Every month, I pick up a box of food from Angel Food Ministries. $30 for a box of bulk-purchased food that they say will feed a family of 4 for a week, but I have no problem stretching it out for my family of 5, even if some smaller people are eating more than the bigger people. It's easy to incorporate the contents of one of these boxes into our monthly meals, and makes a huge difference for our food budget. Often there is an ... interesting... package of chicken in the box. One month the was a frozen package of "chicken breast pieces" that was exactly that - pieces and bits of breasts, scraps I imagine, but all good meat. This month it was bone-in leg quarters. Usually when we get the bone-in chicken, I just fry it in whatever odd cut comes out of the package. This time I decided I'd boil it down for meat and broth.
Now, I'd never done this before, as much as I'd heard how much money can be saved by buying whole chickens or irregular cuts and boiling them. I'd never done it because I get a bit squeamish with meat, especially when bones are involved. I had the same problem last summer when we were bringing home fresh-caught catfish every week or so. After seeing the fish alive, then picking out bits of bone or skin missed in cleaning, soaking (and smelling) the fish overnight, and handling it repeatedly, I was so grossed out I'd convinced myself the fish was nasty. I couldn't make myself swallow it.
I thawed this chicken and cooked it for a couple of hours in a big pot full of water with a lid. After it had cooled for a while, I pulled the chicken out of the stock to find the meat "falling off the bone". (This term might make a lot of people's mouth water, but in my case, it makes me a bit ill to think about.) I stripped off the skin and picked the meat from the bones with my hands, and for the first several minutes I really thought I might hurl. I was a bit surprised (and not pleasantly, I can tell you) to find other stuff with the meat. Like a bit of spinal bones and a couple of unidentifiable (to me anyway) organs. When I started to feel faint, I called Vic in to help me.
The work was tedious, because I was being extremely careful not to leave any teeny bits of bone or cartilage in with the meat. But I noticed after a while that it was getting easier and easier for me to handle. I was no longer fighting my gag reflex. I realized it was because the more I focused on the job at hand and its benefits, I was thinking less about the gory details. I happily realized I had enough meat and broth for two or three meals here, instead of just the one meal of fried chicken I was used to. I was chatting with my husband, laughing even, feeding bits of skin or whatever to the desperately begging cats at my feet. Holy crap, I was actually having fun. Considering the amount of meat and broth I'd gotten out of the deal, heck.. this was easy. I should do this every time.
There is a homeschooling lesson here. A life lesson, even. If you keep your eyes open, there is always a lesson, isn't there? Because sometimes the idea of doing something you're not used to, have never done, or don't know much about, sounds horrifying. You can pretty easily become overwhelmed with the details, even if it seemed like a good idea when you started. If you focus on all the nasty bits, you become so disgusted that you completely miss the point of doing it in the first place. But when you concentrate on the job at hand, focus on the benefits, all the negatives are at least worth dealing with. If you're lucky, you'll stop seeing them as negatives at all. Just tiny details in a bigger picture - the benefits are what matter.
So now I have about 3 pounds of meat and enough broth for a few meals tucked away in my freezer. I have 3 kids growing into intelligent, wonderful people, even if raising them sometimes seems hard and homeschooling them sometimes doesn't seem worth it. I have a great marriage, even when the stress of inlaws and disagreements make it seem unbearable. The benefits are what matter. We're doing great, and it was easy.
Showing posts with label homeschooling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homeschooling. Show all posts
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
A new way to burn down your house...
Chad has been obsessing for months over survivalism (if there is such a word). I don't know where on earth he gets his obsessive nature. ;) First he went through catalogues, sports stores, and camping websites looking for The Perfect Backpack. Then he started comparing nutritional content of different foods, trying to find The Perfect Foods to pack in his backpack in case of... alien attack or nuclear winter or something. He compared water bottles for volume, weight, and shape. Somewhere in the midst of all that, he was looking into kerosene lanterns. The biggest turnoff there was that you had to buy the kerosene. But he knew that other things burn, and we set about finding household things that would work. Cooking oils (corn, olive, canola) turned out to be the best, because it takes a pretty hot flame to start the oil itself burning, but will burn nicely for a long time when soaked into paper or cloth. 
Corn oil in a beer bottle. (Yeah, it's a 40. Don't judge me.) Wick made from strands of white cotton Sugar'N Cream yarn, fed through a small hole in the metal lid. You might be able to see in the picture that the bottom of the bottle is filled with water, and oil for only the top 4 inches or so. This is to save on the amount of oil used in such a large bottle, but it also looks pretty cool. You could use any glass bottle with a screw-on lid, and if you used a clear bottle (Vodka maybe?), you could even add food coloring to the water for a pretty neat effect.
After a couple of quick internet searches, notes written down and gathering of supplies....
....he made this:
Corn oil in a beer bottle. (Yeah, it's a 40. Don't judge me.) Wick made from strands of white cotton Sugar'N Cream yarn, fed through a small hole in the metal lid. You might be able to see in the picture that the bottom of the bottle is filled with water, and oil for only the top 4 inches or so. This is to save on the amount of oil used in such a large bottle, but it also looks pretty cool. You could use any glass bottle with a screw-on lid, and if you used a clear bottle (Vodka maybe?), you could even add food coloring to the water for a pretty neat effect.
Chad spent hours and hours working out the best wick arrangement; first trying different lengths of exposed wick and settling on 1/2 inch, then timing how long it took to burn that 1/2 inch of wick and multiplying by 12 (6 inches total length). He was most satisfied with 3 strands of yarn, braided tightly, which worked out to about 15 hours of burn time.
Then he tossed everything on the counter and went online to look for a new tent. Because the one he just bought won't fit into the super-deluxe backpack he's eyeing. Gah.
*I might mention that all the above was done completely on his own, with me playing the part of Question Answerer occasionally. Who needs textbooks and lesson plans?
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The S Word...
Recently, I watched a report about homeschooling from CBS Sunday Morning on Daryl's blog. The report was mostly good, and showed some non-traditional homeschooling in a very good light. Within a few days, I'd seen the same video on several other blogs (to be fair, I'm not sure who found it first, in case that matters to anyone), and almost everyone who posted it mentioned that when the topic of socialization came up, it was handled well. I really don't agree.
In just about every report or newsy article I've seen, there is some expert insisting children need to socialize. They're missing out on prom/sports/clubs, and they need that. They won't have friends, and they need them. They won't be involved in social networks, and they need those. The common way for homeschooling advocates to address these issues is to insist, as in this recent CBS report, that homeschooling support groups and social activities exist, and are used diligently within the homeschool community. You silly people, can't you see we have it covered?
Not once have I seen or heard an expert explain WHY kids absolutely and unequivocally NEED regular activities with children their age. Never have I seen or heard anyone explain why children NEED social interaction with other children at all. I know it's important for children to have social interaction with other people. I'd just like to see the evidence that suggests those people must be children. The "experts" say interaction with other children (preferably in a school setting, of course) teaches kids they can't get their own way all the time, that rules must be followed, and all about the complicated experience that is friendship. They suggest this is the only way children will learn how to interact in the "real world." And the rebuttal from the homeschool community is: they DO get social interaction with other children. They list all the recreational classes their kids take, the clubs they're involved in, and the social activities ad nauseum, even saying exasperatedly that, "we homeschool, but we're never home!" Never once do you hear a homeschooler say, "Socializing with other kids? What makes you think they need to do that?"
There are problems with defending your homeschooled kids' social development with a list of their activities. Not only does it reinforce the idea that children somehow NEED other children around them to be mentally healthy, it makes attaining that goal seem like an exhausting task. One that requires a huge amount of your time, energy, and probably money. And one that could be easily attained without all that effort just by putting your kid in public school. The seemingly overwhelming burden of meeting their kids' social needs intimidates people that might consider homeschooling otherwise. It suggests that homeschooling alone is risking social detriment. It instills guilt in homeschool parents who can't keep up, or don't want to. Because most children are involved in lots of social activities, we quickly and blindly accept that it's necessary for proper development, leaving the door open for accusations of neglect when we don't provide it. As long as homeschoolers continue to agree with the educrats on the importance of child social groups, we allow ourselves to be criticized by their standards.
I understand that children play together in ways adults can't comprehend, and that children, when playing together, reach levels of imagination unfathomable to adults. But aren't they already getting more time at imaginative play than their public school counterparts with their siblings at home? A neighbor kid or two? Can they not learn they can't always have their way from their parents? From the fact that they're all out of blueberry pancakes at the diner today? From the car repair that prevents them from going to the amusement park? LIFE doesn't let you have your own way all the time. Can they not learn about rules and how to follow them from their parents? From the "No Running" sign at the swimming pool? From watching Mom get a speeding ticket? LIFE shows you there are rules that must be followed. Interacting with other children, in school or in homeschool group playdates, does not teach kids about the real world. Interacting with the real world does.
Emotional bonds with other humans is necessary for proper mental stability. That those humans be unrelated to you is not. We homeschoolers need to stop agreeing with the experts in the necessity of socializing with justifications, explanations, and excuses. Socializing with other kids? Who the hell needs it?
In just about every report or newsy article I've seen, there is some expert insisting children need to socialize. They're missing out on prom/sports/clubs, and they need that. They won't have friends, and they need them. They won't be involved in social networks, and they need those. The common way for homeschooling advocates to address these issues is to insist, as in this recent CBS report, that homeschooling support groups and social activities exist, and are used diligently within the homeschool community. You silly people, can't you see we have it covered?
