Homeschooling Resources

In this post, I hope to share some references that we've found to be good.  There are LOT of homeschooling sites out there that I honestly feel phone it in.  These resources are probably most suited for middle and high school students where the detail of the content and the depth of learning are most critical.  For younger students, I think that this time away from school should be spent exposing them to a wider array of topics and subjects than they would likely get at school.  Use this as a chance to draw out the things your child is most interested in.

I'm not sure this is the best format for sharing things but with schools closing and people scrambling, I wanted to get the information compiled and worry about the structure later.

Math

I will only post one resource here because I think it is the best around.  Note that if your child has been studying under a common core curriculum that (1) it may be more difficult for them than you would expect BUT WELL WORTH IT and (2) they need it more than anyone else.  Common Core SUCKS and, when working with kids who are struggling in math, I've found that they really don't have a good grasp of the fundamentals and that only perpetuates the struggle and their disdain for the subject.

The Art of Problem Solving is the resource to check out.  It covers PreAlgebra onward.  Their website is dense with content so here are some initial things to check out:

• Alcumus - they call this a game but really it consists of practice problems for each content area.  The engine adjusts the questions based on how the student performs on each.  The student is given two attempts to get the question correct.  After, the solution and a detailed explanation are presented.  
• Video Lessons - This is the page where they've compiled their videos on how to solve problems.  If you aren't able to teach your kid certain math concepts, this does a really good job.  OR if you have a teenager who just thinks everyone is smart EXCEPT YOU, this could be a new source of information for you :)
• Diagnostic Tests - If you aren't sure where your student should start, you can use these pretests to help figure it out.  They come with the answers and can help you figure out where the holes are in your student's learning or what level they are ready for.  There are many others but here are the ones likely most relevant to most middle/high school students.
• PreAlgebra 1 Diagnostic Test
• PreAlgebra 2 Diagnostic Test
• Algebra A Diagnostic Test
• Algebra B Diagnostic Test
• Intro to Geometry Diagnostic Test
• Online School 

Reading

Students should read daily.  It doesn't really matter what they read and I would suggest allowing them to choose topics or books to read to keep them engaged.  For students who don't read on their own voluntarily or who may not enjoy reading, this is the chance for you to really look for books that will keep them interested.  The skill of reading is only improved by the act of reading.

For Boys

I highly recommend finding exciting books for boys who don't enjoy reading.  Here are some of the series that my son has enjoyed. 

Books by Mike Lupica - mostly sports-based, easy to read with good life lessons 

Hunger Games series

The Giver

Vocabulary Building

Personal Vocabulary Cards is a concept presented by Collins Education.  On one side of an index card, the student should write the vocabulary word and draw a depiction of its meaning.  On the other side, the student should write the part of speech (top right hand corner), the definition IN THEIR OWN WORDS and two sentences that show the meaning of the word.  For the sentences, you want to ensure that the student writes a sentence that would allow a reader to infer the definition of the word from the context in which it was used.  It isn't good enough just to use the word correctly.

Essential Vocabulary Lists

• K-2
• 3-5
• 6-12

Writing

Similar to reading, writing is a skill that is only improved by doing more writing.  There are SO many ways to incorporate this into your student's day.  You can combine it with other subjects or have it standalone.

Collins Education is my go-to source for writing.  I would start with their free resources and then browse their age-specific books that are available for purchase (in hard copy and pdf download forms).  An idea would be to focus on the Ten Percent Summary Strategy  This is a strategy to help students learn to summarize.  You can combine this with watching CNN 10 (below) and have your student summarize their favorite segment.  It can also be used to summarize a chapter they are reading in their book.

Thoughtful Learning is another great writing source.  They have some Writing Prompts by grade level.  They also have some Student Model writings that you can review to get a benchmark of where your student should be and for you to also provide to your student so they can see a model of what writing at their level should look like.  The minilessons would be good to provide variety to your students.  They also have many books and workbooks that are exceptional.

Social Studies/World Events

CNN 10 - I would watch daily.  It's a 10 minute news segment geared towards anyone.  It used to be called CNN Student and a lot of schools incorporate it into their curriculum.  Their segments span many topics such as politics, world events, technologies,  highlighting Positive Athletes and recognizing CNN Heroes.  They are also now on YouTube here.

iCivics Lessons - I really like this site.  Civics is one of the topics that is typically hard for students to get excited about.  Their lessons are presented as games or other interesting content.

Science

I've not got a lot of suggestions here.  We've focused our efforts around things that interest our kid.  Here are a few resources we've liked.

Google CS First - standalone programming lessons for beginners.
MIT's Scratch - another great standalone programming intro site.  This is also great for elementary aged kids.

National Geographic Kids

Language

Duolingo provides instruction and daily practice exercises.  They have support for many languages.

Rosetta Stone is providing free access to their resources for the next 3 months.

I've been doing everything all wrong!

Don't you hate when you read a parenting book and the more you read, the more you realize it's just pointing out what you're doing wrong?  That's happened to me at least 5 times so far in the 14 years that I've been a mom.  Doh!

The most recent, before today, was over the summer when I read a book called How to Raise An Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kids for Success.   It is a really great book.  Jeff and I both read it and found it valuable.  As a result of reading the book and buying into the points she made, I felt pretty confident in my decision this year to offload a lot of the responsibilities of school onto CJ even though I knew it may be hard for him at first and he may make a lot of mistakes.  

