Family Life, Kids

The Art of Debate

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Lucy came home from school with two envelopes.  The first envelope contained a letter she had written trying to “persuade” us to grant a request.  The second envelope was for me to write my response, put it in the envelope without Lucy seeing the letter, seal it and send it back to school.  Below is the letter I received from Lucy:

Beloved mother and father,

I will make a deal with you guys.  Saige, the new American Girl doll is out and I want her badly. I have some reasons to get me her (not trying to be mean or anything).

First of all, it will get me away from the TV and into my imagination. I won’t use the TV for like two months. It will be like you can just throw away the TV and never get a new one!

Second, it will be totally cheap. I will pay for some of it with my bday money and chore money. And maybe max, if he wants to pitch in (which I highly doubt).

Finally, it will get me busier. Away from you guys. I won’t be bothering you forever. It will be like I am not there! So in conclusion, that’s why you should get Saige the new American girl doll.

Love,

Your beloved daughter Lucy

Throughout my childhood my mother used to say to me “if you can argue with me and win, you can argue with anybody”.  Battles were not easily won in my house and each opinion, request or idea needed to be well thought out and supported.  My mother was the emotional debater who frequently relied on “because I’m your mother”.  But my father could always be tricked using straight up logic and the Socratic method.  Unfortunately, I am more like my father.

I wrote my response and sent it back to school with Lucy.  A couple of days later Lucy opened her letter along with her classmates.  As a wave of gleeful exclamations washed across the classroom as requests were granted, Lucy opened and read the following letter.

My beloved daughter Lucy,

I appreciate the letter you sent regarding the purchase of the new American Girl doll Saige. Although I understand your claim that you will watch less TV and contribute funds towards the purchase, I don’t find this to be a reasonable argument.

First, you currently own two American Girl dolls and I have yet to observe a decrease in your television viewing.

Secondly, an American Girl doll costs approximately $125 and I know you don’t have those funds currently collected.

Third, I would rather you not be busy and “away from me” since you are never a bother and always a delight.

However, if you earn 7,500 chore points through choremonster.com I will gladly purchase the doll for you. I hope you find this to be an agreeable offer.

Love, Mommy

Lucy came home horrified.  As soon as the car door swung open she exclaimed “I WAS THE ONLY PERSON IN MY CLASS WHO DIDN’T GET HER REQUEST FILLED!! IT WAS SO EMBARRASSING.” To which I responded, “Well, make a better argument”.

Homeschool

Homeschool Decision Part 2: The Academics

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I’ve taught college freshmen for seven years.  These students have come from a variety of backgrounds ranging from rural high schools to private school graduates.  This is what I can tell you about freshmen English students.

1.) They don’t know the rules for capitalization

2.) They don’t know the rules for apostrophe usage

3.) They don’t understand that they can fail a class.

4.) They expect that they will be able to take quizzes and tests as many times as needed until the right grade is achieved.

5.) They don’t understand that work will NOT be accepted if it is late.

6.) MANY of them have NEVER written a basic research paper

As a result of this experience I have always been rather suspect of our public school system.  However, I understand I’m biased.  That I am only seeing these students through a very narrow lens and perhaps I am not being fair.

When I first started questioning whether or not the academic needs of my kids were being met I decided I had better rely on hard facts instead of my own perception.

It Is All About The Test

The first thing I wanted to take a look at was how testing has actually affected our school environment.  I went to the Texas Department of Education and did some reading.  The STAAR test is focused on the following “core” subjects: math, reading, writing, science, and social studies.  At first this seems like a completely fine list, until you think about what is MISSING from this list.  For example, art, music, history, geography, handwriting, and literature (which is different from reading).  After I looked at this list I compared it to my kids’ daily school schedule and it was an EXACT match.  They had time allotted to math, reading, science and social studies, and that is it.  My kids go to art, music and library once for 30 minutes EVERY TWO WEEKS.  My conclusion was clear, yes, the school teaches to the test.  In fact our school is so good at taking the test our test scores are some of the highest in the state.  Our school excels at the STAAR test so well because they start testing the kids in Kindergarten in anticipation of the test in third grade.  Max spent so much time in assessment and testing this year that at one point his teacher went almost three months without reading with him one-on-one.

