Education Alternatives: Unschooling.

What with burying my life in alternatives to traditional education (hybrid academies! distance learning assistance programs! dig a hole in the dirt and sit in it! take a nap!), I've come across several families in which "alternative education" means "unschooling." It's always a little scary to address educational decisions--talk about tapping our deepest passions as parents--but it is also vital that parents working in alternative education face and discuss the implications behind our educational choices. What we do speaks to our children and they will ponder what we did for them (or to them!) all their lives.

Unschoolers tend to be as separate from home educators as they are from traditional educators. While "unschooling" suggests a negative--what it is not--there are actually a number of shared, positive principles in the unschooling community. Most parents believe that their children are natural learners, that a child driven by his own interests will learn more efficiently than a child driven by testing standards, and that a parent's role is to help the child set goals so he can reach goals he sets for himself. (Of course, within the unschooling community, these beliefs manifest in many different ways.)

Unschooling families choose to learn free from a set curriculum--unlike in many homeschool homes, there is no attempt to recreate the traditional school syllabus or scope and sequence.

The biggest question is, of course, Does it work? The maddening answer is, of course, yes and no.

First, the yes. Unschooling can work very well in particular situations. I've found that it can be fun and fruitful for a mother (or father) who enjoys hands-on work, long walks through muddy fields, and doesn't feel much need to "check" her kids' progress against the rest of the world. Unschooling is generally what does happen (by default) for small children in a large homeshcooling family. The 3-year-old doesn't need a curriculum, but does need lots of time to absorb herself in play, a little guidance in getting started (or finishing) on a project. Even a 5-year-old can flourish with a pile of books, a sketchbook, and lots of time.

Again by default, we naturally find ourselves in "unschooling" periods of life. Mom is pregnant and sick, or postpartum and tired, so the syllabus just doesn't happen in full. She can get everyone to the library (maybe) and order art supplies online, but that's about it. Great things can happen.

But then there's the no.

There does come a time when the parents must answer this question: What is the goal of education? Clearly, the goal of everything we do as parents must eventually redound to eternal salvation. There are many ways of bringing our children up in the Faith. But if education at eternal salvation, it does so in a more specific way. Education both helps the individual to flourish as an individual and as a social animal.

The basic philosophy of unschooling presupposes a sort of Rousseauian "voluntarism"--or, the assumption that all a child's activities should voluntary, as far as is possible. The problem is that, in the Catholic worldview, a child's capacity to choose the good is not yet fully formed. A child is not a "noble savage." He's just a savage.

Once the children reach a certain age, there are certain skills that become necessary for her to pursue her passions. There are virtues and strengths that she has not yet encountered and which she will need in order to--later in life--be both a strong individual and a "servant of all." Not all children will become the next Pascal, but all children need an ordered and sequential introduction to the beautiful numbers Pascal saw. Not all children will become teachers, but all children need to learn how to communicate effectively--not just in lengthy opinion pieces on a blog--but also in the specific situations in which their world and culture place them.

In a sense "unschooling" is a wonderful way to introduce children into the world of a more formal course of study. It's also a perfectly normal and acceptable break from the formal lesson plans over which most moms slave. For a few children, unschooling may indeed be the only way they will ever learn--think of Mozart. But parents must make the decision to abandon all structure in the full awareness of what unschooling implies about human nature, human society, and the reasons we exist.

A little plug for classical education.

This email came from a friend this morning (reprinted with permission, names changed to protect the innocent). It gave me a chuckle as I prepared with some trepidation to distill the Viking Exploration for a 6-year-old:

"So, I found myself at a restaurant dinner recently with a nice middle-aged woman on my left and her college-aged son on my right. She was understandably proud of her handsome boy, Dave, and noted how well he was doing at a state university (major undeclared). To be polite, she asked about my son, Norman, a student at St. Gregory Academy, a conservative Catholic all-boys boarding high school that boasts 'no technology' as a policy. This point slipped into my succinct answer to her question, and it stunned her.

"'No Facebook? No iPads? No Google searches? No laptops? No software skills?'

"'No,' I said. 'We see it as a distinction between classical education and technical training. We think Norman can pick up applicable computer skills after we get his head filled with great thoughts. Our view, and that of the school, is that there are only so many hours in a day, and we’d rather have Norman spend time on Aquinas and Homer than PowerPoint and Excel.'

"'But you can’t just skip computers,' she said. 'All of Dave's school work is done with computers. And he knows all that classical stuff, too.'

"I turned to her son. 'Dave, what are the two great epic poems of Homer?'

"Dave smiled. 'Simpson?'”

Feminine Genius: We know D.R.A.M.A.

Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa: Girls are OK.

