Growing Without Schooling 67

GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING 67

Howpeople make discoverlcs ls the subJect of this lssue's

INSIDE THIS ISSUE: NEWS&REPORTS p.2-4 CFIALLENGES & CONCERNS

p.5-6 Mother Wants Tlme, La.rge Familles, How Worksheets Fail, What If She Wants To Go To School?

WHAT WE CAI.[ LEARN FROM W}IAT HELPS TROTIBLED

CHILDREN o.7 DEALING WTTH OFFICIAI.S

p.8-9 DECIDINGTO HOMESCHOOL p. 10 WATCHING CHILDREN LEARN p. ro-1r,22-23 Writing Workshops, Muslcal Family, Programmlng, Reading, Math, Geography FOCUS: MAKING DISCOVERIES p. 17-19 AUAITITITY

TIME p. 20

CHILDREN IN THE WORKPI-ACE p.2O-2r OLDER HOMESCHOOLERS p. 2 I 22 COMPLETE LISTS of certllled teachers, helpful lawyers, psychologists, and school dlstricts

p.25-27

When I was about seven or etght, I understood that the earth was round, but I thought that we were all standing on the lnside of the ball, rather than on lts surface. I saw the earth as the bottom half of the clrcle, a sort of cup holding everything, and the sky as the domed cetlln$. My mother tried to erplain to me that thls was not an accurate model of the earth and the sky, that in fact we stood on bp of the bdl, wlth the slry everlrwhere around us. The ercplanation dldn't make immediate sense to me. Nothtng ln my own observation or or.perience conflrrned lt. The slry looked to me llke a huge blue dome, a curved ceiltng. When I put the pleces together, I formed a certaln plcture of thlngs, one that was not easlly shaken. How frustrattng tt must have been for my mother not to be able to glve me her understandtng of the world, not to be able to take the mental model tn her head and slmply place tt ln mine. When I did - not long alterwards - change my mental model of the earth and the sky so that it agreed wtth hers (and, of course, wtth most people's), lt was not because I was told to, but because, through my oriln observaUon and hypotheslzlng and testtn$, the new model began to make sense, to seem rlght. Ifs very tempting to think that with a clever explanation, with the right words, we câ‚Źrn stmply transfer understandtng from one person to another. If this were all that teachtng requlred, good teachers would be people who could artlculate good ecplanatlons, and that would be that. But, as John Holt says in the unpubltshed letter we excerpt from tn thls lssue's Focus, stmply putUn$ our own understandlng Into words ls not enough. John wdtes ln thls letter about what was then, tn 1965, the "new enlightenment' ln educatlon, character2ed by the idea that teachers should teach concepts rather than facts. Later, John often used the metaphor of bottles ln a factory to describe our mistaken assumptions about teachtng and learntn$. We thtnk that teachlng ts like pourlng llqutd lnto bottles as they come down a conveyor belt, he satd. QuesUons about educatlon are questions about what to pour ln the bottles: should we pour in three years of French or four? Thus' the questlon of concepts versus facts, when asked wlthtn the framework of this metaphor, was stmply a questton about what to pour ln, what to administer. It tgnored the lack of correspondence between bottles watting to receive somethtng and actual chlldren at work making sense of the world. Understandtng the earth and the slry did not happen to be part of my school currlculum at the time that I was trytng to form my own model of it. But suppose tt had been. Suppose I had had to agree that people stood on the surface of the earth, and to wrlte tt on tests, before I actually came to feel that lt was so. One consequence ofhavlng to "repeat, as sense, what makes no sense'to us, John says tn this lssue, ls that we stop trytng to check what people say agalnst reallty. Worse, we forget how to conduct such a test; we forget that learning is a matter of checktng somethtng that someone says, or somethlng that we suspect might be true, agalnst sâ‚Źnse, against reality. Recently a friend and I were trying to flgure out what one percent of a large number would be. In the middle of the arithmetic we stopped and asked ourselves what sort of number we were lookfng for, what size tt would make sense for lt to be. Thts ls exactly what the children ln How ChlldrenFcil dld not do, and what we ourselves seldom did lr school - checked somethlng agalnst our own model of hou' thxrgs worked, and felt conlldent about the result. People ln educatlon are still debating whether concepts or facts are best (these days, the argument tends to be ln favor of facts). But the discussion in thls lssue of GWS ls not as much about thls debate as lt ls about why this debate ls not the point. John's letter, and the dlscusslons that follow, are about what teachers ccrn do for learners, and what teachers should be careful not to do for learners. Often we recelve letters at GWS whlch ask, 'What do I do when my chtld doesn't understand somethtng? Is there any way to help? When does help become harmful?'The discusslons ln this lssue offer us some ways to think Susannah Sheffer about thts tmportant questlon.

