NORMAL Homeschooling??
Bonita Sheffield
I have got to stop reading these posts! Here I am, a new homeschooling
mother of a ten year old little girl, and struggling to figure out how and
what to teach her. What I read here would be worthy of teaching a young
Einstein, and as beautiful and bright as my daughter is, we're just hitting
the basics, and I don't mean Visual Basic programming classes or theory of
relativity with a hindu slant or calculus with a gleam or anything else like
that. Heck! I just got the child to the point where she likes reading!
Can somebody please give me a break and tell me that there are other parents
just teaching the 'regulars' out there? I'm feeling like I have the
consistancy of gum on a professor's shoe here. This isn't a flame, it's a
cry...believe me. I love teaching my daughter, but not if I'm going to
short her on her educational possibilities. Can homeschooling be done by
regular, slightly abnormal people in a regular, slightly abnormal way with
completely regular subjects?
Bonita
Coby4b10d
Read your post about "normal homeschooling". I'm new to the board, so I'm not
familiar with the posts you refer to. I am a "relaxed homeschooler" myself.
Look up "unschooling" on the internet. I think it may be right up your alley!
Also look up the "Charlotte Mason" method.
Carolyn in NC
linda-renee
Bonita Sheffield wrote:
Oh, thank you, thank you!!! I'd been beginning to think I needed to
teach Remedial Childhood or something. I have a beautiful, extremely
bright, formerly "developmentally delayed," hearing-and-speech-impaired
8-year-old, and I'm just thrilled that we're slightly ahead of the usual
second grade schedule and is starting third grade a few months before
her public school peers. I'm pretty well educated and I have (I think)
a lot of knowledge to share, and when I first started homeschooling I
thought I had to make sure she learned everything I knew--now. It took
me a while to realize I have at least ten more years to impart my little
pearls of wisdom. I mean, what's the hurry? I don't want to put down
any of the homeschooling parents whose kids are racing ahead, but I have
to wonder if there's not just a little bit of competitiveness on their
part--something on the order of, the kid has to perform wonders in order
to prove that homeschooling is superior to public schooling, and she/he
has to be the best homeschooler. There seem to be so many of these
wunderkinder; by staying fairly close to chronological grade level,
we're somewhat left in the dust. But the day I feel compelled to teach
Visual Basic or relativity theory to my unready almost-third grader just
so I can feel like a 'real' homeschooler, I'll enroll Kelly in school.
--
Linda
A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.
Shawnna Baldwin
I know what you mean. Why don't you take a look at
http://www.concentric.net/~dwonder/Shawnna.htm
there is an UNschooling message board and a new home school chat.
shawnna
Elaine Harvey
Amen to that! Let's step back and relax a little, at least with each other. Have
you ever noticed that homeschool Moms (and Dads I guess) are so self-conscious? I
break out in hives if I have to write something for someone. Is my handwriting
pretty enough? Did I misspell anything? If I bounce a check, my children will be
ripped from my arms! Oh my God!, my slip was showing! Geez, no wonder I prefer the
company of my children. They know I mess up all the time and love me anyway.
And you know, we are all so busy being self critical that I bet we don't even
really notice anyone else.
Just my little ole opinion,
Elaine
(you know I used my spell checker on this, right?)
Kevin Prickett
I believe that over half of what you read on these posts is what people
intend to teach their children in the coming year, not what they actually
teach. I've know a number of HS families that the parents are"teaching"
their children advanced material, but when you talk to the kids they do not
have any idea what their parents are talking about. Do not get me wrong,
some kids to excell in areas but I do not think it is every area and every
kid. Just keep teaching the basics and the rest will work out. But, do not
get lazy, and keep encouraging her.
Bonita Sheffield wrote in message <6h0bsd$g0u$1...@gte1.gte.net>...
>I have got to stop reading these posts! Here I am, a new homeschooling
>mother of a ten year old little girl, and struggling to figure out how and
>what to teach her. What I read here would be worthy of teaching a young
>Einstein, and as beautiful and bright as my daughter is, we're just hitting
>the basics, and I don't mean Visual Basic programming classes or theory of
>relativity with a hindu slant or calculus with a gleam or anything else
like
>that. Heck! I just got the child to the point where she likes reading!
>
>Can somebody please give me a break and tell me that there are other
parents
>just teaching the 'regulars' out there? I'm feeling like I have the
>consistancy of gum on a professor's shoe here. This isn't a flame, it's a
>cry...believe me. I love teaching my daughter, but not if I'm going to
>short her on her educational possibilities. Can homeschooling be done by
>regular, slightly abnormal people in a regular, slightly abnormal way with
>completely regular subjects?
>
>Bonita
>
>
>
Sondra Brake
Well -- it was nice to see what you wrote. I'm a mom of two children with
"special needs" (though I dislike the term). We are behind.....if we
measure ourselves by the school curriculum. My son is 8 1/2. He is just
reading the second group of Bob Books and some others. We have not
completed the "How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons".
I sometimes make the mistake of comparing my children with others instead of
just ....Have my children made educational progres? Yes, they have. They
do every year. It takes a LOT of work on all our parts. We don't use a
straight curriculum, yet neither do we unschool. We are somewhere in
between.
Thank you for writing that you have a "regular" kid. They all need time to
climb trees.
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 16th of April, 1998
Kevin Prickett writes:
I believe that over half of what you read on
these posts is what people intend to teach their
children in the coming year, not what they actually
teach. I've know a number of HS families that the
parents are "teaching" their children advanced material,
but when you talk to the kids they do not have any idea
what their parents are talking about. Do not get me wrong,
some kids to excel in areas but I do not think it is every
area and every kid. Just keep teaching the basics and the
rest will work out. But, do not get lazy, and keep
encouraging her.
Well, now, I find this pretty interesting. In the first
place, I've done some posting---not a lot, I think---about
my family's homeschooling curriculum. My feeling is that it is
a relatively ambitious and structured programme. In
fact, the way it reads to me is that most people contributing
to this group do more what is described as "unschooling"
(though in detail it often sounds to me like "unschooling"
shouldn't be the word for it). Anyway, my wife and I are
motivated by the belief that public school taught us about
10 percent of what we feel we should have learned by high-school
graduation, and that, by homeschooling, we can give our kids
100 percent and spend less of their time (less than the 7-8
hours a day we spent in public school learning the 10 percent).
This is not, I repeat *not*, because we consider our children
"little geniuses". It is rather that we *are not out to
merely repeat what school can already do at home---we are out to
better it*. A metaphor for this I borrow from Mortimer
Adler---the idea is to fill them to the brim with the finest
wine, not half-full of soda pop.
All right, but maybe you'd talk to my children and everything
I say they've studied, you'd find they hadn't learned?
My answer is: Of course. But the problem is how to assess
what it is they have learned. Zan is 8, and this is the
end of the fourth year of homeschool for him (we call
it officially "3rd grade", for whatever that's worth).
Helen is 6, and this is her second year (we call it
"1st grade"). Today is a pretty typical day: At 7:35
after breakfast we gathered both of them together on the
couch, and I read them a poem---I'm a little ways into a
volume of Tennyson at present. I forget the title at this
point, but the poem was a longish thing about a fantasy
journey into the Baghdad of Haroun Al-Raschid and Sheherazad.
Next, I read them 10 pages from Michael Grant's _History of
Rome_ (we're towards the end now not only of the school year
but the Roman section of history for this year, which has been
equally divided between Egypt, Greece, and Rome). These pages
were about the literature, architecture, and portraiture of
the later Roman empire---specifically the reading was about
Marcus Aurelius' _Meditations_, the jurisprudence of
Papinian and Ulpian, the increasing realism in
portrait-sculpture, and the huge interior space of the baths
of Caracalla. Also, we had come off of reading about financial
and tax woes and the debasement of coin and how under Caracalla,
in order to spread the taxation wider and wider, practically
anyone who wasn't a slave qualified for Roman citizenship---
a legal advance towards equality. I then read two pages out
of the Usborne _Ancient World_ book---these were on the way
Romans built buildings, bridges, aqueducts, and the like
(it's a wonderful book for the drawings, especially, and
supplements the drier text well). That took us til
about 8:10, and it was time for me to go off to the office. Zan's
next task was to read 5 pages from Plutarch's Life of Marcellus
(he's done selected Greeks when we were doing Greece, and selected
Romans now that we are doing Rome), then he's about halfway through
this year on an old first-year Latin text (which at present rate,
will take him to reading Caesar's _Commentaries_ by the end
of next year). Anyway, today he has only about a page of grammar
to read, so it's a light Latin day. He's on Chapter 30 (out of 30)
of what I'd describe as a "tourist Spanish" course. Today he'll
do the next one or two grammar exercises at the end of the chapter
(and finish the chapter's exercises tomorrow). (I don't know
if we're going to continue studying any Spanish for
the rest of this year, but we're ready to launch on
a three-year course starting next year.) Then, we've used
the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers as our readers. Zan is now
nearing the end of _McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader_.
(I don't know how well people here know these readers, but
in the fifth and sixth readers, the selections are unsimplified
and include passages from Shakespeare's plays, poems of
Tennyson and Longfellow, speeches by Daniel Webster and Edmund
Burke, passages from historians like Parkman and Mercy Otis
Warren---I don't know what todays's selection is, but Zan
just finished Thomas Babington MacAuley's narration
of the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings. These books
*really* build vocabulary, and my bet is what Zan's
reading comfortably now is beyond what half of the freshman
in my physics class at Butler are capable of reading with
comprehension.) Today, he'll read through on his own whatever
the next selection is and make a vocabulary list of words to
look up in the dictionary, look them up, and write out
definitions for them. Tomorrow, he'll have to write about
a one-paragraph summary of the selection. Also, he will
read aloud to Martha one chapter of _Huck Finn_, which is
the current read-aloud selection (he has read aloud for us
_Tom Sawyer_, _A Study in Scarlet_, _Kidnapped_, _Treasure
Island_, all of the Little House books, _Island of the Blue
Dolphin_ in the last two years). He will practice
piano for 45 minutes. He has a weekly spelling list of 15
words that he will be drilled orally on by Martha (I
did it with him yesterday, and he's got them all down)
in prep for written spelling test tomorrow (any words missed
get added on top of next week's list of 15 words). He has a
recitation---an oral memorization to do. Normally, this has
been poetry selected pretty much by him (though once, to
his disgruntlement we had him do the Gettysburg Address),
but at the moment both he and Helen do this "Broadway Kids"
rehearsal every Wednesday afternoon from 4:30 to 5:30, and
recitation has been devoted to memorizing songs (this semester's
show will be all Disney tunes) and lines from that. Both kids
this year study a composer 2 days a week and art 2 days a week.
The art has been Greek and Roman art and this means Martha
reads to them from a book about it (John Boardman's _Greek
Art_) and they look at a lot of pictures (which we have in
a lot of books). Our composer of the year has been Beethoven
(we have been fortunate that the Indianapolis Symphony is doing
all nine of the symphonies this year, and we have attended
2-7, we have tix for the Eighth in another two weeks, and
I'm singing in the Indianpolis Symphonic Choir for the Ninth
in mid-May. They'll listen to the 8th and 9th again before
attending each of those concerts, but they've now already
been through listening to each of the symphonies a movement at
a time (and with the score---Zan gets more out of the score
than Helen does) and today I think the plan
was to spend half an hour listening through the 4th Piano
Concerto. Then Zan has physics to do. We are on Chapter 10
of _Conceptual Physics_ by Hewitt, which is on Solids,
and which includes
density=mass/volume
Force= - spring constant x change of length (Hooke's Law)
tension, compression, netral layers,
arches, domes, and I-beams (nice tie-in with Roman
architecture)
scaling.
Today is the next to the last day of three weeks on this, and
he gets to do a test I have made for him half today, half
tomorrow. It is almost pre-algebraic physics: A 3 kg mass
stretches a spring 2 cm, how much does the spring stretch
when you hang a 6 kg mass? If you triple the length of all
sides of a rectangular block, how does the volume go, how does
the surface area go? If Questa (our golden retriever) weighs
45 pounds, and she just floats in water (so that her density
is about equal to water's) estimate her volume in cubic
meters. Take a meter stick to her and pretend she's a rectangular
block and estimate her volume that way. That sort of thing.
But it exercises the math he knows (last year he finished the
6th-grade text of a math course). And he will program the next
program out of a _Visual Basic in 21 Days_ book. I think that's
everything for Zan today. Helen does the poem and 2 history things,
the Beethoven concerto, 20 minutes piano, a worksheet page
out of the 2nd-grade math text (we have used The Cornerstone
Curriculum Project's "Making Math Meaningful", but I personally
don't care for them much)---she's adding and subtracting 2-digit
numbers at the moment, she'll do subtraction flash cards for time
(she has to get them under 2 minutes three days in a row to be
done with them, and she's been hovering around 4 minutes on them
for the last week), she has recitation (same Disney songs as Zan),
an oral spelling drill (her list is 10 words), she'll read aloud
the next McGuffey lesson (she's in the _Second Reader_), she'll
read aloud the next half-chapter of _The House at Pooh Corner_,
she has a writing exercise that Martha's made up from her spelling
words (we had been getting Helen's list of 10 words from
a workbook and she had been doing the exercises in there---now,
that book has run out, and rather than starting a new one, Martha's
been making up the exercises as she goes), and there's Spanish,
which at the moment consists of reading to her from one of
a number of bilingual picture-books borrowed from the library.
That's what we do. It sounds like a lot, but it's all little
segments: On an uninterrupted day, Helen will be done with
school at noon, and Zan will be done at 2:30, including mid-morning
cookie or snack break and half an hour to an hour break for lunch.
Today, I know it'll run much later because they were leaving the
house at 9:30 to go across town and join our homsechooling group
at an indoor water park. That would be from 10:00 to 12:00
and I know they'll stop at McDonald's for lunch and be lucky to be
back home by 1:30. And then Zan has baseball practice from 5:00
to 7:00 (if it doesn't rain again).
How much do they learn of what they study? Well, if you were
to ask them who Marcus Aurelius was, Helen wouldn't have a clue.
Zan might know he was a Roman emperor, but he can be pretty
reticent when he wants to be with "I don't know", so you'd
might have to get past that first. In other words, we weren't
expecting them to be able to discourse on the jurisprudence of
Ulpian, you know? They'll study history every year of school
(roughly half the years American history, and half the years
world history) and there's time. What *is* clear to me is that
their reading skills are very strong and that next year, when
we begin two years of reading Joy Hakim's _History of US_ to
Helen (which we finished with Zan last year), that Zan is
going to be handed Samuel Eliot Morison's _Oxford History
of the American People_ and told to do 20 pages a day of
it, after which he'll be set loose on Page Smith's multivolume
American history. (In other words, reading parallel, but on
the next level up, to Helen's history lessons.) In other words, as
soon as he finishes the McGuffey's Readers, we are ready to
declare him a reader and drop reading for reading's sake
as a subject from the curriculum (no, actually, there'll
be one year there of grammar---diagramming sentences---and
probably Adler and Van Doren's _How to Read a Book_ and
Adler's _How to Speak/How to Listen_, maybe Strunk and White
thrown in)---from then on, he will read history
to study history, read literature to study literature, and
so forth. I think we're going to want some feedback from him
about his reading---I don't think daily written summaries,
but daily oral summaries perhaps plus maybe bi-weekly written
assignments, I don't know yet.
In other words, what I think is that we "aim" higher
than the kids actually reach, but that they actually reach
higher as a result of this high aim than they would without
it. I also don't think they are "little geniuses" or are going
to be warped by the process. They're probably doomed
to a certain measure of geekdom, seeing the wierdos they
have as parents, but they're just ordinary kids, and we
have zero intention of sending them away to college, say,
before they're 18. Anyway, judged on basics---reading, writing,
and math---I think both of them are doing just fine.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Elaine Harvey
Hi Michael,
I wondered how long it would take before you entered this thread. Whew!
Now I can take that breath. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed your post.
Since I got over my misconception of you as (now what was it I called
you?)an intellectual snob ;-), I have gleaned to much from your
perspectives. Here's a few questions that I hope you'll help me with;
Michael S. Morris wrote:
> Thursday, the 16th of April, 1998
>
> Kevin Prickett writes:
> I believe that over half of what you read on
> these posts is what people intend to teach their
> children in the coming year, not what they actually
> teach.
Kevin, may I introduce Michael, he ain't pulling your leg, dear.
> This is not, I repeat *not*, because we consider our children
> "little geniuses".
Other people would though, pity.
> It is rather that we *are not out to
> merely repeat what school can already do at home---we are out to
> better it*. A metaphor for this I borrow from Mortimer
> Adler---the idea is to fill them to the brim with the finest
> wine, not half-full of soda pop.
I've always liked that analogy.
> Today is a pretty typical day: At 7:35
> after breakfast we gathered both of them together on the
> couch, and I read them a poem-
For this participation, I bet your wife considers herself one lucky woman.
She is.
> then he's about halfway through
> this year on an old first-year Latin text
Where did you find one? I'm having a difficult time with this.
> He's on Chapter 30 (out of 30)
> of what I'd describe as a "tourist Spanish" course. Today he'll
> do the next one or two grammar exercises at the end of the chapter
> (and finish the chapter's exercises tomorrow)
Is he having any trouble mixing up the Grammar exercises?(between the
different languages, I mean.)
> Then, we've used
> the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers as our readers. Zan is now
> nearing the end of _McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader_.
OK, Mike, now I want names and addresses. Where did you find these? I've
had a book dealer here looking for reprints to no avail.
> He has a weekly spelling list of 15
> words that he will be drilled orally on by Martha
Have you used the Eclectic Speller? How did that work out? I have two boys
with disgraphia, data processing problems and a very bad spelling
problem. Memorization is nearly impossible and I had considered the
McGuffey's method as an alternative.
> and today I think the plan
> was to spend half an hour listening through the 4th Piano
> Concerto.
My kids listen to classics *during* their other work and I find this
incredibly helpful to their concentration, and they actually pick up the
music. I was surprised.
> Then Zan has physics to do.
Could you recommend a book that introduces Physics concepts for those of
us who 1. Are weak in it ourselves and 2. the kids are only starting
Algebra so the solutions need to be fairly straightforward.
> How much do they learn of what they study? Well, if you were
> to ask them who Marcus Aurelius was, Helen wouldn't have a clue.
> Zan might know he was a Roman emperor, but he can be pretty
> reticent when he wants to be with "I don't know", so you'd
> might have to get past that first.
Gee, normal kid response. Doesn't sound traumatized to me.
> In other words, we weren't
> expecting them to be able to discourse on the jurisprudence of
> Ulpian, you know? They'll study history every year of school
> (roughly half the years American history, and half the years
> world history) and there's time.
Yes, there is, but they have more time than those who won't even see the
material for another 10 years.
> What *is* clear to me is that
> their reading skills are very strong
Is there anything more important?
> (no, actually, there'll
> be one year there of grammar---diagramming sentences-
I thought I was the last diagramer out there! Why don't people use this
anymore?
> --and
> probably Adler and Van Doren's _How to Read a Book_ and
> Adler's _How to Speak/How to Listen_,
I'm not familiar with these. Please elaborate.
> In other words, what I think is that we "aim" higher
> than the kids actually reach, but that they actually reach
> higher as a result of this high aim than they would without
> it.
I agree here. Kids will reach in the direction that you expect them to. Up
or Down. And if no-one has told them they can't do something, they don't
know that they can't.
> They're probably doomed
> to a certain measure of geekdom, seeing the wierdos they
> have as parents,
When did 'geekdom' become a bad thing? The Geeks I know could buy and sell
me at a pretty profit.
> Anyway, judged on basics---reading, writing,
> and math---I think both of them are doing just fine.
Sounds like it to me too. Thank you for the time it took to post this
Michael. I look forward to your reply.
