GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING
17 We're putting this issue of GWS together more quickly than usual, partly to get back on schedule for the cale ndar year and partly because we have so much wonderful material that keeps coming in. Things are still busy here. We've been averaging over 60 new subscriptions per week since the end of June (as opposed to 10 per week for the three months before that). Many of these are due to the Mo ther Earth News interview, which still br~ngs us mail. We 're also getting many orders for samples from Nancy Wallace's good article in countr* Journal. Tanks again to our office vo lunt eers, who help us do so much at once. Our new volunteers are Scott Layson, Laur ie Phillips, and Heather Kapplow (8 years old). Some of you have seen the new version of the GWS flyer. One side is the same invoice and "What is Growing Without Schooling? " description as on the previous flyer; the other side is the front page of GWS #15 . I like using the front page of #15 because it shows what GWS looks like, it mentions the Mother Earth News interview and ot her good news, it mentions the co-operating sc hool district in Barnstable MA, and it gives some of the general feel of the magazine . An easy way to bring GWS to t he attention of many people. There was a short interview with me in the Sept . Boston magazine. And Mel Allen of Yankee magazine is put ting together-a-ma}or story that will come out t h is winter. Happ y to hear that GWS readers in two more states are getting together informally: in Pennsylvania, Joe and Lorraine Clark ( see Directory) held an unschooling picnic, and in Maryland, unschoolers have held several meetings and have started a small newsletter (contact Gail Himes or Manfred Smith . ) Attorney Richard M. Borod ( Edward & Angell, #1 Hospital Trust Plaza, Providence RI 02903) sent us a c o py of the R. I. Commissioner of Education's decision concerning the Irving Rot hw ell family of Smit h fie ld. The Commissioner decided that the home-teaching of Mrs . Rothwel l , using Christian Liberty Academy curriculum, complies wit h state law. We plan to quote from the decision in the next issue of GWS. My editor says that my unsc hooling book won ' t be out until next June; t he title should be decided upon by December . --- John Holt
Activities Ofc, 309-438-2151. Oct. 30: Hope College, Holland MI. Contact John Cox, English Dept., 616-392-5111 or 392-2986 . Oct. 31 : Aquinas College, Grand Rapids MI. Lunch & afternoon mtgs. Contact Jim Garofalo, 616-459-8281 ext. 297. Nov . 17: Cedar Rapids, IA . Contact Shannon Haggerson ( IA Director y), 319-462-2119. Nov. 19: Marin Community School, Mill Valley CA. 7:30 pm meeting. Contact Faye Sellin, 415-383-1233. Nov. 20: Des Moines IA CANCELLED Nov. 24-25: University of Redlands, Redlands CA 92373. Contact Jack Wilson, School of Music, 714793-2121. Apr. 24, 1981: Music Educator's Nat 'l Conference, Arena, Minneapolis MN. 11 AM mtg, Mi nneapolis Convention Hall. Contact: Gene Morlan, 1902 Assoc . Dr, Reston VA 22091 .
receive the photocopy whether or not to get in tou ch with the others . .. I ask that people send $2 with their original letter as a kind of "registration fee." Later if they want to get an update of the additional names in an area, I can send that for juct a self-addressed stamped envelope ( SASE ) ...
As we go t o press, the following engagements have not been confirmed. Check with this o ffice or the con tacts listed. Nov. 18 : UC Davis and/or Sacramento State U, CA. Stella Taylor, Rt 1 Box 42F, Winte rs CA 95694. Nov . 19: Sonoma State College, Santa Rosa CA . Ar t Kane, 707-763-9866 or 795-8060. Nov. 20: Santa Cruz CA. George Levenson, 408-426-2134. Nov. 20: Stanford U, CA. Mr. Mitchell Hall, 90A Escondido Village, Stanford 94305. Nov. 21: Redwood Ci t y CA . Mar lene Bumgarner, 408-779-5930. Nov. 21-22: Sa n Francisco CA. Frank For tkamp, 415-433-4316.
Or, "Am Seeking: GARDENING," etc . Only one skill per 3 x 5 card, otherwise rr-will be impossible to organize . Each card must be acompanied by $1 bill or check. We'll inform by card or telephone right away of contacts now in file, plus new ones as they come in . Also do periodic print outs - perhaps include in our Directory, or a separate publication if enough come in to warrant it. We ha ve a colony here now with enough manpower t o handle it.
