(Written in 2000; nothing’s changed)

Son: They’re not letting us play Warcraft at school anymore.

Father: The other shoe dropped?

Son: Huh?

Father: You told me they were looking for a reason to stop the gaming.

Son: Yeah, I don’t think they ever wanted us playing games. Teachers were always complaining.

Father: Complaining about what?

Son: Noise, language, not letting the little kids play, that only boys play Warcraft. Mostly, they complain that Warcraft’s not educational and shouldn’t be played in school.

Father: What do you think? What do you do in Warcraft?

Son: Try to kill the other team.

Father: That’s it? What’s fun about it?

Son: It’s fun to work with your partner. There’re four computers networked for games. We usually play two against two.

Father: You like the teamwork. What do you like about it?

Son: Yeah I like working with someone to beat the other team. We explore the area, try to figure out what the other team is going to do, and make plans.

Father: Hmm…collaboration, research, strategy — sounds like the foundation of business, science, athletics or any professional endeavor. I wonder what those who don’t want you playing games mean by educational?

Son: They seem to like math games, programs that read a story, and Carmen Sandiego.

Father: Yes, the old favorites. Software that emphasizes tricks and procedures, memorization, and looking things up.

Son: What does that mean?

Father: Tricks and procedures is what you do in arithmetic — addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; or, as Lewis Carrol put it: “ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision.” Arithmetic is learning the tricks and procedures of calculation. This is in contrast to mathematics which is the study of formal relations. Arithmetic is tricks and procedures; mathematics is about ideas.

Son: You think that learning arithmetic isn’t important?

Father: It’s nice to know your times tables and to be able to do arithmetic but it doesn’t deserve the devotion it gets. Tricks and procedures are either understood or not. If the tricks and procedures of arithmetic are understood, then you’re going to get almost every calculation correct. If they’re not understood, then you’ll usually get the calculation wrong. If you’ve learned calculation, you don’t need to practice much. If you haven’t learned calculation, you’ll need further instruction — practice won’t help. Most arithmetic software is not designed to help you learn calculation. I’d be far more impressed if I saw some useful math software, for example, about statistics in everyday life. How about a program that taught gambling odds? We’ll call it, You Betcha, the game that sheds light on your winning chances in games — from Blackjack to state lotteries. You’d learn that you have the same chance at winning the lottery as you do of falling off a cliff and landing in a pile of hundred-dollar bills.

Son: Are you okay, Dad? You got a little excited.

Father: Guess I did. I just don’t see why calculation games, interactive books, and Carmen Sandiego have become sacred in so many schools. Calculation is a useful but trivial skill, the acquisition which is not much helped by a computer. Interactive books are a poor and relatively expensive, substitute for real books read by Mom and Dad. Carmen is basically the game of Clue with history facts. Simple statistics, on the other hand, can be quite useful to learn. And, by the way, a good way to begin learning statistics is by playing computer games — especially role playing, strategy, and war games.

What happened to educational software is that it went through a couple of stages and disappeared. In the first stage, computers were so novel that anything done with one was considered useful preparation for the future. Kids would go to their school’s computer lab for a session and practice “keyboarding skills,” play dumb math games or the ubiquitous Oregon Trail and Carmen Sandiego games.

Over time, teachers, parents, and the children realized that computers plus crummy software, while more fun than doing math exercises out of books, is not equal to magical teaching machine. And since by then the kids also had video-game machines, they knew that, not only did dumb math games not teach them math, they weren’t very good games.

The next stage was the “epiphany” that computers were just tools and should be used by children the same way they were being used by adults — for their dull and clumsy office applications such as word processors and spreadsheets. This change in perception, not coincidentally, came about as many adults were buying “serious” personal computers for their homes. Time for kids to be as bored as adults were by modern technology. Luckily for the kids, they still had those video-game machines, which, unlike educational software, were getting better all the time.

It’s not that educational software ceased to exist, it’s that the enthusiasm for its promise evaporated. First, the ambitious and creative companies sold out to conglomerates (which are now mostly part of Riverdeep.net) who milk profits out of designs that are at least 15 years old. Second, grant-funding charities, such as the Markle Foundation, stopped funding research in educational software. So while educational titles get facelifts, there aren’t any new designs. It would be as if General Motors was selling cars with 15-year-old engineering covered by new sheet metal. (Oh, wait-a-second, they are.)

