The schools are out today for parent teacher conference! Annoying! I miss my little town with no one out and about during the day but me and my kids and the other homeschoolers we bump into along the way. Oh well!
I've never gone to a parent-teacher conference, so I thought I'd share an experience from one my mother attended. :) She was visiting the teacher of my little brother who was in second grade at the time. The teacher told my mother that she "loved his outfits." My mother was completely unsure what this meant, as my family was not the sharpest dressers back in the day (or any day, as a general family rule)... and besides that, who refers to boys clothes as "outfits"?
How she arrived at the teacher's meaning, I don't now remember, but the reality was that my brother would head out the door looking like a normal kid and arrive at school dressed as a leprechaun, or old man golfer, movie character, or whatever else struck his fancy. My mother had no idea!
It's a funny story, but we likewise really had no idea about my mother's life while we were off learning about "more important things." Consequently, I had to wait to become a mother myself to figure out what being a mom really entailed. (Maybe SHE put on elaborate outfits when WE were gone too! I never thought of asking!)
Perhaps there were things I gained in school I might not have been able to learn elsewhere, but this understanding of my mother was one thing I lost. And she lost a fuller understanding of who her children were as well.
I suppose you can't have it all. There are pros and cons, gains and losses to all decisions we make. I am grateful I homeschool because I love seeing my children in their full selves. (Or at least as much as anyone outside another person can.)
I haven't met any parent that thought his or her child was perfect, but I cringe a bit when kids are described in terms of the problems they have or create in school, or like a set of talents and skills for the classroom. In defense of these parents, or at least these sorts of parental conversations, I think I would personally find it challenging to NOT see a child that way when my time with them each day was largely limited to how willing or unwilling they were to move through a set of tasks determined by adults who have a transient relationship with my children. And if seeing beyond the to-do's related to school would be difficult for me, how much more challenging would it be for a child to see a parent as more than the person who is constantly reminding them what needs to be checked off that to-do list?
A friend of mine a long time ago told me her 5 year old son reported that he would never get married because he didn't want a wife always telling him what to do. It was a funny comment, because every husband and wife know wives are not JUST people that tell husbands what to do. But we do see one another in terms of the roles we play. I love homeschooling because while that is still true, my full role is on display daily, AND I get to chose the rules, set the priorities, decide what gets put on my to-do list. Perhaps more importantly, and certainly leading to a fuller understanding of my children, they each do that for themselves as well.
I hope on MY to-do list often enough is spending some quality time with each child, coming to know his or her inner soul. Finally I hope to teach my sons and daughters THAT is what a mother is - someone who knows our inner person, and has time and love enough for whomever he or she is.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Reason # 37: Creating Perfect Moments
The thoughts below illustrate how wonderful homeschooling can be. While the perfect moments are not mine, they could be! Hope you enjoy this post from a homeschooling mom in my area... AND a few perfect homeschooling moments of your own!
*******
I’ve been repeating in my head a phrase I heard a month or so ago: “There are no perfect days, just perfect moments.”
Yesterday I was blessed to have some perfect moments—the kind that make me so happy I homeschool. It’s THESE kind of moments that are, to me, the epitome of why homeschooling is so wonderful.
My 4 boys were all occupied with chosen activities elsewhere yesterday afternoon, so it was just me and my 9-year-old daughter at home. She is intensely musical. I pulled out a new song I found for her to learn to sing and accompanied her on the piano while she sight-read it. We then worked on her piano lesson. And then, even better, my favorite moments came. As you know, yesterday was beautiful outside. She put on her rollerblades, and I put on my running shoes, and we took off into the sunshine. As we sped-walked/skated our way down the street, we held hands and sang the times table (I got it for her to music because she’d learn it best that way). Then I quizzed her randomly on multiplication facts. All this while we’re cruising along, stopping now and then to notice signs of spring or the neighbors’ animals. She became very interested in the clouds overhead, trying to identify them (we recently learned about cloud types and what they forecast). I saw a robin and pointed it out and she said, “He looks like Ben Weatherstaff’s robin!” (We’ve recently read The Secret Garden.) Then we talked about where and how we might build our own secret garden at home. Amazingly, in a one-hour walk we covered every “school subject” (including P.E. and health), personalized and assimilated them, laughed ourselves silly at times, and strengthened our relationship with each other.
