u.s. $6
Nov.lDec. 1994
G
WITI-IOI]T S Issue L02
ftbrlw"rld -t.
i,_ Dcrence :hr*. . See page 5
Homeschooling in
Holland
Latino Homeschoolers
Focus: \Arhen Teachers Don't Realize They're Teaching
Self-Educating with Libraries
Making Connections
&rtturtr News & Reports p.
#f
34
Homeschooling Information Clearinghouse, Homeschooling in Holland Real-World Science p. 5-7 Going on a Bolivian expedition, working at marine science center, finding a helpful astronomy group and biology mentor
a
Latino llomeschoolers - IJnderstanding the System, Reclaiming Control p. 8-9 Self-Educating
- with the Library's Help p. l0-11
Challenges & Concerns p. f 2-15
When Kids and Parents are Different, Labeling, Overcoming Doubts of First Year, Driver's Ed Watching Children Learn p. 16-20
Writing, Ready for Math, Intensive WWII Study, Mothers' Reasons for Homeschooling Making Connections p.
2l
FOCUS: When Teachers Don't Realize They're Teaching p. 22-24 Teenage flomeschoolers -Just Starting Out, and Looking Back p. 26-27 Resources & Recommendations p. 28-29 1995 Directory
Issur #102
Nov./Drc.
1994
of Families and Organizations p. 30-46
gw8
FouNor,o rN 1977
BvJoHN
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Eonon - SuseNNen Surprnx. r Pugr.rsHrn - Parnlcx FarENca o CoNrnreurrNc Elrron - Dorue RrcHoux . Booxrtrpen & Eorronrer. Assrsrerr - Manv Mannr . Oprrcr. MeNecrn - Dev FeruiNca . SunscruprroN MeNecEt - ReNor KlLr.y o SsrpprNc MaNacnn - MaNol Peoxr r SsrpprNc AssrsraNrs - ArNrn TulnrrNo &JrNNrnnn FltzsrvuoNs-Gaucnn . Caraloo Oronn Pnocrsson - Ml-q.cnos Csrl r Cr-rnx, Boox Rrvlrw CoomrNeron - Meurur,N Caruv. Col.rpurnr Aur,lrNrsrRAToR - GrNcEn FnzsruuoNs r Dere ENrnv- SrnrsaNrt D'Anc.qNcnlo o OFFTcE Assrsranr - Maxov MaUER . CusroDrAN - ANonnw Doolnrlr
Hon
Try this experiment: think of things you know, or understand, or know how to do.
Asso<rerrs Boeno or Drnrcrons:
Dev FarnNca, Perp.rcr FanrNce ( Conronern PnrsronNr), Menv Mannn, MaNo; Parxr, Suse.NNas Surnrrx
Alr.rsons ro rsn Boeno: Tolr Mesrn, MenvVeN DonrN, NeNcvWer.r.qct crowing Without Schooling #l 02, Vol. 17, No- 5. ISSN #0475-5305. Prrblished by Holt Associates, 2269 Mass. Ave., Cambridge MA 02140. $25,/1r. Date ofissuc: December I, 1994. Second<lass posage paid at Boston, MA and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send addre$ changes to GWS, 2269 MN. Ave, Cambridge, MA 02140 ADVERTISERS: Deadlines are the 15th ofodd-numbered months. Write for rates.
Think of how you learned those things. Most likely, other people had something to do
with it, at least some of the
time. Think of who helped you to learn these things - the people of whom it would be accurate to say, "I learned that from her" or "He taught me that." Now, ask yourself: how many of these people realize that you've learned from them? How many are aware that you attribute at least some of your knowledge or skill or understanding to their help? My guess is that on all of our lists, there are several people from whom we've learned but who don't realize that they've been our teachers in some way. Maybe you learned something about basketball when you were younger by playing with some older kids. Or maybe you learned something about music from hearing another family member practice. Or maybe you learned how to talk respectfully to children by being around other parents who were able to do that. There are of course hundreds of possible examples. We spend a lot of time in GWS trying to show, in one way or another, that people don't need to be explicitly taught in order to learn. Sometimes we do wantto hook up with teachers who specifically intend to teach us. If you sign up for piano lessons, both you and the teacher know
that you're trying to learn something from her. But even when we aren'ttatght in this explicit way, other people help us to learn, or we learn from other people. The kids who write for this issue's Focus give all sorts of examples of this as they describe what they've learned from people who didn't even realize they were teaching. So learning without formal lessons does not always mean learning "on one's own," as critics (and even advocates) often phrase it. It can just as easily mean learning from other people as we watch, listen to, help, work alongside of, and generally live in the world with them. In a way, several of the other stories in this issue of GWS are about this topic, too. The stories about "RealWorld Science" tell how important a community of working scientists can be to a young person's understanding of science. Some families worry that science is one subject that older homeschoolers won't have the resources to cover well, but in fact there are more people actually doing scientific work and study outside of a high school than in one, so the homeschooler actually has a much broader range of resources from which to draw. Adrienne Storey's account of self-educating through library research might seem to be about a young person Iearning solely "on her own," but notice how important Adrienne found the librarian's respectful treatment of her, and how conscious she was of the fact that the books and documents she was discovering were written by people people with whom she could disagree, people who could lead her to new ideas, people who could, in a certain way, become her teachers. $s53nn2h Sheffer
-
GnowrNc
Wrrsour Scsoor-rNc #102 . Nor,'r,Msnn/Dncnlrnnn 1994
/[*t 6,Qqora Homeschooling Information Clearinghouse
That's what the Homeschooling Information Clearinghouse is all about."
