GROWING
WITHOUT
SCHOOLING
8 In GWS #7 I said that we had received 2700 letters as a result of the TV show with Phil Donahue, and might get 1000 more. The total is now about 7500, and though the flood has slowed down a good deal, it has not stopped. Of these letters, about half expressed some kind of sympathy and support, from mild to ecstat ic. Perhaps 1000 or so said they definitely wanted to subscribe to GWS. (Had I guessed how much mail there would be, I would have tried to give the price on the air!) Another 1000 seemed strong ly interested. As far as we can, I plan to follow up these people until they either subscribe or say, "Leave me alone!" Only eight letters were cri tical and/or hostile, and none of them were what you could call hate mail. Of the eight, four or five did not so much defend the schools as criticize me for not trying to make them better. Hundreds of the supporting letters (and about four of the critical) were from teachers or ex-teachers. Some of the latter had retired, many had quit in despair and disgust, or been fired. Many of those who are still teaching said things like, "I work in the schools, and I know what they're like, and I don't want that for my child." Only one letter strongly de fended the schools. While doing the show, I said to Linda Sessions during a sta tion/commercial break, and after we had heard some fairly hostile comment from the audience, that we were not there so much to con vince the audience as to send out a signal. Later I read that about four and a half million families (mostly mothers, since it is a daytime show) regularly watch it. That's a lot of people. But there are a great many more still to be reached. We have much more signal sending left to do. CBS "60 Mi nutes" v/anted to do a show on the same subject, but was told by higher-ups that the number of unschoolers was not big enough to justify it. But another CBS TV show, called "Mag azine," definitely plans to do a program on unschooling. At least one other big national show is looking into it. The monthly magazine Mother Jones has a very good article on unschooling coming out. I have had long conversations about it with people from The Ladies' Home Journal. Omni, a new magazine of science and science fiction, has said they want to interview me.
An interview with me, which I have not yet seen, has been pub lished in the Libertarian Review . And allover the country the newspapers have been full of sto ries about unschoolers. NEW RECORDS
The group subscription rec ord has moved to a Southeastern state (for the time being, I can't say which one), where read ers have taken out - hold onto your hats - a 74X subscription, for 12 issues! (Each reader wi 11 get GWS for about $1.32 per year, or 23¢ per issue.) The next largest group sub scription is in Great Britain, where a group of people connected with the British unschooling movement called Education Other wise have taken out a 40X sub scription for 18 issues. A GOOD INVENTION
From the Amherst Record (MA) "Uni vers i ty of Massachusetts School of Education Dean Mario Fantini provided the idea of the , portfo1i 0 approach' to eva 1uate the education of Richard and Keith Perchemlides, sons of Peter and Susan Perchemlides. The portfolio approach is acceptable to Schools Supt. Don ald Frizz l e and to the family. According to Fantini, video and cassette tapes, actual art works and photographs can be used to evaluate the children's learn ing instead of the weekly paper and pencil test . The portfolio becomes 'an archive of each child' he said. In a telephone interview Thursday, Fantini said the Per chemlides asked his advice in developing an education program for their children. He said he spent 'countless hours' with the couple discussing their philos ophy of education and their goals in educating their children at home. Fantini, who specializes in different approaches to learning and teaching, approves the option of parents educating their child ren at home. But he said it is important to assess the benefits of this education to the child. Fantini said 'it makes sense to have an outside evaluation by an individual or panel in a home education situation.' He said this third party review would be impartial and acceptable to school administrators." FROM KY .