I hope everyone finds a few perfect moments today!
Sasha
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Unsolicited Love Advice (just a tad late for Valentines Day)
I'm trying to find a way to fit in to the context of my blog what I have to say about love. But this is, in fact, probably one of the most unlikely places to post this sort of advice. So all I can say to justify these thoughts here is that in life, and especially in homeschooling, most of what we teach really boils down to what we are. So though there may not be structured lessons on being a good spouse, for better or worse, you can bet that is what your children are learning at home with you.
Anyway, it's likely those of us who did not marry a high school sweetheart can relate to feeling like the people we thought we loved before we found the person we married, we didn't really love at all. "Ah," we said to ourselves when we found the right one, "THIS is what love is. What I thought was love before was something else, something less than what I have with this person."
I think we are right... and wrong. What we have found in the person we want to spend the rest of our lives, even eternity, with IS love. And it is more of it. What we had with former love-interests was probably, however, NOT the absence of love, but just a lower, baser form. That is okay. There are probably few 19 year-olds that can wrap their minds, let alone their lives, around the sort of selflessness that encompasses a more mature love.
Most of us are still at some phase of immaturity when it comes to love. THAT is okay too. Working, happy relationships can be found at every place on the continuum of love maturity. Often what strains a relationship is not where a couple falls on that continuum, but when one person falls noticeably behind another.
We watched a movie about Einstein, and it seems that his great mind was stuck in an adolescent capacity to give love. If you feel your spouse may be stuck right there with him, the first thing I would say is, it's time to embrace the reality that you have not married a perfect person. That is good news for all of us coming to this realization, because if our spouses were perfect, they may have wanted to marry other perfect people, and that would not have been us!
Yet we ARE loved, despite our imperfections. And our comfort is that while an imperfect spouse gives love imperfectly, we can still receive a perfect love from God to fill in the gaps. Remember that God loves us and waits for us to do our best and become better. We can practice becoming like Him while we wait for a spouse to do his or her best and become better.
So that is the first piece of advice: accept and forgive your spouse's place on the love continuum.
Next piece: Ask for the kind of love you need.
I think this is hard to do because we have all tried it, and instead of having our needs met, have been met with attack - because WE ourselves have made the people we love wrong for wanting more from us. We have taken a turn attacking, and being attacked. (Argh! I do this far too often with the needs of my children! But I suppose that is another post....)
(I do want to interject here, while I'm interjecting and filling this post with parentheses, that I'm not talking about physical or extreme emotional abuse. Blessedly, I don't have experience in a love relationship with people who resort to those tactics. I'm speaking here of love. Not of being used.)
So when you ask your spouse to grow in love, to progress on the love continuum, if he or she fails to act or change, you can continue to accept and forgive. And pray for him or her. THAT is HUGE. (As you have probably learned from homeschooling, the learner must be willing and ready for learning to occur. You can't coerce learning in academics OR in love.) We can even meet attacks with direct communication: "So what you are saying, essentially, is that you are unable at this time to love me in this way?" And importantly, add, "Okay." (I'm not saying you need to use those words, just that you communicate an attack - being made wrong for needing more from a spouse - IS a "no" to your request. And that you accept it.)
Final piece of advice: Never make the people you love wrong for needing you to love better or more.(In other words, never be the attacker. I DEFINITELY need to do better in this with my kids.) We MAY be busy, preoccupied, consider their needs immature or trivial. Their needs may be born of insecurity or weakness. We may have real-life time constraints in what we are able to do. And we might be right. But when we love someone, all of this "story" - our reasons and excuses - don't matter. What matters is what we are going to do about their needs. In the very least, those we love deserve our understanding, our empathy, and our desire to help. At times, this may be, in fact, ALL they need. For these demonstrate our own willingness to enhance our loving and progress in the love continuum.
I feel so blessed to homeschool, to be with my family right in the thick of what really matters. God has even said love - charity - is what matters most to Him. This month is a perfect time to up your loving game!