Mary Griffith, who has been involved with the HomeSchool Association of California for years, has begun a group called the Homeschooling Information Clearinghouse. The Clearinghouse's purpose is to help homeschoolers around the country publicize homeschooling. The newsletter, Spotlighl is full of advice, both from Mary and from homeschoolers all around the country, about getting the word out - dealing with the media, organizing local events, writing press releases, getting on local radio spots. The Clearing-
house also assembles media kits, and Mary writes that they "plan to create a basic information kit, to be updated
annually, and supplemented quarterly with mailings of features on homeschooling and homeschoolers. Eventually we will develop a version tailored to public officials. We may offer both information kits, along with advice for customizing them for local use, for sale to local support groups." In the first issue of the newsletter. Mary writes, '\Alhat's the way to defuse officials bent on discouraging homeschooling? What stops politicians dead in their tracks and sends them scurrying off in the opposite direction? What is our single most effective weapon to keep homeschooling legal across the country, and better yet, make it an unremarkable educational option? "Public opinion. "If the public at large understands and accepts homeschooling as an option, we will keep the legal right to homeschool. ... How do we create that positive, favorable picture of homeschooling? We make ourselves visible. We identi$, ourselves as homeschoolers. We show who we are, what we do, how we contribute to our communities.
"How do we create that positive, favorable picture of homeschooling? GnowNc Wrrsour ScHoor-rNc #702
.
Homeschooling Information Clearinghouse, PO Box 293023, Sacramen to CA 95829-3023: 916-4222879.
Homeschooling in Holland Liz Mqer Groenueld (The Nethnlands) unites:
It is possible to homeschool here in Holland, but it is extremely difficult to find out how to go about it with official sanction. It took me nearly six years to get the information. I had even enlisted the aid of a somewhat sympathetic school board official who was unable to learn anything at all
helpful. Most people make the mistake of asking permission to homeschool; all are told emphatically that no, homeschooling is not allowed, and that all children must attend school from the age of 6. Ironically, once you know how to do it, homeschooling here is a relatively simple matter. A Dutch family won their homeschooling case in 1988 on the basis of constitutional freedom of thought and belief. They had a good lawyer who enjoyed the challenge ofan idealistic case as a break from the more common drunk drivers and divorce cases. Like many American families before them, this family had to explain the reasons why they felt homeschooling was the best thing for their children and had to prove to the judge the strength of their convictions. As the father related the story to me, the judge's final question was, "What if I say 'no'?" The father replied that the family would leave Holland. The judge remarked, "Then you're really serious." Mr. Krans, the lawyer who won this case, explained to me that when your child is 5, you must go to the local burgemeester (mayor) and school
authorities and state that you will not be enrolling your child in school. I expect that if families do this, it will lead to challenges and threats. If this happens, families can contact me and I'll put them in touch with Mr. Krans, who will tell them how to proceed. It is important not to be bullied into enrolling your child in school, as this would compromise your legal position. In the eyes of the court, enrolling your child would indicate that your convictions are not strong enough. I was not able to discover this information before my child was already 6, so I never reported to the school authorities when she was 5. Mr. Krans asked me if, should a court battle ever ensue, it would be possible to have our child "officially" out of the country for a year. This shouldn't present a problem, as it is impossible for the authorities to keep track of one's comings and goings here. In fact, the only other method I have discovered to get away with homeschooling in Holland involved (l) avoiding the school board, and (2) when eventually challenged, stating that I am a U.S. citizen and am out of the country with my child more than half the year, and therefore subject to U.S. rather than Dutch law. We came to the attention of the truant officer when the local Waldorf school reported us. My husband and I helped start the school and worked hard for them for over a year before becoming disillusioned with Waldorf education. The school felt insulted when we didn't enroll our daughter, and apprently they decided to force the issue. Lizzy was growing very curious about school, where she knew all the other children were going, and we feared that if we did not allow her to sadsry her curiosity, school would become an irresistable attraction. So we enrolled her in a cozy little public school. She attended enthusiastically for eight weeks before suddenly
getting bored. Withdrawing her from school brought the truant officer around again immediately. I was impressed with the fact that his questions concerned my child's welfare (academic and social develop ment), rather than rules and regulations. I was able to reassure him on both counts, knowing that the school
Nor.'Eunnn/DrcrMsrn lg94
.l
* (with an unusually enlightened director) would back up my story. was three months before the
It
truant
officer returned, this time taking a threatening stance ("You know why I am here. Madam...").I used the same story about traveling for more than six months of the year, and reassured him as to my care and cpncern for my
child's education. I sounded as confident as I could, did my best to impress him as someone who knows her rights. I did expect him back within l:'alf ayear, and in fact I learned the details of the Dutch court case only weeks later. However, 19 months have passed without another truancy visit.