LEARNING EXCHANGE NEWS
As we go to press, we ' ve received three offers t o run a Learning Exchange (see GWS #16. ) We won't be surprised if a few more offe r s come in . We tend to fee l, l et them all start up - the more the merrier. The y can all call themselves "GWS Learning Exchanges" if they want, or make up their own names; they can work out for themselves how to organize and whethe r to charge for the service . Perhaps people will wan t to use the Exc h a nge c l osest to them, perhaps not. These Exchanges may decide to merge with each other, or split up into even smaller ones - anything can happen.
We next heard from Norm and Sherrie Lee of Homesteaders News, PO Box 193, Addison NY 14801: .. . We already have experience with this sort of thing with our "Homesteaders' Directory." We ask that each send a 3 x 5 card in this form: Will Share : GARDENING Name Address Phone
Zip Code
Third was Shelley Dameron in North Carolina: ... Announcing the start of the Knowledge Bank. Based on the Learning Exchange, it is a list of those who seek and those who know. Persons may send a l ist of things they know about or are skilled at (from Puppy Training to Astronomy) to: The Knowledge Bank, PO Box 1568, Boone NC 28607. Requests for th e addresses of those in the know mus t be accompanied by a SASE. No fees - thanks to our home computer , this should be fairly easy. I 'm glad to offer this service to un schoolers (a nd anyone else') Good luck to all these people ; we hope they keep us informed as to how things go. And we 'll be happy to announce more Learning Exchanges. ANNE SULLIVAN
First to respond was Nancy Plent, 2 Smith St, Farmingdale NJ 07727 :
From the l etters of Anne Sul l i van, prin te d in the back of Helen Keller's THE STORY OF MY LIFE:
COMING LECTURES
would love to do the " GWS Learning Exchange " you mention. We have started one here in New Jersey, but it would be grea t to reach al l of GWS readers. We have a good voluntee r group and the use of a computer if things get out of hand ... The idea fits in well with my thoughts l ately . Want to start dOin~ this new world we're after ins tea of just talk' Instead of filing people as "Seekers" or " Sharers," I wo uld rather put together all the names and addresses of people inte r ested in a certain field - " Photogr aphy, " "Computers," etc . Each person should include a short description of their degree of interest or involvement;
Oct. 29: Illinois State Univ . , Normal IL . Aft . meeting, 8 PM lecture. Contact: Tony Chambers, Student
experience ." Then I can make a photo copy of all the cards on a particular topic, and it's up to the people who
... No, I don 't want any more kindergarten materials . I used my little stock of beads, cards, and straws at first be cause I didn't kn ow what e l se to do; but the need for them is past, for the present at any rate. I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is an idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child is left to h imsel f , he will think more and better, i f less shOWi ly . Let him come and go freely, let him t ouc h real things and combine his impressions for h imself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that h e build a stone wall wit h his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of co l ored paper, or plant
for example, "beginner," or " 5 years
2 straw trees in bead flower-pots ... Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the c h ild ca n develop independent ideas out of actual experiences ...
YOUNG WRITER'S SUCCESS On page one of GWS #15 we printed a letter from Pat Stone of Mot h er Earth News saying that they were very Interested in carrying some stories written by children for children, "of a practical how-to nature . " Now Nancy Wallace (NH) tells us: ... Wanted to let you know the exciting news. Mot h er Eart h News h as accepted an artlcle by Ishmael called, "How to Build a Raft," and they sent him a check for $80' Ishmael was flabbergasted. We immediately went to the bank where he opened a savings account ... The article should appear next summer ... Congratulations, Ishmael; I hope many others will follow your good example, and with equally happy results.
