Just a Little on Life and Learning with the Meesters

A friend recently asked me for tips on getting a blog started....and I realized with shame that, once again, it's been weeks upon weeks since I've written in my own.

We've been busy, for sure - my pool of anecdotes and observations should be plenty deep - but I don't have anything particularly wise or pithy for today. So today - just a general update on life.

The move - we're mostly settled in. I haven't hung all the pictures, and there are some boxes in the garage that are left to be unpacked, but for the most part, we have everything we need where we need it. When we first moved in, the idea of having a clean slate appealed to me, and I researched numerous house cleaning schedules, combining a few that would seem to work best for me. And indeed, in the first couple of weeks, when we really weren't doing much school, if any, I ruled those schedules and maintained a clean and lovely smelling house. Ahh. But alas, I knew it was too good to be true. When classes and sports leagues started back up, and then we really got school going - well, it's been a different story. I've yet to find a cleaning schedule that takes into account the war zone that is the result of a good day of school. They're always so peaceful - "Every day, make the beds, put in a load of laundry, and maintain of rotation of household chores to keep your house spotless." There isn't a single one that helps a beleaguered mother figure out how to KEEP the beds made, or how fast to "clean the kitchen appliances" so that they stay clean for anything length of time before perpetually hungry kids pull out more food, spill more crumbs, and leave more fingerprints. There isn't one that magically keeps other rooms in check while she assists children with schoolwork. Rather, she will emerge into one - or all - of those other rooms after a grueling Algebra lesson and cry in dismay, "What in the world happened here?!" There's no handy checklist to handle housekeeping and homeschooling. 

And speaking of school - my ever present dilemma and, ironically, joy, is that I love to organize and list, but I also love to let learning happen organically and independently. Also, not all of my children respond well to lists and schedules. In addition, sometimes it feels like we're not here enough to schedule anything. (This is where I add the somewhat cliched truth that "homeschooling" is a bit of a misnomer, as we spend so much time away from home, that I find myself tucking bits of education into pockets of time during commutes to all these different activities, or during the activities themselves...or hoping that somehow, sometime, we'll be able to get to certain subjects in the not-to-distant future, because they're just not happening now). I tend to swing between the poles of over planning every single detail (and then finding myself in a constant state of failure) and planning nothing and going with whatever comes (freeing, and often the same amount of learning happens as in the former situation, but things DO tend to fall through the cracks). Where's the balance? I'll get back to you when I find out.

What kinds of activities are we up to, you ask? You didn't, but here goes - Church and Bible quizzing, of course. And thank goodness, or what would the kids do for socialization? Except for karate also. And dance. Also gymnastics. Baseball several times a week helps, too. Well, there IS co-op each week as well. And science class for Drew. Also a writer's group for Aimee. Sheltered kids, I tell you. But we do our best to get them out into the sunlight now and then.

Thankfully, there IS still time just to be together as a family, and we even enjoy it still, at that. The boys have been spending lots of time playing chess, which sometimes leads to near-blows, but often is fun - and worthwhile, I guess.

Confession - I can't play, and it has made me feel even more lame that the only other person in the house who doesn't know how is the four year-old - and her brothers have been trying to teach her, so I imagine that situation will change soon. So I checked out some books from the library, and I'm going to try to remedy this apparent shortcoming on my part. In my free time.

We have also been spending each of the past few evenings sitting around our new firepit.

There's something calming and bonding about a fire in the evenings. We don't want to waste it, so we just sit and enjoy each other's company. Another confession, though - the kids don't really "just sit" unless there are marshmallows. But Dave and I do! And somehow it's a little easier to tune out the arguments and the bickering, or the loud fun and boisterous play, when we're sitting around the fire. 

My scheduled lunch hour is almost up. Onward ho to my neatly scheduled afternoon - which schedule, of course, will probably be dismantled in expert fashion by these kids who insist on being...well, kids. Anyway, it's lovely to pretend that everything is going to go according to plan. And it will be lovely when I get ready for bed and contemplate how my schedule may have been for naught, but life and learning happened in great and beautiful (and loud and messy) ways anyway.