It is possible that we could have problems in court over the fact that Lizzy was once enrolled in school here, should the authorities ever put two and two together. But as long as no one is bothering us, I can't worry about iq we could always go back to the "traveling" story (though I should add that it is stressful for parents and children to maintain a fiction while learning to be honest citizens!). My worries have always been about the higher grades. Academic standards are very high here; for example, to enter universiry, one must know not only Dutch but English, German, and French. And in Holland one must have a trade diploma even for work such as flower arranging. Unemployment is very high, and such requirements become ever more stringent. But reading GWS never fails to reassure me that where there's a will, there's away. I think that as long as we can meet the academic requirements. Lizzy should have no more trouble passing a state exam to enter university here than any transfer student from another country would have. Now that she is 7 and quite fluent in English and Dutch, I am working on finding someone to teach her German, which I think she will learn easily. I plan to ensure thatLizzy can homeschool as long as she wants to. The last person who phoned me for information also worried that school children might taunt her for being different. Apparently the caller knew of someone who'd had this problem. We have never encountered anything like that, however, and don't 4
Nsws & Rrpor.rs
* The criterion for
expect to. Two years ago, if I mentioned that Lizzy was homeschooled, people raised eyebrows; Iately it doesn't seem to provoke any reaction whatsoever, beyond occasional expressions of concern that she might be lonely without other children. Lizzy is an only child and we live in a neigh-
f,rrst year free.
borhood with no other children, so I have always gone out of my way to make sure she has plenty of children to play with. She made friends in school and has had no trouble keeping them. And lest you worry that she wouldn't have found friends outside of school, she also has a half dozen or so
Handbook of Alternative Education.
who are foreigners, and has made a few friends in her ballet class as well. I do think people assume that we are doing things very off,rcially, with tutors and textbooks, when in fact we are unschooling. I also ask the school children regularly what they're working on, and in most areas we're way ahead of Lizzy's class despite the minuscule amount of time we set aside for actual lessons.
Office News We have two projects for which we'd like to enlist readers' help. The first is our back issue project. We want to have every word of our back issues on computer disks so that we can create a bound version of the com-
plete set of issues and so that we can search and collate stories on common themes. We have only the most recent few issues on disk, so we are looking for volunteers to enter a complete issue onto a floppy disk that can be read by a Macintosh. Check in with us before beginning - we'll assign you an issue, and supply a copy if you don't already have one. (In case you're wondering, we hauelooked into scanning our issues into the computer, but have discovered that scanning is still pretty
error-prone, especially with our earlier, small-type issues.) For each issue you enter, we'll give you a year's subscription or extend your current subscription by ayear. Our second project is this: we want to offer 50 trial, one-year subscriptions to selected libraries. Frankly, we are curious to see how many libraries will renew on their own after we offer the GnowrNc
selecting libraries is simple: find out if your librarian is interested in this offer and, if so, send us the contact name and address for the library. We'll send them a one-year subscription.
Further library news: Macmillan has publishedJerry Mintz's The
It
contains essays about alternative schooling and one written by Pat Farenga about homeschooling. Its state-by-state directory contains nearly 7500 entries of alternative schools, programs, and homeschooling groups. The book costs $75 and is currently only available for sale to libraries, in hardbound editions. Suggest this to your library if you think they'd be interested. Jerry tells us that a paperback version, revised to further emphasize homeschooling, is due next year. We always appreciate it when readers send us articles about
homeschooling; you're our clipping service! Some recent articles in the national media: "The Dawn of Online Home Schooling," Nausweek, October 10, 1994, "Teaching Simone: Unexpected Lessons from a Homeschooling Year," Washington Post Magazine, September 25,1994, "The Family Room is the Classroom," The Christian Science
Monitor, October 11, 1994.