REPORT FROM NEBRASKA A Nebraska reader writes : . .. GWS has been an immense help to me since receiving Issues 1-12 last January. I wrote to you last fall and again in January, looking for moral support in my attempts at home education for our children . Your personal replies to my letters and the information in four of your books that I ordered have been invaluable to me. I was disenchanted with Calvert's courses and was just beginning what I thought was a good experience with [a Christian correspondence school) when I wrote to you. One of my statements to you then was that I was delighted that these new lessons were "really teaching our children how to think." You surely must have raised your eyes heavenward at that comment as I do now in looking back on it . After about three months with these courses I threw in the towel and opted for letting the kids help their Papa and me dig out the basement rather than battle for 6-8 hours a day on lessons that they hated and I found an increasing aversion to. We haven ' t sat down to a formalized lesson since then and are all a much happier family for it. There is never a dull moment in our children's days and I never cease to be amazed at how "educational" their games usually are. My occasional feelings of guilt are always salved by reading (or rereading) past articles in GWS, and the feeling that you and other non-schoolers like myself would probably feel I am on the right track. Our nine year old son had always posed problems for me in my attempts to educate him according to the books. On the other hand, his abilities to operate and work on our farm machinery were years beyond what most children his age could do . My husband always gave him whatever help he needed but never lectured him on being careful and seldom gave him more than minimal instructions. This learning on his own worked far better than my teaching ever did. Creating a similar atmosphere here at home for him has
proven to be successful and I'm now looking forward to many pleasant years of learning with the children, not just from 9-5 our-24 hours a day. . . . 1 have not asked that our names be added to the GWS directory because so far we have had very little trouble with the authorities and have come to the conclusion that not advertising our feelings is the best way to avoid trouble, at least for the present . I think in many instances the authorities would prefer to ignore non-schoolers but are almost forced to action because of the "flag waving" done by some non-schooling parents . We had little trouble here until others using these Christian courses began harping about the immorality, etc . , in the local public schools, and thumbed their noses at the school superintendent. Our desire is not to be lumped together with anyone but simply be left alone to do what we feel is right for our family. On the other hand, it has been wonderful to read in GWS the experiences of others in situations like ours and to be able to gain from their mistakes and triumphs as well as by my own . What I'm trying to say is that I feel like a traitor for not being listed in the Directory, but feel it ' s best for us presently to keep a low profile. If you ever feel any of my comments might help others I wouldn ' t object to having them repeated in GWS or elsewhere but I ' d pre~er simply being known as "a reader . ... In my reply, I wrote: . .. 1 think you are 100% right about not inflaming the authorities and instead keeping a low profile. ... Please don't even for a second think of yourself as any kind of traitor for not listing yourself in the Directory. You are already helping the unschooling movement just by the fact of teaching your own children, and even more by writing us such good letters about what you are doing. Don't think about making yourselves publicly visible until you feel absolutely confident about the local school situation ...
GOOD NEWS FROM MISS. A Missippi reader writes: . . . Perhaps other people have already told you about Mississippi, but in case they haven't, I will. For many years there wasn't a compulsory education law. We came here at that time (1974) with our children . . . . A couple of years ago a compulsory education law was passed. . .. The secretary of our local superintendent of education told me a few weeks ago that the compulsory education law isn ' t enforced anywhere in the state . I have no idea what it would be like to live in other parts of the state, but we like it here. We've never had any confrontations with school officials. We just live our lives in peace going where we please, when we please, as our interests and finances allow. From time to time certain people will question us about why our children aren't in school. We explain, and always, so far, that has been the end of the matter. This is a poor area. It is actually in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It is hilly and wooded and pleasant in a way of its own.
We were afraid there would be a lot of racial problems, but so far we haven't observed anything major. As a matter of fact I've never witnessed anything minor either . What I've been trying to tell you in this letter (which has become much longer than I intended) is that this has been a good place for us, and it might be just the place some other unschoolers have been looking for . . .
SCHOOL IN FLA. A reader writes : ... A group of parents here in Highlands County are operating under Florida Law 623, "Private School Corporation Law," each teaching their own children. About eight Or ten counties in Florida that we know of have private schools formed by parents to teach their own children. Our school was formed three years ago by one family and called the American Heritage Private School of Highlands County . This couple serves as principal and administrator and each parent is certified as an instructor by the school. We started teaching our kids last year, and while it requires a lot of effort and self discipline, we feel that the kids are better off for it ...
CREDENTIAL PROGRAM My good friend Eleanor Siegl, who runs the alternative "Little School" in Seattle, reminded me the other day that her school offers a teaching credential program. Because the program is affiliated with Pacific Oaks College in California, student teachers can work toward a Calif. and/or Wash. certificate. Unschoolers who have decided they want to get a teaching credential (and who have, or will have, a bachelor's degree) might find this an enjoyable way to earn one . For more information, contact Eleanor at 2706 10th St E., Seattle WA 98102; 206827-8708.
