The RedMolly Picayune-Democrat

Ceci n'est pas une homeschooler

Funny thing, this. It's 11:13 on a Monday morning. My kids are running around in their pajamas (actually, their t-shirts and boxers). They slept in partly because we stayed up late last night watching science experiments on YouTube and the first several episodes of the Teaching Company series "The Human Body: How We Fail, How We Heal." Fisher was enthralled with the explanation of cell biology and the inflammatory response. Rhys insisted on doing a Google search for sodium acetate so we could make our own hot ice. We also read a chapter of John Bellairs' The House With a Clock In Its Walls and a book about Mars; Rhys even favored us with a reading of Mr. Putter & Tabby Spin the Yarn. This was after the boys had spent the day constructing a menagerie of imaginary animals out of air-dry clay... building models on the Lego Creator site... playing a rousing family game of Carcassonne... and taking a two-hour trip to OMSI with Papa so Mama could get some of her so-important work done. (I wrote a CV. Heh heh. I have a CV.)

Yet, despite the boys' stubborn non-presence in school today and the notable lack of any sort of textbooks in & around our home, we are apparently not actually homeschooling. Nope. Not according to the authorities at Home Education Magazine, anyway--and they've been doing this a lot longer than we have, they should know.

How can this be? Check it out:

We homeschoolers know cyber charter schools are NOT homeschools. Their spread threatens to change the definition of homeschooling and do us in both with regulations all charter schools are under because they are public schools and with hoops cyber charter schools have to jump through to demonstrate that their students are really learning and are studying for the number of hours required by compulsory school attendance laws.

Yep. We are the tainted, the unwanted, the cyberschoolers. Not because we felt we "don't have enough money or confidence or education or whatever," as Helen Hegener suggests. But, rather, because EdChoices, the virtual school where our boys are enrolled, offered several benefits we were looking for:

• Flexibility. Our boys are each enrolled in a math class, and Fisher's taking Rosetta Stone German. I didn't see any need for them to take an online language arts, social studies or science class... so they're not.
• Understanding of homeschooling--no, really. Our facilitator-teacher-person, Kendra, wholeheartedly supports our decision to learn as a family; she's not a bit pushy, and the boys enjoy getting messages from her about their progress in math.
• Cooperation with Village Home. EdChoices has set up a partnership with Village Home (our home education resource center) whereby they actually pay for our membership and classes out of the public-school funds they receive for our boys. This has meant that for the winter term, we'll be able to take more classes than we did in fall term. Plus, with my unemployment, we wouldn't have been able to pay for any classes at all, meaning the boys would lose their social nexus as well as the great learning opportunities they experience at VH.
• A teeny, tiny tad of structure. Yes, I'm pretty much an unschooler to the core. All I have to do is stand back and take a look at what I've learned, what Jim has learned, what the boys have learned all on our own without anybody "making" us. But at the same time, I think an important set of life skills involves accountability, organization and learning to play by the rules when necessary. (This is why hard-core unschoolers will never consider me an unschooler, either. Heh.) I am not well equipped to set up and carry out an entire course of study, and I am glad to be able to tap into a resource that does so for me.

So since I'm not a homeschooler, I guess I have no right to tell real, true, honest-to-golly homeschoolers what they should think about the creeping plague of online charter schools. But if one of them did want to bend her ear my way, this is what I'd tell her:

When I look at what EdChoices is doing in partnership with Village Home (created by homeschoolers, for homeschoolers... and with a fairly strong unschooly bent), I see a great opportunity to build bridges between public and home education. I, along with many other home educators, would love to see a new model of public school emerge: one that's more like a library than a factory, one where individual choice and interests and needs are respected and honored. The children of Real True Homeschoolers are not the only ones who would benefit from individualized education--I think every child, in a better world, would have the same opportunity to learn, grow and discover that my kids currently enjoy.

And what of the argument that any alliance with public schools opens the door to "guvmint interference," that dreaded bugaboo of every homeschooling family? Personally, I'm not too freaked out about the annual test required by Oregon state law; I think yes, it's possible for there to be bad homeschoolers who shouldn't be keeping their kids home (the woman I knew from MOPS who taught her kids exclusively out of the Bible leaps to mind) and I don't think (though Real True Homeschoolers surely disagree with me) that parents have exclusive rights to control the contents of their kids' minds.

