What If Great Teachers Could Homeschool Your Kids For You?

As anyone with kids in school knows, the current school system is lagging and lacking. Don't fault the teachers. Most teachers are terrific but they all have more work then ever, fewer resources, less support, bigger classes, more challenging students and a league of hovering, annoying parents with whom to contend.

The system needs an overhaul from the top down so that we can put the students first. It's not going to happen any time soon so parents look for alternatives.

One of those alternatives is homeschooling. For a longtime the idea of teaching kids at home was associated with crop-planters, tree-huggers and church-goers but homeschooling is shedding its long skirts, as it were.

The number of kids homeschooled in Canada has doubled in the last decade and is growing every year. Universities actively seek homeschooled kids these days because they out perform their peers in public  and private school. 

Lots of parents are scared to admit they homeschool even though they made the choice for very practical reasons that had nothing to do with religion or wheatgerm and everything to do with making sure their kids got the best education they could, address a particular learning style, be more challenged, get away from bullies, to name just a few of a long list of reasons.

(I toyed with idea a few times when my kids were small but to be honest I don't think I could teach drunk and that would be the only way I could pull it off.)

There's one misconception that keeps cropping up - some folks think kids that are homeschooled are weird and socially goofy, and some are ... but there are just as many kids who socialize all day in public school who are weird too. It’s incumbent upon the parents and teachers to help kids learn to socialize, doing it well is not a product of a big school and nor is doing it poorly a result of a kitchen classroom.

Nope, the socialization thing didn’t worry me. All joking aside, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to teach the hard stuff, like math. And, I was pretty certain I didn't have the patience it would take. I am also a practiced procrastinator so blowing of the school year and cramming it all into June was a likely scenario. 

I would like to have been able to out-source their homeschooling. The same way I did their swimming lessons and will do with their driving lessons. Turn it over to the pros.

It would have been great to have them disappear for the morning to be taught in small groups by great teachers and then I - Fun Mom - would sail in on a nap and a shower at noon to take them to the zoo, the museum, the science centre, the park, the gym, art class or out to hang out with other kids who are done for the day at noon. 

That’s the kind of education model I wish I could have found when my kids were little and heading into the system ... and now it has arrived. 

There is a new school opening this fall in Calgary. 
Only 15 spots will be open this year with more added each school after this. 
It's called the N.A.S. Project. NAS stands for Not A School, love it. 
At the helm is my friend and engaged educator Lani Donaldson. 

Watch this video

And head here for more details and to register. www.nasproject.org

Parents Have So Many Questions

Originally Posted January 23, 2013

I am often asked what made me create this site and it’s only fair to start with the truth, it came quite by accident, I am not living the life I planned. 

The mere fact I have kids let alone am this involved with their education is insane. And people who knew me back then cannot believe it.

When I was in my 20’s the life I imagined was going to end tragically before I was thirty, plane crash with a band (or something like it) and I would forever be remembered as young and funny and gone before my time. No husbands, kids, house or mini vans for me, yuck yuck yuck and yuck.

Here I am, 22 years past my 30th birthday. I held of on marriage until I was 35, (when I found my prince) the mortgage in the ‘burbs until I was 36, the breeding until I was 41 and the Dodge Caravan until I was 43.

We all know what happens when we say never.

Our lives are made up of many versions of ourselves and I have to tell you, if I had met THIS me when I was 25 I would never have been able to imagine what road would take me here...it sure wasn’t on the map I was holding then. But here I am and I can say with certainty I am living the life I am meant to -
I just never dreamed of it, it all came as  a surprise which makes it all the more lovely.

Every now and again I see my kids as strangers. It’s a fraction of a second but there’s a slight shift and it’s as though I am seeing them for the first time and admiring them as if they are not mine but wish they were ... then, bang, everything shifts back and I am awash in such joy that they ARE mine and it makes me well up. But so does being around the too much. Right?

Yummy as they are I still love my time alone. I remember when they were babies I’d think: When the little one gets to grade one I am going to revel in the silence, the clean, the solitude. I am going to have 8:30 - 2:30 to myself everyday. 

I will nap, read, talk to adults without interruption. They will be in the care of professionals all day who will show them how to sing and dance and colour and read and frankly, my work will be done, it’s up to the schools from that point on.

And that’s the way it was in ’67 when I went off to grade one. I took a bus, my mom did not have a car. I was gone all day. She didn’t come in to cut paper plates or sit on council. She came to the school three times a year for P/T interviews and that was it. 

So naturally I assumed it would be the same in 2009. Alas...

