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 say it) socialization...

Don't jump on me just yet for that statement; bear with me a bit longer...

Rationally, we all know that we can provide these same things at home to one degree or another... Rationally, we know that we would do a better job of providing these things at home... but isn't there a small part somewhere inside that sometimes speaks to your doubts and fears and makes you feel like you can't or aren't offering as much as the public school with all of the resources and personnel at their disposal?  I admit it, my wife and I feel that way at times.

In the end we decided to leave well enough alone and keep things simple... To focus on our family and our home. 

Extra Curricular activities have a place... they are enriching and they definitely serve a purpose.  However, they are options and opportunities... not rights.  Our children do not have the right to be enrolled in extra curricular activities... or the right to try every activity that exists under the sun... or the right to be whisked about all day every day to this activity and that, eating, studying and living on the run...

Long after your child can no longer sprint the quarter mile or remember how to conjugate a verb in Spanish, your child will still have their family as well the values and character traits you instilled in them.  What they learn by NOT remaining constantly on the run is much more valuable than what they could learn in all the extra curricular activities classes that you could enroll them in.

Our children don't have a right to extra curricular activities but they do have a right to be protected, loved, supported, nurtured and trained up in the way that they should go. 

Protect them from becoming too busy that they can't stop to smell the roses. 

Love them as they are and love them in whatever they do. 

Support them in their pursuits of their interests and support them in who they are. 

Nurture their character, curiosity and zest for life.

Train them up to be who God would want them to be. 

Focus on these things first, and the rest will take care of itself.

Whe the "Love is" title?  Bear with me and read on... it'll all become clear.

To begin with, I love clearance items.  I am always on the lookout for clearance items and I stockpile the things that I find on clearance… from tools to clothes… you name it.  If I find something on clearance and know that I have a use for it or will have a use for it in the future, I buy it… and store it.  The theory in my mind is that I am spending a little bit of money now to save the spending of a larger amount of money later.  As long as whatever I buy is actually used at a later point in time (not too far in the future), then to me the theory is sound.

Take shoes for example.  I am guilty of buying shoes for my children for the next several sizes that they will pass through… just because they are on clearance.  I am guilty of owning and storing up to 5 pairs of tennis shoes, taking each successive pair out for use when the current set has worn out… just because I found them on clearance. 

Oh, and these tennis shoes must go through several stages of life before they are “worn out”.  When the tennis shoes are new and un-scuffed and shiny clean they are classified as “good” tennis shoes… you know… for casual wear going to visit family and friends.  When the tennis shoes get some scuffs and frays and have been through the wash a few times, they graduate to “okay” tennis shoes.  These “okay” shoes are then used for every-day wear until such time as they start losing the sole or get paint on them or something.  At that point in time, the shoes become “bum” shoes for wearing around the house when my shoes don’t matter.  “Bum” shoes typically degrade rather quickly (you have to imagine the state of these shoes… stitching is usually coming loose, the soles are getting quite thin or have been glued or taped back on, there is at least one coat of paint on them and the cushiony insole is now totally without cushion) and then, finally, they become “work” or “yard” shoes.  By this time, the shoes are barely fit to be even called shoes…. They fit within the shoe category if only because they still afford some protection to my feet… by this definition a thick paper bag could be defined as a “work” shoe.

And clothing?  At this time of year in the part of country we live in, the winter clothes are going on clearance to make room for spring clothes.  It is this time of year that I go on the prowl for winter clothes hitting the clearance racks.  It doesn’t matter to me if I may only get to wear the winter clothes I buy once or twice (or never) before they get shuffled to the back of the closet in favor of the spring and summer weight clothing.  It doesn’t matter to me that I am buying winter clothing for my son and daughter that are a couple of size too large.  I know those clothes will see use next year or the year after and I am just fine with storing them and waiting until then.  Just like with shoes, for me, clothes go through various stages of life as well… from “good” to “house” to “work” to “rag-bag”… and I have quite a few articles of clothing in the “work” and “rag-bag” categories if only because they still have some serviceable life in them.

