Allowance

The financial situation seems to finally be turning around, after a pretty rough winter, so George and I have started talking about the allowance issue. We hadn't considered it with Morgan at all, in part bc she's so much younger, but also bc she's right there with me, and often George, for the shopping, so talking about finances, budgets, savings, allocating funds, all that stuff is a regular part of her daily life. Ray's new to the family, and with his vampire lifestyle hasn't been awake for shopping opportunities. That's changing, but still, two kids at the store is often more than I'm up for. Either one of them is fabulous, but for some reason, the two together seem to ping off each other until I feel like I'm stuck in a popcorn popper full of bells and rubber snakes. Fantasies of duct tape.

Anyway, that has left us with a bit of a disparity, bc Mo's wants are still pretty easy to say yes to for a dollar or less, so she tends to get something whenever we go out. That's a big part of what's driving the allowance question. I want Ray to feel like he's every bit as much a member of the family as Morgan, and here she is, getting a bit of candy or a toy every day or so, while he gets... groceries. So far he hasn't said anything about that, but I'd like to head off any sense of unfairness, if possible, before it can start. Its a fair estimate that she gets twenty dollars worth of this kind of spending a month, and that's a do-able sum to give Ray, too, with our usual income.

Another issue has to do with the whole idea of finances as a way of learning about economics on a smaller scale than what he's been doing online. He can't learn about money if he doesn't have any, and he can't learn about making real world financial decisions unless he has enough to make decisions about. So the money is coming out of our "homeschool budget". Since those funds generally come out of my income, that will start next time I work at Morningside foods, and he'll get money on a monthly basis.

We're not tying allowance money to expectations of work. He has opportunities to work both here and jobs his mom sets up if he wants more money. Its possible he'll choose not to work for awhile as a result, but its not like we can afford to give him much. We're talking $20 a month, here. Still, if that's more than he's been used to getting (I honestly don't know) I wouldn't be surprised if he elected not to work for pay for a time.

I admit, my own knee-jerk first reaction to that is "that's not the way the real world works" but it doesn't take me long to see the fallacy of that kind of thinking. Sometimes it is the way the real world works. I've gotten a good bit of money that I haven't worked for and used it to buy property, build a house, renovate the barn, buy power tools. Its not that uncommon, and happens in a lot of different ways - windfalls or inheritances or a good stock portfolio or insurance money or whatever.

So that's the plan. If the family finances take another dip, we'll have to cut back, of course. That's the real life limitation to the allowance thing - its dependent on the family income.

springing forward

The weather change seems to have brought a major shift in Ray's sleep cycle. He'd been keeping to a mostly nocturnal lifestyle, but once he caught a whiff of warm spring air decided that being awake in the day-time might have some advantages after all. So for the past few weeks he's been struggling to shift back to more regular hours.

I'm fascinated to see him making these kinds of decisions so soon. I've been reading lots of other homeschoolers' tales of pulling kids out of school in the early teens and some take a whole year to decompress and be able to start making independent decisions, self-motivate, decide to learn actively rather than passively. A lot of that is just who Ray is - I mentioned that he seems to have a lot of "intrapersonal intelligence". He's really very introspective and thoughtful. I am glad, though, that George and I are already somewhat experienced in the world of autodidacticism - with Mo I mean. We're used to the idea that self-directed learning doesn't often "look like" school learning, so we're not all that tempted to nudge and coax and try to "get him to do things". That's a big hurdle for a lot of homeschoolers who are transitioning from either school or fairly structured homeschooling to interest based learning.

Quick Reference Learning Plan

It occurred to me that it would be convenient to have it all in one place, here on the blog, so voila.

Language arts: Emphasis on language as a tool for communication and learning.
Mathematics: Emphasis on real world skills and applications.
Science: Emphasis on joyful appreciation of the natural world
Social studies: Emphasis on appreciation of cultural diversity and historical change.
Physical Education:Emphasis on carving and the ollie.
Wellness: Emphasis on harmony with self, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually
Music: Emphasis on enjoyment and appreciation as a means of communication and a tool for political organization.
Arts: Emphasis on visual arts as a means of personal expression with regard to real world political, legal and social issues.
Community Service: Emphasis on family as a microcosm of larger community.

communication and "wellness"

I wanted to say a bit more on the subject of communication, which is the main emphasis in the "language arts" department, but with reference to another of the categories on the FS@H learning planner: "Wellness". Under this heading I've noted: Emphasis on harmony with self - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. That would be a pretty tall order if I were actually trying to impose some sort of curriculum on Ray, but, again, this is his emphasis. These are issues he's working on right now, in his own life. That's pretty gosh-darned spectacular, from my perspective. Its also one of the (many) reasons I think its soooo important to meet him "where he is" at every possible opportunity in terms of learning in general and communication in particular.

