03.17.08
Posted in Books, Health, Food at 1:45 pm by Christina
Jeff and I began our second juice fast of our new cycle, the last one being in late January. I have confirmed that via the fasting efforts I will achieve my immediate goal of getting within the weight requirements for private health insurance, so that is reassuring. Now I am working on concurrent efforts to the fasting: exercise issues, and emotional eating issues.
I am finding that my choice to do high-density willpower bursts (the fasts) is a more sustainable approach for me than trying to maintain a constantly high level of vigilance across all three fields of play: nutrition, exercise, and personal growth/healing. My overall nutrition is good for maintenance, and will be great once I’ve gained better success with regular exercise. (That’s even given bouts of emotional eating.) Tackling the caloric restriction necessary for actually losing weight through concentrated fasting is working well, given all the factors involved.
I have made some discoveries in my readings on the growth and healing front. Two important books I’ve read recently are The Solution by Laurel Mellin (R.D.) and The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs. The Solution discusses six areas that lead to an inappropriate relationship with food: weak nurturing, ineffective limits, body shame, poor vitality, unbalanced eating, and stalled living. The Simple Living Guide is about voluntary simplicity, the concept of paring down excess in your life in order to live it more fully. In particular, things I learned about myself from time with these books:
If my life seems so busy that I’m having trouble making time for things that are important, then my life is too busy and I need to reprioritize.
I have difficulty accepting “necessary pain” in life, very much preferring an easy road.
My expectations are often so high that I can’t even get started because I know failure is inevitable.
These observations give me areas to focus my energies when not on an active fast.
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Posted in Travel, Family at 8:44 am by Christina
Jamie and I are recently returned from New York and the funeral of my grandfather, Raymond Pisani. He was in his nineties and had been declining for several months, presumably from advanced bladder cancer for which the family had decided to cease regular treatments. Pepa had been progressively senile and the treatments were extremely difficult for him starting about a year ago.
Jamie and I traveled east with the generous company of my brother and nephew, who both flew into Oakland rather than heading due east; this was a big deal especially for my brother, because he could have gone direct from LA and conserved more than a day of personal time. We so appreciated their company and assistance! We no doubt could have managed the trip, but it would have meant violating my minimum food and entertainment requirements for a 6+ hour trip with a toddler…
We spent 2.5 days with my extended Pisani family honoring my grandfather’s life. After Tuesday’s full travel day, Wednesday was spent visiting, both at Grandma’s apartment and at the funeral home. Thursday we attended the church and cemetery services, as well as a family luncheon after those. Thursday evening we looked through many old family photographs: Pepa’s parents and his youth; a special journal of pictures sent to him from the U.S., mostly from Grandma, while he was stationed in the Pacific (as an Army dentist) during WW2; and snaps of him as a father after the war.
There were military honors at the cemetery, and I asked my father afterwards if Pepa would have appreciated so much emphasis on his army service. I was under the impression that he really didn’t enjoy that era of his life, because he lost a dear brother in Europe (without getting to say goodbye due to an unexpected deployment followed by the death soon after; there probably wasn’t even time for letters to be sent) and also didn’t meet his oldest child for almost two years. Although his parents had emigrated from Italy and others made trips there to meet relatives and visit the ancestral soil, he always refused to leave the United States because of what had happened the first and only time he ever did so, during the war. However, I learned from my dad that quite to the contrary, despite the obvious tragic aspects of the war, my grandfather was otherwise quite happy with military service. He wanted to remain in the army as a career officer after the war, but my grandmother didn’t like the frequent relocations. He served in the reserves for about twenty more years, enjoying his two-week stints each summer and retiring as (I believe) a lieutenant colonel. He even tried to reenlist for the Korean War, but was “too old” at that point. My dad said that the regimentation and order were most appealing to him, the chain of command, as well as the fact that he could enjoy his dentistry without being in private practice. Pepa was a very meek personality and although he was a successful dentist from the moment he graduated at the top of class, the management aspects of private practice (getting people to pay you what you asked and so forth) were incredibly stressful for him.
You learn something every day!
Jamie was a trooper on this trip, enduring four straight days of extreme management of his time and energy. Despite, or perhaps as a result of, being used to much freedom, he was able to cooperate with the many strictures on him as a result of planes, trains and automobiles, funeral homes, churches and restaurants. Not to mention not-toddler-proof hotel rooms and apartments, and time zone changes. I won’t overdo the modesty; much of our success arose from my own skills, developed over twelve years of traveling with my kids, resulting in choices on my part such as the original asking for traveling companions both for transport and lodging, and continuing through such actions as encouraging quiet sticker play in the back of the church and so on.