-

.U

NEWS & REPORTS

I U)

o o o

a

Norna Rlchoux Ross on the telephonc.

OFFICE NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS Our new ofllcr's location has made us much more accessible, and weVe had many visitors thls fall. Day Farenga

reports that our lncome from walk-in customers has trtpled, which ts good news. We hope readers from around the counby wlll contlnue to drop by - Just call in advance to be surewe're here. As you'll see in the Book and Muslc Store pages ofthis lssue, we ar€ cutdng several books and rnaterlals from our catalog so that we clrn conffnue to have

room for new items that are important to our philosophy. Many of the ltems we've cut are wonderful, and lt's hard to let them go. On page 16

ofthis lssue, weVe glvenyou

a list of everything that wlU be cut from the Spring catalog, and for whlch we sdll have stock available at press tlme. The deadline for the purchase of these discontinued items is March 31, 1989, so ifyou see something on the list that youVe always meant to order, now ls the time to do it.

We'd like to remlnd you, as we do from time to dme, that one of the lrnportant ways in which you can help our work ls to arrange for us to speak to a group tn your area, Some ofyou have already thought of asldng us to your homeschooling fairs and conferences, which we appreclate. We also suspect that some ofyou may have connections to groups or organlzations - parents' cooperauves, La

kche kague, profes-

sional educators, librarles, children's museums, or somethlng else (useyour imaginatlonl) - that rnight be lnterested. It may help, in thinlidng about thls, to remember that tn addttton to homeschooling we can also speak about how children learn, John Holt's ltfe and work, and lobbying, and can offer workshops in writing (for children, for adults, and for adults about children) and muslc. We've been enjoytng help ln the olllce from our old friend Elsa Haas, whom some of you wtll remember as our shlpper/ receiver a couple ofyears ago. Elsa ls now

living in Spaln and urorklng on translating GWS into Spanlsh, which we're excited about because such a translation will surely be of use to the Spanishspeaking communit5r here, too. We will let you know when an edition is available.

HOMESCHOOLED TEENS ARENIT ISOLATED *)omthe 11/7/8 Ltncoln (NE) Star,

'Home *lwllrtg Provtdes Teens LearnIrtg, But Not In Isolatirru' bg fub Reerrs:

,.,The students tn Uanl Bretz's class are all chtldren from home schools ln the Ltncoln area, who gather onc€ a week at her home to learn public spealdng. The class is one ofserreral opportunides for teenagers gohg to schooi at home to lnteract with other students. Contrary to a popular misconc.epflon about homeschooltng, most home school

students aren't golng lt alone. Besldes the speech cl:ss, trerng school teens have weekly phystcal educadon classes at the Northeast YMCA" They also have a band and a swtng cholr. Students get together

for monthly field trtps, and earlier thls fall participated in CPR class€s conducted by the Red Cross. Forelgn-language classes are belng planned... 'l like homeschooltng because it's a better way to me€t frends than tn the public school,' said Nlkkf l-ellerdink, 16, who lives on a farm near Hickman. Ntkld attended Norrts Publlc School through eighth grade, but satd she found the stu-

dents cliquetsh -'everybody had their own [ttle groups that they wanted to be

ln.'

Homeschmlers are eager to make friends and are more acrcepttng of other teenagers' diflerences - possibly because they are ln a less compedtlve envlronment she and other homeschoolers sald...

PARENTS . NEA'S PARTNERS Renremfur tlv aftlcle opposirtg honeschmling In tle Nattornl Hucation Associatircn's wwsletter tlut un reprbXd in CWS #62? Tte Ml has not changed tts positton on honeschalhg, to ow krcwbdgq butuse didcome across thls Item In tle Malden (Mass.J &llrcadort Associatfirn's Memfur 7988 newsbtten

The following new buslness ltem was presented to the NEA Convention te New Orleans tn.Iuly, 1988, by the Massachusefts State DelegaHon. It was supported by a vote of those present and mailings have begun to all state and local alllliates and local school governlng bodtes... 'NEA should cornmunicate with its state and local alBliates and with local governlng school bodles that tt ts the

responsibtltty of the parents/primary

guardians to become lnvolved ln the educadonal process ofeach child - tn homework, achlevement, and behavior. NEA should enoourage more lnteraction between parentsr/prlmary gu.ardlans and the educattonal pnooess ln the classroom, because the parents/prtmary guardians are fundamentally the drtvlng force behind each student's success. This should be accomplished prior to the end of the 1988-89 school year.' Ratlonale: Emphasls for a large part of the responstbility for student performance must be removed from teachers and put where it belongs - on parents/primary

€Uardlans, our partners ln education.