To some, this buying and storing would be considered “hoarding”.  I guess you can just call me a squirrel then… because I sure do hoard my clearance finds… after all, at some point I will use them!

Fortunately, my wife helps me out.  Without her, I am sure that I would be much worse to the point of having no living space to live within.  She is extremely tolerant of my clearance purchases and also very patiently helps me to accept that a favorite shirt or pair of shorts needs to be re-classified and perhaps not brought out into public light ever again.  She doesn’t force me to re-classify but very gently helps me to take the blinders off and see the real condition of something.

I guess that this is part of the “Miser” in me that we talked about in an earlier post… buying on clearance just to save a buck in the end… getting the last ounce of use out of a pair of shoes before retiring them to the trash heap.  I do have an excuse, however…my hoarding and miserly nature is genetic.  My dad?  He still wears 80’s parachute pants and work shoes held together with duct tape… fortunately, however, my sister has helped him to realize that these articles of clothing are only good for “work” status.  My mom?  Well, she has clothes in her closet that she hasn’t worn since the era when avocado refrigerators and countertops were all the rage.  Fortunately for her, bellbottoms came back in style… at least some clothes could come out of retirement. 

Needless to say, I am glad that I have my wife to balance me on this or I would be the guy still running around in a "Members Only" jacket and Vans slip-ons in the year 2006 if only because they weren’t completely “worn out” yet. (Hmm... I think I may have seen that Vans may be coming back in style... darn it, I knew I shouldn't have gotten rid of those just yet)

That brings us to the real reason for my post.  For my birthday 2 years ago my wife gave me a new leather wallet.  A very sweet and thoughtful gift… and one I definitely appreciated… and would use at some point in the future… but my wallet (in my Miser mind) still looked fine and worked fine.  Since then, that new wallet has sat safely in a drawer, held in reserve for when my current leather wallet wears out… and you know leather wallets… while they may not look new any more, it is a long time before they can no longer function as designed… even without the use of duct tape.

Some time after that birthday, my wife asked me why I had never used the wallet that she gave me.  I explained oh so pragmatically that my current one wasn’t even close to worn out yet and that I was saving hers for when it does wear out.  A few months later she asked me again about the wallet, and if I still had it.  I answered that I still had it safely stored away for when my wallet wore out.  A few months after that, the wallet came up again in conversation… by this time my spider sense was tingling… as dense as I am (and I am not talking about my weight), I began to think that perhaps there was something more to the question.  Perhaps I should USE the wallet that she gave me… but that goes against every hoarding and saving instinct that I have been born with and live by!  How can you use something new when what you have still works just fine?  That is impossible… that’s like making three left turns to go right… like going in the out door… like going up the down escalator… and I put it out of my mind… but my heart held on to it.

A few days ago my wife brought out our albums and was organizing pictures.  I pulled out the album that I had put some memorabilia in as a teenager and that my wife had subsequently added to with pictures of us and friends and things she knew were special to me.  I came across a page in which she had added a couple of cartoons that we both enjoyed when we first got married.  It is amazing that something that means one thing to you at one time, can mean something completely different at another time.  Much like reading a passage in the bible at one point in time in your life can allow God to speak to your heart in a certain way and yet at another point in time in your life, that same passage allows Him to place a totally different conviction into your heart.  That is what happened here:

Love is… "putting on the aftershave she gave you".  Ouch.  That cartoon suddenly held a whole new meaning for me.

Love is… using the wallet she gave you… even though yours isn’t “worn out”.  Love defies logic… it is turning left three times to go right just because you want to have a bit more time with her…  going up the down escalator just because she is up there and it is the fastest path... and going in the out door just because you forgot to get a good-bye kiss.  Love is using the new wallet.   As for the old wallet?  Hmm… perhaps I’ll put it away in a drawer for “future” use…

My wife forwarded an article to me (link and content included below) that talked about a move in some schools to de-emphasize handwriting and specifically penmanship. 

This article was somewhat disturbing to me in that it is basically promoting the use of the computer as an essential of life and not simply a tool to (if used properly) simplify and organize aspects of our life.

