GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING
37 On Dec. 20 Dr. Raymond Moore, and Nancy, Bob, Ishmael, and Vita Wal lace were on the Donahue show, which we saw two weeks later here in Bos ton . I thought the home schoolers, and home schooling, did very well. I wish that the Wallaces and Ray Moore had been given time to talk in a lit tle more depth; they mostly had to slip a word in edgewise where they could, and Bob Wallace was hardly ever able even to finish a sentence. I also wish that Ishmael and Vita had been given a little more time to show some of their musical skill, which in itself would have been a strong argu ment for home schooling. But even so, the home school team made many impor tant points. What struck me most about the show was how much the audience seemed to be on the home school side. I did not keep an accurate count, but it seemed to me that about three quarters or more of what was said dur ing the program either strongly sup ported home schooling or was sympa thetic to it . Several families in the s t udio audience, incl uding one black family, spoke enthusiastically about teaching their own children at home, and one 16-year-o l d home-schooled boy said that he was taking a number of college courses. Hard to ask for much better than that. It was very differ ent indeed in 1978 when Bob and Linda Sessions and their children were with me on the show. As I recall, we had only one strong supporter in the audi ence, and many angry opponents. So perhaps public opinion has swung a little our way . Let us hope so; we are likely to face some tough legisla tive battles in a number of states this year and in coming years, and we will need all the public support we can get. Th e most exciting news is that our home-schooling friend Mario Pag noni has signed a contract with Lar son Publications, publishers of Nancy Wallace's BETTER THAN SCHOOL, to pub lish his first book, now entitled THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO HOME SCHOOLING. Pub l ication date should be sometime next fall. As we get more definite news about title, price, and availability, we will let you know . Meanwhile, con gratulations to Mario' And may this book be the first of many' Within the next week or two, as I write this, I expect to sign a con tract with Addison Wesley for a new book, of wh ich a working title is THE THREE R ' S AT HOME (or perhaps "THE BASICS " AT HOME). This will be, for the most part, about the many ways in which children, usually outside of any designed learning environment and with little or no formal instruction, figure out for themselves a great deal of essential knowledge about language, reading, numbers, and the like. It will also be about ways in
which adults, parents or teachers, can make it easier for them to do this. This will be my first book with Addison Wesley, though I will be con tinuing to work with my friend, neigh bor, and editor Merloyd Lawrence. The book should be finished this year and in print sometime next year. Good news from one of our young est authors. Mother Earth News has accepted a story which V~ta Wallace (8) wrote about the concert which she and her family gave early in November (we have a tape of this in our cata log). She still has to take some pho tographs to go with it, so I would guess that the story will appear per haps sometime next summer. As I said in GWS #36, the cur rent (jan./Feb. '84) issue of Mother Earth News has an article by m-e---- called, " So You Want To Home School," a good summary of the different legal ways to home school and the steps to take to carry them out. Also printed with the article is an excellent short review of Nancy Wallace's BET TER THAN SCHOOL, with some very good excerpts. As always, there are a num ber of other very interesting arti cles in this issue of Mother Earth News, including an interv~ew w~th Dr. i'Ii1drew Saul called, "You Can Be Your Own Doctor," at the end of which is an exceedingly useful list of basic medical reference books (usually not easy to find), with information about how to get them. This interview, and these books, would be a good supple ment to CONFESSIONS OF A MEDICAL HERE TIC, which we sell here. - John Holt
Amy will take general education courses at first, but plans to major in music, with emphasis on piano per formance and teaching. "My mother wanted to keep me at home for a few more years, but my father said what I was studying was the same material as the 100 and 200 level courses he took at BYU," she said. "So we decided I would give col lege a try." Amy had to undergo nearly three months of intense scrutiny by college entrance boards to determine her social readiness as well as her scho las t ic a bil ity . "She was thoroughly checked for emotional stability, and was found to be very 'balanced.' That of course made us all feel better about it," Mrs. Hovenden said. " The examiners certainly did their home work, but were very gracious and helpful." Amy scored a 29 on the ACT col lege entrance test [JH: out of a possible 36 - about the same as Grant Colfax's scores], and was awarded a dean's scholarship, which pays one half of tuition costs. The oldest of nine children, she and her brothers and sisters have been schooled b the~r
JOHN HOLT'S COMING SCHEDULE
lAWYER WITH NO lAW SCHOOL
Mar. 5, 1984: Project Excel, Suffolk U., Boston. Contact Glen Lew andowski, 723-4700 ext. 280. Mar. 8: Holt Associates Open House (second Thurs. each month) Mar. 15: John Holt Music Work shop (3rd Thurs . each month - call 437 - 1550 to confirm). Mar. 30: Eastern Washington Uni versity, Cheney WA. Contact Darleen Weller, 509-456-4401. Mar . 31-Apr. 1: Seattle home schoolers. Contact Deb Stewart, 206-435-5015. Apr. 2-3: Home Schooling Fair, Spokane WA. Contact Nola Evans, 509-326-0267. Apr. 4: Montana Homeschooling Association. Contact Debbie Kersten, Box 144, Manhattan MT 59741. Apr. 8 (Tentative): East Strouds burg U., E. Stroudsburg PA. 2 PM . Con tact Ann Cameron, 1743 Pokono Av, Stroudsburg PA 18360. Apr. 16: University of Kentucky. Contact Libby Morley, 606-273-7816. Anyone who wants to coordinate other meetings or lectures around these times, contact Pat Farenga.
A UPI story from San Francisco, reprinted in the Davis (CA) Enter prise, 1/17/84:
is her
. . . A grandmother whose last for mal education was at Willits High School 32 years ago has taken and passed the difficult California State Bar examination without the benefit of a diploma from a law school. Myrna Oglesby, 48, a mother of five and a longtime Ukiah legal sec retary, prepared for the exam by "reading the law" - a method all but abandoned in the 20th century. A total of 3,906 law-school grad uates learned last month that they had flunked the examination. The num ber was 51% of those who took it. To qualify to take the exam with out being a law school graduate, one must: - Pass a Bar Association college equivalency test. - Work in the office of an attor ney or judge willing to devote at least five hours a week to one-on-one educational supervision. - And study a minimum of 18
WHAT ' S INSIDE ANOTHER HOME-SCHOOLER AT COllEGE James Salisbury ( ID) sent us
this clipping from the Provo, Utah
Herald, about one of his former JOHN
~EARNING CENTER students:
... Amy Louise Hovenden . .. starts school at Brigham Young University in January . .. Amy [14] is the youngest freshman ever to be accepted to the university. ... She feels no major qualms about starting college at an age younger than most. "I feel excited and a little nervous," she said. " But I don ' t see any problems with it. The other students are just people, too."
