a new Army recruit: wake up, get ready, get kids ready, drive to school, come home, homeschool the boys, run, shower, get big kids from school, ferry some kid to piano, make dinner, bathe little kids, read aloud, say prayers, and finally put the kids to bed. 

So, what has our family been doing for the past few weeks? Well, Timmy, Charlie, and I did the Flattop race. The boys did great in the mile (Charlie 7 min, Timmy 8 min) and I did terrible in the 5K. The weightlifting I had been doing to improve my strength left my muscles so worn out, despite a 4 day break, that I could only barely manage to stay on my feet. Yesterday I did run the Bridge the Gap 10 mile race and did quite well: 1hr 20 min. I ran the first 8 miles with my friend Lisa at a 8:30 pace and felt as fresh ending it as I did starting. I've been going out way too fast and crashing at mile 2, so this was a good learning experience. It was much more fun to pass people, especially on the hills, than to get passed while gasping for breath. 

I've been quilting up a storm since I finished all my obligation projects: a tshirt quilt for an online friend and a brown bag exchange in our guild. I applied to submit this quilt in the state quilt show for judging and have until the middle of June to get it finished. After several weeks, I've now finished all the colored strips and have to connect it all with white sashing next. I'm not really looking forward to working with 34 floppy strips, all 2" wide, but now I have to get it done, and do it well, since I don't want to look foolish next to all the really talented quilters in our state. 

Will was accepted to the fancy high school so I can release the breath I was holding for several weeks. Our other option was to bring Will home for 9th grade and send Charlie to Catholic school a year earlier than anticipated. Now it is unlikely that I will be spending the next year in prison for killing my child because Will and I are at odds so often these days and the little boys will have each other to be best friends with for another year. I didn't think I could go back to more than 3 kids at home during the day, Timmy has made such progress this year without the drama of trying to get the older ones to do their work. I've actually had, despite the loss of 2 hours a day, more time this year to work with him on his studies. 

Julia Ellen is now officially potty trained, or housebroken as my Grandmother calls it. I am happily doling out m&ms as reward for not having to daily wipe a yucky bottom for the first time in 15 years. 

What is next? More quilting, more races, the arrival of our first batch of Buff Orpington chicks in a few weeks, and planting my garden. Spring is late in arriving to northern Maine, the ground is still frozen 4 inches down and there are still patches of snow here and there, but today there is a warmth in the air that hasn't been there before and the snowdrops in front of the library were blooming this morning. Happy Spring!          

underachieving boys

I just finished reading Boys Adrift, The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men by Dr. Leonard Sax. He outlines the reasons he believes there is an whole generation, and soon to be two generations, of slacker boys and men, who don't bother growing up. 

As I have a 14 year old son who is starting to slip into this category, I read this book with a sense of doom and optimism. Doom that I have done things unknowingly that may have contributed to his slacker status and optimism that I haven't done as badly as I could have and may still have time to change his destiny. Since starting Catholic school, Will has become addicted to the computer, which means a fight every night over the Mac laptop that is issued to every middle school student in the state of Maine. He plays MineCraft and Skypes his friends for hours, switching screens back to school assignments when a grownup enters the room. He has even been known to sneak downstairs in the middle of the night to retrieve it for more game playing.

 I have been tempted on several occasions to call Dr. Ray Guarendi, Catholic clinical psychologist and dad of 10 for advice or just throw the laptop out the window (but then I would have to pay for another one). We have told him that next year's school options are the fancy and expensive private school (no Catholic high school in the area) or back to homeschooling and with his attitude and grades, it is likely that his experiment in going away to school will have only lasted a year and a half. Luckily I am prepared to enroll him in Seton, a highly rigorous program with no opportunity to slack off or mess around on the computer. The local public school is not an option,especially since they give every student their own iPad. 