The article reminded me of an Isaac Asimov short story I read as a child. After digging around, I found an online version of it here.  In short it was a story about a future in which the humans had forgotten the basics of mathematics because they had relied totally on computers to do it for them.   Computers had started designing computers and there was no need for humans to know the fundamentals any more.

Is this also the way of handwriting?  Somehow computers, PDA’s, Tablet PC’s, Cell phones will be used to replace the need to write things down by hand?  I used to think that Asimov story kind of disturbing in its implications and so the story stuck with me over the years.  Yet here is an article in which a school district (while not doing away with handwriting) is starting to imply that penmanship is no longer a necessary skill... typing is, however, now required.

How many of you, when you went to school were required to take a typing class?  I wasn’t… it was an elective… an easy A.  I took the class and I have to grudgingly admit that it is the single most valuable class that I took in all of high school.  These days, from what I hear, it is now a required course in the 3^rd grade for children in the school district we live in.

How much further is it to a society where kindergarteners are taught touch typing instead of manuscript?  I can see that as a possibility.

Will our children’s children one day be unable to write the letter H?  Oh, sure, they could “draw” a picture of what an H looks like (probably in a dozen different font styles) but would they truly “write” an H?  Okay, that is taking the whole scenario way off into left field.  Let’s get back to the middle.

No, I am not an alarmist and I don’t believe that handwriting will ever totally disappear in favor of keyboards but there are, nonetheless, somewhat alarming parallels.

And now, for me, what was the most disturbing point in the whole article… "Furthermore, some teachers say that with the pressure to help students pass high-stakes achievement tests, they don't have time or classroom resources to ensure that students master all aspects of handwriting."

What's that? With all the focus on the achievement tests, there is less time for focusing on mastering penmanship.... and what other "trivial" essentials?

If nothing else, what does this example teach our children in the public school system?  It is only the result that counts!  Skimp on the details that make for a quality product just to reach the goal!  Make sure you build the car to look great, but don’t worry about the details of making sure your welds are any good or that there is brake fluid in the reservoir!

In the 80’s, American made automobiles were really horrible.  In the 90’s and the early 00’s, quality has improved drastically… what about in the year 2020?  Will the children that are now in school and being taught that you need to focus only on making the goal look good be building quality (i.e. the "details") into the cars or will they be skipping the details just to achieve the goal?  Even if the goal is supposedly a quality product.  Will these children know how to go back and take care of the details?  After all, they have been trained for 18 years to get to the goal regardless of the cost or what shortcuts are taken in the process.

Here is a link to the article:

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/11cursive.html

And here also is the body of the article in case there is a login required or the article disappears into cyberspace.

With emphasis on computers, schools are writing off cursive

By Matthew Obernauer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, January 11, 2006

The yellowed parchment lies between armed guards in Washington's National Archives, in a palatial room with marble columns, oil paintings and polished floors — a room dubbed "the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom."

"We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union . . ." it begins.

For centuries, Americans have marveled at the words and ideas imbued in the Constitution, as well as the sure and steady hand that recorded those words in extravagant loops and curves.

All of which raises the question: Would we make such a fuss over the document if the founders had typed it in Microsoft Word?

Today, written communication is increasingly being replaced by computer messages. And, while adding computer proficiency requirements, school districts across Texas and the nation are de-emphasizing cursive writing in elementary school training. In higher grades, teachers are seeing less work done in cursive and more in block lettering or on computer printouts.

Furthermore, some teachers say that with the pressure to help students pass high-stakes achievement tests, they don't have time or classroom resources to ensure that students master all aspects of handwriting.

Traditional penmanship, like calligraphy before it, is fast becoming a lost art.

Irma Webber, a fifth-grade teacher at Kiker Elementary School in Southwest Austin, said only two of her 29 students write in cursive, and few have traditional penmanship skills.

"I have kids who make letters in very creative ways," she said.

The state's guidelines on cursive writing are ambiguous. When the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills curriculum requirements were adopted in 1998, the state changed the requirement that students learn to write legible cursive letters in addition to learning manuscript, or printing.

