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GWS 32 continued from previous page. This is page 3 of 13.
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NEBRASKA: Beth Zuehlke of the NEBRA SCHOOLING EXCHANGE (Box 96, Rockville NE 68871) has started a newsletter; $5/5 issues or $1.25 for a sample.
OHIO: Lynne Leffel and Beth Kirchausen have taken charge of the group OCEAN (OHIO COALITION FOR EDUCATIONAL ALTERNATIVES NOW): new address is PO Box 094, Thompson OH 44086. And Elizabeth Burns and Linda Cox have started CHRISTIAN HOMESCHOOLERS OF OHIO, PO Box 302, Cuyahoga Falls OH 44221. Elizabeth says, "July 29-31 we are having a campout weekend at our farm in Ashland. Families are come to bring campers, tents, or just come for a day."
UTAH: Laurie Huffman of the UTAH HOME EDUCATION ASSOCIATION (PO Box 6338, Salt Lake City UT 84106) informed us of the excellent TV, radio, and newspaper coverage Utah homeschoolers are getting, and said, "Ken and I keep busy fighting fires as families all over the state come to grips with their district officials who attempt to impose tighter restrictions than the law allows. We feel. however, that Utah's administrators are generally good with genuine concern for the welfare of children. They are easy to converse with, for the most part, and even seem to welcome our explanations of the statutes. What an unusual position we have found ourselves in, but what fun we are having at the same time!"
WYOMING: Kasey Michaels (Pioneer Academy, 917 N Lincoln, Casper WY 82601) and Cynthia Neilson (Box 1386, Lyman WY 82937; 307-767-6728) are organizing a home-schooling group for the state. - DR
IDEAS FROM LOCAL GROUPS
[DR:] Here are some good ideas from local and regional homeschooling groups that others may want to adapt in their own area. First, in the Fall '82 Maine Home Education newsletter, editor Don Wismer put a form with the heading, "Yes, please list us in the Directory Issue of Maine Home Education." This was followed by lines for parents' names, address, phone number, children's names, ages, and interests; and below that, these remarks: "Use the remaining space for mentioning anything about yourself that you'd like to see in the Maine directory, such as a wish for a local group, the fact that you need someone to come in and work with the family on a particular subject field, skills that you have that you are willing to share with other families, etc..."
The eleven replies printed in the next issue made fascinating reading, giving a vivid picture of each family. A simple way for distant families to become acquainted and find out what they would like to do together. _____
A list on the front page of the Western Pa. Homeschoolers newsletter: WESTERN PA. SCHOOL DISTRICTS THAT HAVE COOPERATED WITH HOMESCHOOLING FAMILIES: FOX CHAPEL, WEST JEFFERSON HILLS, NORTH HILLS, SOUTH WEST BUTLER, PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS, TITUSVILLE, WOODLAND HILLS, ARMSTRONG, JEFFERSON-MORGAN, SHALER, KISKI. _____
Next, some activities of the NEW JERSEY FAMILY SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION (Pres., Carol Skidmore, 201-647-3506):
At the March General Meeting, according to the newsletter, "David O'Hearn will speak on 'What Kids Can Do With a Computer.' David is 13 years old and has been working with computers since he was ten or eleven, so he is well qualified to speak on this topic. Last summer David founded his own small but growing company, Telecom Communication."
Some of the ten "Activity Days" scheduled for March and April included: hiking and feeding ducks at Loantaka Park; a tour of Edmund Scientific Store; Fieldcrest Farm Sheep Shearing, which would have wood and iron crafters, Scottish dancers and music, shearers, spinners, and weavers; and a lecture and tour of the 19th century Cooper Grist Mill. _____
Lastly, Nancy Plent (NJ) has been sending us the monthly "Library Bulletin" of the UNSCHOOLERS NETWORK. As she says in one of them, "Our monthly open house started as a home schooling support group. Getting together regularly made it possible to start thinking about our food co-op, which is now one year old. Recycling bottles and newspapers to pay the expenses of the open house is our latest project. We also have a small but growing library of books about alternatives and have a learning exchange. We try to approach all projects in the least complicated, least expensive, most stress-free way we can devise. We want our networking to be a pleasure, not a chore."
