GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING 26 John Holt is away on his Euro pean lecture trip (a schedule appears elsewhere in this issue). Before he left, he delivered the final re visions for the new edition of HOW CHILDREN LEARN to his Delacorte edi tor. Also (in addition to the events mentioned in GWS #25), he spoke on radio shows aired in Phoenix, Fall River, Mass., and Pittsburg; did a TV show in Pittsburg with home-schooler Katy White, and another TV show, "Speaking Out," in Ontario; gave t h e keynote address at a conference on psychology and education in Newton ville, Mass.; and spoke at the Univer sity of Evansville on his Indiana trip. At John's request, I have start ed doing the radio and TV requests that have come in. My first opportuni ty was an hour-long phone interview from a radio show in Pittsburg; a week later, home-schooler Barbara Rodriguez and I were on a late-night Boston TV talk show. Since then I've been on radio in Providence RI, New York City, and Framingham MA (with Mary Maher). Several of these inter views were prompted by an excellent article by Elin McCoy in the April Parents Magazine on home schooling and compulsory education. No way of knowing when the Peo ple Ma~azine story featuring John-and the Ma ers will be printed - keep a lookout for it. A friend's family invited Tim Chapman to stay with them in Spain, so he left March 28 for a month or two. He intends to learn Spanish while he's there, and later travel around Germany and Italy. Pat Far enga, who had done volunteer work for us, will handle the subscriptions and book orders while Tim is gone. For the first time, we have over 4000 current subscribers to GWS' In the first three months of 1982, we've received about 550 new subs and 400 renewals (which we especially appre ciate) . Delacorte, the publishers of TEACH YOUR OWN, have just sent a flyer about the book to all the peo ple who have written us since John's first appearance on "Donahue" in 1978. Too early to tell yet what kind of response we'll get to the mailing. The newly revised edition of HOW CHILDREN FAIL (the original text plus 20-25,000 words of new writing) will be available by the time you get this. As usual, we'll sell copies from this office: $5.35 + 75¢ post age. The original edition is no long er available. --- Donna Richoux JOHN'S COMI NG SCHEDULE
May 23, 1982: Home-schooling meeting . Contact Nancy Wallace, 119 Irving Place, Ithaca NY 14850.
June 13: Wakefield Unitarian life. And at this point, it's hard to Universalist Church, 326 Main St, imagine it being otherwise. I've Wakefield MA 01880 . 11 AM . Contact never lived in a house that is being Tom or Mary Maher, 245-7634. so fully utilized as this one. It June 25-27: "A Weekend With John feels good ... Holt," Rowe Conference Center, King Highway Rd, Rowe MA 01367. $60-100. Contact Doug Wilson, 413-339-4216 .. . VICTORY IN IDAHO July 22-25: Homesteaders' Festi val. Contact Norm & Sherrie Lee, RD 2 From Debbie Jones (ID): Box 151, Addison NY 14801. July 26: Florida Atlantic Univer . .. We have had an exciting time sity, Boca Raton FL 33431; 305 here the last month or so ... The 395-5100. Contact Edward Dejnozka, state superintendent of public College of Education. instruction introduced a bill to make the local school boards have jurisdic tion over unaccredited private schools in their district. Their FROM PEGGY stated intent was to get at these friends - a note to say many, home schoolers who were calling them selves private schools so that the many t hanks to all of you who have sent me cards and letters of good local boards couldn't get at them ... wishes. i especially like the home The Idaho Federation of Independent Schools introduced an alternative made cards; i make them myself for special people and occasions . for bill which would have done the same those of u wondering why . .. i was in thing except it limited the subjects a grisly and bizarre accident. you they could require to language may have read of or seen on '60 min skills, American history and govern utes,' the case of the 'faulty ford ment, geography, and basic mathemati transmission recall'? well, on feb. cal computation. We were against it 20 my '73 thunderbird, which was too. There was another bill to have included in that recall case, jumped private schools register with the out of 'park' into 'reverse,' and state each year and report the name began rolling down my driveway. as i of the director, the principal, the stepped back to avoid the moving car number of teachers and number of stu i lost my footing and slipped to the dents. At the present time even this ground, landing under the car. the is not required in Idaho; the ldaho front wheel rolled over my left arm, Constitution is very limiting on pub jaw, and nose, and kerplunked onto lic school authority, stating specifi the right arm . the left arm sustained cally that it has authority over multiple bruises, my nose was gashed PUBLIC instruction. The legislature - i suspect from a piece of gravel so far had been consistent in its sup and my right arm was seriously frac port of this principle; they are not tured. quick to give public school people i should be pretty well healed ~ control of private education even by the end of may, but until then my so much as having the private schools ability to help is strongly cur register with them ... tailed. i have a homemaker at the We did a lot of phoning and a h ouse, and i'm ordering the books we lot of writing . We even went over to sell from there. i can put in a few Boise (five hour drivel and testified hours a week at the office, but get before the Senate HEW Committee when very sore quickly. my one-handed they had a hearing. At first the typing is easiest in lower case only, Christian school people and large pri a nd even that pulls and yanks at my vate schools were very leery of being back and s h oulders. seen with us. They wanted us to keep luckily the plans for john's quiet because we were the ones who europe tour needed only final touch were giving private schooling a bad es. a lot of other work will be name or something .. . I used John's delayed somewhat, but all considered "legislative strategy" from TEACH i'm pretty up to date. so, my thanks YOUR OWN almost verbatim. Those that again for the generous and much appre heard me speak thought it was ciated concern . now on to law suits great ... One after another, some and healing, backed by a healthy great people gave some excellent tes regard for nothing short of a miracle. timony: Linda Q. Jones, Ph.d.; Susan - peggy durkee Bond, certified teacher; Ed Bond; Paula West; Leslie Bair; Sherrel Olsen - each in turn making important points ... Paula used what Donna gave LIVING LI FE FULLY her over the phone about the legisla George Levenson (CA) wrote: tion going on in other states. Paula made it sound as if everyone else in . . . Without knowing exactly how the country was going just the oppo or why, I seem to have reached a site way and trying to make it easier frame of mind wherein my children's for parents to teach their own ... presence at home is not "instead of After the hearing, it was as being in school . " They carryon their though the ice had been broken. Many lives much the same way I/we adults Christian school people came up to conduct ours, playing with each other shake my hand and congratulate me ... and by themselves; being happy, sad, We had stood up and let them know we grumpy according to the match of mood were responsible people, parents try and situation; being bored, being ing to do a good job, people with cre intensely interested, fretting, care dentials and titles, people who know free, depending, it seems, on such the law. They were impressed and felt variables as the weather, their hung the legislators were too ... er or tiredness, and all the other Well, we have finally defeated factors that make humans such inter all the bills . The two bills which esting and unfathomable creatures. would have given control to local . . . Watching them play, sing, school boards were killed in commit squabble, eat, dance, read, bathe, tee. The registration bill was killed run, sleep, look out for each other, on the Senate floor, 19 to 9' We felt sort out disagreements, share so that especially good about this because it inequalities get ironed out (or was pretty much out in the open that don't) - watching all this and more it was a home school issue and still has been a framework for experiencing they were all defeated. I feel that
2 we actually had an influence in de feating these bills. ... There are between 50 and 100 families te ac h ing their children at home in Idaho ~now. Sometimes I feel as if we've got a tiger by the tail, or as if we are riding on the crest of a huge wave that is rising and rising up and nothing anyone can do will stop it ...
HAPPY IN ITHACA Nancy Wallace (NY) wrote in an article in Inquiry magazine, 3/29/82: ... We had been teaching our ten year-old son, Ishmael, at home for three years when we moved from rural New Hampshire to Ithaca in upstate New York. As for Ishmael's sister, Vita, who was six, s he had been learn ing right along with the rest of us since the day she was born. ... The quality and variety of the resources here for children are incredible. As soon as we moved I found myself racking my brains over which of four ballet schools to send the kids to. We had a choice of two music schools and three or four dif ferent types of drama and art class es, plus a gymnastics center, a fine city library, and the university lib rary where Ishmael wanders around in the stacks practically in ecstasy. Then there are two state parks within bicycling distance, and a shopping district that the kids can walk to by themselves, complete with bookstores, record stores, a bagel shop, and a Greek pizza place. And when Ishmael wants to earn money, he has three elderly neighbors to work for, shovel ing their snow, raking leaves, and mowing lawns. Vita, a competent busi nesswoman in her own right, has already made 75 cents by setting up a used-d011 stand right across the street from the school-bus stop ... Here [in New York), families can opt for home-schooling on an elemen tary level with no formal "approval process" at all, if they notify their local public school superintendent and agree to teach a minimum of courses required by law. In Ithaca, we found to our delight, the superin tendent took a relaxed attitude toward our request to keep Ishmael and Vita out of his schools. "Although I think we have a very good school system here," he told us, "how parents decide to educate their child ren is their own business. And if you have the guts to take on the responsi bility of teaching your kids at home; then I think I can assume that you are doing a good job." Right then we knew that this was going to be our town' ... Nancy also wrote to us: .. . These past few months are the first we've ever had that have been completely free. Always before, I was somewhat concerned that the kids should do • smattering of all their school subjects each week - a little math, hand riting, science, etc. since, as I told myself, the school people were oking over our should er. But since oving to Ithaca, we now have no one in charge of us who cares what we do, as long as we do something for five hours a day. At the same time, I find that music is taking up more and more of our time 1~ hrs. a day for eac h of the kids, and after working with them for three hours, I just don't have much energy
for anything. So I'm not putting the effoxt into "school" that I used to, although we still read to the kids at n ight. '," What's surprising is that even without my interferen1c e, they are just as academic as e~er. Sometimes, for example, I'll start to feel guilty and be about to ask Vita if she'd like to do a little reading or writing, but when I find her, she'll be lying on her bed with a book, or typing on Bob's typewriter, or work ing in her math book. And often, out of the corner of my ear, I'll hear Ishmael say to himself resignedly, "Well, I guess I'd better do some math." And yesterday he handed me a five-page letter he'd written to me (to further ~ education) on the life and times of-Camillo Benso Cavour. I still try as much as possible to keep a journal of the kinds of things the kids do each day, mostly for my own peace of mind. If you are a teacher, you can just teach every day for six hours and feel fine, because you did your best, regardless of how much the kids actually learned. But if you don't teach, it is so easy to really worry about how much your kids are learning, and for me, the journal is a way to ease that worry, since the kids are so constant ly busy doing neat things and the journal helps me focus on them ... NEWS FROM ALL OVER
From Linda McFarlane, 301 Learn Lane, Kalispell MT 59901: .•. Just a word to let you know what is happening in Montana. The State Board of Public Instruction had a meeting in December to try to figure out a way to put restrictions on private schools and home schoolers . .. The turnout from private schools and religious organizations was great. The Board decided to make a ruling that appeared to say home schooling was OK ... However, in fact, what the ruling means is the Board doesn't ~are where the i nstruction is taught. They are only concerned with whether instruction is being taught or not, and if it is adequate. They leave that judgement up to the county superintendent. The State also has no authority to say whether the child is truant - that is up to the county attorney ... I still feel we've made pro gress ... There is record of a home schooler cooperating with a school in Missoula, participating in some school functions ... Judy Duerr (NE) wrote: ... We will have a radio program in Lincoln (Nebraska) on KZUM 89.5 FM every Monday, 12:30-2:30 PM, a call in talk show called "Choices in Educa tion." It will feature news concern ing home-schooling families, book reviews, current events of an educa tional nature, self-teaching or learn ing experiences, etc, and calls from all ages. This is a public access sta tion, only 10 watts, doesn't reach very far. But we are having a great time learning about radio and working the mixing board, turntables, phone, mikes, tape-players, and so on. Rog and I are hosting the s how and will take turns on the board. Our children want shows also, so as soon as we have our third-class license we can run the station for their show, or at least be there to keep it
legal. They must submit their show idea on a form for that purpose, and a taped sample of what their show would be like ... There is also a public access TV channel; I haven't researched that yet, but will soon ... From Sharon Hillestad, 9669 E l23rd St, Hastings MN 55033: ... 1 am going to enclose a copy of the amended bill that has gotten out of the education committee. It is just about as fuzzy as the original law [GWS #24) . I don't think it is too hard to live with, myself. The kids and I attended the session where this was finally brought for a vote. Holly and Matt video-taped the pro ceedings; I testified before the committee at the last minute. It was well received. ... Please notify your readers that there will be a packet made available to interested families. It will include a roster of Minnesota families presently hom e-schooling who are willing to assist new families, a list of correspondence schools and newsletters, and a section on field trips to take in the state. People can write to me and send 50¢ in stamps (I am co-ordinating the pack et, but several families will have input) ... [DR: A reader just told us that Bill 1459 "was pulled off the floor by Willis Ekens, the author, because he did not like the way the com promise bi 11 turned out ... ") Andy Peterson (PA) wrote: ... Just heard from State Senator Hess that House Bill 1300 will be amended to remove "certificated" and reinstate current "properly quali fied" [GWS #25). The amendment has been drafted and no opposition expect ed. Good news ... [DR:) And while we're on the sub ject of Pennsylvania law: In the "Regulations of the State Board of Education of Pennsylvania," Chapter 11, "Pupil Attendance," I found this interesting paragraph: "Section 11.33. Dual enrollment - nonpublic school bupils enrolled bart time in the ~u lic schools. Mem ership and atten ance of nonpublic school pupils lawfully enrolled part time in the public schools shall be recorded and counted on an equivalent full-time basis for attendance pur poses and reimbursement." Has anyone taken advantage of this provision? Sounds like a good thing for Pa. families to point out to their local school officials . Does anyone know of similar regulations in other states? John Ellis of the WISCONSIN ASSO CIATION OF PARENT TEACHERS (Rt 3 Box 84, Shell Lake WI 54871; 715-469 3272) and Peggy Lentz of FREEDOM IN CHOICE IN EDUCATION (1757-21st Av, Kenosha WI 53140; 414-552-7755) sent us information on some current Wiscon sin legislation they are concerned about. One is Assembly Bill 1096, which makes contributing to truancy a criminal offense; another is House Bill 1093, which establishes a proce dure for private schools that are denied approval by their local school boards to appeal to the State; and, third, new rules drafted by the De-
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
3 partment of Public Instruction, sub mitted to the Assembly 2/15/82, which outline procedures for the State Superintendent's review and approval of "instructional programs elsewhere than at school." John Ellis also says, "Mildred Anderson, Ph.D, in charge of adminis tering the 'One-Family Non-Public School Regulations' ... in the fall of 1981, refused to allow a parent even to submit an application for the Home Tutorial program and that parent teacher is now standing trial in court for refusing to put his child back in public school. At the same time last fall, Ms. Anderson allowed a parent-teacher to start teaching her children at home even before the parent-teacher had submitted an appli cation for the Home Tutorial pro gram ... There is an unwritten law at the DPI that if the parent-teacher does not have two or more years of college or is poor, the parent teacher is refused Home Tutorial Pro gram approva 1 ... " Not everyone is aware of the long lag time between when GWS is put together and when it actually reaches readers' hands. If you have an announcement you would like readers to know about, you should write to us at least 4 months in advance. Here are two events that will already have taken place by the time many of you see this: a h ome -schooling confer ence, Apr. 16-18, 1982, at ANOTHER PLACE, Greenville NH 03048 (603-878 9883), and a conference on "Informa tion Networking for Alternatives to Public Schooling," May 1, Olds, Alber ta; Robert Fisher, 556-3447. - DR INDIANA CASE DISMISSED
Theodore Amshoff, Jr., who is on our "friendly lawyers" list, wrote in January: ... We are presently involved in several cases ... One of these (in Salem, Indiana) involves the prosecu tion of a father who formerly was Chairman of the Department of Psycho logy at Northeaster n Illinois Univer sity, where he had previously re ceived numerous awards for his teach ing abilities. Likewise, the mother had previously taught in the paro chial schools of Chicago. Their child ren are receiving an education far surpassing their public school peers in academic achievements . Nonethe less, the State has commenced crimin al prosecution against these caring parents. Because of the factual strength of the case, and the principle of the parents, the defense will be quite thorough. We are conducting the case at the trial level with an eye toward future litigation in the appellate courts. I believe the case has the potential of establishing a precedent for parental rights in education. It is factually strong, and legally but tressed by certain favorable aspects of Indiana law, in addition to the persuasive federal constitutional arguments generally found in such cases ... At the same time, Mr. Amshoff sent us his lengthy and excellent "Memorandum in Support of Defendants' Motion to Dismiss." Then on March 18, he wrote: ... 1 am quite pleased to inform
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
you that the Judge has dismissed all charges against Victor and Mary Dufour in criminal prosecution of them for the home education of their children. We are quite pleased with the victory in this matter . . . MORE COURT NEWS
Besides the Dufour case, we also heard that charges against home schoolers Fred and Anne Cato of Concord, North Carolina, were dropped, on the grounds that the com pulsory attendance laws in that state were vague and contradictory. The state is appealing the decision. The Catos' lawyer also told us that Larry Delconte, who, as we reported in GWS #25, .had charges against him dismissed in January, was taken back to court, reindicted, con Victed, given a suspended sentence, and is now appealing' According to the lawyer, the different personali ties of the judges were responsible for the different decisions. A second court loss we have heard of - Deirdre Purdy reported in Alternatives to Education that the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled on 12/15/81 that the children of Bobby and Esther Riddell had a right to education that superseded the par ents' right to freedom of religion, which they had claimed in support of teaching their children at home. Deirdre will send us a copy of the ruling as soon as she gets it .
besides the fact that it should help silence the debate over whether peo ple should be allowed to home -school - is that if the attempted bill should fail, the impressi on in the general population will be "Home schooling is now illeg al, " whe n actu ally, it will be just as legal as it ever was. If you read the h ead line HOME SCHOOL BILL FAILS, and nothing else, what conc lusi on would ~ draw? After a similar attempt in COIOrado to ease restri ct ions failed a while ago, someone wrote us, "I'd 1 ike to teach my child at hom e but I h eard it's now against the law ." We want to lessen the chances of such misunder standing. . The latest clipping we have, from the Arizona Republic, 3/5/82, has some good news: ... A policy that would allow parents in the Tempe Elementary School District t o teach their child ren at home if they assume full responsibility for the students' edu cation has be en proposed by the dis trict's governing board . In additio n, two families Wednes day were granted permissi on by the board t o teach their children at home for religious reasons. ... Last month, the board debated whether parents who are a llowed to teach their children should be required to be certified teachers ... School Superintendent Ralph Goitia told the board that the Arizona attor ney general had indicated to him that parents did no t have to be certified to be "competent." ...
NEWS FROM ARIZONA
[DR:) In the beginning o f Feb ruary, lots of people sent us clip pings from Arizona, where a bill attempting to make home schooling easier passed the State House of Rep resentatives. An unusual amount of the publicity was negative ("Our pub lic schools have been the foundation of this countr y, " etc). However, at least one newspaper, the Phoenix Gaz ette, did have a supportive editorial. - - The present Arizona law says, "A person shall be excused by the board of trustees from the duty prescribed in subsection A [school attendance) when it is shown to the satisfaction of the board and the county school superintendent that: (1) the child is instructed at home by a competent teacher in the subjects given in the common schools of that state." The proposed bill would change the law to read, "A person is excused from the duty prescribed by subsec tion A if: (1) The child is instruct ed at home in a sustained curriculum in the basic subjects given in the common schools of this state." The bill was due to be voted on in the Senate in March, where the chances for passage were n ot consid ered to be good. No word on this as we go to press. . One thing to note: many of the headlines, editorials, articles, etc, implied that home-schooling would become "legal," "permissible," "allowed," or "s anctioned" under the new law. They didn 't point out that home-schooling is already legal and the new bill would simply make it easier to do. If GWS readers get involved with similar legislation in other states, we hope they stress that hom e-schooling is already permit ted by law in their states, and that indeed families are already doing it, and that they are merely attempting to remove unnecessary restrictions . One reason why this matters
CATHOLIC HOME STUDY
From William L . Bowman, Director of OUR LADY OF VICTORY SCHOOL, PO Box 5181, Mission Hills CA 91345; 213 897-1116 : ... We now hav e about 80 students at ou r San Fernando Valley campus and close to 200 students in our Home Study Program. They live in 26 states, 3 Canadian provinces, and Spain. We continue to grow eac h year. We are n ow gathering information to produce a direct ory of tr aditional Catholic schools and Home Study fami lies who wish to be listed. We are also forming a teacher training course which will be offe red on a home study basis ... FROM PRIVATE SCHOOLS Liz Prohaska, SUNSET HILL SCHOOL, 6250 W Sunset Rd, Tucson AZ 85704 (602-743-7733), writes:
... 1 run a small free school here in Tucson where we have just started a home-schooling program. We have one family enrolled now ... From Kathleen Bottero, CORVALLIS OPEN SCHOOL, 960 SW Jefferson Av, Cor vallis OR 97333: .. . We are a group of families in and around Corva llis who have formed a private school ... A lot of our members are home schoolers who make use of our facilities and resources as they need them. We have sports twice a week, math twice a week, sci~ ence, French and Italic handwriting weekly, a lot of field trips of all sorts ... Every summer we ha ve a sum mer camp in a local park ... For older children we have a junior apprentice
4
ship pr ogram. We'd really like to hear from o ther home-schoolers and small school ers . We have parents' meetings once a month, and we'd be delighted to have guests ... From Les Garber, HORIZONS SCHOOL, 229 Ponce de Leon Av, Atlanta GA 30308; 404-897-1798:
charge and now an accredited diploma ... There is a small gradua tion fee. This diploma program is available to students of other schools including private home schools. ... The JHLC now has two stu dents, age 15, who graduated and are attending the University of Utah and University of Oklahoma. We're more and more convinced that home sc hool ers get in easier and do better in college than public schoolers ...
The present statutory scheme compels parents or guardians to cause children between the ages of six and sixteen:
[DR:] And finally, Lawrence Williams of OAK MEADOW SCHOOL, PO Box 1051, Ojai CA 93023, has started pub lishing Livin~ Education: The Monthly Journal of Oa Meadow School. It ~s handsomely printed, with photographs and drawings, and with contributions from some GWS families, as well as children's writing, book reviews, and articles on education. The Williams have decided to make this publication available to people other than just Oak Meadow home-schoolers, and we hope GWS readers will check it out . Lawrence says they will give one free issue on request; subscriptions will be $15 for 12 issues.
