I have a penchant for quoting LOTR each day, and on one particularly rough kiddie day, I told Nikirj "Osgiliath is overrun."
It is an appropriate metaphor for our life here!
One of the huge benefits of middle pregnancy is the burst of unexpected energy. Many women want to clean and nest. In my fortunate case, my friend Niki decided that her ire and energy would be aimed at my schoolroom carpet.
Whoever carpeted this house clearly did not have small children. They chose a delicately patterned taupe and put it throughout. This is not a good match for the PNW Homeschooling, chicken-raising, gardening, dust allergic family that we are. Beyond the carpet, we had some furniture placement issues that needed to be resolved before I would unpack the computer the children's grandparents sent them. Since they sent it at Christmastime..... time was well away from us.
In my blogosphere, one of our homeschooling families is sending their son to school. That's somewhat misleading-- he is a freshman in high school and is choosing a small, private situation, so there's no real "sending" about it. Indeed, the real point of this blog entry is the absence of that sense of having something done to you or chosen for you. There is such a variety of homeschoolers out there, but for those of us who do it specifically to raise emotionally-intact autodidacts and self-sufficient people, the day will come when we have to hand over the tools of path finding to the very ones for whom we are blazing that trail. Chances are good that it comes a bit sooner for some of us just by the nature of children raised in intellectual freedom.
This morning, EHLT was musing that many people were confusing this event as a failure of her homeschoooling program; that perhaps either she was giving up, or the boy was rejecting it. I have become so immured in this worldview that homeschooling is such a natural lifestyle, that I found myself surprised by those assumptions. Further, I discover myself increasingly annoyed with the attitude I encounter that "homeschoolers struggle so much" when they enter a school setting. While I realize that may be true for some-- especially kids who were schooled-at-home in deliberate, exclusionary methods-- kids raised in an open, eclectic fashion tend to feel and be responsible for their own intellectual prowess. They own it. That responsibility is what makes these kids actually really GOOD at "school."
In fact, I see the Boychick's choice as one that fits as well into the trajectory of our homeschooling journey as would homeschooling high school. As we progressed in homeschooling 'middle school,' we also progressed in handing over more and more of the decision making about his education to the Boychick. Over those years, we moved from being "sages on the stage to guides on the side" as our philosophy evolved from school-at-home to a certain kind of unschooling. The Boychick has become used to thinking of himself as the master of his education, as well as the learner. He has learned to take responsibility for his learning methods and goals. He did not decide to go to high school because homeschooling was a failure; rather, he was able to choose because homeschooling was a success.
Unlike most of the students who entered East Mountain High School this morning, the Boychick sees attending school not as something he must do, but as something he has chosen to do. He knows that the responsibility for his successes or failures lies on his shoulders, and that although there are people ready to help him and guide him, in the end, the secret to his education lies within. He has become a self-directed learner.
This has always been the goal for me, as the homeschooling parent. I view preparing them for learning with the same gravity as I view preparing them for leaving my home for the outside world. Homeschooling is not an extension of my parenting, as so many are wont to say. It is an integral part of my parenting. The big joke on me is that this whole gig started when I was trying to prepare my first, wee preschooler for a Montessori school with a waiting list. I bought some supplies, applied the method and discovered a world of joy I'd not anticipated. In some respects, I suppose, I continue preparing my children for their place to open up. The difference is that I can expect it will be my children telling me when it is time for them to matriculate somewhere. I hope I can be as graceful letting go then as EHLT seems to be now.
She goes on to write:
Homeschooling, regardless of the individual's reasons for it, is a political act.
Making a choice against the received wisdom of the dominant culture forever changes how one views that received wisdom, as well as how one views the locus of control over individual decisions. In so doing, a person steps outside the herd mentality and lives liberty in reality. And succeeding in doing so means never being quite so willing to let others assert control over individual choices again. This is the legacy of homeschooling for us, just as it is the legacy of homebirthing, the legacy of living Judaism, and the legacy of growing up libertarian.
While we aren't Jewish, the rest of it certainly applies. This legacy we are creating-- this life we are crafting out of thin air and Thoreau-- I am betting everything we have that it is the best gift we can give our kids. But that legacy, I have taken some of that into myself. Homeschooling has been something I have done for my children, but it is something that most certainly nourishes the parents of this family as well.
