Yes I am still here

Likely most of my readership is gone by the wayside, but that's OK. Facebook has gotten some of my time, and I honestly don't know where my brain has gone, but it seems to be emptier than normal.

Anyhow, one interesting phenomenon in parenting is trying to instill things into your children that you don't have. Pick one...discipline, compassion, patience, gentleness.... I find personally that discipline is pretty high on my list. I'm an action guy, I like the exciting times...activities that move... but I'm not so good when it comes to disciplining myself to get better, especially in the mundane. You can go to a certain point on instinct and raw ability, in fact pretty far if you've got the knack...but to become good or great, you've got to have the discipline.

In parenting, yes...each child is their own. And yes, they constantly surprise me with their abilities, many of which I don't have. But...I cringe when I see the nagging traits repeating themselves. Luckily they get the good stuff too I guess :-)

So in the New Year, a repeating mantra to self. Do not be satisfied with the previous status quo. Fail and fail again. But never give up. How much more powerful the lesson to succeed when failure has been repeated over (and over) again. And share those victories (and failures) with your kids...it's good for them to know you fail too.

I couldn't make this up if I tried...

This is the partial text from the Massachusetts General School Law of 1647, also known as the "Old Deluder Satan Law":

"It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures...It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction...shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parents or masters of such children, or by the inhabitants..."

Ironic to think about the origins, isn't it? Here's more info.

Homeschool athletics

Formalized sports teams at school are certainly not a big issue for us now, but it could be in the future. I found an interesting perspective about it here. Not sure I've ingested it all completely, after all we aren't really homeschooling since we use a public charter school, but it was an interesting read. I thought the 4 points below, even removed from the athletics discussion, rang true to my experience.

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Snippet of the article
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...However, despite these factors, there is continuing pressure for increased state regulation of homeschooling. Once regulations are in place for homeschooling athletes, there will be strong pressure to apply them to all homeschoolers, leading to increased regulation of all homeschoolers.

How do we know this will happen? For several reasons, including the following:

* First, through no fault of our own, we homeschoolers are seen as a threat to the educational establishment, The most powerful interest groups in our society. Most of the educational establishment feels that homeschools need to be controlled and regulated and forced to become as much like conventional schools as possible.

* Second, our society does not trust parents and others who are not trained professionals or "experts." Although homeschooling has gained some acceptance, many people still feel there may be "something fishy going on;" the government probably should check up on homeschoolers.

* Third, the general public has accepted increasing government control of public schools, most recently in the form of new educational standards and increased use of state-mandated standardized tests. Most non-homeschoolers assume the government should also oversee homeschools.

* Fourth, some school officials are telling truants, dropouts, and expelled students to homeschool, or at least suggesting it. These officials are then turning around and saying that greater regulation of homeschooling is needed because truants, dropouts, and expelled students may be escaping to homeschooling.

Prayer in schools?

Remember that? Was it really that long ago? Wasn't there this big controversy about how it's religious and shouldn't be allowed? Is the position that school is about reading, writing, and arithmetic? Do I want a watered down prayer to a higher power in my kids classroom anyhow? That battle was really lost long ago. OK, fine, agreed.

With that said, now realize that really wasn't the issue. It's really about not allowing thought that is contrary to the agenda. Am I just towing the conservative line? Maybe so folks, but the line makes sense. Get ready middle America, it's coming, I hope that middle America is strong enough to turn the tide. I know this school. I know people who go here. This is just a few miles from where I used to live. Education is strong; mold the minds of the youth and you turn society. Try to be a conservative teacher in California and have a voice; if you're willing to fit in fine, if you have an opinion, good luck. Go ahead, wear a "Yes on 8" sticker to class, let me know how that works out.

Here's the article. Oh I'm sorry, Prop 8, it's not about schools. You're right. Do you think a school gets permission when it talks to your kids about marriage? About a family? Redefine a family and you think your permission will be needed, as if it is now? ARGGGGHHHH. WAKE UP!!!!

Who do you think has more money?

