Must...stay...off...

It is, for me, one of the hardest times of year. It's that time of years when many people get their tax return checks, and so they use that money to buy next year's curriculum for their home schools.

As people mention what they are using, I go and check it out. Oooh shiny! I love books, so it is very hard for me to resist temptation. In fact, usually there is a week or so when I ask my husband, "Are we doing the right thing? Should we get this curriculum here? Look at this big box of books you get, and everything is all laid out for you, and...."

Yeah.

And that's the problem. It is SO EASY to fall back into that "conveyor belt" mentality that is discussed in "A Thomas Jefferson Education." It's so easy to sit back and let everyone else do the thinking, the planning. It's so easy to ignore that Core Phase that is VITAL to both you and your child's development as a whole person who doesn't need someone else to tell them what to do or how to live. I mean, on the surface, Core Phase looks easy, like you just let your kid play all day, and do whatever he wants. But when you actually do it, when you actually are in the trenches inspiring that "right/wrong, good/evil, true/false," you can see how very hard it is. I see kids every day who did not get a solid core phase. I see adults every day who did not get a solid core phase. I don't want my son growing up like that.

My son is very much transitioning into Love of Learning phase now. He spends a huge portion of the day reading to himself, looking at books, asking questions, experimenting. I did nothing to make him do this, other than showing him through example that learning is a part of life, and a fun part, at that. Now, while any child is in Love of Learning, Core is still there, at the Core, and we have to revisit it often. We do our family work together, and when we see examples of situations, we talk about right vs. wrong, etc. Each level builds on the other, but you are never "finished" with the previous one.

Staying off the conveyor belt is hard. As I said, it is easy to have someone tell you what to do all the time. It's easy to be a sheep, and that's why we have an entire nation full of them. But in order for our nation to remain strong, to be a leader in this new global society of ours, we need people who are NOT sheep, in every discipline. We need scientists, politicians, educators, community leaders, who are not afraid to step out of line and do what they believe is right, and not just follow the rear end in front of them. We need people who have developed self-discipline, we need people not afraid to do the hard things. We need people who are not wrapped up in themselves, who can look around in the world and see the potential in it as a whole.

We won't get that by following a one-size-fits-all mentality. Our children are not products who should go through a system and come out with a stamp of approval at the end that means nothing other than that they jumped through all the hoops, that they achieved the minimum, that they passed the test. All we'll get with that is a society of mediocrity, of complacence.

If you want more than this for your children (and indeed, the world), then take the brave step off of the conveyor belt, and do what is right for YOUR child. Give him a solid start at home, show him where his foundation is. Build a strong family, and then branch out to the community slowly. Expose him to people other than his "peers," let him see that there are many people out there he needs to be able to relate to, not just a group of kids his age. Above all, be an inspiration to that child. Do the things you don't feel like doing but you know are right. Take the hard road.

Isn't your child worth it?

Who's the (wo)man with the master plan?

This past week I had a freak out over "kidschool" or what we call "learning time." Put simply, it is the time in the morning when we do a little structured learning. It is the part of our day that looks the most like school. My problem was... well, the usual. What if I screw my kid up forever? What if I don't teach him what he needs to know? What's the best program, what are the best books? I do this about once a year. I don't know why. This time, however, I did not act rashly (like buying tons of curriculum or overhauling everything...). Instead, I pulled out A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion in the hopes that I could find some guidance there. An right there, in chapter 8, I found my answer.

Chapter 8 is entitled, "Seeing the Whole Picture." On page 78, Diann Jeppson starts talking about a "master plan," and how to create one for your family. I realized that was my problem--I was feeling out of sorts and chaotic, like a chicken without a head, because I had no path to follow. A while back, before Last Year (which threw everything into craziness), we had developed a family master plan, but things changed so much that it got lost, we just completely lost our vision. Now, we are starting to get that vision back, but we need to get more specific.

Mrs. Jeppson lists nine key elements that an effective master plan must have. They are 1) Classics (your list, not someone elses. These are the books YOUR family thinks are classics); 2) Cultural Literacy, breadth and depth (you can look at E.D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge series to get a good feel for topics you can cover with your kids, and make a list from there); 3) Academic Programs (specific materials, books, curricula that will help your family); 4) Adult Skills (think--life skills, things like cooking or auto mechanics or folding laundry, that will help your child when he is an adult); 5) Organizational Programs (Scouts, 4-H, camps, etc.--these don't have to be what the kids are doing TODAY. In Core phase you want to limit these things a bit. But think about what will be important to the family in the future); 6) Experience (these are things you want your child to be able to do before adulthood, like public speaking, or speaking a foreign language, or anything that you feel is important); 7) God (Whatever your spiritual background or practices are, whatever your religion, even if you feel you have no religion, think about how you care for your spirit in you home, and ways you can help your kids to do so); 8) Family Relationships (what are your family traditions? what's important to you, to keep your family connections strong?); 9) Places to Go (What do you want your kids to experience in their lives outside the home? Trips, adventures, etc). I encourage you to read this chapter of the book, because it really is helpful and insightful.