In a democratic society, we have the right to "petition the government for the redress of grievances"... surely that means that home educating families have the right, if not the responsibility, to get involved with politics as it applies to homeschool law. Don't like the current law? Rather than retreating to your cabin to mutter darkly down the barrel of your gun, try writing letters, attending meetings, making your voice heard, participating in public life. Show (don't tell... or scream at) the world that homeschooling is a viable choice practiced by an enormously diverse group of families.

Seriously, in our (non-)homeschooling journey, one thing I've been really surprised and saddened to discover is the extent to which many homeschoolers enjoy dividing the world up into "us" and "them." Whether it's radical unschoolers telling people the restrictions they place on their kids' video game playing are tantamount to child abuse, or Michael Smith of HSLDA talking up Patrick Henry College students' standardized test scores as proof that Homeschoolers Do It Better... it bothers me no end how attached people are to building their little boxes and shutting other people out.

But then, don't listen to me. I'm not really a homeschooler.

Historically speaking, or my kids in a nutshell

So in the interests of attaining cultural literacy, the boys and I watched Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure tonight. Yes, possibly one of the stupidest movies of the '80s, but still fairly entertaining.

Afterwards:

Me (thinking this would be a fine opportunity for the boys to show off some of their homeschooled history whizkidishness): "So if you guys could go back in time and pick anyone you wanted to bring to the present with you, who would it be?"

Fisher: "Besides Baron von Richthofen? Ummm... probably Alexander the Great... and Pompey... and Joan of Arc, she's a pretty cool historical figure."

Rhys: "How far back in time does it have to be?"

Me: "I don't think there's a limit... who were you thinking of?"

Rhys: "Uncle Pete."

(To which he added, about 15 seconds later, "And Dinah*.")

*my parents' late, much-lamented pound-puppy wonder dog

Ya think?!

We have been weighed in the balance and found A-OK.

In the mail today:

The salient bit:

 

So apparently the State of Oregon will allow us to continue abusing our children for the next 24 months at least.

How to tell if you're a bad homeschooler

Probably some of this just falls into the "you're a bad parent" camp as well.

1. Your kids yell "Five-oh! Five-oh!" when a police car drives by. (You taught this to them yourself, because you thought it would be funny.)

2. You wholeheartedly applaud the University of California's decision, recently upheld by the courts, to disallow religious curriculum from being used to fulfill science course requirements. Because "Goddidit" is not a scientific explanation. Also, since you used to work for  a UC campus' admissions department, you are fully aware that any homeschooled student admitted to UC is there as the result of an Admission by Exception decision, and so it seems silly to you for homeschoolers to care what sorts of curriculum UC will or won't accept anyway.

3. When people post to the homeschooling e-mail lists to which you subscribe with missives such as this:

Hi ,
I recently joined this group.I have a one 4.5 year old Son and 2 year
old daughter and fairly new to the HS world.My son recently started
writing and he would love to have penpal too.We are in NE .If anybody
is interested pl email me too.

you think to yourself, "Ought this person really to be in charge of the education of other people?"

Because a good homeschooler would think, "Wow, it's so great that this parent has decided to take responsibility for her own children's education, and she'll probably find that she learns just as much as they do in the process." And a bad homeschooler thinks that learning alongside your kids works great for things like the details of World War I aircraft or the plots of the thirty-eleven Shakespeare plays you haven't read yet or heck, even the basics of organic chemistry... but not so much for the essentials of freakin' English literacy.

4. Your intended curriculum for the first year of full-time two-kid homeschooling: math, phonics, grammar, art history, geography, vocabulary study, science science science. Your in-practice curriculum for the first year of full-time two-kid homeschooling: Legos, math when they show an interest in it, library books.

Your intended curriculum for the second year of full-time two-kid homeschooling: Legos, high school geometry when they show an interest in it, library books.

5. You have a nanny. What kind of homeschooler has a freakin' nanny?

6. Your nanny is a pierced, tattooed, Orange County-originating, horse-training lesbian who's majoring in mortuary studies. Your kids adore her and are sad when she's not around. (So are you. She's lots of fun.)