PHYSICAL CONTACT HELPS LOW BIRTHWEIGHT BABIES Now and, tlen we hear of research that supports a continuum uag oJ raislttg babies, nrith Lots oJ physbal contacL Flom the bcemfur 1988 tssue o/The Brown Untverstgr Chtld Development letter:

Regular sldn-to-sldn contact between very low btrthwetght tnfants and their mothers may help alleviate the distress of separadon for as long as the lnfants remaln hosplrrllzed. In a recent study, 35 hospltallzed lnfants weightng between 7OO and ISOO gr,rms were held naked between the mother s breasts for up to four hours daily durtng the mother's visit to the hospital. The mothers of these t:rfants were able to breastfeed four weeks longer, on the average, than mothers fur a control group. In addluon, babies who had experienced slidn-to-skln contact cried slgnilicantly less at slx months of age. ('Skin to

Skin Contact for Very low Birthweight Infants and Thelr Mothers,' A Whitelaw, G. Heisterkamp, K. Sleath, D. Acolet, M.

Richards, Archlves of Disease in Childhood 63: 1377- 1381, 1988.)

RESEARCHER LOOKING FOR HOME.EDUCATED ADULTS We pt this notlce h tle maiL TV'ro

Unlverslty of Utah researchers

are seeklng home-educated adults for a natlonal survey on homeschooling. The

suwey wlll assess characteristics, views,

and attifudes of adults who were educated at home for the duratlon of at least two years. lf you are interested ln completlng a survey, or lfyou know ofan adult who would be willing to partrctpate, please contact J. Gary Knowles or Jeannie Goodman, Departrnent of Educadonal Studles, Universlgr of Utah, Salt I-a.ke City LrT 84

l 12, or phone

8O l

-58 1 -8 175.

[SS:l I called Gar5r Knowles to Ilnd out how the survey dellned "adult.'At flrst he satd l8 and older, but when I menfloned that I could think of several homeschoolers who were 16 or 17 and already lnvolved ire adult work or in college, he revised this somewhat, and said would Itke to hear from anyone who has bcen homeschooled for at least two years and has now moved on to some kind of adult life beyond the home. So tf you fit this description, you're ellgible for the survey wen if you're not yet 18.

INSTITUTIONAL

S

ETTINGS

In the December i.ssue oJ Chid's Plag, the newsletter of TIIE CANADIAN ALUANCE OF HOME5€.HOOIE,R$ editor Wendg Hesnltz quotes Jrom a paper bg MoxitE WoIJe oJ tle CXy Unioersity oJ New York coJLed "lnsdtutional Seffurgs

ard

Children's llues: An Historical, Deuelopnental and. Ettuironnentol Perspectbse on Edlrcattonal Facilities":

GROWINC WTTHOUT SCHOOLING #67

3

For twelve years my colleagues and I observed the use of space and educatlonal

studled and reports can be made. This pnooess ts expected to take thls whole

praclices in many schmls whlch were of dillerent vintages and phystcal forms and claimed to have dllferent educatlonal philosophies.,. We found that tn most of these setUngs what oc.curred on a dally basis did not reflect the goals that teachers, admlnistrators, or deslgners sald they were trying to achierre. People talked about the value of indivtduallzed programs yet taught group classes and measured progress using standardlzed tests. Though the fixed desks and seats had been replaced by moveable furntture, ln most rooms and schools no matter what the educational philosophy or the overall use ofthe space, the arangements s€t at the beginning of the school year rematned undl the last day of classes,., One of the clearest yet rnost accepted and unquestioned example of an tnstitutional routine lhked to the exerclse of control and authorlt5r ts 'lfnhg up' ...The primary of order and obedlencc ls clear.. The underlying assumption ts that if authority is not exercised and ifobedience is not requlred, chlldren will behave in ways totally out of control... Life for chlldren ln school is pubtc. They have virtually no time or space to which adults can be denled aooess... Privacy is so antithetlcal to the lnsUtutional goals of order, control, and en-

school year.' North Dakota. then, ls the only state actually rcqulrtng cerdllcaHon rtght now. Accordtng to the Fall 1988 lssue of ?he

forced sociabilfty, that chlldren's attempts to seek out prlvagr are delined as their problem... Chtldren who ffnd psychologtcal prtv'acy by daydreamlng are labeled as 'lnattendve' or 'dlslnterested'.,.

