Levi Drama

Color or black and white?

Levi at 15

[My new year blog posting goals were foiled by a failed hard drive on the evening of January 1st. All my photos and half-written blog posts were lost and they are gone until we get good news from the recovery company. I’ve been regularly active on my Facebook page, so you can always find me there.]

Levi, my eldest, turned 15 on January 1st.

He was 5 when I started writing here at Mt. Hope Chronicles. [You can find links to pictures and descriptions of him at various ages here.] I always think he’s pretty indescribable until I re-read the description of an ENFP, which is in all honesty an exact description. If I had to sum him up in one word, it would probably be drama. [grin]

What’s Levi up to now?

He is still homeschooling (I use that term loosely) for his first year of high school. He attends our local Classical Conversations Challenge I program, studying algebra, Latin, physical science, American literature and persuasive writing, American documents, economics, policy debate, Shakespeare, and music theory with a group of 11 other students and a fantastic tutor. (Shakespeare and Latin are his favorites; math is his nemesis.) They meet one day each week for presentation, discussion, and science labs. He spends much of the rest of the week studying at his friend McKinnon’s house (with McKinnon’s mom, my best friend Char, teaching and supervising). We’ve found this works better than having him stay at home and butt heads with his mother and younger siblings. It gives him some much-needed space and extroverted time outside the house. He will also be taking an online literature class (Tolkien) with James Nance at Roman Roads (he loves Tokien) this semester as well as attending a 4-day Teen Pact leadership camp over spring break (which he is not at all thrilled about).

Levi’s greatest love—other than writing, drawing, and online role playing—is swimming. This is his first year swimming with the local high school team. It has been time and energy-consuming, but he loves being on the team and swimming for coaches other than his dad (though he’ll return to the YMCA club team that his dad coaches in the high school off-season). He was particularly thrilled to ride a school bus for the first time in his life (to and from swim meets).

Levi’s greatest aspiration at this point in his life is to become a lifeguard. To that end, he will be completing his lifeguard training in two weeks and then will be eligible to apply for a lifeguarding position at the Y. A job will have to wait until his school year is over in May, however, because he has no time left in his schedule! [Right now his plan for his future life is to work as a lifeguard and to live in his car.]

Orthodontics are now in the past (as of yesterday) and a driver’s permit is in his near future. He is eligible and has the study manual; he just needs to study it and pass the test (he is surprisingly reluctant to begin driving). Driver’s Ed will also have to wait until this summer. He attended his first formal in December with a friend.

He can still argue with a fence post and dazzle people with his verbosity. His eyes are still vivid blue, but he has lost his baby face. His hair is shaggy. He looks down on me from his towering six-foot height. His shoulders are broad and his waist narrow. His voice is now low and sonorous. He is constantly drawing on himself with his plethora of Sharpie pens and often looks like he is sporting a full sleeve of tattoos.

His favorite song is “I See Fire” from The Hobbit (which is my favorite song to hear him singing in his low voice). His favorite current movie is Assassin’s Creed. 

 

And that’s my Levi.

The Man-Child

I went suit-shopping with the man-child today. [Policy debate, winter formal, Teen Pact, spring protocol—he’ll have several chances to wear it, hopefully before he grows out of it!]

I’m not sure I’m ready for this.

Six feet tall.

A high school swimmer.

Less than two months away from a driver’s permit.

Where did my baby boy go?

World Weary?

I know I am.

Every day, every minute, I have to remind myself that this humble work of loving, nurturing, learning, teaching, home-making, celebrating is my calling.

I am not called to be a majority.

I am not called to win.

I am called to be faithful—faithful to the work set before me.

And God will be there.

In the midst of supper, of walking along a road, of real questions and real life.

In the midst of laundry and “woman’s work.”

As I grow, partake, observe, and worship…
In the garden, at the table, in the museum, and with the church.

.

It was a rough week. And a rough day.

I allowed outside cares to weigh on me. I argued with invisible people. I fought with the children. I forgot the important things.

While writing this post, I started to shoo away a child who was hurting and disappointed. Even while writing this post. How do I forget so quickly?

But I caught myself, and stopped. We snuggled on the couch and talked.

Now we are going to clean the house and make it lovely (because the house right now reflects the ugliness of the day).

We’ll light some candles. We’ll put on some music.

When Dad arrives home from his week-long business trip in an hour, we’ll greet him with hugs and smiles instead of mess and bickering.

We’ll play a family board game and ignore the to-do list.

We’ll feast as an act of war.

Will you join us?

:: Feasting as an Act of War by Andrew Peterson @ The Rabbit Room

"Sit down with your children and listen to them. Eat with them. Hug them. Teach them to tend a garden, placing your hands in the wounded yet life-giving earth. Stop doubting and believe. Look your daughter in the eye and tell her she is more beautiful than she could possibly imagine. Muster the courage to show up at church on Sunday. Make your home lovely. Commit to the slow work of shaping the world around you so that it looks like your best guess at what the Kingdom looks like."

Symposium and Morning Liturgy

As I’ve been contemplating the concept of Liturgy, I’ve been working to put some ideas into practice. Our Symposium time is the most obvious time to incorporate liturgical practices, as well as family dinner time. Several people have asked about our Symposium, so this is a brief glimpse into our mornings so far this scholé year.

[My alarm goes off at 6am, but I snooze until 6:15 then immediately make the bed and go shower, get dressed, and put on makeup and earrings. I usually have a few minutes to read my Bible before waking the kids.]

6:45  Wake up boys cheerfully (I let Lola wake on her own; Luke sets his own alarm and is often up earlier). Give hugs and snuggles as needed. [I often finish my quiet time while they are slowing getting up out of bed. I give them a second, more imperative wake-up call at 7ish.]

Put on classical music [Week 1 was Aaron Copland, week 2 was George Gershwin, week 3 is Stravinsky]

Morning chores [I need to be better about assigning chores. I switch laundry (all the clean laundry gets put on my bed to fold as I can during the day and put away before bedtime), make tea, check email and FB.]

7:30  Breakfast [I have a list posted on the fridge, but I often make eggs or protein waffles for myself and whomever will eat them.]

Clean up.

8:00 SHARP. Shoes and sweatshirts on and everyone out the door. Levi (with broken foot) on porch. Walk with whomever down the driveway. Talk about how the air feels, the clouds, what we see. Find nature specimen (thistle with purple crown, Queen Anne’s Lace, fallen leaf, remnant of a wasp’s nest, pet snail, pine cone, blackberry sprig…). Talk with Lola about what is nature and what is not (which leads to boy questions such as “are genetically modified foods nature?”). I take pictures of nature. [On rainy days, jump rope or other activity on porch. Grab nature book for nature specimen.]

 

8:10 ish: Back inside for nature journal sketching while I read from Shakespeare Stories by Leon Garfield. [I don’t micro-manage their journals. They draw and write whatever they want.]

8:20 ish: Morning prayer from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, Pocket Edition

Single Voice/Community prayer (have kids repeat after me)

Song/Hymn [We sing a song in Latin from Lingua Angelica.]

“In our lives and in our prayers : may your kingdom come.”

Psalm [We sing a complete song from Sing the Word: Psalm 24 from God Our Provider to tie in with Challenge A catechism (will rotate Psalm songs weekly, next will be Psalm 19 from The Heavens Declare, again to tie in with Challenge A).]

“In our lives and in our prayers : may your kingdom come.”

Scripture [Take turns reading from Bible, beginning with the book of John]

“In our lives and in our prayers : may your kingdom come.”

