What EXACTLY should I be doing?

As a parent, I mean.

Seriously, I'm waiting for someone -- individual, government agency, teachers' union, other -- to tell me EXACTLY what I'm supposed to be doing with my children.

Everyone seems to agree that parents are supposed to feed their kids, clothe them, give them a safe place to live. But after that it gets sort of, well, relative. No pun intended.

Some folks, especially those involved in teachers' unions and some aspects of the judiciary, just won't come 'round to the notion that parents could, really could, also be their children's teachers.


Why? When you pin down these critics of home education they mumble something about credentials, certification, professional training and the like.

But wait a minute! If that's the case, then don't I need "credentials" to teach my three-year-old the alphabet, colors, shapes, numbers, and the difference between hot and cold?

No? Well, why not?

Ah, the critic says, this is not really teaching. It's not Real Education.

Real Education is what professional teachers are qualified to offer up.

Oh.

Well, then, what about the time I taught my child the Pledge of Allegiance? No? Still not Real Education? Or the Ten Commandments in order and using the more difficult King James Version? Right, not Real Education, because that never involves anything of a religious nature.

Okay then, what about the time I taught my oldest the difference between vowels and consonants and then went on to present phonics instruction at both first and second grade levels in the same year so that she could go on and learn to read? Or the time I used a lit candle and a tennis ball to demonstrate how we get seasons? Or what about our discussion and demonstration of nuclear fusion using dried garbanzo beans and sticky tape? Or our tackling of geometry -- no, no proofs, not yet anyway -- at the tender age of seven?

Still not Real Education?

Hell, I give up. What IS Real Education and why is it so exclusive, so elusive, that it can only be conveyed via years and years in university? Furthermore, if this is the case -- and many homeschool critics like to say it is -- doesn't it signal some fundamental flaw in the notion of a democratic society, that common knowledge should be so incredibly uncommonly available?

The argument that parents aren't credentialed to teach children is extremely thin, even though it sounds very officious and important on the face of it.

Exactly the sort of argument that really steams me: Illogical but powerful nonetheless.

The worst part is how many parents BELIEVE IT THEMSELVES. Why, people, why do you give over the character training of your children to other people? No, you say, it's not character training we want others to do, we just want them to teach our kids the Three R's. Oh, and we also want our children to learn about the Real World.

Uh, here's the problem, folks. Children in today's public schools aren't getting the Three R's. Yes, yes, they're getting basic academics (maybe, but then there are those annoying stats that keep resurfacing about how many high schoool grads have to take remedial reading as college freshmen) but it comes along with a boatload of social engineering, personal opinions about things you may or may not want your kids to learn at the ages they're learning it. It's character training by default and there's no getting around it.

One person's opinion of what the Real World is is as arbitrary as the opinion of what Real Education is.

Real is relative and each family should take it upon itself to determine which reality it's going to adopt.

Look, I'm sitting here with a 1200+ page book of resources for homeschooling families, a catalog the size of a city phone book, and all of it very affordable. Some of it may be more useful than others. Some of it looks downright boring and gimmicky.

But the bottom line is this -- and ALL parents reading this post should take what I'm about to say to heart:

If you can read and talk about what you have read, if you can perform basic math and use a calculator, if you can pick up a phone and dial a phone number, you CAN summon whatever resources or information you need to teach your child.

It's not magic. It's not a mystery. And the teachers' unions don't want you to know this.

Nothing against teachers. I want them to do a good job and I don't sit around hoping they will fail.

But by the same token, I want them to understand in as plain a language as I can speak that my children are MY children, not theirs and unless they're going to take them on to raise in every way, they need to quit telling me what I am or am not capable of doing.

Don't like the way I teach?

Precious critics, the feeling is mutual.

Muslims can't pledge allegiance to their adopted country?

Not according to one Oregon elementary school principal who opted to remove the Pledge of Allegiance from her school's end of year program. When a parent questioned the move, the principal emailed her, saying the Pledge was omitted out of respect for the many Muslim families who might be offended by the phrase, "one nation under God."



We call Him God, they call Him Allah. Should we really let semantics stand in the way of a common cultural practice for those who live in America or who call themselves Americans? If I was one of those Muslim families enjoying the beauty and bounty of this great nation, I'd be quite embarrassed by this woman's well-intentioned but fabulously ignorant move.