The Numbers

I desperately wanted my assumptions to be wrong.  I wanted to find some secret piece of research that showed how superior public schools were to anything else.  I searched.  I went to the university library and dug.  The numbers, studies and results were so overwhelmingly in favor of home school that I couldn’t ignore them.

  • 74% of home school students attend college
  • 46% of public school students attend college
  • The average SAT score of a home schooled student is 1043
  • The average SAT score for a public school student in Texas is 985

The Pedagogy

The numbers are there.  They are solid, but when you combine them with the limited subject profile, and the school process you start to wonder how we’ve limped along as a society for as long as we have.

The public school system was designed at the same time as the industrial revolution – the development of the Model T and Ford’s radical assembly plant mode of operation.  The goal of public school was to educate the masses – the poor.  As a result the public school system is set up like an assembly line.  All 6 year olds in and every year extra features get added and they get spit out at the other end.  However, our children aren’t cars and they aren’t cogs in a machine and they definitely don’t all learn the same way, grow the same way or react to the same learning environment the same way.  I would like for somebody to explain to me the benefit of giving 1 adult 19 students ranging for the autistic and academically challenged all the way to the gifted and talented students and expect HER to meet all of their needs equally.  She can’t.  And the fact that more than 90% of public school teachers are women that is even more detrimental for our boys.

But don’t take my word for it, I suggest you watch this great video. It takes 11 minutes

Changing Education Paradigms

And if that video doesn’t do it for you, then I suggest you read “The Knowledge Deficit” by E.D. Hirsch.

That’s Great But…..

Here I am with the academics obviously better, but what about socialization?  I mean goodness, you don’t want to raise social dorks do you? How will your kids learn to be competitive? How will they learn to stand up for themselves? How will they learn social norms? Well, I save that for part 3.

 

Family Life, Homeschool

Home School Decision Part 1: The Big Picture

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When deciding to home school the kids this coming fall the first question I asked myself, which may seem obvious, was “what do I want my kids to get from their k-12 education?”  I suppose as a former project manager I can’t help but focus on the end goal.  What am I supposed to achieve at the end of my project?  What is the big picture?  My father used to say, “if you don’t know where you’re headed then how will you know if you’ve arrived?” What seemed like a simple question ended up being rather complex when I really thought about it.

We send our children to public school with what expectation?  That they will learn to read? They master reading by 2nd grade.  Learn to write? Also complete by 2nd grade.  No, it is more than that.  At the end of the day this is the list that I settled on:

  • College Readiness: I of course would like my children to achieve higher education and I would expect their K-12 education to prepare them for this level of course work.  This means their reading comprehension, study skills, and a certain breadth and depth of knowledge. Their ability to complete basic library research and understand the components of a basic sentence.
  • Fundamental Understanding of Core Subjects: math, reading, writing, science.  But I also want them to know geography, government, literature, history, social studies, philosophy, etc.  They need a strong foundation in a variety of subjects.  It is this combination of subjects that provides them with a lens through which they can see and understand the world.
  • Citizenship: I would like my children to learn how to be contributing members of society, which means instructing them in the value of hard work, community service, and government.  This also means learning to be tolerant, respectful and polite.
  • Critical thinking: I want my children to challenge assumptions and think for themselves.  In an age of media overload I want them to be discerning in their reading and research.  My parents encouraged me to question EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY and I would like that same curiosity to be encouraged in my own children.
  • Variety of life experiences: I want my kids to have the ability to participate in non-academic pursuits – athletics, the fine arts, school government, etc.  The humanities have always been a big part of my life (and David’s) and I want my children to be exposed to this variety.
  • Knowledge and Understanding of the World:  I don’t want them to live in a bubble (I know, you are shocked by this because I’ve chose to home school and isn’t that what all home schoolers want? a bubble). I want them to know a Buddhist, Atheist, Muslim, Sikh, Jew, Black, Hispanic, Gay, Asian.  I want them to “eat from the banquet of life” -to love and appreciate the rainbow of the world and why it all works together to create something bountiful and beautiful. I want them to know that their heritage and their values are not the only ones that exist.  I want them to not be afraid of “the different” but to embrace it.

