There are so many reasons to love this dear Saint. I'm reading "Confessions" today and stumbled upon this wonderful passage: "I learned all this, indeed, without being urged by any pressure of punishment, for my own heart urged me to bring forth its own conceptions." Such a lovely description of the joy of "unschooling." Just what I needed to read today!
From Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, "Confessions":
Chapter 14. Why He Despised Greek Literature, and Easily Learned Latin.
23. But why, then, did I dislike Greek learning which was full of like tales? For Homer also was skilled in inventing similar stories, and is most sweetly vain, yet was he disagreeable to me as a boy. I believe Virgil, indeed, would be the same to Grecian children, if compelled to learn him, as I was Homer. The difficulty, in truth, the difficulty of learning a foreign language mingled as it were with gall all the sweetness of those fabulous Grecian stories. For not a single word of it did I understand, and to make me do so, they vehemently urged me with cruel threatenings and punishments. There was a time also when (as an infant) I knew no Latin; but this I acquired without any fear or tormenting, by merely taking notice, amid the blandishments of my nurses, the jests of those who smiled on me, and the sportiveness of those who toyed with me. I learned all this, indeed, without being urged by any pressure of punishment, for my own heart urged me to bring forth its own conceptions, which I could not do unless by learning words, not of those who taught me, but of those who talked to me; into whose ears, also, I brought forth whatever I discerned. From this it is sufficiently clear that a free curiosity has more influence in our learning these things than a necessity full of fear. But this last restrains the overflowings of that freedom, through Your laws, O God—Your laws, from the ferule of the schoolmaster to the trials of the martyr, being effective to mingle for us a salutary bitter, calling us back to Yourself from the pernicious delights which allure us from You.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Portfolio Review-Or Liking The Thing You Thought You'd Hate
As further proof that God uses all things for his glory, I have now become the biggest fan of the "portfolio review." For those of you blessed to have either "school in a box" or a State that doesn't micromanage your home education curriculum, this sounds odd.
I live in the 16th largest school district in the United States (Montgomery County) in a state with some of the most stringent home schooling laws.
The way home education works in Maryland is that you choose one of three options. Option A, is the portfolio review, where you meet up with a public school administrator twice a year for a review of your child's school work. If the work is not up to par, you get a 30 day remedial period. If the child hasn't made satisfactory progress, you kid is immediately placed in public school.
Option B is to go with a special correspondence school (only two are licensed in the whole State.) Option C is to go with an approved home education curriculum. Under Option B and C, the local school board has nothing to do with you beyond filing a piece of paper. All assessment of your child's progress is left to be completely monitored by the home ed school of your choice.
Everyone who home schools in my parish assured me that it was "impossible" not to go with Mother Seaton, the only Catholic Home School curriculum approved by the State of Maryland. (Which I find hysterically ironic that there are multiple Amish, Mennonite and Free-Will Baptist curriculum available, but only one Catholic curriculum in the state where American Catholic Church began!) Even with the Mother Seaton set, I was strongly advised to sign up for the Home-School Defense Fund and remain on guard for unmerited reports by concerned neighbors to Children's Services.
Going the easy way is never really an option with the Benjamin Family. We prayed and prayed and prayed. It seemed pretty clear that while Mother Seaton has beautifully educated one of my favorite people (Maria from Ordinary Time), it isn't a good option for Hannah. As my husband blithely said "you can either have the daily stress of trying to enforce a curriculum that doesn't fit, or you can have two days of great stress as you meet with the school board each semester." We opted finally for the two days of great stress.
So now I'm trying to figure out what goes into the portfolio? Which is a much larger questions "how do you document unschooling?" and "if you measure something does it change the thing you are trying to measure?"
I'm going to print out the state kindergarten guidelines for Math, Language Arts, Science and Social Studies. I'm just going to file them in the back of the portfolio and check them off as we go along. I also invested in a Teacher Planner Book. There's no grand plan. Rather I just stop every so often and write down what we did that day.
