Provocative patriotism piques public school

How's that for alliteration? It's the last lighthearted remark I'll make for the rest of this 'blog entry since the story that inspires it is anything but funny.

Out of California, the state whose public education efforts make my toddler look like Harvard material, comes the latest advocacy for everyone except those who are A.) Legally residing in America as the result of birth, naturalization, or appropriate visas and/or B.) Christian.

The story from reporter George Kirayama of the NBC Bay Area affiliate tells about a group of high school students who were suspended for wearing American flag shirts yesterday on Cinco de Mayo.

For anyone who cares, Cinco de Mayo -- or Fifth of May -- is a holiday celebrated by Mexicans living in America to commemorate the victory of Mexico over France at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. The Mexican soldiers numbered 4,000, the French 8,000. The defeated French lost their chance to resupply American Confederate forces during the Civil War. Cinco de Mayo is actually a regional holiday in Mexico, so why Mexicans living in America -- regardless of where they hail from in Mexico -- give a damn is beyond me.

Be that as it may, the students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, CA were tackled by their principal for sporting American flags. According to the kids, the principal told them the U.S. gear would have been fine to wear on any other day, "just not today." The boys said school officials called their clothing "incendiary."

Part of the story is quoted below verbatim:

"They said if we tried to go back to class with our shirts not taken off, they said it was defiance and we would get suspended," Dominic Maciel, Galli's friend, said.

The boys really had no choice, and went home to avoid suspension. They say they're angry they were not allowed to express their American pride. Their parents are just as upset, calling what happened to their children, "total nonsense."

"I think it's absolutely ridiculous," Julie Fagerstrom, Maciel's mom, said. "All they were doing was displaying their patriotic nature. They're expressing their individuality."

But to many Mexican-American students at Live Oak, this was a big deal. They say they were offended by the five boys and others for wearing American colors on a Mexican holiday.

"I think they should apologize cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day," Annicia Nunez, a Live Oak High student, said. "We don't deserve to be get disrespected like that. We wouldn't do that on Fourth of July."

As for an apology, the boys and their families say, 'fat chance.'

The day the American flag becomes provocative has come, folks. And if this doesn't bother you then, please, turn in your coveted U.S. passport and don't let the door at the border hit you in the butt on the way out.

Vaya con Dios!

More reasons to homeschool

Unwinding from a busy day of scout activities, schoolwork (my children's, not mine), and miscellaneous chores, I started thinking about more ways in which our family has benefited from choosing to homeschool.

(Before I get the posts that tell me -- again -- that homeschooling is not right for every family or that "public school worked great for my kids, so what's your problem," let me just say that I already know the first and have 'blogged ad nauseum about the second, i.e. public ed. wasted MY time and I don't want it wasting my kids' time.)

So, on to more reasons we appreciate and are grateful for the choice we've made:

1. Ancient Greece is much more fun when you can spend a year studying it rather than a couple of weeks. Why read about philosophers when you can debate their ideas? Why read about the fashion of the times when you can make your own chiton or peplos out of a bedsheet? Why learn about "pi" when you can read the story behind its discovery? (Archimedes and his need for a better measurement of a circle, btw.)

2. Math is much more fun when you don't have a standardized testing deadline breathing down your neck alongside a teacher, a teacher's aide, and fifty gazillion school administrators whose very salaries depend upon you nailing every question. No pressure = deeper thinking.

3. Science is much more fun -- and meaningful -- when you get to pick your own plants or flowers, draw them, study them, and then plant your own. Botany from a book isn't nearly as substantial as botany with dirt clods and flower parts scattered across your notebook.

4. Art is soooo much better when you get to do it virtually every day instead of as a special class once a week. It takes on so many more forms, some of which spring from the academic pursuit of the moment, some of which just come from inspired minds working at their own pace. Painting, sewing, building, drawing, crayoning, origami -- we joke we're gonna have to build an addition on to our house to hold all the arts and crafts our kids create.

5. Astronomy is so much more inspiring when someone bothers to introduce it to you in ways that don't confine entire galaxies to a quarter-page of a textbook. Again, drawing, painting, sculpting, observing, charting, discussing, demonstrating and experimenting -- my kids have learned more astronomy in one year than I learned in 12 years of public school and four more of state university.

Did you know there was a time in this country when to be considered truly educated meant that you'd studied astronomy? Me either, until I began preparations to study it with my children.

6. Family life -- yup, it's hard being surrounded by other people all day long. (Wait, isn't that what they do in public school?) But I've lost count of the opportunities to remind, encourage, remind, encourage, correct, discipline, train, remind, encourage, correct, discipline and train my children. And I've lost count of the undesirable habits, character traits, or behaviors that have fallen by the wayside as a result. Diligence, rather than patience, really can make a difference. And I can't write enough to describe all the things my children learn about conflict resolution and the importance of being kind over being right.

7. Personal responsibility -- sort of ties in with No. 6, doesn't it? Even my two-year-old volunteers to carry groceries, feed the cat, or take toys upstairs to their proper places. Part of education is learning to work, to have self-control, to do the hard things even when the easier things are so much, well, easier. My kids are still quite young but every day they must make choices and we clearly spell out the consequences for making the wrong ones. More and more we see smart choices born of discernment and reason. This may prove more important than anything they ever get out of a book.