NEWS FROM THE ''CERTI. FIED TEACHER'' STATES Of the three states - Mtctrigan, Iowa"

and North Dakota - that have requlred homeschoolers to be (or to use) c.erttfied teachers, tn only one, North Dakota, is

this requirement currently ln effect. In Michtgan, the prelmlnary inJunction regardtng homeschoolers and crrtlfied teachers ts scheduled to come to trtal soon, to be changed lnto

a

permanent

inJunctlon, accsrdlng to the November issue of ??re lzarnlrg Mge, the newsletter of CIONIARA HOME BASED EDUCATION PROCRAM. Check wtth Clonlara about the exact trial date. The preltmlnary lnJunctlon, which was handed down bv Ctrcult

Court Judge Thomas Brown tn l'987 and has been tn elfect slnc.e then, requlres that homeschoolers have a cerdlled teacher for 'anywhere from two hours a year up to 899 hours a year,' rather than the l8O days a year that the state ortglnally requlred. The Judge deffned "teacher' broadly, tncluding an audlo orvldeo cassette, a person met at the [brary or Lre church, or someone you speak to on the phone. Clonlara plans to brlng homeschoolers who have been successful wtthout a cerdlled teacher, or who have only us€d one through phone conversatlons, to be witnesses at the trlal. And, from the same lssue of The I-earnh.g &lge:'[Iounl - one of the three states whlch requlred the use ofa cerdlled teacher by home educators - no longer does. The whole questlon of home education is on hold untll the toplc can be CROWING WTTHOUT SCHOOLING #67

Hote *lrol

C-autt Reprrft, the newsletter ofTHE HOME SCHOOL LEGAL DEFENSE ASSOCTATION, pnosecudons of famllles

contlnue. As of the newsletter's press dme tn late October, three new famllles faced tmancy charges, and several other famllles had been threatened wlth prosecuUon. Several of this state's tmancy convlcflons that we have mendoned ln prevlous lssues of GWS are s.tll on appeal.

NEW LAW IN PENNSYLVANIA The homeschoolrng btll pa.ssed out of the House ln a unanlmous vote on November 22, out of the Senate wtth another unanlrnous vote on November 3O, and was slgned lnto law by the governor on Dec€mber 21, endtng homeschmlers' four-and-ahalf-yearlong elTort to pass a new law ln

Pennsylvania. Under the new law, as under serreral other state laws, pa.rents must file an annual allidavit with their local superintendent saying that they are teachlng the required subJects for the requlred number of hours (prior to the passage of thls Law, homeschoolers ln Pennsylvanla had to seek approval from thetr local superlntendents).

Three aspects of the new liaw are worth noting: Handlcepped chlldren: Homeschoolers wtth a chtld who has been ldentified as handicapped must have thelr program approved by a certllled special ducadon teacher or a llcens€d c[nical or school psychologfsl The law reads:

"lnstrucdon to chlldren of compulsory school age provlded ln a home education progranr" as pro\rlded for ln Secilon 1327. I of thls act, shall be conslder€d as complyfng wlth the provlslons of this sectlon, exc€pt that any sfudent who has been tdenttlled purstrant to the provlslons of the Educatlon of the Handlcapped Act... as needing spectal educadon servlces, excludlng those studenls ldsntlffgd as glfted or talented, shall be ln compliance with the requlrements of compulsory educatlon by partictpattng ln a home educatlon program... when the program addresses the specific needs of the exceptional student and ls approved by a teacher with a valtd cerdllcate from the Commonwealth to teach speclal education or a llcensed cltntcal or certllled school psychologst, and wrttten nodllcadon of such approval ts subrnltted wtth the notarlzed allidavtt..." Acc'ording to Howard Richman of PENNSYLVANIA HOMESCHOOLERS, this

part of the blll represents a compromlse, because leglslators had at one potnt proposed that homeschoolers wtth handt€ppd ctrlldren be prevented from homeschoollng at all.