I am very glad I made the trip. I don’t know that I needed it so much for personal closure; but I would have missed out on the shared reminiscing that was so wonderful, and I know the support to those who are feeling his loss more keenly than I was greatly appreciated.
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03.07.08
Posted in Homeschooling, Commentary, Articles, Current Events, Activism, Education at 4:05 pm by Christina
A ruling came out of California’s Second Appellate Court last week, in re Rachel L., that if read quite broadly, denies everyone but credentialed teachers the right to homeschool their children in this state:
“California courts have held that under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children. Thus, while the petition for extraordinary writ asserts that the trial court’s refusal to order attendance in a public or private school was an abuse of discretion, we find the refusal was actually an error of law. It is clear to us that enrollment and attendance in a public full-time day school is required by California law for minor children unless (1) the child is enrolled in a private full-time day school and actually attends that private school, (2) the child is tutored by a person holding a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught, or (3) one of the other few statutory exemptions to compulsory public school attendance (Ed. Code, § 48220 et seq.) applies to the child.” (page 3)
In California, there is no “homeschooling”. There is public schooling, compulsory attendance to which is required of children aged 6 to 18; and there are a few exemptions to compulsory attendance. The pertinent exemptions from this case are listed in Ed. Code Section 48220ff. Children can be exempted from attendance by one of two paths: credentialed tutoring or private schooling. The tutoring exemption is very specific, requiring an appropriate state credential as well as regulated hours of instruction. The private school exemption (48222 in the above link) is far more general:
- “Children who are being instructed in a private full-time day school by persons capable of teaching shall be exempted.”
- Teaching must be in English, with certain exceptions.
- The school must “offer instruction in the several branches of study required to be taught in the public schools.”
- Attendance must be kept, including all absences half a day or greater.
The exemption is valid after the attendance supervisor or similarly designated official confirms that the private school is in compliance with Section 33190, the private school affidavit statute, which requires an annual filing with the state. (In practice, I don’t believe any district verifies the private school exemption proactively for every private school student; that would be incredibly costly in staff and funding each year. The exemption is only verified if an attendance challenge is made.) Interestingly,
“The verification required by this section shall not be construed as an evaluation, recognition, approval, or endorsement of any private school or course.” (48222 again)
This is echoed in 33190:
“Filing pursuant to this section shall not be interpreted to mean [legal jargon about what “mean” means] … that the State of California, the Superintendent of Public Instruction [etc.] … has made any evaluation, recognition, approval, or endorsement of the school or course … “
These clauses emphasize the determination of the state to avoid interference in the educational operations of private schools. Private schools are therefore free to pursue with broad discretion the type of education they choose, both in content and in methodology. A school is free to teach young earth creationism or to implement the free democratic school philosophy (e.g. Sudbury Valley or Summerhill strategy), or other content or methodology as they wish.
In practice, the combination of the private school exemption and the very limited private school regulations (essentially an hour or two of paperwork each year for a tiny, two-student school such as I operate) have formed the foundation for independent homeschooling in this state. There is nothing in California law, statutory or judicial, that restricts the establishment of a private school as done by homeschoolers here. No law
- says a private school can’t be located in a private residence.
- says a private school must charge tuition.
- says a private school must have a minimum number of students.
- says a private school teacher can’t instruct their own child(ren). (In fact, the criminal background check provision for school personnel states explicitly that it is waived for a parent working exclusively with their own child(ren).)
- says a private school can’t have one adult who is principal, faculty and staff simultaneously.
Although the recent ruling has every homeschool e-list in the state, and many more around the country, wildly abuzz with strategic discussion and well-informed indignation, in a strict reading the Second Appellate Court has changed only one aspect of California’s education law. In a Bill Clinton-esque (someone else’s beautifully appropriate adjective) application of semantics, the private school exemption statute was interpreted to mean that a student must be in physical attendance at the private school:
“Section 48222 provides an exemption from compulsory public school education for ‘[c]hildren who are being instructed in a private full-time day school.’ (Italics added.)” (ruling p.15; italicized emphasis of “in” is part of the ruling, just to be clear!)
The children in the case, while enrolled in a private school, participated in that school’s independent study program (ISP). The school in question does in fact have a campus program as well, but there are many ISP-only private schools throughout the state serving homeschoolers exclusively. What the Second Appellate Court discovered is that there is no law (pro or con) governing the authority of a private school to offer independent study. There is only Ed. Code 51745, which gives authority to public school districts and county boards of education to establish ISPs (presumably but not explicitly within the public system).