Instead, according to an October 2004 clarification, the state mandates only that in third grade "students master manuscript writing and may begin to use cursive writing." In Grades 4 through 8, however, the same clarification notes, "it is assumed that students have learned cursive handwriting by the time they enter Grade 4."

Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said, "We'd like them to still use cursive, but the district determines how the handwriting (instruction) will be used."

No one can say how many students are or aren't learning cursive. Still, for many, saving cursive writing is more than a matter of nostalgia.

"I would prefer them to learn both" manuscript and cursive, said Travis Heights Elementary PTA President Christina Roman, whose son is learning cursive writing in the second grade. "I do think it's a valuable lesson, and it teaches more than just how to write in cursive. It teaches pen control, coordination — stuff like that."

In response to requests from parents, Manor school district administrators this semester will decide whether to create a specific curriculum to teach cursive writing, which would require time and money to create lesson plans and train teachers. Manor Deputy Superintendent Andrew Kim said, "This is one of those issues as a community that we need to look at and see if our community says, 'We value cursive writing in an age of technology.' "

The Austin school district's third-grade language arts curriculum does not require cursive writing instruction, only that "students gain more proficient control of all aspects of penmanship." Officials said the district provides textbooks and materials for students to learn cursive writing during the second semester of second grade and in third grade but does not mandate instruction in cursive.

Some Austin teachers said there is not enough class time to teach cursive writing.

Third grade is the first year in which students are required to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills reading test to advance to the next grade, increasing the pressure to stick to the required material.

Sharon Holmes taught third grade at Pecan Springs Elementary School in East Austin during the 2004-05 school year and teaches second grade this year. "We had a handwriting portion of the day," she said. "We may not have gotten to it every day, because we were working on reading and math" and science.

Patricia Detrich, a third-grade teacher at Becker Elementary School in South Austin, said, "It's difficult enough to find time as it is to teach what we're required to teach.

"I do have students who desire to learn cursive writing, so I'll provide independent time, individual teaching (outside of class) to some students to make some of the strokes," Detrich said.

Webber said she and other teachers try to teach cursive writing incrementally, such as instructing children on how to write their names. She said, "Cursive right now is a choice."

Some teachers think the marginalization of cursive writing is just as it should be — class time, they argue, is better used on other things.

"I don't feel like it's a great loss," Detrich said. "I feel like the most important things to teach these days are problem-solving, logical reasoning, critical thinking — and that doesn't have anything to do with cursive writing.

"My son, who is 15 and a freshman at Austin High, spent his entire third-grade year, and had a year of specific instruction, in cursive and has never used it since."

I am sure all of you have heard of and are waiting in breathless anticipation for the 20/20 TV special coming out tomorrow night all about education in America.  From what I have heard thus far there will be at least a small part about homeschooling and if nothing else, whether intentional or not, it sounds as if there will be a lot of valid points voiced regarding some of the failures of the public school system in general.

I know that I, for one, will be watching or will at least tape it for watching later (I hate commercials).

Stories about the problems with public school like these are encouraging to me as a homeschool dad and discouraging to me as an uncle of public schooled children, but they are also frightening. 

Why frightening?  They are frightening because I fear for the future of homeschooling.

We all recognize that homeschooling is getting a lot more support both within the homeschool community and outside of it.  There are now numerous thriving businesses that survive solely on the homeschool community… those were a lot fewer 10 years ago.  Libraries and communities are beginning to warm up to the homeschoolers in their towns.  The whole idea of homeschooling is suddenly becoming a whole lot more “acceptable”.  As it becomes more acceptable and homeschooling migrates away from being only considered and attempted by those who are truly committed and moves more into mainstream thought, I fear the possible ramifications.

On one hand, I want homeschooling to be widely considered as an acceptable alternative form of education… but on the other hand, I don’t want just anyone doing it.

We all know that it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the whole bunch.  And the more bad apples that are found in the bunch, the worse the entire bunch appears.

I fear for a time that I see coming where suddenly we, the homeschool community, will be under hostile attack.  It will start with reports coming from a few of the media outlets about how the laudable venture of homeschool can be abused and children suffer for it… Some of these kinds of reports have already come out (CBS Evening News presented a two-part segment titled "The Dark Side of Homeschooling" (Oct. 13 and 14, 2003). The New York Times published an editorial headlined "Make Homeschooling Safe for Children" (Nov. 15, 2003)) but were fortunately largely ignored by the common man.