Kansas News: 2 --- Court news (NM, ME, NC): 2 --- Legislatures (GA, LA, MD, NH, TN, VA, WA, WI): 3 - -- Grown unschooler: 4 --- Kids work ing: 4-5 --- Israel home-schooler: 5 -- Down's Syndrome: 6 -- - Learning Disab i lities: 2, 7 --- Testing: 7 --- Teacher Qua li ty: 8 -- Schools' Failures: 9 --- Teacher Exams: 9 - - Life at Home: 11-12 -- - Queries: 13 -- - JH on Discipline: 13 --- School Memories : 14 -- Private schools: 10, 15 --- Curriculum: 16 - - Einstein: 17 --- Reading &writing: 17-20 -- Librarian offer: 20 --- Foreign info: 20 -- Math, Computers: 21 -- - Natural science: 22-23 --- Art (embroidery, crayons): 24 --- Music (sax, self-taught musicians, violin) 24-26 --- POWERS OF TEN book: 27 --- Learn ng Materials addresses: 29 --- Repr i nts 30
2 hours per week outside the office for 48 weeks of each year with the tutor filing a report every six months with the State Bar on the content . Oglesby's mentor was lawyer Jared Carter who taught her for five years before she felt ready to tackle the bar exam. She said in a recent interview that key advantages to reading for the law were " saving classroom time by doing it my way instead of listen ing to some lectures that, perhaps, wouldn't have been beneficial" and "the fact that I had my own personal tutor - which you don't get in large law school. " Carter said, " I think it ' s abso lutely remarkable that she accom plished this." ...
NOTES FROM DONNA New Reprints: We are offering two more reprints here for 10¢ each. The first has two articles recently writ t en by John for USA Today, " Same 'cure ' won't help sc h ools " and "Home sc hooling lets a child ' s mind grow." Th e other new reprint (on the sugges tion of a reader) is "Home-Schooler At Harvard, " the articles from GWS #35 and #36 on Grant Colfax. We are running the list of all our reprints in the back of this issue, since it has changed so much in t he last year and it was not quite co r rect in our Fall catalog. If you order one or two reprints without buy ing other material from us, please send a self-addressed stamped envel ope as well. Learning Disabilit Resource: From Thomas Armstrong ( ATEBLOOMERS, PO Box 2647, Berkeley CA 94702): "I finally got my book proposal for THE LEARNING DISABILITY LIE finished af t er a year of research and writing, and it is now in the hands of my agent ... I feel really excited about the work as it is a comprehensive indictment of the whole learning dis ability mess (including research indi cating that the tests don ' t test for L . D. , that the programs don't cure L.D . , etc . , etc.) and at the same time provides positive alterna tives . . . I'm sending along a resource s h eet which represents sources I have culled from my research that question the learning disability paradigm. On the other side are learning resources that parents can use . . . I would be gla d to send a copy of this resource sheet to any of your readers who send me a SASE .. . " Mic h igan Legal Brief: In GWS #30 we to l d about h ome-schooling parent Nick Dennany wh o wrote a 300+ page legal brief that a judge praised as being unusually thorough and precise. We h ave learned that Mr. Dennany is selling copies of his brief for "not too much " - contact him at 728 Mabel, Kalamazoo MI 49007; 616-382-2887. Indexing Needed: We sure could use an index for the issues of GWS starting with #31. Is someone willing to take this on? You could use the categories in Rachael Solem ' s index of #1-30 as a starting point . --- Donna Richoux
t
MIXED NEWS FROM KANSAS From the Wichita (KS) Eagle Beacon, 12/23'83: .. . The Wichita public school dis trict will not interfere with parents who educate their children at home ... as long as the parents have regis
tered as a non-accredited private school, said Ted Shackelford, coordin ator of student concerns and services. .. . Shackelford said he has learned of six Wichita families that may be home schooling. He said offi cials will "absolutely not" make any decisions about the quality of educa tion provided by parents who teach their children in their homes. Shackelford said he didn't know which agency should assess home schools. The state Department of Edu cation has no authority over non accredited private schools, beyond requiring that they register with the department. If parents are teaching their children at home without reporting to the Department of Education, Shackel ford said, the school district will report them to the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services for investigation of possible child neglect. · . . Dave Kester, an attorney for the state Department of Education, said the school district ' s policy com plies with state law . "If they regis ter as a private school, then the pre sumption is that they ' re a private school and they're within the law," Kester said. "I can be real sympathe tic with the position of the Wichita Board of Education on this ... You can almost get into a thicket when you try to determine whether it's a pri vate school and whether the teachers are competent or not." But Verne Stephens, education programs specialist with the state education department, said register ing with the state doesn't guarantee that a child is receiving the educa tion required by law. · .. Kester said he thinks home schooling violates state law, but he said the law is "confused and ambigu ous. " The law doesn't mention home schools . Children between the ages of 7 and 16 are required to attend an accredited or non-accredited school . .. The law requires that teach ers in non-accredited schools be "com petent" and the school be in session for the same period of time as accred ited schools. But the law doesn ' t define competence. Last year, 122 non-accredited private schools registered with the department ... The Kansas Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 2 that a Johnson County cou ple had violated mandatory attendance laws when they established a home school for their two school-age child ren. Bonnie and Tom Sawyer of Spring Hill had registered their school with the state. But the court decided Bon nie Sawyer was not a " competent" teacher ...