It is important to note that this case does not arise solely from a compulsory attendance challenge, but from the family’s frequent intersection with various child protective services. This particular case was instigated by one of the children on behalf of herself and I believe two of her siblings, for various reasons of neglect and/or abuse. Their court-appointed attorneys wanted them in a traditional school facility, where they would be under the regular observation of more adults; this would presumably give them more protection against said neglect and/or abuse. The trial court ruled that the parents have a constitutional right to homeschool, and the appellate court overturned that ruling of law, with the full documentation of statute and precedent.
I have concluded, from reading through the various documents and statutes, that my own homeschooling choice (to run a private school) is not affected by this ruling. I am in compliance with all the private school regulations, and my children attend, on-site, a private school within the exemption guidelines ruled in this case. I do not expect district officials to come to my door demanding truancy proceedings on my kids.
Notwithstanding the legitimacy of my own homeschooling method, I believe this ruling makes an unfairly strict interpretation of the private school exemption by denying the right of a private school to offer independent study. Since independent study is explicitly organized for the public schools in 51745, the state obviously believes it is acceptable for a student to do the bulk of their learning away from the direct supervision of their official school teacher. Given the minimalist statutory regulation of private schools in California, quite the opposite of this ruling makes better sense: that there is an implied right for a legally compliant private school similarly to offer independent study. Independent study by definition reduces a student’s exposure to their teacher; whether that teacher is public and credentialed, or private and “capable of teaching”, makes no difference. The court could easily have ignored or rejected the parents’ “constitutional right to homeschool” argument and made the case under welfare law that it was “in the best interests” of the children that they be enrolled in a traditional school.
State Superintendent Jack O’Connell went on record in response to media inquiries about this ruling that he supports “parental choice when it comes to homeschooling”, which is a bit vague but still a reasonable comment, unlike the teachers’ union officials who have cited the ruling in support of their belief that all students should be taught by a credentialed teacher, obviously in complete ignorance of CA private school regulations. Governor Schwarzenegger went on record more vehemently, calling the ruling “outrageous” and for it to be overturned by the courts or by new legislation. This support from state officials is greatly appreciated, though there is rampant speculation that they are less motivated by concern for parental rights, and more concerned with the reality that 166,000 homeschooled kids at more than $7500 per child means the state would need to find $1.245 billion merely in ADA funding (average daily attendance), to say nothing of facility space for all those kids, at a time of universal cuts to balance a state budget with a shortfall of $7 billion or more.
The assorted homeschooling advocacy groups concerned with California issues (I belong to both HSC and CHN and there are others) are strongly against legislative action and are recommending that individual homeschoolers sit tight while the legal eagles work for a milder, but still thorough, resolution to the issue. (In general, legislation is not desired because it always comes with extensive hoops that detract seriously from the efficacy of homeschooling; the most intrusive and most common is standardized testing, which as we see in the public schools causes “teaching to the test” and erodes true education and learning.) These advocates have agreed to seek from the CA Supreme Court the “depublication” of the ruling; this step would have the ruling limited to the troubled family at issue in the case, thereby denying its broader application vis a vis the statutory interpretations.
I strongly support this action as promoting both an affirmation of the rights of California homeschoolers and a positive resolution for the children at risk in the case. I have made a financial donation to the legal effort, and have offered my time and energy as a volunteer to the various legal and media teams. (I did a pre-interview with a TV reporter this morning but the manager didn’t approve his story; this afternoon, I spoke on record with a reporter for the Fresno Bee.)
If you are interested in making a financial donation to support the effort, here are the direct links for that: HSC CHN
Links to articles and statements about the case:
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02.20.08
Posted in Homeschooling, Kids, Household, Music at 10:11 am by Christina
Trying to get back into the habit of keeping friends and family informed about our lives, I’m going to share for you what our Wednesdays are like these days.
It’s a sleep-in morning for us, after a very early Tuesday; the girls’ theater troupe performs in schools Tuesday mornings, so we’re up by 7am usually. Yesterday it was 6! One of the things we love best about homeschooling is the limited use of alarm clocks (aided by the home business as well), the ability to be on our own natural rhythms.