Apple computer or the California Teachers Association? Apple donated $100K to the "No on 8" campaign, whereas the CTA donated $1 million. The CTA is the BIGGEST contributor of all. Bigger than Apple. Bigger than Levi's. Uh, what's wrong with this picture??? I thought the schools were in a budget crisis? Last time I had a budget crisis, I focused on what was important. I paid the bills I needed to pay and cut out the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream.

So either there's no budget crisis...or the No on 8 is REALLY important to them. So why would it be really important? Com'on these are the questions one logically has to ask! There's a slippery slope that we're playing on here. The bottom line is that it IS important for the CTA to cram liberal ideology like this down our kids throats, directly or subtly. I know parents, I've heard it. "But they have to get my permission to talk about to my kid about sex". And "I love my kid's teachers." Fine. And I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. But a lot is taught outside the formal curriculum.

Am I a radical? Do I think your kid can survive California public school. Absolutely. But one of the keys to power in any situation is influence. And for a small kid, the authority figures on the top of the influence pole are the parents and the teacher. It's pretty hard for a small child to decipher good and bad influence so you'd better be on top of it.

I'd say I don't really remember too much subtle mind molding until about the 6th grade. Maybe to that point the education was fairly pure or maybe I just don't remember, what 11 year old or lower boy would? Begin 6th grade though and the slant was steep at times depending on the teacher. Once I hit college, forget it. Just keep your mouth shut and get through the class.

So when do I "let 'em go" so to speak?" (the kids that is) You know I don't quite know yet. If I had all the answers I'd be writing books and getting paid rather than blogging (mostly for me :-) This much I do know, I'm certainly training my kids to stick up for themselves and their beliefs. Don't believe me...fine, ask Dash. And we constantly look for new ways to let more rope out.

Next year they want a new bond measure to tax me for more money in our district? Pack that, take your money that's supposed to be used for education and salaries and use it for just that.

So I leave you with a few quotes:

"Who dares take on religion, free enterprise, patriotism, and motherhood?
We do -- and we must!" ("Guidelines for Academic Freedom in the Public
Schools," CTA, 1984)" (25 years ago, long time planned)

"We are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable" the late Richard Rorty, professor at Wellesley, Princeton, Univ of VA, and Stanford

Well said

Don't know that I agree with the whole of the article, but the quote aligns really well with our particular scenario...

"You know what? Our reasons for home educating our children have changed. Even if given the most perfect public school there is, I'm extremely doubtful that we would enroll our children back into that system. Just by the very fact of removing ourselves from that system, our horizons have broadened. We are much different people than we were three years ago. We have learned to question more and accept “expert opinion” less. We have learned that our own “instinct” is quite often the best answer we can find. We have learned to seek our own knowledge and to view things very differently from mainstream society. Not only are we adults learning to “think outside the box”, but our children are learning that there is no box."
Valid Reasons for Homeschooling

This is from an unschooler, something that at this point we're not. Strange bedfellows I tell you, maybe the answer to bringing together the left and the right is homeschooling. Seriously, we've been very pleased with supplementing our world with secular HS group.

Free range kids?

OK. I'm trying to combine two things in my head here...here goes...

One is an article I recently read about a New York Post columnist who let her 4th grade child ride the subway alone. Her point? "My son got home, ecstatic with independence." Modern parenting is "debilitating—for us and for them." The article met national "outrage" by some and she ended up on the morning news circuit.

The other is a radio interview where a story was relayed about a young girl, obviously still in the "boys have cooties" phase, who told her mom, "My teacher says that when I get older I can marry a girl if I want." When the mom explained her position on this subject (in terms I'm assuming appropriate for the age), the little girl said, "My teacher said there would be people like you."

So one story is lauding the freedom of letting your kids go. The other, to me a least, shows a danger in giving your child's freedom to someone else. One story is about physical boundaries and the other more mental than physical.