Dr.Sax points out 5 factors that have contributed to the exact problem I am facing: changes in school, video games, medications for ADHD, endocrine disruptors, and the revenge of the forsaken Gods. School has become more intense sooner, which is not good for little boys. Five year old males are not designed to sit still for hours and hours each day. Luckily we homeschool our little ones and with several subjects already completed for the year,formal  school is lasting less than 2 hours total. Dr. Sax blasts video games for their mind-sucking ability, the creation of males who can't function in the real world because they can't control it the way they can in games, and the fact that they take up time that could be spent doing something real- a sport, a hobby, reading, learning, interacting with others. He goes into the stimulant drugs that can make kids lazy and phthalates in the plastic water/soda bottles we all drink from that leach chemicals into our bodies that can cause boys to become more feminized and girls to develop earlier. The fifth factor he discusses is the fact that our culture no longer teaches boys to become men, responsibility is mocked and we are left with the resulting mess, a nation of 13 year olds in men's bodies. 

I'm not sure I completely buy into all of the factors the author proposes, but it does make me think about why a very clear phenomenon is happening. Girls are developing earlier and earlier, girls are graduating from college in every increasing percents each year, leaving their male counterparts in the dust, and more and more men are refusing to take on adult responsibilities but instead living out their 20's and 30's in their parent's basements drifting from job to job and being lazy. Why and how we can change our sons so they have every opportunity to fulfill their potential are questions that many of us should all think about.   

progress

One of the things that is satisfying about homeschooling is the feedback, the almost instant information that a child is learning. It has been a learning experience for me, this being our first year sending any of the children away to school, of how little I now know about their academic lives. From knowing everything they do each day to only hearing bits and pieces in the car on the way home, from seeing each piece of work to only having a general idea of how their grades are. Luckily I trust the school (up to a point) that they are being educated. 

My little boys, on the other hand, are still fully under my tutelage, and so I knew a few weeks back that Timmy was struggling in reading to the point of tears and head banging (his leaky eyes and my achy head). I made an executive decision to start over again with Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons and now, I can say that it was the right thing to do. He is now back up to lesson 30, sounding out letters and reading short stories with much more ease and confidence. It doesn't really matter in the long run if he finishes first grade by June or even by next winter, the important thing is for him to learn the basics of reading and to learn to love to read. 

Charlie has really made great progress in his reading skills as well, faster and with better pronunciation than he had even a few weeks ago. We finished both boys science and history books for the year, so I started reading aloud a few chapters every day as part of "sofa stuff," biographies of famous Americans. Timmy and I have read about John Paul Jones, Betsy Ross, Abraham Lincoln, and now George Washington. Charlie really has gotten interested in all things mechanical so I started him on The History of Flight. Yes, he could pull them off the shelf and read them on his own, but part of my job is to select the right books for each child's level and interest.

Reading today about the 80% illiteracy rate of New York City graduates at community colleges, helped reinforce my basic philosophy that the most important job I have as a homeschooling mom is to make sure that my children are excellent readers. Without those skills and eagerness to read for fun, they will still be living at home when they are 30, unable to graduate from college, find a job, and provide for themselves. And after 15 years of nursing babies, changing nappies, potty training, cooking large meals, doing multiple loads of laundry, chauffeuring two hours a day, that is something I don't even want to joke about.  

prolonged absence

This year being the first that I have had to haul kids to school I am finding little time to do much else, other than the essentials. 2 hours of my daily life is now spent in the car driving them up to school and picking them up. Tim does more than his share by going into work at 5:30 so he can pick up Mary after basketball practice and games after his long commute. This frees me to stay at home in the late afternoon to make dinner and get everyone else working on practicing the piano and doing homework. Piano lessons themselves take up another 4 hours every week and Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts require another huge time commitment between the meeting themselves and the hour driving. Squeezing in time to run and quilt are both higher priorities than blogging (especially since I wouldn't have much to write about if I didn't do other stuff). 

