Category Archives: Education

They’re Just Words

Posted by Amy in Education, Health, Homeschooling and tagged with , ,

I had an eye-rolling moment this afternoon.  One of those times when you think, “You didn’t just say that.  Oh, no.  You did just say that.  Wait…really?????” and it’s also an extremely squicky moment.

I had taken S to a class and was prepared to sit down to wait for her outside the classroom.  I even brought my laptop, fully intending to get some writing done.  I found a good spot, booted up, and…yep.  Chatty Mommy sat down next to me.

Now, anyone who knows me knows I love to talk.  All right, that may be an understatement.  My husband says I need to get my 10,000 words in every day.  Writing takes care of a lot of that these days, but if I’m in the company of good friends, I let loose.

I do not love talking to complete strangers, or listening to them talk endlessly.

To be fair, I had no idea she was so talkative.  I politely asked if she had a child in the class too (hey, she could have been randomly stalking classrooms).  Right there was my first mistake.  My second was failing to turn right back to my computer as soon as she’d answered me.

For the next hour, I listened to her talk about her kids.  How they were so different from each other.  How homeschooling was proceeding for the oldest.  How she writes her reports.  Her fears about her five-year-old’s progress in reading.  And on…and on….and on…

Until she finally asked me about curriculum.  We don’t use one, though we do use a few workbooks and some other materials.  I shared that, and mentioned that I want to avoid full curricula because I want a bit more control over what we teach.  She began telling me about how she’s had to modify the information in some of the lessons.  And therein lies the squick.

This conversation is now on my Top Ten Things I Absolutely, Completely Did not Need to Know about a Total Stranger’s Children.  Apparently, she didn’t like that the health book had children learning the differences between male and female bodies and using proper terminology for male and female anatomy.  At which point she told me that her children don’t use “vulgar” euphemisms, but that her daughter calls it her “front butt.”

I thought my head might possibly burst.

I have a boy and a girl.  They share a room.  They took baths together until they were four and six, and we only stopped so they wouldn’t kill each other in the shower.  They are completely familiar with the difference between boys and girls.  They know and use the correct words for their body parts (all of them).  They are not ashamed of nudity or embarrassed about bodily functions (in a good way).  They are very comfortable in their bodies, thankfully, and I hope it remains that way.

I shared the “front butt” story with the fam at dinner.  Of course; who wouldn’t share that kind of thing over a plate of homemade lasagna?  When my husband asked S if she would like to begin referring to her anatomy as her “front butt,” she frowned at him and emphatically said, “No!”  And because we have now reverted to age ten, this caused hysterical giggling in all of us.

There is no reason why kids can’t be taught from an early age to respect their bodies.  This includes using correct terms, knowing what their bodies look like, and being aware of what their bodies can do.  We don’t need to fear that using the anatomical terms are somehow going to lead them astray; the opposite is much more likely, in fact.  They’re just words, people.  Get over it.

Making Progress

Posted by Amy in Education, Homeschooling and tagged with ,

One more post about the kiddos and then I promise, it’s right back to brilliantly scathing commentary on fundamentalism.  Okay, fine, it’s back to somewhat grouchy and disapproving commentary on fundamentalism.

It seems that we are in a good place with J and his school.  Thankfully, he has a wonderful and caring teacher who wants to see J be successful as much as we do.  I was amazed by some of the things she said to me today, particularly in regard to helping kids feel like they are making progress rather than always punishing the negative.

One reason we have been able to work through these tough issues is that I feel it is my duty as a parent to keep our son from being in the middle between his teacher and us.  We’re not on opposite sides.  We all want the same things.  J and his classmates have the right to an education, and it isn’t fair for one child to lose out for the sake of the rest, nor for the rest to be disrupted for the sake of the one.  I believe it is the responsibility of both parents and teachers to form an alliance in order to ensure a positive learning environment.

I have taken this approach with homeschooling as well.  From the time we began homeschooling four years ago, I went into it with the mentality that it was important for us to work with the local district in order that our children’s needs be best met.  Although it is not required by law to use them, I created J’s and now S’s IHIP (basically a homeschool learning plan) based on the school district’s forms.  I found the forms to be helpful not only for keeping in touch but for my own record-keeping and lesson plans.

The evidence of how well that worked came when J went to school.  School personnel were impressed with how well we communicated and J’s first teacher said he was well prepared to enter the classroom, in more ways than mere academics.  We had instilled in J a love for learning which carried over into his time at public school.  We are on a similar path with S, though she learns very differently than her brother.

