Thermostats and Why Our Schools Are Failing Us

First of all, in the effort of full disclosure, I keep my house at a lower temperature to save energy and money.  I set my thermostat at 63 during the day, wear several layers and even let it go lower at night.  It seems to work.  Despite my older home with little insulation, my gas bills are pretty low.  This year's more mild temperatures helped too, but during the most recent cold snap when lows got into the single digits, I observed some scary behavior which I will get to shortly.

When I was in college, I had several roomates, not all or most, but several that reacted to temperature.  If they were cold, they put the heat on 80 degrees they as soon as they were hot, they put on the A/C down to 68, back and forth.  I knew that thermostats set a floor and no matter your preference you generally picked a temp and stuck with it.  68 degrees indoors is 68 degrees indoors whether it is 30 degrees outside or 5.  It was clear that despite graduating high school and getting into college that they were still clueless about how a thermostat actually worked.

Recently, some people I know (adults in their 30s), also high school graduates, were complaining that when it got really cold that they couldn't turn their heat up.  It was 68 degrees in the apartment and they were desperate to get 74 or 76 during the cold snap.  Because of the older house their apartment was in and the older furnace combined with already being about 60 degrees difference from the outside, the temperature struggled to get up that high.  While they are entitled to whatever temperature they want in their home, it is still quite puzzling as to why 68 degrees was fine for them when it was 25 degrees outside, but not when it was 5 degrees.  It just doesn't make sense.  Rather than logic, there was a knee jerk reaction that more cold outside had to mean more heat inside.  What kind of a country are we in that this cluelessness about basic home features is so widespread?  It is especially horrifying with climate change and energy costs being such hot issues.  Kids go to school full-time and don't know this.  This is why homeschooling is so important.  While book smarts are very important, so much time should be spent on it that there is no time for basic common sense day to day living skills?  Really?  Time for us to wake up.

Board Games with the Grandparents

You just can't beat them as an educational activity, board games: reading or math many times, principles like good sportsmanship, and socialization, yes socialization.  Being able to get along with people of all ages, including the older adults like their grandparents.  It is a great way to learn.  Since I hadn't played Chutes and Ladders in many years, I forgot how great it is for math with all the spaces marked with a number 1-100.  By advancing through the board, kids get in the habit of seeing what happens to the larger numbers as they add numbers between 1 and 6.

Board games are a great, simple, low cost, low stress winter activity that can reinforce valuable skills and provide for hours of fun.  In our modern times of overscheduled children, it is something that warrants rediscovery.  Homeschooling can give you the time to use them more often and enjoy family time too.  Any way that we can teach our kids with less stress and more fun is a way to reinforce lifelong learning!  How often do you play board games with your kids?

The Joy of Reading

One of the greatest joys about homeschooling is the excitement that comes with watching your child master something, like reading.  Of course, it normally happens in stages, but one day they are reading 3 letter, short vowel words.  Another day it is a new vowel, then long sounds, then double vowels.  It is a wonderful process to watch.  The best part is that you get to see it, not a stranger, but you.

Being Thankful for the Bus

We are finally getting the snow, and I can't tell you how grateful I am for the bus, the NFTA Metro bus.  When we had a car, I remember how nail biting driving in the snow was.  We would avoid unecessary/semi-necessary trips out.  Work, school, and maybe church were it, not much else.  Today, however, I went out walked a few places and took the bus downtown to the central branch library of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library.  I didn't need to go to the library - I just wanted to - so I did without any stress and without risking my life (which we all should acknowledge we do when driving a car especially in the snow).

Public transportation is critical for homeschoolers even though most people in a smaller city, like Buffalo, don't think of going without a car.  First of all, using public transportation is a good skill for kids to learn including reading schedules and maps.  Second, there is an opportunity to learn about science and climate change.  Third, homeschoolers can more safely go on local field trips.  Fourth, there are all kinds of people on the bus and that builds general community awareness.  Fifth, and maybe the most important, is that the bus is less costly than a car.  This is critical because expense reduction is the best way for a parent to reduce their work hours to be able to homeschool.  Certainly it isn't easy in all cases, but would both parents need to work if the family went carless, got rid of cable, went to prepaid cell phones and Skype, did their own hair cuts, and ate out less (not hard if one parent is home to cook)?  Something to think about.

Our bus dependence is a little more complicated than just homeschooling, because there are other financial factors with which we are dealing.  That being said, strong public transportation may be the way to combat some of the lack of upward mobility going on these days.  Saving money on transportation may be one of the final sources of funds for the middle and working classes if the economy stays in its current state for the longer-term. If you live in Buffalo, please sign the petition to restore NFTA funding.  If you live in another small to middle size city, pay closer attention to public transportation in your area and support it.

Outdoor Art Class Meets City Surprises

I know that it seems that weather keeps coming up, but this long warm spell we have had in Buffalo has put the focus on the outdoors despite the winter season.  For days, T and C have been begging to try new 3D chalk they received for Christmas.  Today, we finally made it out to give it a whirl.  That is one of the best parts of homeschooling, the ability to take a advantage of good weather days in the winter.

On our way to Delaware Park, we came upon the local balloon artist who made balloons for the kids.  He is often at the Elmwood and Bidwell Farmers' Market but I never expected to see him in January.  Of course, that is one of the great things about city living even in a smaller city, walking out your door and feeling like the world has come to you. 

It seems that the best homeschooling happens when you take advantage of your environment particularly in either very rural or very urban settings.  While I have never lived in the country, I imagine rural dwellers have the benefit of a great connection to the land and the pride in producing things they need.  In the city, it is the exposure to a variety of people and experiences so close to home.  There are also great conservation opportunities in more dense land use, climate control of multiple unit dwellings, and the use of public transportation.  Homeschooling can give you the time and focus to fully benefit from your surroundings!

