Principled Discovery » If the foundations be destroyed, what shall the righteous do?

What is it about socialization?

October 21, 2008 – 9:07 pm

Let me get this straight. We, as homeschoolers, are supposed to send our kids to public school so that they can be properly socialized. Once they are there, however, the school has to hire an outside, non-profit group to come in and teach their elementary-aged students how to behave on the playground?

So last year Wright decided to outsource recess. He hired Sports4Kids, an Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit organization that introduces students to a regimen of traditional playground games, along with a more closely supervised version of such team sports as basketball. The program also stresses conflict resolution, with disagreements mediated by, of all things, rock-paper-scissors. Washington Post

Don’t get me wrong. I think I like the idea. It sounds like a much needed program to deal both with the children’s need for physical exertion and the fighting these schools are experiencing on the playground. Here is a bit of insight not often applied to homeschools when socialization comes up:

Traditionally the one period of the school day when children are free of adult-imposed structure, recess is increasingly regarded by educators as a trouble spot. They say that in the Xbox- and Internet-dominated world of many students, the culture of healthy group play has eroded, turning recess into a chaotic and sometimes violent period where strife from the schoolyard can spill over into afternoon classes. Ibid.

So free play is important. That is the one draw-back of this program, but if the children cannot handle free play, it must be taught to them. Not by their peers, but by trusted adults who can intervene and help them to make wise decisions and resolve conflict. Something homeschooling parents have been saying for a long time. You learn to get along from people who know how to get along. And even for those in the public school, it begins in the home, not on the bus on the way to your first day of kindergarten.

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The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at Melissa’s Idea Garden.

homeschool socialization Sports4Kids

By Dana Hanley | Posted in homeschooling, socialization | Comments (12)

Homeschool benefits: All Lies

October 20, 2008 – 10:07 pm

I’m a little behind on this, but I thought you should know. Everything positive you have ever heard about homeschooling is all a lie. Some anonymous person who mailed a postcard in to PostSecret (possible pornographic material warning on following that link!) says so:

Homeschool detrimental

My first reaction? So this poor kid never got to sleep in, didn’t have any lengthy field trips, was bullied, ate cafeteria food and had a teacher who didn’t love him (or her)…as a homeschooler? Poor thing!

Other than that, I can’t add much to The Thinking Mother’s thoughts. But since your whole reasoning for homeschooling may be standing on a rather shaky foundation, I thought you should know. Consider it a public service announcement from one homeschooler to another.

In case you are unfamiliar with PostSecret, it is a sort of community art project where people anonymously mail in their secrets on one side of a postcard. Cards are only up for a week before replaced with the next batch, so this one is already gone, although it may well appear in a future book.

homeschool homeschooling postsecret

By Dana Hanley | Posted in homeschooling | Comments (4)

Stay-at-home moms produce their own ballet video

October 19, 2008 – 11:02 pm

Please join me today for Home School Talk at 1PM CST (you can also listen to the archives later). I will be interviewing Stephanie Troeller and Mary Kate Mellow, two stay-at-home moms with ballet-loving children. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a lack of quality ballet videos meant for young children so, like any good parents, they made one themselves. The end result is a lovely DVD: Prima Princessa Presents Swan Lake. It incorporates young children dancing, toys and clips from the ballet Swan Lake performed by the Paris Opera Ballet.

If I can get the audio to transfer and upload, I’ll include my three year old’s commentary as well. But “Can we watch it again?” is about the highest praise bestowed on a video by a young child. And she has said that numerous times.

And of course I will be sharing bits of news and other opinions relating (however indirectly) to homeschooling.

In the meantime, we have made our own video. I doubt I’ll be going on tour to promote it anytime soon, nor will it show up on Amazon. But we are excited…we are the proud grandparents of five brand new baby gerbils, born Sunday morning to Kit Kat (the black female) and Buttercup (the blond father).

Aren’t they adorable? Now that the house is still, and the children are no longer hovering over the cage, I can hear their soft squeaks. But I need to start finding homes for them. We’re keeping one. Don’t know which, but Bear decided to name it Lollipop in keeping with the candy theme started with the other two.

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Disclosure: I received a copy of the DVD for free in exchange for a review on the show. My three year old’s opinions, however, are not swayed by such things.

My article, The heart of the election season has been posted at Heart of the Matter Online.

Voting has also begun for Alasandra’s Homeschool Blog Awards. And I, too, was sad to see Mother Crone’s Homeschool go offline.