I will be the first to admit that this is a tall order, even for the public schools to fulfill.  It is nearly an impossible order when you consider the constraints under which the school system functions.  When I started down this path I was trying to prove that home school was NOT the right decision and so I was trying very hard to give the public schools a fair shake.  I looked at this list and I assigned a grade for each item, reflecting how well I thought the school was doing at accomplishing these goals. The school system ended up with a 2.16 GPA – they received 2 Ds, 2 Cs, 1 B and 1 A.  And the A was in “Knowledge of the World” and the B was in “Variety of Life Experiences” — the recess of the school system.  So yes, the school was getting an A in recess but failing everything else.

I am not pulling my children out of school to isolate them.  The fact that my son learned the F-word in 1st grade is bothersome, but I can parent around that.  The fact that girls in Lucy’s 3rd grade class are watching YouTube videos, unsupervised, on french kissing is troubling but I can parent through that as well.  I can even parent through bullying and “mean girls”.  But it is not worth the effort of dealing with all of these social nightmares when the academics aren’t performing.  At the end of the day the only good thing my kids were getting out of the school system was something they could receive at an afternoon on a soccer field or the Girl Scouts. I definitely don’t need the school to insure that my children are exposed to a variety of cultures or to expose them to a variety of life experiences.  I am fully capable of doing that part myself.

The next thing I looked at was how were the academics — really.  I had my perceptions based on the results I see as a college professor and what I see coming home as a parent, but I realize that I am not objective.   The next blog post will look at the academics.

 

 

Uncategorized, Working Mom

The Success Sacrifice

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My father was an executive and worked in the boardrooms of America. After spending my childhood observing his career I came to one startling observation,  if you want to achieve ultimate success in ANY FIELD — professional sports, acting, politics, OR BUSINESS — it comes at extreme sacrifice.  You show me a CEO, or COO and you will show me somebody who has been divorced and was NEVER around their children.  You show me a professional athlete or actor or politician and you will see the same thing.  REGARDLESS OF GENDER.  My father could have been CEO or COO but wasn’t willing to make those sacrifices.  And yet, even with his moderate success ask me how many Halloweens he was home for?  None. Ask me how many birthdays he missed? Many.  Ask me about him commuting to San Francisco FROM DETROIT for two years.  Ask me about the times my mother would call him “Uncle Daddy”.

So when I started reading Penelope Trunk’s blog post on Sheryl Sandberg’s book “Lean In” I wanted to scream ‘YES!’.  For those who are unfamiliar with this book I will give you a summary, Sandberg is the COO of Facebook and tells women that they need to “lean into” their careers not out.  She makes the argument that as women we are failing the women’s movement by opting out of careers.  She makes it sound all lovely and easy as if anybody can do it but that is what makes the book myopic and unrealistic. Penelope states:

“Most kids cannot have huge jobs. They will be the workplace equivalent of intramural basketball players. When they grow up, they will find work that is fine, just like it’s fine to play on a team with the kid across the hallway even though he misses too many lay-ups.”

Sandberg expresses her disappointment in women but she doesn’t mention her 100 hour weeks, her multiple nannies, and how little she sees her family.  She mentions that she leaves at 5:30 to have dinner with her kids but doesn’t mention who cooks that dinner and who does the dishes after dinner and who reviews homework and packs lunches and backpacks and does the laundry.  I’m fairly confident she doesn’t do ANY of those things. And Penelope said it perfectly:

“Sheryl Sandberg gives up her kids like movie stars give up food: she wants a great career more than anything else. “

The conversation we have as a society doesn’t need to be about women leaning in or leaning out,  but about the sacrifice ALL people make when achieving this level of success.  Women seem less willing to make that sacrifice, and yes, part of that is biological and part of that is cultural.  But there are many men who also choose less demanding careers so they can be more active with their families and we don’t see society squealing in shock at this choice.