This issue of GWS contains our complete 1995 Directory. Entries or changes that we received after our deadline will be printed in GWS #103, and our lists of teachers, lawyers, etc. will be printed there as well.
Calendar April 1. 1995: Georgians for Freedom in Education Family Conference at Mt. Paran Church of God Central in Atlanta, Georgia. Keynote speaker and workshop leader, Pat Farenga. Other workshops, activities for children and teens. For info: Sandy Tucker 40+463-0781. We are huppy to print announcements of major homeschooling events, but we need plenty of notice. Deadline for GWS #103 (events in March or later) isJanuary 10th. Deadline for GWS #104 (events in May or later) is
March
10.
Wrrsour Scnool-tNc #102 .
Nor,nNaern,/Dncnrusnn 1994
Real-World
conducting interviews with mothers with babies aged newborn to 18 months.
Science Going on Expedition tn Bolivia From Kirsten Shepbr (Venezuela):
"Science is one of the best reasons to quit school," Grace Llewellyn wrote
in
The Teenage Liberation Handbook.
This was very true for me. The first day
of my physical science class, our teacher started the class by telling us how well she had done in science. After she had received A's all through high school and college, she decided to get ajob as a chemist. When she went in the first day of work, her superior had to explain to her, using jelly beans, exactly what she was doing. My teacher found out she didn't know a thing about science, that all those A's didn't mean a thing. After telling us this story, she informed us that none of us would be receiving A's. She then proceeded to abandon us to 'jelly bean science" that is, those artificially-colored fragments of science that can be packaged in a school laboratory. I presume that my science teacher expected us to construct our own scientific meaning from these jelly beans. After six months, I decided there was no meaning to be constructed from experiences which could be prepackaged in a school lab. In frustration, I left school and went looking for a real life and education. Science intimidated me. I tried to take a biology course from a university independent study program. When the textbook came, I opened it and
Maternal Strategies in Bolivia. The expedition briefing described the project "Slow to adopt modern family planning methods, Bolivian women have had their own time-tested ways of spacing children. The average Bolivian woman breastfed her child for 16 months, experienced amenorrhea (an interrupted menstrual cycle) for 11 months, and practiced sexual abstinence for 6 months after the child was born. As native Bolivian culture breaks down, however, with the flight to cities and the availabiliry of artificial milk and modern medicines, such traditional birth control methods are beginning to disappear. Half a year after their child is born, 20 percent of Bolivian women no longer breastfeed and 25 percent have resumed menstruating. Deborah Bender and Robert Baker are studying how infant feeding, post-partum abstinence, amenorrhea, and contraceptive use are interrelated here. Can rural Bolivians learn to better combine traditional and modern medical and family planning practices? "
This project was perfect for me. For the first two weeks of August I would be working together with scientists and other volunteers on studying how 'jelly bean science" had affected the Bolivian women's timetested ways of spacing their children that is, how with the availability of
-artificial
milk and modern medicine the Bolivian women were out of harmony with their traditional birth control methods. At last I found real-
was blasted
byjelly bean science. I closed the book quickly and never
life science. One of the first things I learned
opened it again. I knew I was skimping on science, but it frightened me and I didn't want to have anything ro do with it until I discovered real-life science through Earthwatch. Earthwatch is a nonprofit organization that places lay volunteers with scientific expeditions throughout the world. After poring through their magazine, I found a project called
about real-life science is that it involves action. Our main research area would
GnowrNc
Wrrsour ScsooLr^-c #702 .
be in Villa Primero de Mayo, a barrio outside the main city of Santa Cruz
where recent immigrants from rural Quechua and Aymara regions live alongside residents born and raised in Santa Cruz. Working with Bolivian interviewers. we would be administering a2lpage questionnaire and
Now,naen,n,/DrcrMenR.
