Time for recess!

If the state of Illinois is to be taken seriously, physical development and health are a required part of our curriculum, so here's my two cents on that subject this fall. A friend sent me a link to this article about the importance of Vitamin D. I first read about Vitamin D about four years ago when I thought I might have fibromyalgia. At that time, I learned that many people who are deficient in Vitamin D will exhibit many of the symptoms of fibromyalgia. It was winter, which meant not enough sun in Illinois to get enough sunshine for proper Vitamin D synthesis, so I started taking a D supplement, and most of my symptoms disappeared. Since then, I've been spending more time outside in the summer and not using sunscreen unless I know I'll be out long enough to get burned.

So, other than educating our children about Vitamin D, what does this have to do with homeschooling? Quite simply, we need to make sure our kids get enough sunshine. As I read several years ago, the RDA for D supplementation was established more than half a century ago when people spent lots of time outside, and it was only established at a level to avoid rickets. As this new article points out, D-deficiency has now been linked to many diseases including several types of cancer. D is not present in any great amount in foods, which is why milk is fortified with D, although it is fortified at a level that scientists now know is not nearly enough. Vitamin D deficiency is becoming a real problem. Here are a few reasons why:

“The tendencies of people to live in cities where tall buildings block adequate sunlight from reaching the ground, to spend most of their time indoors, to use synthetic sunscreens that block ultraviolet rays, and to live in geographical regions of the world that do not receive adequate sunlight all contribute to the inability of the skin to biosynthesize sufficient amounts of vitamin D.”

To get enough Vitamin D, we need to spend time outside with our skin exposed to the sun, or take supplements -- 2,000 IU, according to the UC researcher, which is 10 times what the US government still says we need. Of course, when it comes to the sun, we need balance. With the current awareness of skin cancer risks, many people avoid the sun at all costs. I understand this, since my husband is a skin cancer survivor, but moderation is the key. I've read quotes from some dermatologists who get very angry about people "baking" in the sun. In another article, I read that you only need about 15 minutes of daily exposure on your face and arms to get enough D, so that's a far cry from baking or broiling or burning.

So, not only is physical education an important part of your child's overall education, but getting exercise outside in the sun is important for good health as well.

Making gifts

Just found this great blog post by another homeschooler who talked about making gifts for the holidays. We had already decided to do this, mostly knitting socks and hats for family members, but this post has a long list of gifts you can make this holiday season.

Of course, art is an important part of any education, and the thing I loved about homeschooling is that I was never overrun with toilet-paper-tube Christmas trees and other garbage-art from public school art classes. When homeschooling, you can provide the one-on-one attention needed to teach your children useful arts, such as knitting, crocheting, quilting, spinning, sewing, painting, photography, etc. Art is not gluing the teacher's cut-out Christmas tree onto a toilet-paper tube that you have painted green. It is about creating your own beautiful work. In fact, my daughters have both gone far beyond me in their spinning and needlework skills. I only know how to knit fairly simple designs, but both of my daughters have taught themselves to crochet, and they even create their own designs, including mittens, socks, and hats, which are all items I've never created.

Are any of you going to make holiday gifts this year?

The TV choice

Television is one of those things that causes a great debate among unschoolers. While some don't even own a television, others believe that there is no such thing as too much television. They completely trust that their children will watch whatever they need and that restricting television causes children to binge-watch whenever they get a chance. I've sometimes found myself to be the only moderate in the midst of such a debate, but today I found this blog, and the author sounds a lot like myself. He grew up a total addict but now tries to foster a more moderate viewing philosophy.

I've heard some parents say that they tried unschooling, but it didn't work for them because all their children did was watch cartoons all day. While some unschoolers would give an unqualified thumbs up to that practice, I would ask a few questions and suggest that they not throw out the baby (unschooling) with the bathwater (TV).

First, exactly how many hours are we talking about? Some parents might mean all afternoon when they say "all the time," while others might mean every waking hour. All afternoon is less troubling than every waking hour.

Second, what type of activities does the child have available other than television? Many kids today do not have a lot of options if they live in the city if their parents believe that unschooling means a total hands-off approach. They need parents to take them places, such as the library, museums, and parks. One woman asked if it was okay that her four-year-old son watched the same violent video game over and over again. After a bit of discussion, I learned that the family only owned that one video game. The child had no other options for video games. Still, I would not want a child that age to play any video game for an extended period of time, because they should be outside running around, getting exercise, and breathing fresh air.

