Barbara Frank Online

Students? What Students?

Here’s a story for those well-meaning relatives and friends who tell us we shouldn’t be homeschooling our children because we aren’t certified teachers.

You know what bugs me the most about this story?

It’s not the fact that this fifth-grade teacher sent 3800+ emails over the course of 169 school days. (At a rate of one minute per email, that’s 57 hours of paid work time.)

It’s not the fact that her emails often referred to her drunken exploits and sexual encounters.

It’s not the fact that she was on prescription drugs for anxiety, bragged about them and even referred to one drug as her “security blanket,” according to my local newspaper.

It’s not the fact that she and her coworkers often shared these prescription drugs with each other, even in school, where they’re supposed to be teaching children.

It’s not the fact that most of her fellow teachers were afraid of her, with one stating, “This woman is capable of doing anything.” (Again, this from my local newspaper.)

It’s not even the fact that she complained about teaching being “just such a waste of time with the dummies,” or that her comments about her job included a list of phrases she used to refer to her job, such as “hate it here today,” “really do wish I cared” and “this is a day of torture.”

No, what really gets me is that school officials investigated this woman for a full year, through January 2010, suspended her from teaching in February (when they escorted her out of the building), but never fired her! Instead, they pussy-footed around until they finally got her to resign last week, after postponing a meeting where they had planned to “consider” terminating her.

Good grief! School officials were so concerned about playing CYA that they put their personal protection against lawsuits before the protection of the students. This woman worked for the school district for 14 years. Yet it took a year and a half to get rid of her, and in the end, school officials didn’t have to do the dirty deed themselves.

Where is the concern for the children? Considering this woman’s attitude toward her job, not to mention her drug and alcohol issues, how likely is it that she treated her students kindly and fairly, much less taught them anything? Is it any surprise that parents continue to pull their children out of the public schools and homeschool them?

Categories: Planet Home Education

Public School Foolishness

Our four-year-old nephew is a very bright little boy.

I’m not bragging on our shared genetics, because he’s adopted. He’s been in preschool the past couple of years where he quickly absorbed everything they taught him and then some. And then he got bored.

His mom (my sister) recently moved back to Illinois and decided that her little guy is a good candidate for kindergarten this year because he needs to be challenged. But in Illinois, kindergarten students are supposed to be five by Sept. 1 and his birthday is in October.

So before they moved, she called up the school district and described the situation. This set her off on a ridiculous journey through the labyrinth of public school administration.

First they insisted on checking out the credentials of the preschool our nephew attended in California. When they discovered that the preschool is run by a certified teacher but that the woman who taught our nephew’s class is not a certified teacher, they rejected his preschool experience.

They decided instead that our nephew should meet with their school psychologist once he got to Illinois. This visit would cost my sister, an unemployed single mom, $300. They also insisted on a meeting between my sister and the school principal as soon as she and the boys arrived in Illinois.

As it turned out, the purpose of that meeting was so the principal himself could tell my sister that her son would need to meet with the school psychologist and that it would cost her $300.

Now that my sister and her boys have moved to Illinois, the school district has informed her that our nephew will have to take an IQ test, and that he will only be allowed into kindergarten this year if he scores at or above 145.

All this because his birthday is six weeks past the cut-off.

I’m thinking these school officials are the ones that need an IQ test. And I’m thankful that homeschooling kept me from having to deal with public school administrators when our kids were growing up.

Categories: Planet Home Education

Read Kindle Books on Your PC for Free

Heard about all the great free and bargain-priced eBooks available on Amazon Kindle, but don’t have a Kindle? No worries: you can download Kindle for your PC for free. Here are step-by-step instructions (illustrated for us non-techies!) that will have you collecting eBooks in no time.

Categories: Planet Home Education

We Have a Winner….and Another Winner!

I had just used the random number generator to pick the winner of the Shovelhorns and Black Bruin giveaway when my husband came into the office and said, “Since we had such a nice response to this giveaway, let’s pick two winners.”

