A few weeks ago I told you that I was going to be engaged in the search for a new job.  Today, this afternoon, came the final culmination of that search.  Finally, the roller coaster search is over with.  But this blog isn't about that.

This last job was a contract position where I was blessed to be able to work from home and therefore spend more time with my family.  Sure, work sometimes still got in the way and kept me buried down in my basement but even throughout that, I have been able to come up for air and see my children and my wife.  It was a wonderful time and one I would not change for the world despite the challenges it has presented in attempting to secure the next job.

This past few weeks, however, have been simultaneously the most stressful and also the most rewarding.  For the past few weeks, amidst my studying for interviews, taking interviews, fielding phone calls, I have been in a closer orbit around our homeschool.  When working at home, I had my job downstairs and the school and real life went on upstairs.  During this period between jobs, the downstairs time disappeared and I became an entity floating in limbo between the floors of real life upstairs.  In all of my floating and all of my distracted pursuit of the next thing to put food on our table I have been blessed to be able to participate in some small degree with our homeschool.

No, I did not take up the mantle of teaching... I could not have done near as good of a job as my wife is doing.  No, I did not bring some magical hand in to bless and enhance the schooling experience.  What I did do, is get to see the day-to-day challenges that my wife puts up with.  While this glimpse doesn't have me walking in her shoes for a mile it does give me a profound respect for what she does do and how she does handle things.  Is school perfect?  No.  Are our children well behaved and persistently attentive?  Not on their best day.  But somehow she brings their attention to bear for precious moments in which they become sponges and her the tap flowing out a stream of knowlege.

I have gotten to see them grow on a daily basis... not from the perspective of emerging from my work world to hear about the results of the day... but from the perspective of being more a part of their day.  That has been quite enjoyable and very enlightening as well.

Now, I am not going to paint a rosy picture for you of me being involved and seeing every moment as it unfolded... that certainly was not the case.  I was engrossed in the challenges of the job hunt... the stalking of the prey... the thrill of the chase and the agony of the prey slipping from between my claws.  While I like to think that there were times that I might have ligtened my wife's load, I am sure that the past few weeks of my joblessness have actually increased her load quite a bit... Not only has my wife had to deal with her duties as teacher, mom and wife, she has had to listen to me thrash around in my own trap of despair and be supportive and empathetic at the same time.  While my joblessness should have freed me up to help more around the house, the doldrums that I found myself in, combined with the unstructured and ad-hoc nature of the job hunt only served to make me more useless around the house and more of a burden to her.

Amidst all of this joblessness and floating in limbo... our anniversary.  I acknowledged it, she acknowledged it and we acknowledged it... but where we would normally have had a "date night" and had focused time together, we did without.  My fear of joblessness prevented me from stepping up and taking a stand to have faith in God to provide and allow me to take my wife out for our 9th year anniversary.  I failed her there... and that shall be my next blog... probably back to back with this one... a public apology for the woman who has stood by me in complete understanding and with complete confidence in me... an anniversary card of sorts to tell her how much I appreciate her... but we shall save that for later... I was talking about our school and the lessons I learned there.

One thing I did learn in my tighter orbit around the schoolroom for the past few weeks is that somehow, out of what seems sometimes to be total chaos of children hopping out of seats and tip-tapping pencils and humming and talking, my wife and their teacher somehow brings it all back together into a series of learning moments and exercises.

I know that I will miss sorely being around my family... I know too that I will miss this brief time of being constantly on the fringes of what they are doing even as I am in my own job-hunt world.  I know that I will have to make more efforts than before to maintain the level of contact with our school that I have had... working outside the home will rob me of that little contact I have been used to.  Then again, maybe it will be a good thing... maybe I won't take the school so much for granted and will, without the brief periodic contact throughout the day,  be more inquisitive about the day's happenings.  That is what I pray for.  My wife does a wonderful job as teacher as well as wife and mother and I don't give her the recognition that she deserves in the overt fashion that I should.  God puts us through trials for a reason... hopefully we take away from those trials a nugget or two of wisdom that we hold close and make a part of ourselves.  That is what I pray for and that is  what I seek.

Our morning started early... an excited yet foreboding morning filled with anticipation but somehow heavy with the dark skies rolling overhead. The excitement? My son's first cub scout pinewood derby and my first pinewood derby in 25 years. Yet this morning had more in store for me.

So, this morning -- already a dreary, drizzly and cold morning to begin with and at T-minus 1 hour to pinewood derby -- found my neighbor at my door, a soggy mass of paper cradled gently in his hand. That mass of paper? A bill that was placed in the mailbox yesterday afternoon. As I took the letter from his possession, it was immediately apparent that the edge of the letter had been torn off. Inspection of the soggy mess revealed that the bill was intact... but, you guessed it, the check was gone.

This got my engine fired up and I jumped to the computer, phone in hand. I looked up the number to the bank and called to report the check stolen. “Okay, sir, we'll put a stop on that check number and we'll cover you on any claim regarding that check.” Great... got that covered... Meanwhile, my wife gets on the cell phone and calls the police to report the incident. The police show, we hand over the remains of the bill, give him the information and off we go to the pinewood derby. But that wasn't the last of it... my mind continued to churn even as I watched the myriad of cars rattle down the track... there had to be more to it than that...

