Economics as I Find It

My father is an economist. And strangely, I seem to be becoming an economist, too.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2006/Robertsincentives.html

This one is making the rounds on email. Think she's angry?

The bitter homeschooler's wish list

1. Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's
insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals,
would we admit it?

2. Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use
the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now.
Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization
means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and
pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do
in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the
planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of
both concepts.

3. Quit interrupting my kid at her dance lesson, scout meeting, choir
practice, baseball game, art class, field trip, park day, music class,
4H club, or soccer lesson to ask her if as a homeschooler she ever
gets to socialize.

4. Don't assume tha t every homeschooler you meet is homeschooling for
the same reasons and in the same way as that one homeschooler you know.

5. If that homeschooler you know is actually someone you saw on TV,
either on the news or on a "reality" show, the above goes double.

6. Please stop telling us horror stories about the homeschoolers you
know, know of, or think you might know who ruined their lives by
homeschooling. You're probably the same little bluebird of happiness
whose hobby is running up to pregnant women and inducing premature
labor by telling them every ghastly birth story you've ever heard. We
all hate you, so please go away.

7. We don't look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear
they're in public school. Please stop drilling our children like
potential oil fields to see if we're doing what you consider an
adequate job of homeschooling.

8. Stop assuming all homeschoolers are religious.

9. Stop assuming that if we're religious, we must be homeschooling for
religious reasons.

10. We didn't go through all the reading, learning, thinking, weighing
of options, experimenting, and worrying that goes into homeschooling
just to annoy you. Really. This was a deeply personal decision,
tailored to the specifics of our family. Stop taking the bare fact of
our being homeschoolers as either an affront or a judgment about your
own educational decisions.

11. Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my
credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to
successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in
teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in
the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call
public school left me with so little information in my memory banks
that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest
and dearest, maybe there's a reas on I'm so reluctant to send my child
to school.

12. If my kid's only six and you ask me with a straight face how I can
possibly teach him what he'd learn in school, please understand that
you're calling me an idiot. Don't act shocked if I decide to respond
in kind.

13. Stop assuming that because the word "home" is right there in
"homeschool," we never leave the house. We're the ones who go to the
amusement parks, museums, and zoos in the middle of the week and in
the off-season and laugh at you because you have to go on weekends and
holidays when it's crowded and icky.

14. Stop assuming that because the word "school" is right there in
homeschool, we must sit around at a desk for six or eight hours every
day, just like your kid does. Even if we're into the "school" side of
education — and many of us prefer a more organic approach — we can
burn through a lot of material a lot more efficiently, because we
don't have to gear o ur lessons to the lowest common denominator.

15. Stop asking, "But what about the Prom?" Even if the idea that my
kid might not be able to indulge in a night of over-hyped, over-priced
revelry was enough to break my heart, plenty of kids who do go to
school don't get to go to the Prom. For all you know, I'm one of them.
I might still be bitter about it. So go be shallow somewhere else.

16. Don't ask my kid if she wouldn't rather go to school unless you
don't mind if I ask your kid if he wouldn't rather stay home and get
some sleep now and then.

17. Stop saying, "Oh, I could never homeschool!" Even if you think
it's some kind of compliment, it sounds more like you're horrified.
One of these days, I won't bother disagreeing with you any more.

18. If you can remember anything from chemistry or calculus class,
you're allowed to ask how we'll teach these subjects to our kids. If
you can't, thank you for the reassurance that we co uldn't possibly do
a worse job than your teachers did, and might even do a better one.

19. Stop asking about how hard it must be to be my child's teacher as
well as her parent. I don't see much difference between bossing my kid
around academically and bossing him around the way I do about
everything else.

20. Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious,
quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or
loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go
to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as
representative of anything but childhood.

21. Quit assuming that my kid must be some kind of prodigy because
she's homeschooled.

22. Quit assuming that I must be some kind of prodigy because I
homeschool my kids.

23. Quit assuming that I must be some kind of saint because I
homeschool my kids.

24. Stop talking about all the great childh ood memories my kids won't
get because they don't go to school, unless you want me to start
asking about all the not-so-great childhood memories you have because
you went to school.

25. Here's a thought: If you can't say something nice about
homeschooling, shut up!


This list, by the way, was the brain child of Deborah Markus who is publishing a homeschool magazine. More voices, more better. And you gotta love the name: "Secular Homeschooling Magazine" My Christian friends are going to get their panties in a twist. Well. No. My friends won't. But someone out there will.