So innovation in educational software is long dead. What’s left is surfing the Internet, exchanging gossip on MySpace, and playing World of Warcraft, definitely an educational upgrade over struggling with Microsoft Office.

I think that the death of educational software is a good thing. You couldn’t exaggerate its death too much for my taste, because I think that it never existed. Most of what we called educational software was book-learning transferred to the screen and animated. If a new technology is going to change what we learn, it needs to change how we learn.

I was 14 when I first made a synaptic connection between car and safety. My 16 year-old brother, two friends, and I were cruising in our father’s 1962 Rambler convertible and playing, ahem, splash the car. It doesn’t rain often in the San Fernando Valley — good thing since, otherwise, the best movie of all time wouldn’t have a plot — but when it does, it rains hard. Los Angeles has a similar attitude towards extreme weather as Seattle. Northwesterners don’t spend money on snowplows and Southern Californians don’t spend money on water drainage. So the puddles in Los Angeles get deep — handy for splash the car, which is played thus: when a car is coming towards you in the adjacent lane, if a puddle is between you and that oncoming car, accelerate to hit the puddle as the cars pass.

With my brother at the wheel, the rest of us urging him on, we were scoring well until this deep game came to an abrupt halt. A car approaches, my brother accelerates towards his goal — a giant puddle in the intersection. Oops! The car ahead of us stops for a left turn, my brother slams on the brakes, our car skids into the rear of the paused car.

My brother was unhurt, as were the two of us in the back seat, but our friend riding shotgun branded the windshield with his forehead. Fortunately, he suffered only a huge bump and wasn’t planning a career in rocket science anyway; fortunately again, no one in the car we rammed was hurt.

Seconds after the crash, I thought about cars and safety for the first time. Not about the wisdom of wearing seat belts. The Rambler didn’t have any (they weren’t mandatory until 1967). Not about avoiding stupid and dangerous games. And not about the self-sacrifice of the Rambler’s front end that cushioned the impact and saved our butts. I was thinking about what we’d tell our father so he wouldn’t kill us.

I won’t tell you what we came up with — you kids will have to conjure your own excuses. And while I’m at it, I’ll point out that, while avoiding death by angry father is a strategy for the ages, other facets of auto safety are more important in the long run — that is, if you want a long run.

Some aspects of auto safety are obvious: attitude of the driver, self-imposed distractions, accident avoidance competence of both the car and the driver, and the car’s crash-worthiness. Some are mutually exclusive: for example, high and heavier is better in a crash while low and lighter is superior in accident avoidance. Some are indirect: the consequences of foreign oil dependence, pollution and global warming.

Driver attitude

Because of the accident, the first thing I learned about auto safety is that it starts with the driver — don’t drive stupid. As there are an infinite ways of being stupid, there are an infinite ways of driving stupid. First the obvious: Playing splash the car is stupid; don’t do that. Don’t drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Don’t succumb to the common types of road rage: tailgating, cutting people off, and making gestures. Even if you don’t cause an accident someone might shoot you.

You might even want to avoid a common but subtle form of road rage. It’s not against the law because it’s protected by the first amendment and because no one regards it as road rage: the display of bumper stickers. It’s a tradition, still usually followed among the friendly but not intimate, to refrain from discussing politics and religion at social occasions. Get on the highway, however, and you’ll be inundated with political and religious messages stamped on bumper stickers. These messages have evolved from simple declarations of support to in-your-face commentary reminiscent of the most zealous of talk-shows. If you’ve ever detested someone, just because of his bumper message, or been flipped off (or worse) over your Stassen for President sticker, you’ve experienced bumper-sticker road rage.

Cell phones and other distractions

I don’t care what people do in their cars, as long as they don’t scare the horses and as long as they’re not driving. The research is coming in and it’s telling us that a cell-phone totin’ SUV driver is more dangerous than a gun-totin’ crack addict. Cell phone use is distracting and as or more dangerous than driving under the influence.

While not at the level of cell phone use, also distracting is sipping lattes, munching baby-backed ribs, adjusting your radio, listening to the wrong beat, and (okay, I’m guessing) playing Quidditch.

