Daytime Curfew? In Buffalo?

Update:

I found out this from my Council person:

  Thank you for expressing your concerns, I agree there are a number of issues that would need to be worked out for this to go forward. The daytime curfew ordinance is still in discussion phase and there will be a public meeting next Monday, March 9 from 6pm-8pm at the Edward Saunders Community Center at 2777 Bailey Avenue to discuss the ordinance. I encourage you to attend to express your concerns and hear from other residents.

This morning there I came across the news story:

Officials discuss merits of daytime curfew

I am very troubled by this.  First of all, I have immediate concerns that when I am out and about with my kids, 7 and 8, that I will be required to produce my IHIP compliance letters showing that it is OK that they are not in school because they are homeschooled.  This reminds me of headlines out of Arizona some time ago that people could be stopped and asked to produce proof of citizenship. I am sure if I lived there, I would always be in some kind of trouble since I routinely walk out of the house with only house keys and a bus pass. Ironically, in Arizona, their homeschool laws are among the most free of all the states.  Regardless, I can't help but think that Buffalo should not consider any measures that would remind someone of the proof of citizenship sorts of requirements in Arizona.  It isn't who we are.  A daytime curfew is a terrible idea.  There may be an exception for kids who are with parents (possibly assuming they are on the way to a doctor's appointment or something), but what about homeschooled teenagers who are out in the world learning rather than being cooped up in school?  Will they be harassed by the police on their way to a class at a museum or work at a family business?  I talk to a great many interesting and seemingly responsible teenagers on the bus all the time going to activities or their parents' work.

The other thing that is troubling is the message we are giving to students.  At every turn our society tells teenagers they are not to be trusted.  Perhaps that is why some mistrust adults and don't feel like they need to go to school if enrolled in school (obviously being homeschooled is better in my view).  They know that they are being told what to do and what to think rather than beginning to take on real responsibility.  There are already night curfews.  It isn't great to be out after dark for anyone, but there is a special ordinance for teenagers essentially criminalizing them for more items than corresponding adults.  Once they reach adulthood we tell them they are still can't be trusted to have beer until they are 21.  Then we wonder why our teenagers are a problem.  I can't help but think we are scapegoating them for the problems in society knowing that we can only restrict adult behavior so much.  Sometimes, it even seems that the restrictions have replaced those formerly placed on minorities before civil rights and other measures.  Perhaps we allow the questioning of teenagers during certain hours to indirectly permit the questioning of minority individuals in the process.  African Americans age so well, I am not sure I can tell the difference at times between a 16 year old black teenage or a 19 year old black man.  Won't the police approach the 19 year old too?  Don't forget that most of the city is minority.  I hope people will see the curfew for what it may become.

Am I the only one troubled by this?

Not in Buffalo: Getting Hands-on with Traditional Weaving

After our great experience last year with my friend in a different part of Guatemala, we decided to go to Antigua to explore more Mayan culture and, of course, some Spanish colonial history.

For a hands-on activity, the kids wanted to take a weaving class.  They took one last year, but wanted another.  This one was a little different because they made a smaller item, but followed the whole process start to finish helping the teachers place the threads on the looms before they got to take over the weaving.  The class was at a cool bar Tintos Y Arte .  We were tempted to have beer and wine while they did the class, but we were pretty full from breakfast.  Instead we watched the kids and took advantage of two hours of uninterrupted adult conversation.

The teachers were great and super patient with the kids.  I will let the photos tell you the rest:

Public Transportation Curriculum

When we are out and about late afternoon, it is difficult to fight the sinking feeling when I see the all too familiar yellow buses.  A little bit of the feeling is the resource intensiveness of the super security to go a short distance versus the relatively low economic resource levels of children in our city.  More of it, however, is the knowledge that those children, as well as those in the bubbles of their parents' vehicles, are missing the tremendous number of educational opportunities on the NFTA buses and metro rail.  Indeed, all cities with relatively significant public transportation systems have unique systems and environments for learning.

Some of it is what you expect, geography and timing, but much more of it is character and socialization.  Kids in cars have no real responsibility for their own transportation.  They can't because they can't drive.  Besides putting their seat belt on without being asked and not distracting mom and dad, there's nothing.  Students on yellow buses can make sure to be at the stop on time and behave, but nothing else.  My kids have to carry their own bus passes, get them out at the right time, not lose them, make sure they scan, pull for the stop at the right time, etc.  These are not tremendously difficult things to do, but they need to do the same things adults do in order to ride.  They get real responsibilities sooner.

There are many rewarding social encounters.  Often, someone sees us and alerts me to a good place to take kids or some event for them nearby that I hadn't heard about.  Sometimes they witness kind adults and teenagers giving up their front seats for elderly or disabled people.  This is something they are starting to do.  One time, my son chatted with a man who was impressed with a story he told and encouraged him to write a book.

There are also social encounters that just don't happen in other environments since there are so few other opportunities to be in close quarters with strangers.  Many are great learning opportunities.  We witnessed two men heckling a woman over her hat one day and the incident had many components including: how to behave in public, freedom of religious expression, the lack of correlation between religious beliefs and proper behavior sometimes, as well as the idea that sometimes even the truth need not be stated.  We discussed these things the best we could given their complexity and their current ages.  Another time, we met someone on the bus who clearly had a hard life and was facing several hardships.  The kids kept pointing out several ways she and I were similar.  When I talked to them later, I tried to make them understand that often the only difference between someone who is doing okay and someone facing hardships are a few wrong turns, some of which may be outside of their control.  I hope they are learning empathy and compassion.

The more of these encounters and experiences we have, the more I believe that the decline of public transportation is one of many reasons that individualism and materialism seem to be so high in our culture.  There is no longer a sense that we are all more similar than than we are different or that we are all in it together.  It is easier to see others as "other" or even less than human when you don't have to get close to them.  People can more easily be in bubbles: in cars driving from their homogenous town past those "other" kinds of people in those "other" neighborhoods.

Hopefully, I am countering some of this bubble culture with my kids.  Only time will tell if riding around on the bus is the answer to responsibility and character building.

Do you ever get tempted to send the kids to school?

I am embarrassed to say that every year (sometimes more often) I consider school for the kids.  It isn't because I think they are missing something.  We have been at homeschooling long enough that it is obvious that they are doing just as well academically as school kids.  They experience all kinds of things that are just not available when cooped up all day.  I have great answers for those that contradict me about not sending them to school.  Intellectually, it is very clear that homeschooling is best, at least for us.