Pursuant to the above statute, parents or guardians have three options in regard to meeting their obligation. They may send their child ren to the public schools of the dis trict, they may send them to a day school or they may cause them to receive equivalent instruction else where. The obligation of the local district is limited to requiring that one of these three options is provi ded to a child. If parents opt to send their children to a "day school," equivalency of instruction is accepted since there presently does not exist any mechanism for the regulating of private day schools in the state of New Jersey. If parents elect to educate their children at home, they bear the burden of intro ducing evidence that there has been compliance with [the statute]. Once such evidence has been introduced, the ultimate burden of persuasion as . to the lack of equivalency of instruc tion rests with the state, or in fact with the local district which is a creation of the state . Further, equi valency has been interpreted to be limited to academic equivalency and not equivalency of social development (State vs. Massa, 95 NJ Super 382, 1967). It must likewise flow from such decision that equivalency means equivalency of curricular content (e.g. math, science, history, etc.) not equivalency or quality of instruc tion or outcome . Having dealt with the general
question of the local district's
responsibility, let me proceed to
answer your specific questions.
... "How does the local board determine student progress at home?" The local board has no responsibility for determining progress. "Must students take the M.B.S.
tests or other relevant tests?" Since
there is no responsibility to evalu
'ate progress, there is no authority to require testing. "Are students who do not attend classes also precluded from extra curricUlar activities such as dances and trips?" Since students who are educated at home are not carried on your registers, they have no right to attendance at any school function limited to enrolled students or parti cipation in any extra-curricular acti vities . ... "What happens if the board approves the program and the student is rejected from college entrance and decides to sue the board for approv ing the program?" Since the board's sole responsibility is to assure equi valen~y of program and not outccmes, it is nct responsible for a student's failure to obtain admittance Lo col lege. Furthe,more, no board is pre sently responsible fOI failure of a student to obtain admission to col lege even if they do attend the schools of the local district. ... Your final request relating to equivalency determinations being made at the state level is impracti cal since the responsibility for en-
... We are in the midst of set ting up a curriculum library with the Georgia Coalition of Alternative Com munity Schools (PO Box 20, Rydal GA 30171). The books, resource materi als, and workbooks will be available to any home-schooling family. We plan a Okeefenokee Swamp trip in March with members of the Georgia Coali tion ... My colleague, Lorraine Wil son, and I are glad to assist with curriculum questions (her Ph.D. is in Curriculum Development). Horizons is also set up to do placement and IQ standardized testing, and diagnostic work for parents who are concerned. We are also considering some courses taught by home-schooling parents which will include Horizons students. ... We also have two openings for teachers at Horizons next year which might be of interest to a home schooling family. We need one junior high and one senior high teacher ...
DEGREE PROGRAM
From Harold Ingraham, CALUMET SCHOOL, Smyrna NY 13464; 607-627-6670:
From Les Carr, Dean of Faculty, COLUMBIA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY, 150 Shoreline, Mill Valley CA 94941 (415-332-7832):
... Calumet School is an enroll ing system for families of home school students, ' lith a home study selection of courses or advisement services for individualized studies. We try to serve the specific educa tional needs of the student and not press a stereotyped curriculum upon him. Our Independent Family Schools Resource Center is a part of Calumet and will cont~\ue as a problem solving servic~ to whoever seeks our aid ... From Prof. Harold Baer, HALVI SCHOOL, 8 Hortencia, Brownsville TX 78521; 512-546-1449 (evenings): ... We're getting about one inquiry a week, maybe more. One stu dent from Houston is now studying at home through us. The legal situation in Texas is now better than ever. Schools may now be exempt from supervision and requirements. This, of course, makes home-schooling freer, too, by inference. The cost of studying at home under Halvi's guidance is: Registra tion, $25, Tuition, $25 per school year, Books, $20-30, Correspondence, $10. We will give free consultation by telephone, preferably weekends ... From James Salisbury of the JOHN HOLT LEARNING CENTER, 8446 Harrison St, Midvale UT 84047; 801-255-6751: ... We are pleased to announce a no-nonsense High School Graduation program specifically designed for home schoolers and/or students who wish to en'ter college early. Thi~ is a completely individualized, extreme ly flexible program based on actual achievement and competence rather than hours spent in class ... The JHLC, a non-profit organization, has been proud to provide an approved "correspondence school" free of
... Columbia Pacific University is authorized under the California Department of Education to provide Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral degree programs in a variety of fields. We currently have approximate ly 2500 enrolled students and gradu ates; among them are quite a number of published authors, leaders in science and industry, and men and women with faculty positions at major academic institutions. All work at the University is done on an individualized, nonresiden tial basis, with the student design rng-an independent study course with an assigned faculty mentor ... Stu dents can be awarded academic credits for educational experiences accom plished previously, and also for rele vant work experience ... Many students complete their degree programs in less than a year ... The total expenses are in the range of $2,000 ... GOOD NEWS FROM N.J .
Ann Bodine and Nancy Plent told us that this letter by the New Jersey Commissioner of Education, Fred Burke, is being widely circulated. It was written Jan. 25, 1982, to a school superintendent. Some excerpts: ... 1 am writing in response to your letter of October 27, 1981 in which you raise a number of questions in regard to children receiving home instruction ... Allow me to begin my response by indicating to you that an Attorney General's opinion rendered to this Department states: "You are advised, therefore, that there does not exist an obliga tion on the part of a local board of education to ensure through a testing program that an equivalent education is being provided to children receiving instruction in a private school or at home."
"to attend the public schools of the district or a day sc hool in which there is given instruction equivalent to that provided in the public schools for children of simi lar grades and attainments or to receive equivalent instruction else where than at school." NJSA 18A:38-25.
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
5 forcing the compulsory education stat ute rests with the local district through the courts and it is the courts who must determine if the local district has met the burden of proof for demonstrating lack of equivalency ... INDEPENDENT STUDY
From Pamela Wright, 32802 Valle Rd #140, San Juan Capistrano CA 92675; 714-496-2466: ... 1 represent the California State Department of Education as a consultant and member of the Task Force on Independent Study. Indepen dent Study legislation was passed in 1976, but because it is not a manda ted program, many administrators are unaware of the legal guidelines. Actually, home study or home teaching would fit nicely into the Independent Study design and does not need to present a problem to public school administrators. I believe the major objection to home teaching would be the misconcep tion that it is illegal and that school districts would lose money by not being ab le to generate ADA (state aid). Through Independent Study, home teaching can be legal and the school district can generate full ADA ... [From a later letter : 1 Yes, I do know of families teaching their own children on both a part-time and a full-time basis. If you knew of some one having difficulty making arrange ments for home teaching via Indepen dent Study, it is because the dis trict superintendent was not know ledgeable about the law ... NEW GROUPS
Here are some new local home schooling groups and newsletters we have heard from. As always, if you write to these groups, please enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope: HomeNet, PO Box 92, Escondido CA 92025; Mary Clare Schlesinger, 741-5075; John Boston, 749-1522. Bread For Children Home School Seminar, PO Box 1017, Arcadia FL 33821. Georfia Unschoolers Newsletter, 4818 Joy ane, Lilburn GA 30247; Editor, Connie Shaw. Indiana Home-Schoolers, 707 E Main, N Judson 46366; Barbara Mazanec. Citizens For Home Education (Louisiana); 3404 Van Buren, Baker LA 70714; Cathi Edward (504-775-5472) and Katherine Reves. Maine Home Education, PO Box 253, Winthrop ME 04364; Donald Wismer. Nebraska Home Schoolin~ Ex ghaggi' Box 96, Rockv~lle N 68871; et uehlke. SASE required. New Jersei Famil Schools Asso ciation, RD 1 ox 7, al~fon NJ 07830; Meryl Feinsod. Herita e Home Education Resource Center, teu en St, yracuse I11UB; Ferrol Hutchinson.
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FROM AUSTRALIA
Dr. Christine Gazjago, 1/6 Ivy St, Prahan, Victoria 3181, Australia, wrote to John: ... It is a long time since you left us here in Melbourne, all in a high and very positive state of mind regarding childre~, education, and many other matters you touched on. Part of the reason I havE not written
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al l those gadgets readily accessible. earlier is that the response to your A little while later, when our land visit was so strong and widespread, lord was doing some repairs, I that it is only now that Lauris checked some of our doorways for ver Jephcott and I are recovering our ticality because they were not shut senses' ting properly. Ami seemed a little Thanks to your very timely interested but lost interest quickly. visit, people who previously felt At some stage we measur ed ourselves. isolated are now emerging from all Then the whole business seemed to be corners of Melbourne and Victoria, to forgotten for about six or nine express their views on education, months. Out of the blue, Ami asked me seek help, and find out more informa for the tape and wanted to measure tion on alternatives. Also, thanks to your kind permission to videotape the height of one of her beloved toys, and so she had not forgotten your talk, the impact of your visit will continue to reverberate for some after all' Educators (even many alternative time yet. We had a first small-scale viewing of the edited tape on Satur schools, keen to keep up with some of the basic "survival" skills like math day, and the response of those who and reading) all seem to ignore the had not seen you personally was posi natural rhythms and patterns (stops, tive and thoughtful. starts, and consolidation periods) of ... My estimation is that out of children's learning. Even th ough the 200 or so people on our AERG (Alternative Education Resource unprogrammed learning looks unorderly a nd chaotic on the superficial level, Group) mailing list, 50 or so are I am now more convinced than ever, seriously contemplating or already watching Ami and Pabl o, about just involved in educating school-aged children out of school ... Now that how orderly and beautiful it is, pro vided the child is given th e oppor AERG is receiving more publicity, tunity to observe and participate in this figure is sure to grow ... So life freely, and feels free to ask many of the people I've spoken to would keep their children out of questions and try things out for school if there were more people herself. doing the same in their area ... In .. . One day recently Ami half some ways, AERG is resolving the jokingly spoke about it being "mid Catch-22 situation by getting two or night" during the day. Midnight is more OSCillating people together. seen by her as ve r y, very late, a ... It is sad that people wanting time by which people should be in to do what they feel is so right for bed. It's very special some how - per them feel hampered by restrictions haps Cinderella's fairy godmother such as their social and own inner made it so special. Anyway, I then resources. Even people who obviously explained lightly and cautiously that seriously question the value of insti the sun was up in the sky and it was tutionalized education are still midday or noon. Then I waited . If I'd bound by deeply ingrained myths about intruded on a special construction of what "educati on" is or ought to be. her own, she would have let me know These same people (up until recently, in some way . On the other hand, she including me) feel so unsure of their is a stickler for accurate, briefly own ability to teaco-things ... not conveyed information, a nd this time only subject matter that is obscure this is what she wanted . Her face lit to them, but things : ~ey already know up and then I explained briefly how the sun's position is related to about. Still, I am ha~py to say that many of these people I have spoken to time . But very briefly. Then some are generally so open and enthusias other concern t ook her attention . tic that they quickly see their own When she was dropping off to sleep teaching potential in a more positive that night she said, "Can you draw light and realize just ho~ much they pictures of the sun at various points are capable of . of time ? " And so, who needs schools as they are? .. In my own case, I'm seeing already how little direct teaching is One of our most staid and necessary with Ami (5) ... Ami's whole respected teacher's colleges, day is playtime from which she needs Burwood, has made a community educa no break. Even meal times are a busy tion section available to home though slower time of activity .. . I schoolers. This consists of a am also learning how just simple ans theatrette, a curriculum library, and wers to very profound, complex (to me the advice of staff on any teaching matter . at least!) questions are eno¥gh ... ... Ami visited a tiny a terna ... Marion Pears and I are wri tive school with a lovel y warm teach ting down each day all the questions er where the children were asked to our children ask and what kinds of practice writing a certain letter of information these cover, to see how the alphabet which they were "doing" wide a range of subject matter can be that day. Ami simply balked. Yet at covered through questi ons alone. We home if she wants to write a letter feel that th ere is a natural propensi or a person's name or a (usually fun ty in children for what the Adelaide ny) phrase she wants to see written, Education Dept. calls "balance and scope" in learning ... It might be she is brimming with enthusiasm. interesting if GWS readers similarly Never have I commented on any errors noted their children's questions and in her writing, yet she has set her self standards of excellence and is the range of subject matter the ensu ing discussi ons covered ... proud when she writes "nicel y. " It is, I feel, a natural thing to gravi tate towards order and neatness, if the environment and people around are GROWING IN ONTARIO sympathetic. Anna Myers (Ont.) writes: ... Her self-teaching of num bers, geometry, and measurement, has ... Drew's still in hockey and do also meant that no "set" sessions are ing ve y well . He has a different necessary. Some time ago when we were attitu e than many kids on the team . watching some bricklayers building a He plays his hardest to win - with fence next door and using measuring team spirit. He is most of t en the kid tapes, levels, and plumb bobs, she who gets the puck, and instead of hog learned a lot about measurement, but never seemed to gravitate to our own ging it, he passes it to someone else to score the goal. He doesn't mind measuring equipment at home. We had
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6 when they lose, it's the playing that counts! He gets up every morning and does exercises to "get i n shape." He watches NHL hockey on TV with intelli gence, to get ideas; he quite often writes little drawings of plays he's going to try. Drew's finally reading! From that sentence you must realize that we've been very anxious about this particular area ... The first year that we homeschooled, Drew was six, and, true to our beliefs, we left him alone and he was coming along nicely. He would ask for us to write letters for him, he'd copy notes, etc. We read to him a lot' Then, the trouble with the school board happened, they called him in for testing, and made him feel stupid when he couldn't read the list of words. They also made us very nervous about maybe having a court fight on our hands, with not a leg to stand on - since he really couldn't read' So, that summer poor Drew had reading pushed down his throat every day, until August when we had him tested by a private psychologist who put him at the "halfway through grade 1" level. We wanted this in case we had to go to court. Drew realized the severity of our problem at the time and went along with it so he wouldn't have to return to school, but as soon as we were "safe" in our own school, he forgot everything that he knew, and instead of looking forward to reading as an adventure, as he had done before, he began consciously to avoid it. He was also very frustra rea:-as he wanted to read National Geo~raphic so badly, but he figured rea ing was too hard and too much work. No, not too much work - he's not afraid of work - I think he thought it would take too long! Anyway, we left him for a year, and a couple of months ago I suggest ed we slot sorr,e time in the morning for reading. This is just "him and me" time and he can ask any questions he wants about the words he's read ing. He seemed relieved that I brought up the topic again and this time has attacked the job with gusto - it shows, too! He's so pleased with himself and all I usually do is sit with him - not too many words are too hard for him to figure out. He's 8~ now and I would say, at the beginning stages - maybe where a Grade One kid would be at the end of the first year, but his progress is in leaps and bounas. We'll let you know when he's above grade level; we're not too interested in keeping track (testing, etc.), but when he can finally read" his favorite wildlife books, space books, etc . - we'll know' Yesterday, Drew asked, "Does the world move around in space?" I ans wered, "Yes, 365 days to go around the sun." Then immediately after wards, he said, "How are hurricanes made?" I wondered all yesterday about how he could have two such unrelated questions so close together on the tip of his tongue - he does this all the time. Most of the time I can 't answer his questions so he has to wait until his next trip to the library, and then he has to make a mental note of remembering what he wants to know. He does remember quite a few of the topics-fie's asked ques tions about . ... I've been thinking that an important part of his learning is just asking the questions; whether he gets an answer or not doesn't seem to matter. Maybe just the sound of the question is enough for nrs-Drain to catalogue his queries for future
reference - then slowly as they're answered, his brain crosses them off! ... On work ... Burt is editor of a magazine, "Ontario Out of Doors." He is able to take us on many of his hunting and fishing trips and he works at home a fair bit. I was a teacher but will never return' Right now another homescnooring friend and her kids, and me and my kids, are thinking of starting an egg-delivery business which we hope will grow into a travelling "Health Food Store." ... We have arranged to have swim ming lessons at the local pool - all ages and all levels in one class. We have two toddlers, four adults, and six kids who range in age from four to eleven. One teacher teaches all of us and we have a ball. We have the whole pool to ourselves since they don't have man y people who use it dur ing the day' The teacher has to be very flexible because of the wide range of ages and levels, so there's lots of free swimming time and a nice mix of stroke correction. We also take advantage of the pre-school skating at the arena once a week. Recreation departments love to have people using their facilities during the day so they can justify spending the fortune they spent to build them. They'll usually work things out on our terms, if we want daytime hours.-- ... We've arranged for group music lessons now! We can choose our instruments and borrow them, included in the low group price. I guess we'll be th e trrst Homeschoolers' Band! The teacher's pleased she can earn some money during the day ...
A TEXAS FAMILY From Linda Mills (TX): ... Tammy is 14 and often helps her public school friends with their assignments and projects. Last summer she said, "I'm bored." I said, "I'm not a social director," so she took her tape recorder and guitar (and often a brother or sister) and visit ed the two nursing homes in town. She interviewed a lady in her 90's who had traveled allover the world, and many other folks who were happy to reminisce about "the olden days." Mike is 12, an "L.D." kid who, a year ago, read low first-grade books, haltingly. It made me nervous to listen to him' So I quit, guiltily, meaning to start again soon. About eight months later, driving home from the grocery store, I was amazed to hear, "Hey, Mom, let's make this ... " He was reading, smoothly, the recipe on a flour sack. Who knows what his reading level is now? He has pen pals from your dir ectory (bless their hearts, they print, too') . He's in charge of our garden, and very graciously "needs" the younger children's help. He cooks, especially breakfast, as I'm a slow starter - helps his dad with auto repairs, those "two-man jobs" I HATED - keeps everyone's bikes repaired - loves computer games - and has recently begun joining in "adult" conversations when we have friends over. (And, being the rud e person I am, when they tried to ignore him, I said, "Uh, Mike has something to say.") Amy is 9 and was always some thing of a free spirit anyway. She loved school and her teachers, and they loved her. She was beginning to have some problems wItfi her friends
because of the teachers' obvious preference for her ... Hearing "Let's don't play with her, she's so smart" hurt her badly. She is now able to play with those kids, as they appar ently no longer feel threatened by her. Amy likes to make things shine, crochet, mother her dolls and cats, read, skate. But I'm afraid she's still hooked on workbooks. She cried when I told her I wasn't going to buy any more. I'm not sure what to do guess I'll buy them and let her tire of them on her own. David, now 7, was tested at the beginning of first grade, was deter mined to be very bright, then was con tinually harassed to achieve, threat ened with a "lower group." I couldn't believe the nasty notes printed on his papers, ostensibly to him but obviously for my benefit. His suffer ing lasted from September to January. He spent a lot of time hiding behind the couch, crying ... I watched this child shrivel before my eyes. Then I watched him h eal. I couldn't make any sense out of your talk about "thinking math" (math is just something you follow the rules and do) until Dave informed me, "Hey, Mom,J won't go two ways" (He's not into fractions) "but 30 will - 15 and 15. Nine won't but 900 will'" He and the Cuisenaire rods get along just fine. He, like his dad, loves word games, puns and such. The two of them sometimes make me want to hide behind the couch. And last, Jess. (Did you think there was no end?) Jess is 4. Last year I was so busy with the other four, trying to shovel the knowledge of the world into their minds, that I had little time for him. Guess who learned the most' Jess was born at home, and his dad has often said, "At least we seem to be doing the right things with one kid." Jess just minds his own business, reads - having taught himself, as I did - draws, copies book covers (and I'd never noticed they come in all styles of print.) He writes beautiful messages: DEAR GOD I HOP I SEE YOO SUM TIM. I took piano lessons for two years - "no talent." Tried again last year - gave up in defeat. Finished reading HOW CHILDREN FAIL, put the book down, sat down and ~. That was two weeks ago, and n~y am I still playing, but every child has started doing so. Tammy, who is very good at it, quit her lessons and now plays every day without being told to. She hated her classical pieces; when I told her, "So don't play them," she decided they weren't so bad after all. We have a new rule: NO CRITI CISM. Don't laugh at Mom's piano play ing. Don't correct another person's grammar, spelling, etc., unless he asks . If someone asks how to spell a word, DON'T say "Look it up in the dictionary," tell him. One surprise for me - Mike-rIZ) feels no shame at asking David (7) how to spell a word. And wh y should he? Dave isn't "ashamed" to ask Mike to put air in his bike tire' Next I'm going to try drawing. Every year, the teachers determined in the first week that I had no artistic ability - left me alone and gave me a B because you can't fail a "good kid" just because she isn't talented. I'm very excited about DRAWING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRAIN. We did have a bit of back sliding yesterday when we were paint ing and Amy said, "Mom, I don't think flowers are supposed to float up into
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7 the air toward the clouds .•• Oh, Mom! I'm sorry'" Undaunted , I tacked my picture on display right alongside theirs! Today Tammy made a lovely design with Cuisenaire rods and is copying it with oil paints. The boys are making robot suits; Amy is studyi ng American history, those fascinating colonial times. This is the year Jess would be going to kindergarten and I'd be "free." ... My head has been full of long-forgotten scripture late ly. The one that has been poundi ng at me for daYs is, "Ye shall know the truth an the truth s hall set you free . " ...
