2020 Not Back to School Interview (The Pandemic Edition)

Q: What is your favorite subject?

A: Paleontology, evolutionary biology, geology and history. Also archaeology.

Q: What are you best at?

A: Making connections between things and synthesizing information; communicating clearly in writing and verbally; designing objects for 3d printing; generating hypotheses; imagination; procrastinating.

Q: I need to get better at __________.

A: SAT math; handwriting; being more organized. Not procrastinating and waiting for mom to nag me about stuff.

Q: What's the best thing about being a homeschooler?

A: For this year, not being that affected by the pandemic. We already were set up to do our own thing, and my outside classes were either already on the computer, or moved online. So the plague hasn't caused me as much trouble as schooled kids. But I do miss being able to see my friends and Professor Wendy in person.

Q: What's the worst thing?

A: People's weird assumptions about homeschooling, and not being as comfortable with standardized tests as schooled kids, because I don't take them as often, which is in general a good thing, but now I have to get ready for the PSAT/SAT/ACT...

Q: What kind of work do you want to do when you grow up?

A: I want to be a paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and a professor. I would also lke to do fossil preparator work, maybe as a way to help pay for grad school.

Q: This year I want to learn about ________.

A: Medieval India, Foundations of Eastern Civilization, Archaeology, Paleontology (dinosaur paleobiology, preparator skills); anatomy; comparative zoology; the age of revolutions; anthropology; German; and maybe forensics. Scientific illustration and cartography. Survival and camping skills; special effects and animation; paleoart.

Q: I want to do more _________.

A: Science. And writing.

Q: I want to do less _________.

A: Math.

Q: Who is your best friend?

A: Koby. And Julian is a really good friend. And James and Jack, too.

Q: Once COVID 19 is over, I want to go on a field trip to __________.

A: Yale Splash; MIT Splash; The Penn Museum, the Mutter Musem, The Bruce Museum.

Q: I want to go on vacation to __________.

A. Not so much a vacation, but I want to go to Sternberg Science Camp in Kansas and do the field paleontology and fossil preparation programs. I also want to go on a dig with Big Horn Basin Paleontological Institute.

Q. The most fun or best thing I did last school year was:

A. Sternberg Science Camps (online because of the plague). I got to study Evolution of Vertebrates, Mass Extinctions, and Dinosaur Science, and meet lots of kids who love paleontology as much as I do. (I run a Discord server so we can keep in touch and geek out together over ancient life.) Joining the After School Fencing Club and learning to fence with Coach Mark. (I wish the pandemic hadn't cut the season short, and delayed this year.) I also loved doing Yale Sprout and MIT Splash, and visiting the Yale musuems, the USS Constitution, all the sites on the Freedom Trail and Harvard Natural History Museum. Our trip to Washington DC and the newly redone fossil halls at the National Museum of Natural History was great, too.

Q. What is the most stressful thing you have dealt with because of the pandemic?

A: Worrying about my grandparents and not getting to go see them since March.

Q: What has helped you deal with the pandemic?

A: Keeping in touch with my friends online via Discord, playing D&D, making bad puns, watching the local wildlife, and my mom makes us get out of the house and into nature.

Q: What is your biggest disappointment because of the pandemic?

A: Missing out on competing in the Finals of the National History Bee, not getting to take the trips we had planned for this year, not being able to do fencing, and not seeing friends and family except on the phone or computer.

Q. What is your favorite book that you read last school year?

A. The Complete Dinosaur by Tom Holtz & others; The Decameron by Bocaccio.

Q: What is your favorite song?

A: Bohemian Rhapsody.

Q: What is your favorite thing to do for fun with your friends?

A: Play D&D and sword fight.

Q. What is your favorite online class that you took last year?

A: All of them, but especially Evolution of Vertebrates, Mass Extinctions, Dinosaur Science, Medieval Literature (which was in person before COVID), German and How to Defend Humane Ideals.

Q. Of all the field trips you took last year, which was the best?

A. NMNH new fossil halls, and the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Also, the Freedom trail in Boston.

Q. What are you looking forward to doing this year?

A. Classes with Wendy Raver and Crystal Ferreira. Fencing. Being able to get back to normal life eventually.

Q. What are some colleges you might want to apply to?

A. Yale, Cornell, University of Alberta, University of Toronto, University of Montana, Richard Gilder (AMNH, mom), Columbia, SUNY Stonybrook, Hunter College Macauley Honors, NYU, Columbia, University of Chicago, Fort Hayes State University.

