Homeschooling/Unschooling Almost A Year Now

The kids took their annual, required standardized achievement test yesterday. This is the law in Minnesota, homeschoolers have to take the test and keep it in the files at home but we don't have to turn it in to the district or anything, unless there's a problem. It seems reasonable to me.

Yesterday's test went well. A friend of mine, a former teacher, does the testing as a business, so the kids are really comfortable with her. She sets up her "office" at the library and devotes about an hour to each kid, using the Peabody Individual Achievement Test.

The categories in the Peabody test are General Information (science, social studies, art, etc.); Reading Recognition; Reading Comprehension; Mathematics; Spelling. There are 100 questions per category, though they don't start each child at number 1 but somewhere before/below where they should be at and work up from there.

One of my kids , age 9, tests just at or above her grade level. This is great. A confirmation that even though we've had a very relaxed first year of homeschooling, she is keeping up and doing just fine.

The other kid, 11 years old and technically a 6th grader, tested at this grade level yesterday: 12.9! That's as high as the test goes. He could go to college next year, based on these test results. He answered almost every question, in every category, correctly. The first thing the tester said in giving me his results was, "I'm SO glad you brought him home. The schools can do nothing for him." My first question was, "What DO you do with a kid like him?!"

But when I thought more about my question, I realized that I'm doing just the right thing for now. I'm following my intuition, and I know what's best for both my kids right now. What's best for my kids may not be what's best for anyone else's kid. What's best for my kids now may not be what's best next year, but right now things are going great.

And what's best right now is unschooling my son, and unschooling/homeschooling (giving a little more guidance because she's asking for it) my daughter.

Elijah is so, so happy being home. He basically begged us, day after day and in so many different ways, to pull him out of school. This kid is a voracious reader, he uses all the resources he can find to learn about whatever's of interest to him, and he thinks and thinks and thinks. What his dad and I do is provide him (and his sister) the resources--books, library trips, SCA group outings and other field trips, conversations, the internet, writing and drawing materials, DVDs, whatever you can think of--and he goes with it. That's basically what UNSCHOOLING is.

One thing I incredulously asked my friend the test-giver was "how can he know the math for a 12th grader when he hasn't learned it yet?" But I can answer my own question, really. He has been doing math all along, both at school in the past and as an unschooler at home. He has books (that we gave him) that are literature-based books, not math workbooks, that are all about math concepts. His brain can read about a concept and then figure out a problem in his head. This is how he learns. I, as his mother, can use my powers of observation to know that about him.

This is the kid who last year when he was in school, we would sit with for up to three hours a night trying to keep him at the table and writing out the maybe 18 problems he had to do for "advanced" math class. Because he took so long, you might think he was just dumb. But no, he already knew the concepts, he didn't need to do all the problems, and it was just sheer torture for all of us. He was bored to tears working on what to him was easy stuff, and he is just stubborn enough that he just didn't want to do it day after day after day. You see, "advanced" math in our schools is just MORE math, meaning more workbook pages, not higher concepts at all. Needless to say, this was the straw that broke the camel's back and led us to taking him out of school.

What led us to taking our daughter out of school was the fact that she HATED READING, and that hatred was/is in direct correlation to how much she was forced to sit still and read as an 8 year old in 3rd grade. And that was, for TWO HOURS each school day. Now, if that isn't inappropriate for a child's natural development I don't know what is. After an entire year of being out of school now, she is finally, just finally and little by little, starting to pick up books or magazines on her own and read them. I say as little as possible when I notice her doing this. I want her to LOVE reading, and that means I know to give her no pressure, no timetables, no nothing but subtle, background encouragement right now.

How do I give this subtle, background encouragement? By having books around that I know she'll like (these mostly have to do with fairies and favorite girl rock stars right now). By making sure she has some subscriptions to magazines (American Girl, Ranger Rick, Kids Discover) that I know will interest her each month when they arrive. And by modeling reading myself, something she's always seen me to do a lot of!

We have "one of each" parent in our house--a mom who's always been a huge reader and a dad who, frankly, hasn't. George enjoys reading now, but he would rather play his flute, go skiing, work around the house, make dinner, etc. Homeschool dad and author David Albert would call me a noun and George a verb. And we have one "noun" and one "verb" in each kid, too. Reading is so highly pushed in our culture, but it isn't the only worthwhile pursuit, and I know that. We make sure Rose knows that, too, and encourage her to read some for both pleasure and information, but we also encourage her many other talents. Singing, athletics, having fun with friends, crafting and making art, etc.

Basically, what I'm trying to say in this long and winding post is that, my kids are doing great and we're doing the best we can to help them be the best they can be! I would encourage all parents to follow their intuition, do what works for both you and your kids, and don't worry about the rest. We have a lot of choices these days and sometimes that makes life very confusing. But you know what, I wouldn't trade having options for anything.

EDITED TO ADD: We got our literature-based math books at the FUN Books online store. Here's their math page...Look for Murderous Maths, More Murderous Maths and that whole series, Algebra Unplugged, The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat and Fractals, Googols and Other Mathematical Tales. Fun stuff! Next I want to get Math and Music (Rose and George would love it) and Calculus for Cats.