Hard Lessons - Homeschooling or Not

Last night Ian learned the lesson that you may not get invited to something even if all your friends do.

A boy down the road had a Halloween party last night and Ian wasn't invited. He said his mom doesn't like Ian. I used to like his mom and I used to like his dad. I don't care if the kid wasn't telling the truth or he just wanted to be mean or he doesn't like Ian. I simply no longer like his parents. I figure if you raise a kid that says those kinds of things, then you aren't very  nice people.

I saw his dad driving down our road this morning. I didn't wave at him. I hope he noticed that. I hope he was heading to the grocery store and he runs into a mutual friend and says, "Hey, I just passed Gina on the road and she didn't wave. Is she okay?" And then I hope this mutual friend says, "I heard she doesn't like you anymore because you're raising a mean child." And then I hope the dad goes home to his wife (and remember, I also don't like her anymore) and sits her down on the couch and says "Honey, Gina doesn't like us anymore and it's because we've allowed our son to be mean to hers and I really think we need to change our parenting and have a serious talk with our son."

Okay, so I'm pretty sure none of the above is going to happen. So instead Mike and I talked to Ian about how you will get your feelings hurt many times and people won't invite you to places and it will hurt you. Even when you're an adult. I reminded him that he had a bunch of friends over a few weeks ago and this now-horrible child down the road wasn't invited.

Tonight he's with other friends trick-or-treating and seems to be okay, but knowing Ian, he's thinking about it.

Then I started thinking about some of the times I haven't been invited places.

I used to get invited to jewelry parties; they're rather prolific around here. But I don't get invited anymore since the last one when my friend J invited me and I said, "I hate jewelry parties, please don't ask me." So she doesn't.

I used to get invited to the occasional bonfires people have out here, but I don't drink enough and most of the times I find conversations with somewhat drunk people very trying.

I used to get invited to church functions and baby showers and wedding showers and Bible studies. But after I laughed openly at a nice man at a Bible study on how he mis-used the word "persecution" (I think he meant "pestilence") I haven't been invited back.

I used to get invited skiing but finally the people in Grand County really, really know that yes, I really, really do hate snow and hate skiing.

In a nutshell, I've created my own group of invitations, which are limited. I go to places where I can ride my horse and rope and chase cows. I go to the only restaurant in town with my friend B and friend A. I go riding with my friend J and my friend A. I go to Silverthorne shopping with my friend B, but only if I need something. That's it. But I'm older and more secure in who I choose to hang out with.

Ian is still feeling his way through the world and, let's face it, eighth graders can be mean. I think it must be one of those hard lessons in life that you can't prevent. You can keep your child away from the bullys and limit his TV and what he sees on the Internet and make sure he gets enough fruits and vegetables, but you can't prevent some hurtful things happening. I think all you can do is listen and understand and offer words of support and maybe offer up some of your own life-lessons but you can't monitor what everyone else's children will say and do. You just hope that he has the "chutzpah" to let it roll off him and continue forward.

However, I'm still never going to wave to those parent again and if I see their son on the side of the road, I'm not stopping to offer him a lift home, no matter what the weather. Okay, maybe if it's a blizzard I'll let him in my car, but only if it's a blizzard.

Brown-nosing in Cyberspace

In homeschooling, we have online sessions complete with "live" teachers and students signing in and asking questions. Last week we had such a session on English. Ian has to write a Definition Essay and students can chime in on answers to what she asks.

I'm here to tell you that Brown-nosing happens even in Cyberspace.

I'll call her "K." "K" answered every questions in complete sentences with no typos. I'm pretty sure her mom is online and not "K". "K" is in her bedroom listening to old Ozzy Osborne records.

"S" asked a lot of questions...I think she was hoping the teacher would think she was really, really interested in what a "Definition Essay" was. I'm an English teacher and I wasn't even interested. Again, "S" typed in complete sentences, no typos and asked such things as "Is it possible to get a better grade than an A?"

Seriously, she asked this.Again, her mom was online and "S" was out hanging at the mall with newly dyed purple hair shoplifting magenta colored lipstick.

Better than an "A?" Of course, I was the kind of student on the first day of all college classes, figured out how many days I could miss and still get an "A" and actually wrote the days I skipped in my planner. I mean I still wanted an "A" but not that bad.

