Sunday, January 24, 2010

The Public Library

One resource for homeschooling that I have really come to appreciate is the public library. At least here in Madison County, Alabama, the county library system is incredibly underutilized by the public. I have to confess, I didn't use it much either prior to homeschooling. I occasionally attended the story hour for preschoolers and toddlers when my kids were younger, and have on occasion taken advantage of library events for kids. These events are fairly well-attended, but I hadn't used the library much to check out actual books for a while. I've always in theory favored the idea of public libraries, but I must admit I had come to consider the library to be something that I had outgrown. With the advent of the internet, seldom would I actually need to drive all the way to a library to research anything minor, and between gifts, used bookstores, and simply being an adult with enough income to purchase my own reading material. Of course the library holds a bit of antiquated magic and I would take my children there for a token trip once in a while, but ultimately I remained unconvinced that the responsibility of returning books downtown was worth it for children's books that are read in a fifteen minute session.

Once I began homeschooling, I began to look at the expense involved in providing my early reader with ample and diverse reading material. This expense is magnified by my decision to embrace literature-based education for early social studies and science. I could hardly justify the purchase of so many books when they could be borrowed for free.

I quickly learned that the library no longer requires me to look through a dusty card catalog or even wait my turn to use a public computer. Not only does the public library have an online catalog with details and pictures to rival that of Amazon (ok, not quite, but more than you might expect), but I can put a hold on any available item in the entire county library system, and apparently magical book elves (also known as underutilized library workers) will locate them and transport them to any branch of my choosing for pick-up. They even call me when the material is available - usually no more than a few days. I can't get that kind of service at Border's.

Last fall, I took my Girl Scout Troop to the library for a tour. There is a very bright-eyed youth librarian who was extraordinarily helpful. I wonder if she'd accommodate some homeschool book discussion groups?

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Math Rant

Anyone who has made the mistake of expressing interest in the details of our homeschooling has probably already been subjected to my math rant. But for posterity, I shall repeat it here, and warn that this is largely an editorial about the early math curriculum used by Huntsville City Schools in Huntsville, Alabama.

When I first pulled my first grader out of school in November, it occurred to me that in spite of daily math homework for nearly four months, I had never seen my daughter bring anything home but a single-digit addition worksheet. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that prior to withdrawing her from school, I had never noticed this. She was so inundated with reading, reading, reading, that repetitive nature of her mathematics assignments had escaped my notice.

I grant that repetition is a necessary part of learning math at all levels. But four months of single-digit addition, with virtually no variation, is beyond necessary repetition. To make matters worse, when I began to evaluate my daughter's math skills, I found that she had virtually no addition facts memorized, still stumbled over 12, 13, 14, and 15 when asked to count from 1-20, and still wasn't positive whether 30 or 50 comes after 29, even though according to her report card she had mastered these skills. In spite of this daily repetition of addition, she could not easily answer calculate 20+1. If it wasn't able to be counted on her fingers, forget it.

It then occurred to me that in early elementary in Alabama, testing focuses around DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), and to my knowledge at these early grades, mathematics is only minimally included in assessments, and thus in the classroom. In particular our school (Hampton Cove Elementary School) prides itself on its statistical superiority, and it is my theory that at least some teachers emphasize reading at the expense of other subjects. My own daughter's teacher even mandated that all her students participate in the extracurricular "Accelerated Reader" program.

Many educational experts will point out, correctly, that reading is the foundation for academic learning in school. But to diminish the importance of mathematics at this early age is a tremendous error. It is clear that the enthusiasm and emphasis placed on reading is not similarly placed on mathematics, as the sentiment is echoed by the majority of students all the way through high school and even college, where many liberal arts programs are devoid of any mathematics requirements.

