Day 43 - Ear Loans

For the past couple of weeks I have been asking Ben to pick an article from the newspaper or a magazine and write a one paragraph summary. Yesterday I asked him to pick an article from the latest Newsweek for us to look at today. He chose an opinion piece written by the mayor of Ketchikan, Alaska - the once building site of the 'Bridge To Nowhere'. I read his summary without reading the article and laughed at a part where he referred to an 'ear loan'.

What do you know about the proposed bridge? I immediately remembered the multi-hundred million dollar bridge to a island of 50 people. That is correct, but not the reason for the bridge. It seems that 30 years ago they were building an airport for this isolated town and they built it on the other side of the waterway, with the promise that it would be linked sometime. Currently the only access is via ferry. (The town is located at the base of mountains and so there was no nearby flat land to build an airport on the towns side of the water.)

The airport services 250,000 people a year. The surrounding flat land serves as the only developable land in the area. The town would like some room to grow to meet the needs of the many Cruise Ships that stop there during the summer.

It could easily be argued that $395 million dollars (a figure that was interestingly left out of the opinion piece) is still too much to pay to meet this need. Still, framing the issue as a bridge to a island of 50 people is a bit disingenuous as well.

In talking about the article we looked at the location via google maps. (It looks like a stunningly beautiful place.) We also defined and looked for the source for the term Earmark (rooted in the practice of identifying livestock ownership with cuts on the ear).

I was reminded that 'the truth' is rarely as clear or simple as it is often framed.

Day 42 - Strange Week

It has been a strange week at the SOD. Our afternoons have been Halloween focused and the mornings we had worked through the routine stuff. I am in a bit of a holding pattern as we get to the end of October and plan a November that needs to be different from September and October.

(Better entries will be forthcoming here next week.)

Day 41 - Keeping Busy

In addition to our regular work, Ben and I spent some time getting his Halloween costume together. He is going as a character of his own making so that leaves some flexibility in the quality of the final product. The headpiece of carved Styrofoam painted yellow is quite a sight. The faculty is in an unsettled mode as we try to figure out how to proceed. We are keeping busy and focusing on Math and Writing.

Day 40 - Not 41

It should have been Day 41 today but on Friday I had to make a trip to WI for my Sisters 50th birthday. Originally I was going to take Ben but that plan changed for a variety of reasons – mostly because he did not want to sit in the car for 8 hours there and back. His brother was home from school on Friday so I left him home, with a list of work to take care of.

In that he accomplished none of the work, the day could not even be counted as a half day. He was reintroduced to the concept of consequences today. I did not sense he was talking responsibility for his mistake, but he will fully pay the cost nonetheless.

Day 39 - The Talk

Ben and I had a talk today about whether we need to look into him going to ‘regular’ school. The main driver is the recognition that he is not getting the peer contact that he would like. We understood that is a cost of home schooling but we felt the benefit of studying on his own terms would make up for it. I have not been feeling like he has received that benefit, but he is paying the cost.

Many things to think about.

Day 38 - Math Problems

Since the beginning of the year I have given Ben a set of math problems to finish by the end of the week. Some weeks they have been difficult. Other weeks they have been fairly straightforward. My initial intention was for him to present the finished work on Friday. I told him that he could show them to me any day and I would tell him if they were correct but I expected them correct on Friday.

I quickly realized this would not work. He was doing them (poorly) at the last minute with little regard to presentation or whether they were correct.

Next I told him to have a rough draft of them mid week so I could see progress. This proved ineffective as well.

Now I have him present one problem each day. Initially this still produced a rough effort but I have been stressing presentation and ‘telling the story’ of the problem. The last couple of days he has done much better. It is good to see the progress.

Day 37 - His world

I asked Ben for a tour of his Wiki world today. He has been very anxious about it lately because of a fear that kids under 13 were going to be blocked from the site. We were talking about some website development and I asked about how things were done on the Wiki.

Ben gave me a tour but it was clear that it was making him uneasy.

“Is something bothering you Ben?”
“No – it just makes me uncomfortable.”
“Why is that?”
“This is my place and I like having it to myself.”

With that we moved on to something else.

Day 36 - Cars

I continue to struggle with feeling like I am not making a significant connection with Ben. He is fairly transparent and it is easy to tell when he is not excited about something. We will driving to the Library today and I was talking with him about this (not a new conversation). I told him I am open to exploring anything but I cannot figure out what he is currently interested in.

We drove for a while and he said, “Dad, you know what I think would be cool?”“What?” I asked with some anticipation.“I would like to know how a car works!”
I was a bit skeptical since he has never expressed any interest in this topic before. Still I contemplated what we could do as we drove. It would be a very interesting topic.

Once home he never spoke of it again. I will bring it up tomorrow but I am guessing he was just filling a silence.

Day 35 - Interest Gap

Each week I ask Ben to write a letter to someone. He has to pick the recipient by Tuesday, write a draft by Thursday, and put the final copy in the mail on Friday. (In addition to giving him some regular writing experience, I had hoped this would also generate some incoming mail but that has not happened.)

The purpose of the draft is not to give me an opportunity to edit it. Instead I want him to take the assignment seriously and I want him to know that I will be reading it and offering comment. I do not require changes or modify the text.

The letters have not been very interesting writing. I have told him that I (as well as the recipient) would prefer a short interesting letter to a longer one filled with fluff. He is quick to fall into a pattern of asking a lot of question while offering little introspection.

It is easy to gage Ben’s level of interest in a task by seeing the result, and this work has showed a clear lack thereof. This week he was talking about his Halloween costume and I reminded him of the great time he had last year making a paper mache mask at the Art Studio of his 5th grade art teacher. In this week’s letter he chose to write the teacher a note about that memory and told him about his current costume plans. It was an animated and funny letter that was the type of writing I had hoped he would produce previously.