However, my frustration level skyrockets at times when I spend the whole day begging for them to do chores or the few traditional school items that we require.  My kids are great out of the house and will do whatever is asked by instructors at activities or church or helping other parents when we visit.  But at home, it seems that they don't feel compelled to do what is expected.  This is, of course, a better situation than good behavior at home and poor behavior outside the home, but it is exhausting!  At times, I get to the point of threatening school.  I am sure many of you are mortified by such a threat, but it just seems that they often aren't grateful for the freedom.  We ask ourselves if we should send them for a while so they understand?  For a few weeks, months, maybe a year?  Would they be grateful after?  I went to good schools, but when you include transportation and homework, it was 35-40 hours a week with no control over my time.

Am I the only one who feels this way?  Is this even tougher with a school-at-home style?  We are unschoolers, but with the added extra structure that, once old enough, they have to write about what they do for learning.  Is this better or worse across ages or styles?  Is compliance just better from kids that have tried school?   These are all things we think about constantly.

Really Covering Citizenship - School Board Election Time

Tonight we attended a session with the candidates for the Buffalo Board of Education at the Merriweather branch library.  First of all, for those of you not from the state of New York, yes, school board elections are in May, not in November with the other elections.  It does encourage a lack of broad representation in the sense that those that make a special effort to turn out in May usually have some vested interest of some sort, for better or for worse.  Anyway, there were a couple of things that struck me about the evening.

The first was that I was covering citizenship much better compared to the parents (and teachers) of school students.  Out of about 30,000 students in the district, there were perhaps 10 from what I could see, presumably school kids, in the audience.  Where were the students?  Surely they have vested interest in what happens.  I can only guess that some kids, the trouble makers who were alluded to regarding suspensions, don't care and the "good students" are too busy doing homework, going to activities, and going to bed early.  Either way, it is clear to me that homeschooling, with its lack of homework, lack of suspensions and relative lack of need for a bed time permits more engagement in the political process.  It is sort of a microcosm of the way the corporatocracy has kept people too busy to participate and notice that our state and national elections are bought.  Between busy or disengaged students and disadvantaged parents who need to work multiple jobs to have a living wage, I am sad but not surprised.  I hope I was setting an example for my kids that I tried to ascertain which candidates are good.

The second thing that struck me was that all the candidates were mainstream in the sense that they stated what you would expect.  No one, even the more interesting candidates, was outraged about mandatory kindergarten, for example, which to me is a big attack on parents rights and freedoms to decide what is right for their children.  There was all the "working together" and "caring about the community" rhetoric of course.  It was much easier to see which candidates not to vote for.  Sergio Rodriguez boldly stated how much he as for mandatory kindergarten and even mandatory Pre-K in the typical more-school-is-better approach to learning.  Clearly, he has not read what I have read about child development and the ways children learn.  Several candidates, including Sam Davis who most directly seemed to address it, stated that they wanted to eliminate waste and get the money into the classrooms.  This shows the ignorance of the candidates.  It is an extremely small percentage of what is spent that isn't directly or indirectly mandated by state education law and related applicable laws and contracts developed under those laws.  It is not to say that all tax dollars are put to good use.  I would certainly overhaul the entire education system, but such things would have to occur at the state level.  Making a note of those who mentioned this also eliminated several possible candidates for me.  I was pleasantly surprised that so many stated fairly directly that they wanted the good programs to be spread across the district to neighborhood schools rather than concentrated in a few schools in an unfair manner.  Unfortunately, this didn't help differentiate the candidates too well even though Wendy Mistretta seemed to articulate this best of all that spoke on this.  I agree with them on the inherent unfairness obviously, but it wasn't a differentiating factor.  Only one candidate, Daniel Reynolds, spoke about child centered learning at all.  He didn't state it directly, but alluded to it by wanting to teach students via their interest in hip hop.  My fear is that between not explaining it well and acting somewhat strange in that he included singing and dancing during the session that he may not be taken seriously.  He also seemed to be one of the more interesting ones in terms of his own education.  However, despite this he was for mandatory kindergarten when I talked to him although at least was open minded enough to tell me he would do further research on his position after speaking to me.

Anyway, I haven't finalized my choices yet other than deciding who not to vote for.  Whoever gets elected, however, the proof of educational improvement to me will be in how many of the students attend next year's board candidate forums because it will show whether or not the teaching methods have instilled enthusiasm and priorities.

Mandating Kindergarten and the Continuing Wrong Direction of Education

This morning my fibromyalgia was bad and I woke up very bored and too stiff to do much, so I put on the news despite that fact that I am always on guard for a corporate/materialism agenda.  One of the stories was about the Board of Buffalo Schools requesting that the NY state legislature mandate kindergarten in a similar manner to Syracuse and New York City.  I was alarmed by the story as the tone is such that the Board expects that starting academics earlier will achieve better educational outcomes.  No one seems opposed or is even questioning it.  There is no discussion of what is actually better for children or what helps them learn.  Are they developmentally ready for serious academics at age 5?  Does the emotional trauma of taking children away from parents on a full-time basis at such a young age detract from their ability to learn?  Does the existing type of schooling even work well enough to necessitate more of it?  With the increasing amount of data available in the information age, should there be less traditional instruction and more focus on critical thinking and data retrieval?  Why is more and more schooling needed to achieve adulthood?  The conventional wisdom seems to be Pre-K (age 4) through graduate school (age 24 or 26) on a full-time basis to be considered "competitive" for jobs.  Shouldn't the structure of the economy and labor market be remedied rather than piling on more schooling to be "competitive"?  Why isn't the willingness to work hard enough to achieve reasonable employment success anymore?  This sounds like the corporate powerhouses making demands and the well-meaning yet very misguided educational industrial complex excitedly taking on the task.  It seems unfair to me that 5 year-olds must be the sacrificial lambs when the adults can't solve the economics and politics to make opportunities more fair.

With all these sorts of increasing instruction efforts there is only talk about better "outcomes" or being more "competitive" whether it is mandatory kindergarten, extending the school day, or extending the school year.  Has anyone looked at the data?  Many of the countries with which we "compete" don't have the educational systems we think they have.  For example in Scandinavian countries, while early schooling has been expanded, serious academics are mainly postponed to age 7.  In the U.S., we are pushing it down to kindergarten and even pre-K.  We also assume homework is good for kids, but according to Alfie Kohn in the The Homework Myth, many studies have debunked homework for both academics and responsibility enforcement.  If you read his book you will see how politics have emphasized homework despite the data.

My main hope can be that homeschoolers in Buffalo will not be burdened with reporting for an extra year because of this, but it seems to me that without an exception made for homeschoolers it will be the case.  Unfortunately, New York is already one of the most burdensome states on homeschoolers requiring quarterly reports, plans, and even standardized tests at some grade levels.  This is incredibly unfair since the homeschool children I know in Buffalo are performing as well or better than those who attend Buffalo public schools.  If the school board and the state legislature actually cares about educational outcomes, they would make an exception for homeschool families from this extra reporting rather than penalize them for their superior performance.  If you live in Buffalo contact your state representation and your school board members and tell them that they are not be doing what is in the best interest of children by going forward with this.