Huntsville City Schools uses Saxon Math, a curriculum that has its advocates among public school educators and homeschoolers alike. I am not certain this curriculum was being used effectively at my daughter's school, but judging by what was brought home and her resulting lack of understanding, I can only conclude it is ineffectual for first grade, at least in my daughter's case. Doing more thorough research on the curriculum, it uses a "spiraling" approach that my husband (a physicist and engineer) had long criticized in California that unnecessarily delays learning. Common teaching methods in the United States "spiral" far longer than in other countries, and we continue to lag behind in math and science.

The curriculum is not cheap either. Our school, for its lack of funds, also hit up parents for $15 each to help offset the cost of this curriculum.

For $15, I purchased an entire semester's curriculum from Mammoth Math. The web site isn't as polished, but it is a solid curriculum, developed by an educator with a Master's degree in Mathematics from Finland. Within weeks of using this affordable, downloadable curriculum, my daughter obtained an understanding of place value and number patterns that she was then able to apply to addition and subtraction, expanding her mastery to something based on comprehension rather than repetition.

Again, repetition has its place, but devoid of comprehension, repetitive exercises are are a waste of time.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The Fabric of Literature

Last week, my daughter and I wrapped up our homeschool project; reading and discussing Cinderella stories from around the world. From the meek slave Rhodopis of Egypt with her golden slippers, to the humble straw-sandaled Pear Blossom of Korea, to China's Yeh-Shen and her miraculous fish, to Bacum of Ireland - a cowherd boy with a magic bull who earned the affections of a princess after proving his identity by fitting his massive foot into his giant missing boot.

To my daughter, this project was nothing short of sheer whimsy and magic. Cinderella - a story so familiar and beloved - existing in mysterious and distant places and times. Some of these stories were even believed to carry elements of truth, of simple and honest people who came to be identified as special and worthy of royal attention. It is not surprising that such tales have been so easily told and retold, even if embellished with fairy godmothers, talking fish bones, and magic shoes.

It was not my goal to merely entertain my child with reading practice using a favorite, familiar story, but rather to inspire her to understand - in her own way - the fabric of literature itself. To encourage her to conclude on her own that stories are told and retold, that plot and characters and imagery are digested, blended, and recycled, to form new stories. This is the legacy of storytelling and the foundation of literature at its most basic level.

This weekend, we hosted a Multicultural Feast for our Girl Scout Troop in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday. To culminate our Cinderella experience, I encouraged my daughter to paste together a great display board of the stories she had read. I printed out images from the stories, which she cut and arranged.

I had assumed she would arrange the images by nation - these from Korea's story, those from Ireland's. What she did instead made me truly smile. "These are all the shoes" she said "all together, for each story had a shoe" - "and these are the magic helpers, for each hero had someone magical to help him or her."

We've taken it further this week, a bit. A friend recommended Percy Jackson and the Olympians as a series of books we might read for fun, for they have a complex enough storyline to entertain my story-hungry child, but lack the kind of content that causes nightmares. I thought it would be a good idea to give her a head's up on who the Olympians are, and yesterday we pursued the internet looking for pictures of the Olympians, their names (Greek and Roman), and their domains of mythological influence.

Primed by our Cinderella experience, my daughter was afire with connections. Jupiter is called Jupiter because it is the biggest planet, and Zeus (the Greek equivelent of Jupiter) is the king of the gods. Nike shoes are named after the Goddess of Victory because runners like to win races. King Triton's appearance in The Little Mermaid, she realized, is not true Disney innovation, but a resurrection of Poseiden.

What a wonderful epiphany for her to have at seven years old as she is just embarking on a lifelong quest of reading.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Freedom of Religion and Ideology


Alabama is somewhat unique when it comes to homeschooling laws.

Quite simply, there aren't any.

As a new homeshcooler in the state, I originally found this quite confusing, as do many who choose to educate their children at home. Quickly one will discover that all homeschooled children must be registered with a "church school" in order to be excluded from Alabama's compulsory attendance law. What a "church school" is, however, and how one is established, is extremely loosely defined in Alabama law, as including "only such schools as offer instruction in grades K-12, or any combination thereof including the kindergarten, elementary, or secondary level and are operated as a ministry of a local church, group of churches, denomination, and/or association of churches on a nonprofit basis which do not receive any state or federal funding."

