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 Adventures in Educating the Chaotic Minds |
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Thursday, June 02, 2011 Trusting my instinctsTo say the last few months have been busy and hectic are putting it mildly. That said, homeschooling has really taken off for us. In late April, I finally put all the "how to" books down, and stopped frantically reading and culling the various homeschool websites and decided to just trust my instincts and GO FOR IT! We spent the better part of March and April testing Drue to figure out four things:My biggest challenge has been getting Drue interested in math again. To borrow a movie reference (and you get points for identifying the movie), Math is Drue's unicorn. This doesn't mean Drue is not good in math. In fact, the issue is that Drue is very good in math but has zero confidence in her math abilities and aptitude. The problem started in 4th grade when Drue started zoning out in math class. The teacher's methods for math instruction left a lot to be desired, the material was being covered at an accelerated rate and Drue was grappling with ADD. We took her to a behavior modification therapist when we saw the warning signs and met with her two teachers to discuss the behavior modification plan and to come up with classroom and home strategies that complemented Drue's therapy. Our goal was to foster a partnership with the school in order to create a successful environment for Drue. We did not feel Drue required an IEP (Individual Education Plan) and for a few weeks, felt good about our meeting and the direction we chose to go, as Drue seemed to thrive and be easily redirected in all her subjects in school. After a particularly busy and tiring weekend (lack of sleep is the worst for a kid with ADD), Drue phased out in Math class again. In frustration, her teacher slammed a book down on Drue's desk and when she zoned back in, informed her that "kids with problems like yours don't belong in a gifted and talented program". Drue fell apart in class and was removed from the class to "calm down". She did not tell us about the conversation; in fact, it took us months before we found out what had happened from one of Drue's friends (yes this god awful woman not only said what she said, but she said it in front of Drue's entire class!!) and was able to take the issue to the school principal. By that time, we were near the end of the school year. Drue had managed a B- thanks to ongoing studying, and our diligent efforts to help her learn the material. But the end result had less to do with the grade and more to do with her lost love of learning, affirmation that school is NOT a safe place for kids who don't fit a standard "norm" and her decision that she CANNOT do math. Fifth grade we lucked out and had an amazing science teacher who understood Drue and the way Drue thinks. That said, fifth grade math was actually fifth and sixth grade math smooshed together into nine months. Drue hung on valiantly the first few months and then started to fall apart at the seams because she did not have enough confidence in her grasp of the fundamentals to thrive. So we survived as best we could knowing that when we moved to California, she could take sixth grade math again, the standard for ALL California sixth graders whether they are gifted or not. The dividing line for math in California is at the end of sixth grade when kids are tested to see if they can move right into Algebra I or need Pre-Algebra, a smart move given girls' brains are not typically mature enough in the particular area of the brain that allows them to excel in math until around age 12 or 13.1 However, around age 13, that area of the brain catches up and girls who have been encouraged and/or nurtured properly in math can really cut loose and dominate in math. 2 Sixth grade, Drue started catching up in math but fell apart socially. Thanks to a heaping dose of harassment and bullying from some mean girls here and some carry over bullying from a few mean girls in Virginia, Drue mentally checked out of school again. When she asked to be homeschooled, we embraced the idea and I decided my goal for March, April and May was to show Drue that math is awesome, that math is fun and that math is absolutely, entirely, 100% HER THING!!! So I took her all the way back to when math was awesome, fun and her thing (3rd grade) and started anew with ALL the fundamentals. I spent some time comparing different methodologies of teaching math (see the Resource section in a day or two if you're interested in the breakdown) and decided to go with Singapore Math. There is nothing fuzzy or "new" about Singapore Math. It's basic math concepts taught in logical progression using a series of examples that allow your child to figure out what their style of learning math is and then a series of algorithms and practice worksheets that allow your child to work through the topics until they actually understand the math