Last year when these open houses (called Library Days) began, I asked Nancy to tell us more about them. She wrote:
... The Library day, believe it or not, is a well-thought-out plan to simplify part of my life ... Having committed myself to having a get-together on a regular basis, I automatically follow through on things that have to ready by meeting dates. Before, I was just spinning my wheels ...
After the initial work of planning what the day was for and getting the books together and catalogued, the library day itself requires very little work. There are two of us who do most of the preparations and planning. We talked for four months before we decided what we wanted to do. We wanted regular contact with other like-minded people, but not in a meeting atmosphere. I'm dismayed at the business-meeting tone that so many groups take ... I suppose that if you are fighting the state, some of that is necessary, but just social contact and an opportunity to meet people and swap ideas on anything seemed like what was needed.
We had one "introductory meeting" in August which I advertised to the public, for the benefit of people who might not know they didn't have to send their kids to school in September. Since then, we just get together, sit and talk or picnic in the back yard, see a film, bring things in to show others (one member brought in an Animal Town game and I was impressed with the quality of the pieces. Stuff like I remember in games when I was a kid). We usually have no more than 10 people who show up. There's a regular core, but there's also always somebody new who wants to know more about home schooling. I guess "laid back" is the way you might describe the day.
... Several people have come and met others who lived not far from them, and a couple of new friendships have formed. There's a little more community feeling than there was in the past.
The film part is no problem, after we found out what was available and how to get it. Kathy Shoshin is my partner in craziness ... She lives near a library that lends projectors, but has boring films. I live near a library with neat films but no projectors. It's a perfect partnership ... I order a couple of months ahead and just pick up the films. We've started dividing the year into "areas" to focus on. This quarter is food, nutrition, and health. So we ordered "Diet for a Small Planet" as our film, and are concentrating on putting up flyers to get new co-op members. Next quarter will be on pregnancy, birth and infant nurturing ...
... The only problem with all of this (which is, after all, only one day a month, basically) is that we can think of more to do than we have time for and we shoot down more ideas than we follow through on. We've learned not to expect too much of ourselves or too much of a response from others. And things that we've wanted to get into for years are slowly happening. Kathy and I both make decisions on the food co-op and both are trying to build it up, but Kathy handles all the paper work. It's her main project. A friend nearby has watched our meetings from the sidelines for months and finally decided she would offer a crafts workshop once or twice a month at the local community center. We've talked about that for years, too. I'm helping her find people and materials, but she's going to handle all of the details ... We're hoping that more people will offer to do things that we can incorporate into the network of activities without having to become one bulky organization or have anybody overloaded. Which is just simply networking, not organizing.
... Back to the food co-op for a minute. We think we have solved a lot of the problems that are a persistent part of most co-ops and I've been meaning to write out our guidelines to share with people. A lot of people won't like the premises we're based on, but they are working. We've accepted the fact that a small handful of people wind up doing the work in any group, so we don't try to involve anybody else in the planning ... Everybody seems happy with the service so far, though new members still go through a period where they think we should be having lots of membership meetings or something ...
ABOUT ADDRESS CHANGES
We have always gotten letters like the following, but lately they seem to be coming more often:
"Dear GWS - I haven't received an issue since #27, and I know I subscribed for three years. Could you please send me the issues I am missing? Oh, by the way, I moved last year; my new address is...."
As we have said a number of times, the post office does not forward Third and Fourth class mail (the rates we have been using), which is why we have asked you to send address changes promptly. The Post Office doesn't return the issues to us, either; it throws them away.
