Millennial Generation

I saw a segment on last week’s edition of Sixty Minutes about the ‘Millennial Generation’. The definition of 'millennial generation' varies slightly but generally to be a member, your birth year has to be at or after 1984. I have two children that are members of this group but fortunately my kids don’t have the characteristics of this generalized group. I find it odd that when I was making the decision to home-school these same two children, most of the reasons that I wanted to home-school was because I didn’t want my kids to turn out like the members of the ‘Millennial Generation’. I had no idea at the time that someday these characteristics would be attributed to the current generation of young people.

My two kids tell me that they can’t believe how unprepared their Millennial Generation classmates are for the real world. My daughter said that she couldn’t understand why their orientation was a week long. At the end of the second day, she said “How many ‘get-to-know-you’ games do we have to play - let’s get on with classes!” She didn’t need to attend the orientation session that showed students how to run a washing machine or a dryer either.

I have always said that the education system is exactly what parents want. It’s a quasi-daycare center that makes their children feel good about themselves. Bill Gates warned parents and post-secondary institutions that by continuing down this path of non-justified rewarding will produce individuals who are ‘sissy’ and can’t take criticism of any kind. Essentially he stated that the kids will not grow up in the real world and they won’t be ready when they graduate because they won’t be able to cope. I guess he was right.

I can hardly wait to say “I told you so” to all those nay-sayers that criticized me for my home-schooling decision. My two children have flown the nest, are paying for their own university education (through wages that they earned themselves) and fighting their own battles because I have given them the tools to do so. They also know how to separate their white clothes from the darks. Imagine that!

My Trip to A New World

Here's Michaella's interpretation of the assignment on pretending to be a turkey on her turkey farm. Enjoy!

When I was in an egg, it felt hot and sticky. All I heard was a little peeping noise. It was too cramped and I had to get out of that turkey egg! So I started to peck at the egg wall. I was almost out but I was so tired that I had to take a nap. When I woke up, I started to peck at the shell and I heard a big crack. Then I was free from the egg at last.

As I laid there beside my shell, all wet and weak, I fell asleep. When I opened my eyes, I was soft, fluffy and dry. A giant came and moved me to a box with several of my friends. All I heard was the giant talking and I felt the box jiggle. Then the giant moved the box to the sorting room and sorted us into two boxes, one for hens and one for toms. Then we were put on a huge truck.

Inside the truck it smelled different than inside my egg. My egg home was clean and cozy. The truck home is dirty from all my friend’s poop. I sure hope I get off this truck soon.

It was a long trip because the giant that was driving the truck kept stopping. Outside the truck, I heard loud and scary sounds that rumbled and beeped. They sounded like monsters. Then I felt a jerk and the truck stopped, and the door opened. Another big giant picked up the box I was in and dumped me into a new world.

In my new world it is warm and dry. There is food and water for all of us to eat and drink. We have wiggly jiggly red stuff to peck and it tastes good. I have made lots of new friends in this new world and I love living here.

A Poult's Life

Here is Addison's story based on the assignment that he was to pretend that he was a turkey on his farm. We hope you enjoy his efforts.

It’s crowded and hot in the truck and it can be quite bumpy. With all the other polts peeping in here it’s very noisy. There are many stops along the way. I can hear sounds of traffic and the heater that’s keeping us warm. I can see some lights out of the holes in this box. I smell stinky car fumes in the back of this truck and the cardboard under my feet feels weird because the cardboard is bumpy. The truck has stopped and I’m being taken into a gigantic barn. I wonder what will happen to me next.

Oh my gosh! I’m being dumped in a huge cardboard circle. There are so many of us in a big pile and it’s hard to get off my back. My feet are in the air and I can’t get up! A huge person flips me over so I’m back on my feet. There are soft and comfortable wood shavings all around me. There is food and water, and it is very clean. These heaters are nice to take a nap under and it’s very warm. There is very good and nutritious red jelly that wiggles when I peck at it.

Huge people wearing old dusty shirts and pants come every day and clean the cardboard circle with a long wooden arm with fingers on it. The fingers are taking the top layer of dirty shavings out of my cardboard circle leaving me a clean area to live in with my friends. The huge people also put in new water and food. My friends and I sometimes sleep in the food dishes and the huge people have to move us from it. Every two days the huge person moves the walls of our cardboard circle, then there is more room to run and explore in this huge barn. My yellow fuzzy feathers are turning into big white bird feathers. I try to fly and don’t get very high.

When the huge person comes in I go running to see him because I’m curious to see what he will do next. This farm will be a great place to grow up.

