GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING
29 We're in the middle of moving again' An office suite on the third floor of our building became avail able, and because we are jammed to overflowing in our current space, we decided to take it. The new place has more than twice as much room, and it will be a tight squeeze on our bud get, but as John says, this may be our only chance to get more space without changing mailing addresses again. John is away right now on a week-long lecture trip to Arizona and Colorado. In the last two months, he has had more time than usual to work on stories for GWS. He has also done quite a few more radio phone inter views: New Orleans, Pinellas Park FL, Columbus OH, Boston, Madison WI, Sas katoon, New York City, Phoenix, and Grand Junction CO. He reports that the August home-schooling meetings in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Baton Rouge were very successful and en thusiastic. He has also gone to an un schoolers ' picnic in Salem, Mass; spent a "Cello Weekend" at Apple Hill in New Hampshire; and visited for several days in Maine with George and Mabel Dennison and the apple-picking crew of Arthur Harvey and Elizabeth Gravelos . In GWS #24, we asked if anyone would be interested in helping us out in the office if we could find a place for them to stay. The first to take us up on that was Phil Bradshaw, age 24, from Minneapolis, who came for three weeks in August. We surely appreciate all the help we can get; there is simply much more work to do around here than there are people to do it. We mentioned before that Yankee magazine published an excellenr-DIO= graphical article on John, with a mag nificent color photo of John and Vita Wallace (age 5) playing cello and vio lin together . We have extra copies of the article here, which we will be happy to make available for $1 each. The Education Network conference we mentioned in the last issue, which was inviting children's artwork for a special show, has been postponed until the spring of 1983. I don't know what this means in regard to sub mitting entries; it might be wise for you to check with them before sending anything in. --- Donna Richoux JOHN' S COMING SCHEDULE Oct 13, 1982: Lect·ure meeting arranged by Theo Giesy, Norfolk VA; 804-625-7558 . Oct 16: Maryland home-schoolers. Contact Manfred Smith, 9085 Flamepool Way, Columbia MD 21045. Oct 17: Conference on children, Kingston NY. Contact Dr. George wootan, 914-331-4075.
Oct 19: "Fate of the Earth" con ference, New York City. Contact Friends of the Earth, 212-675-5911. Oct 27: Universal Education Con ference, Pisa, Italy. Contact Connie Miller, phone 050-68976-68894 (date change) . Nov 4: NY State Reading Associ ation Conf., Kiamesha Lake NY. Con tact Jean Burns, 518-463-0025 or 434-1960. Nov 17: San Bernardino Valley Community College, San Bernardino CA. Contact Jack Mitchell, 885-0231. Nov 18: University of California at Riverside. Contact Jim Dillon, 714-787-5228. Please write to me directly for information on meetings and lectures. Peggy Durkee N.H. SUPREME COU RT RU LI NG From the Valley News (NH), 9/3/82: . . . The New Hampshire Supreme Court has sided with the parents of nine-year-old Justin Rice in their two and a half year struggle for the right to educate him at home. ... Attorney Robert Larsen represented the Rices on behalf of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union. Part of his argument was that the Rices' rights to "due process" were denied because neither the state nor the local board gave them written explanations of the shortcomings of their application. The court agreed that due pro cess was denied. But three of the five justices confirmed the right of school boards to deny applications for home study if a "manifest hard ship" is not shown. And the majority agreed that the Rices' 1980 appli cation did not show that Justin would receive "special benefits" from home study, as required by state regu lations. "There's a little bit in this decision for everyone," said attorney Larsen after yesterday's ruling. "Overall, I think it's a very good decision for home schoolers in New Hampshire, even though the majority took a somewhat conservative pose." Larsen said the decision touched on three points that he felt favored home schooling. "First, the Supreme Court agreed that home education is permissible in New Hampshire and that parents can educate a child at home not only when the child has some (emotional or physical) difficulty, but when the parents can set up a pro gram that offers special benefits." "The second point is that the court reaffirmed the working relation ship between local school boards and applicants" to make a home schooling project work. The third point in favor of home education is the dissenting opinion [DR: Actually a separate concurring opinion] written by Justices David Brock and Charles Douglas. "It's very, very supportive of home edu cation," Larsen said, "This is some
of the most positive language I've ever read in a judicial decision." ... Douglas said, "Home education is an enduring American tradition and right, having produced such notables as Abraham Lincoln (one year of schooling); Woodrow Wilson (little schooling prior to college); and Thomas Edison (basically taught at home by his mother)." While the state may adopt a pol icy of requiring the education of children, Douglas wrote, "it does not
