Continuing our re-integration into "Normal" life

Jake, engaged in his "required" summer reading while
camping with Andy.

So what happens after we buy cars, rent homes and find jobs?  Jake goes to school of course!

That was a question I got quite often..."Will you keep homeschooling Jake or will he go to school?"  While I would truly love to continue homeschooling, I think given our circumstances, it's in everyone's best interest for us to give the public school system here in Florida a shot.  That process has been a real eye-opener for me.

In talking to other cruising families that have made the transition back to land, I was under the impression that it would be a fairly easy process.  I don't know if FL is just different or what, but it has been a royal pain in our butts to get things started.

Our first step was to get Jake registered.  Sounds easy enough...fill out some forms, get some shots, well visit, etc.  (Incidentally, all those shots Jake got before we left have left him so vaccinated that 6 years later, he's still good).  There's one thing that put a kink in things.  Jake's birthday is in September.  He's that 9 year old that can either go in the fourth grade and be the oldest kid in class, or go in the fifth grade and be the youngest kid in the class.  Andy and I have spent many hours discussing this and feel that the fourth grade is where he needs to be.  He's never been in a formal school and doesn't know the ins and outs of that whole routine.  While he's ahead in many areas and would probably do well in the fifth grade, there are some key areas where I feel he would just get frustrated and needs further instruction (anyone that went to school with me will find it no surprise that writing is not my kid's favorite subject).  And while I hate to even imply that he's not been "socialized" (indeed he's one of the most social kids I know), the fact is, he has way more experience with adults than kids and I think it will take him some time to get used to the types of interactions he'll have with kids his age.

I communicate all of this to the registrar.   They didn't want to take my word for it.  They were worried he might be bored.  OK, so that' s new one...I thought sure recommending he go in the lower grade would get me out of any extensive process.  Not so....She informed me that I needed to create a "portfolio" for Jake.  She explained that I needed to provide samples of his work, a summary of his situation, details about what he knows, what he doesn't know, his learning style and numerous other items.  I stressed a bit about this, but did think it was a good idea and if they insisted on assessing him for the fifth grade, this would be a good way to do it.

Imagine my surprise when I get an email from the assistant principal asking me what day is good for Jake to come take his "tests."  Huh?  Tests?  Who said anything about tests?  It turns out they wanted to test him in reading, writing, math, science and language arts.  In one week.  Have I mentioned that Jake has NEVER sat for a standardized test before?

The next week was a huge stress fest...Long story short, after a few tests and a little boy in tears, they decided I was right and he should go into the fourth grade (For the record - Jake would want me to tell you this - he did REALLY well in reading....proud, proud mama).  I tried hard not to get Jake stressed out because of my feelings but I don't think I was very successful.  But if you get right down to it, it was a test for me...did I do him justice?  Did I do my best so that he can do his best?  Should I have been more strict?  Less "field trips,"  more "structure?"  I hate to fail on my own...but I really hate to fail my kid.  In the end, I still feel confident of our decisions and I think the result is exactly what we hoped for...it just could have been easier to get there.

I'm only sharing this to help prepare any others for the whole re-entry process...I know he's smart, I know why they wanted to test him, I get it...I just didn't think it was a good idea.

But now he's all ready to go.  We have new school clothes, lunch box, supplies, etc.  He's excited (sort of) about making new friends and learning from someone besides his dad and me.  And I'm excited for him.  I loved elementary school.  I loved riding the bus.  I loved playing with my friends.  And I loved my teachers.  I hope it's the same for him.

Here are some pics from a camping trip Andy and Jake went on recently....

We traded our crocs for alligators.

Catching tadpoles

They brought a whole cooler of these home to release in our
pond out back.  They thought we needed bullfrogs.

Stop the Shark Finning!

Jake's latest writing assignment was to write a persuasive paper.  He chose a topic he's very passionate about, shark finning.  We saw a good bit of it in Mexico (including the sharks washing up on the beach) and some here in SE Asia as well (more the selling of the soup than actually seeing the finning occur).  He said he had to get the word out and asked me to publish this for him.  Feel free to share...

Shark Finning

By:  Jake (9 years old)

I hate shark finning. An estimated 70 million sharks are killed each year and over a third are killed just for their fins.  People use their fins for soup.

First, if we keep killing the sharks they will all be gone. Killing the sharks stops the immune system of the ocean. Sick fish will not be eaten and they will pollute the ocean.

Second, it is cruel to the sharks.  Fishermen just cut off their fins and throw them back in the water and leave them to drown.  Stop killing the sharks!

Calauit Game Reserve and Wildlife National Park

We anchored in a beautiful little spot right in front of the Calauit Wildlife Reserve.  This has been on our radar for quite some time.  Jake loves all things Safari and when we heard there was a safari park with African animals in it, we had to go.  So after sailing for 3 days from Puerto Galera, we finally made it.

