Rutabaga Dreams

… are so much more bearable with a good book in hand!

As a sort of follow-up to my previous post about teaching history, I thought I would add a note on what I am emphatically not going to be teaching my children.  I’ve been reading The Catholic Homeschool Companion, and while many of the essays are good and helpful, there was one that I think is extremely misguided.  In it the author strongly recommends teaching history as the workings of God’s Divine Providence.  I’m not disagreeing that God is working in the world, rather I’m disputing that we can know what is/are the cause(s) of a particular historical event and why it might have happened that way.  As an example of what I mean, I’ll cite what the author of the essay discusses.  She taught her children that God opened up the Americas for exploration during the Protestant Reformation so that the Catholic Church could expand and be protected while it was under attack in Europe.  How could we possibly know this?  This strikes me much more as a Christian “just so” story rather than anything even remotely resembling the study and retelling of history.  How does a description like this aid the child’s thoughts and intellectual development?  How does it enhance their curiosity?  It also completely washes over the legitimate problems the Church was experiencing in the practices of some of her people.  It is all just so simplistic it boggles my mind.  (As you can probably tell!)

Coincidentally (or perhaps providentially ) I read a section in the Catechism of the Catholic Church about Divine Providence on the same day I read the essay I mentioned above.  I know that only a couple readers here consider this any sort of authority at all, but I’m going to quote it anyways, rather than just blathering on and on about this topic.

We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history. But the ways of his providence are often unknown to us. Only at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God “face to face”, will we fully know the ways by which - even through the dramas of evil and sin - God has guided his creation to that definitive sabbath rest for which he created heaven and earth.  (CCC 314)

While discussing an important and life altering decision

Matt:  I really think we should wait until after the house is well under way, don’t you agree?

Me:  Well, intellectually, yes…

Matt:  Great, we agree!  After all, what else is there?

Thankfully the last part was said with a smile and a laugh… 

Gregory has (finally!!) said Mama a number of times over the past couple of days.  As I said yesterday, “oh, Gregory, I’ll do anything for you when you say mama!”  It creates such a warmth in my heart to hear him say that word.

It has been fascinating to watch his language development.  He is definitely taking the slow and measured approach to language acquisition.  Right now his language mainly consists of useful words like “boom”, “up” (said: uh, uh), “off”, “out” (said: ou, ou), and “more!!” (said: mo, mo while pointing vigorously)  He also has started to say “bird”, “ball” and “bear” (while pointing at book with a picture of a bear).  They all sound rather similar, but I think I can detect slight differences.  He likes to point out the window and say “bir, bir!”, causing us all to stop what we are doing to look.  Sometimes there is a bird, sometimes there isn’t, but I think he does it just because he finds it funny to watch us all stop and look.  Even though his vocabulary is quite limited, our little Gregory generally has no problem getting his desires across and he really is a happy little guy. Gregory and Emma play really well together (although they squabble over the step-stool in the kitchen frequently) and it is such a joy to watch them.  I love having two children!

As I mentioned previously, I am re-reading For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.  It is such a wonderful piece of writing that I thought I would occasionally share some more quotes from the book.  Perhaps it might even encourage those of you who haven’t read the book to pick it up. 

From her chapter on Authority and Freedom:

When I am honest, as a parent, I know that I am all too often aggressive toward the child.  I am angry at him, because I am angry at my own failures.  I want this child to be the perfect human being that I somehow failed to become.  It is shockingly easy to take my frustrations out on those who are under me.  This is a matter of humility.  “I’m sorry I shouted at you.  I’m really worried and exhausted tonight, and I took it out on you.  You should have remembered to put your muddy boots away, but my reaction was wrong.”  Or simply, “I’m sorry, I’m wrong.”

None of use live up very well to that model of righteousness, the loving Shepherd-Leader who is perfect Himself and can lead into the paths of righteousness in love.