one; it looks official. Darrin runs the spotlight for Tidewater Dinner Theater, $40 per week (6 shows). That is why he couldn't go to the Cousteau recep tion. He hopes to be able to run the light board soon, $115/week . He enjoys doing spotlight and is treated as an adult around the theat er. He generally passes for 17 ( he 'll be 15 next month) ... LINCOLN'S EDUCATION
From Manas magazine, 10/7/81: ... Abraham Lincoln told his law partner, William Herndon :
APPRENTICESHIPS
Lyn West of Tennessee ["Their Own Budgets," GWS #23] sent us a Memphis newspaper clipping on her family's home-schooling, which was approved by the school superintendent (unusual in that state). According to the article: ... "Apprenticeships" are arranged for the youngsters each month. They spend time and do actual work if possible with persons in vari ous occupations. The apprenticeships have included time with a librarian, a farmer, and ot hers. They have inter viewed a stock car driver ... Lyn also told us : ... The boys (11 and 9) had three days prior to Christmas on their own with an Indian family that lives totally off the land (no water, elec tricity, heat, etc; they eat only what they hunt, grow, or raise ) in a mountainous, very remote wilderness area north of Nashville. The boys milked goats, chopped firewood, drew water from a stream, played home-made hockey on a frozen pond, climbed mountains, learned about nature, the Indian's strong beliefs about the value of non-waste, water, land, etc. They ate unusual food, slept on the floor of the hand-made dwelling. It was 3 0 • The boys loved it and came h ome full of things to tell us. Next month, with an architect. . . ---WORKING FOR COUSTEAU
Theo Giesy (VA) writes: ... Darrin (14) and Susie (12) volunteer three days a week at the Cous te au Society . They do all sor t s of things, like work in membership. Darrin works mo st ly in the warehouse, packing things members have ordered (books, T-shirts, etc). He also drives the fork-lift. Since they work there so much they were invited to the $50-a-tick et reception th e night before the Cal ypso sailed. Darrin couldn't go so I got to go in his place. I met Jacques and Jearl-Michele Cousteau. Darrin has made friends with Jean-Michele's son Fabien - they are about the same age and have many common i nt erests . I like the Cousteau's attitude toward their employees and volun teers. They appreciate Darrin and Susie v~ry much. They were worrie d about the lack of work permits and the Humber of hours spent, so I wrote a letter on Brook School letterhead saying th at they were working there as part of the Brook School Curricu lum and under the responsibility of Brook School. That satisfied every-
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I never read textbooks for I have no particular motive to drive and whip me to it. As I am constitu ted I don't love to read generally, and ... I feel no interest in what is thus read. I don't, and can't remember such reading. When I have a particular case in hand I have that motive, and feel an interest i n the case - feel an interest in ferreting out the questions to th e bottom - love to dig up the ques tion by the roots and hold it up and dr y it before the fires of the mind. I know that general reading br oa dens the mind - makes it univer sal, but it never makes a precise deep clear mind . The study of parti cular cases does do that thing, as I understand it ... . . . A clergyman asked Lincoln, "What has your education been?" Lincoln replied: Well, as to education, the news papers aI ' correct; I never went to school mOl ~ than six months in my life ... I can say this, that among my earliest recollections I remem ber how, when a mer e child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand. I don't think I ever got angry at anything else in my life. But that always disturbed my temper , and has ever since. I can remember going to my little bed room, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the night walking up and down, and try ing to make out what was the exact meaning of some of their, t o me , dark sayings. I could not sleep, though I often tried to, when I got on such a hunt after an idea, until I had caught it; and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it ove r and over, until I had put it in langu age plain enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend. This was a kind of passion with me, and it h~s stuck by me; for I am never easy now, when I am handling a thought, till I have bounded it North, and bounded it South, and bounded it East, and bounded it West. ... Oh, yes' I "read law," as the phrase is; that is, I became a lawyer's clerk in Springfield, and copied tedious documents, and picked up what I could of law in the intervals of other work. But your question reminds me of a b it of education I had, which I am bound in honesty to mention . In the course of my law-reading, I con stantly came upon the word "demon strate . " I thought at first that I understood its meaning, but soon became satisfied that I did not. I
said to myself, "What do I mean whe n I 'demonstrate' more than when I 'reason' or 'prove'?" I consulted Webster's Dictionary. That told me of "certain proof," "proof beyond the possibilit y of doubt"; but I could form no idea what sort of proof that was. I th ought a great many things were proved beyond a possibility of doubt, without recourse to any such extrao rdinar y process of reasoning as I under stood "demonstrati on" to be . I con sulted all the dicti onari es and books of reference I could find, but with no better r esults. You might as well have defined blue to a blind man . At last I said, "Lincoln, you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means"; and I left my situati on in Springfield, went h ome to my father's house, and stayed there till I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out wha t "demonstrate" means, and we nt back to my law-studies ... EDISON
Two r eaders sent us quotes about Thomas Alva Edison . First, from Isaac Asimov's QUASAR , QUASAR, BURNING BRIGHT: ... He was a puzzling boy from the start . His curious way of asking questions was taken as an annoying peculiarity by the neighbors. When he made little progress at school, his mother inquired and was told by the schoolteacher that the boy was "addled . " His mother, furious, took him out of school. . . . Before he died he had patent ed nearly 1,300 inventions, a record no ot her inventor has ever matched . .. And from an unidentified book: . . . Edison's mother wou ld not s e nd him t o school . .. She kept him home to teach him hers elf . Later he said she was the making of him. This gave him much time for reading, cre ating, inventing that h e wouldn't ha ve had o therwise ... Later, he went to a private school where they told him he read to o much' He felt that if he had stayed in school and gone on to college that he wouldn't have learned as much as he could on his own, nor would he have had time to cultivate particulars . .. SELF-MADE
From the Personal Development Letter ( see GWS #21, page 14): . .. An interview with Mr . Russel (Bill) Gammel, a general contractor, photographer, husband, father, grand father, and self-made man. Bill Gam mel has a lot to sa y about living life in a courageous way while doing what one enjoys, and about becoming self-reliant . Born in Montana in 19 11, Bill became a trapper at age 6 in order to help feed his family which was near starvation ... Bill ran away at 9 years old after a misunder standing with his father. Even though it was not until three years ago that he learned to read, he has much to teach us all ... even those of us who work in affluent corporate environments, and hold grad uate degrees or other commonly respec ted symbols of external success.
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... Q. You've lived your life pretty much the way you've wanted. You've always made a good living, yet I hear you're pretty fussy about the jobs you'll accept. What makes you able to do that? Aren't you afraid of not working, or not having enough bus iness? A. I never work on anything I don't want to work at. I listen care fully to everything my customer wants because he's got to be satisfied. I recently looked at a job where it was obvious the man wouldn't be happy with the job unless I cut a few cor ners and did things so that it wasn't up to code. That's a job I'll turn down quickly. ... Q. What's your feeling about people who complain about being "too old" to do what they really want, or who say they can't find the right job or move into a better position be cause it's too late, or because they have too many responsibilities, or because they didn't get the right breaks in life? A. I want to answer that with a story . A while back, my wife bought me $10.00 worth of tropical fish for a Christmas present. A year later, in addition to my regular work, I was earning $700 a month off of that pre sent - just doing it on the side. Later, I sold that business to a man I know who had been an aircraft work er, but had had a heart attack and thought he couldn't work any more. I showed him exactly what to do, and today that man is the largest dealer in tropical fish in the area. ... 1 also think it was a terri fic blessing that I had no school ing ... what happens to kids when they go to school? All those years under that system, they lose their way once they go there. One thing I kept hold of: my individuality. I'm an individ ual if there ever was one. There are many psople like me, but there is no other me ... SELF-TAUGHT HUSBAND
From a New York reader: ... My husband is a fine example of a nearly home-schooled person except he has shame and feelings of shortcomings attached to it ... His mother kept John home from school a great deal of the time. Sometimes it was because she didn't feel like driving him to school (which was a good distance away), sometimes because she wanted company during her errands and sometimes because she wanted him to do work around the house ... Little did she know that she was doing him a great favor' Even though she was ashamed of her "lack of responsibility" in regard to her son's education, and transferred these feelings to him, he is still glad to have had the freedom to learn on his own. At very young ages John was charged with housekeeping responsibil ities and even home repair and improvements . He figured out how things worked and how to fix them when they didn't - usually because he was searching for something to do after he completed the work his mother asked of him. He painted fences and rooms at his mother's request and learned to figure the amount of paint needed for a particu lar result. ... Now, after receiving a Bache lor of Fine Arts from his university, my husband is a highly respected ex pert in his field, technical theater,
and he is as imaginative at finding a solution to any technical problem now as he was as a child. When others say, "That's not the way things are done," he says "We'll solve the prob lem in the best way possible," and damn the standard procedures if they won't achieve the desired result. John is also a wonderful boss; as production manager for theatrical events, he oversees and directs the work of many stage carpenters and electricians, etc., and everyone seems to enjoy working with him. For that is how he works - with people, learning from them if he can, and enjoying it all. Knowing he is this way, and knowing how he feels he learned all he knows on his own, I am fairly certain that I want our daugh ter (age 2) to be home-schooled ... HOME VS. WORK?
The same reader continued: ... My feelings of uncertainty arise from my own co nfusion about myself and my role in the world. For a long time I wasn't certain that we would ever have children and I was very wrapped up in my life as an arts administrator. Although I was always an assistant, I was happy to serve in this capacity and enjoyed working ... I am still working, part-time most of the year, out of an office in my home. John is the produ~tion manager for an arts festival, and I assist him doing the administrative work while he handles all the technical side. This ha s been ideal for me as a mother, as I work when I can and have much time with my daughter ... I have always had it in my mind that when my work as a mother slacked off, i.e., when all my children are in school, I would re-enter the work world with all of its excitement and independence. I feel like my new con victions about home-schooling con flict with this "dream," or at least postpone it many years. I will have to think very much about myself and my ideas of my life in the next years and find my new feelings . . . COMPUTER JOB
From Cathy Earle (5. Cal.): ... In response to your questions about work (CWS #22): I am currently an editor and computer programmer at a company that develops educational materials. This currently takes me far from home (33 miles one way) for 10 hours a day, 4 days a week, plus driving time' ... I'm expecting my first child now, and I have done a lot of think ing about work/child-rearing/home schooling. What I hope to do is to work at home - doing exactly what I do now, for the same comgany . After all, what I do after my 5-minute drive is receive and respond to let ters, receive and make phone calls, manage people by long distance (the people who work for me are mostly off-site free-lancers), and work on my computer terminal. I do my edit ing, write my memos, and write at least the drafts of all letters on an Apple computer with word-processing software. Of course, I also do my pro gramming on the Apple computer. All this happens at my office - but I'm sure I can easily do it at home too! I have an Apple at home already, and I could send my results to the com pany computer instantly, via a modem.
I've spoken to my company about this, and they've said, "We'll see." I know my boss doesn't want to lose me, but they're not the most flexible people in the world either. I very much enjoy what I do, which is basically write, edit, work with artists, create and debug ideas - and I esteciall y love computer pro gramming. didn't prepare for this kind of work in school or college (I would have shuddered at the thought of taking a course in programming, for example.) I learned everything I know about computers from buying one, reading the manual and other books, fiddling around on my Apple, and talk ing with other computer-freaks. After two years of playing with my own com puter, my company asked me to write a program for them; the resulting pro gram has been judged very good and highly professional by computer pro grammers. So even though I keep wish ing I had the time and energy to enroll in some computer classes, I know they're not really necessary. I got my job by ignoring the list of required experience in the advertisement and applying anyway . In the interview I explained how I felt my areas of expertise and my past experiences could contribute to the company ... They didn't seem to care much that I'd never worked as an edi tor before, not even on a school paper, and that I'd never taken a journalism class. By the way, my college had a pol icy of allowing students the choice of getting grades or merely "credit" for each course . I was absolutely the only person I knew who didn't opt for grades' ... Everyone kept telling me that I should ask for grades so I could get a good job. Naturally, once I hit the job market, I found that not one prospective employer asked about my college grades or asked to see my transcript. Most didn't care if I had a B.A. They went on the basis of the interview and the resume - and most of the experiences and skills listed on my resume had nothing to do with school. As to your last questions, the only thing I have to offer (which I've offered before and nobody has yet taken me up on it) is that if a CWS'er wants to learn what I know about computers, or wants to have access to my computer, I'd be happy to share my enthusiasm' ... BABIES AT JOBS
From Dema Hinson (Cal.): ... While my husband was in gradu ate school I became pregnant with our first child. I was working at the YMCA as an art teacher (pre-school through adults). I had made myself indispensable by careful planning and buying, so when the baby came I was asked by my boss to please return to work. I told her I was unwilling to leave the baby with a sitter. My boss promptly told me to bring her with me. Darcy was my constant companion even at work' She really loved summer camp . I used a baby carrier when she was an infant and brought a playpen when she was older. I seldom used the playpen; she mostly rode on my hip. Everyone loved having her in class' When my husband finished school, I promptly quit teaching and concentra ted on my mothering. We now have a 9-year-old and 6-year-old twins, and I'm working again. I have a cottage industry as a seamstress. I need help now and then,
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
9 so I hire a friend on a piece-work basis. She brings her baby with her and is able to meet the needs of the baby and work for me too. My 9-year-old is now l e arning to sew and soon I hope to hire her on a piece-work basis as I do my friend. Piece-work is perfect ,for children and mothers because they can work as fast or as slow as they want; the pace is totally up to them. We are home-schooling all the girls and we love it. My oldest went to school until this year; the twins have never been. This is the way it was meant to be' I only wish I had known before I put Darcy in school' ... From an Ohio reader : ... My daughter (now 8 ) was two weeks old when she began attending graduate classes with me, and never lacked for people to hold and talk to her. Until age 6 she was with me in every school s ituation I taught in. Your description of the 10-year-old bo y s loving to care for babies [GWS #24, "Oh , Boy! Babie s "] did not sur pr i se me. I fo und an infant in the cla ssroom t o be a v ery positive e xper i enc e f or a ll involved. My daught e r l oved t o be ar ound the c hildren and in that e xciting envir onme'nt. "Tough" 5 and 6-ye ar- o ld s would me lt around her, and f or children who had no Si blings, th e re was a tremendous amount of learning - and lots of questi ons about breastfeed i ng and di a per-changing. Since that time many more te a chers in the City have be en bringing their infants to school; though the h e alth c odes did not deem this an a c ceptable practice, fortun atel y for all of us it was allowed ...
COMPUTER AT TWO From Don Wi s mer (ME ) : ... A not e on in f ants and the com put e r. We've had a TRS-80 Model I I I microcomputer with two disk drives for about nine months, and our daugh ter Sarah is just short of 26 months old. From the beginning she was inter ested in the machine and wanted to type on it. At first she would type a few l e tt e rs with a finger , and then with he r whole hand , and then would be pounding th e keyboard with both hands , a practice that was gentl y rechanneled. Wi th grea t rapidity she le a rned to ass oci a t e the sounds o f th e let ters ( fr om Dadd y 's or Mommy's mouth ) wi th th e a ppea r a n c e o f the l e tters on the k eyboard and on the screen. By the time s he was two she knew the entire a lphabet, all the numbe rs , their sounds , and was well on her way to recognizing lower case as well. ( The TRS-80 has a feature which doubles the size of the characters on th e screen , a nd that helped a lot. ) She a lso knows that if she had u s ed the BREAK ke y on a program, she c a n r e capture the program by typing RUN and hitting the ENTER key. So she kn ows h e r first command in the BASIC c ompu t e r language. We have a few game programs that h a ve gr a phi cs which interest her. One has a wat e rfall scene with a grazing deer, and ano ther shows a sort o f s nO\Jfa 11. She a sks for them by name. The shoot - ' em-up galactic death-squad type of ga me bores her; however, I re c ently add e d a little speaker to pick up some o f the sound effects on the programs, and she plays the pro-
GROwING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
grams for maximum sound variation, ignoring the games themselves. There's also a program I wrote that flashes SARAH WI LL TYPE ? on the screen, and when she types a bunch of letters and characters and hits ENTER, it repeats her typing 50 times. She calls it the "Sarah Pro gram" and asks for it often . ... There are of c ourse hundreds of self-instruction programs for sale from math to Russian to hi s tory, and we'll stockpile them as she reaches the relevant age , always sta y ing a little in advance if possible ... [JH: ] I hope that o ther re a der s will keep as deta i led a record as is possible and convenient of what their children do with home computers : what kinds of questions the y ask, what problems they run int o . I think that it's ver y impo rtant that we begin t o build up a body o f inf ormat i on a bout children and their wo rk with c ompu ters. Also, if an yone us e s the ne w Logo "turtle geome try" programs [s ee GWS #24, "MINDSTORMS" ] , pl e ase te 11 us about your e xper ie nc es .
ACCESS TO TOOLS From Co ll e en Re dma n, 633 Te xas St , Tomball TX 77375: ... Josh h a s alw ay s had a ll the natural materi a ls i n our h ome av a i l able to him. He's us e d r e a l hammers, saws, and s cre wdri ve r s sinc e h e was walking at nine months. I know th e se kinds of stor ie s are n't new t o you but why does ever yone seem t o assume that a child with a sc r ewdr i ver will poke his own eye s out, or smash a TV with his hammer ? Probabl y we e xpect it because by th e time h e or she gets to hand ! e a ~ ea l t oo l th e y ha v e n o experiel,ce . J o sh has never used hls tools in a d es truc ti ve or s tupid way ... Norma Dav i s (NY) wr i t es: ... We all ow ou r children t o ge t in on everything we do and they are learning at an alarming r a t e . Each time I get frustrated, I call t o mi nd what you said about th em wanting t o be adults, and I re a lize that their frustrati ons a r e muc h mor e ex treme than mine . I a lso call t o mi nd how I would feel i f someone talke d t o me like that . ... Art, my husba nd , is a builder and carpent e r and Er i c (3~) has had access t o re a l t oo l s s i nc e day one. He could drive a nail be tt e r than I by 2~ and als o u s e a ha nds aw quit e successfully. My parents live n e xt door and my moth e r i s a n avid ga rd en er, so he helps in th e ga rden. My dad is an excavator, s o he's quit e popu lar with Eric , wh o knows all the machines, their functions a nd names of parts. We have h orses , g oats, and chickens; Eric he l ps muck out , f e ed the animals, and co lle c t the e ggs . If he has a do llar in hi s pocket, he's n ot afra id t o g o int o a store and spend it . He spe aks ver y openly to adults a nd an s wers the phone. This is a big f e at f or him, considering that a year ag o h e wouldn't let go o f my leg. We have never pushed him, onl y l oved a nd s up ported him , and he made the transi tion all on his own ... From Gail Powe ll , 54 MacKenzie Rd" Waterford CT 06 385 :
... Since Se pt embe r of last year, we have wo r ke d a t bu i lding our own Geod es ic Dome. We ' ve do ne t he entire pr o j e ct by hand , a nd t he children were with u s, every ste p of the way, inc lud i ng c l e ar i ng a nd leveling the l a nd, cutt i ng th e l umber ourselves, and e recting th e dome . Tracey (3) eve n h el pe d me to dig the septic sys t em wi th a pi ck and s hovel . We ' re jus t r e gul a r pi onee r s ' We ' ve lived in a c amp e r ju s t ou t si de t h e dome. Last wi nt e r, wi th i t s zero degree tempera tur e s , didn't s l ow us up i n t he l eas t. Tracey i s a storehouse of know l edge on a ll phases of construction . She ' s h el ped us get tools and when peop l e came t o see t he dome , she was abl e t o t e ll th em it's a geodesic 4-fre que ncy dome, a ddress a nd all ... Treve r was on ly 2 mont h s old when we c a me he r e , but h e ' s made up for lost time . Th is pas t summer he'd play in h is pl ay pen , s hout i ng out orders to mak e s ure t he wo r k force wasn't goof ing o ff behind some par t ition or some thing ... The c h i ld ren go t o sleep eas il y a nd we ca n work on t h e dome a ft er d ark because of that . .. Anybody ca n bui ld their own home a nd I think everybody should . . . LEARNING EVERYWHERE
Fr om Jacque Wi l liamson in West Virgi n ia: ... At first I thought I'd take GWS fo r a yea r , fi nd out how to home sc hoo l our b oys, a nd not need to read f urth e r. Ha ' It h as knocked me to my se n ses that l ear n i ng is everywhere a nd al l-the -time, n o matter how old you a r e or what you are doing . I ' d bee n so wr a ppe d u p i n part-time teach i n g (2-5 yea r o l ds, open situation) and k ee pi n g fa mi l y things going, that I'd felt frustra t ed I couldn't learn a n yth i ng myse l f . It made me look twice a nd realize all the new things I a m l ea rn i n g a nd how much more I can do, even in the hec t ic pace of a young fa mily . ... 1 r eally appreciated Karen Cox ' s l e tt e r ~ n GWS #23 ("Keeping Lea rn i ng Records " ) . He r record k eepi n g is so s impl e a nd straight fo r wa rd i t seemed si l ly to me at fi r st . I th ought , " Why,' you could go on a nd on a nd fi l l it up wit h a day ' s activities and sound like you are rea l ly covering a lot in home-school ing . " Then I realized that is precise l y the poi nt. Even t hough I have a four-year - o l d and a tW6- year-old, the teac her i n me often makes me feel I s hould be doing more with them . Now I sto p a nd wa t ch what they are doing and th i nk of Karen's categories and s mil e. An exa mple this week: "Logical Think ing /Ma th . " Our 4-year-old, Natha n , made me a wooden bowl on his da dd y 's l a the . I sold i t at a craft fai r h is da ddy was se ll ing his own b owls i n . Nat ha n wasn 't there at the ti me of sa l e so his dad paid him that n ight. Na tha n noticed Fred had been paid by ch ecks as well as cash, so aske d fo r pa r t of th is payment in c h eck. The t eac h er in me figured this was a gr eat way t o prod h im into wr i ti ng h is name - so he could cash h is c h eck . No, he couldn't care less abou t wr i t ing h is name, as he is proud to h ave a rea l c h eck of his own t o ca rt a r ound' He has asked enough ques ti on s to k now about banking now. Whe n h e d eci des he n eeds cash, he'll know wna t to do and I ' m sure will sud denl y t a k e care of the name-signing for e ndorsement .. . , .. The ot her day I noticed
10
Nathan carefully drawing plans and then trying to make something in the shop using a saw, hammer, and chisel (the real carving kind). Later he made a salad and a cake from picture recipe cards, "read" his brother a story, and helped make a scrapbook about a recent trip. Suddenly, en lightenment struck' All the years I taught in the lower grades, we did all kinds of workbook pages on eye hand coordination, sequence, language experience, exercises, and on and on. It hit me that what Nathan was doing is the real thing and what schools are doing is the substitute. Just for fun, I got out some of the old work books and tried the "substitutes" for what he'd done that day. Whereas he had spent hours on the real activi ties, he did the "substitutes" only under coercion and then for only about five minutes. They were too easy. Yet we had done them for months on end with six-year-olds in school ...