(First, a note! Some commenters on "Abstinence in Marriage: Que Pasa?" were unceremoniusly dumped into my spam folder. Sorry! Now you're published, as you should have been long ago. Y'all are brilliant.)

After confirming that I "really have three girls," the next insight offered me by most strangers is, "Oh, your poor husband."

The third apothegm runs along the lines of consolation to the downtrodden, "Oh, well, don't worry. Girls are so much easier than boys."

If I have allowed the conversation to get this far, I am obviously too weary to deflect their advances with humor. Either that, or I have become so accustomed to the inane babblings of the pre-schooler mind that two or three more idiocies aren't likely to bother me.

But, really, people. Girls are easier than boys? Have you spent much time with a 12-year-old girl? Have you spent much time with any woman between, say, the ages of 10 1/2 and 51? I hear echoing in my head, "The days are coming, sayeth the Lord, when I shall strike the land with doom."

We are sugar and spice for about 5 years, then fade into a sweet sort of lemon-zest dessert, and then. Just plain lemon juice.

Poor Miriam. She's had a brilliant 5 weeks (almost) of homeschool. She's had a brilliant childhood, in general, to be honest. She's smart. She's gorgeous. She's good at almost anything (except opening doors or jars). She is sweet and eager to please.

But oh, the drama.

Today the world fell apart. I asked her to narrate for me (just me! her mother!) the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. She knows this story (we've been reading it since she could talk!), she loves to narrate (she's been talking since she was 10 months!), and she has memory like glue (when she was four, she memorized an entire Dr. Seuss book!).

But today, she froze. She couldn't even begin. Because I was asking her to do something different: "Just tell me the story."

"Mommy, I can only think if you're writing it down!"

"Miriam, I'm not going to write this one down. I'm helping Belly build her Lego house, and this is also an important way of telling for you to learn. Just tell me."

Tears. A full-out fit. Neither of us backed down. But what struck me was her (ir)rationale: "Mommy, it's too embarrassing!"

Embarrassing is her code word for: I might mess up. I'm going to make a mistake. It's not worth trying, because I can't do it perfectly.

It's the same reason she won't try her new bike: I might mess up. I might get hurt. It's not worth trying.

It's the same reason she won't play the new piano song: I might mess up. It's not worth trying.

Embarrassing.

This runs deep in the family: It's too hard. Our over-achiever front belies a deep insecurity: What if I mess up? It's better not to try.

I remember piano pieces I refused to learn, races I refused to run, classes I quit, and professors I never went to for help. All because of this fear, paralyzing and ugly. The woman hates to be wrong, but even more so to be caught being wrong. I don't mind a mistake that no one can see, that I can fix on my own (Spanx, anyone?), but oh! to be seen in my imperfection. That makes me throw a fit.

So, today's drama was less about my daughter than about me: I can see with a magnifying glass into her soul, even at the moment she feels most alone.

And that, too, is a mark of a woman. We hate to be caught in the fault (as do men), and all those hormones and intensity of feelings can make us cry and fight and throw ourselves to the floor in despair. But that intensity also gives us--poor children of Eve--the possibility of that deeply personal bridge: I know you. I have been where you are. I will be there with you again.

I want to try to teach my daughter, poor little daughter of me, to take that drama all locked up inside herself and let it out. Let her recognize that her struggle goes on in the hearts of so many others. Let the drama breed, not more drama, but womanly compassion and a fierce devotion to the weakest souls still in the grip of that struggle. Let her drama and fear of embarrassment translate into understanding and gentleness.

The feminine genius, without which the world could not be saved.

Image source: Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa.

Image source: The Repentant.

The Difficult Lesson.

We read whole chapters of the Gospels aloud. I let the girls color and play, and I just sit and read the words. I don't ask them to narrate the stories or sayings, but just to listen as they can while they play. Today we read Matthew 10. I didn't think Miriam was listening (she was coloring the Hagia Sophia and singing about the "barbarians who stole your tabernacle").

But she was.

Miriam: "Mommy, why does Jesus say he comes to bring a sword and not peace? Because, he is the Prince of Peace. I am confused."

That is confusing. So, here's what I tried for a little exegesis.

"Well, it is confusing. Let's think about Jesus' commandments. If we love Him, He says, we will follow His commandments."

"Yes," she said, still coloring and humming.

"So, people have to make a choice: they can either walk to Jesus in the light or turn around and walk the other way into the dark."

"Yes," she stopped coloring.

"I think that is the sword he might mean: If some people choose to walk to Jesus and other people choose to walk away from Jesus, then who has the Peace of Christ?"

"The people walking to the light," she nodded.

"Yes. But what happens if you choose something dark?"