Such honesty strengthens our office.  For we are only pointing in some poor way toward what is good.  Thank God that the reality of righteousness is not based on the level I achieve myself!  We look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.  (p. 53)

Another quote from the same section, a little further on:

In my experience, children obey best when their lives are as fully satisfying as possible in the way Charlotte Mason advocated.  If minds are interested, skills are being learned, loving relationships are enjoyed, creativity is encouraged, beauty in nature, art, and music are appreciated, hours are spent in free play, and children learn to climb, swim, ride, canoe, ski or skate — why these children will be well on their way to having their sinful natures put in the back seat!  Sinful natures expand like a malignancy at any age with loneliness, mental poverty, boredom, passivity, hunger, tiredness, and deprivation of daily contact with the rich source material of goodness — the Word of God.  When you think about it, many children today have hell on earth.  Are we surprised at what happens?

OK, this blog is way funny.  I laughed, I cried, I laughed some more.  OK, well, I didn’t cry…  but I did laugh hard enough to tear up a bit.  Does that count?

Go check out I have to sit down. Particularly these posts - Green By Default Part I and Part II.

(Thanks to Erin at Bearing Blog for pointing this out)

Now I need to go read to my little girl who has been waiting ever so patiently on the couch for me to stop laughing at my computer and read to her.

Or at least it feels like it.

Today our seemingly permanently disgruntled postal person threw on our doorstep three packages of varying sizes. The contents were as follows:

• The Prima Latina Student workbook, teacher’s book, and CD
• Henle First Year, Grammar book, Answer Key and Study Guide
• Climbing Parnassus by Tracy Lee Simmons
• Latin-Centered Curriculum by Andrew Campbell
• The Harp and the Laurel Wreath by Laura M. Berquist
• The Eager Reader Bible Story Book
• We Sing America book and CD

We also recently received The Bulfinch Press One Hundred Saints and The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading recently. If you combine all this with Math-U-See’s Alpha which I bought last year and some read-alouds from our shelves and the library, you’ll have a very good idea what we’ll be doing for the 2007-2008 school year. I’m planning on diving into the Henle tonight/tomorrow though because I’m just that excited. *grin*

There is much joy in our household this afternoon.

And yes, I know, we are throughly weird.

Matt went up to the property over the weekend to go do manly chainsaw stuff while I stayed home to ride herd on the little ones.  He got a lot of good work done on our gigantic brush/tree/slash pile and I wish I could post a picture but I forgot to send the camera up with him.  We’re all going to go up the second week of June so I’ll have to wait until then to see the progress.

The kids and I just sort of laid low all weekend, which was rather nice.  I thought about planning some sort of outing, but in the end I’m glad I didn’t.  We did the hit the library and Trader Joe’s, but that was the extent of it.  I managed to get some work done on the proofing box Matt made me for Christmas.  It is a lovely proofing box, but it isn’t finished.  Matt wasn’t all that interested in learning about wood finishing, so I volunteered to tackle it.  We broke the cardinal rule though  - we brought it inside and started using it before it was done.   So, here we are,  at the end of May and it still needs to be completed.  I did lots of sanding on Sunday and was about to start sealing it when I was thwarted by the kids.  Within the space of about five minutes, Emma sprinkled water on it and Gregory rubbed strawberry coated hands all along one side.  *sigh*  I let it dry and thankfully it all sanded off just fine.  I did manage to get one coat of goop on today (two more to go!  well, and the top too) so at least I’m making progress.

Oh, and of course we went to church on Sunday, does that count as an outing?  We had a great Pentecost service and I had my very last RCIA rite.  I am now officially done with that process (oh, exuse me, journey *grin*) and I’m a full-fledged member of the Catholic Church.  Another person and I were talking about this after Mass and we both felt like it was a little anti-climatic…  and we’re left sort of wondering “what now?”  He’s already very involved in the church so I know he’ll have lots to do, but I’m not entirely sure what’s next for me.  If I were staying at this parish I know what I’d be looking to do (Lector, Bible Study in the fall) but since I’m going to a new parish soon I’m not sure what I’ll end up doing to be able to give back and participate more.  Perhaps I’ll end up doing similiar things at my new parish, but I’ll have to see what the opportunities look like and how much my husband will let me do. 

Wow, this is the world’s most boring post.  Hmm… well, sorry about that.  :-)  I think I was a little starved for adult conversation over the weekend because I found myself actively searching out new blogs to read.  Now I need new blogs in my Bloglines account like I need a hole in my head, but I think I will probably end up keeping with a couple of them at least.  I had a great (and wistful) time looking at all the lovely and inspiring pictures over at Ernie’s blog in particular.  I am a little jealous about all they have going on there right now!  But I did console myself with the thought of all the progress Matt and I have made over the past year…  after all, last Memorial Day weekend we were up camping near Quincy, wondering if perhaps that’s where we would end up settling.  And now, one year later Matt’s up wielding a chainsaw on our very own property.  Yippee, there is hope! 