This month Niki fired it up over on her place and we will be joining the families who participate. If you're local, come on and bring it! We'll be using the discount theater in FW as the reward site.
The kids are psyched about it. They're such good little sports, I swear. They love math too, so this should really help them bone up on their base skills, as well as branch out. We have the Right Start curriculum we have been trying out this year, the Montessori materials, and workbooks and internet printsheets out the yang.
I can't believe I was so stressed about math. As a baby homeschooler, in the "can I do this??can I really do this??" phase, I was really stressed about three subjects: math, foreign language and music. I can do music appreciation until the cows come home, but my teaching skills in anything other than voice and reading notation leave much to be desired because, well, I don't play an instrument. I badly want them to be able to play at least piano. I have relaxed significantly about the music, completely about the mathematics, and I remain verklempt about foreign language. I continue to speak French to them, for goodness sake, when I want to be teaching them Spanish.
So anyway, as we were doing our math today. I mentioned to G that we were invited to a mathathon, and she flipped out. Then she wanted to know if her math card games were included in the count, and I assured her they were. C'est finis! ;)
How much fun does that look? I know at least one other family who is into that kind of stuff like we are. This is gonna be fun.
Tiny snippet for the lazy people who won't click the link:
Potions, Charms, and Spells
(I will be adding these daily)
First year students will learn many skills that will be important for potion making, as well as some simple potions, charms, and spells.
Your teacher will supply you each day with instructions for this class so that you do not do something foolish by working ahead. You must keep a journal to record what you have done (including ingredients, procedures, spells, chants, wand motions etc) and what you have hopefully learned.
Study well, as knowledge of potions and charms is a powerful weapon against dark forces!
Potion 1: Goblin Slobber
Goblin slobber is a potion which is particularly effective against being followed through woods and caves. Just drip some goblin slobber on the path behind you and anything that is chasing you will be driven away.
You will need:
One flask of water
¼ measure instant goblin slobber(dehydrated)
1 full measure Manticore milk
1 full measure water
3 drops goblin blood
Cauldron (mixing bowl will do if you have not yet received your cauldron)
Your wand, of course.
Rehydrate the goblin slobber:Pour the instant goblin slobber into the flask of water. Stir briskly with wand to dissolve while chanting “soluloso aqualitem.” Repeat until fully dissolved.
Into the manticore milk pour the measure of water and the goblin blood and stir, repeating incantation.
The final step is to pour the two solutions into the cauldron and stir well chanting “goblinatum sloberosum.” You may need to adjust the quantities, so add them slowly.
(Note to professors: muggles will know these ingredients by different names. Instant goblin slobber= borax. Manticore milk= Elmer’s glue. Goblin blood= green food coloring. flask=quart, measure=cup)
I watched the video embedded below and was struck by how often I nodded in agreement. It got me thinking about the experiences that have informed my opinions surrounding child safety. Where are the lines for us, when we as parents try to balance providing a safe life for our kids with going too far and stymieing their growth?
I spent my time in the body of a first time-only child parent, and I paid my crazy-protective dues, like most other parents. While that waned a bit with the onset of my second child and my growing trust for the first, it waxed again with the diagnosis of my daughter's anaphylactic allergies and the vigilant lifestyle we had to adopt to literally keep her breathing. I didn't want to cloister my children or have them not experience the world, so I think I put some extra thought into how they would be taught to approach life. Fear of the unknown wasn't going to be fostered; we were going to be prepared for as much as possible.
To that end, I let my wee girlie play with knives at the tender age of three.
Ok, so she wasn't playing with them--I wrote that for shock effect. She was actually helping me chop things for cookdates, but it did look odd, maybe even startling, to other people. My reasoning was simple: as a professional chef, I had many sharp objects in and around the house. My knife kit was readily accessible. In fact, I obviously did not want her 'playing" with my equipment, so I taught her how to use it, how to respect it. It's a tenet of the Montessori philosophy as well, to treat children as being in possession of the physical and mental faculties they do possess. Children that young can absolutely be safe and productive in their pursuits so long as they are taught what to do and how to do it, and more importantly, when they know they are trusted to do it. In fact, it is part of the natural urges of the child to take that kind of initiative, especially during sensitive periods of her life, and try to master her environment. Montessori wrote "If the child is prevented from enjoying these experiences at the very time when nature has planned…the special sensitivity will vanish… (AM95.)"