The benefit is that while, I think that we spend most of our day simply "hanging out together", in hindsight there is quite a lot of learning activities going on that would make even the most stringent public administrator proud. That hungry crocodile game just appeared during one quiet nap time.
The benefit of the portfolio review is that it forces me to better reflect and record what happens each day. I'm please to realize in a concert way that what we call "living life" has other official educational names. For example, Hannah's home-made comic book is also called "mastering the concept of return sweep." I feel like I've moved from "Teacher" with a capital T, to 'scribe' with a small s. In my heart, I know this is where God means for me to be.
One of the most complicated thing I had to do as a swimming instructor was teach a kid how to float. There are lots of guidelines in the Red Cross handbook about how to teach the arm movements in free-style or the breaststroke kick. There is no strategy for teaching a kid how to float. Yet, all of swimming depends on that basic building block.
The problem is learning how to float is counter-intuitive. You need to completely relax in the water and "trust" that this "dangerous" substance will hold you.
To teach the youngest swimming class, I didn't focus much on this one critical skill which determined whether the kid passed or needed to repeat the class. Instead, I focused on gaining confidence in the water. I played crazy splashing games. We pretended the water was a boa constrictor that ate us slowly, first the feet, then the knees, etc.
On the last few classes, I held the kids in the water on their backs. My only direction was "put your ears in the water." I held then with both hands until I could feel the tension in their bodies relax. I asked their permission first to drop on hand, and finally simply hold up their bodies with the pressure from one finger. The way I taught kids how to go from "non-swimmers to swimmers" wasn't written in any textbook. I simply hung out patiently in the water with them for 8 weeks. When they were ready to try to float on their own, they told me. I was there to catch them if they sunk. In a class which was supposed to have a 35 percent average failure rate, I never, ever had a kid not be able to easily pass the critical floating test by last day of class.
I hope that this "hang out in the water thing" will work in a similar way for reading and math. As my kid's teacher, I naturally go for the more unstructured "wait, follow the kid's lead" approach. I'm so blessed to have this extra time together. I love hearing Alex theorize that the "red ball" will go faster in our gravity experiment because "red is the fastest color."
I'll leave you some notes on my blog from our journey this year. It's a little intimidating in the beginning, but we are already blessed with beautiful views.
I live in the 16th largest school district in the United States (Montgomery County) in a state with some of the most stringent home schooling laws.
The way home education works in Maryland is that you choose one of three options. Option A, is the portfolio review, where you meet up with a public school administrator twice a year for a review of your child's school work. If the work is not up to par, you get a 30 day remedial period. If the child hasn't made satisfactory progress, you kid is immediately placed in public school.
Option B is to go with a special correspondence school (only two are licensed in the whole State.) Option C is to go with an approved home education curriculum. Under Option B and C, the local school board has nothing to do with you beyond filing a piece of paper. All assessment of your child's progress is left to be completely monitored by the home ed school of your choice.
Everyone who home schools in my parish assured me that it was "impossible" not to go with Mother Seaton, the only Catholic Home School curriculum approved by the State of Maryland. (Which I find hysterically ironic that there are multiple Amish, Mennonite and Free-Will Baptist curriculum available, but only one Catholic curriculum in the state where American Catholic Church began!) Even with the Mother Seaton set, I was strongly advised to sign up for the Home-School Defense Fund and remain on guard for unmerited reports by concerned neighbors to Children's Services.
Going the easy way is never really an option with the Benjamin Family. We prayed and prayed and prayed. It seemed pretty clear that while Mother Seaton has beautifully educated one of my favorite people (Maria from Ordinary Time), it isn't a good option for Hannah. As my husband blithely said "you can either have the daily stress of trying to enforce a curriculum that doesn't fit, or you can have two days of great stress as you meet with the school board each semester." We opted finally for the two days of great stress.
So now I'm trying to figure out what goes into the portfolio? Which is a much larger questions "how do you document unschooling?" and "if you measure something does it change the thing you are trying to measure?"