Our Father/Pater Noster [We say it in English and then in Latin.]

Ending Single Voice/Community prayer

8:30 ish: Memory work [Working on passage from Declaration of Independence and one from Shakespeare (“All the World’s a Stage”) both to tie in with Challenge 1]

8:40 ish: Beauty “Loop”

Day 1: Picture study/narration using Cave Paintings to Picasso (review past artwork, take turns gazing at picture, share what we saw or how it made us feel, or what it reminded us of; read commentary; enter artwork in family timeline notebook)

Day 2: Read from Michael Clay Thompson’s Music of the Hemispheres (poetry)

Day 3: Read about composer from morning music in The Story of the Orchestra (enter in timeline)

Day 4: [If we have 4 days of symposium, double up on a favorite (We have CC community day on Mondays and a shorter symposium on Wednesdays due to piano lessons, so our main symposium days are Tu, Th, and Fri.)]

8:55 ish: MCT Caesar’s English [short portion] Latin and literature-based vocabulary

9:00 Dismiss with the doxology from Jude (1):24-25. Say, “The Lord be with you,” and children respond, “And also with you.”

.

At this point in our morning, Levi and Leif go off to their respective study spaces to complete independent work, and I stay with Luke in the living room (where his study space is located) to work on Latin.

.

So far, I’ve been really consistent with our mornings and then continuing our learning schedule for the rest of the day. I’m trying to add in some more liturgical practices during our day, but that has proved much more difficult once we separate for our daily tasks. We’ve been hit or miss on the following, and I’d like to continue to do them as often as possible:

Midday Prayer from Common Prayer [meet at noon in the living room just before lunch]. The Midday Prayer includes the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi which is on our history, speeches, poetry, literature list for cycle 2! [I may loop between several prayers, including Saint Patrick’s Prayer], the Beatitutes, and The Anima Christi.

I’ve been working on setting a formal family dinner as often as possible—nice dishes and all food in serving dishes on the table. We light candles. We pray the Table Blessing in Latin and English before regular prayer at dinner.

I would love to end dinner with the Evening Prayer from Common Prayer that includes public confession, The Doxology (Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow or occasionally the Gloria Patri), declaration of faith (possibly changing this to The Apostles’ Creed), and the Magnificat (I love hearing my friend Lori sing this one and Levi occasionally has this playing while he works on his school work).

I’ve also tried to practice “Collect, Connect, Create” from Jenny Rallens. During dinner we sometimes share something we’ve learned and how it connects to something else we know or have experienced, then we share how we might use this knowledge.

[For example, Luke said he learned that drawing maps from memory is harder than it looks. We talked about other things that are harder than they look. And then we talked about how things get easier the more you practice. Leif said he learned that thistles are very prickly. Then he said that donkeys must have very tough mouths in order to eat them. Lola said she learned that the purple flower on a thistle is soft and not prickly.]

I saw another idea online—the “Thankfulness Pumpkin.” Each day in October and/or November, we’ll use a Sharpie pen to write on the pumpkin things that each person is thankful for and keep the pumpkin on the table as our dining table centerpiece. I think this will be a great, easy way to practice gratitude this fall.

Commonplacing The Quotidian Mysteries

The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work" by Kathleen Norris

Recommended by my friends Danielle and Jessye

Read as the ChocLit Guild book selection for August

A slim book at only 88 pages

4 stars

Collecting Quotes

Menial derives from a Latin word meaning “to remain,” or “to dwell in a household.” It is thus a word about connections, about family and household ties.

God is a begetter, not a maker, and poets are makers, not begetters. Maker is what the word poet means at its Greek root, and I am all too acutely aware that what I make, the poems and the personae that fill them, are not creatures in the fullest sense, having life and breath.

And I see both the miracle of manna and incarnation of Jesus Christ as scandals. They suggest that God is intimately concerned with our very bodies and their needs, and I doubt that this is really what we want to hear. Our bodies fail us, they grow old, flabby and feeble, and eventually they lead us to the cross. How tempting it is to disdain what God has created, and to retreat into a comfortable gnosticism.

The ordinary activities I find most compatible with contemplation are walking, baking bread and doing laundry. My everyday experience of walking confirms the poet Donald Hall’s theory that poetic meter originates in the bodily rhythm of arms and legs in motion.

[W]hat ties these threads of biblical narrative together into a revelation of God’s love is that God has commanded us to refrain from grumbling about the dailiness of life. Instead we are meant to accept it gratefully, as a reality that humbles us even as it gives us cause for praise.

[I]f you’re like me, you take a kind of comfort in being busy. The danger is that we will come to feel too useful, so full of purpose and the necessity of fulfilling obligations that we lose sight of God’s play with creation, and with ourselves.

The poem, like housekeeping itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. In the  poem, by pulling many disparate things together, I tried to replicate the actual work of cleaning, sorting through the leftovers, the odd pieces of a life, in order to make a whole. I sense that striving for wholeness is, increasingly, a countercultural goal, as fragmented people make for better consumers…

I was slow to recognize that combating sloth, being willing to care for oneself and others on a daily basis, is not small part of what constitutes basic human sanity, a faith in the everyday… Benedict’s Rule for monasteries…characterizes sloth as disobedience.

But acedia seeks to hoard against the time when God is no longer present, and we can’t trust the nourishment that other people offer. It rejects the present moment in favor of a vainglorious and imaginary future in which we will do just fine, thank you, at providing for ourselves… In contemplating the “daily bread” that we ask for in the Lord’s Prayer, Simone Weil asserts that God has created us so that the present is all we have.

It is not in romance but in routine that the possibilities for transformation are made manifest. And that requires commitment.

I have come to believe that the true mystics of the quotidian are not those who contemplate holiness in isolation, reaching godlike illumination in serene silence, but those who mange to find God in a life filled with noise, the demands of other people and relentless daily duties that can consume the self.

Our desire is to love God and each other, in stable relationships that, like any good marriage, remain open to surprises and receptive to grace.

 

Connecting

:: Laziness by Any Other Name by Angelina Stanford @ CiRCE [short article]

I read this article just after finishing Quotidian Mysteries, and it was a painful well-aimed arrow.

But laziness, like all sin, is a deceiver, and the first person it deceives is the sinner. Laziness loves to masquerade as work. It’s easy to deceive ourselves and others when we seem so busy and hard working. But, laziness is not inactivity; it’s doing something other than your duty.

:: Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper [book]

I’ve found a contemplation of the word “leisure” to be a fascinating and fruitful endeavor, and it is interesting that the ideas of acedia and sloth are connected to the concept of leisure. So many words have lost their rich meaning in our modern culture [more about that in an upcoming post].

At the zenith of the Middle Ages, on the contrary, it was held that sloth and restlessness, "leisurelessness," the incapacity to enjoy leisure, were all closely connected; sloth was held to be the source of restlessness, and the ultimate cause of "work for work's sake."

 

[I am using Collect, Connect, Create as my process for Lectio Devina, as shared by Jenny Rallens. Often in my blog posts, the photograph at the header (and the blog post in general) is my resulting creation from the Lectio Divina process.]

Our Daily Bread [Meal Planning]

I’ve never been good at meal planning. I rarely get organized ahead of time, and when I do, I don’t follow the plan because something else sounds good that night or I don’t want to go to the work of a particular meal or our schedule gets messed up.

