Learning Behavior

The following is an interesting article entitled "Children are at School to Learn, not to Behave." It is about encouraging learning behavior and not focusing so much on "good behavior."

Learning Behavior Teaching

Expecting too Much from Young Children: Common Core Standards

I mentioned my son not wanting to write stories in another blog post, but I did not mention that in addition to needing to write stories, the school was expecting my son to write with topic sentences and a beginning, middle and end to his stories. In the teacher's defense, she was only doing what was required by the new Common Core Standards. Here are a few articles about how the common core standards for the earlier grades may not be developmentally appropriate.

http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=407

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/01/29/common-core-in-nyc-kindergartens/

http://deyproject.org/category/standards/

And, an article about the problem of creating tougher standards in general:

http://www.alfiekohn.org/standards/rationale.htm

Education Reform - Graduating High School Early

http://www.arizonafuture.org/news/documents/EducationreformerspushearlygraduationFeb8_2010AZGuardian.pdf

The link above concerns a new proposal that high school students who are ready could graduate from high school at 16 and start college. I read about this originally on another page recently and I can't find that page now. On the other page, the proponent had suggested that for some talented high school students, it doesn't make sense for them to have to remain in high school for 2 more years just so that they are there for a prescribed period of time. Instead, the thought is that some of these students might be ready for higher study and why not let them start to work towards their college educations.

In researching home schooling, as I now am home schooling my son, I have discovered that in our state, because the compulsory attendance age stops at 16, home schoolers are no longer required to submit paperwork to the school district once a child reaches 16. I also have learned that some of these 16 plus home schooled children are actually attending community colleges and earning college credit. There is even a means for a 16 year old here to take the GED if it is needed in order to be accepted in a college program. This has made me start to wonder if I should pull my kids out at 16, help them get their GEDs and have them start college.

I don't have to decide now as I have an 8 year old and a 6 year old, but I do like that these ideas are being discussed and considered. I also like that under the proposal above, the students who start college early could be taking the courses at their high schools with other students their ages.

A Bit TIred But No Regrets

As a mom who works full-time outside the home, the home schooling regimen is a bit tiring. Probably about 90 percent of my time outside of work is now spent home schooling my son and attending to the educational needs of my daughter who is still attending the public school. The housework is a bit behind but everyone does have clean clothes and we do have food to eat thanks to the help of my husband who has done the laundry and gone on many grocery trips for me.

I just have 4 months to go before the end of our school year. I will make it and both my children will be appropriately educated. Some other things will just have to slide...

That being said, I have no regrets regarding my decision to take my son out of school and to home school him. The only regret I have is not having done it sooner. The progress my son has made with his education in the 3 months since we've started home schooling is wonderful. He loves learning and is progressing very well in his reading, which he now loves. My son's reading tutor who sees him once a week has determined that my son is reading at Level I. But when we go to the library my son is now selecting any book that interests him and will try any difficulty of book.

The one area that I wish was farther along with is his writing. That was a big issue for him in school and he had been refusing to write. We discovered on our own that he actually had some fine motor skills issues and was having difficulty crossing the midline. The school should have discovered it over a year before we discovered it on our own. It's no wonder that my son had built up a resistance to writing.

We have arranged for OT for him and we are working on a figure 8 writing exercise that it is supposed to help with the midline issues (Smart Kids Who Hate to Write, Dianne Craft). My son is writing words, and sentences without too much complaint but he still will not write stories. We decided, however, not to push on the story writing (he's only 6 after all) and to allow our son to work up his confidence over time by continuing to write and also by working out the midline problems. We are also teaching spelling, grammar and phonics - all necessary building blocks for writing.

Today, my son told me that he loves to write - he never said that before. So hopefully, this is a good sign that the writing problems are working themselves out with some appropriate instruction.

Btw, as you can guess, because we had reading tutoring with phonics for him right from the start, my son does not have the guessing the words problem that my daughter had. We did not rely on the school's methods only. We are fortunately that he did not have to go through the reading problems that our daughter had.

My daughter still occasionally guesses and guesses wrong, but its less and less and she is a good reader. But now I'm seeing that she has writing difficulties of her own and we're working on those too. Once again, however, what is the school doing to help - it doesn't appears as if it is limited to giving her a low grade and reporting the problems to me.