I'm going to print out the state kindergarten guidelines for Math, Language Arts, Science and Social Studies. I'm just going to file them in the back of the portfolio and check them off as we go along. I also invested in a Teacher Planner Book. There's no grand plan. Rather I just stop every so often and write down what we did that day.
The benefit is that while, I think that we spend most of our day simply "hanging out together", in hindsight there is quite a lot of learning activities going on that would make even the most stringent public administrator proud. That hungry crocodile game just appeared during one quiet nap time.
The benefit of the portfolio review is that it forces me to better reflect and record what happens each day. I'm please to realize in a concert way that what we call "living life" has other official educational names. For example, Hannah's home-made comic book is also called "mastering the concept of return sweep." I feel like I've moved from "Teacher" with a capital T, to 'scribe' with a small s. In my heart, I know this is where God means for me to be.
One of the most complicated thing I had to do as a swimming instructor was teach a kid how to float. There are lots of guidelines in the Red Cross handbook about how to teach the arm movements in free-style or the breaststroke kick. There is no strategy for teaching a kid how to float. Yet, all of swimming depends on that basic building block.
The problem is learning how to float is counter-intuitive. You need to completely relax in the water and "trust" that this "dangerous" substance will hold you.
To teach the youngest swimming class, I didn't focus much on this one critical skill which determined whether the kid passed or needed to repeat the class. Instead, I focused on gaining confidence in the water. I played crazy splashing games. We pretended the water was a boa constrictor that ate us slowly, first the feet, then the knees, etc.
On the last few classes, I held the kids in the water on their backs. My only direction was "put your ears in the water." I held then with both hands until I could feel the tension in their bodies relax. I asked their permission first to drop on hand, and finally simply hold up their bodies with the pressure from one finger. The way I taught kids how to go from "non-swimmers to swimmers" wasn't written in any textbook. I simply hung out patiently in the water with them for 8 weeks. When they were ready to try to float on their own, they told me. I was there to catch them if they sunk. In a class which was supposed to have a 35 percent average failure rate, I never, ever had a kid not be able to easily pass the critical floating test by last day of class.
I hope that this "hang out in the water thing" will work in a similar way for reading and math. As my kid's teacher, I naturally go for the more unstructured "wait, follow the kid's lead" approach. I'm so blessed to have this extra time together. I love hearing Alex theorize that the "red ball" will go faster in our gravity experiment because "red is the fastest color."
I'll leave you some notes on my blog from our journey this year. It's a little intimidating in the beginning, but we are already blessed with beautiful views.
Math Games
Here's a fun way to explain "greater than" and "less than".
Take a small piece of paper. Write a "<" sign. Embellish with crocodile teeth. On the opposite side write a "=" sign.
Play Go Fish (or any other card game).
Have you kid deal the cards, counting out the right number for each person.
After the first match, explain that this is a special kind of hungry crocodile. His hungry mouth always wants to point to the person with the most pairs of matching cards.
Change the crocodile around whenever another player has more in his match pile.
Whenever there is a tie, flip the paper over to show "equals."
Hannah loved this visual way of keeping score. The whole greater, less than, and equal concept made complete sense to her in this circumstance. I was surprised to discover the >, <, = symbols are listed as 3rd Grade math.
As an added bonus, this concept cut down on her innate competition. She didn't freak out that I got a match as much as soon as she figured out that a score of 4 matches Mom to 6 matches kid, didn't flip the hungry crocodile around. (Did I mention that my kid easily beats me in Go Fish?)
Just another day messing around ias an unschooler. I love these type of "happy accidents."
Take a small piece of paper. Write a "<" sign. Embellish with crocodile teeth. On the opposite side write a "=" sign.
Play Go Fish (or any other card game).
Have you kid deal the cards, counting out the right number for each person.
After the first match, explain that this is a special kind of hungry crocodile. His hungry mouth always wants to point to the person with the most pairs of matching cards.