Instead of planning a specific schedule for our meals, I simply made lists of ideas. Dinner ideas I split into 7 main categories (one for each day of the week, though I probably won’t stick to specific days for each category and will often skip a category and double up on another). I posted the breakfast, lunch, and snack list on the fridge where the kids can see it.

I have picky eaters. And I’m a lazy cook. And we’re terrible at sit-down dinners even though formal family dinner was a daily non-negotiable during my childhood and I understand the importance. Family dinners are on my priority list for this year.

Breakfast:

Eggs (and toast for Levi) (w/ veggies for me)

Oatmeal

Greek yogurt

Protein waffles (freeze ahead)

Bagels and cream cheese

Lunch:

[+ fruit (fresh, fruit strip, apple chips, frozen blueberries, applesauce, or pineapple) and veggie (carrots, tomatoes, celery, mini peppers, snap peas)]

Tuna sandwiches

Grilled-cheese sandwiches

PB&J sandwiches

Chicken sandwiches

Hamburgers

BLTs

Chicken nuggets

Baked potatoes

Tortillas with taco fillings, beans, or chicken sausage

Mac-n-cheese

Cup of noodles

Spaghetti

Pizza

(Grilled meat with salad for me)

Snacks:

Veggies

Pretzels

Cheese sticks

Teriyaki sticks

Granola bars

Nuts or dried fruit

Toast

Sweet potato chips

Dill pickles

Olives

Chips and salsa

Dinner:

Soup (clam chowder, chicken noodle, pasta fajioli, beef stew, zuppa toscana, taco soup or chili)

Mexican (tacos, fajitas, burritos, enchiladas)

Asian (pork fried rice, Asian chicken salad, orange chicken)

Italian (spaghetti, lasagna, pizza, lemon garlic shrimp scampi)

Chicken (pesto, nuggets, stir-fry, rotisserie, fried chicken)

Beef (hamburgers, steak, sloppy joes, Swiss steak, French dip roast, beef/potato/corn hash, hamburger gravy)

Pork (sausage and spinach gnocchi, pulled pork sandwiches, spiral ham, brats)

Sides:

Veggies:

Green beans

Roasted potatoes or sweet potatoes (or potatoes/carrots/onion)

Salad

Fried onions

Sautéed asparagus

Roasted Brussel’s sprouts, broccoli, or cauliflower

(Corn)

Bread/Starch:

Homemade bread

Cornbread

Biscuits

Noodles

Rice

Mashed potatoes

Treats:

Cinnamon Oranges

Popcorn (microwave or kettle)

Brownies

Rice Krispie Treats

Chocolate Chip Cookies

French Breakfast Puffs

Italian Sodas

Lola Colette

For the Children’s Sake

Stacks of books tower on every flat surface (and some not-so-flat surfaces) of my house. I’ve been allowing my imagination to wander lately, and it has designed a beautiful library/meeting hall to be built in the field in front of my house. “Imagination” is the key word here, but if I don’t do something soon it will be either my family or the books—I don’t think there’s room for both. [wry grin]

One of these towering stacks is the “education and culture” stack (not to be confused with the culture and educational philosophy shelf).

Some books in this towering stack are more recent favorites: The Core, The Question, and The Conversation by Leigh Bortins; Beauty for Truth’s Sake and Beauty in the Word by Stratford Caldecott; Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakable Peace by Sarah Mackenzie; and Leisure, the Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper.

Some are important books that require more intelligence than I currently possess in order to finish: Norms and Nobility by David Hicks and Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons. [Clearly I’m delusional about when that intelligence will manifest itself because I haven’t shelved them yet.]

Some are books I’ve finished in the past few months and whose riches I’m still digesting: Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness & Beauty by Stephen R. Turley, PhD (a good but dense read) and The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education by Ravi Jain (an excellent must-read, even though it is over my head in parts).

[We won’t even talk about the books still on my wish list!]

After reading The Liberal Arts Tradition in particular, I had so many thoughts swirling in my brain and I began synthesizing some ideas to share in blog posts. My real hope was to somehow synthesize all of the above books into something resembling a cohesive educational philosophy complete with derivative practices.

Hahahaha!

So what does Heidi do when she is overwhelmed by a task in front of her? [Other than binge on chocolate and Netflix?] She watches multiple educational videos and series. She attends an educational retreat.

She starts another book. Or two.

Instead of buying more books, I looked at my educational philosophy shelf and grabbed two books I hadn’t read in forever.

First up: A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison. This one is completely manageable. Less than 100 pages. A brief introduction to Charlotte Mason. Very brief chapters covering all the subjects with practical how-to advice. A few lists and graphs (yay for lists and graphs!). In summary: brief and practical.

On a roll, I grabbed the second book: For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.

I’d like to have a little chat with the younger me who first read the book some years ago.

Why didn’t you allow these beautiful words and ideas to change your life?!

[Okay, I know why: I was overwhelmed. There just wasn’t enough of me to go around. My main goal was to keep everyone alive. But, still.]

I was convicted with every word. Convicted that I could spend a profitable 10 years just reading and re-reading the books I already own without buying another single book. Convicted that it doesn't matter how many books I read if they don't change me. Convicted that I need to choose a few beautiful books to re-read often. Convicted that I have failed myself and my children in setting good habits that would make doing the right things so. much. easier. for all of us because we could do all the little things without thinking and without effort and save our thinking and effort for the big things.

So I had a "chat" with my kids, which was probably the wrong thing (ha!), apologizing to them for my own poor habits and apologizing for failing to make their lives easier, and explaining that we are all under authority to do the right thing.

It's really difficult to turn a large passenger ship around. Especially when the captain has shockingly poor habits. Sigh.

But good stuff, friends. Good and beautiful stuff in this one.

This is not just a homeschooling book. It is not even just a book about education.

It is a book about these beautiful humans who inhabit our homes and how we should treat them. How we can respect them as persons and work to enlarge their lives.

From the Introduction:

This book…is not a specific guide to one particular plan. Education is an adventure that has to do with central themes, not the particular packages a given generation puts them into. It’s about people, children, life, reality!

In the first chapter, What Is Education?, the author introduces the reader to Charlotte Mason and her world. 

In the lengthy second chapter, the reader learns that “Children Are Born Persons.”

At first glance, this idea does not seem revolutionary to us, but a deeper look at this idea reveals the truth.

Look well at the child on your knee. In whatever condition you find him, look with reverence. We can only love and serve him and be his friend. We cannot own him. He is not ours… Respect him. Do not see him as something to prune, form, or mold. This is an individual who thinks, acts, and feels. He is a separate human being whose strength lies in who he is, not in who he will become.

We are told to place a feast of ideas and experiences in front of a child and then get out of the way.

Allow the child to have an interior life that you don’t meddle in. Let the Holy Spirit and the child do what they will with what he has seen and heard.

Charlotte Mason highly valued a child’s time and opportunity to play. Encourage play, give a child time and materials and remove other distractions and pressures, but do not organize play.

Charlotte Mason fed children with Living Ideas from outside of those children’s world. Read beautifully written biographies, stories of other cultures, fables, stories about animals, literature. Read slowly. Have a child narrate back what he has heard. Don’t test the child. Allow her to choose the details that she remembers. Allow a child to learn as his own speed.

The third chapter covers the topic of Authority and Freedom.

This is the chapter that hit me the hardest.

Charlotte Mason exhorts us to train a child in good habits so that right behavior becomes easy and the student’s efforts and energy can be used for greater challenges.