Talking with people is how Rayan learns. He learns other ways, too, but as far as conceptual learning goes, talking with people is his biggest, most important strategy. I want to be really clear about my language, here. The key word is "with". He's very very sensitive to anything other than friendly conversation, but he loves that! He's all about sharing what he thinks and feels about the world and getting feedback and ideas from others - as long as, from his perspective, it is a case of sharing, not "being told."

In light of this, creating an environment of free, open communication is really important. That's a challenge for us introverts! Its a challenge for me, especially, bc I have a lot of knowledge on the subjects of learning and cognition, in particular. Sometimes I can drop bits of that into conversation, a casual mention of multiple intelligences here, a word about yoga there.... sometimes he follows that up with a comment or question of his own, other times he's not interested. Conversation.

The very last category on the learning planner is "Community service" under which I've noted: Emphasis on family as microcosm for larger community. That kind of sounds like a cop-out, but it revolves around this whole idea of building communication. If Ray can learn to communicate with us - a family of people he doesn't know very well, isn't really sure of, and doesn't have a lot in common with, he stands a far greater chance of being able to communicate with the many many others in the world who share his passions and views and connect with some of those who don't. Building bridges of communication with this very very social guy is going to be far more important in the long run than any other service we can offer him.

Online education LOL!

I've been filling out paperwork -finally, finally, the Farm School @ Home has forms to fill out! Anyway, included in all that has been a "learning plan", which I really should transcribe onto this blog. Some of that will show up in this post. I'm also sending FS@H the addy for this blog as part of our "reporting" process. Now for the good stuff....

We've subscribed to Runescape! Rayan loves it. He's shifted his sleep cycle so that he's up most of the night. That cuts down a lot of the competition for the computer, which was starting to be an issue. Whew. If you don't know about Runescape, its an online role-playing game- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runescape. We were actually hoping for the fancier World-of-Warcraft, but at the moment it looks like our dial-up won't support it . Runescape is a simpler game in many ways, but it still has the online, realtime conversational feature that Rayan just adores.

He spends a great deal of his time sending and receiving messages, which I think is a good thing, especially in light of what I've been going on about wrt multiple intelligences. Direct communication is a big part of his learning process. I said something about that in the "learning plan", in the section marked "language arts": Emphasis on Language as a tool for communication and learning.

This is one of those places where self-directed learning gets really interesting, because this really is Rayan's emphasis. We're trying to work with that, rather than against it. Right now, Rayan values reading and writing as a means to communicate. That's great. Its, arguably, the purpose of all reading and writing anyway. There's a bit of Montessori philosophy that suggests that when a kid is struggling with a more sophisticated concept, to look at the subject from a global-historical perspective. I'm not sure I'd describe Rayan as struggling, but he's certainly resistant, at this point, to the idea of making use of reading/writing for anything more than fairly basic communication. Keepin' in touch and, the most basic of all: commerce.

In the "mathmatics" section of the learning plan thingy, I stated: Emphasis on real world skills and applications, and listed a few (like the kitchen) but virtual commerce is one of the totally independent ways Rayan is working in this area, largely on Runescape. I'm not talking about selling virutal stuff for real money, which is of questionable legality at best. I'm talking truely virtual commerce - doing virtual work and trading virtual goods and services. Sounds weird, doesn't it? On a philosophical level, I don't think its any weirder than alot of what goes on in public schools. On a real world "what's up with Rayan" level, he's using the virtual world to explore real world ideas like supply and demand, exchange rates, and market fluxuations. Wow.

