No Vacation in Unschooling

Every once in a while, I realize that unschooling has made me see things really differently than most of society.  It crept upon me so gradually, I don't realize it until I end up hearing things that seem jarring.

People ask me how my summer is going.  They ask when we are starting school.  I say, No, we go year round.  No difference between summer and the rest of the year.  They commiserate with my poor kids.  This feels strange to me.

Jack asked me to sit in the back seat with him when we were driving home from my parents so that we can learn a perek of Chumash together.  He doesn't feel like learning is something he needs a break from.  When he wants to learn it, he asks me.  He doesn't feel like he's on "vacation" from learning or needs a break.  Learning is part of life.

In the middle of learning Chumash, Aharon interrupts us to ask for division problems.  Ari is giving Elazar math problems from the front seat.

The pediatrician and Chen were discussing her medication for college.  He said she should wait until she gets her schedule, then give him a call so they can discuss dosage and strategy.  I said, "But what is she supposed to do for the next two weeks?"  He said, "What are you talking about? College doesn't start for two more weeks."  I said, "But she's been learning calculus most days.  She needs some pills so she can do math."  He doesn't understand.  She graduated high school.  She's not in school yet.  Why is she learning Calc now?  For fun.

Who learns complicated math for fun during the summer?  The doctor is baffled.

The pediatrician also asks her what classes she is interested in for college.  "Chemistry," Chen says.  "Science major?" the doctor asks.  Chen shrugs.  "No, I just want to learn it."  Pediatrician frowns.  "Why would you take a hard science if you don't need it for your major?"  "It seems interesting," Chen says.  For many people, college is about finishing on time, requirements, a major.  For Chen it is about learning what her heart calls her to learn.

"Can you send me that perek where Moshe tells Hashem he gave birth to the Jews and nursed them like a baby?" Chen asks.  "I want to send the source to my friend."

"When can we do the blood type kit?" Jack begs me.  I bought it a couple of weeks ago but planned to wait until September.  He keeps asking me. 

I'm highlighting the "educational" stuff.  They don't distinguish between "educational" and "interesting" and "fun."  It's all the same to them.  I forget, until I see other people's attitudes, that there is a distinction in most people's lives.

How is Unschooling Going? Age 11

I'm on a group and someone new asked: Does anyone have any ideas on how to motivate a 2e kid who isn’t?! 10 yo boy...

I wrote an answer and I figured I'd share here.

My 11yo is severe ADHD.  I've pretty much given up trying to teach him anything (he starts getting tics or destroying things if he sits for five minutes).

I give him unlimited video games--he learns a ton from there.  Access to youtube--he looks up lots of things he wants to know and watches a lot of science and social studies [and a lot of other 'nonsense' but he ends up being well "read" with a fantastic vocabulary].

I'm always hanging about if he wants to tell me things and discuss what he's watching, doing or thinking about.  A ton of his learning comes from me just sitting around doing my own thing and pausing when he comes over and being a person to bounce things off of or for him to share something he just watched that he's very enthusiastic about.

I daven out loud sitting next to him every morning while he plays video games.  Some mornings he sings along with me.  Very rarely.  Sometimes he hums the tunes to himself as I walk away.  Some mornings he decides he absolutely must go visit the neighbor right when I start davening.

I also have a ton of art supplies for him to tinker around with.  Glue gun.  Duct tape.  Paper, scissors, stapler, lots and lots of cardboard (he collects that himself on recycle day).  That's pretty much his day every day (we also do parkour outside the house 2x a week).

He's a happy kid and is thriving.

Also we eventually discovered that a mishna is great because it's very, very short.  He learns one mishna most nights but that's after years and years of really not doing anything official--and he chooses to do it.  If he's resistant, we don't do it.  He gets tics.

My husband takes him to avos ubanim motzei shabbos and he reads a page of reading and hears parsha.  He can still barely read hebrew.  His English he somehow learned (from minecraft) but he doesn't love to read.  Just enough to navigate the internet.

I have him read about 2 lines of bentching after bread if he doesn't scamper off too quickly.

Little bits, here and there, very relaxed.  Me always around for conversation.  We take walks where he asks deep philosophical Torah questions.  He asks halacha questions very very frequently.


