When Defiance Turns into an Experiment

For the longest time I have been strict about sunscreen and sun hats.  I have always said they were necessary from nine to five between March and September and ten to four the rest of the year with adjusting to nine to three during standard time.  It is just a rule I have used to be prudent about the sun.  The kids, however, were getting sick of it and challenged me on it.  So we sat down and researched possible rules of thumb for sunscreen usage.  A common one that seemed to come up was to wear it when one's shadow is shorter than oneself.  But even with this, my times didn't seem to be too far off - until we tested it.

We began by watching a video online about the angle of the sun.  Then we decided to measure our shadows beginning within a week of the summer solstice and once a month, thereafter.  After the June one, we looked up the solar noon so we could extrapolate the end time rather than have to measure shadows in both the morning and afternoon.  Here is what we came up with for sunscreen/hat usage:

Month (3rd week)	Start	Stop
June	9:45	4:45
July	10:10	4:35
August	10:40	4:00
September	11:20	3:00
October	never shorter	never shorter

In Buffalo, there is a big variance in how much sun we get during the different times of year.  As you can see, I wasn't too far off for June.

We continued in July.

August, however, was more like the times I had been using for winter.  This is when the kids started to get excited.  By September, it was less than four hours.

And finally, here is October, when their shadows never even got close to shorter:

Do you see the satisfaction at Mom being wrong?  Hopefully, this is the beginning of questioning all kinds of rules and seeking out the truth in more areas.  Of course, we are (painfully at times) aware that it often means questioning us too.

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?

Where Raising Independent Kids Meets Modern Mothering Guilt

A better title to this might be the "The Benefits of Parenting with a Chronic Illness" or "The Huge Risks of Parenting with a Chronic Illness" depending on your point of view.  My fibromyalgia causes me to have much less energy than most people.  Fortunately, pain is not my worst symptom - fatigue is - which means that I can do the things that most people do, but far less of it.  I have fewer good, up hours than most people.  I end up hitting the couch earlier than most people need to crash so the main consequence is that I have less time.

We often get home from activities or errands and I need to crash so the kids have to handle their own baths.  It isn't uncommon that they move the last load of laundry to the dryer for me and even know which settings are for which types of loads.  A few times, Carmella has peeled carrots for me when I am so tired that standing in the kitchen is difficult.  They make their own peanut butter sandwiches when they get hungry.  This is great unless I am about to cook dinner, of course.  They know how to shut off the stove and oven as well as the timer to buy me a couple of minutes getting back to the kitchen.  Later in the day they put their own dishes in the dishwasher and clean up the kitchen floor.  They fold towels.  Yes, they do need to be asked multiple times and this doesn't translate into cleaning up their toys sprawled out in the dining room, but they are taking charge of many tasks at a much younger age than most kids.

This does lead to some guilt.  I know most kids their ages still get the coziness of Mom assisting with a bath.  It feels like the house is in some disorganized chaos all the time.  I am sure when I am not feeling well, I also get frustrated and snappy more easily.  Ultimately, though, it seems that they are more independent.

Today, Easter Sunday, I am in loads of pain and my lower back is out, so the kids have to handle themselves whatever they choose to do (Dad is at work).  When it was time to color Easter eggs, I told them to fill the pan with the eggs and water and that I would turn on the stove to boil them.  They dropped and broke 4 eggs.  I got upset, of course, but told them I was going back to rest and to call me after they had cleaned up, and furthermore, instead of boiling 20 they were now down to 16.  Yes, I do feel a little guilty about making them do their own clean up of the egg mess and I know most parents would have let them take 4 more eggs from the fridge rather than having them accept their own losses.  I am sure on Easter that if I wasn't suffering so much that the guilt would have overcome me and I would have provided more assistance, but it seems, since they succeeded, that it would be at the cost of character building.

When I came back to the kitchen I poured the hot water and vinegar, but left and let them put in their own food coloring and decorate their own eggs.  The results were great:

I still don't know how the different color splotches came about so they must know some advanced technique I couldn't have taught them.

There were risks though.  The water was hot, although I know they have a thorough understanding of hot in the kitchen so I am sure it is why they didn't get burned.  They could have gotten dye in places that weren't helpful or broken a mug, but then I would have had them clean up.  Last night they learned how to safely clean up broken glass, so they would have been ready.

I know to some people this all may seem risky, but so far, it seems that they are more independent and confident than most kids so I keep coming back to the fact that this may be the right approach even though I have sort of defaulted to it because of my fibro.