But, if these are real students and not their moms, brown-nosing is alive and thriving, even online.

When I was a teacher I hated the brown-nosers. They grew up to be car salesmen and politicians. I much prefered the students who told you to "F-off," they were honest.

When the cyber-teacher asked what kind of topics these students wanted to write about all sorts of frantic typing began and topics such as "why kitties make the best pets" and "why my mom is the best mom in the whole world." (I"m thinking that, once again, a mom was online).

Are you serious? "Why kitties make the best pets?" The teacher, displaying encouraging and self-esteem building skills typed, "Why 'L', what a great topic."

A great topic? Gag me with a spoon. If I had a student ask me ,"Can I write a paper on why kitties make the best pets" I would say, "Hell no and if you do you'll get an F because I refuse to read that kind of crap."

You know the kinds of teachers that say, the first day of class, "There are no dumb questions." Well, they are wrong, there are plenty of dumb questions and "Can I write a paper on why kitties make the best pets," is perhaps one of the dumbest. Next to "Do I need to know this?"

My favorite topic was from "J" who said, "Can I write on why snowboarders are such losers." I like "J", I think I might like to have a beer with him.

Ian's favorite was from "B" who asked if he could write a paper on explosions. Ian wanted to hang out with him.

Ian is writing a paper on why skiiers are faster than snowboarders, which is kind of the same thing as why snowboarders are such losers, just more politically correct.

Focus, Focus, Focus

It's hard to keep Ian focused right now. I think I've mentioned the whole Air-Soft Gun/War thing around here. Every weekend they (all young boys in Granby around the age of 13 whose parents are insane enough to allow this activity) plan these Air-Soft Wars. Last weekend they took place at our house.

We live out a bit from the town, which is relative considering Granby is "out a bit" from anything. At any rate, apparently it's a great place to have these wars. We have an abandoned gravel pit across from us, we have Skip's Reservoir, we have the barn, we have 200 acres of sagebrush, trees, hills, dips in the ground, old equipment (including a grain silo that looks like a rocket), and a creek. What better place to stage a fake war?

It's a little bit disconcerting for me. I'm having a difficult time, morally, ethically and politically with Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't like hunting. I'm afraid of guns. I don't like violence. I hate video games, the movie Jackass and people who wear camo.

I'm  a bit out of place in Granby where 90% of the trucks (no one drives cars around here, myself included) have a rifle rack, where you see bumper stickers that read "Obama can have my guns...over my dead body" and to not hunt makes me suspect, or at the very least, a Democrat.

So how do boys learn the difference between pretend wars and real wars? Between air-soft pellets and real bullets? Between video games killing and real killing?

When my oldest boy, Jordan was a toddler, I told everyone within shouting distance, that they were not, under any circumstances, to buy Jordan anything that resembled a gun. Nothing, nada, zilch. No one did. So, Jordan made guns out of sticks and pieces of kindling and his finger. Jordan, one day in Newberrys (which is no longer) stood in front of the pink girl-toy aisle (he was five) and said, "Yuck, girls, they have such wimpy toys." 

I'm beginning to think Ian and Jordan and all people with male DNA are programmed to be aggressive. They like motorcycles and ATVs and games with controls that look like guns and loud noises and body jokes. They do not like kittens and pink diaries and building relationships.

There's only so much I can control and maybe my husband is right. If we teach him the right way then he won't do wrong. Which means if they're going to have an Air-Soft war, they might as well have it here where I can feed the boys brownies and milk afterwards and ask how it went.

Things I've Learned Homeschooling

Ian is becoming quite the independent worker. He no longer wants me to read his World History book outloud. He prefers to do Math by himself (for obvious reasons), his Science is easy but he does allow me to take notes when he's doing one of his weekly experiments. And of course, Treasure Island is still sitting on his bedstand (I have ordered a Playaway from the library and am desperately hoping it arrives soon - although it's amazing how many lessons you can do without actually reading the book---more on this later.)

I kind of miss this. For example, yesterday I just finished reading "The Gendarme" which is an incredible book on the Armenian Genocide during WWI. As the narrator is describing the death walk, he talks about the ziggurats he comes across? How many of you know what a ziggurat is? Yeah, just what I thought, not many. I do and only because Ian and I just studied them (for your information, just in case you're ever on Jeopardy- a ziggurat is a temple built to the various gods early cultures believed in).