"Then you don't have the Peace of Christ!" she was very happy now.

"And not having peace is like a sword?"

And we were both happy. This is why she's at home this year.

Miriam's narrative.

We're two weeks and one hurricane into the Ages of Grace curriculum. Miriam, the 6-year-old 2nd-grader, is in love with learning: She loves the books, the copywork, the icons, and the hymns. She loves poetry and arithmetic and maps. "Mommy, I think second-grade is the most wonderful grade in the Whole World, because you get to learn so many things! I want to be a monk--or maybe a nun--so I can copy books all day long everyday and study every day." Second-grade with one student is sugar and spice and everything nice.

Well, pat me on the back, but two weeks in and I sure look like a pro. The hardest part has been keeping the littler ones happy and semi-quiet so that I can explain something or finish a story out loud for their big sister. Bella, 3 years old, will listen well to most of the stories (think, Tomie de Paola and Trina Hyman), but loses focus as I try to explain nouns. The baby is into everything, and my clutter-standards have dropped drastically.

I've been happy with the curriculum thus far: I haven't added in the Prologue readings yet, but plan to do so this week. There has been no tension between East and West as of yet, since we're only to about 500, A.D. The saints are saints for all (such as today's Gregory the Great, Patrick, Columba, and Helena).

The pace seems just right, as well: We're spending three or four weeks (as needed or desired) on the British Isles and the fall of Rome. I'm using The Story of the World at the moment for a sort-of history spine. I anticipate dropping it, however, before we get to 1500. Lines such as, "Queen Elizabeth's greatest accomplishment was that she allowed her subjects to choose whether they wanted to be Catholic or Protestant," leave me wondering about the objectivity of its treatment of the Church. The first few chapters on the pre-Reformation West are decent enough, however. I'm still looking for that elementary-level history text that doesn't ignore 400-1500, takes a universal view of salvation history, and doesn't exude this "History is the story of progress" motif.

Let me know if you find it.

For now, I'm glad to rest in Level A, where no real textbook is necessary. We can read endless chapter and picture books and simply absorb the beauty of Christendom. There will be time for hard questions later.

Don't lose your groove.

This is just phenomenal from Like Mother, Like Daughter. It is enough.

Another Mason-classical approach.

A good friend recommended I look through the educational plan of St. Jerome Classical School in Maryland. Oh, wow. If anyone with more experience than I wants to help start one of these schools in the New Haven area, please let me know! I am only half-joking.

It's so good to know that schools like St. Jerome exist: for now, homeschooling is still our best option. But St. Jerome's plan will certainly help me with the tweaking I foresee in Ages of Grace.

Teaching the Kids, Part III

I've been writing through our educational decisions for the year, and I'm at the point where it's time to consider particular curriculums out there. I've decided against piecemeal and making it up as I go--both because I'm lazy and I'm eager to learn. Most curricula have been designed by women (and men) who have taught their own children steadily, at home, for years. They've been there, they've invented that wheel. I want their wisdom, and I want my children to reap the benefits of wisdom wherever it can be found.

Charlotte Mason has always attracted me: I love the idea of learning through "living books," of bringing history and its characters into the home and imagination. I believe--and have found in my own education--that it is immersion in history through the imagination that makes all the disciplines attractive to the child. In living stories, I discovered the drama of the human condition, the redemption, the abyss of evil, and the heights of the divine: these exist and thrive in human history, in society, and in every human heart. I have these seeds in me: this was the thought the so enchanted me as a child through the living books of history.

I also ascribe wholly to the educational philosophy of Dorothy L. Sayers: that through the various stages of development, children revisit the same content again and again but with new capabilities and new skills. Hence, the tradition of the trivium and quadrivium.

So, I'm looking for a kind of smash-together Charlotte Mason/Classical approach. And I'm also a complete snob about art and music. It's true: I have a hard time swallowing those 19th-century prints of Jesus and St. Joseph wearing eye-shadow. A lot of poetry in Garlands of Grace is... just smooshy. I want strong beauty, masterful language, and work that has stood and will stand the test of time.

Unfortunately, a lot of Roman Catholic offerings are just saturated in books published between 1880 and 1960. Not that there's nothing good to be found in them: they have that blessed imprimatur. They really and truly are sincere and orthodox (little "o") in their fidelity to the Church. But there must be something better than catechisms and Church histories that use terms like "Hottentots" or "Negroes" (Could someone please write a 21st-century translation of Laux?). Again, these are great books and students who read them will receive a good education. But we can do better: I think I will either have to go much earlier or write my own (someday when I, too, am a seasoned homeschooler). Hence, my foray into an Orthodox curriculum.