A Crash Course in Citizenship and Business

What better lesson in citizenship than using the court system?

As urban dwellers, we live in a traditional Buffalo double with lower and upper apartments.  For us it has turned out to be an economical way to live in one of the best urban neighborhoods in the country.  While being owner occupied mitigates many problems of being a landlord, it isn't without its moments.  We had to evict our last tenant as well as have her arrested for harassment and criminal mischief due to a string of actions she took against us including an abusive letter, yelling and swearing at our kids, and dumping garbage in a hallway after the tantrum in which she yelled at the kids.  It appears to me that she isn't mentally stable, but of course, I don't really know.  (Yes, we did check out her background and from what we learned about her as she lived here, she would have passed even a stricter check.)

Anyway, we spent quite a bit of time during the past several weeks making trips downtown to Buffalo City Court.  Many of the trips involved getting forms and filing papers for eviction over non-payment of rent.  However, the kids also had to accompany us when we went to court for the actual hearing.  Not only did they get the courtroom experience, but they got to see Mom and Dad win the eviction by, not only being in the right, but by being knowledgeable in the laws pertaining to the situation.

Their experience was not limited to housing court, but less than a week later, they accompanied me to one of the criminal hearings where I went as a victim/witness.  Actually, since they were discussing plea bargains, I was more of a spectator, but I think they are learning.

I was impressed with their respect for the court too.  While they sort of acted up and drove us crazy waiting to go into court and immediately afterwards, they were on perfect behavior in the court room each time.  I take it to mean that either they really were watching what was going on or that they at least grasped the seriousness.

The final phase was helping us get ready for and look for a new tenant.  While they didn't fully understand all steps, they were present for showing the apartment, taking down e-mail addresses, and finally explaining our lease and collecting the security deposit.  They are getting a head start on learning how to rent out property.  We learned by our own experience which was difficult. 

Hopefully, we are also showing the possibilities of a diversity of income by having some business of our own and not solely relying on employment for our income.  There is some freedom in running a business even though it clearly has headaches.  We have our little soap business too, but that is still in its very early stages.

What do you think of all this?  How have you taught citizenship or business?

Kid (and Winter) Prompted Science Experiments

Walking down the sidewalks in Buffalo, I can't help but complain about the way people don't shovel.  I know my neighbors hate how I am last minute with my lawn in the summer, but when it comes to shoveling, I am out there quick and regularly scraping down to the concrete.  I don't believe in salt because of the environment.  If you scrape it right away and wait for the sun to come out (even the limited Buffalo winter sun), it is all you need.  When my kids encountered sidewalks that were poorly shoveled but covered with salt, I want off about this.  Surprise, Surprise!  Anyway, after I shut up, they asked me why salt is put on ice.

It then turned into a great basic science experiment.  We put two plastic yogurt cups of water in the freezer to freeze.  Then we took them out and put lots of salt, a big layer, on one of them.  I tried to explain that the one without salt was the control one and the other was the experimental one, but I am not sure they will remember.

We then placed them back in the freezer.  Over the next several days, we observed the one with the salt melt despite being in the freezer. 

Of course, they had to taste the salt water to see that it wasn't plain water.  That part was their idea, not mine, but since it was plain old salt, it didn't hurt them. 

The best part of the whole thing is that some of our regular activities prompted this which made it relevant.  Over the holidays, I know I was starting to worry about not being creative enough with coming up with experiments.  After this, I started to worry less.

I highly recommend this experiment, mainly because it is very easy and not too much work, but also because it is so relevant this time of year.

The Educational Headlines Get Scarier

Earlier this week, I was in bed flipping through the few channels we get with our antenna.  When I got to Channel 2, one of the major stories was NY To Add 300 Hours To Public School Year .  The story was about how five states, including New York, are planning to increase the amount of hours that students spend in school.  It is extremely disturbing to me since one of the reasons that I homeschool T & C is that I think that school is already too much of a full-time job for kids. Not only does it rob them of their childhood to benefit adults' work schedules (whose real benefit is the corporations that sell them the vast number of unnecessary items they buy on two incomes or low wages when families can't help but need two incomes for the basics), but nobody is asking the hard questions about the use of time in the schools or what is really necessary for children to learn.

The first question that should be asked is whether or not the time used in school is efficient or effective.  When T used to go to a local school for speech, there were several times, when the speech teacher called to tell me not to bring him since they were engrossed in a testing week.  If 10-20% of the time (from what I can tell) is spent on testing, then valuable class time for learning is being wasted, never mind the time for assemblies, discipline, lining up, etc.  Some things are unavoidable in a school environment because of its model.  Inherently, some time will be spent on making sure everyone is there and waiting for people to calm down.  It is just the drawback of 20-30 kids per one teacher.

What I want to know is how is my son, who hasn't turned six yet, reading at a nearly second grade level while only spending about 2 hours a day, 4 days a week on traditional academics?  How is this possible when he is not a genius and my health means that he learns independently in most cases?  How is it possible when he spends so much more time out in the world and doing random hands-on activities and free play?  I am not sure I can directly answer how its happening except that it is a clear testament to the fact that kids don't need to be couped up six plus hours a day away from their homes.

What about what they learn?  What skills are really necessary for adulthood?  Are kids really going to remember everything?  Is there some way to arm them with the skills for life-long learning instead so they can confidently pick up whatever skills they need when they need them?  It is time to look at the vast amount of knowledge available, the limited capacity of the human brain to master it, and come up with a better way to decide what should be learned.  Does hard core academics for so many hours make sense when there are many more things that adults need to know including things like homemaking which everyone needs to do in some way or minor repair for the large number of people who will own a home?  This is just to name a few.  After all, real learning happens when one chooses to learn and it is relevant.

I am worried for the other kids, honestly, really worried.  They are experiencing child labor masquerading as school and extracurricular activities.  My general observation of conventional school students close to my kids' ages is that they work almost all-day five days a week and sometimes several hours on Saturday.  They are at school about six and a half hours a day with little recess and a twenty-minute lunch break (short even by adult labor standards).  The transportation and waiting for buses adds half an hour to an hour to this.  Then there is afterschool program or extracurricular activities (almost always multiple ones a week) with kids often getting home after five or even six.  Then there is the socially acceptable (and necessary with this schedule) strict 8 pm bed time allowing a short dinner, bath, and homework.  The only difference between the problematic child labor of past years is that children now receive little economic benefit and eventually go into debt for college where the overworked kids of past may have received some compensation even if far too low.  They were also physically active while the kids today are acquiring numerous health conditions due to inactivity.  Yes, in the case of the extracurricular activities, there is some fitness in many of them, and certainly those are less "work" in the sense that presumably the kids chose them (even though parental pressure is pretty high these days so maybe not) rather than being forced into them like school.   I am not trying to romanticize the harsh lives of children in the past, but I think it is helpful to see the parallels including that it is still all for adult benefit.  In the past the adults whom benefited were the owners of family farms in the most benevolent cases and greedy factory owners in the worst cases.  Today, the educational establishment, even though perhaps better intentioned, benefits tremendously.  Parents today, no longer owning farms, benefit by having free child care to chase the rewards society glorifies most, money and status.