All in all, seeing how much anguish parents go through when their kids have trouble in school.  And seeing how much the kids suffer--aside from the actual pain of sitting still, many of them suffer from anxiety and crushed self esteem.  I mostly feel a shaky sense of relief and delight that Elazar is a happy, thriving, confident kid who loves learning and loves his life.

Best Use of My Time

I have to remember that conflict resolution is one of the most important things to me as a parent and homeschooler.  

Way back when my oldest was homeschooling, and I was trying to figure out how to manage my time and make decisions about what to teach, I did a "begin with the end in mind" approach where I thought about what things I wanted my adult children to have.  And then planned their education with that in mind.  

To recap, it was 4 things:

1. Basic reading, written communication, and math (I've since dropped math--they seem to figure out the basics of a calculator pretty easily)
2. A sufficient sense of responsibility that allows a person to hold down a job; i.e. show up on time and do your work diligently.
3. The capacity for satisfying and emotionally healthy relationships with a spouse, children, and friends.
4. A non-superstitious relationship to Judaism and Torah (I've since changed it to a love for Torah AND mitzvos, after some missteps in parenting during the teen years)

I've mentioned that physical fighting has gone down and we are seeing a lot of verbal disagreements with raised voices.  One of the things I've always loved about homeschooling is that there is time to slow down and handle these issues.  And what I love about unschooling is it seems like that IS the job.

So now I'm reminding myself not to get swept away by my own projects and the minutiae of running a fair-sized household and not to forget that when I hear the voices raised, I have nothing better to do than to go over to them or call them over to me, help them talk through the conflict, and learn and practice the tools to resolve it.

Zos Chanuka

Aharon's burning desire to read has settled down.  He stopped dragging the reader in every night 4 minutes before the cutoff time (10:30pm).  Either he achieved a level of mastery that he is content with, or the urge that had been driving him just eased a bit.

I forgot about the rhythms of learning.  Back when I used to homeschool (not unschool), some weeks/months the kids would be raring to go, like their brains were extra nimble and they were super motivated.  Then other times they'd be like molasses, difficult to motivate and sluggish to work.  I learned many years ago to look out for the highs and grab them and get as much done as possible.  Because during the lows and dips they didn't want to work.

It was something I didn't know about from "regular" school.  Kids have to go by what the class is doing, and don't get to ride the waves of their own personal brain functioning and motivation and zip when they are uber efficient, and take it easier when they are more stagnant.  But I saw it a lot in homeschool when I taught other people's kids.  And I see it here again.

V'dibarta Bam

Aharon asked me this morning if Hashem speaks to people using words because He knows that humans invented speech and so is that why He communicates that way?

I wasn't exactly sure what he was getting at.  I realized that a few weeks ago he asked me about who invented language, how language got started.  I gave him a rather paltry summary of linguistics (meaning I told him there is a field of study where people explore these questions), and explained that speech is something that humans can do naturally, but also learn to do.  And how we think speech evolved.

Last week, he asked me how Hashem speaks with no mouth--does He make a mouth?  And clarified (to the extent a 7yo can grasp) non-physicality.  And distinguished between non-physicality vs. non-existence.

At the time, when I was answering those questions, I really had no idea where he was going with this.  It turns out that he's been pondering a lot of philosophical issues. 

When he turned to me this morning, he hit pause on his video game or youtube video to ask me that question. 

One of the things my kids have always said they love about homeschooling is the time to think about things.  A kid his age may appear to be spending a lot of time playing video games or watching youtube videos, but he's also daydreaming and pondering Divine Incorporeality and what exactly prophecy means and how it works.  How can Hashem, who has no body, "touch" or come in contact with the physical world?

I said Hashem doesn't just have to use words; He can also use dreams and images.

These conversations range over the course of weeks and months.  I had no idea when my second grader was asking about language, that he was thinking about Hashem.

My, How Things Have Changed

Things are different now than they were fifteen years ago.  I signed my kids up to go to an Archaeological Dig.  Both the girls attended this program back in the day and thought it was fabulous and so much fun.  It's a great concept: A guy who has actual artifacts from real archaeological sites comes and digs up a backyard, buries his artifacts, and the kids dig them up and learn about that time period.  It's an incredibly hands-on way to learn history.  It was one of the homeschool highlights that my girls enjoyed when they were in the elementary grades, and when I saw it listed I immediately signed up the boys who were the right age for it.