In Evlogia's (Katherine Johnson's) new Ages of Grace, I'm hoping to find the tools to make that Mason-Sayers mesh while, at the same time, exposing my children to the ancient beauty of the Church (in both her lungs, East and West). The language of the Eastern liturgies, supplemented with our Western Liturgy of the Hours and Gregorian chant, is something I want them to hear. The power of the icon, the depth of the Church Fathers, the Jesus Prayer--these are a common heritage for East and West. Evlogia has made a sort of reconciliation possible.

I also love the concept of the history cycle: the six ages of the world, presented in three levels as the children grow, are a beautiful vehicle for understanding the movement of history and the story of salvation.

And, quite frankly, my budget for the year is: "$200, but it would be really good if you didn't spend more than $150." Yeah, a full-blown Catholic curriculum is not an option right now. I steal paper from neighbors' recycling bins. That's our budget.

Ages of Grace is entirely electronic, making it so much more manageable on a budget (Did I mention the interface is aesthetically gorgeous, too?). And our library consortium has all of the books in Level A. It's affordable, it's doable, and it will demand just enough tweaking on my part (as a Roman) to keep me from falling into the "workbook/checklist" mode.

I'm anticipating the need to substitute in a Roman calendar, but this should not be difficult given the plethora of calendar-based saints books for children in the Catholic tradition. I'm also very glad that she's starting in the "Middle Ages," so I'll have a couple of years to discern how best to teach the so-called Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and the post-Schism councils.

I'll let you know how it goes. And, I'm not an expert. I'm just a nerd with Internet access and a love of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Sayers says we are all entitled to have educational opinions: "There is also one excellent reason why the veriest amateur may feel entitled to have an opinion about education. For if we are not all professional teachers, we have all, at some time or another, been taught. Even if we learnt nothing--perhaps in particular if we learnt nothing--our contribution to the discussion may have a potential value."

Suggestions and encouragement welcome: you were, at some point, taught, too.

.

Image source: Blanche Fisher White.

Image source: Icon

OOPS! Update: Thanks, Dianna, for catching my blooper. I meant to link to Seton, not Catholic Heritage. Corrected.

Teaching the Kids, Part II

So, first I had to (still have to) reassure my self that I can teach my own children. Even if I yell at them. A lot.

Next, the question arises: How am I going to do this?

My singleton brother, who has done some pretty amazing things, gave me the admonition: "KISS" (Keep It Simple, Stupid). And, yes, he's right. It is very simple: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us, sinners. I want to give my children the tools they need for two things: to wonder at all times and to pray in every circumstance. With these tools, they will be able to be holy and thus happy should they choose.

And now, the how.

My firstborn is only 6 years old. I know almost nothing about teaching my own children, in the home, day after day; I haven't had to get up in the morning and trudge through hours of mathematics with seven recalcitrant children whose intellects have been darkened and their wills warped by the lingering effects of original sin. The days are coming, says the Lord.

In a way, however, I have been living in the world of home educators for at least six years (plus my own experience of being homeschooled for five years). The wonderful school at which I taught in Georgia, Regina Caeli Academy (do you want to start your own? The director offers seminars!), offered two days per week of seminar-type courses for home educated students. I taught the Mother of Divine Grace curriculum (a 4C: comprehensive, classical, Catholic curriculum) at the 6th through 12th grade levels, with a few dabbles in earlier elementary. Through the teacher training and classroom experience there, as well as through friendships up and down the East Coast, I feel like I've been handed an ocean of homeschool techniques and methods, book lists and syllabi.

There is so much to sift through and think about! A nerd's paradise (that's me)! A party girl's nightmare.

Before I actually had to make decisions about teaching Miriam, I loved to dabble here and there, reading about various sources. I wanted to try everything--unschooling with National Geographic! Charlotte Mason with Flower Fairies! Neo-classical entirely in Latin! But my child is not my in vita experiment. She--both by temperament and by her human nature--needs some sort of stability, some consistency, some theme in her education. Life will happen, and plans will have to change. But her little person is not my playground for indulging my latest book-fed whim.

At the beginning of last year I was ready to piece together my own curriculum. This is what a lot of moms do, and it works well. Between chronic pain, a newborn, moving, and some serious postpartum depression, however, I ended up abandoning all planning time and then feeling guilty for not "really teaching" her anything. We made it through about half of the Saxon math curriculum (and really only completing about 30% of each lesson) and 75 lessons of Teach Your Child to Read. The rest was painting, crafts, and saying, "Go outside and bring me a rock that you like." But you know, I think she's doing fine. Lesson learned: a first grader who falls in the middle of that learning spectrum (i.e., is basically "normal"--ah! I said it!) can pretty much un-school and be quite happy.