I had been happily plugging along in my Montessori-soaked homeschool milieux, watching the kids really respond and thrive with that method, when we moved to Washington state. As the parent of three children by then, I felt relaxed and tolerant of the things children do. I allowed them a lot of freedom, and expected the calm and focus we'd had in SC in return. Not so much. The cross-country move really rattled our two year old, and with the birth of our younger son quick on the heels of our relocation, our little family was in an uproar. It took some months to return our house to "peaceful" and the children to "normalized," but we got there. Enter the C-family.
Relaxed and tolerant I was, but these folks--whose three children were each born within months of ours-- were well on the other side of it. My son in particular was not a graceful toddler, and physically he had a disproportionately large head (there was nothing medically wrong, he just had a big head for his little body, which has since grown into nice proportion), so he was forever getting hurt just walking around. He'd run into walls, trip over his feet, and let's not discuss the stairs. I was fully capable of letting my kids take supervised liberties with their own environment, but the C-family seemed to actively encourage danger, as far as I was concerned. Their children climbed cliffs like monkeys, raced bikes and scooters around the parks (at 2 and 4, I was scandalized!), and perched atop boulders higher than my head, all clearly out of reach of any adult. Their particular style of child rearing was based largely on the way the Niki had been raised within the Continuum Concept.
Much like our modern attachment parenting, Liedloff espouses full contact at all times while the babe is in arms, and then as soon as the toddler begins demanding freedom, to give it. With regards to young children and big pits in the jungle, she writes : "We act as though human nature were something to be afraid of; to constrain, modify or fight; to subdue and overcome. Somehow we have gotten away from believing that we evolved in a way that works. We believe that our nature has to be modified, opposed and controlled from the very beginning. Our nature, like that of every other animal, works fine the way it is. But we do not trust human nature. We distrust it in infants, in children, and in ourselves."
Something in me clicked in the first few months of knowing these people. I knew my limits for N-man were sound because he really was having a hard time, but I relaxed trying to protect him all the time. It was his big head and he needed to learn how to manage it. As I eased off, he got better, less clumsy.
Liedloff goes on to say "One is never do anything for a child that it can possibly do for itself, even if it takes a while longer. Because every time you do something, not only do you give the child the message that it's inefficient or incompetent, but you're actually preventing it from learning; from having faith in its own ability to accomplish and figure things out. Let them figure it out. If it gets up onto a sofa or a chair and it can't figure out how to get down, leave it there until it can. It will try one leg and try another, it will figure it out. Or you might eventually give it the next step, helping with one step but not the whole thing. Give the child the message from the very beginning that you expect it to figure things out for itself."
I already had it in my belief system to cultivate extreme independence in my children with their household tasks and their education, but I had not given them autonomy over their physical selves. They were so precious to me that I couldn't imagine not trying to keep them safe. What changed for me was subtle. I began to perceive their physical bodies as something they could protect better than I could. I had given them the skills they needed around the house and about their education, but I needed to let them figure out how to use their own bodies to ascertain their own limits. I had to learn to trust the child, again.
Look--I will be frank, I am still not down with my 7 year old walking the top of our play structure as if it were a balance beam, 8 feet off the ground. I have to turn my back when they are climbing the cedar trees, so high I could never hope to reach them. But when they do get stuck, I don't pull them out of their jam, I coach them out; I will make them feel secure enough not to panic, I will help them know where place their feet, and if the situation demands it, I will talk with them about whether they should be doing whatever it was they were doing. But likewise, when they accomplish physical feats I would never have expected / allowed / wanted, I will let them be proud; I won't chastise them or tell them they're out of line. It's hard for someone like me. It really is. But I believe that I am keeping them safer by letting them learn their own limits.