Driver’s skill

Driver’s skill? You mean like figuring out how the radio buttons work? If that were the case, the license to operate a motor vehicle would be issued to only 10-year-old boys. Real driver skill is facility with brakes (anti-lock and conventional), gears, and steering, on wet, frozen, and dry roads. It’s adapting to the different handling characteristics of front wheel, rear wheel, and four-wheel drive trains. If you haven’t been trained as a racer or professional truck driver, your driving skill is less than you think.

Driver’s awareness

In a scene from the movie, Grand Canyon, a father is teaching his 16-year-old son to drive. Son is at the wheel, attempting to negotiate a successful left turn in heavy traffic. Father is barking instructions while Son is waiting for that magic confluence where the light turns red, no one is running the red light, no one is turning right from the other way into his intended lane, and cross traffic hasn’t overcome inertia. But Son waits a millisecond too long and the cross traffic almost bags them.

When they pull off the road to calm their nerves, Father explains, “Making a left turn in L.A. is one of the harder things you’ll learn in life.” Now every urban area is Los Angeles. Since most of us are not race-car drivers, all most of us have going for us is awareness — what used to be called “defensive driving” (before that term became a hustle for DUI diversion schools). Staying aware of all that is happening in traffic can be overwhelming but (as I spelled out a few paragraphs above), members of our species love a challenge so much, even if our lives are at risk, we choose to take on numerous handicaps of distraction. I was never that brave. Most of my adult life, I drove various equivalents of skateboards with sheetmetal; I’m sure the only reason I survived was the knowledge that if I was in a major accident I was dead.

Car’s skill

What’s the easiest way to make a good handling and braking car? Start with a low center of gravity and light weight. Heavier cars can be made to handle well, for example, a 700 series BMW or a NASCAR machine, but the heavier car will need more sophisticated engineering, more horsepower, and more expensive tires. (That additional 30 thou goes for more than just extra sheet metal and leather seats.) Cars with a high center of gravity cannot be made to handle well except relative to each other. A BMW or a Honda Accord is going to have far more “car skill” than a Lincoln Navigator or a Jeep.

You don’t have to buy a new car to get better car skill. You can improve the only parts that touch the ground, the tires. Their quality and remaining tread depth can make a dramatic difference in handling and braking, especially on wet pavement. A recent issue of Consumer Reports discusses how quickly tires lose their grip when they’re worn to half their tread. I’ve found Tire Rack to be a reliable source of tire reviews and owner surveys.

Crash protection

Since less than one percent of SUV owners ever go off-road, and since mini-vans hold more passengers, the only explanation for the popularity of SUVs is that you look studly driving them or that they’re safer. If looking studly is your game, you’d be more convincing on a Harley. That leaves being safer. Are they? No, thanks to their knack for rolling over in accidents. According to High and Mighty: SUVs—The World’s Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way, the only circumstances in which you’re safer in an SUV is when you’re getting rammed by a compact such as a Toyota Corolla or other 2600-pound car. Also, you’ll come out better in a head-on collision, but that’s not because you’re in a SUV, it’s because you’re in a much heavier vehicle. You’d be even safer in a 3500 pound car or in a mini-van than in that SUV.

Weapons of mass destruction, finally found

Why aren’t these massive hunks of metal safer? Because they’re the auto equivalents of the neutron bomb: SUVs are essentially trucks, engineered for self-preservation rather than to coddle flesh. If your Chevrolet Impala womps into a tree it will attempt to protect its occupants like a politician protects its campaign donators: the Impala’s front end will collapse to cushion you and your loved ones from impact. If your SUV womps into a tree, it will invoke its me first credo: the sturdy frame will withstand collapse and you and your passengers will take the impact. Bonus points are rewarded in that, while SUVs don’t protect you better, they’re 80 percent more lethal when they smack into cars having the audacity to share the road with them. While one reason for this is that SUVs typically weigh more than the cars they crash into, a second reason is that because SUVs ride so much higher, the car and SUV bumpers are mismatched. One of the points the author of High and Mighty makes is that, when these expensive SUVs get old, they’ll be snapped up by the 16 to 25 year-old male crowd. Given that age-and-gender’s propensity to drive the way I did at that age, we will finally find those elusive weapons of mass destruction: young males driving SUVs. (On the other hand.)