Change the crocodile around whenever another player has more in his match pile.
Whenever there is a tie, flip the paper over to show "equals."
Hannah loved this visual way of keeping score. The whole greater, less than, and equal concept made complete sense to her in this circumstance. I was surprised to discover the >, <, = symbols are listed as 3rd Grade math.
As an added bonus, this concept cut down on her innate competition. She didn't freak out that I got a match as much as soon as she figured out that a score of 4 matches Mom to 6 matches kid, didn't flip the hungry crocodile around. (Did I mention that my kid easily beats me in Go Fish?)
Just another day messing around ias an unschooler. I love these type of "happy accidents."
Monday, August 18, 2008
Amazing Olympic Story
My "paste" button isn't working today. Don't miss an incredible story behind the Catholic Olympian who served as the flag bearer for the United States of America.
Lopez is a "lost boy" from the Sudan. At age six he was kidnapped from his parent's side at Catholic Mass! The rebel soldiers broke into Church during Mass and stole all the young children at gun point. Can you imagine what his parents felt staring at the tabernacle after their children were stolen?
I can't imagine the intensity of those prayers. Prayer works, because it is an incredible miracle that he survived. After living in starvation circumstances in a heavily guarded rebel camp, some older boys took pity on this child. They helped him escape through a hole in the wall. The teenagers carried him for 3 days to Kenya. His little legs were too small to walk run that far. When runaways arrived, the older children were deemed too old to enter the refugee camp. Those boys were returned to the Sundanese government--probably to die. Only this little six year old got into the safety of the camp.
The refuge camp life was horribly hard. His education consisted of learning how to write letters in the dirt. After 10 years, Lopez (who got his nickname from Catholic missionaries) was told to "write an essay on why you want to go to the United States." Lopez said it was the most intense test he ever took in his life. For two days he sat in silence staring at the paper. Then he just wrote what was in his heart. He said it was a total mess, half in English/ half in Swahili. He didn't even notice the language switch before he turned it in.
He got picked to come to the United States. Catholic Social Services moved him into a Catholic family near Syracuse New York. His adopted mother described his crazy first day of school at age 15. "The English teacher assigned an in class essay titled "write about a book you read last summer. Lopez was called on second. He stood up and said "I've never owned a book. For the next twenty-five minutes, out tumbled a long auto-biographical account of his life. The entire class sat in amazed silence. I had my phone ringing off the hook with all these parents saying "is this true about Lopez?" She said "it's amazing. Lopez is in an all-white suburban school and by the second day, he was best friends with everyone." (This family ended up taking 5 Lost Boys from Sudan).
Now Lopez is an Olympic distance runner! It's incredible. I have even more respect for our Catholic Bishops after reading that they were the one's who got the US to change their immigration policy about unaccompanied minors in order to let the Lost Boys immigrate into the United States.
Lopez is a "lost boy" from the Sudan. At age six he was kidnapped from his parent's side at Catholic Mass! The rebel soldiers broke into Church during Mass and stole all the young children at gun point. Can you imagine what his parents felt staring at the tabernacle after their children were stolen?
I can't imagine the intensity of those prayers. Prayer works, because it is an incredible miracle that he survived. After living in starvation circumstances in a heavily guarded rebel camp, some older boys took pity on this child. They helped him escape through a hole in the wall. The teenagers carried him for 3 days to Kenya. His little legs were too small to walk run that far. When runaways arrived, the older children were deemed too old to enter the refugee camp. Those boys were returned to the Sundanese government--probably to die. Only this little six year old got into the safety of the camp.
The refuge camp life was horribly hard. His education consisted of learning how to write letters in the dirt. After 10 years, Lopez (who got his nickname from Catholic missionaries) was told to "write an essay on why you want to go to the United States." Lopez said it was the most intense test he ever took in his life. For two days he sat in silence staring at the paper. Then he just wrote what was in his heart. He said it was a total mess, half in English/ half in Swahili. He didn't even notice the language switch before he turned it in.