Not once have I seen or heard an expert explain WHY kids absolutely and unequivocally NEED regular activities with children their age. Never have I seen or heard anyone explain why children NEED social interaction with other children at all. I know it's important for children to have social interaction with other people. I'd just like to see the evidence that suggests those people must be children. The "experts" say interaction with other children (preferably in a school setting, of course) teaches kids they can't get their own way all the time, that rules must be followed, and all about the complicated experience that is friendship. They suggest this is the only way children will learn how to interact in the "real world." And the rebuttal from the homeschool community is: they DO get social interaction with other children. They list all the recreational classes their kids take, the clubs they're involved in, and the social activities ad nauseum, even saying exasperatedly that, "we homeschool, but we're never home!" Never once do you hear a homeschooler say, "Socializing with other kids? What makes you think they need to do that?"
There are problems with defending your homeschooled kids' social development with a list of their activities. Not only does it reinforce the idea that children somehow NEED other children around them to be mentally healthy, it makes attaining that goal seem like an exhausting task. One that requires a huge amount of your time, energy, and probably money. And one that could be easily attained without all that effort just by putting your kid in public school. The seemingly overwhelming burden of meeting their kids' social needs intimidates people that might consider homeschooling otherwise. It suggests that homeschooling alone is risking social detriment. It instills guilt in homeschool parents who can't keep up, or don't want to. Because most children are involved in lots of social activities, we quickly and blindly accept that it's necessary for proper development, leaving the door open for accusations of neglect when we don't provide it. As long as homeschoolers continue to agree with the educrats on the importance of child social groups, we allow ourselves to be criticized by their standards.
I understand that children play together in ways adults can't comprehend, and that children, when playing together, reach levels of imagination unfathomable to adults. But aren't they already getting more time at imaginative play than their public school counterparts with their siblings at home? A neighbor kid or two? Can they not learn they can't always have their way from their parents? From the fact that they're all out of blueberry pancakes at the diner today? From the car repair that prevents them from going to the amusement park? LIFE doesn't let you have your own way all the time. Can they not learn about rules and how to follow them from their parents? From the "No Running" sign at the swimming pool? From watching Mom get a speeding ticket? LIFE shows you there are rules that must be followed. Interacting with other children, in school or in homeschool group playdates, does not teach kids about the real world. Interacting with the real world does.
Emotional bonds with other humans is necessary for proper mental stability. That those humans be unrelated to you is not. We homeschoolers need to stop agreeing with the experts in the necessity of socializing with justifications, explanations, and excuses. Socializing with other kids? Who the hell needs it?
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
In case you were wondering...
Some of you may have noticed a lack of homeschooling posts in the last few months. Springtime is my normal time of reflecting over our school year, reviewing what we've accomplished, and subsequently freaking out over what we haven't gotten done. But this time, I'm remarkably calm about the whole situation. We're only on chapter 36 when we should be on chapter 47, and I'm okay with that. We have this summer, right? And the kids are learning tons of stuff they wouldn't be learning otherwise if we were focusing solely on our textbooks. See? It's all good.
Right after Christmas, I started my regular freakout sessions, "We haven't done spelling since November!! AAACK!!!" With an upcoming tax refund (whenever they worked out what I owed and all that), I was planning on buying new books for next year and stuff too. So one day I'm telling the kids we're gonna skip science today (because I'm going to buy from a different company next year), and telling them watching Animal Planet or The Weather Channel, or playing with kitchen ingredients will be sufficient. And the next day I'm yelling at them, doubling up on assignments in subjects we're behind in. And threatening them! Because if they don't be quiet and do their damn Language work Right This Second, the lady that reviews our portfolio will think they're not learning, and they'll have to go to public school, and I'll probably go to jail or something.
Can you feel the crazy, people? It radiates from my body.
Then one night while I sat drinking my tea and reading some math geek book, I remembered a funny family story. See, my great aunt had a cat that was not allowed on the furniture. The story goes that the cat had a litter of kittens, and when they were big enough to get around, she got on the couch for the one and only time of her life and taught her kittens not to go on the furniture as well. She meowed and called them, and every time they jumped up, she would hiss and bat at them until they went sprawling back on the floor. After several minutes, none of the kittens were willing to jump from the floor. Lesson learned.
Then I saw that this is what I've been doing to my kids. I suddenly realized that as much as I talk about being a relaxed homeschooler, I haven't actually been one. I've baited them with the wonderful ideals found in all those books: learning should be fun, learning is a natural process, learn at your own pace, c'mon you'll love it... and then switched on them, lecturing about the importance of education and staying at "grade level", punishing them with extra work and guilt trips about laziness. (Hello? Hypocrite??) My great aunt's cat was pretty darned smart. But me? Not so much. Why this story popped into my head that night I'll never know. But my next big thought was, "Pretty soon, they'll stop trying to jump." What happens when they stop believing that learning can be fun? What happens when "school" becomes a code word for boring drudgery, or worse, forced work on the whims of a crazy lady? And *choke* how do I look to them, with this homeschool teacher schizophrenia?? How will they look back on our homeschooling experience? Holy hell.
So I've made a deliberate and pointed attempt to let go. They are learning, without my pressure. They can learn those few things I feel they need to have, but they can do it on their terms. I will no longer look at lesson numbers, or count days until the end of the year. Despite all the former attempts at this kind of calm, I don't think I ever achieved it before now. Don't get me wrong, I don't think for a second that I will feel this way every day (and I don't). But it's March, and I haven't forced double lessons or yelled about schoolwork since January. It's a step down a long, long path and I realize that. But I feel so much better about homeschooling than I ever have before. And it's all good.
Right after Christmas, I started my regular freakout sessions, "We haven't done spelling since November!! AAACK!!!" With an upcoming tax refund (whenever they worked out what I owed and all that), I was planning on buying new books for next year and stuff too. So one day I'm telling the kids we're gonna skip science today (because I'm going to buy from a different company next year), and telling them watching Animal Planet or The Weather Channel, or playing with kitchen ingredients will be sufficient. And the next day I'm yelling at them, doubling up on assignments in subjects we're behind in. And threatening them! Because if they don't be quiet and do their damn Language work Right This Second, the lady that reviews our portfolio will think they're not learning, and they'll have to go to public school, and I'll probably go to jail or something.
Can you feel the crazy, people? It radiates from my body.
Then one night while I sat drinking my tea and reading some math geek book, I remembered a funny family story. See, my great aunt had a cat that was not allowed on the furniture. The story goes that the cat had a litter of kittens, and when they were big enough to get around, she got on the couch for the one and only time of her life and taught her kittens not to go on the furniture as well. She meowed and called them, and every time they jumped up, she would hiss and bat at them until they went sprawling back on the floor. After several minutes, none of the kittens were willing to jump from the floor. Lesson learned.
Then I saw that this is what I've been doing to my kids. I suddenly realized that as much as I talk about being a relaxed homeschooler, I haven't actually been one. I've baited them with the wonderful ideals found in all those books: learning should be fun, learning is a natural process, learn at your own pace, c'mon you'll love it... and then switched on them, lecturing about the importance of education and staying at "grade level", punishing them with extra work and guilt trips about laziness. (Hello? Hypocrite??) My great aunt's cat was pretty darned smart. But me? Not so much. Why this story popped into my head that night I'll never know. But my next big thought was, "Pretty soon, they'll stop trying to jump." What happens when they stop believing that learning can be fun? What happens when "school" becomes a code word for boring drudgery, or worse, forced work on the whims of a crazy lady? And *choke* how do I look to them, with this homeschool teacher schizophrenia?? How will they look back on our homeschooling experience? Holy hell.
So I've made a deliberate and pointed attempt to let go. They are learning, without my pressure. They can learn those few things I feel they need to have, but they can do it on their terms. I will no longer look at lesson numbers, or count days until the end of the year. Despite all the former attempts at this kind of calm, I don't think I ever achieved it before now. Don't get me wrong, I don't think for a second that I will feel this way every day (and I don't). But it's March, and I haven't forced double lessons or yelled about schoolwork since January. It's a step down a long, long path and I realize that. But I feel so much better about homeschooling than I ever have before. And it's all good.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
I'm learnin' 'em real good...
Yesterday was the homeschool day from hell.
Cadence apparently forgot how to add. She didn't "get it," I guess. This was worth about an hour of very frustrated conversations. When that was finally done, I gave her some writing to do, sent her on her way, and moved on to Chad.
I gave Chad a map, and told him to label all the Scandinavian countries. (I should mention that he has done this sort of map project at least 10 times. I might also mention that a full half of my lineage is Swedish. That's half my family. That's a grandpa and a full set of great-grandparents to my kids. It's aunts and uncles. It's great aunts and uncles still living in Sweden.) "How am I supposed to know where the countries are?" he asked me. "There are no words on this map." Ahem. "Of course not," I told him, "You're supposed to put the words there." "How am I supposed to know where they are?" "Umm.. maybe try the atlas?"
He couldn't find the atlas. He said he didn't know what an atlas was, even though he's used it every few days since the beginning of the year.
He didn't know how to figure out what part of the world to look up in the atlas.
He couldn't find Greenland.
During writing, he asked what a paragraph was. "Is that the same thing as a sentence?"
I reminded him to indent, and he indented every line except the first one.
And I corrected his spelling of the word "they", like I've been doing for four years, bringing the total to about 5,473,000,058. Right about that time, Riley broke up the party by saying, "Mama come and see this. It was an accident." While trying to dislodge the toothpicks from the Cook button on the microwave, I announced school was over for the day.
