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GWS 32 continued from previous page. This is page 4 of 13.
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Reading has at last clicked for J.P. It's hard to pinpoint just when it happened, but it was fairly sudden, as all these new steps seem to be. One day it was just an interesting oddity that he could figure out what stop-signs said, and so on, and the next day, the world was filled with messages for him. He's learned a lot about spelling just from having jokes explained to him - many jokes, especially the ones within his range of humor, depend on words that sound the same but are spelled differently, and there are some incorrigible punsters in this family ...
A while back, when he was wanting to use my paints and solvents, I had promised him I'd let him have them when he could read and understand the warning labels on them. He'd been sounding out words lately, so I tried him out on the "Keep out of reach of children" panel, and with a little encouragement, he made out the whole thing! (Then we cleared all the new words, just to make sure he knew what it meant). Since he'd kept his part of the bargain, I've given him a job staining rocking horses for me, $1 per horse, and is he ever excited! ...
I'd say that J.P.'s main interest, right now, is money - which I suppose is understandable, considering that's what he hears adults talking about the most around here. He collects it, hoards it, counts it, leaves it all over the house, finds it again (always a big deal - lost treasure and all that, you know), and bugs the life out of his poor daddy to drive him to the store to spend it. He's intrigued with the idea of making things and selling them, but he's still a bit confused about exactly how that works - yesterday he made a "coat rack" (well, that what he said it was), to sell for $6,000.06. He even made a price tag for it. He discovered the dollar-sign key on the typewriter last night - boy, what an acquisition! He covered most of a sheet of paper with dollar signs, and wouldn't give me my typewriter back.
Another thing he's confused about is change - he thinks it's a way you get money. I'm afraid that might have been our fault, because several times he's gone to the dime store with a dollar, and come back with a $3 toy and some change. I've told Tony he's going to have to start being hard-hearted about that, or the kid's going to get some very strange ideas about arithmetic.
...Last fall, we went out to some garage sales, and J.P. asked if we could go to one with toys, because he wanted to buy a spaceship. I had him look through the list in the paper with me, and mark the ones that said t-o-y-s. Then I showed him how to find the street name on the alphabetical map directory, and then find the area from the directory code. We followed the street sign sequences with the map, and told Daddy which way to turn. I had J.P. compare the street sign with the name in the paper when we came to it and then we counted the house numbers until we found the one with "his" garage sale. Guess what he found when we got there? The very spaceship he wanted, for 10c (it was a neat one, too - when you put batteries in it and turn it on, it blinks and bumbles all over the floor. It was missing a piece of the mechanism, but it happened to be the very part that we had saved from one of J.P.'s former toys, and Tony and J.P. fixed it up just fine). Tony hadn't really believed before that a kid could learn useful information, comparable to "purposefully studied" staff, just from doing ordinary things, but that garage sale worked out so perfectly that he had to be impressed.
J.P. is very interested in gardening and living things. Did you know that if you take a few scale divisions off a lily bulb before you plant it, and put them in a plastic bag with a little semi-moist peat moss, they'll make tiny new lily bulbs, right in your kitchen? J.P. was fascinated with mine, so we made him a "nursery pot" of his own, with his very own "lily-babies" in it (once they were big enough to leave their "mommies"). I gave him all the ones that grew a leaf, and to make it more interesting, I cut some pictures out of an old catalog of the flowers they'll have and stapled them on plastic markers, to put next to each bulb. J.P. mixes up "secret formula" fertilizers for them out of mud, bone meal, eggshells, rock phosphate, and whatever else he can scrounge in the greenhouse, and feeds it to them with a turkey baster (I just have to keep him from drowning them). The very first word that J.P. ever spelled on his own was "lily." He wrote it out on an extra seed catalog order form I'd given him. I wasn't paying much attention when he told me he was sending for some lily-babies, but there it was, clear as anything.
J.P. has had his heart set on having a Venus Fly Trap, ever since he saw one on TV eat a frog (yech). Park Seed Co. has a very attractive, informative catalog, and when I made out my order, I let J.P. send for a Venus Fly Trap bulb. I had him look it up in the alphabetical index, count the numbers to the right page, and read me the catalog number and the price so I could write it down.
