Oh, Right, I Have A Blog (Plus List Of School Skills)

 

Apparently, intending to write a blog post once a week on the same broad topic is enough of an expectation to trigger PDA/ODD type responses in myself.
 
(Digression, I think PDA and ODD are bad diagnoses and whoever invented the phrases behind those acronyms should feel bad. The behavior and the pattern is real, but the diagnostic terms are victim blame-y and function to rule out helpful changes. I should probably write a whole blog post about that someday.)

Through our last day of homeschooling (around Memorial Day in May) I drafted the beginning of multiple blog posts but didn't have the [gestures vaguely around] to finish and post them. It is hard to write about the interesting details without denting my teenager's privacy. While I often enjoy the middle of hard tasks, at any given time I would rather play Minecraft than start a hard task. (This includes new hard tasks in modded Minecraft which is hilariously circular.)

I am still using the chart of how stress impacts healthcare workers to assess my daughter's mental health. She is still doing significantly better than while she was in public school in 7th grade.

When I think about the things kids are supposed to learn in school (and that phrase conjures both specifics of curriculum and cultural assumptions about interacting with peers and authorities) there are a set of things she did not make any progress on during the months I home-schooled her. My first impulse is to worry and feel inadequate about it. But a chunk of those things she wasn't learning during school either. School was functioning to make her worse at another chunk. Half of the (very few) things she was learning at school are things she kept learning during homeschooling. 

So, what are some of the things kids are supposed to learn in school?

  • How to assess a new assignment for what resources and how much effort it will take
  • How to plan your time to get something done by the due date
  • How to productively ask for help
  • How to productively ask someone in charge for what you need to succeed
  • (I find "How to advocate for yourself" to be too vague)
  • How to work with peers towards a common goal
  • How to solve different types of math problems
  • How to assess who has enough in common to be a potential friend
  • How to communicate what you've learned on a topic
  • How to create a record of what you've learned on a topic
  • (I find "How to write a three to five page essay" to be too ableist)
  • How to keep up with a group who is doing a series of tasks
  • How to memorize
  • How to analyze media
  • How to maintain your personal boundaries enough to be comfortable while interacting or sharing space with others
  • How to help or allow others to maintain their boundaries while interacting or sharing space
  • How to ask for help when you don't know exactly what help you need
  • How to record your observations to aid your own analysis of whatever you're observing
  • (I find "How to keep a lab notebook" obfuscates the actual task)
  • How to start learning something new
  • How to learn something while focusing on something else (like learning the controls of a new website or rules of a new game in order to discuss the author's use of color words in a novel)
  • How to communicate with correct grammar
  • How to explain some of the rules that determine whether a phrase has correct grammar
  • Science facts
  • Science concepts
  • How to work equations related to science concepts
  • Historical facts
  • How historical events influenced each other
  • Historical context for current events
  • Keep track of due dates in multiple areas
  • Keep track of what to bring in when
  • Which papers need to be saved for how long
  • What to do with papers that don't need to live in your backpack forever
  • Where to spend time to maximize your grade
  • What your grade is based on
  • Electives like computer coding and choir
What would you add to this list? If you have something non-obvious, please type it in a blog comment.

 

 

 

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