Can’t argue with that! So the winners of a fresh new copy of Shovelhorns and Black Bruin  are Tammy and Bev. Congratulations, ladies! And many thanks to everyone who entered. I loved reading your responses  

Categories: Planet Home Education

Teaching Our Daughters About Money

Seven years ago, Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers was first published. Since then, I’ve gotten many email messages from readers who used the curriculum with their kids and were pleased with it.

Sadly, I’ve also been asked why I chose to include girls in my target audience for the book.

Now, I realize that many homeschoolers are even more conservative than I am, enough so that they plan to keep their daughters at home until and unless they marry. But to keep them in the dark about financial matters seems so misguided to me.

In the past, many women were uninformed about their finances. Men kept track of the money, and their wives kept track of the cooking and cleaning. But if their husbands died before they did (which is statistically more likely to happen), they often found themselves wondering if they were rich widows or poor widows, because they didn’t know. They had to rely on other male family members to help them find the paperwork needed for probate and figure out where they stood financially.

Unfortunately, marriages also break up, and women who are unaware of financial matters can find themselves left with children to support and no idea of how to prudently handle the income they now need to bring in. The pain of an unwanted divorce is thus compounded by the need to learn about money. It’s hard to learn something new when you’re emotionally distraught.

My grandmother raised four children as a single mom during the Great Depression, and the stories my dad told me about what she went through taught me that girls need to know about finances every bit as much as boys do.

Recently, I was reminded of that again when I read yet another article about people losing their homes because they weren’t knowledgeable about the mortgages they applied for when they bought them. The combination of ignorant consumers and greedy mortgage companies has resulted in some single moms losing thousands of dollars that they really can’t afford to lose.

In the stories quoted in the article, the women now losing their homes didn’t understand that buying a home without putting any money down is a warning sign that you’re going into a loan with some danger zones. They saw it as a lucky break, when it was anything but that. It usually means that you have an adjustable loan, and in the current climate, your house payment may continue to rise, even if the value of your house drops. You’re responsible for the amount of money borrowed to buy the house no matter what the house is now worth.

Even if her loan did not have an adjustable rate, one woman mentioned in the article seemed like a great candidate for a house because of her high income level. She also thought she was making a good purchase because she didn’t borrow as much as she was approved to borrow. Big mistake! Pneumonia and then a broken wrist made her miss work, and she was forced to spend what cash she had paying bills. But she ran out of money, and could no longer make her mortgage payments. She not only lost her house but ended up owing the bank $32,000.

These women were also apparently unaware of how stressful it can be to have a huge house payment when you’re the head of a single-income family. Had they been taught about financial freedom and the joy of being debt-free, they might have never become homeowners, but they wouldn’t have lost their homes, either. When you look at everything through the mindset of minimizing debt, you have more control over your financial situation, especially as the years go by and the good habits you’ve developed bear fruit.

Reading these women’s sad stories has reminded me yet again how important it is that we educate our girls as well as our boys about how to handle money and how to aim for financial freedom. Judging by what’s going on in our economy right now, this kind of education is more important than ever. We homeschooling parents have the time and the opportunity to do it right.

Categories: Planet Home Education

Learning From John Taylor Gatto

Children learn what they live.

Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community;

interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important;

force them to plead for the natural right to the toilet and they will become liars and toadies;

ridicule them and they will retreat from human association;

shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even.

The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly.

That’s by John Taylor Gatto, and he cuts right to the chase, doesn’t he? Here’s a quote from a review of one of his books over at Amazon:

I wish I’d read this while I was in school; I’d have seen then that there was something wrong with the system, not me.

That’s heartbreaking. How many adults were wounded by school when they were children? Gatto knows. He taught in the public schools for thirty years. When he was given the New York State Teacher of the Year award, his acceptance speech (pdf) was not exactly what they were expecting! It was a criticism of the institution of school.

If you have any time in what’s left of summer, you might want to check out Gatto’s books. He gives all parents, not just homeschooling parents, much to think about:

Categories: Planet Home Education

Giveaway! Shovelhorns and Black Bruin

Our new book, Shovelhorns and Black Bruin, is selling like hotcakes! I think more and more parents are realizing that the classic books are the best; these novels by Clarence Hawkes (circa 1908-9) are definitely classics. With two classic novels in one book, it’s also a great deal.

