Monday is Math Day. Andy has announced he now hates Mondays. We got to my school office, and do our best to get some learning done the old-fashioned way. Math is really the only subject I have tried to do traditionally, because Virginia does expect me to test him at the end of the year, and have him show progress.
Our problem is that he seems to be struggling with math that is already below grade level. I am working on recording the issues, so that if I actually get him near grade level by the end of the grade year, it will be "progress."
Andy's processing issues are pervasive, and they affect his ability to understand many things in what might be seen as a typical way. This makes typical academic tasks harder to do in typical ways. With the added bonus of trauma from school, shutdown is the usual response to Math Monday.
Once again, I plan to cheat.
Andy loves Pokemon. So today, mid-shutdown, I noted how he needs to be able to do basic math to play the game. I started changing the problems to terms of either Pokemon or money. If Pikachu had 150 health, and now he has 81 health, how strong was Tepig's flame charge?
Yeah. I totally cheated.
He seems to be having trouble understanding the numbers. I'm trying to figure out exactly what the issue is, but its like he shuts down and they all go to mush. When we first arrived at my office, and I put up Khan Academy, he did ok... then shut down. I usually wait it out, and let him get himself together, but it wasn't happening. Time was not on our side this round.
Then came the miracle of homeschooling. We turned around, and walked away.
Instead of pushing it, I packed him up and went on to the rest of our day's errands. We got fabric for Halloween costumes (how much fabric did I buy? Hey, this is 40% off... I wonder how much it will be?), helped Grandma clean and take out trash, and took our walk to the corner store (oh, this drink is $1.09, and the candy you want is $1.29, do I have enough money here? How much should I get back in change from this $5?). Then we came back to math, but not on the computer- back to our workbook, where we looked at fractions and decimals, and then started on measuring. I think I'm going to be able to handle measuring. I have plenty of tape measures, I have lots of recipes, we are going to totally rock this.
We just need to take a little time to let him process it.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Caramel Apples
He had some surprises in store for him, however. He woke up excited to make his apples, but first we had to clean the kitchen. To be honest, my kitchen is pretty filthy, so that took some doing. Then he took a break.
Step two: actually making apples.
"OK, Mom, what do we do?" he asked, slightly bored in tone, because he's, you know, ten.
"I have no idea," I replied. He stared at me, incredulous.
"You have to look it up," I explained. "Hop online and find some instructions."After he processed this, he managed to get out his iPad and ask how to spell "melting" and "caramel" and found some instructions. Then he read them all the way through, since I insisted we know what we were doing before we started.
Then we got to work.
First, we had to get the sticks into the apples. We found some sticks, cut them in half, and got ready for the Great Apple Stabbing.
He decided to remove the stems himself, with scissors, until I twisted one off in about two seconds. Then he stabbed those apples.
We had to unwrap a whole bag of caramels for this project. I thought about having him make the caramel- it isn't hard- but in the end, I wanted to focus on the melting, and honestly, one thing at a time. We had some other stuff to do today, and I had a bag of caramels.I helped with this part, because there were so many.
Next, he melted the caramel. We talked about why the heat wasn't high, and why he had to continuously stir the caramels while they melted- a tough job at first.
We talked about why we added two tablespoons of water to the caramels to melt them.
We discussed why we needed to use parchment paper to put the dipped apples down to harden.
He is a very smart squirrel.
I was very proud of him, as he did all the melting himself. I help him with the dipping, as it kind of took two people to do- holding the pot, dipping the apple, and spooning caramel requires three hands. He did a great job.
A hour in the fridge later, he had snacks- and i think caramel apples may now be his favorite.
At least, when he makes them himself.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
One Little Bean At A Time
When kids are traumatized by school, learning becomes one of those words that makes them shut down. You know your kids has been traumatized when you try to start a lesson and he curls up into a fetal position for an hour before finally relaxing enough to even give it try.
And then rocks it, because Squirrel is Smart.
The fear of failure, of being wrong, of being berated, bullied, and teased that goes into this regular ritual that starts too many of our days is something that makes me just want to cry. I feel like it's my fault for not saving him sooner, for missing the signs, for not being brave enough or strong enough to protect him, fight for him, help him. Education is one of the few things provided directly to my family from the taxes we pay, and I have had to refuse service. I had no idea how bad it was, but this kind of evidence is startling, angering, and devastating.
When I get him to uncurl, he's just fine, although the odd holes in his learning have been a bit of a surprise. I've had to go back and pick up material he should have had- according to the school's own curriculum literature- in first or second grade. He has missing splinters of math, chunks out of basic history, odd lapses in science. As we work through the deschooling, I am also trying to shore up some of these gaps, without being blatant. Math, however, we have to work on directly. It is one of the subjects he will be tested on at the end of the year, so it is important we have that caught up. I signed him up for Khan Academy. We've had to start with Early Math.