COURT NEWS From the Santa Fe New Mexican, 12/18/83: . .. On Dec . 7 a Carlsbad judge ruled that four families who took their children out of school to teach them at home through the auspices of the Santa Fe Community School were within their legal rights. Similar suits h ave been won by others teach ing children at home under the SFCS program . .. "To my knowledge, we were the first in the country," says Ed Nagle of his school's home study program, which was started in 1975 and now has 200 students from 47 states enrolled. · . . The enrollment fee is $100 a
year .. . About 500 students have en rolled in the program since its incep tion, he says. "All of them have gone on to the grade level we have recom mended if they transfer to another school," says Nagel . Three went on to college after graduating from Santa Fe Community School ... [DR: 1 u.s. District Judge Conrad Cyr in Maine issued a ruling on Dec. 20 in the case of Bangor Baptist Church, et al vs. Maine that l~mits the state ' s power over private schools . A group of Christian schools had been unwilling to seek approval to operate, and with the assistance of William Ball, a lawyer well versed in matters of religious and education al freedom, had filed suit against the state . The judge agreed that although the state had the power to approve private schools, it did not have the power to close down non approved ones, and he pOinted out that the state already had estab lished procedures of prosecuting par ents for truancy. He also implied t h e parents could get legal exemption for their children's attendance at the non-approved schools through the "equivalent instruction" clause of the Maine statutes. There appear to have been two very similar decisions against North Carolina home-sc h oolers, one in the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the other in the North Carolina Court of Appeals . We learned about the first from the Fall ' 83 NCACS Newsletter: .. . In the case of Duro v. Dis trict Attorne¥ (82-1806), Peter Duro, a fundamental~st Christian , claimed public and nonpublic schools would corrupt his five school-age children. The appeals court said last July 14 that North Carolina has "an interest in compulsory education which is of sufficient magnitude to ove r ride Duro ' s religious interest" u nder the First Amendment of the Constitution . ... Duro's wife teaches their children at home, but she doesn't have a teaching certificate and hasn ' t been trained as a teacher. Duro failed to demonstrate that home instruction will prepare his children to be self-sufficient participants in our modern society or enable them to participate intelligently in our political system, which, as the U.S. Supreme Court stated, is a compelling interest of the state .. . [DR: 1 A reader sent this A.P. news story, dated 12/7/83, concerning the other N. C. loss. Because the lang uage is so similar, I suspect t h e fed eral case influenced this decision: .. . HOME SCHOOL RULING OVERTURNED ... The North Carolina Court of Appeals ... on Tuesday reversed a low er court decision allowing a Harnet t County couple to teac h their c h ildren at home because of their religious beliefs . "The state . .. has a compelling interest in providing access to educa tion for all in order to prepare future citizens to participate effec tively and intelligently in our poli tical system and to prepare individu als to be self-reliant and self sufficient," said the decision, writ ten by Judge Sidney S. Eagles Jr . "The state has no means by which to ensure that children who are at home
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #37
3
are
an education . . . " Larry Delconte [GWS #25 ] and his wife had set up one room in their home with desks, a blackboard, text books and other teaching materials for their two school-age children . . . Delconte, a college-educated machin ist, and his wife belong to a non denominational fundamentalist group ... rece~v~ng
Other news in brief: CHARGES DISMISSED: The Lloyds, 65 Glendale Park, Rochester NY 14613 --- Julie and Alan Sutherland, Gaines ville FL; enrolled in Mordes Academy, Rt 3 Box 215, Marianna FL 32446; attorney, Joseph Dallanegra . WON APPEAL AT DISTRICT COURT: Mr. & Mrs. Don Budke, St. Joseph's Academy, Rt 2, Underwood MN 56586. (State is appealing to Minn. Supreme Court. ) APPEALING A LOSS : Jerry & Camilla Wilke, Alpena MI. FACING COURT ACTION: Lola Loch ridge, Cadillac MI --- Bill Martin, Bronson MI --- Pete Olson, PO Box 1357, Windsor CO 80550.
LEGISLATIVE NEWS A number of state legislatures or Departments of Education are attempting to change laws and regula tions concerning home-schooling. Many of these same battles went on a year ago, during the 1983 legislative ses sions. Here is our most recent news. I should hardly need add that we hope that all of our readers in these states will make their opinions known by writing or phoning their legisla tors, the committee chairmen, the gov ernor, etc . (The organizations men tioned can give you more information): GEORGIA: As we reported in GWS #36, the Georgia Supreme Court struck down the compulsory attendance laws because there was no definition of "private school." Connie Shaw of GEOR GIANS FOR FREEDOM IN EDUCATION (404 923-9932) says, "There is a wide spread consensus among school offi cials, legislators, and the gover nor's office that a law for atten dance must be passed during this ses sion of the General Assembly. Truancy officers are reporting cases of child ren not attending school because the attendance law is no longer in effect." Connie says that the first bill proposed by the chairman of the Sen ate Education Committee, John Foster, did not allow for home study and House leaders told him it would never pass. Foster quickly added some pro visions allowing for home study, but that included many provisions home schoolers do not like, such as requir ing them to pay for testing every year, and withdrawing permission if the children test below average. LOUISIANA: The newsletter of the Northwest Chapter of Citizens for Home Education (4453 F~nley Dr, Shreveport LA 71105; 865-4939; $2/yr) reports: "Governor-elect Edwin Edwards has publicly stated that he intends to lead the fight to repeal the Home Study law. He also has indi cated that he intends to push for fur ther regulation of private church schools." Representative Woody Jen kins held a statewide meeting Jan. 10 to help formulate strategy to pre serve the current law. MARYLAND: The 12/83 newsletter of the MARYLAND HOME EDUCATION ASSOCI ATION (301-730 - 0073) printed a list of what appear to be proposed state regulations for Maryland home school-
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #37
ers. They include a requirement that teachers in home study programs be certified for each subject taught, or have a college degree, or get a wai ver from the local superintendent of schools. The State Board was sched uled to hold a hearing on these regu lations Jan. 25. NEW HAMPSHIRE: Barb Parshley (NH) sent us a memo dated 7/19/83 entitled "Amendments to State Board of Education's Home Education Regula tions," written by Charles Marston. Many of the amendments appear to be minor clarifications, but one substan tive change is to specify that par ents must complete an application at least 60 days prior to keeping their children out of school. Barb says sev eral home-schooling families have been meeting regularly to work out proposals to share with the state on approving and evaluating home educa tion programs. The next meeting is at the Concord Library, March 20, 10 AM. TENNESSEE: From a letter by Gail Neal and Ed Falkowski (615-732-4827): "You mayor may not know of the Rochelle bill which has been in the works for about a year now ... Home schoolers object strenuously to this bill because it puts the burden of proving that a quality education is being provided onto the parents ... Representative Bobby Wood has just introduced a bill (no number yet introduced 1/10/84) which is yer y favorable for home-schoolers so favorable that I doubt it will make it through the committee as it stands) .. . It lists about eight alter natives for parents, anyone of which would satisfy the compulsory school law." The letter continues, "There is an organization forming now called HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION OF TENNES SEE (HEAT) which will be a way of get ting up-to-date information on lobby ing efforts, etc ... There are several hundred members, most of whom were present at