While their proclivity to roll over in a crash is being reduced in new models, the uncommonly wide, four-ton Hummers aside, they still don’t come close to passenger cars or even mini-vans in rollover resistance. The good news for new auto shoppers is the coming of age of Electronic Stability Control (ESC) systems, which reduce drivers’ chances of losing control of their vehicle. ESC systems do not prevent rollovers but they reduce the chances of losing control that result in rollovers. The bad news is that only six percent of car and SUV buyers are selecting autos with ECS systems.

On to more controversial themes.

Safety and gas mileage

If you believe there is no relationship between our dependence on Mideast oil and the two Gulf wars then you’ll want to skip the rest of this article in favor of more quality time between your head and that stuff found in large quantities at the beach (besides water and beer cans).

Whether in a war on foreign soil or from a terrorist incident in the U.S., our dependence on foreign oil results in the increased likelihood of a U.S. soldier or civilian dying or being injured N times. N could be five times or a 1000. No one knows and N is in flux. Unfortunately, if you buy a car that gets excellent gas mileage but is less safe in crash-worthiness and handling, you may reduce N (albeit, microscopically) — that is, the average danger for all Americans — but significantly increase the danger to yourself and family. On the other hand, if millions of Americans buy a car that gets excellent gas mileage but is less safe in crash-worthiness and handling, N may get reduced to the degree that you’re overall safety is hugely increased. This trajectory towards safety is reinforced in that fewer large cars will, in effect, make your small car more crash-worthy.

Setting aside the economic costs of a mass devaluing of millions of SUVs and of the collapse of the domestic auto industry (which was saved by the mini-van and SUV), why don’t we all buy Priuses tomorrow? Because of the effect known as the tragedy of the commons. When tens of millions of energy inefficient cars are replaced by smaller vehicles, those who hold on to their big iron will get the benefits of reduced N and of a more crash-worthy car. In other words, a lone individual’s decision to buy an energy efficient but less crash-worthy vehicle cannot be rationalized as a safer choice, at least in the short run. It can be viewed only as form of modeling that might catch on.

Safety and global warming

When the worlds second largest oil company, the man who saved Chrysler, and a legendary racing engineer, are freaked by global warming, it’s not just an alarmist’s thing. And it’s not just a futurist’s thing. People are dying today because of global warming and more will die in the future. While there are those who believe that global warming is not a result of auto-created pollution, or isn’t really happening, if they’re right then the worst-case scenario is fuel-efficient vehicles and, subsequently, less dependence on foreign oil; if the skeptics are wrong, and we don’t do anything to reduce pollution, then we’re on our way to a world (literally) of trouble.

The issues for safety and global warming are much the same as for safety and gas mileage aside from the obvious difference that for the former both better mileage and better pollution-control matter. So while a diesel car such as the Volkswagen TDI might approach the fuel efficiency of a hybrid such as the Toyota Prius, it’s not a low-emissions vehicle. Even biodiesel fuel, for which the primary target is to lower pollution for fleets of heavy duty vehicles, cannot currently compete with the low-pollution output of a hybrid. Whether hydrogen-based hybrids, gas-based hybrids, or something else dominates the future of efficient, non-polluting automobiles, for the foreseeable future, only the latter is available.

An attempt to increase your personal safety by buying a fuel-sipping, low-emitting hybrid suffers, once again, from the tragedy of the commons effect. On the other hand, the possible long-term consequences of not curtailing pollution far outweigh even the consequences of war.

The safest cars

Before I get to my conclusion I want to answer: why do I just talk about family cars? Don’t I care about young drivers? Yes, more than I care about old drivers such as me. Nevertheless, it is rare that a young driver can afford a late-model vehicle, with all the safety features I’ve described. Compacts and older cars just aren’t as safe as mid-sized and newer cars. Young drivers should try to get mid-sized cars with air bags. If they buy compacts, then they should get the best handling and best-rated in crashes, such as the Honda Civic and most any Volkswagon model (although the latter has a record of poor reliablility).

Here is a summary of what makes a holistically safe vehicle:

• Good handling and braking
• Weight of about 3500 pounds; less is more dangerous (in a crash), more isn’t helpful
• Low center of gravity
• Anti-lock Braking syste (ABS)
• Electronic Stability Control (ESC)
• air bags (used correctly), everywhere
• Good gas-mileage
• Low-pollution emissions engine

So, with the above criteria in mind, which cars are the safest? If this was an article in a typical magazine, I’d make up a point system and score a bunch of cars, but point systems are useless because, either every criterion gets weighted the same or, because the weighting of the testers aren’t the same as mine. Dynamic web sites, on the other hand, can allow you to follow a decision path or to punch in your own values. But that approach assumes a rationality in decision-making that I’ve yet to observe in humans. So where does that leave me? Since I began this research to help in my own decision, I’ll tell you what I want and why, and you can riff off of that.

