Sunday, June 24, 2012

Why Public School's Social Skills Stink Part 1: Age

Although right now most of the people I associate with are very cordial or accepting of the fact that I homeschool, in the past, most people get a sour look on their face and say "Aren't you worried about them socially?"

Okay folks, this is my time to rant and rave.  Who says public school is a great place to learn social skills?  Because....IT ISN'T!

I have come up with 6 reasons why public schools are one of the worst places to learn social skills. If children come out of public school with social graces, I place most of the credit on their parents, communities, and the parents of their friends.  NOT on the public school system. I will post these six reasons separately (because I'm very opinionated about this and need space to vent.)

REASON 1: You only associate with children your same age.

NOTE: The first three reasons will deal primarily with public elementary schools.

Most of us out there have gone to public school.  You are put into a class room full of 20-25 others who are exactly the same age as you.  We all know that to befriend someone out of this age limit that is given to us, is uncouth.

I remember my belief that a child had to be in the same grade as me to be my friend quite vividly.  I was in a school that measured age from August 15th to August 15th of the next year.  However, I was in a church sunday school class that measured age from January first to January first of the next year.  As a result, I had some sunday school class members whose birthdays were in the fall, and so they were in a grade younger than me at school.  They were different then me.  I wasn't quite sure if it was okay for me to be friends with these people who were so much younger then I was.

Although this thinking is so obviously ridiculous to me now, I am positive that I was not alone in these social beliefs.

WHEN in one's adult life are people EVER put into situations where the only people that they correspond with are exactly the same age as them?  Hum.....NEVER.  How is this preparing children socially for the work place?  How is this teaching them the social skills needed in a diverse community? And most important (in my opinion) how is this teaching them to be part of a family setting now and in the future? Well, frankly, it doesn't.

Many public school children have difficulty in relating to adults, especially the elderly.  They're not sure how to interact and talk with people much older then them, never mind knowing how to work with them.  This places them at a social disadvantage when leaving school.

This also makes it hard for them to feel comfortable being involved in their community fully, where much older people including senior citizens are the people with which you would have to collaborate.

And last but not least, age segregation often leads to young adults who have no idea how to interact with small children, especially babies.  When the popularity of small families ties with children who are stuck in publics schools, you get young adults who feel very awkward around children.  Don't deny it; I'm sure you've seen evidence of this.  We now have community classes that teach new mothers how to interact with their own children.  Everything from action songs to finger painting, these obvious social skills now have to be taught.

Age segregation just doesn't happen in the homeschool community.  Families get together with families.  The ages don't match up exactly.  Grandparents often get involved. Even if you are the youngest of your family, chances are, you are not the youngest of your homeschool community, and you get plenty of experience holding babies and helping teach younger children.  Mentors are all ages and everyone is comfortable with this and have plenty of one on one talking and relating.

Conclusion:  Homeschool social graces gets 1 point, Public school gets 0 points.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Yippee! The end of the school year!

Whew...we're done.  Done with Science, done with history, done with phonics, and done with Rightstart Math.  This is how we did our last two weeks:

For science last week we learned about making PH neutral.  We talked about neutralizing stomach acids, we talked about neutralizing chocolate, and we saw how much ammonia we needed to add to different acids before it became basic.


For our science class this week we just had a party which consisted of watching Brainpop.com science videos and eating TONS of popcorn.

For history last week, we learned about Michelangelo and painted on our own "Sistine Chapel" ceiling.


This week we learned about Rembrandt and went into a dark room and shone a light on a vase.  I had already drawn an outline of the vase for the boys, and they just focused on drawing the shadows.  (Rembrandt was the master of light and shadow.) Maxwell was pretty excited that I let them use REAL charcoal. Oh, and we read this really cute book called "Rembrandt and the Boy Who Drew Dogs" which is a cute true story about Rembrandt's son.  It was cuter before we read a different book and found out his son died quite young.


And of course, it was Hyrum's birthday, which was our start-of-summer party as well.


Okay, let me reflect on this year a bit:

History went really well.  I think they learned a lot and had fun.  I know I learned tons myself.

Science was too advanced for Maxwell as a whole, but was still a good experience.  In the future I think I won't do chemistry the entire year again because looking at next year (biology) I'm thinking it would have been better to spread biology out longer and cut back on chemistry.  There's just too many fun things to learn with biology, and I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of chemistry to fit it all in.

Devotionals went well, but I think I want to do a scripture story day of the week next year, since this year we just did gospel doctrines, stories from the Friend, and learning about the Apostle's lives.  That ended up being fine since so often in history we talked about the Old Testament, but I don't see modern history and the New testament going together as smoothly.  Of course, we read scripture stories every night, but I'm thinking making it special somehow for devotionals.

Reading.  I've discovered Maxwell is an auditory learner, and although his reading comprehension (when being read to) is off the charts incredible (this week he listened to "Island of the Blue Dolphins"...a book usually meant for 11 year olds, and we had good talks about what happened and the lessons in the book), it's hard for him to actually read off the page.  I don't know how effective the phonics I taught him have been.  I personally have come to really dislike the english language phonics.  It makes no sense.

Writing.  Well, after my discovery that writing has to actually be taught, Maxwell can now write capitals very neat and clean.  Yes we are behind majorly.  Yes we will catch up.

Math is of course wonderful.  Yippee I have a child who understands math!

So that's that.  For summer, we will be catching up with writing, reading Dick and Jane books, and doing bits and pieces of math worksheets.  Oh, and of course devotionals.

Woohoo!  One more year done! Now that it's summer, this blog will be for my opinions about homeschooling and anything else that I want to ramble on about :)

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Acids, Bases, and a Tempest

This week we continued our learning about acids and bases.  We tested them with different kinds of ph strip indicators and with red cabbage powder.  We even made our own indicator paper with turmeric spice which turned our fingers yellow.  I had no idea that bleach could not be tested for it's ph strength.  I just knew it was a powerful base.  I was surprised how it bleached the strips and paper...duh....I should have guessed.  Oh well.


We also continued to learn about Shakespeare.  This week we studied the Tempest.  We made puppets again, but this time they wanted to make whatever puppets they wanted instead of ones that went along with the tempest.  I didn't mind.


And that was about it.  Maxwell was gone for a few days with Daddy, but that didn't stop him from creating things.  He came back with these homemade flip flops that he made: