Our Poetry Teatimes are rarely elaborate, but I find if I keep it simple it is more likely to happen. Here are five of my six children, my only little boy is in his highchair to the side. It’s was a wonderful, rainy day and I made tea time special by lighting candles.
Thank you for always being so encouraging.
Bethany
Home education is a free fall of faith into a kind of learning, more than a set of objectives. We are trusting that the connections our children make between academics and snuggles, gaming and the three R’s will yield such a good overall education, our children will be prepared for the adult world—taking their place as fully qualified adults. We may move between home education and co-ops, public and private schools, tutoring and online courses to achieve our ultimate goals. Yet no matter how the homeschool is configured and no matter which aids we supply to our efforts, the belief is that the foundations we lay in the home as a family will result in both academic and social success—long term.
Yet what happens for most of us is that we flail! We can’t tell if we are making the right kind of progress. We doubt ourselves nearly every step of the way. We front load lots of scheduled academic work, then we back off in favor of delight-directed learning…until one child never leaves the computer for a 24 hour period and we freak out again and go back to daily work pages.
Then we wonder: What works? What am I doing right? If anything? Worse—What am I doing wrong? Everything?
To calm the anxious heart of an educator, it helps to take a bird’s eye look at what it means to learn. That’s the crux of our quest—the horcrux of our quest, really! If we could understand that learning was actually happening, we could relax a little, trust a little, take a few risks with less of the “freak-out” factor.
In last week’s Periscopes, I suggested that we would understand learning better if we looked at the research about the brain—examining what it means to learn. Part One of the Brain-Based Learning Scope has been viewed over 800 times in less than a week. I think it must be resonating! Part Two picks up where Part One left off. Be sure to watch it first.
Also, check out these two websites (they are easy to read and understand):
I also reference a specific 12 point model that can be found here.
If you step back from the curriculum hunt and understand the objectives of what you are really about—connections in the mind, cognitive development—you can look at what is happening in your home differently. You will focus less on whether you are “covering” the right stuff and more on whether it is taking root, catalyzing investigation, creating those important interconnections, and so on.
P.S. Received this fun comment from Brave Writer mom Venessa:
Julie,
Thanks for giving these talks on Periscope. I followed at your link so I couldn’t respond but I wanted to share with you that my 11 year old daughter was in the room working and in her peripheral perception was following your talk. She said more than once “See!!!?! She’s right!” Especially for points 7,9, and 11! 🙂
Thanks again!
Venessa
Enjoy the Scope, Brain-Based Learning: Part Two!
Hi Julie,
After we spoke yesterday, I hurried to the kitchen and grabbed a dog-eared recipe box; it’s the container for one of my most prized possessions. Inside the box are dozens of index cards. Each card is written with the beautiful words spoken by my two sons during the first six years of their lives. This box is a powerful portal into a time when their words were filled with awe and wonder. With the box in hand, I quickly ushered my youngest son to the couch. Together we opened the lid and began our journey.
As my son and I laughed at the silly and candid phrases that he had spoken, I began to realize that somewhere along the way I had lost the joy of my sons’ words. Now at ages 12 and 13, I’m usually telling my boys to be quiet and stop talking so I can think! Does it seem odd in this digital era to capture the words of my children on paper cards?
Well, I will forever treasure the holding of these cards and eagerly passing them between us as we sat reading. Hopefully, the cards will inspire a new sense of wonder in their more grown up voices. 🙂
Thanks again for our talk.
Harriet
Have you ever had a fake (or real) tattoo? If so, describe the experience. Then write your thoughts about permanent tattoos. Are they a good or bad idea? Explain.
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Image by Tommy Wong (cc cropped, tinted)
One of the hidden side effects of “not liking writing” is “not liking self.” We don’t talk about it much. We think that resistance to writing is a resistance to school or hard work. We tend to believe our kids are being disobedient or lazy.
To “hate” writing as a child usually means the young person has not yet made the connection that what is going on inside is worthy of the page! Heck, many adults have yet to make that connection! The pervasive critique of mechanics and raw thought makes many would-be writers withdraw from public scrutiny.
When we accept the idea that children “hate writing,” we unwittingly turn off the tap to joy in learning. Writing is the chief expression of self in academic life. Even higher math requires explanation and proofs in writing.
Children want to be seen as successful, bright, and capable. If they risk their private thoughts, ideas, and flights of imagination and are met with judgment, they decide that learning itself is not worth the effort. By high school, some stuck writers have checked out of traditional education all together.
It doesn’t have to be this way!
The writing life lives inside your young writers right now—no matter how poor their punctuation, spelling, handwriting, and grammar.
Kids need to know that the writer inside is alive and well—that the mechanics of writing are a necessary challenge to be mastered over time, but not a referendum on the child’s success as a learner or writer.
You can do this for your child every time you value the writing risk. Hold the writing in your palm tenderly, with a look of love. Yes, even the writing that says, “I hate writing” and “This is dumb.”
Underneath those objections is a quieter cry: “What if what I put on paper makes your face look worried or disappointed? What will I do then?”
Start early—value the writing risk, love the child’s self expression, get as much of it to paper as possible, hold it as a sacred crystal vase—sturdy, beautiful, fragile. See the light refracted through it.
Work on mechanics as “no big deal” and “we all get there eventually” and “you don’t have to be a good speller to be a GREAT writer.”
Children raised this way see learning as open to them, and education as satisfying.
This is the gift you can give your children if you protect them from hating writing.
You can do this!