And in an (most likely vain) attempt to redeem this post at least slightly here’s a picture of the kids in a box house that Emma made for Gregory last week.  (It is such an exciting day for everyone when Daddy gets a roofing nailer!)

History is a subject near and dear to my heart. I’ve always enjoyed it, and I majored in it in college. Hence, I’ve given quite a bit of thought to how best to approach and study it with my children. So far, I don’t feel that I’ve found an approach that seems ideal - and perhaps there isn’t one - but it is something I want to continue to ponder.

The neoclassical model has you go through all of history three times, each time delving deeper in and studying events in more depth. This approach has some merits, namely in how it gives the student a firm grounding in what is happening all over the world at the same chronological time period, and how it suits the child’s growing intellectual capacity by covering more in depth as the child becomes more capable. However, I have to wonder if the program would start to seem a little repetive if not carefully managed. It could also be a little hard to pull off when you’re trying to homeschool more than one or two children. (Although if you manage to have them all four years apart, you’d be set!)

The classical approach as outlined by Andrew Campell has you spend a great deal of time on American history and the history of the English speaking world’s contact with the rest of the world. There is also a great deal of study of the ancient Greek and Romans (as befits the name, I suppose!).  I like this approach in that it isn’t quite so repetitive and also because it would give the student a very strong grounding in the origins of our society and the best our country’s history and present has to offer. It could also help a student understand our strengths and our limitations in our own actions and our interactions with the rest of the world. However, it also runs the risk of creating or perpetuating a rather myopic and US/English-centric view of the world.  It seems like this could be tempered by a judicious use of first and second person accounts describing events from other perspectives, but even this could be rather limiting in that it doesn’t give much opportunity to show how those narrations fit into the overall history of that place.  There are, of course, time limitations to take into consideration as well! I am also concerned that it could be easy to get too caught up in the emotions of an issue this way, and to give too much weight to one person’s account at the expense of the overall historical context and events.  First person accounts are obviously extremely important, but if they are not tempered by the big picture they can end up being high in emotional content, but very low in analytical content.

In my college classes, we had the benefit of being much more narrowly focused on a particular period or even aspect of a period.  This gave us the ability to use a few secondary sources as a spine along with our primary sources in an attempt to create some balance to what we were learning.  The challenge in figuring out a primary school history education is the expectation that we’re supposed to somehow cover everything.  This, of course, is impossible, so how do you best cover the scope of history around the globe so that your children don’t end up being blithering idiots, untethered from historical context and doomed to wallow in what C.S. Lewis described as “chronological snobbery”?   It is quite an interesting question, and while I think the chances are slim that my children will end up blithering idiots in the historical knowledge and understanding department, I still would like to do the best job I can.

I came across this idea on Darwin’s blog for a new program he and some of his family have started.  The Humanities Program, as they’ve named it, looks interesting and I’ve spent some time reading and thinking about their approach.  One thing I like in particular is how they break up the historical periods.   Darwin recently posted an interesting thought on his blog for the program, and I think it is a promising idea.

The general approach seems to be to do everything three times. So for instance, you go through world history one time each at a grammar, logic and rhetoric level.

Now, repetition is often good when learning things, but I wonder if this rule of three is actually the way to go. Part of me wonders if the logic stage would lend itself well to a number of 1-3 month intensive unit studies which dug into how exactly particular events or trends came to be, and what their results were. If you’ve already laid down a good chronological foundation in the grade 1-4 level, you should be able to do a lot of unit studies at the grade 5-8 level (and perhaps a year of strictly American History) and then come back at the high school level to put it all together with another four year run through world history, this time focusing on primary source material.

