Mi'ita's Day Off

Yesterday was Veteran's Day and we had a friend spend the day with us. Basically it was Friday Field Day on Wednesday. Boy did they work me! Horseback riding lessons in the morning, mucking out stalls after, home for showers, off to pizza for lunch, the aquarium to visit the new buzzards, the pet store to see the puppies and fish, off to the Bayfront to shop, walk the dog to the rope swing, dinner, and then play practice. They were on the ball from 9:30-8.

Today was supposed to be a regular day. After 10 minutes of her 5 math problems (to prove to me she doesn't need more) we were going to do a math game, Swahili, and latin. She had her nose in her book, though, so I let her finish it first. After 15 minutes of uncooperative Swahili, I asked her if she just needed the day off. Yesterday was so much. Relieved, she agreed.

Her day off? She spent the whole morning reading. She finished an entire collection of Norse myths and a book about The Medieval World. Then we went off to school to learn more about rocks and start a project on the Clatsop Indians. Then ballet.

That's her day off.

Whew! I read somewhere that the only way to teach TAG (Talented and Gifted) kids is to unschool them. I am not ready to say I am unschooling yet, but her freeschooling is getting looser and looser.

More research

I've been back to the HSLDA, Home School Legal Defense Association, to find more information. I've been wondering whether I've chosen the right homeschool method. Freeschooling feels so loosey goosey, and I was so entranced with the classic method based on the ancient Greeks--Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. I figured if if worked for Alexander the Great, it should work for Mi'ita the Magnificent, too.

Mi'ita hated the classical method and I knew I would be cramming education down her unwilling throat if I stuck with that. So we shifted to freeschooling which fits her personality much better, but does not feed my need to be anal retentive.

I've seen tons of articles on the different methods of homeschooling, but no research comparing their long term academic effectiveness. I'm a little focused on academic effectiveness. I went back to the Progress Report 2009: Homeschool Academic Achievement and Demographics to look further (I found a prettier, easier to read format.) Perhaps they had something more that I missed, and lo and behold, look what I found!

"The study considered the many approaches that homeschoolers take to education—and found hardly any difference, less than .5% of variance, in achievement based on the following variables:

•Degree of structure (ranging from very unstructured approaches such as delight- directed learning or eclectic teaching approaches to very structured, preplanned, and prescribed approaches),

• Amount of time spent per day in parent- directed learning activities, and

•Enrollment in a full-service curriculum (one that furnishes a year’s worth of textbooks, lesson plans, evaluations, counseling, and record-keeping in all core subjects)."

What a wonderful thing! Finding a homeschool method that works for you and your kid(s) is the ticket. There is no one method that is the creme de la creme.

Does that mean that we can toss everything to the wind and go swimming every day if that's what they want to do and they would get just as good an education as those whose mamas keep their nose in a book 12 hours a day?

Perhaps, but that one scares me. It looks like freeschooling is just as good as classical for my kid, though. For that matter, buying textbooks and doing a canned curriculum is just as effective, too. And now that I have the research behind me, I have fed my need to be anal retentive.

Yea!

Finally, finally, finally some science!

I have been waiting impatiently for Mi'ita to turn to science. We have been saturated in history since August! I like history, don't get me wrong. I would be sad if she were so interested in science that she ignored history. But I've been worried.

This morning I gave up my hands off approach to science. Freeschooling is supposed to force feed only the basics of math, reading, and writing. All else is interest driven. I've been suggesting this and that scientific activity all along, but so far her interests led her to history.

Today I pulled out Usborne's How Nature Works and said that we really need to do a little science. She was finally nonresistant and we sat down and "looked for good experiments." Of course the experiment that she was interested in was getting a pet turtle. We headed over to the Wee Beasties reptiles pet store and talked to Brenda the herpetologist for a good hour about turtles and tortoises. We finally decided it wouldn't be a good pet for us, but we learned a ton and a half. Did you know that Darwin got a tortoise in the Galapagos Islands named Harriet that just recently died, over 200 years old? Apparently they don't really get old, like we do. They die of other things, but not old age.

After the herpetologist, we had some down time and I found her nose deep in How Nature Works again, learning about skeletons. I pulled out a pamphlet about fossils on Oregon beaches and we headed down to the beach to look for fossils. We looked at a lot of rocks, I read the pamphlet out loud while she built a sand castle, and we found a rock that some tube worms had burrowed in, but no fossils. Found some bivalve and gastropod shells, though, and talked about that.

Bedtime story tonight I gave her the choice of a science book and a history book. She chose a different science book about snakes. Now she has her hopes set on a pet corn snake.

I am so relieved that science has made a comeback.

Shifting gears again

Mi'ita's thoroughly sick of ancient history.

We were going to study Africa because we're going, then the Persians, then the Romans, then the Mongols, then China, etc, heading forward and around through history. But she has no interest in ancient history anymore.

I forgot a simple fact of children. They need variety. Sustained interest in a subject is rare. We've been studying ancient history since August and it's almost November.

I thought for a change we could head into science. I've been feeling terribly guilty at how piecemeal our science study has been. She is interested in Nazi Germany and the middle ages, though. I wanted to get out of the Euro-centric history, too. Oh well. One of the tenants of freeschooling is following their lead. I'm not really ready to teach Nazi Germany to a 9 year old, but we can do it.

Homeschooling Models

Every homeschooler that I have met in this little town I live in (3 so far) is using the textbook model to teach their children! I'm shocked.

The different models, simplified:

• Relaxed model: let your kid do whatever they want and push nothing.
• Unschooling: let your kid lead their own education, supporting everything they are interested in with books, field trips, mentors, textbooks, or whatever is required for them to learn what they want to learn, as long as they want to learn it. Push nothing and trust that they will be interested in things that will require them to learn how to do math, writing, and reading, eventually.
  
• Textbook model: buy a program, either online or with texts, and follow a "canned" curriculum in all the traditional subjects.
  
• Eclectic model: do a little of this model and that model, whatever you think will work best for your kid.
• Unit model: study one big subject, usually in science or history, for an extended length of time (from 6 weeks on up, as long as the kids stay interested) such as The Oregon Trail, Marine Biology, or Ancient Egypt. Incorporate all traditional subjects into the unit, or as many that fit.
• Freeschooling: I've only heard this term from my friend. It involves making your child do a minimum of regular schoolwork to get the basics in math, reading, and writing. Unschool the rest.
• Classical model: an intensive and rigorous study of the basics with emphasis on languages, history, and writing.

I'm probably missing a couple, but I think I've got most of the major ones.

I wanted to do the classical model but Mi'ita ixnayed that one. I've ended up freeschooling, which fits her personality and mine well enough. She's rather unschool, but I can't let go enough for that. With freeschooling I get my requirements for a decent education done--math, writing, and language (Latin) with daily exercise. I don't worry about reading. She gets to direct the rest of her education. Right now she is fixated on ancient Egypt. There's quite a bit of science involved in studying ancient history, and she loves science so I'm not concerned.

Anyway, I figured that the reason people homeschool is because they think that their child would get a better education at home. I figured that the benefits of tailoring your child's education would be the big draw.

I'm flat flabbergasted that homeschoolers would be doing basically the same thing they do at school, just at home. Granted, two of the homeschoolers I talked to are brand new this year, and perhaps they don't know the other options. The other one has been homeschooling for 5 years and her curriculum, A Beka, works fine for her two daughters.

I guess I have just been involved in schools for too long. I have used textbooks myself and have seen so many drawbacks to them that they hold no appeal for me.

That said, I did buy a canned curriculum for math and I am following it.