Our family, back when things were really simple.
Is it All Too Much?
You are in a courtroom, falsely accused of a crime. There are circumstances that bring possibility of guilt into the minds of the jury, and you wonder how will your innocence be proven?
You look to your attorney and wonder.
In law, and the study thereof, one must recall numerous, even countless cases & circumstances, dates & detail that will or could have most significant implications on the lives of many. Not only the individual, but their family, community, and future generations who must live with the presidence set in the record of descisions.
The only way to train a student to learn is to exercise their memory.
Once the mind has been stretched, it can go backwards, but a normal, average mind of intelligence can stretch to great size.
Creating the habit to do this is fundamental for a future of potential. Learning how to do a particular task may be all fine and good through a tuteledge arrangement or a mentoring effort. But what if there is no cook or vetrinarian or bookeeper or banker to train. Or more to the points of life and death, figuratively & literally speaking, how will one learn to argue a case or identify an illness if they are never shown a method , if there is noone to teach it?
____ I often wish for days of ease--didn't I just arrive at this happy place after I sent them away to school? But I'm not at ease. When I hear of the difficulty with which students must repeat even fundamental classes upon entry to post highschool education, I am saddened. So should I sit around an wait, or step up and take responsibility for the children I love, educate and rear?
I remember the first time I became aware of Dr. Carson, a leading surgeon (I believe now a neuro surgeon) at Johns Hopkins Medical. I learned like many of his unusual upbringing. He beat 'the odds'. His mother couldn't read and cleaned houses. Could. Not. Read.
As he tells it, she came home, turned off the t.v. and said 'we're going to be reading.' or some words to that effect. She had noticed that the homes she cleaned were lined with books. So she took the boys to the library and told them they would write book reports about what the read. And the did.
One might say, but they were in a low-income school, with little opportunity.etc... I would say, no matter. To me the key was she expected more. Average wasn't good enough. Today Dr. Carson has had an amazing impact on humanity for good. He praises his Creator not by 'preaching' but through action only precipitated by long years of practice and learning.
I am sure that a few times, Mrs. Carson's boys complained. How often do I concede to the complaining. or feel sorry for them....
Creating a desire and an expectation for love of learning by the rewards the learning produces are essential. Being able to truly complete an objective, and be recognized for achievement of that goal are essential. But if there are no 'real' goals, how can this be achieved?
________
When/Scheduling
When time is available. What am I spending my time doing? What do the children see when I have free time? How will the conversation of facebook help my kids when they could be practicing a fact or sharing a real face-time moment with me? My availability is important as well as the ritual like lessons. Many times the ritual becomes the focus in education, and the heart of the mother is just drained. That's all I felt my kids seeing me. That's not why we stopped homeschooling, but I did often feel that. The joy(note I did not say happiness) of parenting was often gone. And it can be gone easily if I am not believing in my purpose to raise/educate and teach children to be better citizens for this world and for God. If I am consumed with 'getting through the day', and never finding joy in a moment, neither will they. And producing kids in this day and age, with a 'getting by' attitude is a frightful proposition.
For now, we seem to all be 'present' before school. I review a few facts not necessarily related to their present school work, but are timeless facts. We review them briefly, but with a reasonable amount of intensity, with consistent methods. I've confined the material to CC 1(Ancient history and Life Science) memory work and OSH(Bible) memory work. For now this is all we can manage effectively. But after football ends, we will begin in earnest Latin and English grammar.
For us before school works, because they are quiet, and because simply Daddy is a part of things. It is important to us that the entire family be present. It is important for us to work as a unit, not one parent over another. But even when it is on my own, or Daddy on his own, we know that the other is supportive of the extra mile, or the low-impact deep learning that might go on in a less entertaining evening of a Bible reading. or the 100th time of an educational CD.
Is this kind of approach to education natural?
My son asked me one time why I liked English shows. I told him they often talk about noble things, they are pleasant. Less assaultive. Ironic, as there are many movies that would not fall in that category that I have enjoyed. But I have realized sometime ago to be exactly who I am.
Have you ever seen the foster parent advertisement, where they suggest you don't have to be a 'super parent' just a parent. Who does all the dorky things that bio-parents do. That's my philosophy. My kids still hug me, and kiss me in public. They still are at the age where they don't question my judgement as they will in later years. But for now, I'm fine with who I am. I am not terribly exciting, I have a very no-show sense of humor; I can't tell a joke.
But I show up to the party. I figure the Lord arranged our parent-child relationship, it's my job to accept the challenge.
But the blogperfection/pinterest tagging lifestyles that we are supposed to have are not realistic. It occurred to me that my parents didn't have the options of cell-phones & cable t.v. that drives in so readily the unrealistic expectations, and the expense-direct & indirect these bring. There is no way anyone will actually ever do a tenth of the projects they pin on pinterest. Or view in a month on blogs. The supplemental books from Susan Wise Bauer, exceptional as they are, were to me ... a waste. We never got to those. We talked (and still do) about the people. We checked out a supplemental book, perhaps made a history page and moved on. No one will ever be able to do it all.
So 'scheduling' really isn't relevant. My BFF reminded me today of my first post in this series, where I mentioned, 'the grammar of our lives.' - first things first.
Next post-- Our family Book. Look out. My brain is unwinding and in no particular order.
31 Days at The Nester is the place to hangout on the web. Just remember what the 31 days is for. It's a stopping point for me to put a rest to the heavy duty thinking and eat some candy corn with my kids.
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