In deschooling, we have been shooting a little fast and loose with the science and history side of things. We had a plan, but for now, the important thing is to catch his interest and get him to understand what it means to learn. We need him to calm down and understand we are here to help him, not beat on him. We love him and support him, we are not here to embarrass him or make him feel stupid. We want him to see what we see: how intelligent and capable he is. So when he showed some interest in early American settlements, we ran with it. When he showed interest in gardening, I started in on plants.
It was a little on the rough side. Once we get through the shutdown, we have looked at some websites, and we made some colored-paper picture models of plant parts, starting with cells and seeds. I'm hoping to do seedlings, simple dicots, and trees tomorrow, and finally leaves (before all the fall leaves are gone!), to make a book. He put them together, glued on the labels, and I laminated the results. He wasn't impressed, but we got the first two together.
At the farmer's market, I picked up some lima beans, and decided to give a try at having him look at them. After all, our seed chart was a bean. So I gave him some to look at, and told him to open them up and take a look.
Can I cut them open? Can I break them in half?
Sure, do what you want, I shrugged, while my head exploded- was he... actually... interested? He took a knife, and carefully cut one in half. He pulled another apart. He squished one, to see what would happen.
I peeled the seedcoat from one, saying, "look, here's the seedcoat, let me take it off and show you..." and he came over to me, and watched. I opened the halves, and there, perfect as I could wish, was the little plant embryo, with a perfect little plumule, hypocotyl, radicle...
"Here, let's look at this under the magnifier, with the chart you made..." I pulled out the chart, laminated and all, and the magnifier stand I got with this very moment in mind- a big one, on three legs. I drank up the flow of "look at this, mom" and "oh cool". And then he set it aside, his attention span done, to look at later "when it dries", to see how it might be different. I fixed him a sandwich for lunch, as if nothing unusual or wonderful had just happened.
As he reached the stairs to go nest in his room with his lunch, he stopped.
"Hey!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Wait a minute! I just learned something! You cheated!"
Yes, I sure did, Little Squirrel. I sure did.
And then rocks it, because Squirrel is Smart.
The fear of failure, of being wrong, of being berated, bullied, and teased that goes into this regular ritual that starts too many of our days is something that makes me just want to cry. I feel like it's my fault for not saving him sooner, for missing the signs, for not being brave enough or strong enough to protect him, fight for him, help him. Education is one of the few things provided directly to my family from the taxes we pay, and I have had to refuse service. I had no idea how bad it was, but this kind of evidence is startling, angering, and devastating.
When I get him to uncurl, he's just fine, although the odd holes in his learning have been a bit of a surprise. I've had to go back and pick up material he should have had- according to the school's own curriculum literature- in first or second grade. He has missing splinters of math, chunks out of basic history, odd lapses in science. As we work through the deschooling, I am also trying to shore up some of these gaps, without being blatant. Math, however, we have to work on directly. It is one of the subjects he will be tested on at the end of the year, so it is important we have that caught up. I signed him up for Khan Academy. We've had to start with Early Math.
In deschooling, we have been shooting a little fast and loose with the science and history side of things. We had a plan, but for now, the important thing is to catch his interest and get him to understand what it means to learn. We need him to calm down and understand we are here to help him, not beat on him. We love him and support him, we are not here to embarrass him or make him feel stupid. We want him to see what we see: how intelligent and capable he is. So when he showed some interest in early American settlements, we ran with it. When he showed interest in gardening, I started in on plants.
It was a little on the rough side. Once we get through the shutdown, we have looked at some websites, and we made some colored-paper picture models of plant parts, starting with cells and seeds. I'm hoping to do seedlings, simple dicots, and trees tomorrow, and finally leaves (before all the fall leaves are gone!), to make a book. He put them together, glued on the labels, and I laminated the results. He wasn't impressed, but we got the first two together.
At the farmer's market, I picked up some lima beans, and decided to give a try at having him look at them. After all, our seed chart was a bean. So I gave him some to look at, and told him to open them up and take a look.
Can I cut them open? Can I break them in half?
Sure, do what you want, I shrugged, while my head exploded- was he... actually... interested? He took a knife, and carefully cut one in half. He pulled another apart. He squished one, to see what would happen.
I peeled the seedcoat from one, saying, "look, here's the seedcoat, let me take it off and show you..." and he came over to me, and watched. I opened the halves, and there, perfect as I could wish, was the little plant embryo, with a perfect little plumule, hypocotyl, radicle...