Thankfully, today went much better.
Cadence apparently forgot how to add. She didn't "get it," I guess. This was worth about an hour of very frustrated conversations. When that was finally done, I gave her some writing to do, sent her on her way, and moved on to Chad.
I gave Chad a map, and told him to label all the Scandinavian countries. (I should mention that he has done this sort of map project at least 10 times. I might also mention that a full half of my lineage is Swedish. That's half my family. That's a grandpa and a full set of great-grandparents to my kids. It's aunts and uncles. It's great aunts and uncles still living in Sweden.) "How am I supposed to know where the countries are?" he asked me. "There are no words on this map." Ahem. "Of course not," I told him, "You're supposed to put the words there." "How am I supposed to know where they are?" "Umm.. maybe try the atlas?"
He couldn't find the atlas. He said he didn't know what an atlas was, even though he's used it every few days since the beginning of the year.
He didn't know how to figure out what part of the world to look up in the atlas.
He couldn't find Greenland.
During writing, he asked what a paragraph was. "Is that the same thing as a sentence?"
I reminded him to indent, and he indented every line except the first one.
And I corrected his spelling of the word "they", like I've been doing for four years, bringing the total to about 5,473,000,058. Right about that time, Riley broke up the party by saying, "Mama come and see this. It was an accident." While trying to dislodge the toothpicks from the Cook button on the microwave, I announced school was over for the day.
Thankfully, today went much better.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
The snag in structured schooling...
We're not unschoolers, but I cling very tightly to our unschooling tendencies. For example, Chad finished his structured work yesterday in just over an hour and said, "YAY!" when he was finished. Then he went off to read a book about edible plants (and take notes), for fun. Just because he wanted to. We have a set of encyclopedias, a couple sets of children's reference books about everything you could think of, gobs of picture books and games, all of which the kids have access to whenever they like. Just about every day, at least one of them is parked on the couch looking through a book and announcing their discoveries. "Hey Mama! These people make boats out of reeds!" So yeah, we're pretty unschooly. Even our structured lessons aren't that structured. But it's not really unschooling either.
The problem with any kind of structured schooling is time. The kids have chores they do every morning and Ifreak out if we don't finish expect breakfast and chores to be done somewhere around 10. The idea is that lessons will be finished by lunchtime, and sometimes this works. If we have to spend an hour in the afternoon finishing, that's fine too. See? Not too structured. Except Every Little Fucking Thing disrupts this relaxed-but-structured schedule. Riley decides to play the harmonica right in the middle of math. My mother calls to ask a question and thinks of about 5 million other things to ask about while she's at it. They're working on the road outside and I decide - like a good unschooling parent, you understand - to call lessons off and go watch, then I get all upset later about what wasn't done and what needs to be "caught up" on.
Today we were going to go to the library. I want to make Thursday our library day this year (last year it was Tuesdays. I'm telling you, I'm a complete freak sometimes!). Everything was going along fine, lessons were getting done quickly and by 11:00 I knew we'd be finished before lunch and off to the library after. Then my aunt called. My uncle is having some tests done at the hospital, and due to some trauma patients coming in to the E.R., they're backed up. My aunt was supposed to be babysitting her granddaughter this afternoon, and would I mind taking her just for a few hours so they could wait at the hospital. "Not at all!" I say, "Bring her on over." Now my kids are off playing and schoolwork will never get done. We won't be able to go to the library until someone comes to pick up my little cousin, and by then it will be time to start dinner. Holy crap, this is SOOOO not a big deal. And I am so freaking out about what isn't getting done today.
The problem with any kind of structured schooling is time. The kids have chores they do every morning and I
Today we were going to go to the library. I want to make Thursday our library day this year (last year it was Tuesdays. I'm telling you, I'm a complete freak sometimes!). Everything was going along fine, lessons were getting done quickly and by 11:00 I knew we'd be finished before lunch and off to the library after. Then my aunt called. My uncle is having some tests done at the hospital, and due to some trauma patients coming in to the E.R., they're backed up. My aunt was supposed to be babysitting her granddaughter this afternoon, and would I mind taking her just for a few hours so they could wait at the hospital. "Not at all!" I say, "Bring her on over." Now my kids are off playing and schoolwork will never get done. We won't be able to go to the library until someone comes to pick up my little cousin, and by then it will be time to start dinner. Holy crap, this is SOOOO not a big deal. And I am so freaking out about what isn't getting done today.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
A nice light week...
I need a vacation from life right now. I can't even keep up with all the things I'm supposed to be remembering. I have little lists of things around the house. Lists of stuff I need to buy at the store. Lists of books I'll get from amazon if the much-needed help that has so generously been offered and is so greatly appreciated, ever actually comes. Phone numbers. Lists of books to get on our next library trip and books that need to be returned. Circled calendar dates. Little half-sentences like, "bday fri/colored pencils" written on napkins and the backs of envelopes. Disorganized stress-bomb anyone? Wow.
I decided to postpone the imminent breakdown due to lack of necessary materials for our History Odyssey program by a week. We are having a light week. Next week I'll have my breakdown. We didn't do anything at all until Wednesday, which just happened to be the first day of school for our district. I didn't do that on purpose, I was just busy babysitting Monday and running errands Tuesday, so it worked out that way. Wednesday there was much fighting and yelling and, "You stop talking." "No YOU stop talking, I'm not talking." "You're talking NOW. I didn't say anything." "Yes you DID!"
Yesterday, after finishing the second day of only handwriting and math, I'm ready to pull my hair out. Chad has this habit of asking to do something, then bitching that he "has to" do it. Like handwriting. I could personally care less how neat his writing is, as long as others can read it. He writes on his own, making little books or taking notes on books he's reading (this too is his own idea). Cadence loves handwriting practice. Anything in a workbook. So yesterday, when Cadence was doing handwriting, Chad asked if he could re-learn cursive (claims he forgot how). No problem. I spent about an hour digging up some practice worksheets online and printing them. Then today I handed him the "A" sheet only to have him say, "Why do I have to do handwriting?" What the hell? Some kind of juvenile Alzheimer's? I just handed him the cursive sheets and told him to do them if he wanted, use them for reference when writing, or throw them away for all I cared. Sheesh.
We took a trip back to the doctor for Riley again. That swollen lymph node from several weeks ago? Yep, still there and not getting smaller. The doctor was very nice, telling me not to ever read about medical stuff on the internet. "You probably read all about Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma didn't you?" Um.. well, yeah. He was a lot more informative than the last doctor, and explained how sometimes it can be long after the original infection clears before they go back to normal. He said they see this kind of thing a lot, and its very VERY rare that anything comes of it. More antibiotics for now, and if that doesn't work in two weeks we'll do a steroid shot. I guess if that doesn't work, they'll move on to biopsy, but he sounded pretty confident that Riley would be fine well before we need to do that. "She looks really healthy otherwise, no other symptoms, I'm sure it's nothing." I feel a lot better than I did before.
My old and ailing cat is no longer ailing. He's still old. No more puking everywhere though, which is nice because I don't have to worry about him so much, and also because I don't have to clean it off the carpets and furniture (computer, washing machine, bathtub...). Now he's spending most of his time sleeping and doing cat things. Like sleeping. Oh, and eating. And sleeping of course. I think I need a couple of days to be a cat.
I decided to postpone the imminent breakdown due to lack of necessary materials for our History Odyssey program by a week. We are having a light week. Next week I'll have my breakdown. We didn't do anything at all until Wednesday, which just happened to be the first day of school for our district. I didn't do that on purpose, I was just busy babysitting Monday and running errands Tuesday, so it worked out that way. Wednesday there was much fighting and yelling and, "You stop talking." "No YOU stop talking, I'm not talking." "You're talking NOW. I didn't say anything." "Yes you DID!"
Yesterday, after finishing the second day of only handwriting and math, I'm ready to pull my hair out. Chad has this habit of asking to do something, then bitching that he "has to" do it. Like handwriting. I could personally care less how neat his writing is, as long as others can read it. He writes on his own, making little books or taking notes on books he's reading (this too is his own idea). Cadence loves handwriting practice. Anything in a workbook. So yesterday, when Cadence was doing handwriting, Chad asked if he could re-learn cursive (claims he forgot how). No problem. I spent about an hour digging up some practice worksheets online and printing them. Then today I handed him the "A" sheet only to have him say, "Why do I have to do handwriting?" What the hell? Some kind of juvenile Alzheimer's? I just handed him the cursive sheets and told him to do them if he wanted, use them for reference when writing, or throw them away for all I cared. Sheesh.
We took a trip back to the doctor for Riley again. That swollen lymph node from several weeks ago? Yep, still there and not getting smaller. The doctor was very nice, telling me not to ever read about medical stuff on the internet. "You probably read all about Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma didn't you?" Um.. well, yeah. He was a lot more informative than the last doctor, and explained how sometimes it can be long after the original infection clears before they go back to normal. He said they see this kind of thing a lot, and its very VERY rare that anything comes of it. More antibiotics for now, and if that doesn't work in two weeks we'll do a steroid shot. I guess if that doesn't work, they'll move on to biopsy, but he sounded pretty confident that Riley would be fine well before we need to do that. "She looks really healthy otherwise, no other symptoms, I'm sure it's nothing." I feel a lot better than I did before.
