Beautiful Day in the Garden

Today was a beautifully sunny day after several days of cloudy and cool weather. I thought I would share some of my favorite pictures taken today from the garden. Here is a sunflower called Moulin Rouge...
a bee visiting a flower on my sage plant...
a peach colored hybrid tea rose...
and one of my favorite flowers. Can you guess what it is? My clue is that it is a flower from a fruiting vine.
I hope your day was as pleasant as mine.

Reading

Ivy's ability to read has really impressed me lately. We have used a balanced approach (both phonics and whole language) in teaching her to read. Other than using our home, local and Christchurch City libraries, I have purchased an American phonics program which had been recommended by the mother-daughter homeschooling advocates, Jessie Wise and Susan Wise-Bauer (The Well-Trained Mind).

Ivy has been completing the exercises in the Explode the Code series and is currently on book4.5. She also reads readers and other stories. She is able to decode texts while comprehending the content.

The day before yesterday, Ivy was able to read a lengthy story from a book called The Magician of Puddle Lane and Other Stories by Sheila K. McCullagh. I was interested to see the reading level of this book to be able to gauge where Ivy's reading is at. So, I used the Fry Readability Formula to determine the average grade reading level of the story. This is something that is fairly easy to do and it gives you a good idea of the difficulty of particular texts- which can differ greatly from what a publisher states as the reading level. I was surprised to see that the story, about a girl receiving a magical box for her birthday, scored at the 6th grade reading level. This blew me away. I had no idea that Ivy's reading was that good! She is only 5, turning 6 in late December, and a 6th grader, if my memory serves me right, is 11 years old!

Things seem so normal to us as home schoolers in our own little world of learning until we compare what we are doing with others out there. What a great achievement for Ivy!

How Bizarre!

The other day we received a publication called "Fruit and Fleece- The Community Newsletter of Loburn School, Friday 31st October." Even though we home educate, I always read this newsletter to see what is going on in the community. It usually carries advertisements from local business people and it was through this publication that I found a great massage therapist.

As I flipped to the third page, passing a typo in the Principal's letter to the community, I saw something that really left me perplexed. Here you can see a report on the activities of the Loburn School Junior Syndicate (not to be confused with gangsters or bankers).
As a former teacher I know a little bit about what happens in a classroom. I have no issues with the jigsaw technique which is a cooperative learning technique. In fact, I think it is probably quite well suited to situations where students are from various years and ability levels.

I do have concerns in relation to this activity used at Loburn School. My first problem is with the content chosen by the teacher or group of teachers to be explored by the children of the junior syndicate. As you can see, the teacher decided to have the children investigate one of two different people. One envelope contained a picture of the late Sir Edmund Hillary and the other a picture of the controversial figure Mother Teresa. I can't argue with choosing to study Sir Edmund Hillary. This man is an icon in New Zealand and I have no trouble with this choice. As you might guess though, I do have trouble with students researching Mother Teresa. Why would she be chosen? What significance does she have to New Zealand? Was the teacher not aware of, as Wikipedia calls it, the "diverse range of criticism" about this figure? Please read more about Mother Teresa here, here, here, and here.

I believe the teacher's choice of Mother Teresa unnecessarily brings religion into the classroom. How could this be done and then publicized to the entire community? This type of activity only reinforces our family's choice, as Atheists, to home educate our children.

Secondly, I find the answers given by the children to the first question to be bizarre. Unfortunately, we are only given a snippet of what was done during this activity. As you can see the children were supposed to answer three questions about the person in the picture, the first question being "Who am I?" I am left wondering... Why would a child answer that the old woman was a person in a gang, the first person born, or any of the other answers that seem so off? Has the teacher redirected these children and helped them REALLY identify the person? What role do Mother Teresa's religious beliefs play in her identification and what religious subtext is being pushed by the teacher? What did the teacher offer to answer or clarify the question, "Why is this person special?"

I am thankful that my children were not unwittingly subjected to this activity that, in my opinion, is masquerading as learning/social studies. Here in New Zealand the lines between religion in the classroom and secular instruction are blurred. While there is no State religion, christianity seems to get more face time in the classroom than most other mythical belief systems. With December fast approaching, I am sure we will see more of jesus and his crew than we as Atheists can tolerate!