The classes are bigger, the teachers are busier, there is less money, less support, fewer art programs, more rules, more rude kids, less discipline and way less physical activity than there was in 1967. I was quite shocked and I wanted to know if it was the same all over, if things would change, what people thought and what it all meant for my kids and their education so I started googlin’.

And that is how this site came to be. I bookmarked so many links and sites I had to store them somewhere.

I have learned a lot over the last eight years and try to use the information to make the best decisions I can for my kids. There is still a lot to learn and things shift daily.

Like my daughter for example, I figured with her imagination and love of writing and drawing she would be a perfect candidate for the arts school the kids go to. She does like it a lot, it’s more interesting than where she was but something came up the other day that was new. She said she hopes to go to a science school one day. I told her that can happen but what about her writing? Wasn’t an arts school the place for that? She said: “I write Mom, it’s what I do, who I am, I don’t have to go to school to learn it or do it. Science though, I really want to learn all about that.”

Now science school and mentoring googling starts. Excellent, I love learning as much as the kids do. But...

Are any of these decisions going to make a difference?

Are they the right decisions?

Are my kids learning enough for this future that awaits them?

Do they know enough math?

Do they have good friends?

Do they have fears?

Do they worry about things I don’t know about?

Are their interests being fed?

Are new interests being awakened?

Do they have particular learning styles that I am not aware of?

Am I making the most of the parent/teacher interviews?

So many questions. 
Answers I want now not when it’s too late.

Every child is born curious and thirsty to learn. Everyone of them can do great things.

What if their potential is squashed or squandered because they got behind in reading and never caught up and felt dumb? Or they didn’t process information like the kids who sat beside them and felt confused and left out? Or they were afraid to go to school because of a bully and they spent six hours a day looking over their shoulder rather than at their teacher, the board, a book? 

How many kids go to school burdened by things they don’t tell us? What kind of future awaits them if they go somewhere everyday that crushes their sprit rather than nourishes it?

And how can we help if we don’t know?

The people I have met in my quest for information are people you should all meet and to that end I am in the midst of putting together a HOW SCHOOL WORKS seminar scheduled for May here in Calgary. Wonderful speakers, a question and answer period, resources for you to take home. I will keep you posted.

Would you go to such a talk? Tell me.

pattimacneil@gmail.com

Thanks, P

If There is No Wind, Row

Originally Posted September 29, 2012

All you hear lately are reports that the economy may not rebound for some time yet. What if unemployment is still up and the economy still down in 10 or 15 years? That will mean that just as our kids are about to head out on their own we will be ready to retire so they had better be capable of living on their own because I don’t want them under this roof when I am leaving my teeth in a jar all night and watching Murder She Wrote all day.

Lots in the news about the cost of education, the amount of debt incurred getting it, the lack of jobs once done with it and whether or not schools should be more accountable for the vast amount of money kids have to spend to be educated and unemployed.

So what should we do? Teach them the value of hard work. That's what. And if they end up working hard doing something they love well then they will have hit the jackpot.

I didn’t go to university. During my gap year I fell into what ultimately became a career in radio. I  learned everything  I could about the creative end of the business,  I worked hard and have always made a decent living. I have been unemployed just once, last year, and have to say I quite enjoyed kicking back for awhile but it was good to get back to work.

Donny, on the other hand, went to prestigious schools and got an English Lit. degree that he never used but easily admits that wasn’t his intention when he picked it for his major. He was at school to acquire knowledge, learn how to organize his life, be places on time, get the work done by the deadline and get along with people with whom he would otherwise not spent any time. He knew that to be successful at whatever he landed in after graduation was going to require hard work.

Loving what you do and working hard at it - that's the formula. Seems simplistic perhaps but his and my path, however different from on another, both show the same results, we did well because we were willing to work hard.

But...it really doesn't feel like work when you love what you do. That old adage is very true.

I listened to Dustin Hoffman speaking with Jian Ghomeshi on CBC a few weeks ago and Dustin said he had always been very passionate about his work. That he loved to act, love every aspect of it and throughly enjoys being with other people who truly love what they do.

This morning Jian had John Taylor on from Duran Duran, a band I never really liked much but having listened to John this morning, it is now a band I admire. 

He talked about  dropping out of school and dropping into music. He immersed himself in it. Not just playing but analyzing the bands he liked that had become successful. He soon saw there was a clear path to success and he set about making sure that Duran Duran's trajectory to fame was precisely planned. There were irrefutable steps that had to be taken to get the band to Madison Square Garden and they did it. He never doubted that they would make it because they worked hard and loved what they did.