There is all kinds of research available on the problems with watching too much television, such as obesity and lower academic performance. Television, like many things, is okay in moderation, but a steady diet of TV, like a steady diet of potato chips and candy, is not good for you. On the blog mentioned earlier, the author talks about his family's viewing habits. I personally don't watch any television, but I do watch a movie on DVD once a week. We don't have cable or a dish, but we subscribe to Netflix, which means the family doesn't watch more than three or four movies a week. Some members of my family do watch a couple of TV shows every week through the Internet.

I don't think that television is inherently bad. Indeed, I think there are great ways it can be used. Three years ago, my youngest child and I spent autumn watching all of the PBS House shows -- Frontier House, 1900 House, Colonial House, Manor House, etc. They're reality shows where people go back in time to live like people in a particular era, and it was the most fun history lesson imaginable. We learned so much and were very entertained in the process. It caused us to talk about how we would respond to living in such conditions, and ultimately we decided that although the clothing was pretty cool, we really like having toilet paper and indoor plumbing!

Learning to write; Preparing for college

This little statistic came as no surprise to me. In Colleges spend billions to prep freshman, the author states,

... one-third of American college students have to enroll in remedial classes. The bill to colleges and taxpayers for trying to bring them up to speed on material they were supposed to learn in high school comes to between $2.3 billion and $2.9 billion annually.

If you doubt this statistic, just check the schedule of available classes at community colleges. There are dozens of remedial classes taught every semester in math and English. I know high schools are not preparing students for college because I have students in my college classes every semester who cannot write a complete sentence. This article tells the unfortunate -- but not uncommon -- story of one young lady:

Christina Jeronimo was an "A" student in high school English, but was placed in a remedial course when she arrived at Long Beach Community College in California. The course was valuable in some ways but frustrating and time-consuming. Now in her third year of community college, she'd hoped to transfer to UCLA by now.

Like many college students, she wishes she'd been worked a little harder in high school.

"There's a gap," said Jeronimo, who hopes to study psychology. "The demands of the high school teachers aren't as great as the demands for college. Sometimes they just baby us."

I have had students who were shocked to receive an F on their first paper, because they were A students in high school. Sometimes, they were even in the honors program. These are smart kids, but they were stuck in a system that had unqualified teachers working in an archaic system. When it comes to writing, no one is going to learn to write unless they read and write a lot! They do not learn to write by diagramming sentences or labeling nouns and verbs -- but it is so much easier to grade worksheets instead of essays.

A teacher in a class of 30-40 students (times five classes a day) does not have the time to provide feedback on the amount of writing that most kids need to do in order to become proficient writers. It really does not matter what kind of writing they do -- they can write movie reviews, letters to Grandma, or short stories about their favorite subject. (My youngest has written dozens of stories about horses.) The point is that kids have to write!

And they have to read, so they can see good writing. If they want to read Harry Potter 15 times, that's great! So-called "reading books" are one of the things I blame for so many kids hating reading. As every agent and editor in NYC will tell you -- publishing is a very subjective business. Most best sellers are rejected dozens of times before an agent agrees to represent a book, and then it is usually rejected even more before a publisher buys it. That's because not everyone loves even the most popular books. Between my three children, the only thing that all of them like is Harry Potter. Otherwise, they can't even agree on a genre. My oldest loves fiction; my middle child likes non-fiction books about movies; my youngest reads fiction and non-fiction, as long as the subject is animals.

All of them became competent writers with almost no help from me. They wrote things that interested them and excited them. I never told them to write anything, and yet they wrote prolifically. They wrote fan fiction, forum posts, short stories, and novels. They wrote because they loved the subjects, and they wanted to share their thoughts with other people. Just like playing the piano or shooting hoops, the more you do it, the better you get!

Need for science education

As I've written before, homeschoolers are in a perfect position to provide the best science education for their children, because we can take our kids out into the field and do things with them that make science fun and interesting! My daughter who blogs at Science on the Farm is taking her first college science class this semester, and she already said that she can see why most students say they "hate" science. There is a lot of memorization, and without the practical background, it seems pointless and boring. Here's a quote that pretty much sums up a great article on the need for better science education. (STEM is an achronym for science, technology, engineering, and math.)

"What is most dramatic about this survey is the extent to which the Fortune [1000] executives speak with one unequivocal voice on these issues," said Attila Molnar, president and CEO of Bayer Corp. "Almost without exception, they overwhelmingly recognize this country's great need to tap the potential of the entire STEM talent pool, and the importance of doing so at every point on the development continuum--beginning in elementary school with high-quality, hands-on, inquiry-based science education, through college where STEM talent is refined and recruited, and then into the workplace where it must be further nurtured and encouraged."

