my thoughts are not your thoughts

I read an evaluation of an "active child" age 4 who is considered to be not functioning well in the classroom.  To be fair, they were careful to say that it's not a problem with the child, it's just that they are not equipped to manage him.  And it's true, in a classroom of 20 children in a small space, an extremely active child is going to be difficult to manage, even if he has a shadow.

Some of the issues that were brought down:

• doesn't play with toys in the appropriate manner.
• brought a chair over to reach something
• is not able to attend lessons about letters etc.

Rebuttal:

• There is no "playing with toys in the appropriate manner." The appropriate way of playing with something is however the child's interest or imagination drives him or her to play with it.  If you are trying to say that the child is using the toy in a way that breaks the toy or that injures or disturbs others, then say so.  It is ridiculous that adults think that children should play with toys in specific ways.  This kills creativity.  It is specifically those children who find ways to use toys that are not the way they are "supposed" to be used who are the people who can think out of the box and find solutions to things and ways to use resources that other people don't see.  This should be encouraged and certainly not inhibited.
• I understand that dragging furniture about in a classroom with 20 children is disruptive and I am not criticizing the teacher.  I am critical of the underlying assumptions that allow the classroom to be set up so that this is a problem.  If a four-year-old child wants to reach something and has the independence, the strength, and the ability to move a chair to reach it, then this is an obvious and excellent method of problem solving.  This is to be commended, not criticized.  I personally would guide the child to put the chair back when he is finished, and consider this child resourceful and capable.  
• There are some children who are capable of sitting in circle time and of learning letters and other "academics" via passive listening at age 4.  AGE FOUR.  {The Mishna says 5 and the Gemara says (or 6 or 7).}  Leonard Sax says that boys most commonly diagnosed with ADHD in kindergarten are those who are the younger half.  Some children are highly tactile and energetic and the LEARNING that they are engaged in at age 4 is exploration and mastery of their environment.  They like to touch things, explore things, climb things, build and break things, look at things, try things and see what happens.  This is very important learning.  A child who learns this way should not be stopped.  He should not be forced to sit and listen to circle time.  You are interfering with the efficient way that he is being impelled to learn.  You are making him miss out on extremely valuable learning opportunities.  You are boring him.  Instead of letting him learn what he wants and allowing his creativity and urge for discovery to guide his learning, you are stifling him.  An active child like that will learn in his own way if you let him.  He will learn how things work.  He will increase independence.  He will do amazing things.  Forcing him to focus on letters is absurd for a child of his age with his temperament. It's painful and it's actually impeding the learning he is psychologically and intellectually designed to do.

there are no bad kids, just unsuitable environments

I had one of the most difficult homeschooling days of my life this week.  I've been homeschooling for fifteen years.

We went on a homeschool trip.  Trips are a vital and vibrant part of homeschooling.  Rather than being at home all day learning from books, a great deal of homeschooling occurs by hands-on learning, especially by trips to museums and classes and being out and about in the world, exploring it.

I've been to Poppenhusen Museum before, back when Sarah and Chana were younger.  I remember it being a wonderful 2 part program that taught us history of Queens, history of what schools were like in "the olden days" via an actress pretending to be the original teacher, and very hands on activities about what the Native Americans did and how they lived.

Well.  This was back when Sarah was about 9 and Chana was almost 4.

It is not the same at all when the children I am dealing with are 6, 3, and 2.  I didn't realize just how much lecturing there was until Elazar got increasingly wriggly, restless, loud, active, and inquisitive.  When he had to restrain himself verbally, his body started moving more.  When I stopped him from running, he began tumbling.  When I stopped him from tumbling, he began exploring and touching.  It has been quite a long time since I've been someplace that garnered me and my children so many dirty looks.  And these from fellow homeschoolers.

I haven't really done that many trips in the last three years.  Ever since the Cradle of Aviation museum when I was nursing a newborn Jack and the rambunctious 2-year-old Elazar left me in the dust running all over the place, I realized my life had changed.   But now Aharon can walk around under his own steam, and Elazar is six, and I thought... I thought we could do it.

I once saw a homeschooling conference speech topic called: ADHD?  And does it matter?  That really resonated with me.  Might Elazar need medication if he was in school?  He might.  I recall that one of my brothers, very energetic, had a tough time sitting in school.  The good teachers allowed him to pace quietly in the back when he needed to.  I remember my mother rejecting Ritalin twenty years before it was common for teachers to suggest it.