... There's something about a bulb that's really neat - they're nice just to have, you know? They're filled with secret surprises, all round and heavy and alive, not tiny and dead-looking, like seeds. I gave J.P. all my gladiolus bulbs to grow last summer, and they make babies in a very satisfying and prolific way, too - J.P. is very proud of his flower garden.
... J.P. has picked up a lot of interests from my dad, including a broad perspective on languages, and an appreciation for music. Many years ago, my father made a recording from an old 76 of Basil Rathbone narrating "Peter and the Wolf," and J.P. has always loved it, asking to hear it over and over again. He's been gradually learning to hum and whistle all of the musical themes of the story - I think he has Peter, the cat, the wolf, and the hunters, now ... You hear him off by himself, playing, or staring out of the car window, humming those tricky chromatic changes to himself, searching for the right, elusive half-tone. He's getting them down pretty darned well. I had to stop here, and help J.P. sew a "pet" (I think it's supposed to be some kind of squirrel, or maybe a beaver. J.P. says his name is "Brownie Pink-Nose.") J.P. does quite well with sewing - he doesn't stab himself nearly as often as I do myself, and he catches on quickly to anything you show him (he always has had an affinity for sharp objects). I let him have the extra bits of fur from the rocking horses, and he has a big cookie-tin for his sewing supplies. I've found that heavy thread and large needles are easiest for him to handle (though he astonished me by being able to thread a regular-sized needle, when he was a lot littler than he is now), because button-and-carpet thread doesn't tangle quite as enthusiastically as ordinary thread ... _____
JH: A wonderful picture of a four-year-old human being doing what all human beings of that age (and other ages) do - though no two of them do it the same way: exploring the world around him, creating knowledge out of his own questions, thoughts, and experiences. All children do this, as we see when we pay a little thoughtful attention to what they do.
LEARNING COMPASSION
From Catherine King (MI):
... I had written earlier about the challenge of homeschooling with a joyful toddler grabbing the pencils and sitting on the paper. You asked if I would write back about any successful arrangements that I might have worked out. Well, I thought about it and couldn't come up with a one! Oh yes, we do the classics like take advantage of toddler nap time, but I think what is important is deciding that compassion is a valid and valuable aspect of education for the older siblings. So perhaps they will sacrifice the terrible efficiency of the system that lumps similar ages together and marches them right along at supposedly the most rapid learning rate, in exchange for an understanding that life and learning are not linear and involve dealing with baby brother's urgent desire to scribble on the paper we're practicing letters on - and to deal compassionately' So, sorry, no concrete tips here - but if I come up with some, I'll be sure to let you know!....
DINOSAURS FROM REAL BOOKS
Susan Richman (PA) wrote in the Unschoolers Network #14:
... Recently I scrounged through books at a library book sale. My son Jesse is 4 1/2, and I thought that perhaps it would be good to have a few TEXTS around. I found a copy of a first grade science text used locally. I thumbed through. The illustrations were pedestrian and uninspired. The text was minimal or non-existent, trying vainly to keep within standard word lists, I'm sure. When I got to the unit on dinosaurs, my decision was clenched ... the book would stay on the table.
You see, two pages were all that were given to the ancient reptiles. No names, no descriptions, no information. Just a half-dozen of the most common dinosaurs dotted about the page, no flora or fauna, no drama. A question at the bottom asked, "How do we know about the past"' (I could hear some publisher's fantasy of a teacher intoning this in perfect sing-song).
I closed the book and thought of my Jesse and what resources he has available already for extending his knowledge of dinosaurs. We own probably two dozen varied books about dinosaurs and prehistoric life. We've picked most up second hand or at museums.
It's been especially fascinating to see how the books disagree with each other, giving Jesse a real feel for the "guess-iness" of our scientific thinking about other times. He's already aware of the conflicting theories about hot-blooded or cold-blooded dinosaurs, realizes that ideas about the duckbills' crests have changed, notes how some books describe Dimetrodon's "sail" as a strange mistake, while others present it as the first solar heating and cooling unit.
