Currency & Contribution

Since last weeks rather dramatic lesson...which I am still a little uncomfortable about... the jobs chart that I created some 18 months ago, has been implemented a lot more regularly. As I mentioned it in my exemption application, and again last week, I thought I'd take the opportunity to present it to you in a little more detail, along with the rationale behind it.

The Jobs Chart

Human beings are social animals, we achieve a certain sense of well-being by being part of a group. Contribution is an essential component of group dynamics, and learning the skills involved in maintaining a household is equally important for any person, regardless of whether they live alone, in a family group, or in a flatting (rooming) situation. These skills are best learnt at home while growing up, and therefore, each family member is expected to contribute to the running of the household. In order to facilitate every ones understanding of what jobs are required to be done in a way to engage my boys' various learning styles, I created the Job Chart pictured above. The piece of paper below the chart states that each boy is expected to contribute by doing the number of jobs equal to their (age - 2) with a maximum of 6 jobs... Therefore T(8) has now reached his maximum required jobs of 6 per day... The sign also states that upon completion of the minimum requirement for the day, any extra jobs will earn 50c each. The boxes beside the chart are divided into Daily Jobs, Roster Jobs (i.e. those that need doing regularly but not daily) Weather Dependant Jobs (such as laundry) and Regular Jobs for Pay (things that need doing every now and then such as polishing furniture and spring cleaning type jobs). The other two boxes contain cards with ideas for activities... should the dreaded "I'm Bored" phrase be uttered, I direct them to look through the ideas in the box. There's one for outings ideas, and another for things to be done around the house.

Prior to last week's dramatics, jobs were simply not done. Prior to the Chch quake of 22/2/2011, from the initiation of the chart, jobs were being done. The quake had really shaken us, and somehow it fell off the radar. Some friends had argued that maintaining routines at a time of crisis can be more beneficial, and while I see the validity of that point (and in retrospect wish I had done) I prioritised what I felt to be important at the time, and I really didn't have the emotional energy to implement it.

When things were starting to settle down emotionally at home, and I prepared myself to re-introduce and monitor the implementation of the jobs chart, we suddenly had a big move thrust upon us, and once again, other things took priority. We have been here in our new home in Auckland for 7 months now. Aside from the remaining 3 boxes still waiting to be unpacked, we're fairly settled. This last week has seen the jobs chart being implemented daily, and the boys have even earned some extra cash over this time.

Each morning, I put out the jobs that are needed to be completed that day:

A small sample of the selection available today

The boys go through and select the jobs they would like to do, based on their preferences... K(6) generally prefers to do jobs that are done in the late afternoon or evening, and habitually selects "clearing the table ready for dinner", "set table for dinner", "clear and wipe table after dinner". T(8) prefers morning jobs, and 'short' jobs, such as "empty the compost", "Feed and water the cats", "put in wash powder and start dishwasher", although he also enjoys "unload the dishwasher", which can sometimes take a while. Each card has a written description of the job, as well as a diagram / illustration. When I created the chart, neither boy was literate. By using text and image, I supplied meaningful exposure to literacy. Some of the more complex ideas such as "prepare dinner" is text only... largely because there is no set method of preparation, it varies on the meal, likewise with "cook dinner".

Once they have selected their jobs, they put the cards into the lower slots of their column as seen here

This way everyone can see at a glance who is responsible for a particular job that day. Some jobs are inter-dependant on each other. Knowing who is doing which job facilitates the process of negotiating with each other when and how particular jobs are done... for example the person who has chosen to hang the washing out to dry, is unable to complete their job if the person who has selected "load and start washing machine" has not done theirs. Once a job is completed, the card is moved to the top pocket, and when the minimum requirement is met, the boy is granted extra computer time and "unlocks" (Game speak is increasingly common in our household... it's as if games are a predominant part of our family culture) the potential to earn cash.

If I were to re-design the chart, I'd make the top slot a little wider... when 6 job cards are stuffed in there, it gets a little tight. I'd also put the text of the jobs on the top of the card... initially I put it on the bottom, as that was consistent with most children's books. I hadn't really thought about the fact that the text would be covered once in the slot. I would also colour code the jobs... one colour for morning jobs, one for mid day, another for evening, and another colour for the jobs that can be done at anytime that day.

I feel that learning to use money shouldn't be limited to how much you have contributed to the family. I was first exposed to this idea in Barbara Coloroso's book "Kids Are Worth It", where she makes a good argument that learning to deal with money is far  too important a skill to use money as a means of punishment / reward. You may have noticed that when discussing the boys' opportunity to earn money, I used the word "extra". This is because irrespective of whether, or how much, they have contributed the boys get pocket money. Initially we started with a monthly amount, based on the fact that Carl was paid monthly. They then received $10 (T) and $5(K) each, until K became cognisant enough to recognise and state the inequity, at which point they each received $10 per month. Upon our move to Auckland, and Carl's switch to fortnightly pay, the boys were offered the option of remaining at $10 per month, or $5 per fortnight. After some thought, they determined that $5 per fortnight each was a better deal.

You may now be thinking... now wait a minute, she just said that money shouldn't be used for reward or punishment, and surely she's rewarding them for doing extra jobs by paying them. Yes. Viewed in one particular way, I am. However, I have always stated that the boys can earn extra money. The emphasis is on earn. In our society, we are economy driven. The principle behind the concept, is that I am introducing the boys to the idea that in our society, you are expected to contribute to your social group, and your home, and that in addition, you earn money by doing extra things... in daddy's case, that is by designing games, and in my case it's by helping people's brains work better, and in Granddad's case it's by building things, and in the local shop keepers case it's by selling things... At this point in life, the means available to the boys for earning extra money, is by doing jobs around the home beyond the minimum expectation of contributing to the family. At some point, when they grow older, and their opportunities expand, and their desire for a meaningful amount of money increase, new strategies will need to be devised. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. May it be far in the future... all though with most parenting milestones, I'm sure that it too will arrive before I'm really ready for it.