Drinking Smoothies in Winter

While still not all that winter like today, when you look at the calendar, it says January.  Why the heck are we drinking smoothies?  Ideally, we would be eating local and organic fruits.  Organic gets expensive so we do this for some items, but not all.  By January there aren't many local fruits in Western New York it seems except for well-stored apples.  Since produce must be brought in from further away and the nutrients start to disintegrate, frozen is a great option until the local farmer's market starts back up in the spring.  Most people think of smoothies as a warm weather food, but for us it is a small part of adjusting our food habits to the season.

It feels strange trying to explain this to my 5 and 4 year olds who walk through the local grocery store begging for fresh fruits that have traveled very far.  Of course our frozen fruit travels too, but it may be the most nutritious alternative until great local produce is back!

Homeschooling in a Time of Fewer Opportunities

Today when listening to On Point on NPR, I couldn’t help but think about homeschooling and the future of my kids. The topic was about the decline in upward mobility compared to previous generations and how upward mobility is currently greater in Europe than the U.S.

Education kept coming up even though it wasn’t an in depth discussion on education. I had to think that by the time my kids are completing school and possibly college, that the paradigm will likely be different than that faced by us in generation X and Y. Until recently (and it still continues to a certain extent), kids were sold on the idea that as long as they worked hard and got a college education that everything would be fine.

Unfortunately, this is far from the case. In Buffalo, this is very apparent. While Buffalo is under-rated in certain respects regarding jobs, you can still look around and see a significant number of people with graduate degrees (plus) working in retail outlets and call centers doing collections work, brilliant people. Brilliant people who worked hard, did all the right things, and even took on heavy student loans.

Homeschooling is a good opportunity to try things differently. Many kids will finish high school at home sooner than their peers. Perhaps this will allow time to complete projects to earn scholarships or start an apprenticeship in a technical field or start a business. Homeschooling may just provide the flexibility to work sooner and be more careful about choosing a field that is both interesting and has good job prospects. While upward mobility may continue to be on the decline, homeschoolers will be best able to face it!

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/01/09/not-movin-on-up

When Nothing Goes Right

Even though most days go smoothly, or at least feel like things were accomplished, today was just one of those days. Despite the milder temperatures, we didn’t make it out anywhere. T has to redo several lessons over the next couple of days. No cleaning got done. A self-created new recipe didn’t work out and we had to revert to the same old one from the cookbook.

We have to remind ourselves to put things into perspective. T is now finding his online lessons tougher because he worked ahead. He also can’t fall behind since he isn’t in a class with like aged peers. Being able to follow existing recipes is a strength and the cleaning, while important, isn’t urgent.

Tomorrow will be another day!

How to homeschool?

While we knew at the beginning that homeschooling is more efficient and that we didn’t need to spend the whole day at the dining room table, we still fell into the trap of trying to design highly structured activities around the alphabet, numbers, and nursery rhymes. At the end of the first week, Liz was ready to call it quits and Tom was not far behind. After all, the whole idea behind homeschooling was giving the kids more of a chance to be kids. It was also too stressful for Liz who felt the increased family time and flexibility of homeschooling was supposed to keep our stress level low and well-being high.

Then we began our quest for a curriculum that the kids could enjoy at their own pace that wouldn’t wear us out. At the same time, we felt a pull towards the freedom of unschooling after reading many homeschooling books from the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. It just felt like unschooling took real confidence and courage. This was not us as new homeschoolers! So, we decided to look for a curriculum to use as a base so that we could be sure we covered the core material that they should know. The rest of the time would be unschooling. We also had two years to get a handle on what we were doing before compulsory school age became an issue.

We began using Time4Learning, an online curriculum, as our base curriculum. Overall, it fits us, but as the year went on we still tried adding other things and oscillated between the online lessons only and adding so much that we were beginning to get overwhelmed again Each element that we added was valuable: some classic picture books, non-fiction books, handwriting, workbooks, other websites, Spanish DVDs and several field trips. Unfortunately, sometimes we tried doing all the elements in one day and were back in the same predicament. Needless to day the right balance was and continues to be a struggle!

Homeschooling: Was it really for us?

It was this time last year that we began. T had just turned 4 and C had just turned 3. Even though we could have sent T to PreK the previous September, we didn’t. It just didn’t feel right that a child who isn’t even 4 should be in school essentially full-time. What happened to the 1980s with half-day kindergarten starting at age five and a half? That is when we came up with the idea that we would homeschool our children until they were six, the compulsory school age. This decision would give us time to research all the short-term and long-term scenarios.

In some ways exploring homeschooling seemed natural. While not extremely popular, it kept coming up. We would run into someone who did it or knew someone who did it or asked us if we did it. On the other hand, the idea seemed quite strange. Three out of four of our parents were teachers; and education as well as the institution of school was revered. Our parents gave us the very best private and catholic education possible where we each lived. Liz remembers going to school sick. A fever was necessary to stay home and how dare her classmates’ parents take them out of school for a vacation! Tom’s cousin homeschooled her kids, but her husband was in the military. Wasn’t everyone who homeschooled in the military, overseas for work, or a rural conservative Christian right winger?

Preliminary research, however, showed that most people seemed to be “accidental” homeschoolers. In other words, like the military, they had some sort of logistical issue: a bully got bad, a learning disability wasn’t treated properly at the local school, or some other situation brought on by concrete circumstances, not religion or educational philosophy.

What were we? Accidental? - a reasonable beginning school age was not prevalent in Buffalo (and the rest of the country in recent times) so we came up with our own solution. Or Philosophical? - kids are forced into formal school too young or at least for too many hours a day and we were rejecting formal early childhood education wholesale. Either way, we were beginning homeschooling and a year of research to determine just what our philosophy would be.