Yes -- hands-on, inquiry-based science education -- not memorizing anatomy charts and periodic table of the elements. The people in education know what we need, and the executives in businesses know what they need, but the current educational system is not equipped to provide it.

And I especially liked one of the comments posted by a reader:

Teaching "what" to think (STEM content) is insufficient; they also need to learn "how" to think. Too many of our best minds are crammed full of content but don't know how to make the most of the knowledge. We need to push critical thinking, creative thinking, and systems thinking in the curricula even before the STEM (or any other technical field, for that matter) content. It's like having a huge database but no program.

Again, kids need to be out in the field, getting dirty, doing stuff, rather than sitting in a classroom memorizing a bunch of stuff. Even if you live in an apartment without a yard, you can grow plants, keep an aquarium, or have a couple of pet mice. And you can head out to nature preserves, the zoo, and museums. Most good science teachers would do this if only they could, because they know this is how kids learn science. But alas the schools can't afford field trips every week for their students.

Research on learning

Here is a bit of interesting research.

ScienceDaily (2008-09-27) -- Eight-year-old children have a radically different learning strategy from twelve-year-olds. Eight-year-olds learn primarily from positive feedback, whereas negative feedback scarcely causes any alarm bells to ring. Twelve-year-olds are better able to process negative feedback, and use it to learn from their mistakes. The switch in learning strategy can be seen in the brain areas responsible for cognitive control.

For the whole story, click here.

What do teachers know that parents don't know?

Here is a blog written by a first-year teacher in New York City with 42 fifth graders in a single class!

In 1985, I started grad school at Brown University to earn a master of arts in teaching high school English. I quit at the end of the fall semester. Although I loved everything I learned in the classes at Brown, my time in a Rhode Island public high school was less than positive. In fact, it was my first step towards homeschooling, even though I was not even married at the time. When people tell me they can't homeschool because they don't know how to teach their child, I tell them that a degree in education doesn't teach you to teach -- it teaches you crowd control. It was the hardest thing I had to do in student teaching, and it remains the most challenging part of teaching for most teachers. It is probably the biggest reason that children need to spend an hour on a topic that they could easily learn in five or ten minutes.

And if you think this teacher's experience is unusual, just read the comments. Most of them are from teachers who tell her that they've had similar experiences.

Elementary math

I'm in the mood for Monopoly. You know the game ... Park Place and Boardwalk, pass go and collect $200. We're big Monopoly fans here. It's one of the many ways my children learned math when they were little: counting money, adding, subtracting, buying, selling, and budgeting. Although my children grew up with the traditional Monopoly, today we own four different Monopoly sets: the original, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy Edition, the Star Wars edition, and Gardenopoly, where you go to "weeding" instead of jail, and you get to grow all sorts of plants and build greenhouses. There is also a Farmopoly, which I am tempted to buy, but seriously, how many different Monopoly games does one family need?

My point today is brief ... if you have an elementary aged child, skip the math worksheets and buy a few Monopoly games. It will be way more fun for you and your child, and he or she will learn math in the "real" world.

The real thing

My college students are in the midst of a critical thinking exercise. They are supposed to visit three Web sites and decide whether or not they are credible.

• DHMO.org
• Male Pregnancy
• Skunk Law

Being the eternal optimist, in every class and in every semester, I eagerly await their posts on the discussion board online. And every year I am frustrated and disappointed. I've been sitting at my computer this morning, reading their responses and thinking about how I'm going to respond. And in so many cases, I find myself saying, "You're not in high school anymore." For so many of them, the goal is not learning -- the goal is a grade. Some have a goal of A, and some have a goal of C or even D. In this critical thinking exercise, most of them are just throwing an answer against the Cyberwall to see what sticks.

I've told them that obviously, we know men can't get pregnant, but I want them to look at the site like an alien. If you don't know men can't get pregnant, how would you determine that this site is a fake? I do this because when they choose a speech topic, they will be entering a foreign world where they don't know what is or is not possible. There will be thousands of sources out there from which to choose. Some will be good; some will be biased; some will be wrong. They need to have critical thinking skills to determine whether a site is credible or not. Every semester I have students lose points on their speeches because they use sites that are not credible. So many of them scoff at my warning and saying, "Well, it's just common sense." Here are a couple of the responses:

I just can't bring myself to believe this. Although it does have newspaper articles and other credible sources, I just can't believe it.

The site is not credible because the live vital signs only show results and no proof that a man is actually hooked up to the machines.