If I had time to think about it for more than a minute, I would likely berate myself for not having my almost 4 year old fully potty trained. I would chastize myself for my 6 year old not being further ahead in reading. I would get angry at myself for my 8 year old still not knowing how to tie his shoe and having to say "no" to my 10 year when she asked if she could take dance lessons. I would be anxious that my 12 year old is disrespectful to me and my 14 year old won't stay off the computer for more than 2hours without having panic attacks. But I don't have the time to stress, I only can keep my head down, put one foot in front of the other, and keep going forward each day. 

One thing that the last 15 years of parenting has shown me is that little steps over time do lead to major progress. In the next 6 months I know that Julia Ellen will be using the potty, Timmy will be finished 100 Easy Lessons and onto real books, Charlie will learn to tie his shoes, Maggie will be involved in theater camp and riding lessons and will have forgotten about dance, Mary will mature with the right guidance, and Will will turn in his school Mac and be spending the summer as a CIT at camp with no access to anything electronic. In the meantime, I need to maintain momentum, a positive attitude, and a full pantry to survive.   

What homeschooling has meant to us

I have been teaching one or more of my children for 10 years now and as I look back on those hours spent sitting at the side of a child learning to add, spell, read, and write, it makes me realize how blessed we are for the gift of homeschooling.

I have taught 5 children how to decode our language and love reading so much that a trip to the library is met with the same excitement that some kids reserve for the county fair. Our tradition of purchasing a wind-up flashlight for that magical day when they are deemed "a reader" is met with eager anticipation. I'm a big proponent of letting kids read in bed and with the wind-up light I haven't had to buy batteries for them in over 5 years. The sound I can hear from their rooms is priceless, first the chirrr,chirrrr, chirrr, as the light is charged and then 15 minutes later chir, chir, chir, and then finally after another 10 minutes of reading the light dims for good since I imagine they are so tired it is impossible to wind it one time and their eyes close for the night. 

My children have been allowed to sleep in (until this year when we have to leave at 7am to get the big kids to school) and have been sick less than the average. They have had time to play outside, build stuff, play with their smaller siblings, help around the house, and learn to bake and sew. They have been able to visit museums and historical areas in 4 states and spend time exploring them in depth. They have had a consistent education despite moving 5 times in the past 10 years.

I have to say that homeschooling has been a great gift to our family and as I review the past decade, I see not only the addition of 4 precious children to our home, but a daily pursuit of knowledge that will last throughout their lifetimes.

the best $20 I ever spent

Timmy has been slower than molasses in winter in learning his phonics sounds, but since he should be moving into 1st grade, I pulled out my secret ammunition in the war on illiteracy: How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. This book goes tiny step by step in teaching a child to read sounds, then short words, then short stories in about 15 minutes a day. I have used this book with 5 children now, after being advised to buy it from the mom who first introduced me to homeschooling 15 years ago. We have never gotten through all 100 lessons, usually quitting at about lesson 60-75 to move on to real books and the Faith and Freedom readers. 

Timmy is still having trouble recalling the short a sound, so we have repeated 2 lessons, but in the past 2 weeks he has started sounding out 3 and 4 letter words. My goal is to have a child who loves to read, so I don't want to overburden him with excessive practice each day, just a slow and steady progression from "the cat sat on the mat" to eventually reading his way through my extensive children's fiction collection.  

slow but steady wins the reading race

Last year I was starting to get really nervous about Charlie's reading skills. The other boys in his Cub Scout den were reading directions to various projects from their Wolf books aloud while Charlie was barely sounding out the words. I vowed that night to repeat all his 1st grade readers because it was obvious that he was struggling too much. I heard from the Cub Scout dads that they made their boys read for 30 minutes every night, while my 7 year old was still content to listen to me read picture books with his younger siblings. 

But like the tortoise in Aesop's fable, my 4th child is now reading well. I didn't push him beyond his comfort level, but he did practice reading and phonics every day and now he doesn't blanch at 6 page stories in his Faith and Freedom reader. He also walked to the library after his piano lesson on Friday and checked out several Magic Treehouse books, and he is actually reading them for fun. 