At 10:30 Emma and I leave for her one-hour harp lesson, leaving Jamie at home with Jeff and Katie. I would like for this to not require me, for Jamie and I to be able to go to the nearby park; as a beginning harpist at 8, though, it is helping for me to be sitting in on the lessons to take notes and to understand myself what is going on.
We get home at 12:30 for lunchtime. Wednesdays are our “hot lunch” day to balance the picnic dinner (keep reading for that one). We are on a four-week meal rotation, which includes two bulk cooking meals each week. Weeks 1/3 and 2/4 I freeze a meal-sized portion to eat for hot lunch on the opposite week. Then on Wednesday mornings I do any prep work so that Jeff and Katie can put the final touches on a meal that’s ready when we get home. Today, we’re having pesto pasta, so I have to toast pine nuts and prep cauliflower for steaming; then Jeff and Katie will cook the pasta and cauliflower before we get home and we’ll eat.
We only have an hour before we head out again, this time for the rest of the day. Wednesdays are our music day from top to bottom. At 1:30 we head over to San Leandro, where I drop Katie and Emma off for their violin lessons. They bring their backpacks along and work at the teacher’s dining room table while the other is in lesson. Jamie and I go to a nearby park (unless he’s fallen asleep; but naptime is usually delayed if he’s in the car).
We pick the girls up at 3:30 and have an hour before Katie’s flute lesson starts. (The afternoon takes place in three neighboring towns.) Jamie usually falls asleep at this point, and I take the girls to another park for half an hour of fresh air and exercise. Last time they jumped off the swings for the entire thirty minutes!
At 4:15 we begin the overlap shuffle. First to Katie’s flute lesson, where she is dropped off for a 4:30 start time. Then a quick drive to Emma’s 4:45 orchestra start time. Back to Katie’s 5:00 pickup! We don’t have to be back at orchestra for Katie until 5:45, so occasionally I run an errand (like a Trader Joe’s stop for Jamie’s milk) before going back. Katie eats her picnic dinner during this interval.
Emma likes to stay to observe Katie’s orchestra (I think actually she enjoys the video games and DVD players that other siblings there have). Jamie likes to play in the van. I usually have a book along to read. The rest of us eat our picnic dinner while Katie is in orchestra.
This next bit is not happening today, because my choral auditions are finished and we don’t know which pieces were selected; most groups won’t get back into rehearsals until March anyway, so I’ve a couple of weeks off. Except for these breaks, what usually happens is that Jeff meets us at orchestra at 6:45 and I leave for my 7:00 rehearsal. Jeff hangs with Jamie until Katie is done at 7:15, and then they all head for home.
Whew! It doesn’t usually feel as crazy as it looks all written out, and although it is a lot of time on the road in a time when we are working to conserve gas and otherwise reduce our footprint, I remind myself that I am driving for a family and that I made an effort to access activities that were located as locally as possible. Most of the afternoon happens in a six-mile corridor.
This is hands-down our busiest day of the week. (Thank goodness!)
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01.14.08
Posted in Books, Reviews at 12:01 am by Christina
I haven’t written a post in quite a while, what with the girls wrapping up Oliver, my own choral concerts and the holidays, but I am motivated immediately to post about tonight’s PBS airing of Jane Austen’s Persuasion in a new adaptation for Masterpiece Theatre. What an amazing production! 90 minutes of sheer bliss as Anne Elliot encounters her rejected suitor and they discover their love still burns. As much as I adore Pride & Prejudice, both the novel and of course the BBC miniseries with Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, I think Persuasion is my favorite Austen novel. The 1995 BBC production of Persuasion starring Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds is exquisitely done, and this new one, staring Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones, is a beautiful rendition as well. I think one of the reasons I love Persuasion so much is that Anne Elliot is a mature heroine; on top of that, I think that for an old married lady like myself the theme of love rejuvenated is more resonant than the first-love themes in the other books.
In any case, Masterpiece Theatre is running a “Complete Jane Austen” in the coming weeks, featuring new productions of four books and rebroadcasting the Ehle/Firth Pride and Prejudice and the Kate Beckinsale Emma. I encourage you to curl up on Sunday evenings with what looks to be a terrific set of Austen films!
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10.17.07
Posted in Books, Reviews at 8:45 am by Christina
I’ve just written up a review of this terrific book over at A Woman of Mystery.
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10.15.07
Posted in Kids at 3:07 pm by Christina
If anyone has a source for these, your basic white onesies that I can purchase in bulk without breaking the bank, I would love it if you would pass it on to me! Onesies are an important part of the cloth diapering equation, and Jamie is long-waisted and out of the 2T/24m size now… Everywhere I’ve looked stops onesies at that size, so I’m getting a bit desperate! Thanks!! (And Gerber makes a 3T size but based on my research it’s more of a 24m.)
