Why we love Homeschool Reason #1

On Wednesday we went to buy a Ukulele as Merenia will be starting lessons soon.

We went at 9am.

Which we so wouldn't have been able to do if she was at school.

We came home and she jumped on the net and started surfing ukulele websites and looking for instructions, chord charts and sheet music.

Which we so wouldn't have been able to do if she was at school.

She spent the whole day practicing and teaching herself. (and much of Thursday and Friday as well.)

Which we so wouldn't have been able to do if she was at school.

I've been covering Kieran's books ready for school tomorrow this year we decided to use Calvin and Hobbes Cartoons...

Thank-you Mr Watterson!
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Inspiration 1

I have a file of images and ideas that we could use to inspire our home educating these ones I discovered on the Cool Hunter.

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Application Filled and not quite rejected

Just before we went to Christchurch I sent off our application for Exemption I believe it was about 8 pages of guff designed to make the powers of bureaucracy at the Ministry of Education. I should have sent it earlier I left us with just over 15 working days to get it back before school started, but it was hard work.

The law states we must teach Merenia as regularly and as well as she would be taught in a state school. And that's all it says. The MOE get to interpret and decide how we can prove we are going to do this.

One of the things you have to do is present a years curriculum plan and with our plan to unschool and our curriculum therefore being Child-led I was struggling with how to honestly present information I didn't know. I called the Student support guy to ask what I was supposed to do. Big mistake. We both spoke a completely different language and I really struggled with his staunch passion for the 'state school way' and he just completely didn't understand me at all.

One of the examples that I gave him from Merenia's list was the fact she was keen to learn about Helicopters and I said that until we got into it I didn't know if she wanted to learn about Heli mechanics, Flight, Les' Heli related job or about being a pilot- and that quite possibly Merenia herself didn't know either. So how could I say what our first year curriculum might entail.

His reply was that it would be absurd to try and teach a 9 year old to be a pilot.

Um, so NOT what I had said.

By the end of the phone call despite me keeping my composure we parted most certainly not as friends. With my new found knowledge not gained directly but by inference I wrote our application in which I surmised from thin air what our first years curriculum might include and I wrote in edu-speak so as to make the educator who'd be reading it as comfortable as possible. I thought I had done well but I wasn't really surprised when the letter came back with a request for more info.

Perhaps most frustrating was his statement that: "In your application you state- "We don’t intend to adhere to school terms or hours...." which could be interpreted as an intent not to adhere to the requirements of the legislation."

What we actually said was.....

"Merenia’s education will be essentially constant from the moment she wakes till she falls asleep, most likely, knowing our girl, with a book in her hands. We don’t intend to adhere to school terms or hours especially as we have an older child who will also benefit from the activities and opportunities that will presented to Merenia. Also as we will be sharing the workload for teaching Merenia a reasonable amount of her learning will happen during weekends and evenings when her Dad is home from work. Just as our 2 year old is constantly learning from the activities and actions that occur daily Merenia will also be almost continually learning."

In my reply to him on Thursday I wrote:

"I’d like to assure you that on the contrary while children only spend approximately 11% of their time in any given year actually in the classroom it would be unthinkable for us for Merenia to spend such small amount of time actively learning. We were simply saying that the learning experiences and activities that Merenia takes part in would not happen *ONLY* between 9am and 3pm each term weekday. But that she would also spend time in the evenings, weekends and holidays. By structuring our programme to work like this we are able to offer Merenia a richer learning experience as she will be able to have one on one time with each of us, rather than in a Monday – Friday/9-3 style school timetable in which she will share one parent with her 2 year old brother ."

I hope that he understands it this time around.

I also had to provide more information on the content of our curriculum as well. Although I honestly couldn't see why and nor did he really explain it either. He read my email about 30 minutes after I sent it on Thursday morning but has yet to reply. I expect he will probably do it in writing in about 15 days and will probably ask for yet more info.

It's funny the ministry suggests they will take approximately 15 working days to approve your application/ask for more info if required. But if you are asked for more info you are expected to reply within 10 days of the date they wrote the letter or you are automatically declined. Something I find intriguing because if you get declined you then have to appeal to the head honcho... I'd quite like to do that because I think Gary is just picking on us because of the phone call.

All this leaves us in something of a no mans land. Until she gets her exemption Merenia is expected to turn up to school. But I've already sold her uniform and I sure as heck am not about to buy her school books.