At this point my primary concern with this approach is regarding that chronological foundation that is created in first through forth grades.  I’m concerned that if a student studies the ancients in age six in first grade, they aren’t going to be in a place to remember very much about it when it comes time to work on some unit studies when they are ten or twelve.  I suppose they can always consult their timelines and do a little review (which will probably be necessary no matter how much or little time has elapsed) and then jump into the project…  but even so, how much will they really be building off of that chronological foundation.  Students who have younger siblings will have an advantage here, because they would be overhearing the four years over again and perhaps that could also help to keep the material fresh in their minds.  I am also somewhat concerned about focusing on primary sources in the high school years, mainly because I’m not sure the student would have the ability to treat the primary sources with the distance and analytical nature primary sources require if they are not to be blown out of porportion.  If they can read enough primary sources I think they might be in a good position to put together a good overall picture, but I’m concerned that they’d have trouble seeing the forest through the trees.  If they are able to read enough though, it would be an excellent opportunity to practice their logic and rhetoric skills as they piece together a workable narrative.

This is something I plan on thinking about a great deal over the next year or so, and you will most likely be hearing more about it from my in the future!

So I posted a week or so ago my thoughts on our school year next year, but even as I wrote it I still felt a little unsettled about it. It seemed like what I outlined would be fine, but it didn’t feel quite right for us. I continued to think about it and read, and I came to the realization that it just felt like too much busywork. I felt like I was focusing too much on filling buckets and not enough on lighting fires, to use the old phrase (where does that phrase come from? I can’t remember). I have no doubt that what I was planning on doing would be perfectly adequate (if not more so!) but I don’t think it would have been something that would carry through the rest of our day so much. It would be something we would do in the morning, finish, then move on into the rest of our day with the knowledge that at least the education checkbox was firmly marked. I’m not sure it would do much to change our perspective of the world, or give us those little “aha!” moments that help us to see the underlying connections between all that surrounds us.

I started going to back to my memories of For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, because this is the book that probably best encapsulates my desires for my children. I also started re-reading it today just to make sure my memories are accurate. Here’s a few quotes which I thought I would share:

Education is an adventure that has to do with central themes, not the particular packages a given generation puts them into. It’s about people, children, life, reality!

The truly educated person has only had many doors of interest opened. He knows that life will not be long enough to follow everything through fully.

It [education] does not mean that adults think of a child as a blank sheet of paper on which they imprint their ideas, impressions, and knowledge. Neither does it mean leaving the child unattended like a weed growing in a sidewalk. It is a balanced understanding of education as the provision of possibilities for a person to build relationships with a vast number of things and thoughts.

So what we’ve decided to do may seem like a somewhat strange leap to the modern (post-modern?) mind, but if you hear me out a little bit I think it will make sense. Matt and I have decided that we’re going to follow, to the best of our ability, a classical education. Not a neoclassical education, as popularized by The Well Trained Mind (although I still have a great respect for this book and Bauer, and I know I’ll be using her book as a reference for some things as well as some of her other materials) but instead something more along the lines of what Simmons describes in Climbing Parnassus and Cambell lays out in The Latin Centered Curriculum.

I believe that the classical education is our best bet, so to speak, of living up to the passages I quoted above. I believe that centering our education on this path will give us a firm foundation of logic and rhetoric, and will help us raise children who can think analytically, write coherently and persuasively, and most importantly will be life-long learners of all that is important, true, and good. I believe that a classical education will be true to Charlotte Mason’s principles as well, because it focuses deeply on the most important details of a formal education while leaving plenty of time for playing outdoors, free reading, hobbies, and learning life skills. It isn’t so filled with busywork that we have to do school from 9-4 (as one homeschooling mother described in a recent Veritas newsletter). It is a rigorous and deep course of study (”multum non multa”, not many things, but much - Pliny the Younger), but this does not have to be synonymous with time-consuming. I feel like a classical education is one that is distilled down to the very essence of what education is and how best to form and expose a mind to all the wonders that are out there in this amazing world. I feel that this course of study will best allow us to educate the whole person - not because it encapsulates every little bit of learning a person might need (whatever that list might look like!) but instead because it is focused on the good and true and allows time for everything in its place.

I was also going to do a little writing on what exactly we’re going to do next year, but I’m afraid I’ve run out of time. So I’ll leave you with this great quote from C.S. Lewis:

To lose what I owe to Plato and Aristotle would be like the amputation of a limb. Hardly any lawful price would seem to me too high for what I have gained by being made to learn Latin and Greek.