While she did well, I'm the one who's going to need a little more help now. With three small children, I'm not going to be creating my own Spanish course, hymn study, nature journals, scopes and sequences, or coming up with enough glitter-crafts to distract a 3-year-old for 20 minutes while I plan the second grader's next lesson. Not that a second-grader needs much planning. In the grand scheme of things, if I read to her from the Scriptures, take her outdoors, bring her to Mass, and maybe play with numbers, she'll figure out what she needs to figure out. But I need some visible goals, some visible results.

Piecemeal schooling works well for some families. It worked well for us during a year of health problems, financial stress, and a new baby. Now, however, I feel the energy coming back: This is a year to practice some discipline in myself and some intentional planning.

So, for the busy mom who doesn't have time to plan, that means it's time to look at what someone else has already planned.

That's next.

Teaching the Kids, Part I

I've written about my reasons for homeschooling before: I believe in togetherness, respect for individuality and contemplation, personal attention, integrity of life, letting children care, and giving children time to be children and parents time to be parents. This is not to say that these principles can't be found in other education systems, but I truly believe that homeschooling gives us the time --raw minutes and hours -- to focus on childhood and learning. And I get to design my own uniforms (check out the painting to the right! I think I'll go for ridiculous lengths of red robes this time!). Just kidding. I'm lucky if we're all dressed by 11am.

Seriously, though, it's time for me to think about homeschooling again: goals, theories, and practical decisions. It's that time of year when mothers and fathers everywhere turn to thoughts of, "OHMIGOSH! It's the middle of July! It will soon be AUGUST!" Walmart was Back-to-School ready last week. Writing is how I process and make decisions, so here it goes.

Now, we must begin with a confession: School is fun for me. I love to pour over the books and possible curricula, I love to make maps and timelines, and I love love love to practice Gregorian chant and purchase beautiful art prints. This is because I am a nerd: Facebook is my crack, and books are my stiff drink at the end of a long day.

You do not, however, have to be a nerd to homeschool. You may hate graphs and charts. Lists of books and the course syllabus for 1st grade Math may give you hives. You may have flunked Algebra I. You are still the best teacher for your child (especially in the early elementary years) simply because you are Mom or Dad. If you can read Little Bear, you can teach first grade.

So, as I write about my decisions and thought-processes over the next few weeks, please don't think I'm especially suited to teaching my children. I'm not. I yell at them daily, I lose my temper. I love books; I'm not so good at housecleaning. I'm really good at finding saints' biographies; I'm not a saint myself.

The only qualification I have to teach my children is this: They have been entrusted to our care by their Creator. He who puts us to the task will give us the strength to do it: if we are called to educate them at home, we can. Period. Those are qualifications I share with every parent out there, nothing special to see here, folks.

The Godless Delusion

I seem to be on a atheist kick here... In The Godless Delusion: A Catholic Challenge to Modern Atheism, Patrick Madrid and Kenneth Hensley present a sort of no-argument-left-unsung challenge to current atheist claims. It is a good book, but doesn't approach The Loser Letters (about which I cannot say enough) for wit and even persuasiveness (is that a word?).

The philosophical explanations are clear and well-presented--a great introduction to Kant and Darwin for anyone with little experience! The authors intersperse the heavier stuff with concrete examples, anecdotes, and analogies. They do good work describing the so-called "problem" of evil, the moral implications of atheism, and the inability of atheism to account for the human experience.

Atheists reading might be offended by the constant claim that "all atheists know in their hearts that God exists." It's a sort of "anonymous Christian" claim that may shut down a dialogue (not that Christopher Hitchens isn't completely offensive to theists). Then again, if what I believe is true, then atheists do "know" God exists if only because they have to live with reality each and every day.

The most thought-provoking bits for me were the explanations of the basic atheist philosophy: naturalism. Naturalism is the assumption that matter--atoms, molecules, cells, etc.--is all that there is and provides a sufficient explanation for all phenomena in the world. The authors are particularly concerned to drive home the consequences of a society built on naturalistic principles: When God is dead, all is permitted. They contend that the basic assumption of our current society is increasingly naturalistic, specifically in education. Most educational institutions in the West now implicitly tell students that God is irrelevant to knowledge. We can know the world and live good lives without any reference to the spiritual or supernatural. (I think naturalism is one reason why we're homeschooling. I don't want my children to spend eight hours a day in a building where God is, if not explicitly denied, at least considered unnecessary to life and learning.)

It's worth a read.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company, and the reviewer received a free copy of the text in exchange for her opinion. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on The Godless Delusion.

Homechooling in crisis?

