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Archive for the ‘General’ Category
The “One Thing” Drum Beat
For two years, my kids got stuck in Ancient Greece. Try as I might to drag them into Rome, they dug in their heels and kept reading myths. We read them in every version we could find them. Correction: my kids read them. I read the first myth book aloud to them and then they took off finding alternate versions of the stories.
They not only read myths, they wrote them. They drew the gods and goddesses. They discovered myths from other cultures and compared them to the Ancient Greeks. They found references to gods and mythology in Shakespeare. They were overjoyed when they realized that painters love Greek mythology and became expert in identifying the stories in paintings and sculptures when we went to the art museum.
In short, they saturated themselves in mythology. I fretted a bit at the time. Shouldn’t we be reading Plato? Wouldn’t it be better for them to understand the role of the city-state and democracy as conceived by the Greeks? What about moving ahead to Egypt and Rome and into the Middle Ages? They wouldn’t budge.
I gave in. (I’m like that.) So over the course of two years, mythology dominated our homeschool experience. We certainly continued to do the things we usually did (math, language arts, reading aloud, poetry tea times, trips to museums, parks and the zoo, science-y projects, co-op). We watched the history channel occasionally. But for the most part, if you ask our older kids about those years, they will tell you: we studied mythology.
One day, they were done. We moved onto Ancient Egypt, Rome finally fell and we trundled into the dark ages. A highlight of that period: listening to Seamus Heaney recite “Beowulf.” A deeply satisfying period.
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Sometimes when we look at our homeschools, we want to be able to check off the chronological list of historical moments. We imagine that if we read the historical fiction, tie it to a timeline and discuss the major events in history, our children will be educated. We move them along, making sure we “cover” the whole Middle Ages in one year, or whatever.
Yet education has to do with investment and retention, the ability to generate meaning from what is being studied.
Many kids can’t make heads nor tails of time. Last week feels like a month ago. Christmas is ten years away. But history is all about time and imagination, the ability to put yourself in someone else’s place and know it as it was. If we move too quickly through history, we risk information overload and a deliberate disconnect from the material in favor of “getting through it.”
We have a running joke in our family. I majored in history, but Jon recalls historical dates and events better than I do. I can tell you a lot about trends, the philosophical conditions of each period of history, how people lived and what they wanted or knew. He can tell you what year the government was overthrown in Guatemala. (And a lot more than that too.)
Even as a history major, though, knowing the facts of history has not been key to my success as a student, as an adult, as an educated person.
What’s been useful to me is knowing how to learn, how to analyze, what to do with the information once I have it, how to make connections. By allowing my kids to wallow in mythology for two years, they discovered a way into history that helped them imagine other times and places, that prepared them for other literature and religions from historical periods of the past. It created an anchor point from which to examine other cultures.
In applying the “one thing” theory to other aspects of homeschool, pay attention to what “hooks the jaw.” If one of your kids becomes utterly fascinated with weapons, use that fascination as the access point to look at history. I remember when Noah spent six months watching World War 2 movies with his dad. He also drew tanks and guns into a sketch book. We read some historical fiction from that time period as well.
“One thing” implies trusting that the immersion in one topic that really interests will lead to all the learning necessary. There’s that spill over of developed vocabulary (genocide, Aryans, socialism), calculations about numbers of people (Holocaust, Normandy) or years (when the war started for whom and when it ended) and months (military campaigns) or distances (how far is it to fly from Japan to Pearl Harbor and on how much gas?), geography (which countries existed where and when and for how long), alliances, philosophy, and economics….
Knowing how these fit together in one period is enough for a long time. It provides the right frame of reference for future historical studies. When absorbed, the next war or period examined will automatically be internally compared to this first one. Momentum is gained when you yield to interest. Real learning takes place and created connections point to the next phase of study.
A girl’s overnight
Caitrin turned 11 on September 12, the day before her older sister left for college. Not exactly the birthday present she wanted. Anticipating this change in our family and the loss it would be for Caitrin, we planned a trip to the American Girl Store in Chicago for a week later. It gave her something to look forward to, and I knew it would probably be the last year she would be interested in such a trip.
On the northwest drive from Cincy, she sat in the front seat next to me, happily chattering about musicals she loves, Little Women (the book she’s reading) and fashion (her passion). We played games: searching for the alphabet in order using billboards and store signs (there’s a stretch through Indiana that is seriously lacking in signage which made the game that much more competitive), and we played the alphabet game where you name a musical artist for each letter of the alphabet (or alternatively, we also played where we named a song whose title started with each letter of the alphabet).
We listened to “Hairspray” an embarrassing number of times… and sang at the top of our lungs to it. (If you don’t know that musical, get yourselves to the movie immediately – what a happy, uplifting story!)
The Chicago hotel room included a pink American Girl bed for her doll (is that cute or what?). We shopped in all the designer stores, laughing at the high prices (a purse for $7,000.00? Are you kidding me?). We saw an episode of ER being filmed in the square just opposite the AG store. That evening, we ate dinner in the American Girl Cafe (featured in the photo here).
The time away was nurturing in every way. When we returned to the hotel after our dinner, we went to the pool together (her favorite). I sat in the jacuzzi watching her dunk and dive, singing to herself. She’s eleven for another eleven months. I’m glad.
Friday Freewrite: Three words
Write using the following three words:
- warped
- brush
- aquamarine
Good news, good news
I never get tired of hearing how Brave Writer students fare in college composition classes. Just yesterday, I ran into one of my local friends. I helped her son write his college admissions essay. He also took Kidswrite Basic back in junior high when I taught it. This is not a kid who I remember for his writing. He struck me as a typical boy writer who simply needed some coaxing to discover that the thoughts in his head deserved to be recorded in writing. He is more than able to tell a good story about himself and his experiences given the right set of questions and time to develop his thoughts. In working with him on the admissions essay, it was very enjoyable for me to see him develop insight into his experiences (more than merely reporting them).
So when I ran into his mom, she stopped me to say, “Dan got his first essay back in English Comp 101 at Miami of Ohio.”
“Oh?” I said. “How’d he do?” I expected her to tell me he had done well, earning an A or B (figuring she wouldn’t stop me to tell me he failed).
“Well, he not only got an A on his paper, the professor asked him to sign a permissions notice so that the department could publish his essay in the English department journal as an example of what a well-written essay should look like for incoming freshmen.”
“Nuh-uh,” I replied articulately.
“Yuh-huh,” she countered. And we both cracked up. Dan – her son, not her naturally-gifted writing daughters.
There’s something about those opening hooks, the ease with which Brave Writer kids learn to express themselves combined with their confidence in applying their writing voices to academic formats. Their writing wins over their professors. It keeps happening.
If you have a story to tell, please share it here!