Before my research, I was skeptical about both how cost-effective and how environmentally friendly hybrid-powered cars are. My chief concern was that the battery was designed to last just the length of it’s 8-year/100,00 mile warranty, the so-called “life of the car.” I expect a well-made car to last twice that long. After adding the cost of a new battery (current list price is $3500) to the premium you’ll pay for a hybrid, saving on gas is going to cost you a lot of money. On the other hand, the price of gas is going up steadily while the price of a battery replacement is expected to sink to $1000 in eight years. And Toyota is now saying their batteries have gone over 180,000 miles equivalent in the lab. They also state that, as of June, 2004, they have yet to have a Prius battery fail (although here is a report about a Prius battery failing after 245,000 miles). So if I did buy a hybrid, and kept it for a long time, I would save money, even if the price of gas stops rising.

My second concern with hybrids is the disposal of the environmental unfriendly nickel-metal hydride batteries. Toyota has assured the public that they have a comprehensive recycling program in place. To maintain credibility, the rest of the industry must follow Toyota’s example.

Only one car satisfies all the safety criteria: the Honda Accord EX V6 Hybrid has more horsepower than the conventional Honda V6 model, handles well, is among the best in crash test results (Govt. crash test results, Insurance Institute crash test results) for family-sized sedans, and is as fuel efficient as the compact, which is rated at 33 mpg. It comes, standard, with air bags, front, rear, and side, ABS, and ESC.

Drawbacks of the Honda? It costs over 30,000 dollars even if the dealers don’t charge a premium, as many have with the Prius. While 33 mpg is terrific compared to similar cars and any SUV, it pales next to the Toyota Prius’s rating of 55 mpg. If you value indirect safety (environmental health, independence of foreign oil) above crash protection and superior handling, then the Toyota Prius is the safest car on the road because it is rated at 55 mpg. It’s above average in a crash. In fact, the Insurance Institute’s Injury, Collision & Theft losses chart, which uses insurance claims rather than controlled tests, makes the Prius look very good in injury avoidance despite its under-3000-pound weight. (What the chart really reflects is a combination of the car’s safety attributes and the driver’s.) To match the Hybrid Accord’s safety features, you’ll spend upwards of 24,000. (The exact price depends on the dealer’s inclination to charge a premium.)

If I ignored the difference in price, I’d choose between the Prius and Honda this way: if I did most of my driving on city streets, I’d choose the Prius; if I did most of my driving on the freeway, I’d go for the Hybrid Accord. (At high speeds, I prefer a superior-handling car.)

There are only four of us in our immediate family so, even with the occasional friend, we fit in either the Accord or Prius. If I needed six seats or more, I’d choose a mini-van, but not with enthusiasm, the reason for which I’ll get to below. As a class, mini-vans are very safe cars. I’d choose either the Honda Odyssey or the Toyota Sienna, two of the safest vehicles on the road. If I really needed a SUV, I’d probably go for a Honda CR-V, among the safest in its class (it hasn’t been tested for rollover yet). Why not a Ford Escape, the new hybrid SUV that’s rated at 31 mpg? Because in government rollover tests, they tipped while none of the tested passenger cars did.

None of the above

Regardless of the progress the Hybrid Accord and Prius have made in the direction of improved gas mileage and low emissions, I would not buy either unless I really, really, needed a new car, now. As good as they are, they’re not that good when you consider their price. Over the next few years, many new hybrids are going to come out, models across the entire range of vehicles. A hybrid V6-powered Accord EX would be fun to drive but at 33,000 dollars (with tax and license), or higher, far more costly than a four-cylinder LX model would be, even when equipped with hybrid technology and all the safety goodies — and it would approach 40 mpg. Such a car, or a similar model from a different company, would be an attractive compromise between the Prius and current hybrid Accord. In addition, hybrids will soon ratchet the fuel efficiency of mini-vans and SUVs by a third. And after the initial models, battery technology will keep improving to create far more efficient hybrids. Who knows? Maybe some auto engineers will even find a way to stop SUVs from being suicide/homicide machines. I can dream.