Well, a kid who can't sit through five minutes of talking and another kid who is uncomfortable in new places without his mom are not exactly the best candidates for a week-long drop off program.  I remembered it being pretty hands-on.  But apparently any bit of talking doesn't work for some kids. 

11yo came home furious after the first day that it was boring.  And also, why was it all about avoda zara?  (They were studying Ancient Greece.)

I had to pack them lunch every day.  Ari was kind enough to drive them (and ended up being pretty unhappy about it), and after the first day, they started complaining that they didn't want to do it.  E was pretty much crying today that he didn't want to go.  (Just like real school!)  That it uses up all the time in his day, and it's boring.

Every day they spoke a lot about different things they learned.  Elazar unearthed an entire horse jaw.  He said it was really big.  He asked me about Plato.  I think they learned a ton and will be thinking about a lot of things. 

Overall, though, I'd say יצא שכרו בהפסדו, that the loss cancels the gain.  Elazar was pretty miserable.  And even Jack wasn't overly enthused.

It's kind of shocking that with an unschooling mindset, classes that used to seem amazingly educational and fun in the beginning of my homeschool years, when I was in a more "schoolish" mindset, are really not very enjoyable to my hardcore unschoolers, who are used to not having any sort of learning shoved down their throat whatsoever, and drop any bit of "education" when it is boring or not appealing to them.  Our standards have shifted.

v'hagita bo (yomam v') layla

Why does everyone want to learn after my brain turns off for the evening?  By 8pm I am winding down.  By 10pm I am downright cranky.  I frequently go upstairs by 9pm.  Last night I left it til 10 and I was practically growling when I got upstairs. 

Jack still wants to learn a page of Chumash every day so that he can earn a phone.  But he asked me to please not stop so much and ask him comprehension questions.  He said just read it and translate it and don't talk to him.  I was a little sad, because part of what I love best is the interactive part of learning with my children.  But also I think this makes it easier for him to focus on the parts he understands and to skirt over the parts he doesn't.  One thing that Chen taught me with her neurodivergent method of reading comprehension is that there is a benefit to going over the same thing many times, and each time you get another piece, and eventually it contributes to a bigger picture.  Maybe that's how reading the Parsha every week goes.  Over the years, you see it again and again, each time differently. 
I already know that just as Elazar is a kinesthetic learner who learns by immersion and touch, Jack prefers to stay back and observe and perceive.  So it makes sense that he doesn't want interaction.  He actually prefers the passivity of sitting back and listening. 

Something that I've learned in homeschool is to pay close attention when my children give me advice about how they want to learn.  They know.

While I was learning with Jack, Aharon came over and asked if he was going to have to take a turn.  Puzzled, I said not yet.  He cheered.

Then, when I went upstairs after 10, I realized that Aharon often remembers he wants to read Hebrew at 10:30, which is after our deadline and we've been trying very hard to make a clear boundary that after 10:30 we (Ari and I) are in bed and our time is our own.  So I called down to Aharon and asked if he wanted to read.  He did.  His ability with the nekudos and blending is very smooth, but he still has trouble remembering the letters.

And Ari learns mishna with Elazar most nights. 

Last night at 8pm, Elazar dragged me over to the computer to work on editing his story.  We are slowly working through it for grammar, punctuation, and to make sure it all flows and makes sense.  I had a bit of a hard time following it when he first wrote it, so this time I ask questions when I'm missing something and he fills in the information.  I have high hopes of following the plot better this time around.  Also, as he grew, he got more sophisticated.  It's fun to see how he wrote a few years ago compared to now. 

Also, I am finally having some leisure time and have been davening out loud many mornings.  I'm not sure if they pay any attention at all.  Though sometimes I hear Elazar humming the tune.

Science Class, so to speak

Jack went through a k'nex phase last year where he really enjoyed building things from instructions so we got him a bunch of kits.  He spent hours building them.  He played with them a bit (and then didn't want to break them, hence they were at first hanging out in our guest room in the basement, and then had to be moved when we had guests and are duly stored in the storage room, gathering dust and spiders, but they are still fully built).

 

Now he built Elazar's birthday present.  Elazar got a science kit from my dad for his birthday and Jack spent the afternoon building it with his friend.  I didn't even know we had it in the house.  (PS #konmari is slowly falling apart, especially in the basement where their vision for the space is "we never have to clean it up.")  Then he asked me to check how much money he has in his account, so that he can buy another kit to build.

