Homework Into Video Games, By Mackenzie

For science right now, we're studying atoms, molecules, and compounds and their properties. One of the things that the kids are supposed to do for this new Charter School program is to show "mastery" of the subject in many different ways: by writing papers, making models, drawing timelines, making illustrations, doing projects, etc. So when I asked Mackenzie how he wanted to illustrate the properties of matter, he suggested that he write a simple video game that allowed the user to see way the molecules move in the different states of water.

If you want to see it in action, you can download his game from Google Docs. It doesn't have any viruses, I promise. He programmed it in GameMaker 8, which he highly recommends. He says it allows you to do object-oriented programming, it's easy to learn, and you can make stand-alone executables like the simple one that he made for this project. You can even sell them (unlike stuff you make in programs like Scratch).

Leave it to this kid to find a way to turn something into a programming project. I have to say, it's pretty cool though. He wants to say a special thank-you to his Aunty Meese and Uncle Nick who gave him GameMaker for his birthday last year. Obviously, it's been put to good use!

The Homeschooling Oblong

So I was standing in my brown belt/black belt karate class this afternoon and our sensei (teacher) asked us to form a circle for a drill. Well let's just say that the circle was not exactly circular in shape. It was more of a oblong with rectangular characteristics here and there. The sensei joked that since almost everyone in the class was a homeschooler, no wonder we couldn't form a circle. We all had to LOL at that one.

I was the only adult in the class, everyone else at that particular hour were homeschoolers. And our senseis homeschool their kids. Now I just have to say that I have never been in the company of so many cool teenagers as when I attend the classes at the dojo. Imagine being in a room with 20 teenagers who are all: polite, respectful, engaging, diligent. Exactly the opposite of what you would think teenagers are like, especially if you watch TV or read the newspapers. Where is the surliness, angst, and attitude? While I'm sure that none of these teens are perfect and that they may roll their eyes at their parents or grumble about taking out the garbage, there is much to be said for the wonderful intersection of homeschooling and karate that can turn out such a group.

Even if they can't make a circle.

Day of Dissection

As I mentioned awhile ago, one of our homeschooling friends set up a GREAT activity. She has a neighbor who is a retired neurosurgeon, researcher, and professor at USC medical school who volunteered to dissect cow's eyeballs with some of the older homeschoolers (who knew you could order cow eyeball dissection kits on the internet!). Mackenzie was very excited about this, especially since he's been thinking a bit more about maybe going into biology or medicine.

It was a really interesting activity. Not having done any dissection before, it was all new for the kids, but they got a lot of great information from their mentor and it really was fascinating stuff. Mackenzie wasn't sure ahead of time whether or not it would gross him out, but he really enjoyed himself. Cutting the tissues was quite difficult, but when it came to slicing away the lens and the iris, he found that all fascinating. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to be a surgeon working with such delicate tissues, and trying not to slice them all up. I call this Mackenzie's "mad scientist" look...

The lens was very hard, almost like a marble, but some of that comes from the preserving of the tissue. The backs of the eyeballs are reflective, like many animals, to aid in night vision. They looked irridescent, almost like an abalone shell.


Of course, no dissection is complete without some hijinks with the finished product.


















One of the moms volunteered to lead a fun activity for the younger crowd. They designed containers using straws to drop eggs in, then dropped them from various heights and recorded whether or not they broke. Then they put on a skit for the rest of us when the dissections were complete. All in all, it was a very cool activity day. As the kids get older and more and more really interesting opportunities open up to them, homeschooling just gets more and more fun.

Sharing Wisdom

As people go through life, progressing through education and careers, gaining experience and knowledge, they often come to a place and time in their lives when they are suddenly not so busy as they once were with career, children, etc. There are a wealth of such people in the world with specific experience to share, and possibly plenty of time to share it in. Homeschoolers do well to tap into the variety of experiences available.

We have been the beneficiaries many times in our homeschooling adventures of people's specific knowledge - whether its in music or art, writing or science, gardening or cooking. Not all adults are interested in sharing their abilities with kids, but there are many of them out there who are, so finding them and matching them to things my kids are interested in is always a part of our unschooling lives.

Recently, a woman who works at our local market heard that Asa was interested in singing, and she has come over to the house to practice singing with her. Another friend is setting up a physics lecture with a local expert. Another homeschooling mom has set up a really really cool activity, using this cow eyeball dissection kit, and a friend of their family who is a retired surgeon. Mackenzie is especially interested in this, since he has been thinking recently that going into the medical field is something he might possibly be interested in. We've been watching M*A*S*H this winter, in chronological order, and while it's full of lots of funny humor the show also includes a lot of medical terminology and action, so it's something he's become fascinated with.

I checked out the book The Way We Work, a book on the human body by David McCaulay, the same author who wrote and illustrated the excellent The Way Things Work series. We also just went up to OMSI in Portland to see the traveling DaVinci exhibit there. Along with some of DaVinci's codices, working models of many of his inventions and ideas, and an extensive exhibit on his paintings (including a fascinating portion on the Mona Lisa, including multi-spectrum photos taken with a 240-million pixel camera recreating how it looked when originally painted) there was a whole section of enlargements of his anatomical studies and drawings.