While I’m waiting for the car companies to create my dream, holistically safe car, I have a plan. I happen to own both a four-cylinder Accord and a battery-powered lawnmower. If I can get the Accord to ask the lawnmower out for a romantic evening… I’ll even drive.

Update, 4.6.2005

Gas mileage for the Hybrid V6 Accord has turned out to be disappointing. Recent tests in Car and Driver and Consumer Reports (subscription required) report observed gas mileage of 25 and 26 mpg — hardly better than the four-cylinder Accord (24 mpg) or even the non-Hybrid V6 Accord (23 mpg). Still, Consumer Reports loves the Hybrid and rates it as the top family sedan. According to Edmunds.com, the Ford Escape SUV Hybrid averaged 26 mpg during its first 3000 miles — excellent for a four-wheel drive vehicle and much better than the 18 mpg Edmunds.com got for the Escape’s twin, the Mazda Tribute. If only the Escape had better rolllover resistence. While neither the Ford Escape nor the Honda Accord are wonders of efficiency, they’re better than the alternatives in their respective classes.

Unintended consequences

This article is not about gas mileage, but about safety, and since I already scolded SUVs for their psychopathic tendency to kill humans, it’s only fair that I point out the danger of almost silent cars, which hybrids are at slow speeds. Ever see a “Deaf Child in Neighborhood” sign? Hybrids make us all, in effect, deaf. Drivers of hybrids are noting that silence is not golden; they’re running over unwary animals and it could get worse.

Nothing wonderful has happened recently in the world of automobiles. There still isn’t a holistically safe car on the market. Wake me when an automobile gets at least 40 mpg, has ultra low-emissions, protects its occupants while not slaughtering those in other vehicles, doesn’t rollover, and doesn’t increase the chances of running over squirrels and children.

Update, 5.12.2005

The results of Edmunds.com long-term test of the Honda Accord Hybrid are disappointing. In 3920 miles, the Hybrid averaged 22 mpg while its 0-60 time is 7.48 seconds. Despite the premium price, you’re getting neither better gas mileage nor better performance than the cheaper non-Hybrid V6. Toyota does Hybrids better.

Update, 6.21.2006

Latest crash-test ratings.

“Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to a job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.�?
-Ellen Goodman

There are those who never give a thought to simple living but still complain about having way too much stuff. There are several common solutions:

You can buy a book or 10 on how to organize your life. Probably one will do as well as 10 since the solutions are variations on a theme. (Why add to your problem by having to organize nine extra books?) These books explain how to organize papers (buy color-coded labels) handle books (buy shelves), store your clothes (buy closet thingies), and deal with magazines (buy baskets), and so on. Notice how organizing too much stuff is solved by buying more stuff.

You can hire a professional organizer — someone who charges a lot of money to put color-coded labels on folders.

You can rent storage. Move your overflow of clothing, furniture, kitchen appliances, exercise toys, electronic entertainment devices, and old software and forget about it — except at the beginning of each month when you pay the bill.

These approaches to dealing with your abundance have one common advantage: you don’t have to admit to yourself that you have bought a bunch of useless (to you) junk that will never be used. You can hold on to the — recalling some of our treasures — roller blades, croquet set, power tools, air mattress, ice cream maker, sweaters, rowing machine, tent, boots, and other goodies and maintain the fantasy that some day they will get used, that you didn’t really waste your money. Of course, everyone knows, if they’re willing to consider it for half a minute, that anything that doesn’t get used immediately and regularly, won’t ever get used. The real ghost of Christmas past is the ball and chain of barely-used gifts.

Above, I mentioned three fairly inexpensive ways that people use to deal with their overflow. But is it really inexpensive? You’ll think I’m nuts, but I propose that hanging on to the extra tvs and unused treadmills can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. When children arrive, whether by stork or adoption agency, parents inevitably crave more space. That’s sensible, children need room to sleep and play. Is it sensible, however, to double or triple your living space to accommodate two or three kids? You still need only one kitchen, one dining room, one laundry area, and one living room, but families buy homes that go far beyond providing even a generous amount of room for the humans. The extra space goes to accomodate extra tvs and unused treadmills. In the Seattle area, a couple of extra rooms can easily increase the cost of your home $50,000 or more. And homeowners know the real cost of $50,000 over a 30-year mortgage. Gives a new perspective on the ten-dollar love seat you scored at the garage sale.