What about you?  Do you let your kids handle their own messes and projects, on purpose or by accident?  Do you find it builds character?

Making Our Own Soap

I often contemplate whether or not our homeschooling approach is good.  We do a mix of online curriculum, reading classic books, and hands-on activities, not to mention the outside classes they have in art, science, martial arts and dancing.  I recently tried to decide which hands-on activities are most valuable.  It struck me that we should try to make as many of the things we use as possible - if not on an ongoing basis, at least once or twice to get a sense of what's involved.

Soap is something that I hadn't though about too much except I was pretty sure that what we were buying in the store wasn't all that healthy.  Once I researched it, however, I found out that so many academic subjects could be covered in making soap so there is value across age groups.  There's safety, chemistry, math, social studies, art, reading, and research skills.

Safety is very important since you are handling lye.  Glasses and gloves must be used.  I suit up the kids in sunglasses that wrap around with good coverage and gloves.  I also don't have them directly handle the lye.

Chemistry is obviously covered, but the real nuts and bolts of the reactions are probably better for older age groups though.  Still, my kids get a sense of it by measuring the temperature of lye and water mixture (with a non-touching thermometer) and seeing how much heat is given of when the two combine.

Math is well covered.  I have them add up the oil amounts so we know what number we are weighing to on the scale.  They weigh the oils and take temperatures.  They help me use an online calculator to determine how much lye and water is needed for the type of oil.  There is also cutting the soap trying to get as even measurements as possible and weighing the bars once they are cut.

Social studies is loosely covered since I have explained that mixing oils and lye is the traditional way of making soap back into history.  There is also the economics of selling some of the soap online and to friends and acquaintances. 

Art is somewhat involved because one can get creative with coloring and design.  Although we prefer natural soaps we stay away from too much in the way of color.  However, it is interesting to see how appearance is affected by the ingredients.  We may experiment with color at some point providing it is from natural sources.

Reading is obvious since we need to read recipes.  Although many recipes we learn by watching videos.

This brings me to one of the best thing - research skills.  We learned a great deal from youtube and doing internet searches so the kids got a sense of how to take charge and learn something independently without only relying on formal education.  It also strikes me that youtube, on some respects, is like John Holt's vision for education where there are no schools, but people finding each other and teaching what they know.  This happens when an expert puts up a good video and people like us find them and can replicate what they are doing with no classroom required.  The information is free and available.

On a related note, we did make our own dry laundry detergent.  I am not sure what we will do next in the way of things we use.  What items have you made as a homeschool project that you were able to use?

Walking Home with No Underwear

I have probably grabbed your attention with the title.  Hopefully, you will find the post interesting too.  Today, I took the kids swimming.  This is something I do pretty often to keep their skills up.  It is an undertaking in some ways because we need to pack up and walk the mile there.  Luckily our bags are on wheels.  I don't always have a lot of energy which translates into less time when I do have energy, so I frequently have the kids pack their own bags.  It is hard to get Carmella going sometimes, but once she starts packing she remembers everything.  So at least it is smooth once we get there.  Thomas, on the other hand, often forgets whole outfits having to walking home in the same outfit he wore there despite it being dirty and having had a full shower.  I am big on re-wearing outfits a time or two before washing, but after a bath or shower, I think something that is completely clean is most appropriate.  I often wear the same thing (for all leave-the-house occasions) for a full 48 hours between showers, but then I want a fresh outfit.  Anyway, today, despite being reminded by Carmella and me, Thomas forgot his underwear.  So I had to decide whether to let him wear dirty underwear after a shower or to walk home with no underwear on.  I chose the latter for the above mentioned reasons. 

Then, I started thinking to myself that it is a good thing that he doesn't go to school.  He would suffer in terms of lower grades for forgetting homework or forgetting to have it signed or getting in trouble for not having forms signed.  Of course, it can't just be my son.  I am sure there are loads of kids like him.  There must be lots of kids getting into trouble in school for being forgetful.  This isn't exactly what is happening though.  To my knowledge, parents are very involved in kids' homework and teachers purposely involve them.  The parents open the backpacks.  Perhaps this is the problem.  Kids often don't become accountable or independent because the consequences are so serious (in terms of grades) that they are not left to handle their responsibility independently.  I think it is good for my son that he had to walk home with no underwear.  Next time, he will be more likely to remember and it has no permanent consequences (like a school transcript), only the short term weird feeling of walking home in pants with no underwear under them.