But wait! there's more! The beauty of doing this right now in the "virtual" world is that Rayan is enjoying himself, rather than feeling pressured to "behave responsibly" in terms of money. Who cares if he blows a million gold pieces on dragon-scale armor just 'cause its RED? Its all a game, right? So we, boring grownups wondering how to get all the bills paid in the same month, don't have to fuss and stress about wasting money. That's a good thing. It lets him test and try and experience consequences that don't actually hurt him. To learn the kinds of things he's picking up on Runescape he'd have to be doing something pretty amazing and/or illegal in the real world, with all the stress and danger that goes along with that.

Okay, so this is starting to get long, and I have some deep-frying to do, while Ray's at the skatepark fulfilling his "phys ed" requirement . I think I'm going to try to go through the whole learning plan thingy essentially the way I've treated it in this post - that will remind me to post a little more regularly, and also give me some ideas if I'm feeling "stuck" in terms of what to say. I mentioned in an earlier post that the hardest part of independent learning is reporting it - its just a kid living his life!

now we're cooking

Rayan has been interested in cooking simple things, so I've been helping him out with that. Right now I'm sticking with things he's initiating, so they've all been "convenience" foods - especially things that can be made using the microwave, since that's still kind of a novelty for him.

Since he hates to read, and doesn't really seem to even listen if I read directions to him, I've been trying to work with his natural process, which is (as we all know) very social. The first couple times I just make whatever he wants and ask if he wants to watch and/or hang out in the kitchen with me while I'm doing it. Since hanging out is one of his favorite activities, that works well . Next I'll ask if he wants to do it with me helping - if he's feeling confident he'll say yes, if not, I don't push.

Eventually, after walking through the whole process a couple times with me right there, a time will come when he wants a particular food and I'm in the middle of something else and he'll dive in on his own. He still hates to read! so if he forgets a step or needs a hand he asks me, and that's fine, I'll just tell him what he needs to know. Often he wants his math checked - if you want an indictment against public education, watching this kid trying to double a recipe is it! After a time or two of this kind of help, he's good to go! Tada!

This is the sort of thing that (I think) is working because I'm not holding on to any kind of expectations as to what he should be able to do. It would be really tempting to say "Dude! you know how to read! this isn't rocket science, its soup!" but I'm not going there. Its not important to me how he learns this stuff - or even that he learns it, really. Its more important that he builds up a sense of confidence in his own abilities. He's good at learning from interacting with other people. That's not true of everyone - me for example.

Hmmm. It occurs to me that I should find a way to talk with him about this - the whole learning style thing. I'm not sure he sees "learning from others" as a skill, at this point. Its just something he does, whereas school has told him (over and over) that he should be learning by reading and following directions. We've talked about the fact that he's an extrovert and George and I are introverts, but mostly in the sense of how-not-to-get-on-each-others-nerves. But the fact is Rayan is good at learning directly from other people, and I'm not, and that sometimes creates some confusion between us.

One place we're really noticing it is wrt computer games. He keeps wanting to tell me how to do things - he's trying to be friendly and helpful and this is how he learns, after all - and it drives me nuts because I want to try a few things out, consult the instructions and handy reference charts and only when all else fails ask someone. That's my process. Interesting to think of computer games as a way to discuss learning styles.

New projects in slow times

Since we can't go to the skatepark every day, and World of Warcraft isn't loading properly, Rayan has found another project (entirely independently, too). He has been rebuilding older bearings for his skateboard. Taking a page from George's book, he decided to pull apart all the bearings that weren't working anymore and salvage the useful parts. The result is several useable bearings rather than a pile of useless ones. And he's learning a lot about what a bearing is and how it works - at least this particular kind. He was somewhat nonplussed when I commented that there were different kinds, so the next time George needs to overhaul one of his powertools, I'll have to remind him to invite Rayan to come watch.

He brought out a few of the half-finished bearings (Rayan) to show me what he was doing. Its pretty deft work - lots of itty bitty bits. He seems to be really enjoying the process. Once the cash starts flowing again (ha!) we might need to look in to some more tools for him. Right now he's using a pocket-knife to disassemble the things.

In the mean-time, being broke an' all, we're spending more time at home than we might otherwise. I'm trying to think of it as "nesting" and working on making this nest appealing and accessible to two very different kids at once. TV is proving to be a valuble resource in this area. Ray loves to talk about things, so talking about tv shows, movies, commercials, is letting us have a way to connect and share information. He's also learning some things along the way, although I try not to stress that. Don't want to put him off, as it were!