What I truly loved about the perspective here is that it is so full of grace. It is not a rigid system of endless dos and don’ts from an authoritative perspective, but an understanding that we are all under authority to do the right thing and that we must first understand the child’s needs. We must give children “freedom within known limits, both physically and morally.” We must not be aggressive. We as parents must “exercise great self-restraint” and not place too many limits or pile on expectations.

We must show that we are mature enough to stick to the lines which are right, and that we don’t merely boss the child about for our convenience.

In this lengthy chapter, I was reminded continuously of this quote by G.K. Chesterton: “The more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run wild.”

Chapter four introduces us to Charlotte Mason’s educational principles.

[You can read them here.]

Teach the skills for their own sake.
Introduce the child to a wide curriculum of living books.
Keep teaching time short enough so that his natural hunger for “real” life can be satisfied.

Macaulay focuses on Charlotte Mason’s motto: “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.”

Atmosphere can be cultivated at home and at school.

Students can learn the discipline of attention and concentration, truthfulness, self-control, and unselfishness. Parents and teachers can provide structure and form.

Parents and teachers can give students access to the best sources.

“Let the children at the best of life!” is Charlotte Mason’s challenge to us. Life includes not only living experiences, but also the best that mankind has produced in art, books, music, ideas, and many more areas.

We don’t have to chart exactly what a child has “learned” from any of these sources to make it worthwhile using them. This is a different way of thinking about learning. Our job is to give the best nourishment regularly. The child takes what is appropriate to him at that time.

We are also encouraged to allow students to do real work, take on real responsibility, and spend time in creative pursuits.

Chapter five delves into the principle “education is a science of relationships.”

We must take steps to provide a diet which opens doors for each child to build a relationship with God, other persons, and the universe. If it sounds broad, it is broad!

Knowledge is divided into three categories: knowledge of God, knowledge of man, and knowledge of the universe.

These divisions correspond well to the three categories of philosophy outlined in The Liberal Arts Tradition: divine philosophy, moral philosophy, and natural philosophy.

In this chapter (again, lengthy), Macaulay covers the “subjects” of theology, history, literature, morals and citizenship, composition, languages, art, music, science, geography, mathematics, physical development, and handicrafts.

The Word of God is like fertile seed you drop into the soil. The child does not take in everything that is there. He thinks about some aspect of it.

“Why do you study, or do math, art, etc.?” should be swiftly answered by “Because it is part of the whole which God has created.”

Math does relate to the whole of truth; it has its place. It is like art, music, horticulture, or cooking: the “Christian-ness” of it lies in itself. We are secure in God’s truth, which is a framework into which we can fit all the parts of reality.

Having given the basis for the knowledge, plus a place for the telling of ideas or discussion, please allow each child to live his own private life. We tend to crash in where angels fear to tread. We want to push along the work that belongs to the Holy Spirit. Let the child do his own living—please!

The life of education has to include the whole of our humanness. We need to relate as persons to the God who is there, to be nourished with good ideas through books, art, music, history, literature, etc. We need to relate to other persons, to know and be known. We need the beauty of nature, and we are made to respond creatively in speech, music, through art, etc. We need to know the limits of law, and yet the freedom of our separate choices.

The book closes with a brief sixth chapter which introduces Charlotte Mason’s motto “I am, I can, I ought, I will.”

I am made in the image of God and made to have a relationship with Him. I can act with confidence. I ought to do what is right (not just what I want). I will choose what is right under all circumstances.

And God’s grace is available to me when I fail.

The motto, “I am, I can, I ought, I will” makes a circle, a perimeter, inside of which my human life may be lived with joy and fullness. There is song, lightness, spontaneity. There is the possibility of attaining height proper to one’s self.

Lovely.

Friends, I highly recommend this book, whether you are homeschooling or using other schooling methods, whether your children are still young or growing older.

 

So now I have so many beautiful ideas to synthesize that I may die trying. But stay tuned for more to come…

On Potential Energy, Constraints, and Creativity: Conversations with a Teenage boy

On Energy

My son and I just had a conversation about this the other day. He's in the "this is useless; when will I ever use this?" phase. I told him it's a little like energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. He has to gather energy from other sources in order to make his own spark. And he'll never know what combination of energy sources will make that spark until the moment it happens.

The more energy gathering he does, the more potential creative energy he has.

On Constraints

Another day we were driving to the swimming pool for practice. This son, who is always coming up with fantastical solutions to everyday problems, said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could earth-bend a bridge all the way to the swimming pool?”

I countered, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could bend the earth so that wherever we wanted to be was suddenly just a step away?”

Let’s talk about the word fantastical, shall we? It means “conceived by an unrestrained imagination.” The word I want to focus on is “unrestrained.”

God is the ultimate Creator. He created staggering vastness (in its extent, proportions, quantity, and intensity). He created staggering minute-ness. He created staggering beauty in material, texture, form, color, and pattern. He created staggering diversity and variety.

Sheer excess, friends. There is nothing practical about a thousand of varieties of fruit.

Every day, by the witness of His own creation, I learn that God delights in creating.

But God also created constraints.

Physical law. Natural law. Moral law. Chronological time. Biological systems.

God is a God of cosmos (form and harmony), not a God of chaos.

The greatest creativity I’ve witnessed has not occured in unrestrained environments.

Anyone can plink random notes on a piano and call it a song. But if the musician uses his imagination within the constraints of rhythm and harmony and tempo and dynamics, he achieves a certain masterful creativity.

In fact, the greater the constraints, the greater the creativity.

That seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it?

In writing, the tighter the form (paralellism, poetry), the greater the requirement for a precision of words and ideas.

In fantasy writing, authors who are able to conceive of consistent constraints for their fantasy world and plot constraints for their characters are able to create a more masterful story.

I would not hesitate to say that creating beauty within constraints and overcoming restraints to solve problems show a higher degree of creativity.

The greater number of constraints (either within a form or as problems to overcome) or the greater the complexity that is brought into harmony, the greater the creative skill.

In many ways, we fight against this as a culture. We don’t like constraints. My teenage son doesn’t like constraints. I don’t like constraints. Constraints aren’t fair. Constraints aren’t fun. Constraints aren’t easy. Society should have solved all our problems for us by now.

But, made in the image of God, we are still hard-wired to know, deep inside, that constraints are necessary. We are still hard-wired to need constraints to grow in character, in skill, and in creativity. We are still hard-wired to value those traits when we see them in others. Do you know how I know this?

Do you want to watch a movie about a character who has nothing to overcome?  When someone is given everything they need or want without restraint, are strong character, skills, and creativity likely to follow? Are a man’s accomplishments worthy of praise if he puts no effort into them? Don’t we love an underdog story?!

Skillful creativity is not unrestrained imagination.
Skillful creativity is bringing chaos into harmony or form.
Skillful creativity is perseverance in adversity.
Skillful creativity is acknowledging restraints and solving problems in spite of them.

Why do I want my boys to read books like Wonder, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, A Long Walk to Water, and The Boys in the Boat? Because these are characters [particular (historical) and universal (fiction)] who are faced with constraints, great constraints; they work within their limitations to do incredible things, they show astounding perseverance in the face of adversity, and they grow in character as a result.

Ask kids, ask yourself: what constraints (and how many) did each of the people in the following videos face? Did working within these constraints require a higher degree of character, skills, and/or creativity for the people who solved them? Would their creativity have been better served without constraints?

Merry Christmas 2015 ~ From Our Family to Yours!

Yes, we finally snagged some family pictures in between rain storms. Nothing like the last minute…

Have a very merry Christmas, friends!