To Play Or Not To Play

Last week and again yesterday, we tried out our local Playcentre. Here, Playcentre is a place where children from ages 0-6 can go once or twice a week to engage in free choice play and parents can stay and play alongside their children. It is a parent-run cooperative with one hired supervisor. In the past I have stayed away from anything that IS public education (yes, Playcentre is an early childhood education option) because we home educate but after receiving an advertisement in the mail, I thought I wouldn't pass judgement on it until I knew exactly what it was.

On our first visit, all three of the kids had a blast. There were so many things to do, many of them being REALLY messy. Ivy enjoyed painting and created a slew of artwork. Cruz enjoyed using the scissors and cutting things into an unbelievable number of tiny bits and Melody enjoyed the gluing and collage area.

The Playcentre had many other things that the kids enjoyed including a huge sandpit with all of the toys you could ever want, a water table, a real woodworking area with saws, nails, drills and hammers (this would never happen in the USA as the possibility of hurting one's self would be too great), slides and other outdoor equipment, a goop station with slime and the like to play with and too many other things to mention. As you can see the kids would easily be able to find something to entertain themselves with for the two and a half hour session.

All was well until we turned up at the Playcentre yesterday. I had intended to enroll the children because the centre passed my inspection list of being fun and not providing instruction. As I began to ask more questions, I was quite surprised with the answers I received and the began to see a certain "Stepford Wives" look in the eyes of the other mothers.

Ivy is turning six in December and that would put her past the age for Playcentre. She would still be able to enjoy the rest of this term but after that she would be left out. I asked if she would be able to come along with us as Melody and Cruz would be 4 and 2 respectively and she would have her exemption from attending a regular school. I was initially asked if there was someone I could LEAVE her with. Then, I was told that she might be able to come and could do her school work at a table while the children played.

I was a bit surprised with both of the responses. The conversation devolved into me, the parent, being told I would be responsible for Ivy while we were there- to- me asking who is responsible for my other children while we are there (hoping they wouldn't answer, "The State!"). I guess the people really didn't see it coming but I couldn't help myself. I started questioning the underlying philosophy of Playcentre- where play and free choice are the way children learn- and asking how that mysteriously ended when the child turned 5 (the age when most parents send their children to school). I pointed out that once a child went to school, they had very few choices to make, their learning was planned, the topics they are to study are mapped out and books to be read are generally chosen by the teacher or democracy in the classroom. I tried to explain that as home educators, Ivy wouldn't have to sit there and do school work while the other children played-aren't kids in school allowed breaks/recess/play lunch-WHATEVER? Our learning doesn't have to take place from 9 am to 3 pm, Monday through Friday.

I also tried to explain that our family philosophy was not to DROP Ivy off somewhere (where that would be I am still unclear) but to include her as a valuable part of the family. I tried to stress that it would be a HUGE blow to her not to be able to come along. I would never sign up for something where she would be crushed like that. The woman, the information officer of the Playcentre, confided in me that she had to keep quite at home about what she and her 3.5 year old twins did during the day because her 5 year old at school would feel like she were missing out. And then, the woman said she was MISSING OUT! Oh no!

Needless to say, I left my concerns with the information officer. There was a meeting of the cooperative last evening and Ivy's case would be made. If the Playcentre is happy for Ivy to continue to come after she turns 6, I will most likely enroll. If not, we may look around for another Playcentre that is willing to work with home schooling families.

Historic Day

While I have already voted in the American Election via Absentee Ballot, I can't shake the excitement of Election Day. I am somewhat saddened to not be in America for what I believe will be a pivotal day in the country's history.

I am pleasantly surprised that so many people are taking this election seriously and I am hoping for a record turnout. Amongst 40-somethings that I know, the support is strongly in favor of Obama. This is, I believe, indicative of a "changing of the guard," if you will, in American political thinking. Gone are the thoughts of having a knowledgeable grandfatherly person running the country and instead people seem to be desirous of a fresh, intelligent and younger approach to redirect a country that seems to have lost its way.

I will be sitting here in New Zealand with my fingers crossed as I watch the election returns on the internet (this will be a family affair this evening) and hope that going forward, America will be headed in a new, more positive direction under the leadership of Barak Obama!

Ballet Results

I am pleased to announce that Ivy passed her I.D.T.A. Preparatory Level Ballet Exam with HONORS! We are so pleased with Ivy's performance in this first exam. She is already talking about preparation for the next level's exam, next year.