It was so cool!  It's not a very big place when you think "Safari," but it was plenty big for this easily entertained family.  The park was an effort started by Ferdinand Marcos back in 1976 to supposedly help save African wildlife (although some stories say it was more to entertain his son's hunting habit??).  Animals from Africa were shipped here and put on this reserve to live alongside many species endemic to Palawan as well.

Calauit Deer

We opted for the guided jeep tour and were pleasantly surprised with how knowledgeable our guide was.  Roland (or Robin?  Andy and I disagree on the name), was our guide and he started working at the park in 1977...if it happened, he knew about it.  We were able to not only see the giraffes roaming around, but feed them and pet them as well.  There were 40 head of zebras - different herds all over the park.  ...Over 800 head of Calauit deer - tiny little deer found only in Palawan.  We saw many other things...antelope, wild boar, porcupines, monkeys, pythons, crocodiles, turtles...not all roaming wild (thank goodness), but all healthy and looking relatively happy.  We learned a lot in the few hours we were there.  There's a lot of arguing going on about who owns this land and what it should be used for.  There are some indigenous folks who believe it's theirs to do what they please (like hunting) and then there are the people who run the reserve who believe in conservation and protecting the animals.  Who knows the right thing to do...It's never black and white when it comes to these kinds of things.  I'm just glad we got to experience it while we were here.

I won't go on and on....I'll just get to the pictures...

We spent A LOT of time with the giraffes...

Those things are strong!  He kept surprising me!

He dressed for the occasion..."safari hat...check!",
"water bag....check!", "flipflops...check!"

We noticed that everything is smaller here in the Philippines....
even the porcupines.

Have you ever read about (or tasted) that coffee that comes
from an animal that eats the beans, then poops them out
(and those beans are collected for the coffee)?  This is that animal.

He's holding a turtle and inspecting the shell
to determine if it's male or female...one of the things
he learned on this little field trip.

Baby fresh water crocodiles

Baby Crocodile hissing at his handler.

Just an inch taller....

Now we're anchored in a gorgeous cove about 20 miles south of the reserve...beautiful hotels, sunsets, protected moorings...absolutely gorgeous.

One view from the restaurant at the hotel that owns the mooring we're
on (and where we'll be enjoying our afternoon today).

Another view...

My view... :)

And finally, a few random pics we've taken in the last few days....

We barely touched anything in our freezer after
this catch!

A very large pod of dolphins we saw while underway.  We
saw a leatherback turtle too! unfortunately we were so
excited we didn't get a picture of it.

Homeschooling aboard s/v Savannah

After three years of experimenting, worrying and occasionally patting myself on the back, I think it’s time to evaluate Savannah Academy.

It’s one of the things that actually keeps many women from cruising…. home-schooling.  I was nervous as I could be and in the beginning I had more questions than answers.  How stringent should I be?  What is this un-schooling thing?  Should I buy a curriculum?  Am I supposed to make it all up?  What if I miss something?  What if he turns out stupid?  I decided, given my personality and the million other things we had to worry about, the best thing to do would be to buy one of the schools in a box type things and go from there.  Calvert Home-schooling has graduated many cruisers so we decided it was a good place to start.  Jake was just in Kindergarten so I knew that if it didn’t work we had plenty of time to work things out.  We tried it for a while and I found it to be too rigid and many times irrelevant ( learning his address and phone number for example….ummm.  Sailing Vessel Savannah, Channel 16?), which was rather surprising given my type A personality and the need to check lots of boxes.  Eventually, we donated the whole box to a local community in Mexico and just focused on basic reading, writing, and math while I went about finding another approach. 

Our second go round was based on the book The Well Trained Mind, by Susan Wise.  This is sort of a ‘how to’ on Classical Education.  I love the way it’s laid out and it provides several different choices/suggestions/resources for curriculums.  While I never really followed this guide to a ‘T” (it, too is very rigid), it addressed all the things that I was concerned with.  Specifically, I liked the way it laid out History and the different phases of education.  It just made sense to me.

So today, we do a combination of many different curriculums, all loosely based on the Classical Education concept.  We use The History of the World, as suggested by the book and Jake absolutely loves it.  We (I) like Math U See and we use Spelling Workout books for Spelling.  For reading, we started with Hooked on Phonics, but since we’ve finished those through second grade, we now read whatever books we have on board, trying when we can to link them to our history lessons or something pertaining to wherever we may be geographically.  Writing is all over the place, but we use Handwriting Without Tears to fill in the blanks.  We use Susan Wise’s book on Langugae/Grammer (we’re on book 2 at the moment) and so far, I’m impressed with the results. 