When we look in depth at our family values in this way, it can help us see what we need to expose our kids to. For example, I know that to us, self-sufficiency and homesteading are important. So we will look at ways we can teach these things to our son. I know I love the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I expect I will be drawing from them a lot along the way (I just finished re-reading the series, and was surprised to see how much I had not picked up on before, the difference in what they are to me now versus when I first read them in the 2nd grade). Almost every academic subject can be touched upon just with the idea of taking care of yourself, supporting yourself, and loving the land on which you live.

Having a master plan makes it easier to say yes or no to things. If I feel pressured about something, and I worry about it, I can just ask myself, "Is this important to us? Is this a part of our family's mission, our plan?" If not, I can set it aside. If it is, I can make room for it.

Everyone's family is different. Some families think everyone should be well-versed in taxonomy, others think children should be service oriented, still others want their family to be athletic. Every family is different, which is why you should write the master plan of YOUR family, not anyone else's. If you rely too much on someone else's plan, I think you run the risk of constantly feeling like you are missing something, or that something else must be better, or constantly second guessing yourself.

So, at today's FEC, we'll be working hard on writing our master plan. Wish us luck :).

Inspire, Not Require

One of my favorite "pillars" of a Thomas Jefferson Education is "Inspire, Not Require." This was something that just clicked with me right away. It made perfect sense. How is your child supposed to love learning unless he sees YOU loving learning as well? This pours over into all aspects of life. If you want your child to clean his room happily and regularly, then you had better be cleaning YOUR room happily and regularly. If you want him to love math, then show him how fun it can be. Show him that you love it too. I mean, why should he be happy about doing math if he sees you are miserable about it.

Over the past several weeks, the Chief has been learning about India, and he's been very excited to do so. How did I sustain his interest? By showing how excited I was to learn about it too. I got myself some books and movies about India. This shows him that learning is something that people do, whether they are kids or grown-ups. It's a part of life. When he sees me reading Gandhi's autobiography, the Chief wants to know more. So I take out his children's version. When he sees me looking at a map, he wants to know where places are. Form my example, he starts taking the initiative and actively looks for things about India, everywhere he goes.

Parents, whether we like it or not, are our children's teachers. This is whether we homeschool or not. Children take their lead from their parents. What they see their parents doing, good or bad, is what they do. The attitudes their parents take on are the attitudes they take on. A perfect example of this is all the bullying kids are experiencing in schools. If children see their parents being intolerant of others, they will be intolerant. If parents ignore their kids, ignore their needs, then kids will in turn ignore the needs of their peers, and eventually, their own families. If kids see the parents as putting themselves first all the time, they will do the same.

Rather than ripping out your hair over your child not doing something that you think he should, spend some time thinking, "How can I *inspire* him to do this?" Even something like cleaning his room. Clean it for him first, show him how nice a clean room feels, how you have more room to play, how you can find everything. Show him YOUR nice clean room, because how can you expect him to clean his room when yours is a mess? Show him how you can do nice things in your clean room, like hang up pictures or decorations. Above all, keep a good attitude. Show the kids how any work they do helps the entire family function more smoothly. If their room gets messy, go up and look at it. "Oh, no, your room is getting messy again. It's so important to keep a clean room so you can find all your toys!" and help him clean it up. Eventually, he will get it. He'll start picking up after himself, especially if he can really see how happy it makes you. There is also the option of letting it get so messy that he can't function in his room, he can't find things, etc. And letting him prove for himself that a clean room is best.

With learning, I do sort of "require" some things, but I do it in a way that is logical. Math is not the Chief's favorite subject, but I want him to stay on top of it. That is basically the only thing I *have* to require in our homeschool, because all the other subjects he takes on voluntarily. And even with math, I just explain to him, "Chief, you want to be an architectural engineer, right?" "yes." "Well, Engineers need to know how to do math." And he will generally just sit down and do it without arguing. The key to this is having very short lessons, as well. With math, I have him do one sheet of work per day, because that is what he is comfortable with. Anything longer, and he doesn't do as well, and at least for the next few years, the main goal of our homeschool is to culture a love of learning.

We require that people be kind and considerate to one another, but if they don't want to, they can always go to their room and not be with anyone. And really, anything that you feel you want to require from your children, you can usually INSPIRE them into doing. It takes a bit longer and it takes more work on the parents' part, but the results will be longer lasting because the kids' will have come to their conclusions on their own, through trial and error and logic. I won't lie. It's a lot of work. But it is very rewarding to see the Chief taking on more and more responsibility for himself by thinking, rather than doing something just because I said so, for fear of punishment.

What is more important? Raising thinkers, or raising sheep? I think we are desperate in this world for more thinkers and leaders!