l9g4
Our first interview was with a 20year-old mother with a one-month-old baby. She and the grandmother continued to wash the clothes in the front yard while we conducted the interview. I was surprised how open this young woman was, telling complete strangers everything from when she was born to what kind of birth control she used. Thus. I conducted my first scientific investigation in the real-life laboratory of trust shared over a laundry tub. This trust led to my second discovery about real-life science: that is, the relation of the known and the known does not conform to the stiff protocol of objectivism. I can't count how many times I would sit with young girls who knew their age but couldn't remember the year they were born. I would help them figure it ouu "Well, since I am \7 and was born in 1977, you must have been born in 1978 or 1979." Then they would nod their heads enthusiastically and say, "Yes, that's itl" Throughout the rest of the interview, these young mothers would look to me for that small smile or encouraging nod of the head. There was a connection between us. These girls weren't objects that we could nick and prod and then discard. They were subjects who had feelings and a need to be heard and respected. When we know something truly and well, that which we know does not feel like a separate object to be manipulated and mastered. To search for scientific truth is to reach out with our whole persons for relationships which can reweave
the community of the entire creation and to take our proper place in it. The answer to the question, "What are the tools by which we know the world outside ourselves?" is quite inescapably this: "The whole person." Using the questionnaires to create meaning wasn't enough. Words which filled in the blanks couldn't reveal the woman who would answer each question and then anxiously look towards her husband for his approval, nor the girl who would ask her mother what she thought before answering that question herself, usually repearing what the mother had said. In real-life
*
Rl'ar-WonrD ScIENCE {'
science there is more to look at than just the facts. There are attitudes, body language, the hidden messages and ideas, the anxious looks, etc. In jelly bean science, we probe and prod, looking for the facts, sometimes passing right over those important factors that tell us the whole story. This was the case with Laida, the new Bolivian interviewer whom I began to work with at the beginning of
is open to the public and have gotten
the second week. Laida had worked with the other interviewers on the city census and was used to gettingjust the facts and then moving on. During interviews she would listen only for the
in
right answers. She would ask a question and as soon as the mother gave her the information she needed for the questionnaire, she would cut her off and ask the next question, ignoring the mother's story. The rest of the week, I worked on slowing Laida down and helping her to listen to all of what the women had to share with us. I learned that real-life science doesn't need to be done all alone: sometimes a team is needed to make meaning.
Marine Biology Research Vallie Raymond (WA) wites:
I became involved with the Port Townsend Marine Science Center three and a half years ago, when my mom signed us up for a docent class the center taught. Since then, I've worked as a volunteer when the center
to know the animals in the observation and touch tanks. The project I'm doing now is somewhat like the one I wrote about my brother and I doing in the book Rzal Liaes, but my brother lost interest shortly after I wrote about it, so I revised the study to my capability and interest. Basically, the study records and videotapes how plankton changes a year.
I am now going down to the science center twice a week. I take their plankton net to a lower floating boat launch and tow the net horizontally ten times under the water surface. Then that sample is put under a microscope connected to a TV and VCR so that the plankton is projected onto the TV screen. I document the sample on videotape and on a spread sheet a staff member and I put together on their computer. The information I document include: date, time, quantity of diatoms, quantity of zooplankton, percentage of plants to animals. There's a space for me to sketch the most common plants and animals I see. I'm going to teach this study to a girl who is also interested in plankton, and she will be continuing the study for me while I'm in Minnesota for three months. The project was also presented to a girl who lives in Tacoma and she is planning to start a project like mine, but with her own alterations. The science center has also asked me to help teach various classes, and since I'm down there so often I've gotten to feed the animals and clean the tanks and help test the quality of the water on the center's boat, which they let me drive. I didn't think I would ever be this interested in marine biology and have so many opportunities. I feel very fortunate to have the center accessible to me.
Finding Mentors for Astronomy and Biology From Madalene Axford Murphy (PA):
Vallie coll.ecting ph,nkton
Early on, our son Christian began to reach the limits of his father's and my knowledge in science and math, GnowrNc
and it became obvious that these would be major pursuits in his life. At first I cheerfully expanded my own knowledge, learning along with him, but finally I had neither the time nor the interest to keep up with him. We met this situation in a number of ways. Several years earlier, we had a good basic telescope on the advice ofan expert at the Buhl Science Center in Pittsburgh. Later, we added a good microscope. The cheap models available in discount department stores and many catalogs are difficult or impossible to keep in focus and seem designed to frustrate kids' attempts, particularly if they want to work on their own. We had all done some fooling around with each instrument, so we knew the proper way of handling them. And we had done some reading in basic books about constellations. The telescope wasn't used much for a year or two, and then
bought
Christian decided to drag it out. He became fascinated with astronomy, read all the books by Asimov he could get his hands on and anything else on
the topic the library had to offer. Eventually he began to feel he needed some help. We discovered an astronomy group that met one evening a month, and he began to attend meetings. He discovered that one of the founders of the group was giving a l2-session seminar on astronomy for adults at our local nature center. On the recommendation of the naturalist there (a friend of his), he was allowed to sign up, though he was only I l. The first evening, he came home with about ten pages of small print that had to be read for the next class. This was not going to be a warm, fuzzy retelling of myths about constellations with a few facts thrown in here and there about planets and such, but rather a no-holds-barred immersion course in technical astronomy. I was concerned, but Christian wasn't. He plowed through the reading and was disappointed when the classes were over. Did he understand everything? No, nor did many of the adults in the class, but words like "parallax" and "gradient" had become part of his vocabulary and he knew a whole lot more about telescopes and the science of astronomy than he had before.