Elaine Harvey
jen...@mindspring.com
On Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:09:56 -0400, Elaine Harvey <meha...@exis.net>
wrote:
<From Michael S. Morris and Elaine Harvey>
:> Then, we've used
:> the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers as our readers. Zan is now
:> nearing the end of _McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader_.
:
:OK, Mike, now I want names and addresses. Where did you find these? I've
:had a book dealer here looking for reprints to no avail.
The library here (Warren, MI) has the McGuffey Readers in the young
children's fiction area.
Jennifer Guy
HIS.C...@prodigy.net
Michael wrote:
>> Then Zan has physics to do.
Elaine wrote:
>Could you recommend a book that introduces Physics concepts for those of
>us who 1. Are weak in it ourselves and 2. the kids are only starting
>Algebra so the solutions need to be fairly straightforward.
You might be interested in, for the elementary level, from Critical Thinking
Press, Critical Thinking through Science, books one and two. We found it very
basic, hands on, and in fact, interesting :)
robys
-----
http://www.concentric.net/~robys
robys at sunyit dot edu
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
jen...@mindspring.com
On Thu, 16 Apr 1998 16:53:05 GMT, "Michael S. Morris"
<msmo...@netdirect.net> wrote:
:He has a weekly spelling list of 15
:words that he will be drilled orally on by Martha (I
:did it with him yesterday, and he's got them all down)
:in prep for written spelling test tomorrow (any words missed
:get added on top of next week's list of 15 words).
Mike, I'd really love to see the vocabulary lists for both kids for
the past few weeks if you wouldn't mind, purely for educational
purposes! (Email me if you'd rather.)
Thanks, Jenny
HIS.C...@prodigy.net
In article <353855a5...@news.mindspring.com>,
jen...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> On Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:09:56 -0400, Elaine Harvey <meha...@exis.net>
> wrote:
>
> <From Michael S. Morris and Elaine Harvey>
> :> the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers as our readers. Zan is now
> :> nearing the end of _McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader_.
> :OK, Mike, now I want names and addresses. Where did you find these? I've
> :had a book dealer here looking for reprints to no avail.
>
> The library here (Warren, MI) has the McGuffey Readers in the young
> children's fiction area.
> Jennifer Guy
>
They can also be found from Great Christian Books:
http://www.greatchristianbooks.com
robys
---------
http://www.concentric.net/~robys
Bonita Sheffield
Um, Mike...in all due respect, are your children interested in those
subjects? At six and eight years, Green Eggs & Ham were my kiddos speed.
Hon, don't get me wrong, but after reading your post, I had to give a bit of
a yawn. I can't imagine how your kids are taking it.
Restaurants have kid-size portions, and I think school, unschool or however
learning is called these days should be kid proportioned too. I can yonk
all day at my daughter on a subject and state I've taught her. I just
happen to believe that 'learning' is infinitely more important than the
teaching.
Okay, so kill me with your king size wit...but it's damn near impossible to
have a battle of wits with an unarmed person....big smile.
Feeling that gum on the shoe thing again.
Bonita
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 17th of April, 1998
Elaine writes:
[...]Here's a few questions that I hope you'll
help me with;
I'll try.
Kevin said:
I believe that over half of what you read on
these posts is what people intend to teach their
children in the coming year, not what they actually
teach.
Elaine:
Kevin, may I introduce Michael, he ain't pulling your
leg, dear.
Kevin has a point---there's a difference between a teacher
teaching X and a pupil learning X. So we have to try and
assess what we do---we've been administering the Iowa tests
at the end of the school year. Zan's taken them the last two
years and Helen last year---there's a story and a digression here,
but not now---suffice it to say vis-a-vis standardized testing
(which doesn't exactly test what we teach)---they are doing fine.
By the way, for what it's worth, I freely admit we have
done nothing, zero, zip about teaching handwriting, and
both kids' hands are marginal at best. Of course, my hand
and Martha's, too, are marginal at best. But, besides their
school writing, we have them keep a journal (this they write
in just before bedtime, err, just before storytime before
bedtime), and you can see that they've improved over time.
I suppose one of these years we'll devote some time to teaching
cursive writing and penmanship, but not yet.
I said:
[...] This is not, I repeat *not*, because we consider our
children "little geniuses".
Elaine:
Other people would though, pity.
I grew up being called "the brain" by classmates---you know,
the skinny, straight-A, athletically incompetent kid with glasses.
I bristled at term, and still do I guess. Likewise I think
with the physics---well, a lot of people react to it like you've got
to be genetically engineered to be able to understand it. What
I think is that mere mortals *can* learn it, and that it's just
like, oh, carpentry---it looks mysterious until you've put in
the time learning how to do it. Anyway, I'd like to avoid
having them get typecast as knowing what they know because
they have exceptional genes. (On the other hand, there's
a Charybdis, too, in our homeschooling "programme" getting all
the credit and not the little guy and girl who are actually doing
the work and the learning.)
I said:
It is rather that we *are not out to
merely repeat what school can already do at home---we are out to
better it*. A metaphor for this I borrow from Mortimer
Adler---the idea is to fill them to the brim with the finest
wine, not half-full of soda pop.
Elaine:
I've always liked that analogy.
It presupposes of course that some knowledge is better, of
headier vintage, than other knowledge. There are many in
this relativistic age who have a problem with that. But, I
will say that I think "the finest wine" is not incompatible
with a great deal of diversity and following of the child's
individual interests and choices.
I said:
Today is a pretty typical day: At 7:35
after breakfast we gathered both of them together on the
couch, and I read them a poem-
Elaine:
For this participation, I bet your wife considers
herself one lucky woman. She is.
From discussions with the women in our secular-but-the-religious-
are-welcome homeschooling group, it sounds like a lot of women
are the sole teacher. Plus it sounds like a lot of husbands
are skeptical about the project. With us, it was a joint decision,
and we *are* lucky in that I have, with my kid brother, inherited
a family business that, well, pays the bills in such a way that
my time is somewhat flexible. Wednesdays, I have Zan with me all
day and I do school with him. Then, Martha is a veterinarian,
who works about 20 hours a week, and we have this tag-team approach
where I can get home when she's leaving for work in the afternoon.
and then if there's anything to finish up with school, I can
do that. She likes it that way, by the way---she neither wants to
work full time nor wants to not work.
I said:
then he's about halfway through
this year on an old first-year Latin text
Elaine:
Where did you find one? I'm having a difficult time with this.
This is titled _First Year Latin: Preparatory to Caesar_
(Bennett's Latin Series) by Charles E. Bennett and the
copyright date is 1909 (1962 edition, Allyn and Bacon,
Boston). Where did I find it? I should explain that our
house is decorated in Early American Book. About the time
we moved back to Indianapolis five years ago, I counted
our library at over 3000 volumes. It has grown since then.
My bet is that I found this particular Latin book in a used
book store I used to frequent where we lived last in
Kitchener, Ontario. I don't know how easy it would be
to find if one were deliberately looking for it.
There are I think plenty of good Latin courses out there,
of various styles. This one when I say that it is old style,
I mean that like page 1 or so you get porta declined in
nominative, genitive, accusative, dative, ablative, singular
and plural, and you supposed to know how to decline porta
from then on (not to mention know what those cases mean).
In other words, it's a no nonsense, "here memorize this"
approach. It's also a thin little book that seems to be
heading steadily towards building all the military vocabulary
for understanding Caesar. We added Latin to this year for Zan kind
of as a lark (I had previously figured we'd certainly study one
classical language---either Latin or Greek, me leaning towards
Greek, since I've studied that myself---but starting with the kids
in maybe 7th grade, but here we were doing Egypt/Greece/Rome
in history, and "doing a little" this year suggested itself.
What's happened is that Zan seems to be learning it, and so we
think we're just going to let him keep going on through it next
year). The grammar we have had to try and explain to him as
he goes, but I'll betcha English grammar is going to be a
piece of cake when we do it (the whole reason for doing formal
English grammar in the first place is *in order to learn
foreign languages*, I think).
I said:
He's on Chapter 30 (out of 30)
of what I'd describe as a "tourist Spanish" course. Today he'll
do the next one or two grammar exercises at the end of the chapter
(and finish the chapter's exercises tomorrow)
Elaine:
Is he having any trouble mixing up the Grammar exercises?(between the
different languages, I mean.)
This book is titled _Learn to Speak Spanish_ and goes with a CD-ROM
that is, in my opinion, a high-nonsense sort of approach. I've caught
a Latin spelling or two in the Spanish exercises, but his spelling
is consistently atrocious, anyway (except for his spelling tests,
which he usually aces), so I'm not sure if this was Latin creeping
in. What I do think is that this course has been a kind of marking time
for him---a familiarization with the grammar, but he hasn't done
nearly as well with the Spanish as with the Latin. I've gone to
a Spanish prof at Butler to get a rec for a more serious-minded
course and have gotten a three-year program from Amsco Publishing
that looks like it will take us to reading real Spanish literature
by the end of it. We're going to start that next year.
I said:
Then, we've used
the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers as our readers. Zan is now
nearing the end of _McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader_.
Elaine:
OK, Mike, now I want names and addresses.
Where did you find these? I've had a book
dealer here looking for reprints to no avail.
Gosh. I guess I've seen them everywhere---on the shelf
at Borders, advertised in the Liberty Tree Press
mail-order catalog, at booksellers' kiosks at the
homeschooling convention. Anyway, what we have is a
boxed set of the Primer and all six readers garnered
in some bookstore God knows where, but I just went
on amazon.com and searched on "McGuffey's Eclectic" and
got a whole list of them you can order for $6.96 each
(+ shipping and handling, which is non-trivial if you
order from amazon.com). I also found _McGuffey's Eclectic
Readers/Boxed_ by William Holmes McGuffey listed as special
order there for $59.95 (again plus shipping and handling).
The McGuffey set does have an antique cast to it---we still
snicker over the homily in one of the earlier volumes
about "The Demon Worm"---about the dangers of alcolhol.
I said:
He has a weekly spelling list of 15
words that he will be drilled orally on by Martha
Elaine:
Have you used the Eclectic Speller? How did that work out?
We do have the speller, which we had not used when Zan was doing 10
words a week out of a spelling workbook, but now we sort of collect up
words that he has misspelled in other contexts and oh, physics words
that are new, and words about Roman history that we run across. Then,
we supplement those by selections out of the Eclectic Speller. It
works fine.
Elaine:
I have two boys with disgraphia, data processing problems
and a very bad spelling problem. Memorization is nearly
impossible and I had considered the McGuffey's method as
an alternative.
I have no experience whatsoever with these problems---except
for Zan being an atrocious speller. But, I'll swear that if
I focus his attention he memorizes things easily (there'd
been a go around last year on this group when I explained
that we had had Zan memorize multiplication tables---from
0 to 25 and from x0 to x25 each to be recited orally in
under one minute three days in a row---we got him a "Champion
Multiplier" trophy when he finished this exercise last year).
In other words, by the time I do school with him on Wednesday
he maybe has a glitch with one or two words, and he aces
the test by Friday. Then, Friday night he might use one of
the same words in his journal, and it'll be misspelled. It's
like there are two modes---the paying attention mode and the
not paying attention mode.
I said:
and today I think the plan
was to spend half an hour listening through the 4th Piano
Concerto.
Elaine:
My kids listen to classics *during* their other work and
I find this incredibly helpful to their concentration, and
they actually pick up the music. I was surprised.
I grew up always having the TV or music (sometimes TV and music)
on in the background, so I'm trying personally to become
a better listener. I've musician friends who claim, for example
that they cannot read a book and listen to music---any music---
at the same time. I envy them their concentration on the music.
When it comes to listening to a composer's music (we have done
so far a year and a half of Bach, a few months with Scott Joplin,
a year and a bit with Mozart, and now a year of Beethoven---Martha's
announced that next year will be Tchaikovsky, since the symphony
is doing his six symphonies next year) therefore, we try to set
the time aside specifically for that (though sometimes Martha
especially will do this in the car while driving to piano
lessons or somesuch). Anyway, I think the brain can process
a great deal of information, and I am not surprised both that
the background music both helps your kids' other work *and*
that they pick it up.
I said:
Then Zan has physics to do.
Elaine:
Could you recommend a book that introduces Physics concepts for those
of
us who 1. Are weak in it ourselves and 2. the kids are only starting
Algebra so the solutions need to be fairly straightforward.
Umm, the one we are doing is, as I said, _Conceptual Physics_, by
Hewitt. This almost never has any algebraic equation more complicated
than a=bc. For example:
F=ma (force=mass x acceleration)
d=vt (distance=speed x time)
m=rho x v (mass=density x volume)
I've taught this book (well, I mean maybe 10 chapters out of it
a semester) to freshmen at Butler University who
were taking this course to fulfill a lab-science requirement.
(They were predominantly elementary-ed majors who generally
felt put upon to have to learn something which they claimed
they wouldn't need to know to be able to teach K-6. I replied
to a young lady who told me this that this attitude was why
I was homeschooling my own.) I have no knowledge of more
elementary books (though they exist), but I do know this
one might more properly be considered a junior-high level
text.
I'll tell you that this was one place where my plans were
adjusted downward. That is, my initial thought was, "Gee,
36 chapters, we can read the chapter Monday, discuss it
Tuesday, do the exercises Wednesday, discuss and correct
and do an experiment on Thursday, and then test on the chapter
on Friday. 36 chapters in 36 weeks at 5 days a week equals
180 days= 1 official school year! Martha kind of vetoed that
one, so I revised to 2 weeks per chapter=2 years. In reality,
though we have done some 2-week chapters, many of the more
fundamental mechanics chapters we took four weeks to do.
We decided the whole point was he's ahead in math, we have
the time, why not take the time to really understand the
material?
I said:
How much do they learn of what they study? Well, if you were
to ask them who Marcus Aurelius was, Helen wouldn't have a clue.
Zan might know he was a Roman emperor, but he can be pretty
reticent when he wants to be with "I don't know", so you'd
might have to get past that first.
Elaine:
Gee, normal kid response. Doesn't sound traumatized to me.
Yeah, it's pretty standard, but they will out with stuff
on occasion that makes me think not all this stuff is
being lost. When we were doing Greece, for instance, we
had Helen read _Classic Myths to Read Aloud_ for her
read-aloud book. This was hard for her at first, but around
Christmas we started noting that the McGuffey lessons had
gotten easy for her and she was sailing through them. (Then,
here's where I mean she's doomed to geekdom, she was
complaining about being bored and Martha suggested reading
_The Wizard of OZ_, which Helen just did and was bragging
to me that evening that she had read the whole thing and
didn't have to ask for help on even one word! And it's
like she just took off really reading since then.) Anyway,
Zan had to write a summary of his McGuffey lesson the
other day and he was complaining about not knowing what to
write, and we were in the car and I was asking him
about it (in order to try to get him to talk out what it
was about). So of course he says "I don't know." And a
little more prodding gets me that it's titled "The Destruction
of C_______" (I was taking this to be some city that begins with
a C that I couldn't recognize from his memoried
pronunciation---I hadn't looked at it yet, but in fact it
was "The Destruction of the Carnatic" I think by Edmund Burke
about an Indian province). Anyway, I said something like,
"Cool, how was it destroyed?" "I don't know." "Well, I
mean cities are usually destroyed in war---like Jerusalem
remember we read about the Roman emperor Titus capturing
Jerusalem? Or when the Persians destroyed Athens? Or
Alexander the Great destroyed Persepolis?"
Zan: "And Corinth?"
Me: "Umm, well, yeah [doubting where he might have remembered Corinth
from],
the Romans sacked Corinth, too."
Grandma: "And volcanoes."
Me: "Yep, your Grandma says volcanoes, too, like Pompeii and
Herculanaeum
remember were destroyed by Mount Vesuvius erupting? and I suppose
there's fire---like London in the Great Fire and Chicago and Mrs.
O'Leary's cow. And earthquakes destroy cities, too---Lisbon and
San Francisco."
Helen: "I know, where Aeneas was ecscaping, I forget."
Me: "Huh? Oh, Troy! Of course, very good Helen, that's a very good
example
of a city being destroyed by war. So, do you remember what
destroyed
this city, Zan?"
Zan: "No."
Me: "Well, I think your next step is to re-read it and figure out
how it was destroyed."
The fact that Helen remembered Aeneas "ecscaping" from Troy
(though hadn't remembered the name of the city) just stunned
me, but Martha says that Helen just really took to the book
of myths, and that she remembers a number of the stories.
I said:
In other words, we weren't expecting them to be
able to discourse on the jurisprudence of Ulpian,
you know? They'll study history every year of school
(roughly half the years American history, and half the years
world history) and there's time.
Elaine:
Yes, there is, but they have more time than those
who won't even see the material for another 10 years.
Yep. I guess what I find personally is that new knowledge sticks
to those frames where I have old knowledge. I can listen to
a composer for years "ho-hum, Schoenberg" on the radio and
never really listen to it or like it. And then I can, for a lark
sit in on a course on Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Bartok, and
learn about their lives and listen to their major works and
suddenly I find I listen to Schoenberg whenever Schoenberg
comes on the radio. New knowledge sticks to old knowledge,
and love sticks to both. There is some thrilling, wonderful
history out there, to be gotten once kids are strong readers---
Prescott and Parkman and Gibbon and Tacitus and Thucydides and
Plutarch. And I'm hoping to poise them both for that---nix
on "textbooks".
I said:
What *is* clear to me is that
their reading skills are very strong
Elaine:
Is there anything more important?
Math, I'd say is of equal importance, but, no,
I think there is nothing more important than
reading.
I said:
(no, actually, there'll
be one year there of grammar---diagramming sentences-
Elaine:
I thought I was the last diagramer out there! Why
don't people use this anymore?
We have an Eclectic Reader series book that does this---
I don't know that we'll do anything more than that. I
have this thing about grammar---I hold it as an eternal
grievance that we had to do grammar at the level of
"this is a noun, this is a verb" all 13 years of school
(the message being given out that it was OK not to learn
this stuff because we'll teach it again next year).
I think diagramming sentences should be taught one time
until it's mastered and then consider it done and hold
students accountable for knowing it---the rest
ought to be reading real literature and writing composition.
I said:
--and
probably Adler and Van Doren's _How to Read a Book_ and
Adler's _How to Speak/How to Listen_,
Elaine:
I'm not familiar with these. Please elaborate.
Practical advice on how to read, how to talk, how
to listen. The first I know has been in print a long
time and has had at least 1 new edition recently.
It goes through levels of reading up through "syntopical
reading", which is when you are reading, say, both Locke
and Aristotle together and trying to establish in what it
is they agree, and in what they disagree.
I said:
In other words, what I think is that we "aim" higher
than the kids actually reach, but that they actually reach
higher as a result of this high aim than they would without
it.
Elaine:
I agree here. Kids will reach in the direction that you
expect them to. Up or Down. And if no-one has told them
they can't do something, they don't know that they can't.
Exactly, the watchword is "Yes, I can."
I said:
They're probably doomed
to a certain measure of geekdom, seeing the wierdos they
have as parents,
Elaine:
When did 'geekdom' become a bad thing? The Geeks
I know could buy and sell me at a pretty profit.
Well, it's a term that's been appropriated as a good thing,
too. But, I do think it acknowledges a certain disjunction
between the mainstream and folks who actually *like* to
read books.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Bonita Sheffield
DISCLAIMER (I preface the following with a big IT'S A JOKE, FOLKS)...puts
down pen, sets up face guard and shield and with a sigh gathers courage to
try humor....
...besides, Mike, anybody who spells program with an 'e' is suspect in my
book!
Bonita
Michael Moy
jen...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> On Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:09:56 -0400, Elaine Harvey <meha...@exis.net>
> wrote:
>
> <From Michael S. Morris and Elaine Harvey>
> :> the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers as our readers. Zan is now
> :> nearing the end of _McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader_.
