Home School Observations

When I first met Grace Llewellyn, I was her down-the-street neighbor in Eugene, Oregon, and she was banging out her book The Teenage Liberation Handbook on the typewriter her grandmother had given her. It is the book I had always wanted to write myself, and I am glad it got written. I highly recommend this book for all teen homeschoolers and their teenage friends in school. And check out some of Grace Llewellyn’s newer books as well…

Grace hosts a summer camp for homeschool teens in Oregon and Vermont, called the Not Back To School Camp, which allows teens from all around the country to network to form their own opinions and decisions about their own educational choices or the educational choices their parents have made for them.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

“Look, Mom! Come quick!” Ravi exclaims excitedly.

Mom is cooking breakfast and usually responds at a snail’s pace. “What is it, Rav?”

“Hurry, come see the dancing leaf!”

This sounds intriguing so I put down the spatula and join he and Nisha at the front picture window. We have been blessed with some snow overnight and I am one of the lucky ones who has maintained a childlike wonder at and appreciation of it. Nisha and Ravi make room for me to kneel on the couch with them for some quality snow gazing.

“Where is it?” Read the rest of this entry »

“Welcome to my magic show!” exclaimed the presenter, dressed in a vest of playing card pattern. He looked out over the crowd below him, the pre-schoolers and after-schoolers on the carpet of the library meeting room, the middle school students in the chairs in the back. The excitement in the room was electrifying as the children anticipated his first trick.

“How many of you children out there like school?” his first question came. All hands but those of the middle school students and Nisha, Ravi, Mim, and Viv reached in the air. I roll my eyes. “Oh, I see some of you don’t like school. Well, we will see if we cannot change your mind about that today.” I bite my tongue and roll my eyes again. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday’s spring-like weather inspired Nisha and Ravi to go digging in dirt. Soon Ravi discovered a worm, and Nisha came running into the house to ask if they could set up a Worm Stand!

I said yes, and they set about the tasks at hand. They had to make a sign, drag out a table and chairs, and find more worms, plus set up a cash drawer, and some kind of bag for giving worms to their customers.

The worms were priced at a penny each and the store stock was three worms. I was the only one to buy a worm, which we later released, but many of the very kind neighbors out walking their dogs made donations.

Clouds rolled in, winds swelled up, and the Worm Stand was hastily disassembled. Total income $1.25. A success!

Later that day Nisha came to me to ask if she smelled ‘weird.’ I sniffed her hair and her arm and declared her to smell as sweet as a rose.

“Ravi said we smelled weird because we have been hanging out with worms.”

Drama sometimes knocks at your front door. He was wearing an “Obama” button on each side of his collar. Our Ohio primary is less than a week away. He had a clipboard. He tried to pronouce my husband’s Sri Lankan 12-letter, 4-syllable first name. I smiled at his efforts, answered his questions, but talked to him through the storm door. The ragged paper ‘No Trespassing’ sign taped to our front door fluttered up and down in the cold wind.

“He is undecided,” I replied for my husband. The campaign worker was undaunted. “Here, take one of these.” I politely accepted his broadsheet praising his candidate. “You didn’t ask me if I had made up my mind,” I noted. He looked puzzled. He checked his list. I was not on his list, although I am an active voter. “You can put me down as a Hillary supporter.” He had no place to record this information. “Thank you, ma’am,” came the reply. “Thank you for your time today.” And with that he prepared to leave.

As he was walking away down our sidewalk I asked, “Would you like something to drink? Coffee, water?” He stopped and smiled. “Water would be great. Thanks so much.” I invited him into the foyer As he gulped I formulated my next question.

“Are you local?” I quizzed.

“Now I am, but I am originally from New Orleans.”

“Oh my, this weather must be so hard on you!” I sympathized.

“I am used to it now. I was in New York before I came here. Hurricane Katrina displaced my family and I ended up in New York. But life goes on. I just got married in December and things are looking up. It has been real hard, but you gotta do what you got to do.”

“Would you like to use our bathroom? ” I offered.

As he put his coat and gloves back on and prepared to leave, he offered more details. “My family was separated by Katrina. My kids got evacuated to Houston.”

“Oh dear, how old are your children?”

“I have three daughters. The oldest one is 19, the middle one is 14, and the baby is 9.”

“Where are they living now?” I queried him further.

“They are all still in Houston. They are with their mothers. I got beat up by four cops in New Orleans and I ended up in New York. I got pictures here in my bag…”

Before he had a chance to tell me what the pictures depicted, I cut him off. “I have young children, sir…”

He understood my meaning and opened the door to leave.

“Thank you for your kindness, ma’am.”

As he walked away down the sidewalk, I wondered if my daughter had noticed or understood his reference to police brutality. I was not looking forward to explaining that topic to a seven-year-old.