Then I though about it... computers, scanners, routing numbers, account numbers... there was a WHOLE lot more to reacting to this situation than just “stop that check”. Scan our check in, do some quick Photoshop wizardry and viola... new check, new number. Our account number? Take that number and routing number and viola.... you have the keys to the account. How many of my bills have I set up to direct draw from my checking simply by providing the routing number and account number? Obviously a criminal won't pay his electric bill via the same method... his/her name would be all over it... but what about doing a quick draw of funds from my checking via direct withdraw to another shield account and then doing a quick switch to another account? Are all of these feasible?? How do I know... there may be a dozen protections against just such a thing... but somehow I doubt it or it wouldn't be so convenient to do a direct withdrawal from my checking account to pay my bills. Visions of dozens of checks used to buy wonderful electro-gizmos that I don't get to enjoy go whirring through my head...

We return home and a quick search on the internet confirms my suspicions... there is a lot a criminal can do with a stolen check. Okay... time to pull out the stops and go whole hog on this thing.... call the credit reporting agencies and put a fraud watch on my account... call the check validation companies and put a hold on approving any checks from my account (or at least attempt to do this). Call the bank and attempt to close my account over the phone (they wouldn't allow this... I have to go to a branch office on Monday... somehow between my 2 job interviews).

Well, to make a long story short... here is what I have done and what I plan to do:

Done:

1. Stopped payment for that check number

2. Made sure that the bank put notes in my account to not reveal my SSN to any calling party.

3. Put a 90 day fraud watch on my credit report at Experian, TransUnion and Equifax

4. Called Certigy (Check validation service) and put a stop on my account

5. Called TeleCheck (Check validation service) to find out I need to print, fill out, and fax a form

6. Called SCAN (Check validation service) to be told that my bank has to call the Check Fraud Hotline before they will put a hold on my account and prevent criminals from purchasing merchandise with a fake check.

7. Called my bank to be told again that the stop check will be sufficient... finally get transferred to the Fraud Department as I explain to the the customer service rep how a criminal could use the account number or scan and print new checks for themselves from their home PC. The fraud department? They are only open 8-5 M-F... so that goes to the to-do list.

To Do:

1. Print, fill out, and fax the TeleCheck Fraud form

2. Call my bank Fraud Department on Monday at 8am and make sure they call the Check Fraud Hotline

3. Go to the bank and close/reopen my checking account

4. Fill out a 7 year fraud watch form for my credit report (this only makes sure that the credit reporting agency will call you directly if anyone attempts to open a line of credit based upon your report)

5. Change all direct draw accounts to the new checking account number

6. Make sure to take all mail with checks to the post office box

So why go through all of this? I can think of a dozen ways that a criminal can take that one check and cause a world of problems for me. A merchant who loses a $500 TV due to accepting my check isn't going to say “oh, well” or hunt down the criminal... they are going to come after me... and then potentially collections... and then damage to my credit report.... You would think there would be some protection for all of that but my search on the internet revealed my suspicions are true... it doesn't take much for one stolen check to get out of control.

I haven't suffered much more than the loss of some time (unemployed means I have an abundance of that) at this point but I firmly believe that the steps that I am taking (however overboard they may seem to my bank or anyone else) can make a world of difference versus the potential of what could happen.

It also reinforces for me that our family practice of shredding anything with my name or any account numbers on it is a very good idea... and never giving out SSN to ANYONE unless they are reporting income to the government (a blog for another day)... And never confirming any of the names of people in our family to anyone who calls on the phone (unless it is a known person or entity that we do business with)... and a dozen other things that I have been jokingly accused of being “paranoid” about.

After all... An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...

Let me give you a bit of history.  For the past 18 months, I have been working from home performing programming duties for a company that manufactures tools that go down in a well.  Recently, the most recent project that I have been working on has reached the final phases of the project and subsequently the amount of work required has ramped up to ensure that the product would be delivered to their customer on time.

2 weeks ago, we delivered the product and were informed that at the present time there was no follow on project for this client.  The past 2 weeks have been caught up in wrapping up the details for this client and looking into the alternatives for work with my current employer.  Unfortunately, my employer is small contracting agency who found themselves unable to expand their client base and ended up with my client as their one and only source of possible work.

Now I find myself having to spin up the engines to engage in a job search.  The past 3 years I have blessed and not needed to actively search for employment as I was able to move from one opportunity to another based upon referrals and past work-based relationships.  I am somewhat unaccustomed at this point in time in having to go on the hunt for a job and face the prospect with more than a little trepidation.

So, while I do find myself with some extra time the past couple of days, that time has been consumed in spending more time with my family, catching up on house projects long ignored, and getting the ball rolling for jobs.

On top of this activity, I am faced with the sad fact that I will most likely be unable to continue to enjoy the opportunity of working from home.  This past 18 months have been a nirvana of sorts.  Program some, take a short break and visit with the family while they are schooling.  Project manage some, and then have lunch with the family.  Design a solution to a technical hurdle, and take a short break and visit with the family.  Even when the project schedule gets hectic and the overtime takes off, at least I was at home and could see my family as opposed to being trapped in a cubicle at an office miles away from home.

Pray for me and my family as we hunt for the next job opportunity.  For the next few weeks I am likely to be that much more involved in the schooling process so maybe you will get a bit more out of me than an abbreviated update on what has made me absent from blogging.