My old and ailing cat is no longer ailing. He's still old. No more puking everywhere though, which is nice because I don't have to worry about him so much, and also because I don't have to clean it off the carpets and furniture (computer, washing machine, bathtub...). Now he's spending most of his time sleeping and doing cat things. Like sleeping. Oh, and eating. And sleeping of course. I think I need a couple of days to be a cat.
Friday, August 17, 2007
The Redneck Steam Cannon...
*Updated to add photos*
Ah, the Redneck life! You just can't do any better than good old redneck fun. Like most rednecks, we frequently build a bonfire in our back yard - right in the middle of town. The place we live technically IS a town, I mean, we have a post office. But I don't know if 5 or 6 square blocks really counts. Still, we have bonfires. And nobody cares, so long as it's "yard waste". For the record, the local fire department doesn't consider old wood siding that's fallen off your house INTO your yard, as yard waste. Go figure. "Ma'am, we mean the stuff that grows in your yard, not just stuff that happens to be there." Picky, picky.
Anyway, it's common while having a bonfire for Dad and the kids to play in the burning flames and coals. This is fun, right? This is the part where Vic laughs a lot and I say, "Please step back a bit," and, "Please don't run," and, "Please don't wave the flaming stick near your sisters." Usually, I get so stressed out I have to go into the house and find something to do. I trust my husband to be a good father and not allow them to get hurt. He's an old fire pro and is the reason my kids know how to build and bank a fire, which wood burns best, etc. But sometimes maintaining that trust requires me to leave the premises.
During one such backyard bonfire, Chad suggested making a steam cannon. Vic assisted the kids in a makeshift prototype, and after some tweaking and experimenting, this is what they were successful with:
The Redneck Steam Cannon
Supplies- one 2-foot (or so) piece of copper water pipe (diameter under 1-1/2 inches), red-hot coals (from a good couple of hours of burn is best), one wire coat hanger, water, and mud.
Assembly- With a pair of metal crimpers, pliers, or even a vice, bend up about 1-2 inches at the bottom of the pipe. Then, bend it up again, essentially "rolling up" or folding the pipe twice.
Make sure the "folds" are tight and flat. Straighten the wire coat hanger into one long wire. About 4 inches down from the top of the pipe, twist the coat hanger tightly, like a twist tie. You want it tight to make a secure handle that's not likely to slip. 
(In this version, we used a piece of bent metal, tied on with the wire, but the concept is the same)
Firing the "cannon"- Pour a small amount (1/4 cup or less) of water into your cannon. (As you can see in the photo, we usually just dip it in the nearest rain-filled outdoor object.) Plug up the top with a sticky clod of mud. Mud with very few pebbles is recommended; it lessens the air pockets and your risk of breaking window glass in the event of a misfire. You want your mud to be about the consistency of playdoh. If you're lacking this kind of mud, I suppose you really could use playdoh, although in my opinion it wouldn't be as fun. With a shovel or spade, make a big hill of your hot coals, at least 6 inches tall for good stability. Nestle your loaded cannon right in the middle of the coals, deep enough to prevent it from falling over. Remember to aim it away from people, houses, and your neighbor's car.
(Since the kids would be heading to bed soon and I wanted a decent photo, we just braced the cannon with boards strangely straight sticks that fell off the tree. Ahem.) That's it! Within a few seconds, your cannon should fire, blowing a big ole mud clod high in the air. If it doesn't fire, give it a couple of minutes to make sure you're not just being impatient before trying to remove it from the coals. Check for leaks in the bottom of the cannon, holes in the sides, or cracks where steam could escape around the mud. Maybe your mud ammo is too thick or thin? Too much or too little water could also be the culprit. Experiment with different amounts of mud and water. Have fun with it.
This is great fire entertainment, and has become a camping (and backyard) favorite for the kids. Simple and using the basics of supplies, it's guaranteed to leave you grinning like a shit-eating possum.
Ah, the Redneck life! You just can't do any better than good old redneck fun. Like most rednecks, we frequently build a bonfire in our back yard - right in the middle of town. The place we live technically IS a town, I mean, we have a post office. But I don't know if 5 or 6 square blocks really counts. Still, we have bonfires. And nobody cares, so long as it's "yard waste". For the record, the local fire department doesn't consider old wood siding that's fallen off your house INTO your yard, as yard waste. Go figure. "Ma'am, we mean the stuff that grows in your yard, not just stuff that happens to be there." Picky, picky.
Anyway, it's common while having a bonfire for Dad and the kids to play in the burning flames and coals. This is fun, right? This is the part where Vic laughs a lot and I say, "Please step back a bit," and, "Please don't run," and, "Please don't wave the flaming stick near your sisters." Usually, I get so stressed out I have to go into the house and find something to do. I trust my husband to be a good father and not allow them to get hurt. He's an old fire pro and is the reason my kids know how to build and bank a fire, which wood burns best, etc. But sometimes maintaining that trust requires me to leave the premises.
During one such backyard bonfire, Chad suggested making a steam cannon. Vic assisted the kids in a makeshift prototype, and after some tweaking and experimenting, this is what they were successful with:
The Redneck Steam Cannon
Supplies- one 2-foot (or so) piece of copper water pipe (diameter under 1-1/2 inches), red-hot coals (from a good couple of hours of burn is best), one wire coat hanger, water, and mud.
Assembly- With a pair of metal crimpers, pliers, or even a vice, bend up about 1-2 inches at the bottom of the pipe. Then, bend it up again, essentially "rolling up" or folding the pipe twice.
Make sure the "folds" are tight and flat. Straighten the wire coat hanger into one long wire. About 4 inches down from the top of the pipe, twist the coat hanger tightly, like a twist tie. You want it tight to make a secure handle that's not likely to slip. (In this version, we used a piece of bent metal, tied on with the wire, but the concept is the same)Firing the "cannon"- Pour a small amount (1/4 cup or less) of water into your cannon. (As you can see in the photo, we usually just dip it in the nearest rain-filled outdoor object.) Plug up the top with a sticky clod of mud. Mud with very few pebbles is recommended; it lessens the air pockets and your risk of breaking window glass in the event of a misfire. You want your mud to be about the consistency of playdoh. If you're lacking this kind of mud, I suppose you really could use playdoh, although in my opinion it wouldn't be as fun. With a shovel or spade, make a big hill of your hot coals, at least 6 inches tall for good stability. Nestle your loaded cannon right in the middle of the coals, deep enough to prevent it from falling over. Remember to aim it away from people, houses, and your neighbor's car.
(Since the kids would be heading to bed soon and I wanted a decent photo, we just braced the cannon with This is great fire entertainment, and has become a camping (and backyard) favorite for the kids. Simple and using the basics of supplies, it's guaranteed to leave you grinning like a shit-eating possum.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
People Get Ready For School??...
I'm seeing a lot of posts lately with statements of homeschooling readiness. "We're all set!" they say. They list their curriculum to prove it. I thought I would list mine...
Umm..
Well, we have that History Odyssey I bought, and I can't wait to use it! Except I still have some books that go with the program that I've yet to buy. I didn't realize I needed anything else when I bought the study guides, or I would have gotten it then - before that money was spent on other things. So, History! We're ready! Almost.
I bought Saxon math for Chad. It came with everything we need, except the notebook paper of course. Ooh, crap. Looks like we're out of notebook paper. He's ready to do some math! After I get the paper. Woohoo!
I haven't decided yet if I want to use the district math curriculum for Cadence or buy our own. I don't think Saxon will work well for her. Too much book work, not enough pictures. So, until I actually purchase something, I guess it's just the district's stuff. She's ready! I guess.
I've also been hunting desperately for a science curriculum, since we have to report science this year. The reviewer (no, I still haven't replaced her) said we could just keep notes of the science-related activities we do, which is nice. I dunno. Seems like a book and paper curriculum would be so much easier to document.
History Odyssey is supposed to incorporate reading and writing, but I plan to assign a book each week, just like I did last year. Does "I plan to" count as being ready? I'm also drooling over Sequential Spelling, but have yet to buy it. But I plan to.
One of the nice things about being a relaxed homeschooler is that I don't feel the need to micromanage our schooling. One of the bad things about it though, is that I'm not really "relaxed" and pretty soon I'm bound to start freaking out about what we don't have.
Umm..
Well, we have that History Odyssey I bought, and I can't wait to use it! Except I still have some books that go with the program that I've yet to buy. I didn't realize I needed anything else when I bought the study guides, or I would have gotten it then - before that money was spent on other things. So, History! We're ready! Almost.
I bought Saxon math for Chad. It came with everything we need, except the notebook paper of course. Ooh, crap. Looks like we're out of notebook paper. He's ready to do some math! After I get the paper. Woohoo!
I haven't decided yet if I want to use the district math curriculum for Cadence or buy our own. I don't think Saxon will work well for her. Too much book work, not enough pictures. So, until I actually purchase something, I guess it's just the district's stuff. She's ready! I guess.
I've also been hunting desperately for a science curriculum, since we have to report science this year. The reviewer (no, I still haven't replaced her) said we could just keep notes of the science-related activities we do, which is nice. I dunno. Seems like a book and paper curriculum would be so much easier to document.
History Odyssey is supposed to incorporate reading and writing, but I plan to assign a book each week, just like I did last year. Does "I plan to" count as being ready? I'm also drooling over Sequential Spelling, but have yet to buy it. But I plan to.
One of the nice things about being a relaxed homeschooler is that I don't feel the need to micromanage our schooling. One of the bad things about it though, is that I'm not really "relaxed" and pretty soon I'm bound to start freaking out about what we don't have.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Check out Mars on August 27...
