Fishing

I took the children fishing today. I like fishing and would enjoy doing it more often, but when I tried before, I found it to be a tremendous amount of work. First there was the time spent gathering and loading rods and tackle and bait and water and a snack and something to carry fish in. Then there was the unloading of all these things and the three children. Go ahead and throw in a bit of a hike in which I carried most of the gear and Sylvie. Finally, once everyone's hook was baited and everyone had a snack and no one had a tangled line and I finally cast into the water, the children were done fishing.

A week or two ago, a man wash fishing off the dam where we like to swim. Sylvie got him to show her how it was done. Since then, there has been no peace because all she wanted in the whole wide world was to go fishing. This time the difference was obvious. Ezra found the fishing gear, and Jason bought the extra rods since everyone is now old enough for their own line and an actual reel. The children loaded the car. Sylvie dug the worms. We all put on swimsuits. I did have to get a fishing license, but that was no big deal.

When we got to the dam, the children carried their own gear. I felt like I might actually get to fish. Sylvie wanted to learn to cast, but the wind was blowing so hard I did most of her casting for her. She switched to the cane pole so she could just drop her line in. Ezra and Phaedra alternated between fishing and swimming, but everyone seemed to enjoy the fishing part, in spite of the wind and all my admonitions to mind their hooks.

When we were done, we had caught three perch, all of which we released. I did actually get to drop a line in a couple of times, and I figure with a bit of practice, I will get to do more fishing. We've left the gear handy to facilitate some spontaneous trips.

Let's Make this Homeschool Email a blog post

I spent an hour writing it, and it's a nice summary of the things that wake me in the night about homeschooling.

Homeschooling is not easy, and I think it's even trickier once you get past the elementary years. Once these guys hit puberty, they have a much stronger urge to be with their peers, and we see their very best (and their very worst) when they are actively engaged with a group. Any parent really looking at their child will know that we actually cannot inspire the same thought and work that a group of motivated peers can.

I know as a homeschooler I am not supposed to say things like that, but I also know that I've struggled with it since Ezra turned seven. I realized I could teach the children pretty much anything but I could never play with them like another seven-year-old. Though I struggled against being a "soccer mom", driving my over-scheduled children from one enrichment to the next, I have not really found another way to balance this genuine desire for peers against my genuine mistrust and dislike of the institutional school system.

My understanding is that the public school available to you completely will not meet (anon 1) academic needs and interests. That the school will not be at all like the program she went to this summer. While you also cannot offer what she experienced this summer, there are many resources available throughout the school year where you could give her spells of that sort intermingled with the best you have to offer. (Check MIT SPARK and SPLASH as well as Brown's programs and the RISD summer programs) I know (anon 2)  is doing a variety of online courses that seem to work well for her and their family situation.

To be completely blunt, I really think the institutional school system is completely dysfunctional, and if education and joy in learning were the only things we wanted for our children, it would be the worst place in the world. But there is other stuff going on, stuff not really covered in a standardized test that has to do with peer relationships and problem solving and coping and engaging with adults besides parents. I also think that a homeschooler CAN offset some of the deficiencies once the parents recognize that it's not some Sophoclean idyll.

These are things I've pondered for 14 or 15 years, because I've known since I taught school that I would be a homeschooler. If I have it right, you have only been in this territory for just over a year. If you are at all the sort of person to reflect, you know you are probably failing (anon 1) in myriad ways, and it mostly sucks to not be able to set our darlings on the bus and check education off our list of things to do. (Sentences like that can sound so condescending in an email, so please read this with a generous heart and know I feel sympathy for your situation, not superiority or disregard.)

So, what are we to do? First, a "good" curriculum is pretty unsatisfying if you and (anon 1) don't like it. I use http://www.amblesideonline.org/curriculum.shtml . There are problems; I am not Christian and the people who provide this curriculum are decidedly so. I actually like the arc that the Waldorf curriculum follows, and this one follows a different philosophy. There is no math, and the science is a little thin. The writing areas are a bit vague for me. However, I really like how heavy the reading component is and I like the variety that it offers. I like that it emphasizes a style of learning that has been long gone in the institutional system. I like that it was developed for people educating children in a home.

