[email protected]

In a message dated 5/7/03 7:03:09 AM, sorcha-aisling@... writes:

<< I just wondered

what if the kids, when they were three or four, had only wanted to

learn to read and practice writing. Would the entire course of

homeschooling had gone more toward school-at-home for those

families? >>

There are early reading stories by unschoolers here (and some late reading
ones too):

http://sandradodd.com/reading
<A HREF="http://sandradodd.com/reading">Learning to Read Naturally</A>

If others have stories they want to add to that site about how kids learned
to read without instruction, send the to me!

We were unschooling before I knew if my kids would read early or not. They
didn't. Lots of their learning comes from the printed word, but not always
from a bound, paper book. Sometimes online (does THIS reading anyone here is
doing count as "reading"?), sometimes in magazines, or correpondence.
There's a glorified tradition of correspondence in this culture's history.
Someone can almost cite as academic credentials "correspondended with Tolkien
for some years" (as my friend Keith Hunter's dad, a missionary in Pakistan,
could claim). If you corresponded with a famous thinker, you might have
knowledge of insight that NOBODY else had. That's cool. Those letters get
published sometimes and everyone says "ooooh."

Unschooling isn't about not reading, it's about learning that reading is just
one of many ways to get information, not the best, not the main, not even
potentially the only.

The dumbest question I have ever been asked by people asking about
unschooling is "Do you use books?"

Asking them to define "use" just caused their brains to completely overload
every time or they just stated their question differently as though *I* was
the one who was confused.

Sandra

shantinik

>
> We were unschooling before I knew if my kids would read early or
not. They
> didn't.

There is NO SUCH THING as early (or late) reading <grin>. Ever hear
of early (or late) bicycling?

>
> Unschooling isn't about not reading, it's about learning that
reading is just
> one of many ways to get information, not the best, not the main,
not even
> potentially the only.
>
> The dumbest question I have ever been asked by people asking about
> unschooling is "Do you use books?"

I use cans of cream-style corn!
>
(I'll sell you one if you like -- $4500 for the entire K-12
curriculum, and the profits won't go to gambling casinos run by
organized crime....)

david
www.skylarksings.com

[email protected]

In a message dated 5/7/03 12:10:47 PM, shantinik@... writes:

<< Ever hear

of early (or late) bicycling? >>

Yeah! I was ten and had had a bike for MONTHS before I figured out how to
ride it and all my friends were riding away, waving. I was bicycle-retarded,
darn it.

-=-$4500 for the entire K-12

curriculum, and the profits won't go to gambling casinos run by

organized crime....-=-

Tell us a story, David!
Is there a curriculum company with profits going to casinos?
Or do you mean state governments (being in New Mexico, lately becoming
Casino-land)

Or is there a canned CORN company with gambling casino connections?

Sandra

Deborah Lewis

***Or is there a canned CORN company with gambling casino connections?***

That must be it....All that genetic modification. Those bastards!

Deb L

Stephanie Elms

> << Ever hear
>
> of early (or late) bicycling? >>
>
I remember being worried because my 4 yo did not know how to pedal...he only wanted
to push with his feet on the ground. I figured that he would learn how to, but the
worry did cross my mind. Yuck! He is 6 now and is super fast with no desire to take
his training wheels off. ;o)

Stephanie E.

Heidi

--- In [email protected], SandraDodd@a... wrote:
>
> In a message dated 5/7/03 12:10:47 PM, shantinik@e... writes:
>
> << Ever hear
>
> of early (or late) bicycling? >>
>
> Yeah! I was ten and had had a bike for MONTHS before I figured out
how to
> ride it and all my friends were riding away, waving. I was bicycle-
retarded,
> darn it.
>
> -=-$4500 for the entire K-12
>
> curriculum, and the profits won't go to gambling casinos run by
>
> organized crime....-=-
>
> Tell us a story, David!
> Is there a curriculum company with profits going to casinos?
> Or do you mean state governments (being in New Mexico, lately
becoming
> Casino-land)
>
> Or is there a canned CORN company with gambling casino connections?
>
> Sandra


Okay, I'll bite. I think you're joking, but in case you're not, David
references Wm. Bennett's gambling, which has recently been in the
headlines. BIG TIME money, going into his, er, hobby.

But as he himself pointed out, he wasn't doing anything illegal, and
his bills were paid.

Still, ironic, the "guru of virtue" being a highstakes gambler.