Moving

I really dislike moving. I don't like change, and I don't like mess...and that pretty much sums up the moving process. So while I wasn't entirely surprised when our landlord informed us he was going to sell the house (a suspect story, by the way) and that we had just 30 days to be out (and by his frequent check-ins to make sure we really are going to be able to gone within that time frame, I think he would have loved to have given us less time if legally allowed), I still wasn't happy about it. In addition to the usual upheaval caused by a move, we had absolutely no idea where we would go, we were entirely unprepared financially for such a transition, and we had even less than than our allotted 30 days to find it and pack, as we were going out of the country for entire week this month.

And then...I really disliked the idea of moving because it forced me to confront something I really preferred tightly packed away. When we moved to Ohio, we chose to rent this house, with plans for the house we owned in South Carolina, and even further plans to buy something here. And none of that worked in the least the way we had planned, effectively stripping us of a number of choices. But as long as we were here, in this arrangement that we chose, I could forget for long stretches of time that we no longer had the control - or perhaps just the illusion of control - that we had once had. Leaving here meant looking for another rental, not buying the house we had hoped, and it would be a glaring reminder of what we've lost, and of a part of our future that is daunting and uncertain. 

And of course with that comes lots of anxiety and other unpleasant feelings I'd just rather not experience. But, like it or not, we had to do this thing, in band-aid-ripping fashion. Thankfully, Dave is a take-charge, get-it-done sort of guy, so he dove into the task and looked and looked....and looked and looked and looked....until he found something that seemed promising. It all came together, and God provided in all kinds of ways we never could have seen coming. As it turns out, we're really excited about the new place. 

With that surge of excitement and promise, we got serious about packing everything up. I like to do things in an orderly fashion (even if it only seems orderly to me), so I gave myself a ten box a day quota, which I've been meeting for the most part. And in filling those ten boxes a day, I've tried to pack them in the way that I want them to be organized when we get to the new house, which has involved sorting through things carefully, and throwing away a great deal...and it's made a terrific mess. It hasn't seemed like any kind of system at all, I'm sure. But whether it's having confronted my biggest hidden anxiety - the house situation itself - or just having more time each day (moving with big kids is HUGELY different than moving with mostly little oens) to pay attention to what I'm doing, I've been able also to confront all these piles of things I just haven't before. Sometimes my sense of organization is actually SO great that I just get paralyzed when something seems to overwhelming, or if I can't do it the way that I want, so much so that it actually looks like the opposite of organized. But it's just that I haven't been able to face it, and it just lurks in the corners and the closets, and under the beds...

In fact, we had a garage sale yesterday, to purge the house even further of uncessary things, and as the boys were gathering things to put out, I still felt those little twinges of paralysis.. The boys asked if they could sell their GeoTrax train sets, because they never play with them anymore, and I started to say no. I've been keeping those carefully arranged, hoping and planning to get new batteries for all the trains, and maybe get some extra track pieces, and find the instructions so we can get all the sets put together the way they were when we got them. My stomach knotted up just thinking about it, which, I realized, is exactly what happens every time I see the boxes holding all that silly train stuff. No one cares about it that way but me. And it's like having boxes of anxiety sitting around and being carried from house to house. 

I realized further that so much of our stuff is boxed up that way. My closet is full of anxiety, guilt, and feelings of failure. I paid too much for those shoes ten years ago, so I should hang on to them. Someone gave me that sweater, so I can't get rid of it. I hate those jeans and never wear them, but what if I can't buy new ones later? My school room is drowing in last year's stuff, because we didn't do what I thought we should have, and maybe I should try to catch us up, have that grammar book finished, do a more thorough evaluation of those papers I don't have to time to look through...

Or it WAS all that way. I told the boys they could sell the trains. I threw out half the things in my closet. I put away last year's school books and threw away all but a few of the papers. My ten-box a day quota is slowly but surely capturing the things we need and truly want. And the mess is slowly diminishing. 

Perhaps, too, the anxieties and fears boxed up in all the nooks and crannies will diminsh, too.