The big kids have mentioned several times that they seems to be called on in class to read aloud more often because they are such good readers. My guess is that all the dramatic reading of picture books to Timmy and Julia Ellen has paid off in terms of style. Even Julia Ellen practices reading with inflection as she sits on the floor flipping pages of the practically memorized Green Eggs and Ham while lisping, "I will not eat them in a BOX! I will not eat them with a FOX!"

My technique to encourage life-long readers by teaching the basics of phonics, requiring a small amount of reading aloud starting in 1st grade, and providing a plethora of interesting reading material seems to have worked. Only 2 more children left and I will be able to see my ideal Sunday afternoon come to life, a living room full of children draped all over the furniture, all so quiet you could hear a mouse squeak, because everyone is concentrating deeply on what they are reading. 

chaos

The saying, "You never know how much you have until you have lost it," has certainly struck home this week.  Homeschoolers have so much freedom in their daily lives to get up when they wish, start school when they want, and have their lives centered around their family, rather than around other's schedules. For 9 years we were able to sign the children up for multiple activities because their schoolwork could be completed by mid afternoon most days and they didn't have homework to interfere with evening events. 

Now our days begin with 5:40 revilie, followed by the van driving away at 7am. I do have a lot more time now to work with the boys on their schoolwork without the big kids monopolizing all my attention, so we do play many games and they have more educational computer time. But our afternoons are complete chaos. Last Tuesday was a good example with having to pick up the 3 big ones at 2:40, drive them 25 minutes to their soccer games, pull Will out just after the first half and drive like a mad woman back home to get him to piano lessons at 6:15 (he was still 15 minutes late). Then I had to fix dinner for everyone else and the poor kid was still doing homework at 9pm, when my eyes closed for the night. We have piano lessons for various children 3 evenings a week, Boy Scouts on Wednesday, Cub Scouts on Thursday, and Tim takes over on an occasional Monday so I can go to quilt group. I have spent over $100 in gas this week just to drive everyone up and back to Bangor 2-3 times a day. 

There isn't any activity I am willing to give up right this moment and soccer only lasts another 3 weeks or so. But it has been quite an adjustment going from staying home and doing school in our jammies to being like the Zizzer-Zoof salesmen in Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book,
  

 "All day they've raced around in the heat, at top speeds, Unsuccessfully trying to sell Zizzer-Zoof Seeds Which nobody wants because nobody needs. Tomorrow will come. They'll go back to their chore. They'll start on the road, Zizzer-Zoofing once more." 

1st day of school

Tim starts his new job next Monday, so for the kid's first week of Catholic school he is driving the 30 minute route and dropping them off and I am picking them up in the afternoon. Our first day of homeschooling just the little boys was so peaceful, they did their work, did their chores, and I let them watch a movie while I organized and cleaned my quilting room. Charlie doesn't have half of his books yet since I put off enrolling him until yesterday, but he did read aloud, practice his catechism questions and prayers, listen to science and history, and do an art project with his little brother and sister. 

When I went to pick up the big kids Maggie was so exuberant that she almost hit her head on the ceiling, "I loooove school!" Will related a teacher's warning about, "don't get near the cars, you might get run over," that he got in gym class. He was so disgusted, "Mommy, I'm a Star Scout and was directing traffic at the Strawberry Festival when I was 10," at being treated like a little kid that we both pretended we were that safety conscious about other activities. "Don't touch that paper, you might get a boo-boo on your little finger." 

Mary was a completely different story, she was incensed that I sent them on the first day wearing "the wrong thing." Apparently every other girl wore a skirt and she felt like a dork wearing khaki pants. Even after admitting that she was making friends and that they use the same Saxon math series she has worked through for the past 3 years, she couldn't sleep last night due to nerves about a math test today. I sat with her, gave her a pep talk, and gave her a stuffed animal to hold before going back to bed myself. Math is not her weak subject by far, I'm far more concerned about her spelling and writing skills. My worry is the time factor, between soccer practice, practicing the piano, and homework, I don't know how much free time they will have each day. We seemed to have jumped onto the busy family bus and I doubt we will disembark until next June.         