7. Your kids already have their first tattoo designs picked out. (Fisher's: a heart with "Mama Didn't Love Me" written across it--he picked this up from Raising Arizona. Rhys's: a unicorn with a skull impaled on its horn--he made this completely up out of his awesome little head.)

8. You let your kids watch "Metalocalypse," but only the episode where Nathan Explosion tries to get his GED and Murderface competes in the Celebrity Spelling Bee. Because it reinforces the importance of education.

9. Your kids have memorized multiple Eddie Izzard routines. Especially the Death Star Canteen one, which I know I've posted here before but is really worth revisiting. (N.B.: When reciting this one, Fisher voluntarily, and rather inexplicably, replaces all the swear words with "bleep." Rhys does no such thing.)

10. You've been putting off buying a very cool-sounding chemistry curriculum because it costs $30, but you saw an iPod boom box for $50 in the Target ad in today's newspaper and think that owning it would add immeasurably to your kids' lives.

11. Your kids are never, ever home. Right now they're driving with Grandma and Grandpa back from Colorado. They've been gone for almost two weeks. They were gone for two weeks earlier this summer. They were gone this spring, and just before Christmas, and you think last fall too. And every time they're gone, it sucks a little more. (Maybe there's a glimmering of hope for you after all. Maybe you could still turn into one of those good homeschooling parents whose children are never more than three feet from the shelter of her denim jumper.)

Reading / Rainbow

So after all that kerfuffle and rending of garments, guess who's been reading like a crazy man for the last week or so?

If you guessed "Rhys," you would be correct.

We've started just asking him to read us books multiple times per day. He always scowls and acts like it's the worst idea he's ever heard, and then proceeds to go ahead and read. Yesterday: "Little Bear," which for some reason we don't own and which I don't think he's ever had read to him before. Baby steps, baby steps.

Also: I got a letter back from Rainbow Resource Center about my request to be removed from their mailing list. It was really a considerate and well-thought-out reply... and it had some information in it which kind of scared me.

Dear Ms. [RedMolly]:

I received your letter of July 20, noting your concerns with our review of the book Institutes of Biblical Law. I am the one who wrote the review, so I must take responsibility for not describing it for you in a more informative way.

We added the book to our product line last year when we learned it was a resource used in the Sonlight curriculum. Many homeschoolers who use the Sonlight curriculum appreciate being able to purchase some of the components of the curriculum from us at a savings. I wrote the review based on my skimming the book, as I did not have time for a thorough reading. I was also familiar with the author by reputation, as his name was mentioned at some conferences that Linda and I attended when we first began homeschooling. The ideas expressed in the parts of the book that I looked at and mentioned in my review did not strike me as outlandish, but more as thought-provoking viewpoints that are not often discussed. My attempt in this review, as in all our book reviews, was to give the reader an overview of what the book is like and some details so that the reader can make an informed decision as to whether it will be worthwhile or not. In this, I believe our company has done a better job than other sources of materials. No supplier that I looked at made any mention of Rushdoony's stated positions. Sonlight offers a 5-line description, and Christian Book Distributors gives a one-line description (both enclosed). Amazon carries the book but does not describe it, leaving it to contributors to make comments. I read the 20+ reviews on Amazon's site; some were quite positive and some were very negative. The gist of many of the reviews was that Rushdoony makes controversial statements with which you may strongly agree or strongly disagree.

My intent was not to be disingenuous or deceptive. We try to find products that are portentially worthwhile and describe them as best we can so that our customers can make an informed decision about which ones are best for them. I will certainly consider reworking the review to mention that some of the author's views may be controversial. If you wish, send a customer review of this book that can be appended to the current review on our website.

Thank you for your past support of our business. Per your request, we will remove your name from our mailing list. If we can be of service to you in the future, we welcome the opportunity.