In the past, we replaced the missing issues for free, but we can no longer afford to do this. Our policy now is that if you are missing back issues because of a change in address, you will have to replace them at your own expense.
If we get your address change at least three weeks before the next issue is mailed, we'll be able to enter it into the computer in time. For example, GWS #33 will be mailed in late June, so changes received in mid-June or later will be too late.
Additionally, we have applied for a permit for Second-class mail, the rate for publications. Second-class mail is not forwarded either, with this exception: you may have noticed that the post office's change-of-address form asks if you are willing to pay to have periodicals forwarded. If you mark "Yes," Second class mail (as we hope GWS will be) will reach you for a small charge. (If you do not mark "Yes," and our label still has your old address, the post office will throw away your GWS. So to avoid extra expense and unnecessary frustration, please, please send us your new address as soon as you know it. Thanks. - DR
The revised edition of HOW CHILDREN LEARN is now available here ($7.15 + post). As with the revised edition of HOW CHILDREN FAIL, John has left the original text intact, interspersed with new material (indented and marked with a line running along the left margin). Here are some excerpts from the new sections:
...All I am saying in this book can be summed up in two words - Trust Children. Nothing could be more simple - or more difficult. Difficult, because to trust children we must trust ourselves - and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.
... It is even possible that some kinds of mental activity may be largely centered in some parts of the brain, and other kinds in others. But it would be simple-minded and silly to say that all the complicated varieties of thought, of mental experience, can be neatly separated into two kinds and that one of these can be exclusively assigned to the left side of the brain, the other to the right. When I say that I am sometimes surprised by what my mind tells me, I am talking about a very common experience. But where in my brain is the "my mind" who does the telling, where the "me" who is surprised? ... What of the fact that often, while thinking of something else, I will find that "my mind" has suddenly presented "me" with a complete sentence, sometimes even two or three, which "I" like so much that I rush to write them down before I forget them? "I" have certainly not produced those sentences in the way I am now producing these sentences on the typewriter, thinking about what words to use or where to put them. On which side of my brain is the producer of these sentences, on which side the observer, critic, editor who judges them to be good?
... It is hardly ever possible to separate what we think about something from how we feel about it ... This notion, now very popular in leading universities, that organisms, including human beings, are nothing but machines, is for me one of the most mistaken, foolish, harmful, and dangerous of all the many bad ideas at large in the world today. If an idea can be evil, this one surely is.
...It is only in the presence of loving, respectful, trusting adults like Millicent Shinn or Glenda Bissex that children will learn all they are capable of learning, or reveal to us what they are learning ... Of two ways of looking at children now growing in fashion - seeing them as monsters of evil who must be beaten into submission, or as little two-legged walking computers whom we can program into geniuses, it is hard to know which is worse, and will do more harm. I write this book to oppose them both.
...How much people can learn at any moment depends on how they feel at that moment about the task and their ability to do the task. When we feel powerful and competent, we leap at difficult tasks. The difficulty does not discourage us; we think, "Sooner or later, I'm going to get this." At other times, we can only think, "I'll never get this, it's too hard for me, I'm never any good at this kind of thing, why do I have to do it," etc. Part of the art of teaching is being able to sense which of these moods learners are in.
... The only good reason for playing games with babies is because we love them, and delight in playing these games with them and in sharing their delight in playing - not because we want someday to get them into college. It is our delight in the baby and the games that make the games fun, and worthwhile and useful for the baby. Take away the delight, and put in it's place some cold-hearted calculation about future I.Q. and SAT scores, and we kill the game, for ourselves and the baby.
... The point is that if it takes a long time to develop a good habit, it will take just as long to develop a bad one. The idea that we must work hundreds of hours to make a good habit, but can make a bad one in a few seconds, is nonsense. And the point of this to us as teachers is that we don't always have to be in such a big hurry to correct children's mistakes. We can afford to give them time to notice and correct them themselves. And the more they do this, the better they will become at doing it, and the less they will need and depend on us to do it for them.