He got picked to come to the United States. Catholic Social Services moved him into a Catholic family near Syracuse New York. His adopted mother described his crazy first day of school at age 15. "The English teacher assigned an in class essay titled "write about a book you read last summer. Lopez was called on second. He stood up and said "I've never owned a book. For the next twenty-five minutes, out tumbled a long auto-biographical account of his life. The entire class sat in amazed silence. I had my phone ringing off the hook with all these parents saying "is this true about Lopez?" She said "it's amazing. Lopez is in an all-white suburban school and by the second day, he was best friends with everyone." (This family ended up taking 5 Lost Boys from Sudan).
Now Lopez is an Olympic distance runner! It's incredible. I have even more respect for our Catholic Bishops after reading that they were the one's who got the US to change their immigration policy about unaccompanied minors in order to let the Lost Boys immigrate into the United States.
St Jane Frances de Chantal Feast Day
What an amazing saint! Saint Jane loved her husband dearly. He died after being accidentially shot by a close family friend in a tragic hunting accident. Her husband forgive his friend on his death bed. "Don't commit the sin of hating yourself when you have done nothing wrong."
Jane struggled to match her husband's mercy. At first, Saint Jane made herself greet the man on the street. After some time, she made herself invite the man to dinner. Then she invited him into her house for dinner. Soon she had reconciled herself so completely, she served as godmother to the man's child.
This experience brought St. Jane close to God. She eventually developed a close spiritual friendship with Saint Fracis de Sales. St. Jane founded her own religious order taking in many of women who were deemed to old or sick to join other religious orders.
Saint Jane pray for us! Help us to forgive those people who severely hurt us. Help us to find the share you same peace in God during our most difficult struggles.
H/T: "Saints and Angels, Catholic Online"
Jane struggled to match her husband's mercy. At first, Saint Jane made herself greet the man on the street. After some time, she made herself invite the man to dinner. Then she invited him into her house for dinner. Soon she had reconciled herself so completely, she served as godmother to the man's child.
This experience brought St. Jane close to God. She eventually developed a close spiritual friendship with Saint Fracis de Sales. St. Jane founded her own religious order taking in many of women who were deemed to old or sick to join other religious orders.
Saint Jane pray for us! Help us to forgive those people who severely hurt us. Help us to find the share you same peace in God during our most difficult struggles.
H/T: "Saints and Angels, Catholic Online"
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Answers
Remember in an earlier post when I said "Our Lady tends to eschew theological discussions." Well, that certainly needs to be amended to "Our Lady tends to hold off on deep theological discussions until we are ready to truly listen. Man, did my head get expanded by this amazing lecture by our new parish priest, Father Avelino.
Father has taken his priesthood formation training from seminary and adapted it to us laity aspire to holiness. The basic idea is that the four elements of healthy humanity need to be developed equally in all of us: our relationships, our spirituality, our intellect and our apostolic ministry.
His talk was so deep and multi-layered. I'm sure that I'll be posting about different parts for the next few weeks.
Sitting in the lecture I had two overpowering thoughts. The first one, is that I'm clearly being called to join the lay Carmelite order. My husband and I have both discerned this call for awhile now. For months, I've started to see signs every where. Father mentioned the lay Carmelite order, just in passing during his speech, and I felt this tap on my head. It was a purely physical reaction my body had to those three words. It's becoming more and more obvious that this is where Jon and I are supposed to go.
The second over-powering thought is that I finally have a verbal words to all this vague feelings I had about my reasons for home-schooling.
In my life, I grew up with the intellect entirely separated from the rest of my soul. My parents are both strong Protestants, they are both college professors and they both actually teach at a Methodist college. Yet they raised me to have this strict wall between the "reason" part of my brain and the "faith" part. I went to public school and learned stuff there. Then I went to Sunday School and learned other stuff in that classroom. The stuff in the two classrooms never mixed.