Anyway, it's likely those of us who did not marry a high school sweetheart can relate to feeling like the people we thought we loved before we found the person we married, we didn't really love at all. "Ah," we said to ourselves when we found the right one, "THIS is what love is. What I thought was love before was something else, something less than what I have with this person."
I think we are right... and wrong. What we have found in the person we want to spend the rest of our lives, even eternity, with IS love. And it is more of it. What we had with former love-interests was probably, however, NOT the absence of love, but just a lower, baser form. That is okay. There are probably few 19 year-olds that can wrap their minds, let alone their lives, around the sort of selflessness that encompasses a more mature love.
Most of us are still at some phase of immaturity when it comes to love. THAT is okay too. Working, happy relationships can be found at every place on the continuum of love maturity. Often what strains a relationship is not where a couple falls on that continuum, but when one person falls noticeably behind another.
We watched a movie about Einstein, and it seems that his great mind was stuck in an adolescent capacity to give love. If you feel your spouse may be stuck right there with him, the first thing I would say is, it's time to embrace the reality that you have not married a perfect person. That is good news for all of us coming to this realization, because if our spouses were perfect, they may have wanted to marry other perfect people, and that would not have been us!
Yet we ARE loved, despite our imperfections. And our comfort is that while an imperfect spouse gives love imperfectly, we can still receive a perfect love from God to fill in the gaps. Remember that God loves us and waits for us to do our best and become better. We can practice becoming like Him while we wait for a spouse to do his or her best and become better.
So that is the first piece of advice: accept and forgive your spouse's place on the love continuum.
Next piece: Ask for the kind of love you need.
I think this is hard to do because we have all tried it, and instead of having our needs met, have been met with attack - because WE ourselves have made the people we love wrong for wanting more from us. We have taken a turn attacking, and being attacked. (Argh! I do this far too often with the needs of my children! But I suppose that is another post....)
(I do want to interject here, while I'm interjecting and filling this post with parentheses, that I'm not talking about physical or extreme emotional abuse. Blessedly, I don't have experience in a love relationship with people who resort to those tactics. I'm speaking here of love. Not of being used.)
So when you ask your spouse to grow in love, to progress on the love continuum, if he or she fails to act or change, you can continue to accept and forgive. And pray for him or her. THAT is HUGE. (As you have probably learned from homeschooling, the learner must be willing and ready for learning to occur. You can't coerce learning in academics OR in love.) We can even meet attacks with direct communication: "So what you are saying, essentially, is that you are unable at this time to love me in this way?" And importantly, add, "Okay." (I'm not saying you need to use those words, just that you communicate an attack - being made wrong for needing more from a spouse - IS a "no" to your request. And that you accept it.)
Final piece of advice: Never make the people you love wrong for needing you to love better or more.(In other words, never be the attacker. I DEFINITELY need to do better in this with my kids.) We MAY be busy, preoccupied, consider their needs immature or trivial. Their needs may be born of insecurity or weakness. We may have real-life time constraints in what we are able to do. And we might be right. But when we love someone, all of this "story" - our reasons and excuses - don't matter. What matters is what we are going to do about their needs. In the very least, those we love deserve our understanding, our empathy, and our desire to help. At times, this may be, in fact, ALL they need. For these demonstrate our own willingness to enhance our loving and progress in the love continuum.
I feel so blessed to homeschool, to be with my family right in the thick of what really matters. God has even said love - charity - is what matters most to Him. This month is a perfect time to up your loving game!
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Travel Report: The BEST Souvenirs
We've been back from Florida for around 2 weeks now. I'm past telling everyone the trip was a bust - a view likely fueled post-trip exhaustion. But the highlights have also had time to settle out. And the ever-present critic inside has a list of the things she'd do differently for next time. So it's time to write and get a bit of all of it off my chest.
First, the background. While my hubby and I were regular world travelers in our BC lives (BC being Before Children) the most we'd done with 3 kids was a road trip. This was a 12 day trip with 4 kids in tow ON AN AIRPLANE. Whoa!
