the mark haley holler: EduHoming

The answer to the question depends on what day of the week you ask me. The question is, "How is home-schooling going?" What I've found out is this: beyond knowing how to add, subtract, read, write, and know phonics rules, a teacher also needs to know how kids learn how to know those things. I suppose anyone can pound phonics into a seven year old's head with a workbook and a mallet, but if I'm going to do that, what exactly was the point of taking him out of school to begin with? Oh, I remember. The point was that I didn't want other kids teaching him incredibly inventive rude phrases for every day use. Or trying to kick him in the privates and then tattling on him when he punched them in retaliation. (All stories other parents have told me happened to their kids, or actually happened to mine.) And I also thought it would be fun to teach him what I actually believe.

And to do it outdoors. And to do it without the incredible time waste that seven hours of sitting and lining up and being quiet is for a young kid. In short, yes, I do think I can teach my child better than the public school can. Not because I think America's teachers are worthless or anything. I find that the longer I try to teach my one child, the more respect I have for teachers. No, it's simply this: who knows my child like I do? Who loves him as much? Who has the responsibility to take the time to make his days extraordinary? No one has a stronger calling than I do. I will admit, it is not easy, but here is an example of a way that it is worth it:

The easiest thing we've had to learn so far is science. That is simply because it is easy to learn science by wandering around and talking about how things in the world work and why. We've had spectacular luck in this in the past, before we were homeschoolers. Once we found a rather large caterpillar that looked exactly like a big pile of bird poo. When we poked it (notice our extremely well developed scientific method) it stuck out these two red horns at us. Fascinating! Into the jar he went. It didn't take too long on the Internet to discover that our bird poo caterpillar was a larval Giant Swallowtail, and his red horns were "scent glands" to repel predators. Oops, therein lies the breakdown of evolution. He stuck out his stinky things, and we just thought that made him all the cooler. We must have caught him at just the right time, because within day, he had gone into chrysalis, wherein we promptly forgot about him long enough that I assumed he was dead. The, one morning at breakfast, Abraham shouted, "Buh-er-tie!" And there he was, big and glorious in our jar. Presto, science. If only addition presented itself with such natural panache!

More recently, we took a walk and netted ourselves three "woolly bears" and a yellow and black thing caterpillar off of a rose bush. By the time we got home from our walk, I had four creatures crawling around on my sweater. We put them in our creature habitat, which lives in the laundry room. One of them promptly committed suicide by trying to crawl down between the clear wall the fake sand. The other three seemed to be doing fine, though. Charlie tried to get the dead one out using a Lincoln log. I was in the other room, so I didn't seem his technique. Much later that evening, Joe came home from work and tossed his clothes into the laundry room. He emerged sounding puzzled. "There are caterpillars crawling on the walls in here."For some reason, it didn't immediately click with me.
"Oh, yes," I said, "We brought them home to put them in the Bugitat to see what kind of moth they turn into."
A little later, we were discussing them when it finally dawned on me that Joe had actually said, "crawling on the walls."
"You meant the walls of the bug habitat, right?"
"No, the actual walls."
"Well, why didn't you grab them!?" I said.
"I didn't know," he said. "I thought you guys did it on purpose."
"Wait, you thought I just brought home bugs and set them free in the laundry room?"
"With you, I wouldn't be surprised," he said.
Good grief.
And as I thought about it, the weirdest part was that he was willing to put up with that!

When I think about it, I can't really blame him. I am the woman who found a black widow on my neighbor's drive way and, instead of killing it, said, "Quick! Get me a jar!"

Anyway, the best and the hardest thing about home education is that you can seize the moment to teach. Want to teach fractions? Bake! Want to teach biology? Walk in the wood. Want to teach phonics... Well, I haven't actually figured that one out yet. But we do read a lot of books. And I am willing to bet that if the world of The Hunger Games ever becomes a reality, at least my kids will be able to figure out which mushrooms are edible and which will kill you flatter than dead. Whatever that means.

Just in case you wondered...

Edible:

Small Pear-shaped Puffball (Right)