The most extreme example of this division came in law school. We were trained by our professors NEVER to make value judgments. We couldn't argue one outcome was "better" or more "fair." We couldn't say "justice demands this." I had to check my heart at the door and make decisions on abstract legal concepts, which were more "fair" for being cold, reasonable and above feelings or emotions.
I know now, that the law does not operate in a vacuum. Real flesh and blood judges made decisions on gut feelings or sympathy all of the time. This artificial division of a law based on "pure reason" isn't accurate.
My hope for Hannah, is that she pursues her life as a Catholic. Being Catholic means someone who has faith, reason, passion all integrated in her life. The intellect is a means to "know God." It's important for her to learn how to read and write. Yet those are not goals in and of themselves. Her intellect has value only in so far as she uses her mind in harmony with her faith. That harmony is something I hope to model as Hannah's mom and as her kindergarten teacher.
There are so many wonderful, wonderful saints in the Arts and in the Sciences. My hope is that every thing we study, from addition to astronomy to the ABC, keep pointing us back to a deeper understanding of our faith.
I'm teaching because I want to be there to help heal this false division between reason and religion. I'm teaching because I'm excited about standing in that gap.
Father has taken his priesthood formation training from seminary and adapted it to us laity aspire to holiness. The basic idea is that the four elements of healthy humanity need to be developed equally in all of us: our relationships, our spirituality, our intellect and our apostolic ministry.
His talk was so deep and multi-layered. I'm sure that I'll be posting about different parts for the next few weeks.
Sitting in the lecture I had two overpowering thoughts. The first one, is that I'm clearly being called to join the lay Carmelite order. My husband and I have both discerned this call for awhile now. For months, I've started to see signs every where. Father mentioned the lay Carmelite order, just in passing during his speech, and I felt this tap on my head. It was a purely physical reaction my body had to those three words. It's becoming more and more obvious that this is where Jon and I are supposed to go.
The second over-powering thought is that I finally have a verbal words to all this vague feelings I had about my reasons for home-schooling.
In my life, I grew up with the intellect entirely separated from the rest of my soul. My parents are both strong Protestants, they are both college professors and they both actually teach at a Methodist college. Yet they raised me to have this strict wall between the "reason" part of my brain and the "faith" part. I went to public school and learned stuff there. Then I went to Sunday School and learned other stuff in that classroom. The stuff in the two classrooms never mixed.
The most extreme example of this division came in law school. We were trained by our professors NEVER to make value judgments. We couldn't argue one outcome was "better" or more "fair." We couldn't say "justice demands this." I had to check my heart at the door and make decisions on abstract legal concepts, which were more "fair" for being cold, reasonable and above feelings or emotions.
I know now, that the law does not operate in a vacuum. Real flesh and blood judges made decisions on gut feelings or sympathy all of the time. This artificial division of a law based on "pure reason" isn't accurate.
My hope for Hannah, is that she pursues her life as a Catholic. Being Catholic means someone who has faith, reason, passion all integrated in her life. The intellect is a means to "know God." It's important for her to learn how to read and write. Yet those are not goals in and of themselves. Her intellect has value only in so far as she uses her mind in harmony with her faith. That harmony is something I hope to model as Hannah's mom and as her kindergarten teacher.
There are so many wonderful, wonderful saints in the Arts and in the Sciences. My hope is that every thing we study, from addition to astronomy to the ABC, keep pointing us back to a deeper understanding of our faith.
I'm teaching because I want to be there to help heal this false division between reason and religion. I'm teaching because I'm excited about standing in that gap.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Curious George - Better Together, Jack Johnson
Who knew "Curious George" was so religious?
The authors were German Jews who had to escape the Natzi's on bicycle with a copy of their beloved children's book as one of their few possessions. Curious George was based on a little boy with Down Syndrome who escaped from an institution back in Early 20th Century Hamburg, Germany. His name has been lost in the ravages of WWII. It's believed that he was killed by the Natzis.
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