Dear friend Aaron Martin of To Dust You Shall Return has posted a couple of links to his law school paper Homeschooling in Germany and the United States. From the abstract:

"In March 2009, the Georgia House of Representatives passed House Resolution 850, urging the German Federal Government to legalize homeschooling. The resolution was one illustration of how advocacy groups throughout the United States have put pressure on Germany to change its draconian laws regarding homeschooling, laws that were enacted in 1938 during the Nazi regime. But while legislators are calling for Germany to change its laws, battles rage within the United States over the same issues.

This Note evaluates the state of homeschooling in the United States and Germany, both by considering the historical development in each country and through analysis of current cases. Although Germany and the United States have very different approaches to homeschooling and parental rights over the education of children, similar pressures threaten the status quo in each country. For Germany to concede rights to parents would undermine its strong nationalistic education system; individual judges in the United States feel that our relatively liberal homeschooling laws threaten the fabric of our pluralistic society and concede too much to individual - and often religious - beliefs."

This is a legal/academic paper, but it helps tremendously in understanding the debate over a parent's right to educate his/her child. This is a freedom we enjoy in the United States, but it is by no means a sure thing. Be wise, be informed! This note is a great place to start...

People of the word.

Here's a great little reflection piece of advice from I Take Joy:

"Do not fill your schedules with unnecessary activities and lists of textbooks and unnecessary busy work--it will wear you out and demotivate your children. Instead, delight in great stories, teach the word passionately. Greatly value and treasure words and ideas and history in front of your children so that they will fall in love with language and knowledge."

Children are already so motivated to greatness... this is easy for them and harder for us. My discipline and self-control--with regards to media, book choices, and time management--will bear exponential amounts of fruit in the girls. Motivation to keep going.

Togetherness.

I'm still having a lot of half-thoughts. But an older post at Holy Experience, together with the possibility of losing the homeschool, moved me to wonder. (It's funny how losing something makes us treasure that something.)

Now, a caveat: I do not believe that homeschooling is the answer for every family. It is not a one-way ticket to holiness or happiness. I have met mothers who homeschool for the wrong reasons--usually out of guilt or fear--and they burn out fast. It requires a certain noble sacrifice, but so too does sending the children to public or private school.

That being said, however, I have for many years been deeply committed to teaching our children at home. Here are a few reasons.

1. Togetherness. There is simply nothing that can substitute in a child's life for quantities of time with his mother and father (assuming that mother and father are basically functional as such). The school system as it currently is simply cannot respect this basic need: Children go off for 30 or even 40 hours a week--the equivalent of a full-time job for an adult. They have after-school activities. Weekends get busy fast. Car time with Miriam is fun, but it is always "going time." We're in a rush to be somewhere else. I want a family in which "together time" is maximized, even if it means some days I will pull out my hair (and possibly the children's hair as well). Quality time isn't planned, it happens unexpectedly within quantities of together time.

2. Respect for individuality and our contemplative vocation. The structure of the school day was something on which I thrived in high school. I loved having deadlines and being accountable. But I was 16. A 4-yr-old child does not need to be told, as soon as she's absorbed herself in some interesting play or project, that it's time to move on. This is not exercising or forming her ability to concentrate. Since we are all destined to contemplate the face of God and become absorbed in the "one thing necessary," our children should be allowed to exercise this capacity at a young age. For different children, this capacity shows up in different places. Miriam today spent one hour tracing all the numbers from one to one-hundred. Not my idea. Certainly not something she could have done at Glenwood. Certainly not something the little boys she plays with would ever find absorbing (not this year, anyway). But homeschooling allows me to allow her to contemplate (within reason, of course) as her little soul moves.

3. Personal attention. Again, Miriam is an independent child. She will trace hundreds of numbers on her own for hours. I wash the floor. But when the time comes, I'm able to read to her one-on-one, stop at a page or picture she likes, ask her a question, or hear her questions. Not infinitely, mind you: She is not the center of our familial universe (Isabella makes sure of that). I love, however, that we can make math into a music lesson, or bring her preoccupation with heaven into her reading time. She is more excited about the work, and so am I.

4. Integrity of life. There is little barrier to cross between home-time, leaisure-time, and schoolwork. Institutional learning necessarily fragments our children's lives. Again, this has its own advantages, especially as children grow older, but I do not think in the end it is best for learning. Popular representations of children depict school as "jail" and summer as "I'm free!!!!!!!!" Ugh. Learning and reading, education and intellectual curiosity, are an integral part of our makeup. We need to be curious and want to find answers at every moment. Wonder should spill into all activities, and no child should look upon the "place of learning" as something to check off the list so he or she can "get to the weekend" or "make it to summertime." Eventually, we hope that our children will spend their leisure and free time learning about the world, themselves, and the divine. Having lessons at home just means one less barrier to total integrity of life.