I checked it out online, and there are a bunch of cute science kits by this brand.  In the unschooling group I read, they make a big point about how when kids are interested in something, and we facilitate it, THAT is the curriculum.  Getting your kids video games when they want is their curriculum.  Getting them a netflix subscription is their curriculum.  Buying them all the lego sets they want that you can afford is their curriculum.

This is a little (a lot) different than my approach which is that my kids earn their electronics and many of their toys. 

I've mentioned before that studies show that being more strict vs. more permissive doesn't really make a significant difference in terms of parenting outcomes. (Too strict and too permissive does cause problems, and different ones from each other.)  So just like classical vs. eclectic styles of homeschooling have different details of outcomes but still both have positive outcomes, different styles of parenting likewise can all come out with happy, healthy children.  So I generally don't stress too much over whether it's better to foster joy and abundance or a stricter sense of responsibility, even though I do ponder the philosophical implications. (I do feel somewhat duty bound to point out that radical unschoolers maintain, and in my experience this is true, that a life of joy and abundance DOES end up with grateful and very responsible adults, and one does not need to impose responsibility on them but that the attitude of respect, concern, and paying attention to their needs ends up fostering caring and responsibility in them.  However, for the sake of this post, let's say that in my mind sometimes I feel like I'm choosing things so my children won't end up spoiled and so that they will have a sense of responsibility, and that although they go against radical unschooling principles, I still feel that it is a legitimate way to raise children.  Just as although I personally do not restrict media, I believe that restricting media is a legitimate parenting choice and can result in happy and healthy children.)

However, in this case, I was not feeling conflict.  Buying Jack a bunch of science electronic and circuitry kits is very definitely science.  And it's a legitimate allocation of curriculum funds. 

The very best thing about this is that I don't have to help him.  One of the big disappointments that I discovered about myself is that I hate science and art projects.  I had accept that I should no longer buy science project kits or science project books because I hate doing them.  I hated admitting that about myself, because I had an image of a crafty, science, project doing homeschool mom.  But that's not me.  So it is super exciting that all I have to do is hand Jack a pile of science kits and he's happily occupied and learning for hours.  With the neighbors--so it's also socialization ;) 

This is about as wonderful as when Chen wanted a $300 video editing software, and after downloading the free version for a month and her using all the time and assuring me she wanted it, we bought it for her.  Because it was basically signing her up for a video editing class except that she taught it to herself and we didn't have to carpool her anywhere.  Win-win!

unschooling and letting go of expectations

Elazar asked if he can explore the storage room.  I said sure. 

He found the human body toy and they played with that.

He just told me he found lots of little legos.

I went down and saw he found the physics "simple machine" lego kits I bought over a decade ago that I never used.

I told them that there are instructions and it's physics.  I'm in conflict--encourage them to use them in the way they were designed to be used?  Or take a chill, pill, and let them enjoy it how they want?

Knowing Elazar, he'd rather scavenge the parts that look good to him to use for whatever project he's doing.  But Jack likes following instructions.

Sure enough, Jack came down to play with the kit and Elazar came upstairs.

Unschooling Literature

Homeschoolers fret, if I'm any indication of the population.  I'm probably one of the most relaxed, calm, confident homeschoolers in existence, and I find thoughts drifting through my head about whether I'm doing right by my children.

I think "worry" plays a valuable role.  It keeps me on track.  It makes me evaluate what I'm doing to see if it's "best practice."

Sometimes I worry when my children aren't doing --insert whatever here-- and I think that maybe the answer is to coax them into doing whatever kind of work.

(Let me state here: Education where you strive to teach a curriculum that you find valuable and to do it in a way where it is as enjoyable as possible for the student can be a lovely and noble thing.  I'm presenting the unschooling POV here.  The great thing about homeschooling is the freedom to educate as you like.)

So naturally, when E (grade 5) was decidedly uninterested in the book I took out of the library for him (Ronia the Robber's Daughter) even though it was highly recommended and supposedly funny, we eventually decided to give up and return it without finishing it.  And in between, I worried.

But then, I took out Charlotte's Web.  And I don't have to think about reading it to him or finding time for it or scheduling it.  Because he keeps coming to me and asking me to read it.

