Archive for the ‘Brave Writer Philosophy’ Category

A little heart-to-heart

JulieShoulderHand
My aim in Brave Writer is to liberate parents from their anxieties around home education—to help them foster, nurture, and support the beautiful originality of their children, and to get some of that personhood to paper (or screen). I have compiled in our materials, on the blog, and through Facebook, an extensive collection of tips, tricks, personal experiences, theories, analogies, insights, processes, practices, images, and ideas to help make homeschooling alive, powerful, and satisfying.

My focus—the angle through which I express my homeschooling ideas—is writing (that’s my strength and expertise). Writing is fed by a vibrant cognitive life and rich lived experiences. Homeschooling is THE context in which both of these can occur easily, with great achievement and satisfaction. Quality writing will follow. I promise.

The context is everything…for everything. Truly. The materials are like intermittent signs on the path that are meant to urge you to “keep going” and to trust your instincts, hunches, and inspiration—to allow writing to be more than academic check boxes, but the vehicle through which you preserve the various voices of your children through their childhoods, just as photographs preserve their growing bodies.

Far be it from me to overly script how you live or how you instruct! I want your homeschool to look like your family!

So it pains me (if I’m honest) when I read a description online somewhere of BW materials that talks about them as though they are not rigorous enough or scheduled enough or leave parents not knowing what to do. Part of me wants to jump out of my chair and say: “Read, imbibe, ponder, consider, take a small action, see what happens, then allow your inspiration to be re-catalyzed before you take the next action.”

Home education is not all that amenable to hard-and-fast schedule. I’ve spoken with hundreds (?) or thousands (?) of parents in 14 years (I can’t count). No two want the same schedule. Truly!

I don’t want to be the one to tell you what the mark is that you won’t hit.

Yes, it’s useful to get a lay of the land (the Brave Writer Lifestyle is all about how to establish a routine that is soothing, adaptable, and predictable). But to tell you how many pages to read a day? To explain which day to read the words in the chapter and which day to do the writing project? That’s just destined to undermine you.

I want to be the one who tells you: You are hitting the mark you care about already—by being who you are. Now, if you need catalysts for your imagination, for your aspirations, and for academic achievement—try this, and this, and maybe this too.

I’ll put those ideas into carefully selected words, with maximum space for you to interpret them according to the quirky personalities of your particular family. There just isn’t enough homeschool curricula that thinks about YOU and your uniqueness. Most are focused on subject matter and “getting through” material.

There is no magic bullet here. No “wave the wand” and you will have academic achievement and happy learners.

Those feelings come from the attentive, slow study of your children. Materials aid you in acting on your best intentions so that you follow through (and so that you have ideas in the middle of pregnancy induced memory-loss hormones, breast-feeding let down, small child mind-distraction, and teenage child worry).

This is what I propose in every product—I’m offering aid, help, possibilities, giving you a new way to think to trigger your own creativity and thoughtfulness.

I am producing the next level (Faltering Ownership) for our writing products right now. I look forward to releasing it. My main worry in producing these “writing project” books is that parents won’t have made the paradigm shift around writing first—the ideas expressed in The Writer’s Jungle. Instead, they will bring the same set of suppositions and assumptions to writing that they’ve always brought, producing the same resistance they’ve always gotten, or they will feel that the schedule isn’t “clear enough.”

No schedule can be clear enough. As soon as it is, you wind up in guilt for not living up to it!

I won’t ever give you that “schedule.” But I also hope I will never give you that guilt.

Paradigm shifts are slow…slow…slow…until Ping! You get it. It takes reading and rereading, trying, testing, tasting, and waiting. It takes courage and a willingness to live with the discomfort of trust.

For those of you on the journey, I salute you! Keep going.

Thanks for letting me share.

If you have comments or thoughts, I’d love to hear them. I learn a lot from our BW families, and I hope that this little freewrite might let you better understand me and my aims for Brave Writer.

Cross-posted on facebook.

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You are Not a Teacher

You are not a teacher


As a career goal, wanting to be a “teacher” is not one I would choose. I might choose to teach (for instance, I love teaching theology at Xavier University, I love teaching writing to my students at Brave Writer, and I loved teaching acting to the homeschool co-op students). But without a specific subject area, teaching in and of itself doesn’t interest me. Being a “teacher” is less interesting to me than participating in the learning process in subjects I care about.

We grew up in schools, most of us. We are aware of adults who choose teaching as careers. Some choose to teach because they love children. Some choose to teach because they love lesson-planning and creating a classroom environment. Many choose to teach because once proficient in their favorite subject, they enjoy passing that information on to the next generation. Of course there are those who choose to teach because they’ve seen teaching modeled as an adult career for 12+ years of their lives, and they can envision themselves in that role in a way they can’t imagine themselves into any other adult field.

