Adventures in Parenting

Lately we have been reading aloud together often. At Rebecca's prompting, I'm going to keep a running list here of what we've read (and enjoyed) until we get the Tumblon book list feature built.

1. Little House on the Prairie (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
2. Little House in the Big Woods (Laura Ingalls Wilder)
3. The Tale of Despereaux (Lisa DiCamillo)
4. More Tales from Grandma's Attic (Arleta Richardson)
5. Still More Tales from Grandma's Attic (Arleta Richardson)
6. Betsy's Busy Summer (Carolyn Haywood)
7. B is for Betsy (Carolyn Haywood)
8. Betsy's Winterhouse (Carolyn Haywood)
9. Heidi (Johanna Spyri)

What are some of your favorite books to read aloud? (I need to start another post with a list of books that Elisabeth reads to us - and all of us enjoy!)

When I taught early elementary grades, I encouraged my students to make different kinds of connections:

1. Self-to-text: when they identified with something in a story.
2. Text-to-world: when then related literature to the real world.
3. Text-to-text: when they saw a relationship between two pieces of text.

Today we had one of those text-to-world connections. I took Elisabeth to the Met for Start with Art, and we spent our time in the Ancient Near East galleries, where we looked at lion reliefs commissioned by Nebuchadnezzar II for the city of Babylon.

When we opened up the Bible this evening to read, we found ourselves reading Daniel 2, where Daniel interacted with the same king who commissioned the lions.

Yesterday we took a trip to the library to find books about Philadelphia so that we'll have a little bit of historical and geographical background for our time there later this week. One of the best books that we found on the stacks was Saving the Liberty Bell, a slightly fictionalized and well illustrated book of a boy who is involved in rescuing the Liberty Bell (before it was cracked!) from the redcoats.

Even though Elisabeth has very little prior knowledge about Philadelphia, the revolutionary war, or the Liberty Bell, she was excited to read the book and gained a sense of why that piece of metal is such an important part of our nation's history.

In my search for easy readers, I have been frequently disappointed with the lack of plot. The obvious exceptions are authors like Dr. Seuss who spin hilarious tales with short, simple words. However, the length of The Cat in the Hat and the like can be intimidating for Elisabeth. So after becoming acquainted with Mo Willems through his fantastic Knuffle Bunny stories, I checked out four of his Elephant and Piggie books.

They are fantastic for Elisabeth, with simple text, a fun plot and clever illustrations. I'd highly recommend them for emergent readers!

Yesterday I took Elisabeth and Zoe to the Met for their art class. We arrived early and wandered around the Greek and Roman galleries, where we found this fountain.



The girls noticed all the coins in the fountain and asked me, "Why is there money in here?" I stumbled for words. "People think it gives them good luck?" I happened to have my ipod in my pocket, and there was a wifi network in the gallery, so I googled "throwing coins in fountain" and it pulled up a New York Times article that cited one of the Met historians on the origin of the practice:

Joan Mertens, the Met’s curator of Greek and Roman art, came up with a story, appropriately enough, from ancient Greece. Amasis, the king of Egypt in the sixth century B.C., predicted trouble for his ally Polykrates unless Polykrates showed some humility. Amasis, Ms. Mertens said, told Polykrates he should throw into the sea his most valued possession: an emerald ring.

“Sort of as proof or a sign, someone in Polykrates’s household came in with a big fish who had the ring in his stomach,” she said, “so it came back to him.”

From that, she said, came the notion of “casting away something that is meaningful to you, and if you’re lucky, you will be reunited with it.”

I learned something, and enjoyed yet another trip to the Met.

Over the past month or so I have often reflected on the tension between discipline and joy in learning. By temperament, Elisabeth is not one to persevere in a task. If she encounters a problem, she is more likely to turn her attention to something that she knows she can do. And so on a regularly basis, I face the challenge of focusing her attention and encouraging her to follow through.

Discipline
All learning involves discipline. It requires energy, focus and determination in order to understand, and to apply understanding. For a child to think that learning does not include discipline is dangerous, because as soon as she encounters something beyond her easy grasp, she'll give up.

Joy
The other, indispensable, side of the coin is joy. There is a satisfaction and joy in learning that is self-propelling. For example, last week we picked up a short picture book on the life of Thomas Edison. Both Elisabeth and I were fascinated by little "Al" (who only in his teen years began to go by "Thomas"), so we picked up a Time for Kids mini-biography of Edison, and another one of Benjamin Franklin. Our fascination with inventors sparked us to read, discuss, and explore.

The Tension
The daily question that I face as I home-school is how to mingle the two. How do I clearly communicate that discipline is required in all learning, and that there are no shortcuts? How do I make every day fun, exciting and engaging as we explore literature, science, and history? I think the challenge of teaching is not seeking to end the tension, but somehow to nurture both elements.