A MOTHER'S ANSWERS From Mary Jordan (OH): ... One idea I keep running into, when I tell people I plan to keep my two children at home to learn, is that you have to be herfect to do that. People say, "0 , I know I wouldn't have the energy," or "I admire you for wanting to, but I know I couldn't." Even my husband has doubts about our ability to home school because neither of us is very patient with a 5-year-old and a 3 year-old helping us when we're hurry ing to get a project done. Of course, I've not yet had experience with actually home-school ing school-age children, but my expectation is completely different. My experience so far has been that the older m j children get, the better they can communicate, and the more they can do for themselves, the easi er it all becomes for me. I don't know why having a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old will take more energy than having a "3" and a "5," just because one is offically school age. As far as not being able to "teach," that doesn't scare me eith er. I'm sure there are helpful ways of presenting information, but most of what I learn comes from what I read and-what I do, not from what I'm taught by someone-else. I assume the same can be true for children. And so far they have learned to walk, talk, dress themselves, etc, with only exam ple, conversation, and excitement over their progress to aid them. I do provide materials, experiences, and activities for them, but of course these only work if the enjoy them and can use them for t eir own learn ing. In fact, my biggest joy is in seeing what they put together for themselves. Claire proudly announced one day that she knew the letter B and the number 4, before it ever occurred to me to teach her letters or numbers. Christopher reads a few words and adds fairly well, but more importantly, he asks me all through out the day questions like, "What's 4 + 6?" "How much is one million plus one hundred?" "What's 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3?" and "What does 'b-e' spell?" He's working stuff out in his own mind and I could ruin it by trying to teach him what he needs to figure our-ror himself. I simply tell him the ans wers he asks for, assuming he knows what to do with them. The patience question is a lit
h
tIe trickier and almost caused me to even one day as substitute teachers, give up and enroll Christopher in kin that would help to weaken any argu dergarten. Sure, I yell a lot and I ments against their competency that also spend a lot of time saying, "No, the schools might try to bring. I am I want to cook supper by myself," or sure that one day in a classroom "Go away, I'm busy writing." But on would also strengthen their resolve the other hand, our children are to get their own children out of such almost always with one or the other a place. or both of us. They're always around Becky is a very bright, very ver so they get in the way a lot, but bal four-year-old. At the moment she they also get talked to and hugged is engaged in teaching herself how to and sung and danced with and loved a read. For a while we had to read her lot. So I figure if we're not good at stories to her over and over and I one aspect, we'll be good at some realized that she was trying to make thing else. sense of the printed words. Then she This brings me to another objec stopped asking to be read to all the tion people have - that we're isola time and started trying to write. I ting them from the "real world" and have to admit that until I got GWS denying them the socialization pro #24 ["GNYS AT WRK"J I thought she was cess. Well, if family isn't real and doing it backwards, but I didn't say social, I'd like to know wha~. anything. I try very hard not to ~I think it's good for people of interfere in the things she wants to any age to experiment with various do ... I would rather be guilty of not environments and develop a sense of telling her enough at this stage than self-confidence, to walk trustingly pushing her so hard that she feels in the world, sure that they can han she has to do these things to please me. I would rather she learn to dle life or get help if they need it, I am in no way convinced that school please herself. In any case, over the Christmas is the only way or the best way to do holidays she taught herself to print that. I hope to provide many challen all the capital letters. I · showed her ging opportunities for my children, how to make a K and an R because but I expect letting them learn at those seemed to give her a great deal home will give them a feeling of con of trouble and she asked me, but trol over their own time and their otherwise she figured out how to make own lives, and I think that is vital them all by herself. When she writes to self-confidence. her name she is as apt to go from So far I've still found no one ·left to right as right to left, but in Cincinnati doing home schooling, the letters are always internally con so I have no idea how the authorities sistent. In other words, if you held will act ... Christopher will be six the backwards name up to the mirror in the spring of 1983. By fall I hope it would be perfect. Now that she can to have a philosophy and curriculum wrLte, she has gone back to being written, some correspondence and/or read to all the time. I guess she cover schools picked out, maybe some felt that she needed a more internal certified teachers who will agree to sense of the letters before she could "supervise" us ... I still long for make sense of the words on the page. someone "in the flesh" who shares . .. It is an experience living these ideas, but I can wait ... with a four-year-old. Once we had a particularly bad day - fought all day long about mostly unimportant things. LIVING WITH TWO KIDS At the end of the day, when it was Susan Bobowski (NY) writes: almost bedtime anyway, Becky got sent to bed for throwing a ball at my new lamp - for the second time! ... She ... 1 keep finding myself in the was very insultea-ar-the whole thing. midst of movements. I didn't know She sat just inside her doorway and there was a home-birth movement until carried on a monologue at the top of I was pregnant with my second child her lungs about all the real and (I had the first at home anyway). I imagined slights and insults to which found out about the home-schooling we had subjected her over the course movement sooner than that, but I had of her life (her usual reaction to already decided not to send any of my being punished - thank goodness her (at that time hypothetical) kids to room is at the other end of the school. Becky will be old enough for kin house). Well, in the middle of this monologue she suddenly yelled, "You dergarten next year and she has know what I've always wanted? Foster announced that she wants to go. She parents'" Of course my husband and I also said that she wants to ride the couldn't help but laugh, but at least bus. She was not pleased when I said we had the decency to go into the she could go to school but she couldn't ride the bus. We live 10 min kitchen so she couldn't see us. What are you supposed to respond to a utes from the school but the bus statement like that? route is such that she would be on Living with Jessie is also an the bus an hour in the morning and experience. I had forgotten how another hour in the afternoon ... I absorbing a ten-month-old finds the have a feeling her interest in school world. I get nothing done all day will wear off rather quickly after long because I spend most of my time she has been exposed, but I told her hiding around corners and watching she could go if she wants to and I her investigate everything ... One of have tried not to influence her in her favorite games at the moment is any way. I know it's impossible not to climb up on things and then fall to let your own feelings through at off. The game is actually the climb least a little, but I do want her to ing up and standing and crowing so make up her own mind. that everyone will know how accom ... My husband and I both have plished she is. The falling off is master's degrees in biochemical gene not part of the game, but she hasn't tics and, while I don't have a teach figured out yet how to get back down ing certificate, the school board so that she can climb up again. felt that I was competent enough to Another favorite game is to pre be hired as a substitute teacher a tend to feed herself. She will walk couple of years ago. That might be an around for an hour at a time with a idea for other home schoolers to help toy bowl and spoon, scraping the them in their discussions with spoon into the bowl until she has a schools. If they have been hired for
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
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good imaginary spoonful, then stick ing it in her mouth and smacking her lips. She will also feed a nyone else who looks interested, but if you don't smack your lips properly she won't play with you for long. I don't remember from Becky that imaginative play like this began so young, but I suppose it did ... Jessie has two words which are recognizable at the moment ... She says "hot," which means anything which is not body temperature, wheth er hot or cold, and also means fire wood (we heat with wood). She also says "da" which means daddy, dog, cat, and sheep (we raise sheep, too). A friend's baby at 10 months would walk around their apartment pointing at things and saying "cat." If it was a cat (and they had two adults and 10 kittens, so it was logi cal), she would clap her hands and laugh, and if it wasn't, she would shake her head no and go on to the next thing. We decided she had sorted the world into two groups, cat and not-cat ... TREATED LIKE A KID
Mary Friedl (IL) writes: ... Nathan (5) and I were in a restaurant yesterday. He accidental ly spilled his drink. He said he was going to ask someone to clean it up, excused himself, and told the cashier he had a little accident, that he had spilled his pop and could she please have someone clean it up. I was ger y proud of the way he handled it' ut the cashier and another woman stand ing with her just laughed. Nathan was so vert embarrassed! He came back to our ta Ie quickly, trying to hide his head in his armpit. What a terrible experience for him! I explained to him that some peo ple are not used to youngsters speak ing in an adult manner, that they laughed because they were surprised and embarrassed and they didn't know how to respond to him. It was their problem, not his - he could not have done a better job. He sat up proudly and didn't even flinch when the same woman came over and made a comment about how "cute" he was. Later he said how silly the woman had been. I think he has taken another big step ... It gets harder and harder as time goes on to imagine sending him to school ... SCHOOL STORIES
... One of our friends just had a son start in kindergarten here ... The school gave the children a test to see if they knew how to skip. When her son "failed" the test, a note was sent home saying he had a gross motor development problem ... ... 1 have been told by teachers and the principal that there is some thing wrong with our child because she is "too quiet," "too gentle," and refuses to drink Kool-aid and Coke, the rewards for good performance ... And from Jean Toews, Rt. 12 Box 759, Spokane WA 99203: ... Josh's teacher indicated that his major difficulty with school is that he proceeds with school work before she has given the instructions to do so. We asked if he was doing
GROWING WIiHOUT SCHOOLING #26
the assignments incorrectly and she said no, he just needed to wait for the go-ahead before he proceeded. ... He has been reprimanded for failing to use the number line when doing his addition problems, although he does the work accurately without it ... When I asked the teacher why he needed to use the number li~ . for addition if he's able to add ~ his head, she replied that all first graders need to use the number lines ... ALLERGIC TO SCHOOL
The Chicago Sun-Times, 4/8/81 : "SCHOOL ALLERGY" MAY BE NO JOKE Dr. Leonard Caputo, an allergist from Mobile, Ala., says "Schooling provides so many exposures to aller genic and irritating materials that 'allergy t o school' could easily be classified as an occupational hazard." In a paper prepared for the annu al congress of the American College of Allergists, Caputo said: ... "Accumulations of dust are readily visible in most schools. Kin dergarten youngsters may be especial ly at risk ... because they are fre quently required to sleep on mats upon the floor. "Chalk dust is a decided trouble some exposure ... A considerable amount of mold is present in some classrooms, particularly in older schools. Libraries may contain as much mold as they do knowledge . "A wide variety of chemical odors permeates the corridors and classrooms of most schools. Strong industrial cleaners, waxes, and pol ishes are used on school floors. "One child reported an episode of wheezing following particularly he~vy use of Pine Sol used in trying to ~t em a viral epidemic in the school. Strong-smelling felt-tipped markers and carpets are being used with greater frequency." ... One result of allergic reac tions, he said, is that children do poorly in class. Those taking antihis tamines may be drowsy and inatten tive. Fatigue can lead to daydream ing and failure to plug into what's going on ... PLAYING THE SCHOOL GAME
From Carol Ortiz, D-17 Grsnt St, Parkville, Guaynabo PR 00657: ... Had I known about home schooling nine or ten years ago, I believe our family could have avoided much misery by opting out of the school scene. Now my children, teen agers, have adapted to their oppress ion, but it has been marvelous to feel the change in the tension level since I accepted the nonsense of the educatIonal system as nonsense, and simply levelled witnmy kids. "Look, the schools play a game and the rules are in their favor and they can change them at will to keep ~ always at a disadvantage. So you can play the game and even beat them at it if you try, but don't take their judgements too personally." The argu ments over homework, grades, beha vior, etc. are OVER (and have been for a year - every issue of GWS renews my convictions) and the grades, behavior, and homework are TERRIFIC" Undoubtedly because THEY are the players now, not me. I've told them they can chuck it all any time they want, but the social scene
is important now, and labora tor y science and computers have an appeal we couldn't provide very easily, so . .. TEENAGERS AT HOME From a parent in Colorado:
. .. Our l5- year-old daughter has joined us this year at hom e . I am thrilled that she has chosen to come home to study and be wi th the rest of us all day, espec i ally at this time in her life, when t eens are supposed ly more interested in th eir peer groups. She always did well in school, was very popular and liked by all of her tea c her s . But last year (freshman in high school) s he hated school, even though s he had l ots of friends and a part in both school plays. I think that she, on her own entirely, had the sense to want to escape from th e social environment of high school, with its pressures of drugs, smoking, etc. She is using the American School program - racing thr ough it, plus teaching herself Spanish and doi ng a programmed voca bulary course. Whe n I kept the ll- year - old and 7-year-old out of school last year, I did not seek approval from the schools. We used correspondence mater ials, but were somewhat easy -going about moving through the courses. So this year we could be seen as being behind, according t o grade levels. ... With all of the heat and anger of the authorities having been fueled by their recent loss [GWS #23 ] in the attempt to control private schools (fi rst of many such attempts, I'm sure), I am very worried about our being either turned in or dis covered. My worry has changed the emotional environment at our "home school." I am more concerned about doing the lessons, e tc. and it doesn't seem as though we will be able to have as much fun this year ... [From a later letter:] Since I wrote that letter, we have gotten better. We feel more r elaxed and our home school is once again the produc tive fun we love ... From a New J ersey r eader: ... Have other parents noticed a ver y easy adolescence with unschooled kids ? I think that my fifteen-year old son's early acquaintance with responsibilit y for his own actions has made it unnecessary for him to rebel and fight for independence. He is willing to acce pt my judgement at times because it is offered as one adult to another and not as a restric tion on a kid who doesn't know any thing ... Penelope Critchlow-Goldman (CA): ... I'm so excited about my 12 year-old daughter' s decision to stay home next school year (8th grade)' After 1~ years of formal schooling (6th grade, now 7th) on a continuous basis, she's had it . Our rural situa tion kept her home f rom 2nd through 5th grade ... She ha s come to realize that out of 350 kid s there's only one girl she really wants for a friend. Our mountain community sports all the typical American Val ues inclu ding designer jeans and feat hered hair-dos for the junior set . But our place is 10 miles up out of town beyond the tel ep hone and electricity lines and our lifestyle is extremely
12
sane ... At school she g~ts strokes for superficial values, like looking pretty and stylish or paraphrasing informatLon from the encyclopedia (so what's changed in 30 years?); at home, we demand more ... The contrast is too great . .. Her choice is to spend her h ours productively on crafts projects along with either a self-styled home-study course or a formal home-study cou rse from Calvert School ... (I am a creden tialed teacher, K-12, in Californ ia, so legally we're clear) . .. IN THE MOUNTAINS
From Laurie Fishel - Lingemann in
Calif . :
.. . The children (13, 5, and 14 months) have never been to any school. After experimenting over the years, we find that a minimum of structure is best . Deva, 5, works best with no structure. She's the headstrong type who doesn't take kindly to anyone telling her what to do - I've never been exceedingly tactful but she is teaching me the difference between helpful suggestions and orders. Star, 13, enjoys some structur ing; she is so amenable that I have often become manipulative .. . What strikes me most about her is her intention to really know herself and try to be an honest person .. . Once she observed, "If I feel depressed or bored and read a story book to try to change my mood, I usua)ly feel worse afterward, but if I just sit quietly for a while and not do anything I find myself feeling better ." . . . Once she was shy about meeting an old friend of mine, a woman in her 40's. Afterwards she remarked, "I t' shard to be shy when you're taller than someone."
She enjoys reacing all kinds of books and seems to be noticing the different effects various books have on her feelings and thoughts . We have started Spanish studies and she is learning it very quickly . We just started a class in conversational Spanish at our local community col lege outreach program (we ' re supposed to get permission for anyone under 16) and had our 1st class the other night. She was a bit shy but had a lot of fun and I hope she will be allowed to continue participating. I read aloud a lot; in the mid dle of the day I nurse the baby, and while he sleeps on my lap I read to both girls. What's interesting is that Deva (5) will sit for a long time and listen to the teenage or adult books that I read to Star and Kurt (my husband). Sometimes she pre fers these to her own story books, although not always . Often the child ren draw or Star will knit wh ile I read . We have no TV and live in an isolated rural area . I read almost every evening as well as in the late morning. Every day is different - today we climbed up to 3000' and sat on warm pine needles under the sugar pines and enjoyed the sunshine while we ate a picnic lunch . There is still much snow here and there and we enjoyed finding animal tracks. The girls turned a big manzanita into a playhouse . · They put the baby in t he "bedroom" and turned pine cones into pineapples, pinenuts into almonds on snow " cookies," leaves and twigs into salad all on a rock "dining table. " Deva calls Star on the leaf phone, "Dingaling' Come to my apartment at
sunset for breakfast . Goodbye . Adios . " It is a pleasure to watch a 13- year - old relaxed enough to be silly with others . Mostly they are so gentle with Jesse, the baby, although Deva will get very angry when he mess es her special projects. . .. Once I suggested to Deva that we were poor (we had just bought our land and were living in a tent minimum personal posses ions and cash income). She looked at me in shock "We have a stove, we have clothes, we have a tent and a car - some people don't have anything'" Why am I writing all this? Just to reaffirm that it is a great joy and a privilege to have the open minds and hearts of our children in our lives - that my children are con stant reminders to me of what life is really about when I allow myself to slow down and feel that world. They destroy my self-importance everyday and our worst conflicts arise from my desires to maintain my self-impor tance . I ' m learning to develop a sense of humor that I didn't have 10 years ago. No, my children are not always o bservant, thoughtful or medi tative, but neither are anyone else's ... . .. Don't get discouraged by a few fights or bad days; learn to play with the energy, laugh at yourself and turn it around. One emotional day after the girls and I snarled and swatted at each other for a while we turned our tearjerker into a soap opera - literally - we put baby in his bath, Deva in a tub, and Star and I washed our hair in the sink. By the time our " soap opera" was over our moods were well changed. About learning to write . I noticed with both girls that in the early stages they didn't seem to care much about upside-down letters, back ward words (Deva is left-handed and seems to often write backwards), words allover the page, etc . I began to view these "messy" pages as works of art rather than "incorrect" exam ples of handwriting. Often pictures and letters and words would become interspersed to make a complete pic ture . Only later on when writing be gan to serve its real purpose, commun ication, did the children make an effort to improve the readability of the handwriting . I never asked them to practice . When they wanted to write clearly it didn't take much for them to learn how to do it. I think that museular coordination has some thing to do with this as well as the child's own sense of what is pleas ing. I am always available to draw or write the correct version of the let ter and offer help when asked. . .. My mother, a firm believer in public education, has always been resistant to home-schooling - so I am always sending her articles .. . We don ' t see her often although the girls write to her frequently. We finally got together about six months ago for two weeks, and she really enjoyed the energy of the children . After all her doubts about home educa tion I was quite surprised to receive this letter from her - and I quote in part: "I really don't need to read any article to be on your side. When I see the results of Star's and Deva's growth and development, not only on the learning skills level, but on the character and emotional development, I am in awe of your ability and success as to what you have achieved with your children. Besides the many faults of the pres
ent are the are the
day schools and teachers (there always exceptions of course) presence of drugs and violence enough to turn anyone away from public school."
I plan to write to her and share with her that ~ ability has little to do with the achievements" of the children. I haven't so much "done" as "not done." I really think all of us need lots of space and time to just be Silent, or dreamy, or medita tive, or Silly. Some of the "projects" we get into are gardening, drawing, reading, writing. Star is teaching herself to knit from a book and is learning cal ligraphy from a book also . I have never learned either one, and when the baby is a bit older, I hope Star will teach me' Deva at 5 is a pretty good cook; Star can put together a whole meal on our wood cookstove . We've all learned a lot about babies since Jesse's arrival last year. I am an herbalist and both children can identify many domestic plants and know some of their uses . Future pro jects inc lude learning to type, be coming more proficient in Spanish, flower gardening, and on and on ... A 13-YEAR-OLD WRITES
Laurie's daughter, Star, wrote: ... 1 just want to add a little to my mom ' s letter . When she reads at night, often the books are biograph ies of famous people or about nature - now she is reading a story about a man raising three bear cubs. I have found that learning history is much more fun and in more depth when it is from novels or biographies. For exam ple, we read a biography of Roger Williams and it gave so much more of a feeling of his life and those times than the few paragraphs about him in a history textbook did. Two more books that gave a real feeling of the times are RASCAL by Sterling North, set in 1918, and A SPIRIT TO RIDE THE WHIRLWIND by Athena V. Lord .. . I really agree with the "learn what you want to learn when you want to learn it" idea. I didn't learn cur sive handwriting until I was 11 . Before then, whenever I had tried, just struggled and got nowhere be cause I wasn't really interested. When I finally did learn, it only took a few weeks because I really wanted to learn and I practiced. My mom and I are taking a class in converational Spanish and it is my first real classroom experience. I like it because I want to learn to speak Spanish. If I was in this situa tion (having to speak and keep up with the others) every day, I think I would start getting filled with a lot of anxiety. One way Deva and I are learning (he names of common items around the house is by putting labels on everything in Spanish and English . "Door - Puerta." Besides learning the Spanish name for everything, Deva gets to write words on little cards and tack them in the right places. When we first moved here I thoughc about goi~g to school more than I ever did before, beca~se it woule ~e a chance to meet new friends, but I don't think I would ever really want to go. I read the letter from "A young reader" in GWS #14 and it made me realize how lucky I really am to have parents who be lieve in home-schooling. When I read books about kids who go to school and don't like it - just accepting it and
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
13 being crushed down by it - it fills me with sadness at what schoo ls are doing to these kids . Sometimes I have a hard time with being different from other kids. I think, though, that I am probably different for the better, and I don't really want to be like them anyway. I like to read GWS because than I know there are other kids out there who are different too . . .
TEACHER AIDES From Portland, Oregon: . .. Our daughter, 14, remained at home for her last half of eighth grade last spring, studying her alge bra by herself and volunteering two and a half hours every after no o n in a primary grade school close to our house. Without any difficulty (not having "graduated" from eighth grade) she entered high school this past Sep tember, but is miserable and de pressed because she is being required to learn a lot of stuff that she doesn't want to know ... I would like to see her bright and alive again and absorbed ~n vari ous learning activities . Last year during the months at home, she tai lored a jacket and slacks on our treadle sewing machine, made pro fessional -l ooking quilts and blouses and stuffed toys, doing all of this on her own without a bit of help ... [DR: 1 The 1/18/81 h ome-sc h ooling article in the Seattle Post-Intelli ~3ncer said that Rayna Peterson, a -year-old home-schooler, worked as a teacher aide at a nearby elemen tary school for an hour each Thurs day, correcting papers and reading to the younger childre n. We'd be very interested to hear about any other unschoolers who volunteer in class rooms .
OUT FOR 3 YEARS From a parent in Wash. State: . .. We took our children out of school halfway through the school year: D out of 5th, B out of 4th, and W out of 1st grade. W, now 9~, decided to read when he was almost 8 . That's when he was ready for it, even though he was 7apa ble of doing it at 6 when he was Ln first grade . He sti ll does not devour books, but he'll read a chapter or so a day - that's what he thinks he should do - and is very proud of his own assignment. W is also taking his own sweet time with writing . He has been form ing his letters beautifully from the start, but not shown much interest in writing. I may have.found the answer to what is happening. He believed he was supposed to spell correctly but he knew he could not do that. So h e did not write at all . Off and on, we tried spelling (very simple basic words) or copying a paragraph from an interesting story, but soon dropped that again. After what you, John, said about a nephew who had his own way of talk ing, until h e finally talked like everybody around him, and after read ing the wonderful review of GNYS AT WRK in GWS #24 in which a mother describes her small child who gave h er the note with RUDF ( " are you deaf"), and who slowly developed writing and correct spelling, I asked
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
W if he would like to write without everyone expecting him to spell every word correctly. He likes this idea so much that he writes about half a page almost each day, mostly phonetically . With his inborn desire for perfection (and which child does not have that?) I am completely confident that some day his spelling will be excellent . W has not memorized the multipli cation tables but has a very good con cept of numbers, and figures out on his own how to multiply any two num bers in h is head up to about 12 by 12. He takes his time, splits them up many different ways, and comes up with the correct answer . (It was reassuring to see you describe just that approach in GWS #24) . I am par ticularly pleased to see him having gained such good number concepts, because B, who is going onto 13 and had memorized the entire multiplica tion tables by third grade and was fastest in her fourth grade class on that, acquired no such concept, and unl ess we keep reviewing, she appears to be quite lost. Picking up on some other sugges tions from GWS, the children now each have their own checking accounts with regular monthly allowances to take care of all their needs except for food and shelter . It costs no more whether we as parents buy that pair of pants or that coat, or whether the children do it. But if they need to manage or budget their money, we hope it will be good for them later on . They enjoy budgeting and planning, and writing their own checks . Probab ly not all stores will take their checks, since some require both an ID and a credit card. The children each have their own ID, issued at the dri ver's license office for non-drivers for $3 . They have received some very astonished looks ~hen they paid for their own purchas ~ s with their own checks. To our pleasant surprise, D, who seemed to be always spending every last penny of his very small allow ance, plus birthday and Christmas money, now will not spend a penny more on those little purchases that children like to make than his budget allows. So far, they have been spend ing their money very wisely . Recently, the children's grand parents visited us for two weeks . B wanted to learn how to fix the rear tire of her bike . Grandpa showed her. That led to a week of overhauling four ten-speed bikes (all having been bought at garage sales). They took everything apart and after cleaning and replacing worn parts, put them back together. D (14) very ably took complete charge of his own bike . I guess he acquired that knowledge last summer when he and a couple of friends kept tinkering wit h their bikes. Wand B learned a great deal while working with Grandpa. When it was time for the child ren's grandparents to leave, they expressed how pleased they were with the children ' s actions and their behavior. They do have other grand children to compare with, some taught at public school, some taught at pri vate school. Even though they love all their grandchildren equally, they noticed less fighting and arguing among ours, who, by the way, had not been putting on their best behavior but just been their normal, relaxed selves. After having the children h ome all this time we are taking this for granted, but we do remember when it was not so during their public school days. This all looks so positive, but
actually, I do have my worries, for example when D at 14 still does not spell correctly or care to, and does not think he wants to study much. However, he did hook up our entire stereo system, with speakers upstairs and downstairs, all without our help. He straightens out any mixed-up Rubik cube in about l~ minutes. He is always helpful when there is a real need for his help, no matter what the work is or what time of day or night. And B, who is slowly making sense of math, is a fast reader (she reads 2 pages to my l~ pages) and excellent at spelling ...