There is a whole bunch more I could say on this there are some truly wrong aspects of this whole process which are in place because the government provided no clear guidelines so the MOE had to make up their own which are all based on the state model of education which I believe (and the research supports) has some huge issues. It reminds me of the ERO inspectors visiting Arthur Street School and trying to get their head around the Montessori classes.

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Playborhood

Some ideas that rock....

Berkeley Playground

More/better pictures of Berkeley Playground

An excellent frontyard!

Some awesome community spirit. I think we could do something like this in married quarters!

State Theory of Learning

The list below comes from Ned Vare's School is Hell Blog an associate of his wrote it in reference to the US Public School sytem. I never eally looked at it like this before but do think it kind of sums up state education.

State Theory of Learning.

1. Children must be forced to learn
2. Learning requires teaching
3. Schools are the primary site for learning
4. Learning requires rewards and punishments
5. Children should be segregated by age
6. Knowledge and skills can be learned without context
7. Children’s work must be continuously judged and graded by others
8. Knowledge is divided into “subjects,” studied in “units” in linear sequence
9. It takes twelve years to learn the needed knowledge and skills
10. Education begins and ends when children enter and leave school
11. Central authority must decide what children should know, and when
12. Uniformity is the goal of education

No. 2

I'm watching the movie 'No.2" At one point the daughter-in-law of the main character arrives and wants to know why the grandchildren are not at school. Nana says...

"How are they going to learn anything if they go to school all the time?"

Status Update

When I left off we had just spent 5 days at Timatanga, not long after that we attended a BOT meeting to discuss whether Merenia would be accepted to attend. I believe they would have been happy to have her but Les and I had already agreed that although we really like the school, and it was an easier option, we felt it wasn't the best option for Merenia at this time... we my revisit it again in the future though.

So Merenia is to be homeschooled. She had her heart set on Timatanga as she had made such great friends already but she took the news really well.

I have written the first draft of my exemption application, it's ok but needs some work as I think it sounds a bit wanky/teacher-y and that's not how I intended to present myself, unsurprisingly. I have also joined a couple of Homeschool Yahoo groups which have been invaluable in terms of information and resources.

So the plan for the next week or so is to get the exemption finished and sent in so that we are ready to go by the time school starts back. Once it is sent off then we need to look at how are days will look (busy but relaxed) and draw up a some very basic guidelines like limiting Singstar and Saddle Club DVD's etc. And we need to decide 'what' we need to join (Rodney HE) and sign up for (Choir and Ukulele) and what extra resources we may need (a ukulele, more clothes). :-)

We need to formalise some arrangements like Merenia's appointment as 'Head Gardener' for 2010. Tell school (Yipee!!) and then we are go!

Plato

"The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things"

5 days at timatanga

The last 5 days of school I've been away at a school called Timatanga visit in the 5 days were Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Thursday I played littlest pet shops (lps) with the girls. My friend Amanda is very nice I am also friends with the rest of them but I play with Amanda the most. Will has come with me and met a girl (Wills girlfriend) called Jorja, he keeps on saying "Jorja" on the way home. Anyway on Thursday we played and then we went into the library and played the Ukelele. After the Ukelele we went out and did some dancing. For the dancing we did some stretches and some balancing the last thing we did was the sugar plum dance i was a toy horse (that won't surprise you) then i was a sugar plum. that day was fun.

On Friday we did the same things except from the dancing instead when we were playing lps people got called down to do their art while we were playing lps. I took a break to play ball tiggy then went back to play. Every day after tidy up we got read a story first i listened to Charlotte's web then i listened to the witches then went to pick up Kieran and Elliot then we went home.

On Monday i did the usual but i went down to an orchad and wrote poems I wrote a haiku
and a cinquain here is my haiku poem it is about horses and it goes like this

horses can run fast
foals are sometimes born in spring
hoses are very nice

and here is my cinquain poem it goes like this

horses
fast colorful fall
walk trot limp eat
galloping really fast in Fields
horses

and i also wrote a normal one this is how it goes

horses can run very fast or can eat
horses like eating grass hay carrots and apples
horses can be fun to ride
but mind they don't buck or rear so you don't get hurt
always wear a helmet
horses can be fun to have as a pet horses should not be killed

I WANT A HORSE pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease

and that day was fun.



on Tuesday we did the same but we were meant to do cooking but there teacher was away so we did the same thing and play all day and did work in the morning that day i did paper mache with Chontell that day and that was Tuesday it was fun

On Wednesday we did the work and play reading we played lps and me Taylor jorja Anahera played a princess game then we listened to a story called fantastic Mr fox and that is the end of my post see you next time.

