Boys & School

If you've been following this blog for awhile, you know that my boys were homeschooled, and that all four of them are now in school full-time. If you're new here, well, you just found out.

The transition to school is going fine, for the most part. But let me tell you: My reasons for homeschooling remain as valid as ever. Homeschooling, I believe, gives kids the chance to follow and learn from their passions. School too often squishes passions and interests at the altar of standardized achievement.

The Red Zone

Case in point: My 6-year-old son, a passionate, self-motivated learner got in trouble at school the other day. Why? Because he was squirmy and talkative and social. You can read more about it over at Boys and Young Men: Attention Must Be Paid.

Here's an excerpt:

Not even one month into the school year, my son got in trouble – major, Red-level trouble – for moving, talking and socializing. The school gets into no trouble whatsoever for failing to provide my son with a learning environment that engages him, that takes into account his needs and knowledge and learning style.

The Red incident happened two days ago. Yesterday, the same son came home with what looked like a massive black-and-yellow bruise on his lower abdomen at belt level. After some talking, I that my son found an unopened black walnut outside at recess. (Never seen one? They look like this:

My nature-loving son wanted to play with them. But the bell was ringing, so he jammed one into the waistband of his underwear. His belt and jeans held the black walnut firmly in place, through at least half of gym class. And -- as you may have guessed by now -- stained his skin.

Later, I asked what he wanted to do with the black walnut.

"Throw it," he said.

Such a simple request. But he's in an environment that a) only offers limited time outside, b) provides very little time for free play and c) frowns upon the throwing of objects. One month into the school year, my son has internalized those facts. And resorted to smuggling black walnuts in his shorts.

How School Squelches Boys & Men

I tell myself he will be fine, and for the most part, he will. Fortunately, he still has two loving parents who read to him, who take him interesting places and who make sure he gets plenty of time in the woods and in fields. But I can't help but wonder how much more interesting (and joyous) his learning path would be if he was allowed to follow his own interests, instead of squashing them in the service of organized, institutional learning. And I can't help but feel sad inside for all the boys who know nothing more than school. In every school, there are boys, like my son, who are squashing their natural desires and curiosity to pursue educational goals that seem meaningless to them.

That's not to say that education, or even institutional education, is worthless. It is to say that learning, real learning, works best when coupled with real life.

Some will say that little boys (such as my son) need to learn how to sit down, be quiet and follow directions. And I agree: they do. But I'd argue that the pace matters. I'd argue that there's no harm whatsoever -- and many benefits -- to letting young boys (such as my son) learn through movement and active play and exploration. No harm at all in letting young boys gradually grow into self-control.

It will happen. I have seen countless, homeschooled boys grown into polite, well-mannered, socially-adjusted young men -- without ever sitting in a circle on a rug, filling out countless worksheets or losing recess.

What are your thoughts regarding boys and school? 

Snapshot Sunday: Proud

Climbing Ahead

Ever notice how your boys frequently make their biggest leaps when you're not looking?

As you can probably tell, my three-year-old has learned to climb trees. And he did it all on his own.

He was outside playing while the rest of us finished lunch. The older boys heard some loud singing from outside and popped to the window to see what Boy #4 was doing. They found him in the tree.

He's wanted to climb trees ever since he realized there were trees to climb -- a side effect of having three older brothers. But we have long had a tree-climbing rule around here, which is: If you're too small to get up in the tree by yourself, you're too small to climb.

Well, Boy #4 found his way around that one.

All of his own, he figured out how to use the materials in his environment to accomplish his goals. It's almost as if he needed the time, space and freedom to figure things out on his own.

Boy #3 did something similar when he learned to ride his bike. You know how most parents run along behind their child, helping support the bike, while the child learns to find his balance? Boy #3 learned to ride a two-wheeled bike in a parking lot. At a friends' house. While I was inside talking to the other Mom.

Granted, his Dad had been gradually bending his training wheels up for a period of weeks. Little by little, and without even knowing it, Boy #3 was learning to balance. But the final moment of truth -- learning to ride a two-wheeler -- came when we weren't even looking.

The November/December issue of Home Education Magazine touches on this very issue. In her article, "Hey. Just Play," author Rebecca Rupp refers to a new book, Falling for Science, a collection of short essays by past MIT students, reflecting on what drew them to science in the first place. Almost inevitably, she says, "future scientists and engineers all got hooked while messing around -- unsupervised -- with soap bubbles, mud pies, marbles, straws, Erector sets, and Lego blocks."

As parents, we spend hours every day protecting and nuturing our children. Perhaps the best thing we can do, though, is give them the freedom to climb.

Guest Blogger: 5 Reasons Boys Love Gardens

Please join me in welcoming guest blogger Nancy Mann Jackson! Nancy is a freelance writer who gardens with her husband and two young sons in Florence, Ala. She blogs about gardening, harvesting, cooking and preserving with kids in tow at GrowingFoodandKids.com.

Five reasons boys love gardens

Summer may be over, but there’s still plenty of time left to play outside. And gardening can be one of the best ways to get boys engaged in outdoor play that also teaches valuable lessons about nutrition, the environment, and reaping the benefits of hard work. And the best part is that while gardening is hard work, most boys hardly notice it because playing in the garden is also lots of fun. Here are five things boys love about gardening:

1. Critters. Boys are known for bringing home creepy-crawlies, and gardens are chock-full of critters of all sizes. This year in our garden, we’ve spotted ladybugs, spiders, raccoons, even a deer. My boys never tire of searching for and catching crawling things, or imagining which animals left each paw/hoof/claw print in the soil.