Well, I'm ghost writing for my dear hubby today.  He's been busy and out of town this week.  His job is coming to an end and he has an interview tomorrow with a local company.  Please keep us in your prayers.  For now, he is studying up for interviews and crunching numbers to see what kind of pay will meet our essential needs!  He'll be writing sometime soon.  Until then, please pray for us.  We are seeking His wisdom for our next steps.

Santa Claus, a jolly old fat man who spends Christmas Eve distributing presents to children around the world so that the parents can have a day in which their children are utterly distracted by the gifts.  Yesterday, I was offered a whole new perspective on this jolly old elf that was a simultaneously startling and disturbing in its simplicity. 

My last blog entry was a tongue-in-cheek look at the myths of the cultural icons that are the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.  I left off with the statement and belief that whether or not you participate in perpetuating these myths is a choice that is all your own and one that will not significantly alter your children’s emotional or psychological makeup one way or another.

I happened to share this blog with a good friend of mine yesterday and his response was one that I didn’t expect and presented a perspective that I had never considered.  Without a detailed play-by-play of the discussion, I’ll see if I can share with you this different perspective.

To begin with, let’s describe Santa Claus (without the attempts at comedy from the past post). 

• He is a benevolent person who loves you so much that he sacrifices of himself to give you gifts
• He knows when you are bad or good (for goodness sake)
• He possesses the power to alter time and space to make things happen (delivering gifts world-wide in one night, causing reigndeer to fly and fitting down a chimney).
• He gives us free gifts.
• You can reap the rewards of his visiting you and yet you never get to see him arrive or leave.
• You see evidence of his existence without actually seeing him.
• You get coal in your stocking if you have not been good… but you always get another chance next year

From a Christian perspective, who else does this sound like?

• A benevolent person who loves you so much he sacrifices His only begotten son so that your sins may be forgiven
• An omniscient being who knows your every thought let alone your every deed.
• Creator of the universe and obviously capable of altering time and space
  
• You can reap the rewards of his visit in the peace and security of His presence.
• You see evidence of His existence all around you in miracles great and small and yet you never see Him yourself.

He is a wrathful, yet full of forgiveness… meting out punishment and grace.

YHWH, YHVH, JHVH, JHWH, Jehovah… GOD.

God is the obvious archetype for Santa Claus.

I, for one, had never before seen the parallels and yet it seemed so obvious to me once it was revealed.

So, if Santa Claus and God are so much alike, perhaps Santa Claus can be used to help children understand a small part of the nature of God.  They can see and touch Santa.  They can touch the presents that he brings.  The entire Christmas season, from a secular perspective, revolves around Santa.  For children, and for adults for that matter, what solidifies a belief in something more than seeing and touching and directly benefiting from a visible, viable being?

The problem is, as was pointed out to me, that in a Christian home, if your children believe in Santa Claus, they also believe in God.  They KNOW Santa exists because we have told them that he does and they can see him, touch him, receive presents from him and hear stories about him and his helpers.  They KNOW God exists because we tell them that He does, they hear the stories about him and his helpers… and yet they cannot touch Him, or see Him or directly attribute presents to Him.

Why is it a problem that our children believe in Santa Claus and God?  You are probably way ahead of me on this… Some day Santa Claus is revealed as a fraud and hoax.  And God is his obvious archetype.  Does this not set up God, then, then also to be questioned as to His existence?  After all, this benevolent being that we could, once a year, see and touch and feel and receive free gifts from suddenly does not really exist but was a lie perpetuated and encouraged by our parents… why then should God (who we cannot see or touch or feel) exist and not also be a lie?

What a frightening concept.  It is a dangerous slope and one I did not ever see before.

It gets worse.  What is the 9^th commandment?

Exodus 20:16 "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."

False witness = lie.

If you are not to lie to or about your neighbor, are you free to lie to your children?  Even a lie so innocent and innocuous as Santa?

Yes, it says “against thy neighbour” so it does not specifically say “Thou shalt not lie”.  However, in digging deeper, I find the following:

Colossians 3:9 "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;"

Proverbs 6:16-19 "These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. "

Revelation 21:8 " But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and *****mongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."

Point blank: God hates lies. 

I am not going to pretend that I am free of the sin of lying.  I am far far from that.  So please do not get the impression that I am preaching or condemning. 

I know that this is a touchy subject and one that I admit to some hesitancy about posting due to the broad range of strong feelings that seem to exist regarding belief in Santa.  Please accept this post for what it is worth.  I am passing along something that, to me, was a startling revelation about the parallels between St. Nick and God and the potential ramifications of the eventual failing of belief in Santa.

Consider this:  We lie to our children about Santa and encourage them to believe in the lie.  We tell the truth to our children about God and encourage them to believe in this truth.  Yet, when Santa is revealed as a lie, we expect our children to continue to believe in God?

It is something we all miss as adults and we get to taste again through the lives of our children. But, really, what are we doing? Aside from participating in the commercial mega-machine fueling our “instant gratification”and training us to “need” the things we want, we are participating in the deception of our children. Or are we?