> :OK, Mike, now I want names and addresses. Where did you find these? I've
> :had a book dealer here looking for reprints to no avail.
>
> children's fiction area.
> Jennifer Guy
We picked up our set at a home schooling store in Milford, NH.
You can also get them (along with other 1800s materials such as
Ray's Arithmetic) at Mott Media. I've also seen them at one of our
university libraries.
Michael Moy
Michael S. Morris wrote:
>
> Thursday, the 16th of April, 1998
>
> Kevin Prickett writes:
> I believe that over half of what you read on
> these posts is what people intend to teach their
> children in the coming year, not what they actually
> teach. I've know a number of HS families that the
> parents are "teaching" their children advanced material,
> but when you talk to the kids they do not have any idea
> what their parents are talking about. Do not get me wrong,
> some kids to excel in areas but I do not think it is every
> area and every kid. Just keep teaching the basics and the
> rest will work out. But, do not get lazy, and keep
> encouraging her.
>
> Well, now, I find this pretty interesting. In the first
> place, I've done some posting---not a lot, I think---about
> my family's homeschooling curriculum. My feeling is that it is
1) How about putting this on a web site?
2) Are you doing anything with Discrete Math, Algorithms and
Data Structures, Operating Systems, Language Theory,
Compiler Theory, Computer Architecture and Artificial
Intelligence?
Michael Moy
Michael S. Morris wrote:
> Helen read lots of Dr. Seuss last year for her
> read-aloud books. They've been read Dr. Seuss
> as bedtime stories since both of them were one
> or two. Every now and again they still get Dr. Seuss,
> though at the moment, Martha's been reading them
> Madeleine L'Engle. Zan's about 4 years beyond
> reading Dr. Seuss books on his own initiative.
> What he likes is Star Wars, anything to do with
> Star Wars he reads on his own.
Talk about serendipity. Our kids (5 and 8) caught
the Star Wars bug last week (I picked up three of
them from the chapter book section hoping that our
son would like them) and can't put them down. I picked
up about eight of them (some from the young adult
section and some from the chapter book section) and
they picked out a few Star Trek books. Our son was
reading about three chapter books per week (that I
picked out) but it was hit or miss as to what he liked.
> Bonita asks:
> Um, Mike...in all due respect, are your
> children interested in those
> subjects?
>
> Not at all. We drag them kicking and screaming.
> But, sarcasm aside, what do you mean
> by "interested"? And do you seriously suggest that
> a child should only learn what he's interested in
> learning, so, for example, no one but a naturally
> talented and motivated pianist would ever learn
> to play the piano, since most children aren't
> *interested* in going through the tough slog of
> practicing scales, and would rather be playing with
> their friends?
I think that the nice thing about learning piano
is that it's easy to get into the work-success
cycle. It's relatively easy for kids to start
playing simple tunes and success results in more
interest which makes it easier for them to do the
stuff that may not be as much fun.
Bonita Sheffield
My daughter, Christa, is ten years old...fifth grade...and we've been doing
the homeschooling bit for a whole two months. She couldn't read...didn't
want to basically because she wasn't given any tools to learn how. The
school system was experimenting with that 'writing to read' program (or
programme).
She's very ADD and also very bright. Was making straight A's in math and
science, flunking in right brain activities (or wherever the repository for
talents reside in x-y-z subjects). Math and anything science fascinates
her, holds her attention longer than a peanut. I absolutely have to find a
way to make the subject material interesting for her, or she'll tune me
out...biologically, neurologically...I can't reach her unless I find tricks
on presentation of material for those subjects she, as a rule, doesn't like.
I kinda like Sesame Street. Michael, I can definitely hear the influence of
the British public school system. "Please, can I have some more, suh?"
Children aren't supplicants in education...they're hungry to learn. If you
feed them only unpalatable things, eventually they'll stop coming to your
table expecting anything.
So, I balance the meat and potatoes of learning with a little desert, and
because I'm homeschooling, sometimes I can candy the potatoes and glaze the
meat. So far, my nonreading daughter who flinched at reading more than a
paragraph can now digest whole chapters with a little understanding of what
she just read. She can 'sound' out words instead of making her best
estimate of what that word might be.
We do some fairly brilliant (I think) learning games and routines, but I've
discovered that all homeschooling parents do that. We as parents are as
hungry to teach as the little ones are to learn.
A zen koan relates how a master was teaching a pupil of his...the pupil
wanted to learn, the master to teach...so the master took a cup and asked
his pupil to pour tea into an already full cup of tea...the pupil asked how
he could do that without spilling and wasting the tea...the master smiled
and said, "Now you understand that a full mind must be emptied first before
it can be filled."
The Japanese teach as you do, Mike...they fill it up, and fill it up...and
the student never learns anything new. Meaning, they can't create...they
can't imagine. They can recall by rote, possible even improve on the taught
design...but to make something new! Ah, that is the goal of education.
Perhaps taking a poem by Tennyson and asking your children to read it to
you, explaining each detail as though to an alien from another planet...or
imagine a whole poem from a single word out of Tennyson...or to take a
little trip with you down to whatever arts district is close at hand to hear
'real, live poets' reading their work...something...but make it come alive
for them.
Now that's Sesame Street at its finest.
That is how I want and try to teach my daughter. Already she says, "Mom,
this may sound wierd, but I really like to learn now." Far cry from two
months ago as her love of learning was assassinated by the public school
system.
Nuff said.
Bonita
Jayne Kulikauskas but replace spambait by mmalt
jen...@mindspring.com writes:
[]
> Mike, I'd really love to see the vocabulary lists for both kids for
> the past few weeks if you wouldn't mind, purely for educational
> purposes! (Email me if you'd rather.)
> Thanks, Jenny
Forget his kids' vocabulary lists; I want to see Mike's. I can't even find
lagniappe in my dictionary. At least, I found eristic. Now that is a word
that everyone on the Net needs to know, since it describes about half the
posts.
Jayne
Julie Nelson
> Not at all. We drag them kicking and screaming.
> But, sarcasm aside, what do you mean
> by "interested"? And do you seriously suggest that
> a child should only learn what he's interested in
> learning, so, for example, no one but a naturally
> talented and motivated pianist would ever learn
> to play the piano, since most children aren't
> *interested* in going through the tough slog of
> practicing scales, and would rather be playing with
> their friends?
>
> Personally, I think the Sesame Street "learning
> should be entertaining" attitude has a whole
> generation of ignorance to answer for.
>
> Mike Morris
> (msmo...@netdirect.net)
Mike,
Speaking from an unschoolers point of view, I must take offense at
"ignorant"...I am far from such a term. Education should be
entertaining, as well as educational. Both have their place in the task
of learning.
I do believe that children should be taught what interests them. My
oldest daughter is slim, petite, bookish, amazingly bright for her age
(My stepdaughter, Morgan, is in the same grade in public school and
Miquelie is light years beyond her). She has only been taught what she
is interested in at this point; her primary interests being books of all
sorts, ballet, violin, domestic arts...she aspires to the finer points
of life. Someday, she may be interested in softball or physics or
whatever...then, we will teach that.
My stepdaughter has been hand fed the "commercial education" meaning
exactly what others are doing. She is already bored and has no interest
in going to school.
My next daughter, Mollie, is our beloved tomboy. She has zero interest
in books, but is fascinated by what is natural. She is a
self-proclaimed vegetarian (asked where hamburgers came from and hasn't
touched meat since). She wants to be in the dirt. She has no
aspiration for music, but loves to garden (she receives math, history,
science, domestic arts and language skills from the garden.) She does
tend to do very well with the computer, also (provided that I can get
her into the house!) She, too, is very bright. She speaks clearly and
precisely. She is very vocal about her likes/dislikes.
I believe this is the beauty of homeschooling...we have made education
become something they are interested in. How many in public schools can
say the same? I believe it is the prison like setting of the public
school system that instills prisoner type behavior. (restlessness,
disobedience, disrespect to name a few).
The way that you homeschool is not wrong, it is simply the way that you
do it. My husband and I choose to take a more relaxed view of the
educational process. We have all been educated in doing it this way.
Blessings,
--
Julie Nelson
devoted wife to John
loving homeschool mother to Miquelie(6) Morgan(5) Mollie(4) and Max(2)
blessed by Nolan, Asa, Meryl and Meaghan, who have gone before us
homepage http://members.tripod.com/~oolie/index.html
If you have ICQ, you can page me at 2547343
If you don't have ICQ you can page me through:
* My Personal Communication Center: http://wwp.mirabilis.com/2547343 (go
there and try it!)
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 16th of April, 1998
I said:
He has a weekly spelling list of 15
words that he will be drilled orally on by Martha (I
did it with him yesterday, and he's got them all down)
in prep for written spelling test tomorrow (any words missed
get added on top of next week's list of 15 words).
Jenny asks:
Mike, I'd really love to see the vocabulary lists for both kids for
the past few weeks if you wouldn't mind, purely for educational
purposes!
OK, though I'd characterize these more as a spelling list
than a vocabulary list.
This week, Zan:
1. territory [1-8, Martha says, are words encountered
2. ordinance in Latin lessons that he had misspelled and 9-15
3. weapon come from the McGuffey speller, list 55]
4. foreign
5. barbarian
6. terrify
7. suspicion
8. advise
9. possessive
10. resemble
11. chasm
12. machine
13. chocolate
14. character
15. chemist
Last week, Zan:
1. cavalry [Martha says 1-3 were words he'd misspelled
2. philosophy in other contexts, the rest are probably from
3. friendship McGuffey list 55, except 'horizontal' which
4. allow was a missed word from previous week]
5. vowel
6. endowment
7. roulette
8. announcement
9. troubadour
10. incessant
11. language
12. congruous
13. singular
14. congress
15. traffic
16. horizontal
Two weeks ago, Zan:
1. density [Looks like 1-9 are words from the current
2. elasticity physics chapter and 10-15 from McGuffey spelling
3. compression list 52, "nitrogen" misspelled from previous week.]
4. tension
5. crystal
6. dimension
7. aqueduct
8. horizontal
9. vertical
10. system
11. symmetry
12. synopsis
13. destroy
14. employment
15. appointment
16. nitrogen
This week, Helen:
1. April [This week spelling workbook ran out, so
2. strange Martha got these words from Helen's reading---
3. search 3,4,5 from Pooh stories---1 from needing
4. small to write it in her journal---7,9,10 from
5. piglet Disney songs---8 was at Helen's request]
6. said
7. shower
8. bunny
9. dream
10. wonderful
Last week, Helen:
1. protection [These were the last lesson of her
2. improvement spelling workbook---I think these were
3. cheerful all "words made from littler words by
4. disappointment adding suffixes"]
5. collection
6. thankful
7. invention
8. helpful
9. playful
10. statement
Two weeks ago, Helen:
1. unknown [prefix words from the spelling
2. replace workbook, except for "scientist"
3. misspell which was a misspell previous week]
4. unable
5. repay
6. unusual
7. review
8. misplace
9. refill
10. unsure
11. scientist
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 16th of April, 1998
Bonita says:
[...] ...besides, Mike, anybody who spells program
with an 'e' is suspect in my book!
It's a tic---I lived for a year in England and
then recently 3 and half years in Canada, and
I've picked up a few Britishisms---"programme",
"humour", "colour" usually come out that way and
I just let them. Still, I don't use a spell-checker
or usually edit back through what I've typed in
posts, so I think I probably end up with a great
many misspellings as a matter of course. Often
I find myself leaving little words out, sometimes
even crucial little words like "not" (they seem so
obviously there to me).
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 16th of April,
1998
Bonita says:
Okay, so kill me with your king size wit...but it's
damn near impossible to have a battle of wits with an
unarmed person....big smile.
Feeling that gum on the shoe thing again.
Actually, I was going to let you have the last word on
that note---slouch away into our duly chastened abnormality.
But, I felt compelled to answer this one:
At six and eight years, Green Eggs & Ham were my kiddos speed.
Helen read lots of Dr. Seuss last year for her
read-aloud books. They've been read Dr. Seuss
as bedtime stories since both of them were one
or two. Every now and again they still get Dr. Seuss,
though at the moment, Martha's been reading them
Madeleine L'Engle. Zan's about 4 years beyond
reading Dr. Seuss books on his own initiative.
What he likes is Star Wars, anything to do with
Star Wars he reads on his own.
Bonita asks:
Um, Mike...in all due respect, are your
children interested in those
subjects?
Not at all. We drag them kicking and screaming.
Coby4b10d
In his post of 4/16, Mike Morris states:
"Anyway, judged on basics---reading, writing,
and math---I think both of them are doing just fine."
And how are your little children doing on the other childhood stuff? You know:
sandbox, swingset, tea parties, pretend games, kites, playing in the sun?
Childhood is such a brief, magical time. They will never get a chance to
regain it if you take it from them now. There is time, much time, to read the
books you mentioned later. This all-too-brief bit of time is all there is for
childhood.
Which will they remember fondly in years to come? Sitting obediently while
daddy made them listen to him read his books aloud, or daddy BEING with them?
Carolyn in NC, who, as always, is thinking of the children
Elaine Harvey
Michael S. Morris wrote:
> Thursday, the 17th of April, 1998
>
>
> I suppose one of these years we'll devote some time to teaching
> cursive writing and penmanship, but not yet.
I have always considered good penmanship one sign of a truly cultured
person. Oh, that sounds so snotty! I guess what I mean is, we so seldom see
people take time to give a darn how or what they say, do or write that when
you see really nice penmanship, the first impression is lasting. I equate
it with proper grammar.
> I said:
> [...] This is not, I repeat *not*, because we consider our
> children "little geniuses".
>
> (good stuff omited)
>
> It presupposes of course that some knowledge is better, of
> headier vintage, than other knowledge. There are many in
> this relativistic age who have a problem with that. But, I
> will say that I think "the finest wine" is not incompatible
> with a great deal of diversity and following of the child's
> individual interests and choices.
I find that even if I need to offer a 'children's version' of a classic
novel my boys still prefer it over Goosebumps. I have a demented 13 year
old (aren't they all?) who finds E. A. Poe amusing! But he can't stop
reading his work. My 8 year old likes Shakespeare because the writing is
"pretty". He understands maybe 30% at best, but it sounds pretty to his
ear. Sometimes I am quite grateful he doesn't understand old English, I'm
not ready to explain Mid Summer's Night to an 8 year old!
> (good stuff omited)
> From discussions with the women in our secular-but-the-religious-
> are-welcome homeschooling group,
now why can't I find one of these?
> it sounds like a lot of women
> are the sole teacher. Plus it sounds like a lot of husbands
> are skeptical about the project.
True, my husband is quite supportive, but works in excess of 12 hours a
day. I guess you could say he teaches some really important lessons by
example. He is loving, supportive, firm, loyal to a fault, and has an
incredible work ethic. Those are good lessons.
> (good stuff omited)
Thank you for the title, I may have some sources...
> I should explain that our
> house is decorated in Early American Book.
You know, bookcases add to the R-value of the walls as insulation. :-) I
keep trying to get a grant from the energy company to study this
phenomenon.
(good stuff omitted)
. The grammar we have had to try and explain to him as he goes, but I'll
betcha English grammar is going to be a piece of cake when we do it (the
whole reason for doing formal English grammar in the first place is *in
order to learn foreign languages*, I think).
That's an interesting take, I'll have to consider that. I had considered
Latin and or Spanish. I studied one year of Latin in school (and was lousy
at it) but when I entered Anatomy Phys classes and Nursing school, suddenly
it all came together.
> (good stuff omited)
> Elaine:
> Is he having any trouble mixing up the Grammar exercises?(between the
> different languages, I mean.)
>
> This book is titled _Learn to Speak Spanish_ and goes with a CD-ROM
> that is, in my opinion, a high-nonsense sort of approach. I've caught
> a Latin spelling or two in the Spanish exercises, but his spelling
> is consistently atrocious, anyway (except for his spelling tests,
> which he usually aces)
That's interesting. What do you make of it? Is he spelling phonetically?
Does he recognize the misspelled word? Can you tell I'm going somewhere
with this?
> (good stuff omited)
>
> I said:
> Then, we've used
> the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers as our readers. Zan is now
> nearing the end of _McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader_.
>
> Elaine:
> OK, Mike, now I want names and addresses.
> Where did you find these? I've had a book
> dealer here looking for reprints to no avail.
>
> Gosh. I guess I've seen them everywhere---on the shelf
> at Borders, advertised in the Liberty Tree Press
> mail-order catalog, at booksellers' kiosks at the
> homeschooling convention. Anyway, what we have is a
> boxed set of the Primer and all six readers garnered
> in some bookstore God knows where, but I just went
> on amazon.com and searched on "McGuffey's Eclectic" and
> got a whole list of them you can order for $6.96 each
> (+ shipping and handling, which is non-trivial if you
> order from amazon.com). I also found _McGuffey's Eclectic
> Readers/Boxed_ by William Holmes McGuffey listed as special
> order there for $59.95 (again plus shipping and handling).
No kidding? When the bookseller couldn't get them I didn't even look. I get
39 lashes with the wet noodle. Now I'm on a mission.
> The McGuffey set does have an antique cast to it---we still
> snicker over the homily in one of the earlier volumes
> about "The Demon Worm"---about the dangers of alcolhol.
Oh, but what a history lesson they are. I love this stuff.
> Elaine:
> Have you used the Eclectic Speller? How did that work out?
>
> We do have the speller, which we had not used when Zan was doing 10
> words a week out of a spelling workbook, but now we sort of collect up
> words that he has misspelled in other contexts and oh, physics words
> that are new, and words about Roman history that we run across. Then,
> we supplement those by selections out of the Eclectic Speller. It
> works fine.
My intention was to teach a new 'method' of decoding in order to make the
boys better editors. I've all but given up on the rote spelling. They can
learn a list of words short term, but after 2 weeks, it's gone.
> Elaine:
> I have two boys with disgraphia, data processing problems
> and a very bad spelling problem. Memorization is nearly
> impossible and I had considered the McGuffey's method as
> an alternative.
>
> I have no experience whatsoever with these problems---except
> for Zan being an atrocious speller. But, I'll swear that if
> I focus his attention he memorizes things easily (there'd
> been a go around last year on this group when I explained
> that we had had Zan memorize multiplication tables---from
> 0 to 25 and from x0 to x25 each to be recited orally in
> under one minute three days in a row---we got him a "Champion
> Multiplier" trophy when he finished this exercise last year).
> In other words, by the time I do school with him on Wednesday
> he maybe has a glitch with one or two words, and he aces
> the test by Friday. Then, Friday night he might use one of
> the same words in his journal, and it'll be misspelled. It's
> like there are two modes---the paying attention mode and the
> not paying attention mode.
EXACTLY! All three of my boys do this! I had finally given up on the
memorization because I found that over time, they tend to 'memorize' those
facts that they use frequently and look up the ones they don't. I try to
focus deeply on concepts and methods for math and science and decoding for
English and reading. That doesn't mean I'm not still looking for some
answers to the memorization problem. I have to admit that this is a
weakness of mine too.
> (good stuff omited)
>
> I said:
> Then Zan has physics to do.
>
> Elaine:
> Could you recommend a book that introduces Physics concepts for those
> of
> us who 1. Are weak in it ourselves and 2. the kids are only starting
> Algebra so the solutions need to be fairly straightforward.
>
> Umm, the one we are doing is, as I said, _Conceptual Physics_, by
> Hewitt. This almost never has any algebraic equation more complicated
> than a=bc. For example:
> F=ma (force=mass x acceleration)
> d=vt (distance=speed x time)
> m=rho x v (mass=density x volume)
> I've taught this book (well, I mean maybe 10 chapters out of it
> a semester) to freshmen at Butler University who
> were taking this course to fulfill a lab-science requirement.