It means I spend a fair bit of effort sculpting it into what I want to teach, but this takes less time than completely writing my own curriculum. I did write my own the first 4 years, with a Waldorf flair, and the children and I spent too much of our time arguing about what HAD to be done. Now, I substitute Waldorf type books for some of the Christian books. I've figured out that some books I would have skipped entirely have some important historic significance in our culture. I supplement with this math curriculum: http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/ . I have decided that science history combined with a strong focus on natural history was fine until last year, Ezra's 7th grade year; now, I find a science curriculum or text that I feel good about. Last year, I used three different cell biology texts, but this year, I want more follow up. I am looking for a writing course I feel good about that looks interesting. And so on....

My point is that I feel like I have brilliant children who need college prep experiences, but I don't feel they're like (anon 2) and able to do college type courses online yet. I have to have done at least some of the reading I'm asking them to do, so that we can have good discussions about them. I feel like my effort means they have more intellectual engagement with the subject matter. I listen to them when they really hate a particular book (Robinson Crusoe), and sometimes we soldier on and sometimes we completely drop it (Pilgrim's Progress).

I also feel there are many valid paths to an "education", and as the children get older, we have to become partners in what that means. I use that curriculum because it seems inherently flexible and it's free, but I know there are hundreds or thousands of choices out there that are all pretty good in one way or another. Unfortunately (or maybe the opposite), for a homeschooler to have lots of intellectual engagement, the parent has to take up lots of slack and try to find chances for the children to engage with peers both socially and intellectually.

That was long-winded but maybe not more help than just knowing that most homeschoolers who care are facing the same issues you are.

The Chauffeur Years

That's what a childless friend called our current era of parenting. This past couple of weeks we have been very busy shuffling children from one place to another, cramming in an hour or two of gardening and animal management when we could. This past weekend, everyone had recitals, and now we're officially into summer.

The cows are doing well. The calves are nursing twice a day, and Violet is on pasture for the most part. A couple of times, we've left the calves with Violet overnight so that we didn't have to milk in the morning. This is a luxury of unweaned calves, but it does make Violet grumpy the next morning when we do milk.

All three of them look better, though Violet's patties have been very loose. I've tried giving her only hay at night, but she just doesn't really eat until she gets back on pasture. And boy- our pasture looks like another world relative to what it looked like even last year. The grass is boot high in places, and even the weeds look healthy.

What We Teach- Literature

I remember reading about Don Quixote and the windmills when I was in high school. It left almost no impression, except I felt once again something was a classic because no one would enjoy reading it.

About two years ago, Ezra read this version and laughed his head off. He could not wait to tell us the many ridiculous things Quixote and Sancho had been up to. He was so delighted that when I saw an inexpensive copy at Bear Pond a couple of months back, I picked it up.

The book is hilarious. The introduction explains something about it being the first modern novel, which seems like something that should have been included in my high school visit to La Mancha. I am not able to defend that particular statement about it being the first novel, but I can tell you that it is full of jokes and scenes any reader will recognize from one place or another.

It isn't exactly a page turner, all the same. Many (maybe most) of the paragraphs span more than a page. However, once you surrender to the story telling, Cervantes wants you to have a good time. His story is rife with irony, surprising situations, rank cynicism, and scatological humor. I found myself talking about the book at dinner and at our library group.

Then- I found myself having to take the book from Ezra who plunged into the 18th century translation with the same delight he gave to Martin Jenkins' version. As of this morning, I am also sharing my book with Phaedra, who could not put it down when I called her for lunch.

I am not really sure what this all means; I'm not sure what we're teaching in this. I just feel a bit like halo-polishing as my 13- and 11-year-olds delight in a cumbersome classic. Whatever we're doing, this one looks like it's working.

Now She's Eight

 Born ready to engage.
Always happy and on the move.

What We Teach

Sylvie has many rough days. Partly, it's her, but sometimes I'm very aware that she actually occupies a difficult place in our family.

She's the youngest, but my own biases against "babying" mean I probably often ask more of her than I should. Add to that a faltering awareness, "Oops! I just asked Sylvie to do a chore the other two did two or three years older," and you can see a girl might be confused.