The "R" of the "3R's"

I grew up and was educated within the New Zealand state school system. Then I trained to become a teacher within that system. A system that was built upon the foundation of teaching the “3R's”: Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. I'm not even going to get into the probable efficacy of an education system that fails to recognise the accurate spelling of Writing and Arithmetic.

I chose to homeschool, and particularly to unschool, also known as natural learning. Unschooling seemed a natural follow-on from the attachment parenting philosophy I applied in my children's early childhood. It's a relaxed implementation of self-directed learning advocated in several discipline papers in my B.Ed course of study. Unschooling / Natural learning also provides a platform to eliminate the negative consequences of being “taught” before an individual is ready.

I frequently face some interesting internal challenges in our homeschooling / unschooling journey in finding a comfortable fit for myself, my husband, and my individual learners (my boys). On the one hand, we have the processes through which I was taught by going through the state school system as a student, and as a teacher. On the other hand we have the pedagogical philosophy I developed through later professional development and reflective research.

Without a doubt, to date, the greatest challenge is that revolving around the issue of reading.

In addition to my internal conflict and warring pedagogies of 'personal experience' vs 'best practice as shown in the latest research', I have the challenge of over coming the experiences my eldest had at school and reading recovery. Experiences which have left him with the firm belief that he is unable to read.

So far my belief in the latest research, is supported by reports coming out of scandinavian countries, who have the highest literacy rates in the world per capita, and where formal instruction in reading is not started until a child is at least 7 years of age. I have further support in the New Zealand based research showing that children who had trouble speaking, or are late to talk, will also be later in reading acquisition. The NZCER publication (pictured below) about the reading currciculum in New Zealand advocate delayed intervention for these children, have won out. I have not yet capitulated to my internal voice that stems from my own educational experiences, and force either child to *learn to read* by forcing the boys to read books with simplistic words, and mind numbing story lines.

NZCER publication created as a guide for teachers, principals and Board of Trustees to formulate reading programmes, apparently ignored by the school T was attending.

One benefit of the sitting down and having a child *read to you* is that you have an immediate evaluation tool to assess progress. As neither of my children sit down and read aloud, there is no immediately obvious means of assessing their progress, I have to be alert to more subtle cues and behaviours.

One of the biggest indicators of a reading child, is purportedly an enjoyment of books. Carl, my husband, and I LOVE to read. Both my babies quickly learned that there was no way they would be getting their Mama Melk if Mama did not have a book in hand. Once they achieved some independant mobility,  yet were not yet verbal, they'd ask for milk by approaching me with my book in hand. This active modelling of reading has been shown in various studies to be the key indicator in the succees of literacy acquisition in children, and has led to a number of inititaive such as Allan Duff's "Books in Homes" to promote literacy in New Zealand. When T(8) was in school two years ago he was quickly deposited into reading recovery, despite my pointing out that he was late is talking, had been in speech therapy, and would likely not be ready for reading yet. T however stated a desire to go and I agreed (had I known then about the puppy that the reading recovery teacher had in the room with her, I may have recieved this statement with a little more reservation). Two days after he started, he stopped looking at books at home. He used to spend upto 2 hours per day sitting and looking through books. He no longer enjoyed books. actually that's a huge statement... it needs to be written like this:

He no longer enjoyed books.

My biggest indicator that we were on the right track with homeschooling, was that after about 6 months he started to sit and look through books. It was marvellous, 6 months was the expected time frame for the de-schooling process, and sure enough, after 6 months he resumed his former habit of sitting for upto 2 hours looking at books. I introduced him to Asterix. After all, I taught myself to read in Dutch by reading my father's dutch asterix comics, it seemed perfectly reasonable to expect a similar result for T.

T was interested in learning Bridge not long after, so I created work sheets with information, that he then had to complete the reflective questions. I did not help him at all with these sheets.

T worked independantly, the answers clearly demonstrate his comprehension of the written questions.

After he had completed the first three or four, I felt some constructive feedback was required, as I knew he held the belief that he can not read. I said, "Hey, look at you, you're reading those questions and answering them" He looked up, aghast, and threw his clipboard with attached papers away. He shouted out "No! I can't read!" He has not touched them since!!

This is the 1/2 completed sheet that was thrown away in rejection of my statement that he was reading

I learned my lesson. Watch for the signs that he is reading, and register them internally, share them in private with Carl, but do NOT under any circumstance mention them to T(8).  I am developing a (currently very) little collection of indicators in addition to those above. He still happily spends long periods looking at books, and trips to the library are a weekly event, where he selects a variety of books... yet I still fret.

Indicators Collected:

"Babsie, what does O-L-E spell?" after reading Asterix in Corsica

In a shop, pulling K(6) back from a door saying "No see it says 'Staff Only', we can't go in there K"

While at Crystal Monuntain, and having seen a sign on the gate with an information plaque about Llama, the boys were walking around the park, when K(6) spotted a Llama and exclaimed "Hey what's that?"and T(8) replied "oh, that must be those lama's" (the mispronunciation made me realise he had read the sign, and not that he had overheard from someone else).

Getting information from a book, and sharing it with younger brother... but NOT reading (yeah Right)