My 'Regular' School

There’s an old saying that goes something like, “there’s no job harder than being a parent”. I can speak from experience and agree that is almost true. I think a harder job is that of a home-schooling parent. Trying to teach your child and student that there will be challenges in life and then providing them with skills so that they can overcome those challenges. Sometimes the challenges come from sources that you least expect.

During the earlier days of my 13-year home-schooling career, the K-W Record sponsored an online stock market competition for local classrooms in Waterloo Region and surrounding areas. At the time, my two children were at or near the age of twelve and had already developed a love for reading, including reading the K-W Record. Imagine their excitement when my children discovered that their local and familiar newspaper media was sponsoring such a wonderful contest. The grand prize for the competition was what attracted my students to the contest – a pizza party complete with ice cream for your entire class. Wanting to seize this unique learning opportunity, I agreed to enter our home-school into the competition.

I contacted the Record to ask for permission to enroll our not-so-traditional class into the competition. I was told that home-schoolers would not be allowed into the competition. I thought about trying to convince the individual at the other end of the telephone that my students would have no problem in keeping up with traditional classes but I had been down that road too many times. I knew that the proof that was required wouldn’t be available until my students were successful beyond the high school age, whether it is university enrollment, college-bound studies or a job in which they excelled.

Since I couldn’t wait six years to apply for the stock market competition, I had to come up with a different strategy for registration. Registration for the contest actually occurred online. I went to the website to look at the registration form. The first blank on the form asked for the school name. I looked at the blank and thought to myself “would it work if I simply made up a name for our home-school?” I decided to try it and so ‘The Snyder School of Higher Learning’ was born! I finished the registration process, crossed my fingers and said a little prayer and waited to see if our application would be accepted. A day or two later I received confirmation that ‘The Snyder School of Higher Learning’ had been accepted into the competition. And so the contest began. Newspapers were delivered to our home-school for us to monitor the stock market pages and make our fictitious stock purchases – but not just two newspapers. Two dozen newspapers arrived three days each week because it was thought that our class was a ‘regular’ class from a ‘regular’ school.

The contest went on for 4-6 weeks and my students watched the news and the stock market numbers diligently, making educated decisions on whether to buy or sell. At the end of it all, ‘The Snyder School of Higher Learning’ came in second in the competition. Visions of pizza and ice cream soon vanished and curiosity arose as to whether there was a runner-up prize. We soon got our answer. A few days later, a large box was delivered to our ‘school’. It was quickly opened and my students were awarded K-W Record vinyl wallets – and not just two wallets. Thirty wallets were delivered to our ‘regular’ class at our ‘regular’ school.

It’s been six years since that competition and the proof is now in. The Snyder School of Higher Learning may not have been ‘regular’ but it was successful. Both of my students have gone on to post-secondary education, one at Western University in London, Ontario and one at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, New Jersey.

I hope the K-W Record forgives me for bending the rules. I also hope that my children weren’t the only ones who learned something through their stock market competition. I think I still have one of those wallets in my purse – and a few more in my basement!

The Life of a Leaf

Here is our first project - a joint effort by Addison, Michaella and Melissa

My Life as a Leaf

It’s autumn in Ontario, Canada and my life is almost over because I am a leaf. But that doesn’t bother me because this is a natural part of my life cycle. When I was born, I was a dark green, rubbery surface with bumpy veins. Now I am bright red like a rose but I don’t smell like a rose. I smell more like my mother, the maple tree that is on the edge of the north side of the bush. Now I feel more like a bran flake without any milk.

I’m now falling quickly from my mom and am drifting from side to side until I silently and softly touch the ground and get used to my new surroundings. I see thick bushes and prickly vegetation all around me and I am so relieved that I am not in those thick bushes and prickly vegetation.

I just hope that my life does not get complicated by having a human squish me with its heavy, blue hiking boot. I would rather be blown with a gentle gust of wind to somewhere that I will be safe until the snow falls and I will be buried and decompose and I will start my new life as a piece of dirt. It may take a while but I’ll be patient.

We've only just begun!

I thought that I had put away my pencils, papers, blackboard and textbooks for the last time but I have come out of retirement at the Snyder School of Higher Learning to 'play' with Addison and Michaella. After homeschooling my own children, who have now gone on to university, I now have the privilege of sharing some of my time with Addison and Michaella.

This 'blog' will serve as a public blackboard for our projects. I will write a few articles and Addison and Michaella will contribute as well to their own pages of the blog. Their nearly weekly assignments should appear here for all to read and comments from supportive family and friends are certainly welcome. We hope that you enjoy this blog as much as we have enjoyed creating it.