Also, her brother and sister watch her every move and comment on everything she does. Sometimes it's loving and sometimes it's not, but I imagine it's tiring all the time. At breakfast this morning, she explained some childish misinterpretation of the world that as her mother, I knew she would figure out for herself. I knew that these things actually mean she's working it out and she'll get to a better understanding later. I knew to just listen and maybe ask a question or two, then let it go. But her brother and sister jumped on her for thinking something so OBVIOUSLY wrong. I felt a little sad that they yanked away her slow dawning of understanding, and I also knew that it probably happens more often than I realize.

The list of sleights goes on and on, and truly, she gives as good as she gets, just in different ways. So when I got home from an outing this afternoon, and I heard just how AWFUL Sylvie had been and I looked at her kicked-dog expression, I just ignored it. I told her she WOULD have to go with me to take Phaedra to dance, but she could bring a book along for me to read to her. Then, we dropped Phaedra off, and I took my animal loving bit of sunshine to the animal shelter. We looked at puppies and talked about all the things they do at the shelter to try to make the dogs' lives better. We fed treats to a few of the dogs who seemed eager to greet us. We looked at the cats and moved very quietly to disturb them as little as possible.

Afterward, Sylvie was her bubbly self, but calm in the middle. All her frazzled ends had been smoothed, and that was more important than reviewing again the list of all the little things she does that drive her siblings crazy. She felt loved which meant she could give back a little to the rest of us. Now, if I can just remember this lesson tomorrow.

Quarantine

The children are all sick. Ezra has pretty much spent three days like this, Phaedra two, and yesterday was Sylvie's first. I've read aloud from Kipling, made chicken soup and banana bread, played a few games, and tried to keep the peace. I have been thinking on how my own parents would have had trouble leaving us home so many days; there would definitely have been pressure to go back to school.

One reason would be the fear that we might fall behind. The other is that neither of them would have been able to stay home with us, and they felt better when we were not home alone so many hours a day. So, I've also been thinking about how impossible it would be to handle an illness like this if I also had to earn money. It helps me feel sympathy for people dragging around obviously sick children.

What We Teach

My mother was not much of a housekeeper, not from lack of want to, but from a physical handicap coupled with guilt laden depression. The fair dose of guilt meant that she also did not manage to teach us much about how to keep house. She insisted we clean house, pushing the vacuum around before I was as tall as it, but she never really taught us.

My first "lessons" on how to clean house came from my grandmothers and aunts. One grandmother sat us beside her to dry the dinner dishes from the time our heads were as high as the counter. Both grandmothers made sure we cleaned up after ourselves at their houses, dusted sand off our shoes, knew how to set the table. And so it went- these sporadic life lessons from one extended family member after another.

The rest I taught myself through reading and trial and error. I have had spells of keeping an immaculate house, but I have also learned that clean must be balanced against life and health. There is a degree of clean that will ensure we're not compromising our health and a degree of tidiness that means I'll feel able to relax in our house. And that is good enough most days.

Because I got these lessons on housekeeping by hook and by crook, I make more very deliberate lessons for the children, trying hard to demand only what is appropriate for each at each age. And the things I see they have to be taught sometimes seem dumb, until I see an adult who obviously was never taught. Lessons like, "When you drop something mindlessly on the floor, it has to be picked up by SOMEONE, so you pick it up or you don't drop it."

When we teach our children to maintain their space, we're also socializing them to be responsible in the world at large.

It's NOT the Teachers

I heard on the radio that someone is pushing for a bar exam for educators. My first thought was, "Where does that guy live that he can turn away so many willing people for that job?" Then I thought, "Start paying teachers like lawyers and you'll have a much different type of person trying for the job."

The problem is that we already have really good teachers who are hamstrung by one thing after another.  A really good teacher can respond to what is happening in the classroom and adapt to it, but teachers, for the most part, lack this latitude. Our system has gotten so concerned with WHAT children are being taught that any kind of HOW is lost. Our system has come to rely more and more on individual, isolated bits of data leaving our learners without any sort of framework to set these pinpricks of information into.

Think about what you remember about the Civil War, for example, and which pieces of it stick with you in your daily life. Is it particular dates? A particular battle? The political climate of the time? Personally, I'm not sure which of these is most important, but what I hope my own children remember about the Civil War is that it was approximately a century before the Civil Rights movement, that Dickens had not been dead long, that people had been suffering the pangs of industrialization, that Europe had been in tumult for at least ten years, and that it happened in the United States. I hope they are still curious enough as adults to find out more about the Civil War and that they know how to find that information.