What about David Ludwig, the young Pennsylvania boy who allegedly killed the parents of his girlfriend and then took off with her?  Do any of you recall the title of at least 1 news article with a title referencing the fact that he was homeschooled?  I do.  If nothing else almost every article I read about it mentioned that he and she were homeschooled.  Example

When a teen robs a 7-11 in your area do the headlines ever say “Local Public School Teen Robs Local 7-11”?  What if a homeschooler did that?  Well, you could already guess that headline.

Oh, I do know that some do abuse homsechooling for their own ignorant or evil purposes but fortunately those people appear so far to be few and far between.  And when the media does find them (as in 2003), Joe America still considers homschooling “fringe” and therefore doesn’t consider these things to be a problem worth dealing with.

Well, as more and more people homeschool, there will likely be a greater percentage of those that do it for reasons that are not based in morals, values or traditions.  Then, suddenly, as more people “accept” homeschooling, when one of these scandalous stories comes out that has something to do with “homeschooling”, then the spotlight will be turned on all of us.  The media will smell blood and will go on the hunt like a pack of ravenous wolves finding every dropout or ne’er-do-well who hid behind the homeschool excuse.

Where we have all dealt with various forms of persecution from our peers in our communities and families, and have felt at times like social pariahs, we will suddenly find ourselves an enemy of the people.   We, despite our intentions and actions, will suddenly find ourselves lumped in with the “bad eggs” found by the media.

The government will suddenly find these stories providing them with sufficient ammunition against the homeschool community.  Politicians will stand upon their stumps and decry the “abuses heaped upon poor children who are homeschooled and deprived of the opportunity to socialize and cry out in their pain and suffering”.

Already, even the public school arena is using homeschooling to their advantage to skew their dropout numbers: “Instead of allowing a child to drop out, they hand him or her homeschool paperwork. “ (See here)    And this isn’t the only educational system actively adopting policies that encourage problem children to “homeschool”.

As the trend of “dumping” increases and the concept of “homeschooling” becomes more and more mainstream, it will call all of us under the spotlight.

Most of us bloggers here at homeschoolblogger.com do, in fact, homeschool.   There are a million reasons to homeschool (just as there are a million shades of grey) but I have attempted to compile some of the real reasons that we homeschool… you know… the dark secrets of why we REALLY homeschool.

I can keep my children uneducated!

Not all children are created equal.  Some can read at 4, others aren’t ready until 7 or 8 or even 9.  Some children are ready to handle abstract math concepts at 10 and others aren’t ready until they are 16 or older.  In school they are either forced to slow down to the pre-prescribed pace set by the educational system or they are forced to struggle to keep up and either sink or swim. 

We homeschool because we can go at the pace our children are prepared to go at. 

My son, a year ago, was struggling with the concept of the calendar.  We abandoned that concept and went on to other things.  Two months later, we re-introduced the calendar and suddenly it all made sense to him.

My children get to be selfish and not share!

Just as children in school learn how to share their germs first, the second thing that they learn to share is their bad habits.

An example?

Unbeknownst to us, my Kindergarten niece decided to share a jaunty, lovely song about killing murder and mayhem with my Kindergarten daughter.  Soon after leaving my sisters house, my daughter decided to share this new song with us.  We instantly addressed it as inappropriate and put an end to it.  If we didn’t homeschool, there would be very little preventing her from going back to school the next day and being exposed to the song all over again and being taught by peer pressure that it is really okay to sing happily about murder and mayhem.

Somehow, in the vast pool of ignorance that is a class of 6 year olds, these children who may be reluctant to share their new Christmas toys, just love to share their Christmas songs about “Barney’s dead” or jokes about bodily functions best left in a diaper.

We homeschool not to guard our children from adopting these habits, but to help our children to filter what comes to them by their peers and realize what things are appropriate and not appropriate and why.

My children aren’t going to grow up!