HeidiC

Heidi

--- In [email protected], SandraDodd@a... wrote:
>
> In a message dated 5/7/03 12:10:47 PM, shantinik@e... writes:
>
> << Ever hear
>
> of early (or late) bicycling? >>
>
> Yeah! I was ten and had had a bike for MONTHS before I figured out
how to
> ride it and all my friends were riding away, waving. I was bicycle-
retarded,
> darn it.
>
> -=-$4500 for the entire K-12
>
> curriculum, and the profits won't go to gambling casinos run by
>
> organized crime....-=-
>
> Tell us a story, David!
> Is there a curriculum company with profits going to casinos?
> Or do you mean state governments (being in New Mexico, lately
becoming
> Casino-land)
>
> Or is there a canned CORN company with gambling casino connections?
>
> Sandra

oh! and Wm. Bennett created the K12 curriculum heidic

[email protected]

In a message dated 5/8/03 1:30:57 PM, bunsofaluminum60@... writes:

<< Okay, I'll bite. I think you're joking, but in case you're not, David

references Wm. Bennett's gambling, which has recently been in the

headlines. BIG TIME money, going into his, er, hobby. >>

Well thanks!
(Others who clarified too.)

I don't watch the news, I close the AOL opening screen, and I don't buy the
newspaper, because of the domestic violence and murder and child abuse and
sometimes worse in there. I'm a wimp. I'm isolating myself from "the real
world."

It's really pretty comfortable!

Sandra

sorcha_aisling

>>> oh! and Wm. Bennett created the K12 curriculum<<<

If by "created" you mean copied the content areas from E.D. Hirsch's
Core Knowledge Sequence and packaged it with some of the books
mentioned in E.D. Hirsch's Books to Build On.

Sorcha

shantinik

> >
> > Yeah! I was ten and had had a bike for MONTHS before I figured
out
> how to
> > ride it and all my friends were riding away, waving. I was
bicycle-
> retarded,
> > darn it.

I hope they send you to the required summer school!
> >
> > -=-$4500 for the entire K-12
> >
> > curriculum, and the profits won't go to gambling casinos run by
> >
> > organized crime....-=-
> >
> > Tell us a story, David!
> > Is there a curriculum company with profits going to casinos?
> > Or do you mean state governments (being in New Mexico, lately
> becoming
> > Casino-land)
> >
> > Or is there a canned CORN company with gambling casino
connections?
> >
Well, probably all of the above, now that you think of it!
>
>
> Okay, I'll bite. I think you're joking, but in case you're not,
David
> references Wm. Bennett's gambling, which has recently been in the
> headlines. BIG TIME money, going into his, er, hobby.
>
> But as he himself pointed out, he wasn't doing anything illegal,
and
> his bills were paid.

First of all, he wasn't doing anything illegal in the casinos
reported on in the press articles (from the known casino sources.) Do
you think it likely that a $20 million/decade gambler (and one who
just plays video poker and slot machines!?) confines himself to the
legal ones?

And it is true -- his bills "were paid". But the question is --- by
WHOM?

(inquiring minds want to know...incidentally, I went to college
with "Biff" -- best I can say for him is that his brother was a good
bridge player!)

shantinik

--- In [email protected], "sorcha_aisling" <sorcha-
aisling@i...> wrote:
> >>> oh! and Wm. Bennett created the K12 curriculum<<<
>
> If by "created" you mean copied the content areas from E.D.
Hirsch's
> Core Knowledge Sequence and packaged it with some of the books
> mentioned in E.D. Hirsch's Books to Build On.
>
Yeah, and I went to graduate school with this Hirsch fellow --
totally culturally illiterate!

david
www.skylarksings.com

[email protected]

In a message dated 5/8/03 4:22:14 PM, shantinik@... writes:

<< > If by "created" you mean copied the content areas from E.D.

Hirsch's

> Core Knowledge Sequence and packaged it with some of the books

> mentioned in E.D. Hirsch's Books to Build On.

>

Yeah, and I went to graduate school with this Hirsch fellow --

totally culturally illiterate! >>

Well maybe that's why he wrote those books, that he saw his own shortcomings
and wanted to give someone else the Cliff's Notes to Western Civilization!

A friend of mine in college had been raised Unitarian, third or fourth
generation Unitarian.
His parents were intellectual Yankees. His mom had a Master's degree in
something hoity from Vassar, but she just cooked and amused her kids (and
their friends, and I was glad to be one of them, and the dad had a PhD in
nuclear this'n'that, and the kids had grown up in Richland WA and Los Alamos,
New Mexico. They had math. They had grammar with a vengeance. They had
science fiction, medieval heraldry, and Gilbert and Sullivan.

That was all.