Merenia

A Interesting Week

Merenia, Will and I have spent the last 5 school days at Timatanga having school visits (Les also did a day of parent help). I'm not going to spoil Merenia's thunder as I know she is part way through a post about it.

From a more personal perspective while I believe it is a great little school it has left me with more questions than answers and made the decisions we have to make a lot harder for a number of reasons.

The one thing that was demonstrated quite clearly is that it is possible for a state integrated school to operate in a manner that much better suits the students (and I'd suggest the teachers also) within the State prescribed restrictions. I hope that will continue to be so with the new National Standards currently being introduced by the National Government.

I'll let Merenia tell the rest of the story (hopefully sometime soon) and fill in the gaps once she is done.

Trust, cooperation and nuturance

These are three essential qualities that are fast being hammered out of my children's school. Supposedly for their own good;

1. We no longer have AV monitors because they cannot be trusted to do their job- they cannot be trusted because some children made mistakes (shock horror) and the backstops that we employ at school (teachers) weren't there to support them and help fix the mistake. So a kind person withdrew the kids from the line of fire. What is the lesson here: if you cannot do a job perfectly you may not have the opportunity to do it at all, even if it means you were a contributing member of our school community and made life easier for all. (Can I also note here that recently members of the senior staff had to call in the now defunct AV monitors to help them set up some equipment when they were unable to. Hello?
2. Our School Patrol Monitors are no longer allowed to go out on patrols if there is no duty teacher present. But our children may cross the road still. We instill in them that it is a position of responsibility they have the local constabulary come and train and certify them. And for years they just sorted themselves out and did the job. If a duty teacher was held up due to an emergency or such they got out there and did the job. And as far as I know there has never once been an issue and if there was an issue I'd be willing to bet it wasn't attributable to the patrollers. Now I have lost count of the times I had seen children including juniors crossing the road ALONE when the patrol monitors are sitting 5 metres away waiting for the duty teacher before they are allowed out on the crossing. And the kicker for me is the fact that a LOT of the time the duty teacher will end up having a friendly chat with one or more parents and aren't actually watching the patrollers anyway. What's the lesson here: We expect you to be trustworthy but we do not trust you. And we will put our mistrust above the safety of all school pupils.
3. a. Our school population has grown so much in the past few years that we can apparently no longer have the full school assemblies we once had. These were an opportunity for children in each team to work together and share their work with the whole school. b. Our senior children may not play on the junior playground and our juniors may not play on the senior playground. c. Merenia and her friends have been told by a teacher that they should only play with children within their school 'team' (in other words their age cohorts). d. We used to have 'wet day monitors' where pairs of senior students were sent to 'supervise' the junior children in their classrooms on those days where heading out into the playground wasn't an option. This system is now defunct. e. And finally we have a system called Peer support where a select bunch of senior students are chosen and trained to support their assigned new entrant buddy. Kieran has LONG wanted to be a Peer support buddy but because the students are selected and not asked to volunteer he has not had the opportunity a fact that I find very disappointing as he has shown himself to be a very caring and nurturing individual to his little brother and would no doubt have a lot to offer a junior school buddy. What's my point: Key opportunities for students to co-operate together, to nurture and learn from each other are effectively outlawed and abandoned. What's the lesson here: Senior students are seniors and juniors are juniors are virtually never the twain shall meet. (That said some of the classroom teachers are providing limited opportunities for this to happen and all credit to them for it.) And once again the children are taught you are not be trusted though we expect you to be trustworthy. It's funny isn't it how teachers expect children to obey all the rules all the time and yet I expect many of them aren't entirely saintly in living their own lives - perhaps a little speeding here and there....

And yes I know there is a long line of reasons and excuses for these actions. But essentially it boils down to all of the children having to bare the brunt of the 'misbehaviour' of a very few of the children- perhaps if we let them work together in the first place the misbehaviour may not have happened or even better the children would have sorted it out themselves in a manner that meant that the offender came to understand why their behaviour was unacceptable and what the benefits are of being a responsible member of the community. And no I'm not talking about some warped playground justice, children are vary good law makers and arbitrators and have a keen sense of true and fair justice. As opposed to the dictatorial crap that school law makers come up with. Children are excellent at caring for each other, they are fantastic teachers and capable learners long before they reach school- if only teachers and administrators could give them the credit they deserve as such.

