Education and Free Speech

David is ever-so-thrilled with himself for his latest creation. His Language Arts assignment was to dictate a story about himself to a grown-up, who would type it for him. They were expecting him to come up with about three sentences or so, but this is what he decided on. Of course I couldn't help myself and I opened up one of the Pages (Mac) templates and showed him how you can drag photos into the template. He was so impressed with the final product that he wanted to "send it to EVERYONE!" I told him that I would post it to the blog; that way he could be assured that as many people who wanted to see it would be able to. 

Lauren's art supplies finally arrived, much to our mutual joy. This is some art class for Kindergartners! They look through several museum-quality pieces and have varied assignments. The materials list includes crayons, markers, tempura paint, 2B pencils, colored pencils, watercolors, oil pastels (for a five year old?!?) and a 12x18" sketch pad. Wow! Mom might have to take all of that for herself! It would never occur to me to hand those kinds of materials over to someone so young, but then that's kind of the point of all of this....she gets massive exposure to things she might not otherwise get.

Oh, and speaking of exposure! Someone on one of my lists asked who else happened to be in the same city and there turned out to be a few of us, so we got our kids together for a Park Day. That's the one thing I know the kids really probably miss with Homeschool is playing "at recess" with friends. Happily in this group we've got one boy a year older than David, and a set of twin boys the same age. There's even a six year-old girl for Lauren to play with. And there was a cute little two year-old boy to tag along, too. :-) So we met last week at one of the city parks and the kids went tearing around the playground. David brought his new Indiana Jones whip (made from foam...he loves that thing!) and a backpack full of Star Wars characters and the kids had a great time. We headed home two hours later. David's getting settled in the backseat of the car and he says, "That boy was so NICE! I told him that I wanted to be Indiana Jones, and guess what? He letted me!" My biggest mistake there was not bringing a whole cooler full of ice-water, because it DID get hot. But it was pretty neat to have the kids collected together with the toys of their choice at the park of OUR choice for two full hours of running around shrieking and playing. I know David thinks that regular school means the big, yellow bus comes to pick you up and you go play on the playground all day and then come home. But this must come in a close second. I think there's some talk of making this at least a close second.

I have to start documenting David's homeschool, at least a little bit better than I have been. Although David's been homeschooled since five years old, the state law says that school isn't technically compulsory until age 7. So I've allowed myself to ease into this whole thing and I have only he most basic records for the last couple of years. Now I have to get far more serious, and compile an actual portfolio of work accomplished to prove what I say, should the need ever arise. So I've taken to scanning in his worksheets and tests, which works for some subjects, but not all. Phonics has a big paper trail, as does Math. Language Arts isn't too bad, but History and Science have dismal paper trails in comparison to what we actually DO.

I decided that I would need to document what we do, so I looked up the unit and transcribed the overview, scope and purpose, etc. and put that into another Pages template. This last week and the upcoming week focus on weather, so the pages will look similar; I list our experiments and activities down the right side of the page. After I finished this one up, I decided I should take pictures of David doing these things. Even if no one but Doug and I look at it, it'd be a great scrapbook item! (Did I mention how much I love this Mac?) So we'll see. I may change my mind later.

I have another newsletter coming up due for work, along with a book layout and a long, long conversation with the POD publisher, Lulu.com. I'll have to either put ball gags on the kids for that phone call or put them in front of the television or something!

I'm kind sad not to be in Minneapolis this week. I had wanted to join the Ron Paul rally, but with the near guarantee of police brutality, I can't in good conscience bring the kids into that, and I have no one to watch them while I go. I see from Salon.com that police are already busting down doors of people who PLAN to protest and arresting them. Apparently journalists who showed up to cover this were also detained, as were a few lawyers. THIS IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND ILLEGAL, FOLKS. I am very, very upset by this. I don't know what I plan to do about it, since I can't subject my family to such things. But we as a nation can't sit by and just let it happen. I plan to do a lot of research, to ask myself exactly what I want to see come out of this, and plan my actions accordingly.