Muslims living in this country SHOULD pledge allegiance to it, as should people of ALL ethnicities and religions.



We are all here, together, IN AMERICA and we are all, for the most part, benefiting tremendously from this fact.



What is it lately with school principals? First, we get one in Friendswood who brings in a Muslim political group and forces children (without parental consent or knowledge) to listen to a presentation on the religion. Now we have one in Oregon who finds pledging allegiance to her own country offensive enough to deprive lots of little children of it, too.



Save me before I drown in misdirected political correctness. The tide sweeps o'er me faster than I can swim.

HISD's stinky skunk of a school

When I was in Brownies a million years ago, we used to sing a little ditty about a skunk under a bunk as we hiked our way through the woods on day camping trips. The song went like this:

"I'm a little striped skunk
Sleeping under someone's bunk.
No one likes to sleep with me,
'Cause I'm as smelly as can be."

Then we'd holler out in unison: "Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse!"

And the song would start up again.

Houston Independent School District apparently knows this routine well now, too. The state has ordered the district to shut down Sam Houston High School after, get ready now, SIX YEARS OF POOR PERFORMANCE.

Yes, you read that right. SIX years of failing to meet minimum academic standards.

For SIX (I'm sorry, folks, but I cannot get past that incredible number as it relates to the hundreds of unsuspecting students who surely passed through that school's hallowed halls) years, the district has been trying to improve test scores and academic performance only to fail time and again.

According to an article in the Houston Chronicle, the school is tops in the state for the worst overall performance. Now there's a dubious honor!

As an aside, I am curious to know exactly why it takes six years for the state to demand a school be closed and/or a district to figure out there is definitely something bad wrong. Couldn't they have agreed after two or three or even four years that things just weren't getting better?

Anyway, the district has to close the school BUT, and this is a HUGE BUT, it can reopen the school under a new name and with at least 75 percent new teachers and staff.

Essentially, the more it all changes, the more it will likely stay the same. Second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse.

What was the problem, specifically, that brought about the order to close? The Chronicle reports that the math portion of the state-mandated TAKS test is to blame. For the past FIVE years, the passing rates of black students have remained consistently below 30 percent.

The school is predominately Hispanic. This past year 59 black students attempted the test.

What happened to all those black students who didn't pass the math portion of the TAKS? The article doesn't say and that's a pity. Those are the real victims here, but the way HISD is whining about the situation you wouldn't know it.

Here's where the fun begins. According to current law, if a school closes and then reopens itself with a new name and new game plan, it essentially starts with a clean slate. This means that all previous screw-ups are as good as erased.

For HISD, this means that the district could conceivably waste another generation or two of students' lives and time before anything would be done to stop the madness.

Do I hear a "third verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse"? C'mon people, you know the song. Let's sing it together as our tax dollars float leisurely in the toilet bowl before being flushed down the drain.

It didn't take long at all . . .

for child pornography to become acceptable when placed in the context of "art."

Australian photographer Bill Henson, something of a hot shot Down Under, had photos of nude 13-year-old girls on display at a Sydney area gallery when police seized them.

The seizure took place after a gallery patron complained.

Australia's prime minister has called the images "revolting."

Ah, but enter Hollywood and Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett. She and several other artists sit on some sort of arts council called by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and all are defending Henson's works.

Police officials admit that prosecuting Henson for child porn would be difficult and thus unlikely.

I'm struggling to understand WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY does our culture -- and, yes, Australians are usually lumped in with the rest of Western civilization despite their geographic locale -- continue to push the boundary when it comes to what is socially and morally acceptable.

I'm not asking whether it is or isn't okay to hand pedophiles their most coveted possession on a silver plate. It's not, and there's no one no how who could ever convince me otherwise.

I want to know why the photographer Henson and the sponsoring gallery owner thought this was a good idea in the first place.

Have they absolutely no moral compass? Have they been living in caves and just missed the news year after year about the growing threat to children posed by online pedophiles and those whose proclivities in real time are fed by easy access to smut?

Got a wildfire going here, but hey, let's dump this big tank of fuel on it!

