Rabbi Winder workbooks

 I really love the L'Shon HaTorah workbooks by Rabbi Winder. And all 3 boys are finally old enough to do them. I want to make it part of their Avos UBanim Motzei Shabbos learning, but E is old enough that he doesn't do that anymore. I'd love to sit them all down once a week to do it for 10 minutes or so. But they'd have to agree (#unschooling) (not #radicalunschooling or I'd wait for them to ask) and I just don't know that they would agree to it. 

Another possibility is leaving E alone and figuring he'll either be an adult who isn't much into skills or wait until he passionately desires skills and is willing to put in his own efforts when he's older. And just seeing if the younger 2 boys are willing.

Then I think that odds are, in the high school years or in the going to Israel years, they'll be interested in acquiring skills and why not just wait until then?

The eternal tug of war between whether or not to try to involve them in skills or trust that they'll eventually want skills and work to acquire them from their own motivation.

I will certainly bring it up for discussion and see if there is willingness. Jack has been learning with me once a week as part of our evening special time, and I think he does better when learning in a linear, orderly fashion. I've been skipping around and I don't think it's doing much, similar to when I was he kept asking me and I was haphazardly trying to teach him to read and he was much happier with a textbook and curriculum.

So even though I think it would be more fun for Jack and Aharon to learn together, it may be that Jack is the one who is ready and it's not time for Aharon yet. But I will discuss it with them and see.

Even if they may be theoretically amenable, oftentimes they are very busy with their own pursuits and are unwilling to stop. Jack stops once a week to have special time with me, and when I asked if we could learn a little Torah as part of that, he said Sure. But the odds of also getting Aharon to join go down exponentially when you are trying to coordinate with more people. So that's why even though it might be fun for them to do it together, practically that may not end up being something that can be regularly coordinated.

I do suspect that once the two youngest are interested in skills, they'll be motivated and put the time and effort in.

limudei kodesh 4th grade & Hippocratic Parenting

My 4th grader really wants a phone. It's my policy that my kids earn their electronics.  This is against radical unschooling policy, which promotes abundance mentality.  I'm reminded of advice that my mom gave me about 17 years ago, when I had no idea what to do with my infant: "Jessie, it doesn't really matter much either way.  Just make a decision and go with it."

There are a lot of bad decisions I can make as a parent.  Sometimes it takes all of my energy to be what I call a Hippocratic Parent*: a parent that First, Does No Harm.  To simply be kind, to not be aggressive or furious or tense or impose my emotional issues on them.
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*which is different than a hypocritical parent, which is what I always associate to :-P

But a while back I read an interesting study that moderate parents who incline more towards permissiveness or more towards strictness don't actually make a difference in long term outcomes.  So the choice of raising children with an abundance mentality which inclines them to generosity, vs. the choice of raising children to earn what they get, which inclines them towards appreciation and responsibility, is really just a matter of preference. (Radical unschoolers disagree, and I respect that.)

I'm not an unschooler purist because I do want my children to learn Torah and appreciate Torah. 

And although I can appreciate that radical unschooling has a different attitude towards money and gifts and earning privileges than I do, and it makes a lot of sense, there are things that I like about having kids earning their tablets and phones and laptops.

So Jack wants a phone.  Both girls earned their phones when they finished Chamisha Chumshei Torah.  I have told Jack for years that when he finishes Chumash, he can have a phone. 

The issue is, he doesn't read Hebrew very well.  We haven't done L'shon HaTorah workbooks.  So having him read and translate isn't really an option.

But last week, late at night, he asked me to start learning with him.  So yesterday we did.  I read the first page of the Stone Chumash in Hebrew and translated (mostly Biblical Hebrew to Modern Hebrew, with a few English words thrown in like "hover" for "merachefes").  We asked a lot of questions, like What is Tohu Va'vohu?  How does one divide between light and dark?  What does it mean that the spirit of Elokim was hovering over the deep?  What deep?

I told him that these questions are like riddles and as he gets older, learning Torah is looking for answers to these riddles.  Right now we are doing a first reading.

I forgot how much fun it is to introduce someone to the joy of learning. 

I don't know if he'll keep up with this or not.  I think it probably makes more sense to not push and to let him do it when he wants.  I go back to all throughout High School, I tried doing Bio with Chen.  And we did have quite a few enjoyable Bio learning sessions, even though we never quite learned it as thoroughly as I wished.  But now she wants to take Neuroscience and Bio is the prereq, and I found her an online college level Bio course and she's learning it herself. 

