Camille at BookMoot has a post with a list of children’s books about grammar and words. I have some of these; I want them all. Words can be so much fun. I would add Usborne’s book The Word Detective to her list. (I couldn’t find this book at Amazon or at the Usborne Books website. I guess it’s out of print?)
I really think playing with words should be at least half of teaching good grammar and English usage. Unfortunately, we don’t always get around to the playing part of our homeschooling; we’re so busy trying to keep up with the disciplined learning part. I think playing with numbers should be a big part of math education, too. So someone tell me how to cut loose and play sometimes without losing what little structure and discipline we have in this place. Good books are a start.
Archives
One More Timeless Observation from Ben Franklin
This gave me occasion to observe, that when Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natured and cheerful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, &c. and in continual ill-humour; which put me in mind of a Sea-Captain, whose Rule it was to keep his Men constantly at Work; and his Mate once told him that they had done every thing, and there was nothing farther to employ them about; O, says he, make them scour the Anchor.
One of the problems with having children in Major Suburbia is that there is not enough “good Days work” to keep them all contented and in good humor. Young adults (ages 12-20) especially need good hard physical labor to keep them healthy and cheerful, but there’s not enough of it to go around. So we invented “exercise.” However, exercise doesn’t accomplish anything except self-improvement. I think Eldest Son, in particular, needs to build a log cabin or plant some corn and tend it. I could probably use the work myself.
Boredom
One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him (my grandfather) of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else’s. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn’t know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainly not to be trusted. That episode cured me of boredom forever –John Taylor Gatto
Wow! This is just what I am tempted to do when my children complain of being bored. On Saturday we had a”no-TV, no-computer” day, and my younger children, who have been watching too much TV lately, were almost beside themselves. They eventually settled into a rhythm of play and work, but it took a while. I must have more of these days and train my children “to amuse and instruct themselves.”
From the same excellent essay by Gatto (thanks to Daryl Cobranchi at Homeschool and Other Stuff):
Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they’ll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology – all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.
Response
Go here for a homeschool mom’s response to Ms. Boyce’s editorial.
Homeschool Freedom
My response to this article in the Holland (Michigan) Sentinel on September 12, 2004: Are there any homeschoolers in Michigan who could visit Ms. Boyce and educate her about U.S. History and about homeschooling? Apparently, she believes that:
1) Because girls in Afghanistan were unable to get any kind of education under the Taliban and because most of us are opposed to this kind of discrimination, parents in the U.S. should not be allowed to educate their own children.
2) The Founding Fathers made it “possible for all children in America, not just the rich, to be educated.” Is this in the Declaration of Independence or in the Constitution? Where, exactly, does it say that the government has a monopoly on education? Does she know that most of the Founding Fathers were homeschooled, as were most people in colonial America?
3) “They (homeschooled children) are being denied a basic right, which has been fought for all the way to the Supreme Court — the right to attend school.” Which Supreme Court decision declared that a public education is a fundamental right?
4) Homeschooled children are typified by a “lonely child, who, being surrounded always by adults, has little opportunities to develop friendships with real children.” Are my children’s friends not real children? Is their reality endangered by the fact that they are homeschooled?
5)”I have met and talked with a variety of home-schoolers, both children and parents. Many have great gaps in their knowledge. Many are incredibly naive. Some do quite well — they would have been superstars in school. Others can’t wait to leave home, knowing full well that they have been cheated.” Did Ms. Boyce tell these homeschoolers about her view of homeschooling? Did she quiz the children to see if they had “great gaps in their knowledge”? If so, the children and the parents may have resented her attitude and decided not to cooperate. I know I would have been tempted to tell her, politely, to go away.
6) Mothers “receive big emotional rewards” from homeschooling. Wait, here she’s right. Fortunately, so do fathers and children. How about some homeschoolers email Ms. Boyce and tell her about the emotional rewards, the educational rewards, and the sacrifices that are all a result of homeschooling?
I’m guessing that emails to the editor of the Holland Sentinel will reach Ms. Boyce. From what I can glean searching the internet, she has been a school board member in Saugatuck, MI in the past. Ms. Boyce might learn a thing or two from homeschoolers.
Homeschooled: Uneven Results
I never thought of this. The Bennett sisters (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen) were homeschooled, mostly by themselves. So if you want to raaise an Elizabeth Bennett, homeschool. On the other hand, if you don’t want a Lydia Bennett, you’d best pay more attention to the children’s education than Mr. and Mrs. Bennett did.
College or not?
I link to a couple of blogs (Nykola and All in a Day’s Work) written by intelligent articulate young ladies who have chosen not to attend or not to finish college. They both indicate that they get lots of questions about this decision. In this post, Ambra Nykol prints an excerpt from an email that she received from a guy named Craig. Craig gives some excellent ideas about NOT attending college and why a person might choose to delay or skip college attendance altogether. Last year I gave a “Preparing for Graduation and College” seminar to a small group of homeschool moms and high school students. Here’s the list I gave them: 10 Bad Reasons to Got to College and 10 Good Reasons to Go to College.
Ten Bad Reasons to Go to College
1. I’m going to college to have FUN!!
2. I’m going to college to figure out what to do with my life.
3. I’m going to college to find a husband or wife.
4. I’m going to college to get out of my house.
5. I’m going to college to find myself.
6. My parents saved all this money for my college education, so I guess I”ll have to spend it.
7. I just graduated from high school, and college is the next step.
8. I don’t have anything else to do for the next four years.
9. All the really rich people go to college first before they get really rich.
10. I don’t wanna grow up–I’m a Toys R Us kid.
Ten Good Reasons to Go to College
1. I’ve saved up or earned or been given enough money to pay the tuition myself.
2. I want to learn something that I can learn best at a college.
3. I want to earn a credential that I can only earn at a college or university.
4. I want to learn a marketable skill in order to support a family someday.
5. I know what God wants me to do , and I need a college education to get there.
6. I don’t have responsibilities for a spouse or children, and I can afford to spend the next four years learning something that is important to me.
7. My parents and I are in agreement that college would be a good educational setting for me.
8. I want to get a broad liberal arts education now while I have the time and the opportunity.
9. I have the Biblical foundation and the right relationship with Christ to be able to filter all the teaching I receive through a Christian worldview.
10. I believe that God is leading me to go to college.
Musical Homeschooling Family
Here’s a great article on a family of ten from the Seattle area. The children and the parents all sing together and play instruments. It sounds idyllic. Thanks to Homeschool and Other Stuff for the link.
Column in the Washington Post
on homeschooling and clearing up up miscomceptions about it. The author quotes several grown up products of homeschooling.
Shakespeare Weekend
We’ll be heading to the Texas heartland for Shakespeare at Winedale, a University Of Texas at Austin program that uses the summer to prepare and present three Shakespeare plays in an old convered barn out in the middle of nowhere. UT owns the property, and the students spend the summer studying the plays and getting them ready for presentation on a series of weekends in late July/early August. We’ll be seeing Macbeth, Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Tempest. All the urchins are excited about going, and I am looking forward to the weekend with much anticipation myself. So,
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
‘Til the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death:
Out, out brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is seen no more. It is a tale told by an idiot,
Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I don’t really feel that way. I just wanted to see if I could still remember the passage. I memorized it about 25 years ago. I haven’t checked it, but it sounds about right. See y’all on Sunday or Monday.