Wrrsour SorooLtNc #102 . NowNrerR./DncrNlssr 1994
* Another group, the Audubon Society, helped open up several aspects of biology for him. We had gone on several wonderful Audubon field trips when we lived in Connecticut. We knew the group was much smaller here in rural Pennsylvania, but we began attending meetings to get to know what they had to offer. When they started planning their annual Christmas Bird Count, Christian and I decided to participate. Of course we could recognize chickadees, cardinals, and nubhatches, but beyond that, neither of us were sure of our identifiring skills. One of the Society's more active members was a biologist who worked at a nearby fish research lab, and I asked if we could tag along when he went on the bird count. The bird count itself was not a great success: periods of freezing rain kept most of the birds out of sight and made me think they were definitely displaying intelligence superior to the humans on that particular occasion. But we did see a couple ofspecies we had never seen before, and saw the holes made by a pileated woodpecker. But the biggest success of the bird count was the friendship that developed between Christian and Bob, the biologist. Bob invited Christian on other bird counts and for the last two years has taken him along as a timekeeper/recorder on an intense fivehour government sponsored survey of birds. Christian has become quite skilled at identi$ring birds and is even trying to improve his ability to recognize their calls. The summer after the original bird count, Christian discovered he could volunteer at the fish research lab where Bob worked, and he ended up working two eight-hour days a week. He worked on computers in one section and on a project in another section where Bob worked that involved sampling the number of fish eggs in various streams in the Northeast. Christian learned a lot about lab techniques and about the amount of tedious work required to get accurate results for a study. All of these biology activities took
place during Christian's "high school" years, a time when homeschooling parents and sometimes children often begin to get a bit more nervous about GnowNc WlrHour Scnoolrrlc #102
.
Rner--Woru-o Srrrrucn
.!
whether they need to become more traditional, particularly if the children are planning on college. Christian did decide to use textbooks to fill in gaps
in his knowledge of science, and activities like those I just described made the textbook knowledge real and useful. Chemistry was never a major interest for Christian, but for a long time he thought he might be a physicist, fueled by his love of astronomy and his readings of biographies of fascinating people like Richard Feynman. He heavily used a textbook for physics, perhaps because I was little help beyond the beginning basics and we could find no living resource nearby. We tried one of the most approachable ofthe physics professors at a local university. Christian attended a science day where the professor set up "physics toys," as he called them, for junior and senior high students. He didn't take Christian's quesrions seriously, either giving him a superficial answer or telling him not to worry
about how the toys worked. But Christian supplemented his textbook knowledge of physics with wide reading in periodicals like Science Nans, Scientif.c American, and a host of others that were much more current than any textbooks could be. And he did finally meet a nuclear physicist, the father of his older sister Emily's roommate her freshman year at St. John's College. Christian had a number of long conversations with him. He was one of the people who helped Christian make up his mind to apply to a liberal arts college with good math and science departments instead of a Iarge, technically oriented one. Physics ended up being the preferred topic of any of Christian's science fair projects. Up until two years ago, a science fair was an annual event at our house, with lots of other families participating. No prizes were given because our science fairs were not meant to be a competition but rather a sharing of interests and discoveries. They provided a reason to delve a little more deeply into a subject and offered a patient and understanding audience with whom to practice communicating ideas. Our family always looked forward to these fairs. Christian's projects ranged from rockets to lenses to
Nor.'nMsen/Dpcerraern lg94
pendulums. As in most things. each of our three children had differing levels of interest in and a different relationship with science. By the time Emily was 13, she was less and less interested in taking nature walks with her younger brother and sister. She did, however, get interested in raising honey bees, and ended up taking a three-day adult workshop on bees and beekeeping at a local college that specialized in agriculture and horticulture. But Emily's main interests were toward the literary/ historical aspects of life. She was not interested in a scientifically oriented career (she is now applying to graduate schools in museum studies) and so her main goal was to be literate enough in scientific terminology and techniques to understand newspaper articles and issues that might affect her daily life. Her own voracious reading, which included books like Lewis Thomas's The Lives of a Cell, accomplished that. She also dabbled in a chemistry textbook long enough to learn about chemical formulae, the table of the elements, and other basic information. Clare, who is 15 and our last official homeschooler, gathered quite a bit of scientific information over the years and her science fair projects were fun and factual. We used to tease her that she would always do something on her "pet ofthe year," because her projects often centered on her turtle or her chickens or her geese, all ofwhich took a great deal ofresearch on her part to understand how to keep them alive and healthy. She would make up displays of charts of the anatomy of the particular animal, talk about its behavior, and climax the presentation with a living example of the animal. But she was mostly content to read about science and quietly make collections of wildflowers or whatever.Just as Christian reached out to scientists, Clare is doing the same thing with history, which is an overwhelming interest to her the way science and math are to Christian. And just as Clare's scientific knowledge has benefited from the spillover's of Christian's discoveries, Christian's knowledge of history has been expanded by the intensiw of Clare's interests.
