Earlier today I climbed up to the attic where my handy husband was installing a built in desk in my soon-to-be sewing/hide from the children room. I paused and asked "...Do you hear that?" *Explosions of belly laughter* "That's the kids reading the body changes book that you took out of the library." This book has been laying in wait in the kitchen since it was taken out of the library about 40 renewals and $300 in fines ago. Ed had the day off of work today and was on a tear getting jobs done around the house. Door jambs routed, desk installed, Ed bounded up the stairs with the pink and purple book with the cute cartoon pictures of pubic hair, ready to get'er done after the girls were in bed later in the day. ... I'm downstairs and I cannot handle it. I'm hearing isolated words in the conversation float down the gaping hole that is now between the dining room and upstairs bathroom. (leaky drainpipe, sodden ceiling plaster--hole. Yesterday's adventure.) I'm plugging my ears and rocking and can only imagine what my naïve 9 and 12 year old boys are doing. They're not laughing. I had expected this scene to be hilarious. When Ed came down the stairs he went immediately with a flashlight to climb the ladder in our dining room to check the hole like he had scratched off the last thing on today's list and wanted to get a start on tomorrow's list. "So what'd they say?" "Oh, they didn't get it. It's too outrageous of a concept." Two years of stalling about getting around to this moment and that's it? Regardless, I'm sure the boys will remember that lesson for much longer than the one about the identifying features of Romanesque architecture we had yesterday.
So that was the back end of the day. The front end began with Ed heading to Fortinos to buy a live lobster and a bag of chips. The kids had a presentation to give at a homeschooling unit study group that we've been a part of for the last month. Their talk was about PEI and Isaac was going to be speaking about some of the local crustaceans on the island and he wanted a visual for each one. We've been kinda late getting to this group on all the other meeting dates but since today was our day to present, we were trying really hard to get out of the door on time. I thought that if we announced it was time to get boots and coats on and begin the manoevre to the van at 9:00 we'd be good to get there before 10:00 with a half hour drive in between. It's 9:05, 9:07, 9:12 and Ed's not home with the lobster and a bag of chips. Finally, he gets in the door a long minute later, we together pull the wriggling animal out of the bag and try to get a hold of it with tongs so we don't have to touch it with our hands. The shell is slippery, the tongs break and the fella is making a break for it across the counter and we both squeal and when it flicks it's tail. We grab two spoons and he clatters to the stovetop a few times before we are successful in plunging him headfirst into the pot that has been boiling for the last half hour. Our first plan was to cook the lobster as part of the presentation but I'm sure there would have been a lot of small children crying from the trauma if we had gone that route. When the black and green creature turned the bright red colour that cartoon lobsters are known for we were soon in the van with a steaming hot lobster sitting in the passenger seat beside me.
I think the kids surprised themselves with how well they could put together an oral presentation and get up and speak in front of their peers (and their moms). The first practice with Anneke, especially, was a bit rough. I made like I was introducing her saying: "And now Anneke would like to share with you a bit about Anne of Green Gables". "WAAAAAAAAAh" and huge tears rolled down her cheeks. "Is that what you're going to say for your presentation?" I inquired. She quickly laughed through her tears and launched into her material and had the biggest grin when she did a good job of finishing it in front the me. Then I heard her practicing upstairs for her imaginary friends and she adlibbed like she was the most fascinating thing they had ever heard. Tobin, too, was entertaining his lego minifigures with dramatic gesticulating and rousing cadence about why the soil is red on PEI. Their actual performances at show time were more reserved but I was a proud mama at they way they pulled themselves together and pulled it off proving to themselves that they are capable of doing difficult things. They weren't even dry heaving or miserably rattled beforehand which was a relief. Isaac explained: "Well. I was a bit nervous before we started but I felt prepared so it wasn't so bad after all." I wish you could hear his understated, matter of fact, oh-so-cute voice saying those words. Like the Beaver, delivering a line.
Thursday 27 March 2014
Friday 7 March 2014
Two Month Check Up
This blog is brought to you by the misfortune that my husband, a carpenter, had a run in with his saw requiring 4 stitches and 7 days off of work. He took the kids to Friday shinny=two and a half hours of quiet time for me alone at home sans enfants. Afternoon is such a better time to write (or do anything at all) coherently as opposed to 9:30 after the daily ordeal of bedtime. By now I've proven to myself that there is a legitimate list to be written that testifies to the significant learning moments that naturally, and supernaturally present themselves each and every day. And so I've slowed down my nightly blogging and spent more evening time on the couch beside my husband either reading or watching TV or drooling on my shirt while staring at the wall. I'd still like to take some time to reflect on some of the more macro lessons that I've learned through our experiment so far.