Methodr of Eveftntlon:

Parents

must rnatntatn a portfollo of thetr chlld's work, and at the end of the year must have

the portfolio revlewed by a state cerdlicd teacher, a non-public school teacher, or a llc.ensed psychologlst. Parents may choose thelr enaluator, and PENNSYLVANIA HOMESCHOOLERS plans to kc'ep a file of

sympathedc people who qudiS. After r€vtewlng the portfolto and lnterviewing the chtld, the evaluator must write an erraluatlon certi$rtng that the child ts maktng 'sustained progress in the overall program' and that'aPProPriate educatlon' ls taktng place. In grades 3, 5, and 8, the portfolto must also lnclude standardlzed test scores, wtrich can be thos'e of the statewide TELIS test (ln which case the child would take the test at the local school), or ofone offlve other standardized tests (which can be admlnlstered by someone the parent chooses, as long as tt ls notthe parent). Agaln, the erraluation sectlon of the liaw represents several compromlses, according to the homeschooling lobbyists. Homeschooler Peter Bergson told us that althouglr homeschoolers were originally adamant about opposlng a testing requirement, durlng the later stages of lobbying it became clear that tt would be lmpossible to saHsff the legislators, and thus get the law passed, without maldng some provislon for testlng. The linal verslon of the law requtes the person who rerrlews the child's portfollo and wrltes the year-end evaluation to have had at least two years of teaching experlence. In an earlier verslon, tlrts had

been'two years ln the past ten,'which would have elimtnated many home-

schooltng parents who were certtlied teachers before becomlng homeschoolers. Under the law as passed, many homeschooltng parents uill qualiff as evaluators for other families.

Duc Proccsr llearlngr: If a super-

lntendent claims that education ts not taking place for a pardcular child, based on the annual portfolio and evaluation, he must specl$ whlch parts of the documentation ale tnadequate. The family then has twenty days to submit addidonal documentatlon. If they fatl to do thts, they are automatlcally tn violation of the law. If they submtt the additional documentatlon and the superlntendent determines agatn that lt is inadequate, the disbtt must pay for an lmpartial due process heartng. The law reads:

"If the superlntendent determines that the addittonal documentadon submttted sttll does not demonstrate that ap-

proprlate educadon ts taking place ln the home educatlon program, he shall so nouff the supeMsor of the home educatlon program... and the Board of Directors shall provide for a proper hearing by a duly qualifted and tmpartlal hearing GROWING WTHOTIT SCHoOUNG #67. Vol. 12

No. l. IS.SN #0745-5305. Publlshed bt-monthly by Holt Assoclates, 2269 Massachusctts Avenue, Cambrtdge MAO2laO.$2O/W. Date of Issue: Fcbrua4r l. 19a9. Sccond-clas pcstage paid at Boeton. MA. POSTMASTER: Scnd addregs changes to GWS, 2269 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA O2l4O.

ADVERISERS: Deadlares arc the l5th of oddnumbcrcd months. Contact Patrtck Farenga for rates.

4 exarniner wtthln ttrtrty days. The examtner shall render a declslon wtthln flfteen days ofthe heartng except that he may requlre the establtshment of a remedial educaUon plan mutually agreed to by the superintendent and supervlsor of the home educadon prog5am which shall continue the home educadon program. The decision of the examiner may be appealed by either the supeMsor of the home education program or the superlntendent to the secretary ofeducatlon or conunon-

wealth court,"

The law goes lnto effect tmmedlately, but does not superccde any agreements between homeschoolers and superlntendents that are ln elTect durlng ttrls school year. One linal note. In GWS #65, we wrote that as part of the court rullng ln favor of the Jeffrey family, .Iudge Kostk would have declared the old law unconstltutional by Deccmber 31, 1988, tf the legislature had not passed this new law. This would have left the state wlthout anv homeschooling law, and thus open io possibly more restrictlve regUladons from the Department of Education. The homeschoolers' lobbylng ellcrts clearly helped to pass the new law tn time. An ardcle tn the lL/24/8A Philadelphia Inqulrer reports: "[Chatrman of the House Educaflon Committeel Cowell satd the grass-roots lobbying had worked.'[Homeschoolers] delinitely had an tmpa.ct. Thetr lobbying put some of the professtonals to shame.'"

OTHER LOCAL NEWS For addresses oJstate and,leal organlzatlotts, s€e GWS #66 or our Honeschrcllng Resource llst, apailo.He

Jor $2.

Califorala: Tlee Decemberpanuaqr

issue of the NORTHERN CALIFORNIA HOMESCHOOL ASSOCTATION Neurs

reports that although the State Depart-

ment of Education recently reallirmed the legality of homeschoolittg (".. GWS #66), some count5r and district oflicials, who must interpret and enforce the law, have interpreted it narrowly tn "hostile, threatening letters' to homeschoolers. The NCHA Ner.us quotes letters from various school olllcials saytrg that parents must have a state teachtng credential to qualifr for an exempdon from the compulsory educadon law. (In fact, lnstnrc-

tlon by a tutor wlth a teachtng credentlal ts only one of the law's optlons. The others are lndependent study ln connecdon with the publtc school, or flllng as a prlvate school.) The editor of the NCHA Neurs adds: 'Fortunately, as of November 8, nothtng has come of elther of these sltuations,

although the famllles lnvolved ln NCHA

wlll condnue to watch them closely.'