Derek, though, came to be hanging out with me, and I could almost say not a
thing that he didn't look quizzical about. Folkore, folkmusic, English
ballads, blues, rock'n'roll (TOTAL blank space in his experience), etc. Not
one clue, though he was curious and interested.

Though he's now himself a high paid computer geek in southern California, at
the time of our analysis of What's Derek's Problem, he was an English major
who kept on and KEPT on missing references and metaphors and analogies
because he knew NO Bible. Zip. He knew less about Christianity than people
will learn walking through a mall because he had never walked through a mall.

So I used to tell him stories. He wasn't embarrassed to ask me. So I showed
him how to use a Bible to look things up. Showed him the concordance and the
list of Bible books. Told him the stories of Jacob and Esau, and of Job, and
showed him where to read them whole. Told him about The Tower of Babel.

HOW could he have missed all that? He just did.

Fascinating.

He had two sisters and a brother.
Now he has three sisters. YOU do the bio math.
Both parents died of brain problems within just a few years of one another.
They had lived on the edge of a canyon in which nuclear waste used to be
dumped, when the labs were a "just until the end of the war" thing in the
1940's, and they never found a good time to tell people, "Oh... by the way..."

I learned a lot hanging around with that aberrantly-behaving family.

Sandra

sorcha_aisling

> >
> Yeah, and I went to graduate school with this Hirsch fellow --
> totally culturally illiterate!<<<

Um, yeah. Anyone who believes that if schools don't teach The Three
Little Pigs that children will grow up never having heard the story
obviously grew up in a cave and emerged one day as an adult,
squinting into the sun and saying, "Uh, like, what country am I in?"
The reason I have the Core Knowledge Sequence was because I was
infatuated with the idea of cultural literacy for the three minutes
it took to type my credit card number on the webpage. When it came
in the mail and I read through it, I realized you would truly pick
this stuff up on accident. I mean really, you have five senses. No
kidding! Oh, so ears are for hearing and eyes are for seeing. Wait
a minute while I get a pencil, I may need to study this awhile.

Sorcha

Heidi

Okay, I'll bite. I think you're joking, but in case you're not,
> David
> > references Wm. Bennett's gambling, which has recently been in the
> > headlines. BIG TIME money, going into his, er, hobby.
> >
> > But as he himself pointed out, he wasn't doing anything illegal,
> and
> > his bills were paid.
>
> First of all, he wasn't doing anything illegal in the casinos
> reported on in the press articles (from the known casino sources.)
Do
> you think it likely that a $20 million/decade gambler (and one who
> just plays video poker and slot machines!?) confines himself to the
> legal ones?
>
> And it is true -- his bills "were paid". But the question is --- by
> WHOM?
>
> (inquiring minds want to know...incidentally, I went to college
> with "Biff" -- best I can say for him is that his brother was a
good
> bridge player!)

I gotta agree with you there. I'm pretty disappointed in MR. Bennett.
I haven't read further than the headlines that were on the CNN news
website, and so don't know lots of details. But my point too was, he
didn't do it in secret. It's a crying shame, and I'm disgusted, and I
think he most likely did NOT confine himself to legal gambling...and,
when he was secretary of Education...it was MY money he was paying
his bills with...proceeds from his amazingly successful books...and
now profits from his K12 curriculum.

And putting money into the pocket as David said, of organized crime.
I'm very unhappy about it.

Biff? that was his nickname? *barf*

HeidiC

Heidi

--- In [email protected], "sorcha_aisling" <sorcha-
aisling@i...> wrote:
> >>> oh! and Wm. Bennett created the K12 curriculum<<<
>
> If by "created" you mean copied the content areas from E.D.
Hirsch's
> Core Knowledge Sequence and packaged it with some of the books
> mentioned in E.D. Hirsch's Books to Build On.
>
> Sorcha

Oh. *stunned silence*

I have his (Hirsch's) Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, and Grade One,
and Grade Two.(gifts from my mom) I like the art section in both of
those...and you're right, the K12 art course follows the Hirsch
recommendations. I picked up on that.

So, Wm. Bennett et al built the K12 on Hirsch, eh? innat speshuul.

HeidiC who doesn't know if she can stand another disillusionment.
*sob*

sorcha_aisling

> >>So, Wm. Bennett et al built the K12 on Hirsch, eh? <<<

I just happen to have The Educated Child out of the library (because
I found it amusing to read it alongside Susan Ohanian's scathing
remarks about Bennett et al in WHAT Happened to Recess and WHY are
our Chidren Struggling in Kindergarten?)