While, I still feel really good about the decisions in general and plan to stick to them, I'm not seeing the motivation that I would like to see.  I'm also seeing him slip into some old habits that are scaring me.  He's in 8th grade and we have set our sights on his going to a private high school (read: essays have to be written, tests have to be taken and grades have to be good).  He got a 64% on his first math quiz.  Until then, he'd maintained an A average in his honors math class but now he's at a C.  Yesterday, when starting the next unit, I was surprised (read: disappointed) that he didn't spend a lot of extra time with the material to make sure he had a better grasp of it so he'd be more prepared for the next quiz.  Part of my "offloading" is to not check his homework unless he asks and not force him to study.  It's killing me slowly lol.  

Another part of my "offloading" is not to use the online system to maintain regular awareness of his grades.  Until yesterday, I'd been doing a good job.  Honestly, it was a little easier than it would have been because he was so happy about his grades that he was constantly showing them to me.  But yesterday, in a moment of weakness, I checked his grades.  Just like a suspicious girlfriend checking a boyfriend's phone, I wished I hadn't lol.  What I found was that his science grade had ALSO gone from an A to a C.  It's only the fourth week of school.  I couldn't just leave it at that...I had to investigate what had gone wrong.  Turns out, he just didn't turn his homework in last week and got a 0.  Those darn 0s get you every time.  I asked him about it and he said he forgot and through a series of unfortunate events, I was left frustrated and mad and feeling like he's never going to get it together.

Fast forward to about an hour ago.  I spent this morning kinda sulking and feeling depressed because I'm back to worrying about his future (I should've never looked at the grades lol).  I decided to find a new book on Teen Boys.  After the How to Raise an Adult, I really felt like I didn't need another parenting book.  I'm addicted!!!!!  Anyway, so I found He's Not Lazy: Empowering Your Son to Believe in Himself.  I've only listened to the book for like 20 mins - I think I got through the first chapter but it seems to be just what I needed.

So far, it seems that the book is intended to encourage us not to see our sons as lazy but to recognize when their actions stem from a desire to succeed but a failure to try for fear of success.  In my current state of life, I just find this so hard to believe.  I must be representative of most parents of teen boys because he addresses this almost as soon as he presents it.  He asks his readers to do an exercise which should instigate the start of the paradigm shift that he's hoping we will achieve as well as to gather some empathy for the complicated life our teens are living.  I'm gonna do the exercise and expose it to you, my imaginary readers, in the next post.

Whew!  Is there any adult who doesn't need therapy from their upbringing?  Parenting is hard lol.

Our Self-Designed Homeschooling Curriculum

I started writing this post on our first day of school which was Labor Day.  It is now three weeks later and I'm finally finishing it up.  Homeschooling has proven to be a much busier task than we expected. 

I wanted to take a few minutes to share with all of my imaginary readers our general plan for the year.  Our curriculum is entirely self-designed.  That really means that we've done lots of research to find the best resources and formed courses around our own set of those resources.  We hope to make learning exciting for CJ where applicable.  You'll see that we've selected activities and field trips around his interests.  However, it is ridiculous to think that a child his age is interested in learning EVERYTHING or even has a real grasp of what their interests are.  They just simply haven't been exposed to enough at this point to have any real idea.  CJ thinks his only interest is basketball.  Let me rephrase that, CJ's only interest IS basketball.  However, we will expose him to a lot of other things even if they simply lay dormant until he's old enough (read: mature enough) to appreciate and use what he's been taught.

I digressed.  Back to our curriculum.  Over the course of the year, we'll be teaching the following courses:

Math

CJ will begin studying prealgebra.  The primary resources that we will be using are the Art of Problem Solving: Prealgebra and Jeff's Brain lol.  I LOVE this book though.  It really teaches you to solve problems rather than learning how to find the solutions to the problems that are given to you in class.  We expect that it will be a tough road to change CJ's way of thinking and push his brain to approach new problems but we are excited about the breakthrough that will eventually happen and how it will set him up for success later on.

English

Our English course will focus on reading comprehension, learning literary devices, improving his writing and public speaking skills and his understanding and use of grammar.  English topics are easily combined and can be weaved through pretty much every other course.  Aside from reading novels and doing grammar practice problems, CJ will create and give presentations, author research papers, and revise and edit his writings.

The first book he is reading is the Hunger Games.  I love this book and he's obsessed with Fortnite so we thought this was a good first choice.  We'll start to work on Type 1 and 2 writing skills (I'll talk more about those later).  We'll learn what it means to have the perspective of first, second and third person.  We'll study what it means to be the protagonist of a story, how to recognize themes in a book and why symbols are used in literature.  

CJ will also start to develop a set of personal vocabulary cards.  More on this later as well.

Science

CJ has disliked Science the most out of all of his subjects.  One of our main goals this year is to show him that science can be exciting.  On our last day in San Diego, we went to the Fleet Science Center.  He hated it at first but, once forced to digest one of the exhibits, he eventually came around.  It was a fleeting excitement but I think that we can continue to fan that fire.  Our first module in science is the obligatory "Scientific Investigation."  He'll need to understand the scientific method and how to create measurable, repeatable experiments.  He also needs to understand how to collect, represent and analyze data.  He'll learn all of those things in our first module.

The second module will focus on energy.  Primarily, we'll learn the difference between potential and kinetic energy.  We'll study the transfer of energy using a few experiments that involve a basketball (see what I did there?  he  he).  We'll also use a roller coaster building set to demonstrate how potential energy is converted into kinetic energy and how height and other factors contribute to that process.  Finally, we will actually go to an amusement park to see/feel these things in action from a different perspective.

We'll also study space, climate change and insects in the future.  