Did you feel robbed when you found out that Santa Claus wasn't really a jolly old elf popping down our chimney one night giving out presents? What about when the tooth fairy and easter bunny were revealed as the middle age parents you lived with? I didn't... and I doubt my children would have either. I know that I do recall a sense of sadness that these things weren't real... that the magical world that it promised really wasn't there. But I never blamed my parents for lying to me or allowing me to believe in the lies perpetuated by our society.

If you step back and look at these characters, it is actually a rather frightening picture:

An old man who sneaks into your house while you are sleeping? Completely ignoring locked doors, the dog never waking up, and completely bypassing the safety net of the alarm system? A taskmaster lording over an army of elf slave labor keeping them trapped in a frozen wasteland? PETA would have something to say about him forcing those poor reindeer to work all night and fly around the world toting about all those heavy packages, not to mention his jolly old girth... and he is laughing all the way!

How about the Tooth Fairy? What does she do with all of those teeth? Where does she get all that money? Does she own a macabre jewelry store in the fairy world with trinkets made from teeth? Does she grind them up to make drugs for fairy junkies? Who, magical or not, could possibly find a use for all those teeth? And how does she get into my room and under my pillow to steal my tooth without me knowing? Will teeth under a pillow someday not be enough to feed her tooth habit? Will someday she start taking teeth from my mouth? Will she stop at baby teeth?

And the easter bunny? He lays these eggs and then leaves his progeny scattered all over the world! What kind of irresponsible parent is he? What kind of role model is this for my children? What kind of cloning experiment gone wrong produced this creature? It is frightening enough to me to consider a bunny rabbit laying colored eggs...I don't even want to think about where where all the chocolate comes from!

Enough kidding aside. None of these creatures are real and that is the basic truth of it. For us, when it came time for us to introduce these benevolent magical characters into our children's lives, we decided not to. At the time, we felt we didn't want to lie to our children. We felt we didn't want them to discover one day that they were wrong in believing in these things and feel that we deceived them or feel embarrassed because they believed in something that wasn't true and were ridiculed by a cousin or peer for that belief. I think we probably overreacted but it was a safe choice at the time... and one that we have been criticized for by the peers in our family. Did we rob them of that sense of magic in the world that we enjoyed as children? I used to wonder that. Would it have hurt their emotional and mental psyche to participate with the rest of the adolescent world in believing in the magic? I doubt it. Would they have hated us for lying to them? Not likely. Will they hate us for stealing that bit of magic from their childhood? Perhaps, but I hope not.

I don't think it is wrong to participate in the belief as long as (as with all things) it is done in moderation. It is a tough choice and one that we made for right or for wrong.

When the children ask about Santa Claus, we tell them that Santa Claus is the spirit of giving that exists within all of us. The Easter Bunny is easy enough to ignore beneath the death and resurrection of Christ and what this means to us. We celebrate Him and not the grandfather of the Energizer bunny. The Tooth Fairy? She just wasn't an issue for our children. We didn't make a big deal of it and neither did they...and without an every day exposure to peers steeped in that myth, it never became an issue. When the tooth comes out, we are all excited and enjoy a celebration of that child taking another small step in growing up. Especially for the first, and most traumatic teeth, we rewarded their bravery by allowing them a day in which they could go pick out one new small toy at the store. Subsequent teeth are simply congratulations and the children get to keep the teeth. They seem to enjoy having the teeth more than a shiny new quarter.

Did we rob them of the magic of the childhood myths that we all enjoyed as children? I watch them play, and listen to their stories and participate in their imaginary games and I realize that they are not at all lacking in the magic of youth. If we had gone the other direction and perpetuated the childhood myths I don't think it would have added to their childhood experience significantly, if at all.

Ours, as with homeschooling, was one that wasn't welcomed by the peers in our family. Some family members even felt that we robbed THEM of the joy of seeing our children deceived by these myths. To each, their own decision and whatever your decision, your children will survive and grow in spite of you. It is what we do with them every day that matters and not the annual fat elf burglar, mutant bunny or magical tooth junky that shapes our children.

Science Sunday

Friday night the drought that was plaguing our portion of the country broke with a meek thunderstorm and a steady, drenching rain. The rain continued into the morning, and stopped for a few hours around noon leaving us in the hazy grey of a sky pregnant with moisture yet to come down. After months of no rain, in which the evenings would cool precipitously, the days would warm into the 70's and 80's. Winter remained but a distant memory from last year. For the family of one of our homeschool friends, the unit study they had been working through dealing with the seasons really lost a lot of its effectiveness.

Fortunately, with the rain came our first real taste of winter and along with it a sense of normalcy. The world seemed back in order. Even though a dreary, grey blanket of clouds hung over our part of the world, it was far from depressing. The air tasted crisp, clean and new. For that short time, it was refreshing to be outside and breathe in the change. Unfortunately, shortly after lunch, the rain started again and effectively locked us in for the day. Even though we probably wouldn't have spent the afternoon outside anyway, the simple fact that we were locked in set the children on edge and simultaneously drove their energy levels through the roof while whittling away at our nerves.

Yesterday afternoon, as my children buzzed around the house, my wife (ever resourceful) turned first to beginning of the week chores to channel their energy and then ultimately to school. Oh, not just ANY school... but a fun time of science experimentation... a rainy, cold trapped-in-side day suddenly became“Science Sunday”. We broke out some “seeds in a can” and studied the parts of a flower. We finished up by following the instructions to set the steps in motion to end up with a flower within the next couple of weeks. Magnetism was next. My wife sent the kids scurrying through the house to look for things that thought were magnetic.