principal and then they move on. Crazy, right? Singapore math teaches standard algorithm method. There are no cluster problems, no partial products or partial quotients methods are taught and they never introduce the lattice method. Call me old school but I'm a big fan of teaching math using standard algorithms. The rest of this new math is a bunch of bunk and only makes math complicated and more confusing. So we dove into math and made it our concentration over the last few months. I guess you could say we "unschool" since we don't follow a prescribed methodology, and we don't go through all the school subjects Drue would be exposed to during a typical 6th grade, public school day and concentrated on the few areas Drue enjoys or needs some focus and concentration in. We also gave her a few writing assignments to figure out how comfortable she is with reading comprehension, writing skills, grammar and vocabulary. Drue spends a few hours per day on math and writing, and then the rest of her day is spent reading random books, pursuing her interest in marine biology, drawing marine animals in her art notebook, practicing her cello, downloading and listening to lots of interesting music and relaxing. A lot of homeschoolers call this practice, "deschooling", a reference to the mental process a child goes through after being removed from a formal school environment, a very necessary and fundamental part of the homeschool process, in my opinion. Now don't get me wrong, this whole deschooling business just about drove me crazy. Drue would finish her math work, practice her cello and then move from her bed, to my bed, to the living room to the yard lazing about, reading, drawing, playing with the puppies and not really accomplishing much (at least not much from my point of view). And for a few weeks I really struggled internally with my desire to give her more work. I finally realized we were on the right track when the spring came back to her step, the sparkle came back to her eyes, and she started showing interest in things again. Around early may, Drue started learning things, not because a teacher required her to learn it or because I was making her learn but because she was interested and engaged. Me being me, I really needed a checkpoint for myself to make sure we're doing the right thing. As an unaffiliated private school (more about that later), we don't qualify to take standardized testing. Knowing we wanted Drue in the Russian Math School in the fall, I called up the director and asked if Drue and I could come in and make sure we were on the right track. When we got there, Drue was given a pop quiz on her math skills. To say it went well was an understatement. Not only is Drue right on track, she's AHEAD of the game and qualified for accelerated Pre-Algebra this summer which places her in Algebra I and Geometry this Fall. The evaluator informed Drue that she was doing an excellent job with her math learning and that "she thinks like a mathematician", a compliment that sent both Drue and I over the moon! Knowing we have a busy summer curriculum schedule, I made sure Drue would not feel stressed over the addition of an accelerated math course to her already busy schedule. But the exact opposite happened. Drue is excited. She is working on the rest of her review work with an end goal in mind. She's checking her work, actively engaged in the learning process and reading about how to apply the math she's learning to her true love and future vocation: marine biology. She's become a Math Person and seeing how math is a fundamental part of everything in nature, in music and in other areas of life. And that is SO cool! The reality is that if we had kept Drue in the standard public school model she would be stressed out, hating math and therefore testing into the Pre-Algebra class where she would be bored out of her mind. If I hadn't started trusting myself and trusting Drue, we would not be in THIS place right now with a happier, healthier, more self-confident kid meeting her potential. It's a good lesson learned and one I will continue to apply to this wonderful journey we're on, our own adventures in alternative learning and homeschooling. I'm so excited and looking forward to our summer curriculum and moving into fall. That said, I'm also really enjoying taking this one day at a time. Getting out of the scholastic box and walking away from the prescribed norm was definitely the smartest thing we've done for Drue in a long time. 1 Are there significant differences between a girl's brain and a boy's brain? article from NASSPE. 2 Longitudinally mapping the influence of sex and androgen signaling on the dynamics of human cortical maturation in adolescence by Armin Raznahana,b,1,, Yohan Leea, Reva Stidda, Robert Longa, Dede Greensteina, Liv Clasena, Anjene Addingtona, Nitin Gogtaya, Judith L. Rapoporta, and Jay N. Giedda (NIH) Posted by jeri at 3:37:48 PM in Getting Started >>> |
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