REFUSED THE LABELS Evangeline Godron (Sask . ) wrote: . .. In the 60's I taught my eld est daughter Fidelia, now 19, Grade One after she 'd been expelled . The school insisted she take another smallpox shot, saying that two scars from that shot were not proof enough ... All I had to do was to hear her read the rest of the Grade One books, teach her something of wri ting, all the ABC's, and understand ing of math concepts to 10. We fin ished Grade One between October and the end of November. I didn't try home-schooling again (because I was under the impres sion I could lose my child) until last Valentine's Day. By now I had had three more children, ages 7, 8, and 10 when I removed them. They we r e in Grades 2 (in danger of failing), 3, and 4. Huey, then in Grade 2, was able since the summer before to read the newspaper and adult magazines which he often did, chOOSing articles he recommended I read on matters of excess weight and cardiovascular dis ease or child -raising practices ... His teacher said that he only deserved to be in the beginning read er for Grade 2 ... Huey was not allowed to take spelling, even though it is a Grade 2 subject, on grounds that bad boys don't deserve spelling. ... When Paul was in Grade 2, he too was denied spelling on grounds that his writing and printing were slow and sloppy, and left- handed children, especially boys, were behind girls when it came to writing . To keep from failing, he had to do 36 spelling lessons during summer . Paul also read 54 books hoping not to be in special-reading class the coming fall .. . It was not two weeks into sum mer vacation when Paul got so he could read a whole book in a few hours. I compared him with me and he had become a faster reader. Both boys were trying to get out of the special class by taking proper channels. That was the summer Huey started reading adult material. Both failed to be put in normal reading class. Both became violent with the special reading teacher who was only 4'6". Both turned to vandal ism and Huey frequently ditched school. When he was at school he was more often than not in the princi pal's hall, office, classroom hall, or being minded by the janitor as he did his cleaning . Rarely was Huey allowed out at recess. He joined a gang of 2nd and 3rd grade girls and boys who specialized as window break ers. And they say school is whole some' Huey clowned in class and led the others to jeer his regular teach er . When Huey was allowed to do his school work (other than reading whic h he refused to do at their level) he would finish in a few minutes and act
14 out rather than do the busy make-work time-killers teachers give out. At h ome I had long ago taught the kids finger-math. They became s uper-fast at it. When I first took the kids out of school, th e authorities from the sc ho o l calle d as king me if I was not making a mistake. Had I given suffi c i e nt thought to the ir education, and so on. Oh, it was Mothering Magazine that finally gave me the Lmpetus to take them out. The school department threatened cour t action but never did it. They don't know how lucky they were that my kids are being taught at h ome. I think Huey, eve n at 7, contem plated in his greatest hours of stress and plight never suicide but murder in the school system of his tormentors. ... How ha ve the children done since leaving sc hool? Ericka had made up her lost grade by August 1, 1981, a nd now s he is doing Grade 8 work. Paul is readi ng at 450 words a min ute. We've tried your "private papers" method [see "Writing for Our se l ves, " WHAT DO I DO MONDAY?] and Paul is now a fast thinking/writing person. Hi s grade l evel of perfor mance is 6-7 . Huey is reading at 200 words a minute. I haven't checked Ericka since last summer and then she was about 200 . Las t s ummer using the Frye method from Volunteers of Ameri ca tutor service for adults, all three were rea ding a t grade level 7 by early Aug ust, up from grade levels 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0. Between semesters, I took the kids to visit the different high sc hoo l s. The kids had read many of the materials required for grades 9 and 10 in Eng lish, and the same sub ject areas for social science and the sciences, even though maybe not the same books. I guess you already know that once the kids were out of school, negative behavio r problems dis appear~d in the neighborhood and the stores can relax when they see the boys coming . ... We are non-whit e of Indian and Neg r o a n cest ry. I too was in a special class , not only for slow read ers but totally slow ... Who taught us? "Normal" kids in the playground, and we also poole d our knowledge to teach each ot her . I have three years of university in a great number of things, nursing and j ournalism being among them. We live be low the poverty line. Our hobbies are r eading 200 to 400 pages a week , the library, the museum, the neighbors, pen pals, the "Y," and that's about it ... We are also into home birth a nd breast feed ing . I've writte n one not-yet published book, started several oth ers, one wit h my adult home-schooling daughter down the street, who also teaches her own thre e at home. My three at home and I sometimes think of putting some of th e endless records of their work and pictures into a book ... SOME FRUSTRATIONS
Bonnie Miese l (MI) writes: ... Jennifer is now in "first grade" at home and, like ')thers, I could go on and on about the things she decid es to do that turn out to be broad experiences coveri ng math, science, social studies, economics, and creativity all i~ Qne. Although she sometimes accepts a n idea that I offer, th o se projects se ldom have th e enthusias m or the stay-with-it that
her own ideas have. One d ay she spent over three hours making fancy cookies (read all instructi ons , doubled the recipe, etc. ) and then making co lored frost ing - which led to ex pe rimentation with many little bowl s of frosting and diff ere nt food coloring combina tions. We ha d orange, imitation choco lat e, lime g r ee n, etc . I really chuckled af ter supper wh en she felt that she had "take n the day off" and so spent an h our d oing sc h oo l-t ype workbooks. On th e other side, we do hav e some probl ems ... Mornings before 10 AM are r eal ly bad due to bothering, bossing, a nd ye lling between the 6 year-old a nd the 3-year-o ld, plus a 10-month-old baby's "requests " for service. There are times when I sit down t o re ad a story or sing with them but can not do a thing because of disagre e men t on who sits where, who holds th e book ( "The n I can't see'''), whose book gets r ead first .. . or then the baby s t arts fussing. It is difficult t o v isi t or tour places of business during the da y . The younger ones don't enjoy it for very l ong , or are unwelcome, and it's hard to find a babysitt er for during the day. Keeping my " School Journal" up t o d a t e is like wr iting down the plays of a ball game as fast as they happen. Ha' (But reviewing it is invaluabl e e n cour agement . ) The r ewards of homeschooling are large en oug h to compensate for these few but almost daily frustrations. Time will c ha nge these problems more than any plans I can come up with (and I do k eep trying different solu ti ons ) .-Could this be part of that vague "adjus tme nt period" some GWS letters me nti on ? GWS paints a picture of famili es going from s tr es s and tensi on to peace and harmony when they become homec h oolers . Does anyone else have my problems? Last summer we saw a full-size billboard along th e highway in Michi gan saying, "EDUCATION - the experi ence that lasts'" And I thought it was more true to say, "EXPERIENCE the e duc ation that l asts ''' ... ON TESTING
J ohn Jones ( ID ) wrote i n th e IDAHO FAMILY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER (edi ted by Linda Q. Jones, PO Box 251, St Anthony ID 83445): ... Some important points concern ing t esting as some school districts are applying it t o home-sc hoo lers are made by Joyce Kinmont (UT) in her testimony before a subcommit t ee h ea r ing in Utah. In response to the ques tion of whet he r she would let her bo y be t ested along wit h hi s age group a t the loc al sc hool, she replied, "Suppose t hat I did allow you to t est on e of my boys and his score was the same as the lowest boy in the same grade in the Perry School? What are you then going t o do? Will yo u take my boy away from me? Will yo u take the ot her boy away from his mot her? Or from h is teacher? Will you close down my sc hoo l ? Will yo u close down the Perry Sch oo l ? Will you insist that my boy go t o the Perry School? Where, then, wou ld you send th e o th er boy? In reality there is nothing you could do. Remedial programs have proven ineffective. Furthermore, the testing itself is devastating to slow learne r s . (It is i nt erest
ing that when a child in the public school system fails to learn it is assumed that the cause is the child's lack of ability, problems in the home, televiSion, or the lack of money. If a child fails to learn in a private school, the school is at fault.)" [John Jones continues:] Another real problem with standardized test ing is what it does to the home school itself. In our second year of home schooling we had moved back to Idaho and were going the sorry route of seeking school board approval [GWS #19]. After much grief and heartburn they reluctantly approved us for one year, provided our children be tested before and after the school year. That required testing hung over us like a gallows. We felt the weight of oppression every day as we thought we had to follow the same general curri culum in the same general order as the public schools so that we would "look good" on the tests. When the tests came it was like being on trial and waiting for the verdict. We were putting such pressure on the children that it was a real trauma for them. I hated it, I hated the idea that some one could make us go through that. As I've thought about it since, I think that the threat of standard ized tests is the single biggest burr-under-the-saddle to afflict any home school (though an opposing in-law is pretty bad). With this threat we find ourselves seemingly forced to do things, not as we wish but as we think will show best to "them." Now, we felt good about home schooling even with this pressure, as I'm sure you do even if you are feel ing this pressure, but we felt it could be so much better if we could do it our way. Well, we finally are doing it our way and we feel a peace of mind , and it is better. The other day Debbie said that this peace of mind came aft e r deciding that our children would never be tested in that way again.-.-.- [DR: 1 John Holt says that when he spoke to a teacher's conference recently in Rockland, Mass., one of the teachers stood up and asked, "What if a home-schooled student comes back into the school system below grade level?" Bob Dolan, the Director of Special Services of the Rockland School District, answered that right now, 8th graders in the school system ranged from 5th to 11th grade level in performance, so as long as the home-schoolers fit into this range, he wasn't going to worry about it. Other GWS readers have told us about the burden placed on them by standardized testing. We hope fami lies that see this as a problem will suggest alternatives to their schools, such as the "Testing Com promise" in GWS #18, "Progress Reports" of GWS #23, or "Portfolios," GWS #19. TEST CATALOG
We asked Rarbara Lafferty (NJ) to look into the question of how easi ly unschoolers could obtain copies of standardized tests for their children to try. She did library research, wrote a lot of letters, and reported: ... First, use a school or organi zational letterhead. Then write to
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
15
the BUREAU OF EDUCATIONAL MEASURE MENTS, Emporia State University, 1200 Commercial, Emporia KS 66801. They publish the "Standard Test Catalog" which contains information on the Iowa, Stanford, and other standard ized tests in a variety of areas .•. It seems that free samples aren't available, but complete specimen sets can be had for various prices ranging from about $1.50 to $8.00 ... IMPROVED SCORES From Marti Mikl (AZ; GWS 20, 23):
strong academic foundation with lit tle or no frustration. ... Sometimes we reflect back on all the tears and despair we went through when our children were in pub lic school, and we realize that if it hadn't been for that, we would still be caught in the spell of believing that the schools were doing a good job. We would never have looked for a better way, and we surely would never have stepped out on faith to provide our children with the kind of educa tion we wanted them to have ... From Linda Haman (FL):
... Recent comparisons of Darris' scores from the beginning of 4th grade, when he was still in public school, and the beginning of 6th grade (after learning at home since Christmas of 5th grade) were start ling, enlightening, and very encour aging ... I used the national percen tile rank for this comparison, in which the average score nationally for all students in the same grade, is 50: 4th Gr. 6th Gr. Imerovement
Reading Language Math Total
--,u-50 25 38
~
561.
61 58 58
221.
96% 53%
... Even though math is still his weakest subject, there has been a 96% improvement in two years' time ... and I have had him home only five months of conventional school time. I don't intend, at all, to sound like I'm patting myself on the back. I'm just so astounded at the improve ment in such a short time. Especially considering that his conventional grades during the first half of 5th grade had dropped dramatically from his previous four years' record. ... 1 have felt sad, many times, that we were not aware of the home schooling option much, much sooner so we could have spared Darris and our selves several years of anguISh caused by his overwhelming dislike for public school. I console myself with this thought: "Thank goodness we got him out when we did!" ... SUCCESS STORIES From Darlene Graham (TX):
... We're in our second success ful year of running our home school ... We call ourselves Pine Ridge Academy, which we felt had a beautiful ring to reflect the tran quility of our little East Texas home stead, plus had an official, impress ive tone in case anyone should ever ask questions' But no one does, even though we regularly appear at the library and the stores during school hours. The fact that there are sever al alternative schools in the area helps ... We used Christian Liberty Aca demy last year . Like Calvert, it was too much like running a public school from my kitchen table. The paperwork for both students and teachers was staggering, but I understand they are trying to remedy that somewhat. This year we are thoroughly enjoying using Alpha-Omeg~ materials [Box 3153, Tempe AZ 85281). They are well-presented and the kids need very little help. Furthermore, they seldom devote more than two hours per day to their schoolwork, and material already understood can be passed over. We feel they are getting a
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
..• 1 have been teaching Chelsi, my daughter, for three years : 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade. I now am begin ning to teach my other daughter, age three. The courses I have used are from the Calvert School in Baltimore ... I feel the course is well-rounded. The problem is their Advisory Teaching Service costing $110 a year ... I have not subscribed to the service this year because of cost. . .. With Calvert's Advisory Teach ing service, I mail Chelsi's tests to the school to be graded by a teach er ... I feel I can grade her myself and save $110 ...
Diane Baker Cornwell (FL) wrote: ... Since my children have been out of school for two months now we have had some inexpressable feelings of joy and satisfaction at the close ness and unity of family life that we feel that God has wanted us to feel for a long, long time. Glory! The children are registered with the Christian Liberty Academy in Pros pect Heights, Illinois. We take field trips, as a family, about 2-3 times a month, and we are looking for ward to moving to the country in 6-8 months. Learning, NOT education, has become a giant boost to our mental and spiritual morale ... From Stephanie Scheck (S. Cal.): ... This is our second year of home schooling and all is going very well. Diana, 10, and Steph~, 7, are joyful, healthy, and confident. Com pared to last year when I had many doubts about being able to "teach" my kids, I find that there is a natural flow to our lives. There is no need for me to play teacher; we all learn together. We have added a new dimension to our home schooling this year by get ting together with other home school ers in San Diego county. Our group consists of nine families (19 kids, ages 2-10). We meet very informally so that the kids can enjoy group con tact and we parents can share ideas, concerns, etc .. . Sandy Housley (S. Cal.) wrote: ... We have been "teaching" our children at home for two years now, and I really can't imagine it other wise for us. We went the route of registering as a private school. The first year we started off very struc tured with Shawn and Chris and me sit ting at the table at 9:00 each morn ing. At that point the kids insisted on a formal recess and P.E. (Shawn had attended a private school for two years, so was very familiar with rou
tine). I don't remember how long this lasted, but I know it slowly deterior ated and evolved into living our lives at home : doing our own separate activities and then interacting when we were interested. Our children have the option of going to school; we discuss this possibility, and so far they have voted to stay at home, much to my delight. Our days flow together as we , learn to get along more and more, and Shawn and Chris are equally at home with people of all ages. We are all avid readers - I consider this the mainstay of our education. ... 1 have recently found some work I enjoy. I volunteer time at our small local library. The kids come when it's day work and this has even involved Shawn in a two-hour stint of her own once a week, which she thor oughly enjoys. She's a very depend able and useful part of the volunteer staff ... From Dureen Vance (WA ): . .. I've now taken my eight-year ol d son Mike out of the Winthrop Schools with their blessings. It was so easy that I'm still not sure it has happened. We have returned to our home 33 miles from the nearest school. There are no other children up here, so the schools don't like sending the bus this far and they don't have the extra money to pay us to drive him 18 miles to the end of the bus ' line. Also my husband works for the local high school. I'm not sure which of these things had to do with their going along with me. ... 1 was told that we must use the Calvert mail lessons. shall use them as a basis, but not the whole ...
so-we
And from a family in Minnesota: ... There are quite a few people in this area who are thinking of home schooling. We are the first in our school district to have a school-at home situation, and the superinten dent is very uneasy about it. But, so far, we've been able to convince him that we are doing a good job. He just seems to think he should do something about us, although he doesn't know what. He is having a teacher from the local school check with us every two months to see if we're having any problems or need any materials, etc. She is not pushy at all. So, we're optimistic . A lot is going to depend on the end of the school year evaluation. They want to test. We don't see how we can go along with that. We are keeping a detailed journal of all we do in our "school," we have all the projects, papers, etc, to show; and they can talk to our kids to find out anything else they want to know ... HOME SCHOLARS
The Anchorage Daily News,
12/21/81:
... A student who began his aca demic career taking correspondence courses in Colville Village, a tiny North Slope [Alaska) community where his father homesteaded, capped it Sat urday night by winning a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University in England. Mark Helmericks, a geology major
16
at Harvard University ... took grades 1 through 8 by correspondence courses ... He then moved to Fairbanks to attend high school. There, he earned a 4.0 grade-point average in his freshman and senior years, sever al science awards and won the junior sectional rifle meet three consecu tive years .. . The Boston Globe, 12/7/81: ... Ruth Lawrence of Hudders field, England, won a mathematics scholarship to Oxford University. She topped 530 entrants and beat the best brains in Britain's high schools. She has never been to school, but was coached at home by her father who gave up his job as a computer consul tant to teach his daughter. She will go to Oxford in 1983 when she is 12 to become the university's youngest scholar. Her parents will move house from Yorkshir"e to be with her. Ruth has not mixed a great deal with other children because she has been taught at home "but she plays the piano and has quite a wide range of interests," her father, Harry, said ... AMERICAN SCHOOL RESULTS
From the bulletin of the AMERI CAN SCHOOL, 850 E. 58th St, Chicago IL 60637: ... Since the American School was founded in 1897, some eighty years ago, more than 2,000,000 men and women have en~olled for the full vari ety of courses that were available. Since 1946, more than 150,000 men and women have graduated from our high school completion program alone. 98% of our graduates would recommend Amer ican School to their own friends and relatives. Over 800 colleges and universi ties have qccepted our graduates . The Army, Navy, and Air Force accept our diploma for enlistment ... Nine out of ten American School graduates who go to college make good grades. The achieveme nt of graduates of the American School [was] rated by their college registrars, compared with that of college students general ly ... 57% of the graduates were rated excellent or above average compared with 30% among students generally ... BANDING TOGETHER The reader who wrote "Fire Inspection," GWS #24, also told us:
... 1 got some friends together who felt the same way I did about the public school system. We formed a School Committee and developed a charter and some rules that we in tended to operate by. Our charter out lines that our purpose is to provide instruction on a one-to- one basis in the home environment. The committee then drew up a letter to the Office o f Non-public Schools in Raleigh to provide notification of our intent to operate a private school . . . Last week, when we were enroll ing another family in our faculty/stu dent body, we encountered a rost of our school . The new family went to the public school with their child to withdraw and to turn in the c hild' s borrowed books. They were being inter rogated as to why the with~rawal . Even though I had explained to them to ple as e refer all questions from the schoo l officials to me, perhaps I
did not make myself completely clear. Not knowing better, they spilled the beans, that we were home-schoolers operating under an organized front school. This principal called me to ask some questions. He started out a lit tle hostile, asking if we were a home-bound school . I avoided the ques tion by stating, "We are fully approved by the state." I then asked if he had checked with the Office of Non-public Schools in Raleigh to see if we were a state-approved school. He answered no. So as to avoid fur ther confrontation, I suggested that h e do so if he had further questions. He said, "Well, if you're on the up and up, then why did Mrs . X say that you were ordering correspondence courses for her child?" I answered that our school was very small and that we did not have the resources to develop our own courses yet, and that we used the course materials from regionally accredited correspondence schools. He asked if we sent the materials to the correspondence school for grading . I said the cour ses were supervised locally, and then the work was sent to the correspon dence school to be registered. He apologized and said that he had misunderstood and become alarmed because he thought we might be home schoolers from what Mrs. X had said. Later he called the new family and told them that everything checked out OK and that he was satisfied our school was legal . ... 1 have noted that when home schoolers band together, the number of students involved seems to make the school more credible. The records that the state requires us to keep, though a little extra work, are worth the trouble to be recognized as a legal school ... Plus, the children have enjoyed getting together. We have access to films, projec tors, and other materials that are available to schools in our county. Some of these materials are of ques tionable value, but we have used the equipment and such films as "Jungle Book." The county has quite a large selection of films available at no cost . . .. Perhaps in order to be legal home-schoolers, we simply need to learn to use the buzz words that the school systems use, so that they will understand what we are saying ... Nothing needed to be misrepresented to get approval. The faculty member in each "satellite classroom" also happens to be the mother of the stu dents under her supervision . The "cen tral school record file" is a file cabinet in my house - oops, my "satel lite classroom." ... A little tact and diplomacy appears to be the oil that lubricates the friction with school officials to smooth things out ... [From a later letter:] Someone from the office of non-public schools called at our home today. He intended to inspect our school, to determine its legality. Fortunately we were ready. He asked if we had obtained the required permits and inspections . We had. He asked to see the fire inspection certificate. He was allowed to see it. He asked if were keeping up with student immunization records. He was told, "We are." ... He was very courteous and nice ... He recommended that we keep all the required records on file, ready to be shown on demand. And that we be dis creet, because some people "may not like the idea of having a school in one's home.". I feel he knew full well what was going on here ...