Contrary to a circulating email that goes around every year or two, Mars will not be as big as a second moon to the naked eye on the 27th of August (Who believed that anyway? Duh.). However, thanks to orbiting patterns it will be in opposition on that date, and closer than it has been in thousands of years. It would be a good time to dig out the old telescope and get a good look.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
The apple and the tree...
You know that phrase "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree"? Chad and Riley are both very much like me - so much so that we often butt heads in mutual defiance and determination. But sometimes the apple falls off, rolls down a hill, drops into a river and floats out to sea, ending up on some other continent entirely. Such is the case with my oldest daughter.
For me, raising my kids means reminding myself (and my husband) constantly that they're individual people, with personalities not at all dependent on their upbringing. I guess it could be a source of extreme frustration (well, sometimes it is), but for the most part I am just awe-struck. I'm often amazed at how children raised in the same home can not only be so unlike each other, but so unlike anyone else in the house. One could spend an eternity pondering where our personalities come from and what aspects can alter them.
I'm starting to dread the words, "When I was a kid.." that Vic is so fond of uttering when discussing Chad. He mentions how driven HE was to work hard, and take pride in what he works for. I answer with, "He's not you. He's not like you. He doesn't think like you," etc. Chad must see the big picture and how he personally fits into it before taking any pleasure in work. He's just that way. Then an hour later, I'm complaining to Vic about how Cadence won't stand up for herself. She's the complete opposite of Chad, putting the needs and even wants of others before herself, and often being taken advantage of because of it. She's an alien to me. I cannot possibly imagine that line of thinking. She... Well, I don't... How can she... -- But she's not me. She doesn't think like me.
In their schooling, Chad's Big Picture thinking makes him incredibly perceptive and is a driving force to his learning. Cadence learns everything set before her in a calculated and robotic way, out of a need to please me and earn my praise. Chad always asks why, and many hours each day are spent in discussion instead of "real" schoolwork. Cadence never asks why, and is likely to get several lessons ahead in a subject before admitting she really doesn't understand it. Each child's learning must be approached from a different direction. Countless time is spent reminding Chad to focus on the task at hand instead of wandering off into left field; and also in reminding Cadence that my love is not contingent on her performance.
I think this is one of the most important, albeit hardest, lessons I've learned from my kids. The apple might end up in Timbuktu or resting against the trunk of the tree it fell from, but the soil can still be rich. Give them what they each need, and the seeds can still grow. Help them along the way, and the tree can still be strong and healthy. Even if it eventually bears oranges.
For me, raising my kids means reminding myself (and my husband) constantly that they're individual people, with personalities not at all dependent on their upbringing. I guess it could be a source of extreme frustration (well, sometimes it is), but for the most part I am just awe-struck. I'm often amazed at how children raised in the same home can not only be so unlike each other, but so unlike anyone else in the house. One could spend an eternity pondering where our personalities come from and what aspects can alter them.
I'm starting to dread the words, "When I was a kid.." that Vic is so fond of uttering when discussing Chad. He mentions how driven HE was to work hard, and take pride in what he works for. I answer with, "He's not you. He's not like you. He doesn't think like you," etc. Chad must see the big picture and how he personally fits into it before taking any pleasure in work. He's just that way. Then an hour later, I'm complaining to Vic about how Cadence won't stand up for herself. She's the complete opposite of Chad, putting the needs and even wants of others before herself, and often being taken advantage of because of it. She's an alien to me. I cannot possibly imagine that line of thinking. She... Well, I don't... How can she... -- But she's not me. She doesn't think like me.
In their schooling, Chad's Big Picture thinking makes him incredibly perceptive and is a driving force to his learning. Cadence learns everything set before her in a calculated and robotic way, out of a need to please me and earn my praise. Chad always asks why, and many hours each day are spent in discussion instead of "real" schoolwork. Cadence never asks why, and is likely to get several lessons ahead in a subject before admitting she really doesn't understand it. Each child's learning must be approached from a different direction. Countless time is spent reminding Chad to focus on the task at hand instead of wandering off into left field; and also in reminding Cadence that my love is not contingent on her performance.
I think this is one of the most important, albeit hardest, lessons I've learned from my kids. The apple might end up in Timbuktu or resting against the trunk of the tree it fell from, but the soil can still be rich. Give them what they each need, and the seeds can still grow. Help them along the way, and the tree can still be strong and healthy. Even if it eventually bears oranges.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Starfall
If you haven't already, go check out www.starfall.com. Tons of free stuff to download and use. Bunches more to order at cheapo prices.
While we didn't use this program as our sole learn-to-read resource, Cadence used Zac the Rat and the other downloadable books for reading practice and loved them. She enjoyed the writing journal as well.
While we didn't use this program as our sole learn-to-read resource, Cadence used Zac the Rat and the other downloadable books for reading practice and loved them. She enjoyed the writing journal as well.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Check it out!...
Leetle teeny amphibians of some sort have started crawling out onto the rocks. None yet who have completely lost their tails. We're pretty sure most of our tadpoles have grown into some kind of toad, instead of Spring Peepers as we originally thought. Most of the tadpoles/frogs/toads are very dark, almost black in color, while some are brown and speckled. None of them appear to have the telltale markings of a Spring Peeper. Two days ago, three out of the 26 tadpoles had all 4 legs. Yesterday there were eight quadrupeds.Check out this picture from above the tank:
While it's sort of difficult to see, the amphibian on the left has all four legs. The one on the top has just back legs, and those little bumps from its sides are front legs still tethered with the transparent skin covering they've had since hatching. The one on the bottom has its back legs just beginning to form underneath its body. There are still one or two in the tank with no signs of developing appendages yet.
We will be releasing the frogs/toads individually when they are fully formed with no remaining tail, and by the looks of things that may be as soon as two days from now. I'm actually very happy that they have developed at different rates because that gives us more time to watch them before they're all released. I'm guessing we'll only have them another two weeks at most.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Those Crazy High School Days...
All this talk about high school is going around the blogosphere like a case of the chicken-pox, and has me thoroughly appreciating our choice to homeschool. I could share some horrible stories of what I endured from Kindergarten through high school. I could give all the aching detail of the teasing for every stupid little reason in the book. I could explain how my very big home issues impacted that school experience. But instead, I'm going to tell you about my sophomore year.
The summer before my sophomore year, the home issues I just spoke of led me to two "temporary home placements," both about 200 miles away from "home", and attending two new schools. The first school was relatively the same as my old school. Cliques and bullshit. Nothing notable. I tried to fit in, to no avail since the uncool kids must put out some kind of Dork Pheromones and nothing I tried worked for me. In the second school, I abandoned any efforts to fit in and steeled myself to finishing sophomore year with no friends at all. Not much of a problem, really. I decided at that point that if they didn't like me, I didn't have to like them either. I did my homework and went from class to class like a robot, and other people barely noticed I was there.
The door to my science classroom said Mr. Harvey*, and while there was a man always in the room sitting at a desk near the front, the class itself was taught by Mrs. Brown*. The first few weeks, I thought Mrs. Brown must be a student teacher or something and it didn't seem weird at all. After a while though, I started to notice that Mr. Harvey never addressed the class at all, not even for a few minutes. Not even to say "hello," or "sit down," or "go to the Principal's office." Finally I asked another student just what the deal was. Apparently, Mr. Harvey, at the age of fifty-something, had lived his whole life in his mother's house, and she had recently died. Mrs. Brown was brought in as a substitute while Mr. Harvey was on leave, then stayed on to help out in the classroom since he was dealing with so much grief. According to the student in the next desk, he hadn't taught a class or spoken at all for at least a month before I transferred to the school. Sad. And weird too.
A week or so after learning the scoop on Mr. Harvey, he resumed teaching classes. That first week, we learned about Hitler, Kennedy, and aliens. This was a biology class. It started to become obvious that Mr. Harvey was not just grief-stricken. He was crazy. Soon Mrs. Brown, who'd stayed in the classroom during Mr. Harvey's lectures, took over again. This time, Mr. Harvey was not silent in class. He shouted at people who moved from their seats. He sang Camptown Races. He threw paper airplanes around the room. Crazy.
After a couple of weeks of this weirdness, Mr. Harvey befriended a few boys in his various classes. You knew which boys they were because they all carried around The Anarchist's Cookbook, just like the copy on Mr. Harvey's desk. After school and between classes, Mr. Harvey gave demonstrations of various soda-bottle bombs; the smaller bombs inside the explosion box in the classroom, the larger bombs in the football field outside. The boys all thought this was very cool, of course, since most of the ingredients were household products, and wasn't Mr. Harvey just the awesomest teacher ever? The rest of us were growing concerned, including Mrs. Brown and a lot of the faculty.
I began to wonder why Mr. Harvey wasn't fired. Clearly he was not fit to be a teacher and was in no kind of mental state to be around kids. I finally asked Mrs. Brown. She told me it was because the school would be closing its doors for good after this year due to a district restructure. A lot of the teachers would be losing their jobs, Mr. Harvey included, and since we were nearing the end of the school year, the administrators didn't have the heart to fire the guy. In other words, it's only another month, and a little exposure to a man in the process of losing his mind won't hurt the kids too badly.