By Dana Hanley | Posted in homeschool talk show, radio show | Comments (4)

Collecting space dust, a Saturday School Lesson Plan

October 18, 2008 – 6:07 pm

Orionid In this lesson, you will have the opportunity to learn a little about the constellation Orion, watch a meteor shower and collect some space dust to analyze under a microscope. Normally when I post a Saturday School lesson, I post it after the lesson and include pictures. This one, however, is a little time sensitive. But who wouldn’t jump up and down at the opportunity to collect some space dust and look at it through a microscope?

The Meteor Shower

The Orionids are an annual meteor shower which appear to originate out of the left shoulder of Orion, the Hunter. Hence the name. They are left over bits of dust and other particles from Halley’s Comet. As the earth passes through the debris, it burns up in the earth’s atmosphere, causing bright streaks across the sky. The Orionids are known for being rather colorful and producing 20 meteorites an hour for the observer. They have been exceptionally active in recent years, and are expected to be again this year.

Best Viewing

This year, they peak on the morning of the 21st. Unfortunately, viewers will also have the waning gibbous moon to contend with, so viewing may actually be better a few days later. There will not be as many meteors, but the moon will be dimmer each day.

The best viewing hours are typically in the wee hours of the morning. To contend with the moon, find a spot where natural obstacles block it from sight, or bring a large piece of cardboard to do the same. Two toilet paper tubes taped together and used like binoculars will darken a small portion of the sky, but will also make it more difficult to catch meteorites from your peripheral vision.

Finding Orion

Orion is one of the most recognizable constellations in the sky, particularly in winter. It and the Big Dipper (a commonly recognized part of the much larger constellation Ursa Major) are important “guidepost” constellation because you can use them to find many interesting features in the night sky. Since these meteors appear to orginate from Orion, finding this constellation may be helpful for seeing more meteorites.

Orion should be relatively high in the Eastern sky at about 1AM. It will look somewhat like he is laying down. Here is a nice shot of the constellation in January. Rotate it counterclockwise in your mind and you have more or less what it will look like in the sky.

Orion

And a drawing of the constellation:

Orion, drawing

Project One: Recognizing Orion

You can begin by learning a bit about Orion and the mythology behind this famous constellation. Following is a simple craft which will help you and your children more readily recognize Orion in the night sky (and give younger ones a chance to “see” the constellation before bedtime).

Materials:

Cardboard tube
Push pin
Print out of Orion (from drawing above)
Black construction paper
Rubber band

Procedure:

Re-size the above picture so that it will fit over the open end of a cardboard tube and print it out.
Cut a square of black construction paper (larger than the opening of the tube.)
Place the picture of Orion on top of the construction paper and gently press holes through each star.
Remove the picture, turn the construction paper over and place it over the cardboard tube.
Fold down the edges and hold in place with a rubber band.
Look through the tube toward a light source and you should see Orion gleaming back.

Just make sure when you look through the tube that Orion’s shield is on the right side. If it is on the left, just turn the paper over and re-attach.

Project Two: Collecting Space Dust

As the earth passes through the debris left from Halley’s Comet, large objects will burn up in the atmosphere giving you the normally somewhat spectacular display of the Orionids. Tons (an estimated 100 tons per day!) of very small dust particles, called micrometeorites, will also enter the atmosphere, however, which are too light to gain the speed necessary to burn up. Instead, they will gently float down to earth. This occurs continually, but there is a marked increase in the amount of micrometeorites following a meteor shower, hence this is the best time to collect it. All you need to do is collect a few materials and wait for the next rain shower to rinse the space dust out of the sky. Of course, you will get quite a bit of regular earth dust, as well, but that can be separated out.

Materials:

Dish to collect rainwater (a pie plate works well)
Plastic wrap
Plastic bag
Magnet
Clean pan
Distilled water
Aluminum foil
Magnetized pin (A pin may be magnetized by rubbing several times over a magnet in the same direction)

Procedure:

Cover the shallow dish with plastic wrap and rinse. This will limit the amount of earth dust you start out with.
Collect the rainwater.
Place the magnet into the plastic bag.
Sweep gently several times across the bottom of the dish. Micrometeorites have a high iron content and thus will be attracted to the magnet.
Cover a pan with aluminum foil and rinse. Again, you are trying to minimize the amount of earth dust you introduce.
Pour in distilled water.
Place the magnet in its bag in the distilled water and remove the magnet. Swirl the plastic bag around to rinse the micrometeorites into the distilled water.
Now you need only to evaporate the water to leave behind a thin layer of “space dust.” You can boil it away, but be careful not to let your pan burn!
Run the magnetized needle across the dust to pick up your micrometeorites. Place them on a slide and observe under a microscope.

And then sit back and wonder at how many miles these little particles have traveled and that they were once in outer space!