Mil Duncan (106 Lorraine Ct. Berea KY 40403) writes: "... Bi 11 and I have two sons, Graham 4 and Ian 3 [as of 10/78J, who are full of curiosity and eagerness about the world. Since they were infants they have had books to hold and study and llsten to - and lately their at tention span for story or poem listening seems almost without limits. They love 'how things work' books and books that des cribe Indians' life styles and history. When we read books with
more words than pictures (like WIND IN THE WILLOWS or CHAR LOTTE'S WEB or A. A. Milne) they are still and attentive, and in terrupt to comment on the story or to ask about words or expres sions. They have the patience now to hear non-plot-like prose - to listen about the wind rustling in trees and pouring over the char acters' ski n or fur - and to en joy those descriptions as well. In his AUTOBIOGRAPHY John Stuart Mill describes his unique education that his father provi ded him: (p.21) 'There was one cardinal point, of which I have already given some indication, and which, more than anything else, was the cause of whatever good it effect ed. Most boys or youths who have had much knowledge drilled into them, have their mental capaci ties not strengthened, but over laid by it. They are crammed with mere facts, and with the opinions or phrases of other people, and these are accepted as a substi tute for the power to form opin ions of their own ... Mine, how ever, was not an education of cram. My father never permitted anything which I learnt to degen erate into a mere exercise of memory. He strove to make the understanding not only go along with every step of the teaching, but, if possible, precede it. Anything which could be found out by thinking I never was told, unti 1 I had exhausted my efforts to find it out for myself ... ' Out of the blue last month Graham began to mUltiply. He said, 'Mil, I know what 2 three's are,' and so forth ... arrangi ng with fingers or objects so that he can pose problems and solve them. Discovery fills every hour, doesn't it!" UNSCHOOLERS
From the Daily Review (Hay ward CA, May 1976): GOING TO COLLEGE AT 16 IS NO PROBLEM FOR HIM San Leandro - Though he is only 16, Mark Edwards has had no difficulty in adjusting to campus life in California State Univer sity, Hayward, where he is a full-time student this quarter ... [HeJ was able to enroll at Cal State . .. at the age of 16 because of the California High School Proficiency Examination for 16 and 17-year-olds given for the first time last Dec. 20. The exam is designed for 16 and 17-year-olds who want to ter minate their high school educa tion before they become 18. Those who take the examination and pass it are awarded a Certificate of Proficiency which is the legal ' equivalent of a high school di ploma and allows them to drop out of high school with parental per mission. Mark took the proficiency
test Dec. 20 which was also his
16th birthday. He had no diffi culty passing the test v!hich he foun~ to be "simple" and "triv
ldl.
...
Mark was accepted at Cal State on the basis of his scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the American College Testing exam. It was because of the pro ficiency examination that Mark was able to enroll in the Cali fornia State College system. Without [itJ, Mark's only alternatives would have been pri va te co 11 eges . Mark is the son of Dr. and Mrs. Scott Edwards of San Lean dro. His father is a professor of political science at Cal State and his mother is a junior high school teacher .... Mid-way through the eighth grade [MarkJ decided to drop out of school, preferring to be tu tored at home by his parents .... being more advanced academically than his fellow students, he was often referred to as an "egg head." He enrolled in Moreau High School in the ninth grade in 1974, but dropped out early in 1975 and completed his high school education at home .... At Cal State, Hayward, Mark is taking 17 units. He has al ready challenged one class, Eng 1ish 1001, written the test and recei ved the credi ts. . .. Mr. and Mrs. Edwards sent me that clipping, and along with it one from the San Francisco Exam iner, Jan. 10, 1979. THIS FAMILY LEARNED ITS LES SON - KIDS STUDY AT HOME ... Five years ago [the Ed wardsesJ decided to yank their children from the formal class room atmosphere and have them at tend class at home in San Leandro . . .. The Edwards children, aged 13 to 18, speak in glowing terms of their home-based schooling and claim it's given them poise and an insatiable appetite for learn ing that they wouldn't otherwise have had at their age .... The results are remarkable. Mark, the eldest at 18, is a jun ior at the University of Califor nia at Berkeley. Cliff is a soph omore at Chabot College, and 14 year-old Matthew is a freshman at Holy Name College in Oakland .... The parents currently teach daughters Jennifer, 14, and Di ane, 13 .... The ongoing education, how ever, isn't as regimented as the usual day's schedule at a school. The father begins each day with a brisk morning jog, leading the children. Following that the daughters are given the day's as signment from their mother ... One subject at a time - such as geography - is tackled for a few months ... But if a daughter s im ply doesn't want to study one day, preferring instead to tend other chores, the studies are generally continued the next day. ... And the parents insist that relatively little time and money are"spent for such an education.