I love my father, and we have a very close relationship.  A relationship he worked hard at maintaining over long distances. However, he will be the first one to tell you that he isn’t sure he would make the same choices over again.  Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that Sheryl Sandberg has somehow managed to “have it all” because that is a myth. She has a career, and that is great, but there are other things she does NOT have.

 

Homeschool

Crossroads

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Growing up my mother used to tell me that the Jewish people valued education above all else because, it was the one thing we could take with us when fleeing persecution. I don’t know if that is true, but it left an indelible mark on my life.  Education, the pursuit of it and the promotion of it, has always been important to me. When it came time to launch my own children on to their educational journey I didn’t hesitate to enroll them in public schools.

As a matter of fact David and I live in one of the best public school systems in Texas.  Our high school is ranked #99 out 1,725 high schools. Our school system is widely recognized for its high test scores and for a gifted and talented student population that is 18% – 5% higher than the average school system in Texas.  At every turn I have been impressed by the professionals that serve in our local elementary school.  Indeed, when the tragedy at Newtown occurred I instantly thought of our own teachers and children and knew -without a shadow of a doubt – that my children’s teachers would have acted as heroically as those brave teachers we lost.

The Tide Does Not Turn Instantly, But Slowly And Gradually Until Suddenly You Are Lost At Sea.

Lucy has been in public school since 1st grade and although there have been small things here and there that make me scratch my head about the public school system I have been mainly satisfied with my child’s education.  Things changed this year.

When Max started school he was behind from day one.  He is left-handed and a boy with a speech impediment.  Although he struggled in Kindergarten his teacher was loving and patient and she reassured us that Max would outgrow most of his struggles.  He entered first grade and according to the school assessments he was “at the bottom of the normal range, but still normal”.  This means, “he doesn’t qualify for extra help”.  They did provide him with reading tutoring in school (or SSI for you educators).  Starting in November a series of events tipped me off that something was wrong.

First, I was having parent volunteers telling me repeatedly how QUIET Max was in class.  This is not Max’s personality so that surprised me.  I then began to realize that most of Max’s school work was coming home blank, empty or incomplete.  He was having huge tantrums at home — tantrums that sometimes resulted in a 3-4 hour cry-fest. I couldn’t figure out what was going on and then a small conversation with his cousin crytalized the picture for me.  Max admitted that he was embarrassed when he stuttered and stammered in front of his friends.

Max doesn’t talk in school because he doesn’t want people to know that he stutters

Max doesn’t ask for help because he doesn’t want people to know that he can’t read the directions

Max doesn’t complete his work because his handwriting is sloppy and undeveloped and it embarrasses him

I still can barely think about it without crying.  School had become a horrible torturous environment for him.  BUT, he’s “normal”.  His word recognition and his ability to memorize sight words (even though he really can’t read) all kept him on the low end of “normal”.  But he wasn’t normal, and he knew it.

I wrote the teachers, I talked to the principal and we had our ARD meeting and they put him in line to be evaluated for speech. However, this is where the system breaks down.  It will take them up to 60 days to evaluate Max and then another 30 days to get him into any intervention program.  That is the remainder of the school year.  In other words, his 1st grade year was a waste.  None to very little progress was made on his education this year.

In the meantime I hired a private speech therapist and hired a private reading tutoring service to work with him.  He’s getting better and gaining confidence but it is slow. His teacher, although kind, is overwhelmed with her other 18 students and cannot possibly dedicate the time to Max that he requires.  Besides, he’s “normal”.