Once again, I love how so many of the things we encounter seem to dovetail and weave around each other - once you become interested in a particular subject, it seems that there are endless opportunities to study it from many different angles. One thing may spark an interest, but many different things can feed that interest, and one big benefit in our kids' lives that I see is the number of people who are willing to share their time, expertise, and interest with them as they pursue these different interests.

Hear This, Horton

So the movie adaptation of Horton Hears a Who finally hit the cheap seats, which is what we call our local $1 theatre, and we had a rainy afternoon to kill so we took the kids over to see it. In all honesty, I had just done a triathlon that morning, and I figured from the reviews that the movie would be a yawner (it was, though I am a big Dr. Seuss fan, it in no way did the book justice) so I was secretly hoping I might get a little shut-eye in without the kids noticing. No such luck, I forgot to bring my earplugs and movie theatres these days are way too loud to sleep through. But that's not what pissed me off most about this movie.

It also wasn't the terrible dialogue, the ridiculous instead of endearing portrayal of Horton, the meaningless supporting characters (including that really strange floating guinea-pig-like thing that even creeped my kids out, and hey my kids watch Pokemon so take that as you will), or the fact that the only one of the Mayor's children who he wanted to succeed him as mayor was his sole son - apparently none of his ninety-six daughters was worthwhile enough for the job (okay, that did piss me off, more than a little). No, what initially got me was the fact that they set up the kangaroo as the villain of the movie by showing her as an overbearing, underimaginative mom who "pouch-schools" her browbeaten joey because the other kids (shown having loads of fun) are learning to use their imaginations. She repeatedly tells her joey to "go to your room" while she shoves him down in her pouch. And repeatedly berates Horton for leading the other kids astray.

{Sigh}, once again as the media's imagination can't come up with anything truly funny, they reach again for tired stereotypes that they can make fun of. Yes, the secret is out. I homeschool my kids so I can keep them from using their imaginations! That's right, instead of them sitting for 6 hours a day being terribly imaginative studying standardized curriculum that teaches to the fill-in-the-bubble mandatory tests, they're home making sunflower houses in the garden, building boats out of milk crates, dreaming up new robotics designs, dancing to their own music compositions and other unimaginative things like that. Yep, that's why I homeschool them, to crush that imaginative spark.

I guess, as my husband points out, that this is a bit of reverse flattery. If homeschoolers weren't winning all those spelling and geography bees, being courted by Ivy League Schools, and without spending a fraction of the time studying, tromping all over the public school's standardized testing stats, then there wouldn't be any reaction at all to it. When homeschooling was done on the QT by a few brave families trying to squeak quietly by the big wheels of government then nobody cared enough to lampoon it.

Well, I better wrap this post up, I can hear my kids getting creative again in the background and I better go put the kibosh on that, pronto.

Ah.... Socialization

The kids performed their Lego robotics research project presentation and gave a table demonstration of their robot yesterday at a local high school. I, and the other parents, were sitting in the audience waiting for the kids to come out when another adult suggested that we all sit together, "because, well, otherwise the teenagers won't sit near you and they'll all be on the edges where they can't see." So we cootie-covered adults all herded together so that the teens could safely move closer.

Interestingly, I had just come from doing a couple of hours of volunteer time at our homeschooling co-op. There are tons of teenagers there, and outwardly you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between them and the regular high-school teens. Pimples, iPods, baggy pants and awkward haircuts abound. But with one signifigant difference: adults also swirled around and through them: parents, volunteers, teachers. I helped out in a science class, a Destination Imagination class, and in the general area. All of the classes have parents as helpers, the parents come and go from the classes as they are in progress. Kids check in with moms in the hallways or at cars in the parking lot, grab lunches together with their family or with their friends.

Adults are part of these kids' world. They don't seem to have any trouble socializing with each other, but their acceptable companionship boundary doesn't stop at age 18 either. I have to ask myself if a person is truly socialized if they fear contact with people of a certain age.

I first noticed this phenomenon long before having kids. My husband and I were leaders of the Middle School youth group for our church. It was our first contact with homeschooled kids, and the difference was striking. The school kids treated as at first like The Enemy. We were to be avoided, and if possible they should obviously never tell us anything important about themselves that we might somehow use against them. The homeschooled kids talked to us like normal people. I was reminded of that yesterday in the company of two very different groups of teenagers.

I know that some people in our society have come to view teenage fear, distrust, rebellion against, and even loathing of adults as somehow a normal rite of passage. I know that these same people think it would be strange, odd, or even somehow an indication of trouble if a teenager actually didn't mind hanging out with their parents or the parents of friends. Personally, I see it differently. I like my kids. They like me. They're interesting people that I feel lucky to spend time with. Ditto with their friends, the teens and pre-teens as well as the younger ones. I'm glad to see indications that this won't change as they head into teenagerhood, that what our society considers "normal" socialization is probably some kind of adaptation made in self-preservation.

In short, give me homeschooled "socialization" any day.