Unfortunately, although this has been the approach that worked best for our family, I’ve faced a good measure of criticism.  The vast majority of homeschooling parents have told me that I provided the district with too much information, that I would “ruin” it for others because the school would expect more from them, that I was making too much work for myself, that it’s us against the evil public school world.  Nothing I said in our defense made any impression.  And once J was in school, I was actively shunned by some families I had known when the kids were younger.  Never mind that S is still learning at home, I had become a traitor to the cause.

The thing is, I don’t think it has much to do with homeschooling.  There are some people who simply view life as a series of battles.  The nuclear family is seen as an army or two, three, four, or more, and the enemy is anything on which they declare war:  Public school, teaching methods, mainstream physicians, food, religion (or lack thereof).  It’s not even a matter of fighting injustice.  For example, take the hostility over public school.  It’s usually about the belief that one’s own children are being harmed or neglected in some way.  It’s rarely about the need for reform within the schools that would improve things for everyone, such as smaller classes, higher quality food, and adequate resources.

We’ve chosen to see things differently.  We believe that if we support the teachers and the other staff, they will go to bat for us.  So far, that’s been proven true time and again.  As we work together to help sort out what needs to happen with J, we’re all keeping open minds throughout the process.  My husband and I have a great support network of family and friends.  It’s our job as parents to let J’s teacher know that we want to be a team in creating the best possible school experience we can for everyone.

It may not work out perfectly every time, in every situation, for every family.  I don’t want to paint a rosy picture or imply that if you just do all the right things, magic will happen.  Sometimes, needs are not met and changes must be made.  Sometimes there are real battles to fight.  But if every detail and every aspect of life is a battle, how can one ever hope to come home from the war?

Being Open-Minded

Posted by Amy in Education, Health, Parenting and tagged with ,

For a long time, I’ve been an advocate for keeping more kids off psychotropic medications.  Not because I doubt the existence of childhood mental disorders, but because the long-term effects are unknown and I believe that parents and professionals should proceed with caution.  I am not against using medication when it is necessary and beneficial for the child.  After all, my own daughter is on steroids for her asthma, and there are well-documented associated risks.  But I’ve seen the downside of over-medicating young children, particularly when it comes to diagnosis and treatment of ADHD.

One of the problems with institutionalized learning (and a major reason why we began homeschooling almost four years ago) is the amount of time children have to be kept quiet and sitting at a desk.  For some children, this isn’t a problem.  But for others, it is absolute torture.  It may not have anything to do with the ability to focus or concentrate.  Some people are sensation-seekers who thrive on sensory input.  Others simply learn better by doing rather than hearing or seeing (kinesthetic learners).  For still others, they may exhibit traits similar to ADHD, but do not actually have that particular disorder.

I used to be a school nurse, so I was responsible for passing out Ritalin or similar medications to approximately 40 children on a daily basis.  I saw both sides of the coin.  Were there kids benefiting from the meds?  Absolutely.  There were also kids for whom nothing ever seemed to work.  Some kids suffered through repeated change in dose, type, and schedule, to no avail.  Other kids had behaviors so bothersome that I had teachers either red in the face with anger or near tears, begging me to talk to the family about “doing something” with the child’s medication.  And one story stands out in my mind vividly.

We had one student who was put on a medication trial.  For those who don’t know what that means, the physician orders two to four weeks of trial period.  For half of the trial, the child receives an actual dose of medication.  For the other half, a placebo.  No one except the pharmacist has any idea which half is which, only that the child is taking some kind of pill.  Before and during the trial, the parents and teacher are expected to keep a log of the undesirable behaviors the child has and any changes.  The boy in question underwent such a trial about halfway through the year.

When the study began, his teacher approached me and said that she was already seeing a difference in his behavior and attitude.  She was thrilled, and certain that the dose he was on was correct.  After the first two-week phase of the trial ended, she returned to me to let me know that the boy’s behavior had gone downhill again.  She hoped that he would be placed on medication for the remainder of the year.

I suspect you know what’s coming.

And you’re right–the boy had been on the placebo for the first two weeks.  Needless to say, the doctor and the parents refused to have anything more to do with medicating the boy.  He went on to have successful behavioral counseling.

