Life at the Academy

The question of whether to test a homeschooled child comes up often.  People who don’t homeschool are concerned whether or not my children have to take tests.  I guess they worry that perhaps I can’t be sure that she is doing as well as public school kids unless I give her a standardized test every year.  Some of these same people are amazed that the state of Louisiana doesn’t require it.  I think they are relieved when I tell them that I do test my children.  Then I have homeschool friends who dwell on this topic every year.  Should I test?  I always ask them why they would want to test and why they wouldn’t.  My reasons for testing are reassurance that I’m keeping on track and insurance that should the kids ever end up going to school, I have years of standardized test results showing their progress.  They like taking the tests as it’s  a nice diversion from our regular studies.  I also believe that test taking skills are valuable lessons to be learned.  I haven’t really come up with any reason not to test besides the actual costs of the tests.  Perhaps if they hated taking them, I would test less often.

I want my kids to do well on the tests and have been disappointed at times when they don’t rank 99th percentile in everything, but I remind myself that I need to look at the big picture, not one snapshot of how they did on one test on a particular day.  And sometimes they surprise me.  Last year, Doodles got every question right on the science and even more surprising, Buster got every question right in social studies.  Considering that many of the things on the social studies section were things we hadn’t covered before, I’m pretty sure he has learned some test taking skills and got lucky too.  What I have to remind myself of is that most of the kids who take those tests are taught to the test.  The things covered on the standardized tests are exactly what they teach in the classroom.  If my kids went to school, they would probably do better on the tests.  I don’t know what’s going to be on the tests, I just teach my children.  I know I don’t teach them the same things in the same order and there are things that I never explicitly teach them, but they probably pick them up anyway.  For example, in first grade, many public school kids are learning about their community for social studies.  We were learning about ancient history.  When school kids are studying about their state and our country, we studied the middle ages.  In the long run, it doesn’t really matter, but the tests didn’t cover ancient times or the middle ages.   They covered communities, states and our country.  My kids did better than average without formally being taught those things.  And now is my confession time.  Last year was the first year that I actually taught a formal science curriculum, and that was only for Doodles.  Yes, using a school text book for the year, she was able to get every question right on the science part of the test.  However, the previous year, having had hit and miss science lessons for years, she still had scored in the 95.8 percentile.  Oh, and that was the year that she was in 5th grade but insisted on taking the 6th grade test.  So, my point on all this is that if you want to test to make sure that you are making progress and to give your kids practice in test taking, then test.  But, if you aren’t teaching the same things in the same order as the schools, don’t get worked up if your child doesn’t do so well in subjects like science and social studies.  But then again, you might be surprised at what they’ve picked up along the way.

Since she had been talking about going to high school, I have been gathering information.  I was talking to a woman I know who teaches 7th grade English at our jr. high.  She suggested that Doodles come sit in her class some morning to see what it’s like.  Not thinking things through, I gladly accepted the offer and dropped her off at 7:15 Wednesday morning.  Perhaps I just thought that by going, she would never want to go to school.  Maybe, in some way I was hoping she would like it and want to go.  Well, despite getting up so early and spending part of the morning with 6th graders, she liked it.  She wants to go.  She thinks.  Of course I wanted to know all about it.  I asked her what she did – first she was in the English class and they were starting on science fiction.  She participated in the class and enjoyed it.  Then, she told me she wasn’t sure what the next class was that she went to with some 6th graders that she knows.  I thought it strange that she didn’t even know what the class was, but after she told me they were talking about ancient Greeks, I didn’t understand why she didn’t know it was history.  Perhaps she was too busy absorbing everything else.  Then she got to sit and watch them in PE class.  I picked her up at 11:00.  While I was waiting for her in the office, I got to observe things such as a parole officer coming in to meet with a student.  It didn’t give me warm fuzzies.  Before we left, the principal came out to see how it went and asked if I had any questions.   She was very helpful and far more amiable than the principal at the elementary school.  We talked about the fact that Doodles is doing algebra this year.  Since I’m not a certified teacher, she can’t get credit for that without taking a proficiency exam even though I have all of the materials as well as the tests that came with the high school text book.  No big deal.  However, they don’t offer anything higher than algebra so should she pass their test, they would get her set up with an on-line geometry course.  Then I mentioned that she has an October birthday and is actually a year ahead of where the school would have her.  Despite that I have Stanford and Iowa tests documenting her progress, they would have to evaluate her to decide whether she could be in 8th grade.  Yeah.  Go ahead and put her in 7th grade next year instead of 8th, then not only would she need the on-line geometry next year, but she would need algebra II the following year.  I think she would no longer be interested in going to school if they did that.  Oh, and then the principal told me that she could come take the I-Leap at the school next month if we wanted.   I told her, “No, thank you.”  The I-Leap is Louisiana’s way of having a standardized test that can’t be compared with other states’ tests.  They used to use the Iowa test except for 4th and 8th grades where they used the Leap test and the kids had to pass it to move up to the next grade.  The I-Leap is based on the state’s required curriculum and the teachers teach to the test.  I do not teach what’s on the the state’s curriculum nor do I want them to have my child’s scores unless I decide to give it to them.