> (They were predominantly elementary-ed majors
That sells it. If el-ed majors can learn this, then I can teach it. Would
you use it with or instead of math? We're at the beginning Algebra point,
and I know that he would enjoy the Physics.
> who generally
> felt put upon to have to learn something which they claimed
> they wouldn't need to know to be able to teach K-6. I replied
> to a young lady who told me this that this attitude was why
> I was homeschooling my own.)
That must be an interesting class to teach, for you I mean.
> Elaine:
> Gee, normal kid response. Doesn't sound traumatized to me.
>
> (good stuff omited)
Don't you just love it? Mine usually hit me with this stuff when they know
I'm too focused on something else to sound intelligent. Scene: Middle of
the grocery store, picking out toilet paper: JJ(8 years old): "Mom, do you
know how food turns into poop?" Me: (blushing profusely due to the crowded
nature of the store)Yes, dear, I think so. You eat the food and your tummy
digests it and your intestines get rid of what's left" JJ:(feeling quite
superior) "No, Mom. (rolls his eyes) After you chew the food, that's called
mastication, the digestive enzymes break down the proteins so that the
E-coli bugs can....." Ever want to just die?
> (good stuff omited)
> I said:
> What *is* clear to me is that
> their reading skills are very strong
>
> Elaine:
> Is there anything more important?
>
> Math, I'd say is of equal importance, but, no,
> I think there is nothing more important than
> reading.
Yes math is equal, but without reading, learning the math becomes nearly
impossible. With reading, nothing is impossible. That's true freedom.
> I said:
> (no, actually, there'll
> be one year there of grammar---diagramming sentences-
>
> Elaine:
> I thought I was the last diagramer out there! Why
> don't people use this anymore?
>
> We have an Eclectic Reader series book that does this---
> I don't know that we'll do anything more than that. I
> have this thing about grammar---I hold it as an eternal
> grievance that we had to do grammar at the level of
> "this is a noun, this is a verb" all 13 years of school
> (the message being given out that it was OK not to learn
> this stuff because we'll teach it again next year).
> I think diagramming sentences should be taught one time
> until it's mastered and then consider it done and hold
> students accountable for knowing it---the rest
> ought to be reading real literature and writing composition.
Point well taken and agreed to. I don't think it's necessary to reteach the
addition tables at the beginning of each year either. Same thing. However,
ps has made grammar so unimportant that they are NEVER held accountable for
using it. When was the last time a teacher corrected a student's grammar?
And don't get me started on 'ebonics'.I found that the better the material
the boys were reading, the better the grammar became. When we studied
Adjectives, we read Huck Finn. For dialogue we read Treasure Island.
> I said:
> In other words, what I think is that we "aim" higher
> than the kids actually reach, but that they actually reach
> higher as a result of this high aim than they would without
> it.
>
> Elaine:
> I agree here. Kids will reach in the direction that you
> expect them to. Up or Down. And if no-one has told them
> they can't do something, they don't know that they can't.
>
> Exactly, the watchword is "Yes, I can."
I wouldn't dare omit one word of this!
> I said:
> They're probably doomed
> to a certain measure of geekdom, seeing the wierdos they
> have as parents,
>
> Elaine:
> When did 'geekdom' become a bad thing? The Geeks
> I know could buy and sell me at a pretty profit.
>
> Well, it's a term that's been appropriated as a good thing,
> too. But, I do think it acknowledges a certain disjunction
> between the mainstream and folks who actually *like* to
> read books.
That's OK. I was Indian before it was 'cool' too. My kids figure 'geek' is
OK.
> Thanks again,
Elaine
>
>
>
Elaine Harvey
Thanks Mike, now I really fee self conscious. You know I used the
checker on that one. (and spelled it wrong of course)
Elaine ;-)
Michael S. Morris wrote:
> Thursday, the 16th of April, 1998
>
> Still, I don't use a spell-checker
> or usually edit back through what I've typed in
> posts,
Hamlet!
This post has bothered me since I first read it.
Do you mean to imply that because a child may
be advanced in some areas they are not normal?
Please forget the labels.....they belong to the PSs
not here where all children hopefully are happy and
content and learning at their own pace.....whatever
that may be. My main reason in HSing is to be rid
of both the labels and the restrictions they are most
certainly counterproductive to a good learning
environment.
As far as far as how and what to teach her....she
must by 10 years of age have some idea of that herself.
Sit down and make a list of things SHE is interested in
does she like Sports....animals....social studies....math...
crafts, hobbies, make a broad list.....how does she feel....
does she like lessons in a workbook for Math.....or would
she prefer to get some of her Math while redecorating the
living room??? Where does she think it would be cool to
live? Who does she think is the most famous person in
all of History?......See.....you start here.....because that
is where she is.....then she can go anywhere....if she wants
workbooks.....get workbooks.....but if not....spend the
money else where.....like a family membership to a museum,
she would enjoy and that might have classes or get togethers.
A child doesn't have to have an interest to learn.....but the
interest they have is invaluable in the retention they have.
If my children aren't "normal" that is because we allow them
the freedom to get what they need and want out of the
world.....if they are ahead.....they put themselves there...
my job as a teacher is to but open the door and hold the
light up for them to see.....it's up to them to take the
lantern and go through the door......EVERY child has
a special talent all their own.....and to deny that is to
deny that child his right to be special. Don't judge them
by their grade level.....or ability to learn quickly.....judge
them by what wonder they find in the world and how they
share it with you. Hamlet!
Bonita Sheffield
No...if she wants to learn a subject above and beyond some of the basics I
teach, we go there...we expand. And maybe as I get a little more
comfortable teaching her at home (only two months experience here), I'll
feel more assured of where she's at in her educational abilities.
I'm beginning to think I should have stayed a lurker and watcher, because to
venture an opinion, weak, strong or indifferent is akin to inviting
intellectual nuclear war. I'm discussing...it's not etched in granite...I
call it dialogue. BUT, I certainly don't call my posts an invitation for
attack.
Perhaps because something is written in black and white, it opens a door for
a comprehensive review of each nuance, each word and letter of the meaning,
but let me assure you that my entire note was conversational in tone. I'm
not particularly sure it was well thought out since it was intended as a
me-to-you sort of thing...you being plural.
I don't read Bible commentaries either nor the dialectics of the apologists.
I just don't have enough life to waste on that much detail in my life.
Well, not true, I do enjoy C.S. Lewis, but then he's the every-man
apologist.
Labels, restrictions?? Where on earth did I do that or even imply it in my
note? This is incredibly frustrating to have an opinion so dissected in
minutae.
Well, I really do feel at this point that commenting or venturing out with
any statement makes me open season here...or anyone for that matter. I'm
contemplating maintaining a strict rule of golden silence for myself. I
don't have time to waste on argument, but I have found some things extremely
beneficial and informational in this forum...except for the discussion
areas, and those seem to be volatile no matter what is said to whom.
Bonita
Hamlet!
First of all the title of your post suggests that
by the very nature of being ahead of their peer
group a child is not normal.....Later you ask us
not to construe your post as a flame....and
ultimately you ask if there are other parents teaching
"regulars" out there.....
Excuse my sensitivity but the use of the words....
"normal" and "regular".....imply a label....
The very mention that you did not want your
post to be perceived as a flame....means that
you knew it might be offensive to some of us.
We are your cheering section....your shoulder
to cry on.....your research team....we all and I
think I speak for the regulars here....want to
help those who need answers.....learn from those
who have them....have a few laughs....and
occasionally a cry.
Just as I would never put down another child for
what they don't know... I am not going to segregate
those whose academics are above average. We are
all parents .....of normal children....we are united in
doing what we feel is best for our children.....
Your should be proud of your daughter and yourself...
You have a good reason to be.....reading is one of
the greatest gifts you can give.....or receive.
You said.....
>What I read here would be worthy of teaching a young
>Einstein, and as beautiful and bright as my daughter is, we're just hitting
>the basics, and I don't mean Visual Basic programming classes or theory of
>relativity with a hindu slant or calculus with a gleam or anything else
like
>that.
Good for them!!!! Good For You!!!
No cookie-cutter molds here.....but please
notice your sarcasm.....if the child can do those
things chances are that he/she can and does
read this newsgroup.....how are their feelings
right now?
Not normal because they are too smart?
Heck! I just got the child to the point where she likes reading!
Most admirable!!! Good Work....
it's harder to teach someone who
has learned to hate reading or is
indifferent than someone who has
never had their love of language
destroyed or maimed seriously.>
>Can somebody please give me a break and tell me that there are other
parents
>just teaching the 'regulars' out there?
I am one of them.......my children irregardless of
their ability are just regular kids....
Hamlet!
Hamlet! wrote in message <6h6m2j$1u9$1...@juliana.sprynet.com>...
>This post has bothered me since I first read it.
>Do you mean to imply that because a child may
>be advanced in some areas they are not normal?
>Please forget the labels.....they belong to the PSs
>not here where all children hopefully are happy and
>content and learning at their own pace.....whatever
>that may be. My main reason in HSing is to be rid
>of both the labels and the restrictions they are most
>certainly counterproductive to a good learning
>environment. <Snipped for Brevity>
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 17th of April,
1998
Jayne:
I can't even find
lagniappe in my dictionary.
Hah! My dictionary is better than yours, nyah,
nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!
[switch to sheepishly, I'm sorry...]
It means a freebie.
Here's the entry on it in _I Always Look up the
Word Egregious_ by Maxwell Nurnberg:
lagniappe
"One of the Philadelphia players castigated the
manager for benching Luzinski, Garry Maddox,
and Boone late in the season. As lagniappe, he called
the Philadelphia fans "the worst in baseball."
lagniappe--something extra, something for good measure.
Pronounced lan-yap. This word was born in the United States
among the Creole population of Louisiana. Its original
meaning is seen in this sentence written by a traveler in
1893 in Harper's Magazine:
"Take that for lagniappe," says a storekeeper
in New Orleans as he folds a pretty calender into
the bundle of stationery you have purchased.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Janie Gilbert
Please hang in there!!! This very much reminds me of "my" newsgroup
that I visit regularly for medical transcriptionists
(sci.med.transcription). Sometimes, if the person who posted hasn't
used perfect grammar (for example, a newbie asking about job
opportunities), the post results in flames and correction of all the
grammatical/spelling errors. So I think every group has people who take
offense at this or that - I think it's because the audience is so vast.
Just remember, at least we don't have to deal with everyone
face-to-face :)
I, for one, thought your post was perfectly neutral. I knew exactly
what you meant. (we're beginning homeschooling next year, and I thought
about how I could relate to what you're saying).
Just keep posting - I think you got some good responses. Just separate
the wheat from the chaff! You can also try the many message boards out
there for homeschoolers. For the medical transcription questions,
that's what many new MTs use rather than the newsgroup (if a new MT
posted a word help question on an obvious, often-used phrase, the
replies would occasionally become sarcastic in tone but that's not the
case on the message forums).
--
Janie G.
http://www.3-cities.com/~gilbert/medical2.htm
My web page for medical transcriptionists
http://www.3-cities.com/~gilbert/jobs.htm
MT Job Hunt page
http://www.paradise-web.com/plus/plus.mirage?who=jlg
Message Board for American School (a high-school correspondence course)
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 17th of April, 1998
Michael Moy asks:
1) How about putting this on a web site?
Worlds enough and time.
And:
2) Are you doing anything with Discrete Math, Algorithms and
Data Structures, Operating Systems, Language Theory,
Compiler Theory, Computer Architecture and Artificial
Intelligence?
Nope. The idea was to spend the year's math for Zan
earning a little programming, with the idea that he
and I together could program our own games. That's
the next book, titled _The Black Art of Visual Basic
Game Programming_, which we'll probably start up on
in the Fall.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 17th of April, 1998
Bonita:
No...if she wants to learn a subject above
and beyond some of the basics I teach, we
go there...we expand. And maybe as I get a
little more comfortable teaching her at home
(only two months experience here), I'll feel
more assured of where she's at in her educational
abilities.
Hey, only two months' experience, and with a child
who has been in public school prior is just a
whole different experience, a whole different set
of problems, than we have. A lot of the families
in our homeschooling support group are in situations
like yours, and it sounds like there's almost always
a goodly bit of make-up to do, and then the older kids
often get around to saying they want to go back to
school---because their friends are there, and they
hit an age where being *normal* becomes all-important.
In my case, we've been homeschooling for 4 years now
and our kids have never been in public school.---The transition
between what we were doing before we called ourselves
homeschoolers and after was minimal.
Bonita:
I'm beginning to think I should have stayed a lurker
and watcher, because to venture an opinion, weak,
strong or indifferent is akin to inviting
intellectual nuclear war. I'm discussing...it's not
etched in granite...I call it dialogue. BUT, I certainly
don't call my posts an invitation for attack.
You need a thick skin to post to USENET. If you venture
an opinion, there will be people to venture opposite
opinions, guaranteed. And if somebody disagrees with you,
even vigorously, that doesn't make it not war. Calling (as
you did) what you do "normal", and contrasting it in the same
breath with homeschoolers who study Visual Basic programming
kind of read to me that you consider it "abnormal" or "esoteric"
to do such. Now, I don't recall anybody else around here
who had posted they were teaching Visual Basic per se,
and I do recall that I had posted that I did this, so, yeah,
I took it kind of personally. What I think is that teaching
VB may be unusual, yes, but I also think simple Basic
programming (or its modern revenant, Visual Basic) is well,
simple, and I've seen a sort of Basic-like programming taught
as special units within, say, 3rd or 4th grade math texts. VB
uses a little of the math he already knows and it teaches, I
think, applied logic. And Zan is a computer-crazy kid who
is into games---we intend to apply VB to making our own
games (I have a recipe book which teaches this titled _The
Black Art of Visual Basic Game Programming_) so I think
from his perspective, it's been a break from the
ordinary math.
"Normal" was a loaded word, but you'll notice I didn't respond
to you, because I acknowledged you probably didn't mean
anything much by it. Where I responded was to Kevin and
to Kevin's suggestion that "what we plan to do" and "what
we actually did do" and "what our kids actually learned"
are all different. I agreed with him that they are, in fact,
different, and since, as a homeschooler of young children,
whenever I have discussed curriculum, it has usually been
in terms of what we *plan* to do, I thought it reasonable to
review what we had actually done, and then assess what it
is my kids actually get out of it.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
K. Hendershot
Elaine Harvey wrote in message <3536D8CA...@exis.net>...
>> From discussions with the women in our secular-but-the-religious-
>
>> are-welcome homeschooling group,
>
>now why can't I find one of these?
You might want to contact your secular state-level homeschool group.
They would know of a secular group in your area. In Wisconsin, we have two
state-level groups--a secular one and a Christian one. Both have
local-level groups going on throughout the state.
>> I said:
>> Then, we've used
>> the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers as our readers. Zan is now
>> nearing the end of _McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader_.
>>
>> Elaine:
>> OK, Mike, now I want names and addresses.
>> Where did you find these? I've had a book
>> dealer here looking for reprints to no avail.
I just saw these books in the Chrisitan Book Distributors catalog
for $29.95, but they do say Christian Eclectic First Reader Collection
(Boxed)--five volumes. I guess it might not be what you wanted, after all.
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 17th of April, 1998
I said:
"Anyway, judged on basics---reading, writing,
and math---I think both of them are doing just fine."
Carolyn:
And how are your little children doing on the
other childhood stuff?
Hmm, this just got ugly. I think you probably deserve
a detailed reply.
C:
You know: sandbox, swingset, tea parties, pretend
games, kites, playing in the sun?
We haven't a sandbox or a swingset, so for playground
equipment, we go to parks. Their favourite is Holliday
Park, which has this real cool rope-web thing they can
climb as well as some elaborate slides. Tea parties?
Well, I've seen Helen do this once, maybe twice
with her teddies and with her friend, Kelly. Both
Zan and Helen are into teddy bears at the moment,
and Helen likes Barbie (true confessions, I know,
but Martha is a veterinarian and "Pet-Doctor Barbie"
was the one that broke through her resolve), Zan
is keyed on anything having to do with StarWars. Pretend games?
You mean like the constant chatter that Zan and Helen do
with the bears in bear-talk? (They all have names,
favourite colours, their own special voices, favourite
Beethoven symphonies, ...) Kites we haven't done much of---
we've gotten out maybe once or twice each of the last
two years. They have to go to a park to fly kites, so
flying them is a family outing, and the kids are more
interested in the playground equipment at the park than
the kites. Playing in the sun is a sore spot, particularly
for Zan. He and is friend, Charlie, would be 24 hours
a day on the computer playing X-Wing v. Tie-Fighter or
Rebel Assault II or Dark Forces, if we let them. As it
is now, Martha lets them on the computer an hour or two
on the weekend and then kicks them outside to ride their
bikes or something. It's kind of against their inclination
and interest, but she figures healthier, and I agree.
For what it's worth, I think my children get *more* time
to play than the public-schooled neighbourhood kids,
so I can't imagine that homeschooling is making that
big of a demand on them.
Carolyn:
Childhood is such a brief, magical time.
My wife read this and said, "Bullshit." I agree---at least,
I think it's a myth we like to tell ourselves. We forget
the powerlessness and the magnification of pain. Which is
not say that either Martha or I had a particularly unhappy
childhood---we had what we think were normal childhoods,
full of play and, what was normal for that time, TV.
Carolyn:
They will never get a chance to
regain it if you take it from them now.
Why do you buy into the pop psych stuff so much?
No one is taking my children's childhood from them.
Are there times when they'd rather play, but have to
practice piano instead? Yes. But the idea that this
is robbing them of some blurry-sepia-toned birthright
is nonsense.
Carolyn:
There is time, much time, to read the
books you mentioned later.
Which books? They are reading books appropriate to
their age level and reading skill.
And I don't agree that there is much time. I
think there is little time for school, and the
best thing I can do for them is not to waste it.
Carolyn:
This all-too-brief bit of time is all there is for
childhood.
And childhood is a lot of things, including school.
Carolyn:
Which will they remember fondly in years to come?
Sitting obediently while daddy made them listen to
him read his books aloud, or daddy BEING with them?
Both I think. They will not remember everything read to
them, of course. Nor will I remember everything. But I'll
guarantee you that in a few years, when *they* are doing
the reading of Roman history themselves, they'll be reading
stuff that beats StarWars and Goosebumps for thrilling.
C:
Carolyn in NC, who, as always, is thinking of the children
But, I would suggest there is great deal of myth and
pop stereotype in the children you are thinking about.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
JosiahsMum
Suggestion to anyone beginning a Basic programming course: try to get an old
Commodore 64 or 128. They can be had very inexpensively resale or through
newspaper ads. We had a 64 when I was growing up, and I was writing Basic (in
more ways than one) programs for games and graphics by the time I was five!
There are no doohickeys to interfere with the simplicity of the programming
language itself, and everything is pretty easy to explain. Once Basic is
mastered on one of these simpler machines, the next step is much easier, either
to another language or just transfering the concept to how computers in general
operate! I've got one in storage, just waiting for my two year old to learn to
type... :)
Karen
And from this earth, this grave, this dust
My God will raise me up, I trust.
Raleigh
kder...@hotmail.com
In article <6h6sgh$7ma$1...@juliana.sprynet.com>,
"Hamlet!" <ham...@Isprynet.com> wrote:
>
> First of all the title of your post suggests that
> by the very nature of being ahead of their peer
> group a child is not normal.....
Just a minor nitpick here. Too many people get caught up on the perjorative
connotations of "normal" and "abnormal" (ie that normal==good and
abnormal==bad).
If you look at the true meaning of these words you will find that being
anything but equal with your peer group is, by definition, abnormal. This
applies to adults as well as children.
In short, the peer group defines the local norm. Consensus defines a
culture's norm. They are all relative definitions, just like "moral" and
"sane".