Most of us who hoard unused stuff hold on to it out of a sense of thriftiness, but as I’ve pointed out, that sense is nonsense. The best way to simplify your life is to get rid of your unused stuff. Rather than buying a new house, rather than renting a storage unit, rather than paying someone to organize your stuff, rather than buying a book on how to buy more stuff so you can organize your stuff, buy a book on how to get rid of your stuff.

You might think that getting rid of stuff doesn’t need instruction, only a decision, but you may be surprised at how difficult it is. Enter Don Aslett, who took a job as a janitor to pay his way through college and wound up a cleaning and de-junking mogul. (I didn’t know there was such a thing either.) By the time he left college, he was running an office cleaning business that grew into a very large office cleaning business, and later became an author of books on cleaning and de-junking.

Don Aslett has a enough books on getting rid of stuff to require another book on how to get rid of Don Aslett books. Fortunately, you need only one. My favorite is Clutter’s last stand.

If you have dinner at six sharp, vacuum regularly, have your 401K plan in order, and helped Mussolini get the trains to run on time, then I wouldn’t be surprised to see the same level of Swiss watch precision in your homeschooling. If, on the contrary, you take most of your meals at the Costco sample tables, think dust bunnies make the best pets, your retirement plan consists of retrieving loose change from between the couch cushions, and hope the train is late since then you’d have a chance of catching it, homeschooling at your house probably reflects a similar form of nonchalance. If you’re not a homeschooling family, or have yet to dive off that cliff, you may have fallen for either cliche´of homeschooling. Here are the two most common:

The structured family holds “classes” from 9:AM to 2:PM. Subjects are divided into precise 45-minute increments using “official” textbooks and purchased curriculum. The focus is on the three Rs along with traditional school elements such as handwriting practice. Break and lunch times are also strictly scheduled.

In contrast to the structured homeschooling family, nonchalant family members spend their time frolicking in nature and trekking to museums, carefully avoiding any designated moments for learning because they’re learning all the time. Reading is learned through reading (anything you wish), arithmetic is acquired by lemonade-stand bookkeeping, and writing is practiced by writing in journals with a quill.

In the last decade, a third homeschooling cliche´ has been added: the cyberlearner. By day, the children are situated in front of their cathode ray tubes, acquiring knowledge through the modern magic of educational software: they’re shooting the correct verb, blasting the right equation, and tracking down the ever elusive Carmen Sandiego. By night, same children earn video game money by consulting for IBM

I can’t imagine any family clinging strictly to any of the above models unless, in the first case, you’re a grandchild of General George Patton; in the second case, had too many acid trips in the 60s; in the third case, you…ahh…are my son (who, to be accurate, spends much of his life in front of a computer but none of it shooting verbs, chasing Carmen, or consulting for IBM.

I’m willing to wager that, while they may start at one extreme, most homeschooling families eventually incorporate ideas from all of the above approaches. To not would be to ignore the greatest advantage of homeschooling, the ability to adapt to the individual learning styles of each child. By paying attention to those styles, I have little doubt that my children will acquire whatever they need. It’s me I’m worried about. (My defects will be made clear below.)

Learning styles

My son learned to read by having one of his Calvin and Hobbes books read to him daily for two years. One day (and why that day), when he was six, he grabbed one of the Calvin and Hobbes books and read it through. He realized that he had been recognizing most of the words for some time.

If we had just our firstborn, I would have written the decisive book on learning to read: Learning to Read the Calvin and Hobbes Way. It would have covered, with lots of filler and a large typeface, two or three pages. (It still would have been twice the size of one of Spencer Johnson’s mega-selling One Minute Manager books.)

When my reading public clamored for a sequel, I would have churned out another page-turner: Learning Outstanding Reading Comprehension, the Warhammer Manual Way. As our son was approaching eight, I thought he might enjoy the fantasy-based game, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). I didn’t know much about the game but, from what I did know, it was the sort of game I would have enjoyed (if it had existed) when I was young. When I went to the hobby store, however, I discovered another world of fantasy games. I settled on Warhammer, “a tabletop wargame of fantasy battles.” The Warhammer box included an instruction manual of combat and, unlike D&D, dozens of plastic toy soldiers. I reasoned, even if he didn’t like the game, he could play with the plastic soldiers.