Yours truly,
Bob Schneider

OK, nice letter... reasonable and rational in tone... I very much appreciate his taking the time to write me. But what jumped out at me was the information that Sonlight, one of the big dogs on the homeschooling curriculum block, apparently uses Institutes of Biblical Law as a core text for their high school 400-level course. (Check out the sample pages from the instructor's guide.) Sonlight has a lot of followers, both specifically Christian and--surprisingly, to me at least--secular. I'm wondering how many Sonlighters actually know what they're supporting... honestly, Rushdoony's beliefs are so weird that I doubt even the crazy-fundie stripe of homeschoolers could really get behind them. Sonlight's core curriculum also includes the sheer nuttiness of Gary North's Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus. (That's professional conspiracy theorist and "wealth-building" newsletter shill Gary North, in case you were wondering.)

Sonlight prides themselves on including books in their curriculum that express a variety of worldviews (though, of course, this is done specifically to "immunize" Christian kids against the wickedness rampant in the world). I think it's a bit telling, though, that their idea of opposing worldviews runs to Rushdoony Reconstructionism on the one hand and the mild, poorly footnoted assertions of The Godless Constitution on the other. Come on, if you're going to drag out Rushdoony, why not throw up some Susan Jacoby to oppose him? What are you guys afraid of?

And does Sonlight's inexplicable popularity with non-wackadoo homeschoolers mean that there is a "felt need" for an intensively scheduled, reading-heavy, literature-based homeschool curriculum out there? Geez, who has time for these things?

Anyway, back to Rainbow... I think I'm going to write back and let them know how much I appreciate their reply. Any other thoughts?

Goodbye, cruel Rainbow world

OK... so since two people asked to see my letter to Rainbow Resource Center telling them why I will no longer be a customer of theirs, I'm going to take that as a "post it, please." Especially since I can't seem to get it together long enough to write this truly amazing scintillating post on some recent good fantasy books that I read. I've been meaning to write this damn post forever and it's Just. Not. Happening.

So without further ado:

RedMolly, Queen of the Heathen Homeschoolers

[address redacted]

July 20, 2008

Bob and Linda Schneider
Rainbow Resource Center, Inc.
[address redacted]

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Schneider:

I have been a Rainbow Resource Center customer for three years, ever since our family began our homeschooling journey with our younger son. Your catalog has provided me with invaluable information and inspiration, and I have appreciated your company's broad selection, budget-friendly prices and (most of all) detailed product reviews. Since receiving the 2008-2009 catalog, I have already created a product “Wish List” totaling over $300 in potential orders.

However, during a more careful read-through of the catalog, I noticed your review for Institutes of Biblical Law by Rousas John Rushdoony (catalog page 683, product no. 003919). After reading this review several times and discussing it with fellow homeschoolers from a variety of faith backgrounds, I regret to inform you that I will no longer be doing business with your company and must request that you remove me from your mailing list.

This review, which describes Rushdoony's book as “a meaty discussion of many current issues with profound implications,” strikes me as disingenuous at best and possibly deceptive at worst. Nowhere in the review are Rushdoony's stated positions—such as his endorsement of the death penalty for adulterers or disobedient children, his description of democracy as “heresy” or his characterization of the civil rights movement as rooted in voodoo and “Negro” magic—discussed or even mentioned. Indeed, anyone reading this review with no previous knowledge of Rushdoony and his writings would have no idea of the meat of Rushdoony's primary thesis: that democracy is un-Christian and anti-Christian, and that true believers must work to replace existing forms of government with a theocracy rooted in the very most uncharitable and graceless interpretation possible of Old Testament law. Instead, the review contains neutral assertions such as “The next three chapters are devoted to the promises of the law and how the law was viewed in both the Old and New Testaments. Chapter 14 delves into the Church, and is somewhat different in that it is discussed in light of New Testament as well as Old Testament passages. The last chapter analyzes how biblical law has been reflected in Western society."

Please note that I am in no way condemning your decision to carry this book, though I might question its relevance to homeschooling. Rather, I question the wisdom—and possibly the motivation—of describing this book in such bland, inoffensive terms when the book itself is anything but bland or inoffensive. Even among the most conservative Evangelical groups, Rushdoony's ideas are hardly common currency. I believe that you have provided your customers with a less than honest assessment of a book whose proposals I think—as, I suspect, most homeschooling American families would—border upon treasonous.

If, at some point in the future, you should choose to revise your review of Institutes of Biblical Law and include a more thorough assessment of Rushdoony's statements, I will be delighted to begin shopping with Rainbow Resource Center once again.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read and consider my letter. I wish you and your family all the best.