5. Raising children who care. As Holy Experience says:

"Scholastically, our aim for our children asks the same question that esteemed educator Charlotte Mason asked: "The question is not, 'how much does the youth know?' when he has finished his education––but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set?"

We believe that whatever we do, we need to do it wholeheartedly as unto the Lord. Right now, learning about God and His world is our children's full-time work. That means: education is a priority and it will be engaging work that requires real effort.

But that doesn't necessarily translate into them aiming towards traditional careers. It means we simply pursue the beginning of knowledge which is the fear of the Lord.

Do they care about God?
Do they love people?
Are their feet set in the large, large world as salt and light?

It means that we pursue not a cultural definition of success but of true greatness for our kids."

'Nuff said.

6. Letting children be children, parents be parents. Again, these children are with me for a very short time (althought 11am-1pm seems endless on most days). I have very few hours within which to know them, to love them without condition, to try to show them the way and grow with them on the way to eternity. The hours are short, eternity is forever. If I am to be a parent, let me be a parent. Their childhood is so short, let them finish kindergarten at 9am and then run. Free and happy.

Well, this has turned into quite the manifesto. I guarantee you that I will need to re-read this (and probably revise my lofty lingo) around mid-November. But I've tried to express some eternal truths. Living according to those truths will come out in the wash.

Miriam's Credo.

With the general craziness surrounding a Big Trip for the Scientist Dad, getting ready for school to begin, and finding all Miriam's kindergarten (wow.) supplies, philosophy has been left in a dusty little corner in my brain.

Fortunately, Miriam has not allowed her little metaphysical inclination to rest. She has been busy concocting a brand new heresy, which she will combat when she becomes a Dominican (they've been bored ever since the Albigensians disappeared).

I took the time on our morning walk to listen carefully to her formulation of the new Creed.

"Believe!
in God the Father Almighty
the Baker of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ,
his one, our Lord,
who was received by the Holy Spirit
bored of the Virgin Mary,
and died.
He ascended into hell. (I think we missed something important here.)
He will come again... (distracted by pink flower)
I believe in the Holy Spirit
the Holy Catholic Church
the communion of saints
the give-ness of sins (is that givenness?)
the resurrection of buddy

and life again, Amen."

I asked her to start the decade, and she complied:

"Our Father, who art in heaven, yellow be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven..."

Other than the obvious implication that God is material (yellow?), she got that one right. It's funny to me that she will probably have to re-learn many prayers as she gets older.

Because I didn't become Catholic until my teens, I never had the difficulty of learning my child's version of a prayer only to discover that's not what the prayer really says after all. Many cradle Catholics I know still sometimes exclaim, "I never knew the Church said that!" Really, though, I think they must have been told or at least heard it a million times.

We must have the humility to recognize that we may not have picked up everything there is to know along the way. Human learning is cyclical, as Laura Berquist says: We must constantly re-learn and re-examine the same thing. Or we will never know it. Like Miriam's Credo.

Reading the Classics

Thanks to Melanie B. over at The Wine-Dark Sea for this link. "Nancy Drew and the Wine-Dark Sea" explains the value of classical literature--and the inanity of most children's literature. A good motivation to continue your brave fight for truth, goodness, and beauty!

why fiction

A visiting friend and I recently had a discussion about fiction and its place in the life of wisdom. Of course, we didn't use such a lofty thesis statement, but that was the gist of it.

Why should we read things like Brideshead Revisited, Silence, A Man in Full, A Good Man is Hard to Find, Love in the Ruins, The Lord of the Rings, Kristin Lavransdatter, or even... Love in the Time of Cholera? If time is short, shouldn't we be almost exclusively reading the Catechism, the Bible, or various devotional works?

I'd like to think about this question sincerely, because there was a time in my life when all I wanted to read were works by saints or works on points of doctrine or ideas. There's nothing wrong with these seasons of life, so long as we do not absolutize them for ourselves or others.

The place of fiction and, in particular, modern fiction in the life of lovers of wisdom--philosophers!--has to do with knowledge of self, knowledge of the world, and knowledge of God.

The most important thing to remember is that all truth is one, and ultimately is found only in union with God. This does not mean, however, that only art or literature explicitly devoted to God speaks truth. As Augustine wrote, the human heart by nature groans and aches for God alone--all human works, however broken or disgusting, can give expression to this desire and thus to the fulfillment of this desire.

