Some of you may have heard of the problems homeschoolers in California have this year with our outgoing State Superintendent of Schools, Delaine Eastin, suddenly declaring private-school homeschooling "illegal" after the state has allowed it for twenty years. Due to dwindling school enrollments and pathetic school test scores... she's trying to intimidate homeschoolers who operate via private school laws to rejoin the public education system. They want the money - don't you know it? The ADA (average daily attendance) money... for our kids.

There's been no change in the law. Our private school homeschools are still very legal... but through her erroneous memo based on outdated case law Eastin is sure to frighten and intimidate thousands who don't know the Education Code well enough to defend their rights.

Homeschool Battle Heats Up In California

Anyhow, this poem was written about the situation.... and the author said we could share it....

The Eastin who tried to steal Home Schooling
By Donna Pryer with apologies to Dr. Seuss!

The kids in California, liked home schooling a lot.
But the Eastin, who lived way up north,
She did not!
The Eastin hated home schooling
The whole home schooling scene.
Please don't ask me the reason,
Because it's only a guess,
That the answer may be
All the scores on the tests.

"They're buying curriculum and boxes of pencils,
They've maps on their walls and drawers full of stencils.
They have no credentials, no papers, no unions!
To think that a parent could direct education,
Why it's blasphemy! thought the
Much put out D. Eastin!

"And the tests that they take,
And the scores they receive,
Give me aches in my head that
I can not relieve!
And the more that the Eastin thought
Of this home schooling trend,
The more Eastin thought,
"Why I must make it end!"

The Eastin looked up the coast
And looked down,
And she wore on her face
A most unpleasant frown.
Then she got an idea.
An awful idea!
The Eastin got a wonderful
enormously awful idea!

"Those pesky home schoolers,
They simply must stop!
My kingdom's in trouble,
Why I'll call the cops!
I'll make up a law and
I'll make it up quick.
Who cares what the code is,
Or that it will not stick.
I'll send out a memo, a memo of lies-
I'll scare those home schoolers
And watch them all fly.
Right back to the districts,
Where the children belong.
Who cares about rights!
I believe they are wrong!"

So the Eastin sent all
of the districts a letter,
In hope that their lawyers
Wouldn't council them better.
"Home schooling's a crime,
In case you don't know it.
Parents must have a
teaching credential and show it!
Now harass and harangue
All those parents out there.
But don't quote the code,
Just give them a scare.
And they'll come back to the districts
and give you their kids.
Because only the state can
fill up their lids!"

The Eastin thought with a smirk,
"Well that'll fix all their wagons!
Pretty soon all the kids in the state
Will be laggin"!"
When suddenly she heard a
sound on the wind.
A sound that grew louder till it became
quite a din.
And the sound that she heard
On the wind as it rode,
Was none other than home schoolers singing
"Know the code! Know the code!"

  ¶ 11:26 PM  

  Thursday's Homeschooling

Today was another very productive day for Aaron and I in homeschool. For Ancient Wisdom we took a break from Proverbs and instead read something that has been circling the Internet claiming to be a Cherokee story...

An old Cherokee is telling his grandson about a fight that is going on inside himself. He said it is between 2 wolves.

One is evil: Anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego....

The other is good: Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith...

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one I feed."

Aaron drew a dreamcatcher at the bottom and we had a nice talk about the history of the dreamcatcher phenomena. I thought this story worked in well with the Proverbs we've been reading (chapter 27).

Next was his writing time. We talked about the purpose of having a daily writing exercise at this point in his homeschooling. He's never wanted to read or write so he's needing practice, mainly just to get more used to holding the pencil and forming letters at this time. Once he's more comfortable with the way writing feels, and a little better at reading, we'll do more creative writing. Today all he wanted to write was his name and I said that was okay so long as he filled the whole paper. He sailed right through that and was done in ten minutes.

Next we played our new math game... it is a dice/cards game called "Fill or Bust!"... and has ongoing scorekeeping for good addition practice. I remember playing this game years ago at my sister-in-law's house but since then it has been commercialized and the cards added to the original dice game.

Next... we had a break for him to watch his TV show... then studied the USA map. My plan is to help him learn to recognize all the states and to know the capitals. We are starting with the first 13 states - and today we concentrated on learning mid-Atlantic states and reading about New York in our World Book Encyclopedia.

Thursday Evening

Tonight Aaron did 100 sit-ups on the exercise mat he found at the campground across the river. He just loves that mat. Campers use them to sleep on... he uses the one he found for exercise.

Also we started reading a new book for literature: ...And Now Miguel - a Newbery Honor Book from 1953. Cimeron brought it home from school where she's reading it with her 8th grade class. We just love reading the Newberys... so I asked her to share and she agreed. The story takes place in New Mexico and since we studied New York today, and the encyclopedia is still here on our homeschool table, I opened it to New Mexico and showed Aaron the pictures and map.

  ¶ 8:11 PM  

  Friday through Wednesday

This year we took a break for the Labor Day weekend, starting on Friday. No formal education.. but of course in homeschool learning never ends. Cimeron and Aaron had a great weekend at the Bigfoot Jamboree from Friday until Sunday, then Monday was a recovery day. Cimeron is already sick. I don't know for sure if she caught her cold at the Jamboree or at school last week. It has occurred to me that she'll probably be sick a lot this winter through catching bugs at school. She was a preemie and with a weaker immune system from birth she's always seemed more prone to catching everything that goes round. She stayed home from school on Tuesday but went back today.