I've done a couple of experiments involving steam and liquid and density and other things which I can no longer remember. What I do remember is that one experiment had us distilling coke, orange soda and cranberry juice. What we ended up doing is distilling just about everything in the refrigerator, including pickle juice, to see what would happened. (for your information - pickle juice tastes just as bad distilled as not distilled.)

I have, of course, given up on "Treasure Island" and have joined the Dark Side - classics are classics because they are boring and long.

I have, of course, given up on Math. Some of our Math is interactive and we get to move the mouse around and listen to the cyberspace of Mr. Thomas and have him move the mouse around. Ian gets it, I'm still stuck on why Judy insists on keeping four balls and only giving Alan three - what kind of a mother raises a kid like Judy????

Art is fun and Ian loves it which means I don't get to help. I don't even get to make a relief sculpture out of this really cool clay that we bought. But Ian did. Mine would have been better.

He doesn't listen to me on grammar - I don't think he believes me when I tell him I really, really do know grammar. I teach ESL and my advanced students are always asking questions about conditional tenses and subjectives and auxliary verbs and all the things that most of the United States population knows nothing about and still speaks correctly, for the most part, unless you live in Alabama or Tennessee or Mississippi or Texas.

He has an interactive Spanish course but of course, although I'm somewhat fluent in Spanish, thanks to my ESL students, he doesn't listen to me about that either. Okay, okay,  maybe one day I was maybe wrong when they were explaining the difference between "tu" and "usted" but the online program could be wrong also; it's not unheard of for a computer to be wrong.

But it's okay. I'm enjoying seeing Ian have so many successes. I knew he was smart.

I'm So Tired

You might think, from the title, that I'm talking about myself. But I'm not; I'm going to describe yesterday's "homeschooling."

It began with Ian staring at his Math book (of which I cannot help him with and have hired a tutor; a nice, quiet young man whom Ian believes is OCD because he likes to erase things.). He stared at it and I suggested, in a nice voice (it was still early in the day) that perhaps he'd like to do another subject first. "No, I'm just too tired."

Let me back up. I went to work early so I could get home about 10:00 to help him with school. It was now 11:00 and he just managed to fall out of bed and was dressed in the same clothes he went to bed with and...that he wore the day before. Some days I'm just happy if he brushes his teeth.

Anyway, I coddled him through prepositions, attempting to explain what kinds of words they are (remember, I have a Masters in English) and then just gave up and said, "Ok, they're just little words, ok? Just little words."

"I'm just so tired," and now he's moaning in what he thinks will garner him sympathy.

It doesn't. Instead I try what I believe may be one of my best teaching moments yet. I brightly say, "how about we read. I'll read to you. Just like when you were little. "

"Okay, but I'm still really tired."

I turn so he doesn't see me gritting my teeth and begin to read chapter four of "Treasure Island." Now I remember the movie; it was filled with people swinging from tree to tree and tigers and bears attacking at night (never mind how a tiger and a bear could get on a deserted island) and great inventions and houses up in trees. The book is not at all like this. As a matter of fact, it's kind of boring. I always wonder what makes certain books classics. My high school students told me that if a book was boring it was a classic. I would launch into these speeches on what defines great literature, blah, blah, blah, but now I think they were right. "Treasure Island" is a classic and it is boring.

Now Ian is down on the floor with his pocket knife cutting teeny-tiny squares out of the carpet.

I continue with the chapter and find myself wondering if we could possibly get by without reading this book and watching the movie instead.

Now Ian has rolled onto his back and he's tearing off small pieces of electrical tape and sticking them on his bookshelf.

I'm wondering how unethical it would be for me to just answer the reading questions; I've seen the movie.

Now Ian is on his side and he's taping two copper pipes together with the electrical tape.

I'm wondering if the Homeschooling Gods would find out if I wrote the end-of-the-book essay and not Ian.

Now Ian has taped the copper piping onto his Air Soft pistol.

I stop reading and Ian continues taping. I ask, "Where did you get all this stuff?"
"What stuff?"
"The tape, the piping, the knife."
"Dad gave me the knife."
"Okay, but why do you have the rest of this stuff in the bedroom?"
"I got it from the garage."
"That's not what I asked."
"What did you ask?"

I'm so tired, I'm really just so tired.