have the unlimited power to require they be educated in a certain way at a certain place." About 10,000 children now are being taught at home in the country, Douglas wrote, pointing out that recently "our neighboring state of Vermont held that requiring a child to attend public school or else be receiving an 'equivalent education' could not be read to require that attendance be exclusively confined to 'approved schools. '" It took the court six months to reach and publish its decision on the case . In the meantime, the Claremont School Board was forced to make a decision on the Rice application for the coming school year . On Aug . 11, the board reversed its previous stands and approved the application. "When we won at the local board it was like something was still miss ing," Mr. Rice said yesterday. "When this happened, it was like the miss ing link was fit into place." ... TRAVELLING THROUGH EUROPE From Art Horovitch in Alberta: . .. We have spent the last ten months on an extended vacation, as ra1·t of a "sabbatical year" arrange m ~t from my job as a high school tea c her ... Our two daughters, Vivian (12) and Debbie (8), were somewhat apprehensive when we first discussed the idea of spending some time on an Israeli kibbutz, fol l owed by several months of travel through Europe. Vivian, by the way, has been home schooling for almost two years now, and enjoys it immensely in contrast to the hassles of attending the local school. ... On the plane from Haifa to Athens, I taught the kids the Greek alphabet and what each letter sounded like. They were soon busy trying to pronounce every Greek word they saw, even though the meaning often eluded us. We did find that many English words have a Greek base, so if you use the English word with a slight variation, you may be understood. The kids learned to count up to twenty and beyond, and would often listen for prices in stores or restau rants. This became an ongoing project for Vivian who learned to count to twenty in Hebrew, Greek, Italian, Spa nish, and French . .. . Vivian was the official "geo grapher" for our trip, drawing a map of each new country as we entered it, and marking our path with dates, as we wandered from one small town to the next. Both Vivian and Debbie delighted in making currency exchanges . Debbie liked Greece, where the rate was about 50 drachmas to the dollar. I told her to divide by 50 to get the price in dollars, but she had her own way of doing it - mUltiply by 2 and move the decimal. She found this much easier .. . Italian conversion was much easier with a rate of 1000 lire to $1. We just omitted the word "thou sand" to get the value in dollars . Both kids learned comparison shopping and how to live within a bud get. Debbie saw a doll near the Coli seum in Rome at a cost of about $4. Further down the road, the same item was $3 and at the large market where most of the locals shop it was only $2 . 50. We felt it was very important to give each of them a certain amount of money to spend as they wished, all the while encouraging them to think of the othe¥ countries we would be go
2 ing through where they would want other souvenirs. Debbie went a bit overboard at first, but was "saved " when Granny sent her a $10 money order for her birthday. As we drove through southern Greece and Crete, both kids read about ancient Greek gods, learned to identify styles of architecture, and developed a large vocabulary related to archaeology. It was not unusual to hear Debbie using words like Acropo lis, Olympian, pre-history, and Knos sos in everyday conversation and un derstanding what they meant, because we had actually seen the ruins (often reconstructed) and walked through them and touched them. One of the highlights of Greece was running the "marathon" at the large race track at Delphi . It gave us all such a sense of history, and was, of course, just done for the fun of it . Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the trip was being able to meet and live with local families for sev eral days at a time through an organi zation called SERVAS [see GWS #28J . It is a travellers' organization whose members receive lists of people in each country who are ready to act as hosts. There is often a valuable exch ange of ideas between hosts and travellers, and you can really reach a better understanding of how other people live and think, what dislikes and likes are, and how they view us as North Americans. Many hosts are teachers, and I can remember some long discussions about education ... Some were astounded to t h ink that we could take our daughters out of school, and ot h ers t h ough t it was quite reasonable. One child of a host in France whispered to his mother, "They aren't going to sc h ool! Wouldn't that be great'" It was quite fascinating to watch the interaction of our kids with those of other families. Usually within 10 minutes of our arrival, Viv ian would come to me and say, "Dad, I need your dictionary." This was a pocket dictionary for each country we passed through. In Italy I found her and a friend playing "bilingual scrab ble " : Vivian made up words in English and her friend made words in Italian. The dictionary was used to find out what each word meant. What a way to learn a language! In Paris, they all played Monopoly, but all the street names were French. Everywhere we went, the kids took sketc h books and a diary . They tried drawing sketches of some of the ruins in Greece and Rome, and were really fascinated watc h ing the art ists in Venice at work along t h e canals. We visited many art museums and the kids especially liked t h e smaller ones in France and Spain which concentrated on the work of one artist. Debbie's favorite artist is Picasso, and s h e can give quite a description of his painting. Vivian was intrigued by the sub ways and insisted t h at we wait in t h e station while s h e drew t h e map with all t h e stops. She did t h is in Rome, Barcelona, and Madrid, but gave up in Paris where there must be about 15 lines and over 100 stations . So, all in all, it was a fantas tic trip and learning experience for all of us . We kept quite detailed dia ries, and hope to compile these and make them the basis for a book . . .