Oh yeah. And the National Guard and Blackwater are back in New Orleans, and a state of emergency has been PRE-EMPTIVELY DECLARED for several southern states. There's no hurricane yet, but we're already declaring a state of emergency ahead of time and deploying medical aid and the Red Cross--no, wait! Screw medical aid and the Red Cross, what we're REALLY deploying is men in black fatigues with assault rifles. Since when does this actually lend AID in a natural disaster?

Remember, folks, I'm a registered Republican, conservative voter, gun owner, and I signed up to join the military out of high school...and *I* see problems with this. Big, big problems.

We shall see.

Lauren's first day of (home)school

Well.

I got an inordinately high level of interest on the puking bloc of the blog. The final outcome was that Lauren was sick, but nobody else caught it. Hmmmm.

Addison was taken to the vet and shot up with another dose of Cortisone, which is meant to calm his stomach and keep him from throwing up. It "fixes" irritation, so to speak. After looking carefully at one of the spots where he threw up, I was VERY forcibly reminded of how Lauren's diapers looked when we were trying to figure out her dairy allergy. Little brown flecks in the baby's stool are actually tiny bits of blood from the intestines. They're being torn up by an allergen of some sort. So here's the cat, throwing up little brown flecks in his bile. Is his stomach being torn up? Is he allergic to something in the canned food? Heaven knows his weight has dropped like a stone, and he's suddenly developed puking episodes every three months which don't involve him ingesting crap to block him up.

So now we're testing the theory. We've got both male cats back on the raw food diet (much to their ecstatic joy!), but Paige refuses to eat it. Natch. Addison already seems less bony; we'll give it six months and see what happens now. 

Today was Lauren's official first day of school. We decided we were going to homeschool her this year in literally about a 20-minute discussion. Much like David, she's too young to attend school this year, but she's got absolutely no patience for sitting still or paying attention, so we thought maybe a little practice would be good. 

Found this gem of a desk on a reseller's list. The copy that goes with it trumpets, "Ideal for homeschool!"

Er...no thank you! I found the idea of sitting at one of these things even to do homework absolutely repellant as a child. If I'm going to stay at home instead of going to school, why carry around the trappings of school with you? It's like erecting a sterile cubicle in your living room for the days when you telecommute. Half the joy of telecommuting is the fact that you get to sit in your own comfortable surroundings. Some people sit on the couch, others have their own little home offices overlooking the backyard, others hit the coffeeshop or maybe have the opportunity to grab a little wi-fi and sit outside at a park. Productivity is not limited to either the cubicle nor the school desk. I get why the large institutions use them both, but please...how many of us yearn for that work setting in our own homes? Let's set up some florescent lights, drop ceilings and mud-thick coffee, and away we go! Adults aren't that insane, why do they try to do this to kids?

Anyway. Lauren's been pestering me to "do school" with her and she's taken to telling complete strangers "I'm homeschooled!" They think it's really cute, and then they talk to the big brother who replies the same and suddenly it's not so cute anymore. Now they're really worried that they've run into a pack of warewolves or something. 

We found some cheap little swivel chairs at OfficeMax and picked them up fairly cheap, since they were the display models. One is black, one is purple. I attempted school with David all of last year in the living room and the dining room, with limited success. I seem to lose EVERYTHING, most of all his attention. It's been pretty frustrating. I finally cleared off the desk in his room and made good on my threat to get him up EARLY (6:30 a.m. or so) to do school. This was supposed to be a motivator for him to realize how good he's got it and to light a fire under his arse. To my total dismay, he LOVES the new schedule, he's eating breakfast by 6:45 a.m. and is all chirpy and happy. By 7 a.m. he's hopped up in his chair sitting at his very own desk (a big red one, with black trim and a white drafting table top. Room for a computer later on.), usually saying, "Let's do math! That's my best subject, right Mom?" This morning was a really light load, and he was done by 9:30 a.m. He was doing a little happy dance all around the room in his star-print footie pajamas. 