The common language used among homeschoolers in the state to refer to a church school is a "cover school" or an "umbrella school". Basically a school is established under the affiliation of a church or group of churches, some having little if anything to do with the actual process of education. Since there are no laws regulating how a church must operate its church school, they can deem that a parent is a teacher and that their home is the place of instruction. It's as simple as that.

And it really IS as simple as that. I am a Jew, and being unable to find a "church school" affiliated with a synagogue, I decided I would create my own. When I finally determined that there is no legal process for defining a "church school", I met with the board of my synagogue and proposed the formation of a "church school", which to my knowledge is the first and only Jewish church school in the state of Alabama.

Of course many non-Christian and secular homeschoolers still do register under Christian cover schools, and many churches provide legal cover for homeschooling children regardless of the parents' religious ideology or lack therof.

Initially I found it unfortunate that a parent who chooses to exercise their freedom to educate their own child must affiliate with a church in order to do so. Certainly people have many non-religious ideological reasons for homeschooling their children. I have heard some parents argue that the state should pass specific homeschooling laws that can hence include all citizens, independent of the need to affiliate with a "church school."

In theory, I might agree, but in practice, I think perhaps not. Such laws would inevitably lead to additional regulation and state oversight over homeschooling. The "church school" exemption, though initially it might be dismissed as a Bible Belt relic, preserves liberty by protecting free education as part of our First Amendment rights. Freedom of Religion includes more than our spiritual freedom, but our freedom of how we choose to think and lead our personal lives. By leaving the "church school" exemption alone, Alabamians are empowered to educate their children without interference from the state.

Those who would argue for increased government oversight over private education would point out that there are many parents who are ill-equipped to educate their children. I would argue that it has been my experience that there are many government-approved educators who are ill-equipped to educate my children. I would further argue that there are also parents ill-equipped to nurture their children, but nonetheless as a society we have determined that we value individual liberty enough to entrust parents with their own children unless and until there is evidence that suggests that the parent is failing in their moral responsibility to provide for the physical and emotional needs of their children. So should it be with the responsibility of their children's intellectual needs.


For the full text of the State of Alabama Education Code, visit http://www.legislature.state.al.us/CodeofAlabama/1975/128393.htm

Monday, January 18, 2010

A Homeschooling Journey

I began homeschooling my 7-year-old daughter just a few short months ago, in November of 2009. It began as a decision of necessity. I will not publicly air all my grievances of her first grade experience here, but suffice to say that as a parent concerned with my child's emotional well being, integrity, and the values to which was being exposed on a daily basis, circumstances demanded that something change. I realized that according to my own ethics, I cannot and should not expect the government to take responsibility for educating my own child. That is, I believe, my personal responsibility as a parent. The fact that the government does provide an education for all children does not alter this core belief.

When the public school system failed to meet my child's needs, standing by and doing nothing was not an acceptable option to me. Two choices presented themselves; to either fight the school system to meet my expectations, or take responsibility for educating my child myself. Believing as I do, I chose the latter.

Throughout the course of this blog I will at times opine about my thoughts on freedom, responsibility, and education in general. In addition I hope to record for posterity my experiences in homeschooling, which has thus far proven to be a far more rewarding experience than I originally anticipated. I also hope to share with any readers materials, projects, teaching strategies, and the other day-to-day aspects of home education, and I hope readers, should they come, will share their thoughts and experiences as well.

What began as a journey of necessity is turning into something that I, as of this writing, have come to cherish as a way of life. I will not presume that I will always feel this way or that I will never see the inside of a public school again, as I will take this journey one step at a time.

For now, however, if I were to describe my homeschooling experience so far in one word, it would be "free". Thus I have entitled this blog "Liberated Education". Free from schedules, requirements of the state, and even the expectations of society enables education to take flight in a way I did not entirely anticipate when I began.