Thoughts on education ...

First, let me share this poem that my sixth grader, while in the school system, had to memorize. The kids were put in groups, and they created music for the prose and presented the result in front of their classes.

Homework! Oh, Homework

Homework! Oh, homework!I hate you! You stink!
I wish I could wash you away in the sink,
If only a bomb would explode you to bits.
Homework! Oh, homework, you're giving me fits.

I'd rather take baths with a man-eating shark,
Or wrestle a lion alone in in the dark,
Eat spinach and liver, pet ten porcupines,
Than tackle the homework my teacher assigns.

Homework! Oh, homework! You're last on my list,
I simply can't see why you even exist,
If you just disappeared it would tickle me pink
Homework! Oh, homework! I hate you! You stink!

--Jack Prelutsky

Now, it's not that I'm not a fan of kid poetry. My guys grew up laughing at pretty much everything written by Sid Silverstein, who borders on the irreverent :-). But from the head of a classroom? As an assignment? At the BEGINNING of the school year?

I've been contemplating this post for quite some time. I will not trash the school system. It is fine ... for some exceptionally strong kids. My girls are thriving in school .. however I am grateful they didn't start there. They are wise, and they are discerning, and they put up with the garbage because they love to learn and they have not lost that.

The teachers, however, at our local elementary school, are so interested in getting the kids to be interested in school, that they are dumbing the material down farther and farther. Guess what? It's at best, NOT interesting to the kids, and at worst, completely detrimental to their education (which, face it, is not just about school but maintaining an attitude of curiosity and desire to learn throughout your life).

My son was removed from public school six weeks into grade six. Academics were not the reason he was pulled. However, in the first week of his time at home, I was thanking God we decided to pull him when we did. He had completely lost his interest in discovery and learning. I'm not exactly sure when he morphed into a school-hater, but he sure memorized this poem with gusto. Unfortunately, he strongly identified with it as well. In his class, general consensus is that if you are male, you hate school. Learning is for losers (hello?). And because of his boredom in class, he started to act out and cut up. Sigh. As I've been working with him over the last few weeks, I've been horrified to discover that had reached a point where he just.didn't.care.to.learn!

His reading list from public school was a list of second grade level readers. "Oh, he's reading!" the teachers cheer. But he's not LEARNING when he's not even trying stuff at grade level. This is not the teacher's fault, of course; they are busy with the kids who are not yet reading at all. He became so lazy in this environment.

So he came home. And mom has been pushing this lad. It has been like pulling teeth to get him to do his work, and it hasn't been loads of fun for his teacher. Our three weeks have been filled with comments like "My teacher wouldn't make me do that!" ... "Why should I do that?" ... "You are way too hard on me!" ... or my personal favourite (NOT) "It's not fair". Whether setting up math problems, or picking a reader, or writing cursive, or even typing using homerow vs. the hunt 'n peck method he's been using, his goal has been the bare minimum.

But bright spots are appearing. Last week, he acknowledged that he has become very lazy. Earlier this week, he admitted that the novel I am "FORCING" him to read, "The Gammage Cup", might not be so bad after all. (Note, this is an older fantasy novel with quite complicated language and sentence structure; he started out absolutely refusing to read it. And the novel study will be serious and significant work!)

And today, oh glorious day, something magnificent happened.

I assigned Iain a project on Canadians in space. Basically taken from the Ontario curriculum, I outlined a project studying several Canadian astronauts, astronomers, and industries involved in the Space program. It was boring. Black and white print. Lists of questions that were going to involve paragraph answers. I was expecting a lot of flack. Today, he looked at it, read a few lines and said, "Wow! This looks really interesting!" then spent about 45 minutes researching new Canadian space developments. He was excited to discover a recent invention called Dextre, and now wants to do a field trip to St. Hubert, PQ to visit the company that designed it! Well, perhaps we'll make a trip to the observatory at Queen's instead, dear :-).

There is hope. And I'll hold on to this moment when it seems like we've back-pedalled again :-). And with God's help, we'll continue on our journey from "learning s*cks" to "learning rocks"!