One common reason for HSing a child is that they need more than school can
offer them. They are often academically bright (abnormal if you will) and
need extra stimulation. This fact is often reflected in the posts to forums
such as this newsgroup.
Parents who are home-schooling a "normal" (or average if you prefer) child
for other reasons can easily feel intimidated, or that they are not "keeping
up" with others.
This, I think, is what Bonita was referring to in her title.
Bonita, don't feel you have to keep up with what everyne else is doing. Just
take it slowly, and find the approach which works best for both of you.
It's the results that count, both academically and in happiness. One is no
use without the other.
Keith
BTW Mike referred to picking up some "britishisms" whilst in England. What he
should have said is that he learnt to spell *English* *correctly* 8) <---
note smiley!!!!
-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading
Bruce D. Ray
In article <6h7pm3$fh2$1...@news.itis.com>, "K. Hendershot" <k2s...@itis.com>
wrote:
> Elaine Harvey wrote in message <3536D8CA...@exis.net>...
{deletia}
> >> I said:
> >> Then, we've used
> >> the McGuffey's Eclectic Readers as our readers. Zan is now
> >> nearing the end of _McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader_.
> >>
> >> Elaine:
> >> OK, Mike, now I want names and addresses.
> >> Where did you find these? I've had a book
> >> dealer here looking for reprints to no avail.
>
> I just saw these books in the Chrisitan Book Distributors catalog
> for $29.95, but they do say Christian Eclectic First Reader Collection
> (Boxed)--five volumes. I guess it might not be what you wanted, after all.
Apparently it is not generally known, but
both William Holmes McGuffey and his brother
Alexander grew up in a Covenanter {Reformed
Presbyterian} home in southwestern Pennsylvania.
They traveled through Ohio with Covenanter
teaching elders {pastors}. The content of
the 1836 version of McGuffey's Readers {the
one sold by Mott Media} was explicitly
Covenanting Calvinist Christianity. Of course,
the 1870's era revision, to which neither
of the McGuffey brothers made any significant
contributions, eliminated some {but by no means
all} of the explicitly Calvinistic elements.
My basic reference on this is:
Westerhoff, III, J.H. __McGuffey and His Readers__
(1978 Abingdon copyright, reprinted 1982) Mott
Media, Milford, MI ISBN 0 58062 006 04
Mott Media is the same group which publishes
the original version of __McGuffey's Readers__
along with Joseph Ray's __Arithmetic__ {N.B.,
I am not in any way a descendant of Joseph Ray},
and {IIRC} __Harvey's Grammar__. These texts
were often used in the early pioneer, parentally
controlled, private subscription schools {a
totally different system from modern institutional
schooling in that it was administered directly
by the parents who hired the instructor [not
a professional teacher by any means] based on
their personal evaluation of the instructor's
character and knowledge}.
--
Warning to commercial e-mailers {spammers}:
The e-mail address provided above is for
information purposes only. Do not send
un solicited commercial e-mail to this
address.
maiko covington
"Bonita Sheffield" <auri...@gte.net> writes:
>The Japanese teach as you do, Mike...they fill it up, and fill it up...and
>the student never learns anything new. Meaning, they can't create...they
>can't imagine. They can recall by rote, possible even improve on the taught
>design...but to make something new! Ah, that is the goal of education.
And you think this because...? I'd like to think that I can do a
bit more than simply recall by rote and make minor improvements in someone
else's design. Between the images many people in the US seem to have about
Japanese schools, and the various stereotypes of computer programmers, it
seems I'm often expected to be some type of robot.
In Japanese schools, believe it or not, kids do science experiments
and write class newspapers and keep journals about observing plants. They
make maps of imaginary countries and keep diaries with drawings in them.
They have classroom student government and learn how to cook and they play
games in the classroom during lunch. However, I _never_ see mention of any
of these things in US articles comparing American and Japanese education -
they only focus on the pressure of the high school and college examinations.
The examinations are ridiculous (essentially a problem of too many students
and not enough spaces in the desired schools) but that isn't the WHOLE story.
Anyways where do you think the wild and wacky, arguably creative,
Nintendo games come from? :)
>Perhaps taking a poem by Tennyson and asking your children to read it to
>you, explaining each detail as though to an alien from another planet...or
>imagine a whole poem from a single word out of Tennyson...or to take a
>little trip with you down to whatever arts district is close at hand to hear
>'real, live poets' reading their work...something...but make it come alive
>for them.
Indeed that's the trick... I've been enjoying reading your posts.
>Now that's Sesame Street at its finest.
>That is how I want and try to teach my daughter. Already she says, "Mom,
>this may sound wierd, but I really like to learn now." Far cry from two
>months ago as her love of learning was assassinated by the public school
>system.
Sounds great! Lurking, I've seen a lot of people here refer to this
"destressing" period being necessary when transferring from PS to HS. I wasn't
homeschooled (perhaps you could say I try and homeschool myself now, after
work) but I remember the time when I was finally _done_ with all schooling
(no more tests... ever) and it took a while before I wanted to spend my
treasured weekends and after work time doing anything more than simply
lounging around the house staring at the wall! :)
Maiko Covington
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 17th of April, 1998
I said:
Personally, I think the Sesame Street "learning
should be entertaining" attitude has a whole
generation of ignorance to answer for.
Julie Nelson responds:
Speaking from an unschoolers point of view, I
must take offense at "ignorant"...
I don't see why being an unschooler would occasion
such offense. I am talking about the class of students
I taught for a couple of years at Butler University---
almost pre-algebra physics to mostly elementary ed majors
who had all graduated from whitebread suburban high schools.
They are *very* ignorant on average. In physics, certainly,
and their attitude was almost uniformly "Why do we have to
learn this if we don't need to know it to teach?" In
other words, they did not value learning on its own
terms at all. But, it wasn't just physics---they couldn't
do algebra at the level of going from F=ma to a=F/m
(even though algebra was a prerequisite for the course)
and they couldn't write coherent sentences about anything.
"Ignorant" is exactly the right word.
Julie:
I am far from
such a term.
I have no doubt that you are. I, on the other hand
made straight A's in school and came out of the place
pretty darn ignorant. At 37, I still feel that way,
though I've been trying to do some remedial study
ever since.
Julie:
Education should be entertaining, as well as educational.
I disagree. I think there is a deep joy to learning,
but that it is a far cry from "entertainment", and I
also think there is a tough slog to learning, too,
and that if you never do that tough slog, you'll
never feel that deep joy.
Julie:
Both have their place in the task of learning.
I'm not convinced that "entertainment" has much
place at all. It's too passive a thing.
Julie:
I do believe that children should be taught what
interests them.
Here probably is the crux of our disagreement. *I*
believe that children probably will not discover
what interests them until they are 40 years old.
(Leastways, I'm still hoping to discover something
that especially interests me by then---my problem
has always been that I am interested in everything,
and the schooling that has been offered me has
always aimed at specialization in one thing.)
For this reason, I do not think that it is
right to wait to teach them until the motivation
comes from them. I think this will lock them out
of a lot of things that they will thereby never
get a chance to be interested it---things which require
years of "tough slog" before they become deeply
joyful.
On the other hand, I also need to be ready
to go with them (or let them go, however
you want to put it) in any direction they
might want to go. If they discover an interest,
it should be nourished. But in the meanwhile
I'd give them as many tools for discovering
interests as possible.
As it is, my understanding of what unschoolers
do is that it is typically very far from
letting the child do whatever the child wants
to do at the time that the child wants to do
it, so there would seem to be this layer of
parental interpretation and authority in the
typical unschooling setting as well. I also think
if your kids learn to read, write, and do arithmetic,
they'll probably be ahead of most public-schooled
kids. I just believe in the classical concept
of a liberal education---believe it connected
in a fundamental way to our republican democracy
and our responsibility of the exercise of elective
citizenship---and therefore I think that reading,
writing, arithmetic plus maybe a specialization or
two is far short of what we should be aiming at.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
de...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
Bonita Sheffield (auri...@gte.net) wrote:
: My daughter, Christa, is ten years old...fifth grade...and we've been doing
: the homeschooling bit for a whole two months. She couldn't read...didn't
: want to basically because she wasn't given any tools to learn how. The
: school system was experimenting with that 'writing to read' program (or
: programme).
: She's very ADD and also very bright.
LOL! You make it sound like the two are almost incompatible when the fact
is many kids who are called ADD have higher IQ's than their peers. I read
something about ADD and ADHD kids where they said that part of the problem
is that they are so intelligent--regular school isn't structured for the
way they need to learn, they get frustrated or bored, etc.
I personally feel these kids aren't "attention deficit". They're kids
whose attentions are just not how society seems to think they should be.
They are very curious kids, for the most part. You get them on something
that really interestes them, and they're hooked.
My feelings are a lot like those for "learning disability". I don't
believe in most learning disabilities--just because someone learns
differently does not make them disabled! What, if I wash dishes
differently from the norm, I'm washing disabled?
: Was making straight A's in math and
: science, flunking in right brain activities (or wherever the repository for
: talents reside in x-y-z subjects). Math and anything science fascinates
: her, holds her attention longer than a peanut. I absolutely have to find a
: way to make the subject material interesting for her, or she'll tune me
: out...biologically, neurologically...I can't reach her unless I find tricks
: on presentation of material for those subjects she, as a rule, doesn't like.
Have you read any books dealing with the education of children based on
whether they are left or right-brained? I unfortunately can't come up
with any titles at the moment but I know they exist! I have a bunch of
info and suggestions somewhere--if I can find my stuff, I'll post it.
Bonita, I think you're doing a great job!
Daisy
Kangamaroo
>Children aren't supplicants in education...they're hungry to learn. If you
>feed them only unpalatable things, eventually they'll stop coming to your
>table expecting anything.
But the same subjects are not unpalatable to every child and parent
combination. Also, I've noticed that if the parent is interested and excited
(genuinely) about a topic, then the child also develps an interest and an
enthusiasm for it.
My children recently finished listening to the unabridged version of Pilgrim's
Progress, read by their father, who quite frankly, was badly educated by the
public school system, and whose reading aloud is not the most talented
performance I've ever heard.
They read a chapter a night together, and our seven y.o. was coming to me in
the mornings and telling me details of the story, asking me for meanings of
long words she recalled from the night before.
We've also used The McGuffey readers, which my children enjoyed, and wanted to
continue.
I read poetry to them that is "ahead" of their age level. John Donne is my
personal favorite, so that's whose work I read the most. The older two can
tell explain the meaning of the poem that begins "Go and Catch a Falling Star,"
the younger two probably can't, but they love the words and the rhythm.
We aren't hsing at the level the Moys are, because we aren't the Moys, and
possibly what works so well in their family wouldn't work so well with a
different combination of kids/parents.
I think you should also take into consideration that our children and the Moys
children (I assume) have *never* been to public school (except our daughter who
was adopted). This really makes a big difference in how the children feel
about learning.
I don't like Sesame Street, either, and I think the fact that my kids have
never had the experience of sitting openmouthed in front of the television,
waiting to be entertained and cajoled into learning snippets of spoonfed
information also makes a difference in how they approach learning, and how they
accept it when we teach a subject.
Sesame Street and its ilk were not around for thousands of years, while kids
were learning remarkable things, so it is possible to learn, and learn well,
without it.
> I balance the meat and potatoes of learning with a little desert, and
>because I'm homeschooling, sometimes I can candy the potatoes and glaze the
>meat.
I think it's also important to remember the old hoary adage that "one man's
meat is another man's poison." You and Michael both seem to be criticizing
each other, and you seem to feel threatened by what he does with his children,
when one of the most wonderful things about homeschooling, IMO, is that each
parent determines what will work best with their own children, and what goals
they have for their own children. It appears to me that you, Michael, and I
each have a different end in site for our children's education. Our different
approaches are because we're not all going the same place. Obviously, we each
think our goal the best, or we wouldn't have chosen it, but since we're not
going the same direction, it doesn't make sense to me to compare ourselves to
each other and end up feeling like "gum on the bottom of a shoe."
You almost seem to be suggesting that Michael should change his approach so you
will feel better about your own. I think a better answer would be to develop
more confidence in yourself and your choices.
>The Japanese teach as you do, Mike...they fill it up, and fill it up...and
>the student never learns anything new. Meaning, they can't create...they
>can't imagine. They can recall by rote, possible even improve on the taught
>design...but to make something new!
We lived in Japan for five years. We have had upwards of thirty different
Japanese teen-agers come and stay with us for two to six weeks at a time. I
observed, with only one exception (and she was terribly homesick, so it's
hardly fair to compare her), children who loved to learn, who liked learning,
and who asked intelligent questions in a language as remote from their own, as
well, your approach is from Michael's:-), and who were creative and artistic.
A number of students came to visit us at Christmas, and so participated with us
in making homemade Christmas ornaments. They were beautiful, imaginative, and
innovative. Perhaps you/e allowed too much television to influence your
opinions of the Japanese educational system. Hardly fair to them or yourself.
Something else I noticed, without exception, the Japanese students we knew all
could draw. They learned how in school. Until that time, I felt that drawing
should not be "taught" but that if a child had a talent it would develop
naturally, and children should be free to explore without the limitations of
instruction. I now feel a combination is much better. Instruction gives a
child tools to aide them in their free explorations. At least, that's what
works in our family.
We combine child-led learning at times and in some subjects with teacher
instruction at others.
>
>Perhaps taking a poem by Tennyson and asking your children to read it to
>you, explaining each detail as though to an alien from another planet...or
>imagine a whole poem from a single word out of Tennyson...or to take a
>little trip with you down to whatever arts district is close at hand to hear
>'real, live poets' reading their work...something...but make it come alive
>for them.
But some children, not because they are necessarily brighter or more gifted,
but because they have not had their abilities boxed in and stultified by public
school, or Sesame Street, or having things continuously preprocessed and
brought "down" to their level don't *need* all these things to make a poem come
alive for them. Nobdy has ever told them it was boring, so it isn't. Some
children might, for us everything you've listed except listening to real poets
read their work would be gimmicky, and remove their attention from the poem
itself.
And since we don't have access to Tennyson or Donne reading their own works,
the kids are stuck with me:-)
A random thought that just occurred to me, perhaps when we surround the poem
with all these extra activities you mention, we are sending our children a
subtle message that this activity can't stand on its own, and thus teaching
them ourselves that what we are trying to share with them is boring.
anyway, just my .02
Regards,
Kanga
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 17th of April, 1998
JosiahsMum wrote:
Suggestion to anyone beginning a Basic programming course:
A good idea. In the late Summer, when I had the notion
of having Zan do some programming, I went out thinking
there ought to be a simple, old-fashioned Basic "toy"
environment for Win 95, but I couldn't find any such
thing on the bookshelves at Borders or the like (and
certainly not any of the software retail stores). But
I did find "C++ Programming for Dummies" at Borders
for maybe 20 bucks complete with a CD-Rom with a Win 95
compatible toy programming environment and Zan worked
through that before Christmas. I think he finds the Visual
Basic much easier, though, probably because he knows his
way around Windows pretty well. I happened to already
have VB for *me* to learn, and it's a pretty expensive
item, but I'm pretty sure there are "toy" versions or
learning versions available.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Kangamaroo
>At least, I found eristic. Now that is a word
>that everyone on the Net needs to know, since it describes about half the
>posts.
And, just like a homeschool mom, you're going to make the rest of us look it
up, aren't you?
Regards,
Kanga
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 17th of April, 1998
Bonita says:
Perhaps taking a poem by Tennyson and
asking your children to read it to
you, explaining each detail as though to
an alien from another planet...or imagine a
whole poem from a single word out of Tennyson...
or to take a little trip with you down to
whatever arts district is close at hand to hear
'real, live poets' reading their work...something...
but make it come alive for them.
These are fine things to do when we *study* poetry,
which we will formally do, probably when they are
of high-school age. Right now, however, I consider
both children still at the learning-to-read and
learning-to-listen stage. When I say that I read them a
poem by Tennyson this morning, I mean something like
they used to do with "Moment of Silence" or "Thought
for the Day" at the start of the public-school
day, or like parochial schools do with prayer, or like
Garrison Keillor reads a poem on "Writer's Almanac".
Reading a poem is how we start our day. An invocation
to the Muses, if you like, which are the goddesses
of learning. The poem could be anything---it certainly
has been Mother Goose and A.A. Milne and RLS _Child's
Garden of Verses_, but it's been Housman and Eliot
and Frost and selections from an anthology of _Immortal
Poems of the English Language_ and Tennyson. It's just to
listen to a poem. It takes 5-10 minutes usually. Some
poems my kids get, some they don't. Heck, some I get,
some I don't. And, usually we don't discuss or analyze.
They especially liked the pair of Tennyson poems we read
last week titled something like "Nothing Passes Away" and
"Everything Passes Away".
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
de...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
JosiahsMum (josia...@aol.com) wrote:
: Suggestion to anyone beginning a Basic programming course: try to get an old
: Commodore 64 or 128. They can be had very inexpensively resale or through
: newspaper ads. We had a 64 when I was growing up, and I was writing Basic (in
: more ways than one) programs for games and graphics by the time I was five!
I agree! We got one when I was 10. I started learning BASIC right away
and it was a lot of fun. I remember that my mum wrote a Hallowe'en
program where there was lightning and a black cat and thunder and whenever
lightning appeared, the cat would puff up. People would come to our
apparetment, press the space bar and the thing would start up. It was
really quite cool.
Hm... my mum still has our C-64. I should tell her to keep it!
Daisy
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 17th of April, 1998
Eris is the Greek goddess of discord. She
wasn't invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis
(because she was always so quarrelsome), but she
came anyway and threw the golden apple with
the inscription "To the fairest" in amongst the
gods and goddesses. (Kind of like throwing
the word "socialization" into a post on this
group.) Well, Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite each
claimed it should be hers and Zeus knew better
to get into the middle of that one, so he had
Herms and the beauty contestants go down to earth,
hunt up one shepherd aka prince of Troy named
Paris and say "You decide!" The rest is, as they
say, history.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Coby4b10d
>
>Hmm, this just got ugly. I think you probably deserve
>a detailed reply.
>
>
Sorry, Mike. I just reread my post, and I don't blame you for thinking I was
rude.
From what I read in your original post, your method of homeschooling seemed to
me to be cruel to children. I tend to get angry (and sometimes overreact)
when I think someone is being cruel to a being less powerful than they.
I'm sure you have your children's best interest at heart. Our philosophies of
childhood, childrearing, and homeschooling are obviously 180 degrees apart.
Yet your children and mine will probably all turn out OK simply because they
have parents who love them and are working very hard to do the best they can as
parents.
Best wishes to you and your family,
Carolyn in NC, who is still convinced her way is right! :-)
Bonita Sheffield
Maiko, please forgive my stereotyping. It was meant to be an analogy, a
metaphor not necessarily pertinent to any particular nation...once again,
mea culpa.
Bonita
Bonita Sheffield
Thank you, Daisy! I'll get to researching dominant brain learning
activities...I hope I find something, but please, yes...send or post
whatever you've already found. I have a budding engineer that I MUST get to
learn reading. What makes it harder is that I'm also ADD and a writer. Now
try finding a book on that! Right brain mom tries to teach left brain
kiddo...sounds like The National Enquirer.
Jayne Kulikauskas but replace spambait by mmalt
"Michael S. Morris" <msmo...@netdirect.net> writes:
> Friday, the 17th of April,
> 1998
>
>
> Jayne:
> I can't even find
> lagniappe in my dictionary.
>
> Hah! My dictionary is better than yours, nyah,
> nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!
>
> [switch to sheepishly, I'm sorry...]
> It means a freebie.
[details deleted]
Thank you. I feel much better. Now, if someone will tell me what
peeps are I can return to pretending omniscience until the next time I
am faced with my ignorance.