There remain plenty of things in their early childhood about which I am adamant in protecting them: the burdens of the adult world; hatred; contempt; cruelty; common bullies. I was shocked and mortified when my 6 year old daughter came home from a music class asking me about the two towers that had fallen in a big city. I continue to advocate for my daughter in group settings, to keep peanuts and treenuts well away from her. I joined forces with another mother recently regarding our children's karate class, when the Sensei had the children perform an amazingly inappropriate "game" that involved much larger children actually walking across the room atop the other students' prone bellies, without supervision or restraint. That was a good lesson, even for me, in what I am discussing. Most of the children knew this wasn't a good idea, but they were told to do it anyway. What should they have done-- obey their instincts or obey their instructors? We both contacted the Sensei and he permanently pulled the exercise.
I have a function as a mother, as a parent, as a protector. I just feel it is incumbent upon me to ensure I am not protecting them from themselves--too much.
A post of mine here really resonated with a dear friend of mine, exciting her. Her reaction to the specifics of the Montessori method were so affirming for me. It seems so clear to me, how wonderful it can be to just take another view on education, but when other people get excited about my excitement, well who doesn't cherish that? My own struggles with ADD and the comorbid dyslexia were really very mild, because in my specific case, the school environment was actually good for me due to a variety of factors in my home and school life. Chief among those school factors was a very early diagnosis of "giftedness," and a removal at least once a week from the traditional classroom. From my earliest years in public school, I was sorted out and given a different way to do things-- because I was gifted.
Because I was gifted.
This is important to note: even as a child of eleven years of age, I realized that the way they were approaching my education was so cool, so interesting, that every student would benefit from it. They gave it to us, as a prize for being "smart" when we came to them. How much more does the child who needs that different approach benefit from the extra time and consideration? To this day I can rattle off the names of people I saw fail out of school, one way or another, who really had it in them to do so much better. No one gave them the option to learn things in a way appropriate to them. They were just counseled to do better, to try harder, to "really listen." Maybe Montessori isn't for everyone; I can accept that. But in my experience, it sure works for most. It's not so much that Montessori caters to individuals who learn differently, it's that the method allows for so many different individual approaches to learning. It's that subtle, child-centric distinction coupled with tactile materials that makes it so effective.
I did some quick research tonight while I was thinking about this in general, and came across the following (clickable) snippets.
The modern classroom with its tightly controlled and scheduled syllabus is not a good environment for dyslexic children. Any children who falls behind the learning curve is in deep trouble as they have no opportunity to catch up. The classroom is like a production line than forces children to move on to the next class whether they are ready or not. However the Montessori classroom isn’t like that.
Devised in the early 1900’s by Dr Montessori, it is an approach to education that is child centric, focusing on individually-paced learning and development. The Montessori Method should suit a dyslexic child better. Allowing child and teacher to spend time on their basic literacy regardless of the rest of the class’s ability level. As the Montessori method also does away with traditional grading of students there should be less issues about confidence and self-worth. In fact, Montessori and dyslexia should be perfect together.
Another way that Montessori and dyslexia go together is the teaching materials used. Montessori has always used a multi-sensory approach to teaching involving wooden letters to handle and sandpaper letters that children trace out with their figures for a strong tactile feedback. Lots of the Montessori teaching uses physical objects for teaching basic number skills. Making learning movement based, rather than purely paper-and-pencil, increases the opportunities for hand / eye coordination and cross lateral movement.
Dyslexia is caused by anatomical differences in the brain. If an appropriate preschool program is offered to this child and reading, writing, and spelling are introduced through a Multisensory Structured Language (MSL) approach, the learning difference does not become a learning disability. This neurological difference cannot be cured but it can be treated, so that the child can have functional written language skills.
This article goes on in the specifics but I loved this line: the learning difference does not become a learning disability. That's Montessori for you: Difference does not equal disability.
Furthering that idea, there is a school in Florida whose mission is to educate dyslexic children using the Montessori method. This is my favorite snippet to share here, because it also discusses Albert Einstein. I love me some Einstein. He was brilliant, but was also ADHD and dyslexic. From the website for Einstein Montessori School: "Zach Osbrach founded this school to better educate children with reading and spelling delays. Our dyslexic students have achieved the highest reading gains among their peers in the state of Florida. Our extensive testing has shown a 285% increase in reading gains." Their FAQ on dyslexia and its life prognosis is fairly extensive. Yet it is their page on Einstein, and why they started the school they did, with which I will end this post:
Einstein showed language impairments at a very young age. His speech was severely delayed. He only began to talk at the age of three, and had trouble with language throughout elementary school.