a conference done by Dr. Raymond Moore and two Tennessee law yers .. . Since my only exposure to the homeschooling movement had been through GWS and John Holt's books, I was amazed to learn that many of the people at the conference had not heard of either of them . . . Yet this is encouraging to me because the more broad-based support for homeschooling is, the better chance of favorable legislation ... If you want more infor mation on HEAT, write to Larry Crain, Attorney, First American Center, 12th Floor, Nashville TN 37238 ... " VIRGINIA: Connie Schwartz sent us information on the new group HOME EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION OF VIRGINIA, PO Bo~ 15266, Richmond VA 23227; 804 266-6652 . She reported that the legis lature is working on a bill that would allow for home-schooling if a parent has a college degree or uses an approved correspondence school, and if the children are tested regu larly. WASHINGTON: Helen and Mark Hegen er, who are starting a magazine called .Home Education (PO Box 218, Tonasket WA 98855; 509-486-2449; $20/12 iss.) sent us a copy of Senate Bill 3033 which would allow for home schooling, require standardized tests each year, and permit home-schoolers to enroll part-time in public schools and use their services. WISCONSIN: Given the State Supreme Court's ruling in Popf.n [GWS 7 #33, 34] about the "vagueness ~n the compulsory school law, it was no sur prise to learn that the Wisconsin leg islature is trying to pass a defini tion of private school. It was a dis
appointment, however, to learn that it was anti-homeschool ("Instruction at the institution does not occur on premises used primarily as a private residence ... " "The majority of pupils at the institution are neither rela ted to nor under the guardianship of any instructor at the institution"). Susan Brooks of the WISCONSIN REGION AL COALITION OF ALTERNATIVE COMMUNITY SCHOOLS (715-237-2402) says this was an old bill that has failed for years, but it has been given new momentum by the court decision. It is now called Assembly Bill 887 and Sue expected it to be scheduled for a pub lic hearing after Jan. 18. She also says that Governor Earl wants the bill passed before elections. - DR
OTHER LOCAL NEWS Addresses of home-schooling organizations can be found in GWS #36, or send $1 for our "Home Schooling Resource List." CONNECTICUT: Laura Pritchard of the CONNECTICUT HOMESCHOOLERS ASSOCIA TION writes, "Our new commissioner of education, Dr. Trozzi, recently was on a TV discussion outlining the direction of education . He supports an entrance age of 4 years, longer school year, and all-day kindergar tens, among other points ... Perhaps these new proposals will scare people into action ... " Laura also says the group has organized a "Lending Library" and a "Skills Pool." HAWAII: Dr. Raymond Moore (Hew itt Research Foundation, PO Box 9, Washougal WA 98671) wrote us, "A maj or victory in Hawaii. Ensign Mark Snively was turned down by Supt. of Education Donnis Thompson. Then he gave her our Columbia U. Record mono graph. She reversed and approved his home school . .. " INDIANA: From Sharon Griffith, 306 S Rangeline Rd, Anderson IN 46012: "The group in Madison-Delaware County is growing and doing very well . The mailing list is close to 100 ... We have twice-monthly field trips which the children really enjoy. One activity I am really pleased with is our monthly visit to a local nursing home. Four families take the children for a home school 'show-and-tell' time and some sing ing. The children are proving to be very so~iable ~nd communicate across generat~ons ... And Darlene Sartore (see IN Dir ectory) says, "We will begin hosting a monthly support meeting for home educators on the first Saturday of each month starting Feb. 4, 1984. Write or call for directions (812 779-3616). We are midway between Evansville and Vincennes in southern Indiana .. . " KANSAS: Bonnie Sawyer is helping to put on an all-day seminar with Dr. Ray Moore on April 9. For info, call 913-686-2310 or write her at 19985 Renner Rd, Spring Hill KS 66083 . NEW YORK: In the last two weeks, reporters trom three major media in New York City have called us about do ing stories on home-schooling. We
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #37, Vol. 7 No . 1. ISSN #0745-5305. Published bi -monthly by Holt Associates, 729 Boylston St, Boston MA 02116. $15/yr. Date of Issue, Feb . 1, 1984. Second class postage paid at Boston MA. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to GWS, 729 Boylston St, Boston MA 02116. ADVERTISERS: Deadline for next issue, Mar. 15. 20% off for ads run in three or more consec u tive i ssues. Contact Patrick Farenga for rates.
4 have never had many NYC families in our Directory, and some who are there have unlisted phone numbers . If you are presently home-schooling in New York City and would not mind being interviewed, it would be most helpful if you would drop me a note with your phone number so I could pass it on to reporters . Home-schooling parent Richard Fahey of the HOMESTEADING SCHOOL (Oxford NY 13816) is offering a "Home Education Workshop" June 17-20. Send him 2 stamps for more info . - DR
PHONE INSTEAD OF ADDRESS [DR:) Some time back, we suggest ed that readers who would like to make contact with other home schoolers but who did not want to write letters, list their telephone number in the Directory instead of a mailing address. About this, one read er writes, "I chose to list my phone number because I find it far easier to cope with the children and talk than to write, but if people fear be ing deluged with calls, they needn't worry - I've only gotten 10 or so in more than a year. Most have been from families just moving to the area who want to connect fast and I really enjoy helping them ... The rest have been desirous of interviews with home schoolers and I've found the phone a comfortably distant way to deal with them, whether I ' ve chosen to say yes or no. "
A GROWN UNSCHOOLER From Roberta Archer in El Paso: .. . 1 just discovered TEACH YOUR OWN, much to my delight. My parents were both missionaries in Mexico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. I spent many of these years without "schooling" as such. Part of that time we had the Calvert course, but again I was allowed to teach myself and to go at my own pace. Other times were spent in the jungles of Mexico with my father, doing everything from teaching children my age Bible stor ies and English, to riding horseback (the villagers would come to the all-day church service and I would have my pick of the horses tethered there meanwhile). Back home in Mexico City, I had my own small "restaurant business" in a corner of our large yard. I would make tortillas from the "masa" and turn them into all kinds of Mexican "antojitos" (appetizers) and sell Does your ch ild enjoy studying? He can through EDUCATIONAL
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them to the Bible school students that Mother and Dad were teaching, during their morning and afternoon br eaks . I remember that each morning I would invest the same amount and that I always doubled my money. I would put the 100% profit away and then go back to the corner store and the "tortilleria" and buy ingredients for the next morning with the origin al investment amount . On Saturdays I would go with our housekeeper to the big market and buy little baby chicks, raise them, sell the eggs to the "student kitchen," and again I had more profit. These are just a few of the (what I consider) rich experiences I had. I would not exchange any of them for a "normal school life'" I returned with my brother to the USA when I was about 15. My for mer experiences helped me to cope with a country, experiences, and peo ple that I was no longer familiar with. Also to be able t o know what to do when I found myself stranded in a small town in Pennsylvania with the date fast approaching when I had to be in Knoxville, Tenn. I coped, didn't panic, and made it there in time to start high school, a regiment ed, religious boarding school on the demerit system. However, I don't have negative memories concerning thiS, and finished all high school courses in l~ years and two summers. I found I was ahead of others in my classes and had far more experience in many areas than they. ... 1 finished college and am now working as a Federally Certified Court interpreter. I also had no dif ficulties with this (other than see ing first hand how we treat other human beings) .. .