LIVE-IN BABYSITTER In "Live-In Teenagers," (GWS #15, p.2) Sandy Sapello wrote about having found live-in babysitters for her children, and how helpful they had been to her. A friend of mine, Sylvia Zwick (Box 123, Shrub Oak NY 10588), who has recently graduated from high school and who has been a GWS reader from the start, just wrote me that she would like very much to be a live-in babysitter for a while in a family with young children. Any interested families might write to her directly. May I suggest also that any families who would like to find live-in babysitters, or any other people who would like to be live-in babysitters, write to us . We will help you get in touch with each other.
KIDS EXCHANGE? A reader writes: ... As I was reading GWS, an idea formulated itself, mostly from the article about the father putting up an ad at the ski resorts for employment for his son [GWS #12). Why don't we have a "student" exchange program
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #17
3 among GWS people? Families that live by the ocean may want their children to have access to the mountains, or families with farms could take a teenager in for the summer to help with the chores, etc . We could use GWS as the advertising medium since the families involved would want to share the same ideals ...
MORE CHEAP TEXTS Nancy C. Fletcher, Roseland Research Library, PO Box 356, Roseland FL 32957, writes : ... We have a great quantity of used textbooks for grades K-12 which we obtained at auction from the local school system . Some are rather antiquated "Alice and Jerry " type readers but most are fairly recent - no doubt State directives called for a new publishing house and these books had to be disposed of in the quickest manner possible. The high school texts include such subjects as drafting, metalworking, and journalism . We would be happy to get these books into the hands of people that can use them. Our only quandary is how to cover the costs of handling and shipping . On an individual basis we could probably fill requests at $1.50 per book. On a quantity basis we would @ntertain any offers ...
LEGAL INFO RESOURCE A reader writes: ... 1 discovered last week that the League of Women Voters in Pennsylvania (and probably other states too) runs a " Legislative Information Center" with a toll-free number ( in Pa., 800-692-7281). I called them last week and received in the mail today eight pages of copies of Pennsylvania school law . I am sending the League a donation ...
MORE FROM MINNESOTA From John Eidsmoe, the attorney in the recent important homeschooling case in Minnesota (GWS #16): ... 1 did not really expect the court to rule the Minnesota statute unconstitutional for vagueness, although I personally believe it is unconstitutionally vague. My reason for requesting this was to enable the judge to rule in our favor on the k~y point - constitutional exemption for the Lundstens - while appearing to take a middle-of-the-road position, An examination of the decision would indicate that, on the surface, we lost four out of five issues; but we won the one we really wanted. PsychGlogically, I believe a judge is more likely to rule in our favor if he can do so without having to appear to be totally against the educational bureaucracy . . . . In this past session the Minnesota legislature decided to leave the Minnesota statute as it is for the time being [See "Minn. Testimony, " GWS #13]. The primary reason, I am told by friends in the legislature, is that while nearly everyone wanted the law changed, there was about an even division between those who wanted to allow more freedom for private schools (primarily conservatives) and those who wanted to clamp down on private schools. Both sides apparently decided they did not want
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #17
to risk a showdown at the present time ...
RENEWALS If your subscription expires with GWS #18, this is your last chance to get the Early Renewal Bonus. If we r eceive your check or money order before we send #18 to the mailing house (probably mid-December), we will extend your sub for one extra issue. Remember also that we witl have to raise our rates after #18 comes out, so save by acting now. A reader writes: " Still can't figure out when my subscription ends . I know the numbers on my label are a clue." Yes, indeed they are . The lpst two digits on the line below your name tell the number of~issue with which the sub expires . If that number is 18 (or 17'), it's time to renew. $10 for 6 issues, $18 for 12 issues, or $24 for 18 issues. For the curious, the 4- or 5-digit number above your name is your account number at the mailing house. The other numbers tell us how many copies of each issue you receive (lX, 2X, etc), and in some cases, which issue you started with . If you're in a group subscription, you'll have to find out from the group person when the sub expires. Also, if you have had a GWS subscription under your own name, and later become part of a group subscription under someone el~e's name, we'd be grateful if you'd let us know. Sometimes I look through our expired list, qnd see the name of a subscri ber who I know has enjoyed GWS and perhaps written us many good letters, and I worry a little about h aving lost an old friend. Just a word from you will relieve my mind . From our latest mailing list I see that of the people who h ave ever been GWS subscribers, a little over half still are. People with experience in magazines tell us that is very g09d. Perhaps so. But I worry a little about all the people who stopped subscribing without telling us why . So if there are things in GWS that you do not like, or if there are things not in it that you would like to see in, please tell us, whil e still a subscriber. We won 't promise to change, but we certainly will give (as we always have given) serious thought to anything you may suggest. Please let us hear from you. By ~he way, sometimes people say, "I've lent out all my back issues of GWS and don't have any left." \vhy not bump your sub to a 2X or 3X sub - then you'll have extra copies to lend. And they'll only cost you 33¢ a copy. For so much material, hard to find ' elsewhere, a bargain.