The funny thing is that when he goes to one of his activities, I let him go in the boy's locker room alone and he changes outfits just fine and doesn't forget anything.  He is even fast at it versus my begging him to get dressed at home.  At that same activity, there is a boy close to his age, probably in between his and Carmella's ages, who changes in the girls locker room with his mother.  Aside from this bugging me a little bit since Carmella has to change with him, it is clearly not going to help him be independent.  I am not sure her reason for doing it.  If it is out of fear, it doesn't make sense since these are small locker rooms with the instructors (appropriate gender) moving in and out of them frequently.  I would understand fear in a big public place like a mall or grocery store with many strangers.  In those settings, Thomas still comes in the ladies room with us (provided Dad isn't out with us).  It must be because she feels like she needs to help him change or pack.  In my experience though, my kids handle things in a grown up manner when I give them space.  When I micromanage, they go out of their way to be forgetful and even goofy and out of hand.

Perhaps this is the problem with the education system today.  In the 1980s we were a bit older when we went to school.  I don't remember my parents ever opening my backpack.  Sometimes, they asked if I had homework and sometimes they didn't.  I learned to keep track of myself so I wouldn't get a bad grade or lose recess.  Now kids get a mixed message.  They are expected to work full-time at school as if they are adults, but they are not given the responsibility and corresponding feeling of independence.  It's not that I think parents should never help with a difficult homework, but being involved in it daily, especially at the expectation of the teachers, is counterproductive.  While I am not always successful, I try to teach my kids in a manner opposite to this.  I want them to have real responsibility (packing without me checking their bags), but don't want to turn it into a full-time job.

Anyway, this is what I was thinking about while my son walked home with no underwear on.  Only time will tell if my methods are better, but something to ponder.

Teaching Time Managment

As part of our homeschooling, I have a list of classic children's books sorted in precise grade level order (2.1, 2.2, etc.) that I am having the kids read in addition to their Time4Learning, outside activities, and impromptu play and experiments.  Sometimes, it is hard to get T to sit down and read because there are so many things he wants to do.  I began to push bringing his books with us to activities.  Since we ride the NFTA buses to go places there is usually extra time waiting for a bus and extra time when we get somewhere early because the bus times aren't always precise for the desired arrival time.  There is also the time waiting for a bus to come home.

He fought me at first, but when he realized that he was getting almost all his reading done during time that would otherwise be wasted, he got much better about it.  He now sees that he has more time at home to play and do other things.  Hopefully, he will begin to appreciate how important time management is.  I think this is a pretty good way to teach it especially because without going to school there is still a tremendous amount of free time and this just increases it.  When I was in school learning time management wasn't the difference between free time and more free time, but no free time and a little free time.  It was hard to see the point when I was so overloaded.  Only time will tell if the time management sticks, but we'll wait and see.  I certainly think learning it in the context of more choices is better than the way I learned it where there was more of a punishment element in not having all my assignments ready.  Again, we'll have to see how it works long term.

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?

Happiness as an Educational Goal

A couple of months ago, I took out Happiness and Education by Nel Noddings from the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library.  I have been meaning to write about it for a while now, but with the difficulty concentrating that I have due to fibro fog, reading takes me a very long time.  Anyway, I really enjoyed the book and its arguments.  I liked the discussion of happiness as a reasonable goal for education.  There really is quite a bit of support for it when looked at through the eyes of philosophy.

One of the best parts, however, was that it really illuminated how lopsided the conventional education system is towards hard academics and career preparation.  While intuitively, it seems unnecessarily to coop kids up on a nearly full-time basis for academics, I am not sure I thought about how many things that conventional school doesn't cover or cover enough that take up a significant part of life such as home making and interpersonal relationships.  I suppose that most people expect students to learn those things at home, but, of course, with all the time spent in school and on homework, they are not covered well at home either.

The book also touches on the inherent materialism that is the goal in education since everyone expects that if they work hard at school they'll get a good job and be able to buy everything they need.  Education is often cited as a way to promote equality and diminish poverty.  However, someone will always have to do the work that society values with low wages so it illuminates that poverty is a social problem and not an educational one.

These are just some of the things that I gleaned from reading this book.  I recommend it to everyone with kids, but especially homeschool parents.  While I haven't made dramatic changes to our routine because of it, it has helped me put our activities into good perspective.

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?