I have the latitude to focus on the minutiae that capture the attention of a particular child. If one of them is most concerned with period costumes, we can look at how clothes changed through time and why people were able to dress particular ways and how different classes managed to be clothed. Later, what that child might remember is how Napoleon dressed and how that differed from or influenced the attire of the Southern gentry. That is a framework that facts about the Civil War can then be worked into. It also means that child might fail a generalized tests on the dates of that war.

That's one plank of my soapbox about the failures of the institutional school system. I have not even touched on the social elements that cripple a teacher's classroom "performance". Go ahead- make it even harder to become a teacher. Set this elite cadre of bar examined "professionals" into the real world of the classroom without paying them a decent salary. Tell them what to teach, for how many minutes, on what day. Make sure they know that their pittance of a salary is dependent on a test that they have no part in writing. Let them know that what they actually see in their real classrooms has no bearing whatsoever on the material the children will be tested on. Then, people those desks with real children from a real area with the wide spectrum of needs, deficiencies, and gifts. Somehow, I do not think even the most tested teachers will show any better than the current batch, who are for the most part doing all they can with what they've got.

A Series post- What We Teach

This isn't to say "You should teach this." It is instead to reflect on what we actually are communicating and I invite you to comment and share what you think you're actually teaching, as well. So, before I start, I want to humbly acknowledge that I am teaching and failing to teach many things that I just do not see.

Today, Sylvie's math took more than TWO HOURS! We had a day like that last week, too. She is quite mathematically minded and has zero trouble understanding her math concepts. Today, she really needs to resist me. I mostly think you are not learning math in second grade when you spend two hours hammering away at it with your mother, but you're probably learning something just as important.

She learned, not for the first time, that I stick with things that are important and I expect her to do the same thing. She learned that I flat out will not believe that she cannot do math. She learned that sometimes a nice long hug in the middle of something challenging can help firm a person's resolve. She learned that baby talk and throwing herself on the floor will not save her from something I consider important. She learned that skipping work one day does not mean that the work goes away. And she got to feel that giddy feeling of finishing something she started.

Hey Cowboy!

Happy Birthday!

At his thirteenth birthday. You've come a long way Cowboy from that itty bitty bundle.

What Christmas Looked Like Here

We take off 4 to 6 weeks around Christmas, and we'll be starting back on Monday. But here's a quick look at what Christmas 2012 looked like.

We finally had snow that stayed. The children began their reindeer games with bury the easiest victim in the snow. It's much better than leaves for hiding someone.

The guilty culprits.

 Making candy to send and gift to various friends and family. The caramels and chocolates were by far our favorite. We hope you got to sample some.

 Preparing the meat for the tamales. We made two beef tongues- thanks Gusto and Chappy! We also made a pork shoulder to be sure there was enough meat. Then Christmas Eve, we crammed 37 people into our house. It was amazing, crowded and fun.

I spent a lot of time knitting and finishing projects that I wanted to do.

A Little Music

For Christmas, Sylvie gave me an old Pete Seeger album that's a guitar lesson. It's a peach.

As I was getting familiar with it, Phaedra hung over my shoulder. I suggested she take down the baritone ukulele, which is tuned like a guitar. That means the chords are the same shape minus two strings.

So, Phaedra sat and learned to make the D-chord. Sylvie stood jealously to the side. After much fussing and competing, I decided to get Sylvie a soprano ukulele.

This afternoon I played guitar, Phaedra played the baritone ukulele and Sylvie played the soprano. Ezra watched. I suggested he get the music book. Since he can sight read pretty well, he was playing Frog Went A'Courtin and the rest of us were accompanying, strumming away at a D-chord. It was a pretty idyllic moment.

Thanks, Pete!

Interesting Christmas Wish

Sylvie told me that what she REALLY wants for Christmas is a pooper scooper.

Movies

We have pretty strict screen regulations. There's no tv, and the children are supposed to be nine before they start watching movies. We were more relaxed in other people's houses, but even this has not been an issue since we moved to Vermont.