LOCAL NEWS [DR:) First, I want to say how delighted and impressed we are with
the quality of the local newsletters started by home-schoolers. They seem to be full of interesting offers and announcements, useful legal sugges tions, thoughtful articles on learn ing and living with children, and practical tips. Putting together these newsletters obviously requires a lot of time, energy, and commit ment, and we are thankful that so many of you are doing that work, since clearly there's no way we could fit so much good material in GWS. For addresses of home-schooling organizations, see GWS #27, or send $1 for our "Home-Schooling Resource List." ARIZONA: Fr om an article in an ARIZONA HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION publication, about the home-schooling bill that passed l as t summer [GWS #27): "The governor in the two days he delayed signing the bill received five hundred phone calls in favor of it . He asked a minister to PLEASE tell his people to stop calling, because he planned to sign it. The minister hadn't asked anybody to call. Brian Evans asked a lot of peo ple, but he certainly didn't ask five hundred. We have no idea of where all those calls came from .. . " CALIFORNIA: John Boston in Escon dido reports, "A growing number of home schoolers in Los Angeles and Orange County are being hara ssed by school districts ... They are being told that they fall under a home tutorial section of the Education code and the teacher must be state certified ... In our county, San Diego, the County Superintendent's office has a letter from the County Council (t he schools' legal advisors) stating the same thing ... I advise those who call me to ask for a pri vate school affidavit t o operate a private school, period' They cannot refuse to give that. If they did, the State Code, Section 33190, says you can file an affidavit or statement to the State Superintendent ot Publ~c Instruction. So you can just send a statement with the required informa tion . .. " [See story on "People v. Turner," this issue.) John Boston also offered two 6-hour workshops on hom e-sc h ooling, charging $15/person or $20/family. KENTUCKY: Home-sch oo ler s had their second annual picnic Aug. 7, which included a panel discussion after lunch. Ruth McCutchen ha s been offering home-schooling workshops, advertising in a local periodical and on a library bulletin board. MAINE: MAINE HOME EDUCATION h el d a "First Annual? Picnic" Oct. 3 at Reid State Park, and had a display table and panel discussion at the Com mon Ground Fair, Sept. 24-26. MINNESOTA: From an article in the Midwest Libertarian Library Asso ciation: "According to the State Edu cation Department there are about 1,000 children now being ed ucated at home in Minnesota ... A core group of 100 people is now on the [ MINNESOTA HOME SCHOOL NETWORK) mailing list . " NEW HAMPSHIRE : From Kathie Dupont, RFD 2 Box 255, Laconia NH 03246: "We would like to visit with other home-schooling families and a newsletter would get us in touch. NH folks, please write to me if you would like a free copy of the N.H. Home Schools Newsletter." -NEW JERSEY: the NEW JERSEY FAMI LY SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION (RD 1 Box 7, Califon NJ 07830) is lo oking for ways to raise $500 in order to put on a Home Education Convention and bring John to their area. Some of their ideas are: recycling, a membership
drive, an ongoing book sale, and, most interesting, market research. From their September Bulletin: "Dor een Jandoli of Phase Design, Inc., will be present at this meeting for our first fundraising. She needs adults to test childproof bottle caps. We must have at least 10 people present and she will give us $1.50 per person t ested . If we have 20 peo ple present, she will give u s $1.75 per person. This is a painless test' She asks each person individually in a separate room to open a bottle as s he times you. It takes all of 3-4 seconds. The hardest part of this fund raiser is reading the consent form and signing it. If you have done this before, you may not do it again . Please come to help us with this fund-raising and bring people with you; that will add to our profits ... " NORTH CAROLINA: Federal judge Frankl~n Dupree ruled Aug. 28 that the state compu lsor y school atten dance law was unconstitutional, but only in the case of a Tyrrell County home-schooling family, Peter and Carol Duro, who had religious grounds. Officials in the state are unsure what this will mean for other home-schoolers. Thomas Strickland, the lawyer for another home-schooling family, the Delcontes [GWS #25, 26) ca utions that the federal decision could be overturned by a higher court, so he will not lean on it too hard in h is own case. OREGON: Anna Quinn-Smith [GWS #27) writes from Portland, "The group of several parents planning to home school this fall has happened - they will use OAK MEADOW curriculum within each family group and get together with the other families to share specialties - art, music, horseback riding, and so on . One of the fathers plays in the Oregon Symphony. Though Kristin is 2-3 years older than t h ese kids, we will join in on some of the excursions and special talents offered ... " UTAH: Laurie Huffman o f the UTAH HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION writes, "The convention (9/11) was a great success with nearly 600 in atten dance! We are exhausted and want to go on a vfir y extended leave of absence, ut the phone just ke eps on ringing." Speakers were Ken Huffman, Joyce Kinmont, and Cathy Bergman. The Association will sell the extensive info packets, handed out at the Con vention, for $3 . Joyce Kinmont wrote in the news letter she started, Tender Tutor (more excerpts later this issue): "If you live in Utah and your high school principal is not cooperative in allow ing your child to take one or two classes, ask him to call Bernard Furse in the State Department of Edu cation . I asked him to verify the state policy and he said that since ed ucation is required by law to be free, when a student presents him self, he must be accepted for one course or a complete program . . . WASHINGTON: Wendy Wartes sent us an announcement for an "Alternative Education Conference" in Edmonds, Sept. 25.
HELPFUL OFFICIAL'S REMARKS Bob Dolan, the Director of Spe cial Services of th e Rockland (MA) Sc h ool District, sent at o ur request a transcript of the supportive an d sensible remarks about home-sc hooling that he made at a teacher ' s workshop (GWS #26) . From his question/answer sessio n:
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #29
3 ... 1 think the School Committee, the Superintendent, and myself have taken what I call a sane attitude about this whole thing and we're not going to go crazy about it. We agree with the Superior Court ruling that parents do indeed have a right to edu cate their children at home. We have agreed that we shall not question those reasons - which is a part of that [courtJ decision. It's not our business to ask why parents educate their children at home . It's a right that they have. We don't ask why pa rents send their children to school, so we're not going to do the reverse. How do we evaluate? My own per sonal preference is to let the parents develop their own evaluation plan. If they're capable of develop ing an educational plan, then they're capable of evaluating that plan, and we ask that that be reported and re submitted to the School Committee each year. So ... these parents submit to me an educational plan which goes before the School Committee in a pub lic hearing and that's approved annu ally by the School Committee, and in that are the elements of whatever evaluation is going to take place ... Other things - hours. We're not going to be tacky about hours. One of the parents brought up to me the fact that one of their children learns a foreign language when they're sleep ing . Are those learning hours? I main tain that they are.
Q. Do they comply with the compe tency testing? A. All the parents have complied with that and they ' re willing to bring the children in. However, it's not a necessity. We don't do it with the kids who go to [a local private schoolJ; but as long as [the parentsJ are in agreement, I would like to see that done every year. If they don't want to do that, I'm not going to argue with it. They have their own evaluation plan . As I said, we don't chase the kids from the private school, we're not going to chase the children who are at home. Essentially it's a parallel system - home educa tion is a private educational program done in the home. We'll treat it to the greatest degree we can just as we treat private schools within our own community. Once a year we re-evaluate and approve all the private kindergar tens and things like that and that's the way we're going to treat home edu cation - not any differently . Q. What about those children who have gone into this type of program, then give up on it and return to the regular classroom? Teachers would be expected to teach these children when in fact they may not be in the same place or have received the same thing as the children coming through the school. A. I personally don't have a lot of trouble with that because I know that . . . children in the 8th grade tend to have a variance in grade level ability of somewhere between· and 11 to 12 . So as long as a kid com ing from home education is somewhere between age level or grade level 5 and grade level 11, there'll be no questions asked . I don't think it's a big issue . ..
Q. I've heard of some cases where parents did not do a good job and children aren't disciplined and aren ' t learning . What can the School Department do in those cases? A. Two separate issues you brought up. One is where a child is GROW[NG W[THOUT SCHOOL[NG =29
not thriving in the environment; t h e other is where a child has no exter nal controls around him. The external controls are very easy to assess and something would be done about it . We have legal recourse in that event . However, where a child fails to thrive from year to year - if that went on over a series of years, I think we would be very emphatic about making some kind of a change . In one year we don't make children who are in public school leave because they don't thrive from one year to the next. We try to make changes and we use that same attitude . .. in dealing with the education of the children at home .. .