Rest

Rest.

So often it feels elusive.

Difficult to define, more difficult to realize.

In my weak human-ness, I wish for ease.

Balance.

I’ve always struggled with it. I can be honest: I’m a pendulum swinger.

Negligence? Check. Anxiety? Check.

You?

Maybe I’m not alone.

.

It was a rough month.

The indecision. The inability to control or enjoy. The little things in the way. And just plain stuff in the way.

.

But little arrows.

Here and there, pointing the way.

A blog post or two or three. A workshop. A book. A few literary quotes.

Decisions made.

A little peace. A little breathing room.

Inspiration, finally.

A little excitement.

.

Vacation.

Where one goes and her faults follow. Along with all the little (and big) quirks of humanity to whom she has given birth.

Moments of loveliness. Moments of feeling like a scrag of a tree on a weather-beaten rock.

.

But grace is a fact.

Food for Thought ~ Encouragement, Science, Imagination, and More

[Again, so much in one post. Help yourself to the buffet. Remember that you can always receive the links spread out over many courses by following my Facebook page.]

Encouragement

:: Compared to... @ Seth Godin

"Just because a thing can be noticed, or compared, or fretted over doesn't mean it's important, or even relevant. Better, I think, to decide what's important, what needs to change, what's worth accomplishing. And then ignore all comparisons that don't relate. The most important comparison, in fact, is comparing your work to what you're capable of. Sure, compare. But compare the things that matter to the journey you're on. The rest is noise."

:: I Am Not an Airplane @ Amongst Lovely Things

What if I treated my time like a budget?

What if I started our homeschool year, remembering that I’m a human person, not an airplane with the sky as the limit.

Teaching and Raising Children

:: When Success Leads to Failure: The pressure to achieve academically is a crime against learning @ The Atlantic

The truth—for this parent and so many others—is this: Her child has sacrificed her natural curiosity and love of learning at the altar of achievement, and it’s our fault. Marianna’s parents, her teachers, society at large—we are all implicated in this crime against learning. From her first day of school, we pointed her toward that altar and trained her to measure her progress by means of points, scores, and awards. We taught Marianna that her potential is tied to her intellect, and that her intellect is more important than her character. We taught her to come home proudly bearing As, championship trophies, and college acceptances, and we inadvertently taught her that we don’t really care how she obtains them. We taught her to protect her academic and extracurricular perfection at all costs and that it’s better to quit when things get challenging rather than risk marring that perfect record. Above all else, we taught her to fear failure. That fear is what has destroyed her love of learning.

:: The Difference Between Good Boys and Nice Boys in “Tom Sawyer” @ The Imaginative Conservative

"Goodness, then, demands integrity, honor, courage, and sacrifice—the manly, knightly virtues that Tom and his spirited friends practice in their boyish love of fun and adventure. The nice boys, on the other hand, do not take risks, venture beyond safe limits, or question the rules—even though some are silly and senseless. They like prizes, recognition, applause, and adulation. They do the minimum, they act their part, and they know how to curry favor. They show no life, no passion, no pluck. They act primarily on the basis of self-interest."

Science

:: 5 Reasons the Church Should Embrace Science @ Relevant

Science needs all kinds of people. The task of science is seeking truth, and truth-seeking requires we put aside some of our assumptions. Ironically, this is one of the biggest reasons some see Christians as unfit to pursue science, but in reality, people of all faiths (or no faith) all bring assumptions. We simply can’t get rid of them.

But one way to combat our assumptions is to approach problems from a variety of angles. Collaborating with others who do not share our assumptions (whether directly on a project or more generally within the field) places checks on our assumptions. In addition, having a variety of points of view approaching a problem offers additional opportunities for problem-solving and new breakthroughs.

:: A world-famous chemist tells the truth: there’s no scientist alive today who understands macroevolution @ Uncommon Descent [I spent a very long time bending my brain to the content in this article and in the comments. I understand a minute fraction more than before.]

:: The Microscopic Structures of Dried Human Tears @ Smithsonian [This is an older article, but so fascinating!]

The Brain

:: How Walking in Nature Changes the Brain @ New York Times

:: Cognitive benefits of being a musician @ Pianodao

Words

:: Harnessing the Power of Latin and Greek for Early Readers @ IMSE Journal

I love the image accompanying this article. Many of our ordinary, everyday words come from the Anglo-Saxon, but many of our intellectual, sophisticated words are Latin-based and our specialized words are often Greek-based.

“…upwards of ninety percent of our academic words in English…are derived from Latin and Greek.”

:: Ticket to Write, Part 1: A Crush on Words @ Story Warren [We are definitely going to be making word tickets!]

First, get out your scissors and sit down right in front of that stack of magazines and cut-up-able stuff. You’re going on a treasure hunt for words. Search for interesting, juicy, energetic, vivid words, cut them out, and tape or glue them to the blank side of the tickets. There are no rules about what words to include or not to include in your collection. Find words you like, words that are fun to say out loud, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, words you don’t know that you have to look up in the dictionary, and phrases that are unusual or funny or beautiful…

:: Ticket to Write, Part 2: Painting with Words @ Story Warren

Using your markers or crayons or colored pencils, write the words you’ve gathered all over your picture. Write them in colors that fit the different parts of the photo—blues for the sky, greens and browns for the trees. Write them big or little or curvy or sideways. Be as artistic as you want.

When you’ve finished writing all of the words from your pile of word tickets, use your own imagination to add more words. Your photograph has no color, but imagine what colors the things in the photo might be, and write color words in those places. Think about all five senses and write sound words, smell words, taste words, and touch words as well as words that describe the things you see. Fill every space.

Handwriting

:: Cheating Calligraphy Tutorial @ The Postman’s Knock

 

 

Wise Imagination

"Properly taught, and learned—acquired—a liberal education awakens and keeps alive the imagination. By the imagination, I don’t mean fanciful things, but I mean the capacity to see beyond the end of your nose and beyond the object in front you. That is to see its implications, its origins, its potential, its danger, its charm. All the things that enable one to navigate in this difficult and complex world with a modicum of wisdom, with calm, not be alarmed with every little thing that happens and with resources that in moments of stress, and after retirement, in illness, and loneliness keep one’s soul and body alive. ~ Jacque Barzun, cultural historian and education philosopher." [HT: Paideia Fellowship]

“I believe that children in this country need a more robust literary diet than they are getting... It does not hurt them to read about good and evil, love and hate, life and death. Nor do I think they should read only about things that they understand. '...a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.' So should a child’s. For myself, I will never talk down to, or draw down to, children." -- Barbara Cooney [HT: A Mighty Girl]

:: Story Warren On World Radio: Fireballs, Fables, and Allies in Imagination [audio]

:: Landscapes with Dragons and Angels: Finding the Wise Imagination in Children’s Literature by Stratford Caldecott [This is a great essay about wise discernment of fantasy literature with several examples.] 

:: Speaking the Truths Only the Imagination May Grasp: An Essay on Myth &“Real Life” by Stratford Caldecott @ Touchstone [Go read the whole article!]

Why are such tales so endlessly fascinating, so universally told? Perhaps because it is just such a journey that gives meaning to our own existence. We read or listen to the storyteller in order to orient ourselves within—to learn how to behave in order to get where we are going. Each of us knows that our life is not merely a mechanical progress from cradle to grave; it is a search, a quest, even a pilgrimage. There is some elusive goal that motivates us in our work and our play.

:: The Classical Reader [What a fantastic resource!]