In the search for right's and wrong's, as usual the answers aren't always easy. Do I agree with the columnist? You know, when it comes to physical limitations, everybody's got their comfort zone. To some extent I agree with her, you got to let your kids live and learn. I'll let my kids jump crazy on the trampoline, even though I know there's kids who have seriously injured themselves doing so. I pretty much won't let my kids snow ski; one because it's so darn expensive, but two, because I screwed myself up so badly doing it. But sure, you got to use your head; I'm far more loose where we live now in comparison to our old neighborhood. I guess if you can't live with yourself thinking that something might happen, then you got to take the precautions that keep you sane.

On the other one. It would certainly be a point I'd use to support homeschooling. California SB777 shows how schools are definitely overstepping their bounds, at least at the macro level. How fast that gets to the micro, where teachers who are not zealous for the agenda are actually actively being forced to support it, remains to be seen. That's assuming your kid has a teacher who is not actually already zealous. I could go on here, but that's not really the point of this discussion. Nor is this type of issue the only reason we homeschool.

But aside from these specific issues, the real question to me, in both cases is how am I preparing my child for both circumstances? How am I preparing my child for complete freedom (and responsibility) in adulthood? At what speed am I letting out the rope? In homeschooling, we've got much more control of that rope cuz we hold it almost all day long, but it's still got to come out. We've all seen the rope come out too fast, and we've all seen it come out too slow. In my opinion, both cases can lead to an accidental hanging.

One lady once said to me, "Our job isn't to protect our kids, it's to make them strong." Point taken, though of course it's obviously not an either/or situation...and you got to keep the end in sight.

Parenting...not for the faint of heart...now where's that rope? Ah, yes, last I remember, Cosmic Boy had tied up some of Dash's action figures with it...better go get it.

Expectations

Alright, I'm sure there's some theory out there, I'm sure there are academic studies of why or why not expectations for your kids are good or bad. I'm sure my kids will need some couch time at some point when they get older. But darn it, when I take my kids out, I have some :-)

So, in the category of "Rants", I pass on this tale...a similar tale no doubt could be penned by any of us.

Wonder Woman and I were on a plane with a 3 kids, one of which I'll call BamBam - age 4, and a mom behind us. Wonder Woman had to move to a different seat because BamBam was literally beating her chair with his fists and feet. This was of course after he sang nonsense loudly for a period of time. Luckily, this all stopped when mom pulled out the electronic medicine, aka fancy gameboy of some variety, DS or something (I believe he at least 2 of them on the plane). Ritalin with batteries.

However as the plane began it's descent, mom had to turn off her iPod, fancy smartphone, and laptop and again deal with BamBam; she apparently is inflicted with the same computer virus as her child. He began screaming "I want my DS!!!" At first the straightforward approach, "I'm sorry honey you can't have it right now". Then, she tried the lying angle, "Honey, it's out of batteries". As the conversation continued, she said things like "Let's talk about this OK?", or "See...mommy had to turn off her iPod too", or "This is the rule of the plane honey." or "This is also the rule of the pilot, he says people can't do this right now." Hmmm, do you think any of this worked?

Now, we move on to the sibling interaction. As this went on, the princess child, the only girl who obviously seemed to have a shopping connection with the mom, called him a "Brat". Actually she was right. But this transformed the conversation from the DS to the sibling rivalry. I heard the "Don't we want to be friends?" line, followed by the "Let's say sorry" at which the daughter mumbled out a pretty good, "I'm sorry" (for what?) Now my favorite line, with the mom's prompting to "BamBam", "What do you have to say?"...."Nofing", said BamBam. I just about laughed out loud. Geez. As the plane landed, mom turned on the phone and never had it away from her ear even as I saw her pass baggage claim.

I as a parent have expectations for my child. I am the parent. So, in this case and many others, I heard more "I'm sorry" from the mom than I did from any child. And since the mom had no authority, she had to call on anyone around who had some. People often say when they find out we homeschool, usually while in the "I could never do that" wavelength, "I can't teach my kids, they'll never listen to me!!" Well, I'm not telling anybody to homeschool, that's not for everybody, but don't let that be your reason. You must have expectations for your kids, and by golly set the bar high.