It will be interesting to see what the public has to say about the increased hours.  My guess is that most adults will be happy.  Parents will be relieved to have their kids time occupied while they work or run errands.  It is already pretty clear that parents today are comfortable turning their kids over to professionals to raise them rather than doing it themselves.  The educational establishment will respond by chasing more compensation for more hours, and designing new specializations for professionals who work in the schools.  The kids won't know if they are young and the older ones won't find a good mechanism for the outrage they may feel.  I know that I am outraged, but other than writing these sorts of articles, there isn't much of a way to change minds.  I am sure that if I tried to convince kids that they were working too hard, their parents, who already feel threatened by my unconventional choices, would not be pleased with me.  It is bad enough that the decision to homeschool is inherently an indictment of the decision by others to conventionally school even if I don't mean to specifically question the choices of others.  I know that many others, including other bloggers, like to dress their decision up in a sort of diplomatic everyone choosing what is best for their own family type of view, but when you choose something so out of the mainstream (homeschooling is known and growing, but still relatively low numbers) it really does say something about the status quo given that it is socially much easier to do what everyone else does.

What do you think about this news?  It won't be news for long because people will be happy or will more people choose to homeschool because of it?

Worm Farming Adventures

We have had a worm farm in our kitchen since before June 1st.  It has been a great learning experience for T and C.  My main reason for getting it is that I couldn't stand the idea that we put food scraps in the garbage.  Having the scraps be preserved, sort of, in plastic bags in a landfill bothered me.  Since we are in the city and close to large apartment buildings and businesses with dumpsters, a regular outdoor compost pile seemed out of the question since it could attract rats.  Most people compost to have a garden.  Hopefully, we will transform our front yard slowly starting next spring, but we are far from being gardening people.  It wasn't our main reason for getting one anyway, it was the landfill thing.

I waited until now to do a big post on it even though I have mentioned it on my other blog with our homeschool days itemized.  Now seems like an appropriate time since we recently rotated the last tray and found our mostly finished compost.

I say mostly finished because some of the paper wasn't eaten either because we didn't make the pieces small enough or because we had so much in the first tray as bedding.  However, the food was completely gone and we found no worms or cocoons as they had all hatched and migrated to the upper trays for new food.  We decided to put the paper back through one more time.  It was a great experience for the kids to see that the food was gone.  Here is a picture from June from that tray:

The journey was especially fun too.  We got to see the worms mate and we found cocoons.  Now that the population is much bigger, likely doubled, we catch them mating about half of all times we open the bin now. 

In this picture, there is both interlocked clittela between the worms and if you look closely, a nice cocoon near them.  Worms, in this case red wigglers, spend their days eating, crawling, and mating.  They mate weekly, when mature, and don't need to sleep.  They are hermaphrodites, but can't fertilize themselves.  Knowing their activities and optimum conditions is important for trouble shooting problems.  One example of a problem was escaping worms, not loads but too many.  In that case, we had stirred in food too soon that was still too hot and they had no cool place to find refuge.  We discussed chemistry a bit observing heat from the composting food.  It is important to note that microorganisms take care of the food and the worms eat them. 

Observation of worms in a habitat isn't the only positive.  It is also a good experience for the kids to take care of the farm draining the farm and adding food and paper.

It was a great all around project for biology, chemistry, environmentalism, responsibility, and sustainability, never mind the complete circle when we use the compost in our front yard.  The only part we bi-passed was making the farm.  I hit a sale on a tray set up and bought it when I had the chance to do it, but a more complete way to do this is to build your own using some of the videos on you tube as instructions.  In my case, I was concerned about my energy level and didn't want that to hold us back from the rest of the project.

If you have a worm farm, are you enjoying it?

City Living and Physical Education

This morning was a great morning.  First of all, I felt pretty good, not as good as yesterday but a far cry from the several bad fibro days I had earlier in the week.  Second of all, we did several errands this morning to buy supplies for a project we were working on.  One of them involved taking the bus to a big regular grocery store, something we don't do all that frequently. 

During our journey there, I couldn't help but think about the superior physical education that my kids are receiving.  Getting to the store involved quite a bit of walking.  First, we grabbed the bus down two blocks so we could hit the better mail box.  (For some reason, the one at our block has one pick up while the one two blocks down has several pick ups at good times.)  Then when we got off the bus we had to walk about five times as far as someone who would drive to the store and park in the lot.  We also brought our grocery cart which had to be pushed, not just to and from a car, but to and from the bus.  On the way home, knowing that getting the bus there has been unlucky for me without waiting a long time, we decided to walk and turn around each stop to see if it was coming (since the stops are pretty close together).  By the time we saw it, we were less than a mile from home so we just kept walking for a total of about 2 miles.  It was beautiful outside and and invigorating for the soul to be out in the sunshine with all the activity around.

A habit of regular exercise woven into life is what I prescribe as physical education.  This will benefit them far into adulthood.  It doesn't seem strange to them to walk distances to go places or to think about how to get things from one place to another without a car.  Unfortunately, physical education traditionally focuses on sports, specifically team sports.  I am all for sports that can be used regularly into adult life like running or swimming, but how many adults are on teams of the sports they used to play in school?  Relatively few.  Further, I have a serious problem with the message of team sports with the emphasis on competition.  Even when competition is downplayed, there is always a winner and a loser.  Many think competition is fundamental to our society particularly with the vast materialism in the name of the free market.  However, I don't believe it has to be.  It isn't inherent in our human nature.  Real and widespread collaboration would be a better way.  Of course, team sports reinforce competition in an enticing manner along side the conventional education and employment system.  It isn't enough to talk about collaboration while continuing to subscribe to the institutions whose fundamental nature is competition.  Our society would need to function quite a bit differently including rejecting conventional education with its testing, ranking, and sorting.  It would have to be a revolution of sorts since competition is so woven into society.  Almost every news broadcast where politics is discussed has it and walk into any business with a tv on and the vast majority have sports on for their customers (including the cafe at the grocery store this morning).

If T or C asked to join a sport would I let them?  Of course.  After all, we are trying to do our best at child centered learning.  Will they ask?  Probably not.  We have limited the exposure to sports on tv and discussion of team or professional sports as much as we can.  We wouldn't stop them from watching, but we never set an example of watching them ourselves at home.  More importantly, however, our simple urban living, sets the best example of all by using our bodies to carry out daily activities in a physical and more sustainable way.  We are probably in a very small minority.  Many homeschoolers, while rejecting conventional school, have their kids participate in sports as their physical education, never mind the vast majority of the population whose kids are in school with many participating in sports as well.  That is is fine though.  We aren't raising our kids to be like everyone else, but to make thoughtful choices about their activities and, therefore, views and priorities.