Here's the listmaker. Go see what she's saying.

Freezer burn

Sue tells me that January is the month that kills people. It's the cold. The damned cold. It gets into my feet and into my chest and into my tongue and I can't warm up. There are two months left of it and then it will be okay again. The sun will come back and warm the earth and the air and maybe me but until then it's no use. I'm frozen. Can't move. Can't work up any heat about anything. It's well past time to for Polyanna. Now it's all about survival. Every man for himself. My edges are all frozen. Sharp as knives.

Where You Be At?

Dear Friends,
Greetings from the Viking Encampment. Ben is 25 feet up a tree wearing a helmet, jack boots, and a climbing harness which means he’s going to make a fast descent on the zipline—don’t fret; we only hurt ourselves doing ordinary things. He’ll be at it as long as Dad holds out so it’s a good time to write this letter. I’d let Ben do it but he says ‘I dow waaanooo’ and ‘Noooooooo!” a lot and calls everyone “Baby.” He finds that these things—coming out of the mouth of a giant two-year-old--makes people laugh, so now he’s a regular contrarian. He’s strong and fierce too. When he gets older no one with any sense is ever going to mess with him. When Mom was expecting Ben she figured he’d be early so she prayed he’d be really big and strong. No comment.

So yes, the Viking Training Camp now has a zip line. We can only go on it when Dad’s around so it’s perfectly safe. Really. And we added a new Viking pastime to our list: spear chucking. Also perfectly safe. Our friends (the Davises and the Henns) have older boys that assist us with these things. We take an old box—or a new box or a bale of hay, whatever we can ransack—and some handles from brooms and mops and we hurl the handles—which are about four feet long—into the side of the thing. I wish we could sharpen them but Mom, of course, has put rules all over this activity severely limiting our fun. Anyway, Ben likes to yell so there’s a lot of arms-in-the-air roaring, and “yeah, Baby!” when he drives one home. Ben is two.

Mom’s friends have informed her that we need toys for imaginative play. Mom objected (‘no, no. we have imaginative toys!) and proudly showed them an abacus with brightly colored beads explaining that these were in the toy section and must surely count as an imaginative play toy this did nothing to remove their doubts. A few weeks later Mom had gone Christmas shopping for a little cousin and bought her pink wings and a wand. Well one of Mom’s friends saw the wings and she looked alarmed. She said, “Ana. If the boys want wings, we should maybe get them some blue wings so they can be dragonflies or something.” Mom was laughing so hard she couldn’t speak. Anyway, now we have cowboy duds, Viking armor and fur, and I think weaponry is next. We have cap guns and all, but I’m thinking swords, longbows, tomahawks, and rifles. This could keep us from impaling a pretend spear into the side of the neighbor’s car. Well, Ben could still do it. I won’t speak for Ben.

This year the Big Bad Birthday Bonfire was even better—even though the Snapes didn’t make it (Boooo!). We were considering not having a bonfire at all since there’s a drought. But it rained for a few days before the party so we were able to have the whole enchilada. My friends are getting older and now they come with bugles, drums, cowbells, war bonnets, and real bows and arrows. This is excellent. We were going to have a pony ride but we would have terrified the ponies and had a stampede. Dad gave us hayrides behind one of the Jeeps and we made a lot of noise. In fact, this was the first year that we disturbed our neighborhood plus another entire neighborhood with our whooping and hollering. We are well on our way to having the police break it up.

The Viking fleet grew by a Jeep this year. You remember the Jeep with the great stereo system? Gone. In its place we bought a pristine ’79 Jeep Wagoneer. A Woody. It’s Mom’s car and we love it. Her name is Beauty. Then Dad got hold of a third Jeep—Old Blue. It’s a ’79 Cherokee Chief and it’s in great condition too. Except it doesn’t run. But then neither does the Heap. We’re not too particular about our automobiles actually being mobile. So Old Blue’s body is going to go on the Heap’s frame and the Heap will be sold for parts--the Jeep with the rattle-can paint job will be no more. We’ll have a moment of silence right before Mom breaks out the noise makers. Dad points out that nothing is on blocks. Yet.