Foreign Language

CJ will  be learning Esperanto this year.  Most people's initial reaction, including mine the first time I heard it, was "what the HECK is Esperanto?"  Esperanto is regarded as the "international language".  Comparatively, it is a very simple language.  Those who are invested in it, consider it one of the easiest languages to learn.  We've chosen it for several reasons:

1. You can see immediate results of the efforts of your learning.  Compared to a language like Spanish or French, you can begin to use the language in everyday life almost immediately.  For CJ, this has been really confidence building and motivating so far.
2. It sets the foundation that you can  learn a second language.  

Health

Our current module for health is titled "Athlete Nutrition and Cooking".  The goal is to teach CJ how to best fuel his body for athletic performance and how to cook some of the meals that will provide the best fuel.  In the process he should learn the following:

• What the basic macronutrients are and how the body uses them?
• The difference between simple and complex carbs.
• The best choices for food/snacks as determined by the time until your next athletic activity.
• Cooking basics.

Other modules we've identified for health include sex education and home fire safety.

Life Skills

We have grouped a ton of things under this umbrella because it seems most appropriate really.  The whole year isn't planned out just yet but here's what we're working on now and some plans for the future:

Current Learning:  

• Typing.  I'm sad that the kids no longer learn typing and don't really understand the motivation for it.  CJ has always been impressed with how fast I type and so now he's learning to type himself.  Typing.com has a wonderful curriculum and so we're just using that.  In addition to daily learning exercises, there are test options as well.  CJ really enjoys it so far.
• Daily News.  I find watching the news very depressing but I think it is good to get into the habit of knowing what is going on in the world.  I'm a huge believer that the biggest factor of success in the real world is how well you can interact with others.  Being well rounded is such a huge part of that.  The more well rounded you are, the more topics you can discuss which means you have  more points of intersection from which to start conversations with anyone.

Future Learning:

• Cursive.  I can see why they no longer teach cursive in schools but CJ wants to learn and so he will.

Art and Music

For art, CJ will learn how to recreate several basketball posters of his choosing in Photoshop.  He's wanted to learn Photoshop and I think this is a good bridge of art and technology.

Jeff is going to be responsible for our music lessons and I'm not sure what he's got in store yet.  One of the ideas was to focus on how music is used to elicit emotions in movies but we will see.

Hargrave Assessment

"Dripping water hallows out stone, not by force but through persistence."  -Ovid

The Hargrave Summer School Director opened her closing ceremony speech with that quote.  It hit me so hard and I plan to post it everywhere that I can so that I don't lose sight of its meaning.  I plan to talk about the several things that stand out about CJ having attended Hargrave but I'll digress a little and talk about why that quote impacted me so much.

Despite my hopes, CJ did not achieve academic excellence during the 4 weeks at Hargrave and wasn't the shining example of a well-behaved child.  It made me feel very very discouraged.  It is, to me, an extreme response to send your child to a military academy.  Although it isn't anything like what most people envision, it is a very different, very rigid environment.  In my original post, I talked about how much I hoped this would help him focus more and exercise better self control.  To realize at the end that it had done none of that - that his will is so strong that even in a military setting, he'd continue to be disrespectful and disruptive - is really worrisome.  So, when I arrived at Hargrave on the last day, I felt defeated and sad.  

I'd talked to CJ earlier that morning and expressed my disappointment in him.  His response shocked me because he said he knew I was disappointed but that he wanted me to know that he also learned a lot.  His ability to articulate that showed me that he had made a minor change but it wasn't enough.  Originally, I didn't mind that it cost us about $6,000 (probably more with travel) for him to attend for only one month.  We'd agreed that it was worth it.  However, in my disappointment, I allowed myself to think more and more about the fact that it wasn't worth it and we'd just thrown that money down the drain.    These are the negative thoughts I started the day with.

As soon as she quoted Ovid, I started to cry.  I felt like it was the reminder I needed to hang in there.  My friend said she admires the way that I am able to recognize something isn't working and look for alternatives.  That's so flattering but it is so sad when you feel like you cannot come up with another alternative and the fear that grips you when you feel like all is lost.   Anyway, it was the reminder I needed that if I'm just persistent in doing what I think is best for CJ and giving him his best chance that he can still be successful.  

Anyway, back to my original purpose for writing.  I would highly recommend any child to attend Hargrave.  Despite the fact that CJ didn't turn things around in only one month, I believe that he would if he attended for longer.  Several things stood out to me on the last day as evidence of the difference in their mentality and approach to developing young men.

On the last day, they had an awards ceremony.  They gave awards for academic excellence in each subject that was taught, awards for athleticism in each sport that was offered and a few character-related awards.  Of about 90 kids, less than 20 received awards.  One teacher, as he was describing his process for determining who to give his award to, mentioned that it was hard for him to decide between several of his students.  He went on to say that he knew he had to choose one and he did.  He almost mocked society when he explained that in life, everyone doesn't get an award for participation.  They chose the best and only that person was awarded.  I love that!  If there's one reason why society is going downhill...why our youth feel so entitled...it is this idea that everyone should be awarded for showing up.  There are so many things wrong with that, it needs its own post!  So only one kid was awarded per category and the rest of the students were given something to work for next time (symbolically speaking).

The general message from each of the speakers throughout the closing ceremony focused around the character traits that they tried to instill in each young man and also the fact that the summer school was just a launching point and they should practice everything they've learned over the long term.  The kids had come from all different backgrounds and were there for different reasons.  However, during that ceremony, I saw something amazing.  Each time a young man's name was called and he started to walk up to the stage, he was encouraged by high fives and cheering from the rest of the group.  They had learned to rely on each other and to support one another.  One of the speakers actually commented on how they didn't know each other only one month ago and now they feel like family.

