04 Dec 2005 - 01:02

descriptive, normative and critical

Now that it's become clear I'm going to have to teach Christopher how to write, I'm on the prowl for material and ideas.

I'm posting this cartoon because I'll be showing it to Christopher at some point, and I want it where I can find it.

Back to main page.

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Catherine,

Of course I know nothing of your life but what is posted here, but why not homeschool? I ask in part because I'm sure you've thought about it and decided not to for some good reasons. But with all the afterschooling you're doing, I wonder if it wouldn't take less time to do it all yourself.

I plan to homeschool my son (he's almost three years old). I owe a great debt to this site for all the info about teaching math - I am so glad I've found you! And I admit to being somewhat glad that Christopher's school has a lousy writing curriculum too, because I can't wait to see what you and the rest of the people on this forum come up with.

-- StephanieO - 04 Dec 2005

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Hi, Stephanie!

I think it's impossible to predict the past, but if I had it to do over again I would homeschool. Period.

The fact is, I never gave homeschooling a thought.

Jimmy's 18 now, so I started having kids before homeschooling was as advanced as it is now in terms of resources available....and then I had path dependency.

It's too late now. Christopher is adamantly opposed to homeschooling, and Ed would never support it, though he's as frustrated as I am. He now wants the school to tell us what the curriculum is, what the goals for this year are, and how those goals relate to next year and the years beyond.

The only way homeschooling would happen at this point would be if Christopher got into a terrible situation socially, with the other kids. I don't think that's going to happen (knock on wood) and the overall obnoxiousness of middle schoolers isn't going to strike Ed (or me, I guess) as sufficiently catastrophic to pull him from school.

These kids spend all day insulting each other. That's it. Christopher's friend E. is now calling him a name that rhymes with 'stoner' and starts with 'b,' so Christopher is plotting what name he can come back with on Monday.

otoh, part of me thinks there's a Lurking Developmental Purpose in all this, which is conceivable.

It's funny, because when I mention homeschooling to parents here they instantly come back with the 'socialization is important' line.

That was my line for years, but now I'm questioning whether socialization is best developed in the context of a zillion other kids all the same age.

Is this 'natural'?

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Dec 2005

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Yeah, I get the feeling that "socialization" line is the one I'll get thrown at me most once my son reaches school age. If you're in a group of homeschoolers and bring it up, though, most of them just laugh. They spend so much time in groups it's hard to get "school" done at home - they're never there. Anyone who's researched socialization and homeschooling knows it's a red herring. It's trivially easy as a homeschooling parent to have your child interact with other kids of ALL ages, and adults too.

And I do doubt that socialization works best with a large group of kids all the same age and very little adult supervision...

-- StephanieO - 04 Dec 2005

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That was my line for years, but now I'm questioning whether socialization is best developed in the context of a zillion other kids all the same age.

Gawd, me too. I'm questioning all the doubts I had about homeschooling. I wish at least that Ben were in a K-8 instead of a 6-8. I really do think that a lot of the vaunted awfulness of the teenybopper age is avoidable.

But I think it's too late now for us as well. It has to be considered that I love to work (at least I did until recently), and Ben is making me pay now every night for the fact that I took him out of Connected Math this year (I think he imagines that the other kids are having parties in there while he works hard, by himself).

-- CarolynJohnston - 04 Dec 2005

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Looks like we'll be needing some new KTM categories to cover our new emphasis on writing.

-- CarolynJohnston - 04 Dec 2005

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"Is this 'natural'?"

If you mean, "Is this the situation in which humans evolved, I'd say no. In a hunter-gatherer society, the children would have been working with adults all the time. On farms, kids would be doing chores at the very limit of their physical capability. In early cities, kids would have been in apprenticeships or working with their older female relatives.

In almost no case would large groups of youths be warehoused together, and in most of those they would be training to kill, so their attentions would have been (arguably) more fully engaged.

-- DougSundseth - 04 Dec 2005

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Gawd, me too. I'm questioning all the doubts I had about homeschooling. I wish at least that Ben were in a K-8 instead of a 6-8.

Middle school is a wretched, wretched concept.

Start to finish.

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Dec 2005

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If you mean, "Is this the situation in which humans evolved, I'd say no.

I tend to think there's quite a bit to the did-we-evolve-like-this? angle, although evolutionary psychology frequently seems SO wrong....

Ed says that, historically, kids Christopher's age did often spend their time almost exclusively in each other's company, working as indentured servants, etc. and I know from working with Temple that behavioral evolution can happen incredibly quickly.

So I'm always less inclined to look to evolution to explain behavior than to explain, say, diet and weight gain.

Still, the more I look at middle school, and the more I see what goes on, the more I think: Whose brilliant idea was this?

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Dec 2005

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Looks like we'll be needing some new KTM categories to cover our new emphasis on writing

'fraid so.

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Dec 2005

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kids would have been in apprenticeships

Sorry, I missed that.

Apparently apprentices did live in groups of other kids their age...something I didn't know.

-- CatherineJohnson - 04 Dec 2005

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"The purpose of school is to train kids for the real world by spending large amounts of time forced together with people they did't choose doing things they're ordered to. Which is very puzzling, since relatively few people actually go into the army or prison." - Anon

-- TracyW - 04 Dec 2005

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That is hilarious!

Where did you find that?????

-- CatherineJohnson - 05 Dec 2005

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And I admit to being somewhat glad that Christopher's school has a lousy writing curriculum too, because I can't wait to see what you and the rest of the people on this forum come up with.

lol

-- CatherineJohnson - 05 Dec 2005

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And I admit to being somewhat glad that Christopher's school has a lousy writing curriculum too, because I can't wait to see what you and the rest of the people on this forum come up with.

I second that!

-- CarolynJohnston - 05 Dec 2005

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I don't remember - sometime when I was at school.

For some reason mentally I associate it with Monty Python.

-- TracyW - 05 Dec 2005

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I have to remember to get that on the Wit and Wisdom page.

-- CatherineJohnson - 05 Dec 2005

WebLogForm
Title:	descriptive, normative and critical
TopicType:	WebLog
SubjectArea:	LanguageArts, TeachingWriting
LogDate:	200512032001