And that is the difference between unschooling and schooling.  It's not on my head to manage it.  It's not on my head to plan it and it's not on my head to make sure it happens.  It's the kind of learning that is so thrilling and joyous and desirable that they come to me and ask me to facilitate it.  They want it, yearn for it, seek it out, beg me to do it.

He didn't find Charlotte's Web.  I did.  I am on the lookout for experiences and subjects and field trips that I think they will like, that will spark their interest.

And there are infinite things that they find to do, projects they want to make, places they want to go, that I can assist them with.

I see the difference in motivation, interest and love with Charlotte's Web vs. something I have to constantly pull him aside to do that he is reluctant about.  The difference in the amount of time and effort they put in.  The difference in how quickly and easily they learn.  And when I see that difference, it makes me want to abandon all attempts to cajole reluctant learners to learn things.  And to follow them passionately and help them learn whatever calls out to them.

Al Pi Darka

First a small update: Ari decided that he is going to focus on reading with the boys every day.  He's been reading a page in the Aleph Bina with them every day, and they've all been happily reading.  Elazar is still having trouble sitting for learning (even though he enjoys the Friday night Mishna very much), so Ari felt that getting him fluent in reading will be key to increased participation in brachos, tefila, etc.

Next up, Yom Kippur.  K was away for the three day yontif of Rosh Hashana, and on one of our beach walks leading up to the chag, we discussed themes of Rosh Hashana and how she was feeling about it.  It was uncanny how much she remembered from previous years.  All those years I fretted that I wasn't teaching her enough, and it turns out she has an incredible grasp of the basic and deeper ideas of the chag.

So I am trying to figure out how to make a meaningful Yom Kippur for her.  The boys are not really chinuch age for Yom Kippur just yet.  I can maybe go through some of the facts of the Yom Kippur avoda with them.  But for K, who strongly dislikes shul, we decided on one tefila.  She was indifferent as to whether it was mincha or Neila.  (I thought of Musaf, but it's very long, and as I discovered about Rosh Hashana, I don't have to push the themes so hard.)  So I will choose which tefila on the day, depending on everyone's mood and how the boys are doing.

She asked if it is allowed for her to socialize.  I said yes, but everyone will be in shul.  Although I appreciate the solemnity and awe of the day, my assessment is that taking that approach this year with this child would be counterproductive.  We will get books out of the library so that the boredom of the day will not be overly painful for her.  And she agreed to grant me one hour of learning.

I am thinking of learning the Rambam's Moreh Nevuchim with her On Evils (Friedlander pg 267) since that is something that has come up in conversation before and I hope she will find it interesting.  And if it works out, I'll turn next to Moreh Nevuchim about Iyov and his analysis of the book.  She has asked about that, too.

I'll let you know how it goes.  In my experience homeschooling, my plans and what ends up happening usually have very little in common.

A small grief about unschooling

I was (and still am) a very serious student.  I am very focused and capable of spending hours in a row learning.  I remember a lot of my school education (despite having found it extremely stressful) and have often been glad that I know the things I was taught, both secular and Torah.

I was pretty excited at the thought of homeschooling, because I thought I would have the opportunity to learn with my children.  And in truth it is very exciting to be on hand for so many of their explorations and discoveries.  (Last week at the grocery store, they discovered a spider dangling from a web and spent a few minutes playing with it and seeing how touching the web affected the spider's movements--hands on bio and physics.)

But it has been a disappointing reality that none of my children have been that interested in studying in the "normal" academic way or the "normal" subjects.  Perhaps a large part of that is because we've had so many years of deschooling that our homeschool education looks completely different than "regular" school.  Another part of it might be that spending so much time sitting and so much time on frontal teaching/lecture and so much time studying things that the children find utterly boring is no longer part of our repertoire.  And taking the step into unschooling brought us even further.  In homeschooling, a big goal is to make learning pleasant.  But in unschooling, if the children don't want to learn it, they don't.  So while all battles about math and Chumash and history have ceased, that also means that my children aren't acquiring the usual skills and information.