Meanwhile, I went downstairs to start dinner. While waiting for the oven to pre-heat, I went in to feed our fish and check on one of the recent additions to our tank... a pregnant guppy. As I fed them, I noticed she showed no interest in food and she suddenly looked more like a school bus than just a fat little fish. The spot I had noticed the day before beneath her fins was suddenly very pronounced. I scooped her up and deposited her into the breeder tank we had purchased for this occasion. I returned to the kitchen to put the dinner in the oven and passed by the tank on my way upstairs to check on the magnetism experiments. To my amazement, there were two baby guppies sharing the breeder tank with the pregnant mother.

The magnetism experiments were put on hold as God decided it was time for a biology experiment to take place. The kids raced down the stairs followed by my wife and the show began. By the time a few more fry joined our family of fish, what was simply the energy of two young children pent up on a rainy day had turned into enough frantic and frenetic energy to power a small town... if only I could catch those two fireballs long enough to attach some electric leads to their excitement.

You would think it was their own babies emerging into the world as they announced all the people that they wanted to call and tell about the baby fish. The evening wound down with experiments in magnetism and balloon powered propulsion before the final lessons in hygiene (tooth brushing) and sensory deprivation (sleep).

Then it became my turn to carry out my own experiments... how many times will my little subjects pop out of bed in excitement before they finally fall into unconsciousness? To my amazement, they remained in their rooms and went right to sleep.

Learning Without Teaching?

A friend of mine and his wife have decided to begin homeschooling their 5^th grade daughter next year. They fully appreciate the social dangers that come along with public school and especially public school in the high school years. They have been on the fence for at least a year, knowing that they want to homeschool and that it is best for their daughter, but fighting resistance from the daughter and insecurities of at least one of the parents. Without going into details of their situation they are now caught on one last snag. While this snag certainly won't prevent them from pulling their daughter out of public school, depending on how much of an issue it is, it may result in her going to a private school instead. I hear you out there... private isn't much better than public schools. They know this too and they know that they only avoid some of the public school issues by going to private school but that may be a compromise they may need to make if they can't deal with their fears in general and this one last snag.

The snag? Whether or not their child needs to be taught to learn.

There exists, for them, the perception that a child must be taught by an adult in order to make progress in school. Of course that is what they have been told by the school system... that is why the teacher is so important. Isn't that just one of the most vicious traps that the public school mentality has set for Joe Public?

Now, depending upon your stage in homeschooling (typically based upon the age of your children) you will probably agree or disagree in some measure to the statement that a child must be actively taught by someone with more knowledge than the child. Even in unschooling, there is parental direction albeit a bit more ad-hoc in nature.

Obviously, for a K or 1^st grade child, for the most part, everything must be taught by the adult to the child. Yes, a child can adapt core knowledge to make forward progress, but probably without exception, a K or 1^st grader needs an adult (or older person with mastery of those skills and maturity to communicate them) involved to teach to some degree.

As a 2^nd or 3^rd grader, a child can now begin to read instructions and fully appreciate examples that exist within the texts. The child may not have much success at comprehending or using instructions and examples, but that success comes with time. Regardless of the child's proficiency at understanding instructions and examples, the adult or teacher is still frequently involved to teach a concept, facilitate understanding and certainly to guide the learning path.

Moving into the upper grades, a child now has the ability to read instructions, read a lesson, comprehend what examples are demonstrating and carry forward a momentum established by the parents. This is a good thing. I fully believe that as they get older, children should be encouraged to take control of their own learning and do what they can on their own given text, examples and research. Certainly, the parents still have a hand in the schooling in order to make sure that something is learned properly and fully mastered. The parents still have a mandate to direct and guide the education but the need for the parent to stand over the child and provide active teaching is greatly reduced if not eliminated. Think about it... how many of us in the workforce have someone telling us exactly how to do a given task? Sometimes you do, and many times you don't. Usually you learn a new task by researching, observing, reading, following instructions and drawing from past experiences. If you are lucky, there is some cursory instruction provided to you by another person and then you are on your own to learn and master whatever it is. Our schools do our children no favors by leading them by the nose throughout their scholastic career. It is one of the many reasons that many children, once released into the free-for-all environment of colleges, will founder and get spun around by all the freedom. Suddenly they are in charge of themselves and in charge of getting to class and learning. Yes, there is teaching, but I had many college professors who didn't care whether or not you showed up... and other professors who would stand at the head of the class and ask if there were any questions about the assignment from the previous class and if not, would write on the board the next assignment and then walk out. I even had at least one that declared on the first day of class that he was paid to stand and lecture at the head of the room and he would do so even if nobody showed up. If you didn't put effort into the learning, you would get nothing from the class. That is life.

No, I am not proposing that us, as teachers, become obsolete as our children get into the upper grades. And, yes, a child needs to continue to have the guidance of the parent into the upper grades... someone to at least point them in the right direction... someone to supplement the teaching materials and overcome misunderstandings or mental blocks but the learning at some point must transition from the teacher to the pupil. Learning must move from teacher driven to student driven.

I digress. Now, back to my friends who are looking to embark on the homeschooling journey.