One of the things that I noticed from day 1 was that they encourage the young men to take more accountability for their own needs and to be more independent.  On the first day, they were instructed to use their roadmap to make sure they stopped in every station as needed for check in.  Throughout the summer school, they were held accountable for taking their medicine each day, noting their assignments, being where they needed to be on time, etc.  The day before the last, they were required to pack their belongings.  Following the ceremony, they were instructed to return to the barracks and bring everything down to the main floor to meet their parents.  I loved this, not only because I was wearing a dress and Jeff wasn't able to be there to help us carry stuff lol.  I just loved the idea of him being more responsible.  It makes me sad to think of the day that he no longer needs me but it makes me happy to think that the day WILL come lol!

It was very hot that day and CJ had made several trips already to bring things down to the car.  The footlocker was the heaviest thing and as I saw him struggling to get it across the parking lot (after having carried it down stairs and through the building), I told him he could put it down and I would come and get it.  He refused, saying he would do it.  That made me so proud.  What actually made me cry (again) was when another kid, who was already in the car with his parents ready to go, saw CJ struggling, got out and helped him carry it the rest of the way.  That is the kind of kid I want CJ to be and the kinds of kids I want CJ to be around.  There is hope for the world yet lol.

It was a hard experience.  CJ had several days where he was very emotional about not being at home.  I was reading a book recently that talked about how beautiful things come from adversity.  The book talked about how diamonds are produced from such extreme force and some other examples I can't remember at the moment.  I do believe that it is much harder for a kid like CJ to understand the value of things and how important it is to work hard.  On one hand, I take that as evidence that we're doing a good job as parents.  Children should feel safe and secure as they are growing up.  Looking to the future, however, you want them to be self-sufficient and successful.  Adversity creates the drive to do that because you have no other option.  The question, then, is how to create the right adversity for your kid to create the drive without them having to suffer.  I have no idea what the answer is but I think of situations like this and the small level of "adversity" or "uncomfortability" that hopefully will help fuel that drive for him somewhat.  I'll just think of this as another drip of water and keep going.

What Is School?

Note: The ideas referenced here are taken from my experience with 6th grade in one of the best (public) schools in the country. I have extrapolated quite a bit and sprinkled in some information from my own personal reading and experience. I understand that I have stated many things as fact with no scientific basis, but it reads much cleaner when written that way. Imagine every sentence ending with "but this has not been conclusively proven and other schools may do something different blah blah blah...." Thank you for understanding. Now on with the show.

Homeschooling. If you are anything like me, that word evokes two strong gut reactions. Those people are either religious nut-jobs or crazy anti-government extremists. Well, we're both. Just kidding. Maybe.

The thing is, those people (yes, you're allowed to say "those people" when talking about nut-jobs) still exist, but more and more people are homeschooling these days. And that wouldn't happen unless the American education system was seriously broken. The amount of work and money involved in homeschooling your kid versus just sending them off to school still makes it an extreme decision for anyone. Heck, you're still paying for them to go to public school while homeschooling them.

When you homeschool, you are faced with a lot of questions that most parents never have to think about. These are things like what should a kid actually be learning? What is school? What should school be? How long should be spent on a topic? Are there life skills that we should teach as well as "core subjects?" When a kid is sent to school, you have no control or input into the matter. They just do whatever they like with your kid all day long. Then you get them back at the end of the day. Did they learn anything? No one knows. Did they terrorize the school? Maybe, but nothing can be done about it. The bottom line is that school is like daycare in modern society. Anyway, I'm starting to pull at a lot of threads all at once here. Let's stay focused.

Is school necessary?

I think school is necessary. The world would creep to a halt if every parent was responsible for their child all day long (even ignoring the educating them aspect). How would anyone work? How would they earn money or contribute to society? With more and more single parents, eliminating school is impossible. Even in an "old school" traditional family where one parent worked and the other stayed home, kids went to school all day. So unless someone comes up with something better, you can think of school as a daycare so that society can function. I'm getting tired of reading articles saying that school is unnecessary (more about why people believe it is unnecessary next). School is necessary, but it can do much better, and it can do so very easily actually. It's not something to be done away with, but it's something that does need an overhaul.

What is school now?

It's definitely in vogue to claim that school is outdated and a product of the industrial age where kids were trained to be factory workers. I challenge anyone saying this to find a kid who knows how to work on a factory floor when they graduate high school. This argument is so flimsy that it's amazing anyone can write it without it deliberately being satire. Wait, are all those people being satirical? Maybe I'm the one misunderstanding....

Anyway, sure school was invented to be one thing, but it's something totally different now. Don't make an argument about what it was when it is different now. In a way, school has turned into a machine for pushing kids into college. There is less and less emphasis on understanding material and becoming competent, and more and more focus on hacking the tests. Everything revolves around: what's the best way to get the most kids the highest score on the tests? Then the school is successful! Yay! Often, the focus is so totally opposite than the intuitive way to do this (aka teaching them the actual material). If it's an essay, they want to see 5 of these key vocab words and you get the max score. If it's math, these are the tricks to get this specific type of problem answer, but what happens if the form of the question changes? They have no idea how to do it, or that it's even the same question written differently! Where's the problem solving skills? Well, they don't have time on these tests to solve the problems. Solving problems requires thinking and understanding and applying skills and time. On a timed test, you need cheats to finish on time, not ability. Then what's the point?! Okay, sorry. This was probably another tangent.