Shortly thereafter Lauren wanted me to do "do school" with her. I needed to do some setup for David's stuff for a few days hence, and instead I worked with some clay. Lauren dove right in and got herself covered with it, but we did talk about clay, slag, and how to form simple bowls. I then did some dishes while she washed up. She showed up in the living room stark naked and wet. "I'm hot," she announced. Sigh. So I decided to sneak in some school. I took her back to mom and dad's Big Bed and read her the old-fashioned version of Cinderella. To my amazement she PAID ATTENTION. Could have knocked me over with a feather. Got through the whole story, then I told her I had a coloring job for her. She got downright sparkly over the prospect (David  despises coloring), so I pulled out a sheet of paper with before and after drawings; there were eight of them total. The idea is sort of a "This is Cinderella before the fairy godmother, and now which of these is Cinderella after the fairy godmother showed up?" I had her cut them apart first, thinking I would explain afterwards. She plunks her happy, naked butt on the chair in the dining room, (I moved their tiny desk from the living room to the dining room. It's got a lot of natural daylight there and is tucked into a bright little corner.) cutting away. After a few minutes I hear a little gasp of recognition. "Mom! It's the STORY! This is the STORY!" 

Ah!"Ok, why do you think that?"
"See? This is the pumpkin, and this is the cart, and this is Cinderella...."

So I revealed the rest of the project and told her she could glue them down and then color them, or color them first and then glue them down. 

"Glue first!"

Ok.

The poor thing doesn't know how to glue.

She held down the first piece and ran the glue stick around the outside of the paper. Uh....

"Hey, sweetie, you've got that on the wrong side. See, you'd have to turn it upside-down for it to stick."

"Oh."

"Try this."

She was blown away and thrilled at the whole concept. ?? I guess I take a lot for granted. 

She already had her crayons out and I asked if she wanted me to get her paint pens. 

"Paint! I want to paint!" she shrieks joyously.

I hate it when she paints. If she breaks out the watercolors, I end up having to scrub the floor because it's covered in blue and green paints. >:-(  Her last paint set she mixed all the colors together and it all ended up mud brown...so I'm REALLY reluctant to see this happen, but I relent. 

I get out the new paint set I bought her for school. (And new crayons, a new ruler, some pink pencils, patterned erasers...) We get water into all the colors and she immediately starts to stab her brush into the nearest color. I grab her arm.

"What are you going to paint?"

"Um..." she starts looking around wildly at the various pictures. She had no idea; she's just going to load up the brush and then look for a target. Well. No wonder your pictures don't look like you want them to! 

"Ok, what you do is you look at your pictures and you decide where you want to start. Which one do you want to paint first?"

"The pumpkin!"

"Ok, now decide what color you want the pumpkin to be."

"Orange!"

"So what color are you going to put your clean brush into now?"

"Orange!" 

"Ok, orange. So dip, and now paint."

We go over cleaning the brush, but this time I tell her the brush is covered with paint, so it "needs to have a bath, get all clean, and then dry off with a paper towel." This works incredibly well. 

"Is this picture all done?"

"No!"

"So...I bet you're going to paint the leaves or something, right?"

"Yeah."

"So you pick what color you want them to be FIRST, and THEN you get that color."

For some reason this whole concept is foreign. ??? I wonder if that normal for a lot of kids. 

She is thrilled. I'm out in the kitchen, I'm not paying a huge amount of attention to what she's doing, though she wants me to sit there and watch her paint. (Oh, fun.) She asks how to paint "little." I get it, she wants to get into small spaces. I tell her to tap the brush in those spaces instead of drag it. She's further delighted. 

I swear, the child sat there for a hour and a half, not only perfectly content, but actually humming happily. I come back after awhile, to this (well, more than that, really, but this was the best one):

The pumpkin is probably an inch high, so the vines are actually quite small; this one hell of a steady hand for a four year old kid! Plus she decided to make the stem brown all on her own, I never said a word or attempted to coach her. I was quite surprised. 