GOOD NEW§? FROM PA. From a Pennsylvania reader: ... 1 would like to share our first year's experiences at home schooling with you . ... We have good relations with the Superintendent of Schools for our district . We hesitate to ask him yet about being listed in GWS since he is considered a radical and has many enemies in our community. When the opportunity seems right, though, I will ask his permission. I do not wish to jeopardize in any way our chances of home-schooling, or the chances of any others who may want to in the future. I know you understand
this.
We have been approached by approximately five families who want to home-school. We have been able to givg them the legal boundaries and how we accomplished it, so we feel that we have in a small way been able to open the door for other interested families in our community. We have two sons, 11 and 9. I was a tutor for four years in our local Christian day schools. We are born-again believers . Though I felt the Christian schools were better than our public schools, my heart would ache as I'd watch the children (including my own) grow tired and paler in color as 3 o ' clock neared, only to go home and h ave several hours of homework to do, then maybe a little play time, then bed, with dinner hastily gulped down somewh ere in between. The days were almost always the same, and I found myself looking forward to the vacations as much as the children. It was our only break and free time, at least until the higher level grades when term papers would be assigned for vacations. I resigned myself to the plight of them doing these things for twelve years, wishing there was a way out . .. . Deep inside I felt we should be doing more to free their minds, and that whatever wonderful experiences we could let happen, we should. But where was the time? How would we ever be able to do what we wanted and still get "educated" as ilie world demanded? -------Well, the answers started coming fast . I was getting desperate inside, and I asked our Lord to step in and show us the way. It was scriptural to teach our children at home, and unless the Lord had some fantastic reason for having our children suffer in the schools, I knew He would help us . ... Solar Energy Digest had a tiny notat~on about GWS ... We subscribed and found we were agreeing with many of the premises set down ... Our favorite bookstore had HOW CHILDREN FAIL, INSTEAD OF EDUCATION, and EDUCATION AND ECSTASY ... Our whole outlook on schooling started changing dramatically. ... 1 looked in the laws I had around, from trying unsuccessfully to start a school of my own several years before, and found one that fit our family . . . . The law said that children could be taken out of the publiC schools of Pa. if they had a properly qualified tutor approved by the District Superintendent of Schools . As a certified teacher I was qualified; now to be approved . The next step was to contact the District Superintendent . .. He said it was a fine idea, arranged an appointment to meet the boys and me, looked over my certificate, and told me that it was all right for us to tutor the boys; but, what he wanted was a written program of what I would be doing during the year, what curriculum I would be using ( they let me use the Christian curriculum I liked), and he set up another appointment . .. I did what he asked, and when we met about a week later, he dictated his letter in our presence, wished us luck, and two days later, our typed, signed letter of approval was in our mail. Praise the Lord! . .. The Superintendent had one apprehension in letting us do this . The boys might miss out socially and become introverts. So we assured him that we would do our best to give them contact socially. And what a social year it was'
4 Some of the children the boys knew would call and invite them to participate in the activities at the church and school. Some would invite them overnight, and we'd have them overnight, too. Some of the school children really missed seeing the boys, and the boys missed seeing them, but that was basically all the social life they had in school . There was no talking in the classroom, the hall, when going to the bathroom, getting a drink, or at lunch until they were completely finished eating; the morning recess of 15 minutes was for a planned exercise program with no talking. So the only "social" life they had in school was after gulping down lunch, and the 20 minute recess in the afternoon . So with our homeschooling, the boys had more "social" time with the children than they ever had in school (I know because I was at school daily helping to keep order. ) .. . We had one problem during the year and that was finding a routine that suited all of us . . . . At first we tried to work all together, each son working on his grade level, but both working on the same subject. This didn't work for us . ... Finally, we settled in on a one-day, one child routine. One day I would teach John all his subjects, while Jim was responsible to read and match his spelling words. He could do the reading and spelling at any time of the day or evening; the rest of the time he could play and do what he wanted . The next day I would work with Jim, and John would be free. They really liked this, and since they enjoy reading and spelling, this was no burden to them. ... We started our day around 9 a.m., since that was when we all were finally up and finished with breakfast. It would take us about three hours to do the day ' s work, and the rest of the day the