If It Ain’t One Thing It’s Another

Although this was upsetting and I was worried I was willing to put the effort in to make his public school career work.  That was until I received an email from Lucy’s teacher expressing concerns over her behavior.  LUCY? BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS? You could have knocked me over with a feather. The teacher explained to me in exasperated tones that Lucy was not listening to directions in class and had to ask for the same directions to be repeated again and again. She was moving Lucy to the front of the class and could I “please talk with her at home about her behavior”.  When I approached Lucy with this issue she explained that she didn’t realize she wasn’t listening and that school was “the most boring thing EVER”.  I made an appointment with the teacher to explore the issue further, but before that meeting I received her report card – 5 A’s and 1 B.  So my poorly behaved child, who wasn’t listening had still managed to pull off an almost perfect report card.  Disconnect? Yep.  When I met with the teacher she couldn’t describe the problem in any further detail and had no insight.  Indeed within two weeks Lucy had been moved to the front of the class and then returned to the back of the class. What was the purpose? And in the meantime Lucy, who values being the perfect rule follower, had gone through a week of anxiety, lost confidence in her teacher and now thinks her teacher hates her.

The Tipping Point

Things add up.  My unhappiness with the school system wasn’t just about these two incidents.  It was a collection of issues including; Max being teased, Lucy dealing with “cool girls” and their blatant dislike of her, the school system’s obsessive interest in nutrition and weight to the point that Lucy thinks she’s fat and the kids now have gym three days a week.  I’m not inherently opposed to gym three times a week but I am when it comes at the sacrifice of art class and library and music which now only happen every other week.  I might possibly even be able to stomach all this until you add STAAR testing on top of it all.  Where do I start with the standardized test issue and the fact that is has so corrupted our school system that it no longer even resembles the school system I attended 30+ years ago. When Lucy spent two days of school on PRACTICE TESTS and then came home crying because she had to stay in from recess to retake the test because she failed — and by “fail” I mean she got a 79% which wasn’t acceptable by the teacher’s standards.  ON A PRACTICE TEST.  That was the tipping point.  I was done. There had to be a better option for educating my kids.

Crossroads

I was notified in early February that I wasn’t accepted into my PhD program.  I was disappointed, but I was also relieved.  I wasn’t sure that was the path God intended for me and so I took the rejection as a sign from God – “choose a different journey”.  As I examined my children’s education and their struggles I couldn’t help but to think “I could do better”.  Not that the teachers aren’t educated and professionally trained experts – they are and I appreciate that.  However, the school system has these wonderful professionals ham-strung, hog-tied and unable to do their job. I spent weeks researching.  I talked with every educational expert I could find from the kid’s previous teachers, to their reading tutor, speech therapist, other public school teachers, parents and people who research education.  The conclusion? Homeschooling.  If I wanted my children to have a well-rounded education that challenged them and allowed them to grow in their strengths and supported their weaknesses homeschooling was the only path to achievement.

And so I find myself in a position that I never expected.  This coming Fall I will remove my children from the public school system and take on the challenging and exciting task of teaching them at home. I recognize that this is a large responsibility.  I also know that many of you will not agree with my decision and that is ok. We can still be friends.

In the coming weeks I will share more with you regarding the research I conducted and how it lead me to this decision.  I am not a person to make decision based purely on emotion and so as you can imagine my choice is based on facts – not rhetoric. I am not removing my children in an effort to isolate or protect them (from what? from whom?).  I am removing my children in an effort to broaden their world beyond the standardized test.  I want my children to be able to learn at the pace which allows them to fully understand a concept first before being pushed into the next stage.

Parenting is a series of crossroads, and all we can do is hope that we turn down the right road

Uncategorized

Luck

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In many ways we are lucky.  We aren’t Syria, or Egypt, or Tunisia or countless other locations that are experiencing daily violence on a large scale.  But I suppose it would be impossible to feel lucky if you were the Richard’s family who lost their 8 year old son in the Boston Marathon bombing.  I would be incapable of looking at any of those teachers or parents in Newtown and say “we’re lucky”.   When senseless violence occurs – whether it affects one person or thousands of people – nobody feels lucky.

But, we are indeed lucky.  We are lucky because we live in a country that is based on mutual trust, love and respect.  When you have a body of citizens that swear an oath to uphold that standard they do crazy things like,

We are lucky.  We are lucky that we have each other and that is what makes us different.

Family Life

Mother Of The Year

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The first quarter of the year is always busy for the Morley family due to “Birthday season”.  That magical time of year when all of my kids celebrate the fact that they are born within two weeks of each other, and I have a nervous breakdown.  As the kids have gotten older, and their parties smaller, my insanity has become more manageable, which was fortuitous this year due to my children’s desire to meet our medical deductible before March 31st.