To celebrate, we’re giving away a hot-off-the-press copy to a lucky winner, and it could be you! Just leave a comment here answering this question:

How do your children benefit from reading classic books?

By commenting, you’ll be automatically entered in the drawing for this giveaway. Deadline for entries is midnight, August 19, 2010. Don’t miss out: comment now!

8-20-10 Please note: contest is now closed.

Categories: Planet Home Education

Women Who Had It All

Twenty years ago, British journalist Valerie Grove decided to interview women who “had it all” for at least 25 years. She defined having it all as:

“…they had to have been married for more than 25 years and have had three or more children, as well as a brilliant career.”

She turned her findings into a book, The Compleat Woman: Marriage, Motherhood, Career – Can She Have It All? Her conclusion was that it was very rare for a woman to be able to successfully juggle a husband, children and successful career.

Now, a British newspaper has marked the twentieth anniversary of the book’s publication by going back and interviewing some of the women whose lives were chronicled in it to see if they think it’s gotten any easier to “have it all.” The very interesting (and lengthy) article is worth reading, but if you’re pressed for time, I’d like to share a couple of key points these women now make, as they look back on their lives from the vantage point of old age.

1) Women try too hard to give their children the perfect childhood.

Author Faye Weldon, 77 and the mother of four sons, says:

“Today, we try to fight that destiny and give our children the perfect childhood in the hopes that it will make them perfect. I think children are the better for a little healthy neglect. Mine certainly were.”

I don’t think she means neglect in a bad way. What she’s saying is that if we give our kids more autonomy and stop trying to micromanage their activities, they’ll do just fine and we’ll be less exhausted. This is a point we homeschooling moms, who are already involved personally in our children’s daily education, need to take to heart.

2) Women should realize they can have a career while raising children, but it won’t be easy, and the children must come first.

Shirley Hughes, 80, the mother of three children and a well-known children’s author, recalls writing at home with children underfoot:

“…despite publishing more than 50 books, Hughes managed without a nanny.

“I would have been too jealous of her relationship with my children,” she explains.

“We did have au pairs to help out domestically, but I would never have left them in sole charge of the children all day…..But fractured concentration due to interruptions from children is the bane of a working mother’s life, especially if you work from home as I did.

“But it was the right thing for me. I was able to be there for my children, and so glad I was self-employed and did not have to disappear off for long days away from the home.”

3) Women expect to have too many material things that don’t matter in the long run.

Sheila Kitzinger, 80, a mother of five grown daughters and honored by the British government for her years of work for the National Childbirth Trust, says:

“Women now think they need so much more. Everyone must have a second car in the family.”

She also seconds Ms. Weldon’s concern about providing a wealth of perfect educational experiences:

“But also, we feel the need to do so much more with our children. There are constant educational trips – must see the Tutankhamun exhibition, must see the Chinese warriors at the British Museum.

“It’s relentless, exhausting and very expensive.”

Ms. Hughes agrees:

“Perhaps women think today they need to have too much. We all say we work because we need the money, but are there sacrifices to be made.

“Perhaps not having a second car; maybe moving to live somewhere cheaper.

“It’s very sad when people think they cannot afford to have more children. What do you regret at the end of your life? Is it the expensive stuff, or not having a child?”

According to the article, these women with such successful careers look back over their lives and see where their time was best invested: in their husbands and children. As Ms. Hughes put it:

“My only regrets are that I got too bogged down with getting the shopping and household chores. I should have let it all go to pot a lot more than I did.

“What I wish I’d done more of is sitting and talking to my children round the kitchen table.

“And conversations with my husband, too, now that I’m widowed. Once your husband dies, that is what you long for above all.

“But when you’re young and busy with work and family, you are always rushing on to the next thing. That’s life.”

We can all learn from those who have come before us. And with that, I’d better go make dinner and spend some time enjoying it with my family

Categories: Planet Home Education

The Carnival of Homeschooling is Up

This week’s edition of the Carnival of Homeschooling is hosted by Judy Aron, and she did an awesome job. Check it out!