In homeschool, we are in an entirely different environment from school. “Teaching” in its school sense is counterproductive to your goals.

You won’t likely stand in front of a dry erase board, poised to lecture your four kids. You don’t consult a set of criteria delivered to you by the board of education and figure out how to squeeze that into your year.

What you can do and do almost effortlessly, though, is model learning. Your enjoyment of the books you read aloud, your passion to track down information about a historical fact, your curiosity about nature and art create an appetite for learning in your home. This lifestyle of learning starts with you, a learner—not you, the teacher. You don’t teach kids to value learning. You learn. You value it. You live it.

I like to say that we should live our passionate curiosities in front of our kids. If reading about Charlotte Mason’s advocacy for art appreciation has piqued your interest in art, dive in. No lesson plan. No script for exciting children about art. Simply get interested in art:

  • Buy the books with large photos of paintings and pore over them while you sip your morning coffee.
  • Leave them on the coffee table and page through them while you nurse the baby.
  • Load the DVD player with Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting and watch—right in the middle of the morning, when “school” should be happening.
  • Get out the charcoal pencils and try your hand at drawing your hand. You can do this while a child is working on math. At the same table.

Likewise, if reading a book about the Sioux tribe to your children makes you want to know more information about what happened to Native Americans in South Dakota, Google it. Read the information to yourself, for yourself. You can share it, if a child is interested. But you be interested. Learn it for yourself.

Sometimes what matters to your child will overlap with what matters to you. Reveal how connections (the science of relations) creates a tapestry of education. Perhaps the artwork you are looking at depicts an era in history that is a current fascination of your son’s. Show the paintings as snapshots in time of the very era being studied in text. Discuss. Perhaps several different painters (in different eras) depict the Greek myths according to the tastes of their time. If you and your children are enjoying reading the myths, these paintings could be a wonderful companion to that study. Compare. Consider.

You might be passionate about much more mundane subjects, too. I spent about a decade obsessed with the rock band, U2. I read daily articles, books, watched films, went to concerts, listened to their albums. My kids watched me develop a passion that led to so much in my life (from music to politics to theology to geography to published writing—mine about the band!).

What sets homeschooling apart is the ability to lead a life of learning with your children (not in addition to, not instead of, not on purpose to “teach” something). You get to pursue what interests you, and in the process your children will see a real living model of learning. THAT education is worth dozens of textbooks. You are giving your children a template for how to be self-teaching, how to cultivate a curiosity, how to pursue a passion.

That’s the real education. That’s the best kind of teaching.

Brave Learner Home

Image by Laura D’Alessandro (cropped, tinted, text added)

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Just how foreign is writing?

WBWW 118- Image by Lisa

A debate exists about writing: is it related to speech? If so, how much? If not, why not?

One camp says that learning to write is akin to learning to speak a foreign language. Writing is as foreign to native speakers of any language as Amharic is to you or me (unless you are Ethiopian!). That’s why children struggle to become fluent writers, so the thinking goes. Children are naturally wired for speech and are frustrated trying to translate those words into language suitable for writing (the style of it, the vocabulary of it, the spelling of it, the punctuating of it, the organization of it, the handwriting or typing of it). Even my mentor, Peter Elbow, says that some people feel as if they are translating speech into something else when they write. Have you ever experienced the “Hmmm, how shall I say this?” thought as you sit down to actually write the thought you are having?

That’s what this camp is getting at. There’s a weird translation process between speech and writing. Because so many of us have experienced that moment, there’s a sense in which it must be true: writing must be so different from speech, we are prone to writer’s block as a result.

There is a bit of truth in this perspective. The brain is not wired for writing, like it is for speech. Writing is a learned activity. Speech, however, is hardwired into all human beings.

The other camp sees writing as related to speech. Dr. Peter Elbow, again, recently published an entire book, Vernacular Eloquence: What Speech Can Bring to Writing(affiliate link), that attempts to make this case to a resistant academy. Writing is the extension of speech, he argues. If we can understand speech first, and then see how it informs and creates writing, we will wave a wand of release over thousands of frozen would-be writers. The mechanics are only one aspect of writing—writing actually sits inside each of us as native speakers already.

What is fascinating is that in the world of homeschooling programs, both views rely on copywork, dictation, and two varieties of narration (oral and written) to help students gain fluency in “writing.” But their starting points of view are polar opposites.

What I’ve noticed in my work with thousands of families is that children are more inclined to put in the effort of learning the skills associated with writing when they can see that it relates to a skill they have already mastered: the English language.