I can talk myself down about that.  I know that what they are getting instead is

• an extremely integrated sense of learning and life
• a positive attitude towards learning and a long lasting curiosity 
• the confidence that any time they want to learn anything in life, it's a good time to start learning it
• the resourcefulness to look things up and ask for help in learning what they want or acquiring the skills and understanding they seek
• a tendency towards creativity and joie de vivre

But a part of me mourns that they won't learn standard multiplication and division (unless they want to).  They won't read a good selection of the classics (though I always felt that high school was too young to understand a lot of them).  They won't have a sense of history (unless they study it).  They won't have an encyclopedic knowledge of halacha and Tanach.  Things that I consider "basic knowledge" they eschew and blithely tell me they can google.  They might end up with any of this.  But ultimately, a lot of their education is in their own hands and the particulars of what they pursue are not my decision.

I know that in removing the long and involved curriculum (that bores the bejeebers out of many students), we have made space for play, for joy, for contemplating, for deep thinking, for hands on learning, for emotional development, for pursuing interests, for delving into unusual topics, and for learning about the world in a deeply personal, enthusiastic, and individualistic way that naturally tailors itself to the student's needs and abilities.  

But sometimes I think about the "standard" curriculum: Tefila, bekius, Jewish history, a tremendous amount of time studying Chumash and Nach and Mishna and Gemara.  And history and Lit. and math and Science.  

And I wish I could teach my kids that, and feel a bit sad, and take some time to feel the ache before I move on.  

I have long felt that the only way to succeed in homeschooling without going crazy from overwhelmedness, anxiety, or guilt, is to get very clear about your priorities and your goals.  Then focus on those and let the rest go.  I've been practicing that for over a decade and a half.  And I will continue to practice.

unschooled kids don't learn what they don't want to learn

I got this great book out of the library.  Historical fiction, all three boys can read it, it explains about American History and the minutemen.  I had it in the house for weeks, all of them refused to read it and said it was boring.  I gave it to K, and she also declined.

I'm off to return it and I'm giving myself a little pep talk that when they are interested in the American Revolution, they'll learn about it.

A lot of made-to-be-educational materials don't go over that well here.  They are already out of duct tape and almost out of stuffing, though.

the arts and crafts bin

Our giant A&C bin has been mostly emptied except for a bunch of cloth that someone donated to us.  I asked the boys to make a wish list:

clay

scotch tape

stuffing

staples and more staplers

light sensitive paper

giant paper

glue

and then I finally decided to go for

borax

and I threw in purple duct tape to hit free shipping

How 11th Grade Unschooler comes to learn Earth Science

It all started with the Office.  I looked for a clip of the scene but only found a picture:

Kiisu (going by her Japanese name these days because of her great love of Japan) was enjoying the scene but didn't understand the subtleties of this joke.  She decided she wanted to have a better grasp of clouds.  She then spent about half an hour researching clouds, how they are formed, what the different clouds mean and what conditions cause them.  She then discussed this with people online, telling them about what she learned and answering their questions, which led her to more research.

This is probably more efficient than classroom learning because it's very targeted and she will probably remember it better, since it emerged from her desire to know it.

She said to me, "I know you asked me to jot down when I do things like that, but it's pretty impossible because this happens all the time.  I don't even notice when I'm doing it."

That's because for unschoolers, learning and life are not two separate activities.  They don't try to avoid learning or have negative associations with learning because they generally don't learn what they don't want to.  The only reason I even became aware that Kiisu had studied some Earth Science topics is because we were walking on the beach and it started raining and she began pointing out all of the different types of clouds.

Plans vs Reality

Now that I'm unschooling, I don't really make educational plans.  But I do recall the first year that I was homeschooling two children simultaneously (1st and 6th grade, I think) and I actually made a weekly schedule, complete with blocks of times dedicated to different subjects.  I even had Mishna on the schedule, which I never quite ended up learning at all with my oldest daughter.  Not once.  Boy do I laugh when I think about my grand plans.

Scraps of thoughts

I've been grouchy.  The kind of grouchy where I get snappy when the boys jump on top of me, instead of being glad that they are seeking contact and interaction.  They've also been fighting a. lot.  I don't know if they are fighting because I'm grouchy or I'm grouchy because they're fighting.

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Elazar has expressed a couple of times that he's concerned that he won't be able to read by his bar mitzva.  I'm actually not that concerned about that.  (Just a smidge, in basic paranoid anxiety-ridden unschooling, but not really.)  But the second time I told him it won't take him that long to learn to read.  And I told him that I'm sure when he wants to, he will be able to.  But I feel like he was dissatisfied and I'm not sure what he's telling me and what he is looking for.