Anyway, part two of the book is called "The Core Curriculum" and it
mentions all the same rhetoric in the front of any E.D. Hirsch book
(even giving identical examples) and on page 100 it says, "The Core
Knowledge Sequence is the best content guide for the elementary
grades [K-8] that we have seen." Every chapter for the next 200
pages quotes extensively from the Core Knowledge Sequence. I haven't
seen K12, but in Ohanian's work, the places that she quotes from it
line up perfectly with the Core Knowledge Sequence.

Sorcha

sorcha_aisling

Heidi,

This is from the K12 website: "While the Core Knowledge Foundation
provides curricular guidelines, K12 goes much farther by providing a
fully developed and comprehensive curriculum"

In other words, they used the Core Knowledge Sequence ($25) and
combined it with a selection of materials listed in Books to Build On
($13) and some lesson plans (available for free from the Baltimore
Curriculum Project) and I see that he charges about $1200 per grade
level.

I only wish I hadn't thought of it before he did; then I could afford
to blow $20 million dollars gambling.

Sorcha

sorcha_aisling

Oh, and though the Core Knowledge Sequence only goes to grade 8 and
K12 is obviously intended to go to grade 12, they only have K-7
available so far. I'm going to follow this one: will the Core
Knowledge Foundation release it's high school scope and sequence and
recommended materials lists before or after K12 starts selling it??

If it's any consolation Heidi, a lot of homeschoolers use the Core
Knowledge Sequence and buy tons of materials like Pearson's Super
Expensive History and Geography textbooks to go with it. And they
are happy and don't feel ripped off. So if you got a lot of
materials that were worth $1200 don't feel like you were scammed.

Sorcha

Kelly Lenhart

>He knew less about Christianity than people
>will learn walking through a mall because he had never walked through a
mall.
>HOW could he have missed all that? He just did.

By growing up in an areligious family. I did. There are plenty of "bible"
things I don't know to this day. I've learned a lot because of my interest
in literature. And I worked in a Jewish school for a while so I learned
even more. It's interesting enough, but it's not my religion's holy book.
I'm sure my children will grow up knowing more about Persphone and Baba Yaga
than Abraham. (We're Pagan.)

Kelly

sablehs

--- In [email protected], "Kelly Lenhart"
<mina@m...> wrote:

> I'm sure my children will grow up knowing more about Persphone and
Baba Yaga
> than Abraham. (We're Pagan.)
>
>
We're Pagan too, But we do talk about the Christian stories {because
we are both from Christian families} and then how we interpret them.
They have {and still do} go to church from time to time with their
granny because they like some of the kids there and want.

We want them to question {even us} because we feel it will empower
them over all. Most of their extended family are Christian and we
live in NC { obvious part of the bible belt, home of Jessy Helms}.
It's just something around here that you can't help but hear about.
People are asked regularly {like I heard many here say }"Whut Church
do you go to?" It's assumed that's what you are.
Tracy

Heidi

--- In [email protected], "sorcha_aisling" <sorcha-
aisling@i...> wrote:
> Oh, and though the Core Knowledge Sequence only goes to grade 8 and
> K12 is obviously intended to go to grade 12, they only have K-7
> available so far. I'm going to follow this one: will the Core
> Knowledge Foundation release it's high school scope and sequence
and
> recommended materials lists before or after K12 starts selling it??
>
> If it's any consolation Heidi, a lot of homeschoolers use the Core
> Knowledge Sequence and buy tons of materials like Pearson's Super
> Expensive History and Geography textbooks to go with it. And they
> are happy and don't feel ripped off. So if you got a lot of
> materials that were worth $1200 don't feel like you were scammed.
>
> Sorcha

Hi Sorcha

I don't feel like *I* was scammed, because we got into K12 via the
Idaho Virtual Acadamy, a charter school. ("free" or "already paid for
by my taxes" was a justification I used when we joined)

We got TONS of stuff: books, work pages, clay, tempera paints, good
paintbrushes, art paper, plaster of paris, supplies for many science
projects, a package of tissue paper in the full spectrum of colors
(we made snowflakes with a fraction of that paper), pastels, crayons,
markers, pencils, sketch pads, poster board...when we withdrew from
IDVA, we sent back the "non-consumables" (mostly books, and avail. in
the library) and kept the art stuff :) I also kept the fourth grade
desk map, even though it is a non-consumable. Very high quality map,
world on one side, U.S. on the other, political boundaries.

but all that stuff just wasn't worth the hassle of "talking with the
teacher" every two weeks; the mandate that we turn in samples of the
kids' work (when I withdrew, I mentioned that specifically in an
email to my "teacher" and THAT WAS CHANGED!!! they no longer require
work samples to be turned in to the "teacher." :D And, of course, my
attitude about the fill in the blank nonsense, busy work, keep em
busy at their desks...the thing was not designed for homeschool, nor
even for school at home, with kids of different ages doing different
things. It had clear markings of being something for a roomful of
kids.