Another Quizzing Post - Sort Of

I don't think I've ever gone three entire months without posting something. Usually, after some time being away, I say that I haven't been short of ideas, just time - but this time, it really has been a dry spell. A very, very dry spell. For whatever reason(s), I was really burnt out towards the end of our school year, which often happens, I know, but this time I felt like I had been burned to a crisp. Just completely fried. And I suppose that's what happened to all creative thought, too- burned up, dried out. I keep repeating those kinds of phrases because I don't know how else to describe it. I haven't been depressed or frantic; this kind of "burned out" has been the neutralizing kind. Just fried. I think I said that already.

So moviving on.

I didn't know how to fix it, and I was a little alarmed that a six-week break from all things school hadn't renewed me in the least. The idea of even planning for the next year made me want to crawl into a hole and hide. I had originally planned to resume studies when Dave and I returned from taking a quiz team to International Bible Quizzing finals in Canada, but as that week approached, I had done absolutely nothing to put away things from the previous school year and to get ready for the next. And then there was the fact that our landlord had cheerfully told us we had thirty days to be out of our house, so it didn't appear that anything was going to be done anyway.

So I poured myself into preparing for Internationals and all that entailed - and from the very moment we checked in, it was a little like returning home. I have said often enough here how much I love Bible quizzing and how important it was to me as a quizzer. It's important to me now for all those reasons and more - because now I have children who are involved. At any rate, at the first coaches' meeting, I got a little teary-eyed - the first sign of something other than crispy, burned-out dryness. And the next morning, I went for a run, and made my way down to the lake, and cried. Not for sadness or for joy - just for release.

A few more tears of all kinds found their way out that week. It was like being in a healing coccoon, and yet not a completely sheltered one. It was invigorating and inspiring - the way Bible quizzing has always been for me. Oh - and there were the quizzers, too. I'm sure they had a great week, too, since it was for them, after all.

And so I returned to the reality of packing for a place we don't have yet - although I've been sick since being home, and have had not the slightest amount physical energy to do anything that needs to be done. (By the same token, though, I haven't had any energy to be anxious, either, so perhaps it's a blessing. ) But, while this post was neither very creative nor particularly encouraging, I think there are signs I'm beginning to emerge from that dried up place.

One is that I'm in full throttle for quizzing - so if you live anywhere near me, beware. I believe in quizzing, for so many reasons. I believe in it for kids, but it still does so much good for me even now! I wrote in January about the cost of quizzing, and whether it's worth it - Adding Up the Cost. Internationals costs even more, in both time and money, and yet it's still worth every last penny, every last second, if for no other reason than that it just bathes these kids - and the coaches and officials with them - in God's Word, straight up, pulling no punches. That can't fail to have effect, even -especially? - for tired homeschooling mamas who don't know what their problem is or how to fix it.

In Which I Offer My (Mostly) Unqualified Opinion...Again

Last week, I had a couple of conversations with friends about early learning. In both conversations, we discussed, among other things, what kids "should" know at what ages. It is almost always my opinion - which I never hesitate to share, I admit - that children under 7 or 8 "should" know whatever it is they want to know. Even above that age, I don't put much stock in what everyone else is doing. At any rate, here are some reasons why:

1. A two year-old, for instance, can be taught to memorize and parrot just about anything. So let's say there are a number of two year-olds around who can identify numbers or the alphabet, or recite long lists of any other kind. That's fine for them. But I refuse to accept that as any kind of standard, and I encourage all other mothers to ignore it as well. I realize this is purely my opinion, which I can't prove, but I am entirely unconvinced that teaching these kinds of things to very young children provides any kind of advantage whatsoever. I believe that in later years, they'll just be reading at about the same level as children who learn their letters and numbers at their own pace. Now, I can only point to anecdotal evidence here, and I'm admitting that, but until I see evidence of Americans actually getting smarter and more logical, as formal learning reaches back younger and younger, then I will stand my ground on this point. In fact, I think there could actually be harm in drilling formal concepts into young children. Personally, I wonder if this just puts them in a box, in which they do become quite good at spouting things they are taught - and of course it's cute when they're little - but not very good and figuring things out for themselves. And there's this, too:

I can attest to this. I spent a lot of time on certain skills with my oldest when she was in "preschool" and "Kindergarten" that I have little time to do with my youngest...and guess what? It's all working out about the same, just with less stress for me. Far better for Scarlett to want to know her letters, and to ask me to point them out to her, than for me to waste any time insisting that she learn them. I don't care if every other three year-old for miles around can perfectly identify all the letters of the alphabet, I'm not pushing her to do it. She's three. Play is her business, and I think that grow her mind and her love of learning just fine. More than fine, actually. 