Soo many people have approached me and said things like: "Unschooling sounds like it's so much harder than traditional teaching" . I don't get that. We spend our days reading books, talking, looking at articles, playing, trying science experiments, baking, crafting, doing household chores, meeting with friends, hiking, and yes, completing a short list of 4 daily exercises --piano practice, writing entries in our gratitude journal, Rosetta stone French and 5 minutes of computer math fact drill. We don't feel hurried and I don't fear, as I did more so at the beginning, that a day will go by with nothing to feed our thoughts. It's a joy! What's so hard about joy?? Before I go on, I want to make abundantly clear the fact that this joy doesn't mean that everybody's happy all the time. Joy and happiness are two different things and we've got unhappiness aplenty, on certain days, just like any other normal family. The kids still fight, I still get fed up with asking people a hundred times to do simple tasks, and moodiness puts a damper on creativity and curiosity on many days. And yet, I feel a whole lot less uptight because so much less of my day is spent "shoving boulders up hills" in order to get a long list of subjects done by 4 kids of different ages. That's hard!!
And the next inevitable question: "Well, there must be gaps in the education, if you're completing so many fewer school related lessons throughout the day". Honey, I used to live in desperate fear of those gaps before, back when we were scrambling to get all those pages, and prepared lessons done in the hours allotted to "school-time". I remember when I noticed that my 7 year old son could tell a Matisse from a Picasso and state his opinion of Hammurabi's code but could not spell his own last name while all his school peers could manage that 3 years ago. And icy fear would pierce my heart when my daughter couldn't say what came after Thursday, but could tell you who was the unifier of India and could sew a nine-patch quilt. This came as a surprise to me, but these gaps freak me out a lot less, now that we are "getting less school done". Taking this time to set aside the curriculum has given us ample pause to actually recognize which things are essential to higher problem solving and effective communication and focus on these things without the distraction of whatever was being presented on the next 2 pages of the workbook. For example, we've used lots of different methods and language programs with the oldest, but he still struggles with basic sentence structure. So, drop everything and develop that specific skill without drowning in abstract exercises that assume that sentence structure is already firm just because we've got to get that blasted Gr. 6 book done by June. Done. I feel like we've been given a gift of more time to focus on the basic building blocks of the three Rs which will definitely make success in the more complex lessons much smoother. I no longer worry that I'm not doing enough things. Now we can focus on whether we're doing the right things.
Are there days when motivation is low and seemingly nothing gets done? Yes. This is another thing that used to really disturb me and make me into a crazy woman. I found that this reaction was a less than effective motivator to inspire a love of learning. And it's only been two month, I'm not completely over this, but I have begun to recognize the value of boredom. My kids are not allowed any screen time until just before supper so if they can't find something constructive to occupy themselves, they usually end up sitting around in the living room and eventually getting on each other's nerves. From a mom's standpoint, this sucks and there's no getting around that. We'd so much rather see the children become passionately involved in some newly discovered interest and emerge from their bedrooms, hours later, having developed the solution to global warming or composed a sonnet about the cat. Instead, they're sitting on their screaming brother's head or spending too much time in front of the heat register watching the dust settle. I used to instantly get on their case about how they needed quit being lazy and use their imagination to use their time more wisely. This is useless, I've discovered. It creates guilt and pressure which breed more restlessness and bratty behaviour. I've found that boredom is it's own motivator. Sometimes, a body needs to sit and do nothing, gather thoughts and make plans about how to make life more interesting when being bored gets boring. And it happens. Every time. Don't we adults have creative energy in bursts with sluggish, unproductive days in between? How annoying would it be to have someone stand behind you and prod you with "inspirational messages" about how we should "be more creative", "amuse yourself", "get something done!" These moments have become opportunities to read the next chapter in our read-aloud or go outside when they don't launch into building Olympic ski runs out of lego, or sewing pigs or making chemical concoctions in the kitchen.
Will I go back to curriculum-led learning? ...Not sure yet. Having trouble figuring out why we would, in some ways. We have until September to decide. Until then, we'll endeavor to enjoy this oasis in time and childhood. Already, both I and the kids have a new appreciation and mindfulness of the opportunities to learn, even in the most mundane things. We'll decide, together, which sequential book learning needs to be brought back in to provide the kids with the tools they will need to become the people they are meant to be. And I emphasize the word people, persons, rather than the engineers, scrap-metal dealers, teachers, carpenters that they may become. Charlotte Mason, a nineteenth century maverick of living education, emphasized that kids are persons first, then future job-holders. Hopefully these persons in our house will not only be solid men and women of character, but also be somewhat employable in the future that none of us can predict.