When we talk about putting their thoughts into written words, we are asking them to identify thoughts! In Brave Writer, I suggest you “catch your child in the act of thinking.” Help your child discover that he or she is having thoughts worthy of record: write them down when they least expect it, when you hear those thoughts tumbling out of their mouths!

Every single day your children are not only thinking thoughts, but using those thoughts to generate oral language. That language can easily become written language when they have a transcriptionist (you!).

Once the connection is made (“what’s inside my head and comes out of my mouth can also be what shows up on paper and is read to others”), teaching the mechanics of writing becomes much more interesting to children. They get it—writing is about their mind lives and they love sharing those thoughts with others.

Are there style differences between writing and speaking? Of course! Are there pesky rules of grammar and syntax that prefer one over the other (sometimes we allow in speech what we prefer not to use in writing)? Naturally.

But if we start by seeing writing as foreign (as a foreign language), if we begin from a mental space that says that writing is “hard work” and that the “discipline” of writing requires rote work with someone else’s words first, if we suggest that what is inside your child is not yet suited to the page until some kind of mastery is achieved in handwriting or spelling, we literally alienate the fluent native speaker from writing—from believing in his or her writing voice before it has uttered a written peep!

That alienation, time and again, manifests as writer’s block or not caring. The spark of individuality that is your child is lost in all this “hard work of precision and accuracy.” Accuracy matters, but it is not more important than originality of thought. Accuracy can be added; originality can be lost.

What studies are showing to be true is that children are far more likely to take writing risks when they believe that their content is valuable, and when they trust their thought lives to be adequate to self-expression. They are more likely to work on their mechanics if they experience the mechanics as supporting their original thoughts, rather than having to show perfect mechanics before they are permitted to have original thoughts.

If we value our children’s thought lives, help them to express themselves in Big Juicy Conversations, if we transcribe some of their ideas and read them back later to our children, if we ask for expansion of thoughts and show curiosity, if we model language choices that are more likely to be associated with written language models, our children will, absolutely, discover writing in much the same way they found speech!

They will risk, test, try, show off, back away, make huge silly errors, make huge leaps of logic, express vocabulary beyond their years, will imitate and create, startle and master, and sometimes mess with you and act like they don’t have a thing to say. But they will grow! This is what growth looks like.

The approach we use in Brave Writer does not see writing as a foreign or antagonistic process that requires painful hard work. Rather, we see writing as the opportunity to take speech further—to enhance, expand, and nourish speech (oral language, inner thought), and then to preserve and share it with interested audiences.

Kids respond well to this vision of writing. They love to read, to be read to, to talk and converse. Writing, particularly in today’s dialogical world of the Internet, is another conversational tool. We can learn how to wield writing for a variety of audiences, but why not start with the one closest to home? Why not let them write for themselves? Then for you, and then for their friends, and finally for “academic purposes.” This is the progression that works.

I hope you feel reassured. You are not teaching Hindi to your kids, with a whole new language structure and vocabulary. Writing in one’s native tongue is built from the English already spoken and understood. Writing is simply gaining mechanical skills to transcribe one’s own fluent thoughts, and learning how to develop these thoughts into the flow of written language.

Brave Writer has created oodles of tools and tactics to help kids “get it.” We’ve got more in the pipeline.

You can help your kids learn to write well. Start from the idea that your children are writers already, learning mechanical skills, in search of a supportive editor/reader: you.

You can do it!

And so can they!

Cross-posted on facebook.

Image by Brave Writer mom, Lisa (cc)

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Peace and Progress

We want peace and progress in our homeschools. Let these be the type of measurements we use:

Peace: you all get along with each other, the house hums with happy energy, projects and play are in full flow, there’s enough food in the cabinets, a satisfying mess reassures you that your kids are engaged, not bored and dissatisfied.

Progress: today is a little better than yesterday, you get a little farther in the plan, someone understands what was not understood yesterday, someone else applies a new skill, you keep calm when you want to yell, one child helps another child when asked.

Peace: you trust your instincts, you listen to the feeling messages your children express and are open to them, you put connection ahead of expectation, you turn away from standards imposed on you, you pat yourself on the back when you accomplish a single goal, you offer assistance rather than scolding.

soccer challenge
 

Progress: you measure new aspects of education—concentration, effort put forth, attempts, risks, asking for help, trying again after failing, initiative, creativity, originality, problem-solving, attention to detail, making connections between subject areas.

Peace: you remember that you love who your children are today more than your vision of who you hope they will become.

Progress: you note and praise the achievements your children value in themselves—the new soccer skill, the ability to hiccup 60 times in a row, the block tower, the house of cards, beating a sibling in Yu-Gi-Oh.

How might you foster peace, and facilitate progress in your homeschool? How might you measure newly?