Our set of toy dinosaurs is growing all the time (including some wooden ones designed by Jesse) and they are used to act out incredible reptile dramas. Jesse is aware of extinction, and really grappling with a sense of time and history. Early questions were, "Well, did the first Indians see the dinosaurs?" Now his internal timeline is stretching, and he's even aware of which dinosaurs were around first, next, and last.
... Jesse revels in pretending to be a museum scientist, tries his hand at putting together turkey bones and sheep skeletons, arranges "exhibits" of his toy dinosaurs after "excavating" them and dragging them back with bulldozers and dump trucks. We've watched the scaffolding raised beside Brontosaurus so that his bones could be cleaned, we've touched Tyrannosaurus Rex's teeth. We've imagined, pondered, wondered, from "Do dinosaurs have birthdays? I bet the plant-eating dinosaurs just ate plants on their birthdays, and the meat-eaters just ate meat ... They didn't get to eat good food on their birthdays..." to trying to figure-out his own possibilities for why the great creatures disappeared...
No, we don't have any need for these official textbooks ... We'll take real books, real life, real thinking, thank you ...
LOW COST RESOURCE
From Kathy Kearney (GWS #30):
... I've just discovered the wonders of ERIC, the computer database for education ... ERIC is the "Educational Resources Information Center" of the National Institute of Education of the US Department of Education....
Basically, ERIC works like this: You go to a local library (most college libraries should have the catalogs, as well as state libraries and some larger local libraries), and begin looking at the catalogs. When you find a document that interests you, you write down the "ED" number and total number of pages of that particular document, on the order blank. You also have to decide at that point if you want to order it in microfiche or paper copy - microfiche is much cheaper if you have access to a microfiche reader, and you can always have paper copy printed from the fiche if you need it.
Then you figure out the cost from the number of pages, following directions on the order blank, and send in the order. Up to 450 pages, if ordered on microfiche as a single entry, is only 97c plus postage.
They are very slow. I have had an order out for a month now and it isn't here yet. However, I also just found out that the Vermont Dept. of Education has the entire ERIC collection in Montpelier, and Vermont teachers get up to 50 fiche per year free. After that, and for all other Vermonters, the cost is 15c per fiche or paper copy, so it's actually a bit cheaper than sending to the Virginia headquarters. I would assume some other Dept.'s of Ed. or state libraries elsewhere in the country would also have a similar service, and it would certainly be worthwhile to ask. I am also going to ask if I can go up to Montpelier to preview some of this stuff before I purchase the fiche copies.
Getting stuff into ERIC is also quite easy. You would complete the "reproduction release" form and send it in with the document (address, PO Box 190, Arlington VA 22210; 703-641-1212). The only thing to remember is that once it's in ERIC, it's available to people for almost no money, and evidently no money comes back to you for having entered it. So it wouldn't be a good idea to enter books into ERIC that you wanted to earn money from selling, for instance.
My head is just spinning from everything I just looked at. Everything imaginable is in there. The Defense Department includes all its foreign language materials, so it's possible to learn French, German, Persian, Albanian, and a host of other languages. There are textbooks, songbooks, storybooks, teacher's guides, and everything you can imagine, including a complete course on nuclear power technology! Best of all, it costs very, very little on fiche.
There are many, many sample curriculum and scope and sequence charts from all over the country which would be helpful for parents who had to put together a curriculum to satisfy school officials.
I hope all this proves helpful to the homeschoolers out there - it looks like a perfectly marvelous resource, though of course some materials will be better than others ...
[JH:] The Feb. '83 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, a national magazine for educators published an article by me called "Schools and Home Schoolers: A Fruitful Partnership." We have reprints available here for 15c (SASE required for single copy). Some excerpts from the article:
... I contend that it would be in the best interests of schools everywhere, even in the most narrowly conceived terms - budgets, jobs, etc. - to follow the example of the Barnstable School District in cooperating fully with home schooling families rather than trying to oppose them. First of all, it is simply not realistic for school departments and districts to perceive home schooling, as many seem to, as some kind of short-run or even long-run threat. It is true that the number of home schooling families has grown rapidly in recent years and, if the legal situation does not change for the worse, is likely to continue to grow. But the number of families who, having the option to send children to school, have chosen not to send them, is at the moment hardly more than ten or fifteen thousand. Even at present rates of growth, it seems most unlikely that by a generation from now more than five or perhaps ten percent of families in this country will be choosing to teach their own children. Most children will remain in schools, public or private, for as far into the future as any of us can or dare to look.