One Monday right before class started, a girl a few rows over snagged a pen from the boy behind her. They wrestled for the pen in the way flirtatious teenagers do, with lots of giggling and gag-me stuff. Mr. Harvey jumped to his feet and ran to them, screaming at the top of his lungs for the boy to, "LET HER GO!!" The horseplay immediately stopped and the boy reached out to the girl to retrieve his pen. "SIT DOWN!" Mr. Harvey shouted. The boy started to explain, "..but Mr. Harvey, I just--" Mr. Harvey reached across to the lab table, grabbed a scalpel, held it in the boy's face and said, "I SAID SIT DOWN NOW!!" The boy sat. Mr. Harvey returned to his desk, scalpel in hand. Nobody called the police or escorted Mr. Harvey from the room. Instead, we all sat silently for 45 minutes until the class let out. Mrs. Brown didn't even move from her desk. That was probably the most terrifying 45 minutes of my life. Mr. Brown wasn't just crazy, he was dangerously insane.
Mr. Harvey was not in class on Tuesday, and Mrs. Brown informed us he'd been let go. We had a test that day and nobody even complained because the relief was so great that Mr. Harvey was gone. We were supposed to get the test results the following day, but Mrs. Brown said she'd "misplaced" the tests and would get back to us after she'd found and graded them.
On Thursday, I walked into the science classroom to see Mr. Harvey once again, arguing quietly with Mrs. Brown. I joined the group of huddling students in the corner, all of us wondering if we should slip out before something awful happened. I heard snippets of the argument, mostly from Mrs. Brown like, "you should get some help," and "you can't be here." It seems Mr. Harvey had returned to the school late on Tuesday night, stolen the "misplaced" tests, graded them all, and walked into the school Thursday morning with graded tests in hand as if he had never been fired. Soon the Principal showed up and quietly escorted Mr. Harvey to his car. There was quite a scene in the parking lot when Mr. Harvey was asked to relinquish his keys to the building (why didn't they do that when they fired him?), that ended with Mr. Harvey shouting, "I'll get you! You'll Pay!" Again, no police were called.
Mr. Harvey was arrested two days later while attempting to buy very large amounts of the same chemicals (in higher, purer concentrations) found in the household products he was teaching the boys at school to make bombs with. Only then did the school faculty report Mr. Harvey's behavior in the previous months. When my sophomore year ended and I left my "home placement" for my real home once again, Mr. Harvey was living in a secured mental institution, where he should have been months before.
There are many reasons that I homeschool my children. Bullies, cliques and other self-esteem crushing factors come into play. At first though, I thought they were things we could deal with. In fact, by the time I enrolled my son in public school for kindergarten, I'd completely brushed off this horrifying incident as a "you won't even fucking believe this" experience that was rare and would never happen again. But when my son started having problems and the Principal, teachers and even the bus drivers did as they chose regardless of my concerns, I realized that my experience was worth more than a good story to tell to people at parties. It was a lesson. I, along with the rest of my 20 or so classmates that year, watched a teacher literally lose his mind, and were helpless to stop it. We were at the mercy of school administrators making decisions based on their personal feelings instead of our safety and well being. Someone could have been killed. Hell, everyone could have been killed. I realized that my kid was spending 8 hours each day at the complete and total control of school administrators and faculty just like those at my old school. Just like everywhere. People with personal feelings, weaknesses and agendas. Some people with hidden demons like addictions, pedophilia and mental disorders. Human beings that can make mistakes. And I'd be damned if one of those mistakes put my child at risk.
A lot of my friends and family members think I'm overprotective and have said things like, "You can't protect your kids from everything," but I say that protecting my kids is my JOB. And this comes down to the heart of the matter in why homeschooling is best for my family. As long as they are both living and learning in my home, I know every decision that effects them is made in their best interest.
*Names changed partly to protect anonymity, and partly because I no longer remember them. Blocked it out maybe. It was that bad.
The summer before my sophomore year, the home issues I just spoke of led me to two "temporary home placements," both about 200 miles away from "home", and attending two new schools. The first school was relatively the same as my old school. Cliques and bullshit. Nothing notable. I tried to fit in, to no avail since the uncool kids must put out some kind of Dork Pheromones and nothing I tried worked for me. In the second school, I abandoned any efforts to fit in and steeled myself to finishing sophomore year with no friends at all. Not much of a problem, really. I decided at that point that if they didn't like me, I didn't have to like them either. I did my homework and went from class to class like a robot, and other people barely noticed I was there.
The door to my science classroom said Mr. Harvey*, and while there was a man always in the room sitting at a desk near the front, the class itself was taught by Mrs. Brown*. The first few weeks, I thought Mrs. Brown must be a student teacher or something and it didn't seem weird at all. After a while though, I started to notice that Mr. Harvey never addressed the class at all, not even for a few minutes. Not even to say "hello," or "sit down," or "go to the Principal's office." Finally I asked another student just what the deal was. Apparently, Mr. Harvey, at the age of fifty-something, had lived his whole life in his mother's house, and she had recently died. Mrs. Brown was brought in as a substitute while Mr. Harvey was on leave, then stayed on to help out in the classroom since he was dealing with so much grief. According to the student in the next desk, he hadn't taught a class or spoken at all for at least a month before I transferred to the school. Sad. And weird too.
A week or so after learning the scoop on Mr. Harvey, he resumed teaching classes. That first week, we learned about Hitler, Kennedy, and aliens. This was a biology class. It started to become obvious that Mr. Harvey was not just grief-stricken. He was crazy. Soon Mrs. Brown, who'd stayed in the classroom during Mr. Harvey's lectures, took over again. This time, Mr. Harvey was not silent in class. He shouted at people who moved from their seats. He sang Camptown Races. He threw paper airplanes around the room. Crazy.
After a couple of weeks of this weirdness, Mr. Harvey befriended a few boys in his various classes. You knew which boys they were because they all carried around The Anarchist's Cookbook, just like the copy on Mr. Harvey's desk. After school and between classes, Mr. Harvey gave demonstrations of various soda-bottle bombs; the smaller bombs inside the explosion box in the classroom, the larger bombs in the football field outside. The boys all thought this was very cool, of course, since most of the ingredients were household products, and wasn't Mr. Harvey just the awesomest teacher ever? The rest of us were growing concerned, including Mrs. Brown and a lot of the faculty.
I began to wonder why Mr. Harvey wasn't fired. Clearly he was not fit to be a teacher and was in no kind of mental state to be around kids. I finally asked Mrs. Brown. She told me it was because the school would be closing its doors for good after this year due to a district restructure. A lot of the teachers would be losing their jobs, Mr. Harvey included, and since we were nearing the end of the school year, the administrators didn't have the heart to fire the guy. In other words, it's only another month, and a little exposure to a man in the process of losing his mind won't hurt the kids too badly.
One Monday right before class started, a girl a few rows over snagged a pen from the boy behind her. They wrestled for the pen in the way flirtatious teenagers do, with lots of giggling and gag-me stuff. Mr. Harvey jumped to his feet and ran to them, screaming at the top of his lungs for the boy to, "LET HER GO!!" The horseplay immediately stopped and the boy reached out to the girl to retrieve his pen. "SIT DOWN!" Mr. Harvey shouted. The boy started to explain, "..but Mr. Harvey, I just--" Mr. Harvey reached across to the lab table, grabbed a scalpel, held it in the boy's face and said, "I SAID SIT DOWN NOW!!" The boy sat. Mr. Harvey returned to his desk, scalpel in hand. Nobody called the police or escorted Mr. Harvey from the room. Instead, we all sat silently for 45 minutes until the class let out. Mrs. Brown didn't even move from her desk. That was probably the most terrifying 45 minutes of my life. Mr. Brown wasn't just crazy, he was dangerously insane.
Mr. Harvey was not in class on Tuesday, and Mrs. Brown informed us he'd been let go. We had a test that day and nobody even complained because the relief was so great that Mr. Harvey was gone. We were supposed to get the test results the following day, but Mrs. Brown said she'd "misplaced" the tests and would get back to us after she'd found and graded them.
On Thursday, I walked into the science classroom to see Mr. Harvey once again, arguing quietly with Mrs. Brown. I joined the group of huddling students in the corner, all of us wondering if we should slip out before something awful happened. I heard snippets of the argument, mostly from Mrs. Brown like, "you should get some help," and "you can't be here." It seems Mr. Harvey had returned to the school late on Tuesday night, stolen the "misplaced" tests, graded them all, and walked into the school Thursday morning with graded tests in hand as if he had never been fired. Soon the Principal showed up and quietly escorted Mr. Harvey to his car. There was quite a scene in the parking lot when Mr. Harvey was asked to relinquish his keys to the building (why didn't they do that when they fired him?), that ended with Mr. Harvey shouting, "I'll get you! You'll Pay!" Again, no police were called.
Mr. Harvey was arrested two days later while attempting to buy very large amounts of the same chemicals (in higher, purer concentrations) found in the household products he was teaching the boys at school to make bombs with. Only then did the school faculty report Mr. Harvey's behavior in the previous months. When my sophomore year ended and I left my "home placement" for my real home once again, Mr. Harvey was living in a secured mental institution, where he should have been months before.
There are many reasons that I homeschool my children. Bullies, cliques and other self-esteem crushing factors come into play. At first though, I thought they were things we could deal with. In fact, by the time I enrolled my son in public school for kindergarten, I'd completely brushed off this horrifying incident as a "you won't even fucking believe this" experience that was rare and would never happen again. But when my son started having problems and the Principal, teachers and even the bus drivers did as they chose regardless of my concerns, I realized that my experience was worth more than a good story to tell to people at parties. It was a lesson. I, along with the rest of my 20 or so classmates that year, watched a teacher literally lose his mind, and were helpless to stop it. We were at the mercy of school administrators making decisions based on their personal feelings instead of our safety and well being. Someone could have been killed. Hell, everyone could have been killed. I realized that my kid was spending 8 hours each day at the complete and total control of school administrators and faculty just like those at my old school. Just like everywhere. People with personal feelings, weaknesses and agendas. Some people with hidden demons like addictions, pedophilia and mental disorders. Human beings that can make mistakes. And I'd be damned if one of those mistakes put my child at risk.