Images by woodleywonderworks

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You Have Time

You Have Time

More than enough. No matter where you are in the homeschooling journey, time is on your side.

Your child should be reading? How does rushing help? How does panicking about time enhance the quality of the work you do together? How does adding pressure to the mix create space for your child to grow and learn and discover?

Your child is at the critical age (7, 10, 12, 15, 17! 19 gasp!). You can’t let the child slide any more. It’s TIME to get serious about X, Y, and Z because it all counts now….So what will you do? Buckle down? Press harder? Generate more tension and resistance? Put the child in school, ground the teen, remove computer privileges? This strategy will yield learning, and will make up for lost time, how? This pressuring and panicking will prepare your child for life after living at home, how?

All you have is time. There’s no law in the book that says your child has to be in college at 18, or ready for high school at 14, or reading by 9. These are made up, to suit a big bunch of people passing through an impersonal system.

You are at home.

Take your time. You have oodles of it.

If you are truly concerned about a child’s progress, pick one area and focus on it. But focus on it not in a panicky, “We are behind; you are resistant and willful” kind of way. Focus on it like a tangled necklace that requires your reading glasses, full concentration, and patience as you really see the threads, one at a time, and you slowly, gently tease them apart until Voila! The whole chain slips free of itself.

Your child needs your patience, not your urgency.

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Your child needs your patience, not your urgency. Your child needs your reassurance that you will take whatever time necessary to solve this puzzle. Your child needs you to look into resources and references that train you to be a better parent during this challenging season. Your child needs you to tease apart the threads—the details of what isn’t working, not just the general panic that says, “Oh my word! He is so behind!”

You Have Time

You may also need to examine whether the timeline in your head is even realistic or necessary. It is difficult to let go of our traditions around education. I remember when I realized that Liam needed four years of junior high level work, not three. It was a great decision to step out of “grade level” and simply focus on learning and enjoying that year together.

He is also taking a year and a half off between high school and college, just this year, meaning he’ll start college in the fall at age 20. What’s wrong with that? Why wouldn’t we be okay with that choice? Ironically, this is the kid who learned to read the earliest of any of our kids (age 6). So being “ahead” back then didn’t mean he was ready to go to college more quickly or even when most kids go.

We home educators need to stop being so enamored with the educational framework we inherited from traditional school. What is required, is being tuned into your child!

“Go slow to go fast.”

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Have you heard the phrase: “Go slow to go fast”?

If you slow your pace to really grasp the details, the meaning, the skill set required for your child—if you practice and master those aspects of the subject area that are essential rather than brushing by them or giving them cursory attention or whizzing through a workbook without total comprehension or mastery—in the end, you will be a whiz at performing using those skills and tools. You’ll know what you are doing and you won’t be stopped by ambivalence, confusion, hesitation, and uncertainty. You will “go fast” because you “went slow” at the start.

Reorient your clock to human being time, not school time. Help your children to “go slow, to go fast.”

If your child is not interested in writing, turn your attention to your child’s interests. Capture some of them in writing for your child. Use writing in your child’s presence and be interested in what your child says (what words come out of his or her mouth). Be an advocate for your child’s limits—give the tools and resources, carve time from the full schedule to “go slow” with writing. One letter or one word at a time, for a good long while, may be the best way forward. No pressure, just care and consistency.

If you are lying awake at night worried about a child who is showing chronic lack of progress in a specific area of education, you will want to consult an expert for assessment. This is good parenting. Be careful not to push the panic button, though. This is a step you take after having gone slowly. Spend unhurried time getting to know your child’s specific struggle rather than rushing to judgment. You might discover the key that unlocks the gate through your own patient work.

For instance, it was when I paid closer attention to Johannah’s struggle with reading that I finally saw what was happening for her. She was unable to recognize the alphabet when the fonts varied or changed (it was like trying to read 7-10 alphabets for her, rather than a single one). Once I “caught” what was happening, I tailored our phonics work to mastering the alphabet first, as it showed up in cursive, manuscript, serif and sans serif fonts. Next thing you knew, she read!

She was nearly 9, but that hasn’t limited her in a single way as an adult.

Read the manual, understand the instructions, fine tune your philosophy, test the practice yourself (can you follow the instructions? can you work the problems? how does it feel to do copywork in another language?). See if you can approximate what is happening for your child. Become a student of your students.

Become a student of your students.

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Your job isn’t to push your children through a body of information by 18. Your choice, as a home educator, is to take the time required to get to know each of your children intimately so that you might facilitate the best, tailor-made education for each one that you can. You are supposed to take time to do it, and you are not responsible to ensure that it all happens at the same speed as traditional schooling.

“Go slow to go fast.”

Please.

A Gracious Space series

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