Idiots. And indicative of a dangerous slippery slope down which we're all headed.

The Henson exhibit will reopen soon, with additional showings set for another gallery in New South Wales in the future.

This is how it starts, little by litttle, inch by inch, the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water who doesn't realize it's being cooked alive because the temperature rises so gradually.

But it's okay because it's all in the name of "art."

How do I know my children are learning if . . .

they aren't being routinely victimized by the standardized tests administered in the government schools?

It's as easy as asking my eight-year-old to explain to me the difference between a plane shape and a geometric solid. She either can or cannot do it. If she can, I must assume she has learned enough to understand my question and to provide the appropriate answer. If she cannot, then I must take her back through the material until the answer is revealed.

It's as easy as asking this same child to submit to a spelling test of more than 50 homonyms -- words that sound the same but are spelled differently and mean different things. She either spells them correctly based on the context in which they're placed or she doesn't.

It's asking my six-year-old to read a chapter in an American history reader and then explaining to me how what she just read ties in with what she read two months ago. Was there retention of the earlier information? Is she making the correct connections with respect to cause and effect? If so, then it's safe to assume she has learned the material well enough to "pass."

In the old days of public schooling, before some wingnut invented the million dollar testing business, teachers could juggle a roomful of children of all ages -- think one-room schoolhouse -- or a class of 15 to 20 same age children and in the course of a year determine who had or had not learned the material sufficiently to matriculate.

Are modern-day teachers somehow less competent in this respect? I don't think so. I do think that modern day education bureaucracies have crippled our best teachers by inasmuch telling them their own judgement is not to be trusted, that only a standardized test can tell parents and taxpayers what we need to know. Teachers who are with their students seven to eight hours a day five days a week for nine months cannot possibly figure out who's made progress and who needs help?

Sort of like telling parents who know their children better than anyone else that they cannot possibly teach their own.

I'm confused. Is an impersonal test the only and best measurement of knowledge? Observation, demonstration, recitation and application don't matter?

Our culture's perspective on learning is two-faced, telling us, in effect, that neither teachers or parents are to be trusted.

Meanwhile, I'll keep on quizzing my kids and requiring them to prove what they know. I figure I can't do any worse than a nameless, faceless testing service at determining my children's level of education, and maybe -- no, I'm confident enough to say most likely -- I'll do better.

Creating a life apart

My daughters are members of a choral group comprised solely of homeschooled children taught by a homeschooling mother of three whose previous life as a college professor of theatre arts equips her well for the job.

They, along with the students in their teacher's acting and beginning ballet classes, performed in a recital tonight before a packed house. Music, movement, drama with a decidely moral message -- the evening had it all.

Looking around the large gymnasium at the families of these kids, I was struck by how, well, normal they -- we -- all seem to be. I saw families from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, some driving expensive cars, others driving older models that could use some sprucing up. They live up and down the socioeconomic spectrum. Some have only one child, some three or four, some many more than that.

A lot of us don't know each other and that in and of itself is surprisingly refreshing. It means that homeschooling is not for a select few, a small group of people whose association is almost incestuous in its exclusivity. No, self-directed learning has definitely gone mainstream and I think that's fantastic.

The young, the old, the in-between. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and friends of the family. All of us, in one place to watch an hour's worth of artistic endeavor.

All of us, each of us, having made the decision to create for our children a life apart. And deciding to do it TOGETHER.

The oft-heard criticism that children taught at home are being deprived of life in The World never seemed more ludicrous.

NEA not the brightest bulb in the package

I thought I'd seen it all when Planned Parenthood announced Mother's Day as the perfect opportunity for folks to make donations in honor of their moms -- you know, the ones who chose to give birth, thereby generating the donors themselves.

I had no idea that the National Education Agency, long on my short list of organizations to ignore because of its continued stance that homeschooling should be outlawed and homeschooling parents boiled alive in oil, is also obtuse when it comes to population growth -- or, in this case, lack thereof.

Seems the NEA has been a regular and longstanding supporter of abortion rights, even going so far as to encourage its members to help female students gain access to the procedure.

I guess I have to wonder what the NEA will do with all that time on its hands once several more million American children are exterminated. No kids, no need for schools, right? No schools, no need for all those education bureaucrats, lobbyists, and career teachers, right?