Very truly yours,

Molly Newman

Too many words, huh? And now I'm going to get hits from creepy people Googling "Negro magic." Also, I should've probably included an e-mail address or a phone number or something. Alas. Which reminds me... I also wanted to write a post about the Alas Awards. Maybe some other time...

Conversations with the homeschooled

First of all: wow. I am overwhelmed. Seriously. Everyone who commented on my post about trying to encourage Rhys to read; everyone from the fabulous Orsig list who wended (?) his or her way over here to read more of the saga; everyone who e-mailed me your encouragement and your experiences: thank you so, so, so much. I appreciate your help more than you know.

And I will respond to you individually--I still have lots more questions, so if you offered (Kit), you're going to get hammered. By my questions, not by alcoholic drinks. You may want to get hammered (by alcoholic drinks) by the time I'm done pestering you... but you don't really need my permission for that, do you?

Also, a Note to Self: never write a post that's going to elicit oodles of feedback-warranting feedback when you're in the throes of a day-job deadline. Sheesh.

And now, a few brief interludes from conversations with my kids.

These occurred yesterday, when the weather was so deliciously perfect (temp in the low seventies, cloudless sky, slight breeze) that we just couldn't stand to be inside and so hopped on the Max (Papa needed the car for work) and headed downtown to splash about at the Jameson Square fountain. We also visited Powell's, twice--one trip to the great Mecca of All Things Literary, and a first-ever (for the kids) foray into Powell's Technical Books, where Fisher discovered a great big shelf full of aviation manuals and then stumbled across a book called "Principles of Combustion." ("Calvin needs this book," was our verdict. Also, I discovered that I don't know quite enough chemistry to read equations such as Δ_c H _m^⦵ (C₁₅H₁₀O₇·H₂O, s) = −(5 937.99 ± 2.99) kJ · mol⁻¹ out loud to the kids. Blame my flawed education.

Scenario 1: We were in the throes of a heated discussion about zombies. Zombies are one of our favorite topics of conversation, trailing perhaps only cats (omnipresent) and World War I aircraft (aargh). I mentioned to the boys that if there were a sudden zombie attack at that moment, our friends Suzanne and Howard have an apartment only a few blocks from Jameson Square and we could head over there and take the elevator up and be safe.

Rhys: "Zombies don't know how to ride elevators?"

Me: "Well, they can't really reason at all, so they couldn't understand how to get into the elevator and push the right button and get to the floor where people were hiding. I suppose they could stumble into the elevator and flail around and accidentally push the button to go up, though."

Fisher: "It would be funny if a zombie got into the elevator and pushed the button, but instead of a button for a floor or the B button for the basement they pushed the CD button."

Me: "CD?"

Fisher: "You know... for Certain Death. And it takes you down to underneath the basement, and then it's all full of sharp spikes and stuff."

Rhys: "That wouldn't kill zombies, though, Fisher, unless the spike went right through their head."

Me: (thinking a Certain Death button should be stock equipment on every elevator)

Scenario 2: We begin crossing Flanders Street.

Fisher: "Flanders. Hey..."

Me: (thinking a Simpsons reference is sure to follow... our forays around Portland are punctuated by exclamations like "Hey! Lovejoy! Reverend Lovejoy!" or "Is Mr. Burns named after Burnside?")

Fisher: "That was the name of a battlefield in World War I."

Me: "It sure was. And did you know there's a famous poem written about it, called 'In Flanders Fields?' "

Fisher: "You mean the one that has 'We are the Dead. Short days ago/ We lived, felt dawn...' I can't remember the rest of that part..."

Me: "..."

Fisher: "I really like the line about 'We lived, felt dawn...' You can really tell what the writer was thinking about when he wrote that."

(A few minutes later, we passed Verdun Chocolatier. Fisher: "Was Verdun a battlefield in World War I and World War II, or just in World War I?" Me: "...")

Also also: I finally got around to writing my letter to Rainbow Resource Center telling them why I will no longer be a customer. Do you want to read it?