stocking up on school supplies

It is the middle of summer, time for trips to the lake, dropping off kids at camp, swimming lessons, certainly not time to think about backpacks and notebooks, but now is the time to act if I don't want to spend a fortune on school supplies. Our local big box office supply store is Staples and they are running some great loss leaders on all the things I need this fall. When I combine that with my teacher discount card and a 15% off back to school card I bought for $10, the floor of my schoolroom is filling up with bags of gear. The big kid's school apparently does not come out with lists until the first day, by the time all the sales are over, but I can guess what items they will need and buy now. I already bought all their uniform needs at the school consignment sale last month, so all I need left are some cool lunchboxes (Maggie doesn't want to borrow her little sister's pink Hello Kitty one) and a year's worth of mechanical pencils.

reason # 567

Yesterday I stopped by the fish market to pick up a haddock and scallop casserole for supper followed by the grocery store for dessert. My total at Hannaford came to $17.76.

"How appropriate," I said. 
The cashier, a young woman said, "Huh?"
"The total bill, how appropriate that it is 1776." She still looked at me like I had 2 heads. 
"You know, the Declaration of Independence, the 4th of July," I explained.
"Oh, I never knew the year or anything," was her reply. 
And then it just slipped out, "You went to public school, didn't you?"
"Yeah, Hampden Academy."
"And that is why I homeschool my kids," I replied before I gathered up my bags and walked out. 

Too harsh, I'm sure. But I'll move hell and high water before I send my kids to a school where graduates don't know the date of the birthday of our nation.  
 

are homeschooled kids the only ones who still read?

I was listening to Howie Carr the other day, the Boston talk radio host, discuss how hard it is this summer for teens to find summer jobs. One comment he made really stuck with me, "It would be different if these kids were otherwise reading books, but they don't anymore. My girls don't read except for school." I don't know if this is true or not, perhaps it is like saying "All teens are bad drivers," but perhaps it is closer to the truth than it was 20 years ago. 

My children love to go to the library, if I don't let them pick out a stack to take home at least once a week then they mope and complain and I constantly see other homeschool families there (it is pretty obvious when they have kids over the age of 6 with them during the day). Now that the big kids are older I let them have more of a say over what they check out, but I keep a strict eye on the younger ones. Maggie just yesterday pouted when I took off several Goosebumps books and some inner city teen junk novel that was on her pile at the counter. 

It is interesting to see what sorts of things they come up with, occasionally it really lets me see a bit deeper into their psyche. I noticed Mary's bag of books on her bed and snuck a peek inside. It is obvious that she is a bit nervous about entering Catholic school this fall. Her choices include: Exploring Math with books kids love, Writing With Style, Reading Roundups, Spelling K-8, Word Smart, Math Puzzles and Brainteasers Grades 6-8, and Improve Your Spelling and Vocabulary. Her academic weaknesses are spelling and writing, after numerous years of struggle and crying she is just finishing up the 4th grade spelling book and I have had to help her extensively with her book reports every quarter since 2nd grade. She loves to read and she does pretty well in math if she carefully thinks through the problems, so I don't see why she thinks she needs to further study these subjects over the summer. Seeing these books on Mary's bed is a wonderful testament to homeschooling, in that she can see for herself weaknesses in her academic skills and is attempting to overcome them on her own.

a little botanical time travel

Last summer when we came up to the farm I happened to notice some very distinct leaves at the edge of the woods. The flowers were nothing but tatters, but I was sure that I recognized what it was. So yesterday I took another walk down in that direction and amazingly found not one, but six red flowered trillium specimens, Trillium erectum, all blooming. At supper I told the children about my high school AP Biology wildflower project and how it had a huge impact on my education. Our class had 6 months (spring starts early in VA) to find, identify, and collect (either by photograph or pressing) as many wildflowers as we could. We could work in pairs or by ourselves and our grade was determined by the number of points we amassed. Each flower was given a different point value based on its commonality/rarity. Most flowers were given a value of 1 point, only a few were given more than a value of 10 points. My score, if I can recall (it was over 20 years ago) was around 730 points. 