****

Jack asked a couple of times to start learning Torah.  He wants a siyum so he can get a big present. (That's how the girls earned their phones and computers.)(Not unschooling!  Using incentives!  Small inner conflict about which way is ideal!)  I keep saying, Sure, let's do it.  But then we don't.

****

I'm thinking that decisions such as whether or not to unschool or to teach formally.  Or whether or not to incline towards permissiveness or strictness.  Or whether or not to do xyz approach or abc approach.  None of those actually matter.

Oh, sure, they may affect things like what inclinations the child has--scientific, musical etc.  Interests or philosophy or way of looking at the world.  But in terms of the essence, in terms of will the child be well-adjusted and emotionally stable--it's beginning to seem to me that there is a lot of wiggle room and particular decisions don't matter as much as we might think.

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I had a whole methodology for teaching Chumash: start with speaking Hebrew.  Then, when they learn to read, do the R' Winder books for a few years.  Then, start Chumash when they have basic vocab and prefixes and suffixes.  That's what I used for the girls and it was great.  But it doesn't seem to be going that way with the boys.  I used three different methods for teaching them to read, so doesn't it make sense that they will learn Torah differently?  It's wrenching to be flexible.  I think, at heart, that I love structure.

****

You put your heart and soul into your kids and you care about how they turn out.  Then they become teenagers and it turns out that caring how they turn out is counterproductive and causes conflict.  Because they are individuals fighting to be their own people.  Especially not what their parents want them to be.  So you have to adjust to parenting and putting your heart and soul into it but not being invested in the outcome.  Like all of life, I suppose.  You do hishtadlus but the outcome is not in human control.

Review of Wordsmithy: Hot Tips for the Writing Life

Timberdoodle is a great catalog.  They have high quality materials and it's always fun to browse.  So when they sent a call asking for people to review their products, I immediately took a look at what items they were offering that my kids might be interested in.

The first was the book Wordsmithy:

My 10th grader is a natural writer so I thought she might find it useful and/or interesting.  The reading level is 9th grade+, and it is recommended on the site as part of their 11th grade curriculum kit.

Since we unschool, I handed her the book and said, "If you read this, then you can give me your opinion.  If you don't read it, I'll have to read it because I said I'd review it."

That was the first test of the book.  Is it interesting enough for an unschooled teenager to pick up and read?

She did read through it.  She was even interested enough to also look up the author and see what kind of writing he does, since he was dispensing advice.  (Note: he is a devout Christian, and mentions God as part of his guidance.)

As she was going through the book, she felt that he was giving advice more about the technical aspects and less on simply writing for pure pleasure.  She wondered if he writes fiction or nonfiction (which led to her googling him) and was unsurprised that he mainly writes nonfiction.  She did feel that his suggestions are useful for those who want to improve in mechanics and proficiency of writing.

When she was in the middle of the book, she often commented to me about things he said that were or would be useful.  She just as frequently commented that she disagreed with this or that.  (When I say "commented," I mean mainly on chat, lest you think we actually speak, except for the time we went on a short walk together and she spent a good portion of it talking about the book.)

The impression that I got is that her mind was engaged in the book; she was taking him seriously and giving him the respect of looking at her own experience with writing and seeing if what he was saying fit in to that and if she thought it would be useful and true, or she didn't think a particular piece of advice would be helpful.

I have the feeling that a lot of what he said in Wordsmithy is going to be in the back of her mind as she writes, whether she agrees with him or not.  His style of writing is straight, talking directly to the reader.  It is compact and readable; each tip is not longer than two pages and has a takeaway point.  It's the kind of information that sneaks in and settles in to your world view of how to write.

If I could sum up her opinion in one sentence (and this is an exact quote): "He has good tips."

Yamim Noraim 2016 (or 5777--and I had to google that)

I have to thank Pesach.  (And a Rabbi friend of mine, R' Pinny Rosenthal, who gave a shiur where he explained this point).  The seder is the night where we pass the mesora down to our children.  The whole night is designed around figuring out where your child is at (the 4 sons) and preparing to explain the story on their level, catching their interest by doing strange things (karpas and taking the seder plate off the table), trying to elicit questions (ma nishtana), making the story as dramatic as possible (מתחיל בגנות ומסיים בשבח, start with the negative and end with the positive), using props ("pesach, matza, maror"), giving a taste of drash (arami oved avi), and making it personally relevant ("every person should view himself as if s/he left mitzrayim..").