A few weeks before we left, the magnitude of the disaster we could be in for hit me. It hit as my not-yet-two-year-old was throwing the food he wasn't interested in anymore on the floor. Another wave of it crashed as my 4 year old whined for hours about a host of minor issues. And still another wave came on as I watched she and her older sister bicker about ridiculous things, and observed how I, with my small portion of patience, dealt with it all.
Fearing the worst, I enlisted my best parenting practices and constructed a count-down chain. On each link I'd written the behavior we would be practicing for the day - all behaviors attempting to lead up to children who would not bring shock and horrific awe to the lovely folks in the east who feel 4 children is a lot. I didn't want to confirm their biases with MY kids.
Anyway, among other things, we practiced:
Living on a schedule: The schedule was geared to keeping a routine for the trip. "School work" WAS required. It was brief (as always), anticipating that on the trip, I would have them do SOMETHING, like record what they did for the day and why they liked it. We also scheduled and practiced quiet time. That was to not only to give hubby and me down time, but so that they could grow in self-entertaining abilities in a confined space. (They self-entertain GREAT at home, but it isn't necessarily quiet or in one spot.)
This payed off. I did not, as I had anticipated, hold to any specific schedule OR require anything resembling school work of them. (Though I did suggest from time to time that they could write in their travel journals.) Anyway, this practice DID make the trip smoother, but, the added bonus was that it made the time leading up to the trip smoother too. When I get deep in projects (like prepping 6 people for a 12 day voyage across the country) I can tend to let our daily routines go to pot. That usually leads to the kids' needs being neglected (school needs, but eating, sleeping, and cleaning needs too) and the result is chaos. The chain and our decision to adhere as closely to a schedule as we could (after all, we have very little practice) payed off in pre-trip peace.
We also practiced increasing our gratitude expressed AND our complaints minimized, and taking no for an answer. (This too payed off as the sincere thanks the kids expressed DID make a lot of headache worth it, and we bypassed much of the energy-depleting pleading and griping.)
Finally, (and closely related to what I've just mentioned) we reviewed the concept of letting go - being at peace with what is. I explained that sometimes our trip would be fun, sometimes boring. Some things would live up to our expectations, and other times they would't. I told them we can be happy anyway.
I tried to practice this attitude before we left with my mantra: the adventure starts NOW. I found myself feeling a lot of stress as preparations intensified. (I imagine even seasoned travelers have situations arise where they aren't completely familiar with the rules/how to navigate the literal or figurative lay of the land.) Being absent from Orlando for 20 years, having never gone with kids, I worried. Would I find all the right hotels? Would my efforts to save money pay-off or wind up costing us MORE? Would I pick the right days to hit the right places? Would the weather cooperate? Would our fellow travelers look with admiration at the ear-piercing volume my baby can hit, or would there be daggers in their eyes? These worries dominated my conscious mind. They took energy to juggle and stress over.
Then it hit me: I WON'T maneuver every obstacle, challenge, and decision point perfectly. Period. There will be less than ideal moments. Some I will create. Some will be out of my control. And they are ALL part of the journey. ALL the ups and ALL the downs will be a part of our adventure together, and I can embrace it all IN the spirit of adventure, even before we leave the comforts of our home....
So?
I am pleased to report that the kids were amazing!!! My whiney one rolled smoothly with puking on the final leg of the trip out! All the kids were total troopers in their plastic ponchos in the rain for every Disney day. They even pleasantly suffered with the stomach flu, conveniently hitting only at night when we were on our cruise.
I, however, for all my mantra-ing, didn't fair so well. I just shifted from worry to disappointment. "Seriously? We ALL have to get sick on the cruise?!" "Seriously, it has to rain every stinking day we spend at Disney?" "Seriously? There are STILL lines MID-WEEK IN FEBRUARY IN THE RAIN!!!!?" "Seriously? I'm getting the pat down because there may be a chance this white, middle-aged woman traveling with 4 kids poses a terrorist threat!?"
Okay. So maybe it was less disappointment and more disgust. But I learned from that too!
Related to Disney, I learned, despite all the hype, IT IS AN AMUSEMENT PARK - ergo there is a bunch of over-priced merchandise and food around every corner AND yes! there are lines! Disney is not a life experience - unless theme parks are your life. No judgement if that's you. MY most magical place on earth so far is probably having a whole jungle island to myself and hubby off the coast of Taiwan.