Now that I’ve said all that, I have to make a confession.  We’re now about to embark on a journey with our son.  He is a wonderful kid, bright and creative to the extreme, with the soul of an artist.  He almost literally dances through life, his body craving near-constant motion.  On a good day I wish I had his energy.  But the flip side of those good qualities is that he is extraordinarily impulsive.  He reacts, rather than thinking.  His high-octane personality is not suited for long periods of seat work.  And it leads to a lot of negative consequences.

As much as I favor treating children naturally, without brain-altering chemicals, I know I have to keep an open mind.  I hope to begin with the simple, some help learning how to control his impulses.  I also know that if it comes down to it, I expect that he will be given every possible evaluation and trial before being handed a psychotropic medication.  His dad and I are his best advocates.  We want what is right for him, not a broken system where a teacher has to be solely responsible for the instruction, behavior, and well-being of 25 or more students.  We’re prepared to make some hard choices, including returning him to homeschooling to give him a break from forced seat learning.

It’s going to be a bumpy ride, but we’ll handle it the way we’ve handled everything else with the kids.  We love them, we respect the other adults, and we work toward a common goal of helping our son to grow into the person he is meant to become.

Fear-Based Education

Posted by Amy in Bible, Education, Family, LGBT Issues and tagged with , , ,

Although this isn’t making news beyond the evangelical sphere, I thought I’d share.  Please take a moment to read the article I’ve linked before you read the rest of this post.

First, in case you’ve never heard of the book in question (I had, but in a different context), you should know that this book is a) not the first of its kind; and b) not as scary as Baptist Press makes it sound.  It’s actually a pretty cute story, and it has a sequel in which the two kings add to their family.  However, all that is beside the point.

I happen to live in New York, where same-sex marriage is now legal.  It has been legal in Massachusetts for some time now.  (It’s also legal in Canada, the land where people seem to freak out a lot less about this stuff.)  The growing fear among conservative evangelicals is that our children will be “indoctrinated” to believe that same-sex unions are “normal.”

I have news for you: In New York, it now is normal, being legal and all.  I have more news: Right now, your children are in class with kids who have two mommies or two daddies.  I happen to personally know three such families, all of whom have children in the public school system.  It’s not going to happen, it already is.

For other kids, same-sex unions among family and friends are part of their reality.  My children have two aunts who love them very much, and a host of other GLBT folks in their lives.  For them, this is not strange.  Knowing real, flesh-and-blood humans creates an opportunity to talk with our kids (yes, even at ages 6 and 8 ) about these things.  And it has come up, not in class, but because they can read for themselves.  They read signs, see newspaper headlines in the store, and come across bumper stickers.  We have had to explain all sorts of things to our kids, and we always try to take a loving approach to the subject.

This whole thing is parallel to the brouhaha in California over the “gayification” of public education.  There is this fear that somehow, all the history books are suddenly going to turn everyone gay.  I’m not aware of campaigns to list the Founding Fathers as having had a wild orgy on the night they signed the Declaration of Independence.  All that is happening is that the contributions of gay Americans will have a place in the books (for example, Harvey Milk) and that important events in the history of the Gay Rights Movement will be included (such as the Stonewall riots).  Historical facts, people, not a lengthy course on Every Gay Person Who Ever Lived and How They Are More Awesome than You.

Public education is not conservative Christian education.  Nor should it be.  If you would like to teach your child those values, please feel free to do so—in your own home.  If your child’s teacher reads a book to which you object, please talk with your child about your family’s beliefs.  Or, better yet, send your child to private school or homeschool.  If those are not options, then revisit option 1.  But don’t expect the everyone to cater to your specific reading of the Bible in a public classroom.

Top 10 Reasons I Wish I Still Homeschooled

Posted by Amy in Education, Homeschooling and tagged with ,

I do still homeschool my daughter.  But I have to admit, I wish I had my son home again.  I could make him homeschool, but he does enjoy school.  I’m trying to do what’s best for him.  Still, when certain things happen, it does make me long for those days back again.  So here’s my list:

10. Head lice, strep throat, colds, flu, and puking

This is the worst winter we’ve had in years.  I would like to send my kid to school in one of those biohazard suits.

9. Bullies

J came home a few weeks ago and said a kid in his class is picking on him.  Of course, homeschooling is no guarantee against that issue.  When J was still at home, he was bullied by a couple of kids his age because he takes dance class.  I guess I was foolish enough to believe that certain cultural stereotypes and attitudes might not be present among homeschoolers.  I was wrong; teaching your kids at home is not proof against being a nasty individual or having stupid ideas about what boys “shouldn’t” do.