Categories: Planet Home Education

New! Shovelhorns and Black Bruin

We have a new book out just this week. And my husband painted the cover art! Learn more about this “new old” book below:

Do your boys enjoy reading? Do you have trouble finding books that catch their interest and are good for them to read? Then you’ll love Shovelhorns, the Biography of a Moose, and Black Bruin, the Biography of a Bear, two classic novels in one new book.

These two wildlife animal stories will captivate your boys. These aren’t namby-pamby tales but realistic adventures written by naturalist Clarence Hawkes in the early 1900’s: classic stories which boys will enjoy.

Best of all, you’ll get two of Clarence Hawkes’ wildlife adventures in one book. Readers of all ages will love these stories, but especially boys who enjoy the outdoors and stories that don’t hold back from telling about the life and death struggles that occur in the wild.

Shovelhorns, the Biography of a Moose, first published in 1909, is the story of a moose in the harsh woods of New Brunswick, Canada. Relive the life of this moose as he grows from a small calf to a great bull moose. Learn how his mother protects him from a fierce wolf pack. As he matures, he experiences his own adventures and battles, including his be­friend­ing by the son of a Northern hunting guide, and the inevitable time in his life when he must prove he is deserving of the title “King of the Wilderness.”

Following this story is another exciting adventure. Black Bruin, the Biography of a Bear, first published in 1908, is the story of a black bear in northern New York. You’ll be hooked from the start as you read the exciting circumstances of how Black Bruin becomes part of a young farmer’s family. This black bear from the wild desires freedom, and his strength and appetite bring him constant conflict. You’ll be enthralled reading the many trials Black Bruin faces as he strives to be “King of the Mountain.”

Clarence Hawkes’ storytelling will keep your boys (and you) turning the pages and wanting to read more of his wildlife adventures from this exciting era. Both stories are beautifully illustrated by Charles Copeland.

DOWNLOAD TWO FREE SAMPLES FROM THIS BOOK HERE: http://www.cardamompublishers.com/stories-for-boys.htm

Categories: Planet Home Education

Five Must-Have School Supplies for Homeschooling Parents: #5

So far we’ve covered four school supplies every homeschooling parent should have:

Patience

Thick skin

Sense of humor

Creativity

The fifth must-have school supply is something you might not have thought of, but having it is what will carry you through the hard times, the frustrating times and the miserable times (yes, you will have bad times occasionally.) It is a sense of purpose.

Do you know why you’re homeschooling? Is it because you feel called to do it? Or perhaps you saw your child suffering in public school and you decided no one will ever hurt your child in a learning environment again?

Maybe you feel that it’s your duty as a parent, or a patriot (distrust of the liberal agenda in public schools is high these days). Or it’s possible you see homeschooling as the logical extension of parenting, because you realize that parenting doesn’t stop at age six, or four, or whatever the legal age for starting school is in your state.

The important thing is that you have a sense of purpose. Once in a while I run into someone who’s homeschooling because their spouse pressured them into it, or because their best friend is homeschooling and they decided on a whim to do it, too. Those are the people who end up putting their kids in school sooner or later.

A clear sense of purpose will keep you going even when the kids are cranky, and your mother tells you your stress level would shrink if you would just put those kids in school, and your husband complains that his feet are sticking to the kitchen floor, again. Homeschooling ain’t for wimps, but with a strong sense of purpose, you can keep going no matter what so that your children and you benefit from the many blessings of homeschooling.

Categories: Planet Home Education

Five Must-Have School Supplies for Homeschooling Parents: #4

One of the most important school supplies for homeschooling parents is creativity. Many people believe they are not creative, but often that’s because their creative selves were snuffed out by institutional schooling and, later, a business world that claims to prefer creative minds but actually finds conformism much easier to handle.

Open your mind: visit other homeschooling parents’ blogs and see what they’ve been up to lately. Take lots of trips with your children to museums and zoos. Paint and draw with your kids. (My son loves when we draw together. We’ve been doing it for so long that it’s just part of our lives now.)

A heightened sense of creativity will help you make changes where needed. You won’t fear dumping a book or curriculum for something new; in fact, if you let it, your sense of creativity will help you put together an eclectic curriculum tailored specifically to each of your children. Feed your sense of creativity and it will serve you well.