NB; there are some great teachers out there who do realise this and struggle and fight for children's rights. In our school I believe they fight a losing battle in fact I believe most have either given up, are choosing to pick their battles, or have gone to schools where they don't need to fight so hard.

Why? Part 4 A Rose by any other name;

Kieran's class participated in an interesting experiment last week. After a suggestion during a Professional Development course his teacher challenged herself and the children to take the word 'work' out of their vocabulary. As a part the challenge they recorded who said work and how many times. Unsurprisingly, I believe, the teacher was the one who said it the most. This brings me to a point....

Children go to school to learn.

Learning is not necessarily the same as work.

The meaning most of us have when we consider work is probably better described as 'toil' (I would describe toil as work that is some, or all, of the following; arduous, un-enjoyable (is that a word?), boring, repetitive, difficult).

It's not unreasonable to expect children to put some effort into learning. But I am firmly of the view that learning should NOT involve toil. I'm not sure though that all teachers would share that view.

There seems to be a belief that play is frivolous and that if something is a lot of fun then it is not serious, and if it's not serious it's not worthwhile or valuable.

I believe that most of the time teacher's forget that all children enter school as accomplished learner's. Seriously they spent the last 5 years learning all day, everyday enthusiastically with absolutely no toil involved. For the most part I don't believe that school builds on that instead it starts the work of moulding children to fit the system of work and toil..... as opposed to making the system fit the children.

Many traditional teachers will say that the system has to be that way but it's simply not true. There is proof of that all over the world- I'd like to tell you about that but it's way beyond the scope of this post.

The fact of the matter is 'the system' has not worked for Kieran (despite a history of excellent teachers) and it is not working for Merenia. So rather than wait another 1, 2 or 3 years and realise what a huge mistake we have made when she is in year 7 (as we have for Kieran) we are taking her out now and making our own system, though there will be very little that's systematic about it.

Nb#1 Kieran has also been given the option to homeschool but is seriously keen to stay at school. He has been working hard throughout his school career with year 7 & 8 in mind. He believes, quite rightly, that he is amongst the smartest kids in school, he has worked hard to be a good citizen as a P.E & AV monitor, School patroler, Librarian, he has represented the school in sport and science and has hopes to be a peer support buddy and house captain. Both of which he is a more than worthy candidate for. Year 8, prizegiving, and graduation are what he has been working towards for 7 years. I respect his reasons for wanting to stay at school.

Nb #2; It's important for me to note here I have huge respect and regard for Kieran's teacher. I believe she is an excellent and professional classroom practitioner. My comments about her experiment were simply a platform from which to launch this post and not in any way a criticism.

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Why? Part 3 Values

Not so long ago those wise people at the government who like to dictate what we all do decided that 'Values' needed to be an official part of the curriculum.

So our lovely hard working teachers now actually have to record which of the ministry of Ed's lovely set of values they are going to 'teach' the children each term and I mean teach... not just live and demonstrate and expect... we actually have to 'teach' the children honesty and respect and so forth.

I have isssues about that on so many levels.

No. 1 We're the parents here, I think it should be our decision which values are instilled in our kids. (It's no wonder there are so many Christian families in the home school community).

No. 2 My kids and practically all the other kids I know all went to school with a fairly decent set of values. Why must the teachers now spend time 'teaching' them in a most artificial manner something they already know?

No. 3 There's a fair amount of hipocracy in the teaching of values- considering there are adults in our school who show very limited (if any) respect to their collegues and/or the kids. And also lacking in the area of integrity and honesty.

No.4 I believe values were introduced into the curriculum based on the actions of a few and the misguided beliefs of a few others. That's not a great reason to force something down the throats of the many.

No. 5 The Curriculum expects children to value innovation, inquiry, and curiosity but the school system stifles the same at every turn. Do as we say, not as we do.

No. 6 The Curriculum expects children to value ecological sustainability as the put the rough drafts of their work in the skip bin to be dumped in a landfill along with the left overs from their lunch.

No.7 This is a doozy- The Curriculum expects children to value EQUITY. And they are supposed to learn this in SCHOOL? That would be the same school where they get told what to do and when and how and get punished if they don't tow the line and yet are not afforded the option to do the telling (or the punishing either). Doesn't sound very equitable to me.

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