...In this chapter I will say something very simple, that may not often have been said before. Children use fantasy not to get out of, but to get into, the real world.
... It is a serious mistake to say that, in order to learn, children must first be able to "delay gratification," i.e., must be willing to learn useless and meaningless things on the faint chance that later they may be able to make use of some of them. It is their desire and determination to do real things, not in the future but right now, that gives children the curiosity, energy, determination, and patience to learn all they learn.
... I would now add perhaps even more important reasons why testing - at least, unasked for testing done by others - destroys learning.
The first reason has to do with the matter of hunches. When we constantly ask children questions to find out whether or not they know something (or prove to ourselves that they, don't), we almost always cut short the slow process by which, testing their hunches against experience, they turn them into secure knowledge.
... Every unasked-for test is above all else a statement of no confidence in the learner. That I check up at all on what you have learned proves that I fear you have not really learned it. For young children, these repeated votes of no confidence can be devastating.
... It may be true enough that in learning purely physical skills, such as sports ... we generally have to learn easy movements before we learn hard ones. That is how the body works. But it is not how the mind works ... What makes things easy or hard for our minds has very little to do with how little or how much information they may contain, and everything to do with how interesting they are and, to say it once again, how much sense they make, how connected they seem to reality.
... This book did not change, as I hoped it might, the way schools deal with children. I said, trust them to learn. The schools would not trust them, and even if they had wanted to, the great majority of the public would not have let them. Their reasons boil down to these: (1) Children are no good; they won't learn unless we make them. (2) The world is no good; children must be broken to it. (3) I had to put up with it; why shouldn't they? To people who think this way, I don't know what to say. Telling them about the real learning of real children only makes them cling to their theories about the badness and stupidity of children more stubbornly and angrily than ever. Why do they do this? Because it gives them a license to act like tyrants and to feel like saints.
... What is lovely about children is that they can make such a production, such a big deal, out of everything, or nothing ... All that energy and foolishness, all that curiosity, questions, talk, all those fierce passions, inconsolable sorrows, immoderate joys, seem to many a nuisance to be endured, if not a disease to be cured. To me they are a national asset, a treasure beyond price, more necessary to our health and our very survival than any oil or uranium or name what you will ...
J.P. AT FOUR
From Kathy Mingl (IL):
... J.P. is a "big boy," now - he'll be 5 in April. He's still fascinated by all kinds of machinery, but his scope has increased. His big drive has always been to be able to do anything a grownup can do, and I think he's come to a point where he can see that within his reach, and that's a great relief to him. (I don't know what you think of reincarnation, but I've always had this picture of a really big, capable, forceful, no-nonsense sort of person who suddenly finds himself in this tiny, helpless body, feeling totally degraded, frustrated, terrified, and ridiculous, all at the same time). He really had a bad time of it there, for a while, poor guy, but he's calmed down a lot, now. He's usually willing to wait for directions, these days, rather than crying to control things by beating them down by main force - he knows, you see, that he can make the thing behave itself, even if he doesn't have the details of how he's going to do it worked out yet.
... He wants to know about death, and where babies come from, and whether I still love him when I'm mad at him - and those are the easy questions! Some of the stuff he comes up with is really startling, like "If there was a hole under our house, why wouldn't it fall all the way to the other side of the world?" and "Why can't you make a car that runs on hydrogen?" (He must have heard somebody talking about that sometime, but the way it came up, we had been looking up what makes balloons rise, and he had asked what made cars go, a few days before.) Sometimes the questions he asks sound strange, because he's thinking about things he doesn't have the words for yet, like the other day: "How do cats know to be a cat, when they just eat and aren't there?" I think that means, "How is a specific body form created and maintained without an intelligence in residence, directing the process?" I had a craven impulse to just say, "God does it," but I told him I didn't know, instead - let him read about theology vs. evolution for himself.
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