This worked fine for Ezra. He was delighted when he hit nine and got to watch a movie about once a month with me and Jason. Phaedra was just shy of nine and happy to get to join us. The problem is that that left Sylvie, the only one to not get to participate in what had become a family thing. This felt wrong, so when we took Ezra and Phaedra to see a movie in a theater last year (The Muppets), it seemed only right to take Sylvie with us. And when Jason was taking the older two to see The Sound of Music, Sylvie also got to go.

You see that the genie is now fully out of the bottle. While we've resisted somewhat, we have also made an occasional exception. We watched Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House, one of our favorite oldies, and she fretted that Cary Grant and Mirna Loy would divorce. When the older two wanted to see Monsters, Inc. while Jason and I were going on a date, we let Sylvie watch it with them. She cried; apparently her wails drowned out the last few minutes of the movie. We were naturally reluctant when the older two were planning another movie when Jason and I would be away. However, Ezra said they would watch Up and they would comfort Sylvie if she got too sad and that it really was only fair to let her watch it and they would warn her about the sad parts and please couldn't she just watch it with them. We relented; while she tried to stifle her cries and she definitely said she enjoyed the movie, there was still an inordinate amount of tears. So, no more movies.

Advent started this week. One of our traditions is to watch particular movies during December. Jason and I always watch Hudsucker Proxy, and we're looking forward to showing it to Ezra and Phaedra for the first time. We also decided to show them Philadelphia Story. Sylvie heard these plans and got very sad to be excluded.

We talked about it and decided she might really enjoy Babe and Mary Poppins. Both are pretty happy movies, Babe in particular. As a matter of fact, once I thought about how much she would like Babe, we decided to show it to her right away. Remember that part at the beginning when they take all the mothers away in that confinement operation? Well, she started crying then, and pretty much cried for the rest of the movie. She just couldn't believe they fed the piglets with those metal feeders and she couldn't believe that Farmer Hoggett would think that Babe would kill Ma and ... You get the idea.

This past weekend, we watched Mary Poppins. It's a musical, so we knew she would enjoy that part. And she did. She also liked the children and the animation and the bit of magic. She only cried the last few minutes when Mary Poppins is leaving. I understand that; I even tear up a bit. However, she gets SOOO upset, that I think it's too much for her little heart. Still, she wants to be included in at least one more Advent movie. We've chosen to show her either What's Up Doc or Bringing Up Baby, but we are looking for the pitfalls in each. She gets so worried about what sad thing will happen that she doesn't really enjoy the funny parts.

I think we should have held off until nine.

Reading

Three weeks ago, I was scratching my head over why Sylvie had not yet launched into reading. She has spent over a year teetering on the cusp, and if you asked me, I would have even said she WAS reading. But still, she had not begun reading box labels, street signs, or anything, really, that I had not put into her hands and said, "Read!"

Three weeks ago, I was thinking about my sister who kind of wonders if she herself might have some sort of learning/reading disability. I was wondering if Sylvie might have similar issues. I was reminding myself that I actually logically believe that anything before nine is completely normal for learning to read, and that my personal freak out point is 13. I was remembering that Ezra was just a little more than 8 when he started reading, Phaedra was pretty close to 7.5, and Sylvie is only now 7.75 years old.

Three weeks ago, Sylvie was definitely better able to read than a year ago. She could labor her way through a page of Peter and Polly, but she was ready for me to take over. She could read a chapter from the Frances books as long as I was willing to help on words she might get stuck on; for example, three pages into the story, she might suddenly forget what AND spells.

Last week, Jason and I were cooking dinner, and I heard Sylvie giggling in the living room. I glanced up to see her reading Ivy and Bean, a book she had declared far too difficult three days before. Now, she was CHOOSING to read it, and following the story well enough to giggle over it. Today, she was reading a book on puppy care and giving me a thorough report on all the things we do wrong with our dogs. In fact, she sat beside me while I sewed so she could more easily read the pertinent paragraphs aloud. She now reads street signs and she reads over my shoulder. She reads the spines of the books while we sit at the table and she reads warning labels.

Now, I am once again amazed at how reading comes. She is the first one I have tried more actively to teach to read. And I am once again convinced that reading is something we make room for, maybe facilitate. I'm pretty sure we do not get to take credit for "teaching" it, any more than I take credit for teaching these three to talk.