But keep checking in with us to see if the kids surprise us and ask to go on a team!

Reunions and My Decision to Homeschool: A Reflection

We are coming upon the 20th reunion of my 8th grade class from St. Joan of Arc School in Chicopee, MA.  Since we were a tight small group of under 30 students, it is a reunion I am going to make every effort to make.  Until facebook, I fell out of touch with everyone, partly because I moved to Buffalo in 1997, but mainly because I was the only one from the group who went to my high school.  Recently, I have been excitedly checking my facebook for info on the reunion.  I go on almost daily, up from about weekly.

One of the funny things is that there was talk of who the class couple was.  Despite seeming to be nominated, I don't have much of an opinion on it.  However, I keep getting the funny feeling that if there is a "most changed" or something of that nature, I may be sure to win.

I wouldn't win at first glance, since other than being quite grey on top, I actually look quite a bit like I did twenty years ago.  I don't have too many wrinkles and I am within 15 pounds of my graduation weight.  Of course, in between I was 40 pounds heavier than now, but I had to lose weight to help my sleep to help my fibromyalgia.  Of course, depending on the kind of fibro day I am having at the reunion, I may be hobbling or waddling around especially after the long car trip out there.  We'll have to see about that.  The best part for everyone though will be when I open my mouth and they hear the slight but distinctive western New York accent I acquired.

But what about the more substantive changes?  Is anyone expecting a home schooling, bus riding, urban, Episcopalian, stay at home Mom with no car (I'll rent one to go there), no yard, no makeup and a home hair cut to boot.  Heck, I have a worm farm composter in my kitchen and rarely go to grocery stores.  I get my food from a CSA and a neighborhood food co-op.

I feel like there may be some surprised people whether they say it or not.  When I was at St. Joan of Arc and high school - undergrad too - I was a really hard worker and good at school.  I did every bit of homework, worked ahead, thought about school all the time, felt stressed about it, only read for pleasure during the summer, and had little other interests.  I wouldn't say I was smart for two reasons.  I had to work hard for my grades and I am pretty sure now that I only had (or only developed) the intelligences recognized in school.  School wasn't the only institution I was all about.  I was a Roman Catholic who never thought I would ever be anything else.  My Catholic school teacher mother would never have let me miss church.  I had visions of working super hard in Catholic high school and going to college with the best scholarship I could get.  While I may not have expressed it at the time, I bought into the importance and order of the institutions in my life.  I was going to get a good job, be thoroughly devoted to it, and live the same life as my parents.  I'd live in a similar neighborhood and drive a similar car and have a similar house and go to a similar church even if in a different region of the country.

In some ways, I didn't disappoint.  I graduated high in my high school class, got a full scholarship to college, got a good job, became a CPA, and went to graduate school part-time while I worked.  I kept getting better and better jobs.  My last job involved overseeing 3 departments at a large school district.  These were pretty good accomplishments, if I may say so myself.

As I went along, I became tired, physically and mentally.  Some if it was the fibromyalgia starting slowly and some of it was lack of satisfaction.  Regardless, I gradually started to question the conventional life and institutions to which I had been devoted.  I first realized that I wasn't living my faith, but punching the metaphorical church time clock.  I became Episcopalian because it felt more like who I am.  I got my traditional church service with women priests and openness to views on issues that I had.  Next, I got tired of the mindless (despite NPR), waste of time, environmentally horrifying commute to my cozy condo in one of the two cars we had.  As soon as I got it worked out we moved into the city in walking distance to my new job at the time.  We immediately shed a car and actually started participating in things since we were closer to them again.  Then Tom and I switched places.  I stayed home with the kids to care for my health and he went back to work.  I eventually found out I had fibromyalgia (shed the last car at the same time), something my mother didn't get until she was 50, 20 years later than I got it.  Obviously, the genetics weren't in my favor, but without an traumatic triggering event, I can only surmise that it is the result of the pressure I put on myself to comply and be good at school and career.

This combination of realizing that whole schooling to career to consumption lifestyle was unfulfilling and realizing that all that hard working couldn't safeguard against (and maybe even caused) the onset of a lifelong chronic illness led me to researching homeschooling for my own kids.  I also saw that despite being sold on school and college, that my husband with a masters degree was in and out of low wage collections jobs all the time.  Fortunately, now he is a security guard which is more stable (and he loves it), but is still not in line with what we were told growing up about getting a good education.  With all this, I wanted my kids to have a childhood rather than be cooped up 7 hours a day plus several hours of homework.  I want them to explore all their intelligence types.  I wanted them to have interests other than traditional academics.  At home, academics can be handled in a fraction of the time and at one's own pace leaving time for bigger multifaceted project experiences.  Certainly I put pressure on myself when I was young, but conventional school encourages and rewards this kind of compliance.  It is also a mission with enough flexibility for me now that it looks like I won't be returning to the career I had.

So what am I saying about St. Joan of Arc if I am homeschooling my own kids?  Nothing against it.  If someone is going to sent their child to conventional school, I know of no better place.  I enjoyed great classmates and the best teachers you can find.  Without the great people, I wouldn't be the person I am today.  I received an education from caring people with great values.  I just reject the full time job school is for kids, especially now 20 years later (no more half day kindergarten and pre-k a year earlier). Homeschooling just feels like the right thing to do.  The funny thing is that my kids are healthier than I was as a kid, happier, and further ahead than I was academically to boot.  The other funny thing is that I don't spend any more time on hard core academics than my friends do just getting their kids ready for school and helping with homework.

If you are a homeschool parent, are people from your past surprised?  Are you even a little surprised at yourself?

Urban Homeschooling: More Traditional Socialization and Weathering Tough Times

WARNING: this may be considered radical thinking by some! I wrote a couple of months ago thinking I would rework it and post it at some point.  Since Dad is out of work again, it seems like a good time to post. 

This past Easter, since it was just the four of us, I decided to make spaghetti.  At first I guilted myself for not putting the effort into a ham or other traditional meal.  For my parents and grandparents, spaghetti is not what you eat on Easter.  I remembered many years of Easters with ham or some other meat-potato-vegetable type food.  Then I thought about my great-grandparents.  Half of mine and half of my husband’s likely ate spaghetti on at least some Easters.  At that point, I stopped feeling guilty.  By being less traditional we were being more traditional.