KIDS IN THE WORKPLACE From Margaret Sadoway (MA): ... Our 4-year-old son Solon has been in and out of our small natural foods store ever since we bought it when he was 11 months old. At first we had fond ( naive) images of him spending most of his time there, qui etly playing with his toys. Ha' At 12 months he dumped a bucket of whole corn into one of black-eyed peas; at 13 months he regularly chose to prac tice crawling through broken glass and garbage in the parking lot; at 14 months he delighted and exasperated parents and customers alike by fre quently insisting on running the $150 juicer unassisted; at 15 months he was enrolled in a nursery school two days a week while we thought things over. We were strongly committed to the idea of having him at the store for several reasons. First, we feel strongly (like John, I think) that a very alienating factor in children's lives today is their nearly total exclusion from all adult work. Next, we really couldn't afford much child care and if one of us could have Solon at the store, then the other could have a few hours a week for drawing and writing, activities we were not willing to mix with a tod dler. Finally, we had become interest ed in home learning long before Solon was born and knew the store was a treasure trove of educational possi bilities. It has been, too. By 2~, Solon had learned to use a knife to open cartons and to price the contents (and everything else in sight) by him self. At 2 3/4 he startled us by what
he'd put together about other commer cial supply lines: spotting a tank truck on the road ahead of us, he said, "Dat oil truck's going to gas place (sta tion), fill it all up so cars can come and get more gas." At 3 he started approaching customers with his own nutritional advice ("You know, you have to brush your teeth after all that honey"). By 3~ he'd learned to read price tags from left to right, punch in the corresponding number on our fancy cash register, hit a department key, then sub-total and total. Just when I was sure he was learning to tell coins apart, he lost all interest in the cash regis ter for several months. When he just as suddenly returned to it, he'd some how learned to differentiate the six departments on his own and knew all the coins, so began making change when told "Give her two quarters, a nickel, three pennies and a five dollar bill." Customers fainted, of course, and I hear some readers groaning that this is yet another "super-kid" story ... Maybe they will feel better if I add that at 4~ Solon refuses even to try to dress himself, is in nighttime diapers, has not quite given up the nurSing relationship, is in awe of 4-year-olds who can spend a night away from their mothers, and certainly doesn't play the violin. Could there be a connection, in his case? Has lack of pressure about wean ing, dressing, and sleeping freed his energies for other learning? No child can "progress" on all fronts simul taneously. We encourage other children to use the cash register, with interest ing results. 4-year-olds are likely to bang away with little respect for the machine, to Solon's amazement. It seems that children who are allowed to touch nearly everything from an early age rarely damage them or even misuse them. 6-year-olds can work it alone within ten minutes while 12 year-olds sometimes take a little longer . One 7-year-old liked running it so much that she checked customers out alone for several hours in a row. We bit our tongues (a little proud of ourselves') and intervened only when we noticed what Solon calls "hurry customers." In between sales, she repeatedly counted all the cash in the drawer, $200-40~and added it up on the calculator, even though she knew one key on the register would give her the answer directly. At the end of the day, the money came out right' But the next day a sad thing happened . Her father came to visit, watched her nervously, then began a steady patter, all in a kind voice, "Are you sure that's right? How much change should you give? I'll show you a faster way . " Within a few minutes she made more mistakes than all the previous day and let us take over until her father left. Don't let me give the impression that having children at the store is ideal or even easy. Most worthwhile things in life call for a struggle . For two years, until he was about 3~, we rarely had Solon at the store for more than half an hour at a time and then only when two adults were pre sent. Usually, we each spent half the day with Solon and half at the store, a nearly ideal situation for all three of us except that our only free time was those few hours a week that Solon was at nursery school . Suddenly even that ended, as he announced that "Every time I start a puzzle, they tell me it's time for lunch," and that he was never going back. Once we
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #37
made sure he was serious, we were actually glad to be forced into the no-school situation that we'd really intended all along. So we reshuffled our schedules, realizing Solon was ready to spend much larger chunks of time at the store, 3, 5, even 10 hours. We made room for his record player, fleet of vehicles, and other necessities, and all began learning . He's learned that helping customers comes before stor ies, that flinging shopping baskets at innocent people who took one with out realizing they are his race cars is not what we consider good communi cation, and that swearing vigorously at customers gets a different reac tion from Mom than trying out profan ity at home. I ' ve learned that seemingly urgent work can be postponed or fin ished more quickly, that letting him add up long columns of figures on our calculator is actually faster and more fun than trying to dissuade him, and how to deal with the few custom ers who are actually rude or indiffer ent to Solon (how dare they') . I think that waiting until our late thirties to have a child gave us an insight that much younger parents might not have. On days when I can't get anything done due to Solon's interruptions, I force myself to re member all those books I never wrote, all those projects I never finished in the 15 long years before he was born ...
There are two other boys my age who come down and help after school is out. The way we get paid is: $2 in trade for every hour we work, or $1 in money. I think the best part of it is learning about all of the different animals, fish and birds and learning how to take care of them. I have been put in charge of lizards and small animals. It is a lot of fun to help out customers . ..
... AND IN AN ORCHARD In GWS #22, we asked readers to tell us about the relationship be tween their children and their work. Lucy Lilly (AZ) wrote:
... Since I work with my child at the local bookstore we are very pub lic. It is interesting that most (though not all) people respond with interest and positive energy when Garth (6) informs them he's home schooled. It ' s usually in the context of his ringing up their sale at the cash register - they comment, "Gee, you'll do real well at math in school," and he says, "Well, I'm home-schooled," whereupon they turn to me in disbelief (so few people lis ten to children or take them serious ly) and I confirm it. Then usually a good discussion results ...