Another Reason My Mother Should Have Lived

She would have really enjoyed discussing history with her grandchildren. I always think of her when Ezra or Phaedra or Sylvie comes to me, shocked over the misbehavior of Frederick the Great or giggling over the misdeeds of Robert Hook or sorrowful over the end of King Harold. They each seem to have a personal relationship with characters in history, much the way I remember my mother feeling.

The advantage to this is when they remember history as real people interacting and reacting, they have a whole tableau instead of dates and places. They all seem to then have a better understanding of how these people and events fall in time relative to one another; maybe they do not have the exact date, but they are emphatic that Dante was not a contemporary of Shakespeare, but Galileo was. And when you're trying to teach the arc of history, these are the important parts. When you know who these men are and who their contemporaries were, then you can more easily remember which wars were waged and why and by whom.

Maybe, I am a brilliant teacher with an excellent curriculum, but I do not think I'm all that special. I really think my mother's spirit kissed them each in their cradles and blessed them with this history gift.

Math with Sylvie

She says- 27 plus 56 is 20 plus 50 is 70 but 7 plus 6 is 13 so that's another ten which is 80 and then 3 more . That's 83! 

Imagine all this in an animated voice.

Doing math with Sylvie is rather like doing math with Vizzini.

Housekeeping

We did many of the little tasks today that will facilitate other tasks, those detail things that don't exactly inhibit progress, but hang over your shoulder as you're trying to concentrate elsewhere.

First, Jason and I lingered over our coffee and did a crossword puzzle. We like this routine, but we haven't been able to indulge since we started school, either because the table had to cleared for school or because Jason had to hop right into work. The slow start on the day sets a pleasant tone.

Next, we loaded up the things for a run to the dump, Jason pulled the dead battery out of the CRV, and I hung a load of laundry on the line. We let things build up for the dump, and the past two weeks, the trash bags and miscellany have irritated as I waded around them when I entered the garage. I killed the battery in the CRV by once again leaving the lights on for at least 24 hours. And today, we were blessed again with some November sun, so it was a fine day for laundry.

We dealt with all the stuff in the truck, ran an errand for Jason's work, and parked the truck in the barn to keep the supplies in the bed dry. I held a cable while Jason put the new battery into the CRV. I made lunch while Jason ran by his mom's just to check on things. Jason talked to our friend who will help build the cow shed, and he talked to another friend who might take the BMW wheels we've had in the barn for three years. After lunch, we measured off the site for the new cow shed, and then cleaned out the garage.

Like I said, it was all little stuff, but I feel lighter and a little more prepared for winter.

Peace Points

My beloved third child needs the world to respond to her; she needs to know if you like what she's doing, whether she does it better than anyone else. She will ask for, insist on, and demand attention from most anyone she feels comfortable with. If she really loves and trusts you, when all else fails, she will pinch, yell, jump, poke, do ANYTHING to get you to notice her. For the record, we are not a cold, distracted family; she just entered the world needing more attention than the other four of us can steadily give.

Her yearning for attention has resulted in some pretty negative interactions with her siblings, particularly Ezra. I have watched and tried to stay out of the way, believing pretty firmly that they will come to a workable solution for both of them. Seven-and-a-half years in, I've decided that there are too many negative patterns between the two of them, and I can see similar patterns extending into more of her interactions with all of us. It seems high time to do something.

Two weeks ago, I introduced the idea of "peace points"; these are tied to behaviors that either create or undermine peace. Being overly sensitive does not calm our environment, breathing into your sister's ear is disruptive to everyone, unobtrusively helping with another's chore makes life better for the entire family.

Each child starts the week with ten points. At the end of the week, if all three children have eight or more, they may each spend $1 on candy. If any child has 10 points, that person may have $2. (Candy is a hot commodity in our house; it's one of the upsides to deprivation in childhood.) Points may be regained, as well as lost. The trick here is that each child is dependent on the others to reap the reward, and they all actually like it when all of them have the same treat. They will each advocate for the others as the week comes to a close to make sure everyone has as many points as possible.

And finally, I see Sylvie trying to measure her responses to annoyances, like someone quietly enjoying a book or wanting her to put her shoes away. I see her trying to frame her wants and needs in a friendlier way. I see Ezra trying to be tolerant instead of provoked. I see Phaedra tempering some of her passive pettiness. The whole system is kind of a bother, because I am the banker of points, but two weeks in, it seems worth the effort.