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What happened to the career blog? I really miss seeing updates there.
Yeah. I think I took an sort of unplanned vacation. But I’m coming back. Maybe today if the kids can make it until breakfast without fighting with each other… or maybe that’s my problem – that I tied my ability to write to the kids ability to get along for extended periods of time without fighting. I probably need to feel more in control of my writing time. Now that I think about it…
Penelope
I think I am most stuck when I keep planning my actions around other things happening. So if the sun and stars and the moon align I’ll do xyz.
I’ve been experiencing breakthrough in areas where I am not waiting anymore for things to happen so I can take action.
Love this post! I also think it’s pretty much impossible to have diversity in a classroom when people are segregated by age. Interacting with people who are much older or younger than ourselves is important for so many reasons.
This.
Due to a solitary quirk of the student population growth, my fifth grade class was actually a mix of fourth and fifth graders.
It was the best experience I had as a student. Reading about how Sudbury schools mix ages makes so much sense.
Just commenting that there are pockets of diversity in public schools, especially in large cities — my kid goes to a program of choice at a Title I school, and it is indeed diverse both economically and racially. And there’s discomfort, not just for the kids but also among parents who have very different takes on class and race.
You forgot age diversity. If there is one area where schools are clearly segregated, it’s age. Students spend all day with the same age group. No one ever learned good social skills from peers alone. Adults and older peers show children how to grow in social maturity. As a someone who was homeschooled, I found while growing up that my homeschooled peers were far more comfortable conversing with adults and were more likely to include kids of all ages in our play/activities than our public schooled peers.
That’s such a good point. Thanks.
Also, I’ve found that a quick identifier for homeschooled kids is watching deference and comfort levels with adults.
Homeschooled kids are not taught the enormous deference toward adults that kids have to learn in schools. The huge number of kids per teacher demands a huge amount of deference to adults.
At first I was self-conscious of the fact that my kids don’t have that. But now I’m happy for them.
Penelope
I spend a great deal of my mental energy trying to figure out if my kids are rude or not because they also do not have that deference to adults. They speak to adults the same way they speak to other kids, for the most part. They are more likely to try out a newfound “naughty” word in a conversation with other kids than they would be with an adult…. But pretty much they speak with the same tone and from the same place in their hearts to all the people they interact with (regardless of age)…. It’s a strange place to be as an adult who grew up calling all adults Mr or Mrs and seeing all adults as authorities… I actually don’t even know if that experience is mine alone? Anyway, kids who are not in a classroom for most of their waking hours (at least mine) seem to relate differently to adults and it is a strange thing to process, for me….
I actually encourage my kids to speak to adults as if they are equals, they are not subordinates and I don’t allow adults to make them feel inferior. :) I actually worry less now about homeschool/unschool the longer I do it in fact, I just call it life.
I’m hoping I quickly get to the point where it seems as appropriate as it is :)
Whenever I go to a family reunion I feel exposed to diversity…we may all have the same skin color but we’re all over the map when it comes to socioeconomics and politics. It makes for very loud conversation or arguments or banter… I like being a libertarian so I can help mediate the two groups…lol. Outside of that environment I gravitate towards like minded individuals…mostly to avoid causing hurt feelings or judgements from others.
I never saw the pictures of that jungle girl till now, very cool! I wanted to see more so maybe I’ll have to get the book.
This is so true! I could count the number of “diverse” kids at my public high school on a single hand (2 black kids, 2 Mormons, and a Jew, all of whom were from affluent families like everyone else). In contrast, our homeschool support group contains a wide variety of races, ethnicities, religions, and socioeconomic levels. My homeschooled kids are exposed to a FAR more diverse set of kids than I was attending public school.
Perhaps a key reason why Catholic schools, Jewish yeshivas and secular private schools perform better than public schools is that, unlike public schools, their population is not determined by real estate. Another key reason is that kids at these schools tend to be financially better off.
What a great post! I went to a very diverse high school where there was probably a handful of people from every part of the world. It actually worked quite the opposite of the quintessential integration experience that schools hope for.
All that happened was there was a massive segregation. Because, while students may have wanted a diverse experience, schools don’t allow for it. Diverse experiences require open and free environments which is the antithesis of schools. Schools are not a healthy nor safe environment and they know this so their survival instincts tell them to attach themselves to what’s familiar, which is their own ethnic groups. School does not allow students to produce the confidence to explore, not when they are told what to do, think and study.