So, an extreme example, yes. But as I reflected on the little superheros, I thanked God for them repeatedly. Then as I picked them up from Ms America and her driver who watched them while we were in Seattle, she commented "They do fight a lot, don't they!?!" Ooooops :-) Well, at least she says, "...but they work it out"

"Ordinary is not good enough. Normal will not change the world. We are No Ordinary People, created by No Ordinary God, for No Ordinary Purpose." Denise Mira

Reality check

As parents, we're constantly asking ourselves "Are we doing the right thing?". In fact if we're not, there's a problem. In our case, since we're really so different than the norm many times, it happens frequently, sometimes daily. The farther you get a away from your bubble of comfortability, the more you feel like an alien. Since our move further into the burbs, we're outside our bubble. And quite frankly that's not a bad thing, check out the lyrics of the classic Christian rock song by Petra, "Not of this world", and you might agree that it's the feeling we should have.

So the big question we get (com'on Homeschooling families, you know this one...) is "What about socialization?". There's a really good discussion of the topic here, including a discussion of "What are you actually asking?" It's a more complicated question than you might think, and the root of the question is important to understand before attempting an answer. There's some good questions to be had, but the common root of the question with most people is usually along the simple lines of "What about friends?".

Back to the where the rubber meets the road, you might note the comments in the video about Cosmic Boy. You could bottle those and replay them year after year; "best attitude", "positive", "encouraging", "does what he is asked", "respectful", "good natured". Are all those comments because of homeschooling? Do his superhero parents take all the credit? Of course not, glory be to God. However, it certainly was encouraging to come home after his baseball season, do a reality check with Wonder Woman and be able to say, at least for now, "That's what it's all about". Is Cosmic Boy able to function in society, "Quite well, thank you very much!"

If the media doesn't like him...

...maybe he ain't that bad. I've had a few email conversations with Mike Arata. He's a local gentleman, former teacher and coach, who has campaigned against some initiatives by our local school district. The latest was a proposed parcel tax (Measure D) above the existing one to "support our local schools". Yes, he was a close friend of the recent murder victim, Ernie Scherer, who also had similar efforts.

It's been interesting as we switched from living in a "bad" school district to a "good" one, that we are looked at very differently in our decision to homeschool. Before our move, people might reply "Oh, I see why you homeschool!" when they found out what school district we were in. Now, the response is typically one of shock since we live in "such a great school district". There's also big defense mechanism that many times kicks in, along the lines of "We paid big money to live here because the schools are so great, what do you mean you homeschool? Who do you think you are? Our schools are GREAT, how could you do such a thing?"

Our reasons for homeschooling are not one-dimensional, in other words, it's not just the academic education that causes us to homeschool. However, one point I've really become to realize, is that the public school system, especially my local one is not as good as you might think. Of anyone, I feel very qualified to have that opinion. I went K-11 in SRVUSD and found it for the most part fairly easy and I excelled. I found the instruction and competition much superior at James Logan in Union City my senior year, ironically an "inferior" school district.

So, in any case, no matter where you live, don't always believe what you read. Once again, I find the schools allow for free thought as long as it doesn't cross their beliefs. I can only imagine the scorn if I were to put up a "No on D" sign in my yard, yet the 18 year old students in the district were hand delivered ballots to sign for "D". You should read the local press on Mike Arata (see example link below). And also, if you're interested, the book "Not as good as you think", a book about middle class education in the US. Simple solutions are no where to be found, but we have to start somewhere.

Check out the assault on Mike Arata (how dare he support a "no" position)
http://www.citizensforqualityschools.net/FAQ.html

How about some reasonable facts about the school budgets?
http://www.noond.info/

Book Link
Not as good as you think

You can vote for Emily's math quiz on the left

Be high-tech and help Emily at the same time!

What it takes to be a homeschool parent

Here is a video about a local homeschooling family. This video really encouraged me because the family seems so "normal". When we mention we home school, sometimes we get the alien look--you know, eyes popping out of the head--and the quesion, "YOU DO WHAT? HOW DO YOU DO THAT??" So, here is a glimpse into a real family that does what we do! Enjoy!

KGO TV Homeschooling Story