The Reading of the Books

I think I have read every homeschooling book at our library in the past four months.

Prior to this school year, my homeschool book list consisted of one reading of The Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer, which I read the summer before Anna started kindergarten.  It resulted in poor little Ellen mentally hyperventilating.  Maybe physically, too.  Can't remember.  All I remember is agreeing with most of what was in the book, thinking "Why in the blazes am I even considering something like this?" and returning it with great speed to my friend, Emily (who did end up classically homeschooling her twins.)

Now?

I am definitely in a different place.  I have been devouring books about homeschooling and education.  I want to underline underline underline (but I won't, because hey, I am a good little library patron.)  I disagree with some stuff, of course.  But I find myself saying, "yes yes YES" more often than naught.

I think the difference is dealing with the current public school system for 2 1/2 years.  (Again, I want to say that my issues are not with the teachers.  Anna's teachers have been devoted, caring and bright.  It's the system which lacks my fondness.)  But that is probably another very long blog post.

In the meantime, here are a few books that have inspired me:

Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
Not a homeschool book, I suppose.  But I don't see how you couldn't be considering homeschooling after reading this book.  I have been dealing with and scratching my head at the public school system for years now (both my own schooling and then my daughter's experience), but I haven't really been able to figure out what the core problem is.  Gatto, a 30-year veteran teacher in New York City, finally pinned it for me.  Light bulb moment.  The deep dark problem with our schools is not anything that curriculum reform and tinkering can possibly fix.  The problem with our country is that we have replaced true family and community with false family and community (he calls them "networks") and the public school system is culprit numero uno.  In his words, we do not need more school.  We need less.  Less money thrown at the school, less hours away from home, more time with family, more parents acting unselfishly and pouring into their children and their lifelong learning... since I don't see that happening anytime soon, the search for alternative educational solutions becomes pretty clear.

100 Top Picks by Cathy Duffy
This book helped me gain confidence that I could homeschool.   It is a guide to homeschool curriculum, but it is more.  She helps you pinpoint your educational philosophy or "bent" (Classical and Charlotte Mason here) so that you can pick out the curriculum that would work best for your family.  Then she gives you some fantastic choices for curriculum.  It was reading this book that got me excited about what we were actually going to learn.  Before I read this book, I was just looking at a boxed Abeka curriculum, thinking, "Oh, I guess this will be fine.  We can muddle through it.  I guess."  For some families, a boxed curriculum is perfect.  But I knew that it would not be right for us.  I am kinda a rebel at heart and I knew that boxed was gonna make me cranky.  This book opened me up to a world of possibilities. 

A Year of Learning Dangerously by Quinn Cummings
Quinn Cummings is a former Oscar-nominated child actress turned stay-at-home mom who blogs at The QC Report.  After her daughter's Los Angeles-based education was not going so well, she decided to homeschool.  The book is her first year journey.  They try (or at least explore) online public school (BIG fail), radical unschooling, homeschool playgroups, Christian curriculum fairs, the Gothard movement, homeschool proms and classical education (albeit, very briefly.)   I didn't not particularly care for the sections where Quinn "secretly" attends conventions around the country, going so far as to dress like the homeschooling group in question.  She attends the conventions under the guise of being genuinely interested in their beliefs, but honestly, she comes across as voyeuristic, creepy and well, like she knows that she is going to try to get a book deal and her "spywork" will make her story more interesting to publishers.  But the book is worth a read just to see that other moms freak out and cry in the laundry room (which I highly suspect will happen to me next week.)

A School Like Mine by Unicef
It might seem odd that I would put this on my list, but I happened to check it out of the library when I was beginning my beginning my decision-making process.  It had an impact on me.  Growing up in the U.S. of A., I was given the impression that our country did schooling best and that was just the way it was.  Public school (Maybe private school if you were rich.  Or Catholic school if you were Catholic.  Other than that, you went to public school K-12.)  But as I scanned this fascinating book (which shows how children are educated around the world), it occurred to me that there is no one correct way to educate a child.   (I found myself particularly turned off by French schools, a tightly government-controlled system in which the children are in school or doing homework most of the day and cannot even bring their own lunch to school.   All religious teaching and symbols are banned from the schools, and parents often send their children into the school system by age 3.  Pretty much exactly what Gatto warns the world against.)

and I am gonna include it (oh, the irony)...

The Well-Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer
Okay, I must admit it.  I love this book.  It is the Classical Education Playbook for the rest of us.  What is interesting is, after rereading it, I noticed how eerily the authors' 1973 public school experience ended up echoing my own.  For the past 2 1/2 years, I have been scratching my head at my daughter's lessons and the chaotic order in which everything is taught.  For instance, my 7-year old daughter sat at the kitchen table in tears because she had to write out a paragraph about some twaddle book with no plot.  However, she was never taught handwriting.  Nor was she ever taught the mechanics of a sentence.  She doesn't know subjects or verbs yet.  I realized that she desperately needed learning tools.  Enter classical education.  Classical education makes sense to me now.  It understands how real learning happens.  The Well-Trained Mind is a God-send.  It tells you exactly what to teach and the why and the how.  Now that I have seen what the lack of order creates, this book is a breath of fresh air.   I am now a groupie.


And lastly, here are books that I really really wanted to like but left me "meh.":

The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease
Granted, it's worth a read for the book list in the back.  But I was pretty disappointed with the rest of it.  So many people rave about this book!  I guess it was kinda "Duh" for me.  The whole book could be summed up in a sentence:  Read to your children because it will turn them into readers and that is  a good thing.  Well... duh.  But I've been reading to Anna since she was one, and my parents read to me, and it is just a given in my mind that you should read to your child.  Maybe that's a new concept to some people?  

The Three R's by Ruth Beechick
I suspect that I will come to appreciate this book later.  I think that the author wanted to instill confidence for the newbie homeschooler-- "Oh, it's so easy.  The three R's.  You know how to read.  So just follow these simple techniques and blammo, you are teaching your kid."  But it had the opposite effect on me.  I felt overwhelmed.  I need more hand holding, more lists, more planning right now in my journey.  Maybe I will be more relaxed to try this method with Noah.  Maybe not.  I am rather intense.