For several weeks after that, I contemplated that same concept with our home schooling and urban lifestyle.  Our grandparents pioneered suburban living as they became adults and our parents perfected it.  As generation X kids we had nice childhoods of school and church activities, playing in the yard and, of course, riding everywhere in the comfort of a car.  Certainly we had friends and it was a nice childhood, but I don’t remember being particularly connected to neighbors, or the familiar faces at the library, the bank, or the grocery store.  We didn’t even have that much time to enjoy the yard (except for summer) because of the focus on being outside the home at school and work.  School friends eventually became acquaintances or ended up living far away.

What was tradition for us, was a dramatic departure from the life most of my great-grandparents lived.  They lived in small cities either in two family homes with relatives or with their place of business.  While they didn’t home school, they were in walking distance from the school and my grandparents had the time to come home for lunch if they wanted.  Church and local businesses with people they knew were close by.  My great-aunt talks about going down to the local small grocery to get items and my great-grandfather would settle the account weekly on pay day.  If they weren’t friends with everyone in the neighborhood, they certainly knew everyone by face at the very least.  It wasn’t an easy life, of course.  It was a tremendous amount of work and there were hardships in the forms of illness and increased mortality, but the avoidable stresses created by modern life didn’t exist.  My great-grandmothers did the large amount of work it took to run a house with fewer conveniences, but never worried about day care, if the amount of homework was too great, if they followed the right parenting advice or if their commutes were too long.  If they wanted to pop out to the store, they yelled up the stairs to ask auntie to keep an eye on the kids.  My great-grandfathers worked close by, not wasting time on long commutes and sometimes even making it home for lunch.  They didn’t have much, but they also didn’t take on a lot of debt or manufactured stress either.  There was a simplicity and a connectedness.

Expectations for their kids were different too.  Certainly they were expected to be good citizens and work hard as they grew up, but they weren’t necessary expected to achieve the resource intensive independence of moving away from the family that later became the norm.  It was OK to stay in the home if there was room or move to the other apartment in the same house.  This is very different from the way we grew up.  My parents had specific ideas in mind about my leaving home.  My husband made a hasty decision on a part-time graduate school program (while working) to avoid being required to leave home before he could afford it.  Thank goodness he didn’t go into debt for the degree that turned out to not be much help in the job market.

It is about 80 years after my great-grandparents were our age now and we are moving back toward their lifestyles and away from the ones of our childhood.  For reasons that are a combination of conscious choice, health issues, and economic issues, we live in a thriving urban neighborhood so we can ride the bus, and walk to stores, the bank, playgrounds, and the library.  We live in a two family home with no back yard, no cable, home hair cuts, and mostly home cooked meals.  While we don’t necessarily have the whole neighborhood over for a visit, we know a significant number of people in the neighborhood by name or face.  My kids regularly see and talk to the same kids at the playground, tellers at the bank, librarians at our local branch, and cashiers at the local food co-op.  When I popped into the bank early one morning without the kids, the tellers all asked where the kids were (Dad was home that morning) and were relieved to hear that I was getting a new tenant rather than being paid the rent in installments often times.  Some of the cashiers at our co-op ask about our home school activities that day and how I am feeling and if switching to organic has helped with my fibro.  The librarians are always talking to the kids about their homeschool days and telling them about upcoming library activities.  We even say a polite hello to the street guy who sells hand-made jewelry.  It isn’t exactly the lifestyle of my great-grandparents, but it is as close as is feasible given modern life.

While not as bold as moving across an ocean for a new life, we are demanding a new life for our kids as urban homeschoolers.  We have decided on a lifestyle of learning, conservation, and socialization in our urban environment rather than the stresses of conventional schooling.  Like our Easter, we are living a more traditional life by being less traditional.  Our kids learn from reading, games, and hands-on activities as well as being out in the world in our city neighborhood (with a small amount of structured curriculum).  We also take the bus to the museums and attractions Buffalo has to offer, a pretty large number given the size of our city.

Our expectations for their futures are different too.  College and resource intensive independence at any cost are not what we have in mind.  Certainly, debt will be out of the question since one never knows what will happen with one’s health or place in the job market.  We wouldn’t be surviving with our current problems if we had student loans.  Obviously, we expect some sort of productivity and societal contribution from our kids which will hopefully be natural with the community values we are instilling.  However, there are more options than high stress careers.   There are many types of work, businesses to start, staying at home with kids, and volunteering.  We fully accept the possibility of their remaining home or moving to the upstairs apartment and sharing the lower expenses of a house that will be paid off by then.  With lower expenses, they probably have a better chance of going to college if they choose because they will more likely be able to pay for it as they go even if part-time.  They will have a better chance to stay home or have their spouse stay home with kids since there won’t be the pressure of high expenses.  Rather than the traditional milestones in life, there will be life-long learning and thoughtful family centered choices.  Of course, if they want to pursue what is now the traditional resource intensive life, they are free to, but at least not expected to. 

Of course, if it is the latter they choose, we won’t be much help.  It just won’t be possible for us.  While our parents generously made sure we had at least an undergraduate education (we paid our own graduate school as we worked and went part-time), all we will be able to provide our kids are more choices in the way of less stress, less pressure, and perhaps more of a chance to find their true selves.  I think many generation Xers and Yers are feeling a pull this direction for many similar reasons.  The best thing to do is to embrace these more sustainable and family-centered ways to benefit their family’s health and life.

Speaking of health - what is more of a physical education: team sport skills or establishing a true active lifestyle of moving by walking and working?  Given the less modern healthcare 80 years ago, my great-grandparents lived relatively long lives because of the healthier food and more active life including less reliance on the door to door transportation of a car.  My kids seem much healthier for this type of lifestyle than many supposedly sports involved kids I see.  Just another aspect of urban home schooling to think about!

We believe that life can be more family-centered and less stressful which is becoming more important in light of economic and educational trends today.  I hope you continue to check in with us!

When the Annoying Becomes Educational

C is very active and I am beginning to have to make lessons more hands-on and, well, active.  She is a good little girl, but her need for activity can be annoying at times.  A recent example is her obsession with dandelions.  Since we walk all over the neighborhood, this invades most of our outings.  She is constantly bending over to pick them or blow the seeds.  Sometimes this behavior is charming, but if we are in a rush or if the risk of stepping in dog stuff is high (if she ventures onto grass) it can be too much.  She even collects them when there are other activities going on.  On a recent WNY Homeschool co-op day, the other kids were in the playground equipment, trading cards, or playing chess and she was running around collecting dandelions sometimes socializing and sometimes not.

Of course, they are good flowers for learning about how plants reproduce and a broad interest in wild flowers isn't bad.  I decided to try to find books at the library about flowers since they seem to be of such interest to both T and C.  It seems like a good way to reinforce science, reading, and maybe even life skills if we decide to rip out the lawn and put bulbs in during the fall.  I never guessed, though, that I would find a book on dandelions specifically called From Seed to Dandelion.  It seems like a great book for C and even T.  They were very excited to take it out and want Dad to read it ASAP.