The only student to get a higher total was Albert Lin, a brilliant student who scored a perfect 1600 on the SATs and ended up on the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions. (it turns out, after a quick google search, to find that he is now a professor of law at UC Davis.) He took every assignment seriously and I think had some in with the faculty at W&M to get some of the most rare specimens. I certainly don't hold his besting of me against him. But it was clear that I was the one student who was immersed in the project, traveling to various locales around the state, always on the hunt for a flower I didn't yet possess a picture of yet. It was a project that helped shape who I am; a lover of order and collections, a person who loves to be around plants, and someone who notices the details of her surroundings. I still have my 2 massive albums, filled with little more than dust and neatly printed labels and in the front is a blown up picture of my 16 year old self in a hysterically childish yellow slicker and hat on a collecting trip at a local park. 

After supper last night Charlie wanted to see this 50 point flower so I showed him a picture in my Peterson Field Guide, but he said, "I want to see the actual flower!" So, the three little kids and I left the dirty dishes on the counter and tromped around the rapidly growing hay fields to see this:     

It might not mean much to anyone else, but just seeing this flower brought back a flood of memories. This is the kind of experience that I want my children to have by homeschooling, the opportunity to find some subject of study that sparks something inside them that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

this is not acceptable

Not for my children, and it shouldn't be for any American citizen's children. What are public schools doing with children for 6 hours a day, 180 days a year, for 12 years, at $10,000 a year if not teaching them how to READ?

Nearly half of Florida high school students failed the reading portion of the state's new toughened standardized test, education officials said on Friday.
Results this year from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test showed 52 percent of freshman students and 50 percent of sophomores scored at their grade levels.
The results came days after the Florida State Board of Education voted to lower the standards needed to pass the writing part of the test, known as FCAT.
The board took the action in an emergency meeting when preliminary results indicated only about one-third of Florida students would have passed this year.
"We are asking more from our students and teachers than we ever have, and I am proud of their hard work," Florida Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson said in a statement.

Does the Education Commissioner know that 50% is a failing grade? Does he know that these are children who, unless they have fabulous parents who tutor their children at home to relearn the material, are doomed to be trapped for a lifetime in illiteracy and poverty? Does he care? 

Public school and any bureaucracy's fatal flaw is the lack of accountability. Homeschooling is the opposite, parents are completely responsible for their children's education, there is no passing the blame if a child does not master the times tables or learn to read. I am very proud that my children not only know how to read, they love to read and they do it fast. Mary's best friend was amazed that Will and Mary had each read The Hunger Games  in one day, "That would take me at least 2 weeks!" Not only that, but they begged and pleaded and then demanded that I get the next two books in the series. Only after I read the book did I understand their anticipation. It might be dicey as to who gets first dibs, but since I have to drive the car home, my bet is that Mary will get hold of it first.

shortened work day for some

Since Tim had to travel for work a few days this week, I had to pack up the kids and animals to go down to the other house and take Will to school. We also came down for 1st Holy Communion/Confirmation practice and Charlie's 1st penance on Sunday at the Cathedral in Portland on Sunday. I didn't want to haul a bunch of stuff like schoolbooks down so I could stuff as much stuff in the van on the return trip (the more I move now the less I have to pay someones else to move later). 

Each child has 2 subjects and piano to work on; Mary: book report and math, Maggie: math and spelling, Charlie: math and reading, Timmy: phonics and math. They have had many hours of free time the past two days to sleep in, play with the neighbors, and run around outside. I, on the other hand, have been getting up at 5:30am to get Will to school, clean the house, and meet with the realtor. My bribery plan seems to be working, if she keeps working hard for another day Mary will have earned a manicure (the piano teacher demanded that she cut her nails short and after I chopped them off I promised her that when she finished the dreaded book report on St. John Masias she could get her nails "done"). Maggie and Charlie aren't too far behind.  I am looking forward to call Miss Lisa and starting riding lessons for the 3 of them both because it means we will have finished school for the year and so I can talk shop with another serious runner.