8. Lady Gaga

Well, okay, not Lady Gaga herself.  But one of his classmates came to school with a magazine clearly intended for teens that had a photo of Lady Gaga in her meat dress.  I’m not really concerned that he saw too much flesh (pun intended), just that I know that whatever else is in that magazine wasn’t intended for his age group.

7. The playground

The weather has turned nice here and the kids should be outside playing.  Sadly, at J’s school, that means playing on the blacktop.  The playground is literally under water–several inches.  It will be awhile before anyone is playing on it, especially with more rain predicted.

6. School lunches

Yes, I know I have the right to send my kid with his own lunch.  And I do, nearly every day.  So I’m not really worried about J.  I am worried about the kids who get free lunches.  That may be the only thing some of them eat that day.  So shouldn’t it be a little more nutritious than chicken nuggets?

5. The bus

I suppose I could drive J myself.  And mostly I don’t mind the bus.  His morning bus driver is a very sweet, motherly lady whom all the kids seem to like and respect.  It’s his afternoon bus driver that scares me.  He is a very strange man.  Not to mention the kids J rides with in the afternoon.  J exchanged phone numbers with one of them.  The boy called and was incredibly rude to me.  Apparently, no one has bothered to teach that kid phone manners.  And one of the other kids managed to make trouble for J at school.  He threw snow balls at him, then ran away to watch while J got in trouble  with a bus monitor for dodging them.  Judging by what his teachers say about him, I don’t doubt J’s story for even a minute–he’s the last kid to get in trouble for anything.

4. Reading

I was told by the reading teacher that J needed to catch his reading comprehension up to his decoding (reading the words/sounds on the page).  Huh.  Doesn’t just READING MORE do that??

3. Budget cuts

We can’t know the future, of course, but it doesn’t look good.  The first things to go are usually the arts.  We talk a lot about how kids need physical education so they don’t get fat.  True, but should we let their brains atrophy, too?  Kids need art, music, and literature, too.

2. Getting the facts straight

So far, J has informed me that your heart stops when you sneeze and several other urban legends.  Apparently, the adults in the school are telling the kids this stuff as facts.  But the kids believe it because a grown-up they trust is telling them.  It’s hard to compete with that.

And the number one reason…

1. I just plain miss my kid.  ‘Nuff said.

Walking the Mile

Posted by Amy in Education

Today I’m taking on people who complain about teachers.  If you’re a teacher, you know exactly what I mean.  I’m talking about the people who complain that teachers are paid too much, don’t work enough hours, or aren’t doing their jobs “right.”  A parallel category is the people who like to say things like, “It’s easy, I could do it.”

My husband is a teacher.  We have found that the vast majority of people who complain, especially about the salary, are people who have an annual family income greater than ours.  Now, I am not complaining.  We are very comfortable and content.  We live well within our means and we don’t have to struggle to keep up.  But it does make me wonder why anyone would think it appropriate to whine about what we have when they clearly have, materially, much more.

I don’t have any compelling logical arguments to make that will change anyone’s opinion.  I think the reality is that the majority of teacher-haters probably have no idea what it’s really like to be a teacher.  So I’m going to propose that anyone who feels compelled to complain take the following steps:

1. Trade salary and benefits with a teacher.  (This was my husband’s idea.)

2. Go teach for a year in one of these locations: the inner city, northeastern U.S.; rural Appalachia; among the Native Americans in Alaska.  It might be a good idea to try out all three.  Although there are other rough areas to teach, those present some of the most challenging because of poverty and cultural differences.

3. Spend a year teaching in a wealthy suburb.  Deal with parents who believe their child deserves special treatment, students who don’t do their homework, and pressure to have the kids perform to a certain level on state testing.

4. Teach at a state college or university for a year.  You will probably still have to deal with some of the same parents as in step 3, along with managing the pressures of having to publish original material.  Some colleges also expect you to perform some type of community service or service to campus life.

5. Answer these questions and report back: Was it as easy as you thought?  How did your salary and benefits compare to what you expected?  Would you ever do it again?

I know that some people will be thinking that teaching is a “calling” and as such, should not necessarily be rewarded any more than a missionary or a pastor.  But if you’re in a job you really enjoy and are good at doing, isn’t that the same thing?  The difference here is that I don’t spend my life complaining that my non-teacher friends make too much money or don’t do their jobs well enough.  All I’m asking, really, is for the same respect.