Jayne
Jayne Kulikauskas but replace spambait by mmalt
"Bonita Sheffield" <auri...@gte.net> writes:
> Um, Mike...in all due respect, are your children interested in those
> subjects? At six and eight years, Green Eggs & Ham were my kiddos speed.
> Hon, don't get me wrong, but after reading your post, I had to give a bit of
> a yawn. I can't imagine how your kids are taking it.
I found Mike's description sufficiently inspiring and interesting that I
saved a copy of that post. I came away with the feeling that this was
definitely the right approach for that family, although it wouldn't suit our
circumstances.
The reason that I think that it works is because Mike and Martha are clearly
interested in the things they teach their children. If your reaction to
that list of subjects is that they are boring, you would communicate that to
your children. Children tend to learn well when they learn from someone who
feels passion for the subject.
> Restaurants have kid-size portions, and I think school, unschool or however
> learning is called these days should be kid proportioned too. I can yonk
> all day at my daughter on a subject and state I've taught her. I just
> happen to believe that 'learning' is infinitely more important than the
> teaching.
I'd guess that Mike's kids are learning. They are sharing in what is
important to their parents. Mike and Martha are intellectual, academic types
and that *is* normal for that family.
> Okay, so kill me with your king size wit...but it's damn near impossible to
> have a battle of wits with an unarmed person....big smile.
Mike is obviously a pretty brilliant guy. Try not to be intimidated by it.
There is a lot more to any person than his or her IQ. I enjoy his posts
immensely even if I do need a dictionary. I appreciate his sense of humour
and especially his Canadian spellings. <pause to wave Canadian flag>
> Feeling that gum on the shoe thing again.
Your sense of self-worth does not need to be connected to what other
homeschoolers are doing. You are dealing with a unique situation (as are we
all). From your posts it sound like you are doing a wonderful job of
restoring a child whose been damaged by public schooling. To have made as
much progress as you have in such a short time is remarkable. Feel good
about what you have accomplished and don't feel threatened by the
accomplishments of others. It is right and good that people are all
different from each other. We can rejoice in our diversity.
Jayne
Jayne Kulikauskas but replace spambait by mmalt
"Bonita Sheffield" <auri...@gte.net> writes:
[]
> I'm beginning to think I should have stayed a lurker and watcher, because to
> venture an opinion, weak, strong or indifferent is akin to inviting
> intellectual nuclear war. I'm discussing...it's not etched in granite...I
> call it dialogue. BUT, I certainly don't call my posts an invitation for
> attack.
[]
In another post she writes:
[]
> The Japanese teach as you do, Mike...they fill it up, and fill it up...and
> the student never learns anything new. Meaning, they can't create...they
> can't imagine. They can recall by rote, possible even improve on the taught
> design...but to make something new! Ah, that is the goal of education.
[]
You can call it dialogue, but it sure looks like criticism to me. You can't
reasonably expect a positive reaction if you tell people (or even imply)
that they are failing as educators. You are entitled to your opinions. The
people who don't like them are entitled to theirs. Don't be surprised that
people tell you what they think.
I tend towards the unschooling end of the spectrum, myself, but I don't
presume to tell everyone that they have to use the same methods that I do. I
can certainly understand that some people object to you labelling yourself
as normal and people who are not like you as not normal. It doesn't seem to
me like over-reacting. I don't much like it when people tell me that I am
not normal.
It is nice that you don't mean to be antagonistic. However, we can only
react to your words, not your meaning. If you use emotionally loaded
language, you are going to get emotional responses. If you don't like this
sort of reply, then it is your responsibility to learn how to express
yourself in this medium. You don't have body language. You don't have tone
of voice. All you have to work with are words on a screen.
If you don't mind being flamed, you can learn from your own mistakes.
Otherwise, lurk for a while and learn from the mistakes of others.
Jayne
Jayne Kulikauskas but replace spambait by mmalt
kanga...@aol.com (Kangamaroo) writes:
Well, I have to prove that I'm a real homeschool mom and not a troll.
Jayne
Jayne Kulikauskas but replace spambait by mmalt
"Michael S. Morris" <msmo...@netdirect.net> writes:
> Friday, the 17th of April, 1998
>
>
> Eris is the Greek goddess of discord. She
[]
This just proves that the Ancient Greeks were out to confuse everyone.
Eros was a god of love and Iris was goddess of the rainbow. Now how
could anyone keep track of Eris, Eros and Iris? Definitely worse
than Curly, Larry and Moe.
Jayne
Michael S. Morris
Friday, the 17th of April, 1998
Carolyn:
Carolyn in NC, who is still convinced her way is right! :-)
Which is as it should be---we can handle some disagreement.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Hamlet!
I have both hands tied behind my
back and am typing this with my nose....
(sound of head shaking back and forth)
A question.....are you a selective reader?
In response....and against or with my entire
will power.....all I can say is.......
Thank You for clarifying that for everyone.....
Sorry......control is lost........
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!!!!!!
Hamlet!
kder...@hotmail.com wrote in message <6h84po$gsr$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
Matt Cole
Jayne Kulikauskas but replace spambait by mmalt wrote:
>
> "Michael S. Morris" <msmo...@netdirect.net> writes:
>
> > 1998
> >
> >
> > I can't even find
> > lagniappe in my dictionary.
> >
> > Hah! My dictionary is better than yours, nyah,
> > nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!
> >
> > [switch to sheepishly, I'm sorry...]
> > It means a freebie.
>
> [details deleted]
>
> Thank you. I feel much better. Now, if someone will tell me what
> peeps are I can return to pretending omniscience until the next time I
> am faced with my ignorance.
>
> Jayne
Oh, oh!!!!(frantically waving hand!!!) I can tell you. Peeps are
little marshmallow confections in the shapes of chicks and bunnies
available at Easter.
Suzanne (whose children think it is quite funny that given the topics of
all the posts here lately, THEIR mother chose to contribute to this
one.)
Kent & Kat
Your routine sounds good to me...OTOH I was raised in a
family of teachers and this is very normal behavior for us!
I don't know how much time I spent outside of school reading
my dad's history books or my mom's college texts for fun
when I was a kid. One thing that my family impressed on me
was that if you don't expose kids to levels higher than they
are currently at, how will you know when they are ready?
I've seen this phenomenon over and over...a child will be
baffled by something and then suddenly, "Eureka!", it makes
sense to them...but if they're never exposed to 'x', how
will you know when 'x' will make sense to them? BTW there
is a very nice book called _Vocabulary for the College Bound
Student_ (can't find my copy right off to give author) that
a friend and I used in 6th grade when they individualized
the reading class. It does a nice job of teaching prefix,
suffix & roots and I *know* that having studied it has
helped me identify the meaning of words when I encountered
them out of context (such as on standardized tests).
Kat
Kent & Kat
Coby4b10d wrote:
>
> In his post of 4/16, Mike Morris states:
>
> "Anyway, judged on basics---reading, writing,
> and math---I think both of them are doing just fine."
>
> playing in the sun?
Personally, I didn't see anything in his post which
precluded any of these!
> Childhood is such a brief, magical time. They will never get a chance
> to regain it if you take it from them now. There is time, much time,
> to read the books you mentioned later. This all-too-brief bit of time
> is all there is for childhood.
Let's see...my dad was reading _The Hobbit_ to both of my
brothers when they were 2-3 years of age. For some
children, books like these are interesting...much more so
when a parent is reading them to you and explaining things
as you go...personally, by the age of 11 I was reading my
dad's history books by myself...fortunately for me, he was
able to point out the more interesting ones (some historians
can't write!). OTOH it's only recently that the 'sanctity'
of childhood has been an issue. For the majority of
recorded history children began helping with the family
'work' or began their formal training for their life's work
at the age of 5-6 (e.g. young noble boys being taught latin,
given their first real sword etc.) and this is still true in
many parts of the world today. It is only in the
industrialized areas of the world that we have an *option*
of an extended childhood, which, quite frankly, I think we
have a tendency to take too far (think of the many young
adults who have no commitments and no responsibilities and
think that the 'World' owes them something).
> Which will they remember fondly in years to come? Sitting obediently
> while daddy made them listen to him read his books aloud, or daddy
> BEING with them?
Gee, I always enjoyed sitting cuddled in a parent's arms
having them read to me. I certainly didn't get the picture
of two small children sitting in hard-backed chairs with
their feet on the floor and not being allowed to move while
their father orates.
> Carolyn in NC, who, as always, is thinking of the children
Kat
who, as always, realizes that not all children are the same
nor do they have the same needs or desires
jen...@mindspring.com
On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 08:02:29 -0400, Matt Cole <mbc...@erols.com>
wrote:
:Jayne Kulikauskas but replace spambait by mmalt wrote:
::> [details deleted]
:>
:> Thank you. I feel much better. Now, if someone will tell me what
:> peeps are I can return to pretending omniscience until the next time I
:> am faced with my ignorance.
:>
:> Jayne
:
:Oh, oh!!!!(frantically waving hand!!!) I can tell you. Peeps are
:little marshmallow confections in the shapes of chicks and bunnies
:available at Easter.
:
:Suzanne (whose children think it is quite funny that given the topics of
:all the posts here lately, THEIR mother chose to contribute to this
:one.)
The bunnies are HOPS.
jen...@mindspring.com
On Sun, 19 Apr 1998 04:05:50 GMT, jen...@mindspring.com wrote:
:On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 08:02:29 -0400, Matt Cole <mbc...@erols.com>
And you have to bite their all their heads off, first, so that they
can't hear you coming. Yum yum!
anise c. hollingshead
"Michael S. Morris" <msmo...@netdirect.net> wrote:
>Friday, the 17th of April, 1998
>
>JosiahsMum wrote:
> Suggestion to anyone beginning a Basic programming course:
>
>A good idea. In the late Summer, when I had the notion
>of having Zan do some programming, I went out thinking
>there ought to be a simple, old-fashioned Basic "toy"
>environment for Win 95, but I couldn't find any such
>thing on the bookshelves at Borders or the like (and
>certainly not any of the software retail stores). But
>I did find "C++ Programming for Dummies" at Borders
>for maybe 20 bucks complete with a CD-Rom with a Win 95
>compatible toy programming environment and Zan worked
>through that before Christmas. I think he finds the Visual
>Basic much easier, though, probably because he knows his
>way around Windows pretty well. I happened to already
>have VB for *me* to learn, and it's a pretty expensive
>item, but I'm pretty sure there are "toy" versions or
>learning versions available.
>
> Mike Morris
> (msmo...@netdirect.net)
Hi! I am not a homeschooler, but have been following this thread with
fascination :D
Anyway, Interplay is soon to release "Learn to Program BASIC, Jr High
Edition", aimed at middle schoolers and up. I have been toying with
the thought of getting it when it comes out for my daughter (11) and
myself as a fun way to delve into the world of programming this
summer. I think there is a paint program for kids to program
themselves, as well as other "game" projects.
Check it out at http://www.interplay.com/basic/index.html
They have a demo up, also!
Anise Hollingshead
Daily Editor
Kid's Domain
Michael S. Morris
Monday, the 20th of April, 1998
I said:
Eris is the Greek goddess of discord. She
Jayne:
This just proves that the Ancient Greeks were out
to confuse everyone. Eros was a god of love and
Iris was goddess of the rainbow. Now how could
anyone keep track of Eris, Eros and Iris? Definitely
worse than Curly, Larry and Moe.
And Ares and, later, Isis, too. Just goes to show ya: To
err is human, to really confuse things is divine.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Michael S. Morris
Monday, the 20th of April, 1998
This "The Japanese are rote learners, but uncreative,"
plus "They all commit suicide because of too much
pressure on the kids," are persistent myths in
the States, I think. They are myths inconsistent
with either the world excellence of Japanese artists
and scientists or the fact that American suicide
rates catch up and pass the Japanese (though at
older ages), but what I'm interested in here is
more how and why these get repeated.
This struck me as interesting because of living in
Canada for three and a half years. Our daughter,
Helen, was born there. Now, I'd say the number one
conversational topic with my Canadian friends during
those years revolved around the comparison and contrast
of the United States and Canada. (An expatriot American
professor there once explained this to me as stemming from
the fact that every Canadian, above his bedpost,
has a little shrine engraved with the words "I am not
American", which he worships in front of every night
before going to bed.) The first trend in my experience
of conversation by Canadians about public-school
education was that they would want to claim how much better
the Canadian public schools were than public schools
in the States. Their teachers were so much more highly
paid, you see, that it was very competitive to get into
teacher's college. But, then, there were these door-to-door
encyclopaedia salesmen---usually kids recruited
from the Maritimes---and we listened a time or two
to their pitches (we were thinking about purchasing
an encyclopaedia anyway sometime soon, but I often
invite Jehovah's Witnesses inside just for the fun of it).
Well, we'd try to derail them from their pre-programmed
sales routine, but to no avail, and it went roughly like
this: The Canadian schools are failing to train kids
to meet the global challenges of a world economy,
witness the Japanese schoolkids beating everyone at
math and science, here is a list of 10 countries
and see how Canadian test scores in every category are near
the bottom of the list, nowadays just school isn't enough,
you have to give your kids the competitive edge, without
our encyclopaedia [Collier's, I think it was---we eventually
bought Britannica, of course] they'll never be able to
compete against the Japanese. Exactly the same propaganda
we get, isn't it? It's just translated to Canadian. So then, with
Canadian friends in conversation when the school system would
come up (as it did with governmental cutbacks and teachers'
strikes), I'd tell them about the encyclopaedia-salesman
comparison thing with the Japanese---and how the encyclopaedia
ad-men must've thought there was a public perception of failing
Canadian public schools---and I was surprised then by
how many times I'd have it parroted back to me
"Yeah, but the Japanese all learn by rote, they aren't
creative," or "Yeah, but too many commit suicide, because
of all that pressure to excel." In other words, the same myths I
think are widely believed in Canada, and they seem to have the
same sort of political force, except with the added proviso
I guess that things in Canada are better than in the States.
Which reminds me of one experience that underlined for
me that maybe things in Canada aren't much better than
they are in the States. I've complained before about
the way grammar was taught to me in American public
schools. Basically, every single year in English we'd
have the teacher throw up her arms in disgust at poor
grammar used in composition assignments, and then turn aside
from teaching literature to teach a unit on grammar,
starting with the parts of speech, at the level of "This
is a noun, this is a verb." In other words, what we were
drilled in was the message that we really didn't have to
know this stuff, since next year, if by then we had forgotten
it, the teacher would just teach it to us again.
Anyway, while I was a post-doc at the University of Waterloo
in Waterloo, Ontario, I took some of my time to explore some
of the cultural offerings at the university, and one of
the things I did was sit in on the first year beginning
Greek class. I had studied ancient Greek some before on
my own, and wanted now to take myself to the point of being
able to read Homer (which I did). The professor was this
older woman who had been raised in England and had gone to
English boarding schools. She had been schooled, that is, the old
way (once I remember waiting outside her office while
she sent a language-curriculum salesman packing when he
made the mistake of hawking his glitzy curriculum materials
by saying "After all, learning should be fun, shouldn't it?")---
she had read Homer I think she said at age 11, though Greek
wasn't her real language, that being Latin, which she had
learned at age 6. OK, now Waterloo is known for its engineering,
math, and computer science departments (it is kind of
Canada's MIT) and you have to have a really high GPA
to get in. So, this class of 15 maybe freshmen and sophomores
learning Greek were mostly engineering students taking
it to fulfill a language requirement (i.e. they were pretty
darn bright kids). After a bit we started getting into
the inflectedness of Greek and I think had learned the
nominative, genitive, and accusative cases for nouns at
that point. And I remember this one kid who translated
a "dog bites man" sentence as "man bites dog", flipping the
nominative and accusative cases for the two nouns. Sally
had him go to the board, write "The dog bites the man,"
or whatever it was, and then asked him to identify the
direct object of the sentence---the English sentence.
He couldn't do it. Nor could he say what the subject was.
At which point, Sally---visibly exasperated in a "What are
they teaching in the schools these days?" manner---launched
into a lecture on subjects, direct objects, and indirect
objects, and diagramming sentence structure in English
(i.e. this was a Canadian repeat at university of my American
experience with grammar all through high school).
Canada doesn't have quite the same problems with youth crime
and violence and drugs that the States have (but they don't
have the same kind of urban concentrations, and, where they
do have them, they are beginning to see similar problems),
but I guess I am not persuaded by what I've seen that the
best suburban public schools in Canada are much better than
the best suburban public schools in the States---i.e. neither
are very good, however high Canadian teachers' salaries may be.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
maiko covington
"Bonita Sheffield" <auri...@gte.net> writes:
>Maiko, please forgive my stereotyping. It was meant to be an analogy, a
>metaphor not necessarily pertinent to any particular nation...once again,
>mea culpa.
No problem. :) I'm enjoying reading all the posts in here! I think
the main problem when it comes to misperceptions about Japanese schools
AND homeschooling is the media's take on it - it often seems quite a bit
like "sour grapes" reporting to me. (Not to imply, of course, that either
Japanese schools or homeschooling don't have their own set of problems
and concerns - it's not a perfect world yet.)
Maiko Covington
Kynvelyn
In article <35393201...@nash.tds.net>, Kent & Kat
<kd...@nash.tds.net> wrote:
> One thing that my family impressed on me
>was that if you don't expose kids to levels higher than they
>are currently at, how will you know when they are ready?
>I've seen this phenomenon over and over...a child will be
>baffled by something and then suddenly, "Eureka!", it makes
>sense to them...but if they're never exposed to 'x', how
>will you know when 'x' will make sense to them?
>Kat
I agree. I am of the belief that when exposed to something they don't
know, children will tuck that info away in some part of their brain where
it will be constantly worked on (like untying a huge knot). Days or even
weeks or months later, the information will suddenly come "untied", and
everything will fit together.... ok, now I'm mixing my metaphores, but you
get the idea...Eureka! indeed.
Kyn
JCM
Kent & Kat wrote:
>
> Coby4b10d wrote:
> >
> > Childhood is such a brief, magical time. They will never get a chance
> > to regain it if you take it from them now. There is time, much time,
> > to read the books you mentioned later. This all-too-brief bit of time
> > is all there is for childhood.
>
> Let's see...my dad was reading _The Hobbit_ to both of my
> brothers when they were 2-3 years of age. For some
> children, books like these are interesting...much more so
> when a parent is reading them to you and explaining things
> as you go
To introduce myself...my wife and I are homeschooling our two children
of five and two. And I agree with you. I think it's great to read these
kinds of books to young children, as long as they're interested. Our
kids seem to have infinite patience for being read to. When our oldest
was three, she was very interested in dinosaurs (possibly my fault).
Anyway, she pulled out a layman paleo book called _The Dinosaur
Heresies_ for me to read to her one night, and we read, and talked
about, this book before bedtime for three or four nights. We made it to
about page 30 or so. She finally decided she wanted to read something
else. I didn't hesitate to grab a book a little more her speed. But,
for a while, she was sincerely interested, and, at five, she continues
to pull that book off the shelf and page through it. She'll probably
read it before long.
[snip]
> OTOH it's only recently that the 'sanctity'
> of childhood has been an issue. For the majority of
> recorded history children began helping with the family
> 'work' or began their formal training for their life's work
> at the age of 5-6 (e.g. young noble boys being taught latin,
> given their first real sword etc.) and this is still true in
> many parts of the world today.
IMO retaining the "sanctity of childhood" and learning to be productive
family members and citizens are not mutually exclusive.
> It is only in the
> industrialized areas of the world that we have an *option*
> of an extended childhood, which, quite frankly, I think we
> have a tendency to take too far (think of the many young
> adults who have no commitments and no responsibilities and
> think that the 'World' owes them something).