Tomorrow: #5

Categories: Planet Home Education

Five Must-Have School Supplies for Homeschooling Parents: #3

The third must-have school supply for homeschooling parents is a sense of humor. There will be times when the toilet backs up while you’re in the middle of explaining how fractions work, the doorbell rings while you’re up to your elbows in papier-mâché and the baby spits up all over your daughter’s favorite doll, leaving both children in tears. There’s even a good chance these things could happen all on the same day. If you have a choice, choose laughter.

Tomorrow: #4

Categories: Planet Home Education

Five Must-Have School Supplies for Homeschooling Parents: #2

Another must-have school supply for homeschooling parents is a thick skin. People are going to question your decision to homeschool your children. They’re going to ask whether you have a teaching certificate, as if knowing techniques for handling a roomful of children you’ve never met before has anything at all to do with teaching your own child, whom you know far better than anyone else does except your spouse.

They’re going to ask how your child will ever have friends, and they may even ask your child that question directly. That requires you to have an extra thick skin, because we parents have real issues with people directing nosy and misguided questions at our kids.

The questions and comments may slow down as your children get older and it becomes apparent that homeschooling is working, but they won’t ever go away, because there will always be people who cannot get past their reliance on authority figures and institutions. So start toughening up now.

Tomorrow: #3

Categories: Planet Home Education

Five Must-Have School Supplies for Homeschooling Parents

While shopping today, I was amazed at the variety of school supplies that are on sale.

When I was a kid, we only needed pencils, a ruler, some crayons and (once we hit fifth grade) notebook paper. Today, schools issue long lists of supplies that include enough inventory to start your own school.

Those of us who do have our own school, at home, find that there are certain supplies we want our kids to have. For instance, I always made sure to keep a stash of notebook paper, pencils and crayons on hand, plus a wide assortment of art supplies.

We homeschooling parents vary in the supplies we think our kids need to have. But we spend less time, I would guess, thinking about the supplies we need to have in order to homeschool our kids.

If I had to pick five school supplies every homeschooling parent should have, I would start the list by saying that a homeschooling parent has to have a good supply of patience.

It takes patience to wait for children to absorb concepts. It takes patience to answer the same question over and over. It takes patience to wait for signs of readiness before introducing a concept or skill you’re dying to see your child master (a good example of this is reading.)

Of course, you don’t start out homeschooling with all the patience you need. It’s something you develop over the years (although after raising a child from infancy, you’ve probably got a good head start.) But the saying “patience is a virtue” was never truer than in the case of homeschooling.

School supply #2

School supply #3

School supply #4

School supply #5

Categories: Planet Home Education

“Homeschooling Your Teenagers” Now Available for Amazon Kindle

Are you intimidated by the thought of homeschooling your kids all the way through high school? I was.

Do you worry that you’re not up to the challenge of homeschooling your teens? I did.

Do you wonder what it’s like, living with teenagers every day? I was pretty curious about that myself.

I never thought I’d homeschool my children all the way through high school. I wasn’t even sure I could do it. But I did, and I’m sure glad I did. But it wasn’t always easy, and there were times when I needed some encouragement.

You can have that encouragement, and get a little peek into the world of homeschooling teenagers in the process, with “Homeschooling Your Teenagers.” It’s an eBook with eleven articles* from the archives of “The Imperfect Homeschooler.” These articles are no longer available online….but you can have them for yourself now in Amazon Kindle eBook format for only 99 cents (reg. $7.95) by clicking here.

*Plus, there’s a list of links to online resources that will help you homeschool your teen for free!

Categories: Planet Home Education

They Don’t Teach This in College

There’s an increasing amount of debate going on these days about college and whether it’s worth it anymore, especially in an economy where people with degrees are among those hit hardest by unemployment.

This article’s author suggests that our government is responsible for pushing kids to college, including many who are not college material to begin with. It’s sad to think of so many young people graduating with a diploma that doesn’t help them find a job, but does saddle them with debt that they must repay.

The author offers a solution to that problem, though…..a certain type of job that will help new grads develop a very important skill: how to sell products and themselves. Makes a lot of sense! In the meantime, we should be encouraging this skill in our kids before they leave home.

