Summer Schooling

School gets out early here in North Alabama, with most schools letting out at the end of May.

Here in homeschool-land, it had been my intention to continue schooling with the summer, with a lighter schedule to keep the kids fresh when it comes to basic mathematics and writing, perhaps letting the rest of it slide.

This will be my first summer as a homeschool mom, and as another homeschooling friend and neighbor forewarned, it has thus far been impossible to homeschool in our neighborhood.

Of course, I am grateful for the gaggle of children that roam the streets. They are, in fact, the only reason we chose to live in a suburban development when we moved to Alabama. We'd probably be hermits living on the mountain if we had our rathers, but eschewed our fantasy homestead for now in favor of skate-worthy sidewalks, neighborhood picnics, and neighborhood friends for our children. So far, we haven't regretted the choice. I'd be lying if I said the constant doorbell ringing did't grate on my nerves at times, but I am happy my children have neighborhood friends, especially now that we are homeschooling. While homeschool families are usually larger than average, we are blessed with just two, and living far from extended family, many of our friends and neighbors have become a surrogate extended family of sorts.

Still, educational setbacks can set in staggeringly fast, and now having had some experience teaching my children, I now understand why schools spend so much time in fall review. Lost time, and between friends and camps, I hope to sneak in a little education to keep us up to speed.

But for now - off to the neighborhood Memorial Day gathering!

Science Rant

Science at the elementary level should get back to the basics; make observations, learn to identify basic attributes of reality, and foster curiosity about the natural world. Memorizing every bone in the body or trying to explain climate change to a child who has no context with which to process or consider the information is a waste of valuable time. Time is a commodity, and it should not be wasted in the course of providing an education.

I am increasingly coming to the conclusion that elementary school science has become a platform for agenda in the public school system. I have seen it in public school science curricula, and more recently, in the curriculum put out by the Girl Scouts, "Journeys", in which girls are exposed to topics such as global warming, carbon footprints, and endangered species, and encouraged to "raise the awareness" of others.

As a general rule, children do not have the sufficient maturity or mathematical understanding to truly learn about these things in any meaningful way. Climate on a global scale is a wildly complex subject not even fully understood by modern scientists. Watch an episode of "Storm Chasers" and you'll see  demonstrated quite clearly how much of what is not known about science is still trying to be desperately tracked down by a bunch of  scientists and enthusiasts in a truck who experience failure more than success even in the process of gathering data.

I'm more than happy to share with my children and my scouts the idea of environmental stewardship. I'm thrilled if they learn to more wisely use the resources by putting paper in the recycling bin or, for the love that all that is holy, turning off the water and lights that are not in use, and not leaving the door wide open during the peak of Alabama summer.

But these things are fundamental life skills and basic lessons of good citizenship and respect for others. They are not "science".

The other side of it is this emphasis on the learning about the complexities of science that ultimately have no real meaning prior to the development of critical thinking skills and context.

This criticism of science is not restricted to the public school arena. I have seen it in private school, or even in homeschool science curricula. Everyone seems to be jumping on this bandwagon in terms of framing elementary level science lessons in this manner.

The key to educating a child - especially a young child - is to give them the tools they will need to expand their own knowledge. The most effective educator is not simply a provider of knowledge, but a mentor that guides the child to eventually seek that knowledge for herself.

In the photo above, my daughter using an antique balance and counterweights to compare the weights of seashells she found on the beach. She was guided to independently categorize shells based on self-selected criteria.