Pesach really is the model for education.  And the model for the rest of the year.

I was trying to figure out what to do for Chana for tefila this year.  Last year her tefila has been steadily declining (I think 14 is when Sarah also stopped davening, and she recently only began motivated to start again at age 20, which is well past the age where I am responsible for her anymore).  I had gotten down to a "shevach/bakasha/hodaa" model where I took quotes from Amida, and gave her a daily tefila and a shabbos tefila that was only a couple of lines long.  And then I think she stopped doing even that.  

So I wasn't sure what to do about Yamim Noraim davening. I was talking with a homeschool friend of mine (it's always wonderful when you can get together with other homeschool moms and chat about educational and parenting issues that are coming up) and I was telling her that I'm covering the Yom Kippur avoda in school and Chana is in my class, so hopefully if she comes for that hour of shul on Yom Kippur she'll follow what's going on and it will be somewhat meaningful.  And I was trying to figure out what to do about Rosh Hashana, considering that she's not davening these days.  My friend suggested I tell her to come to shul for shofar and not discuss davening at all.  Which I thought makes tons of sense.  She can have the experiential emotional experience of Shofar.

Then I said that usually I would ask her to set aside a couple of sessions to learn about Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur with me.  Does she think I should do that or should I leave it alone?  And she felt that if this is what I have done in the past, I absolutely should do it for this year.  And I asked Chana, and she is amenable.

So then the question I've been thinking about is what to learn with Chana about Rosh Hashana that will be suited for her temperament, personality, life stage, and current situation?  (Agav, this is what I love about homeschool.  THIS is, imo, "chinuch.")  Should we study a portion of the tefila that I think she might be able to relate to, philosophically and emotionally?  Or should we study general concepts of the Yom or time period?

(Last year I think we did "Avinu Malkenu" and possibly musaf.)

I asked her which she preferred (why figure it out if she'll just tell me) and she said to please ask her later.  So no help there.

For the boys, we are going to a "make your own shofar workshop" by the local Chabad this Sunday.

9th grade chinuch curriculum

I'm reading a blog post and I think this quote highlights something that I'm having trouble with in Chana's chinuch curriculum.

The Jewish educator violates [important chinuch principles] by educational methods which...Try to do the impossible — namely, to give the students genuine possession of the truth without ever really perplexing them first by the problems or issues which the truth resolves — and this requires a vital experience of error, for genuine perplexity is usually killed along with the dummy opponents who have been made into straw men for quick demolition. 

Chinuch goals:

Love of Torah
Love of learning
Commitment to Halacha
Ability to read and understand text
Desire to read and understand text
Mastery of mefarshim
Ability to think deeply about pesukim
Halacha
Torah Shebaal Peh
Nach
Tefila

Right now our chinuch consists of sitting down together every day.  I choose a topic and we do it until she wants to stop.  Some days I choose more hashkafa oriented topics (like ben sorer umoreh) and some days I choose more bekius oriented topics (right now we are going through some of my source booklets from high school on ben adam l'chavero mitzvos), and some days I choose more text oriented topics like a Ramban.  It's haphazard more than organized because Chana's interest varies and I have a bunch of different goals I want to match what we do to her intellectual and emotional moods and also to focus on different skills and areas.

I think her Chumash class experience in high school turned her off to Chumash. We did the Mara story with mefarshim last month (I think we got a nice mix of skills and analysis and enjoyment of major questions and understanding of the story in the overall perspective of Chumash) and she didn't mind that.  But when I wanted to do other parts of Shmos (since that is the book she was learning) she resisted strongly.

I am finding that preparing for learning with her serves me better than being unprepared.  It's better if I have a list of mefarshim that I want to do and if I already know what all the words mean.  She loses interest and patience if I look things up while she is sitting there.  (Which reminds me to look up translations of Pesachim 113 and 118 on lashon hara because there are a couple of Aramaic phrases I don't understand.)

But back to that paragraph I started with, I think that it has been difficult for me to perplex her with problems or issues that the truth of Torah resolves.  She thinks a lot and has often already thought about perplexities and has a theory about them.  So she is not really feeling the question.  And she is not finding that the Torah is truth that resolves existential conflicts.  Something to think about.