... Schools would be wise not merely to refrain from opposing home schoolers but to cooperate with them as fully as possible. For one thing, such cooperation might well bring schools some good publicity, and that would be a welcome change.
... Schools are burdened by a set of assumptions: first, assumptions about children; second, about learning; and finally, about teaching and the relationship between teaching and learning. These assumptions shape everything schools do, and I believe them to be a root cause of the schools' frustrations and failures.
Schools tend to assume that children are not much interested in learning, are not much good at it, and are unlikely to learn anything useful and important unless adults tell them what to learn, tell them when and how to learn it, check up on them to make sure they are learning it, and reward or penalize ("reinforce") them according to whether they seem to be learning or not ... These assumptions about children are not supported by research or experience, but are rooted in popular Calvinist assumptions about the inherent badness of children and in the deep need of many adults to credit themselves for anything good that children may do. No one with eyes and ears open and a mind in working order can long remain in the company of babies or young children without observing that they are in fact voracious, tireless, and skillful learners and they create learning out of their experiences in much the same way that scientists create it out of theirs.
... One serious consequence of the prevalence of these assumptions, grounded more in folklore than in experience or research, is that they can scarcely be tested with a large enough population and over a long enough period to produce meaningful results. Many small-scale experiences, in homes and in schools, have shown that, when children are allowed to decide when they will begin the exciting task of learning to read and are allowed to work out for themselves the problems of doing so (with no more help or checking than they ask for), the great majority of them learn to read much more quickly, enthusiastically, and efficiently than most children in conventional schools. But not in the foreseeable future can we expect a school district to duplicate this experience with more than a tiny fraction of its pupils - if any at all.
Similarly, many experiences in homes and schools (even in the penal institution for boys described by Daniel Fader in "Hooked on Books" I have shown that, when children who can read at least a little are given access to a large and varied selection of books, told to read what they like, and given plenty of time without interruption, checking, testing, or competitive grading, not only does their reading skill improve but they come to love reading. Yet even those schools that have tried such programs on a small scale and found them successful have rarely applied them more widely. A number of schools in various parts of the U.S. have begun to devote a short time each day to "sustained silent reading," but even these schools rarely allow more than 10 minutes a day for this work. To give even as much as a single hour per day to silent reading (thus taking time away from reading instruction) would strike most educators as a dangerously radical experiment.
Not in the foreseeable future can we imagine a school district saying to its students, "You can read anything you like, and as much as you like, and we aren't going to grade you on it." Or, "You can study whatever you want, and we don't care what grade you're in." Or, "If you're working on some project, take as much time as you need to finish it." If educational experiments such as these are ever to be undertaken on a large scale (as they should be) it is not likely to be in schools as we know them. Nor are we likely to see large- scale and long-term research conducted to find out whether other methods of evaluating learning might not be better than the standardized testing now almost universally used. We are equally unlikely to see any research that questions or examines any other standard assumptions and practices in education.
There is only one place where this kind of research is likely to be carried out on a large enough scale and for a long enough time to yield significant results. That place is in the homes of families who are teaching their own children. This is the main reason why the homeschooling movement is so important to schools. It is - in effect, though certainly not by design - a laboratory for the intensive and long-range study of children's learning and of the ways in which friendly and concerned adults can help them learn. It is a research project, done at no cost, or a kind for which neither the public schools nor the government could afford to pay.
Even if our public institutions could afford such research, it would not be as good as that now taking place in homes ... because of the flexibility of curriculum and schedule, and above all the closeness, the intimacy, the emotional warmth, and the security of those homes in which parents elect to teach their own children.
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