Rhys, redux

OK. Just a couple quick anecdotes about this kid we call "Spicoli." (Have I mentioned that before? I have a nagging feeling that I have. But since Typepad did this STUPID FREAKIN REDESIGN that REMOVED THE POST SEARCH FUNCTION, I can't really tell you, can I? But bear with me here.)

Yesterday, Jim took the boys for a bike ride along the westside waterfront. (Ought that to be capitalized?) There, they discovered a plaque marking the location of a Native American campsite from 1848.

Rhys: "What happened to the Native Americans? How come they're not here any more?"
Jim: "Well, when the white people came along and decided they wanted the land, they kind of pushed the Native Americans out."
Rhys: "Just like the Chinese did in Tibet."

And just a few minutes ago, I asked Rhys "How do you spell Playmobil?"

He responded "P-L-A-M... no, 'play' has a 'y'... Y-M-O-B-E..."

Fisher busted in "Rhys, what other letter says 'eeee?' "

Rhys had no idea.

Fisher provided him with "I."

Rhys looked confused. "OK... then is there an 'S?' "

Just when you think you're making great strides... yeah, the kid is totally Spicoli.

This kid...

...is giving me fits.

And since I know some of you are experienced homeschoolers, and others are experienced parents, and others have a wealth of life experience upon which to draw, I'm hoping you can give me insight here.

Rhys is, you see, The Boy Who Will Not Read.

Not in the "not a bookish kind of kid" way. He loves books. He pages through them all the time, loves to be read to, falls asleep with a Calvin & Hobbes volume or a Lego catalog or the Compact Encyclopedia of Cats clutched in his grubby little mitts every night.

Not in the "reading makes no sense to me" way. He seems to actually enjoy reading to us on occasion, as long as it's a book he feels comfortable reading. And at this point, after seven full years of being read to pretty much constantly and two years of official-ish reading instruction, he is still only comfortable reading Bob Books, the Elephant and Piggie series and Go, Dog. Go! (Yes. Go, Dog. Go! Still.) But he will not even attempt reading anything to us when he doesn't feel that he can get every word right on the first try. (Except when a new Elephant and Piggie book comes out. Then he will gladly stumble, guess, contextualize and otherwise plow his way through the whole book, often pronouncing words on the first try--such as "surprise" or "lunchtime"--that I am a little astonished that he recognizes.)

And sometimes--OK, a lot of the time--I have a sneaking suspicion that he can read a lot more than he lets on. Like the other day, when he'd been silently absorbed in a Tintin book for about an hour and suddenly looked up and asked "What does C-H-A-N-G spell?" I think he had thought it was "change" but couldn't figure out how "change" would work in that context.

All righty, then. So my dilemma here is a little bit twofold:

1. I've pretty much made up my mind that I'm not going to worry too much about the not-technically-reading part. I've read about too many kids, and known too many kids, who were firm non-readers and caused their parents all kinds of frustration and sorrow until one day... poof! it all came together and they were reading fluently seemingly overnight. But still, when I look between reading-at-four Fisher powering his way through an Osprey military manual on Albatros aircraft and tripping-over-long-vowels Rhys, I get a little freaked out despite myself. So... stories? reassurances? recriminations?

2. This is really the part where I'm hoping for some feedback. Just because Rhys is reading at an early first-grade level doesn't mean he has an early first-grade level understanding. I think it must be pretty darn common for kids to have a higher receptive literacy than active literacy level. (Those are probably technical terms that I'm getting wrong. What I mean is that he can easily understand fiction or nonfiction that's read to him even when that material is on a middle- or high-school level.) So, if you've homeschooled in the same situation, how have you dealt with subjects such as science or history or math that can be pretty darn boring if dumbed down to a low reading level? Should I just try reading the material to Rhys and having him dictate responses where necessary? Is this where I should hold my nose and jump into the whole Charlotte Mason "narration" cult? Or should we cut out all that unnecessary sciencey fiddle-faddle altogether and just concentrate on getting this kid reading for reals? (Ha ha. Like I would ever do that. I'd go read his assignments to him all the way through college first.)

Tomorrow, or perhaps some other day, or perhaps never: a follow-up post on Fisher and how he's giving me fits of a whole different sort.