Aaron ended the weekend with a dog bite. It happened like this: he was visiting his friend here.. then they went to the other boy's house when the family wasn't expecting them, and they had their dog in the house. Well, unfortunately their dog, who is litter-mate to our dog, Bear, and almost an exact twin, doesn't like visitors. Our dog is the same way about biting and spends his days on a chain in a pen now, and just comes in at night. Both dogs are very sweet and loving with their families. Anyhow, his friend's dog bit my son. The amount of blood pouring from Aaron's cheek was enough to put the whole family in shock, but as it turned out Aaron's just fine. The dog scratched him on the shoulder with his paw which (amazing to me) left a bruise on Aaron's shoulder that showed up today, 2 days later. Apparently their dog is bigger than ours but both dogs have big paws. Aaron has been over there dozens of times and this is the first time their dog attacked him.

Because it was late Monday afternoon when this happened I couldn't take him to the clinic until the next day. We're a two hour drive from the nearest hospital so I didn't want to go there. His friend's mom put a good butterfly bandage on Aaron's cheek-wound and Ida (the nurse-practitioner) doesn't think that Aaron will even have a scar. She recommended we just keep that bandage on and apply Neosporin ointment. Also we decided to give Aaron a tetanus shot. I wasn't sure I wanted him to have any more vaccines but because of Aaron's lifestyle which includes occasionally stepping on nails, I thought it would be best for him. Ida told me that Tetanus has a very rapid onset and does its damage within 24 hours, so it isn't something I want to take chances with.

Anyhow....... So that was our weekend.

When we went to the doctor's office Tuesday (yesterday) I was able to read some magazine articles to Aaron. We had to be worked into the schedule there so we were in the waiting room probably about 45 minutes or an hour. At first Aaron was very uncooperative. He didn't want to be there and turned up his nose at anything I could find in the magazines - cartoons, jokes, etc. ...all he wanted was to be at home again.

Finally I saw an article about a high jumper in the June 2002 issue of Highlights magazine, and just started reading it. Sure enough it caught his interest. The article was about Richard Fosbury, an athlete from Medford, Oregon who won an olympic gold medal and set a world record in the sixties, using a technique he'd developed himself. His technique, called the Fosbury Flip, is now used by high-jumpers all over the world.

Next I read "Wheels In His Head" about the invention of the Ferris Wheel, also from the same magazine. This was about how George Washington Gale Ferris came up with the idea of a giant viewing wheel for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. It was created to compete with the Eiffel Tower that had been at the previous World's Fair. At first the fair committee didn't want it but finally approved it just before the fair was to open. This original wheel was gigantic. It could hold 2000 people at one time! It had viewing box-cars that each could hold 60 people. I wouldn't be brave enough to get into such a weird contraption but it was very popular with fairgoers and at 50 cents per ride made a big profit for the fair.

After that we switched to Popular Mechanics (Sept. 2002 issue) and read "Fueling the Future" by Robert C. Stempel.. it was about alternative fuels. We learned about cars powered by hydrogen fuel and about handheld electronic devices powered by photovoltaics. It was awesome and gave Aaron a lot to think about.

After the clinic appointment we stopped at the store for a snack and I bought him more felt pens and another game to use for math. We went to the Indian Creek River Access to consume our snacks and to enjoy nature and talk about the history of the area.

Because we did so much reading and because I felt he needed to take it easy after all he'd been through, I let him off studies for the rest of the day.

This brings us up to today. Wednesday. We got a lot done today. We started, like we always do, with Ancient Wisdom and Art. The scripture for today was Proverbs 27:4 - "Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?" We read it together, then he drew a picture with the felt pens on his paper with the pre-printed scripture. Next he wrote the entire scripture out for writing practice. That worked very well so I think we will use our Ancient Wisdom for writing practice in the future.

After writing he had a break to watch TV because a favorite show was coming on. Next we had reading. I was going to have him do a lesson in the 100 Easy Lessons book but he said, "I have an idea - get rid of the book and throw it into the Klamath River." So I said that was a great idea and wrote the sentence on the pen board: "Get rid of the book and throw it into the Klamath River." We talked about different types of punctuation, how you would say the sentence with the different punctuation marks... etc... also we talked about capitalization and spelling. It was fun.

Next I read Judy Bushy's "Down River" column to him from the August 21 issue of Pioneer Press. We're doing a unit study on the Klamath National Forest and that column had a great explanation of how fires are fought when they break out close to town. It was interesting reading about people we know doing things to fight the Creek Fire, the location of which we've actually seen. Also since Judy is my friend it was cool to read something in the newspaper written by someone we know. While I was reading I put the Klamath Forest map out for Aaron to look at.

After that we played a game of rummy for math. I'm still doing warm-up math exercises with him - we haven't started our main math programs for the year... which will be more of the "Key to Measurement" workbooks and "Math For Smarty Pants" which we started last spring.

Now their friends are here visiting Cimeron and Aaron once again negating the well-known myth that homeschool kids don't have a social life.

  ¶ 5:04 PM