Categories: Planet Home Education

The July issue of “The Imperfect Homeschooler” Newsletter….

• features the final entry in our series of Back to Basics 2010 articles on preparing your children for self-sufficiency,
• offers info on free Bible curriculum for kids,
• shares the ridiculous-but-true story of boys asked to wear women’s clothing in public school,
• and includes a few family photos 

Check it out HERE. Get your very own free subscription by clicking the word “Newsletter” on the left side of this page.

Categories: Planet Home Education

Changing My Game Plan

Like many people, I began homeschooling by imitating the schools of my youth. I bought a boxful of curriculum, divided it into daily assignments, and taught my kids right out of those books.

And there wasn’t anything especially bad about that, except that after the initial excitement wore off, my kids started to get bored. Instead of being excited about doing school, they ranked it right down there with making their beds and setting the table—something we have to do, so let’s get it over with.

That was not in my game plan. I didn’t want them to be bored. I was bored in school, and I still recalled how bad that felt. I wanted my kids to enjoy school.

What I soon realized was that while they might have been bored with school, my kids still loved learning. They enjoyed visiting museums. My daughter read through stacks of books without my telling her to do so. And my son drew beautiful, detailed pictures that were not assigned by me.

I even became bored by the assignments I was teaching the kids, and it must have been around that time that I came up with the idea of playing store. I labeled some items in our pantry (using prices written on sticky notes), then dug up all the spare change I could find.

I became the storekeeper, and the kids became the shoppers. They’d choose an item from the pantry and pay me for it. Often I had to make change for them. Soon they were buying more than one item at a time and figuring out how much they owed me. Before long, they started taking turns being the store-keeper. This became a game they enjoyed for a long time, but I think I probably learned the most from that experience, because I saw that homeschooling didn’t have to be boring, like formal school was for me as a child.

This success led me to become more creative with our homeschooling. Since my first two children were only 18 months apart, they studied most subjects together, and that made it easy to come up with math games. Their favorite math game came about by necessity. I was pregnant with our third child, and spending a lot of time on the sofa. While beached there, I’d hold up a flash card, and throw it to whichever child gave the correct answer first. The child who collected the most cards won. Since the kids were very competitive with each other, they soon learned their math facts (which I’d been unsuccessfully trying to force into their heads by using written timed drills, as advised by our curriculum). This way was much easier and a lot more fun.

Making learning fun started to seep into other areas of our homeschooling. I made a little game out of putting the books of the Bible in order. I made small cards with the name of a book on each, and then let the kids put them in order. This way they were using their hands along with their minds, which is always a good way to learn. Soon they could get those cards in order pretty quickly, so they began timing themselves. Naturally, they began comparing their best times, and that led to me making two sets of cards so they could compete directly against each other. Before long, they could quickly find any book of the Bible. And they’d had a lot of fun getting to that point.

Such successes led me to loosen up in our homeschooling, and to be open to using games and other activities. More importantly, I soon came to see those things as at least equal in importance to bookwork. I bought Cuisenaire rods for math, which worked so well that I ended up giving up the formal math curriculum we’d been using, and buying the Miquon Math series instead (you use rods with them). Three of my kids eventually worked through Miquon with the rods, and then went straight into Saxon 54 or 65 with no difficulty.

I also used treasure hunts to teach them, first to follow directions (they were small then so I put pictures on the clues instead of words), and later to read (I switched to clues in short sentences). They begged me to do this all the time. There was no boredom or sighing in this kind of school!

Of course, as they reached their teen years, our use of games decreased, and they had to buckle down to more bookwork. I was concerned that at some point they might have to go to school, and I wanted to keep them at approximate grade level in case that happened. Fortunately, it never did, but by high school, they had regular bookwork and the games had run their course (other than playing educational games like Rummy Roots™ or ElementO®). But while they were younger, we had lots of fun learning through play and games, and I think I learned a lot from seeing that. Maybe that’s what it takes to get a formally schooled mom to let go of that old training and accept that learning doesn’t have to be boring for kids, and shouldn’t be boring, either.