Knowing that both girls will be joining their brother at Catholic school in the fall has given me a sense of relief at having my days more free as well as dread that I will have to get up every morning as early as I did today to get them all up and out the door by 7:30. Homeschooling gets harder as the children get older because of the amount of material and the sheer number of children to manage and part of me thinks that I'm somehow "cheating" by sending the oldest away to school. I'll still be teaching the two boys and continuing to introduce a preschooler to letters and numbers so I certainly won't be sitting around doing nothing. Tim keeps telling me how this will be a big change in my life, but one in which I think will be beneficial to us all. I just think I'll have to remind myself of that fact over and over on cold dark Maine winter mornings driving the kids to school.

preparation for life

Every homeschooling family is different, each has their own educational philosophy, but I have always assumed that any mother who takes upon herself the hard task of teaching her children at home has academic excellence as her goal. Yes, not having to rouse children from their beds at 6am to catch the bus is a side benefit, but laziness can not and should not be one's motivator for homeschooling. Ginny Seuffert's latest column in the Seton newsletter reemphasized this to me so much yesterday that I called their counseling department to tell them how much I appreciated her article. It is about tailoring a curriculum and one portion begins,

"Things that are worth doing are often difficult...if a task is difficult and a student rebels against doing the work, the parent can give in because of the complaining. But then the children miss out on some very important lessons. They don't learn to respect and obey their parents, as commanded by God. They don't learn to apply themselves diligently to accomplish a difficult or frustrating task. They develop an incomplete view of the world where they can dictate the terms. Allowing students to direct educational methods can deny them an opportunity to build character."

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed and discouraged by the amount of schoolwork my children are expected to accomplish each year. I also have to ride them to practice the piano every day so they can develop their musical skills. Homeschooling is a sacrifice for mothers who could take the easy way out and put their children on the yellow bus, relax with a cup of coffee before tackling the household chores and some free time with their friends. But most of us who choose to hold our children up to a higher standard of excellence realize what Thomas Alva Edison famously said, "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." One cannot become a concert pianist without thousands of hours of practice. One cannot invent a product that is still used all over the world over 100 years later without a well-trained mind. One cannot become a veterinarian, like Mary hopes to become, without a strong foundation in science and mathematics. We have seen what the low standards in our public schools produce, I want my children to have a world full of opportunity and strong academics is the path to that bright future.  

4 children reading under the covers

I can admit now that I have been very worried about Charlie. He is almost 8 years old, in 2nd grade, and has mightily struggled with reading. I was concerned that he would never catch on. We went through the 1st grade readers last year, story by painful story, sometimes tripping on every word. In September we started the 2nd grade set, only to return to the pre-primer after a month to start all over again. This time around he did better and we are now more than halfway through this year's books. Every story is still a challenge, but the other morning I came upstairs from sewing to overhear Charlie reading (not flawlessly, but giving it his best) a picture book about farm animals to his little brother.

My philosophy has always been to surround the children with books, creating a "print-rich environment" as the experts call it. The result is 10 bookcases of children's books, encompassing everything from board books to Latin for Dummies, a huge collection of classics, and Landmark books, as well as a large selection of non-fiction. We also make frequent trips to many libraries in Maine, owning 5 library cards in various towns. My job of organizing and returning books is worth the exposure to new material. The kids are free to read in bed with flashlights, free to curl up on the sofa reading on rainy afternoons, free to play "library" by stacking books all over my living room on occasion. I don't require a certain amount of  reading time each day, I just tempt them with dramatic read-alouds, filling my tote bag with recommendations from enthusiastic children's librarians, and stocking the coffee table with colorful storybooks.

My goal is to have children who love to read, who understand the power of a great story, and benefit academically and emotionally from voracious reading. If I can keep these children playing outdoors daily, reading each day, and praying every evening then no matter what else happens I'm sure they will turn out all right.