And...if you believe that there's knowledge that is a "must", then
the Core Knowledge series is a good guideline to follow. It makes
sense for K12 not to reinvent the wheel, but follow an already
developed guideline. I don't have a prob with MR. Bennett using the
Core Knowledge...but your point about how much the K12 costs,
compared with the resources at the foundation, is well taken.

Meanwhile, I have changed what I think about the concept of certain
things being "necessary for a well rounded education." And so, the
further I can get away from K12-style thinking, the better!

HeidiC

sorcha_aisling

Heidi,

Oh, heck, if you didn't pay $1200+ for it, then no problem. I
thought you paid that much for something you could have gotten for
$38 and a library card. I bought the Sequence and Books to Build On
(which actually has some neat recommendations), but after looking
through it and pondering awhile, I came to the conclusion that
cultural literacy isn't something that needs to be taught. If you
live here, you'll pick it up on accident. It might be useful to my
family if we just moved to the United States, but we've lived here
for generations and my kids don't really need to study our culture.
The reason it appealed to me so much is because it's all stuff I
know. I'd look through it and say, "Yeah, I'd love to read Grimm's
Fairy Tales with my children!" or whatever. But I already own the
complete tales, and I don't need to write it on a lesson planner to
remember to tell them fairy tales. My grandfather, who had to drop
out of school after second grade to work in the coal mines, told me
fairy tales and recited all the nursery rhymes for me, and he didn't
need a scope and sequence to do it.

Sorcha

shantinik

>
> >
>
> Yeah, and I went to graduate school with this Hirsch fellow --
>
> totally culturally illiterate! >>
>
> Well maybe that's why he wrote those books, that he saw his own
shortcomings
> and wanted to give someone else the Cliff's Notes to Western
Civilization!

Nope -- exactly the opposite. The books are an expression of his
cultural illiteracy. He knows NOTHING about his Vietnamese neighbors
who live down the street -- what they eat for dinner, how they
celebrate holidays, what their regional traditions are, even how they
name their children. He knows even less about his maid, who comes
from El Salvador, her customs and traditions, the church she attends,
the prayers she says. When it comes to the Somalians who live in
Charlottesville, he's a cypher.

He's not much better on the real history of the West, either. Try
asking him about Spartacus!

david
www.skylarksings.com

[email protected]

In a message dated 5/9/03 11:09:21 AM, shantinik@... writes:

<< Nope -- exactly the opposite. The books are an expression of his

cultural illiteracy. He knows NOTHING about his Vietnamese neighbors

who live down the street -- what they eat for dinner, how they

celebrate holidays, what their regional traditions are, even how they

name their children. He knows even less about his maid, who comes

from El Salvador, her customs and traditions, the church she attends,

the prayers she says. When it comes to the Somalians who live in

Charlottesville, he's a cypher. >>

Gotcha.

I met a nice hippie couple from rural outskirts of Gallup, New Mexico. They
said their daughter's the only non-Indian kid at Laguna/Acoma high school.
They used to homeschool, but she's really liking that school. They said they
were a little worried about what she might be missing. I said she was
missing NOTHING, but gaining something others couldn't get for any amount of
money or study. I asked if she was hanging out at the pueblos and getting
invited to feasts. Oh yeah, they said, just lately a deer dance. Well there
y'go.

I met them because Holly and I found a crate of books on the road. They were
elementary music-teacher things. I wouldn't have minded having some of
that, if they were unclaimed. Lots of recorder and guitar and keyboard
stuff!

And I went through looking for a name, found a photocopy of a receipt for her
having bought some guitars, and called the number thinking it was someone in
the neighborhood.

No, their car had been stolen at gunpoint from their house that morning at
4:00 a.m. and the state police had assured them the guy had gone south. Huh.
Apparently he went EAST, and for some reason gently set her crate of
teacher-stuff out in the road a couple of blocks from my house. The state
police wanted to take the crate for evidence and I talked them out of it. At
least they got something back that way. My winning argument was I was pretty
sure car thieves weren't going through seeing if any of those books were
worth selling at the used book store, so they weren't going to find any
fingerprints but mine, and meanwhile she wouldn't have the stuff she needed
for her job.

Often the best stories happen when people are not trying to be part of good
stories. I liked those people a lot. We had a good visit when they came
over.

Sandra

Sandra