“When you are choosing what books your children or students will read, the stakes are especially high. That is why we have put years of research into The Classical Reader and this companion website, collecting and analyzing the K-12 reading recommendations of classical educators from around the country and seeking those readings that have been important and pleasurable to generations of students. It is an invaluable resource for every school and homeschool family for everything from book reports to reading for pleasure.”

Good Stuff

:: Boy Who Couldn’t Afford Books Asks Mailman For Junk Mail To Read; Mailman Responds Spectacularly @ Huff Post

:: Iowa barber gives haircuts to children in exchange for them reading stories to him @ Globe Gazette

:: The Secret to Love is Just Kindness @ The Atlantic

"130 newlywed couples were invited to spend the day at this retreat and watched them as they did what couples normally do on vacation: cook, clean, listen to music, eat, chat, and hang out. And Gottman made a critical discovery in this study — one that gets at the heart of why some relationships thrive while others languish."

Lola!

She asked for her name in pink.

We practiced saying her name with different punctuation.

Lola. Lola? Lola!

She was emphatic about the exclamation choice. And really? It fits her.

Because this girl lives out loud. With expression.

She makes life rainbows and sunshine and sprinklers.

Oh, be still my beating heart.

Food for Thought

 

I’m catching up on more than six weeks worth of interesting links! Feel free to pace yourself!

Stories

:: To Live As If I Believed: The Thin Spaces of Children's Literature @ On Being

"Art is created in kairos — an indeterminate time, unbound by the clock, where God is ever present. When art is shared and experienced, that thin place erupts open again for the mind and heart of the believer."

:: Why Fairy Tales Are Dangerous @ The Imaginative Conservative

Dear Mr. Dawkins, you’ve said lately that fairy tales are quite harmful. Your reason for thinking this is simple, and true: you told attendees at the Cheltenham Science Festival, “I think it’s rather pernicious to inculcate into a child a view of the world which includes supernaturalism…"

Education

:: How Memory, Focus and Good Teaching Can Work Together to Help Kids Learn @ Mind/Shift

[I seriously love everything about this article. Go read it!]

"Without memorizing some information, it’s harder for the brain to acquire new knowledge and skills. It takes longer for the brain to process new information, and students are less likely and slower to ask informed and perceptive questions.

“The more you know, the more you can make conclusions, even be creative,” Klemm said. “All of these things have to be done by thinking, and thinking has to be done from what’s in your working memory.”

:: 100 Things For Kids to Memorize @ Ed Snapshots

:: Why the Liberal Arts Belong in Elementary School @ U.S. News and World Report

Willingham described one study in which 11th graders were given a reading test and various other tests of "cultural literacy" - knowledge of artists, entertainers, military leaders, musicians, philosophers and scientists - as well as separate tests of factual knowledge of science, history and literature. "The researchers found robust correlations between scores on the reading tests and the various cultural literacy tests," Willingham wrote. Dozens of other studies have found similar results; for comprehension, knowledge is even more important than overall reading ability or IQ. In short, to be a good general reader, you need broad general knowledge.

:: Why Liberal Arts is Super Dumb @ The Mugdown [wink]

:: Sir Ken Robinson: Creativity Is In Everything, Especially Teaching @ Mind/Shift

"Creativity draws from many powers that we all have by virtue of being human. Creativity is possible in all areas of human life, in science, the arts, mathematics, technology, cuisine, teaching, politics, business, you name it. And like many human capacities, our creative powers can be cultivated and refined. Doing that involves an increasing mastery of skills, knowledge, and ideas."

:: Can Mathew Crawford Deliver Us from Distraction? At The Chronicle of Higher Education

His earlier book, 'Shop Class,' contrasted skill-based, craft-oriented knowledge and the satisfaction it brings with the kind of understanding he acquired studying physics ... or philosophy at Chicago. The certainties of physics might establish an intellectual foundation, and philosophical ambiguities may delight, but not much compares to the roar of a bike.

 

Parenting and Relationships

:: Is having a loving family an unfair advantage? @ The Philosopher’s Zone [The article that should have been published by The Onion, but wasn’t. The good news, though: ]

'"The evidence shows that the difference between those who get bedtime stories and those who don’t—the difference in their life chances—is bigger than the difference between those who get elite private schooling and those that don’t," he says.'

:: Have You Ever Felt Like Being a Mother Has Ruined You? @ Carrots for Michaelmas

Each night’s sleep lost for love of a child, each puddle of vomit to be cleaned up, each nursing session with cracked and bleeding nipples, each bottle scrubbed, each tray washed, each onesie laundered, each diaper changed chips away at our former selves. But what’s underneath is something better and more beautiful. That painful love washed away every facade I clinged to and revealed a truer me. But the process is brutal.  

:: If you want to win your child’s heart, don’t go by the rules @ Sally Clarkson

However, in all relationships, (parenting, friendship, marriage, work), people are designed by God to respond from their heart. If their hearts are attached and served by the people relating to them, and their felt needs are met, people will tend to respond to the one who shows them the most love.

:: Personality Matters: Understanding MBTI Typing @ Simply Convivial [Because I love personality typing!]

:: Did God Make a Mistake or Create a New Melody? @ Sally Clarkson

Life

:: The Illusions of Money, Power, and Fame: Why Fitting in Is Overrated @ Goins, Writer

"And as you move towards to your calling, that special thing you were born to do, you will find yourself accessing all the skills you once thought were weaknesses, those embarrassing quirks and personality traits you used to hate, and you will find a use for them all."

:: What You Learn in Your 40s @ The New York Times

"There are no grown-ups"

"Among my peers there’s a now-or-never mood: We still have time for a second act, but we’d better get moving on it."

"By your 40s, you don’t want to be with the cool people; you want to be with your people."

:: “You have to tell people what you’re interested in.” @ Modern Mrs. Darcy

[I had the amazing experience of being a "middle-man" this past week. An acquaintance and I were chatting for the first time. Through her willingness to be open, a series of unexpected "God" events occurred and we landed her nephew a job in five days!]

Fascinating 

:: For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II @ Smithsonian

:: Spineless: Susan Middleton’s Mesmerizing Photographs of Marine Invertebrates @ Brain Pickings

:: 20+ Photos of Geometrical Plants @ Bored Panda

:: Free Adult Coloring Pages @ The Mad House

:: What I learned from watching every TED-Ed Lesson @ TED Blog

Mother’s Day in the Garden [two weeks late]

My family gathered in my mom’s garden two weeks ago to celebrate Mother’s Day. [I’d rather post these pictures late than never!] Holly brought ice cream and delicious rhubarb and blackberry syrups. The cousins played. And there was some baby-lovin’ going on. Sweden was ten days old.

Lola

Just because she makes me smile.

The Best of Mt. Hope Chronicles ~ Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This

[I’m reposting this one because I need to read it again. And again. And again.]

 

Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This

Originally published March, 2009 [when the boys were 7, 4, and 2]

Q: When you have to be creative with their learning, how do you keep up the energy to do so? You are asking a lot of yourself by homeschooling (mom, teacher, cook, cleaner, artist, etc.) How do you keep going when they just absolutely beat you down (and you KNOW you have had days like that too!)

A: What?! Me, have a bad day?! Nah. I am imperviously cheerful and energetic. I get hours of quiet time, but it wouldn't matter if I didn't, because I don't need any. A disastrous house (which mine never is, of course) just fuels my tank. Oh, and my children are angels: quiet, respectful, obedient, tidy, always ready to learn. They never use words like 'poo-poo butt.' They never have dramatic, wailing meltdowns at the mere hint of the words 'piano practice.' When we are at the store, they walk calmly beside the cart with their hands behind their backs. They never escape down the driveway in the dead of winter with nothing but a saggy diaper and rubber boots. They never, ever complain about what is served for dinner.