2. Dirt. Like macaroni and cheese, boys and dirt just go together. And a garden has plenty of the brown stuff. We sometimes take sand buckets and shovels to the garden and let our two-year-old play in the dirt while we plant, weed or harvest, and he loves it. My mom used to say when our bathwater turned brown, she knew we’d had a fun day — and after spending time in the garden, my boys’ bathwater is never clear.

3. Destruction. Last week before school started back, I was reflecting on the summer with my four-year-old and asked him what he liked best about helping in the garden this summer. I’m not sure what I expected to hear ("watching our seeds grow into delicious food" would have worked), but I was surprised to hear him say, "whacking down all the corn stalks after the corn was gone." What boy doesn’t love a little destruction? And in a garden, you get to tear everything up and start all over again every year (or twice a year, if you plant in the fall and the spring).

4. Food. If you have boys, you know they like to eat. And nowhere will you find as much fresh, nutritious, delicious food as in a vegetable garden. My four-year-old loves to eat cherry tomatoes right off the vine, and just-picked squash, corn, and peppers also make great snacks in the garden (as long as you haven’t used harmful pesticides). Even if your boys don’t eat the garden’s bounty right there in the dirt, they’re likely to enjoy cooking and eating the veggies they’ve helped grow.

5. Time. As with most family activities, the best thing about gardening together is the "together" part. And because most young boys can’t grow a garden by themselves, time spent in the garden is time spent with an adult he cares about. My boys love playing with each other or with other kids, kicking a ball or digging in the sandbox, but getting out in the garden seems to be a special treat because the whole family’s getting dirty with them.

Photo credit: Nancy Mann Jackson

Now THIS Is Love

A couple months ago, I blogged about showing love. I'd asked Boy #1 how he knows his Mom loves him and his answer was, "Because she takes me fishing."

I thought of that at 6:15 this morning as I sped across a lake, cool -- no, make that cold -- mist spraying in my face. It was the last morning of our Up North vacation and I was huddled inside two sweatshirts and a jacket, sitting on a not-quite-wet-yet-towel in a motorboat piloted by my 11-year-old son. Trust me when I say this is not how I would normally choose to spend a morning.

By nature, I am more of a night person. By nature, I am more of an indoors kind of girl. By nature, I will choose my warm bed and a book over almost anything.

But there I was, out on the lake, wind whipping at my back, prepared to spend one-and-a-half hours casting lures into a lake that hadn't yielded anything to me but weeds (and an excellent encounter with a loon.) Why? Because I love my son and my son loves fishing.

It was not the morning he wanted it to be. He was dying to catch a musky, the elusive fish of 10,000 casts that had eluded him all week. He never did catch a musky -- but I caught my very first Northern, an 18 1/2 inch fish that was the biggest fish I'd ever caught. (It was also the first fish I've ever held. Boy, are those things slippery!)

I never would have caught that fish without my son. He guided me to the site, put on the bait and showed me how to cast and retrieve my lure. He also netted the fish, removed the hook and helped me release it safely into the water.

Most importantly, though, he got me out on the water. Never in a thousand years would I have seen the mist over the lake at sunrise, or felt the strength of a fish at the end of my line, if not for my son. If not for my son -- my sons -- my world would be a much poorer place, in so many ways.

Boy #1, I love you. Thanks for showing me the world.

How have your sons expanded your world?

It All Comes Back to the Boys

This week, I had the privilege of being a guest on The Morning Blend, a Milwaukee-area morning talk show.

I was there to talk about the Horicon Marsh, a 32,000 acre Wetland of International Importance that has been compared to the Florida Everglades. The Horicon Marsh, though, receives much less press and is much closer to my home -- just five minutes away, in fact.

For most of my life, the Marsh has been just five minutes away. And so, for most of my life, I took the Marsh completely for granted. Car loads of tourists arrive each fall to view the migration of the Canada geese, but I was unimpressed. Most of the cars had Illinois plates. Didn't the geese fly over Illinois on their journey south? Why couldn't those tourists just stay home and look up?

Beside, what's so special about geese? They're big, they fly in a V and they make a lot of noise. What more do you need to know?

Then I grew up and moved away. I had children. And slowly, I began to understand the attraction of the Marsh. Like most children, I took the wonder in my backyard completely for granted. As an adult, though, I'm beginning to understand how unique the Marsh is. People come to see geese congregate by the thousands, just as people flock to Mexico to see overwintering monarchs.

They -- the geese, the monarchs and the people -- come to these places because they're special, unique. The animals come because the land gives them what they need, and the people come to see a natural spectacle that exists at exactly one place in the world.

My boys taught me that. Through their love of nature, they introduced me to the outdoors. They taught me about the monarchs, which helped me understand the geese (and the tourists). Understanding the geese (and tourists) inspired me to write an article about the Marsh, which led to an appearance on a TV show. And that appearance may lead to a second one -- to talk about this blog.

All because of my boys.