Of course we’re homeschooling and not getting socialized because mom keeps us locked up all day conjugating Latin verbs and doing quadratic equations, but we don’t care. It’s fun. I’m learning Viking Math. These are some equations I’ve learned this year.
Dad + Mountain Bike + empty child carrier + double jump = hospital + CAT scan + destroyed bike shoes. Ben + mound of dirt + Oak + shovel = blue stitches + Ben’s forehead. Ice-maker line + moving fridge to clean = home demolition + 6 month rebuild project. Norm + new hardwood floors = ‘distressed look’ floors. Ben + 18 foot ladder = small boy up high + Mom moving fast. Norm + open back door = Oak + neighborhood children + dog biscuits and leashes + running through the neighborhood yelling. Okeefenokee swamp + Oak = 90 mph ride to Valdosta doc-in-a-box + X-rays + REALLY upset Mom + black cast. Mom + Dad + Survivorman video + bowdrill = fire. Mom + boys + dog + hike + family of bears = new big heavy hiking sticks. Ben + bedside table = stitches + upset babysitter. Thank goodness for sutures. This has been Dad’s year to learn about the hospital. He’s the only one who can hold Ben down. Did I tell you he’s big?

Although it sounds like a full year at the Viking Encampment, there were a lot of projects that never got past the planning stage: rigging a suspension bridge across the street so we could visit the neighbors without having to cross the Autobahn; constructing a beehive shaped rammed-earth oven to make pizza on Friday nights; turning the back yard into a certified organic micro-farm complete with greenhouse; synchronizing the Christmas lights to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra; and setting up a water balloon catapult for the speeding cars on our street. You can see which plans were Dad’s and which were Mom’s. There is hope for next year already. Dad read a book about thru-hiking the AT and asked Mom three questions: Did you know that a family thru hiked the AT with their eight-year-old? How long before Ben can hike fifteen miles in a day? How many books do you think we’d have to sell to make $250,000? Mom seemed to be giving these questions serious consideration.

Outside we’re all lit up like a gingerbread house. Inside it smells like evergreen, ginger cookies, a hickory fire, and yeast bread and Norm. We stay in our pajamas until way after breakfast and sometimes we just make forts and paper airplanes and read all day. You should come by for Russian Tea or hot chocolate. Christmastide is twelve days long and there’s popcorn to be popped, cookies to be eaten, and there’s always more wood for the fire. You could help with a fort.

Hurtling into the New Year with a merry roar!

Love,




Oak

Found Things

“God is not a belief to which you give your assent. God becomes a reality whom you know intimately, meet everyday, one whose strength becomes your strength, whose love, your love. Live this life of the presence of God long enough and when someone asks you, “Do you believe there is a God?” you may find yourself answering, “No, I do not believe there is a God. I know there is a God.”
~Ernest Boyer, Jr.

So. When was the last time you gave a lessson?

I'm not doing homeschool any more. I'm being the maid. I go around after my boys picking up pistachio shells, legos, and socks. I strip freshly peed-in beds and do fifteen to twenty loads of laundry a week. I gather dirty clothes and I put away clothes and I stain treat clothes and I hang clothes up and I go through clothes to make sure that they still fit and are the right season and aren't too worn or stained or ripped up. I clean Georgia clay off of shoes and shine shoes and find shoes and spray Lysol in shoes and inspect shoes for fit and wear and gum. I break up whining fights between a seven year old and a two year old over treasures like a paper airplane or a three day old helium balloon or who's going to pour the Gatorade. I remind children not to scratch at their butts when they haven't wiped properly because those fingers are going to end up in their mouths but they don't listen. I fight squirming children for a handhold on those same fingers so I can trim dirty fingernails and inspect hangnails for signs of infection that might need treatment. I pick up the things that are dropped mindlessly after a child is done playing with it because my life is most usefully spent in the role of slave. I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that are promptly pulled apart and licked and scraped clean of jelly. I clean jelly off of hardwood floors. I wipe up piles of ants that gather on the jelly spots that I missed. I wipe up walls that are streaked with jelly fingerprints. I make beds. I tote children to this place and that. I grocery shop for healthful meals that I painstakingly prepare for the good pleasure of hearing, "I don't like that. I don't eat soup. I don't eat fish. I don't like salad. Can I have some candy?" I pick up packs of screws and hammers and caulk that are strewn about the house during the latest do-it-yourself marathon.

If I were to wake up at 5 am to take care of the house and the laundry and the grocery shopping and everything else I would be able to homeschool and make meals and stick to a schedule and be flat on my back in bed by 9 pm too exhausted to even read. I could do that. There wouldn't be anything of me left. But I could do that.

Happy 7th Birthday Oak!

He's been really good at being six. I hope seven is equally happy.