I realized it was foolish, theme parks NOT being my life, to plan a vacation with one primary destination being a theme park. In the future, our family trips might seem more magical to me if we are somewhat remote, surrounded by nature and/or immersed in another culture. And there needs to be plenty of unscheduled down time to explore. This trip's highlight for hubby was a walk we went on to find food on Sunday. Along the way we saw a bunch of cool trees, relaxed with the kids, and saw a bird stalking and having for dinner an unfortunate lizard. So unscripted and in nature seem to be key for him too.
In the end, despite my late Disney revelation, AND despite our various misfortunes, the trip was a smashing success! Why? We benefited from our travel in the best possible ways. Though I thought we were vacationing to get away from the Cache Valley winter, or the post-holiday slump, or to take a break from our routine, or to do something fun, I learned by my experiences what travel really means, and why we need to keep traveling.
First, now I've got a trip behind me, I'm all practiced up and I think I can worry a lot less going into it. But there are more significant reasons than that.
Travel, when we take on it's challenges just right, means we grow in grace as individuals. As we see and know more of the world, we understand better what it means to be American, Mormon, human. We saw so many different people. We heard so many different accents and languages. We ate new food. We tried new things, experienced different climates.
When I was a missionary preparing to go to Taiwan, from time to time I would run into negative reports about the country. It was stinky. It rained a lot. It was so humid. When I arrived, I reported home that it smelled like New York, it rained like Seattle, and was as humid as Florida. Because I had been to all these other places for other adventures, I didn't need Taiwan to be like Utah. My acceptance of Taiwan for how it was didn't miss a beat, nor did my personal confidence to maneuver the uncertain. (Though it was certainly tested.)
I think of grace, among other things, as a confident approach to the unfamiliar, whether it be people, circumstances, or places. Growing up studying ballet, I was blessed to be so repeatedly thrown out of my comfort zone that being out became it's own comfort. The trip was a success, first, because I remembered this aspect of grace. And my children had the opportunity to grow in grace too, making the trip SO worth it because THEY DID.
PS: Other practical points:
Two year olds are too young for cruises. Unless perhaps yours is an only, or the only one traveling with you. Otherwise, cruises are AMAZING with kids. And be sure to order one of all the adult entres on the dinner menus to increase your dining prowess and skip the kid food they will kindly try to provide for your kiddos.
Tourist traps ARE great places to get little tastes of the whole world.
When everyone says "Stay IN Disney World - it's worth it," what they really mean is, "It is so miserable getting in and out of Disney World that even though your hotel has a free and convenient shuttle, it is crowded, not a brief ride, and your young kids, ripe with exhaustion will have their best melt downs there. In reality, what IS 'worth it' is to END the suffering of standing, waiting, and moving in a crowd." Could Disney have come up with such compelling reason? I wouldn't put it past them.
First, the background. While my hubby and I were regular world travelers in our BC lives (BC being Before Children) the most we'd done with 3 kids was a road trip. This was a 12 day trip with 4 kids in tow ON AN AIRPLANE. Whoa!
A few weeks before we left, the magnitude of the disaster we could be in for hit me. It hit as my not-yet-two-year-old was throwing the food he wasn't interested in anymore on the floor. Another wave of it crashed as my 4 year old whined for hours about a host of minor issues. And still another wave came on as I watched she and her older sister bicker about ridiculous things, and observed how I, with my small portion of patience, dealt with it all.
Fearing the worst, I enlisted my best parenting practices and constructed a count-down chain. On each link I'd written the behavior we would be practicing for the day - all behaviors attempting to lead up to children who would not bring shock and horrific awe to the lovely folks in the east who feel 4 children is a lot. I didn't want to confirm their biases with MY kids.
Anyway, among other things, we practiced:
Living on a schedule: The schedule was geared to keeping a routine for the trip. "School work" WAS required. It was brief (as always), anticipating that on the trip, I would have them do SOMETHING, like record what they did for the day and why they liked it. We also scheduled and practiced quiet time. That was to not only to give hubby and me down time, but so that they could grow in self-entertaining abilities in a confined space. (They self-entertain GREAT at home, but it isn't necessarily quiet or in one spot.)