Customizing learning to their interests is one of the great things about homeschoooling.  I have tried to do this where possible in a general sense at least.  Now, however, I am beginning to see that sometimes I will need to nurture even the annoying interests since they can lead to more learning.  It will be interesting to see if after reading the book they are satisfied or want to pursue flowers even further.  I guess we will soon see!

Endless Joy for Mom - Continued

Unfortunately, I am afraid to bring my camera near the pool, but we have had a banner set of homeschool days over the past week.  Both C (on Friday) and T (on Monday) have passed their swimming lessons from Mom.  T isn't even 5.5 yet and C isn't 4.5 yet and they can both swim 25 yards doing a combination of doggie paddle and rolling onto their back and floating and kicking.  I feel that they are safe enough in the pool.  There is plenty of time for stroke refinement.  C is a real natural at swimming so it may not be far behind anyway.  I was so thrilled.  Start to finish our lessons took less than 6 weeks (we have been averaging 3 times per week of swimming).  I would love to take credit, but their comfort in the water made it easy.  Still, it makes me feel so good as a Mom!

Homeschooling: Endless Joy for Mom

I am going to break from my normal style with this post.  My posts tend to be factual, explanatory, or even argumentative.  I rarely write the more reflective pieces about the maternal joy that comes from homeschooling or homemaking.  It isn't that I don't feel this joy, it just isn't my writing style.

As I may have mentioned before, my career experience is in accounting and school business administration.  I am a licensed CPA, School Business Administrator (SBA), and School District Administrator (SDA).  As you can imagine, the writing I did during my career was technical.  In some ways, my role as housewife and stay-at-home-mom still feels foreign while other times it feels completely natural.  Many people would believe that I am devastated that I can no longer work.  While there are times when I sadly think about the fact that I put a lot of time and effort into my career only to have it end, the sadness is more than replaced by the very great joy of homeschooling.

This past week has brought great joy at my son's accomplishments.  T had two big breakthroughs.  One break through is in reading.  While he can't pick up any book and start reading, he can read a substantial amount of the words from the kids' books that he picks up from the section of readers at our local library branch.  He is still slowly sounding out words quite a bit, but his success at it and confidence have both taken a recent jump where he wants to pick up books to read a lot more often.  His other break through was in swimming.  He mastered floating for several seconds, a big water adjustment step from Infaquatics: Teaching Kids to Swim.  It is hard to describe, but his comfort level in the water went up dramatically too.

Both of these are big steps for two very important life changing skill sets.  The sense of pride I had was obvious to me.  I felt great.  It was a greater sense of accomplishment than I ever felt for any degree or certification I received.  It wasn't until Tom came home from work and I told him about both, that the privilege I have in seeing and contributing to them was even more apparent.  He was quite pleased at T's increase in skills of course, but I could tell that he didn't feel the same way I did.  He just didn't have the first hand level of joy that I did as the parent who was there.  I suppose the situation was reversed when I worked and he was home.  I don't remember being as excited about T walking or talking as many mothers would be.  I was too busy and too stressed.  Of course, having Tom experience the joy instead would be fair enough, but if the kids were in school we would both be missing out.  Money can't buy the great sense of joy that can be savored almost daily by homeschooling.  Spread the word!

Protecting Our Kids

Generally if you homeschool, it feels safer.  Since your kids are with you most of the time, you can be sure your eyes are at all times.  If my kids are walking with me and fall behind they hear about it - loudly.  I insist they walk with me or somewhat ahead so I can see them.  While others practice serious attachment parenting, we haven't except that our kids are almost always with us.  Rarely do they get watched by friends, babysitters or even relatives and it is never more than a few hours.  It isn't that we don't trust them, but that we predominately feel that kids of younger ages belong with one of their parents (either is fine).

This week I had an interesting conversation with a few mothers who had fears of their kids being kidnapped.  Some even had some close calls.  I think that the fear is natural.  They believed, despite the one having close calls, that their smaller town environment with the large amount of privacy protected them because there were fewer strange people.  My observation is that they are not alone in their view.  If anything that view probably dominates.

I certainly have significantly more strange people in my city neighborhood.  There is no doubt about it.  I think the difference is that at the same time over 90% of the people in my neighborhood are good and providing watchful eyes.  While they thought it scary that my neighbors can see right into my house when the blinds are open and lights on as well as the side door less than ten feet from their windows, I believe that it provides a huge level of protection.  Scream really loud in the yard and for sure someone will be around to hear from a nearby house or business.  The strange people know that if they aren't being watched that they could be.  Out in the country, you could have a run-in with one of the rare strangers without anyone to hear your cry for help or prevent an incident in the first place.

This is a tremendous advantage in more densely populated healthy city neighborhoods that is not perceived accurately in my view.  This idea is not new, but discussed in detail in The Death and Life of Great American Cities.  I highly recommend the book for city dwellers or those considering raising kids in an urban environment.

If you are a city dweller, do you feel this way?  What do you think of the dominate view?

Insourcing: Teaching Your Strong Areas Yourself

While it isn't unusual in homeschooling to teach most things, I recently wrote Outsourcing My Teaching Weaknesses.  Unlike many homeschooling parents, I don't do arts and crafts too often relying on the library for this quite a bit.  Other homeschooling parents outsource too, but much of the discussions I have had related to physical education.  They have their kids participate on community sports teams for physical education. 

In this case, I have decided to insource.  While not a trained swim instructor or life guard, I am an avid lap swimmer and used to swim competitively.  Now with my fibro, it is the only exercise I can still do rigorously.  Rather than sign my kids up for a set of nine or ten lessons, I am taking them swimming with me on a pretty regular basis.  I do my laps while they count down for me (a good math lesson), then they come in to play and work on skills.  I am following Infaquatics: Teaching Kids to Swim.  It is quite an old book, but the step by step method seems like it will be successful.  We just started and T and C are already pretty comfortable holding their breath and going underwater.  Now we are working on the next step: floating.

Since I have to go to the pool anyway (I will stiffen up if I don't swim and stretch), it isn't adding too much time to bring them with me when I go.  For most people who are avid swimmers, this can be done with no problem.  With the significant amount of rest I need, I did need to make some sleep schedule changes to not get too tired at the wrong time of day, but it is still far easier than dragging them team to team or lesson to lesson or having to do it at the end of the day after school.

Tell me about unusual areas that you insource.  I would love to hear about all the different approaches!

Homeschooling for Different Learning Styles

While I am very proud of the fact that by homeschooling I allow my children to learn at their own pace, I don't spend a whole lot of time contemplating their learning styles.  The unschooling portion of our homeschooling seems to meet their needs since they are learning more than enough and are happy most of the time.  I still am not sure which style I would assign them to or how to use it to consciously customize our program.

I first started to notice differences when T practiced reading from some of the level 1 readers we get at the library.  He meticulously sounds out phonetically each word.  It is obvious that he really has a handle on phonics, but sometimes longer words or words that don't follow the rules trip him up.  C, on the other hand, sometimes guesses the word before him out of context even though she doesn't have all the phonics tools yet.  I am not sure what this means.  Perhaps one is more visual and one is more auditory.  Both are certainly hands-on learners.  I think most kids are.

As far as hands-on projects go, one of the most interesting examples of learning differences happened this past Saturday.  We went to the Crane Branch library , they had a great flag making program where they drew a design on Styrofoam to make a stamp for paint onto the flags.  It was fascinating to see how each one handled the project.  They were given six flags to put designs on and string together.  C was the only one at the class who completed all six and strung them together.  However, the creativity level was low compared to the others.  The teacher demonstrated a simple red flower.  C made five simple red flower flags and one basic red heart one, but again was the only one to complete the whole project:

T, on the other hand, made a painstaking picture of a princess to stamp onto his flag (blue to be my favorite color).  For the next ones he began an elaborate picture on the Styrofoam of a laptop computer with pictures of princesses on it.  Because he ran out of time and the fact that he became enamored with keeping the Styrofoam itself, he left with only one flag on a string (and his beloved Styrofoam computer):

For several days now, I have been wondering what this says about their learning styles and personalities.  I wonder if I could find some books to help me sort this out.  Is it important to know?  Would the information help me customize their learning better?

Have you experienced these phenomenons with your kids, homeschooled or otherwise?  What advice would you give me?

Urban Homeschooling: A time for activism?

In light of some of the very recent developments regarding Buffalo Public Schools, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the recent posts at City Kids Homeschooling regarding Kerry McDonald's interview with Huffington Post.  Kerry McDonald is a very eloquent and informative advocate for urban homeschooling.  Overall, I am extremely pleased that articles are being done on the topic by the media and that she is a resource.  When her first post on it hit, I laughed at myself and told my husband that it is better that she was interviewed than me since I would not have been so diplomatic.  Apparently since then, as per her second post on the topic, some people feel she was too diplomatic.  I have mixed feelings on this.

When it comes to individuals, diplomacy is more than warranted.  With the current societal structure, some people simply can't homeschool.  There are too many pressures many of which are outside of one's control.  Further, no matter how well you know someone and think you know what options they have, it is often impossible to know what their pressures are.  It would be wrong to look at an individual and judge them for not homeschooling.  This happens to me all the time with my fibromyalgia since it often limits my activities.  People judge me all the time about what they think is really wrong with me or what they think I should be able to do.  When I was first getting it, many thought I was just lazy or distracted by my young children or had depression or whatever.  It is amazing the ideas that some people have about other people about all kinds of things.

When it comes to looking at society and education as a whole, however, I am much less diplomatic and more cynical about the choices that people make.  First off, homeschooling has been legal for quite a while now and data has been accumulated on its effectiveness.  The fact that 5% or less of students are home educated despite the compelling evidence tells me that parents generally care too much about being like everyone else to even research it.  They either don't want to be thought of as different or care too much about what the second family income can buy.  For many, it is a lack of confidence after being told that only professionals should educate.  However, even the confidence issue could be remedied by reading a few books on homeschooling.  After all, what could be more important than the right educational choice for your kids!  I know that this sounds harsh, but with the current educational crisis, we need to be more willing to try dramatically different approaches, especially homeschooling.

This week in Buffalo, the headline is Parents Vote To Recommend Pulling Students Out of School .  The state education department wants teacher evaluation to include all students, the teachers don't want to be held responsible for the educational results of chronically absent students, and the District can't afford to lose any money needing the teachers to agree to the new evaluation measures.  Parents are naturally appalled by the idea that over $9 million will be taken away instead of used to educate their children.  The problem here is that no one is wrong.  The state education department needs to be interested in all students and not just some students.  The teachers can't teach students who are chronically absent.  The District can't run smoothly when resources are being taken from the schools and students who most need it.  Parents who care about their kids' education have a right to expect the District to obtain all funding to which it is entitled and that if they turn their kids over to professionals on nearly a full-time basis that results will be good.

With all parties being right and the students losing out anyway, it is time to rethink whether the conventional schooling model with its competing interests can work.  Conventional public education has been around long enough with mediocre results that it has been given enough of a chance.  It isn't the fault of teachers, administrators or parents, the model just isn't that great.  Homeschooling could be the answer.  For the chronically absent students, it probably is the answer.  A few parents may be irresponsible, but my guess is that most families of chronically absent students have some challenge in their lives that homeschooling would solve: student chronic illness, parent chronic illness, family members out of state or the country requiring extensive time away, or many other problems.  For the other students, why waste years in a situation that won't be fixed since in the current paradigm it almost can't be.

While I think urban homeschooling advocates could stand a little less diplomacy, I agree with Kerry McDonald that we can do a tremendous amount to help other families by showing the advantages of our homeschooling lifestyle.  She has one of the best urban homeschooling blogs.  I am adding a new blog to document our daily activities to give a real nuts and bolts look at our lifestyle.  These are valuable things to do.  I, like her, didn't seriously consider homeschooling until I had my own children.  I also have graduate degrees in education.  It is interesting that when the chips were down and we made decisions about our own kids we chose homeschooling.

On a personal note to those families who struggle with the current educational system particularly those who have trouble with attendance.  While some people can't homeschool, we almost have to homeschool.  It has been a solution for us.  With my fibromyalgia, it often takes me over an hour to get out of bed in the morning.  I am not sure I could always have T & C ready for a bus.  Further, a great homework burden is placed on parents.  There is no way I could guarantee that my kids homework would be done since I am often quite tired by 3 pm.  My days vary a great deal and I never know exactly how I am going to feel.  With homeschooling, my kids get me at my best in the middle part of the day.  While they work on lessons, I can do a few household chores and then we get our other activities, outings and errands done before I get tired.  If we do a longer day out, we can (sleep in and) follow it with a shorter day the next day.  We can spend time on lessons on the weekend if we want.  I am sure that for a great number of you out there with problems, homeschooling can be a solution too.

I hope policy makers are paying attention to what is happening.  A dramatic overhaul of education funding should be undertaken if results are so important.  School districts receive money to educate students whether the results are good or not.  Some money is taken away, of course, like the $9 million in question in Buffalo, but most of the District's budget will remain intact.  I am getting results in my homeschool and remain unfunded.  Is that fair?  For families that currently can't homeschool due to economics, funding may really make it an option.  Perhaps the future of public education should be large tax credits for families with school age children and some sort of online curriculum bank with tie ins to landmarks and museums.  There are many ways homeschooling could be set up to work for many more people.