[JH:] I have felt for some time that it might be useful in many states to do what these families have done. A number of home schooling fami lies, even living in different towns, might go through the paper formali ties of organizing a private school. Officials are often impressed by num bers, and many would assume that a school with a large Board of Direc tors or Parent Council must be OK . The Directors or Trustees might even say to the state, "We haven't yet decided what kind of a building we want or where it will be," and get themselves on the official lists without a building. Also, this might protect the families in states with laws saying that schools must have a minimum num ber of pupils. LETIER FROM WYOMING
From Kasey Michaels, PIONEER ACADEMY, 917 N. Lincoln, Casper WY 82601: . .. The home-school situation in Wyoming is very shaky and I think it will take some years yet to determine if we will be able to make it go. Most of the people conducting home school in Wyoming are doing it behind "closed doors." Wyoming state law allows for only two possibilities - every child between the ages of 7 and 16 must attend a (1) public or (2) private school. Anyone can start a private school, but if the school is not classified as parochial, it must be licensed ... The catch is that in order to obtain a license, you must post a $10,000 bond. At the beginning of this school year, I wrote to my local school dis trict and school informing them I had established Pioneer Academy, a pri vate school, and that my daughter was enrolled. They acknowledged my letter and said if I needed help with cur riculum to contact any of their prin cipals •.. Also, that they were refer ring my letter to the State Board of Education. ... The end of October ... the secretary from the local school called and said that a man from the district and the local principal want ed to come talk to me. I told her that I had been advised by a lawyer not to let school officials in my home, but that I would be glad to meet with them elsewhere. I met with them later that day and managed to convince them that although my meth ods were unconventional, my daughter was learning and the school was legal. The next day I received another call from the school secretary who asked me to come over to school for another short meeting. When I got there the man from the district said that as we had had such a friendly talk the day before he felt he should inform me in person of the newest development - a letter from the State Board of Education. The letter said that if the school was not parochial or had not been licensed they would have to take legal action. I said I considered the school to be parochial as I teach religion. They said they could not determine what was or was not a parochial school and that they would have to turn it over to their lawyer ... I enrolled my daughter back ic public school and explained to the prinCipal and secretary that it was a
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
17 temporary arrangement and that when I had resolved my dilemma I would be withdrawi ng her. I then called the school dis trict and asked for a copy of the let ter they had received from the State Board of Education . When I received the letter I noticed that it said, "If in your (the District's) view, the school is not parochial ... " I did researc h at the county law library. Nothing I found said what a parochial school is or is not. I called Legal Aid and was informed that the dis trict, after receiving this letter from the State Board of Education, must (1) make a decision, (2) back it up with a statemen t from the Attorney General, and (3) give me a reasonable amount of time in which to comply with the law. I called the Attorney General's office and asked for a statement as to what constitutes a parochial school . The man in charge of Educa tion Law called back and said there were no laws regarding what is or is not a parochial sc hoo l in Wyoming. ... The first week of December I took a letter to the man in the dis trict. The purpose of the l etter was to request a decision on whether or not Pioneer Academy is a parochial school. At this time I also informed them that I was withdrawing my daugh ter from public sc h ool and again enrolling her in Pioneer Academy. About a week later I received a letter from the district stating that they had been informed by th eir lawyer that it was not th eir responsi bility to make a decision in this mat ter and that they were referring it back to the State Board of Education. I have not heard anything more. ... There is a bill in the legis lature which will amend the law . .. First, all private and parochial schools would have to register wit h the local district. Second, all par e nts with children in private or paro chial schools will have t o inform their local district of their child ren's names, ages, grades, and the names and address of the school. Third, all elementary and secondary private and parochial sc hools will be exempt from the $10,000 bond. If th is bill passes as it presently stand s we will be in good shape . .. This letter has been sent to the many people who have been asking me about home schools i n Wyoming as a result of an article I wrote ... I hope we can get organized for a news letter and some sort of support group soon ... SENSIBLE EDITORIAL
An edito rial in the Baltimore Sun, 1/4/82 : The Andriolos of Bel Air ha ve been told formally by the Hartford County school board that they can't legally educate their daughter, Zoe, at home. But don't count the Andri olos out. They have open to them an appeal to the State Board of Educa tion and to the courts. They have l os t the battle, but they may well win the war. They may win it on legal grounds . Maryland's compulsory attend ance law ha s been interpreted narrow ly by the attorney general's office, but a reading of the exceptions allowed would seem to allow for par ental teaching. There is no require ment that home teachers be certified, for example. All that is needed is "regular, thorough instruction
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
in studies usually t aught in the pub lic schools to children of the same age." That leaves plenty of room . Moreover, despite efforts by Hartford County school board members not to set a "precedent," home teach ing has been allowed in other Mary land subdivision s for years, a fact that will interest a judge if the Andriolos case gets that far . Indeed, two of the correspondence cours es of ten used in h ome schools, i nclud ing the one proposed by the Andriolos for Zoe, are appr oved by the state Educa tion Department. And perhaps this particular fami ly, in these particular circumstan ces, is entitled to win . We are not among those who panic at the thought of parents educating their children at home, who fear for the demise of public schools if the practice is allowed. It is ancient and honorable a nd not meant for most families or for most c hildr en . It requires the patience of Job and the didactic skills of Socrates. So long as h ome teaching is not a subterfuge for truancy - and public officials can determine this much easier than they think - what is the harm ? If the public establishment weren't so busy being defensive, it might think about how its product stands up t o the home teaching pro duct. It might even learn somet h ing from the folks who honestly believe they know their children best and can bring out the best in them at home. Manfred Smith (Md . ) tells us : ... The Andriolos sent Zoe t o a local pr ivate sc hoo l (on their law yer's advice) until they could straighten out their home-scho o l pro gram. Zoe likes this school, so for the time being, she's there. The case, of course, had been dropped by the superintendent since Zoe is in a school . .. FUN MAKING THINGS From Dawn Whitehead ( IL) - see "Giving Them Chances, " GWS #22:
... The teachers went on strike, so Michael (7) didn't go to school for the first couple of weeks . I was trying to get him interested in read ing and writing but was unsuccessful unt il I remembe r ed how much he liked comics, so I said, "Hey, wh y don't you make yo ur own comic book'" Michael obviously liked the idea and was soon busy stapling a hunk of papers together. Then he decided to call his book "The Adventures of Super Squirrel." Super Squirrel poses as Mr. Chippy when he's not busy sav ing baby birds that fall from their nests or octopuses that are lost. Michael draws boxes on each page, then draws and colors in the charac ters . He writes the story and what 's said in the margins, and numbers his pages . I help with the spelling, but the rest is all his own . He's read them to his brother Andy (3) and friend J.P. who also like his stor ies. He brought them to school and his teacher read them to the class for show-and-tell day. Michael said the kids liked them a lot and wanted to hear more. Lately, we have become very interested in birds. This is due to my friend Kathy Mingl and a book called HAND TAMING AND FEEDING WILD BIRDS, by Al Martin. I read the book
to Michael and Andy and they were quite impressed with all the adven tures the author had had with his bird friends. Now we're anxious to do the same . Michael's drawn several bird house plans from a couple of books and we ' ve been busy making our first bird house. We also started feeding the birds in our backyard and are really delighted at the different birds that come to feed: sparrows, chickadees, and cardinals, so far. Michael and And y saw a landscape board at a toy store and wanted it so I said, "Why not make your own ?" They did. The y had an old box and I showed them how t o make paper mache . Using old cans and the paper mache, they made their own landscape with a vol cano, tunnel/cave, river, mountains, and grassland on the box top. When it dried, the y painted it and played with their animals on it. I'm becom i ng quite convinced that no matter what they do with it or anything else they make, the most fun for them is in the making of it . . . One time we were Sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of little round pebbles I'd found at a garage sale, demonstrating what "one, tens, hundreds place" meant, to help Michael with his adding and subtract ing of numbers larger than 10. He'd been having trouble once he ran out of fingers. We made groups of ten for "tens place" and counted out appropri ate numbers of pebbles for "ones place" in 11, 12, 13 .. . 20, 21, 22 . . . 30, 31, 32 .. . etc . All of a sudden we both brightened up and got excite d about the numbers . Wh en we were fin is hed Michael kne w how to add and sub tract large numbers without having to grow any more fingers. I realized that I'd never really understood one, tens, and hundr eds place either until now ... ON MATH
From Ann Bodine (N J): . .. Math is finally moving for ward in our h ouse . .. The materials which we are using are the Miquon pro gram [GWS #14, 19J; a little book of number puzzles using Cuisenaire rods called HIDD EN RODS, HIDDEN NUMBERS, available from Cuisenaire Co . [GWS #23]; the little workbooks, WORD PROB LEMS and MONEY, $1 . 25 each plus 50¢ per orde r (available from Highlights for Children, 2300 W 5th Av, Columbus OH 43216); pattern blocks and the book LET'S PATTERN BLOCK IT (from Activ ity Resources Co, Box 4875, Hayward CA 94545); flash cards; and an electronic Speak-and-Math. Does everyone know that if you l earn to count by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10, and also understand, for example, that 5 x 8 = 8 x 5, there are only t en multiplication facts l eft to l ear n ? (6 x 6, 6 x 7, etc, up to 9 x 9). Most kids learn to count by 2's very early, and they learn to count b y 5 and 10 when they learn to tell time and count money, so the only part they need to learn specifically for multiplication is counting by 3 and 4. My children also enjoyed learn ing t o count by 9's because they liked the pattern of "one less than adding 10," so the y only had six mul tiplication facts to learn . True, when you multiply by "c ounti ng by something" it takes a bit longer: "4 x 6 is 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24." But they eventually begin to remember many of the combinations, a nd I real ly feel that "counting by something" is a good reminder to a child just
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18 what multiplication means. One more bit of math material my children have profited from is the Math Comics from King Features, 235 E 45th St, New York NY 10017. There are four books: WHOLE NUMBERS AND NUMBERS BETWEEN, MEASUREMENT AND GEOMETRY, LANGUAGE OF MATHEMATICS, and TABLES, GRAPHS, AND PROBLEM-SOLVING. They cost $1.50 each and $2.25 postage per order (obviously much cheaper if a group gets together an order). I think these comics are well done. What I've learned from our exper ience with math is that if you allow your children to learn organically you may be quite unprepared and in experienced if you should ever decide that your children must learn some thing they have chosen-not to learn. In my case, I overreac ted. It has taken us some time to find a path so that the math is learned regularly but without unpleasantness and bad feeling, and my children will occa sionally say spontaneously "I really like finding the prime numbers" or whatever. Even now I will occasion ally slip and become unnecessarily rigid for a few days until I catch myself. One thing that has helped a lot is that, within the materials I've provided for them, I let my kids pick what they are going to do each day. ... I've noticed other people say ing things about children being brief ly interested in something their par ents try to teach them, then getting bored, frustrated, or resistant and dropping it, the~ coming back to it weeks or months ~ater and easily do ing the thing they have never touched or practiced in those weeks or months ["Pressured To Teach," GWS #25). I have had this sort of experience with my children fian y times. 1 don't think this means t at the children didn't profit from those few minutes or days that the chil(;ren accepted their par ents ' taking the lead in introducing (i . e ., "t eaching") something ... Some times children don't investigate an area because they don't know it's out there. It helps me to think of myself as just planting the seed a nd letting my children grow it . Then I don't feel as if it didn't work if they lose interest in something I thought it would be good for them to learn . . . Nancy Wallace (NY) wrote: ... Math is really interesting these days. Vita (6) just loves num bers and has always hung over Ish mael's shoulder while he worked on his math. She wanted a workbook of her own, and so I got one which seemed pretty nice, with word prob lems in the form of nurser y rhymes and Mother Goose tales on one side of the page, and "math facts" rather nicely laid out on the other. For a while Vita was happy working in this book and I encourage d it. But recent ly she has been answeri ng a startling number of her problems wrong. This is because the more she does, the more they lose their sense of reality they become so abstract as to become meaningless - a rid she begins answer ing wit h real abandon . I can see that if she was in school, she'd be get ting bad marks on her math papers, and pretty soon she 'd be convince d that she was stupid in math. My solution is to keep thp work book on the shelf as much as possible and involve Vita more in my monetary dealings . Today, for example, I hand ed two twenty dollar bills to a cash ier and as ke d Vita how much th at was.
She divided (out loud) one of the 20's into two tens and then counted "20 (the first 20), thirty, forty. 20 plus 20 is 40'" Since I had used the two 20's to pay for a $25 purchase I then asked he r how much change she thought I ought to get back. First she divided 25 into 20 plus 5, and figured out that the $5 would have to come from one of my 20's, which would mean that I would get ba ck the remain der from that 20. Then, counting by fives, she discovered that there were 4 fives in 20, and if the store keep er had a right to one of them, I ought t o get 3 back . By counting "5, 10, 15," she was able to figure out my change. She still does some work in her workbook though, since sometimes she does like it. What she doesn't seem to like is subtraction, which ordinar ily she avoids. But the other day I found her confronting a page of prob lems like, "5-2= , 6-1= , and 8-5= ." She wassingingaway happi ly, ~at plus two is five? Three plus two is five. What plus one-Ts six? Five plus one is six." ...
at the University (a teacher's col lege). It's called a Media Lab and is filled with educational films. We go once a week and view films right there on their projectors. It's free and is a real boon for us •.• CHILDREN'S NEWSLETTER
In GWS #10, we announced the formation of Hostex News (PO Box 2241, Santa Fe NM 81501), a newslet ter by and for children learning at home. Barbara Rich now writes: ... Hostex News is alive and well' ... I took the advisorship posi tion with the children who publish Hostex News last November, to help relieve Ed Nagel of his (tremendous) workload and I'm enjoying it so much - the material that the children create for Hostex News is funny, touching, and gut-level honest in such a creative way ... We send out an issue every six weeks; the cost is $10 per year ($12 Canadian). "Pen Pal Switchboard" is a regular column in each issue .. .
READING AT HOME
From Marcia Carson (WA):
MUSIC & SUZUKI
From Darlene Graham (TX): ... Thi s is ou r first year to have everyone at home and we really love it' We formed a non-profit cor poration and have our private school under the National Parents League. We took Rachel (17) a nd Doug (12) out of school because of peer pressure and Jesse (8) because h e was having read ing problems. ... This is Jesse's second year a t home. Last year we left him alone to rest. I read to him a lot and loved him a lot and let him do his own things. This year we have some struc tured schoo l time (one h ou r) eve ry day. I went to the Curriculum Lab at Ce ntral Washington University, bought a library card ($5), a nd dug around in their textbooks until I found some old Dick and Jane readers. I told Jesse they were books I had as a child and we l ooked at the pictures whil e I reminisced out loud ... Then gently encouraged him to read to me. I tried not to correct every mistake (hard') a nd kept my arm around him. That was two month,S ago . Now he is reading a ISO-page reader from that same librar y every wee k' I have seen six months' progress in three weeks' I'm so thankful that I had the courage to leave h im alone for a while and then not to teach him to read but let him do it-nImSelf. Now I know he'll be OK. ... Marnie (3) began the sc hool year by acting jealous and inte rrup ting me as I tried to help the older ones with l essons . I was getting very frustrated and my attempts to dis tract her with clay and crayons failed completely. Finally, i n anger I said, "Marnie, what do you wa nt?" She looked so pleased at that-aIrect question and wit hout hesitation she said, "T eac h me to read, too'" On the advice of another home schooler, LeAnn Ellis, I tried making some word cards for Marnie, a nd she learned them quickly ... I put the cards away after a while because she always ran to sit by Jesse a nd me when he was reading and before long was pointing out words in the text that she knew. I found her a book at the library too and s he can read a lot a f words. There's another discovery I made
... We do a lot with music. Grant, 15, has taken piano lessons for a little over a year from an excellent teacher. She marvelled that he wanted to begin at an age when most boys are desperate to quit, but we had let him work on his own until he was playing quite advanced pieces and felt a need for help. For the last half-year or so he has been the accompanist for our church choir. Graham, 12, works with Suzuki violin. He, too, started on his own, then took several lessons from a won derful teacher who said she had never had such a promising beginner. Since he was also working on piano and guitar, he wasn't justifying the price of the lessons. For several months he worked on his own with the Suzuki cassette tapes (beautiful, just for listening!) and now we've found a college student who is enjoy ing helping him, gratiS, just to keep her own skills sharp. Crystal, 9, has been playing piano from John Thompson, Mrs. Stew art, and now Suzuki, also with cass ettes. We could hardly be more pleased with the Suzuki materials. The music is so beautiful, and even a novice musician like myself can see how the skills developed in one piece flow right into the next ones. Even Ginger, 4, is able to learn so much from it, we're just amazed! She would also love to play violin and I can see where home schoolers could benefit by [arming lending libraries for the tiny instruments that are outgrown periodically. We learn new piano pieces by pla y ing "two-hand duets." One person plays the right hand part while another plays the left, then they switch. That way each hand learns its part while the student hears the total effect of the piece. We've found it to be a really delightful way to get the feel of a new piece ... More from Nancy Wallace (NY): ... For the past week or so, Vita and I have been improvising harmon ies. I'll play "TWinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," say, on my viola, and
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
19
Vita will make up a harmony on her violin - it's improvising, obviously, and yet enough within the Suzuki structure so that, in a way, she is learning more than ever about those pieces. Without the boredom, she still focuses on bowing, rhythm and intonation, and in fact, by listening closely to my playing, in order to follow along with her harmonies, she is feeling more musical on the violin and is even thinking about dynamics. She enjoys the sounds that emerge when she plays a third or a fifth down from what I'm playing, and if I play down the scale at the end of Twinkle, she likes to play up. We take turns making up harmonies, and I'm learning a whole lot, although I can't intellectualize it yet. But I'm getting a feel for what works and what doesn't. The most exciting thing for me to see is Vita's bow arm, which has that combination of flexi bility and control when she's happy, and which falls apart when she's unhappy ... From Kansas: ... 1 love music but have had childhood experiences that made it a constricted, angering, and frustra ting thing to try play an instrument. I enrolled my 3~-year-old in Suzuki violin lessons because I had been told the approach was all positive and "as natural as learning one's mother tongue." I'm sure this could be true, but it turned out to be false for us. The teacher, trained as an elementary school teacher, couldn't stop correcting or arguing with my daughter long enough to hear the music. Whatever my daughter was proud of learning was ignored for what she hadn't learned. I was very frustrated with her lack of progress, so I got myself a violin and am learning from scratch. I have a good teacher who takes "ner vous wrecks" from other teachers. I play for my daughter, inviting her to join me any time, but with no pressure. It's hard, since we rent her violin and it gets very little use - but sometimes she's beginning now to pick it up on her own and ex plore. So, we "jam." She whistles, stomps her feet, or invents instru ments from whatever's handy, and, sometimes, plays violin. My 22-month old is learning to play violin, too ... More from Carol Ortiz: ... As a Suzuki piano teacher beginning my fourth year (after three years' frustration with "traditional" efforts), I have become deeply absorbed and enthralled by the learn ing processes of young children (I teach 3-year-olds and up). Some of my families are home-schoolers, and I find these children as easy to teach as pre-schoolers - no fear of mis takes, bug-the-teacher tricks, resis tance, etc . ... All Suzuki teachers use other material~i.e. non-Suzuki repertory, to deal with reading, composition, theory, etc. There is no Suzuki method for that - a-reacher's imagina tion and openness to good ideas are the only limitations. So, to speak of a "combination" of methods [see "Suzu ki and Stewart," GWS #22) is a bit of a mISnomer. "Suzuki" is basically a relationship and an ahproach to music through the ear and t e person as an individual. Any method which can help nurture his learning of music is con-
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
sidered to be PART of Suzuki teach ing, not an addition to it or con trast to it. Most of us welcome good ideas on improvisation and such. Per haps the greatest thing we Suzuki fam ilies have in common with home schoolers is overwhelming compulsion to SHARE ideas, successes, problems, thrills, you name it. No idea of get ting one-up on the next fellow - our strength is really in giving everyone a leg up toward success. ... Suzuki is what has made it possible for me to BE a teacher, deal ing with kids as people to be respect ed rather than conditioned. Through GWS I see that lots of people are finding other avenues to the same thing ... From Susan Bobowski (NY): ... Becky (4) is taking Suzuki piano. We started when she was 3 with the violin, but that is really an abstract sort of instrument for a child whose parents do not play, and at that time neither George nor myself were playing any instruments. We had quite a bit of trouble with her about it, so at 4 we switched to the piano. She is doing better, but she is very resistant to being taught (her teacher is much gentler with her feel ings than any elementary school teach er will be, which is why I don't think she'll last long in kindergar ten). Even in the face of all her arguments, I intend to continue with lessons - to force her, if you will. For one thing she does enjoy being able to play; it seems to be the thought that she has to be taught that bothers her. I think she regards it as an insult to her intelligence and her competence, and it diminishes her in her own eyes, but she gets a great feeling of accomplishment when she masters a new song. Her teacher is very good about listening to her own compositions. Becky has the most interesting titles for them. She played one yesterday entitled "Little Bug Looking For a Piece of Cheese to Take a Nap On." Not something you would play at Car negie Hall, but an interesting tune nonetheless ... [From a later letter): Becky has quit her music lessons for the time being. She says she's going to teach herself at home. I think a large part of the problem was that she was not going quickly enough to keep up her interest. We will probably start her again in a year or two. It took me quite a while to realize that she's only four and that if we stop lessons now it doesn't necessarily mean that we have stopped them forever ... From Marilyn Grush, 24285 Abbey Dr, Ft Wayne IN 46815: ... Both of my girls play the violin - Suzuki violin. They have been to the American Suzuki Institute in Stevens Point, Wisconsin for the past seven summers, and for the last 3~ years they have chosen to be with out a teacher - simply playing the violin, listening to the Suzuki recordings, with the only instruction being at these summer institutes two weeks each summer. In October the two girls were soloists with the Fort Wayne Philhar monic at a children's concert playing the Bach Double Violin Concerto, 1st and 2nd movements. They were asked to play again with the Philharmonic at a
concert a few miles from Fort Wayne, missing a morning of classes. But I never learn' I called their high school thinking this was pleasant news and asked for them to be excused from classes. I was remind ed by the cold voice of the principal that the only excused absence was illness or a death in the immediate family. I ranted and raged the rest of the day only to hear my daughter suggest that next time I just call in sick for them' PS - These two girls saw your renewal postcard and heard me say I didn't feel I had the money to contin ue the subscription right now. They remembered for Christmas ... QUESTIONS ON CHILD· RAISING
From Merry-Lynn Malbrough, 5121 Tehama Av, Richmond CA 94804: ... 1 just finished skimming the first 15 issues of GWS and have so many comments and questions. Even though my son Zay (now 7) is going to a school, the magazine is helping me to change our roles when he is at home and with Gwendy, who is one. I am giving them more credit for being able to do things and at the same time not expecting so much perfec tion. I can see how Zay lacks confi dence because I haven't wanted him to make messes (I have trouble cleaning up my own). So he has been really sur prised lately at me telling him to fix his own food . The Malt-o-meal wasn't too difficult but he insisted on help with the muffins. By the way, cooking has been a great use of math. He's been doing some math with Ster ling who is setting up a model rail road. . .. One problem I have is organi zation. We don't seem to have access to things when we need them (where is the 3-hole punch?) and Zay seems to- use things as they are available. My mother has given us some wonderful science projects but they are often buried and forgotten - or worse, key parts missing' Does anyone have a solution for this? ... Not too much has been said about television. Zay would watch constantly if I let him. At present it is limited to one hour a day of his choosing (usually Wonder Woman). If it was up to me we'd have no TV, but my husband enjoys it ... If I real ly, totally let Zay choose what he does and he chooses to watch TV, where does the introspection time go? He seems to need about 1~ hours of nothing before he gets himself start ed on a project. During that 1~ hours he frequently is a pain in the neck, complaining of nothing to do, or ask ing for TV but if I stick it out he usually ends up doing something like painting or creating a mask or invent ing a new game. If my husband is lying on the bed reading then Zay will get a book and join him. I try to remain accessible but I've found that he often figures things out on his own when I'm in accessible. ("No, I can't come now, I 'm changing the baby" - "Never mind, Mom, I did it.") On the other hand sometimes he just gives up ("Oh, I'm so stupid, I can't do anything''') ... 00 unschooled children go through periods of testing their par7 ents with language? Zay has found that the kids at school get really tickled over certain phrases and he tried them out on me. When it is some thing that bothers me I let him know. Sometimes I handle the situation
20 well, other times I don't. ("I don't send you to school to learn to talk like that.") Does it seem like unschooled children go through periods of being silly about the opposite sex - or their bodies in general? ... My con cern is th a t Zay have respect for peo ple in general and not feel that there is a ny thing wrong with his body or anyone else 's. But I still have res e rve when it comes to "X-rated" subjects for fear that openness will l ead to Zay's assuming I approve of today's moral standards (which I d on 't ) . I guess I'm looking for sup port and suggestions. Basically I believe that all sub je c ts should be left open for dis cussion and Zay will draw his conclu sions fr om his e xperience. Kids today have access to a lot more knowledge but they still pass on falsehoods to each other: "Boys don't play with dolls" and o ther worse ones. As far as body educa ti on goes, we have a 4-book set called "The Life Cycle Books." I noticed Zay had it out the o ther da y but what he was reading was a small pamphlet that came with it e ntitled "Parent s ' Answer Book" ... [ Fr om a l ater n o t e:] Zay really needs communication with kids n o t go ing to school . He's staying home in September a nd doesn't mind, but he is object ing to being different from everyone else .. .