As I mentioned earlier, there exists a firm belief (held by one of the parents) that the child must be actively taught in order to learn... that a 6^th grader cannot learn without a teaching figure standing at the head of the room. The other parent fully appreciates that a child does and should begin to learn on their own as they get older. So there is the rub... the big hurdle... the snag. How to overcome that? They have discussed the matter between them but that fear/concern/belief nonetheless exists and seems to be pretty firmly rooted.

Granted, the child will not be able to instantly transition from the public school prodding of the students like so many cattle into a free range type of scenario, but it is something that will come with time. It is human nature to learn... to adapt... with or without teachers. Certainly, with guidance and assistance, more can be taught than without and that is what the purpose of an education is... guided and purposeful learning.

As for our friends, no, my wife and I have not performed an “intervention” in order to shake loose those pre-conceived public school notions. No, we have not called in the homeschool priesthood to perform an exorcism of the “must-teach” mentality. And, unfortunately, something is continually popping up in their lives to prevent them from going to a conference or seminar on homeschooling to see the support that is out there and fellowship with the host of others out there who homeschool.

So, we have one more conference in our area that they can attend before they suddenly find themselves head to head with the reality of homeschooling without having planned (and you all recognize the potential disaster there) or caving in and enrolling her in private school (the lesser of two evils)...or worst of all... braving one more year of public school and the damage that comes along with it.

What to do? We can't live their life for them... we can't drag them to the resources that could help them overcome their snag. It isn't something you can go to them and say “give it a try” because of the inherent fear drilled into them by the public school mentality (just like the “myth” of a teacher) that a year of school would be lost. We can only support them and encourage them and attempt to guide them to the resources that they need in order to make the best choice for their family and their child. At some point, however, they need to jump into the fray, fight that dragon head on and make the tough choices... hopefully it won't be at the last minute and force them into a decision they know right now isn't the right one.

What's more important? Education or health? Both affect quality of life, albeit in different ways. One can also indirectly impact the other.

Education versus Health. I think arguably health is probably paramount. After all, education does you no good if you are dead because your health has failed. Of course, someone like Stephen Hawking, who has been confined to a wheelchair for life and has a quality of life most of us would shudder at, might argue that his education is more important than his health. We aren't, however, here to debate this question.

What about when it comes to domestic policy as set forth by our state and federal governments? Do you think that they feel that the education of our youth or the healthcare of the elderly is more important? What would you do as the government? If you had to divide your money between education and healthcare, where would you put the lions share of your money? Do you put more money into the future of your youth in which the future of your government rests or in the care of those who, for years, filled the coffers of your treasury so that you could carry on the business of running the government?

Granted, I fully understand that Medicare (the healthcare) exists not only for the elderly but also for those who simply cannot afford healthcare. Either way, the message is the same... do you let the elderly and less fortunate suffer or pull resources from the education of the children?

If you were a country what would you do? A 50/50 split? No matter what your decision, how fair it may seem to you, there will always be a loud outcry from some segment of the population.

Educating the youth

If you say that you would put your money into educating the youth, you are criticized because the elderly, who likely have no substantial income, now have to eat into their savings in order to afford medicines to improve or maintain their quality of life. Perhaps the elderly would then feel that they have given to the government for years and now the government owes them.

Healthcare for the elderly

If you say that you would put the lions share of the money into medicare type programs then you are criticized because you are seen as turning your back on the youth. You are turning your back on the future. The children suffer and are deprived of resources that could be used to enrich their lives, provide them with a quality education and allow them to compete in a global market.

It is widely known that the US ranks among the lowest in educational scores among all the industrialized nations in the world. This seems to indicate that US needs to put more focus (i.e. resources) into its educational system and pull the “richest” nation in the world out of the educational ditch and into the running. Why, if the US is ranked among the worst in education, is the US also the richest country in the world? The answer to that, in my opinion, is momentum. It is the momentum of the past built up in the 40's and 50's carrying us forward into the present... momentum born of ingenuity, inventiveness and the sweat from the backs of our parents and grandparents. That isn't to say that we don't still have those same qualities present in our society... we just don't have it in the same measure. We owe all that we have today to what they accomplished back then. As a result of that, does our government then owe our parents and grandparents something more (i.e. Social security and medicare) in return in their declining years? If so, to what extent? How much of the governmental resources should go to repaying that debt? That isn't a question I can answer.

I did find out today which direction our current government is heading and where it feels it is most important to put our tax dollars.

Medicaid Spending Overtakes Education

Obviously, that article throws in some caveats and depending on how you spin the numbers (as with all statistics) you can see a different result. If nothing else, however, it is an interesting read and something I will be watching for more statistics on as time goes on. How much does it say about their focus on education?

If initial premise of the article is right, it is yet another reason I am glad that I chose to take the education of my children into my own hands. If nothing else, I am in direct charge of how much of my resources I put into their education.

When I went to school as a child and learned mathematics, just as now, there were all the same basic concepts that I had to learn in order to be a functional member of society and, if nothing else, balance a checkbook.

In Math, as in other subjects, you all know that there are things that you once learned in school that you have since forgotten or perhaps slept through when they were taught. So you dig into the text book and you refresh yourself on some concepts. You wouldn't, however, think that would be necessary in 1^st and 2^nd grade math.