If you have any questions about the directions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Also, if you try this out, please let me know! I have not done this before and only just discovered the project in one of my old astronomy books I have had since junior high. I will try to get some pictures and share them after our activity…sometime after the next rain!

Also, if you have shared a lesson plan recently, please leave the link and I’ll add it to the post.

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Cindy Rushton posts about tea time with children. Mmmm…we sort of fell out of doing this with regularity, but it is back on the schedule. We host book talks during tea time, which is oh so enjoyable.

The Homeschool Blog Awards are accepting nominations through October 24th.

Sallie of Seaside Tales is hosting a Pilgrim’s Progress Curriculum giveaway on her blog through the 28th.

And of course there is my little science giveaway which will close Thursday at midnight so I can announce a winner Friday morning.

homeschool homeschooling lesson plan orionids

By Dana Hanley | Posted in Saturday School, homeschooling | Comments (12)

My first blog giveaway

October 16, 2008 – 10:00 pm

I came home with several treasures from the library book sale, but one of the most exciting was meeting another homeschooler. Sarah, from Here a Little, There a Little, recognized my daughter as she was perusing books and asked if she would mind introducing her. All because she reads my blog and recognized little Mouse from her pictures.

I feel like a celebrity or something.

And now to the exciting giveaway. Due to a slight misunderstanding, my dear and loving husband purchased a copy of “Junior Science on File.” So did I. I therefore have an extra copy to give away. I believe it is the same information as is provided on this CD: Junior Science Diagrams On File, however not in CD form.

It is a nice binder with 266 detachable “plates” grouped into units including:

Units (measurement)
Physical Sciences
Life Sciences
The Environment
The Human Body
Earth Science
Space Science

These plates are diagrams of basic science principles which are printed on card stock and may be photocopied. It even comes with a little photocopy certificate so you are free to share this resource with your homeschool group/co-op. It does not include the experiments and projects that my others do, but it is a nice resource for summary information on a large variety of science topics as well as visual information for textbook supplementation or worksheets and tests. If you do not have a science textbook and are making up your own science curriculum (as we are), they serve as an excellent guide to assist you in organizing your basic units so you do not forget anything important.

We have been using the Science Projects on File in this manner, by using each section as a guide, checking out books from the library and doing the projects and experiments in each section. The age guide says they are meant for grades 4-9, but I think they are well adapted for younger children because of the visual and hands-on approach. In fact, other than as a quick review, I do not see this particular binder as particularly useful for junior or senior high.

I have not gone through the entire binder, so there is a possibility that some pages are missing, but in general, it is in good shape, although some of the holes need reinforced or they may tear free of the binder with continued use.

***If you are interested, all you need to do is leave a comment and indicate that you would like to be included in the drawing. Don’t forget that second part or I might just think you are leaving a comment because you like me.***

(It is secular, but basic science. It does contain references to “millions of years” in the Earth Science section and has an anatomically correct diagram of people in the Human Anatomy section. If that bothers you, you could simply remove those few pages, black them out, dress the people or, as we do when we run into references to things that we disagree with, use it as an opportunity to discuss different worldviews.)

If you have any questions, please ask. I will announce the winner next Friday (October 24), barring the unforeseen. Just be sure to include your correct email address in the comment form so I can contact you (it will only be visible to me…you don’t need to enter it in your actual comment).

**I will ship anywhere in the US or Canada.**

And, because some of you indicated interest and because I said that I would, my new treasures (the curious may compare my finds with my wish list):

Science

Field Guides: The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Fossils; North American Trees; A Golden Guide to Venomous Animals; A Golden Guide to Insect Pests; A Golden Guide to Trees,; A Golden Guide to Exotic Plants; A Field Guide to Butterflies; A Complete Field Guide to American Wildlife; The Wildflower Book

Facts on File Materials: (These are multi-volume sets which retail at several hundered dollars a piece. I fell in love with them after my first discovery and decided to base our science on them…until I saw the price tag! But for a dollar a piece, I can handle it!) Junior Science on File; Animal Anatomy on File; Junior Science Experiments on File; Science Experiments on File; More Science Experiments on File; Life Sciences on File

Other: The Encyclopedia of Reptiles and Amphibians; All About Chameleons and Anoles (we just got an anole); Night Watch; Children’s Night Sky Atlas; Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon

History

The Worst Hard Time, the Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dustbowl; Their Brother’s Keepers, The Christian heroes and heroines who helped the oppressed escape Nazi terror; Laura Secord’s Brave Walk; A Brilliant Solution, Inventing the American Constitution

Literature

Around the World in 80 Days, The Sketch Book (Washington Irving), Cheaper by the Dozen, Folktales of All Nations, Munschworks

Art

Leonardo, The Artist and the Man

Home Economics

The Afternoon Tea Book; Better Homes and Gardens 75th Anniversary Edition Cook Book (that is actually a birthday present for my daughter. Shhhh! Don’t tell her!), Eat the Weeds; Chess for Young Beginners

And some “light” reading for mom

Shaping the American Education State, 1900 to the present; Illiterate America; General Education in a Free Society

homeschool homeschooling blog giveaway

By Dana Hanley | Posted in homeschooling | Comments (95)

Another homeschooled abuse victim

October 14, 2008 – 10:58 pm

But were they really homeschooling?