With the c1i ppi ngs Mrs. Ed
wards sent this information:
"Mark and Cliff, 19 & 17,
work almost a full week as well as attend classes. Mark works in a cred it office and Cliff is a salesman for a radio store. They had no problems getting part time work. Matt, 14, is a paid organ ist and pianist helping to defray his school expenses. " A NEEDED LAW
The State of California has done something that I suggested in INSTEAD OF EDUCATION. (I don't mean to imply that they necessar ily got the idea from me - though they may have.) In it I wrote: "To further reduce the power of the schools and their tickets, we might also extend the idea of the high-school equivalency exam. In all states and territories, people who have never finished high school can, by passing an examination, get the equivalent of a high school diploma. Today, people may not take this exam un til they reach a given age, varying from state to state be tween seventeen and twenty-one ... Clearly, the law does not mean to let any young person get out of school merely by showing that he has already learned what the school is supposed to teach him. But we might before long be able in many states to pass laws that one could take the equivalency exam at any age - or even laws that anyone who passed the exam no longer had to go to high school, and if below the school leaving age, must be admitted without cost to his choice of the state colleges .... This could be a great help to many poor or nonwhite children who would like to be doctors or lawyers or work in other profes sions. What keeps them out ... now, as much as any other thing, is the extraordinary amount of time it takes to get the needed school credentials .... " A year or two ago someone introduced into the Massachusetts legislature a bill to lower the age at which students cou ld take the high school equivalency exam. Public educators turned out in force to oppose it - as it turned out, successfully. But the polit ical climate is changing, and to day it might be possible in many states to persuade the legisla tures to pass a law like the one in California.'
lock children up; Holmes lets cu rious boys and girls play with his most precious equipment. Holmes' arch-enemy is the insti tutionally-educated Professor Mor i arty, who stands for every thing Conan Doyle does - and Holmes triumphs, while Doyle died considering himself an abysmal failure. Doyle hated Holmes, as is well-known, and tried to kill him off in mid-career. Yet Holmes survived, as voice for the real, repressed man inside Conan Doyle. The outer Cona n Doyle was afraid of his own true inner convict ions. Fortunately, inner convict ions overcame outer image. Sher lock Holmes, for instance, has taught more children to enjoy reading than all the institution a 1 texts ever wri tten. " Makes me want to read Holmes again, haven't since I was a kid, when I read all of him, and how I loved it. ELECTRICITY
Theo Giesy writes: "During the holidays while we had the tree up, Susie was wondering why all the bulbs go out on the series strings and only the burned out one goes off on parallel strings. (I still cling to and insist on using four series strings from my ch ildhood) Darrin gave her a very nice ex pla nation of the difference be tween series and parallel wiring. I have no idea where he picked it up. I asked him where he learned that. He said, where he learned everything. I asked what he meant by that. He said, from me. I know he only learned it from me in that I gave him time to learn what he was interested in." ON "INFINITY"
A mother wrote me a wonder ful letter, which has disappeared in my filing system (I was sure I knew where it was), talking part ly about the problems she had with the letters Band D when she was little, and partly about her six-year-01d's thinking and ques tions about numbers. One of his questions was, what was the num ber next to infinity. To this I wrote, in part:
"There is no number before 'infinity.' Kids talk about 'in SHER LOC K'S TRIUMPH finity' as if it were a number, but it isn't. The word 'infinite' Merritt Clifton, ed itor/pub means 'end1 ess' or 'bound1 ess. ' lisher of SAMISDAT (Box 231, You can't get to the end, or the Richford VT 05476), author of edge, because there isn't one; no matter how far you go, you can novels 24X12 and A BASEBALL FAN TASY, writes: keep on gO ing. Not an easy idea, maybe, for a six-year-01d, or even most adults, to grasp. " ... consider Sir Conan Doyle's remarks quoted in GWS #7 The family, or as mathemati in conte xt with his own greatest cians would say the 'class' of literary accomplishment, the cre whole numbers,i.e., 1, 2,3,4,5 ... ation of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle ~ no biggest number. No matter how big a number we think of, we advocates formal education; Holmes is self-educated. Doyle can always add some other number to it, or multiply it by another suggests learning is best accom number. Mathematicians call this plished in school, during child hood; Holmes experiments, toys, & kind of class of numbers not , i nfi nite' but 'trans fi ni te. ' questions like an intelligent There's a good chapter about child on into adulthood, & con transfinite numbers in a fascina spicuously avoids any institu ting book which you may be able tional connections. Doyle Iyou1d