.. . In the very rural area in which we live, there are not many em ployment opportunities, especially if one wants to spend any time with fami ly. So instead of having only one income source, we've had to develop many part-time jobs. One of our favor ites is seasonal orchard work. We've just finished apple harvest and are looking forward to pruning. Chuck and I and our children (7, 5, and 3) as well as another couple who are teach ing us the work and their son, make up a crew of workers. The children enjoy getting together each day in the orchard to play, as none of them have neighbors to play with at home. We work with virtually no inter ruptions from the children in con trast to when I'm working at home with their father away at a job and the children are constantly under my feet. When both parents are working at home they play pretty well inde pendently but it seems that when there is a crew of people busy around them, then they stay busy, too ... Of course, we interact more closely with them during breaks in the work ... One day a week I volunteer my time to the local library as the story-time reader ... Daniel (7) attends and is my helper . As we are fairly new to the area, this work has given me the opportunity to meet many children and their parents. I've even met one woman who has become interest ed in home schooling ...
WORKING IN A PET SHOP...
ON HER OWN AT 10
And from Kathy Epling (CA):
From Scott Maher (MA), age 13: ... In September I went down to the Wakefield Pet shop and asked the owner Steve, whom I already had known, if there would be any way could come down and help. I told him how I was a home schooler and that I could come down in the mornings. Steve said we could try it out for a while and see what we think. I went down on a Monday at 10:30 and first he showed me around and showed me how things are done . .. I started off feeding the birds and cleaning their cages. Next I swept the floor and fed the fish. Then I fed and watered the small animals, lizards, rabbits, guinea pigs, and cats. Some days I clean filters in the fish tanks and test the Ph of the water; other days I clean the cages and clean the glass . I have helped unload shipments and put stock away. I have been working there almost four months now. I have waited on cus tomers, given them advice, taken inventory, and I even take care of the shop if Steve has to leave. Soon I will be learning how to use the cash register.
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #37
From Arkansas: JUl y 4: ... My daughter (10) has been unsc h ooling since April, but we've done nothing in the way of aca demics. (This is fine with me, so far.) My concerns are her sometimes boredom and "the authorities" finding out when the school year starts ... She has been staying home with my 2-year-old (and sometimes, her stepfather) while I go to carpentry school. While at home, she reads lots of library books. Her choices are novels only - lots of mysteries, girls growing up, etc. She also bakes and cooks and goes for walks. Now during the summer, she is do ing well while I am gone as she has playmates besides her 2-year-old sis ter. But come late August I am at a loss as to what is best for her. My current husband and I are no longer together. So it looks like I will be gone on a full-time job most of the time. I know I can't keep Angela on as a permanent babysitter she gets burned out. There's too much constant responsibility, and the 2-year-old treats her like she's the mom .. .
Nov. 23: . . . I'm managing to work only part time, but even so, Angela is basically on her own most of the time. She reads, reads, reads. Mostly library books, mostly fiction. (We don't have a TV.) She found a small fractions workbook and multiplication workbook at a bookstore. We do them gradually and sometimes not at all. Now she says she'd like to do weekly spelling words. OK. As far as the school officials (my biggest concern), so far I just haven't let them know of her exis tence and hope to keep it that way . All records she had of schooling were in a different state. GWS #35 had some very encoura ging letters for me, especially from Sue in Seattle. It made me think of my own situation ...
AT HOME IN ISRAEL Haim Chertok wrote in the Jerusa lem Post Magazine, 5/7/82: "You can't do it' Maybe it's okay in America, but here you can't
do it!" This we heard, not from one Israeli friend but from virtually everyone we consulted ... Ignoring this prudential din, my wife and I and our 12-year-old son Ted decided two years ago to withdraw Ted from the 7th grade class of his Dimona jun ior high school (religious) in order to take charge of his education our selves. . . . Ted's dropping out was more practical than ideological, a deci sion fuelled as much by despair as by hope. Fortunately, the incredulity of most Israelis was over-matched by the supportive and growing American and British community in Yeroham where we have lived for nearly five years now . Without their active help, we could never have succeeded. ... We would not have embarked on this path had we not concluded that keeping Ted within the Israeli school system was positively harmful. He was learning not to value but to waste his time, to equate the numbers on his tests and report card with get ting an education. In the absence of any serious hopes of amelioration, and chary about sending our 12-year old to board at some school or yeshi va 40 or 100 km. away, we felt we had no real alternative. How did we proceed? .. We saw home learning as an opportunity for Ted to learn how to learn, to learn to take responsIbility for his own education. At the start of each week, he would schedule his hours of class es, study, and outside activities. He was responsible to himself to fulfill the schedule which he (with our assis tance at the start) created. And one of his first and most important learn ing projects was to keep a daily jour nal (in English). This became not only an instrument of self-reflection but a self-check on his studies and a means to use and polish his English, which we all felt was important for him. (Now Ted is back in school but he still maintains his journal.) Then I surveyed our friends and acquaintances to see which of them had the time and inclination to teach with regularity something he/she was enthusiastic about. The result was, I think, a curriculum which would be the envy of most schoolkids his age. Twice a week, Ted studied Gemara with our neighbor Moshe. Both were cheered by the arrangement, and Ted now gets
6
top grades in his religious subjects. With another neighbor, Leah, Ted (for a semester) reviewed Hebrew grammar, read some stories, and wrote short essays in Hebrew. And for the entire year and a half Ted studied mathema tics once a week with Dina, a high school math teacher. In return, I (and later Ted himself) tutored their younger son in English. ... Ted developed a friendship also with an American student, an environmental major ... Many mornings they'd be off at 4 AM to the Yeroham Lake for a morning's birdwatching, and for a hike to watch the sunrise (and for a geology lesson) at the Yer oham crater . Ted became proficient at recognizing and collecting desert plants, which later he and John stud ied under a microscope ... Ted and I worked together on lit erature, my field. After some thought, we decided to focus on Greek literature because it seemed suffi ciently self-contained to be cohe sive, is important, and fun, and usu ally neglected in Israeli schools. Over the next 18 months, Ted and I read through background words like Edith Hamilton's THE GREEK WAY and MYTHOLOGY, Kitto's THE GREEKS, and Finley's THE WORLD OF ODYSSEUS. His "texts" were The Illiad and The Odys ~ey, the plays of Sophocles and Ar~s tophanes (he didn't like Aeschylus), and the Platonic dialogues. After com pleting a work, Ted wrote a paper (in English), often comparing some aspect of it to a Biblical theme or charac ter. The result is that Ted now has a fine background in Greek thought and literature, enjoys reading, and is able to write an acceptable essay in English. Interspersed among the Greeks we read other works like CATCHER IN THE RYE, A SEPARATE PEACE, some of the £ag;ut stories, and novels by Mark Twa~n, Golding, and Saroyan. All in all, I'm satisfied that Ted absorbed a love of books and learning. Was Ted cut off from his friends? Hardly' A member of Bnei Akiva, he took part in all their acti vities. . . . 