"Here, let's look at this under the magnifier, with the chart you made..." I pulled out the chart, laminated and all, and the magnifier stand I got with this very moment in mind- a big one, on three legs. I drank up the flow of "look at this, mom" and "oh cool". And then he set it aside, his attention span done, to look at later "when it dries", to see how it might be different. I fixed him a sandwich for lunch, as if nothing unusual or wonderful had just happened.
As he reached the stairs to go nest in his room with his lunch, he stopped.
"Hey!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Wait a minute! I just learned something! You cheated!"
Yes, I sure did, Little Squirrel. I sure did.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
In the beginning, there was a squirrel.
It was about this time last year that I knew, this wasn't going to work. I was shocked. I was confused. I was dismayed. I was very, very, very angry.
The "not working" was public school. I am a great believer in public school. The structured environment provides a focused framework for education, networking, and community. My kids need a lot of structure. I have one who is autistic. The other... well, he isn't autistic, but he has a lot of issues with processing, self-regulation, and executive functioning, in a web of issues often stashed under the umbrella term "ADHD." Folks, it's real. ADHD is also as varied, scattered, and spectrumed as autism- every child is different. If you know one child with autism, you know one child with autism. If you know one child with ADHD, you know one child with ADHD. Beware of generalizations.
School was not working out for either of my kids, and I had pinned the blame on me. That seems to shock some people. The assumption I have discovered is that people who homeschool usually pin the blame on anyone else. I discovered that blame isn't really what it is about at all. School not working for my kids is just a fact. Why it wasn't working is complicated. I fished around and floundered about, trying to find something I could be doing to make it work. I called meetings. I sent in materials. I invaded classrooms. I stopped invading classrooms trying to give my kids their own space. I tried to take the materials being sent to me and make them work for us, even re-formatting homework sheets myself to make them manageable, spending hours on homework. I stopped doing that and asked for homework to be limited. I gave up doing the homework at all, and just stuck to doing things actually useful for my kids, things they were struggling with. I did a mix of all of the above. I did a lot of other things, stopped doing things, tried to doing things and not doing things, you can see I still feel the judgment, the sense of failure. Public school, that beacon of education and progress, was not working for my family. I felt trapped. Suffocated. Desperate. I couldn't afford private school. I not only work full time, I work several jobs, paying for therapies and home expenses (and financial mistakes of younger days).
Yet the answer, as the year spiraled on, started becoming clearer and clearer. This was Not Working. My kids were not learning; they were stuck in anger, frustration, and as we later discovered, insidious bullying from every angle. They were learning to become bullies themselves, to defend themselves. I felt like putting them on the bus- and for my younger son, dropping him off at the door- was abandoning them to weird perversion of Lord of the Flies. They weren't safe. The adults with them seemed oddly out of touch, deliberately hard for them to access, and blind to what was going on among the students. People with decades of experience working with kids were trying to tell me no bullying was going on in their schools and classrooms. I was left not knowing how much of what I was seeing was from my kid's personalities, and how much was from external forces, and no idea how to help them.
I ended up with two very different answers, just as I have two very different young men who are my sons. I am happy to say, the school finally realized they were not educating my autistic son, and we have him in a wonderful school where is excelling and recovering beautifully. No, its not all sunshine and roses, but I don't think any child's growing up and development is all sunshine and roses. We are going in the right direction, and the stress that was basically driving Joey insane is melting away like snow in spring. We'll take it.
For Andy, we have gone in a different direction. I decided to try teaching him myself over the summer, in experimental "camps." I met with challenges, but nothing unexpected. We are looking at dysgraphia, eye focus issues, possible dyslexia, and of course, ADHD- problems of being able to focus and needing huge amounts of movement to focus and think. What has been unexpected is the reports from other parents of Andy's classmates, and the reports are far more extreme and disturbing than we suspected. My son weathered the catastrophe of his classroom far better than I had appreciated before. I made the decision. We were going to homeschool.
I'm not the kind of person who takes such a decision lightly. I do for Andy as I do for Joey- spending hours researching topics, methods, theories, materials, and resources. I try something out, see if it works, change it if it doesn't. We are in what I would describe as "partial deschooling"- keeping up with subjects we know he needs to underpin his learning (math, being able to read, occupational therapy, basic writing), and being more fluid in topics of science and social studies. Though the progress has been painfully (from my point of view) slow, I can see it. The complete shutdown when "school" or "learning" was involved, which we have been seeing, is letting up, and I am learning more about he learns and how to present and guide access to topics and material. We have had some stumbling and some breakthroughs. My mom has stepped in to help, and her support of our adventure is invaluable- as well as her talent for helping Andy get comfortable with learning and relaxing so he can learn. Finding how to incorporate movement and letting him learn his own way are more challenging than we expected, but we are getting there, together.
