Before and After

Unschooling Typing, Spelling, and Writing
A Progress Report...

I know I've mentioned before that I started suspecting Padawan has dysgraphia not long before I pulled him out of public school in November 2010. He is also not a natural speller. And forget about anything handwritten being legible, unless he takes a REALLY long time to write it.

Our Conversation About The Standards

My child is a riot. Sometimes I can't decide if he's trying to parent me, give me hints on how to parent him, or if he's just outright messing with my head.

Since we've been home educating, I haven't been following "The Almighty Standards" that had been drilled into his head from 3rd to 5th grade. I did look over "The Standards" (a) to be nosey, (b) to see what his friend would be doing in school this year, (c) to see if I wanted to plan any of that for the Middle School Years, (d) to see praise God for what I would not be stressing out over for the first school year since Standard Based Education began.  

Well, apparently Padawan had been thinking missing all the hoopla about "The Standards" in his new life and decided to have an impromptu talk with me about it.

(I can't remember word for word, but this is the general gist of the conversation.)

Padawan: (randomly stops what he is doing, sits at the edge of the recliner, crosses his legs, and leans towards me as he begins to speak in a tone that sounds freakishly like Ben Stein) Mooooom, you don't really like The Standards...dooooo youuuuuu?

Me: (trying not to laugh at the serious look on his face) No, I don't much care for them. Why do you ask?

Him: (in a sing-song voice) I'm just asking.

Me: Ok.

Him: (waits a minute for a dramatic effect) Whyyyy don't you like The Standards?

Me: Do you really want to know what I think about the Standards?

Him: Yes.

Me:  I think a lot of them are random. The Standards stress the kids and teachers out too much when half of them are repeated on the next grades list. The teachers have to teach you the actual list of Standards instead of just teaching to the Standards.  Besides, when you were in 3rd grade they were having you do things that I didn't do til High School because of the Standards. They should save some things to learn in High School.

Him: Well, you went to school waayyy back in the 80's things have changed since then.

Me: (appreciating him pointing out just how ancient I am becoming) Do you want to follow "The Standards"? I can print out a checklist, and we can follow "The Standards". 

Him: No, I was just asking.

We Really Don't "Do School" - Just So You Know

We've been home educating for a little over a year now. I have done a lot of de-schooling and had a complete paradigm shift. I completely understand Unschooling. I know that encouraging and letting Padawan follow his interests works, because I have seen the results even before we began home educating. I just didn't know there was a name for what we had been doing in addition to sending him to school.

On the other hand, Padawan has not de-schooled as much as I have and he has NOT had a paradgim shift - even though his actions, attitude, and insights pertaining to school and the system were the catalyst for said paradigm shift on my part. I had to read things by Gatto, Holt, and others to see the things he already figured out. 

This leads to some interesting conversations around here. I thought I would start sharing them on my blog.

Looking for Some Self Confidence

Update on the income situation: My husband was hired with a company a week or so ago. He's done the preliminary paperwork, and orientation is scheduled for next week. Hopefully all that will go well, and he will be working the week after that. Is it too soon to say YAY??


In other news:

I have some experience building websites and dabble in graphic design, brochures, business cards, etc. Well, I used to. At one time I was really into "the zone". The past 2 or 3 years...not so much. (Besides what little I've done to this blog).

Sigh

Wow. It's been over 2 months since I've written anything for my blog.
I guess its about time for a little update.

First the good news. I think we are hitting our stride with this home education thing for the most part. I'll try to write more about what we've been doing in another post.

Now the bad news. My husband lost his job two weeks ago.