Julie at Shanan Trail shares the horrific story of a teenage girl tortured by her step mother and forced to live on six ounces of water and some toast every day. She was locked in her room at night to keep her from relieving her thirst in the toilet and weighed only 48 pounds when authorities removed her from her home.

After the second investigation.

The first article, dated October 13, she quotes does not make a big deal of the fact that the girl was being homeschooled, but leaves out a bit of information. Like a previous investigation which sustained the abuse allegations, but since this came out in the same paper the next day, perhaps it was only due to the fact that they were still gathering information. After all, when considering how best to protect children in the future, this kind of information is very pertinent and much more helpful to officials than a reflexive call for increased monitoring of all homeschools:

The children enrolled in Carnation Elementary School in 2001, but their parents pulled them out to be home schooled three years later. Even so, they still had been attending an alternative program once a week.

After the complaint, the children never returned to the school, officials said.

“We’ve had no contact, no referrals or calls or complaints since that one in March 2005,” Shapley said. Seattle Times

The Associated Press provides just a little more information that is relevant as well. And lends a little more credence to the argument that those who wish to break the law are not going to be the ones monitored when laws are made more strict.

Riverview School District officials said the girl had been attending a once-a-week class for home-schooled students when the teacher raised the concerns in March 2005. Her parents withdrew her from the program, and afterward failed to file yearly reports required from parents who home-school their children. Associated Press

Washington State already requires homeschooling parents to notify the state and submit to either approved standardized tests or evaluation by a certificated instructor. None of this was done in this case, so can the family even be legally considered a homeschooling family? Or were the children merely truant?

Julie is absolutely right that gigantic red flags should have been flying when the family pulled their child from an academic program after an abuse investigation, especially when the allegations were sustained. Even if the case is closed because the state thinks the “crisis has passed.” This would be the third case (see Jacks and Ramirez) I can think of off the top of my head where a few questions upon withdrawing a child after abuse reports might have prevented further abuse (and even death).

I know many object even to notifying the state when we decide to homeschool, and I seriously doubt such notification could ever protect a child from an abusive situation. But not even bothering to file the simplest of paperwork (for example in the Banita Jacks case in Washington, D.C.) seems to be such a strong pattern for these abusers, I do sometimes wonder if that small step isn’t beneficial to legitimate homeschool families by providing a clear separation between those who are educating their children and those who say “homeschool” to deflect suspicion.

As homeschooling becomes more common, and fewer people are asking, “Is it legal?” it is quite likely that an increasing number of child abusers will pull their children from the school system in order to hide their abuse. Not that they didn’t before, but now they can say “we’re homeschooling” and stop some of the questions. Between that and the increasing fragmentation of our communities to the extent that a neighbor of an abused child says to reporters, “I never knew they had a daughter,” we have the potential for far more cases to go undetected.

Is that simply the price of freedom? Or are there some simple steps we can take to help protect these children?

homeschool homeschooling homeschool and abuse Rebecca Long

By Dana Hanley | Posted in homeschooling | Comments (16)

How do you teach Columbus Day?

October 12, 2008 – 5:35 pm

I’m just curious. Do you teach Columbus as the evil conqueror who brought disease, death and cultural annihilation to the New World? Or as the hero and great explorer who discovered the New World and brought civilization to it? Or something in between?

We studied Columbus a few years ago using predominantly his own journal which was rather interesting. We looked at him as a man with great ambition, great opportunity and great faith who unfortunately became a wee bit obsessed with gold, corrupting all the potential of his mission.

We are actually studying how horses have affected world history at the moment, and this week we are supposed to be finishing up the Huns. It would be a good time to begin our look at how horses affected the colonization of the Americas, but that is a bit too much jumping around on the time line for me. For those interested however, he are some Columbus Day resources for the horse lover.

The Native Americans Columbus encountered feared the horse, making it possible for very few men to intimidate large numbers of natives. This proved very important to colonization for obvious reasons. Cortez was later quotes as saying, “Next to God, we owe our victory to our horses.” Once the Native Americans got hold of horses, however, their cultures were changed profoundly, unsettling some of the “balance of power” between the tribes. White Americans would later find some of these groups, such as the Sioux and the Apache, mighty warriors who could strike swiftly and fiercely upon their mounts although a few centuries previously their power would have been severely limited.

Some good information about the descendants of some of these first horses:

The Wild Horses of Shackleford Banks

An outline of some of this history (word document)

And the book we will be using when we get there: After Columbus: The horse’s return to America

Happy Columbus Day!

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Home School Talk will be canceled today due to the fact that the host has no voice.

homeschool homeschooling Columbus Day

By Dana Hanley | Posted in holidays, homeschooling | Comments (18)

Homeschooling and public policy

October 10, 2008 – 11:56 pm

journal cover Theory and Research in Education, an “international peer reviewed journal that publishes theoretical, empirical and conjectural papers contributing to the development of educational theory, policy and practice,” is going to be turning a scholarly eye on us. According to Homeschooling Research Notes, they have issued a call for papers for a special issue on homeschooling. I can only guess what the results will look like, but coming from the education establishment as it undoubtedly will, I doubt I will agree with much of it.

Public policy, as it relates to homeschooling, is actually quite an interesting topic. Valerie over at Home Education Magazine discussed “public policy” relating to “generic children” in specific families some time ago, pointing to the very real problem the state has in taking the best interests of individual children into account, bound as it is to generic policies that are supposed to work for everyone. Even Rob Reich, however, recognizes that anecdotes, ie., specific cases, should not be used to set policy.

So what is “public policy?” I, too, shall go to the amazingly convenient Wikipedia:

Public policy is the body of fundamental principles that underpin the operation of legal systems in each state.

Fundamental principles underpinning the operation of legal systems. I think I like that. Perhaps I am a little old-fashioned, but what comes immediately to mind is something along the lines of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” “innocent until proven guilty,” that governments derive their powers by the “consent of the governed.” Those are pretty fundamental principles here in America, anyway. And their applications to homeschooling are immediately recognizable.

This addresses the social, moral and economic values that tie a society together: values that vary in different cultures and change over time.

Which perhaps lends itself to a particular criticism when related to this particular “international peer reviewed” journal. Which is published in Slovenia, by the way. Nothing against Slovenians, but the very nature of public policy resists being peer reviewed internationally. America has very different social, moral and economic values than China, than Zimbabwe, than Peru, than Uzbekhistan, than France, etc. We need to measure our laws and our policies against our own fundamental principles, not against the rest of the world. Does Germany’s fixation on the development of “parallel societies” have meaning for what is supposed to be “the melting pot of the world?” Is France’s commitment to secularism compatible with our rich history of religious diversity?

Law regulates behaviour either to reinforce existing social expectations or to encourage constructive change, and laws are most likely to be effective when they are consistent with the most generally accepted societal norms and reflect the collective morality of society.

And here we finally get to how all this relates to you and me in our own homes. So what are the “most generally accepted societal norms?” And what is the “collective morality of society?”

“School” is certainly a norm. So much so that many confuse school attendance with education. As such, I think perhaps this is why the public school system has become the model for laws related to homeschooling. A teacher standing in front of a classroom teaching from a state-adopted textbook so that her students can take a state-developed and state-administered standardized test at the end of the year to ensure “accountability” is the model the rest of us are measured against.

We are so used to this model that we hardly stop to consider what fundamental principles coerced subjection to such a model violates. The assumed conflict between parental and public interests which Dr. Gaither notes in his entry stems not so much from competing interests in the development of the child as it does from a basic conflict arising out of changing fundametal principles. Concepts such as “life, liberty, property,” “innocent until proven guilty” and “consent of the governed” are principles which should prevent the state from intruding into our homes without some form of probable cause. But such principles shift over time, to the point that they now seem almost archaic.

Hence we get from the Declaration of Independence’s purpose for government:

That to secure these [unalienable] rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

To Mr. Sedivy’s purposes for government, as outlined for his high school history class:

Responsible for maintaining social order, services, and enforcement.

There is interdependence among the nations. We rely on each other. (For example, think about a simple pencil - the rubber eraser, graphite for the lead, wood for the pencil, metal to hold the eraser. Resources from many nations and locations are needed to manufacture a common pencil.)

Balance of power.

Real politics - events in one country affects others. Therefore, the United Nations or a similar international association is necessary.

To maintain social order…or to construct a new one…we have public education. And if this has become America’s “body of fundamental principles that underpin the operations of [our] legal systems,” no, independent homeschooling probably does not have a place in education policy.

homeschool homeschooling public policy education social engineering