Thoughts on education

Before I started homeschooling my own kids, I didn't have strong opinions on education. I'm not sure I had any opinion.

Now, I have lots of opinions. My opinions run counter to many, and I don't expect anyone to believe what I believe. That doesn't mean I won't share.

First: Children are not blank slates. I don't think this is an opinion, its a fact. I know John Locke  postulated a theory about tabula rasa and that many other educational theories are based on the idea that children are inherently nothing, until we mold them.

Sorry, nope. Having had two kids of my own, and assorted nieces and nephews, and a slew of homeschool friends kids around, I can assert positively that children are born with an operating system that functions all on its own. They like and dislike stuff, love and hate foods, and have a host of subroutines that you discover as you spend time with them.

Second: The idea that a child can get behind. This is an opinion that is widely quoted in educational literature as a fact--especially for curriculums pushing early reading or math skills. Get your child ahead! My response is always--ahead of what?

 My sister is a preschool teacher and she said something to me that I thought was very profound. She said "curriculums come and go, but child development hasn't changed. Kids, especially preschool kids, are the same now as they were 100 years ago, or two thousand years ago."

People will argue about this--what about the exposure to media? what about traveling in a car? Eating food from the grocery store?

Ok, our world has changed. But babies start out the way they always have. Being carried, crawling, putting everything in their mouths, walking, climbing--all the same--all over the world.

So why do we think in the First World countries that we can rush our kids to an Ivy League school by pushing early reading and math--and why doesn't anyone in the school system question this idea. In Dayton, the mayor has endorsed a tax proposed by the Learn to Earn coalition to fund for early learning. I have many issues with this , but most fundamental is that early learning thing. The Learn to Earn Coalition cites a "broad range" of research (unspecified) about early reading and success.

My opinion is based on my own experience. My son was an early reader--not because we taught him to read, but because we read to him. My daughter, read a little later. I think you cannot teach a child to read who isn't ready to read, or math to a kid not ready to do math.

 What are robbing them of when we stick them in a classroom at 3 to learn early reading? Maybe we are robbing of them of the chance to have success? Maybe we are robbing them of being a discoverer. Maybe, by putting them in a an early learning situation with expectations and outcomes for which they are unprepared, maybe by labeling them as "behind," and putting them in remedial classes, and giving them IEP's and disability managers, maybe, we're crippling them.

Homeschooling

So, I am a homeschooler.

I didn't set out to homeschool. I have a son that's an alien. He was allergic to everything. Dust, mold, trees, milk, soy, wheat, cleaners, peanuts--you name it, he was allergic to it. Not from planet earth.

When he was school aged, but not compulsory school aged, the pediatrician suggested I hold him out a year to see if he outgrew any of his allergies. He said, "He might not have to be the kid with the epi-pen." By the time he was five, my son and I had had enough experience with this allergy thing to know, being the kid with the epi-pen was not a good thing.

 Folks fall into two categories when it comes to allergies. There's the dangerous group, which tends to be men of my dad's generation that think allergies should be overcome by will. "What do you mean he can't drink milk? It's good for him." One friend's ex-husband falls into this category. He tried to make her son eat foods he was allergic to because he saw avoiding them as disobedience. One daycare person my son was exposed to was in a sub-category of this "won't hurt 'em" camp. She would give my son milk when a holiday was coming up,  because kids with diarrhea have to stay home until 24 hours from their last solid BM. The daycare used to survey parents to see how many would need services on say Martin Luther King day, a bank holiday, but not a retail holiday. I always had to work. But if my son had diarrhea, well than I was out of the running. And it was only a little allergy.

Then there is the second group, people who are scared of kids with allergies. They follow your kid around and ask "is he allowed to have this?" I understand when the kid is a baby, but at 5, my son knew what things he could and couldn't have. He knew to check if he wasn't sure. It was always hard for him to have adults snatch his food away and bring it to me to see if he could eat this cookie or that yogurt.

We decided to stay home a year. And it worked. He outgrew his milk, soy and peanut allergies. But when he was six, the school wouldn't enroll him in first grade, because he hadn't done kindergarten. I asked for him to be tested. They refused. So, we stayed home another year. Our vacation in October cost a smidgen to what it would have cost in June. Our kids were thriving. "Why were we trying to enroll in school?" We never looked back.

So, I am a homeschooler. I have developed strong opinions on education and the direction our country is moving in its educational policies.