This payed off. I did not, as I had anticipated, hold to any specific schedule OR require anything resembling school work of them. (Though I did suggest from time to time that they could write in their travel journals.) Anyway, this practice DID make the trip smoother, but, the added bonus was that it made the time leading up to the trip smoother too. When I get deep in projects (like prepping 6 people for a 12 day voyage across the country) I can tend to let our daily routines go to pot. That usually leads to the kids' needs being neglected (school needs, but eating, sleeping, and cleaning needs too) and the result is chaos. The chain and our decision to adhere as closely to a schedule as we could (after all, we have very little practice) payed off in pre-trip peace.
We also practiced increasing our gratitude expressed AND our complaints minimized, and taking no for an answer. (This too payed off as the sincere thanks the kids expressed DID make a lot of headache worth it, and we bypassed much of the energy-depleting pleading and griping.)
Finally, (and closely related to what I've just mentioned) we reviewed the concept of letting go - being at peace with what is. I explained that sometimes our trip would be fun, sometimes boring. Some things would live up to our expectations, and other times they would't. I told them we can be happy anyway.
I tried to practice this attitude before we left with my mantra: the adventure starts NOW. I found myself feeling a lot of stress as preparations intensified. (I imagine even seasoned travelers have situations arise where they aren't completely familiar with the rules/how to navigate the literal or figurative lay of the land.) Being absent from Orlando for 20 years, having never gone with kids, I worried. Would I find all the right hotels? Would my efforts to save money pay-off or wind up costing us MORE? Would I pick the right days to hit the right places? Would the weather cooperate? Would our fellow travelers look with admiration at the ear-piercing volume my baby can hit, or would there be daggers in their eyes? These worries dominated my conscious mind. They took energy to juggle and stress over.
Then it hit me: I WON'T maneuver every obstacle, challenge, and decision point perfectly. Period. There will be less than ideal moments. Some I will create. Some will be out of my control. And they are ALL part of the journey. ALL the ups and ALL the downs will be a part of our adventure together, and I can embrace it all IN the spirit of adventure, even before we leave the comforts of our home....
So?
I am pleased to report that the kids were amazing!!! My whiney one rolled smoothly with puking on the final leg of the trip out! All the kids were total troopers in their plastic ponchos in the rain for every Disney day. They even pleasantly suffered with the stomach flu, conveniently hitting only at night when we were on our cruise.
I, however, for all my mantra-ing, didn't fair so well. I just shifted from worry to disappointment. "Seriously? We ALL have to get sick on the cruise?!" "Seriously, it has to rain every stinking day we spend at Disney?" "Seriously? There are STILL lines MID-WEEK IN FEBRUARY IN THE RAIN!!!!?" "Seriously? I'm getting the pat down because there may be a chance this white, middle-aged woman traveling with 4 kids poses a terrorist threat!?"
Okay. So maybe it was less disappointment and more disgust. But I learned from that too!
Related to Disney, I learned, despite all the hype, IT IS AN AMUSEMENT PARK - ergo there is a bunch of over-priced merchandise and food around every corner AND yes! there are lines! Disney is not a life experience - unless theme parks are your life. No judgement if that's you. MY most magical place on earth so far is probably having a whole jungle island to myself and hubby off the coast of Taiwan.
I realized it was foolish, theme parks NOT being my life, to plan a vacation with one primary destination being a theme park. In the future, our family trips might seem more magical to me if we are somewhat remote, surrounded by nature and/or immersed in another culture. And there needs to be plenty of unscheduled down time to explore. This trip's highlight for hubby was a walk we went on to find food on Sunday. Along the way we saw a bunch of cool trees, relaxed with the kids, and saw a bird stalking and having for dinner an unfortunate lizard. So unscripted and in nature seem to be key for him too.