2. I think sometimes the worry about when children should begin formal learning stems from the fear that there won't be time to teach them everything if they don't start as early as possible. I guess there's some truth to that. It would take a LOT of time to teach someone everything there is to learn, and in fact, no one person, of which a garden-variety parent is the least, can teach any one child everything there is to learn. Darn it, I'm not sure even a collection of teachers in any one given school can teach a child everything there is to learn. Hadn't we better hurry? Thankfully, I don't think it's anyone's job to teach a child everything there is to know, and again, I think trying simply puts children in a box. I tend to think that the best thing to teach a child is how to learn for themselves. Are you reading to them? Are they exploring, experiencing, playing, interacting? Obviously it's useful and necessary to plug in some formal concepts at times and to prompt and nudge now and then. I don't mean that there is never a place for study. But in general, the business of lighting the fire of learning under kids is much, much different than filling the bucket with mere facts. It can feel a little scary at times, when it seems as though other people's preschoolers (or elementary graders...or junior high or high school graders...) know a list of things your child, who is probably running around barefoot outside or making "experiments" in the basement, doesn't know right then. Or maybe they do! It's quite likely that, in reference to the picture above, your child will indicate they know their colors, or will tell you something else out of the blue, and you'll say, "How do you know that?" They just will. And it won't make a bit of difference if they know it at two or if they know it at five. 

3. I think everything I've said so far is the truth. I think that kids who learn without fear and without intense prompting and drilling at very young ages will do just as well - or better - than kids who receive all that prompting and drilling. Certainly it's easier for the parents. But let's say that the trend of turning toddlers into "preschoolers" actually produces results. Let's say that it puts them in college by age 12, or that they are brilliant, successful millionaires as adults. I don't care! I think learning is important, and I think there's value in critical thinking skills. I think that if someone wants a career that requires a great deal of education, they will have to look at what colleges want. But I'm not going to live my life or raise my children as slaves of an educational system. I'm not training students who measure up to other students their age. I'm not directing their lives in fear and trepidation of whether or not they'll be accepted by colleges. I'm raising people who will, I hope and pray, serve their Lord and live their lives mindful of eternity. Knowledge is useful in the meantime, but wisdom is far better. Then there's the fact that we live in this world, and act accordingly - I'm not saying college is bad, by any means - but it's a rather fragile world. There's no guarantee that college will be an option by the time our kids get there. There's no guarantee that anything will be the same. So I would rather raise people who can think for themselves and adapt to whatever comes, than just raise kids who will make it to college with the same kind of credentials as everyone else. 

And if we think about the uncertainly of life - that society may continue in a predictable fashion for some time, or it is just as likely that everything we rely on may crumble at any time - what would we rather be doing with our children? Would we rather drill the alphabet with those sweet two year-olds, barely more than babies...or would we rather just snuggle and play with them? Would we fret about keeping our 8th graders on track for college....or would we go about the business of training them to be the wise and critically-thinking adults they will be soon enough? And yes, Aimee, if you're reading this...I do still think Algebra still has some value in that purpose. :-)

A Page from the Kids' Rule Book for Life

We have our homeschool co-op on Friday mornings, and it's one of the highlights of the week for the kids. We've done it for a couple years now, and while it used to start at 9:30, this year, it starts at 9:15, with "Assembly."

We have never yet made it to Assembly.

We haven't had a problem getting there by 9:30, and fifteen minutes isn't that much of a difference, so I don't know what the problem is. It doesn't matter what time we get up, or what measures we try to take to get there fifteen minutes earlier, but we just can not make it. Yesterday was particularly frustrating, because one of the kids was ready to go, and it looked like we were going to make it, but our getting-into-the-van preparations fell apart, and that one child was rather upset to find that once again, we pulled in at 9:30, almost on the dot.