Latino Homeschoolers Understanding the System, Rzclaiming Control
Milagros Chil of Massachusetts writes:
f I
n the Dominican Republic, where I was born and lived for
nineteen years, I went to a small private school. In general, things were OK. I had wonderful teachers. My mother was always home when I came home from school, and I realize, looking back, that I learned to read and write and do math at home, not in school. I don't know how she found the time, but my mother always had time to help me out. I was too shy in school to ask questions or admit when I didn't understand something, and I would come home with frustrations. My mother would always sit down with me and help me solve whatever it was. \A/hen I came to this country, I saw my youngest brothers and sisters attending public schools here, and I saw results that I didn't like. In some instances, school was used against the parents, or used to put the children against the parents. It was a big thing, as it is for families of any culture, to come to the U.S. and have the children start school here. Usually, the kids learn English but the parents don't, and so the parents don't learn to communicate with the school. They don't know what the schools expect from them or from their children, and they lose connection with their children, in all senses of the word. They begin to assume that their kids know more than they do, and the kids may even believe that too. In my case. the situation was somewhat different because I could speak English by the time my daughter, Sharyl, was starting school. But there were still many things about her
school experience that I didn't like. When she started first grade, I asked the principal if I could go in and see her during the day. It was her first experience being away from the family. He said, "You don't have to worry. Once she enters this door, she's mine." That hurt me, and made me 8
think a lot. It was as if they stole her from me. I tried once again to see her in the classroom, and again the principal told me I couldn't. Again he said, "Don'tworry, she's fine." \Arho was he to tell me that she was fine? Did he check with me to see what "fine" meant to me?
Another problem I had was with how the school handled Sharyl's
kids about different cultures or something like that. Some of the kids also spit in her fbod, and on other occasions were rude to her or didn't want to play with her, maybe because she was new and they all knew each other already and had their groups. I would tell her to talk to the teachers but it seemed as though nothing got solved. In general, when Sharyl was in school I felt that I totally lost track of who she was and how she was doing. I was working full time, and she would go to an after school program. We would get home about 6:30, and because Sharyl needed a lot of sleep, she would be in bed by 8:00. By the time I fed dinner to her and her younger sister and got them ready for bed, there was no time left.
I also felt that my voice,
I
would. kke
other Latinas to know and understend that yes, we can be in control of our children. and. our children's ed.ucation, Nen in this country, and no, school in
for
this country is not always for our childrm.
best
eating. At that time, Sharyl was not a child who got up and had breakfast in the morning. Getting up was hard for her, and eating in the morning was even harder. It felt like a punishment to her. although we were trying to get some protein into her in the morning so that she would be aware and awake and able to handle the schooldav. Of course, in school she wasn't allowed to eat until lunchtime, and she ate very slowly. Often she would just begin ancl then they would tell her the time was
up. A "lunch mother," as they called it, was supposed to supervise, making sure that the kids ate and so on. But one time when I was there with Sharyl,
I
saw a
group of kids come up to
Sharyl, ask what she had for lunch,
and then say, "Yuck!" I told them, "Food isn't yuck just because it's
different." The lunch mother didn't even notice what was happening. I thought she would be there to tell the
as a
parent, was not heard. I would get notices asking parents to be on a board, but when I volunteered, I was never selected. I have to say that although the school had kids from lots ofdifferent backgrounds, I never saw anyone from a minority background on the board. Then, I had an encounter with the principal when Sharyl was in second grade. Smoking was not allowed on school grounds, and one daywhen I was dropping Sharyl off, I caught the janitor smoking in front of the children. I approached him and asked him not to smoke in front of my child, and he said "Shut up" to me. I was upset, but I left. The second time, when it happened again, I went to talk to the principal about it. I said I was upset to see the janitor smoking in front of the children, and she said it was inconsiderate of me to complain, because, "Can't you see that he's been
removing snow since 6:00 in the morning?" She came out of her office screaming at me. and it was very embarrassing. Sharyl's teacher and all the kids in her classroom could hear everything. When I went to work, a lot of the Latinos there, who have had to overcome a lot of things in the U.S., suggested I write to the Board of Education. I got a reply that they had sent to the principal saying that smoking wasn't allowed on the school grounds and they should remind the janitor of that. I was glad to get a reply, but still, the incident was very embar-
Gnowrxc Wrruour ScHoor-rrlt; #I02
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Novnmeen,/Drcr:,lasen I994
rasslng.