 

Bwa-ha-ha-ha!! Did I fool anyone? REALITY CHECK: Many days, I have nothing left by bedtime. Sometimes I have nothing left by mid-morning. Make no mistake, raising kids is hard, hard work. Rewarding, amazing, wonderful, and hard, hard work.

Things I've Learned (in my short mothering career):

:: I set the tone of our day.

87% of the time life falls apart around me, it started with my own actions or attitude, not my boys'. I get distracted. I'm playing on the computer instead of following the routine. I'm talking on the phone. I don't pay attention to the boys' needs. I don't respond appropriately to misbehavior. I don't follow through with discipline or consequences. I stay up too late and am cranky the next morning. I run errands at lunch time. I don't spend adequate time training my boys in the behavior or tasks that I desire from them...

If I recognize my own shortcomings, I deal with chaos differently. I'm less likely to blow up at the children (children!) who are falling apart, when I, as an adult, can't even do what I'm supposed to do!

It stands to reason, then, that by following the routine, being present, and paying attention to our environment, I can set our days up for success. Am I great at this? No. Am I working on it? Yes.

“It behooves a father [or mother] to be blameless if he expects his [or her] child to be.” ~Homer

My mom tells me that my dad's mother gave this parenting advice:

:: If a child is misbehaving, there are three possible reasons: He is tired, he is hungry, or he has to go to the bathroom.

I have to tell you that I've found great truth in this advice over and over again. The other day, Leif had a complete meltdown at my mom's house when we sat down to lunch. I thought it over and realized that he was likely very hungry and tired. I dealt with him very softly and coaxed him to eat. Once he calmed down, he devoured a bowl of soup and declared it (through teary eyes) to be 'licious.' Directly after lunch he had some quiet time in the playroom. And filled his diaper. The poor kid was hungry, tired, and had to go to the bathroom.

I need to pay more attention to the childrens' eating habits, making sure they get healthy snacks throughout the day. At least one of my sons needs some regularly scheduled time in the bathroom. I also need to get the boys to bed at a decent hour and have a back-up plan for quiet time when stamina is low (theirs or mine).

“In spite of the seven thousand books of expert advice, the right way to discipline a child is still a mystery to most fathers and... mothers. Only your grandmother and Ghengis Khan know how to do it.” ~Billy Cosby

:: I need to have various coping strategies up my sleeve when all else fails.

1. Get back on track with renewed focus.

Sometimes I have to slap myself and pull myself up by my bootstraps. Be confident. Be kind, calm, and firm. Take the bull by the horns. You know what I'm talking about. Wipe the slate clean and turn the day around with sheer will-power.

2. Make a drastic change in the environment.

If we're inside, go out. If we're outside, go in. If we're out and about, go home. And my personal favorite, if we're home, go out for a drive. If everyone is going in opposite directions, snuggle on the couch with a good picture book. If we're getting on each other's nerves, put everyone in separate rooms to play (including me). If we've been battling over lessons, put on loud music and dance. If the house is about to cave in from the noise and activity level, send everyone to their bed with a book. If it's cold in the house, crank up the heat....

3. Hand the children over to their father.

This isn't always an option, obviously, but I am beyond thankful that Russ has an office separate from the house where each boy has his own computer station. Sometimes Russ will take one look at me and immediately take the boys out of my hair for a while. Even 30 minutes makes a huge difference. Sometimes I go crazy and pickup the mess, clean house, or cook dinner. Sometimes I stare like a zombie at the computer screen.

4. Similar to #3, send the two-year-old to grandma's house.

I really, really like this strategy. Again, not always an option, but greatly appreciated on occasion.

5. Drink copious amounts of Dr. Pepper.

This one works well in conjunction with any other coping strategy.

6. (Directly in opposition to #5) make sure I'm taking good care of myself by eating right and getting enough sleep.

(Hence the pot of tea every afternoon to replace the Dr. Pepper habit.)

7. Have a personal mantra.

It depends on your personality. For many people, this could be a Bible verse which they can repeat to themselves. Lately, I've had the chorus 'I get knocked down, but I get up again, You're never going to keep me down...' running through my head. I find that being silly helps me recover more quickly.

8. Find something to be thankful for.

It can be a little thing, like appreciating the fact that we don't have a carpeted dining room after one of the boys spills a bowl of spaghetti. It can be the absence of something, like being thankful that we aren't all in bed with the stomach flu. It can be a big picture something, like reminding myself that I am living my dream life and there isn't any place I'd rather be.

9. Laugh.

It's better than hiding in the bathroom crying.

“When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out.” ~Erma Bombeck

 

This is when I think my readers could help out with combined wisdom. Tell me (please!):

How do YOU keep going when the going gets tough?

Working in the Quiet Room

It astounds me how quickly the boys’ room becomes an unmanageable pit. It’s not like I hadn’t cleaned it from top to bottom just a couple months ago. But it somehow had gotten so bad that no one was even sleeping in his own space anymore.

I ended up spending hours and hours again this past week, cleaning it out so it could function again. The next morning, Luke didn’t want to leave the room. He’s my nice and neat kid. He asked if he could set up a space in the corner so that he could do his school work in his room. [Yes, those are roller skates on his feet. Ivy donated her too-small roller skates to Lola, but Luke and Leif figured out that they could shove their feet into the several-sizes-too-small skates and have been wearing them around the house constantly since then.]

Levi decided to join him a little bit later.

We may as well enjoy the couple days it stays relatively straightened.

The Best of Mt. Hope Chronicles ~ Why We Homeschool

This is the first installment in a new series. After eight years of writing and sharing here at Mt. Hope Chronicles, I have many posts that have been buried by time. I’m going through my archives and republishing those that are the heart of the blog. They will cover a range of subjects, just as my blog has reflected all aspects of my life!

My original intent in starting a blog was to share our homeschooling journey beginning just after my oldest turned five. While I’ve posted about this and that and everything in between, education has obviously been one of the main themes. So it seems fitting to share again the reasons we began homeschooling. These reasons have continued to be the backbone of our educational “why” as we’ve kept the course these past eight years.

 

Why We Homeschool

First posted April 3, 2007

[You can read the background story here.]

Now that I’ve thought about homeschooling for over [23] years, my list of reasons to homeschool is a long one.

#1. Learning as a Lifestyle.

Family Life. Real Life. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In the kitchen, car, dental office, library, museum, mountains. Reading. Asking questions. Being interested. Talking with people of different ages, professions, interests. More time for 'field trips' and travel. Not confined to a certain building, certain hours of the day, with an adult and a room full of same-aged peers. Children should see their parents learning, reading, and discovering along with them and on their own.

#2. Tailoring Education to Fit the Individual.

All children are unique individuals. They learn different subjects at different paces. They are interested in different things. Ideally, my sons will be learning at their own speed in each subject. If they are at a '4th' grade level in reading, '1st' grade level in spelling, and '3rd' grade level in math, I can meet them where they are. If they need extra time to acquire mastery in phonics, we'll take that time. If they grasp a mathematical concept immediately, we won't spend 2 weeks on drill and review. No worrying about pushing ahead too quickly, or boring other students, or leaving my sons frustrated and lost, or lingering too long on a subject--leaving them bored to tears, or worse--sucking the love of learning right out of them. When we find a subject fascinating, let us spend the time delving in! When we find a subject that we don't care for, let us learn what we must and move on! If one of my sons is interested in, say, photography we'll buy or borrow books, get him equipment for his birthday, find an adult who loves and is knowledgeable in photography and schedule some time for them to be together, or find a class in which he can enroll. Science? How about classes at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry? I want them to master the basics and have time for their passions. I want them to love learning. My children's educations can be better tailored to suit their goals and equip them for their future.

