What Christmas Means to Me

Some people just hate Christmas. They complain about the commercialism. They complain about the crowds at the mall, traffic on the roads, and are just plain unpleasant to be around. From my experience they are also the ones quickest to point out that we don't know exactly when Jesus was born and that most of our holiday icons are pagan in origin. Well, here's the humble view of one person who happens to like Christmas.

Christmas is special to me; because, it's the one time of year when I have a good excuse to honor the people I love. While lurking on a message board recently, I came across a comment where someone said the tradition of gift giving was rooted in some Western European pagan practice of giving small trinkets to celebrate a pagan holiday. I don't think that is the reason for giving gifts at Christmas. I prefer to think of the Three Wise Men who went to great lengths to bring the most expensive gifts available to a newborn baby. Why did they do that? They did it to honor Him. Is not the purpose of giving a gift to honor the recipient? Now, I'm not advocating spending more than you can afford; but, a person should give their best. Furthermore, isn't giving your very best the greatest honor you can do a person?

My father in law jokingly told E that he wanted a very expensive golf club for Christmas. So, I called him up to find out exactly which one it was. He said it was too expensive and wouldn't accept it if we got him one. I had to give him "The Three Wise Men Speech." I think it's a message we all need to remember. If someone feels compelled to honor you with an expensive gift you should simply say "thank you" and consider yourself lucky that someone loves you so much that they are willing to give you their very best.

Oh, and to all those people with a bad case of the humbugs, I say, "Christmas transcends you," and here's hoping you have the merriest Christmas ever. Merry Christmas. Enjoy the giving.

(Posted in honor of my father who loved Christmas more than anyone I've ever known and is no longer here to share it with us.)

Yup, Them Musta Been Aliens

Those wonderfully studious aliens left after 3 days. Oh...I sure miss them. I should have known it was too good to last.

What was it that caused them to buckle down those few days? I simply must know. They wouldn't tell me when I asked them. In fact, they both smiled that "we got one over on mom" smile and didn't say a word. What's up with that? I'm starting to suspect they did something they are going to be in big trouble for (once I figure out what they did)and were trying to be super good to lessen the consequences. When I was a kid my mom always knew when I had done something wrong; because, I would pick flowers and take them to her. She liked flowers. I wanted her to be happy when she discovered what I'd done. Yes, schoolwork would be flowers to me; but,...three days of schoolwork? It must be something major!

Nothing is broken or missing. R is in one piece. What could it be?

Hot Diggety Dog!

They're doing it again today! Perhaps it's because Christmas is near and Santa is watching. Perhaps they have been kidnapped by aliens and replaced with replicas as E suggested. One of them just asked me where his analogy workbook is; because, he wants to do the work in it! Yep! They've been replaced by aliens alright. My real children have to be coaxed out of bed each morning, reawakened 5 or six times, told several times to get dressed, propped up at the kitchen table, and threatened with the loss of various privileges or assigned extra chores to get them started doing schoolwork. They don't get up in the morning and work diligently on their schoolwork after only being told once. They certainly wouldn't do it two days in a row!

Oh man, oh man! There is hope for them yet!

Honey, Come See This!

E caught R doing amazing things the other day & hollered "Honey, come see this!" There was just recently turned 3 yr. old R neatly lining up pictures of US presidents. I looked at E wondering 'what's the big deal?' He does stuff like that all the time. I told E how R had done several pages of matching exercises in a workbook the previous day. E, watching R carefully aligning the pictures, kept expressing his amazement at R's abilities. He looked at me and said, "Uh. Honey..." I asked, "Are you saying it's time to start schooling him?" "Yes," he said nodding emphatically. "OK, how do I do that," I asked. Looking shocked that I would ask such a lame question he replied, "the same as you've been doing," as he jerked his head toward K & T.

I thought for a while about what E said. Yes, I agree R is ready to start some formal schooling. He's learning to draw pictures and could (with a good deal of effort on my part)learn to write his ABCs and numbers this year. He's able to sort and classify objects and can count to 10. His phonics skills already match those of a kindergartener. He's started pointing to individual words in books and asking what they say. He recognizes a few words. But...his speech still needs improvement. He still has tantrums sometimes. His attention span is 45 minutes on a good day (usually it's 20-30 min.) He's not even potty-trained yet. Of course there's my fear of pushing him too hard and really screwing him up. If I were completely honest with myself I'd admit that it's really the only reason I'm hesitating.

He's been using the computer for a while visiting www.starfall.com and playing learning games on CD that I picked up at Target. He sometimes picks up one of the workbooks that came with the CD's and works for 30 minutes or so alongside K & T at the kitchen table. I haven't made him do any of these things. But, most days he's more interested in donning his power ranger shirt and perfecting his monster slaying skills. Will he cooperate if I try formal lessons? I think I need to do some research and planning. Perhaps waiting until after Christmas before starting lessons would be a good idea also.

It's About Time

The NC DNPE finally got around to realizing posting the names and addresses of every homeschooler in NC up on the internet for every psycho out there to see might not be a good thing. In the back of my mind I wondered if that would one day lead some homeschool hating weirdo with an ax to my front door. Hopefully, the weirdos didn't print the list out before it was password protected. Now, I only have to worry about weirdos who happen to be NC homeschoolers. Thanks guys. I really feel safe now.