So now it's time to share it. We are starting as unexpected homeschoolers, with a ten-year-old ADHD child, and we know we aren't out here alone- yet we know how panicked and alone you can feel when you realize this is the best option for your family. Yes, people are going to tell you that you are nuts.
Just stay focused on your squirrel, and there shall be learning. That's what is important.
The "not working" was public school. I am a great believer in public school. The structured environment provides a focused framework for education, networking, and community. My kids need a lot of structure. I have one who is autistic. The other... well, he isn't autistic, but he has a lot of issues with processing, self-regulation, and executive functioning, in a web of issues often stashed under the umbrella term "ADHD." Folks, it's real. ADHD is also as varied, scattered, and spectrumed as autism- every child is different. If you know one child with autism, you know one child with autism. If you know one child with ADHD, you know one child with ADHD. Beware of generalizations.School was not working out for either of my kids, and I had pinned the blame on me. That seems to shock some people. The assumption I have discovered is that people who homeschool usually pin the blame on anyone else. I discovered that blame isn't really what it is about at all. School not working for my kids is just a fact. Why it wasn't working is complicated. I fished around and floundered about, trying to find something I could be doing to make it work. I called meetings. I sent in materials. I invaded classrooms. I stopped invading classrooms trying to give my kids their own space. I tried to take the materials being sent to me and make them work for us, even re-formatting homework sheets myself to make them manageable, spending hours on homework. I stopped doing that and asked for homework to be limited. I gave up doing the homework at all, and just stuck to doing things actually useful for my kids, things they were struggling with. I did a mix of all of the above. I did a lot of other things, stopped doing things, tried to doing things and not doing things, you can see I still feel the judgment, the sense of failure. Public school, that beacon of education and progress, was not working for my family. I felt trapped. Suffocated. Desperate. I couldn't afford private school. I not only work full time, I work several jobs, paying for therapies and home expenses (and financial mistakes of younger days).
Yet the answer, as the year spiraled on, started becoming clearer and clearer. This was Not Working. My kids were not learning; they were stuck in anger, frustration, and as we later discovered, insidious bullying from every angle. They were learning to become bullies themselves, to defend themselves. I felt like putting them on the bus- and for my younger son, dropping him off at the door- was abandoning them to weird perversion of Lord of the Flies. They weren't safe. The adults with them seemed oddly out of touch, deliberately hard for them to access, and blind to what was going on among the students. People with decades of experience working with kids were trying to tell me no bullying was going on in their schools and classrooms. I was left not knowing how much of what I was seeing was from my kid's personalities, and how much was from external forces, and no idea how to help them.
I ended up with two very different answers, just as I have two very different young men who are my sons. I am happy to say, the school finally realized they were not educating my autistic son, and we have him in a wonderful school where is excelling and recovering beautifully. No, its not all sunshine and roses, but I don't think any child's growing up and development is all sunshine and roses. We are going in the right direction, and the stress that was basically driving Joey insane is melting away like snow in spring. We'll take it.
For Andy, we have gone in a different direction. I decided to try teaching him myself over the summer, in experimental "camps." I met with challenges, but nothing unexpected. We are looking at dysgraphia, eye focus issues, possible dyslexia, and of course, ADHD- problems of being able to focus and needing huge amounts of movement to focus and think. What has been unexpected is the reports from other parents of Andy's classmates, and the reports are far more extreme and disturbing than we suspected. My son weathered the catastrophe of his classroom far better than I had appreciated before. I made the decision. We were going to homeschool.
I'm not the kind of person who takes such a decision lightly. I do for Andy as I do for Joey- spending hours researching topics, methods, theories, materials, and resources. I try something out, see if it works, change it if it doesn't. We are in what I would describe as "partial deschooling"- keeping up with subjects we know he needs to underpin his learning (math, being able to read, occupational therapy, basic writing), and being more fluid in topics of science and social studies. Though the progress has been painfully (from my point of view) slow, I can see it. The complete shutdown when "school" or "learning" was involved, which we have been seeing, is letting up, and I am learning more about he learns and how to present and guide access to topics and material. We have had some stumbling and some breakthroughs. My mom has stepped in to help, and her support of our adventure is invaluable- as well as her talent for helping Andy get comfortable with learning and relaxing so he can learn. Finding how to incorporate movement and letting him learn his own way are more challenging than we expected, but we are getting there, together.So now it's time to share it. We are starting as unexpected homeschoolers, with a ten-year-old ADHD child, and we know we aren't out here alone- yet we know how panicked and alone you can feel when you realize this is the best option for your family. Yes, people are going to tell you that you are nuts.
Just stay focused on your squirrel, and there shall be learning. That's what is important.
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