#3. Ownership of Education.

When learning happens 'on their own turf', when children have some control over what subjects they study, when there is time to really ask questions and discuss issues, when they are allowed input on where they study/how their daily schedule is arranged/how much time they need for specific subjects, when a love of learning has been developed, when education happens as a constant part of life...I believe children will have a greater feeling of ownership of their education. It is more personal and internalized. They are more likely to spend the rest of their life learning, instead of regarding education as something that happened to them for 12 (or more) years of their childhood.

#4. Flexibility.

Homeschooling provides an amazing amount of flexibility to education in so many ways. When children become interested in a particular subject, they don't have to shut their books and move on when the bell rings. When they finish a lesson earlier than expected, they don't have to fill the next half hour with 'busy work.' If a child is sick, instead of missing a day of school, they might listen to a book on CD or follow the Latin lesson along with their siblings. Maybe they will sleep all day and continue lessons that evening. There will be no falling behind or scrambling to get the day's work from the teacher. Learning can happen anywhere: in the waiting room at the dentist's office, in the car, between events at a swim meet, or on vacation. The 'school year' can be spread out over a whole year with more frequent breaks, helping to eliminate burn-out or losing skills and knowledge over a long summer break. Family vacations can be had during off-season. We can take a week day to deal with life and add in school on Saturday. If we have fallen behind or need more time to dig in to a subject, we may add in a day here or there. If we are ahead, then we may relax a bit. In short, we will make homeschooling work for us, rather than striving to fit a 'perfect' box. During their high school years particularly, education can be flexible for work schedules, apprenticeships, college classes, travel, community service, volunteer opportunities, and extracurricular activities.

#5. Using our Time Wisely.

One of my top reasons for homeschooling is the efficient use of our time. There are so many wonderful things with which to fill our days. More time can be spent on-task when there is no transportation time to and from school, no school assemblies, no roll call, no explanations/discipline/review for other students, no 'busy work,' no inappropriate socialization during study time, no 'filler' classes or subjects. When children are able to be on-task at their exact learning level with a 1:3 teacher/student ratio and with immediate personal feedback and discussion, much is accomplished in a short amount of time. This leaves hours of the day free for a full and well-rounded life, complete with down-time. As Greg Sherman writes in the essay, Ten Good Reasons to Homeschool (linked below):

Other people may rightfully disagree with our priorities, but my wife and I both feel that enjoying and performing music, playing in the outdoors, cooking, performing in the theater, learning ballet, and immersing ourselves in long and complicated games with siblings and friends is much more important than 99% of the math we were compelled to try and learn in school. I know that some people are capable of doing it all: school, music, theater, ballet, soccer, family. But not us.

I want my children to have the time for a fulfilling life, to pursue their passions. I don't think we would have the time without a homeschool environment.

#6. Integration of Knowledge and Subjects.

Rarely in real life does one use a skill or 'subject' in isolation. The ideal educational environment would allow writing skills to be developed during history class, grammar skills developed during Latin, or a current events discussion during science.

To the classical mind, all knowledge is interrelated. Astronomy (for example) isn't studied in isolation; it's learned along with the history of scientific discovery, which leads into the church's relationship to science and from there to the intricacies of medieval church history. The reading of the Odyssey leads the student into the consideration of Greek history, the nature of heroism, the development of the epic, and man's understanding of the divine. --Susan Wise Bauer, in her essay, What is Classical Education?

#7. Continuity.

Homeschooling will allow for a seamless progression of skills and knowledge. It will allow my children to master a skill and then progress to the next level without lingering, and without gaps. We won't jump from one teaching style to another, one curriculum to another, or one set of expectations to another. I will know what material they have covered, and what needs to be presented, without having to assume that certain information or skills have been acquired. We will cover world history starting at the beginning, finishing at the end. We will not spend all of our time learning about the pilgrims again, and again, and again. We will not do a unit study on ocean life each year of grade school. Instead, we will start with Biology, move on to Earth Science, then Astronomy, Chemistry, and Physics. We will not read Charlotte's Web as our yearly read-aloud. (We read the book, listened to it on CD, and watched the movie when Levi was 4.) We will discover new books daily and revisit favorites often.

#8. No One Knows My Kids Like Their Own Parents.

No other person wants more for them, is ready to sacrifice what we are willing to sacrifice for them. A teacher with 20-30 (or more) incoming students each year does not know what are my child's strengths, weaknesses, interests, learning style and personality. I hope to know when to challenge them, and when to hold back. As their parents, we have authority to discipline, authority to teach values and morals, and authority to guide our children in deciding their futures.

#9. Socialization.

In my experience, children in recent times lose their innocence early and mature later, creating a 10-15 year (or longer) adolescence. My hope is to help my children retain their childhood innocence longer and encourage maturation. I want my kids to think for themselves without a herd mentality. Lots of free play time (particularly outdoors), time for imagination to let loose, quality children's literature, selective television, very little video games, [yes, we spend much more time in front of screens than I had hoped!] more interaction with adults or families and less with large groups of same-aged peers, chores and responsibilities, serious participation in and ownership of family relationships, deep friendships, challenging academic studies (including Socratic dialogue and discussion), more time with their father, travel, personal development sports (swimming, tennis, martial arts...), music lessons, quality group experiences (books club, age-group swim team, debate team, band or orchestra...), apprenticeships, and specific training in life skills will all help serve my children as they enjoy childhood and develop into mature young adults.

#10. Rigorous Academics.

I hope to provide my children with a solid classical academic foundation. This will include an emphasis on the mastery of reading, writing, and math. We will study history chronologically and in great depth. We will read a thousand pieces of quality literature and end with a Great Books study in high school. The kids' dad (with a science degree and a masters in education) will oversee their science studies. We may use online tutorials, private tutors, or college classes for high school level science. The same applies to math. Our boys have started learning Spanish, will begin the study of Latin by the 3rd grade, and hopefully add in a 3rd foreign language by the 6th-9th grade. [Ahem. So we’ve only managed Latin so far…] We will study logic and rhetoric. Music and art will be added in as much as possible, including a few years of piano and music theory. I'll be posting more about classical education later.

#11. Furthering My Own Education.

I am incredibly full of anticipation, knowing that I will have the opportunity to learn along with my boys. There are so many gaps in my education, and I look forward with delight to the years ahead.

 

 

If you are interested, after surviving my lengthy explanations, in reading a wonderful article about a father's reasons for homeschooling, check out Ten Good Reasons to Homeschool by Greg Sherman, Ph.D.

Some of my favorite inspirational books that originally encouraged me (directly or indirectly) to homeschool:

• Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense by David Guterson
• The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise
• Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv
• Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate M.D.
• Dreamers, Discoverers & Dynamos: How to Help the Child Who Is Bright, Bored and Having Problems in School (Formerly Titled 'The Edison Trait') by Lucy Jo Palladino, Ph.D.

My current must-read (particularly for an accessible introduction to Classical Education and instruction on how to teach younger students) is The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education.