We should be reading the great works of modern fiction (amen, time is short, so skip the trash unless you're on a brain-vacation!) and helping our of-age children to do the same. We should read fiction because it speaks the language a whole dimension of ourselves that perhaps the Summa Theologica does not: the imagination, the will, the heart. It engages our intellect, too, in a new way: Rather than an analysis of a problem, it invites the reader to inhabit the questions at hand. If holiness or viciousness are only fully grasped in an encounter with a living person who is either holy or vicious, then fiction can draw us ore closely to a lived experience of these realities.

We should be reading modern fiction because we are moderns. Even more than that, we are post-moderns. It does not do for us to stop with the Greeks, the Medieval poets, Dante, or even Shakespeare. The reality is that, for us and our children, the world is a different place now than it was in 1900. I am glad I had to read 1984, Farenheit 451, In Cold Blood, Ordinary People, and even... ugh... Catcher in the Rye. I am even more glad that my 20th-century reading list did not end with high school but went on to include the works listed at the top of this page--and many more.

In reading the works of modern authors, we listen to the voice of our immediate companions on earth. We hear the influence of Nietzsche, WWI and WWII, the Cold War, the sexual revolution, the loss of confidence in natural science, the loss of so much. We also see the ongoing thirst for truth, beauty, and goodness--and the unlikely moments in which these are found in our own context. We learn to speak the language that those around us speak. This is the only way we ourselves can grasp the truth of our condition: in order, creatures, humans, moderns.

Now, truth is sometimes depressing. Especially Ray Bradbury's fiction. Ugh. Tom Wolfe is no walk in the sunshine, either. But they articulate and paint for our souls images, allegories, and stories from which Christ himself does not shrink. Neither should we. All truth is one; all truth is of God.

So, I'd like to see some curriculums including these works of fiction: teaching children to be modern Catholics--in the world, not of it. Able to speak the language of the modern world without receiving its despair. Having been taught to do so, they will know joy and hope all the more deeply.

TS Eliot on education and the arts

Have you ever lamented the decline of the arts in our culture? Have you ever looked at the proliferation of, um, trash in Border's bookstores and wondered, "Whence?" "Wherefore?" "Foresooth!?"

Listen to TS Eliot:

"You cannot expect continuity and coherence in literature and the arts, unless you have a certain uniformity of culture, expressed in education by a settled, though not rigid agreement as to what everyone should know to some degree, and a positive distinction--however undemocratic it may sound--between the educated and the uneducated. I observed in America, that with a very high level of intelligence among undergraduates, progress was impeded by the fact that one could never assume that any two, unless they had been at the same school ... had studied the same subjects or read the same books, though the number of subjects in which they had been instructed was surprising ... In a negative liberal society you have no agreement as to there being any body of knowledge which any educated person should have acquired at any particular stage: the idea of wisdom disappears, and you get sporadic and unrelated experimentation."

~Christianity and Culture: The Idea of a Christian Society

Happily, there are a number of concurrent and related experiments going on around our nation now, in the form the the classical homeschool and private academy curricula. I wonder, however, what the outcome will be.

Are the children of the public schools going to become Eliot's "uncritical and illiterate mob" that digs into any scintillating piece of writing/TV/cinema that comes their way? Do the children given the gift of classical education sequester themselves in a community--provincial and isolated--of "educated"? How to bridge the gap?

Of course, there will always be the odd ducks: the "mob members" who actually seek wisdom, the "educated" who graduate and never ask another question (is that so odd?).

But my heart bleeds to perceive that Eliot's rallying cry has been heard by so few, themselves fragmented, torn by disagreement, and isolated.

A little on Harry

Harry Potter seems to be a litmus test for the average homeschooler: If you detest him, you're blessed, if you adore him, you're woefully misguided at best.

Whether you approve or disapprove, your judgment must be vehement. "The Harry Potter books promote Satanic cult worship!" "The Harry Potter books are the new childhood classics!" There's little room for quiet, thoughtful debate on the literary merits of the books, to what age-group they are most appropriately introduced (or not), or, indeed, even the spiritual perils and graces available in them.

Mark Shea, over at my favorite First Things, has written a brief (if exasperated) analysis in favor of the Potter books that's pretty convincing. It'll delight my dearling friend, Christine Neulieb, who recently posted a less-intellectually-stimulating but hilarious "Potter Puppet Show."

The puppets speak much more to my present condition than does Shea, I have to admit...

Grammar

Teaching grammar ought not to quench the philosophical spirit. In my weak and fallen state, however, hours of explaining adverbs to eyeball-rolling 9th-graders reduces dramatically my desire and capacity for contemplation.

I just want to watch Law and Order reruns.

(NB: "I" is the subject, "want" is the action verb, "just" is the adverb answering the question, "To what extent?".... etc.)