In school our children are not only reduced to the least common denominator in education and force-marched to go at the pace of the rest of the prisoners of war, they are also forced to deal with adult type issues well before most of them are ready to.  Sex?  Drugs? Status? Politics? Peer pressure?  Children are now dealing with these things at a younger and younger age. 

An example?

My 1^st grade niece was picked up from the school bus in tears by my wife one day.  It turns out a couple of boys on the bus were calling her “fat”.  At 5 years old, who needs to deal with body image?

My children are going to grow up at the pace that is good for them and I will be there to help guide them at each stage.  If, at 16 or 17 or even 18 they aren’t ready to handle the responsibility of directing a 1.5 ton bullet down the asphalt…they won’t.

We homeschool so that our children can grow up at the pace that is best for their mental and emotional makeup.  Our children are not going to be forced to grow up at a rate that is either set by a school system that doesn’t know my child or by 30 of their peers.

My children can educate themselves!

In school there is a pre-defined curriculum that is supposed to fit every student regardless of their educational bent or learning style.  The curriculum may be one where it is presented by the teacher audibly… what about those children who are hands on learners?  Or learn best visually? 

We homeschool so that we can help our children to learn the way they know best.  When they get out into the “real world” with a “real job”, they will have to determine how best to tackle each challenge in a way that works for them.  In most cases, there will be no pre-set curriculum or a teacher standing over them… simply a task to complete and little to no guidance on how to complete it.

We get to keep our kids in the cult!

As our children get indoctrinated into the school system, their classmates begin to become more their family than their siblings and parents.  Granted, they come back home every night but to do what?  Get buried in homework, busied with dinner, hurried off to baths and bedtime?  And the weekends?  The weekends are full of all the extracurricular activities driven by the compulsion that parents feel to give their children the opportunities they never had.

We homeschool to help keep our children part of our family for that much longer.  Yes, children inevitably grow up and become unique individuals with their own interests.  Eventually, they move out to start their own family.  But it is better to send them off knowing what a family really is instead of leaving them with the impression that a family is their friends or is a simply a group of unrelated autonomous units orbiting around a house at an address.

We get to keep our children sheltered!

Lives in the 21^st century have become so busy.  There is very little room to slow down and very little tolerance for slowing down.  When you drive on the freeway of life, regardless of if you are in the fast-lane or slow-lane, you must continue hurtling forward through life or get run over in the process.

We homeschool so that our family can get off the freeway and take the surface streets, enjoy some scenery, stop to smell the roses.  We get to teach our children by example that life is not about DOING, but is about BEING.  Life isn’t about the destination, it’s about the journey.

We get to keep our children impoverished!

Life these days is so much about what you have… what car you drive… how big your house is… how big your financial portfolio is.  Two incomes suddenly become the norm, a required facet of your life to maintain the lifestyle that you have chosen.

We homeschool to teach our children that “more” does not mean “better” or happier.  We show our children by example that in most situations, you can do more with less, take joy and satisfaction in what you have and not pine over what you do not have.  That doesn’t mean that the green-eyed monster doesn’t visit our home, but that we can deal with it as a family and not let that monster take over our home.

We like the servant labor!

So many times, our children in the public education arena are so busy with schoolwork and extracurricular activities that there is no time left over to contribute anything to the family.  And what little time there may be left over, many parents are so concerned with giving their children the life they never had, that they ignore the life lessons that are passing the children by.

We homeschool so that our children can learn about life… what it is like to run and maintain a house and home.  We homeschool so that our children can know that there are responsibilities outside of work and fun… so that they can enjoy a sense of accomplishment for a job well done and express their love through being a part of the family and the support of the family unit.

We’re creating freaks!

As our children enter a school system, they suddenly become subjected to subconscious peer pressures to conform to the norm… to become one with the crowd.  Our children become less themselves and more everyone else… they lose a part of their individuality and identity.  They are still our child but somehow not the same child that we spent 4 years loving and raising.

We homeschool so that our children can develop their own sense if identity.  To be comfortable in their own uniqueness and confident in their own abilities.  They can explore new things without fear of teasing or taunting because of mistakes they may make.  As a result, our children become also more tolerant of others and their own individual quirks.