We’re much freer with our schedule than I ever thought we would be.  I find that we spend about 2 – 3 hours a day (depending on the attitude of the student and patience of the teacher) on the basic subjects; math, reading, writing, spelling, grammer, history, science.  Science gets the least amount of attention, as I really believe we cover that day to day via our hikes, snorkels, sailing, etc.   If we pull into a harbor and see kids…we take every chance we can get to play.  If we are underway and the seas are too rough, we ditch school until the conditions get better.  When we got to Tahiti, we took a “Tahiti Break.”  This summer when we went to the east coast of the US, we took a “summer break.”  I find that we are able to stick to our plans most when we’re in a place where we have sort of “settled down.”   Our typical day is for Jake and I to “do school” in the a.m. while Andy goes diving.  In the afternoon, we do boat projects, go shopping, hiking or whatever.  One day a week, we usually take a break and go hiking or sight seeing as a whole family.  Sometimes I have Jake write about our trip, sometimes I don’t.  I find if I connect all the fun things to school, he no longer thinks they’re fun.

We’ve run into attitude problems along the way…we’ve developed a system.  Andy and I have a mantra:  We will not raise an idiot.  If Jake doesn’t want to learn from me (nice cozy atmosphere in our underwear joking and laughing), he can learn from daddy (sit up straight, put on a shirt, “I’m timing you!”).  If daddy can’t motivate, we’ll put him in school where ever we are at the time.  If that doesn’t work…. we go home.  Mommy and daddy get jobs, Jake goes to school.  We’ve found we rarely get past putting a shirt on for daddy.  The threat alone usually does the trick.

While I’m 100% positive that he’s thriving in this atmosphere, as I said above, I do find that he isn’t always as enthusiastic as I had hoped.  And while we have a plan, I find that I get extremely sad when he doesn’t want to learn.  I think many of us mom’s who have followed other cruising kid blogs over the years envision our kids sweetly skipping through town picking up strange languages, politely sitting down with elders asking intriguing questions, begging to make the grocery list and add up the cost, while fitting in time to learn a new instrument or skill like carving or basket weaving.  Well, that just doesn’t happen.  So the less you beat yourself up about it (as a mom and teacher), the better the day goes.  There are times when you can squint really hard, have a beer and convince yourself it’s happening, but more often than not, you’re better off just trying to find out how to make learning fun while still getting the job done and not killing anyone.  At the end of the day, somehow, through all the fussing and fighting, you find out they really did learn that language (at least hello, goodbye, and cheers!), and while they may not have learned how to carve a shark out of a breadfruit tree, they did learn how to climb the coconut tree and provide you with a tasty coconut to go with your rum. 

I find that as a home-schooling mom (on the ocean or on land), you just need to cut yourself some slack.  Whether you’re un-schooling, or you keep the strictest of schedules, the point is you’re together and you’re both learning and NO ONE cares more about their education than you.  ...that can’t be a bad thing.

School Days

I've been seeing all of these cute pictures on Facebook of everyone sending their kids back to school with titles like "First day of 1st grade,"  "First day of Middle School," "My baby's in high school!"

It got me to thinking about our school...what grade is Jake actually in, 1st or 2nd?  Should we continue year round with intermittent breaks or take a long summer break?  Are we doing enough?  Do I have the right curriculum?  Blah, blah, blah....  This summer has been good for me.  It's allowed me to get a good look at how Jake is doing compared to others (i.e. how I'm doing as a teacher) and also to remember why we chose to homeschool in the first place (besides living in the middle of the ocean on a boat).  And finally, to remind me to quit comparing him to others (I know, that's the first thing I did).   I'm not going to go too deep into this...not because I'm afraid of the arguments but because I'm still working it out myself.  See, I like rules.  I like to follow rules and I like to check boxes off of lists that show that I'm following the rules.  I'm having trouble with this as a "boat"schooling mom (incidentally, sometimes I have trouble with the lack of routine for myself!) because rarely can we check the boxes nice and neat like.  But what I can say is that I have gotten more compliments here on his manners, how articulate he is, his vocabulary, and just what fun he is to be around.

So when an opportunity to have some fun came up this week, guess what we did?  We ditched the books and went on a field trip!  Jake and I drove down to San Diego to see some of our cruising friends who were also home for a visit.  We hadn't seen Rutie, Neal, and Corie (s/v Rutea) since American Samoa so it was really nice to sit down and hear about their travels to New Zealand and Fiji and share our travels further north.  In between visits, Jake and I managed to take in the U.S.S. Midway (one of Jake's favorite ships) where he received his "Junior Pilot Wings" and then we spent another 4 hours at the San Diego Zoo.  Both of us slept like a rock last night.

Jake made me take this picture :)

Today we're back at the books with a boring old Math test and some mandatory journal writing (something I'm trying to make him do after our "field trips"), but the spirits are a bit higher and the student is a bit more agreeable.

I've vowed to quit worrying so much about how we're doing by everyone else's standards and just follow my gut, which has served me well in the past.

Last weekend, we went to the U.S.S Iowa with Papa and Gigi to kick off our
week of field trips.

On a totally different subject...Andy has two more weeks left in Afghanistan and he is counting down the days.  He'll be back in Pohnpei by the first week of September and we'll join him shortly after.  He sent me a picture of him and his co-workers so I"ll leave you with that....the next picture I post of him had better be in a bathing suit, a tan, drinking a beer on Savannah!