A lot of my friends and family members think I'm overprotective and have said things like, "You can't protect your kids from everything," but I say that protecting my kids is my JOB. And this comes down to the heart of the matter in why homeschooling is best for my family. As long as they are both living and learning in my home, I know every decision that effects them is made in their best interest.
*Names changed partly to protect anonymity, and partly because I no longer remember them. Blocked it out maybe. It was that bad.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
They grow up so fast!...
I took some more pictures of the tadpoles today. It's starting to become more difficult with the tank filling with muck. I tried to filter it some yesterday, but the tank is only about 3 inches deep with water, and the pump can't pull the water that far up apparently. I settled for a 50% water change, which helped, but I'll have to do a full change soon if they keep messing the water up like they've been doing.
Here are three of them crowded into a corner. For size comparison, the larger shiny rocks in the tank are about the size of a quarter. Last time I pointed out the size difference between the late-hatcher and his companions. Since then we've found others that were smaller than most, and as they've grown it seems they aren't growing at the same rate. The largest tadpoles are about 1 and 1/4 inches long now, and 3/8 inch wide at their widest part of their (head? belly?) bodies. Spring Peeper tadpoles are supposed to grow larger than the frogs they eventually become, so this should be interesting to watch them grow. Their eyes, which started sort of on the sides of their heads, have moved to the top and very much resemble the eyes of an adult frog. They're still coated in the clear jelly-like skin over their whole bodies.
Here are three of them crowded into a corner. For size comparison, the larger shiny rocks in the tank are about the size of a quarter. Last time I pointed out the size difference between the late-hatcher and his companions. Since then we've found others that were smaller than most, and as they've grown it seems they aren't growing at the same rate. The largest tadpoles are about 1 and 1/4 inches long now, and 3/8 inch wide at their widest part of their (head? belly?) bodies. Spring Peeper tadpoles are supposed to grow larger than the frogs they eventually become, so this should be interesting to watch them grow. Their eyes, which started sort of on the sides of their heads, have moved to the top and very much resemble the eyes of an adult frog. They're still coated in the clear jelly-like skin over their whole bodies.I zoomed in on this guy, post-photo so it's a bit blurry, so you could see their little back legs are developing. We saw this more than a week ago in the form of one solid appendage from their underbelly. We didn't realize at the time it was their legs forming, we just thought it was poop. (If you've ever had goldfish, you know what I'm talking about.)
I can't believe how much fun they are to watch. They've become a lot more active than they were shortly after hatching, and zoom around the tank at the slightest bump or glimpse of movement. When they get a bit bigger and more hearty, I plan to catch a couple and photograph them outside of the water.
Surviving High School...
RegularMom had a great post about the high school cafeteria. It got me thinking about how readily (and sometimes openly) people downplay my choice to homeschool. My grandmother, a wonderful and respectable woman that I admire more than anyone else, dislikes the fact that I homeschool. Maybe even hates it. A lot of my friends say they think it's a good idea, but they say it in that uncomfortable way you might tell a good friend, "You're right. Eating dirt IS a good idea. Get your minerals right from the source. Good thinking." and as with homeschooling, end it with, "I could never do it myself, but that's great that you are." In other words, I get the feeling they don't really mean it.
Sometimes though, people are outright critical. They bring up the "S" word. They talk about high school dances and sports, and most importantly, friends. They almost always say, "Well, you and I both went to high school, and we survived just fine." Surviving is something you do when you're involved in a plane crash over the Alps and stranded in a frozen wasteland with nothing to eat but other "survivors." Surviving indicates something you managed to live through, despite the odds against you. Surviving is something that disregards other things like happiness, security and contentment.
What these critics fail to see is that, like other survivors, they remember a lot of the good things and tend to block out the bad things. In the case of institutional schools, it's a pretty successful tactic. In a few short years, long enough to finish college and start having children of their own, people have almost completely forgotten everything but the few good things that kept them holding on through high school. High school dances, sports and friends are how teenagers cope with the trauma of high school. And just like a lot of finely tuned coping skills, they're hard to let go of, and become so deeply ingrained in their brains that they start thinking all kids need to have them. They've forgotten that dances, sports and friends are what they are - coping skills for an unhealthy environment - and that if you're not IN that unhealthy environment, you have no need for a way to cope with them. That's why so few high school friendships last beyond high school. You no longer need them to cope with your life.
I don't suffer from trauma-induced amnesia. I still very clearly remember that hot, sick feeling that starts in your stomach and moves through your head, brought on by someone else's laughter. I remember hearing "slut" and "bitch" coming from the seat behind me, not-so-cleverly disguised in a fake cough. I remember holding my bowels until I thought I would explode so I could use the bathroom at home rather than stink up the school bathroom and people would know it was me (God forbid I poop like everyone else does). I remember what it feels like to have a ball of paper, wet with someone else's saliva, stuck in my hair. I remember the feeling of complete elation at the realization that it was Friday and I wouldn't have to be in this horrible place for two whole days, and the subsequent feeling of depression on Sunday night. I bet if you think about it, you can remember these things, or other horrors, too. Like those critics, I survived high school. Thank goodness for my friends, or I may not have made it. Not everyone does.
My kids aren't involved in group activities, they don't go to many birthday parties, and we aren't involved in any playgroups. They won't go to prom. But my kids don't need coping skills. They possess qualities I never had in my childhood, like confidence, self-respect and a sense of security. My kids are fun-loving, independent and most importantly, happy. They're not just surviving. They're thriving.
Sometimes though, people are outright critical. They bring up the "S" word. They talk about high school dances and sports, and most importantly, friends. They almost always say, "Well, you and I both went to high school, and we survived just fine." Surviving is something you do when you're involved in a plane crash over the Alps and stranded in a frozen wasteland with nothing to eat but other "survivors." Surviving indicates something you managed to live through, despite the odds against you. Surviving is something that disregards other things like happiness, security and contentment.
What these critics fail to see is that, like other survivors, they remember a lot of the good things and tend to block out the bad things. In the case of institutional schools, it's a pretty successful tactic. In a few short years, long enough to finish college and start having children of their own, people have almost completely forgotten everything but the few good things that kept them holding on through high school. High school dances, sports and friends are how teenagers cope with the trauma of high school. And just like a lot of finely tuned coping skills, they're hard to let go of, and become so deeply ingrained in their brains that they start thinking all kids need to have them. They've forgotten that dances, sports and friends are what they are - coping skills for an unhealthy environment - and that if you're not IN that unhealthy environment, you have no need for a way to cope with them. That's why so few high school friendships last beyond high school. You no longer need them to cope with your life.
I don't suffer from trauma-induced amnesia. I still very clearly remember that hot, sick feeling that starts in your stomach and moves through your head, brought on by someone else's laughter. I remember hearing "slut" and "bitch" coming from the seat behind me, not-so-cleverly disguised in a fake cough. I remember holding my bowels until I thought I would explode so I could use the bathroom at home rather than stink up the school bathroom and people would know it was me (God forbid I poop like everyone else does). I remember what it feels like to have a ball of paper, wet with someone else's saliva, stuck in my hair. I remember the feeling of complete elation at the realization that it was Friday and I wouldn't have to be in this horrible place for two whole days, and the subsequent feeling of depression on Sunday night. I bet if you think about it, you can remember these things, or other horrors, too. Like those critics, I survived high school. Thank goodness for my friends, or I may not have made it. Not everyone does.
My kids aren't involved in group activities, they don't go to many birthday parties, and we aren't involved in any playgroups. They won't go to prom. But my kids don't need coping skills. They possess qualities I never had in my childhood, like confidence, self-respect and a sense of security. My kids are fun-loving, independent and most importantly, happy. They're not just surviving. They're thriving.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Why I can't teach reading & spelling...
When I was a very small child, I was read to. A lot. My mother signed up for book clubs and we had several sets of books on the shelves. The Entire Dr. Suess collection,the Sweet Pickles books, the Berenstein Bears. Everyone read to me, from my mom to my grandparents, aunts and uncles, older cousins. Basically whoever I could get to read to me, did. I had a very solid vocabulary at an early age and soaked up everything that had to do with language; spoken word, written word, double entendre, innuendo, jokes.. everything. Often, if I couldn't get someone to read to me, I'd pull out a book and "read" it to myself, having heard the story a zillion times and memorized it fully.
When I was four, during Christmas break at preschool, my grandmother heard me "reading" in the next room. After a few minutes of listening it was apparent I was not just reciting from memory, but actually reading the story. She came into the room, pointed to a word and said, "What's that word?" "The." I told her. "That one?" "About." She did this for several minutes before picking a book off the shelf that wasn't read to me often. And I read it. Front to back. I had learned to read simply by seeing the words as I heard them. Throughout my early school years, my love of language gave me an advantage in spelling as well. Most of the spelling words assigned were words I'd read and written a thousand times already. I can't say that I enjoyed a literature, composition or language class until high school. Before then I was just bored.