boys were free. Some days we took off completely to go places of interest to them, such as playing in the local p~ going to a peanut-butter factory nearby, and visiting McDonalds for a tour and some goodies. Since we considered life to be learning, and learning life, school was always in and always out. It was great' We did not work at a table or desk, we bought each of them a note book and we sat on the sofa together and held our books on our laps. It is wonderful to be able to sit next to your own child and touch arms and h ug if you want or wrestle and still get work done. We could yell and cry and laugh; we could read with the most ridiculous expressions whenever we wanted, and no one cared' The only commitments we had with the school district was to meet with the superintendent in the middle of the year, so he could see how we were doing, and then to have the boys tested again in May. We agreed . They did very well on the tests again this year, and the superintendent was very pleased with what the boys knew and how poised they were as he conversed with them. My sons were relaxed all year, and were free from any illnesses . In school they averaged 14 days a marking period sick, and I didn't do much better . I got sick twice t h is year, but they did not. The only time they remarked about even a belly-ache was when we had to go back to school in May for the standardized tests . ... We applied again this year for home-schooling, and received our letter of approval in July. It was a
great year of mixed, fantastic experiences, and I cannot stand the thought of ever sending them back to that race unless they would choose to go . ..
UPDATE FROM CANADA Freda Lynn Davies of Ontario (GWS #13) writes: . .. Kevin (9) and I went to Europe for 5 weeks in April and May, travelling mainly by train and finding accommodation in hostels and private houses. Kevin was the official photographer and he seemed pretty pleased with the results. I certainly get so involved observing the surroundings that I forget to take pictures and afterwards wish that I had some to look at. You may remember that Kevin had in his three school years developed a strong aversion to anything connected with the 3 Rs and would state flatly that he couldn't read, as if that were the end of the matter. For most of his first year out of school I rarely asked him to read. When I did, he would try a few words, then get impatient, lose interest, clam up, and stomp off. He also seemed too proud to ask for or accept help, and absolutely hated being "taught." So I let the matter rest for many months, though I continued to read to him. I can't imagine many educators who would approve of that tactic. By late April almost a year had passed from the day I had informed Kevin's teacher I would no longer be sending him to school. We were in a crowded Paris railway station (Care de Lyon) late in the evening preparing to board an overnight train to Marseilles. Both of us were tired after a long day of sightseeing, and I think Kevin was a little perturbed by his first full day of total immersion in foreign sounds. We spied a small section of English language paperbacks at a newsstand, and he immediately pounced on a couple of them, each with about 120 pages of Peanuts cartoons. In the next few days I read them to him 3 or 4 times, and then suddenly he started reading them aloud page after page non-stop, including the big words like "opthamologist " and "impregnable." Later in Copenhagen we picked up another one, and the same thing happened. He kept reading t h em over and over, obviously enjoying the sounds emanating from his own mouth, as he steadily improved his pronunciation and dramatization. It's curious that all this happened in foreign countries . It was as if Kevin were homesick for his own language and culture, and was seeking ways of hanging onto them . It makes me wonder if he and many others have been stuffed with too much language words, words, words, - from television, teachers, and parents, and need a relative scarcity of it in order to develop a hunger for it. ... After the big binge in Europe, we have been living a very quiet, poorer but richer life, with the woods, lakes, and hills of northwestern Ontario outside our back door . . .. The local public school people have been very cooperative and understanding since learning of Kevin's out - of-school learning activities . . .. The regional supe r visor that I visited in June tried to encourage me to enroll Kevin in school, but told me there was no need to obtain board approval for educating a child outside the system. I wonder if this
stance is now the official one in Ontario since the ruling in Lambton County (GWS #13). Kevin has been getting a little itchy to find some friends, and though he doesn't want the "teacher" part of school, he does want some of the recreational and social parts. After my experience in Winnipeg, and after hearing of the experiences of other parents with many schools, my expectations weren't very high when I requested the local principal to consider allowing Kevin to visit the school from time to time. I'm not sure if I looked bug-eyed with my jaw touching my toenails, or not, but I was certainly happily astonished that he had no objection whatsoever . Kevin and I have met with one of the teachers who seems to have one of those pleasant isolated islands of comfort within the system. He teaches mainly six year olds, but has agreed to have Kevin visit his class, probably for the first time next week ...