Excerpted from The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Guide to Homeschooling, now available for Amazon Kindle:

Categories: Planet Home Education

The Story of the Buccaneer Scholar

He loved to learn but he hated school.

Does that sound like any of your children? Does it sound like you? If you answered yes to either or both of those questions, I think you’d like Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar.

Author James Marcus Bach wrote this book to describe the way he learns and why he thinks it’s important to share how he learns with others. Why should we care? Well, he’s a pretty accomplished guy for a high school dropout. At 20 he got a job as a software tester at Apple Computers, where he became the youngest manager and one of the very few who didn’t have an undergraduate degree, much less a graduate degree. These days he’s a highly respected expert in the computer field and often is addressed as Dr. Bach because people familiar with his work believe he must be highly (i.e. formally) educated.

When he first got the job at Apple, he studied to learn his craft and to keep up with his fellow (college-grad) employees, but his concerns about the latter were unnecessary:

At first I thought I would learn a lot from the other testers. There were more than four hundred of them in my building. But talking to them revealed a startling truth: nobody cared.

Almost nobody. In the first six months I worked at Apple, out of all the testers in the software testing division, I met maybe ten who were also reading testing books. The rest muddled through without much ambition to master their craft. It was clear that catching the college kids would not be difficult, after all.

The pattern I experienced at Apple would be confirmed almost everywhere I travelled in the computer industry: most people have put themselves on intellectual autopilot. Most don’t study on their own initiative, but only when they are forced to do so. Even when they study, they choose to study the obvious and conventional subjects. This has the effect of making them more alike instead of more unique. It’s an educational herd mentality.

Meanwhile Bach voraciously read everything he could about software testing, and other subjects that might help him in his thinking. No one forced him to do this. This was how he had always learned. But for most of his childhood, his way of learning was not acceptable. He chafed at the drills, tests and lectures that made up his education in junior high and high school. This was a young man who was thrilled to discover in seventh grade that the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had outlawed slavery or “involuntary servitude”:

Aha! When schoolwork is involuntary servitude, it’s illegal.

Of course my teachers told me that the amendment does not apply to children. I did not have the wit or skill to make a proper verbal answer at that time…..It occurred to me that the school could not control my mind. My cooperation with school was entirely by choice. I was free to cooperate, or refuse, so long as I accepted the consequences.

And there were consequences. Once Bach decided to skip homework and fail tests on purpose, the results created trouble between him and his mother and stepfather, to the point that his mother sent him to live in a local motel when he was 14 because he had threatened to shoot his stepfather, who kept fighting with him about his behavior. With no one to force him to go to school, he became truant and soon dropped out. An older brother helped him move to another state, where he got his first programming job. He became an “emancipated minor” at age 16. Five years later, he would be working at Apple.

Bach devotes much of this book to describing not only how he learns, but also how he learned how he learns. I think the moral here is that when a person is motivated to learn, he can learn almost anything. There’s a message here for homeschooling parents, who often feel pressure to teach their children using the same methods and materials that are used in the public schools. Bach’s example shows that kids can be trusted to learn if they’re given the opportunity to do so (or if they’re motivated enough to take that opportunity without permission.)

In this book, Bach offers many ideas for learners that will encourage and inspire them.

Now in his 40s, Bach’s success is proof that self-teaching works. Using the motif of a buccaneer, someone who pursues what he wants (in this case, knowledge), Bach shares what he has learned about learning and how it got him the career he has today:

I didn’t go to school to discover the connections between testing and other fields. Most of it I didn’t find even in books about testing. I simply approached my craft with a buccaneering attitude. I scouted, I struggled with authentic problems each day, I procrastinated, I plunged in, I incorporated each of the eleven elements and heuristics of buccaneering into my process. As a result, a specific career path (the field of testing) unfolded before me. One will unfold before you, too. I reinvented testing for myself, and made myself into a unique brand among testers. Any buccaneer can do this in any chosen field.

Does Bach regret dropping out of school and making his own way by learning on his own? In his book’s acknowledgements chapter, he says:

Finally, I’m grateful for my son Oliver, who has surpassed me by dropping out of seventh grade.

This book is a thought-provoking read for parents and young people alike.

Categories: Planet Home Education