I let her run around a bit, then snagged her later for a little bit of Phonics and a little bit of Math. She got bored during Math, so didn't listen to the test questions and fouled up everything but the first one, because she applied the criteria from the first question to ALL the questions. 

"You're too busy humming to listen to the directions!" I accused her. 

She looks at me quizzically. 

"Was I really humming?"

Oh, boy.

...keeps going downhill...

So now Lauren's done with all the throwing up, but now she's getting fevers and being all snuffly. Dandy.

To add interest to this, Addison has decided to go on a puking spree (necessitating a trip to the vet) and I got a wisdom tooth removed this morning.

Bleh.

I asked the dentist techie if my file was clearly marked "Chickenshit."
"We don't usually put that sort of thing on a patient's file, no."
"But you should."
"How about, 'Patient is very hesitant?'"
"Not nearly strong enough."
"Um...'Patient is Mortified?'"
"Better. It still lacks the all-encompassing urgency of 'chickenshit,' though."

She sets me up with a paper bib around my neck and a Q-Tip full of topical sticking out of my mouth and leaves me to sit there and stare at a poster of a shark's mouth full of sharp teeth. I am momentarily envious of the shark. HE'S not in the dentist's office. And I bet he's not a chickenshit. He'd bite the dentist's arm off.

Dentist Techie, of course, felt the need to relate our conversation to the doctor. He shakes his head sadly. "Still not used to me, huh?" he asks.
"Oh no, it's not YOU," I said hastily. "It's your shots. YOU are just fine. In fact, how about I run out and fetch you a coffee? Now. Starbucks OK for you?"
He laughs grimly and starts to lower the chair back.
"Did you know," I said, totally off-topic, "That shark's teeth fold back?"
He blinks at me.
"So if a shark bites something soft, like a fish, his teeth stay all sharp and pointy. But if he bites something hard, like a turtle, his teeth will actually collapse inward and form a crushing plate. Read that in some science magazine."
He still blinks at me, but it's a more interested blink.
"If you don't want people to talk sharks, you shouldn't hang shark posters in the room," I said.
He feigned interest, made some comment about the teeth still being able to grip the prey, wasn't that nice, now close your eyes.

I WANNA GO HOME!

Actually, the man is quite good at giving shots. I just hate them so. I still think the biggest spectacle I ever made of myself was at the phlebotomist's office for a blood draw. I think the guy was just so taken aback. "It's really ok, ma'am," he said nervously. (Like hell, buddy.)

So the rest was fine after that. You know, for as good as that stuff gets.

Took the cat into the vet's office to learn that they're tearing the place apart...it seems that the practice has been sold out and the place is being turned into a real estate office this weekend. WHAT?!?!? Yes, the whole staff, I guess, is skipping over to Chesterfield.

And speaking of which, I had just a LOVELY conversation with the vet tech. (This is the person who watches the kitties for us while we're away.) We got to discussing school and parenting and I don't know what all...I mentioned my deep distrust of the local school district and their abysmal scores (state average for the competency tests is 36%. I see this year they're raised it up to 45%. Great. From a grade of F- to just plain F. Aim high.) and she says, "Yeah, when I moved here I wondered why everyone was pregnant and on drugs."
Say what, now?
Oh yes, she moved here during her junior year, from a good school district in Florida. Enrolled in the local public schools. "I couldn't figure out why nobody in English class was capable of writing a sentence. And it seemed that all the girls were pregnant and everyone was taking drugs. You DO know that the nickname for this school district is 'Fort Fertility,' right?"

WHAT?!?! Yeah, apparently the district is so very famous for having the highest or one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation that Jay Leno worked "Fort Fertility" into one of his monologues and it stuck.

And apparently there's a little bit of a meth problem, too.

Gettin' pretty wide-eyed over here, folks.