to get from a library, or perhaps from a university, called MATHE MATICS AND THE IMAGINATION, by Kastner and Newman. We learn that one transfinite class, such as the class of even numbers, is the same size as another transfinite class, the class of all whole numbers. It seems crazy at fi rs t, how can there be as many even numbers as there are numbers, since half the numbers are odd. Well, we can say that one class of things is the same size as an other class of things if for every item in the first class we can match one and just one item in the second class. If for each right shoe we have one and only one left shoe, then we have just as many right shoes as left shoes, even if lye don't know ex actly how many we have. For every number in the cl ass of whole num bers, 1,2,3, ... we ca n make one and only one even number, by mu1 tip1iying the first number times 2. 1 matches with 2, 2 matches with 4, 3 matches with 6, 4 with 8, 5 with 10, and so on no matter how far we go. So we can say those two classes are the same size. There is a wonderful proof, what mathemat i ci ans ca 11 'e1eg ant' (and it is, too), that the class of fractions is the same size as the class of whole numbers. That really is hard to believe, since between any two whole numbers you can put as many fractions as you want. But there is a way to do that matching game again, so it must be true. There is another elegant proof that the class of decimals is larger than the class of whole numbers. But I won't say more about this now. Let me know if you can't find the book; I still have a copy and could make a copy of those pages. The mathematician who did a lot of the early work on this was Georg Kantor. He showed that some transfinite numbers are bigger than others. Indeed, I think he found four or five different transfinite numbers, each bigger than the one before. The class of whole numbers was the sma l lest, the class of decimals the next smallest. Then a still larger one which represented (among other things) the class of all funct ions. These are big ideas for a s i x-year-01d (or anyone) to grap ple with. Try them out, see what happens, don't be surprised or disappointed if he suddenly turns away from numbers and starts to look at something else. Mean while, see if you can encourage him to talk about 'infinite' in stead of 'infinity.' There is no such thing, or mathemati.ca 1 idea, as 'infinity.' There is just the adjective 'infinite,' meaning, as I said before, without an end or an edge." FROM NEWARK
Dean Schneider, 77 Custer Ave., Newark NJ 07112, writes: " ... at a workshop the other day the speaker was talking about her experiences with unschoo1ing in Newark. She, a member of a city poverty agency and former teacher, had a friend who actua l ly never registered her chi.1d for
school. When her child was six or seven and had not yet been to school, she started being hassled and threatened by the school au thorities (I don't know how they became aware of the 'offense' in the first place). Despite her repeated defense that she was ef fectively teaching her child at home, the powers that be turned their screws. But rather than submit, the mother took her child and moved out of state. This was around 1974 or 1975. After the meeti ng, I enquir ed as to other cases she knew about of parents, in Newark, tak ing their children out of schools altogether and teaching them at home. She sa id she had five or six friends who are thinking se riously about it. They are Single parents (the number of mother centered households in Newark runs about 50%) who had, them selves, gone through the Newark public schools and wanted nothing of the sort for their children. They were far-sighted enough to plan their work lives and finan ces so they could take three or more years off, or at least jug gle their time, to be at home to teach their children. Whether or not they too will encounter of ficial resistance or pressure is unknown. In 1967, home study be came legal in New Jersey under State v. Massa, 95 NJ Super, 382, 231 A 2nd 252 (1967). But this ruling, in itself, does not pre ve nt legal or political maneuver ing as has been seen in other states where home study is sup posedly legal. I have recently heard of other instances of parents un schooling their children in New ark and New York City . My next door neighbor seriously contem plated keeping her daughter at home last year, but then decided to enter her at the alternative school right up the street. It appears that far from in hibiting attempts at unschooling, big city life is getting so rot ten as to encourage it. When in one week one hears of half a doz en cases of actual or contempla ted unschoo1ing in a city with the dismal reputation of Newark, it becomes clearer that there is a willingness to pullout of pub lic schools should cond itions be come desperate enough - even if this mea ns arranging work lives to make it feasible, relying on friends or relatives, or training children for early independence and self-reliance (as you mention in GWS #4) . This also appears to counter the claim that only mid dle class whites can afford to get their kids out of public schools. Even when children are in schools that parents find sus pect, you hear of brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cous ins and parents chipping in at night or on weekends trying to teach at home to reverse or mini mize the damage wrought by the public schools. A student at my school last year, when asked, "How are you ever going to learn this stuff if you don't listen?" rep 1i ed, "My unc 1e teaches me at home." Another former student in our third grade had very irregu lar attendance and this was con sidered a problem. Yet I tutored growing
·~1thout
schooling "'8
