Midwest Homeschool Convention - Part 2 "In Which We Learn Things"

It's likely no one is dying to know what I thought of the convention session I want to, but I thought I'd share anyway. At the very least, it will be like my fellow warrrior mother Lisa and I are comparing notes, since we can't actually do so over coffee and chocolate. (A fact which makes me sad. Let's go have a spa weekend together or something! Hey, if we're dreaming, we should dream big, right?)

I mentioned in my last post that I had been very excited to see Susan Wise Bauer and Andrew Pudewa especially, and they were the first two sessions I went to on Friday morning. First, Dr. Bauer gave a talk about teaching writing from grades K-12, and while it was nothing I didn't already know, as a loyal follower of her material (we even use First Language Lessons, although I don't usually repeat things like "a noun is a name of person, place, or idea" as many times as Dr. Bauer's mother, who wrote the book, suggests we do). I know all the whys and wherefores of copywork, dictation, narration, outlines, etc.. But it was so good to hear her affirm in person that laying the foundation in this way is important, good, and the best way to achieve good writing skills in the end. And in the next hour, Andrew Pudewa reinforced this idea of laying a good foundation in his session "The Four Deadly Errors of Teaching Writing," which was great for teaching writing, of course, but really applied to so much more. (If you want a more detailed explanation of his session, you can find it here. Honestly, I was in and out for some of it, with a restless toddler, but I what I loved most was his assertion that you can't help a child too much, that this idea of forcing them to be independent and work it out for themselves is counter-productive. Of course when I heard him say it like that, it made sense, since in other aspects of life we believe in letting children take their own steps toward independence and not forcing it on them. He said that often teachers, including homeschool parents, want to use the "sink or swim" approach, but that if we use such an approach in teaching swimming, most kids would actually die. In fact, we overteach swimming to kids, and hang on to them until they are the ones to push away. We can do the same with teaching, and they will be able to do work on their own, and will let us no in no uncertain terms when they're ready. The other point he made that I needed to hear was that children need clear and specific instructions in their assignments. Broad, vague instructions are unfair to the student and frustrate, if no completely impede, the writing process. And you know what, dear parents, if you don't understand the assignment or wouldn't want to do it, don't make your kids do it! That was great.

I went to a Christopher Perrin session later in the day, but wasn't able to hear much of that one, only enough to make me want to see him the next day. But I started the next morning with Susan Wise Bauer and Andrew Pudewa again, and once again, it seemed that their sessions were similarly themed. Andrew Pudewa talked about Teaching Boys and other Children Who Would Rather Build Forts all day, and unfortunately I only got the first of that one, in which he discussed the different ways in which boys and girls hear, see, and interpret,. Of course, I knew all that, but it was interesting to hear some statistics, as well as his own amusing anecdotes. I heard more from Dr. Bauer next, who talked about Homeschooling the "Real" Child (i.e. the child who is distractible, argumentative, poky, or vague). Since I have several different personalities here, that was good to hear. She explained that those "problems" in  children are often just symptoms of frustration, and she gave good tips on how to provide a learning environment that better suits their needs. I loved that she discounted the notion that assignments should be used for character building, and that she reminded her audience - with  thinly veiled frustration on her part over the obedience-heavy parenting seminars often found at Christian homeschool conventions - that children are people, not robots, and that often if they are arguing over a math assignment, it's just an argument over a math assignment, not a symptom of large-scale rebellion. Later that afternoon, I went to hear Christopher Perrin again, at his session about the "Lighter Side of Education." It was thoughtful, full of conviction, and encouraging. He talked about returning to meditation on God's Word, on holding on to the wonder of the world that kids are born with and taking that wonder on the natural path to worship. He talked about true learning, the kind of learning that has nothing to do with preparing for tests and training workers, but which cultivates the soul and prepares ourselves and our children for shaping the culture. It was really wonderful.

These speakers are quite successful in their respective fields and are proponents of true academic excellence. But they path they each recommend in acheiveing that excellence is one of joy, peace, mutual respect, and true learning. They each denounce imprisonment and tyranny, words that Andrew Pudewa actually used about modern education. Christopher Perrin added to that idea when he said that our modern education actually kills the wonder of the world in children, so that by seventh grade are so, we have schools full of hardened cynics. None of them said that teachers don't work hard, or that teachers are at fault, by the way, so no one needs to get ruffled feathers about that. I can't really offer an opinion about what public school teachers can or should do to work against the system, or about what public school parents can to do combat a system of imprisonment. Homeschooling parents, by the way, can imprison their children, too. They can break their wills and crush their spirits as well, with a tyranny that only looks different because it's at home, but is in fact part of the same twisted philosophy of education. In any case, the facts are there - what each person and family believes they can do about it is up to them. All I can offer is what I know should be true about homeschooling, and what the sessions at the convention this weekend reaffirmed for me - homeschooling should be about freedom to pursue excellence. (It's interesting to me that people seem to have a hard time with this "less is more" concept, and tend to see freedom and excellence as mutually exclusive.) Homeschooling should be about nurturing children's minds and souls, so that they grow in the way God designed them, so that they connect with this huge and complex tapestry that is our universe, the one that is so much bigger and better than this teeny, tiny box that is our relatively new modern educational system. It should even be more than trying to fit our kids in the mold of modern homeschooling "ideals." What are we after, anyway? If we are after true learning, real school, actual excellence, we will let go of fear and stop comparing, we will hear our children, we will embrace joy in learning, both for ourselves as well as for our children.