MORE HELPFUL OFFICIALS From a forthcoming article by Diane Divoky which will appear in Phi Delta Ka!)pan, Feb . '83, along withan article y John Holt: ... John Rogers, superintendent of the Rockland (MA) schools, explain ed: "We believe that people can be educated in places other than school . I don ' t think we have a monopoly on education. Who ' s to say where child ren can get a proper education?" The Rockland schools are one of a handful of districts known to be friendly to home schoolers [GWS #27J, and as a result "people who want to home school are moving into town, knowing they won't get hassled," Rogers said. He added that the district is willing to provide books and programs for home schooled children, and plans to start placing them on the district ' s rolls so state funds can be collected for them. The tiny San Juan Ridge Union School District in Nevada City, CA, has had home schooled youngsters on its rolls for a number of years. When administrator Marilyn DeVore realized about a dozen children living within the district were being schooled at home, she decided to work with their parents rather than fight them. Under the arrangement, the students are tested by the district, and DeVore herself supervises the course of study the parents propose and teach. " The board approves each individual course of study," she said, and so far the children learning at home are doing very well on district tests ...
RECYCLING BOOKS We are distressed that THE WAY IT SPOZED TO BE by Jim Herndon is out of print . This is not only one of the funniest books ever written about American life, worthy to stand beside the best of Mark Twain, but also one of the most perceptive, true, and honest of all books about schools and education. If the schools had only heard, and understood, and put to use what Herndon said, they would be in a lot less trouble than they are in now. Well, we have to do what we can to keep this book alive, and you can help us . Please look for second-hand copies of THE WAY IT SPOZED TO BE in good condition - in thrift shops, flea markets, garage sales, etc . , and send them in to us. We will pay $2 [or each usable book, and will re sell them here for $3 each. Books should have no missing pages or covers, and not be written in. Because it is a nuisance for us to write a lot of small checks, we would prefer to issue the $2 payment as a credit slip, good for your next
renewal or book order . If you want to forego the $2 and consider the book a donation to us, great - please tell us so. We don't want any of you sending us your own personal copies' If you're tempted to do so, why not sit down and read it through again before you wrap it up. You may well find you change your mind' - - DR & JH
RELAXiNG THE STRUCTURE From Anita Fryzel (NY): ... 1 would like to relate my per sonal experience with our home school ing venture. It may help someone else - I hope . We were so excited about our new life-style that we wanted to do every thing just right. We had our class room set up with blackboard, books, etc. Our schedule was to start at 8:30 AM just like the local school. I planned lessons, timed each session, kept a daily record of everything we did - it was a perfect "school." But something was wrong. I began to think 1 had made a terrible mis take. I spent 3 hours each day teach ing the children, my house work got behind, I was tied down . We were push ing against each other all the time and were very unhappy. Dena felt like she had to hide during school hours, was afraid someone from school would see her and cause trouble. I felt as if I had given up so much for them and they did not appreciate it. Then I felt guilty for feeling that way . We had promised the school that we would cover their books and keep the same hours they did. This went on for several weeks before I realized some thing had to change. This was just not working . When I had read John's book TEACH YOUR OWN, it gave us the inspiration and courage to go ahead with our plans to take them out, but I did not agree with his theory that children will learn at their own pace without us to push them. I felt that we had to be organized and do it pro perly for them to have a proper edu cation. Well, as I analyzed our pro per, organized school I began to have second thoughts on his theory. We finally called a family meet ing and discussed the problem. We had promised the school to cover their books and we had to keep our word. The children went on the honor sys tem. They would cover each subject at their leisure until they understood it, give me a couple of papers, then go on to the next subject. This way they did not have to spend hours do ing repetitious pages ... All of us now relaxed and began to enjoy each other again . ... Since leaving school both of them have more friends and are more sociable. Several of the children from school have become more friend ly . Dena, for example, had only one friend in school - now three of Ene nicest girls she kn·ew in school have become very good friends and visit to do things together - bike riding, P.J. parties, etc . They envy her not going to school . Mike is close with two or three boys too, and never gets bored any more. He is always busy with someone . ... My son who is married and is now living at the farm is very talen ted, so with his help the children and I decided to help remodel the house . .. Together we tore off a large section of the house piece by piece with the help of a tractor, which my son taught both of them to drive. All