Sunday, January 8, 2006
Year 1 and 2
Posted in Learning on the Narrow Path
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In 1990, when Martin was about to enter 6th grade in public school, we were approached by the principal. She held a conference with us and his teacher to-be. Seems the teacher was uncomfortable having a 10-year-old in 6th grade. Some of the boys were "already shaving" and her sex-ed course was "quite advanced." Her recommendation was for him to repeat fifth grade, even though he was on the honor roll for that year. This was unacceptable to us, to say the least. I had been a working mom since he was two, sending him off to child care for 10 hours a day during the most important years of his youth. The system had advanced him to this point, and now wanted him to suffer for it. We tried all summer to scrape together enough money to send him to the local Christian private school, but I had a newborn and a physical disability which kept me house and chair bound. The first day public school was back in session (we kept him home) when Dearest had a wonderful idea - what about homeschool? I had known people who were underground homeschoolers back in 1981 when Martin was just a baby. I loved the idea, but didn't think it was for me. Now, it seemed it was for me! We contacted a local "umbrella school" and registered with them. Martin thrived in the classroom atmosphere, and really seemed to need bells, class times, assignments and the like, so we purchased school text books for him and started. Much to my surprise, despite straight A's in math, he was working at about a third-grade level. His thinking skills were rather stunted as well. He played the "school game" quite well, but when his knowledge was directly challenged, he was clearly drowning in too much information and not enough tools to process it. So, in addition to his schoolwork, we began playing games. Chess and Clue seemed to give him some of the thinking tools he needed. Monopoly and Yahtzee sped up his computation skills. The second half of his first year at home we sold the textbooks and I put together an eclectic program that played on his strengths while shoring up his weak areas. We were very happy with our home-grown program, and Martin was thrilled to complete three years of math in one school year. Among our favorites that year: "The Book of Where, or How to be Naturally Geographic" "Blood and Guts" "I Hate Mathematics!" (all three Brown Paper School books) "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" (we used these amazing drawings as springboards for writing assignments) "If You're Going to Teach Kids to Write, You Gotta Have This Book" Saxon Math 54, 65, 76 Math Wrap-ups I began to see that my new little baby needed "school" too, and we found "Slow and Steady, Get me Ready" to be an amazing resource. By the start of our second year of homeschooling, Martin was more comfortable with his knowledge and social skills. Our umbrella program provided dozens of opportunities each month to meet, play, socialize, roller skate, and attend educational field trips. We took advantage of these opportunities quite liberally. By our second year, Martin began asking for textbooks again, so we completed the Saxon 76 we had started earlier and embarked on Algebra 1/2. He seemed to understand math problems better when they were read to him than when he read them from a book. This baffled me a bit, but didn't mind the face-to-face time of doing math with him. We used Bob Jones general science, and an Alpha Omega American History course. We participated in art, music, drama and PE courses through the umbrella school. He helped take care of his baby sister and learned to cook and clean to help me out as my disability improved slowly. The tears and frustration of not knowing what to do with information slacked off gradually. He began to come to me with ideas of things he'd like to learn and we'd research them one at a time, both of us learning how to use community resources like the library and area professionals to find answers to our questions. By the end of the 1982 school year, our family welcomed a brand new brother, and Martin had a toddler sister who thought the sun rose and set at his command. Martin was involved in Little League and began working as a reporter for the umbrella school newsletter. John was planned to be born at home, but complications required an emergency C-section while Dearest was unemployed and uninsured. It was a scary, difficult time, but having the kids nearby was a constant comfort. Martin received a wealth of information about health, budgeting, prayer, and many other valuable lessons. |
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