In the long run, by allowing them to be comfortable and confident in who they are, our children will be less impacted by the typical teen years of definition where they lash out at everything they know in an effort to “find themselves”

We get to create little copies of ourselves!

When our children enter a group of their peers and are subjected to the ideas and opinions of those peers for 8 hours every day, 5 days a week, they begin to adopt the values of their peers.

We homeschool so that we can impart our moral values and beliefs onto our children.  We homeschool to let them know what it is in life that we have discovered is of real value.  We homeschool so that they can share in the common belief system of our family until such time as they make their own educated choices, free from peer pressure, otherwise.

Our children can be wild Indians!

Upon entering the public education arena, our children suddenly lose half of their life.  8 hours or more each day is spent at school or preparing for school.  Then there is homework… often another 4 hours of work.  And sleep?  At least 8 hours, right?  Preparing for bed?  Dinner?  Breakfast?  Extracirricular activites?  When do these children have time to be children?

We homeschool so that our children can be who they are… children… full of the zeal for life and exploring the world!  Homeschooling is usually such a focused one-on-one activity that it is done with much of the day left open to our children to just be who they are… children.   They can explore the world, have fun, exercise their imaginations and be wild Indians, astronauts or princesses.

The village isn’t touching my children!

God entrusted me with the responsibility of raising my children … training them up in the way that they should go.  He didn’t ordain the government with that responsibility.  Nowhere in the bible does it say “Train your child up in the way that they should go and when they depart from you at 5,  render unto Ceasar what is Ceasars to train.”

With that God-given trust came the responsibility to make life choices for my children.  In our case, I want my wife and I to raise my children, not let them be raised by the government mind just because that is what the rest of the world does.

We homeschool because it is our responsibility, given by God, to raise our children.  I know I can do a better job than a burocracy!

Okay, that’s it.  That is the list of REAL reasons we homeschool.  Yes, the titles for the reasons are “tongue-in-cheek” and perhaps might not be appreciated by all, but I don’t seem to have a lot of readership anyway so there aren’t too many of you to offend.

Cheers!

We live in the city... well, not quite IN the city. We actually live in a town between two rather large cities. Where 20 years ago the area live in was considered quite rural, it has now merged into the metropolis that is the two cities and the towns around them that have gotten swallowed up in those cities to the point that it is no longer possible to tell where one town ends and another begins. Somehow, however, there are still some of the rural roots clinging tenaciously for a foothold in the miles of concrete and asphalt. Our home seems to be one of those pockets.

I have lived in various suburbs of this city for over 10 years and it wasn't until arriving at our current residence, a dilapidated (from 8 years of no maintenance) 21 year-old brick box, that our family was suddenly exposed to a daily dose of wildlife. In the past 2 years, I have encountered more wildlife in and around my house than I saw in all my years of cub scouts as a child. In those 2 short years, I have encountered several snakes, a handful of black widow spiders, a couple of runs of rabbits, a skunk passing by (fortunately), a beaver, raccoons, a possum taking a dip in our pool, ducks swimming in puddles in my back yard, a rat taking up residence under our floors, squirrels storing nuts in my walls and a herd of field mice leaving “presents” (presents=droppings) all over our house. For the most part, each of these encounters with our native wildlife has been a great learning experience for my family and each of the animal invasions into my home have been successfully fought off... until this latest squirrel.

We don't yet know how he managed to get into joists between the 1^st and 2^nd floors. His buddies a few months earlier were finding their way in between the chimney brick and the fire pipe and were finally stopped by the fabrication and installation of a wire-mesh cage over the chimney. I was alerted to his presence by my son bursting excitedly into my basement office telling me that there was a rabbit in the ceiling above the living room. Even as I explained to him that a rabbit could not climb up above the 1^st floor of our home, I knew it had to be a squirrel. Even though he was in between our floors, there was nothing I could do about it but shake my head in dismay at yet another thing happening with this money-pit house we owned. Sure... a squirrel incursion doesn't constitute a “money-pit” house problem per se, but sometimes, at certain moments, things just seem larger than life.