her during the summer and she picked things up very quickly, and is in fact ahead in her studies compared to other third graders (who have been more reg ular in attending school). From what she told me, it was evident that her mother made home in struction a regular part of daily life (after school). Anoth er student told me today that she has a tutor come to her house from time to time. In Newark, some parents have started their own schools while others have selected schools which are at least better, which can mean 'stronger academically,' more relaxed or more disciplined, happi er or s tri cter. But in any case, creating or selecting their own school is an act by parents to acquire some say in their own lives and the lives of their children. And one way these al ternative schools could support parents in unschooling is to of fer to supervise or help develop home study programs for a small fee. This could be to provide just paper legitimacy or to act ually work with parents to devise a plan of action. I know you men tion this for parents using an alternative school outside their own state (INSTEAD OF EDUCATION, and New Schools Exchange Newslet ter #131). This is a prospect I'm keeping my eye on in Newark. Even a dismal city like New ark has a real world outside the school doors, and much to be learned from people in or out of schools. There's a good library system, a good museum with a num ber of workshops and programs, parks, lOOS, airports, shipping ports, etc. - all things to learn from. Also, there is easy access to all New York City has to of fer .... Should unschooling hap pen more in Newark, there's a city out there to be used prof itably. And if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere . " At the moment, I know of only five schools in the country that are willing, so to speak, to provide cover for unschooling families. One is, of course, the Santa Fe Community School, which has already helped a number of families in this way. The others I will write about in GWS as soon as I have their permiss i on to do so. Meanwhile, we need to know of more such schools. If any readers are part of a school which would be willing to do this - act as legal cover for unschool i ng fam ilies and/or help them with a home study program - please let me know. Thanks. A SHELTER SCHOOL
No sooner had I written the above than I had a letter from Ed Nagel (P.O. Box 2823, Santa Fe, NM 87501 - Tel. (505) 471 - 6928) on just this subject: "... Re home-study students enrolled at Santa Fe Community School, since 1974-75 we have en rolled about 100 students, from different states, of whom only 3 that I know of were ever challen ged. One was Erik Sessions (still enrolled). Another was the child growing without schooling ,, 8
of a lady from Pa., on whose be half Wm. Ball wrote a letter, ob taining a substanti al delay of any action against her. Later she returned her child to prison . (Actually the chi l d was never forma ll y enrolled at SFCS during this period.) The third parent was fairly mobile; when her chi ld' s "attendance" was cha ll en ged in Pa., SFCS wrote a l etter verifying her employment with the school as a supervisor of off campus travel - study . This satis fied the local superintendent and ended any further queries. There are others, occasion ally, who attempt to obtain a le gal "guarantee" from the local public schoo l officials - asking the "boss" in effect if they can undermine his operation - and who, failing in this, become in timidated and soon retreat from their position. Or, they may move, literal ly, to another areal state where they may then proceed less conspicuously to provide an educational alternative, in some cases, at least, thru SFCS. As I write, it occurs to me that there may have been another challenge, but NONE of the par ents whose children enrolled at SFCS have ever had to go to jail, or paid a fine (the unenrolled child ' s parent from Pa. paid a fine, as I recall, }rior to Ball's intervention, or lost a challenge throughout this five year period. Currently, there are between 40 and 50 students enro l led i n home- study programs through SFCS, severa l within our own state . Of these, I would estimate abo ut 1/3 have been enrolled for more than 2 years now. Of the many al terna tive schoo l s doing this in other states which have been made known to me - roughly 30 - on ly 3 have given me permi ssion to put searching parents in touch with them, and then only under certain cond i tions; everyone is parano i d. No one wa nts to go to court; not the parents, not t he sc hoo l s; not the pub l ic officia l s who can man age to keep the news/noise down about the few 'unusual' arrange ments they allow/tolerate within their distr i ct. ... " Good news about SFCS. If I were planning to take children out of school, one of the first th i ngs I would do would be to en roll them at SFCS, or make such an arrangement with another school if I knew of one that woul d do it. I woul d do other things as well, but I would cer tain ly do this. As for school officials, several people have told me that they have had their ch i ldren out of schoo l , and that the schools, even though they had not formally approved this, were willing to let it go on, as long as nobody complained . But as soon as some nosy neighbor reported to the schools that such-and- such child ren were not in school, the schools had to make a big show of disapproval, start talking about law, courts, etc. What the offic ia l s are afraid of is that some one will say publicly, "How come you let those people get away with not sending their kids to school?"