My children, as I have mentioned before, are 5 and 7. My 5 year old is in the middle of grasping the concepts of addition and subtraction and my 7 year old is just on the other side of multi-digit addition and subtraction. Well, as my son worked his way through his 1^st grade math, I began to hear some terms floating around our home that started me to wondering if I needed to refresh some of my math skills all the way back to 1^st grade math.

One day when attempting to help my son with some 2^nd grade math multi-digit addition problems, I happened to call the movement of the 1 from the result of the ones column into the 10s column “carrying”. After a few attempts of explaining that he must “carry” (which resulted in nothing but a puzzled look followed by a glazed over stare as I repeated myself), I took a step back and took another approach.. I explained to him the concept without the word “carry” and his reply was “oh, renaming. Mommy told me about that earlier” and off he went to complete the problem. I chalked one up for me to learning a new name for an old concept.

A few days later confusion ensued when suddenly a review sheet my son was working on referred to “regrouping” and he came to ask me what the instructions were asking him to do. Just like with “renaming” a few days earlier I hadn't heard this of term either... fortunately (or unfortunately) neither had my son. What was this “regrouping”? One of these “new math” concepts I had heard about? It took my wife to bail us both out.

Renaming and Regrouping. That was all new to me. What in the world were those? I came to discover these are the new terms for the concepts of carrying and borrowing. And would you think that renaming might be synonymous with carrying and regrouping synonymous with borrowing? No, it couldn't be that simple. Renaming and regrouping are actually synonymous with each other and both are generic terms that encapsulate BOTH the concepts of carrying and borrowing.

What is the deal here? What was wrong with good old “carrying” and “borrowing”? I know I am not I the only one who successfully learned these same concepts under the names carrying and borrowing? Carrying for addition and borrowing for subtraction... simple. Who suddenly decided that the names Carrying and Borrowing weren't good enough? Were those names too clear? Did it hurt to have a separate name for each concept? Why lump them under one name? Did it make too much sense and the children understood it too easily so the names had to be changed? If they were going to lump both concepts of carrying and borrowing under one name, couldn't those same people at least have agreed on one name for the concept?

So, It seems that “renaming” and “regrouping” are interchangeable terms for the mathematical operations that we, as children, learned separately as “carrying” and “borrowing”. Carrying and borrowing weren't bad terms were they?

Carrying

Okay... logically the term “carrying” for addition doesn't make a whole lot of sense. What are you carrying? And where? And why? What “carrying” is involved. To a 1^st grader, “carrying” is “carrying” their laundry to their room. Perhaps you are lifting (i.e. “carrying”) the 10 up to the top of the 10s column? Somehow it was drummed into my head that this concept of moving the 10's value from the ones column was called “carrying”.

Borrowing

“Borrowing” is a pretty decent term. I would submit to you that our 1^st and 2^nd graders probably already understand the concept of “borrowing”. After all, you “borrow” a toy... or you “borrow” from one pile of beans to make that pile smaller and another pile bigger. To me, it isn't so much of a stretch for them to take “borrowing” one step further to conceptualize the process of taking from the 10's column to provide enough to subtract from in the one's column.

One paper that I perused from the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute regarding this topic took the following exception to the term “borrowing”:

“First it is important to discuss the terminology of addition and subtraction which is often confusing and misleading. For many years the term “borrowing” was used for what is now called “subtraction with renaming”. The word “borrowing” suggests that something is being given for a short term use and will later be returned. Mathematically speaking this is not so in subtraction. Ma mentions the terms “composing and decomposing of units” used by the Chinese math teachers to indicate how numbers are constructed and can be broken down by the processes of addition and subtraction. Currently in the United States “renaming” is the most popular term used. It is used in Saxon Math which New Haven uses for its K-4 curriculum. Throughout the paper I will use all three terms. I have become a fan of the composing and decomposing terms because it seems to express what is happening to the numbers in addition and subtraction. “

He evidently wants us to “compose” in addition and “decompose” in subtraction. That naming schema is kind of morbid if you ask me... Then again math might be so horrible for some that they wish they could “decompose” and end the torture.

Renaming

Renaming seems a very strange name for what is being done in addition and subtraction. How are you renaming anything? Renaming is what your child does fifty times when you get a new dog or fish, not when you add 18 + 9 or subtract 28 - 9. Are you re-naming a group of ten units into a group of one units? "Renaming" is supposedly the most widely accepted term for these concepts. 

To further the objection to the term “renaming”. I have seen where “renaming” is also the term used to convert the figure 125,000 to One Hundred Twenty Five Thousand. Confusing to a child perhaps?

At any rate, I don't see the logical concept of "renaming" in addition and subtraction for the child to grasp there... but I'm not the one with a masters degree in teaching either.

Regrouping

I can deal with that term pretty well. It is actually a pretty good name for what is being done in subtraction and addition. I can see how we are taking from one “group” to place more into another “group” (although you are taking 1 from one group to add 10 to another group and vice versa).

I ask again... what was wrong with good old “carrying” and “borrowing”?

Hey, as long as we are making up new names for these concepts, I propose we use “reassign”. It covers everything. You “reassign” a 10 from the 10's column to the 1's column. You “reassign” the 10 from the ones column result to the 10's column. That term could be borrowed by and carried (pun intended) into multiplication where you can “reassign” the 10's place result of the ones place multiplication to the 10's place.