SATURDAY TV Comi ng to the office one Satur day morning, I saw that on' : of the TV sets in the drugstore near our office was showing cartoons, so, as part of my on-going study of modern life, I stop pe d to wa tch a few of them. They made much s tr onger my already strong pr ejudic e aga inst TV. They also made me sus pect that the many adults who complain of the violenc~ on TV may be missing a much more impv rtant point. The first s how I saw was the one about the roa drunner and the coyote. All that hap pe ns is that the r oad runner run s at top speed along desert roads while the coyote tries in vari ous ingenious ways to kill him. But the bird, be ing s marter, always man ages to turn these devices against the coyote so th at they fallon him, blow'up i n his face, etc. A defender of this thoroughly boring cartoon might say that the violence it shows is not "real, " since a second after we see the coyote blown up by his own bomb, or f l atte n ed by his huge rock, h e is up again , not a bit the worse for wear, planning some other dirt y trick . Since no body is ever hurt, and the bad guy always loses, what's the worry ? This serious l y misses the pOint. Sure, the viole nc e is not real, and h e nce (sup posedly ) not frightening, though some littl e children may fear, wit h each new device the coyote invents, that this time it ma y work. But what is real, and permanent, and ce ntral, and truly damaging about this s how, a nd all o thers like it, is the malice, the e ndless, purposeless wish to do ha rm. This is what child ren get fr om the program, the idea that it is perfectly natural a nd reasonable fo r one living creature, for no reason at all, for we are n eve r shown any, to want to bring about the destruct ion of anoth e r . How easy it is, after a steady di e t of these cartoons, to accept the wide spread belief that in the "real world" every human being is the natur al enemy and rightful prey of every
other. After a few of these delights came some commercials, which were even more shocking. The first showed two girls, perhaps nine or ten, care fully putting on e l abora te makeup cheeks, eyebr ows, lips, the works. They wer e stunningly pretty minia tures of a dult wome n models, imita ting to perfection a ll their seduc tive expressions and gestures - child ren used ex pli cit ly as sex objects. The makeup kits , it turned out, are made by the makers of Barbie dolls. The children who wa t ch this commer cial get the message . If you are prett y, and use the right nationally advertised makeup, boys will like you, and will want t o have sex with you . If you are not pretty, not with it, yo u are nobod y, not hing . I thought I had seen the worst, but not so. In the nex t station break was a nother makeup commercial. Again, two extreme l y pretty little girls were putting on lipstick, a ll th e while smiling flirtatiously at each ot her and a t the camera . But these children were five rears old' The peo ple whose lipst ick i n the shape of crayons) they were using were your friendly crayon makers, Cra yola . I can think of no better reason for not wanting to send c hildr e n to sc hoo l than that 99% of th e c hildr e n there watc h this kind of awfu l junk, with its disgusting hidden messages a bout huma n nature and human life, every Saturday mornin g a nd much of the rest of the week. The schools are full of this moral and spi ritual poison, and though it is true that they did not invent it and might be very glad to get rid of it, the fact is that they don't know how. More than a n yone or anyt h ing else , the mass media contr ol the va lues of schools, and as long as this remains so, parents who do not app rove of th ese val ues ha ve every right to pro te ct their c hildren agai n s t them as far as they possibly can. This point may be well worth making in many home schoolin g proposals . - John Hol t ADOPTION RESOURCES
[DR:] In GWS #24, we suggested starting "Resource Lists " of people with certain experiences who would be willing to correspond wit h o th er peo ple interested in or curio us about that topic. In particular, we asked for an Adoption Resource List, because people ask us how to ado pt, whet her home - schoolers have a dopted childre n , and so on . Our r eques t broug ht the follo wi ng na mes: Anne BODINE, 83 Knol l wood , New Providence NJ 07974 --- Jan EVER GREEN, Rt 1 Box 352, Alde r son WV 24910 --- Paula KING, 26100 Moody Rd, Los Alt os Hill s CA 94022 --- Walter & Mary MARSCHNER, 628 Oak lawn Av, Lafay e tt e LA 70506 --- Dan SHULTIS, Pe lon cillo Primary, Box 91, Rodeo NM 88056 . We quote from some of the good letters these people sent. First, Jan Evergreen: ... Shawn (5) a nd Andy (4) came to us an incredibly brief year and a > _If ago . We adop t ed them through the W.V. Department of Welfa r e and they are now l egally ours .. . We plan t o adopt as many c h ildren as we hav e e nergy for a nd work in as man y ways possible to make this world better for those already her e ... Adoption was difficult but cer tainly not impossible . It took us two
years to obtain a home-study - a dic tum from the welfare department approving us. The home-study is the key to state, national, and interna tional children. We believe there is no incentive towards adoption by the federal agencies, because the mo1e y rests in foster and institutiona ized care. Private age ncies are much more enco uraging, but then their fees are involved. Once our W.V:-hOme-study was completed, we were matched to our two boys within a month. We knew great changes were ahead and found ourselves wishing things had not gone just so fast ... However, we received back from our kids every bit we gave out and then some. And that exchange began from day one. ... Change in diet has been in credibly important to the boys Shawn responding best to the Feingold diet for hyperactivity. Chiropractic care has opened them up and released much built-up tension, I believe. We have been able to barter for much of this and feel this as wonder ful community support. We e ven bar tered with the lawyer - his fee being much reduced and included several gal lons of our home-canned apple cider ... From Paul a King: ... We adopted Lind y tw o years ago thr ough a private adoption ... We liked private adoption partly because we got to meet Lindy's birth-parents and grandparents. Lindy's mom was seven months pregnant and 14 years o ld when we met. We got a good feel ing about them and they felt comforta ble with us. We're now looking f or a second baby. We'll be glad to talk to anyone else who's looking too ... From Walter and Mary Marschner : . .. We are now in the process of adopting two boy s, ages 13 a nd 11, from an or phanage in Costa Rica . The subject o f "home schooling" came up when the social worker who was doing an adoption home-study on us realized that our daughter, Jemmy Pangborn, 16, was being taught at home. It took him aback ... He was mainly concerned that we not be in violation of Louisi a na's compulsory attendance laws. ... We knew very well we were not in violation of those laws . .. We peti tioned the state's Attorney General ( through Louisiana legislat or Woody J enkins [GWS #2 4], since a private citizen cannot directly do so), who af ter two or three weeks replied that he concurred with the opinion of the local District Attorney, whom we had a lso contacted, and whose o pinion was that we "satisfac torily meet the requirements of mandator y school a ttendanc e. " The Attorne y General the n said that he considered the mat ter to be closed as far as a ny furth er questions to our "legitima cy." So, we're Oil:. The only further questions that a rose came in the form of some fears on the part of the orphanage in Costa Rica that we were "intell ectua ls," a nd that we and Jemmy "ere doing so much that they wa nted to warn us that rne-youngsters we were adopting were just "normal" ... It's true we had bent over backwards in describing our "schooling" because most people, when they first hear of "home-schooling," feel that it can't be e no~h; but to th ose good folks it must-Kave seemed like overkill, which is certainly not the case, th ough Jemmy has accom plished so much! The thing is - mos t
GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
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of what she has done has been, though hard work, also real fun, like her summer appearance with a local thea ter as Puck in "Midsummer Night's Dream," her first speaking role. Well, anyway, then we had to bend over backwards the other way, and assure the folks who-nave the care of the boys that we were by no means expecting the boys to be "intel lectuals," "little Einsteins," or whatever. .. . We are now very close to get ting everything completed and are pro cessing final papers for the Costa Rican government . . . And from Dan Shultis: . .. We were turned down for adop tion here in New Mexico because of our life style and went on record as "unfit to raise children . " ... We went underground and now have three kids. Everything is lovely now; if we could and can live with t h e idea that "edu cated" and authoritative people say we cannot raise children, so can others . Please refer to us those "hard" cases where there is no other stan dard approach to the problem of get ting a kid . Our way may not be their way, but at least it is another alter native to check out ... Finally, an Illinois reader sent us names of adoption agencies and information sources: AID TO ADOPTION OF SPECIAL KIDS, 3530 Grand Av, Oak land CA 94610; FAMILY BUILDERS BY ADOPTION, PO Box 360, Midtown Sta, NY NY 10018; NATIONAL ADOPTION INFO EXCHANGE SYSTEM, 67 Irving Pl, NY NY 10003; COMMITTEE FOR SINGLE ADOPTIVE PARENTS, PO Box 4074, Chevy Chase MD 20815; NORTH AMERICAN COUNCIL ON ADOP TABLE CHILDREN, 250 E Blaine, River side CA 92507.
state that we will not print names of people who want to learn about these topics . If you're interested, please write to the people whose names we do print - they're the ones who can tell you about their experiences. Some other possible Resource Lists for which we invite names: Home Computers; Single Parents; "Special Needs" children (Down's Syndrome, blind, etc.); Calvert users (and possibly other correspondence schools . ) If you have experience with any of these subjects, would like to correspond with interested or con cerned people, and are willing to have your name published in GWS, please tell us. And if you'd like to be a resource but don't want to write letters, we could print your phone number instead of an address (please choose one or the other). - DR BRITISH EXCHANGE
From Helen Holland, Horsgate Farm, Cuckfield, Sussex, England RH17 5AZ: . .. I've taken upon myself the job of co-ordinating British-American exchanges. Inspired by the account in a recent GWS about families visiting each other, and having much enjoyed meeting other deschooled families here, I thought how good it would be if EDUCATION OTHERWISE and GWS fami lies crossing the Atlantic could get in touch with each other. So ... if anyone visiting Britain would like to meet or stay with home-schoolers here, then please get in touch with me . Likewise if anyone would be happy to welcome British visitors in the States. Terms to be arranged between individuals ... Dc, give details of children's ages, interests, life style, etc . ,. TRAVEL NETWORK NEEDED
TRAVEL RESOURCE LIST
The other Resource List we sug gested was on "Travel." We asked for people who have travelled extensively with children, such as in a van, to list themselves so that others who are considering doing this could con tact them. So far, we've gotten these names: D.R. and Georgette SCHULTE (George 7, Thomas 1). "We've been travelling in our van for the last eight months ... Our present temporary address is: General Delivery, Lake side CA 92040 ... Our subscription is in Georgette's mother's name, Mrs . Florence Stockman, 1301 A Rio Rancho Dr, Rio Rancho NM 87124 . .. The big gest drawback for us as far as this nomadic lifestyle goes is trying to get some maiL" Beth & Art SHAW, Box 245, Gibsons BC Canada, VON IVO . "Last win ter we spent four months living in and out of our van in Ariz. & Mexico." Karen HOLGUIN, PO Box 2010, Sparks NV 89431 . Karen also recommended Escapees: Club Newsletter for Full-Time Rovers, PO Box 2870 MCCA, Estes Park CO 80517. There was at least one other family whose letter has unfortunate ly vanished into the depths of dis orgenization. We hope they will write us again, along with other travelling families. Because there has been some con fusion over this already, let me GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
Dan Shultis (NM) wrote, "We wrote to the Network for Educational Travel [GWS #18] one year ago and again two months ago, but both times did not receive an answer. The let ters were not returned." We also have not been able to get any response from the Network for Educational Travel, and have to assume it no longer exists. We have no way of knowing why - too much work, too little used, personal reasons, or whatever. Several people have asked us to print their offer to host travelling families: Sam & Diane Lieberman, 13250 Hwy 66, Ashland OR 97520; Brenda Cowell, 1814 Giant St, Toledo OH 43613; Carol & Bob Gatts, Rt 2 Box 137, Cushing MN 56443. We're sure that lots of other GWS readers are also willing to host visitors, and we don't want to take up space in GWS printing all the names and details . So we hope someone will find a way to meet this need . Thanks . - DR JOHN'S EUROPEAN TRIP
March 18-25, 1982: SWEDEN. Stock holm, Vasteras, Linkoping, Norrkop ing, Jonkoping, Vaxjo, Gothenburg, Malmo. Arraged by Ake Bystrom and Stig Nilsson. Mar 26-27: DENMARK. Will visit with Rasmus Hansen and the Fri-skol in Copenhagen (formerly the Ny Lille skole in INSTEAD OF EDUCATION). Mar 29-Apr 2: lectures in Den mark. Arranged by Rasmus Hansen.
Apr 5: possible lectures in Ireland. Arranged by Maire Mullarney. Apr 15-27: BRITAIN. Glasgow, Birmingham, London, Brighton, Ports mouth, Wakefield, Hull, Oxford, South ampton. Arranged by John Elenor, Edu cation Otherwise. Apr 28-May 2: NORWAY. Arranged by Mosse Jorgensen. May 4-9: ICELAND. Arranged by Hope Knutsson. NEW BOOKS AVAILABLE HERE
SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS YOU CAN EAT, by Vicki Cobb ($4.50 + post) . Several GWS readers told us about this book. For example, Nancy Wallace (NY) wrote, "By doing these experiments, you can begin to understand the chemi cal components of the food we eat and chemical changes that happen during cooking. As the book says, it is easy to produce changes in food, and if you can produce a change, you can learn something about the starting material from the way it changes . Vita and Ishmael enjoy doing these experiments because they have such immediate relevance and also because they can eat their experiment when they are crone." We haven't tried any of the ex periments ourselves, but they look very promising . One good thing, for example, is that the necessary ingre dients are items you would be really likely to have on hand, or could easi ly find at the grocery store . I can remember some craft book we had around the house when I was young that required things like round headed clothespins and coal and blue ing (whatever that is), and that kept saying things like, "Find a top hat in your attic ... " How many people even heve an attic thes e days? But as I say, the experiments in this book look qu i te practical and possible . Directions are simple and clear, and there are lots of draw ings . Moreover, the scientific part is impressive . Chapter 3, for exam ple, is called "Suspensions, Col lOids, and Emulsions" - you learn what those are from borscht, salad dressing, mayonnaise, and strawberry bombe . Other experiments look at crys tallization (rock candy), coagulating protein (custard), cellulose (boiled squash), and microbes (yeast). We look forward to hearing more reader reactions to this book - let us know what you like and don't like about it. (Same goes for PHYSICS EXPERIMENTS FOR CHILDREN, a book many GWS readers have gotten from us.) - DR TREASURE OF GREEN KNOWE, by L.M. Boston ($1.75 + post). In the second book of this wonderful series, Tolly goes back to his great-grandmother's old house during a school vacation. There he learns more about the his tory of his family, meets some other children from the past, and with their help discovers a great trea sure. An exciting and unusual story . As I said in GWS #19, I love the sense of tradition in the "Green Knowe" books - the importance to Tolly, and to all children, of feel ing part of a long chain of past and present events. - JH LADDER OF ANGELS, by Madeleine L'Engle ($8.95 + post). This is a set of Old Testament stories told in prose and poetry by Madeline L'Engle and illustrated by sixty-five paint ings done by children between the ages of eight and fourteen. The paint ings were chosen from twelve thousand
22 entered in the international contest, "Children of the World Illustrate the Old Testament," a celebration of the International Year of the Child . They are astonishingly varied, imagina tive, colorful, and expressive, and Madeline L'Engle's simple but elo quent text is a perfect match for them. A beautiful book to look at or to read aloud and talk about. - JH THE SECOND TREE FROM THE CORNER, by E. B. White ($1.75 + post). For the many of you who enjoyed ONE MAN'S MEAT, here are more treats from E. B. White, including a number of delight ful poems and three of his rare short stories (per haps the only three), enough to make us wish he had written many more . One of these, "The Morning Of The Day They Did It," is about the destruction of the earth by a pair of Americans who have been stationed in space with a super weapon . White's guess, that astronauts floating in no-gravity space would lose all sense of connection with the earth seems not to have been true; so far, the men who have seen earth from space have gained a much stronger feeling for what it is, our beautiful little home and the only one we've got . But it is a powerful story anyway. Mark Twain once said that the difference between the right word and the almost-rig ht word is the differ ence between the lightning and the lightning bug . No mean hand at choos ing the right word himself, Twain would have recognized and relished the rich supply of right words in this lovely book. May it be the same with you. - JH WORKING, by Studs Terkel ($3.15 + post). This is a very important and
eloquent book about what in school terms might be called History or Social Studies . But it is a kind of history (or Social Studies) that is very rarely written - not the usual story of kings, presidents, generals, etc ., but the story of how "ordinary" people experience and feel about their lives, and in particular, their work. Many of our readers will know about Studs Terkel, who for more than twenty years has been interviewing people for his radio programs and his books. There is almost certainly no one in this country and perhaps the world who has talked to more differ ent kinds of people, and who (because of his own small size, gentle manner, and deep trust and concern for oth ers) has been more able to get these other people to talk fully and honest ly about themselves . In this book they talk about one of the most criti cal probl e ms of modern times, not just in the U. S. but everywhere - the problem of work. In his introduction Studs sums up what the book is about : This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence - to the spirit as well as the body ... It is, above all (or be neath all), about daily humilia tions. To survive the day is tri umph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us ... It is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash ... in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying . A h eavy equipment (crane) opera t or sums up wha t people need to feel about th eir work:
There's a certain amount of pride - I don't care how little you did. You drive down the road and you say, "I worked on this road." If there's a bridge, you say, "I worked on this bridge." Maybe it don't mean anything to anybody else, but there's a certain pride knowing you did your bit ... It's food for your soul that you KnOW you did it good. Like all of Studs Terkel's books, this is a vivid cross section of America. We will know our country and our fel l ow citizens much better for having read it. And it is a good example of a kind of history that some children, at least, might some day want to do in their own towns and communities, as students in rural Georgia do in their Foxfire books . Finally, it draws from the real lives of many people to underline what I wrote about in GWS #6 and in TEACH YOUR OWN - the importance of finding work wort h doing. - JH FOOD FIRST, by Frances Lappe and Joseph Collins ($3.65 + post). In this book the authors very convin cingly show us a number of surprising facts: 1. Enough food is being produced right now to provide an adequate diet f or every single person in the world. 2. In almost all countries, there is enough arable land to feed everyone who lives there . 3. In terms of food produced per input of land, capital, water, and energy, many so-called "primitive" methods of farming are far more pro ductive than our industrial agricu l ture, which is in fact, in terms of those i nputs, one of the most ineffi cient as well as destructive systems of agriculture ever invented. 4. The reason so many people in so man y parts of the world can't feed them selve s is that they are denied access to the land and materials they need to do it. 5. What happens instead is that the land, from which poor peasants have often been driven by force, is used by richer farmers or even multi national food corporations to raise luxury foods for rich countries and wealthy people in the poor countries . 6. Most of whatever foreign exchange these poor countries earn from these exports is not used to by food for their poor, but to buy lux ury goods for their own rich. 7. Practically everything that is sent to poor countries in the name of "foreign aid " serves, if it is not actually intended, to speed up the above processes. 8. Even during the worst of the droughts and famines that plagued Cen tral and West African countries dur ing the 1970's, those very countri es were exporting food to the rich nations . And so on. It is a too-little known, astonishing, and horrifying story, carefully and thoroughly docu mented. What to do? One thing we can all do is to lower the demand that we, personally, make on the world supplies of food, by eating, as the saying goes, lower down the food chain . Frances Lappe, in her earlier book DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET, shows us how we may do this. Thus, since it takes over ten pounds of grain or vegetable to produce one pound of beef, but only three pounds to produce a pound of chicken or rab bit, from the point of view of effi cient use of land, we do better to
eat chicken or rabbit rather than beef, and best of all to eat vegeta bles and grains directly. Of course, this does not apply in places in which, because of condi tions of land and climate, we can't raise foods that we can eat, but in which we can raise animals to turn plants we can't eat into foods that we can. It makes ecological sense for Eskimoes to eat caribou, or for Ice landers or Scottish highlanders or any other mountain dwellers to raise sheep, but no sense whatever to use rich farmland, as we do, to raise corn to feed to beef cattle and pigs. Another thing we can do is grow more, and as much as possible, of our own food . About this very important remedy for the problem of world hung er, the authors say exactly six words. It is not enough . This is for me the only disappointing part of this otherwise essential book, that it concentrates almost exclusively on political remedies, i.e . , supporting programs of land reform and the like. Thus, in seventeen pages of referen ces to organizations, publications, and books, there is not one mention of any of the many people learning how to use land more conservingly and efficiently - no mention of New Alche mists, Homesteader's News, Rodale Pub lications, Farralones Institute, etc. One might say that the book suffers a little from the Write Your Congress man syndrome. Not that writing your CongressmaQ isn't useful; I do it often. But it seems to me even more important that we take part as much as we can in the rapidly growing and very important movement to find out a nd make known as widely as possible how we can best live in greater har mony with the land . Why is this book important to home schoolers? For all the reasons given in the book and many more, peo ple of any age who learn how to raise food more efficiently and conserving ly will gain a piece of knowledge that is and will be very valuable to them personally, to their community, their country, and the world. The schools talk about essential know ledge; even from the narrow point of view of getting a job and making a career, no knowledge could be more essential or useful than skill at raising food. Home schooling parents should arg ue very strongly, as some already have, that the presence of such knowledge in their own "curricu lum," and the absence of it in the schools', is a very strong reason why their home curriculum is better. We can arg ue very forcefully that the schools, in preparing children only for industrial work and dependence on industrial products rather than self reliance, are failing to prepare them for a world food crisis that already exis ts and a national food crisis that already exists and is likely to become serious very soon. - JH BOOK ORDER INFO
Postage Char~e: For 1, 2, or 3 books, 75¢; 4 or more boo s, 25¢ per book ($1 for 4, $1.25 for 5, etc.) Make check (US bank) or money order for books payable to HOLT ASSOCIATES, INC. (Pay ment for subscriptions or back issues of GWS should be made out separately to GROWING WITH OUT SCHOOLING.) Address as of June 1981: 729 Boylston St, Boston MA 02116 . We now have the paperback editions of: GROWING WITH YOUR CHILDREN, $2.65; MINDSTORMS, $6.25. We have had to raise the prices on: THE SNOW WALKER, $2.50; THE KING MUST DIE, $3 .60 ; GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
MADELINE, $3.15; THE ACORN PEOPLE, $1.75. New additions to our booklist: EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT A DRAGON LOOKS LIKE, $5.35; THE UGLY DUCKLING, $3.15; THEORY Z, $2.65; ORSIN IAN TALES, $2.25; PHILOSOPHY AND THE YOUNG CHILD, $3.60; SOCIETY, STATE, AND SCHOOLS, $5.35; PAPER MONEY, $3.65.