1 suspect that the school authorities were aware of our "dere liction." They did not interfere. It would be misleading to sug gest that everything went smoothly, that Ted never felt isolated, never wasted an hour, and that there was no clash between the parental and teach er roles . But from very early on it was clear that we were embarked on an exciting experiment for us all ... Now that he is 14 and lives away from home, we both miss our learning ses sions immensely ... [Haim wrote an update in 1983:] ... Ted re-entered the school system in the ninth grade . . . Both he and I were convinced that our experiment was a success, but there were several reasons for re-entry, not the least of which was the need to prepare for the battery of brgrut (matriculation) exams which all sraeli high school students must pass in order to pro ceed (after the army) to universi ty ... It also seemed reasonable for an older Ted to test himself and what he'd learned within a traditional school environment . What we both knew, however, was that if he found learning with classmates at yeshiva genuinely distasteful or seriously counter-productive, that we would con trive means to continue outside of the system in spite of the rigidity of ba~;u~ requirements ... ~t the beginning of tenth
grade, the yeshiva began to respond positively to the situation ... In December, Ted announced that he was offered the option to skip the rest of the 10th grade and to jump (af ter Hanukah vacation) into 11th grade ... It certainly wasn't easy this last spring. Suddenly, Ted was in ele venth grade facing four bagrut exams that very June with a new c ass to integrate into ... Ted's grades on his report card for the second trimester went down, and there were times dur ing the spring when it was plain that he ~ondered whether he had chosen the right course. But by the end of June, Ted had been accepted by his class mates, done nicely in all his cour ses, and passed all his ba~rut exams. ... It's plain to me t at hours of our learning together two to three years ago have borne fruit. He takes pleasure in learning and in creating. That he now pursues his learning with in a traditional system is not, I feel, a sign of regress, for he has learned how to make that environment adapt to meet his needs for growth and learning .. -.--
DOWN'S SYNDROME UNSCHOOLER Janet Bennett (NJ), who wrote at length in GWS #11 about the home schooling of her daughter who has Down's syndrome, wrote the following article for the New York Times which was published 12711783: ... She does forward rolls and one-handed cartwheels, and she spins on the uneven parallel bars. She does leg presses, bench presses and curls on the universal machine. She does a jazz dance routine that threatens to get the place raid ed, and she swims, bicycles, and goes ice-skating . She types and does needlepoint; she volunteers in the local hospi tal's Gift Shop, waiting on cus tomers, and she has an acting and singing class every Friday. In her spare time, she has Down's syndrome. She is my 21-year-old daughter, Kathryn. She has never been in special-education classes; in fact, for the last five years, she has not gone to school at all. Oh, she has had schooling, all right, but not the usual kind . She went to private nursery school and kindergarten with children who were not handicapped. Then we found a public-school system that was running an open-school experiment, and Kath ryn went there for four years in a class of 90 children. Finally, for two years she was in a class of eight girls in a private Catholic school. Kathryn did well in those places. She learned to read - and well - but she learned more than aca demic things; she learned how to be a child and not how to be a Down's syndrome person. Her models were not perfect, and they were all different, but she didn't have a collection of handi capped behavior and speech to copy . Neither did she learn to mirror the self-reinforcing patterns of other children with Down's syndrome . No, Kathryn did not "keep up" with the classes she was in. The emphasis on individualizing in these schools meant that each child was offered what seemed to be appropriate at the time. Those early years were certainly better than I had ever imagined they would be when I was told in 1962 to
institutionalize Kathryn, not to tell our other children where she was or to ever visit her and that she would probably lie on a pillow all her life. But better years were to come . In 1977, when Kathryn was 15, I took her out of school. I had a feel ing that there was a better way than school. After having three older child ren make their way valiantly through the conventional system, I was sick of the whole school business anyway - the schedules that ran our lives, the permission slips and book covers, the conferences and the milk money. And I was nagged by a sense that even an individualized approach, if done in the context of a school and its structures, just could not be individualized enough. For the last five years, Kathryn and I have been free. We sleep late in the morning, go for walks at mid day, schedule doctor appointments and go grocery shopping when no one else is around. And Kathryn has learned all the things I have mentioned - and more.
I teach her some things. Right now, we are learning geography, especially about China, where her old er sister, a journalist, is spending a couple of years . And we have spent a lot of time taking pictures - of seasons, of weather and of our town and neighborhood - as jumping-off points for exercises in writing stories. A good friend gives classes in cooking and mathematics (paying res taurant bills, how to tip, and bal ancing Kathryn's checkbook) . They also practice relaying telephone messages, making collect calls and learning the etiquette of answering machines. We go to the shore in May and November as freely as in August. We go out to lunch most Mondays, and go to conventions with my husband with nary a permission slip. How we have done this and what we do day by day is not really the point, though. What is really impor tant is what I have found out about what Kathryn is capable of - how much she knows, how her mind works, how she learns - things I could not have known as well if she had stayed in school. I would certainly never have known them if she had been in special education from the beginning . I talk with her and watch her as I did when she was in school, as I did with the other children . But in those days, the school ultimately called all the shots and defined the context and the plan. The work and planning I do with Kathryn now do not take all that much time, sometimes only 15 minutes a day . But now I can see the whole thing: the beginning, middle and end of the process of learning . I see Kathryn as herself, not as one point along a scale of other points. ... At home, I watched as Kathryn learned the keyboard of our electric typewriter in one week. I watched as she made a rank order out of a long list of possible courses, not once blinking an eye as I explained what a rank order was. I watched as she all 4 feet 10 inches of her - man euvered our Plymouth Valiant through a course laid out with rocks in a parking lot. The whole thing has been the best of all possible worlds for Kath ryn and me . I always knew that Kathryn had great potential, that she could shoot
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #37
for the moon. But she surprised even me by wh at s h e has accomplished, by what she is really like, now that I see her without the filter of a school system ... [Janet added in a note to us:] . . . For pa r ents of Down's syndrome kids, the r e ' s a good newsletter, main ly medical information but very clear ly written ... $5 year from 10404 Les lie Ct, Silver Springs MD 20902 address it to Down's Syndrome . . .