I heard about homeschooling when I met Dawn Lease, who used to work at Holt Associates. At first, when I heard she was homeschooling, I thought she was doing it for special reasons. I didn't know it was something anyone could do. She told me that yes, anyone could homeschool, and she suggested I call Day Farenga, who lives in the same town that I do. When I talked to Day, I started getring excited about homeschooling, and then I went to the Holt Associates conference. That's when I made up my mind one hundred percent that this is what we would do. In fact, I realized that I had been homeschooling already, because Sharyl had learned a lot of things from us when she was younger. In the beginning, Sharyl was excited about the idea of homeschooling. Then she became afraid that she would miss things at school, and she thought I was going to sit her down in the house with a chalk board and teach her for six hours a day. She wasn't sure she would like that. I tried to explain to her what it would be like, but Sharyl doesn't believe things until she sees them. During the summer we started doing things together. We wenr to the science museum and talked about what we saw. We went to Niagara Falls and later read all about it. When Sharyl asked,'When are you going to start homeschooling me?" and I explained that we were already doing it, she got very excited. Now she really likes homeschooling. \tVhen she remembers what school was like, she says, "It's so boring when they make you read these things you don't want to read, and they make you sit down and do math when you don't want to." She realizes that she has a lot more freedom, and she's proud to say that she's a homeschooler. I've seen her come a long way in these two months of homeschooling. She was so jumpy before, so unable to relax or focus on anything. Now she's still active, but she's much calmer. Her energy is more focused. She's always practicing dance, and she's learned to jump rope. The other day she was sitting in the kitchen reading at I l:30 in the evening, all by herseli because she was in love with the book. I said, Gnowrxc WrrHour Scnoolrxc #102
.
"You're not going to bed?" and she begged, 'Just let me read a bit more." Another major result of homeschooling is that the closeness between Sharyl and her younger sister Luisa has grown. Sharyl started school when Luisa was a baby, and they didn't have much time together. Sharyl is learning to cope with her sister now, and that brings a lot of happiness to me. I see how distant a lot of brothers and sisters in this country are, and now I think I understand why I wonder what would have happened if Sharyl had continued going to school. She and Luisa would be like strangers. Also, I feel that I'm getting to know Sharyl so much better. I'm working part time, she's not going to school, and we have much more time together. As for the question of Sharyl's exposure to American culture, I don't think school is the only place she can get that, and in fact I don't want her ro get it there. She has a lot of homeschooled friends who are American, and it's very easy to go to the library ro learn about American culture or American history, if there are things I don't know. She meets other kids through church, too. She's living here, in this country, so she has constant touch with this culture. But at the same time, I'm able to tell her and read to her about the parts of American culture that I don't like. I feel more secure, because I can monitor what she's learning and be more involved with it. I want her to see my ideas and then, when she's older, to make her own decisions about what traditions she wants to follow. I have talked to many Latino parents who don't agree with what's going on in the schools bllt trust that the people in the school system know better than the parents what's good for their children. Many don't know or understand the system and so are afraid of even saying something against it. I have talked about homeschooling to a couple of my relatives who are professionals and have lived in the U.S. for many years. One of them is a teacher. When I mentioned homeschooling, the reply was, "How can you do that? Do they allow you to do it?" I have also heard, "How are you going to teach your daughter En-
Nowunrr./DtcErasEn 1994
glish?"
I think we need to unite forces and voices, and also educate ourselves more about this new country and its rules and regulations. We need to learn that we don't need to lose or forget our culture, but rather to learn about the one here and then make our decision about which one to follow. I would like to see and hear more exposure of homeschooling
culture to the Latino community. I would like for other Latinos to know and understand that yes, we can be in control of our children and our children's education, even in this country, and no, school in this country is not always best
for our children.
If
more Latinos homeschooled, I think there would be more family connection, more Latino professionals, and more consciousness of our own
culture.
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