TEACHING THEMSELVES From Carrie Smith (VT): ... 1 forgot to report that our pre-schoolers are doing so great without any FORMAL teaching' Rebecca (5), who had been expected, though not legally compelled to attend kindergarten, is teaching herself to read. Oh, I know I have read about this, and what happens with others, but it's very exciting to watch it happening' It's left up to HER (I didn't even think up her ideas, etc., or ask her to do it; she just started on her own) and SHE has just started picking out words, or asking us what they are. We have one book on nature that shows everything - all kinds of animals, flowers, fish, dogs, etc. It gives the name under it, and a description . She got into this book, and started guessing at the names, going by the picture of it, and also the first letter of the word naming it. She has also picked out words from the Dr . Seuss books, and sometimes finds the same words in ANOTHER BOOK (which thrills her') One word she knows is "zoo." We get a box of library books every two weeks, for us all, right down to the 2 year old, who picks out her own books (and isn't restricted to any special age limit to subject, etc.) She likes the Ran,er Rick nature magazines [see GWS #16 and we tell her the names of everything . . .
MORE BABIES ON THE JOB From a Chicago suburban paper: ... To Patty Stockdreher, the baby [son Lake] presented a common choice for mothers - stop working or pay for baby sitters. She asked her husband, Don, if he would work nights and mind Lake by day. "He wasn't too keen on it," Patty said. So she decided to stay home for three months. After six weeks, Pamela Chernivsky, a La Leche League member, told Patty of a job at Jim Stark's Dexter Machine Company. Stockdreher called Stark for an interview. He told her to bring the baby. He asked if she had a sitter and she said she didn ' t. For Patty's first three days of work, Lake stayed with the wife of another Dexter worker. Bored her, too. The woman told Stockdreher the child was quiet enough to stay at
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5 work with her. . .. So now Lake spends his working hours in a crib beneath the "Tubing Rod and Bar Pipe" calendar ... Or he rests in his mother's arm while she pecks at the adding machine or phones clients, who sometimes ask her, "Hey, do I hear a kid in the background?" "I was a little worried," Stockdreher says. "When Lake does get rowdy I get flustered. But he's pretty content. He isn't confined much. If you're at home with a baby you have to watch him there, too. It isn't like you can relax and read a book." "Who am I to deprive a baby of its mother?" Jim Stark asked. "It's perfectly natural for Lake to be here as far as I'm concerned. It's sort of a constant reminder of what the hell the world is all about. We get so wrapped up in making money that so often we lose perspective on why we are working . The baby presents the brightness of the future." Once each morning, Lake gets his feeding behind a file cabinet. Lil Koldowski, the receptionist, lullabies him and Norma Frederick visits daily from the machine shop. Nobody has anything but dandy things to say about Lake, although the standard line holds it will be "interesting" when he starts crawling. "He's a nice baby," Koldowski said. "I feel like his grandmother." "Very contented," Stark said. "He doesn't cry like a bottle-fed baby." He wailed only once, Stark added, on the day the Internal Revenue Service auditors arrived ... The Sept . 22 Boston Globe ran a story saying that Joan Lunden, cohost of the ABC-TV show "Good Morning America," demanded and won the right to take her ten-week-old daughter to the office with her, and has it written into her contract that the baby will go with her on all her assignments. Of course, the studio provides a nurse, and they don't make such arrangements for their ordinary help. But it's a good step, and congratulations to Joan Lunden for keeping her ba by with her .