In the end, despite my late Disney revelation, AND despite our various misfortunes, the trip was a smashing success! Why? We benefited from our travel in the best possible ways. Though I thought we were vacationing to get away from the Cache Valley winter, or the post-holiday slump, or to take a break from our routine, or to do something fun, I learned by my experiences what travel really means, and why we need to keep traveling.
First, now I've got a trip behind me, I'm all practiced up and I think I can worry a lot less going into it. But there are more significant reasons than that.
Travel, when we take on it's challenges just right, means we grow in grace as individuals. As we see and know more of the world, we understand better what it means to be American, Mormon, human. We saw so many different people. We heard so many different accents and languages. We ate new food. We tried new things, experienced different climates.
When I was a missionary preparing to go to Taiwan, from time to time I would run into negative reports about the country. It was stinky. It rained a lot. It was so humid. When I arrived, I reported home that it smelled like New York, it rained like Seattle, and was as humid as Florida. Because I had been to all these other places for other adventures, I didn't need Taiwan to be like Utah. My acceptance of Taiwan for how it was didn't miss a beat, nor did my personal confidence to maneuver the uncertain. (Though it was certainly tested.)
I think of grace, among other things, as a confident approach to the unfamiliar, whether it be people, circumstances, or places. Growing up studying ballet, I was blessed to be so repeatedly thrown out of my comfort zone that being out became it's own comfort. The trip was a success, first, because I remembered this aspect of grace. And my children had the opportunity to grow in grace too, making the trip SO worth it because THEY DID.
PS: Other practical points:
Two year olds are too young for cruises. Unless perhaps yours is an only, or the only one traveling with you. Otherwise, cruises are AMAZING with kids. And be sure to order one of all the adult entres on the dinner menus to increase your dining prowess and skip the kid food they will kindly try to provide for your kiddos.
Tourist traps ARE great places to get little tastes of the whole world.
When everyone says "Stay IN Disney World - it's worth it," what they really mean is, "It is so miserable getting in and out of Disney World that even though your hotel has a free and convenient shuttle, it is crowded, not a brief ride, and your young kids, ripe with exhaustion will have their best melt downs there. In reality, what IS 'worth it' is to END the suffering of standing, waiting, and moving in a crowd." Could Disney have come up with such compelling reason? I wouldn't put it past them.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Reason #844: Cultivating Our Greatest Natural Resources
Deep vacation thoughts. :)
I learned many things on our recent trip to Disney World. (One being that I am a definite Disney humbug. Too late I remembered IT IS AN AMUSEMENT PARK. Why I go thinking I'm going to experience "the most magical place on earth" I don't know.) In fact, I think there is a TON to learn there, and if we lived close, I'd like to have season passes to go absorb instead of treating it like an amusement park and running from ride to ride. (Maybe I'm not a TOTAL humbug.)
BUT one thing I discovered there was a quote by Walt Disney that has me thinking. Apparently he said,
I learned many things on our recent trip to Disney World. (One being that I am a definite Disney humbug. Too late I remembered IT IS AN AMUSEMENT PARK. Why I go thinking I'm going to experience "the most magical place on earth" I don't know.) In fact, I think there is a TON to learn there, and if we lived close, I'd like to have season passes to go absorb instead of treating it like an amusement park and running from ride to ride. (Maybe I'm not a TOTAL humbug.)
BUT one thing I discovered there was a quote by Walt Disney that has me thinking. Apparently he said,
"Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children."
Great quote. I couldn't agree more.
So, America, what do we DO with this resource? Mine it? Extract it? Harvest it? None of those verbs conjure up very pleasant images when we are talking about the minds of children. I landed on the verb "cultivate," and the image of a farmer creating the circumstances under which a plant can thrive and be productive.
Now, America, reflect on what public education looks like. With the adoption of Common Core, now more than ever before, our greatest natural resource is being ripped from it's natural environment, plopped down in a row, and fed a steady stream of processed fertilizer and pesticide. It's very sterile. Very safe. We've been promised a cash crop of students "fully prepared to compete in the global economy." We've identified certain traits of the fruit of these tender plants, decided those traits - perhaps size and ripening time are the most ideal, most beneficial for the masses - and are pursuing a course to wipe out all other strains that may be smaller, or later, but perhaps sweeter or with a different texture.