What I'm getting at here is those getting-into-the-van preparations. Often it's like there's a rule book kids share among themselves, and this section is entitled, "How to Ensure You Never Get Anywhere on Time (bonus - Drive Your Mom Nuts!)". If you remember my "How to Make Your Mom Go Crazy" posts, it's from the same rule book, I'm positive. And this section goes something like this:


*this works best when every child in the house cooperates!

1. Ignore your mom when she tells you cheerfully it's time to get up.

2. When she comes in again, say something about it being too early.

3. When she comes in again and insists you get up, ask her why she's in such a bad mood already.

4. Get up, but wander to the couch or to another bed and settle down with a book. Better yet, turn on the TV, or get totally engrossed in the preschool program that's already on. Don't peel your eyes away from that cute cartoon, by any means. You might accidentally find yourself getting something useful done.

5, Slowly meander back to your room when she insists you GET DRESSED NOW. When she comes to check on your progress fifteen minutes later, be sitting on your bed, preferably with a book again. When she asks you why you aren't dressed, get offended and protest that you have nothing at all to wear.

6. When she finds clothes for you, tell her why they don't fit or feel uncomfortable, or why you're just not in the mood for those particular items today. Unfortunately, she will probably threaten to dress you herself if you don't get up and put those clothes on that instant, so your stalling on this point will be concluded - UNLESS you are a preschooler, in which case you can prolong this phase by throwing yourself on the floor and screaming about how you can't wear clothes that are "poky," the wrong color, or just...clothes. Do this for as long as you have a voice.

7. When your mom, pretty exasperated at this point, tells everyone to get shoes and anything and everything else they need to be ready to leave, assure her that you're all ready to go (this will apply later)

8. Ignore her when she tells you repeatedly that there are breakfast foods on the table, and if you want to eat, you should do so NOW. (Again, this will come in handy later!)

9. Have one person ask her if you're ever going to ready to go, or if you're going to be late AGAIN. Have this person do this on a loop, while the rest of you continue to proceed as slowly as possible.

10. When she finally has you all downstairs, wait until she says, "Okay, let's get in the car," before you do any one - or more! - of the following: a) start getting something to eat (see rule 8), b)tell her that your shoes are broken and you don't have anything else, so how are you going to run in shoes with broken soles? And is she ever going to buy anything new for you? c) tell her that you don't know WHERE your shoes are. (see rule 7).

11. If you choose "c", say you're really sorry you told her you told her you had them. What you meant was that you were pretty sure you knew where they were, but now you have no idea! Pretend to look all over for them, but insist you can't find them. Make sure they're either in a really obvious place, or have been absconded by elves. Either one will produce great results in driving your mom to her wit's end.

12. If she finally does get you all to the car, all of you stand outside it arguing about seating arrangements. Discuss loudly how many times you had a particular seat versus how many times someone else did. This will do it! You will probably be running late, or really pushing it, and your mom will be past reason at this point.

13. Oh sorry - one more thing. When you're finally on the way, say, "What time is [event you're trying to get to]? What?? We're going to be late!" And then ask her why she's so touchy about you "just asking a simply question."

Works every time!

In Which I Get a Taste of My Own Medicine

Last night I was helping Drew work on a report he had done on the Alamo. For being the walking encyclopedia he typically is, the one he had turned in was rather brief, and he had protested that there was just no way he could get three paragraphs out of what he knew. So I helped him flesh out the information he had written, into a more complete report. It was a bit painstaking (but it was still comprised of all his own words, just drawn out with a little guidance). I did resist the urge to say, "Let's say it this way..." and to get carried away rewriting the whole thing myself. What emerged from the process was a decent report, especially for his heart not really being in it (an understatement), but after we were done, I mentioned that I should probably write one myself, so he could have a better idea of what I am generally looking for in the future. I'm not great at many things, but I have been known to write a mean essay.

At my casual murmuring, Drew instantly perked up. "So can I give you a writing assignment?"
I said sure, because that would be neat twist to things. He said, "Okay then, I want a research paper on the Balkan Wars."

The...what? I mean, I know there has been such a thing, but I didn't expect him to have such a challenge at the ready. But a deal is a deal, so after I finish this, I guess I'd better start researching!