THE MAKING OF A HOME-SCHOOLER From a Texas parent: . .. 1 sent my oldest child to pub lic school. I had taught her how to read and recognize her colors, how to tie her shoes, t h e alphabet, and how to write her name . She was spot reading words in various books. After her first week in school, she came home with work-papers on colors. I noticed she had missed some. When I asked her about it, she just shrugged her shoulders and h ung her head. As time went on, she regressed. I knew, and she knew, that she could do the work, but she evidently was too bored. In the first grade, they told me she was failing reading. I asked for the book she was reading from so I could tutor her. She read fine for me. I asked her about it, and she told me the teacher tried to hurry her and told her she couldn't read .. . A couple of days later I noticed Rebecca's attitude changing about her self. It ' s pretty sick to see a 7-year - old child sit and cry and tell me how stupid she is because she can't read the way the teacher expects her to ... My second child was belittled by the other children because she couldn ' t write a letter of the alpha bet correctly. I took her out of schoo l , after I found out the teacher yelled at her to do her work instead of explaining it to her. I got away with it by telling t h em I'd start her again next year . I h eard a teacher tell her students that she didn't care if they didn' t learn anything, that she'd get paid whether they learned or not! . .. It is my belief that when talking to or teaching a child, that when you see t h ey don't understand, that you would (without even thinking about it) try it from a different angle . Doing this is what I term com mon sense. Seeing teachers not back ing up to hit the subject from a dif ferent angle so all students can understand, and instead leaving them behind to wander for the rest of the school year, is absurd . .. We called Austin to see if home-sc h ooling was legal in Texas. They told us no. [DR: However, many Texas readers have t old us they have called t h eir home a private school with lit t le trouble. J We were also told by the gentleman we were talking to, he didn't blame us for not want ing to send our kids to public school. He said, " I don't even send my own kids to public school . " To me that ' s pretty poor when the State Board of Education doesn't even stand behind public schools' . . . 1 took the children out of school the last two months of the school yea r . We moved to a small town and I didn ' t enroll them. I taught them until 3:30 or 4 PM so the neigh bors wouldn't be suspicious. My hus band marvelled at how much they had learned in two months. I thought I wasn't doing so well, until he told
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #37
me that I had taught them in two months what they should learn in a year of schooling. My kindergartner is reading a certain book I have, also my 4-year old is reading. They are doing addi tion and subtraction and writing sen tences. My 7-year-old who was told she could not read is reading from a 3rd grade reader. She writes stories, counts to 800 and could go to 1000 but gets bored. They all love books and cry to go to the library. My l~-year-old colors and counts to 3 and loves books. She thinks she can do whatever her sisters do ' Right now they are learning to swim . In the short time I have taught them I have felt their closeness to me. They no longer say, "I'm stupid, I can ' t do it." They decide what they will learn for the day . They know they have to read and write and do math. They pick out things like learn ing about planets, the moon, stars, animals, flowers. They enjoy them selves. I hope I haven't bored you with this letter. But I just had to tell you these things. Maybe they will help others see the light ...
ON LEARNING DISABILITIES [JH:] A friend of mine, a Profes sor of Education at whose university I spoke not long ago, sent on to me a letter that one of his students had written him about my talk. In my reply to him I said in part: ... The trouble with the phrase "learning disability" is that it does not make clear whether it refers to an observed phenomenon, say, the fact that Billy has trouble reading words or writes them backwards, or an inferred cause of that phenomenon, say, that Billy does this because of something in the physical structure of his brain. In other words, it does not make the basic distinction which we know in medicine as the difference between symptoms - what the doctor can see, feel, etc. - and diagnosis what the doctor thinks is the cause of the symptoms . This distinction is so crucial that I don't see how we can talk usefully about the learning problems of children unless we make it . My experience both as a teacher and a learner, and since at age 60 I have just begun to play the violin I am encountering many learning diffi culties, is that stress, anxiety, fear of failure or disapproval, are enormously productive of these diffi culties, so much so that I would say that something like 90% of the art ~ teaching lies in being able first t ~ recognize stress in learners and then in being able to reduce it ...
STRESS AFFECTS IQ TEST From Learning, 9/83: ... Recent findings about stress and IQ scores should cause educators and psychologists to pause the next time they're tempted to base their de cisions about a kid's future on the results of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. Bernard Brown and Lilian Rosen baum, researchers from Georgetown Uni versity, found that when children they studied were under emotional or physical stress, they scored an aver age of 13 percentage points lower than youngsters who were functioning
virtually worry-free. .. . The researchers found that as the number of stress factors with which a child must deal increased, IQ scores decreased. Stress appeared to worsen a child ' s verbal ability and his proficiency in distinguishing shapes, causing 12-percent declines in scores on vocabulary and visual discrimination subtests. Even more dramatic was the find ing that when children under high stress are held back a grade or placed in a special education-class, their IQ scores declined 15.5 per cent, suggesting that these common school procedures are not having the intended positive effect on kids. Single copies of "Stress Effects ~ on I . Q. " by Bernard Brown and Lil ia,n ~ Rosenbaum are available free from the Georgetown Family Center, Georgetown U. Medical Center, 4380 MacArthur Blvd NW, Washington DC 20007 . .. [JH: ] Some brief observations about this article. 1) It supports my claim that what schools call "learning disabili ties" may in most cases simply be reactions to stress. 2) Parents can quote this study to show that if their children are learning in the more relaxed and com fortable environment of the home, they will be likely to learn more than if they were at school. 3) Parents who are required by state law or their own agreement with the local schools to submit their children to periodic achievement tests can cite this study to show that if their children are tested in the unfamiliar and therefore more stressful environment of the school, th~tL test scores are likely to be substantially lowered, and therefore,
~;;h~~;e~ea~?hO:~. well
be
~nvalttl
) Since, -nf"ttt e name of "rai sing standards," "ending social promo tion," etc., the schools are about to start making large numbers of child ren repeat grades unless they have ac h ieved certain levels, we can ex pect that even more schoolchildren will have severe learning problems.
"TEST" FOR EMOTIONAL MATURITY [DR:] People have asked us, " If a home-schooled child returns to pub lic school and has no correspondence school records, how does the school decide what grade he/she belongs in?" As far as we know, children are placed with their age group, and the most that can happen is that the schools will test the child to deter mine if s/he belongs in the higher or lower of the two possible grades. One parent has written us about a sad experience concerning this: ... We have recently moved here to Illinois from Missouri ... In Mo . , like so many of the people that I knew, we didn't keep records . . . We did not have the funds for correspon dence schools for four kids. ... Why did I allow my children to go back to public school after hav ing them at home for three years? .. They were hoping that the public schools would be better here in Illinois. ... My older son was scheduled for testing that, I was told at the time, was to see if he was qualified to handle tenth grade curriculum . .. The testing went without notifica tion . I had indeed given consent, but