special education – Home's Cool!

Home School, Inspiring, Photos, Pre-schoolers, Sayings, Wisdom

What a Rush!

Posted on March 14, 2014March 14, 2014 by Katharine

3/14/14 – Reposting this to honor the man.

This is not about speed.

It’s about that rush I get when I teach.

Sometimes I say my bones are aching and it helps if I teach. Ever feel that way?

I think it’s maybe being part of the Creation process. When I see the lightbulb coming on in someone else’s understanding, it moves me, thrills me to the bone.

I love teaching, helping understanding to exist where it never did before. It’s not exactly creating, but like a potter with clay, I can mold someone’s mind to fit around new material, new cognizance, or even completely new thoughts that no one has ever realized before.

Research also thrills me. Discovering small things about big events or important people makes me want to teach some more. For instance: Did you know that as a child, Albert Einstein absolutely loved Euclid’s geometry and called it “that holy little algebra book” or that at age 5, he wondered what frozen light would look like? Who ever thinks of THE genius as a small child with wonderment inside his soul? Or that some adult fed him books over most children’s heads, just for the joy of watching that light come on?

See, I just taught you something and opened your thinking more. What a rush!

Sometimes I tutor. One young girl is learning so much about writing, she has developed an enjoyment for the writing process. Seeing the difference in her output this year gives me such excitement. I think of the joy she will bring to her family as her skills increase and she cements them through practice.

I tutor a couple of legal immigrants in their new language, English, and we have fun exchanging culture, too. I explained our local phrase regarding appetites for all foods, as we say, “eat everything that is not nailed to the table.” They laughed enormously at that and now use the saying (in their own language, which is fine with me.) Then they confessed their tiredness of pizza and their longing for cultural dishes they cannot yet prepare. I taught them to say, “I am tired of pizza, but it is better than nothing,” and as they remember their old country and having nothing to eat, they sober and regain resolve to find a way to afford gas for their stove.

And though it is a small spark, I love seeing that light.

The most exciting teaching I do is from the Bible. So much light there. So many people don’t get it, cannot see it. Or don’t want to.

But when I see that light come on, what a rush!

Believe it or not!, Pre-schoolers, Who's the mom here?

Toward Normalizing Pedophilia.

Posted on January 7, 2013January 7, 2013 by Katharine

I do not often just paste something for you to follow, but here is a real shocker:

“If a small group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have their way at a conference this week, pedophiles themselves could play a role in removing pedophilia from the American Psychiatric Association’s bible of mental illnesses — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), set to undergo a significant revision by 2013. Critics warn that their success could lead to the decriminalization of pedophilia.

“The August 17 Baltimore conference is sponsored by B4U-ACT, a group of pro-pedophile mental health professionals and sympathetic activists. According to the conference brochure, the event will examine ‘ways in which minor-attracted persons [pedophiles] can be involved in the DSM 5 revision process’ and how the popular perceptions of pedophiles can be reframed to encourage tolerance.”

I think it is important to realize that if we normalize pedophilia, it will then be illegal for public schools to discriminate against it in their hiring. We need to wake up. If they meet their goal date of 2013, then we are nearly there . . .

Believe it or not!, Home School, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

You’re NOT Gonna Believe This.

Posted on August 10, 2011August 10, 2011 by Katharine

Some folks in Florida adopted a little girl. They mistreated her and her siblings for years. People turned them in to the social workers OFTEN. Nothing was done. Not really. There were so many cases, so few workers, blah, blah, blah.

Then the family withdrew the children from the public schools. Then the girl died from the abuse.

Suddenly, although these people had a long history of abusing the children in their home and no one knows if they were homeschooling or not, the court recommends penalizing ALL HOME SCHOOLERS, the implication being that all homeschoolers are child abusers, the state did not do its job because its hands were tied, blah, blah, blah.

Of course, maybe the judicial recommendations will not become official policy.

In this case.

There always is that hope.

Though becoming more and more bleak.

However:

Did the child die because the state failed to act on already-existing laws? (Probably.)
Will all the abused children in public schools still suffer because of lack of personnel? Or if the policy is enacted, will they suffer even more because of it? (Probably.)
Will the state somehow provide funding for even more caseworkers? (Probably not.)
Will the caseworkers somehow suddenly develop a higher level of caring or a deeper level of investigation? Or whatever? (Probably not.)
If the recommendations do become policy, will the policy be unenforceable except on a whim-basis? (Probably.)
Is it true that all caseworkers and all judges are totally unconcerned about the actual children? (Oops. Didn’t mean to say that.)
Didn’t we ordain and establish our government to circumvent this precise problem? (Yes. Yes. A thousand times: Yes.)

Will we fight this as the U.S. citizens that we are, who are provided with innocence until proven guilty? (Your answer goes here.)

In case anyone is confused, let me say it again:

HOME SCHOOLING IS A LEGAL, PROTECTED ACTIVITY IN THIS COUNTRY.

THE PROBLEM IS FAILURE TO ATTEND TO ACTUAL CHILD ABUSE.

GET THAT AND DO NOT FORGET IT.

Home School, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

Kinds of Babies

Posted on May 25, 2011May 22, 2015 by Katharine

Our firstborn son was bookish. From an early age, he could “read” himself to sleep. (They were pre-school picture books.) He loved lining toys in rows and dressing like and imitating his daddy. He was a visual learner.