Also ln thls lssue of the Neus, Ellzabeth Harntll wrttes that the group

oppos€s the rroucher proposal called -The Educational Fleform Act of 1990." The

proposal ls for a law that would dtstrlbute educatlon vouchers to school-age chlldren ln Caltfornta. Ellzabeth Hamtll wrttes that NCHA opposes thts d!:aft on two gSounds: flrst, tt would dellne private schools as those enrolling ten or more students, thereby ellmlnadng the prlvate school exemptlon for homeschoolers; second, lt requlres that homeschoolers demonstrate academlc progress through standardized tests. Ncw Hempehlrc: Thouglr the state regulatlons were not scheduled to come up for a review untll 1990, the LttcMeld schml distrlct, whlch ts tnvolved ln a cpurt battle wtth a homeschoollng farnily, asked the Department of Education to revlew the current regulauons sooner, and to constder proposals for new ones. Several groups are represented on the Home School Rules Committee, whlch ls ln the process ofdrafttng new reguladons: the School Boards Assoclatlon, the School Adminlstrators Assoclation, the Princi-

pals Assoclation, the Non-public Schools

Advlsory Council, the State Department of Educatlon, the State Board ofEducaflon, and two homeschoolers from state groups, According to Elatne Rapp of the NEW HAMPSHIRE HOME EDUCATORS ASSOCIATION, the school board that asked for the regulations to be reviewed has suggested that new regulaUons mandate that par€nts be certtffed and chtldren be tested, and allow for home vistts by school olllclals. Elaine says that homeschoolers arc trying to oller more 0e)dble proposals. New YorL: In GWS #65, we wrote that homeschoolers were worklng to amend the recently-passed homeschooling regulations to allow for alternatlves to tesdng. The Januaqr lssue of the Florne schoolrers' Erchorye now reports that this amendment'was defeated at the Novem-

Lee C,olnet urcte In tle Wtter lssue oJ The Voice, the wwsletter oJ NABAMA

HOME EDUCATORS:

[The Birmingham Area Support Group hasl dweloped a wonderful system of support for their large area- They request parents who have two or more years of homeschooling experience to adopt a newcomer for one year. They then ask the volunteer to phone thelr adoptee every week or so, be available to answer quesdons, direct them to the proper help or resources they mtght need, and meet together periodically. ISSJ We utelmme ang other ldeas Jrom lrcal grotq)s tlvt would fu useJul to

otlers.

CALENDAR April l. 1989: Massachusetts,/

Vermont Area La kche league Conference, at the Walsh Mtddle School tn Frarningham, Mass. Pat Farenga wlll speak on

'Iramfng Outslde of School.' For lnfor-

rnadon: Mar:sha Salett,

2l

Eaton Rcl,

Needham MA 02 192; 617-4.49-3l4a.

April l5: Alabama Home &lucators home school seminar and curriculum fair. at the First Assembly of God Church in Montgomery. For lnformadon: send SASE to AHE, 819 Joryne Dr, Montgomery

AL36l09.

Aprtl l5: Maryland Home Education Associadon conference, tn Columbia. Susannah Sheffer wtll lead several workshops, as will long-time homeschoolers Nancy Wallacc, Theo Glesy, Nanry Plent, Howard and Susan Richman, Peter Bergson, and others. For lnformation: Manfred Smith, 3Ol-73O-OO73. ApdLlE: Wsconsln Parents Associatlon 6th Annual Conference on Home

April 29: Connecdcut Homeschoolers Assocladon Falr. Susannah Sheffer will be spealning. For information: Linda

Create vour ()rvn ltottte sclr()()l ('urriculttrrr witlr

llre lrelp of Clorrlara Sclrool I lonre lJitsctl {lll llducatiorr l)ro1;rarrr, tlre well-tralarrcerl Iiil lronre school t)rograrn offerirrg flexible or starrdard allllroach. Our graduales receive our l)rivate sclrool diploma and full transcripts. Ann Arbor, Mlchlgan 48104

SUPPORT GROUP IDEA

tlon: WPA, PO Box 25O2, Madison WI 53701.

Home Based Education Prograrn

Prt Montgomcry. Ph.D.

(3131 769-{515

the 1989 school year.' Homeschoolers have formed the statewide group, FI-OURISH ln l.IY, to r€pres€nt homeschoolers when the reguladon comes up for review.