My mother, Pat, now 92, loves maps. Drop her blindfolded in the middle of the desert and she can tell you which direction she is facing and, more than likely, where on the planet she is standing. When she was in school she had no idea that you could make a living loving maps. I recall her telling me, “Had I known there was such a thing as a cartographer I would have been happy being one my entire life.” I can assure you that had she known such a job existed we’d all be looking up things in a big map book called the Patlas and online in something called Pat Maps. 

So load up their RESP’s, encourage them, advocate for them, let them take the computer apart, sit in on an App building class at a college, have a chat with an Egyptologist, use the video camera or make a meal from scratch. Open up the world to your kids and sure, tell them they can be anything in the world want, regardless of the economy - but they have to really WANT it and they have to be willing to WORK for it.  

Like Jimmy Dugan said in "A League of Their Own": 
“If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great.”

Average Develops Grit

Originally Posted October 14, 2012

The word “average” is well, just that. It certainly isn’t an adjective we like being used to describe us, let alone our children. 

Except for a short window of time in their lives during which it’s the only word we want to hear.  

When our babies first arrive until about the time the books say they are supposed to be hitting milestones, average is all we pray for. Average height, average weight, average amount of sleep, average number of bowel movements a day - all music to our ears. It’s safe and it means we are doing an excellent job keeping our kids in the middle of the pack. Nothing too extreme. 

More than average body hair: not what we want to hear. Less than average brain size ... you get the idea.

It’s not until we start measuring their brain power that we want to hear about them being anything but average. What parent doesn't want to hear that their kid is doing better than the norm at something?

But perhaps that deserves a second look.

Oftentimes when speaking with mothers and fathers of teenage kids - sons or daughters - you hear something like this: 

“Our youngest struggled but always did well. Because he had to work so hard it meant that he knew exactly what he had to do to keep his grades up. We used to really feel for him back then. While his sister barely had to open a book to get top grades and had all kinds of time for soccer and drama etc, he was at the kitchen table getting help from his sister or a tutor for just about all of his classes.”

You used to feel for him? Not anymore?

It turns out the daughter who had it easy had a rude awakening in the higher grades and was ill-prepared for real work. She had not developed any study skills, had absolutely no relationship with failure nor an understanding, not to mention - tolerance - for having to put in the time necessary to truly learn something. 

The tables turned as the years went by and eventually it was the son who helped his sister. It was having to earn his marks that garnered more than just grades. Just like the money speeches we give them. ;-)

Better-Than-Average sure sounds great when it comes to schoolwork but it should also serve as a warning for parents. For the kids that have it easy find some time for some enrichment classes that challenge them so they get a better sense of what it means to not know the answer right away, of failing and persevering, pondering a problem for more than a minute, researching ideas, doing homework, developing study skills...cracking a bit of a mental sweat. Developing some grit.

The kid who has always had it easy will likely face their first academic challenges right as life is throwing them into the turmoil of hormones, first loves, social pressure, acne and worse. That’s the time when knowing they can handle the books and the tests will provide them with some real footing on an otherwise slippery slope.

Canadian author Paul Tough says high IQ's in childhood are not an indicator for future success. He says GRIT gets is more important. Do you have it?
Take the test

The Future of Educating the Future

Originally Posted September 20, 2012

"The typical Canadian K-12 curriculum is based on an ideal designed a hundred years ago."
Gary Mason, The Globe and Mail

The current school system is based on an antiquated model that has little bearing on what kids need to learn today and how they need to learn it.

I feel for the teachers and administrators who clearly understand there needs to be change but are held captive by the boards. They struggle to do what they love within the financial and policy constraints of the current system. Bigger classes, more kids with special needs, less help, less money, less time, more demands ... the teachers that stand out are working hard and even working nights and weekends to do their very best under less than ideal circumstances.

Individual learning styles, teaching to a deeper understanding, creative thinking, problem solving and risk taking...these are all key aspects of great teaching that are now the buzz words of all the “school reform” articles you'll read.

So, I was excited today to see all of this terminology being the crux of a Globe and Mail article about plans in B.C. to revamp their education system. Here is an excerpt:

“The typical Canadian K-12 curriculum is based on an ideal designed a hundred years ago. When it was conceptualized, educators didn’t know much about the way people learned. Consequently, the system was built on rational assumptions, not science. 

The goal was to get facts into students’ heads. A teacher’s job was to transmit that information in the most effective way possible. The definition of success was based on how well students could use simple mathematical concepts and recall facts such as the country’s provincial capitals.

It became known as the standard model and initially prepared students for the industrialized era of the early 20th century.

