Ashlynn was found hanging in her closet last Friday night, a day after her mother says she pleaded to be home schooled so she wouldn’t have to attend Ridge Farm Elementary.

My heart goes out to the family. What a tragedy.

Sad Day is a post from: Learning at Home

I don’t think a lawsuit is needed every time a student does not like they way he was treated at school. I thnk it sets up an unrealistic expectation of what to do when things do not go your way. I imagine this case has cost a small fortune and I’d rather have something like this discussed, maybe over a nice cup of coffee.

Instead, the families and the district spent a lot of money, and the court decided that the school did have the right to restrict what the boys were wearing if it was seen to be a distraction to learning.

Citing past clashes between Mexican American and Anglo students over their clothing on the Mexican holiday, Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware of San Francisco said school officials “reasonably forecast that (the shirts) could cause a substantial disruption” and were entitled to take steps to prevent it.

 

Court Decides Flag Shirt Case is a post from: Learning at Home

I’m wondering what sort of potato salad inspired this.

Maybe we should get the recipe is a post from: Learning at Home

Class Dismissed is a post from: Learning at Home

Aisha isn’t the only one sending me great offers. I routinely get instructions on how to obtain a diploma from the school of my choice. All I need to do is pay a small fee and I can proudly call myself a graduate of any of the finest institutions in the world.

Many years ago, I used to wear a crimson cardigan with a white “H” on the pocket.

From time to time, people would ask if that “H” on the pocket was a monogram, and I got to have some fun. “Oh, no,” I’d say with a smile, “I got this old thing when I went to Harvard.”

I could enjoy the reaction for only a moment before I had to come clean. Harvard’s motto, after all, is “Veritas.” I had gone to Harvard for a weekend once when I attended a conference, and I bought that cardigan while I was there.

I have earned two degrees, neither of them as prestigious as a sheepskin from Harvard. If only I had that sweater now, I could buy a diploma with the riches Aisha Gaddafi wants to share with me, and I’d be a standout success. Calling myself a Harvard graduate should make me one, right?

“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare pondered. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” By such logic, I can say I graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, just as any woman who does not enroll her children in school can call herself a homeschooler.

The Chicago Tribune has been saying Lydia Price was a homeschooling mother. Apparently for the Tribune, restricting the definition of homeschooling mother to someone who actually educates her children is as nit picky as expecting me to pass all those pesky Harvard classes before saying I’ve earned that Ivy League degree.

If you haven’t been following the story, Price’s 14-year-old son, Matthew Degner, died last month in Berwyn, Illinois. The Tribune reported that when police arrived, they found “four other children along with 109 cats, three dogs, 39 cockatiels, two kinkajous, a large raccoon and other exotic animals.” Various news reports listed hissing cockroaches and brown bats as just some of those “other” animals.

Having all those animals didn’t make Price a zookeeper, so why did having children at home qualify her as a homeschooler? The Tribune report laments that Illinois has no regulation of homeschoolers, as if having a registration requirement would have certainly prevented such squalor and the loss of a child’s life.

Ms. Price reportedly kept her five children home from school and isolated from the community in a small home with taped up windows, toilets that didn’t work and feces covering the floor. The stench was so intense that the clean up crew wore hazmat suits.

Stories like this make rational people wonder what went wrong. How could anyone think this is normal? And, I would add, how can anyone call that homeschooling?

A Homeschooler by Any Other Name is a post from: Learning at Home

Ready to Launch is a post from: Learning at Home

We watched Hannah recently. Well, we saw it after the kids went to bed, after reading reviews and deeming it too violent for the kiddos. No, that isn’t censorship, that is discernment, a necessary part of parenting.

This scene, however, we did show the kids. I thought it was quite hilarious.

Dating, the Homeschool Version is a post from: Learning at Home

Carnival Time is a post from: Learning at Home

I have been changing diapers for close to a dozen years. This is not a complaint, merely an observation that I have spent 25 percent of my years on this Earth changing diapers. While it was not the only thing I did in that time, some days it started to feel like it.

I have a certain amount of gratitude here. As messy as it all has been, I am blessed to have children who had all the parts in the right place and they all functioned well. Some days, there was an abundance of functioning, but we got through those times, and now we are almost at the end of the diaper train.

If I had to stop and think about how much money we have spent on diapers over these years, I would likely pass out. There were several brave forays into cloth diapering, but frankly, I was not very good at it. The poop, the washer, the rashes, it was all too much for me — and I’m the kind of gal who puts up with a lot in the name of saving the Earth and a few pennies.

The past few days have been greatly encouraging as I have overheard my youngest singing about the potty. Years ago, I figured out — as many before me have done — that learning is easier when set to music. For years we had cassettes with math facts on them accompanied by a monotonous stick-in-your-head tune. I’ve taken that to a new level with my own little potty song.

It isn’t a new idea. When it came time to work on potty training the first time, I bought a video, “Once Upon a Potty.” It had a little story with cartoon characters and a catchy tune. We wore that DVD out and bought another. I have no idea if it helped or hindered the process. We all learned the song at least.

Now I find myself with a 2-year-old and no movie to show, so I have my own song. I sing it to my daughter at every diaper change and a few times in between just for fun. “It’s fun to go sit on the potty, cha-cha-cha,” I sing over and over. Sicily is not at all impressed. Maybe it is because that line makes up most of the verses. Or perhaps she doesn’t like the ending, “Potty, potty, potty, fun, fun, fun.” She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head “no.”

Still, we are making progress. Ever since I added the “cha-cha-cha,” she has started singing along. I hope that having her admit to herself that sitting on the potty is fun is a step in the right direction.

I also hope that nobody else ever hears me sing, and that my child doesn’t grow up and sue me for embarrassing her when she was only a wee child. That might have seemed preposterous, except that I read in Sunday’s paper that two kids did just that. The poor, abused kids in the story had to put up with a mother who sent tacky birthday cards and called her daughter on the phone and told her to come home. Scandal!

I read the article to my kids and told them they need to start making their list now. I encouraged them to use part of their free writing time to jot down whatever came to mind. I even offered up examples. Fortunately, my 2-year-old does not know how to write. Yet.

Potty Song Blues is a post from: Learning at Home

We were staying in a hotel that was on the grounds of the Russian Orthodox Church. They told us it was the center, where all the administration was and everything, kind of the Vatican of the Russian Orthodox Church. It was a beautiful place that we ended up in because we were traveling with 5 kids and there were not a lot of options for places we could fit. It was gated with guards at the gate, a good place to be in those times.

So, for Edward’s birthday we went down to the hotel and I felt kinda lousy because we didn’t have a chance to get real presents, just whatever we could find at the market down the street. We had dinner together, and that was about it.

This year, that son is in Afghanistan.

I reminded him of where he spent his birthday 10 years ago and he sent a note back. He said that if he had a choice, he’d really rather be back in that hotel. I guess that birthday party wasn’t so bad after all, once you put it in perspective.

Happy Birthday, Son.

Happy Birthday, Son is a post from: Learning at Home