My friend had two boys who disliked reading, although they loved a good story and she could hold them enthralled for hours if she read to them. Having difficulties with bookwork, they aced the hunter-education class, which was all lecture. They were auditory learners, picking up most input through the sense of hearing. Which explains why her sons could hear Mom calling for chores better than mine could?

Some children love to learn by touch. They love science experiments, lap books, and many other sorts of projects, whereas my kids cringed at them, resented the time they seemingly wasted. Math manipulatives greatly help tactile learners, even if it’s just Popsicle sticks. Coloring a picture of a horse can teach them more than hearing or reading a description of one, but riding a horse will teach even more.

I had one child who learned the most by talking about it. Oh, he could read okay, but until he reproduced what he had learned, his lesson was not done. He was one who also learned better when moving, so when he bogged down as an older child, he would slide over the piano and pound out some Rachmaninoff and then could study better. And then he proceeded to become a computer whizz.

What lesson do WE learn from these learners?

All of our children may look alike, but have extremely different insides.
Our daughters may look like us but have their dad’s personalities.
A perfectly excellent curriculum may not work for one child as well as it did for the others.
Einstein and Edison could both be immensely successful, although one was bookish and the other was not.
Institutionalized teaching of scores of children via the same methods will never work.

All of which statements are another good reason to homeschool.

Home School

Do You Need Disposable Workbooks?

Posted on January 26, 2011May 20, 2017 by Katharine

Schoolbooks sitting around look like a stack of magazines.

You’ve seen these before, too: oversized, paperbound booklets, that look almost like magazines, with 30-80 pages, for reading a small amount and writing the answers directly into the book. You either loved them as a child, or else not.

As a home-educating mom, you may just learn to love them the way your teacher did: they make learning, and thereby teaching, so much easier.

If you, Mom, as the teacher, must be gone, you must leave someone you trust in charge of your students.
This person may love your children to pieces, but not feel your drive to be a good teacher.
This person may be your husband or your mom, so firing is not a resort.

But workbooks may be.

Workbooks are inherently geared to any teacher, including the student, himself. He reads a little, answers a few questions geared to comprehension, and then repeats.

Because the coursework is so intensively interactive, the student learns more, faster, and retains it longer.
Because the student can feel the acceleration of his learning, he gains confidence.
Because the incremental teaching and much-needed confidence is built into the book, the teacher finds the student needs less direction.

Sounding good?

The Non-Standard Student.

Perhaps you already figured this, but if your child is not inherently gifted for student-hood, workbooks can carry him along until those long twelve years are finally over. Many children finish the day’s work by noon, and still learn enough to do well on exit tests.

It’s just easier. Not only for the student, but also for the teacher.

On the other hand, if your student is far, far ahead of his peers—or maybe even of his teachers—a curriculum that could test and place him where he belongs could be a tremendous asset, in many ways.

Home Business.

Finishing by noon makes time for a home business.

And finishing by noon, daily, is not such a stretch, you will learn.

Early Graduation.

Finishing by noon makes time for doing two day’s worth per day, which can create time for graduating and starting college earlier than you thought.

For some students, it can mean graduating at age 18 instead of 20, after all.

For others, it can mean graduation from college by age 18.

It’s a thought.

Learning Gaps.

If you are taking a child out of a collective school environment, you probably have little idea where he is in his learning or where he should be.

He may have learning gaps or even be behind the kids his age.

But with workbooks come . . . placements tests!

Placement tests are the tool that lets you know exactly which book to buy for your child, and why. You can have the confidence that comes with knowing this material is exactly the right level for your student; not too easy or too difficult.

The Unsure Beginner.

Of course, you also are unsure about what to do or how to do it.

(Don’t feel bad; most professional teachers who begin homeschooling feel the same!)

But with workbooks, the self-explanatory nature goes both ways—for the teacher and for the student. Since the workbooks do all the work, you, Mom, will have more time, more confidence, and more understanding of what your child needs.

And more time for folding laundry? Maybe?

Accuracy in Placement.

You know this equals accuracy in spending, which is so important during these times of economic chaos.

Especially if you begin in the middle of a school year, you can buy only what you need because workbooks cover only three weeks’ worth of studies.

You could never buy half of a regular text!

Is this all ringing true for you?

If so, you may need to change to workbook style curriculum. Classic types are: A.C.E. and Christian Light.

Check them out!

Still not getting it? Try unit studies!

Believe it or not!, Home School, Homemaking, Husbands

I Haven’t Made My Bed, Yet…

Posted on December 17, 2010December 30, 2014 by Katharine

…No, my bed sits all a-jumble.

However, on a different topic, I found the most amazing thing while I was waiting for the bedding to make itself. 😉

I was just checking regular emails and discovered some news. In New York City, if you are very rich, you can get Special special education from the public schools. If you are poor, you cannot, no matter your need.

According to news writer Juan Gonzalez, if you can afford to sue the schools there, you can make them pay for the education your child really needs, as opposed to what the public schools there provide.

Just thought you’d like to know.

In the meantime, have you had snow yet?

If you are buried in snow, you might not be interested in this, but if you sit at the window longing for the first few flakes, take a look at this page, and watch it snowing all over the world, as they call it. Fun.

And remember: In Alaska, Home’s Cooler! 😉