What we need (among other things) is an answer for the schools to give to the nosy ne i ghbors. Maybe if the schools can say, "That child is enrolled in a private school and we have nothing to say about him," it would so l ve their problem, and so, our problem. ON "RELIGIOUS BEliEF "
A Canadian parent, writing about the Sessions case (GWS #7), discussed the part of the ruling that said that parents' claims to constitutional protection on re ligious grounds of their right to teach at home must be "rooted in religious belief." The court did not say what it would or would not consider "religious belief." About this, the parent went on to say: "I see 're 1i gi on' as a con cept that can be man i pulated for unschoolers' benefit just as can the concepts of 'school,' 'teach,' 'educate,' etc. As you pointed out, unschoolers should say, 'Yes, our chi 1d goes to school,' and 'Yes, I am teaching my kids,' even if the method of teaching is simply allowing them to learn .... For 'religious belief,' what just about anybody could feel comfortable with is ... the feel ing that one's children are divine beings to be protected and nurtured to the best of the par ent's ability .... I'd say some thing like this: 'I believe that my children are Divine Beings and that i t is my Divine Responsibi lity to educate my ch i ldren ac cording to God's Plan.' ... The trick is that 'God' and 'relig ion' can mean whatever one wants them to. 'God' doesn't have to be Judaeo- Chri stian; it can be Uni v~rsal Energy, 0;' Nature, or s 1 mp ly Love. . .. replied that this isn't what I meant at al l. Such a statement might work in Canada (though I doubt it), but not in the U.S. What the framers of the Constitution wished to prevent, and what the Co nstitution itself forbade, has happened anyway. Judaeo-Christianty has to all intents and purposes become the official, state religion of the U.S. When the Const i tution was amended to put the words "un der God" into the Pledge of Al legiance, it was not just any God, or anyone's personal d~fin ition of God, that people had in mind. It was the God of Christi ans and Jews.Any people who are asking on religious grounds for the right to teach their own children will have a much better chance if they use the word "Christian." To de fend home schooling on the grounds that chi l dren are some kind of Divine Beings would al most certainly be a disastrous mi stake. In many parts of the U.S., people would consider that statement itself to be irrelig ious or blasphemous. I would instead suggest that people say that what happens in schools offends their Christian beliefs about the way to teach and bring up children, as indeed I would think it would offend,
and deeply, anyone who understood the word "Christian" to mean "based on the teachings of Christ." That is to say, on the New Testament as opposed to the Old, where those with a mind to have always been able to find excuses for greed, racism, hatred, violence, and cruelty. It is of course possible that the courts might one day up hold the right of Moslem or Bud dhist or Hindu parents to teach their children at home, on the grounds that both the daily life and the subject matter and values (both taught and untaught) of the average school classroom serious ly violated their religious be l i efs. I hope someone wi 11 make such a test case, and will follow it closely if they do. But as for such parents winning - I'll be lieve it only when I see it. Meanwhile, if we can in good conscience apply the word "Christian" to our beliefs, it seems to me to make good sense to do so. FROM QUEBEC
Helen Fox, 137 Chemin du Ruisseau, St. Clet, Quebec, writes: "We are solving the school problem for our daughters (12, 8, & 3) in a combination of ways home teaching before they are 6 so they read well and love math before they see a classroom. Then French school, which in our lit tle village here in Quebec is friendly, relaxed, even joyful (Ed. note - certainly not true of many or most schools in France), and for some reason much emphasis is put on sports (they tan in winter from skiing and skating every day) and "public" speaking. Al l we hope for them to learn at school ... that we cannot teach them better at home ... is French and a total immersion in a cul ture and l ife-style different from ours. They seem unaffected by geography books from 1947 (we read maps, go places & talk, after school) and the other idio cies that are so debilitating in the suburbs, and elsewhere. They love school, & do we l l. I think they love the chance to live a completely different life than the one we live here, at home ... even a new personality is born in another language. I marvel at them, as I stumble along talking to their friends. Interesting to note, though, that the older two much prefer reading in English (in which they've had no school training) than in French. They (esp . the older one) say it's because 'there's nothing good to read in French ... no action & adventure' but I imagine there's less action and adventure in the act of read ing that was taught methodically. These schools, by the way, are not great for French child ren . A large number repeat a grade, and many get disgusted in high school & quit to work on the farm (illegally). Class, in ele mentary school, is often a mad house - but it's endured, even enjoyed, I suspect, by the teach ers who, like most French Canadi ans I have met, really like kids &want to be with them."