Bridging the ‘interest’ gap remains the primary goal and challenge at the SOD.

Day 34 - Redo

Ben had a Math problem that he needed to prepare on paper and then present on the board today. He had the same task yesterday and his presentation had been OK but the written work was not very good. I told him to redo it for today after modeling what I was looking for.

The written work today was again subpar. He had not redone the problem from yesterday and today’s problem was not presented well on paper. Furthermore the answer – though correct – was not presented the way it was told to be presented (in scientific notation).

Ben was not happy when I told him that he needed to do both problems again, this time in the form that I had asked him to. He was indignant that I would ask him to redo something where the answer was right.

“But the answer was not right.”
“Yes it was."
“No it was not. The problem called for the answer in scientific notation. You did not present it that way.”

I understood that his complaining was mostly excuses masking the central issue – he simply did not want to do them again.

I provided the same thought I always do – “You would save yourself a lot of time if you slowed down a little and did things correctly the first time.”

I did not sense him immediately taking it to heart.

Day 33 - Contrast

Ben worked on two projects today that were an interesting contrast. First he worked on the draft of a prompt related to the book that we just finished reading. This work is being edited by someone else and I have taken myself completely out of the loop. I did not review the first draft, the comments he received, or the second draft he made based on the comments.

In the second project we were gathering and graphing some weather data. We did this together. We spent considerable time on presentation, including graphing. Left to my own devices, it is the type of thing that I could spent a lot of time fine tuning.

My guess is that with the first project he did not take sufficient time processing the comments, and in the second the level of detail was beyond his interest or need.

The ultimate question is will his next writing or data analysis project be most influenced by the work on these tasks. I honestly do not know, but will be sure to find out.

Day 32 - Comics

Ben is a big fan of the Comics. He can spend a remarkable amount of time reading the two pages that are printed in the daily paper. Today we branched out a bit. We looked at the organization of the paper. It has four daily sections and we discussed the content that could normally be found in each. Then we looked through the Main page and came upon an article about the government changing its recommendation for the amount of Vitamin D that should be ingested daily. We discussed what foods have Vitamin D naturally (few), and which are fortified with it. We looked at the cereals in the pantry and found only one that has Vitamin D – “that is the only cereal that we have that I do not like.”

Then we looked at the Wall Street Journal for contrast.

The exercise was another reminder of the simple things that we assume our kids know. (It was also a reminder of what a poor newspaper reader I can be.)

Day 31 - Economics

Like everyone, the global economic situation has made this a difficult week. There is nothing for most of us to do. There is no understanding what is happening. A sign of improvement could probably not be recognized if it were to happen. I told Ben as we walked today that uncertainty and powerlessness are a tough combination. Fear is the greatest byproduct. It has cast a feeling of anxiety that has been ever present. I remember the similar feeling last year at this time as Susan was looking for a job and where we would land was uncertain.

Ben and I got some fresh air this afternoon. It was the best thing the SOD could have done today.

Day 30 - Good Day

As we drove home from Art Class today, Ben said, “It has been a good day!”. Last week he got the idea that he would like to bake some Lace Cookies for his class. We had first made the cookies a few weeks ago during one of our Friday cooking sessions. They are more candy then cookie – just Ben’s style. We baked them yesterday afternoon and he was quite happy with the result. He reported that everyone in the class loved them.

The best part was that it had been his idea. It is hard for a kid to feel much satisfaction in something that they do not take ownership in and the opposite is equally true. I told him that I hoped he would be coming up with more good ideas.

Day 29 - Bridge

With Day 30 at hand, I have yet to find any rhythm. I feel like I am trying to bridge an excitement gap and have yet to do so with much success. I told Ben today, “If we are just doing things that you would do in school then you should be in school.”

Of course the School of Dad is not happening in a vacuum. There are other factors internal and external to our family that add additional stress that makes the focus I would like to have difficult to obtain. (I am no different than anyone else in facing those pressures.)

The bottom line is that I wish I felt like I was doing Ben justice.

Day 28 - No Comment

No deep thoughts today – but many very shallow ones I will not share.

Day 27 - Virus

At the top of things that I did not need was to feel sick today. I acquired the family virus yesterday and it stayed with me through today. Poor weekend homework performance did not make me feel any better. Today was the kind of day you just get through. We did.

Day 26 - Thinking

I was thinking again today about the difficulty of setting reasonable expectations. The difference between being ‘stuck in the mud’ and covering a topic adequately can be a fine one. Having one student makes the 'quality versus quantity' issue very different. Isn’t it more important that he demonstrates understanding of the material then that we move on for the sake of covering more?

I have come to understand that when Ben says, “I am thinking” it really means that he is not thinking and instead is stalling. I told him today that I do not remember the last time that “I am thinking” was followed soon thereafter by an actual thought.

Day 25 - Hill

I told Ben today that I am feeling like we are heading up a hill with me pulling while he is dragging his heels.

Day 24 - Expectations

One problem that I constantly run into is determining what reasonable performance is. With no frame of reference, I look for 'what I would like to see', which I recognize might be unrealistic. When the gap between my expectations and actual production is great, I am left wondering if the gulf is a product of asking to much, not teaching well, a skill deficit, or - the most likely cause - a combination of them all.

I am guessing that one benefit of having a room full of kids is that you do not have the luxury of standing still and waiting until everyone reaches the point you want to be so you must learn to find satisfaction in moving kids forward. With a class of one it is easy to beat a topic to death in the hope that you will recieve the result you wnat.

I remind myself everyday to not get stuck in the mud. Sometimes it works.