Perhaps you and I differ in our definitions of childhood. To me it does
not mean giving a child everything he wants and relieving him of any
idea of what it means to be responsible. It does mean, however, giving
a child time to pursue his own fun (within reason), play without an
adult constantly breathing down his neck, and discover his own
strengths, abilities and interests. With that said, I don't think we
take the idea of "the sanctity of childhood" nearly far enough. Too
many kids spend their whole young lives running from one orgranized
activity to another. They don't have any time to discover themselves
and their interests. As for the many young adults who have no sense of
responsiblity, I don't think they necessarily had "too much" childhood.
Some may've had no childhood at all. Look at the problems many child
stars had when they grew up.
>
> > Which will they remember fondly in years to come? Sitting obediently
> > while daddy made them listen to him read his books aloud, or daddy
> > BEING with them?
>
> Gee, I always enjoyed sitting cuddled in a parent's arms
> having them read to me. I certainly didn't get the picture
> of two small children sitting in hard-backed chairs with
> their feet on the floor and not being allowed to move while
> their father orates.
I agree completely.
>
> > Carolyn in NC, who, as always, is thinking of the children
>
> Kat
> who, as always, realizes that not all children are the same
> nor do they have the same needs or desires
Jeff, who wonders "what did I get myself into?"
Michael S. Morris
Tuesday, the 21st of April, 1998
Jeff says:
With that said, I don't think we
take the idea of "the sanctity of childhood"
nearly far enough. Too many kids spend their
whole young lives running from one orgranized
activity to another. They don't have any time
to discover themselves and their interests.
I know you are pointing to "organized activities"---
music lessons, Little League, etc., but I'd suggest
the real culprit in our society is: television. That's
why kids don't have time to play.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
JCM
Ya got me there. Add television to that mix and a kid might as well be
22 and graduated from college when they're born. I've got no problem
with an occasional organized activity. In fact I'd recommend one, maybe
two when you consider something like music lessons. It just seems to me
that too often both parents work full time jobs the kids are in school
all day (little kids, 6,7,8 yrs old) then the time that they could all
spend together is spent in the car on the way to soccer practice, drop
off, pick up, drop off, pick up. Nothing wrong with soccer, but it's at
least as important to teach our kids by example that they don't have to
be going, going, going all the time as it is to teach them not to
constantly veg in front of the television.
Jeff
Bonita Sheffield
Mike, I agree with you...I've raised my daughter with the belief that the
public school was taking care of her education...so TV wasn't a problem in
the evenings. She'd already 'gone to work', and this was leisure time for
her. I think her adversarial approach to learning was well developed by
grade three, and now, by nearly the end of fifth grade, weaning her from
Nick At Nite is going to be difficult...but very very necessary.
Man, I hope board games are still reasonably inexpensive...and if not,
there's that two dollar chess set we bought. I love to play chess, so does
my husband, but do we play? Noooo...TV's got us just as hooked as our
daughter. Wow, I never thought homeschooling would change so much about our
lives. Kinda scary to me, so that tells me I need to do this gradually,
incrementally. I swear to God we've got a television set in every room in
this house and about a hundred cable channels. That doesn't include the
vast array of videos we've collected.
Is there some conspiracy between the public schools and television networks?
Things that make ya go hmmmmmm....oh, well, Janet Reno thinks we're all
cultists anyway. If misconceptions and paranoia can occur at such high
levels in government, I'm entitled to my own science fiction theories.
Bonita
(following the shooting tangents where they zing)
Michael S. Morris
Wednesday, the 22nd of April, 1998
Bonita says:
[...]weaning her from
Nick At Nite is going to be difficult...but
very very necessary.
I grew up with the TV set on, did most of my homework
while watching it, still received A's for this (which
should have been a sign something was wrong), etc..
I'm not sure what quite did it, but in grad school
in the mid-80's Martha and I were reading more and more,
and more and more purposefully, and we were down to one
old, small black-and-white TV and we just started into
doing without it (kept the thing in a closet and Martha
got it out only to watch the Olympics). So we've spent approx
ten years without a TV, and we have often remarked
since along the lines of "Where do people who watch TV
find the time?"
Last year we made the decision to buy a new color one
with VCR. We thought this over for some time before
bringing the Evil Thing into the house, but we decided
we could control it so that it wouldn't become a habit
for any of us. We live in a bi-level, and placed the
new acquisition downstairs in the family room (with much of
the library, the piano and organ). And we have managed
to use it exactly as intended---on occasional weekends
(once a month, maybe) we rent movies. Plus Martha has
lost 25 pounds doing an hour of aerobics with the it
every morning. Maybe it's because we're not normally in
that room (unless practicing piano or fetching a book or
something), maybe it's because we just don't have the
habit, and we're too busy elsewhere (reading, piano lessons,
Little League, Broadway Kids rehearsal, reading, Symphonic
Choir rehearsal, reading, the net, computer games, reading),
but there just doesn't seem to be time for TV.
The kids are aware of TV---it's on in their friends'
houses, and when they've been at babysitters they've
watched it at length, but they don't clamour to watch
it here.
I will say that this is not paradise---Martha and I
think Zan spends too much time playing games on the
computer---and as the weather warms up, he and his
friend Charlie are getting booted off the thing to
go and play outside, but I guess I posted along these
lines in this thread because just Monday I was
in lunchtime conversation with the man who is ceo of
the company my kid brother and I own. He's in his 60's
and grew up in up-state New York in the 40's when there
was no TV, and he I guess was reminiscing about growing
up in a small town and being outside playing all day,
or inside reading or in quiet conversation.
Sundays, he said, they'd all put on nice clothes
for church, and after church, they weren't allowed to
soil those clothes by playing outside, so when his
Mom would pick up a book for the afternoon, he and his
sisters would, too. He said the town library was
always full of kids reading. He thought the difference
between that world and the world of his own kids
(who are now all grown) was precisely TV.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Elaine
Michael S. Morris wrote:
> Wednesday, the 22nd of April, 1998
>
> I grew up with the TV set on,
As did I, though my parents always demanded complete control of the dial
(remember dials?). At the time, I thought this was grossly unfair,
now...... I grew up watching news, nature shows, and PBS. Thanks, Mom
and Dad.
> So we've spent approx
> ten years without a TV, and we have often remarked
> since along the lines of "Where do people who watch TV
> find the time?"
They wind up going to bed later, eating in front of the TV, and watching
TV instead of talking to their spouse about their day.
>
>
> Last year we made the decision to buy a new color one
> with VCR.........And we have managed to use it exactly as
> intended---on occasional weekends
> (once a month, maybe) we rent movies........... Maybe it's because
> we're not normally in
> that room (unless practicing piano or fetching a book or
> something),
Our family has always maintained the sunniest, cleanest, most
comfortable room, our living room, as a NO TV ZONE. This is important
for entertaining friends too. I hate visiting people only to compete
with a TV show.
> I will say that this is not paradise---Martha and I
> think Zan spends too much time playing games on the
> computer---
This may be the 'TV' of the next generations. The TV is actually getting
less entertaining for kids who demand to be 'entertained'. Our kids
'buy' computer time by spending equal time outside playing, helping Dad
or Grandpa, reading...I find they usually intend to spend an hour doing
the 'required' activity, but get so caught up in it they forget about
the computer until it rains. Then, what the heck, go practice your
eye-hand coordination. ;-)
> . He's in his 60's
> and grew up in up-state New York in the 40's when there
> was no TV, and he I guess was reminiscing about growing
> up in a small town and being outside playing all day,
> or inside reading or in quiet conversation.
Truly a lost art. We have tried to visit Elderlies homes with the boys
just to get them to work on this. (The Elderlies love it too. Most
reminisce about being schooled at home or in a multi-aged enclosed
classroom)
> He thought the difference
> between that world and the world of his own kids
> (who are now all grown) was precisely TV.
Much like guns, Tv's don't kill motivation, people kill motivation.
> As always, love to hear from you Michael.
Elaine
>
>
>
JCM
Michael S. Morris wrote:
>
> Wednesday, the 22nd of April, 1998
>
> [...]weaning her from
> Nick At Nite is going to be difficult...but
> very very necessary.
>
> Last year we made the decision to buy a new color one
> with VCR. We thought this over for some time before
> bringing the Evil Thing into the house, but we decided
> we could control it so that it wouldn't become a habit
> for any of us.
"The Evil Thing?" I agree that television takes far too much of many
peoples' time, rather people give it far too much time. No doubt. But
I also think it gets far too much blame for the ills of society. People
talk about it like it's heroin or something. TV has no more power than
we give it. It is not chemically addicting. I'm sure you're right
Bonita, weaning your daughter from Nick at Night will be difficult, but
Nick at Night isn't doing any severe damage to her, just encourage her
and help her to find other things to do. My parents didn't restrict my
television watching, at least not in terms of the amount. They did
forbid a number of programs they thought were inappropriate for me. I
went through phases where I watched way too much, but I also went
through just as many phases where I thought TV was completely boring and
I'd rather do almost anything else.
I stand by my opinion that, if you send your kids to public school seven
hours per day (8 AM - 3 PM right?), and especially if they spend another
two hours doing homework, or in daycare, that is *plenty* of organized,
structured activity for any kid IM0. I'm not implying that they should
be able to watch TV the rest of the time, nor am I implying that that
structured time is productively spent. I understand this is a
homeschool newsgroup, and if you homeschool there is definitely more
time, and perhaps more need, for them to do organized activities with
other kids, but as much as homeschooling is growing it isn't the norm by
any stretch.
> maybe it's because we just don't have the
> habit,
Bingo! My own personal experience tells me that it's a habit that is
easy to break. My wife and I used to watch a lot of TV. We got real
sick of the cable rates going up and up and up while the service went
down. We felt like it was a big decision, but we cancelled cable. We
now get about six channels, including PBS and the major networks. We've
been in this situation for two or three years, and really haven't missed
it. We do like movies, and rent them often. There are also shows we
like, and we tape them, so we can skip the commercials, and watch them
at our leisure. Our oldest is almost six, but she'd much rather do most
anything else than watch TV, especially play with her friends, or her
mother and I. We also read a lot, and we have a huge back yard in which
we spend a significant amount of time either working or playing in
during the summer.
> I will say that this is not paradise---Martha and I
> think Zan spends too much time playing games on the
> computer
That seems to be the new vice. My daughter has a lot of fun with her
CD-Roms. I admit I'd rather have her doing that than watching TV, and
she'd rather do it than watch TV too.
> He said the town library was
> always full of kids reading. He thought the difference
> between that world and the world of his own kids
> (who are now all grown) was precisely TV.
I don't agree with this guy. I'm not a sociologist, and I'm not an
expert on trends, but it seems to me that significantly more families
have two full-time working parents than ever before. Daycare was rarely
an issue when this guy was a kid. I hear about these families where Dad
is out of the door before the kids are awake, mom gets them ready for
school or daycare, and both parents commute 45 minutes miniumum to
work. Then dad gets home after the kids are in bed, and mom didn't get
home much before that, and the kids have been in school and/or daycare
all day long. The kids "work" more hours than their parents. The
family then spends its weekends running off to little league or
whatever.
I agree with the general thinking on this thread that TV is not the most
healthy activity. I just don't think it is the sorce of everything bad
either. I think I got involved in this thread because of the recent
decision by the Atlanta public school system to do away with recess.
Great! The only time during a little kid's day that he doesn't have to
follow the pre-ordained rules of the game is now being done away with
because "kids don't learn anything by hanging on the monkey bars."
That's wrong.
Jeff
> Mike Morris
> (msmo...@netdirect.net)
Elaine Harvey
Bonita Sheffield wrote:
> Man, I hope board games are still reasonably inexpensive...and if not,
> there's that two dollar chess set we bought.
I just picked up a neat game. It's called Sets. It's a card game in which you
match cards based on shape, color, shade, and number. Sounds easy huh? It scored
really high on Mensa's list in 1991. It was only $6 and works on some really
important visual discrimination and logic skills.
> I love to play chess, so does
> my husband, but do we play? Noooo...TV's got us just as hooked as our
> daughter. Wow, I never thought homeschooling would change so much about our
> lives.
Gee, I love to say "I told you so" :-)
> Kinda scary to me, so that tells me I need to do this gradually,
> incrementally.
Why? Because it's new and different? That's the best time to jump in. Your
motivation is high, you are thinking it through. Do it! Get rid of all TV's for
a while, give away what you really don't need (you won't believe how good this
feels) and then when you can use and not abuse the TV, watch shows that you have
carefully chosen way ahead of time. You don't eat the food in the house just
because it's there do you? Then don't watch the TV just because you can.
> I swear to God we've got a television set in every room in
> this house and about a hundred cable channels. That doesn't include the
> vast array of videos we've collected.
We have never had more than one TV in the house. Bedrooms are for sleeping,
living rooms are for living, kitchens are for cooking, dining rooms are for
eating and none of those activities is enhanced by having a TV on.
> Is there some conspiracy between the public schools and television networks?
Sure, it's called money. Have you seen the videos and PBS shows that feature ads
for 'supporter' products?
> Things that make ya go hmmmmmm....oh, well, Janet Reno thinks we're all
> cultists anyway.
That was a scream huh? I think Joycelyn Elders was reincarnated into Janet Reno.
> If misconceptions and paranoia can occur at such high
> levels in government, I'm entitled to my own science fiction theories.
Oh, why not?Elaine
>
>
>
Douglas Waltz
I don't view t.v. as evil either. At least not if it is used properly. I
guess the biggest issue is not how much t.v. the kids are watching, but
what the kids are watching. I use the television as an educational tool,
not as a babysitter. We watch things like "Bill Nye the Science Guy",
"Kratt's Creatures", and some of the Public School Curriculum shows they
have on PBS during the day. We pretty much just watch PBS, except for
the news and some mindless drivel in the mornings (Jenny Jones, please
don't hate me!!). I know of several families (mostly in-laws with snotty
children) who are constantly telling the kids to leave them alone and go
watch t.v. or go watch a movie... Sad, isn't it...
Martha Waltz
Bonita Sheffield
Hey, I like your 'I told you so's'!
Bonita
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 23rd of April, 1998
Jeff says:
"The Evil Thing?" I agree that television
takes far too much of many peoples' time,
rather people give it far too much time.
No doubt. But I also think it gets far too
much blame for the ills of society. People
talk about it like it's heroin or something.
TV has no more power than we give it. [...]
Of course TV has no more power than we give it.
Idiot politicians have no more power than we
give them. This doesn't mean, however, that we
don't give both of them too much power.
I think my main complaint with TV is how much it is
like the public schools---it offers an easy abdication
of the responsibility of parenthood. I kind of
think either case---TV in the evenings with parentally
involved school during the days, or public school
during the days and no TV in the evenings would work,
but the combination I think of handing off children
to the public schools during the days and handing
them off to the TV at night is a very bad thing indeed.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Joseph M. White
On Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:02:03 -0600, JCM <jmi...@uwyo.edu> wrote:
(much snipped)
>I agree with the general thinking on this thread that TV is not the most
>healthy activity. I just don't think it is the sorce of everything bad
>either. I think I got involved in this thread because of the recent
>decision by the Atlanta public school system to do away with recess.
>Great! The only time during a little kid's day that he doesn't have to
>follow the pre-ordained rules of the game is now being done away with
>because "kids don't learn anything by hanging on the monkey bars."
>That's wrong.
>
>Jeff
>
>> Mike Morris
>> (msmo...@netdirect.net)
Great, another decision made by an MBA, instead of an educator. Now
the kids will have time to learn all about alternative lifestyles, or
cultural diversity or whatever created this pressing need. Why,
instead, don't they delete some of the horses**t and then they would
have plenty of time? Novel idea, why not teach core knowledge
subjects?
joe
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 23rd of April, 1998
Joe says:
Novel idea, why not teach core knowledge subjects?
Shhh, boy! "Core knowledge subjects" could get a
man in real trouble.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
de...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
Joseph M. White (joseph...@lmco.com) wrote:
: Great, another decision made by an MBA, instead of an educator. Now
: the kids will have time to learn all about alternative lifestyles, or
: cultural diversity or whatever created this pressing need. Why,
: instead, don't they delete some of the horses**t and then they would
: subjects?
: joe
--
Would you just "teach" your children "core knowledge subjects" at home, or
would you provide an avenue for them to learn music, art, sports, etc.?
For some kids, the music, the art or the physical education *are* their
core subjects--the subjects in the fields where they will spend their
adult lives.
The worst part about removing recess is that those kids *need* to get out
of their seats and burn off some energy.
Daisy
Bruce D. Ray
In article <6hoc24$h0u$2...@news.sas.ab.ca>, de...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca () wrote:
{quote of another's psot munched}
> Would you just "teach" your children "core knowledge subjects" at home, or
> would you provide an avenue for them to learn music, art, sports, etc.?
> For some kids, the music, the art or the physical education *are* their
> core subjects--the subjects in the fields where they will spend their
> adult lives.
Actually, art, music, and physical education
are considered core subjects and at least
some universities {most, I believe} in the
US require that students have at least a few
credits in these in order to be admitted at all.
I have been trying to compile a list of the
various resources my wife and I {mostly my
wife} have used to teach art and music
appreciation to our children. {For actual
art lessons we've used the services of
Indianapolis Museum of Art, and of an origami
specialist whose original degree was in
early childhood education. Of course, for
music we have the local home school band
where our second son plays trombone and our
first daughter plays both flute and clarinet
[not at the same time, of course]}.
This list is necessarily incomplete.
A. Graphic Arts
A 25 paper back series from Funk and Wagnalls
entitled __The Great Artists__ (1977) The
ISBN for the series: 0 8343 0006 0
LCC no. for the series: 77-93077
Raboff, E.L. __Art for Children__ (1988 reprint
of 1973 Doubleday original) Harper, NY,
F. Remington book ISBN 0 06 446079 7
Velasquez book ISBN 0 06 446073 8.
__Adventures in Art__ (1989, rev. 1994) Cornerstone
Curriculum Project, 2006 Flat Creek, Richardson, TX
75080, no ISBN given. This consists of a series of
reprints of great works of art suitable for framing,
and directions for observing historical progression
in techniques, choice and arrangement of subject
matter by the various artists, etc.
Wolf, A.P. __Mommy, It's a Renoir!__ (1984) Parent
Child Press, Altoona, PA, ISBN 0 9601016 6 7. This
Montessori approach to art appreciation comes with
a set of miniature prints of Impressonist works
for games involving matching the painting with the
artist. I seriously recommend this as the first
book in art appreciation for young children.
__French Impressionist Paintings__ (1994) Random
House, Avenel, NJ, ISBN 0 517 11924 2. A thin
book of prints of French Impressionist paintings.
*********
B. Music
Greenberg, R. __How to Understand and Listen to
Great Music: The Greenberg Lectures__ (1997)
(Course 704a) The Teaching Company, 7405 Alban
Station Court, A107; Springfield, VA 22150-2318
Robert Greenberg, Ph.D. is a professor at San
Francisco Conservatory of Music and Chairs the
Dept. of Music History and Literature there.
The course consists of audio tapes of a series
of college lectures.
Smith, J.S. & Carlson, B. __The Gift of Music__
(1987) Crossway, Westchester, IL 60153, ISBN
0 89107 293 4.
Cross, M. & Ewen, D. __Milton Cross's Encyclopedia
of Great Composers and Their Music__, 2 vol. (1962)
Doubleday, NY. Contains short biographies of composers
which give some feel for the eras in which they lived.
{remainder munched}
--
Warning to commercial e-mailers {spammers}:
The e-mail address provided above is for
information purposes only. Do not send
un solicited commercial e-mail to this
address.
JCM
Michael S. Morris wrote:
>
> Thursday, the 23rd of April, 1998
>
> "The Evil Thing?" I agree that television
> takes far too much of many peoples' time,
> rather people give it far too much time.
> No doubt. But I also think it gets far too
> much blame for the ills of society. People
> talk about it like it's heroin or something.