But anyway, after hearing that she liked it and wanted to go to school there next year, I got a little teary-eyed.  This lead her to tears because she didn’t want me to be sad.  I tried to explain to her that I will be sad when she goes to high school (if she does).  I will be sad when she goes to college.  I’ll be sad when she moves out on her own; it’s just part of being a parent.  She told me that she didn’t want to talk about it anymore.  I just let her know that if she really wants to go, she needs to let me know by May.  I’m not going to talk about it anymore, hoping that she will forget about the thought.  I’m not ready to let her go to school yet.

That’s all I ask for, is just 15 minutes to take a relaxing shower with no interruptions.  I don’t think it ever works like it’s supposed to work.  Perhaps it’s my fault for not getting up before the kids to shower, but I’m just not a morning person.  So, I get up, teach them for 2 or 3 hours, and when they take their lunch break, I go jump in the shower.  You would think that after working for me all morning, they would happily eat their lunch and maybe go outside for a little bit while I shower in peace.  Nope.  And this time, it was actually Boxman that came in and bugged me first.  I politely asked him to leave me alone.  He left.  Next, Doodles comes in and tells me that Boxman locked her out of the house and wouldn’t let her back in.  I assumed that she had been misbehaving and he sent her outside to get over it.  I told her to leave me alone.  Then, Buster has to come in and tell me how mean his daddy is being.  I told him to get out.  By this time, I’m done in the shower, but not ready to face all of the issues going on past the bathroom door.  I take my time getting dressed.  I start to actually hear laughter in the backyard.  The kids are running around having a great time.  I can finally leave my room without fear of being bombarded by accusations of so and so being mean, or she hit me, or he kicked me, or any of those other typical complaints that usually await me after (if not during) a shower.  I walked out, they were having fun.  For a moment anyway.  And then they remembered it all.  I laughed at them and reminded them of how much fun they were just having.  It took some convincing on my part, but they finally got over it.  I didn’t get my 15 minutes though.

Doodles is pretty sure she wants to go to high school, so I have been gathering information and trying to figure out what to do with her should she only have one more year at home with me.  I was waiting for her at dance the other day when I started talking to a woman I know there who teaches 7th grade in our district.  I asked her what she would recommend I do with Doodles to best prepare her for high school.  She talked about some of the books and types of things she does with her 7th graders as well as what she knows the 8th graders do.  Besides teaching, she has a son in high school and so she could tell me what he did in 9th grade.  It was helpful and she told me to go to the district’s website because they list the curriculum and book lists there.  I felt better after seeing that we have already done some of the books on their 9th grade honors list.  Then I voiced my concern over having her jump in at high school when grades count without any adjustment to school life.  She agreed and asked why we were waiting until high school, so I shared that Doodles was kind of afraid of the middle school – it’s not in a very nice neighborhood and she has heard from her friends about all of the fights and stuff that goes on there.  She suggested that Doodles come visit her classroom some morning to see what it’s really like.  Maybe if she sits in class for half of a day she will decide that it’s not so bad and want to go there for 8th grade next year.  Or, maybe she will decide that school is not where she wants to spend the next 5 years of her life and want to keep homeschooling.  I am so torn on what I want her to do.  I feel like I can give her a better education, but I think learning some responsibility would be good for her too.  Plus, the school will pay for her to take some classes at the community college as dual enrollment instead of me having to pay for those classes so it could save us some money.  There’s also a part of me that would love to have that weight taken off my shoulders.  I would be able to spend extra time with Buster to help him excel as I feel like he has been a bit shortchanged in some ways.  But at least he hasn’t been experimented on quite as much.

I’m sure I’ll be revisiting this topic often over the next year, or five.