{"id":114,"date":"2009-05-02T15:02:52","date_gmt":"2009-05-02T19:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/?p=114"},"modified":"2017-04-03T11:46:22","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T15:46:22","slug":"114","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/?p=114","title":{"rendered":"So, young grasshopper &#8211; what have you learned?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hello, everybody out there in TV Land!<\/p>\n<p>Long time no blog, I know. We went full-gear into homeschooling and while there were definite rough patches, I think it&#8217;s going well. Things I&#8217;ve learned in the last couple of months:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>When you start, everyone asks &#8220;what&#8217;s are you going to do?&#8221; Well, it&#8217;s pretty much like it sounds. I&#8217;m going to teach. him. at. home. The next comment is usually, &#8220;Gosh, I could never do that.&#8221; On good days, I just smile and let it go. On bad days, I want to say: Really? Seriously? You couldn&#8217;t handle <em>kindergarten<\/em>?<\/li>\n<li>I don&#8217;t trust the County for review. Nothing against the actual reviewers, you understand &#8211; I hear there&#8217;s plenty of very nice, non-invasive and encouraging staffers out there &#8211; but there&#8217;s also enough of the Overstepping Legal Bounds variety to set off <a title=\"County Imposes 80\/20 Policy?\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hslda.org\/hs\/state\/md\/200903310.asp\" target=\"_blank\">this sort of brouhaha<\/a> &#8211; and by &#8220;enough&#8221; I\u00a0 mean &#8220;any number greater than zero&#8221;. This is why I signed up with an <a title=\"Many Paths of Natural Learning Umbrella Group\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mpnl.org\" target=\"_blank\">umbrella group<\/a>. Speaking of umbrella groups, mine is lovely. Knowledgeable, supportive, friendly, inclusive, non-judgemental &#8211; all that good stuff.<\/li>\n<li>When removing a child from a schooling environment where they have not had a successful experience, <strong>both<\/strong> of you need to step back and take a breath. We definitely had days when my &#8220;OMG am I teaching him enough??&#8221; neuroses got the better of me, and The Boy (not surprisingly) stonewalled. Just like in school. Which is <em>why we took him out in the first place<\/em>. The difference: I caught on. They never did.<\/li>\n<li>By set out bite-sized bits of learning <em>everywhere<\/em>, I&#8217;m comfortable knowing <em>some<\/em> of it&#8217;s gonna get eaten. He&#8217;s naturally curious kid &#8211; which is part of what drove his teacher crazy &#8211; but he tries everything. I think it&#8217;s more important he retains his natural curiosity intact than learn how to line up properly with everyone else.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>At my annual review, the reviewer told me, &#8220;Everything counts for everything.&#8221; Which is not to say it&#8217;s unschooling: it&#8217;s everything schooling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello, everybody out there in TV Land! Long time no blog, I know. We went full-gear into homeschooling and while<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":""},"categories":[32,56,27],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}