Homeschooling in Real Life

Two posts in one day! With this one I return to my usual sort of topic.

I'm going to tell the truth - the last few weeks in particular, I have felt like a complete failure. I have been dismayed to watch our homeschooling year flying away from me, with far less getting done than it seems like ought to be done. Part of the problem, I think, is that I have been doing more lesson plans than I've done in the past several years, so we're probably doing much of the same sort of thing we've always done, and it just seems like less, because it's not in my plans. Whatever the case, I just feel like I am not cutting it, that I am stretched too thin, that I am far behind in just about every aspect, and that I am letting pretty much everyone down in everything I'm doing.

Now, please don't feel the need to make me feel better. I know it's not all true. I'm just admitting that I'm feeling that way. So it makes it all the more ironic - and yet, somehow, not - that I've found myself giving homeschooling advice on no fewer than three occasions in the past week. The first one was at the boys' gymnastics class, when one of the moms suddenly asked me, "Do you homeschool?" She began telling me how she is getting ready to switch from an online program to doing things herself next year. She asked me, somewhat nervously, if I taught all of them at the same time, and I laughed. She apologized for bothering me, and I had to collect myself. "No, no - it's not that, I promise. I don't mind talking homeschooling. It's just that...teaching them together. No, it's not really like that for us." I decided not to tell her about how "teaching" didn't really apply to anything we had done that day, and how it had felt like a bust of a day in general. I just talked about the value of reading and playing, reading and playing, and how trying to make homeschooling like "school" leads to frustration and failure. Ahem.

Fast forward to yesterday, when another mom at dance class said she had thought about homeschooling, and one of her boys really wants to be homeschooled, but he's the one (according to her) who would be the hardest. He's dyslexic and doesn't want to do the work, so it would always be a struggle. I didn't say much in this conversation, but I just thought about how that kid probably would do best homeschooling, if she would allow him an environment of a lot less pressure. I did mention, as always, that we don't do a lot of sit-down work. Also that afternoon, the neighbor from down the street came down to our end of the road to retrieve her toddler, and admitted, out of the blue and with some despair, "Ugh - I just don't know you do it, homeschooling everyone. I can't seem to manage just the one [in first grade]. I'm thinking about putting him in school. Is Chase reading? I'll bet he's reading really well." She cringed as she said it. Now, we haven't really had a great relationship with this neighbor family, but still, I don't like seeing moms under this kind of weight. I looked over at Chase, playing basketball barefoot. I said, "Um, no - whatever you're imagining, probably no." And we talked a little about not comparing to other people, not forcing things, and not doing things out of fear.

I  wonder what any of these moms would think about a typical day of ours, such as yesterday. Granted, we did a bit less than usual because it was such a gorgeous day, but it wasn't that far from normal. I went to the Y with one of the kids, and we worked out. We did some reading at various points in the day, talked about books we read, listened to audio books, and in Aimee's case, worked on writing some books. Aimee also worked on an essay about a book character, the one assignment I did insist on getting done. The ones who are studying for Bible quizzing did some studying on Romans (not light material). The boys played basketball with friends( and later with Dave until it was almost dark), rode bikes, and jumped on the trampoline. I took Chase to dance class, and we enjoyed some one on one time before and after he spent an hour learning a modern dance routine. I read aloud to him at one point, but the only reading he did was reading things on Minecraft and Dragonvale (which he can do surprisingly well. Hmmm).  At one point in the day, the boys took apart my old Kindle, which had been smashed a few months prior. There was hardly any sitting down at any point, and hardly any "teaching." Now, there are other days in which we tackle more technical subjects, and those can be good ones, too. But no matter what kind of day it is, the most learning happens when there is peace. And of course there are times when kids need a nudge here and there to be pushed past "I can't" and "It's too hard." There are times when deadlines can serve a purpose. But when we are prompted to do those things out of fear, or out of comparison, they are no good, and homeschooling is, in fact "too hard."

And how do we know when to push a bit, and when just to let the day happen? That's the trick, I guess, but I think it comes just from being with your kids, which is the real work of homeschooling. Just knowing them. Just being. No fear, no strife. Just life.