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09.28.07
Posted in Homeschooling, Parenting, Kids, Family at 4:57 pm by Christina
Camp Poomee is my kids’ weekly day with their grandparents (Jeff’s folks) who live in the next town to us. This day - Friday right now - is one of the single greatest contributors to my mental health, since as a homeschooling parent I am with my kids almost all the time. Some days I wish my own parents lived in the next town so I could have two days a week! But then I remember that my parents contribute to this by having the kids for extended periods of time; the girls have been traveling up to Spokane for week-long visits for a couple of years now, and they usually go twice a year. So that gives me longer stretches of down time, which I usually use to do ridiculous things like juice fasting or insane household projects.
Jamie just turned two ten days ago, and for various reasons he has started going to Camp Poomee for a couple of hours in the morning on Fridays. The biggest reason we started it now is because Emma needs the time. Emma is a middle child. In and of itself I don’t think that predicts our behavior as parents, but right now she is a mild child sandwiched between two siblings with pretty high needs. This hasn’t always been the case, but Katie is entering adolescence, and Jamie is a toddler, so what more needs to be said? 
In any event, I guess we have done right by our kids in terms of nurturing their emotional intelligence, because Emma was able to come right out and tell us that she needs more of our time and attention, that she has been getting lost amid the hysterics and diaper changes.
So we arranged with Jeff’s parents for Jamie to start have a couple of hours on Friday mornings. Katie brings her academics and works in the study; Emma and I (or this morning, Jeff took a turn) go off to have some dedicated time together. And Jamie gets to do stuff like this: Jamie at Camp Poomee
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09.20.07
Posted in Kids at 9:03 am by Christina
You know what they say about little kids - they’re sponges, absorbing up every minutia of information around them. So check out this evidence supporting the reclassification of toddlers out of phylum Chordata…
We have a board book based on the traditional clapping/jumprope game “Miss Mary Mack”. It is an adaptation by Mary Ann Hoberman, with many more verses than I ever learned for that rhyme. The book is a regular part of Jamie’s reading rotation in recent weeks, but it’s certainly not an obsessive one! That moderate exposure is enough for Jamie to be able to complete every rhyme in the entire book; he says every word in bold, before the repeat happens:
- Miss Mary Mack (mack mack)
- All dressed in black (black black)
- With silver buttons (etc.)
- All down her back
- She asked her mother
- for fifty cents [talk about inflation, we sang “fifteen”]
- to see the elephant
- jump over the fence
- he jumped so high
- he reached the sky
- and didn’t come back
- ’til the fourth of July
- he fell so fast
- he fell so hard
- he made a hole
- in her backyard
- he landed with
- a great big thud
- and got all full
- of muck and mud
- Miss Mary Mack
- gave him a drink
- and he got clean
- quick as a wink
- his keeper came
- to take him back
- “Oh, please don’t go!”
- cried Mary Mack
- “I’ll feed you hay
- and peanut tea
- if you will stay
- and live with me.
- The silver buttons
- all down my dress
- will all be yours
- if you say yes.”
- Now Mary Mack
- all dressed in black
- has purple buttons
- all down her back
- and elephant
- has shiny rows
- of silver buttons
- all down his nose
- and every day
- for fifty cents
- they both go out
- and jump the fence
Needless to say, he’s talking up a storm these days! His grammatical structures have taken off; we’re hearing sentences of four words and more, usually subject-verb-object plus an adjective or less commonly an adverb tossed in. I’ve heard him use “the” a few times recently as well. His diction is really clear, although it is hampered a bit by the lack of certain sounds: /k/ /g/ /s/ and /f/ are the four big ones. We do hear all of those occasionally and I’m hopeful that they’ll develop to the extent that we don’t need to get involved in any speech therapy (which is temptingly free through the public schools, though that obviously establishes an entanglement with that system that independent homeschoolers prefer to avoid).
Jamie celebrated his second birthday on Tuesday. I believe the schedule allows for some breathing room for me starting tomorrow afternoon, and it’s on my list to get the camera downloaded and put up some pictures for you to enjoy…
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09.18.07
Posted in Homeschooling, Blogs at 9:17 am by Christina
The September 17th Carnival of Homeschooling is up at about.com - I contributed my Phonetic Zoo review to this one and there are a number of excellent blog posts to enjoy!
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