Sunday, October 5, 2008

MHA Conference Thoughts Part 2

And I'm back!

Twice Exceptional Kids (or 2E) session: I chose this session because I am dealing with a smartie who can't sit still for longer than twenty seconds. The speaker (I think her name was Rachel) was great, very down to earth, and told us lots of "real life stories" in dealing with her own 2E kid. The session kind of veered off, though, and turned into people wanting to know how to deal with IEPs and the public school and autism "recovery" and...I don't know. I guess not exactly what I was looking for. Good intentions on the speakers part, but the class kind of took it and ran it right off the track!

Doubts in Homeschooling: One of those lovely, feel good speeches about how you can do it. Most of the things she talked about are those things you already know, but its good to hear them again. I did like something she said about "Homeschooling is not about doing school better than school, its about being open to all that is available to you as a homeschooler". She was a die hard unschooler, which didn't bother me so much but I know it turned other people off. I was wondering though, after all her talking about unschooling...is it possible to truly be a diehard unschooler in a state that requires yearly testing? (she's from WI, and said they don't test.) Because its really easy to live in a state like WI where you don't have to prove anything to anyone...but in MN where you have to do report cards (well, I do) and do yearly testing, can you truly be an unschooler? It just got me thinking.

Homeschool RecordKeeping and Planning: I almost dropped this class because I thought "keeping records and planning and doing all that is just going to throw me right back into the anal retentive person I was about schooling a couple months ago". But I went anyway. And it was weird because the whole class started out with this one homeschooling mom freaking out because someone from the district (Richfield, I think) had called her and said they were going to visit her house to checkup on her, or check her records or check her something. (I don't remember what exactly they were checking, but something having to do with her homeschooling.) And she didn't think they could do that, so she called some bigwig in the homeschooling whatever, and they said "Actually, they can." And the mom was kind of surprised, because, like me, she'd been lead to believe that you don't really have to keep records until the kids are in high school. So anyhow the class ended up being really awesome, because the lady who presented was HILARIOUS. And I didn't even feel like she was trying to push her product (which I bought anyway). And I have figured out a way to keep tabs on what we are doing here without being anal retentive, which is a nice happy medium place to be. Since I'm not big into planning anymore, I just take a few minutes each night to write down a few things we did. Even looking back over the past week and things I've written down that we've done...its pretty neat to see all the things we actually accomplished!

Well, apparently the boys have decided we need a little Sunday morning computer game time, so my blogging time is over...for now!

1 comment:

Ruralmama said...

I'd be interested in knowing more about her program. What is it's name?

My homeschool blog is really my place to keep track of what we do, read and think-- I should start printing them off though to have a hard copy to show the superintendent if he ever decides to visit. But truly it's a rare event for a homeschooler to get picked because the districts already have too much on their plates to deal with. Our district is talking about consolidation in the next year---us with this nice huge building that we're going to be paying off for the next 11 years! Nicely managed, that. If I ran my household like that, we'd be living in a cardboard shack.

Too bad that the 2E session got diverted...isn't that ironic?!? Heh, heh, heh, a little sarcasm for your Sunday there.

Take care lady, you are sounding better already