During a parent meeting, the Headmaster told Einstein's parents that he did not have the ability to be a successful professional. He recommended that Einstein attend a trade school. In fact, his teachers thought he was borderline retarded.
Young Albert did not listen to them. Instead, he moved to a different type of school. This school de-emphasized rote memorization. Unlike his old school, they stressed creative thinking and hands-on learning. Young Albert's academic performance improved dramatically.
Einstein suffered from dyslexia. He is a clear example of a person who would be labeled as learning disabled in today's educational system. With the right approach to education, these labels cannot prevent great accomplishments, as proven by Einstein and others.
Children with learning disabilities have one or more processing or learning weaknesses. At Einstein Montessori School, we would rather not use the term "learning disabled," because many of our great thinkers had dyslexia--geniuses and statesman like Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Leonardo de Vinci, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Winston Churchill, Walt Disney and so many others. Most of us do not think of these men as having been "disabled."
The more I work with math and my children, the more I "get" why manipulatives work as well as they do. G just added 4332 and 2464 without even having the slightest idea when she sat down that she could do that. She sort of resisted at first, because although I presented the place value stampers as a game, she saw bigantous numbers and knew I was up to mischief. I am sure me telling her she was going to tell me the sum of those numbers didn't help, but I was going for the shock value of her success. Well, mischief managed. She swiftly took over the stamping and told me the sum. Then she smiled.
I've read about children in Montessori environments doing advanced calculations swiftly and accurately, but I never really understood how that works-- they're just beads-- until I began to show my own kids how it works. It's a little unnerving to go into the unknown, but so satisfying when it works. And oh, how it works! I've not wanted to make / purchase the beads because I have felt that storing them in a home situation would be too unwieldy. Today, working with stamps of a similar design, I changed my mind. This was fabulous, and fast.
I didn't spend a lot of time with manipulatives when I was a child, and math became a source of extreme difficulty for me. If you miss one small kernel of understanding, you lose the option of understanding most of what comes after. It makes me happy to see my kids not only just soak it up, but hold "math" in a sort of cavalier regard.
Edited to add links for BBB: Base Mathematic Lesson Plans (this is not what I used for this post, we were working with a Montessori three-part lesson)
I did a quick google search and found this for you, to better explain how we began what we were doing. We have the actual bead materials shown in her initial photograph, but instead of the beads described for the lesson, we were using the stampers. The current lesson, which is related today, is based on this presentation.
But blogging is just not happening until this wave of tummy-crankiness passes.
(and aside, I look forward to being a grup again, someone who would never utter, much less publish, the words "tummy crankiness")
OK-- one thing will make it in. We've gotten about half the school room re-installed. Actually, that's less than accurate, because I have a great many new materials the children haven't seen yet. Yesterday, P-daddy took the doppelgangers out while ~N~ and I stayed home with our weak constitutions. We used that time to great advantage, really enjoying being together. He and I worked together in the school room for at least an hour, with me introducing some cool Montessori math stuff, among other things. (I love it when 5 year olds truly understand the quantity of, say, 4322. It trips me out.)
I don't know what happened while they were gone, or whether D-person just misses me from being laid out all week, but he came home to be a very affectionate tyke. He let me carry him about and just squeezed me really hard before explaining to me that "You my teeeeech-ah. You my teeeech-ah, Mommy!"
So, I have lost eleven pounds this week and had our daughter explain to us out of the blue that the sun glows bright because hydrogen is converted into helium. My P-daddy has taken exquisite care of his infirm family without reverting to testiness. We spent the evening yesterday rolling about in the living room as a family, laughing. It's been a balanced, pleasant week.
New computer from the Grandparents
Science center
Language Arts / Sensory
Arts
Math / Culture / Maps
because although I presented the place value stampers as a game, she saw bigantous numbers and knew I was up to mischief. I am sure me telling her she was going to tell me the sum of those numbers didn't help, but I was going for the shock value of her success. Well, mischief managed. She swiftly 
