Understanding People

As Sam's mom and his teacher, I spend a lot of time thinking about how he learns and thinks. No matter how much one person can understand about another--it is still not much. We hold so much back from one another and I'm not sure it is a bad thing at all.

I makes being a child's teacher and parent a constant wrestling with "is this best for him?" and "how do I best respond to this behavior?" But then, so much of life is wrestling with ideas. God seems to have planned it that way. The Bible teaches that man has free will and that God calls and chooses his people before the creation of the world. These things seem to contradict one another. If we begin with the belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, we must wrestle with these apparant contradictions.

Then, I think about what I have learned about how the brain learns and develops and I think this wrestling and wondering is very stimulating and good for brain development. If we never stop this activity, our brains are constantly thinking of new things and we could be delaying the onset of alzheimers (sp?).

So, God doesn't answer all our questions because we'd have lazy, useless brains for doing the work he's called us to do. He didn't create robots.

So, how do I incorporate this into school? Try not to create a robot (there is only one way to do things). While encouraging curiosity and preparing my grammar kid for the rhetoric stage (which he is likely entering soon).

Happy wrestling

Finding a good start

I don't think a complete stop to school was a good idea. It took over a week to get back to school without complaints, whines, and fits. The first week wasn't that big of a deal because I didn't have NILD students coming, but this week they began again.

So, how to have a good, quick start to the day?

Attempt #1 and #2--get a certain number of independent subjects done by a certain time and earn a certain length of "recess." This didn't work well because Sam would wait until just before the certain time and then try to work really quickly and not very well. It also lead to whining over the recess options not being fun enough.

Attempt #3--School with Mom begins at 10:30. All independent work must be done by then, if it is done early, the left over time is his to do with as he pleases. That worked well today.

Oh, the Mariner's library didn't have any thing by Bowditch, except his book, which was interesting, but we were hoping to see his handwriting in one of his original journals. We didn't think to ask if they had the log book from any of the ships he was captain of, so maybe we'll go back...

So, this life isn't very "exciting" by the world's standards, but it is the life God has called us to and therefore very satisfying--or better said, whatever God allows in your life--He is very satisfying!!

New Books

Our new books arrived. Now we have enough reading material to finish 5th grade and also learn an overview of America up to the present age. Some of the books we'll be reading are old friends of mine. "Cheaper by the Dozen" "Old Yeller" We'll be reading about Harriet Tubman--her story affected me deeply when I read about her. I remember my sister and I pretending to lead slaves to freedom in the woods near our house. I am looking forward to the chance to talk about this difficult and shameful part of American history. It will go along with the embarrassing truths about our treatment of the native americans. While I'm proud to be an American, I cannot deny the sins of our past or omit them from my son's education.

We will be visiting the Grandparents north of Pittsburg next week (barring illness or other unforeseen event). Sam will enjoy feeding the chickens, gathering eggs and we will attempt to find a dark place to view the stars. According to the guy in the observatory at the Living Museum, if you look at the second star in from the end of the handle on the big dipper through binoculars you can see that it is a double star. It isn't dark enough here to see it.

Tomorrow we plan on visiting the research library at the Mariner's Museum. It is free to the public (you can't check things out only view them there). They have some writings by Nathaniel Bowditch, who is one of our favorite figures we've studied so far. I talked with the people at the library--they are very friendly and seem very open to the idea of a home schooled 10 year old boy coming to see these things.

Future plans--we will hear a lecture about Thomas Jefferson given at a local community college at the end of the month. There is a local museum called the War Museum. I think we should go there, but I'd rather that Dad take him since it is such a guy thing.

What is the reason behind the rule?

The answer to this question is always on my mind. Sam is very much like me. If we agree with the reason, we are much more likely to comply to the rule. It sometimes gets us in trouble (okay, maybe more than sometimes), but applied correctly leads to freedom and growth.

I have been applying this rule to the NILD priciple of handwriting. They teach and have student practice a specific handwriting style and ask all students to change to their way. from my students with near illegible handwriting (and this includes Sam) I have been getting resistance. They don't like making the letters that way, it's too hard, etc.

The reason behind--gain fine motor skills, develop consistancy and competency so that writing by hand is not a dreaded chore any longer. So, Sam and I decided if he didn't like making his letters in a certain way, he could change them. We developed our own cursive. We named it Samelian (Sam + D'nelian). He now has a standard to aim for that he has chosen for himself. Half the battle is no longer an issue. The other half, practice, practice, practice is all that is left.

The flying is going well so far, but school hasn't started in earnest yet. We did a half day of school today and will do the other half tomorrow (we are getting haircuts tomorrow). Then we'll have normal days the rest of the week.

I spent some serious money this month. I bought a science curriculum. It is called Apologia General Science (see www.apologia.com) It is designed to be self-taught (which is not a problem with Sam), it is Christian-based and honors our creator. It is a 7th grade level and Sam is loving it (we downloaded the first chapter free to make sure we liked it). I also bought Sonlight Core 4, which takes American history from civil war to modern times. This is really just a survey of American History. He'll get it more indepth in a couple of years. I think we'll finish it by August. It is a lot of reading of really interesting books--this is not a chore for members of this family.

Hope you are all having a great start to the new year!

Jenny