Ln, Columbus OH 43204. TN - Linda Sorrell, Rt 3 Box 37, Johnson City 376"01. UT - Jennie Tea, 543 Nichols #2, Moab 84532 ~- Gerald King, Utah State U, Triad 7L, Logan 84321 WI - Susan Brooks, Rt 2 Box 237, New Auburn-;4757; 1-6. --- Linda Hugdahl, 226 E Dean, Madison 53716.
PEOPLE/PLACES
More "Friendly Lawyers" (GWS #23): MA - Eugene J. Burkhart, 566 Main St, Walthami02154; 617-899-5337. PA - Jim Tobak, 201A Drown Hall, LeHigh UniverSTty, Bethlehem 18015; 215-861-3407; lawyer in Mass. and R.I. TX - Egon R. Tausch, Landmark Bldg, Ste. 906, ATamo Plaza, San Antonio; 512-227-8208. WI - Mark L. Perrine, 514~ 2nd St W, PO Box 38~ Ashland 54806; 715-682-5166.
... 1 am a single mother of two young children, and would desperately like to relo cate and live cooperatively with other single unschooling parents, male or female. Prefer vegetarian, in the west, northwest, or Hawaii, and in the country, but will consider grateful ly all offers .. . LYNNE CARTER, PO Box 1055, Bethel Isle CA 94511.
•.• We live on woodsy, hilly land in An education professor willing to help southeastern Michigan and make our living by home-schoolers (GWS #24): Nancy Reckinger, organic vegetable gardening and pressing 8679 Valley Flores Dr, Canoga Park CA 91304. cider. We are committed to home-schooling .•. We welcome additions to these lists, as There is a lot of room on our land for more people and we are open to sharing the space .• • well as to our "Friendly School District" list KEN & CATHERINE KING, 11811 Beech Rd, Brooklyn (ask your school officials if they want to be listed). We'd also like very much to hear what MI 49230. happens as a result of being mentioned in GWS . ... 1 am single with a 10-year-old son ... We will have most of the summer free, and I'd like to locate a home-schooling family with a FORWARDING MAIL child near my son's age, who might need some We'd like to remind you that we are help (work, without pay) on their farm or home stead ... KAREN HATCHETT, 4327 Vandelia, Dallas happy to forward mail to the people whose TX 75219. names were not published with their letters in GWS, or whose addresses are not in the com ... We are isolated from other folks with plete Directory. Just mark clearly on the out similar ideas and my 9-year-old son would like side of the envelope the article and issue more day-to-day time with kids his age ..• We for example, FORWARD TO THE AUTHOR OF "20 live on a small farm in central Virginia YEARS OF UNSCHOOLING," GWS #25 - and then put cows, chickens, etc. We would like to share our name and address at GWS. We'll readdress it and send it on. If you would like an ans our life with others who are sympathetic to the ideas in GWS, particularly families with wer, be sure your own name and address are children ages 8-11. We are very flexible about inside the letter. specific arrangements ... We are willing to move if other folks have a suitable situa tion •.. PETER GOODMAN, Rt 1 Box 75B, Ruckers DIRECTORY ville VA 22968; 804-985-3837. Here are the additions and changes that ..• Caretaker needed for my cabin, acre have come in since the last issue. Our last complete Directory was in #24 . of orchard, and cat in Ocean View, Hawaii. Our Directory is not a list of all sub Climate is cool and dry by Hawaiian standards. scribers, but only of those who have asked to Unschooling seems to be no problem here, and be listed, so that other GWS readers, or other there are sympathetic folks in area. I'll be in Minnesota for three years starting 10/82, interested people, may get in touch with them. so you could make a commitment for all or part If you would like to be included, please send of that time . .. TERENCE WELCH, SR 6079, Ocean us the information. View HI 96704. Note that we are listing names and/or ages of children in many families. Let us know . .. We're buying a 64-acre farm and would if you want us to add yours to the list . Please let us know if you would rather love 3-4 other home-schooling families to live and farm with us. We are an emergency foster have your phone number and town listed instead -- home and look forward to developing a network of a mailing address. for kids - especially along the lines of teen If a name in a GWS story is followed by age employment. We are just two miles out of an abbreviation in parentheses, that person is town, but on a dirt road, and very rural . . . in the Directory. JAN & HOWIE EVERGREEN, Rt 1 Box 352, Alderson WV 24910. AL - Anne & Charles JERNIGAN (7 child ren) R~2 Box 84, Andalusia 36420 AK - Richard & Melinda Botkin LEE (Eli jah 8,~nnabelle 5, Tobias 1) 1670 Evergreen, NEW ALLIES Juneau 99801 --- Ron & Connie MOORE (Ben 2) More certified teachers willing to help Box 2027, Kodiak 99615 home schoolers (see GWS #24, 25): AZ - Michael & Peggy AHERN, 602-966 CA - Terri Christl, 144 Molitas Rd, 8836, Tempe --- Louis & Zeke BLANCHE (Louis 2, Danville 94526; K-7 & Spec. Ed. --- Miriam Vivienne 6 mol 5460 W Nebraska, Tucson 85 706 Haynes, 3764 La Donna Av, Palo Alto 94306; --- Lucy LILLY, Sunset Rt Box 9X, Wilcox 85643 elem. --- Raven & Orina MANN (Misha 5, Paho 3, CT - Geoffrey Smith, 365 Bellevue Rd, Moriah 6 mol Box 1339, Snowflake 85934 New Haven 06511, 203-787-5659; Eng., math AR - Shirolyn ALLEN, Rt N Box 25-C, Yell 7-12, admin. ville 77687 --- Lewis & Carol CALES (Jim 19, MD - Karen Shavin, 1708 Hollins St, Bal Christine 15) Rt 1 Box 101, West Fork 72774 timore"""71223. --- Kelly & Becky HOWARD (Samuel 8, Emily 6, MA - Danielle Fennema, RFD 4 Box 56, Anna 4) 1708 S Boston Pl, Russellville 72801 South Great Rd, Lincoln 01773. --- Henry South CA (Zips to 94000) - Blackboard Marcoux, 40 Concord St, Maynard 01754; BEAR, 110 N Court, Visalia 93277 --- Pat & Jeanne BLACKWELL, PO Box 442, Cedar Glen 92321 617-897-7774. MI - Judy Packard, AuSable State Forest, --- Penelope CRITCHLOW-GOLDMAN, PO Box 878, PO Box-r8, Frederic 49733; K-8 & Spec. Ed. Northfork 93643 --- Mark & Barbara ENGLE (Eric NH - Ramona Patterson, 33 Patrician 4, Jason 3) 1464 Modoc, Salinas 93906 (change) Shores~eredith 03253; Elem & Spec. Ed. --- Keith & Dema HINSON (Darcy 9, Eryn 6, Ash OH - Mary Anne Higgins, Individualized ley 6) 11792 Robert Ln, Garden Grove 92640 instruction and Guidance Agency, 3281 Mapleway Suzie & Walt KIRKWOOD, 8995 Johnson Dr, La GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26
23 Mesa 92041 (change) --- Jodi KLEMM (Aaron 11, Kevin 9, Brent 5) 2114 N Hathaway, Santa Ana 92701 --- Tom & Joyce LORAH, 246 E Country Ln, Visalia 93277 --- Robert & Phyllis McDONALD, 2727 S Stevenson, Visalia 93277 --- Debbie MITTEN (Jonathan 5, Jed 3) 1735 WDrescher St, San Diego 92111 --- Eric & Rami NELSON (Misha 10, Navayan 3) 335 S Grand St, Orange 92666 --- Susan STRICKER, 8400 Gulana #6, Playa Del Rey 90291 (change) --- Tom & Dianne THOMPSON, 2520 S Hall, Visalia 93277 --- Ken &Catryna WHITE (Nicole 4, Erica 2, Joe 1) 426 Andrew Av, Leucadia 92024 North CA (Zips 94000 & up) - Lynne CARTER (Anthony 4, Jenny 2) PO Box 1055, Bethel Is 94511 --- Lee & Marlene CHAPPLE (Darren 11, Teddy 8) 530 Eureka Av, Lodi 95240 --- Terri & Jim CHRISTL (Tonya 2) 144 Molitas Rd, Danville 94526 --- Miriam HAYNES, 3764 La Donna Av, Palo Alto 94306 --- Dean & Darla KARAGIANES (Deena 7, Daniel 5, Adam 2) 3969 55th St, Sacramento 95820 --- Jack & Paula KING (Lindy 2) 26100 Moody Rd, Los Altos Hills 94022 (change) --- Dan & Claudia MAPES (Zohara 3) 1060 Randolph St, San Francisco 94132 -- Jack & Lana MITCHELL (Sari Ann 6, Jonathan 5) INTEGRITY SCHOOL, 8418 Jasper Ct, Stockton 95210 - -- Dyanna REIMCHE, PO Box 990, Bethel Is 94511 --- Larry & Helen RUSSICK (Patrick ·2) 1039 Inverness Dr, San Carlos 94070 --- Mickey & Karen SHULTZ (Siddhartha 12, Shanti 10, Clare 8, Emrys 5, Rohanna 2) PO Box 754, Felton 95018 CO - Jeff & Barbara KEELER (Jason 5, JeffreY-3, Kyle 1) 432 N Walnut, Colorado Spgs 80905 --- Corinne KJORSTAD, Rt 2, Redlands Mesa, Hotchkiss 81419 (change) --- Fred & Susan SHUPP (Rebecca 3) PO Box 418, Boulder 80306 --- Sandy WHITNEY, BON SCHOOL, Box 38, Bon 81024 --- Pat & Forest WIGNER (Aubrey 5, Anson 3) 1420 S Gaylord, Denver 80210 (change) FL - Linda HAMAN, PO Box 9131, Riviera Bch 3340"4 GA - Karen & Richard FRANKLIN (Adam 5, Jessica-2) 5032 Springtree Ct, Lithonia 30058 (change) HI - Kim & Tim BRIGHAM (Jobie 6, Jenica 4, JorY-3) 5617 Ohelo Rd, Kapaa, Kauai 96746 10 - Mr & Mrs David STOUTNER (Soren 3, Camilla-2) 3618 Law Dr, Boise 83706 IL - Denise BERRY (Shawna 7/ 78, Devon 2/ 81) 7TOl 34th St, Rock Island 61201 --Al ice JORDAN, 905 Acton Av, Wood River 62095 --- Jerry &Margaret PARTLOW (Jeff 7, Mark 5, Matt 3, Jonathan 5 mol 2709 Clifton Dr, Spring field 62704 --- Dawn WHITEHEAD (Michael 7, Andy 3) 45 Tefft, Elgin 60103 IA - Terry & Kelli FAIDLEY (Chad 11, Monty TIT, Nikki 6, Kerri 4) RR 1 Box 176, Grand Junction 50107 (change) --- Colette MAY FIELD (Gail 1/ 77, Joy 8/ 79) 2639 E Lombard, Davenport 52803 --- Kakie WISSEL, 3000 J St SW, Apt 1201, Cedar Rapids 52404 KY - Ruch McCUTCHEN (12,10,8) Rt 3 Box 11, CoTUmbia 42728 (change) MD - Carol FITZGERALD & Wade WRIGHT (Jesse"""7, Dillon 4 mol 2111 Eastern Av, Balti more 21231 --- Jeanne GAETANO, PO Box 603, Seabrook 20706 MA - June ALGERS, 413-734-4274, Spring field ~- Margaret & Richard BURKE (Matthew 5, Patricia 4) 55 Garden St, Milton 02186 --Rick & Carol HUGHES (Evan 4, Peter 1) PO Box 692, Groton 01450 -- - Donna Hope SOLOMON (Jarrod 7, Lonny-Seth 3) 27 Rosa's Ln, Scituate 02066 MI - Ken & Ca t herine KING (Billy 4, Kenny TT 11811 Beech Rd, Brooklyn 49230 --Bonnie MIESEL, 1057 34th St SW, Wyoming 49509 --- James & Judy PACKARD, AuSable State Forest, PO Box 78, Frederic 49733 MN - Mary & Jim EMMER, Mary Lou PETERSEN, HTIRE COVENANT SCHOOL, 5570 Covington Rd, Excelsior 55331 --- Rita & Ken STEELE (Paul 5, Carmen 3, Cody 3, Skye 1) 1713 Country View Dr, Burnsville 55337 MO - Rod & Carol BROWN (Joshua 5, Anna 2) Rt ~Box 20, Newburg 65550 --- Ilene & James BURGENER (Candia 6, Celestial 3, Harmony 2) Rt 2 Box 756, Newburg 65550 NE - Beth ARENDS, 967 1st Av, Bayard 69334 ~- James & Mary CANARSKY, 10620 N 137th, Waverly 68662 --- Albert & Roxanne JANE, 14341 Castlewood, Waverly 68662 --
24 Margo KNAPP, Box 665, 602 2nd Av, Bayard 69334 --- Dale & Judy WENTZ, 231 Greenwood, Seward 68434 --- Marvin & Jean WILSON, 6008 Judson, Lincoln 68504 --- Dick & Rose YONEKURA, 774 E Avon Ln, Lincoln 68505 NV - Ed & Cher BAT EMAN (boys 7,5) Star Rt, Glenbrook 89413 (change) NH - Paul & Kathie DUPONT (Je nnifer 6,
Lisa 4'-RFD 2 Box 255, Laconia 03246 --
Stephen & Pamela SMITH (Vanessa 12, Lahra 8,
Jeremiah 6, Arie l 4, Lysha 1) Rt 153, E Wake
field 03830 --- Janet THORESEN, Rt 4, Grafton
03240
NJ - Karen & Gerald ELDER (Krista 7, Robin ~ Dawn 1) 222A Harrison St, Princeton 08540 --- Meryl & Ron FEINSOD (Rachael 4/ 77, Jesse 5/80) RD 1 Box 7 ~ ta1ifon 07830 --- Gary & Bernice McCALLISTER (Chri st opher- 12, Demien 6) 123 Mt Tabor Way, Ocean Grove 0 7756 ~ NM - Donna & John BOLAND (~On-b, Sara 4) RuraT Rt Station, Ilfeld 87538 -- - John & Donna SPRUILL (Joanna 13, Molly II, Ramona 4) Rt 1 Box 7-C, Estancia 87016 NY - Susan BOBOWSKI (Becky 5/ 77, Jessie 3/81) 150 Candor Hill Rd, Candor 13743 --- Deb & Colin COOTS (Heather, Jesse) Cob b Rd, Pav i lion 14525 --- Carole & George FANNING (Damien 10, Will 5, Clem 3, Teresa 2) Rt 81 Box 112, Oak Hill 12460 --- Sharon & Butch KNORR (Josh ua 3, Rachel 1) 716 Vienna St Rd, Newark 14513 (change) --- Dennis & Karen LEE (Jeremiah 5, Zachariah l ~) RR 1 Box 107, WChazy 12992 -- Vicky McINTEE (James 7) 336 E 90th St, #lA , NYC 10028 --- Toby & Evan STOVER (Rio 3) RD Box 428, High Falls 12440 OH - Richard & ELizabeth BURNS (Jesse 10, JaCOb 9, Margaret 7, Mary 4, Kathryn 2, Joseph 1) Rt 5, 1072 TR 1193, Ashland 44805 OK - Mark & Linda ASHTON (Kat hryn 6/ 74, Hi 11arY-3 / 78 , Courtney 2/8 1) 907 Cheryl Cir cle, Lawton 73505 OR - Anna QUINN-SMITH (Kristin 11) 5327 NE 35tn-Av, Portland 97211 --- Marcia & Carlo SPANI (Shannon 3, Renee 1) 4640 SW182nd, Aloha 97007 PA - Cindy CAPORASO, 1230 N New St, Beth lehem Trr018 --- Kenly CORBIN-GOONAN (Rachel 13, Elizabeth II , Penny -Ruth 10) Box 522 Rd 6, Lebanon 17042 --- Tom &Karin DESCHERE (Kristo ph ~r 4, Arwen 4 mol 140 WHighland Av , Phila delphia 19118 --- Bob & Eileen McDOUGALL (Meghan II, Beth 2) 4 Sylv an Av, Rutledge 19070 - -- Walt & Mary MICHALUK (Aaron 5, Jesse 6 mol Box 45, Keystone Jr Col lege, La Plume 18440 --- Debi & Adam SHUMAN (Dawn 5, Miles 3) 5519 Pulaski Av, Philade lp hia 19144 SC - Tom & Ann GILBERT (Clint 4) Rt I, MountvTTle 29370 (change) --- Tom &Tina MANLEY (Kip 13, Cathy 10, Timmy 5, Laur a 2) 836 Myrtle Dr, Rock Hill 29730 SO - Mary NADY (Anna 8, Molly 6) PO Box N, Garretson 57030 TN - Charles & Linda SORRE LL (Michelle 5, Krisnelle 3) Rt 3 Box 37, Johnson City 37601 --- Billy & Fran SPARKS (Stephen 8) 1595 S Prescott, Memphis 38 111 TX - Barbara & Ed GONZALEZ (Tala 8, Mica 5, Renata 2) 5103 Sirretta, San Antonio 78233 --- Darlene GRAHAM (Grant 15, Graham 12, Crys tal 9, Ginger 4) Rt 10 Box 1349, Tyler 75707 --- Karen HATCHETT (Ethan 10) 4327 Vandelia, Dallas 75219 -- - Jess & Linda MILLS (Tammy 14, Michael 12, Amy 9, David 7, Jess 4) 1001 Kath le en Dr, Pleasanton 78064 --- David & Patricia Fair MOUTON (Shaun 3, Bridget 1) Rt 6 Box 40, Tyler 75704 (change) UT - Richard & Marianne BRERETON (Malan 8, ChrTStina 6, Brooke 2, Briana 2 mol 1217 N 800 E, HA-2, Logan 84321 --- David LARUE & Suzanne WOLFRAM (Jus tin 3) 823 S 6th St, Sal t Lake City 84102 --- Jeannine PARVATI & Freder ick BAKER (Oceana 7, Cheyenne 7, Gannon 2) TH E ALCHEMICAL BAKERY, PO Box 398, Monroe 84754 VA - Mark & Ruth Ann BORCHELT (Matthew 6, ChrTStal 4, Simon 7 mol 2310 S Co lumbu s St, Arlington 22206 --- Marcia & Kevin KOLB (Jenny 5, Rachel 2) Rt 6 Box 249E, Roanoke 24014 -- P.M. SHOOK-SOBOTKA (son 4) 17463 Warwick Blvd, Newport News 23603 WA - Mark & Lorna CARLSON (Thea 4 mol 19227 17th St NE, Seattle 98155 --- Jana & Bill MICHEL (Noah 5, Naomi 1) Rt 1 Box 61-0, Port Townsend 98368 --- John & Chris SCHEUFFELE (Jess i ca 4, Jennifer 3, Jeremiah
l ~, Jane 2 mol 802 S 1st Av , Yakima 98902 -- Group subscriptions: all copies are Nancy STARK &Allen HOUSE (Ca lliAnne 7, Benja mailed to one address . Here are the current min 4, Max 10 mol 1320 6th St, Anacortes 98221 group rates (lX means you get one copy of each --- Dureen VANCE, Box 6C, Mozama 98833 -- issue, 2X means you get 2 copies of each Judy VESEL ITS (Amon 8) E 3505 Grace, Spokane issue, 3X means 3 copies, etc.) 99207 (ch ange) 6 12 18 WI - Claudia & Tony BROWNE (Megan 4, issues issues issues Nathan~) N39 W5485 Wilshire Dr, Cedarburg 53012 --- Peter D'AGOSTINO & Linda HUGDAHL 1X $15 $24 $30 (Devon l ~ ) 226 E Dean, Madison 53716 (change) 2X $20 $34 $45 --- Richard & Mary-Therese DORFMAN, Rt 3 Box 92, Sa lem 53168 --- Jim & Janice ERDMAN $25 3X $44 $60 (Marti n 5, William 3, Ryland 1) RR 4 Box 298, add $5 per add $10 per add $15 per Tomah 54660 -- - Bob & Che li FERGUSON (Blake 8, etc person person person Erika 6, Shana 3, Ruth 1) 1408 N 10th Av, West Bend 53095 WY - Jim & JoAnn HOPPE (Matthew 4) PO Box 42TIJ, Gillette 82716 RENEWALS
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GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING 729 Boylston St. Boston MA 02116
Editors - John Holt & Donna Richoux orders or checks drawn on US banks. We can't Managing Editor - Peg Durkee afford to accept personal checks on Canad ian acco unts, even if they have "US funds" written Subscriptions & Books - Tim Chapman & Pat Farenga on them. Outside of North America, add $5 per year for airmail (otherwise, all ow 3-6 months for surface mail). We strongly urge you to get the back issues of GWS, especially if you pl an to take your ch ildren out of schoo l. Many of the arti cles are as useful and important as when they were printed, and we do not plan to repeat the information in them . Any combination of back issues, mailed at one time to one address, cost 50¢ per issue, plus $4.00. For example, GWS #1-25 would cost $16.50 . (25 x 50¢ is $12.50. $12.50 + $4 is $16 .50.) These rates are for subscribers only; non-subscribers pay Copyright 1977 Holt Associates , Inc .
$2 .50 per lssue. GROWING WITHOUT SCHOOLING #26