What's the old saying about shooting oneself in the foot?

Nice job, NEA. Such brilliant reasoning is part and parcel of why your organization's credibility is easily debatable. Tell me again why I'm not qualified to teach my kids, will you?

Why is it wrong for parents to influence their children?

Every time I read an article or 'blog critical of homeschooling I come across at least one quote that explicitly or implicitly voices the notion that it's somehow dangerous or undesirable for parents to be the primary influence in their children's lives.

Usually, the negative comments are tinged with paranoia that seems to border on fear. The detractors don't like the idea that children are being taught their family's particular religious values, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or other.

The argument seems to go something like this: If parents are the main source of information and values training for their children, then their children will grow up emulating and living those values rather than the values they would have received by being in a public school environment. It's just not healthy, they charge, for children to spend so much time in the company of their families.

Personally, I worry too many parents -- homeschooling or not, regardless of their faith/no faith -- don't really understand the gravity of this perspective: There are those in society who genuinely believe parents should step aside and let the state raise our children. The state will, of course, wash them in the waters of moral relativism, secular humanism, and political correctness in an effort to create a generation whose members all know the same, think the same and act the same. That same generation will be raised to tolerate things that ought not be tolerated, in the name of compassion, decency, fairness, and the like.

A lot of homeschooling critics aren't really bothered about the quality of academics for kids taught at home. What gripes them, deep down, is that the state has no free and frequent access to our children's minds.

We must guard our children's minds as jealously as we guard their physical bodies! Failure to do so will render a good deal of what we want to accomplish as parents meaningless.

CPS just can't let go

I was glad to learn that reunions between the FLDS polygamists and their children are underway.

I was peeved to learn that some sibling groups were so split up in the initial sweep that their parents are having to travel all over H's Half Acre to round them all up.

One family with five children had to pick one of them up near San Antonio before going on down to Corpus Christi for another one or two and then all the way back up to Amarillo for the rest.

Texas is a big state and such travel is nothing short of torturous.

CPS was quick to seize these children, but I can't find mention of where the agency is helping the parents to get them back. Where are the buses that carried them away? Why does the state make the parents bear the expense and extreme inconvenience associated with reuniting their families?

Maybe the state is trying to save funds to pay for the lawsuits that are sure to come in the wake of this incredible debacle.

I was also annoyed to learn that the families will be required to take parenting classes through CPS.

Let's see. You've got mothers who have never fed their kids junk or processed convenience foods, instead baking their bread and growing much of their produce themselves. Many of these mothers manage to keep more than three or four children clean, fed, and home educated. (Early on attorneys for the state admitted the FLDS kids might have trouble transitioning to public schools because their years of homeschooling likely put them ahead academically!) The children received religious instruction. None of the children seized in the initial raid 'fessed up to or showed physical evidence of abuse.

But their mothers need parenting classes???????

CPS couldn't turn the screws one way, so it's turning them another.

Harrassment can manifest in the most subtle of ways, and when it comes to prolonging the agony, CPS is one of the best.

Educational anarchy? Are they kidding?

Educational anarchy is what the California teachers union says will happen if homeschooling parents in that state are not forced to aquire professional teaching credentials.

When I read this, I laughed and then I bit my tongue to keep from cursing.

The California case in which the legality of homeschooling was called into question is still winding its way through the system, with parties on both sides of the homeschooling debate filing amicus or "friend of the court" briefs to support their respective sides.

Naturally, the state's teachers union is rabidly opposed to anything that might shed light on the deficiencies in their public school system, so they've come up with the catchy phrase "educational anarchy."

What this really means:

It means that when families are left alone to construct and execute their own educational plans, their children may not come away from the homeschool experience knowing exactly the same things that their publicly schooled peers know. They may not know how to join gangs, experiment with obnoxious personal behaviors and substances, sass the teacher just because they can, or any number of anti-social activities so common in today's public school environment. They may actually learn to spell well enough to win honors in a spelling bee, use a map with such proficiency as to win a geography bee, or -- my personal favorite -- avoid the claptrap (busywork) that passes for much of public schooling so as to enter college at the age of 15 or 16. They may take up reading classic literature and poetry for fun or they may start their own business. They may be so well socialized that being in groups with smaller children or much older adults doesn't even register as weird.

