I was thinking of titling this: "Inspections, Work Day, Teacher/Parent Conferences and the Messed-up Schedule", but with a title like that...who needs the post. LOL!
We had our licensing/homestudy inspection and I did not like the person who came out to do it. She was an intern who was very interested in putting her training to work and carried herself about the house in a authoritative way. She tested all of the smoke detectors and tested the hot water temperature which she made me turn down. It was 145 degrees and needed to be below 125 degrees. I really like my hot water ~Smile~ She interviewed the children individually (with me in the room). It was interesting because she used words and language that a few of the kids did not understand and thus gave answers that made her look quizzically at them. Example: she asked Jeanna what school she went to in which Jeanna answered, "homeschool". Not true, but I realized that Jeanna was answering what she wanted and not what was asked which led to the following questions to be not answered truthfully because Jeanna was still on the track of what she was answering. See, Jeanna hates going to public school and when my kids are talking about school, she often talks as if she is experiencing what they are so if they are talking about something we did during the day, she will say she did too, even tho' she was at school and was not with us. One reason she does not like school is because she says that the kids, "hit me" and are "mean to me" So the next question from the intern:
Intern: "Do you like having lots of siblings?"
Jeanna: "No."
Intern: "Why not?"
Jeanna: "Because they hurt and kick me!"
Intern writes this down.
Me: "Jeanna, what's a sibling?"
Jeanna: "I dunno."
Intern: " A sibling is a brother or sister. Do you like having all of these brothers and sisters?
Jeanna: "Oh yes!" eyes twinkling, face smiling.
I think Jeanna was thinking that siblings are the kids at school.
My fear is that had that question been asked alone in a room there would have been more inquiry into how the siblings were hurting her and much information would have been gathered.
Another example that upset Jordan: The intern was interviewing James. She asked him, "Do you feed your dog?" He said flatly, "No" She moved on to ask other questions without following up on that so Jordan was worried that she would think that we don't take care of our dog. James would not have thought to say, "I don't feed the dog because that is Jackson's job."
Finally, she asked Jordan if Jordan ever goes out of the house to meet new friends ('cause you know us homeschoolers never leave our house!) and Jordan said, "No." Jordan later said she had mis-understood the questions because we don't go out for the purpose of meeting new friends...we meet new friends sometimes while we are out. All in all we determined that everyone was nervous and the interview was not fun.
About a month ago I scheduled a teacher/parent conference with Jeanna's teacher for today. Today, Jordan got called into work and gets off during the scheduled conference. I guess she will have to stay at work about 1/2 hour longer.
I need a new free Friday field trip idea.