Birds

We've been a wee bit obsessed with all things winged here at the Jedi Temple Academy. The boys' fascination with World War I aircraft continues apace. Rhys is in D.C. with Grammy and whiled away several hours looking at the vintage planes in the Air & Space Museum. Fisher draws ever more elaborate (and crowded) scenes of aerial battle, and just informed me that the SPAD XIII was "the most durable plane in the war. And Fokker DR-1s were slow, and if you tried to dive them, their wings would pop off." (Sounds like a design flaw.)

But it's not just metal-winged, human-piloted contraptions that have been holding the boys' interest. Since moving to a house that's surrounded by mature trees, we've had much more opportunity to hear and see birds of every sort first-hand. From darting, jewel-throated hummingbirds to the murders of crows that croak and flap at us as we pass, our neighborhood is packed with feathered friends.

And like all good secular homeschoolers, we're also overly fond of David Attenborough and his canon of well-written, gorgeously filmed nature series. Fisher and I recently started watching The Life of Birds, revelling in the slo-mo footage of peregrine falcons diving (at 200 mph!) down upon sparrows, crossbills delicately extracting green seeds from pine cones, flocks of thousands of swifts spiraling and diving in incredible precision.

Yesterday, we woke up early (oh, so very early) to join a group from Portland's Audubon Society on a walk around the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, looking at all manner of birds through binoculars and spotting scopes. (Our friends Howard and Suzanne let us borrow their awesome Nikon binoculars; the trip would've really been kind of a wash without them, especially since I'm bat-blind and can't see a damn thing.) We saw two nesting osprey families; one nest even had chicks visible in it, and the male of the other pair spent several minutes flying around with a huge carp flopping in his talons. We saw a peregrine falcon perched hundreds of feet up on a TV tower, surveying his domain. We saw (and heard) great blue herons in the swamps; we learned to identify the shrill calls of peewees and towhees and the rolling warbles of song sparrows and golden-crowned kinglets.

The trip was three hours long, and I was afraid Fisher would poop out before we were done--but he stayed engaged, fascinated and polite the entire time. He had questions for our guide ("What is the little gray bird with ruffled feathers that hides under bushes?" Most likely, our guide told us, a bushtit.), he looked at bird after bird very carefully, he made admirable tries at copying the bird calls. In short, he did a great job.

Then yesterday afternoon, as Fisher and I were walking home from the library, we saw something tiny and squirming on the ground under a maple tree. It was a baby bird, fledged but still very small, with a broken leg, peeping in distress.

I knew we should probably spare ourselves the trouble and leave it where it was. But Fisher's eyes were so sad, and he looked at me so hopefully, that there wasn't really much else I could do. I scooped it into a paper cup (thank goodness we'd stopped at a front-yard lemonade stand a block before!) and we carried it home. We made it a bed of a folded towel in a cardboard box and shut it safely away in the bathroom, planning to take it to the Audubon rescue center today.

Fisher checked on it obsessively throughout the early evening. And at about seven o'clock, he came out of the bathroom with wide, shocked-looking eyes.

"The bird... I think it's..." He trailed off.

"It's not alive?" I asked him, not wanting to say "dead."

He nodded. A tear spilled down his cheek. "It's not moving at all."

I went in and looked; the poor thing was definitely no longer with us.

"I'm sorry, Fisher." What else can you say? I felt all the feelings that every mother in that same situation--I think every mother at some point--has felt. You did what you could, and it wasn't enough, and you knew going into it that it probably wouldn't be enough.

We buried the bird under the tree in the park strip in front of the house, where we thought it wouldn't be disturbed by future gardeners. Fisher picked a red petunia and a pink rose to decorate its grave. Then he went inside and silently rampaged through the house, knocking over furniture and sweeping everything off the bathroom counter. "Life is F'in SHITE," he scrawled on a piece of paper.

What can you say? What can you do? The bird is gone, and only having had it for a few hours doesn't seem to do anything to dull the little boy's pain.

Do you remember this Calvin and Hobbes series, when Calvin found the injured baby raccoon? Yeah.

I'm leaving today (as soon as I finish this post, in fact) for four days in Salt Lake. I think when I get back I'll see what other birding walks are coming up; it's worth it, even if it means prying myself and Fisher out of bed at some hideous ungodly hour.