Hmm... maybe I can get a grant from the government to write a few whitepapers on changing those concepts to yet another term.... “reassignment”.

In our house we have 3 televisions. One lives in my wife and I's room, one in the basement and the last is in our living room. The living room television gets the most use and is primarily controlled and watched by our children.

On this television especially, we have programmed out channels, we have activated the V-Chip (a must have when purchasing that TV 6 years ago) and our children are well versed in what handful of channels can be watched at what times of the day.

On top of that, probably much like many of you, we limit how long they get to watch the television on a given day... and even those things they do watch must be “approved” shows. Despite all of their other flaws, our children are very good at staying within those boundaries we set... they know the consequences are dire if they do not stay within those boundaries.

What kind of shows are “approved”? Primarily educational ones from PBS and Animal Planet and character building ones from our local Christian sponsored channels... and even shows on those channels aren't always so good so we always keep an ear open to what it is that is being pumped into our children.

Up until recently, we thought we were doing a pretty decent job keeping our children safe from the influences of the television. That is, until this past Christmas season. Suddenly, as the seasons outside changed, so did our children's minds and personalities become transformed. Seemingly overnight they suddenly manufactured a list of toys and came down with what appeared to be a terminal case of the “greedy-gimmies”. And as if the “toy list” wasn't bad enough... these weren't just any toys.... many of these toys are ones that we would never have considered for our children due to the content and concepts that they promote... and our children know it. I began to sense something afoul... where are they getting these influences? The shows they watch are good and we monitor and discuss those shows with our children.

Sometimes you just can't see the forest for the trees and sometimes I am just way too dense.

It wasn't until a short time later that my son came up to me one day and told me about the “ab-cruncher” that I could have for the low low price of $19.95 in 3 easy installments billed monthly to my Visa or MasterCard. The attitude, the tone, the inflection of his words were so haunting that I knew right then that my son would become the worlds paramount salesman by 10! But where does he get off implying that I could use an ab-cruncher!? My fl-abs are just fine! That is when it dawned on me... and my spirits sunk as I realized my son wasn't destined to be a salesman to top all salesmen. As you already guessed, it was the commercials.

The transformation of my cherubs into toy hoarding monsters at Christmas was not simply a passing case of the “greedy-gimmies” but was in fact the brainwashing of my children by the marketing moguls of our toy manufacturing mega-giants.

Ultimately, for us it isn't the shows that they watch, but what the marketers present our children during the breaks of those shows. I used to think PBS was immune to this... you know... public television... they have fewer commercials with a different spin, but they nonetheless exist. A great show on character lessons can be completely obliterated by the leading and trailing “sponsored by” messages. While in my childhood, Sesame Street was sponsored by the letter Q and the number 2, these days it is sponsored by “Tyco, the proud makers of Turbo-Raptor, Brother Basher and Sister Slayer”. The difference between PBS and CBS is now simply the letter they choose to use at the start of their callsign.

This has brought our household to a decision that has been sneaking up on us for a while... further limit television, stick to tapes or totally eliminate television. But what would we do with our living room? The whole living room centers around the television.... yuck... isn't that sad? A whole room devoted to a flashy appliance into which we can pour our time and our minds. What to do with it then? Perhaps a bigger schoolroom... SHHH! Pretend I didn't say that!

So, TV or Not TV?

We haven't decided anything for sure at this point but it is something we will need to address. I admit that I enjoy television and I also admit freely that I enjoy the occasional peace and quiet that comes when our children are “tuned in”. I know that not all television is bad... I just need to eliminate the commercials or live with having to battle the commercialism that is being pumped into my children.

But hey, at least my son doesn't think I really need an “ab-cruncher”... or at least I hope not...

Extra curricular activities... all the things our parents didn't give to us or things that we want to give to our children... PLUS the latest "trendy" activity.

So, for a couple of days we wrung our hands, wrangled schedules and options, preferences and interests, costs and benefits.  During all of this we discovered in each of us a feeling that we owe these things to our children... that if we didn't enroll them in something that will enrich and expand their minds beyond what we can offer at home, we would be slighting them. 

Somewhere in the midst of our thrashing about in the indecision of what mix of activities would best to provide a strong foundation for their future, it occurred to us... An extra curricular activity of any sort is an opportunity and an option, not a right.

We realized that our children do not have the right to be constantly fed on a diet of new and exciting activities outside of our home.  They are not entitled to be bounced from one "cool" activity to another just to "see" what they may possibly have interest in.

There is nothing inherently wrong with taking advantage of these opportunities.  They are there to help us to supplement in areas in which we may be deficient... to help us to allow our children to pursue genuine self-sustained interests that we may not have the experience, resources or expertise to help them with at home.  The point is that too many outside activities and you suddenly find that many of the benefits that brought you to homeschool your children in the beginning have suddenly been invalidated.

My wife put it very well tonight as we discussed this topic... whereas public school parents want to simply "give their children the things they never had", we as homeschoolers share their sentiment but can pile on top of that a heaping helping of "over-compensation". 

We, as homeschoolers, can easily fall in to the trap of over-compensation.  Somewhere there is a part in each of us at times that feels that, even though we are providing a great educational opportunity for our children, we are somehow depriving them of the some aspect that public school offers... Art... Spanish... French... Computer labs... (dare I