Looking forward to another year of learning together!

Mikro's presentation on Nesting and Parental Care in Dinosaurs

Snails and Silly

One of Mikro's fellow paleontology camp participants is doing a field research project on snails. He offered to let fellow campers name them if they could pronounce the species name right.

Smart alec Mikro asked, "If I get both species names right, can I name two?"

Yes, and he did. There are now a pair of molluscs named Cope and Marsh.

His buddy promised to name the two most disagreeable ones for the two paleontologists invloved in the Bone Wars...

Mikro's presentation on the Guadeloupian Extinction

Mikro's presentation on Early Tetrapod Evolution

The Idiocy that Wouldn't Die, or, Harvard's Continuing Crusade Against Homeschooling

More information has come out about how our would be Dictator of K12 Education would have us plebians submit to her pedagogical wisdom.

Bartholet's new discussion of her "preferred regime" appears here.

Below are the comments I left on that article, and on the one Harvard article that somehow failed to close, delete, or disallow comments, so as to prevent the very diversity of opinion that supposedly justifies their onslaught on educational choice.

First comment:

The opposition to homeschooling decries stereotyping and then jumps into it with both feet, utterly failing or refusing to see the amazing diversity that is homeschooling. We do not judge all of public schooling by the failing schools at the bottom, but they would have every homeschool tarred and feathered with the broad brush of insular and ideological/fundamentalist fervor that in no way typifies the entire homeschooling community.

Just as there will be tremendous variance in the educational quality and social experience of public school students hailing from diverse urban settings versus extremely rural ones, and even between students in different neighborhoods and schools within a given city ( cf. NYC specialized science high schools with some of the poorer performing neighborhood schools, for example), there is as much variability in homeschooling.

Why are Bartholet, et al, willing to sacrifice the vast number of homeschools that provide a superior individualized education that embraces diversity for the very few aberrant cases of abuse or ignorance?

Public education woefully fails a very large number of students. Look at the drop out rates and the sad statistics on proficiency in various subject areas. It is patently ridiculous to give institutional schools a free pass to fail, while turning the presumption of innocence on its head and requiring homeschoolers to prove they deserve to be limited exceptions from a presumptive ban. The educational insiders who benefit financially from forcing up attendance numbers in public education are far from the disinterested advocates they would have us all think them.

Homeschooling is about individualizing education for the particular student. Public schools give lip service to differentiation, and then bash those who actually provide it. We have a faculty to student ratio that institutional schools can only dream of.

Stop stereotyping and generalizing on the basis of outdated statistics or the rare anecdote. Religion is no longer the driving motivation of most homeschoolers. Current statistics show that academic quality and safety of the educational environment are the predominant reason people now choose to homeschool.

I am an ivy league educated retired professional who homeschools a highly gifted kid who would be completely underserved in a traditional school setting. I chose to take on the responsibility of catering to his needs. We are part of the NYC homeschool community, which is diverse in every possible meaning of the word, including viewpoints and opinions.

Choice is the key to providing every student with an appropriate academic experience. Homeschooling may not be perfect for every child, but neither is institutional school. Families are free to choose what works best for them, and it will be a sad day if authoritarian busybodies with delusions of superiority take that away.

Second comment:

The fact that Bartholet has made comments also attacking private schools is a big red flag to me that it isn't about mandatory reporters getting a look at kids to prevent hypothetical abuse. Private school teachers serve that function.

It's all about promoting group think and indoctrination. Even those who meet her ridiculous standards for exemption from her proposed presumptive ban are supposed to follow an "approved" curriculum and submit to a certain number of hours in institutional schools.

That ensures exposure to the ideology Bartholet wishes to instill.
It also completely destroys the value of homeschooling in individualizing education to the particular student's interests, achievement level, and learning style, and ignores the fact that many choose to homeschool to escape substandard curricula and implementation, which result in pathetic proficiency outcomes.

Her totalitarianism is showing despite her faux concern mask.

If you value educational liberty, please make your voice heard.  Bartholet gains far too much instant credibility from her association with Harvard.  We must show how wrongheaded her thinking is to prevent the gullible from falling for her fearmongering and false stereotypes.