I was cooking Lucy’s birthday dinner — steak, macaroni & cheese, and broccoli when Harper started crying.  She screamed the way only a three year old can – which means at the top of her lungs making no audible sense what so ever.  It went something like this, “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I HUWT MY AWWWWWMMMM!!!! MOOOOOOOMMMMMMYYYYY!!! I HUWT MY AWM!!!!”  Like any good mother of three children I ignored her.  After all, I had $20 worth of steak cooking.  It was only when she wouldn’t stop crying that I looked around to see her right arm limp by the side of her body.

Where most parents would immediately panic at this sight, I did not.  A seasoned parent knows the sign of “nurse maid’s elbow” when she sees it, and David had already fixed this once before with the guidance of a You Tube video.  (Yes, we practice medicine via You Tube. Don’t judge).  I shouted to David to come “pop it back into place, because I’m putting dinner on the table”.  David scooped Harper up and brought her back to her bedroom where he could calm her down and fix the arm.  I plated dinner and realized that she was still crying. I finally became concerned.  I left the two older kids and David to enjoy Lucy’s birthday dinner and Harper and I made a dash to the ER.

Four x-rays, a red Popsicle and a hairline fracture later  and we were ready to go back home.

Thirty days later I would receive a call from the school that Max had taken a “tumble” during recess and that the school nurse thought he should go home.  When I arrived at the school, Max’s hand was swelled up like a giant meat patty and his fingers were purple. I couldn’t see his arm due to the heavy University of Michigan sweatshirt he was wearing (compliments of Grandma and Grandpa).  He was in obvious pain and I couldn’t figure out if he was going to throw up or pass out.

When they cut off his brand new sweatshirt at the ER it was obvious to everybody in the room (and my sensitive stomach) that his arm was broken.  In fact I didn’t know an arm could bend in that direction – oh, that is right, THEY DON’T!

The orthopedic surgeon walked into the room, took one look at me and said, “Didn’t I just see you a couple of weeks ago?”  Oh these doctors, so funny when it comes to multiple children in one house having broken bones.  Can we all say CPS together?

Two x-rays, two orthopedic surgeons, seven hours in the ER and two re-set forearm bones and we were ready to go back home.

And that is how the Morley family meets their deductible by March 31st.  Anybody need some plastic surgery?

author‘s note: A big THANK YOU to Children’s Medical Center of Plano, Texas.  The doctors, nurses and staff have been WONDERFUL.  Their patience, love and understanding was invaluable to me during an incredibly stressful month.

Uncategorized

Letter from Santa: 2012

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As some of you may remember I inflicted a good deal of emotional pain on my children last year when I inadvertently told them that Santa wasn’t coming due to bad behavior.  Well, that has created an expectation that they will be receiving notification in the mail every year regarding their list status.  As a result, here is this year’s letter:

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Lucy, Max & Harper,

We received your correspondence from Lucy, and it is my pleasure to inform you that after careful review of your behavior and attitude during the year 2012 that Santa Claus has decided to add you to the following list:

NICE

We would like to request that on Christmas Eve you place the following items on a plate close to the fireplace:

  1. A small cup of milk (cow and no less than 2%)
  2. Three small iced cookies (please no chocolate)
  3. Three small carrots (peeled)

We have received notice that a dog has been added to your family.  As a result of this addition, and in an effort to not wake sleeping children, we also ask that you leave two small dog treats for Santa to give to Heidi.

We would like to invite you to visit Santa Claus at a store location near you.  Every year we strive to deliver toys that meet each child’s wishes and your visit to Santa Claus is an important step in guaranteeing our continued toy success.

We have noted that on Christmas Eve you will be at your normal home location in Allen, Texas.  If this is an error please contact our delivery team immediately with the correct address ([email protected]).

We would like to thank you for your continued support and belief in our organization and we look forward to hearing from you again in 2013.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

 

Fredrick Goffenstein

Senior Elf

Department of List Management