> TV has no more power than we give it. [...]
>
> Of course TV has no more power than we give it.
> Idiot politicians have no more power than we
> give them. This doesn't mean, however, that we
> don't give both of them too much power.
Idiot politicians are people. Televisions are inanimate objects.
People are capable, and often prone, to abusing their power. Inanimate
objects are not. When is the last time you were able to "shut a
politician off," unless, of course, he was on the television? Speaking
of a telelvision as an "evil thing" is like blaming the refrigerator for
one's weight problem (at least as reasonable as your comparison with
politicians). Based on what little I know from your post I'm impressed
with your desire and ability to keep the television watching under
control. To be frank, however, I don't think it's that tough to do.
> I think my main complaint with TV is how much it is
> like the public schools---it offers an easy abdication
> of the responsibility of parenthood.
I agree with you here, but IMO the key phrase is "abdication of the
responsibility of parenthood." Televisions do make it easier, but they
don't cause it. I still do not think televisions are "evil" or even
"bad." They are just there. And they are completely at your disposal.
To the people with bumper stickers that say "Kill Your Television Set,"
I say don't be so paranoid. Take some responsiblity for yourself, your
kids, and how you spend your time.
> I kind of
> think either case---TV in the evenings with parentally
> involved school during the days, or public school
> during the days and no TV in the evenings would work,
> but the combination I think of handing off children
> to the public schools during the days and handing
> them off to the TV at night is a very bad thing indeed.
>
> Mike Morris
> (msmo...@netdirect.net)
I can't disagree with you. What do you think of this scenario? Shuffle
your kid from public school at three o'clock, to piano lesson/practice
at 4:00, to soccer practice at 5:00, supper at 6:30 and homework the
rest of the evening. This amounts to only two activities on the end of
a school day. This IMO is depriving them of the "sanctity of childhood"
(the completely lost subject of my original response) and the chance to
think about anything other than what time it is and what else they have
to get done before they go to bed. I didn't say they should be shuffled
from school to the TV set.
In and of themselves I believe these structured activities have great
potential. Like television, the potential benefits depend entirely on
the parents. Do you think it's rare for parents to vicarioulsy live
through their childrens' success whether it be at piano or football and
push their kids too far? Do you think it's rare for parents to use
these activities as their own personal pat on the back? "I never see my
kid, but hey, I care enough to drop him off at soccer practice." This
too qualifies as abdication of parental responsibility, and, the scary
part is that this abdication is sanctified in our society. In
anticipation of an argument, I know it's not rare for parents to shove
their kids in front of the TV either, but at least as a society we are
in general agreement that too much television is bad. How we act on it
varies. On the other hand, as a society, we think you can't get too
much organized sports, music lessons, homework etc. Many of us, while
enrolling our kids in everything under the sun, also work ten hours a
day. I guess in that case structured activities have another benefit.
They keep kids from watching too much television.
As a society we are not teaching our kids to watch television all the
time. We are teaching them that to make it in this world you can't slow
down. The more you can cram into a day the better. Parents who choose
to homeschool are a different lot. In this case the kids tend have more
time for stuff like this, thus the benefits may be more accessible. In
short I'd rather toss the ball around with my child than to put them in
little league, unless, of course, that's what they really wanted. I do
think music lessons help broaden a child's experience. If I sign my
child up for something that's the direction I'll go.
Bill and Joi Ramey
On Tue, 14 Apr 1998 14:02:12 -0500, "Bonita Sheffield"
<auri...@gte.net> wrote:
>I have got to stop reading these posts! Here I am, a new homeschooling
>mother of a ten year old little girl, and struggling to figure out how and
>what to teach her. What I read here would be worthy of teaching a young
>Einstein, and as beautiful and bright as my daughter is, we're just hitting
>the basics, and I don't mean Visual Basic programming classes or theory of
>relativity with a hindu slant or calculus with a gleam or anything else like
>that. Heck! I just got the child to the point where she likes reading!
>
>Can somebody please give me a break and tell me that there are other parents
>just teaching the 'regulars' out there? I'm feeling like I have the
>consistancy of gum on a professor's shoe here. This isn't a flame, it's a
>cry...believe me. I love teaching my daughter, but not if I'm going to
>short her on her educational possibilities. Can homeschooling be done by
>regular, slightly abnormal people in a regular, slightly abnormal way with
>completely regular subjects?
>
>Bonita
>
>
Well, being a parent of wunderkinder myself, I still think that every
child is special, with their own unique area of giftedness, and every
parent is that way, too. I don't think any meaning can be attatched to
the word 'normal' that doesn't mean 'able to graze with the rest of
the sheep' IMO. That said, I think you're doing a wonderful thing by
homeschooling, and by focusing on the basics. That's not what your
daughter would be getting in public school!
I have two children, one with an incredibly high IQ who can do
anything. She teaches herself and I don't have to worry about what
she's learning. I just explain the directions and she does it. I have
a son with an even higher IQ who couldn't even learn to tie his shoes
until he was six. He's seven now, and is just learning to read. He
read a whole sentence today without having to sound it out, and I just
about leaped for joy! Even the basics can be difficult or boring for
the gifted child.
There are a few things that might help if you're concerned about
short-changing your daughter (You won't, but we still worry about it!)
One is a series of books called "What You're (Insert Grade) Needs to
Know". It includes everything from Math and Reading to Music and Art.
Another is the Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills, which is a
workbook covering Math, Language, Citizenship, Science, Thinking
Skills, Spelling and Writing for each grade level. We've used it this
year and it helped my daughter learn things we might overlook, such as
library skills. Hope this helps!
Bill and Joi Ramey
On Thu, 16 Apr 1998 16:53:05 GMT, "Michael S. Morris"
<msmo...@netdirect.net> wrote:
>Thursday, the 16th of April, 1998
>
>
>Kevin Prickett writes:
> I believe that over half of what you read on
> these posts is what people intend to teach their
> children in the coming year, not what they actually
> teach. I've know a number of HS families that the
> parents are "teaching" their children advanced material,
> but when you talk to the kids they do not have any idea
> what their parents are talking about. Do not get me wrong,
> some kids to excel in areas but I do not think it is every
> area and every kid. Just keep teaching the basics and the
> rest will work out. But, do not get lazy, and keep
> encouraging her.
>
>Well, now, I find this pretty interesting. In the first
>place, I've done some posting---not a lot, I think---about
>my family's homeschooling curriculum. My feeling is that it is
>a relatively ambitious and structured programme. In
>fact, the way it reads to me is that most people contributing
>to this group do more what is described as "unschooling"
>(though in detail it often sounds to me like "unschooling"
>shouldn't be the word for it). Anyway, my wife and I are
>motivated by the belief that public school taught us about
>10 percent of what we feel we should have learned by high-school
>graduation, and that, by homeschooling, we can give our kids
>100 percent and spend less of their time (less than the 7-8
>hours a day we spent in public school learning the 10 percent).
>This is not, I repeat *not*, because we consider our children
>"little geniuses". It is rather that we *are not out to
>merely repeat what school can already do at home---we are out to
>better it*. A metaphor for this I borrow from Mortimer
>Adler---the idea is to fill them to the brim with the finest
>wine, not half-full of soda pop.
>
hey, if they're filled to the brim with the finest wine, won't they be
too tipsy to learn anything? Personally, I can't stand wine, so let's
say we'll fill them with, say, sparkling grape juice? Nah, too much
sugar...crystal clear, unpolluted spring water? Nah, then they'd
squirm around too much and have to go to the bathroom. They wouldn't
be able to sit still for all that Roman history (no, I'm not making
fun of you-I think you're curriculum is excellent). Hmm.....let me
think about this and get back to you.
Michael S. Morris
Thursday, the 23rd of April, 1998
Jeff says:
"The Evil Thing?" I agree that television
takes far too much of many peoples' time,
rather people give it far too much time.
No doubt. But I also think it gets far too
much blame for the ills of society. People
talk about it like it's heroin or something.
TV has no more power than we give it. [...]
I responded:
Of course TV has no more power than we give it.
Idiot politicians have no more power than we
give them. This doesn't mean, however, that we
don't give both of them too much power.
Jeff:
Idiot politicians are people. Televisions are
inanimate objects. People are capable, and often
prone, to abusing their power. Inanimate
objects are not.
Now, hol' on thar jes' a minut'! Turn to
_Figures of Speech_ by Arthur Quinn, p. 52-56,
or look up metonymy and catachresis in the
dictionary and then re-read my lips: "Of
course TV has no more power than we give it."
In other words, I do understand something about
casting the moral judgment "evil", and that
it refers to responsible moral agents and
not to inanimate TV sets. I also understand
something about politicians and how we give
them power in this republic---I mostly do
not blame politicians for this, but we who
hand them ever increasing power. Get it, now?
Jeff:
When is the last time you were able
to "shut a politician off," unless,
of course, he was on the television?
Speaking of a telelvision as an "evil
thing" is like blaming the refrigerator
for one's weight problem (at least as
reasonable as your comparison with politicians).
But I could perfectly well blame the
diabolical freezer for keeping all that
ice cream for me, and the sneaking pantry
for the hot fudge, which is whispering my
name even as I post, and the *tone* of what
I am saying---and the figure of speech---would
be the same.
Jeff:
Based on what little I know from your
post I'm impressed with your desire and
ability to keep the television watching
under control. To be frank, however, I
don't think it's that tough to do.
I'm afraid I think it's real tough---not for
somebody with my desire and ability, but, many
people are not ardent readers who find that TV
time is getting in the way of reading. And so
mustering the desire to put it under control
becomes tough.
Me:
I think my main complaint with TV is how much it is
like the public schools---it offers an easy abdication
of the responsibility of parenthood.
Jeff:
I agree with you here, but IMO the key
phrase is "abdication of the responsibility
of parenthood."
You don't need the "IMO". There really is no argument
from me about it. There never was.
Jeff:
Televisions do make it easier, but
they don't cause it.
I agree with you non-figuratively and
completely matter-of-factly that people
are the moral agents in question,
not the physical TV sets.
Jeff:
I still do not think televisions are
"evil" or even "bad."
Right. So I understood you from the beginning.
The question is: Why did you understand me
to be saying anything any different?
Jeff:
They are just there. And they are completely
at your disposal.
My point exactly in my story of having had the
TV habit, having quit it, and then having come
to terms with a reasoned, limited use policy and
having been able so far to stick that habit.
Jeff:
To the people with bumper stickers that
say "Kill Your Television Set," I say don't
be so paranoid.
See, I doubt that these people are paranoid in
the slightest. Or that they really are counseling
you to sprinkle arsenic into the thing.
Jeff:
Take some responsiblity for yourself, your
kids, and how you spend your time.
And, I'll add, if you watch the thing at all,
take some responsibility for the brain which
is doing the watching---that it not be ignorant
and credulous and the easy object of manipulation
by ad-men of any party or commercial stripe.
[...]
Jeff:
This amounts to only two activities on
the end of a school day. This IMO is
depriving them of the "sanctity of childhood"
(the completely lost subject of my original
response) and the chance to think about
anything other than what time it is and what
else they have to get done before they go
to bed. I didn't say they should be shuffled
from school to the TV set.
I know you were talking about "busy-ness". I understand and
believe that this is just as much under our control as
watching TV is. But, again, I think that in our culture,
and on average, TV tends to fill the "un-busy" time
of children, and so in fact I think that they are
shuffled in practice from school+other activities to
the TV set.
[...]
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Bonita Sheffield
Yes, refrigerators are patently evil and invented by Democrats, I'm
sure...she says wiping Ben & Jerry's Phish Food from the corners of her
mouth.
There oughtta be a law, I tell ya!
Bonita
Bonita Sheffield
Thank you...I've heard of that series of books, and plan on getting it for
next year, her sixth grade. But for the most part, I intend on easing into
this by using Alpha Omega's preset curriculum. I figure that if all the
worksheets and tests are pre-ordained (harps music plays)...then I can jazz
it up a bit (Sachmo growls).
Yikes, I'm having a seriously facetious day here. Read only half of what
you see and believe everything your cat tells you.
Bonita
Bonita Sheffield
God, hon...I used to live next door to a soccer mom, but she was completely
devoted to her son's innate interest in kicking around a ball with his pals.
Why is it, me included, that whatever other parents are doing must be wrong,
and whatever we plan with our kids is the best course of action?
Who cares if a family sits down to watch the Simpson's together and calls
that quality time? Or what if so-and-so feels she's doing well by her
family for all their scheduled activities? There are way too many things
that are a MYOB case, and for me, a MMOB situation.
I've got to get a handle on this judgemental thing I do, and from what I
read, so do most of the rest of you. (ducks, runs for cover, and yells
INCOMING). Okay, so slash my emails and let the air out of my posts, I got
opinions...a million of 'em.
Ha-cha-cha...finger to nose with a swankering walk off stage.
Bonita
Joseph M. White
>Thursday, the 23rd of April, 1998
>
>
>
>Joe says:
> Novel idea, why not teach core knowledge subjects?
>
>Shhh, boy! "Core knowledge subjects" could get a
>man in real trouble.
>
> Mike Morris
> (msmo...@netdirect.net)
Good Heavens!! I thought I had whispered! {8 o
joe
Joseph M. White
On 23 Apr 1998 21:32:52 GMT, de...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca () wrote:
>Joseph M. White (joseph...@lmco.com) wrote:
>: Great, another decision made by an MBA, instead of an educator. Now
>: the kids will have time to learn all about alternative lifestyles, or
>: cultural diversity or whatever created this pressing need. Why,
>: instead, don't they delete some of the horses**t and then they would
>: have plenty of time? Novel idea, why not teach core knowledge
>: subjects?
>
>: joe
>
>--
>
>Would you just "teach" your children "core knowledge subjects" at home, or
>would you provide an avenue for them to learn music, art, sports, etc.?
>For some kids, the music, the art or the physical education *are* their
>core subjects--the subjects in the fields where they will spend their
>adult lives.
>
>The worst part about removing recess is that those kids *need* to get out
>of their seats and burn off some energy.
>
>Daisy
Daisy, art, music and phys ed ARE core knowledge subjects.
Appreciation of why Johnny has two dads IS NOT. Understanding Ebonics
is NOT as important as being fluent in English. Considering the witch
hunt engendered by the Ron Price incident, (a local pedophile, who was
a teacher), do you really want your child to learn "Safe Sex
Practices" at school?
And,.............. elementary school kids NEED to get out of
doors and run, jump and play in order to develop properly. Recess IS a
core knowledge subject, also.
joe
JCM
Bonita Sheffield wrote:
> Who cares if a family sits down to watch the Simpson's together and calls
> that quality time? Or what if so-and-so feels she's doing well by her
> family for all their scheduled activities? There are way too many things
> that are a MYOB case, and for me, a MMOB situation.
>
> I've got to get a handle on this judgemental thing I do, and from what I
> read, so do most of the rest of you. (ducks, runs for cover, and yells
> INCOMING). Okay, so slash my emails and let the air out of my posts, I got
> opinions...a million of 'em.
>
> Ha-cha-cha...finger to nose with a swankering walk off stage.
>
> Bonita
How right you are. It seems, sometimes, that "the right way" is so
obvious. Perhaps it seems like that because there are so many ways that
would qualify. I was not raised in the same fashion as my wife was, and
that's an understatement. However, I wouldn't trade one of her
qualities, and, there must be something about me she likes as well.
We're raising our kids differently than we were raised, and they'll
probably do the same. Along the same lines, I'm amazed at how dependent
infants and little kids are on their parents, but at the same time it's
equally amazing how physically and emotionally durable they are, and, as
such, there is a great variety and degree of challenges that will only
enhance their growth and maturity. Nobody knows your kids, or your
intentions better than you.
Here's something funny...I haven't frequented a homeschool newsgroup
until this week. The group I've been reading most recently has been that
of my favorite NFL team. I found this homeschool group and thought
'wow, it'll be nice to read a newsgroup where exchange of information is
the primary focus, instead of childish insults. I'll try to be
good...really I will. :-)
Jeff
JCM
Ahhh. The voice of humor. The voice of reason. Thank you for
lightening this long winded debate (most of the wind has been on my
part).
Jeff
PS My wife and I are seriously considering getting rid of that
Pandora's Box we keep our food in!
JCM
Bonita Sheffield wrote:
>
> Yes, refrigerators are patently evil and invented by Democrats, I'm
> sure...she says wiping Ben & Jerry's Phish Food from the corners of her
> mouth.
>
> There oughtta be a law, I tell ya!
>
> Bonita
That's hilarious!!
There it is. The voice of humor and the voice of reason. Thank you for
lightening this long winded debate, most of which has blown in from my
direction.
Jeff
PS My wife and I are seriously considering getting rid of
that...that...that Pandora's Box! The one we keep our cookie dough in.
K. Hendershot
Bonita Sheffield wrote in message <6hp87b$q0c$1...@gte1.gte.net>...
>God, hon...I used to live next door to a soccer mom, but she was completely
>devoted to her son's innate interest in kicking around a ball with his
pals.
>Why is it, me included, that whatever other parents are doing must be
wrong,
>and whatever we plan with our kids is the best course of action?
>
>Who cares if a family sits down to watch the Simpson's together and calls
>that quality time? Or what if so-and-so feels she's doing well by her
>family for all their scheduled activities? There are way too many things
>that are a MYOB case, and for me, a MMOB situation.
>
>I've got to get a handle on this judgemental thing I do, and from what I
>read, so do most of the rest of you. (ducks, runs for cover, and yells
>INCOMING). Okay, so slash my emails and let the air out of my posts, I got
>opinions...a million of 'em.
>
>Ha-cha-cha...finger to nose with a swankering walk off stage.
My, my Bonita! You're feeling a little punchy at 12:30 in the
morning!! :) I've read a few of your posts from 12:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.
today, and found them all a lot of fun! Did you have too much of Ben and
Jerry's or what?!
Douglas Waltz
Watching the late news last night, they had a segment about how to make
your kids smart and get them ahead of the class... My husband and I
started laughing and he made a comment then that I think everyone here
would probably agree with... "Make your child the only kid in the class
and they will always be number one in the class..." It's not about
competing with other kids, it's all about what's best for your own
child...
Martha Waltz
de...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca
Joseph M. White (joseph...@lmco.com) wrote:
: Daisy, art, music and phys ed ARE core knowledge subjects.
: Appreciation of why Johnny has two dads IS NOT. Understanding Ebonics
: is NOT as important as being fluent in English. Considering the witch
: hunt engendered by the Ron Price incident, (a local pedophile, who was
: a teacher), do you really want your child to learn "Safe Sex
: Practices" at school?
This must be a YMMV thing. In "these parts of the woods", the core
subjects are English, math, science and social studies. The Premier of
the province tried to get physical education, music, art and dance removed
from the high schools, so that the students would focus on "core
subjects". The p.e. and all that were seen as superfluous.
When any teacher here says "core subject", it means English, math...
Now, I think, we've covered the dialectical aspect of this conversation
and find that we're in agreement!
: And,.............. elementary school kids NEED to get out of
: doors and run, jump and play in order to develop properly. Recess IS a
: core knowledge subject, also.
I agree.
Daisy
Elaine Harvey
de...@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote:
> Joseph M. White (joseph...@lmco.com) wrote:
>
> :
>
> : And,.............. elementary school kids NEED to get out of
> : doors and run, jump and play in order to develop properly. Recess IS a
> : core knowledge subject, also.
>
> I agree.
>
> Daisy
I would add one thought to the stew;when kids don't get recess, they get
antsy,
when they get antsy, they don't concentrate well
when they fail to concentrate and get antsy, they must be ADD/ADHD
when they get treated for ADD/ADHD, they get tested for spec ed
when they are spec ed, the school gets MONEY
hmmmmmmmmmmm.........
JMHO Elaine