So, school has morphed into hacking tests. That was actually much better than what school is turning into now. The next wave is so much worse than the wave of test takers. Now, every kid is required (yes, you read that correctly: required!) to have an iPad. But why? We couldn't understand it at first. As time went on, it became clear. Kids are actually sitting in class watching a YouTube teacher teach the material that the actual teacher is supposed to be teaching. Are you kidding?! Okay, so this must be the best teacher on the planet on this topic, right? I mean how can a lowly middle school teacher compete with someone with 50 years experience teaching this one topic in the most perfect way? That's why the kids are watching someone else while the teacher gets paid. Nope. It's some schmuck in his basement who is bumbling through a terrible description of it. But his search came up first because he paid for ads for his lectures. But in a school that requires every single person to have an iPad, the teachers are so technologically illiterate that they don't even realize this. But maybe I'm being a bit hard on the teachers. It is school policy. They are only doing what they are told. It's just a bit infuriating to tell your kid to stop watching YouTube and do his homework and his response is that it is his homework.

Anyway, the laziness permeates into all things that teachers do now. Now that they don't have to prepare a lesson, they aren't using their new found free time to do something productive. Things are actually worse! What are some examples of how teaching has deteriorated?

1. Math homework is not checked.
    a. If I were to turn in 4+4=9 all year long, I would have a 100% in math class now. And I seriously would have learned 4+4=9 as a fact since it was reinforced for an entire year.
    b. Parents are now required to check all math homework for accuracy so their kid does not learn incorrect skills and information. Might as well homeschool, right?

2. Sometimes math homework is coloring. Or more generally, sometimes X homework is Y (Y having not even the slightest resemblance to X).
  a. The school supply list is filled with glue sticks, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, etc. This is all through middle school. What? No class should be using that stuff at this age. Anything involving those supplies is busy work, not work that would aid in learning.

3. When do kids learn to write? I only saw one writing assignment the entire year, and it was terribly written but got a high grade (possibly an A?).

4. Writing is not checked for grammar or spelling (seriously, not even capitalization or periods count anymore).
  a. They don't learn about plagiarism or the importance of citing sources.

5. The above points are for classes with homework. Almost no subject has any homework anymore.
  a. No science homework
  b. No "social studies" homework (geography, history, etc.)
  c. Math would be better off without it if you aren't checking for accuracy
  d. No writing assignments or reading assignments. They didn't read a single book all year long. Seriously. Not one.

6. Kids watch video tutorials rather than reading from a textbook.
  a. Kids cannot comprehend what they read anymore since they never get any practice.
  b. When you watch something, you are not engaged. When you read something, you must focus on it. They watch the same things like 10 times and still can't remember. It takes forever to watch a full 10 minute clip 10x when you could find what you need in under 5 seconds in a text. Let's learn that skill (reading). Watching feels easier and lazier than reading because the brain is turned off, but easier does not mean faster!

7. Kids cannot read! This was partially #6.
  a. In "reading" class, the teachers read aloud to the students rather than have them read to themselves.
  b. There is no reflection or understanding or homework or lessons on what is being read in class (or at home). Reading is now sounding out words, not understanding the meaning of them.

8. The work for every single subject that is assigned is random crap pulled off the internet. Almost all of the assignments we saw had typos, errors, and huge flaws that were painfully obvious to anyone just glancing at it. These teachers don't even look at what they are giving out for work anymore (they don't have to either since it isn't graded).
  a. Textbooks may have errors but the time and effort put into designing and writing a textbook makes it good if not GREAT. Every idiot on the internet posts crap examples, crap explanations, and most importantly crap assignments with no publisher oversight and the teachers just grab it and use it. Being published online does not make it good. Being published in a textbook does make it good. Reputations and money are on the line with textbooks. How do administrators not understand this?
  b. Our vice principal told us straight out that the reason for using the internet is because it is more accurate than textbooks could ever be. What? That's fantasy land. I mean I'm posting this on the internet and no one is checking me for factual accuracy. Although, I'm guessing after a single peer review, my wife is going to tear this thing down as fast as possible.

9. No kid is learning how to type. This was a deliberate choice by the school, but even if not, they are using iPads with no keyboard! How are they supposed to write anything?

10. The real kicker for lazy teachers is that there is no classroom management or discipline anymore. If a kid is watching Fortnite videos on YouTube instead of whatever they are supposed to be watching on YouTube (lol), the teacher complains to the parents that the kid isn't doing what they are supposed to. There's no sending them to the principle or taking the device (god forbid) or giving them a 0 or punishing them somehow. It's just a "meh I can't deal with that" attitude.

I have a lot more to say on the topic of homework and subjects covered, but that's a pretty good explanation of what school is now. On to the final, and most difficult, subject.

What should school be?

What should school be? That is a tough question. Normal people don't have to come face to face with such an idea. School is what it is. We don't have control. Homeschoolers must confront the idea and act deliberately upon their philosophy of education, otherwise they are setting their kids up for massive failure. Let's start with the easy one and work backwards.

School should prepare your kid for life. I don't think anyone disagrees with this. There are abstract ideas like it should teach them how to be healthy. They should have good social skills. They should be able to cope with stress and overcome hurdles. They should become good problem solvers and debaters. All great life skills. These are kind of abstract though and typically don't have a class devoted to them. They can be picked up as they learn "specific material." It can move on to more practical skills that typically don't have specific classes, but should, like they should understand personal finance and budgeting. But as soon as we get to this topic, we see, oh yes, that means they need to know math too. I think a lot of people are scarred from their school years and believe things like "I never use math in life. Why waste all those years learning something that is useless?" So budgeting requires simple math. Sure. Okay. But understanding compound interest and how it can work both for and against you starts to get a little harder. You should know why you should start saving for retirement earlier, or why you shouldn't finance major purchases for anything more than 0.0% APR. This got a little specific, but it's an often missed topic after 16+ years of school. Surely it could have been snuck in there somewhere?