So I don't know how this will play out.  Unschooling continually surprises me and never looks like I thought it would. 

unschooling lashon hatorah

I have been wondering if Elazar should start the Rabbi Winder series of Lashon HaTorah workbooks.  A friend dropped off her old workbooks and there were 2 Aleph workbooks, so Jack and Elazar started working on them.  I thought that Elazar could read the basic English words (I was right) and recognize the letters (I was right) and know what they mean (I was right).  But he got thoroughly annoyed at me when I tried to explain to him what was going on and what he was supposed to do.  He was having a grand ol' time (except he kept telling me to please stop saying things, it was annoying) and I was telling myself that unschooling means I have no agenda and I can always buy him another workbook later when he's ready to actually learn the material.  He kept saying, "I know how to cheat! I know how to cheat! I just look back at the page before!"  This brought him great joy.  And when a new letter was introduced, he just looked back at the page before and saw which one was left over.

I suppose his introduction to R' Winder was enjoyable.  (Except I was annoying.)   He did 6 pages in one sitting.

on unschooling and housekeeping

I've taken the boys out for a few hours every day this week.  As a result, the house looks messy, but not trashed.  I could hardly believe I've gotten to Thursday without the place looking like a tornado spiraled through it (make that 3 tornadoes and their friends :), until I realized what a difference it makes when your kids are out of the house.

My neighbor (also a homeschooler) told me a few years ago that of course the house is messier, because we are using it the entire day.  For some reason, I hadn't thought of that.  (Probably because we all know a house can be trashed in about 2 minutes, and I never realized the quantitative difference between the 2 minute trash and a day's worth of a lot of 2 minute trashes).

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I've been thinking about Elazar's education, probably because Chana's away at camp and so I have a break from teaching her.  He's kind of interested in reading, and kind of interested in Torah, and I'm thinking about the difference between nudging him a bit vs unschooling.

My neighbor asked me about R' Winder workbooks yesterday.  I used them with the girls and we loved them.  I don't start them until the kids can read.  This is usually first grade.  Elazar is 6.  But I'm not teaching him how to read.  When he wants to, he'll teach himself or ask me or someone else to teach him.  (Not to say that when he asked me to write down "lava coloring pages" this morning so he can type it into google to search and print, that I didn't ask him what sound it started with, which he correctly identified as "L" and the next syllable, which he sounded "vvvvv...V.")

He loves music and sings a lot, yet when I sat down and layned the first pasuk in the Torah, it didn't call out to him.  He got bored.
I don't have much exposure to the Zilberman method, but I think he'd probably respond to it.  Unfortunately, I'm not trained in that method, nor do I know enough about it to implement it.

But I was thinking, what is the difference between me teaching him now, slowly, laboriously.  Pushing him, but not painfully.  Making him stretch a bit.
Or, I can wait.  And when he's 10, he'll zip through it.  Either through the R' Winder books for elementary ages, or the books designed for older children.  What might I gain by having him spend the hours now, when he's younger, as opposed to him doing more speedily and efficiently when he's older?

Classical education has the teacher stretching the student.  Not painfully, but ideally in that sweet spot right out of the comfort zone but before frustration, where they gain new skills or expand their thinking in new ways.  I was thinking this morning of the many tussles I had with both Chana and Sarah about Chumash, and how after a few years of "stretching," they got into the groove and could read and translate fairly independently.

Unschooling has the child playing, playing, playing.  The play is the essential activity through which they learn and grow and discover.  They also become interested in different areas of knowledge, and learn what they need and want in order to pursue what they want to pursue.
I think, given our home environment, it will be unlikely that Elazar will reach bar mitzva without desiring to read and understand the Torah.

Am I willing to risk that?

Some might argue that having the discipline to sit and apply himself to learning is an important skill to develop.  All I can say to that is that in my experience, playing for more years does not impact on their future ability to be self-disciplined and to apply themselves.  Sarah went from learning 45 minutes of chumash, 45 minutes of math, and 15 minutes of rashi a day (less than 2 hours, not in a row) to sitting from 8am-5pm.  And homework.  With no trouble at all.
Probably the fact that this was her choice had an effect.  I would hope that my education includes enough of a sense of responsibility that applying themselves diligently to work to support themselves would be their choice, too.

Another argument is that perhaps my son is old enough for chinuch and I am not educating him to immerse himself in Torah.  I have numerous thoughts on this so maybe it would be better to have it its own post.