Educatlon, ln Stevens Point. For lnforma-

cLo';lo.rzo,

t289 Jeuett

ber meeUng of the Board of Regents tn

Albany. However, the amendment was dlscussed for almost an hour. and there was strong support for lt from a few of the Flegents... We have lost thts battle, but it has served to make the Regents aware that there are homeschoolers who do not feel thelr c-oncems were addressed by the regulatlon. The Educatlon Department plans to revtew the regulatlon at the end of

Dlreclor

Schroth, PO Box 25O, Cobalt CT06414. May 13: Colorado Home Education Associadon State Fair, ln Denver. For lnformadon: Nancy Kipp, 303-973-537 4. June lO- I l: Clonlara Home Based Educatlon Program Conference ln Plymouth, Michigan. For lnformadon: Clonlara, 313-769-4515. We are happy to run announc€ments of rnaJor homeschoollng and related wents, but we need plenty of nodc€. Deadline for GWS #68 (events ln May or later) is March lO. Deadline for GWS #69 (wents tn July or later) ls May lO. GROWING WTIHOI..N SCHOOLING #67

CHALLENGES & CONCERNS MOTHER WANTS TIME FOR HERSELF Poula Hildrcth oJ Permsgltrurdo.

urites: I've spent a lot of ttme lately thtnklng about my own creadvlty. It seems as though everythtng tn my ltfe these days ls geared towards the liids. I try to tnstill creadvigr and a love of leamfng h them, I look for wonderful educatlonal experiences for them, I try to expose them to fascinating people, and above all, I want them to poss€ss both the ability and the desire to be everything thcy are capable of being. But I'm becomtngl mor€ aware every day that my own creattvlty has shriveled and is virtually dead. Ifs certainly not a good model for my children, having a mother who concentrates on the mundane aspects of day-to-day llfe all the ttme. When I rrras a ctrlld I read constantly. I wrote poetry and essays and short storles. I remember when I was about lO, settlng up a card table ln the basement and spendtng hours there after school, wrfting my storles. I condnued to wrlte a lot both ln htgh school and college, and the classes I took and the teachers who taught me all encouragd creativlt5r in thought and expression, But after two years of college I qutt school to get married, and I think this is where the change came. After I was married, I stopped u/rtdng, stopped playtng muslc, even stopped readtng anyt}dng exc.ept non-flcdon. Somehow books on child care and nutrl$on were OK, whlle books that were flctlon were not OK. Of course, marrlage, ln and of itself, wasn't responsible for my raptd retreat from creativit5r; this was somethtng I dtd to myself. Somehow my perceptlon must have been that a wife and mother should have no funternal life of her own, so creativity became the enemy, to be destroyed. Now, over a decade Later, I'm fac.ed with

the problem of hou to reawaken the lmpulses that I put so soundly to sleep. Maybe IVe killed ft so thoroughly that there's nothing left. I tend to think, though, that f I begtn to spend as much ellort in derreloping an lnner vlslon as I spent ktlling one, I mtght get somewhere. My problem now ls this: How does one develop creattdtjfl How do I teach myself to stop focuslng constantly on the nlttygritty detatls of Me, and begln lnstead to feel the beauty ofeach day, and even dare to try to describe that beauty, to myself and others? One way to begtn to open myself up to the creatlve prooess ls to read good literature. I meniloned that my readtng the last few years has been almost excluslvely nonfictlon, and I have learned and grown a lot through that readtng. But for my purposes rlgfrt now I need Dlckens and Tolstoy and Thomas WolG and Anne Tller. IVe begun to read poetqr ^gain, and I'm hoptng to memorlze lt, too, so that I have great chunks of lt at my dtsposal whenever I need tt. I'm llstentng to muslc more often, and I want to begtn to play an

lnstrument agah. I thtnk another hablt that I need to

GROWING WTTHOUT SCHOOLING #67

cultlvate ls that of stoPPtng to thtnk. Wtth three children I tend to run through my Itfe at full ttlt, thtnlcng about laundry and

dtr$ dishes and who locked the cat ln the bathroom. I feel gutlty enough when I stop for a while to read, but lt would be unthtnkable to stop and do nothtng. If I spend an hour cleantng, the product ls a clean house. But tf I go out lnto the woods and slt and look up at the pattern the trees make agatnst the sky, what ls the pmduct? I may be a happlerwoman, more at Peac€ wtth myself, but that lsn't somethfurg you can see and measure. So lve felt gullty about thds ktnd of 'tlme-wastlng.' But what a dreamer I was as a chlldl I would slt for hours looking out the wlndow as the snow fell, or walking through the woods near our home, feellng the wlnd agalnst my facc and thtnldng. I came away from these ttmes enrlched, strengthened ln an

almost spiritual way. That ts the llnd of enrlchment I need now. Of course I am a motherand must make supper tontght: of course I homeschool and must think about three separate personallties, But tn the mtdst of taktng care of so many detalls, I must be sure to listen to my own volce, and to nourish it and teach lt to respond lnJoy to what tt llnds around lt.