Students #1 is a perfect example of someone who will probably use sources that are not credible. She's in a hurry and didn't take the time to actually click on those links to see if they really do lead to the "credible" sources that she trusts.

Student #2 is thinking skeptically, not critically. How could any website prove what he is suggesting? If it were following a woman's pregnancy, how could they prove that it's real?

This is actually an easy site to debunk. If you click on any of the links, you see that they do not go to stories about the pregnant man; the links just go to the home page of those sites. Also, there is no physical address or phone number for the medical center. You can't even figure out what state it's in. If students only took the time to google "pregnant man" or "Dwayne Medical Center," they'd find other sites that say it is not credible. But most students don't think about double-checking their sources.

The DHMO site is a perfect example of how someone can make something look really bad. Everything on that site is absolutely true. But it is a perfect example of bias. So many students think that biased = wrong. Although DHMO does all of those horrible things, it is also absolutely essential for life. As they say in advertising, the truth is irrelevant -- what's imortant is what people believe! Don't be too quick to say that no one would really make something good sound so bad. The government has done exactly that with raw milk. While raw milk has many health benefits, the government has banned it or severely restricted it in many states because big business has convinced them it is just as dangerous as DHMO. By the way, DHMO is water, and as a result of this site, some people have tried to have it banned -- until they learned that it is water.

The skunk site is credible, and a few students pointed out some good things about it, so today I'll be ending that discussion, and I'll add another one: The Lovenstein Institute. That website was created as a result of a hoax email sent out in 2001 saying that Bush had the lowest IQ of any president ever to be elected, according to the Lovenstein Institute. Today, they throw all sorts of interesting stuff up there and mix it with legitimate news, which makes it a little harder to decipher. Since no one has offered any good answers to the DHMO or male pregnancy discussions, I'll leave those up and ask students to continue responding.

This is what I'll be telling my students ... This is the real world. If you're a doctor, you have to diagnose your patients' illness or condition. If you're a lawyer, you have to figure out the best strategy for defending your client. If you're a physical therapist, you have to figure out the best treatment for your patient. If you're a teacher, you have to figure out what works and what doesn't work with your students. If you're an advertising executive, you have to figure out what will sell your products. You can't just throw something out there and wait for someone else to give you the "right" answer. In real life, no one knows the right answer most of the time. You have to use your education and training and critical thinking skills to figure out the best answer. If you choose the wrong answer, your patient might die, your client might go to jail, your students might not learn, your company might go bankrupt. That's the real world. You don't get grades in the real world. You have to think and make decisions, and if you're wrong, the consequences can be much worse than an F.

Science in the real world

When homeschoolers see me speak or first encounter something I've read, they might assume that I'm a science or math professional. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, I write and speak about math and science a lot more than writing -- I am a writer -- because I had such a hard time with math and science in school. Although my science grades were more consistent than math -- math fluctuated from As to Ds, while I almost always had Bs in science -- I struggled to earn those Bs. Teaching science in the classroom is as bad as trying to teach writing through sentence diagramming. Kids can't learn science without living science. My youngest has a blog where she writes about Science on the Farm. While most people don't have a 32-acre classroom in their backyard, they do have plenty of places to study science:

• Even a small backyard has plenty of opportunitites to study science. Get a bird feeder and a bird guide for your state and start checking off your visitors.
• Ask your child to help you decide which plants to put in your flower gardens. Does it need shade or sun? How many hours of sun does each area of your yard get in a typical summer day? How much water does the plant need? What type of soil?
  
• Natural areas, such as parks and recreational areas have lots of plants and animals.
• An aquarium is an ecosystem unto itself and provides great opportunities for kids to learn about aquatic animals and plants.
• Zoos have programs for kids, such as the Junior Zookeeper program at the zoo in Bloomington, IL.

These are just a few ideas. The most important thing for parents to know is that science is one of the easiest things for kids to learn without textbooks. And having a strong foundation of practical science can make it easier for kids when they go into the college science classroom. When they start seeing all of those scientific names, they have a framework to make it all fit, rather than just trying to memorize a bunch of meaningless facts and names.

What surprises a lot of homeschoolers is that most public school teachers would be doing what we do if they were allowed to do it. Here's a post by a public school teacher in Alaska. He talks about what a positive experience it was to take his students into the woods for 20 minutes. We can take our kids into the great outdoors for hours. But it's a big deal for a public school teacher to do something like this for 20 minutes, because it takes away from the time they need to spend teaching kids what they need to know to pass the standardized tests.