On his eighth birthday, we presented our son with the box stuffed with Warhammer goodies. His reading comprehension lesson, and my subsequent new theory, began when I opened the manual. Hmm, I had always assumed every Brit could write. Not this Brit. After struggling with the details of Warhammer battles, I threw up my hands (actually, it was the manual, I threw), and told Adam that he would have to figure out how to play. And he did. Motivation will do that. Hence: Learning Outstanding Reading Comprehension, the Warhammer Manual Way.

Double X

Then we had a girl, a girl not so interested in the adventures of an imaginary six-year-old boy and his imaginary tiger. This girl wasn’t going to learn to read the Calvin and Hobbes Way. While I don’t hang out in nature, except to mow the lawn (and now my son does that), and while I don’t like museums, and while I never inhaled acid, I always subscribed primariy to the nonchalant family approach to learning. One of the chief tennants of the nonchant approach was my belief that if you read to your children, they would know how to read. The experience with my firstborn did nothing to dispel that belief but, as it turned out, I would need two theories of learning to read. I was at a loss. The Calvin and Hobbes and Warhammer approaches were cases of accidental tutelage. I never had to actually devise a learning strategy.

In fact, when it came to homeschooling, I never devised anything. I am not a planner. In writing, counseling, making a career, cooking, designing a web site, raising my children, or gift shopping (yeah, it’s that time of year), I just start with a theme and work from there. In this case the theme was learning without school. Suddenly, I needed one of them there plans.

I lookled hither and yon for a plan. (“Hither” was the library and “yon” was the Internet.) I even bought a book that promised that my child will learn to read in “100 Easy Lessons” and investigated software that claimed far more. But the books and software taught with fauniques and I’ve always disliked phonicks. While many educators and parents swear by fawnixs, I have never liked any approach to learning that is context free because it is hard to not come to detest anything learned by rote. (Even given my concern, I regarded learning to read as a lesser issue than learning to like to read.)

My apprehension, obviously, was getting to me. I went to see Cassie Compton, at the time, my daughter’s American Sign Language Teacher at Cyberschool (currently known as Edmonds Homeschool Resource Center) as well as an expert on visual learning. She confirmed what I hoped to hear, that phonics wasn’t right for Bria. I felt relieved to not stumble down that path.

By this time, most of you are (or should be) wondering: For Pete’s sake, why didn’t you just find some age-level appropriate books that aren’t phonics-based and have her read with you? I’m still trying to figure that out. Probably, because it didn’t occur to me. At the time, nothing approximating the traditional school approach occurred to me. I was stuck in the cliche´ in which I began homeschooling: I took a little from column B (the nonchalant family) and a little from column C (the cyberlearners). Nothing from column A (the structured family) entered my mind. It’s not that I was against it, it just didn’t enter my mind.

Eventually, the obvious became obvious. We decided that Bria would read to me, daily — except, I hadn’t a clue as to which books to use. I wouldn’t choose the books used in schools because they’re chosen by committees for whom their only virtue is their lack of offense to any interest group. Conveniently, a new friend of ours, Delia O’Malley, was a special education teacher. Delia explained that most young children’s books had reading level ratings (that go by grade level). She brought a pile of books to our home, had my daughter go through them, and determined which ones were appropriate. (It turned out that Bria was already close to the average reading level for her age.) Bria read from these books daily and learned to read well enough to read on her own after a few months.

Leaning styles for old people (me)

So, did I learn that traditional methods of learning are best? Not at all, rather, I learned I need to shelve my preconceived notions as best I can and respond to the individual needs and learning styles of each of my children.

Postscript

I did not want to make this article an argument on approaches to learning to read. I think we’ll all agree on the correct approach to learning to read right after we all agree on whether it was Bush or Gore who really won Florida. If you wish to pursue the information regarding the phonics versus whole language debate, below are some links:

• A web site that looks at both sides: Whole Language vs. Phonetic Reading Instruction.
• Anti-phonics but not look/say. A third way: Understanding Reading: A Psycholinguistic Analysis of Reading and Learning to Read.
• A method based on the above book: Modelled Oral Reading.
• Pro-phonics; from John Taylor Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education Contains an amusing anecdote by Theodor Giesel (Dr. Seuess) on how The Cat in the Hat was created.
• Possibly the best (and assuredly the most expensive) phonics software program: The Literacy Connection.