Just as many are going back to our roots when it comes to food production, valuing the organic and environmentally sustainable, perhaps it is time as a country to return in education to a more wholesome, even old fashioned idea of what this natural resource, the minds of our children, is and how we go about cultivating it. While we homeschoolers have already enjoyed the joys and the fruits of doing so and it is certainly a GREAT reason to homeschool, do take the time to try to affect education policy that will restore this resource to it's greatness for the public at large. The good of the country is, in very fact, at stake.
Oooh. PS. :) I discovered while jumping around on my blog, that this image of cultivating minds, again, is not my own, nor am I the first to call for a massive shift to a more natural approach. Go here to view a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson and hear his thoughts on the subject.
Oooh. PS. :) I discovered while jumping around on my blog, that this image of cultivating minds, again, is not my own, nor am I the first to call for a massive shift to a more natural approach. Go here to view a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson and hear his thoughts on the subject.
Homeschooling Chickens and Eggs
As I've mentioned elsewhere on my blog, none of my children have ever attended school. But starting out homeschooling with my oldest, I DID go through a phase where I tried to duplicate school at home. Thankfully that approach has been thrown out by degrees. Which is to say that I still sometimes teach, AND I draw lessons from what I think kids do learn in school. But we aren't aiming to duplicate anything. We are aiming to learn. And it is a lot of fun.
So I've becoming more of an unschooler as the years go by. My trust in my children to learn from life and take initiative in the process has grown.
A day or so ago I noted what my second, my daughter was up to. When I got up she was already crafting a Valentines box for herself. Later, she added to her personal book of hymns, a project she started which I didn't know about until she brought it to me when she'd finished about four "hymns". For a few days she has been happily engaged crafting valentines and now has a small collection I need to help her spell the names for to finish them off. She also re-purposed some mismatched socks as barbie mermaid tails, built a watery "back drop" from blue construction paper, and put on a barbie show - giving me the idea that the barbies could present the story of Saint Valentine to our Biography Club. (What the barbies are performing below.)
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Unlike my oldest son, this daughter has never experienced "school at home." She has always been free to do what she wants. Learning for her has always been fun, about what she is interested in. And I note that, more than my son, she is never at a loss for engaging "learning" activities she is initiating herself and directing for her life.
I don't know the cause of this. Is it her personality? Is it the result of never having things structured for her, so she has learned to go with her own structure? I also don't know what would happen if I began to declare obnoxious things like, "let's review math facts," or "let's do spelling list of all the words you've misspelled on your valentines." But as I see her progress, even grasping things like spelling from the context of all that is around her, I'm not about to step in to "educate her." Whatever is the chicken, whichever is the egg, I love sitting back and marveling at my daughter. And I sense she loves it too.
So I've becoming more of an unschooler as the years go by. My trust in my children to learn from life and take initiative in the process has grown.
A day or so ago I noted what my second, my daughter was up to. When I got up she was already crafting a Valentines box for herself. Later, she added to her personal book of hymns, a project she started which I didn't know about until she brought it to me when she'd finished about four "hymns". For a few days she has been happily engaged crafting valentines and now has a small collection I need to help her spell the names for to finish them off. She also re-purposed some mismatched socks as barbie mermaid tails, built a watery "back drop" from blue construction paper, and put on a barbie show - giving me the idea that the barbies could present the story of Saint Valentine to our Biography Club. (What the barbies are performing below.)
Unlike my oldest son, this daughter has never experienced "school at home." She has always been free to do what she wants. Learning for her has always been fun, about what she is interested in. And I note that, more than my son, she is never at a loss for engaging "learning" activities she is initiating herself and directing for her life.
I don't know the cause of this. Is it her personality? Is it the result of never having things structured for her, so she has learned to go with her own structure? I also don't know what would happen if I began to declare obnoxious things like, "let's review math facts," or "let's do spelling list of all the words you've misspelled on your valentines." But as I see her progress, even grasping things like spelling from the context of all that is around her, I'm not about to step in to "educate her." Whatever is the chicken, whichever is the egg, I love sitting back and marveling at my daughter. And I sense she loves it too.
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