What else is necessary for life? How about getting a "good" job (high paying, good work environment, excellent benefits)? Anything in STEM is going to require strong Science, Math, and English. The core subjects. English? Yes, because almost all communication is written now. You have to document successes and failures. Send emails. Communicate with colleagues. Explain your results. And maybe it feels far-fetched that To Kill A Mockingbird is going to help you in your career as a Biomedical Engineer, but you have to start somewhere. You have to be able to read and understand what you are reading and extract information and understand why that information is relevant. Books like that also have life lessons about courage to stand up for what is right and to have the conviction to do the right thing in your job. It helps teach us right and wrong and gives us a more mature moral compass without having to live through a thousands lives to become a wise person with strong character. It helps us understand the consequences of our actions without having to make bad choices and live with them. Good literature is the backbone of our society, and that might be a reason why it is crumpling. The art of writing and reading is becoming lost with each generation. Perhaps cinema is taking its place, but we aren't being taught to watch and understand movies with the same critical eye. Books can be a training wheel to that as well if that is the wave of the future. So I think that any argument that school is meant to prepare kids for life involves understanding the world through science, developing logical thinking abilities through science and math, and learning the core subjects of Math, English and Science for all the reasons stated above.

Once we have a foundation of core subjects, what else does it mean to be prepared for life? One thing I don't understand is why we don't learn how to deal with normal life situations in school. No one learns how to change a tire. We don't learn how to change an electrical outlet or change our oil. We don't learn about electricity and electronics. How does a computer work? Can you change your counter top from plastic to granite or install a new sink in the kitchen? What about installing a light fixture in the ceiling or laying tile in the bathroom? Can you work with wood? What's a bandsaw? Do you know how to pave a driveway? How does a car work? Can you plant and maintain a garden? Do you know how to program a computer to handle remedial tasks for you? What does it mean to start a company? How do you invest money? If you said "I don't know" to any of these, don't you wish someone had taught you when you had nothing else in the world to do except learn? These are basic life skills. Some may be more advanced than a middle school topic, but certainly by high school level you should be able to do this stuff or know how to do it if you had to.

What else is there? Some would say we study hard to get a high paying desk job so we don't have to do that stuff. It isn't about having to or not. It's about understanding how to. Certainly if you put a hole in the wall, you can repair it no big deal without having to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars. What a waste! But it is a waste that you can choose to do, not be forced into.

There are social skills as well as physical skills. How do you cope with stress? Can you stand in front of a crowded room and deliver a speech or presentation? Are you able to have a discussion or debate with someone objectively without getting emotional or angry? Can you concede with dignity if they are right and you are wrong? Can you win graciously? Do you have good time management skills? Can you lead a team to accomplish a task on time and ensure the deliverable is as good as if you did it yourself? Can you be on that team without being the leader and just get the job done, doing what you are told? Can you make yourself both humble and indispensable? Can you approach every job you do as if it is a gift from the gods? You may be the burger flipper at McDonalds or the CEO of IBM, but you should be the absolute best at that if that is what you are doing. Only good things come from that attitude -- good things for yourself in terms of health and happiness and upward mobility. Don't you think school should teach some of these things?

I think that has something to do with what I think school should be.

Hargrave Military Academy Summer School

For the month of July, CJ will be at the residential summer school program at Hargrave Military Academy.  We decided to send him to this program long before homeschooling was a thought in our mind.  We were feeling so discouraged by his continued behavior problems at school and initially sought it out with two goals.  The first was our hope that the summer program would instill a bit of discipline in him and help him to establish some routines that would lead to better performance in the classroom.  The second was our curiosity about how CJ would fare in this more structured, rigid environment.  

At this point, we have seen evidence that his potential is great.  His teachers acknowledge this as well.  I'm not saying he's a genius by any stretch of the imagination but success would come easy to him with minimal effort...at least at this age.  So, we know that about him and then observe his actions toward learning and his constant reprimands from teachers and administration and it's the saddest thing to see.  As a parent, you're trying to guide them to some future.  I see the basic responsibility of parenting to be to guide the child towards independence in their adult life.  Independence doesn't always mean wealth but why not shoot for the stars? Every parent wants their child to have a career they love that is also very lucrative.  They want them to have lots of genuine friends and eventually  have an awesome wife, and amazing children.  I could go on but you get it.

Our fear was continuing to grow that CJ's actions were diminishing his chances of having those things that we want for him so badly.  His goals are to play in the NBA, make millions and build a dream house that has things like a basketball court and a mini-fridge (LMAO!).  Even that goal was being undermined by  his own actions (maddening!).  

Yesterday, we dropped CJ off at Hargrave.  We were mostly impressed with the staff that we met.  The new President met us on the street and was extremely personable and friendly.  Things were fairly organized and there was a process that most people seemed to understand.  There were several things that I wasn't happy about but overall, it seemed like a good start.  It was a long morning of getting things corrected and in the right places and picking up the uniform and other required things to get him ready for the month.  

CJ's excitement dwindled the longer we were there.  He said he was excited to go and I believe he was to some degree.  He'd gone an overnight camp at the University of Maryland that was entirely focused on basketball and he loved it.  I think I may have set him up for disappointment by signing him up for that before Hargrave.  Either way, my guess is that the more he realized that they would have expectations of him beyond playing basketball and that things weren't set up for him to have the most fun ever so his parents would send him next year, he was less excited.  Honestly, that was hard.  I know this is good for him but it is always hard to see your kid sad or disappointed.