HOW WORKSHEETS FAIL PeggA Webb (NY urrftes:

When school began tn the fall and Lena dld not go olf to Kindergarten with her frlends, she asked me for'homework." I began making up a few worksheets for her to do. They were dillerent from the standard school lssue h that I made them personal and sometlmes funny, lncluding kna's day-to-day experiences and facts from books we'd read. Still, many of them were multlple choice or'read the story and draw a picture,'or 'spell what ttlis picture is" - mostly schoollsh tn format. Lena loved them. My only problem was making enough of them. At the peak, she was banging out about etght a day and asldng for more. On October 25th, I qult smoldng, and among other thlngs, our worksheet experlence began to deterlorate. They weren't funny an5rmore, I couldn't stt sttll long enough to make more than one or two at a tlme, and, well, we went through a rotten tlme ln general. After two weeks and most of the heebte-Jeebies had passed, I found myself nagging her about these stlly worksheets. No longer was she doing them at the breakfast table. Instead I was asking her two or three tlmes a day lf she d done her schoolwork, and I swear there was a whine tn my volce. Still, we perslsted for another month. Well, as my husband used to say on

the farm, 'Even a bltnd ptg can snllTout an acom once ln a wtrile.' I realized we were headed down a path I nerrer thought we'd travel. Even before my battle with nlcotine I'd begun to feel I was qutzztng

kna, that shed stop enjoying

bedtime storles once she saw the plot lines on her next worksheet. Also, and perhaps most unsettltng, I was alternately feeltng thls

stlly prtde over her accomplishments and arudety over her llrnitations that was unknown to me before. The two months of worksheets ended by mutual agreement. We have close to two hundred completed ones to flash before the school ofllcials lf they want to see her 'progress,' and several valuable lessons were learned.

THE CHALLENGES OF A LARGE FAMILY Katlq Pud,y

(NY) wrcte last sumrner:

Luann Claussenwrote tn GWS #63 that she would like to see more on home-

schoolers with large familtes. I also was ralsed in a large family (I'm the oldest of seven) and have a reladvely large family ofmy own - five chlldren ages 8, 6, 5, 3, and l. It {s a handful. But deep down in my heart I know lt ls also worth it. I had my Bfth child, l,achlan, tn the begtnnhg of last August, after a sweltering sununer ln a trailer. Was I able to spend

that summer preparlng for the fall? Nol

Was tt easy homeschooling a second grader, caring for a young tnfant, and tending to the phystcal and emotlonal needs of all the others? Nol But lnstead ofcongratulattng myself for having gotten through the year wlth my sanity fatrly lntact, I have been struggltng wlth terrible feeltngs of fallure, because there was so much more I could have done (or so I thought). It ls easy to read about or observe homeschoolers wtth fewer or older chlldren and say to yourself, 'Ipok at all they're doingl If I

was really capable/organized/competent I would be able to do all that.'I am finally

getttng to the potnt where I can look back on this year and say, 'Well, under the circumstances, you did the bestyou could." It slowly dawned on me that nobody has enough fime, nobody does werything theyd like to do. Everyone has to make choiccs and compromises. I saw that the valid question to ask was, 'Dtd I make the rtght choic.es?" And I do feel comfortable wtth the choices I made. Now, Luann, to the specillcs of your

lnqulry:

TIme schedules: There ls a school of thought that says you should have a daily schedule written down. We could never wrlte ours down, because our schedule was organlzed around the baby's naps, Chaullering: We owrr one car, which my husband takes to work. Any driving around must be done after he gets home, and we have a pretty skimpy gas budget, so not too much drivtng gets done, period. Housekeeplng: The baby needed quite a bit of care this year, especia.lly in the beginning. I told the lidds that if we were gotng to homeschool this year, they were golng to have to help a lot. My two oldest, then 7 and 6, had a lot to do. On alternate days they were responsible for all of the laundry for the four oldest children. My 6 year old, Rundy, had to do the breakfast dlshes and clear and wipe the table. My 7 year old, Teman, had to empty the dish dratn and sweep the floor. At lunch they tr:aded these twoJobs. My husband did the wenlng dishes, and from time to tlme