Temple Grandin at Cornell

I just returned from a lecture by Temple Grandin at Bailey Hall at Cornell. I've read several of her books and was really happy to get an opportunity to see her speak. Her subject was "On Autism", basically a primer on how the autistic mind works, and sometimes doesn't work, and how to intervene with autistic children in order that they have meaningful lives. Her basic metaphor was the brain as large office building, with the frontal cortex as CEO and then lots of different departments lodged in the different parts of the brain. Temple says her brain has tons of high-speed internet connections to a few departments, say graphic design, and one very slow, antiquated dial up connection to the human resources department. And recognizing that autistic brains tend to be very good at one limited area, parents and teachers need to steer children into careers and lifestyles that are consistent with what they are good at. She mentioned the importance of mentors and real life experience in those areas that a person is good at and enjoys. And she mentions her concern that with the overweening importance of testing and degrees, that many very intelligent, capable autistic people are being shut out of the careers they are suited to and shunted into meaningless jobs and unhappy existences.

She said all of this in the context of the school system, but it is easy to see that homeschooling, with its flexibility, ability to individualize a child's education and lack of worship for standardized tests can be a good option for the parent of a autistic child. When I withdrew my son from school after kindergarten, I always said it was so I could tailor his education to his abilities and not to his disabilities, which was the only thing that the school was interested in. Of course, homeschooling parents of autistic children are wise to partake of the services of professionals in the area of speech, occupational and other therapies. Also, Temple is a high functioning person with Asperger's, and not a severely disabled autistic person, who require much higher levels of intervention.

One thing that surprised me about Temple was her very sharp sense of humor - she had the audience cracking up at several points. I hadn't thought people with autism to be capable of the subtleties of humor. However, I don't know if she retains a sense of humor on the fly, or whether it is very much rehearsed and polished for lectures. But it certainly was a way for the audience to feel closer to her than I thought would be the case.

Homeschooling Article in the Ithaca Times

I was interviewed last week by a fairly disgruntled-sounding reporter for the Ithaca Times about homeschooling, (click post title for link to article) and more specifically, the Northern Light Learning Center. I guess I received the honor of being interviewed because mine is one of the only names and numbers on the website - I'm not out there lobbying to be the poster-family of homeschooling. At any rate, maybe one of the reasons the reporter is disgruntled is because she is in a career she is so completely unsuited for. I don't think I've ever read a worse sentence than the one in which I'm introduced! And I quote:

Among the largest members of organized groups of home-based educators are families who participate in the Northern Lights Learning Center. About 70 families are enrolled in the group, formed about 18 months ago, which rents space at the former Henry St. John's School Building at Court and Geneva Streets in downtown Ithaca to offer workshops and classes, as well as using the gymnasium at designated times for team sports and other activities. "If you were in a schooling environment, you'd see us as an extracurricular group," says Robin Tuttle, a member of the cooperative who currently teaches a writing class for teens. Tuttle homeschools her three children, sons ages 10-14"


I was out to dinner last night with my buds, Della and Monica, also homeschooling moms, and we were all a little put out by the end of the article which makes it sound like homeschooling is the province of only traditional middle class families with one parent at home and one parent working a traditional job. We know many families that look quite different: both parents working from home, both parents working out of the home but with staggered times so they can both spend time with the kids, single parent families, parents that look for flexible, creative income-making situations so they are not tied down to a traditional job or lifestyle. Some of the jobs held by homeschooling parents in our circle are artists, carpenters, writers, musicians, alternative health practitioners, potters, organic farmers, home-birth midwives, house cleaners, day care providers, house painters. It has been real eye opening for me to realize that the path to success is not necessarily paved with college degrees and the traditional professions.

Picture Caption: Tapping a maple tree at Sugarbush Project; a collaboration between the Cayuga Nature Center and the Northern Light Learning Center.

Ritalin? Perhaps an option I should not have overlooked!

I'm going to attempt to be really high tech and upload the video Eli took recently with my Olympus Stylus 710. Video quality is not great, but you can't beat this teeny tiny camera for portability. A kid could shoot video even while getting ready for soccer practice! I want you to realize that because Eli and Jake collectively play for 4 teams, have 4 games and 5 practices a week - this scenario plays out in this house far too often - and I really, really want you all to note how calm, cool and collected I am.

Homeschooling - Controversial?

I'm not really talking about all the religious homeschoolers who tend to practice what we call "school at home" - little desks lined up in a room of the house called a schoolroom, taking attendance, using textbooks and prepackaged curriculum, grades and testing, mom is teacher , dad is principal with ultimate authority. My experience is the opposite aparently of JJV - the media love these kinds of homeschoolers - very non-controversial, except for their propensity to use scientific texts without the benefit of the discussion of evolution, sexuality and all those topics that religious folks don't like to talk about These "homeschools" turn out basically the same product as the public schools.

What I'm talking about is unschooling, which is very controversial, being assailed by all kinds of people, from the media (check out Dr. Phil's recent show on the subject), a big series in some midwestern newspaper, maybe the Plain Dealer, I can't really remember, education experts (the Columbia professor in the recent NYT article), legislators, PTA zealots, as well as teacher's unions, professional educational bureacrats, etc. There is no doubt this kind of homeschooling is controversial - and that is because it is so far out of the box that people are used to education being packaged in.

And, btw, the religious right folks at HSLDA would like to have you believe that homeschooling is their baby alone, but the people that I credit with the concept that I'm practicing are folks writing the in the 60's and 70's like John Holt, A. S. Neill, Patrick Farenga, Ivan Ilich, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, Mark and Helen Hegener, and people thinking about the ideas of free/alternative schools. Religious homeschooling actually started well after the original movement when the tax laws caused many small Christian schools to close. It is true that religious people had a lot to do with legislation making homeschooling legal, but they certainly weren't the only ones, and they tend toward overregulation which I disagree with.

I don't know what the numbers are for unschoolers - no one does, these people often don't report to the government on principal, and states don't keep track of the different kinds of homeschooling happening.

I have also tended to notice in the national media that in cases of child abuse, or a child committing crimes - if that family/child was homeschooled this fact is featured prominently. And in the majority of such cases, where they weren't homeschooled, the fact that they are public schools students is not mentioned or at least not mentioned as a reason why abuse /crime occurs.