I talk to CJ a LOT.  I'm sure he listens much less than I talk lol but I still do it.  I want him to understand our decisions, even if they upset him in some way.  I'm sure he could articulate why we've sent him to Hargrave and what we hope to get out of it.

When we researched the summer program at Hargrave, I was beyond impressed.  The students (called Cadets) take two academic classes of their choice (my choice lol).  CJ is taking a math class and a class called "Character and Leadership" or something like that.  All cadets also have to take a one week study skills course that culminates in a test.  I just think that is super awesome. They have mandatory study hall everyday M-Th that is proctored and I believe the instructors are present to help with homework or additional instruction of the material.  If the child is not performing well in the classroom, there are other times that they have to do study hall including during free time periods and also on Friday evenings.  This is why I think it is great - it reinforces what we tell CJ "if you do what is expected, when it is expected, you don't have to work harder than you should".  LOOOOVEEEE!!!!

Their model is to develop the whole child - mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.  The physical part comes in with the sports electives.  CJ will take lacrosse for the first two weeks and basketball for the second.  I kinda hope he loves lacrosse so much that he decides to do it for the entire four weeks but either way is fine with me.  Hargrave has produces some amazing athletes (including NBA players) and so I think he'll enjoy that aspect.  I do think he's come to acknowledge the amount of work that is required to get to that level even if he doesn't work that hard independently.

They attend chapel every Sunday and also have awesome activities planned.  You have to be in good standing academically and with regard to your behavior in order to participate in the fun stuff but I love that!  CJ NEEDS THAT!!!

After everything was settled yesterday, the parents were asked to say goodbye to their students and we were addressed by several members of the faculty (President, Dean of Students, etc).  As the President was giving us an overview of their expectations and goals for the summer, I was crying like a baby lol.  I just could not control it.  The things he talked about were just so in line with what we are hoping to instill in CJ that it made me so happy and optimistic and hopeful.

He talked about their model.  He made sure to let us know that there isn't some drill sergeant tearing our kids down as we sat in that room.  He talked about their model being to develop the whole child as I mentioned before.  He talked about wanting to enforce accountability in the boys.  That is just so necessary in today's world.  My honest opinion is that if we fostered more accountability in our children, especially in the black community, that there would be fewer police shootings and no need for the Black Lives Matter movement.  I'm sure lots of people would want to argue about that.

He described their model as not to break them down to build them up (because they didn't actually join the Military) but to impose the structure and routine that would help them be successful.  It really sucks that parents like us have to resort to something so "dramatic" as sending their son to a military academy because that structure no longer exists almost anywhere else in society.  The classrooms certainly don't have it.  I also believe this is why so many kids are being diagnosed with ADD/ADHD.  I am sure that's a real condition but I don't think it is as widely applicable as is being treated.  

I think the thing that really sent me over the edge (emotionally, because I'm a punk) is that he talked about their limiting distractions so that the boys could achieve their full potential.  In a world of kids being always on their phones or devices, I cannot believe that they still enforce this.  The kids aren't even ALLOWED to bring their phones to camp.  I love this for so many reasons.  I love it because it will show them that they won't DIE without phones for a month.  I love it because it will encourage them to interact with each other.  CJ doesn't have a problem making friends or things like that but I am still sure that his social skills are impaired because of the use of electronics.  They couldn't bring televisions or anything like that either.  They do have laptops which were required to bring but they have a strict policy that should limit youtube watching and game playing.  

I think the people I've told that CJ was going to a military academy have the stereotypical impression of what it is.  All work and no fun.  They have absolutely built in fun for the kids.  The building in which they live has a very nice entertainment room.  It might have a television but it definitely has a ping pong table and foosball table and other things like that (we didn't really get to check it out while we were there).  They have all kinds of activities planned for each weekend from Friday to Sunday.  There's free time built into their daily schedule where they can do whatever they want, include going swimming.  

This post is so disjoint but I wanted to put it down anyway.  They have parent-teacher conferences on July 14.  I plan to go and I'm very excited to hear what they have to say about him.  It will be interesting to learn whether he gives in to the structure or fights against it.  We are considering Hargrave for actual school at some point in the future.  We'll see what happens.

Here are some pics of move in day:

The leadership class was designed by Colin Powell.  Wow!

 

Just getting into the barracks before bringing all of his stuff. 

They wear uniforms all summer.  He looks SO cute in his uniform.

So many fun activities planned!

Our decision to homeschool

A few weeks ago, Jeff and I decided to homeschool CJ.  Actually, the conversation went a little more like this:

Me: "You love me right?"
Him (smiling): "Yes!"
Me: "And you'd support me in any decision I made right?"
Him (smiling less lol): "Ummmm this doesn't sound good...."
Me (rambling): "Well I'm going to homeschool CJ.  I'm sick of getting calls from the schools and his grades suck and he's not learning anything and they aren't doing anything but making it worse and I  need you to get on board with this with me."
Him: "Ok"

I definitely married the right guy.  Over the following weeks, we talked about how we might actually be able to make this work given that neither of us can afford to just not work.  We also talked about the many benefits that we hope to realize by doing this and then the dark cloud of challenges we think we might face and whether we think we can handle them.

I've only shared our decision with a few people and one of which asked to hear more about our decision and plans.  She's pretty much my only blog reader (other than Jeff) so I decided to write it here.  I also hope to use this blog as some record keeping for future reference.  Hopefully I'll be like "see this is what we did" as we're talking to other parents at his Harvard graduation but I digress.

CJ just finished 6th grade for the second time.  At the end of his 5th grade year, he'd gotten suspended several times, I'd been called in for countless conferences with the counselors, principals and teachers and his grades were pretty terrible.  I'll admit that most people wouldn't agree with the last part.  I don't think at that point he'd gotten Ds yet but I could just be blocking that from my memory.  However, it is pretty much the easiest thing ever to get As and Bs in elementary school so even the Cs signified that something was wrong.