When Chad was born, I was determined to immerse him in language. I knew the fact that I was spoken to like a person instead of a baby, and read to so frequently, was the reason I could read and speak with such fluency at an early age. I intended to repeat the process with my kids. I bought gobs of books. I read to Chad every day, even before he was old enough to ask me to. We sang the ABC's and practiced letter sounds wherever we went. "Look at the sign for the fruit. See? 'F' says 'ffff' for 'fffruit'. I was happy when Chad entered preschool and the teacher expressed her amazement at his knowledge of letters, shapes and colors. He did not learn to read at home, but learned in kindergarten and 1st grade with a program called ReadWell in the public school. Unfortunately, by the time we started homeschooling halfway through second grade, Chad was not reading with much fluency. He was phonics-focused and it was impossible for him to read words like "friend" that can't be sounded out easily. So I began a whole-language word recognition exercise every day. It went something like this:
Me- This word is "boathouse." "th" usually says "thhh" but this is a compound word. Boat-house. Boathouse. Say it.
Chad- Boathouse.
Me- This word is "would." You don't hear the "L" in this word, but that's how it's spelled. Say it.
Chad- Would.
Me- What's this word again?
Chad- Boathouse.
Me- And this one?
Chad- Would.
We did this every day. For reading, it really helped. He now reads books one or two grades ahead of his grade level. But it was an exhausting process that left us both feeling like crap. I was pushing his reading like a drill instructor, and he was hating reading everything I gave him. He refused to read on his own, just for fun. It wasn't fun at all. He's finally found some books he actually enjoys and I think he'll turn into a reader after all, but the process sucked. I wouldn't have pushed him at all, but was positive that his reading and writing ability would be greatly damaged unless he learned to do it properly.
He still cannot spell at anything better than 1st or 2nd grade level some days. He can read, but he can't spell. He can read all the words he misspells. His spelling is also phonetic, regardless of how many times he's read the word to know it's not spelled like it sounds. I've tried daily spelling practice. I've tried spelling rules. I've tried spelling aloud. Nothing has worked for him.
I don't know what else to do. Through all the struggle with Chad's spelling and now Cadence learning to read and write (on her own initiative, thankfully), I've realized I don't have the slightest idea how to teach it. I just learned. I just knew. Explain how to breathe. Teach someone how to sneeze. I don't have a clue how to explain the thinking behind learning a new word because it's something I just do. I see the word, I pronounce it, I know it. I spell as if by instinct. I typed "entendre" in the first paragraph having never seen the word in print before, double-checked and found it correct. I'm not saying I'm perfect by any means, but the way I see spelling and reading, the way I think about them, is getting in the way of teaching them.
For now, I almost have no choice but to cycle through reading and spelling programs. This one didn't work. Nope, that one didn't either. I'm just shooting for fluent readers and spellers sometime before they're 30.
When I was four, during Christmas break at preschool, my grandmother heard me "reading" in the next room. After a few minutes of listening it was apparent I was not just reciting from memory, but actually reading the story. She came into the room, pointed to a word and said, "What's that word?" "The." I told her. "That one?" "About." She did this for several minutes before picking a book off the shelf that wasn't read to me often. And I read it. Front to back. I had learned to read simply by seeing the words as I heard them. Throughout my early school years, my love of language gave me an advantage in spelling as well. Most of the spelling words assigned were words I'd read and written a thousand times already. I can't say that I enjoyed a literature, composition or language class until high school. Before then I was just bored.
When Chad was born, I was determined to immerse him in language. I knew the fact that I was spoken to like a person instead of a baby, and read to so frequently, was the reason I could read and speak with such fluency at an early age. I intended to repeat the process with my kids. I bought gobs of books. I read to Chad every day, even before he was old enough to ask me to. We sang the ABC's and practiced letter sounds wherever we went. "Look at the sign for the fruit. See? 'F' says 'ffff' for 'fffruit'. I was happy when Chad entered preschool and the teacher expressed her amazement at his knowledge of letters, shapes and colors. He did not learn to read at home, but learned in kindergarten and 1st grade with a program called ReadWell in the public school. Unfortunately, by the time we started homeschooling halfway through second grade, Chad was not reading with much fluency. He was phonics-focused and it was impossible for him to read words like "friend" that can't be sounded out easily. So I began a whole-language word recognition exercise every day. It went something like this:
Me- This word is "boathouse." "th" usually says "thhh" but this is a compound word. Boat-house. Boathouse. Say it.
Chad- Boathouse.
Me- This word is "would." You don't hear the "L" in this word, but that's how it's spelled. Say it.
Chad- Would.
Me- What's this word again?
Chad- Boathouse.
Me- And this one?
Chad- Would.
We did this every day. For reading, it really helped. He now reads books one or two grades ahead of his grade level. But it was an exhausting process that left us both feeling like crap. I was pushing his reading like a drill instructor, and he was hating reading everything I gave him. He refused to read on his own, just for fun. It wasn't fun at all. He's finally found some books he actually enjoys and I think he'll turn into a reader after all, but the process sucked. I wouldn't have pushed him at all, but was positive that his reading and writing ability would be greatly damaged unless he learned to do it properly.
He still cannot spell at anything better than 1st or 2nd grade level some days. He can read, but he can't spell. He can read all the words he misspells. His spelling is also phonetic, regardless of how many times he's read the word to know it's not spelled like it sounds. I've tried daily spelling practice. I've tried spelling rules. I've tried spelling aloud. Nothing has worked for him.
I don't know what else to do. Through all the struggle with Chad's spelling and now Cadence learning to read and write (on her own initiative, thankfully), I've realized I don't have the slightest idea how to teach it. I just learned. I just knew. Explain how to breathe. Teach someone how to sneeze. I don't have a clue how to explain the thinking behind learning a new word because it's something I just do. I see the word, I pronounce it, I know it. I spell as if by instinct. I typed "entendre" in the first paragraph having never seen the word in print before, double-checked and found it correct. I'm not saying I'm perfect by any means, but the way I see spelling and reading, the way I think about them, is getting in the way of teaching them.
For now, I almost have no choice but to cycle through reading and spelling programs. This one didn't work. Nope, that one didn't either. I'm just shooting for fluent readers and spellers sometime before they're 30.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Tadopole update...
Our tadpoles, measured every two days, have grown from 3/16 of an inch at hatching on April 22 to 5/8 inch today. No sign of appendages but their bodies behind the eyes are becoming fat and rounded. They're happily eating algae and the remains of some worms leftover from the full-grown frog we released last week. I'm thinking of dumping the rest of the mealworms we bought to feed the frog into the tank for the tadpoles. Here they are basking on the basking platform that I probably didn't need to buy, in the glow of the UVA/UVB lamp I probably didn't need to buy:
An interesting twist in our little experiment came almost a week after hatching. As far as we can tell this little guy hatched on Friday, five days after the others:
He must have come from a different clutch of eggs and gotten attached to our clutch somehow. There are no others that hatched with him. The visibile difference between his size and the size of the others is a great help in seeing how quickly they've grown. In the future, I think I'll add a coin or something to the tank for our report pictures.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Garage Sales and Homeschool Stuff...
I went to garage sales with my cousin today. Garage Sale-ing we call it. "Would you like to go garage sale-ing?" "Sure! I haven't been garage sale-ing for a while." Silly, isn't it?
By some freak stroke of luck, we ended up in a neighborhood crawling with homeschoolers. One place we stopped had 5 or 6 big cardboard boxes full of homeschool texts and teaching materials. Unfortunately, almost every book in the boxes was Abeka. Bummer. We could have gotten by with some of the language books, but it's a pain to have to skip over "Read Psalm 48" every other page. There was no way in hell I was interested in the science books. Wow. The next place had a children's encyclopedia set and gozillions of early reader books. I spent my entire "garage sale-ing" allowance today.
I really need a new (another, actually) bookshelf to keep all this stuff I'm collecting. Too bad I didn't see one at any of those garage sales. I'm always on the lookout for anything useful to our homeschool. This doesn't have to specifically be textbooks or teaching materials. Most of the time if I do find something, I went to the sale because "boys clothes" and "kids furniture" were listed on your ad. Otherwise I may not have shown up at all. If you're a homeschooler selling some of your stuff, make sure you say so in your sale ad. People like me would probably clean you out in half an hour. If you're not a homeschooler having a garage sale and are selling encyclopedias, educational videos, kids craft books, etc. , say so in your ad. You might be surprised how quickly it would sell.
By some freak stroke of luck, we ended up in a neighborhood crawling with homeschoolers. One place we stopped had 5 or 6 big cardboard boxes full of homeschool texts and teaching materials. Unfortunately, almost every book in the boxes was Abeka. Bummer. We could have gotten by with some of the language books, but it's a pain to have to skip over "Read Psalm 48" every other page. There was no way in hell I was interested in the science books. Wow. The next place had a children's encyclopedia set and gozillions of early reader books. I spent my entire "garage sale-ing" allowance today.
I really need a new (another, actually) bookshelf to keep all this stuff I'm collecting. Too bad I didn't see one at any of those garage sales. I'm always on the lookout for anything useful to our homeschool. This doesn't have to specifically be textbooks or teaching materials. Most of the time if I do find something, I went to the sale because "boys clothes" and "kids furniture" were listed on your ad. Otherwise I may not have shown up at all. If you're a homeschooler selling some of your stuff, make sure you say so in your sale ad. People like me would probably clean you out in half an hour. If you're not a homeschooler having a garage sale and are selling encyclopedias, educational videos, kids craft books, etc. , say so in your ad. You might be surprised how quickly it would sell.
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