Yeah, can't have all those independent individuals running loose using heaven knows what knowledge to make their families and communities stronger against the rising tide of mediocrity.

Said tide is threatening to drown us all.

Furthermore, and perhaps most threatening to the teachers union and social liberals everywhere, homeschooled kids may actually absorb and put into practice their respective families' values regarding morals, character and religion.

Kids who are solidly grounded in the basic Judeo-Christian traditions that established this country won't be as likely to accept the liberals' cherished philosophy of moral relativism -- the anything-goes mentality that's giving us all sorts of societal garbage.

Educational anarchy means that a handful of homeschooled California children will likely be taught to think for themselves.

More power to them!

Warning: Education in Indiana only slightly better

This one they got on tape!

Before I begin my rant, can someone tell me what it is about five-year-old boys that makes them such convenient targets for worthless teachers? A slightly earlier post tells about an autistic boy down in Florida voted out of his class by peers, apparently with the teacher's blessing.

Now Indiana is ground zero for yet another psychological assault on a little kid.

ABC News is reporting that a couple in Indiana sent their five-year-old son to school with a tape recorder hidden in his cargo pants after he repeatedly complained about mistreatment in class.

The four hours of tape are disturbing in content.

"I've been more than nice to you all year long and you've been ignorant, selfish, self-absorbed, the whole thing! I'm done!" the teacher says to little Gabriel Woodward. She goes on to tell him that if her words are hurting him, then good. She also calls him "pathetic."

HE'S FIVE!!!! Of course he's self-absorbed. All little children are, aren't they? Doesn't it take most of us many years of living before it dawns on us that we are not the center of the universe?

Little Gabriel was also singled out as the teacher asked his classmates if he was someone they wanted to be around. The other children can be heard on tape saying in unison, "Noooooo."

Naturally, the teacher's union is defending Gabriel's teacher, saying she just had a bad day. Really? The kid complains of meanness all year long and she had an off DAY?

This stinks and I hope Gabriel's parents scare the proverbial pants off that school district with legal action.

What is going on when one child after another is being singled out, scapegoated, isolated, or otherwise publicly maligned by those who are supposed to be nurturing their minds and hearts?

When will parents wake up and realize they are leaving their children for hours on end with people they don't really know but somehow think they should trust?

Like Ronald Reagan said in his dealings with the Soviets: "Trust, but verify."

More parents of publicly schooled children should do just that.

Warning: Education in Pakistan may be fatal

The Gulf Times, a newspaper in the Middle East country of Quatar, reports that a seven-year-old blind boy has been beaten to death at a madrassa -- a free Islamic school that teaches the Koran.

The boy was hung upside down from a ceiling fan after enduring repeated beatings with a stick because he had not learned the Koran. When his condition began to deteriorate, the teacher refused to take him to a hospital.

The teacher has been arrested and an investigation is underway.

This child was seven years old. He was blind. And he died because he hadn't learned his Koranic lessons?

Ah, the religion of peace. Can't you just feel the love?

Forget band instruments, they just don't matter.

Uh huh. That seems to be the opinion of my local school district -- the one to which we pay monstrous taxes just so they'll leave us alone to homeschool our kids.

Three nice young men came to our door last night soliciting funds for band equipment for the local high school. When I asked them why they were going door to door at 7:30 in the evening asking for money when our district is one of the most property-rich in the state, they said there just doesn't seem to be much money available for band, orchestra or choir. They appeared to be a little peeved and genuinely puzzled, but mostly resigned.

After giving them $20 to help buy percussion and tubas, I encouraged them to get their school newspaper in on the investigation as to why fine arts are getting the short shrift.

They all laughed and said they'd do that -- except there is no school newspaper.

Oh, and lest my good readers think our district is hanging on by a thread financially, know this: It spent upwards of $72 million a couple years back to build a big multipurpose complex and sports arena. Naturally, it now cries for more money to build schools as the local population continues to expand.

Guess that's why there's not much left over for the arts.

If those were my sons feeling compelled to beg door to door when they could be studying -- or practicing their music -- I'd be all over the school board. Shame!