Soo many people have approached me and said things like: "Unschooling sounds like it's so much harder than traditional teaching" . I don't get that. We spend our days reading books, talking, looking at articles, playing, trying science experiments, baking, crafting, doing household chores, meeting with friends, hiking, and yes, completing a short list of 4 daily exercises --piano practice, writing entries in our gratitude journal, Rosetta stone French and 5 minutes of computer math fact drill. We don't feel hurried and I don't fear, as I did more so at the beginning, that a day will go by with nothing to feed our thoughts. It's a joy! What's so hard about joy?? Before I go on, I want to make abundantly clear the fact that this joy doesn't mean that everybody's happy all the time. Joy and happiness are two different things and we've got unhappiness aplenty, on certain days, just like any other normal family. The kids still fight, I still get fed up with asking people a hundred times to do simple tasks, and moodiness puts a damper on creativity and curiosity on many days. And yet, I feel a whole lot less uptight because so much less of my day is spent "shoving boulders up hills" in order to get a long list of subjects done by 4 kids of different ages. That's hard!!
And the next inevitable question: "Well, there must be gaps in the education, if you're completing so many fewer school related lessons throughout the day". Honey, I used to live in desperate fear of those gaps before, back when we were scrambling to get all those pages, and prepared lessons done in the hours allotted to "school-time". I remember when I noticed that my 7 year old son could tell a Matisse from a Picasso and state his opinion of Hammurabi's code but could not spell his own last name while all his school peers could manage that 3 years ago. And icy fear would pierce my heart when my daughter couldn't say what came after Thursday, but could tell you who was the unifier of India and could sew a nine-patch quilt. This came as a surprise to me, but these gaps freak me out a lot less, now that we are "getting less school done". Taking this time to set aside the curriculum has given us ample pause to actually recognize which things are essential to higher problem solving and effective communication and focus on these things without the distraction of whatever was being presented on the next 2 pages of the workbook. For example, we've used lots of different methods and language programs with the oldest, but he still struggles with basic sentence structure. So, drop everything and develop that specific skill without drowning in abstract exercises that assume that sentence structure is already firm just because we've got to get that blasted Gr. 6 book done by June. Done. I feel like we've been given a gift of more time to focus on the basic building blocks of the three Rs which will definitely make success in the more complex lessons much smoother. I no longer worry that I'm not doing enough things. Now we can focus on whether we're doing the right things.
Are there days when motivation is low and seemingly nothing gets done? Yes. This is another thing that used to really disturb me and make me into a crazy woman. I found that this reaction was a less than effective motivator to inspire a love of learning. And it's only been two month, I'm not completely over this, but I have begun to recognize the value of boredom. My kids are not allowed any screen time until just before supper so if they can't find something constructive to occupy themselves, they usually end up sitting around in the living room and eventually getting on each other's nerves. From a mom's standpoint, this sucks and there's no getting around that. We'd so much rather see the children become passionately involved in some newly discovered interest and emerge from their bedrooms, hours later, having developed the solution to global warming or composed a sonnet about the cat. Instead, they're sitting on their screaming brother's head or spending too much time in front of the heat register watching the dust settle. I used to instantly get on their case about how they needed quit being lazy and use their imagination to use their time more wisely. This is useless, I've discovered. It creates guilt and pressure which breed more restlessness and bratty behaviour. I've found that boredom is it's own motivator. Sometimes, a body needs to sit and do nothing, gather thoughts and make plans about how to make life more interesting when being bored gets boring. And it happens. Every time. Don't we adults have creative energy in bursts with sluggish, unproductive days in between? How annoying would it be to have someone stand behind you and prod you with "inspirational messages" about how we should "be more creative", "amuse yourself", "get something done!" These moments have become opportunities to read the next chapter in our read-aloud or go outside when they don't launch into building Olympic ski runs out of lego, or sewing pigs or making chemical concoctions in the kitchen.
Will I go back to curriculum-led learning? ...Not sure yet. Having trouble figuring out why we would, in some ways. We have until September to decide. Until then, we'll endeavor to enjoy this oasis in time and childhood. Already, both I and the kids have a new appreciation and mindfulness of the opportunities to learn, even in the most mundane things. We'll decide, together, which sequential book learning needs to be brought back in to provide the kids with the tools they will need to become the people they are meant to be. And I emphasize the word people, persons, rather than the engineers, scrap-metal dealers, teachers, carpenters that they may become. Charlotte Mason, a nineteenth century maverick of living education, emphasized that kids are persons first, then future job-holders. Hopefully these persons in our house will not only be solid men and women of character, but also be somewhat employable in the future that none of us can predict.
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