I do not understand the necessity for putting that list online, passworded or not. Why do other homeschoolers need access to my address? I certainly don't want the religious freaks coming to my door telling me how I am going to hell for letting my daughter wear blue jeans or something just as ridiculous. I don't want to be sought out by bark-eaters either. Nice, normal people would be welcome; but, nice, normal people wouldn't just show up on my doorstep saying "hey, I got your address off the DNPE website and thought I'd drop by."

Even more ridiculous is the report that NCHE asked DNPE to do something three years ago. WHY did they wait until after that nut blew away those Amish kids before responding?

JAN 7 UPDATE: I just checked the DNPE website. The addresses have been removed.

Unschooling?

Apparently the latest hullabaloo centers around unschooling. Even E, who doesn't keep up to date on homeschooling issues, brought it up in conversation the other day talking about some article he read that made it sound marvelous. He even went so far as to give it some credence and used some pedagogical jargon to describe it. I couldn't believe that my husband, the public school teacher and member of the NEA, thought unschooling was a nifty idea. He talked about how they strew books and various other educational materials throughout the house hoping to lure the children into learning something. He dropped the subject after I shared the mental picture described below.

I could just see myself dropping library books here and there where the kids might stumble across them while hunting for batteries to the wireless playstation controller. Sure, K (who, at present just happens to be glued to the playstation voraciously pursuing monsters) would read them after she got bored with the video games. T, on the other hand, would develop fused joints from the waist down from sitting in the same position. Furthermore, while he would have full range of motion of his thumbs and index fingers, the rest of his fingers would be hopelessly contracted into a curled position. After several days of not sleeping he would begin to hallucinate... I'm only being somewhat sarcastic. There is a real possibility that the above scenario could occur were my son permitted to plant himself in front of a video game as part of an unschooling experiment.

To be fair I can understand some of the reasons unschoolers might have for their choice. Sure, I also loathed having to memorize dates in history. I still think it is a waste of brain cells to memorize which British or French kings ruled in what order. Who didn't despise group projects - except perhaps the dumb kids who got a free "A" out of it? And, I have certainly never used the quadratic formula or taken a derivative outside of a math class. I'm still unsure what purpose they serve and have no sincere desire to know. Yes, knowing how to manage your personal finances is far more important to far more people than being able to recite: x equals negative b plus or minus the square root of b to the second power minus 4ac divided by 2a. I have a checkbook and can be charged with a crime if I can't balance it. I have never encountered a quadratic equation in the real world; although, some of my brain cells contain the knowledge by which I could solve one. So, one has to admit that a lot of what is learned in school is useless in the real world. By the way, they never taught me how to balance a checkbook. (The nice lady at the bank did that when I was 19, after I bounced a check.)

Wouldn't it be great if the kids took their educations in hand and zoomed forward mastering academic pursuit after academic pursuit with learning occurring during every waking hour as unschoolers purport it does? I would be in hog-heaven if that were anything but a fantasy. Before a person can choose a new pursuit he must have been exposed to it somehow. What person just pops up one day wanting to know what a fractal is without having heard or read of it? Even then the curiosity is only cursory. One must have sufficient exposure to the topic to decide whether one wants to truly know it. It is our responsibility to generate interest. And, generating interest is not a passive endeavor. It takes effort.

I will not be sitting around waiting for my children to get an education. I agree with the sentiment that it is most likely an excuse for plain, old laziness.

One more thing...one of the reasons we homeschool was our annoyance at how often the school systems use our children as guinea pigs to test out the latest educational fads and kooky reading programs. Why would anyone want to test out such a far-fetched notion on their own kids? Around here, we think and discuss learning strategies before we subject the kids to them. You only get one shot at this, you know. If you screw it up your kids have to pay dearly for your mistakes.

K's Opinion of Homeschooling

For the last week it's been somewhat difficult getting the kids to finish their schoolwork in a reasonable time. The resulting long days have worn me out. Feeling discouraged I cornered K and asked her how she truly felt about being homeschooled. The conversation went like this:

Me: K, do you like being homeschooled?
K: Yes, mama.
Me: Really? Are you just saying that? Don't you miss going to public school? I mean, don't tell me you'd rather be homeschooled just because you think that would make ME happy.
K: No mama, I don't want to go back to public school. You teach me so much. And, I really like the books.
Me: What do you mean?
K: The books at school didn't have many words. They had too many pictures. Our homeschool books have more words. I learn lots more stuff. And, the pictures really teach me things. The science books at school just had pictures of animals and stuff. I didn't learn anything from them. The pictures in our books give me information. They have stuff I can learn.
Me: Well, tell me this. Which one is easier, public school or homeschool?
K: Public school was easier.
Me: Didn't you like it easier?
K: No, it didn't teach me much.
Me: Is homeschool too hard?
K: Yes, it's hard sometimes. But, I like learning new stuff and you help me. I don't mind if it's hard. I like learning lots of new stuff.
Me: Wow. I'm glad you like learning.
K: (hugging me) Thanks mama. I love you.

Later that evening I related the conversation to E. The most amazing smile crossed his face. That smile was just as rewarding to see as K's word were to hear. Somewhere along the way the proverbial fire got lit and I didn't even realize it.

Moreover, I've realized that perhaps they've been slow getting the work done because they are trying to absorb new information rather than being lackadaisical.