Leonard Sax, in his book Boys Adrift, discusses an epidemic of medicating children, especially boys.  He makes an interesting point that the majority of kids diagnosed with ADHD in kindergarten are in the younger half of the class.  This is why, he says, it makes sense to hold boys back a grade.  Many of the younger boys are incapable of doing what they are being asked to do.

My feeling is that I'd rather set aside the issue of ADHD* and tailor my children's education to their nature.

Many complaints about homeschoolers when they matriculate is that they are too egocentric about their education.  They demand answers to their questions and don't seem to grasp when the class needs to move on.  They "take over" and expect more interaction from their teachers.  They expect the work they are given to have a good rationale behind it.  They expect the work to be interesting.  They stubbornly refuse to do it if they don't agree with it.  They are vocal about their opinions.  And these are the non-ADHD kids.  They just have a strong stake in their educations.

The environment that Elazar and I were in this week was so awful for him that the word ADHD was running through my head over and over.  I was getting irritated at him because he wouldn't sit (even though he did sit, first for almost 10 minutes out of a TWENTY minute gently spoken introduction, and then for 7 minutes in what was supposed to be an interactive program, at which point he left.  We didn't even attempt the last part of the program, which was supposed to be where you handle all the Native American artifacts and crawl in a wigwam, because when I peeked into Chana's group, they were... SITTING and passively LISTENING).

It's very possible that at age 6, Elazar can handle a program of this nature.  IF I shadow him.  If I help him.  If I stand next to him and whisper to him and focus him and restrain him.

However, I am blessed with Jack, age 3.5, extremely introverted and nervous standing by himself in new surroundings, and Aharon, age 2--well, that age speaks for itself.  It was impossible to help Elazar out while tending to the needs of his younger brothers and be quiet enough to not distract everyone else.  I was tense, stressed, fielding dirty looks, and just about crying.  And upset at my energetic, sweet, well-meaning Elazar.

Imagine if he and I were dealing with this every day.  Imagine if Elazar were in an environment which did not accept his physicality, his energy, his need for movement.  Imagine dirty looks and frustration on a daily basis.  Imagine me not knowing what to do about him every single day.  Imagine him being in an environment with demands on him that are so against his nature that his nature never gets a chance to shine.  Imagine his intellect rarely being activated because he was using all his efforts to conform to an unnecessary system.  Imagine if he were not allowed to learn by experiments and by hands-on exploration.  Imagine him being told don't touch, don't move, stop it, don't, stop, no, no, no all day long.

I'm very grateful that he is homeschooled.  I'm grateful I don't have to face the difficult decision of medicating or not.  I'm grateful to have the opportunity to make my own mistakes and try to set up a learning environment where his curiosity and energy are assets, not something to be numbed so he can sit in class.


* (Elazar does actually have the capacity to sit and focus on things, despite the rule of thumb I learned in an education course to do one type of activity for only as many minutes as years of age the children are.  So for 10 year olds, lecture for 10 minutes, not more, then change the activity to have them write something, then change the activity etc.)

on choice in unschooling

As far as video game execs creating games to suck in my kid as long as possible, I once read an education article saying that video games are the perfect paradigm of education.  They are challenging in difficulty, getting incrementally more challenging in an exciting way that builds up and up as you improve.  They give emotional satisfaction from solving problems.  Those are the factors that make video games great :-)  I try to model my lessons after them.

Again, I will be keeping a close eye on elazar and the other boys when they get old enough, but right now the part that he loves is the figuring out, the mastering, and the achievement.  Leonard Sax's point is well taken that boys need these same satisfactions in the real world, or they risk being sucked in to enjoy it via media and not deal with the frustrations of the real world.  But I hope homeschooling will give my boys many happy hours of enjoyable real world challenges.  It may very well be that given a choice of the stifling way that we make boys behave vs media, that they will choose media.
Elazar woke up at 5:45, chose to snuggle for 1/2 hr, then watched Shrek III 2.5 times (I assume that's about 5 hrs.  I heard him repeating some of the lines and mimicking their tone).  Then he desperately wanted friend interaction and activity.  Based on the Are You Hungry paradigm, I firmly believe that kids will choose activities the same way that they choose food, and IF all things are offered, and IF there are no underlying emotional issues that are being expressed, children will choose moderation and balance, and a mix of everything.

As I say over and over, I am open to the possibility that this is not true, and I will keep an eye to see what is happening.  But so far all indications point to lots of choosing.

*Are You Hungry?: A Completely New Approach to Raising Children Free of Food and Weight Problems [Hardcover]

Jane R. Hirschmann (Author), Lela Zaphiropoulos (Author)