I put the squirrel issue aside, knowing there was nothing I could do, and continued with my work as I chased my son back upstairs to go back to his schoolwork.

Some time later that day, I heard my wife up in the kitchen and thought that a perfect excuse and a perfect time to take a break and say a quick hello to her. I came upstairs not to find my wife in the kitchen, but my dog (a 10lb toy poodle) with her head buried under the dishwasher and some strange vocalizations (obviously not the dog's) emitting from dishwasher.

I called for a flashlight, and called off the dog. Pulling out the dishwasher I was greeted by the nervous eyes of a squirrel pacing back and forth. He knew he didn't want to be where he was but figured that a better place than out there with the dog and those giant people.

How did he get from the space between the 1^st and 2^nd floors and into our kitchen? Well, the answer to that lies in the perpetual “home -improvement” projects that we are engaged in. We had removed a wall in our kitchen and also the furrdown above some cabinets. I had patched all of the drywall except for the small exposed place where the next set of furrdowns above the cabinets had met the furrdowns that were removed. Our intrepid squirrel had decided to investigate or couldn't find his way back out so he entered our kitchen and probably was startled into fleeing under our dishwasher by our dog.

After letting the children take a peek at the invader, my wife and I closed the dog and the children into the living room and closed off all the doors we could into the rest of the house. We opened the door to the garage and the garage door in hopes that our “invader” would determine discretion is the better part of valor and flee for the great outdoors.

He didn't budge and I wasn't going to force the issue myself (flashes of Chevy Chase in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation were going through my head). What now? How to motivate our “friend” to take the invitation leave? The solution came to me.

The dog! She already hates the squirrels outside that, having learned and tested the limits of her tie-out, constantly tease her by hopping along oh-so-slowly by her on their merry way from one tree to another. They are pretty cocky about it but they do keep a healthy eye on her as she has on occasion charged them and broken her collar in her zeal.... but somehow that seems to make them delight all the more in daring each other to get closer to the dog.

So, out of the living room bursts the dog at full run, our 10 pound furry bowling ball crashing into walls and falling over in her reckless charge, skittering and sliding along the wood floors and tile in her excitement. The dog darted behind the dishwasher and the squirrel quickly decided that this was no longer a safe haven. Out they both came at a full run, streaks of brown fur flying by my wife and I as the squirrel attempted to climb the stove and then raced across the counters and finally behind the refrigerator. Not to be outdone, our dog (an excellent jumper), was right behind the squirrel every step of the way. What she lacked in the agility that the squirrel possessed, she made up for in speed and excitement.

The squirrel darted out from behind the refrigerator (somehow missing the fact that the door to the garage ... and to freedom... was wide open) and the race was on. Through the house they ran, hopping on furniture, sliding on floors, attempting to scale the fireplace with agility (on the squirrels part) and determination (on the dog's part). One final lap around the room and the squirrel finally spotted freedom! He took off on a bee line for the door to the garage. I tried to stop our dog but I was too slow and she had suddenly turned deaf in all the excitement. Fortunately, the squirrel had managed to put some distance between himself and the dog and was far enough ahead that, despite our dogs greater speed, allowed him to make it outside to the safety of the nearest tree. Our dog (did I mention she was a great jumper), reached the tree right on the squirrels heels and proceeded to perform her best leaps in the air in her attempts to get to the squirrel. The squirrel decided this tree wasn't high enough for his comfort and took a leap, racing to a big oak nearby, our dog again hot on his heels. To my relief (and to the dog's dismay) the squirrel made good his escape.

The rest of that day our dog was constantly on the prowl for more squirrels in our home. It took some doing to get her to settle down that night as she wanted to check everything “just one more time”... “just in case”...because maybe he had a friend that was still hiding out somewhere....

So far, the squirrel seems to have abandoned his plans to store his winter nuts in our home. I have also noticed that the squirrels outside are spending a bit less time on the ground when the dog is on her tie-out... and they seem to be keeping their distance from her a bit more. Score a point of respect for the dog and a point of intelligence to the squirrels for heeding a lesson learned.