Today’s economy is obviously much different. It’s increasingly based on the production and dissemination of knowledge and information, not just goods and services. The world is now fuelled by human creativity; in that sense, the standard model is designed for a world that’s rapidly disappearing.”

When and how B.C. plans to implement these changes remains to be seen. It will demand a radical change in thinking, support, money, manpower and teaching teachers to change they way they teach. It is not going to happen overnight but if I were young (oh, if I were young) today and planning a family I might allow myself the utopian view of a future in which my children would be taught very differently than kids are today and it would be a national plan to benefit all children from coast to coast to coast.

Full Globe and Mail article - here

Mentors and Coaches

Originally posted January 10, 2012

Whenever my friends and I discuss our children we invariably end up talking about the teen years that lie ahead ... that dark beast lurking in the shadows waiting to change our children into hateful, sweaty, smelly, unkept, pimply, surly ingrates. 

(By this point in my children’s story my husband I will be nearly 60 so one of two things will happen 1: years of Prozac will have done the trick and I won’t even notice they have become teens or 2: the last crazy gasps of menopause will combine with insanity of teenhood to create a reaction so volatile the house will instantaneously combust. Not sure which I am hoping for.)

The inevitable day will come when we will have transformed into the stupidest person in our children's world and the last one they would come to for advice, for guidance. It seems so impossible now. They are so young and when they look at us you can almost feel the radiant light they see around our glorious heads, hear the angels sing while we pose up on that parental pedestal, fabulous and all knowing.

             Insert deep sigh

My friend Michelle said that when her teen-aged son stop playing football it was his coaches his missed most, even more than the game he loved. And this is true of many kids who find a friend and mentor outside the home. These people are a blessing - if they won’t listen to us then please let it be someone who truly has their best interest at heart.

I am lucky that my kids already have people in their lives like that. People who stand on pedestals not quite as tall as mine right now but who will never be toppled from their post either. At Tao of Peace instructor Chris is one such influence. Twice during the class of tumbles and rolls he sits with the kids to break for Coach’s Corner. This segment of the class is worth the price of admission. Chris talks to them about respect and kindness and sharing, self-confidence and self-awareness and all manner of things I try to impart but the difference being that Jack really listens to Instructor Chris.  (and so does Clancy from the sidelines where she sits reading)

We all know kids often place more value in your message when it comes out of someone else’s mouth. By the time Jack and Clancy think I’m a moron their friendship with Chris will be many years in the making and where their dad and I cannot help them, Chris likely will.

I found my first mentor in my grade 6 teacher, Jane Locke, and we are still in touch today. I write because of a love of language my mother instilled in me that Jane, my English teacher shone a light on and encouraged from beyond the family tree.

Mentors and coaches are great things to find for your kids, go get one  ;-)

Cantonese Math

Originally posted September 28, 2011

I am reading Outliers by Malcolm Caldwell. It’s a fascinating read in which he discusses how timing, legacy, opportunity, practice and drive (amongst other factors) all play a vital role in success. 

From Amazon: “he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don't arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, "some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky."

In a chapter about China he talks about math - I learned some fascinating stuff.
The number-naming systems in Western languages is illogical.  (yes it is)
We say fourteen, fifteen, sixteen but rather than oneteen, twoteen and threeteen we have the nonsensical eleven, twelve and thirteen. Then we have fourty and sixty and seventy which make some sense but twenty and thirty and fifty don’t. Why not twoty, threety, and fivety?

When we get into the tens the ones number moves from the front to the back of the word: For example the number "four". In fourteen the unit is in front and twenty-four the unit is at the end. Madness.

In the Asian languages 11 is ten-one, twelve is ten-two and so on. Twenty is two-tens then two-tens-one, two-tens-two etc. (Eureka!) Children in Asian countries learn to count a full year ahead of Western kids and can easily do math in their head because they don’t have to translate words to numbers. 

For example: a child here is asked to add thirty-seven and twenty-two. First she has to convert the words to numbers: 37 + 22 then she has to add them: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 plus 20 is 50 add those together and you get 59.


Now try it the Asian way: three-tens-seven plus two-tens-two ... the equation is right there IN THE SENTENCE. It’s five-tens-nine. The answer and the number are the same. The 6 year old in me weeps with envy.

Caldwell goes on to point out that disenchantment with mathematics among Western children starts in third or fourth grades and that is perhaps due to the fact that it doesn’t seem to make sense - the basic rules seem arbitrary and complicated.

Asian kids however don’t feel that way. They can a count easily at young age, do sums in their head, hold more numbers in their sweet little heads and work logically with a very transparent system. And if you enjoy something you practice it, try harder, get better at it and rather than being disenchanted you are fluent.