Famous homeschoolers have people saying ... huh?

Sketch a day # 26  - 10 min 

What set of homeschool siblings are probably the most famous and least understood?  No. Not the Duggar kids.  It is the Smiths.  Jaden and Willow Smith, children of Will and Jada.

I'm not even sure they consider themselves homeschoolers, they went to school for a year after being officially homeschooled, and now they are lifelong learners.  According to Jaden, "School is not authentic because it ends. It’s not true, it’s not real. Our learning will never end. The school that we go to every single morning, we will continue to go to."  Since they are still minors and bound by education laws in their state, I consider that homeschooling. 

So people are weirding out because these famous and talented (some might disagree) children gave an interview and spoke about subjects that is not typical of children.  Gawker magazine tweeted "Every single thing about this Jaden and Willow Smith interview is nuts".  E Online says that the "interview will either blow your  mind or give you a headache." I say that they are just kids being kids... well read kids, and I don't have a problem with that.  

Willow's book list includes a book on Quantum Mechanics, and Osho, which is about meditation and unleashing creativity. Jaden is reading The Ancient Secret of the Flower of life, and other ancient texts. These most certainly were not on my children's most-read lists, but I can promise you these titles on their college applications... if they go to college will give them an instant acceptance letter. 

Ok.  There is some other stuff in the interview that most adults would consider goofy. But who of us were not goofy as children. I remember reading "A Tale of Two Cities" and in my essay assignment that followed, I put myself in the foot of the Surfs, and wrote "the crunching of their bones was music to my ears".  I got an A and my mother called the doctor to make sure I was alright in the head. Another time, I decided to speak only in the voice of the school librarian, who we were certain was drunk, all. the. time.  Eventually, my mother threatened to choke me and I stopped.  This is what 14 and 16 year olds do. Their minds are developing. They put information in... they give information out. 

Maybe their minds aren't mature enough for some of the more sophisticated books, especially if they believe they can control time.  Or perhaps the interviewer didn't care to understand their words from the viewpoint of a kid. Who knows, I wasn't there. 

I certainly don't agree with a lot of the things more traditional homeschoolers do and believe in, I still support everyone's right to educate their kids as they choose. And so, I support the efforts of the Smith kids too.  You certainly can't accuse them of not being well read, and able to digest advanced books and subjects. 

Just a quick sketch

Sketch a day #25 - 10 minutes. 

This took about 10 minutes.  I plan to revisit this subject Viola Davis in a week or so when I got from doing a sketch a day to a full fledged finished piece a week.  She is a great actress and inspires me to be creative.

Homeschooling will not make your family happy

Homeschooling will not make your family happy. Having a happy family will make your family happy.

I realize this is a simplistic statement, but it must be said, especially in light of all of the negative media surrounding homeschooling these days. There are some young adults out there with an axe to grind where homeschooling is concerned.  Many of them have every right to be disgruntled because their parents... and therefor their homeschool experience sucked.

So, I was reading a post today about "the homeschool myth", where the writer says that they blame homeschooling for their less than stellar upbringing because "homeschooling made that $hit (the bad stuff that happened) seem natural. That because they did not have access to people outside the home... ever... that they didn't know that this kind of abuse was not normal. Furthermore, her abuse was intensified because her mother was egged on by other homeschoolers who counseled her on making her child less rebellious.  (Boy do I understand that... some of my mom's friends made my life a living hell!  I couldn't get away with anything!)

sketch a day #24 -20 min. 

I am not writing to discredit the story of this young woman and others who have a problem with homeschooling, conservative homeschooling, and last, but not least, the quiverfull movement.  I am writing this so that any family out there hoping to homeschooling will understand homeschooling is a tough job, and while it is also rewarding, anyone who expects perfection from themselves or their children might as well go ahead and pack it up now.

You can expect a dirty house.  My youngest is well into her third semester of college and I am just now beginning to reclaim my house and to make it is as nice as I'd always hoped. I am just beginning, and I have a way to go. Think about it. The kids are home ALL THE TIME. Think summer, and multiply that by pi. That is your house. At one point, I hired a house keeper.  At another point, I paid the kids to clean.  I went on strike a couple of times. Finally, I threw my hands up and decided to wait them out. They had to leave eventually. You have to be OK with a TeePee in the living room, and unfolded laundry when you are homeschooling. There are many times when I was tempted to snatch a book from my kids hand and send them to clean, but how absurd is it to snatch a book?  And so, I learned to find a happy place in the mess and move on.

Expect to have arguments. You will argue with your kids. They will argue back. You will argue with your spouse. They will argue with each other. This is healthy. If only one person in the family is allowed to pitch a fit and leave everyone else cowering, there is a problem. Children need to be able to express anger and upset (without calling names of course), and adults need to. At the end of the discussions, everyone can have ice-cream... but if you are going to be the type of family that is together all the time, you have to give everyone an outlet to express themselves. That is only good and fair.