What was wrong was his behavior and interest in learning.  His elementary school history was pretty consistent.  The teachers acknowledged that his ability didn't match up with his performance and that when he's interested in something, he's pretty laser focused but the rest of the time (like 99% of the time) he's disruptive and unfocused.

It is inevitable these days that teachers automatically suggest that an energetic child has ADHD.  I've had countless of those conversations with the teachers and have had him tested twice by two different reputable organizations at two different times in his life.  Both results said that he did not have it.  I am sure he doesn't.  However, I completely understand why they would think that he did.

He's very social and that pretty much takes precedent over just about anything else going on unless something motivates him to work really hard to tune it out.  We've tried to determine how to encourage such motivation.  We've been successful only once and it was so short lived that it isn't worth elaborating on.

Anyway, at the end of 5th grade, it was clear that his behavior would eventually require them to remove him from the school.  Seriously, how hard to you have to work to get expelled in elementary school.  He managed to barely avoid it but was given the warning that the middle school administration wouldn't be so forgiving and that was terrifying to us as parents.  We'd also become pretty fed up with the teaching methods these days (cue common core) so it just seemed like barriers we couldn't overcome.

CJ went to live with his dad for his (first) 6th grade year.   That was a hard decision to make.  We knew the school he would go to was not a good one and the demographic of the students came from undesirable backgrounds (just being honest).  We worried the impact that'd have on him but what might have been scarier was what we'd face if he actually THRIVED there rather than in the highly rated Howard County school district where the median income is over $100,000.  Ultimately, the end result was that he pretty much did nothing at school and made no effort at home to study or learn.  His grades were terrible (there were definitely Ds this time) and so we made the decision to retain him in 6th grade.

You'd be surprised how hard it is to retain a child.  We went to speak with the Principal and explained that we worried that advancing him would leave holes in the fundamentals that he should have learned in the 6th grade and that would have long term affects on his ability to learn more complex subjects (especially with math).  CJ has a strong aptitude for math and we definitely don't want to lose that if possible.  After several well thought out rebuttals about the social and emotional ramifications to retaining him, they finally agreed.  I will say this was the best decision for him.

Fast forward to the present day and we've become even MORE frustrated with the teaching that is being done in middle school, irritated with the school's policy against disciplining kids who are disruptive and disrespectful and just plain worried about our kid's future if things continue this way.  Here are some examples of what has us so fed up:

• The number of times CJ's math homework required the use of color pencils or crayons is unbelievable.  
• The school requires each child to bring a device (tablet or phone) to school because the teachers routinely use YouTube to "supplement" (read: substitute) their teaching.  I'm not even convinced they try to find useful videos at age appropriate levels.  You can guess what most kids (especially mine) did instead. They played games and watched music videos.
• There was useless homework for the most part.  For the classes that even gave homework, it was more or less a formality.  Math homework, of all things, was graded for completion, not correctness.  
• I regularly received emails that described CJ as disruptive to the classroom and interfering with learning.  This angers me but there's only so much I can do since I'm not there with him.  I encouraged them to remove him from the classroom.  The response I got was that was against the school's policy.  I resisted the urge to respond "so the school's policy is to let one child disrupt the learning of the other 24 - what genius came up with that?"
• I went in for a conference with the vice principal with maybe two weeks left of school.  He'd gotten in trouble on the playground.  During the conference, she commented that he's routinely the last one to line up when they are asked to.  My response to her was to ask why he's still allowed to have recess.  She says to me "well, we can definitely take it away".  Um...you didn't think of that before?  Obviously he knows he can do whatever without consequences at school.  You've obviously set up a good learning environment here.

I could seriously go on and on but I'll leave it at that for now.  Suffice to say there are countless frustrations that have been driving me nuts for years.  More important are the convincing reasons of why we've decided to give homeschooling a try.

Visibility 

As the work gets more challenging and also as CJ's grades were starting to slip, we really tried to gain more insight into what he was learning so we could supplement it at home.  This has worked really well with math - to the extent that we knew what they were teaching for that "module" but we never got a good handle or resources to help us understand what was being taught in science, geography, healthy, etc.  So, when his grades would slip, it was really hard to help.  At the same time, these subjects are important so just passing him through the grades isn't really productive to him being well rounded.

By homeschooling CJ, we will obviously be able to have full control over the curriculum, teach him things in the order that makes sense and have immediate feedback on his understanding and grasp of the material.  This will allow us to spend more time in areas that are needed and less when  he quickly understands things.

Flexibility

One of the things I think the hubby and I both value are the many experiences and opportunities that exist.  We'd like to expose CJ to as many of those things as possible.  Until now, we have to coordinate around school and in addition to the school requirements.  Now, all of those things can be incorporated into his learning and be applied to credits for school. 

We also are excited about the opportunity to find ways to expose CJ to certain subjects in ways that would ACTUALLY make it interesting to him.  

Our Plan

Basically we plan to wing it.  Just kidding.  We are so excited about this and Jeff's already buying books and I've got a curriculum planned out in my head already so it will be good.  We are also going to leverage the International Learning Community which will provide him with private school documentation and resources.  It's exciting.  We plan to work on math and writing (like actually how to write well) and public speaking and building stuff (engineering) and learning cool science things etc.  I'll try to keep some records here of cool resources we find, trips we plan, etc.  I'm excited to see how things turn out and kinda nervous that if we mess up, its CJ's life lol!  Wish us luck!