8. Animal husbandry -- why study zoology or biology and take apart dead animals pickled in formaldehyde when you can have up-close interactions with live ones? We have cats, we're getting rabbits, we regularly observe birds, squirrels, and the evidence of moles. Insects of all kinds, arachnids (mostly spiders), reptiles, amphibians -- we see them, we encourage their presence in our yard, we rescue them from the side of the road (turtles). It's not about anthropomorphizing them, it's about observing them in their natural habitats (cats notwithstanding) and reading and discussing their life cycles, feeding habits, etc. When you homeschool, you get to spend a lot of time watching actual birds, butterflies, and other critters instead of seeing them on videos or the computer. You become well-versed in the place of animals in the natural order of things. Nature itself is real, tangible, and integral to your understanding of many things because you get to spend a lot of time out in it.

9. Variety of sensory experiences -- in addition to No. 8, my children sing and two of them dance and play a musical instrument. They are not always diligent to practice, but they are learning what happens when they don't, and the tide is beginning to turn.

10. Books -- my children who read are able to read and read and read on virtually any topic under the sun. Too often I get ready to present what I think will be new information on some obscure topic, say, architecture of ancient Rome and one of my older children will pipe up with, "Oh, did you know that the baths at Caracalla were made of polished marble with beautiful mosaics around the ceiling and in the floors?" and off we go. They end up telling me rather than me telling them, and it's all because they read it on their own.

11. Toys -- I never knew there were so many ways to use blocks and now I think my boys have found them all. The blocks become food, guns, money, people, swords, roadways, train tracks, books, cordless phones (my favorite), computers -- pretty much any object in the "real" world can be visualized in a set of blocks. Oh, and the time to do that visualizing? It happens because they have unstructured hours. It's called "time to think."

Okay, that's it for now. My five-year-old is begging me to show him graphics from a CD that came with a big book titled, "Cool Stuff Exploded" that shows you the insides of everything from car engines to wind turbines and robots. He wants me to print out some pictures so he can make his own book. :o)

What autism cannot do

This weekend, two of my children played in their first piano recital. It's always tricky trying to predict how kids will do under pressure and even trickier when one of them has quirks related to an autistic spectrum disorder.

In my daughter's case, she cannot stand the sound of people clapping or cheering. It is, for her, like nails on a chalkboard, a cacophony of distorted noise that physically hurts her ears and causes her to cry out things like, "Stop, people! Stop that right now!"

Not exactly the sort of reaction anyone expects at something so formal as a piano recital.

So it was with some trepidation that I encouraged my daughter to practice up and hit the stage.

Three short pieces played with absolute perfection later, I found myself clapping madly with tears in my eyes as she not only demonstrated her aptitude for music but bravely withstood the adulation of the audience with nary a wince or a rebuke.

Unless someone else in the audience that day had a child with similar hangups, I daresay no one could appreciate the tremendous strength it took my daughter to endure something that hurts her senses the way the sound of clapping does.

I was proud of her for playing so well. I was even more proud of her for smiling and bowing in the face of a great big fear.

Giving up our kids?

A friend of mine had a recent kerfuffle with the coach of a local youth sports team to which her son belonged. The coach and my friend did not agree on several things, so my friend decided to remove her son from the program.

Fine enough.

As she was discussing this topic with another acquaintance who also homeschools, the woman told my friend that when one enrolls one's child in a competitive sports program one must be willing to give up their child 100 percent to the program's coaches.

I found this interesting and disturbing.

As homeschoolers, one of the hallmarks of our decision to teach our own is that we are not willing to give over our children to the state to receive its version of an education. Likewise, anyone I pay to tutor my children in ballet, piano, or any other subject does not somehow share joint custody of my children with me.

Au contrare. They are hired by me to teach my children something I cannot. They are employed by me, if you want to be technical about it. Do my children become theirs simply because I have hired them to teach a particular skill or subject?

Nope.

The notion that it's okay to give up authority over one's child to another entity for any reason is one that needs to be thought out a little more carefully. It's especially surprising coming from someone who homeschools.

To whom do our children belong?

Update on trashy poster at school

After I 'blogged about what I saw at my local elementary school -- the trashy People magazine cover blown up larger than life and posted on a bulletin board easily viewed by children -- I debated about whether and how to let the school district know my dismay.

I finally decided to back up my concern with words of encouragement to remove the poster, so I contacted the district superintendent's office to let them know my thoughts.

The message was forwarded to the principal of the school in question who promptly and very courteously e-mailed to THANK me for bringing the poster to her attention. Apparently, neither she nor any parent whose child attends the school noticed it, despite its location next to the main entrance.

No matter. The principal let me know the poster had been removed and that she was issuing revised guidelines for the posting of any material on school grounds.

Little victories. I take 'em where I can get 'em.

As for the principal? I only wish every single public ed. administrator in this country was as diligent and interested in parental feedback as she seems to be.