We just received a set of cuisinaire rods in the mail. Elisabeth knew just what to do with them . . . play! She took them out and stood them in order from largest to smallest. Then she started making combinations to match the length of a long rod. Then she turned to patterns.

It is no wonder that these math manipulatives are wonderful for exploration, visual perception, and a host of mathematic skills. I'm looking forward to playing with them!

Recently we picked up a book of poetry by Shel Silverstein at our local library. We devoured most of the book in the first day. I read Elisabeth Smart:

My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!

Then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes - I guess he don't know
That three is more than two!

Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just 'cause he can't see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!

And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!

And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head -
Too proud of me to speak!

The humor of the poem was entirely lost on Elisabeth. She told me that she didn't want her dollar bill. "It takes up too much space. I like the coins better." So we've been playing coin games during our math sessions this week. Elisabeth still thinks that paper money isn't as good as coins - but at least now she's beginning to understand that 1 can be more than 5, when the 1 is a dollar and the 5 are pennies.

Yesterday on the bus, Elisabeth and I read about the four Presidents whose faces appear on Mount Rushmore. I couldn't help but think just how important it is to know our history.

We read from What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know the legend of George Washington and the cherry tree. It provided the perfect context for me to ask Elisabeth: Why was George Washington afraid of his father? What had he done that was wrong? Why did it take courage to admit his fault? Why was his father happier to have a done who admitted his wrong than lied about it?

Then we read a short selection about Abraham Lincoln, who grew up in a small cabin with only one window, and only one book (the Bible). It was a great reminder to me of just how much I need my perspective adjusted frequently. I think that because we live in a modified one-bedroom apartment that we are somehow lacking. Yet we have five windows(!), running water, a refrigerator, a gas stove, hundreds of books - and most important of all a loving family. I would rather have character like Lincoln and lack things than have an abundance of things and be a fool.

We have the privilege of being in a church with many families, some of whose children are in public schools, others in private schools, and still others who are homeschooled. For a relatively "small" church of about 300, the mix is exciting to me. There are families with 1, 2, 3, 4 and even 5 children who homeschool, which wins my admiration.

The family with four children is most remarkable to me in the quality of their education and the richness of their family life. This year the 10-year-old, Sarah Grace, began learning about child development. So as part of her course of study, she teaches a class on Tuesday mornings (with her mother's oversight) for 3-5 year-olds, including Elisabeth. It is remarkable to me what Sarah Grace already knows about child development, and how to structure a class for kids (albeit only 4 of them).

So this week when I picked Elisabeth up after her class, she showed me a coat that she had drawn after reading A New Coat for Anna. Sarah Grace was stunned that I wasn't familiar with the book, as if I had missed out on childhood itself. (I'm going to pick it up at the library today so I don't miss out too much.)

It struck me just how wonderful it is that Sarah Grace is learning while teaching Elisabeth - and indirectly me. A ten-year-old is enriching our learning experience on a weekly basis.

First Things ran a recent article on a homeschoolers' memoir that captures well the essence of parenting:

To bring up children to see no real dividing line between “learning” and “everything else” is to reap adults—a whole family, in fact—for whom learning remains a lifelong journey and a habit of being.

While I think that there is validity to many forms of education, I see how homeschooling lends itself particularly to this end.

Today Elisabeth and I took the bus down to a playdate with a friend. We brought along her phonics cards, her wipe clean book, and some pocket change. We had all we needed to turn a city bus into a home-school bus. And we were finished by the time we got to the play date!

Today marked the first day of school for Elisabeth - the first day of home school. Just as I had never envisioned myself being a full-time father before I left teaching to be with Elisabeth, I don't think I ever picked myself as a homeschooler. If it even approaches the joy of being a stay-at-home dad, I don't think I'll be disappointed.

Why have we made this decision? I've come across reactionary calls to "get our children out of government schools" and, like most reactionary rhetoric, don't find them beautiful or compelling. Our decision comes from a positive view of parenting, education and social engagement. At the core of our decision (which I think, at this point, leaves the door open to home, public or private education in the future) are a few fundamental assumptions:

1. Parents are primarily responsible for the nurture and education of their children. (This is why no one takes parents to court who choose to enroll their child in a private school.)
   
2. Parents exert the greatest influence on a child's life by the responsible decisions they make - including how to educate them.
   

So we have deliberately chosen (for this year, at least) to provide that nurture and education in our home, where we can provide a rich, loving, and inviting learning environment. This is, I think, a significant part of the vision of the kingdom of God, "to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the wicked to the wisdom of the just" (Luke 1:17). It is the restoration of the most primary human relationships to reflect the wise and loving design of God to make the family the primary unit of worship, instruction and community.