THE PROCESS OF WORK A friend told me that her son, going on four, who had been very happy at his nursery school, was beginning to get a little bored and dissatisfied with it. She said she thought perhaps he might be ready for more "structure . " I wrote in reply: ... My feeling is that E, like all bright and happy little children, is strongly pulled in the direction of adults and their understanding, competence, and skill, and may find it boring or frustrating to have to spend so much time with little folks who don't know any more and can't do any more than himself. I take it that this is close to what you have in mind when you say he needs more structure. I tend to avoid that term, since almost all who use it mean by it only one thing - some adult standing over the child telling him what to do and making sure he does it. What E may need to be introduced to are more tasks and activities that take more time, concentrati o n, effort, and skill. This isn't a matter of "giving" him harder tasks and making him stick at them until they are finished. In such situations the controlling factor is the will of the
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adult, not, as it should be, the re quirements of the task. It would help if E and other kids his age could see older children choosing and undertaking various tasks and working on them over a period of time until they were completed. Children need to get some sense of the processes by which good work is done. The only way they can learn how much time and effort it takes to build, say, a table, is to be able to see someone building a table, from start to finish. Or painting a picture. Or repairing a bicycle, or writing a story, or whatever i t may be. At the Ny Lille Skole in Denmark the six adult "teachers" had all done many kinds of work before they began teaching, and all brought to the school a number of visible and interesting skills. One woman was a good musician and dancer, another a skilled weaver, several of the men were good at working with tools in both wood and metal. One teacher was actually making himself a bass viol at the school. It took a long time; it was a serious instrument. Some of the older kids worked with him on the project; younger kids hung around, helped a little, asked questions; still younger children watched less attentively, for shorter stretches of time. But even the youngest children were aware of that project going on, and kept track of its progress. Children need to see things done well. Cooking, and especially baking, where things change their texture and shape (and taste yummy), are skills that children might like to take part in. Typing might be another, printing still another, and either or both of these could be added to bookmaking and bookbinding. These are crafts that children could take part in from beginning to end. Skilled drawing and painting, or woodworking, might be others. Adults must use the skills they have where children can see them. If they have no skills to speak of, they should learn some, and let the children see them learning, even if only as simple a thing as touch typing. They should invite children to join them in using these skills. What we want to see is children being slowly drawn, at higher and higher levels of energy, commitment, and skill, into more and more serious and worthwhile adult activities. In this connection, your own work as writers, though perhaps less easy for E to understand than the work of a carpenter or farmer, may be less opaque and meaningless than you think. Your work is a process that takes place in time. You begin (if you work like me) with raw materials and scraps of notes, write rough drafts, correct them, change them, finally produce a smooth draft, turn this over to someone else for further editing, see it go into galleys or some kind of proof sheets and eventually find its way into the finished newspaper or magazine. Even if what you write about might not make much sense to E~will surely be interested in many of the things you actually do. Thus, at every stage of the process outlined above, you might show him what you have done and talk a little (as much as he wants) about what you are going to do next, and why. In the end, you could show him your articles when they finally get into print. You might even keep all your notes and rough drafts for a particular article, and on a big piece of cardboard paste up an exhibit showing everything from first steps to
final product. This would also be an easy and interesting thing to do in schools; it would show students what none of them now know or could imagine, the amount of work that goes into serious writing. It is this sense of process over time that children want and need to learn about, and much of this is visible in your own work . And even if you can ' t show him the shop where your own articles are printed, you can show him places where some stuff is printed. Even a small OffSet press would be quite fascinating to a small child, the noise, all those things going round and round, the paper flying out with stuff printed on it. A mystery' But he would see that a grown-up understands it and controls it, and think that maybe someday, if he wanted, he could too. And he would know that you were not, because you thought he was small and stupid, excluding him from a central part of your life.
SCHOOL IN MO. From a mother in Kansas City: . .. Good news' I've found a school here, "Jonathan's Place," which has agreed (with enthusiasm') to a program whereby John (who is now nine) will attend school one week a month and "study independently" the other three weeks . . . . The people at Jonathan's Place, Pat and Marshall Martin (4301 Harrison, Kansas City MO 64110; 753-5392) have given me permission to tell you that they would be willing to talk to other families who might be interested in working out programs similar to ours. They would, of course, want to evaluate each individual situation, but they seem very willing to explore all kinds of new ideas . . . . John will also be able to go on any field trips he would like during the other three weeks - and they take many ...
ON ALTERNA TIVE SCHOOLS Fernando Gonzalez and Mary Classen in California asked me to write something about alternative schooling for a book they are doing. I wrote in part: . .. 1 want to do away with the idea of compulsory learning, and the idea that learning is and should be separate from the rest of life. Above all, I want to break down the barriers that separate children from adults and their work and concerns. Most alternative schools meet my objections to only one of these three basically wrong ideas, the idea of compulsory learning. Many do not even do that; t hey are just a little more subtle than regular schools in the ways in which they tell children what to learn and try to make them learn it. And they leave untouched the great isolation between learning and serious work, or other parts of life, and between children and adults. It's OK to have some special places for kids, since they have certain needs that in some respect are different from the needs of adults. At different ages they need different kinds of places to play, to run around, to make noise, to learn certain physical skills, and to mingle with each other. But they should not have to spend all their time in those special kid places. The adult world should be as far as possible open to