Expect to see your worse behaviors mirrored in your children. If you are angry all the time, your children will be angry. If you yell, they will yell.  If you curse, they will curse... ahem. No comment.  I will tell you that the best thing I ever did for myself was to homeschool. After telling off a few people in front of my children (I have been known to give a piece of my mind), I realized how it affected them, and learned to be more diplomatic.  I will also tell you that my kids saw me depressed for over a year after my brother died. My kids saw me try things and give up. My kids saw me angry and resentful. Fortunately, my kids were allowed to tell me about myself, and them bring me ice cream. So, if you are a raving lunatic, expect your kids to be raving lunatics too... or withdrawn and damaged.

Expect to be ridiculed and rejected.  You probably already expect for your family and friends to decide you are wacko and for some of them to even turn their backs on you... for a while at least. You should also expect some homeschoolers to do the same. Here is why. When you do something different or out of the norm, people take that as judgement upon them, that by doing things differently you are saying they are doing it wrong. So choose a different math program than your homeschool mentor, send your daughter to college when other homeschoolers around you won't, put academics before values (as other people see it) and people won't like it. They will tell you so, or they will freeze you out.  But here's the good news. If people object to the way you do things, you just might be doing them right.

Expect for there to be failures. Sometimes a homeschooling kid turns out just like the kid next door who went to the worst public school in the county. You will look up one day and they will be snippy, withdrawn, and may even get into trouble you can't get them out of.  You won't even see it coming. Sometimes it just happens.  You are going to have to love them anyway.  Things will come together. Remember even fairytales start out scary.

If I haven't scared you away from homeschooling yet, I will now add that it can be magical, and wonderful, and your kids can turn out great, but you will have to work at it. Keeping your kids at home and having 2 or 10 kids will not make your household perfect and magical in any way. But, being the kind of parent that kids want to be around... that guides, cajoles, hugs, and supports, will make your homeschooling family happy, and if you can do that, they won't be writing an angry blog about you in ten years.

Who's? What? Where? How not to test kids

Sketch a day #23 - 1 hr. Pen and ink

So clearly our society is obsessed with the size of people's butts.  Whether, you are all about that bass- no treble, or think silicone butts are Ew- EW.  They are everywhere!  And let's not talk about Kim K West's (no I'm not linking to it) latest magazine pics. The bigger the butt the better.

Pop culture has conversations about butts locked down.  So why-oh-why does Mecklenburg County NC have questions about butt size on exams used throughout the county?  Seriously.  Ew.

Here's my problem with the question:  

"LaShamanda (Who??? Lashamanda isn't a real name.  One can only assume that they were going for a stereotypically black name.  If you google Lashamanda, you will not find it has ever been used before.  Lashanda, or Shamanda would have been more appropriate.  Instead they chose to mock black names with this made up farce) has a heterozygous big bootie, (What?  are you referring to her behind?  Big bootie is a term used primarily in ebonics- slang... Both Oxford dictionaries and Webster dictionaries defines a bootie as a shoe worn by a baby.  If they meant booty.. well that is defined as a plunder won in war.  Urban dictionary, the worse source for a dictionary defines a bootie as "a woman with an --- that is healthy and fleshy from a bit of jiggle to firm but always tasty".  Is that the definition of bootie, they want kids to embrace?  How rude!) the dominant trait. Her man Fontavius (once again- who?  First, "her man" is a phrase not used in any dictionary, but is street for her husband or boyfriend, so by saying they were married was kind of redundant.  Second,  Fontavius is another name not found anywhere on Google.  Dontavious is a real African American name though, so way to go- mocking black names again!)has a small bootie (what? the term bootie is reserved for women, even in ebonics) which is recessive. They get married and have a baby named LaPrincess. (I actually found this name online, so ...OK.  still it is rare) What is the probability that LaPrincess will inherit her mama's (Merriam Webster says the word Mama is slang for mother) big bootie?" (Saying a baby or child has a big bootie is crass and inappropriate.  Like that time a man said my baby, who was six at the time, had a gadunk-adunk -and I almost slapped him.)

The WHERE is that this was on a science test in a public school.

This is offensive in more ways that I can count. The most detrimental salacious phrases possible was used in this test question. It mocked African American names and culture. And the subject matter was inappropriate.  I will stop there. 

So when a parent complained, a teacher replied "I am sorry IF your child was offended".  Please. Bye Felicia.

Can we please stop trying to bend to the lowest common denominator and teach kids using subject matter that won't dumb them down and victimize them?  Where is the commons sense in this.  Makes me glad we homeschooled.