Classic Conflict

When I named the previous post "Zos Chanuka" I had in mind to write this one.  By the time I sat down to write it, it slipped my mind.  Although life's pace is slowing down, sometimes I have a dizzying amount of things on my mind.  Getting Chen's college application in was a huge relief, but there are still things to follow up on, play practice to drive to, doctor's appointments, and Jack wanted baseball cards so to earn them I said he can learn for $1 per session and now he keeps wanting to learn.  (מתוך שלא לשמה, בא לשמה, I keep saying to myself as he listens with half an ear and dreams of baseball cards.)

So on the last day of Chanuka, I davened before the boys were awake (that's been happening, so my grand plan of davening out loud has not been working as frequently as I like, and I prefer to daven before I start my day or it doesn't happen) but held off hallel until they were all around. 

(BTW, Elazar just came over to me and asked me to edit his story with him, but I had to refuse him because I have something scheduled in a few minutes.)

So I start singing hallel, and just as I start, Jack gets up to go play with the neighbors.  I gesture for him to stay for hallel.  The other two know that I like them to be around when I daven out loud, because they were usually awake when I did it.  But Jack sleeps late and rarely was around (which is ok, because out of the 3, he's most likely to go to minyan for social reasons and also pretty likely to have the zitzfleisch to learn the davening).  So he didn't know the protocol.  So he's getting annoyed that he has to stay there when he wants to go play.

So instead of davening being a fun, quick, singing hallel that kind of gets in their head that they hum later, hallel is turning into a sulking child and a frowning, chastising mom kind of a hallel.

Then I think: well, the idea is for them to have a positive association with tefila and want to do it.  And now he is getting upset and resentful.  So I'm actually accomplishing the exact opposite of my goals. (My other goal is for them to be familiar with davening, but at the expense of him resenting it?)

From an unschooling perspective, obviously no question--Jack should leave.  But I started it, and maybe I should demonstrate that it's important to me by insisting Jack stay?

Ultimately I shooed him out.  I didn't think it was worth having him there and being upset he had to be there.

I think in homeschool, we often end up choosing the relationship over pushing the lesson.  Either the relationship between parent and child, or the long term relationship to learning.  The child ends up learning less, but hopefully has more positive relationships.

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.

Life is an Impromptu Dance Party When You Don't Have School the Next Day

"What's this?" my husband asks this morning.
"Hmm?"
"What is this doing down here?" he asks.
"I don't know.  Dance party?" I joke.
"Aharon, how come this is here?" he asks.
"We had a dance party."
"When?"
"Last night."
Ari went out last night, and I went to sleep early, and the four kids had a dance party. 

seder 2018: When the seder isn't the ultimate chinuch experience

You may have noticed I was rather quiet about seder prep this year.  That's because for the last few years, we haven't made our own seder.  We've been with family friends. 

A tradeoff in going away for Pesach is that I am not in charge of the kitchen.  To be free from the servitude of an infinity of meal prep, serving, and cleaning is true cherus (freedom).  But that means we don't get to have an intimate seder that is built around our children's needs and specifically tailored to their emotional and educational situations. 

The last time we did our own seder (coincidentally, the first seder with our new son-in-law), was disastrous.  (Okay, I just read it and it doesn't seem to be as disastrous as I remember it.  I associate it with feelings of frustration and not being what I wanted.)  The boys were young and Chen was in the morose teen stage, and I felt the impossible desire to be able to learn in a relaxed and luxurious manner while I was responsible for small children.

This year it happened to be the perfect dream.  Every single one of the kids was eager and interested.  The boys are old enough, Chen is intellectually curious, Sarah loves to learn.  It would have been a great year.  (I admit that a part of me was glad that we didn't do our own seder and I didn't have to think deeply about and strategize about each child's needs and how to achieve that during the seder.) (Yes, that's basically a description of homeschooling but for every day, not just the seder.)  At the seder we were at, we were requested to be decorous and not have side conversations.  Ari did a great job of keeping the boys engaged and telling them the story.  But the girls were pretty frustrated.

One good thing is that the illustrated hagada that my friend suggested we get Chen last year did hold her attention this year.  And Sarah and my sister learned with me the next morning and we had some great conversations.

I think sometimes there is a lot of pressure to make the seder a successful evening.  It's a very special time of the year, and a big deal for the Jewish people.  But just like in homeschool sometimes we have to let go of expectations in order to make room for a genuine, loving, and more pleasant experience (which ultimately leads to better chinuch long term), it also works to apply that to the seder. 

The seder is, after all, a microcosm of chinuch: get the children to ask questions, excite their curiosity, do as much in question and answer format as possible, tell it dramatically (begin with degradation and end with praise), use props (pesach/matza/maror), the goal should be personal internalization (everyone should see themselves as if they left), and take into account the specific emotional and intellectual ability of the student.
And my personal homeschooling guidelines: Don't be afraid to drop all expectations if it's not working out and try again next year.  Above all, keep it pleasant and focus on the relationships.

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.

I keep thinking about this sentence

I read an article a couple of weeks ago, a book review about a children's book depicting homeschooling.

So many schools now are steeped in a stressful, false urgency, treating learning like it needs to be jammed down children’s throats, as though they’re ducks at a foie gras farm. 

These words keep coming back to me.  Not the duck image, vivid as it is.  But the idea that schools are steeped in a stressful, false urgency.

I see this a lot.  I've felt it.  I have worried when my children were in early elementary school and couldn't read or daven like other first and second graders.  I've seen 5th - 8th graders panic about tests and grades while my daughter sat down to do about an hour and a half of book work a day.  I've seen that the math curriculum repeats in 5th, 6th, 7th grade, when kids could be playing more and instead they are worried that they will be "behind" if they don't do it.

It feels like there is never enough time in the school day to learn all the subjects.  In Yeshiva Day Schools there are 8+ hours a day plus homework, and there is an underlying feeling of panic that there isn't enough time, we have to finish the curriculum.  In Limudei Kodesh there is more leniency, but there is still that nervous tension that we have to hurry.

Contrast it with this article that explains how child-led learning progresses.

I am not saying this to criticize schools.  I work in a school.  Every time I have contact with teachers and administrators I am struck by their passion, their commitment, their creativity, their love for education and the incredible amounts of energy and time they devote to it.

But school is a very strange system when you think about it, where we make children sit and not move and barely talk for so many hours a day and they have to concentrate on subjects and areas that they are not interested in and don't want to know about and there is an implication of terrible urgency that it is vital to their lives and would be a great tragedy with long term consequences if they don't apply themselves.  And that is, largely, false.

In this atmosphere home schooling, which once seemed like the province of a kooky fringe, looks like a potentially sane, enlightened alternative

what if grade level is a myth

What if grade level varied from school to school, and from culture to culture?

What if 40 years ago, five year olds played in school all day and had a nap, and now five year olds are supposed to sit at desks and do "school work"?

What if children used to physically play and be outdoors for a lot more hours than they are now?

What if the standard accepted things that students are "supposed" to know at each grade level are not necessarily logical or a natural progression?  What if standards kept changing every few years or every generation?  What if they tried teaching math one way, and then the next generation they switched, and then the generation after, they switched back?  And what if different countries do a whole different method and timing?

What if the things that "most" children are able to do by xyz age are actually things that a growing number of children need to be medicated in order to do?

What if kids from some schools came into high school being really strong in math, and some kids came into high school being really strong in science, and all the different kids come in from different schools with different strengths and weaknesses based on the school they went to?

What if children who move to a new neighborhood and switch schools find that they are a little off, ahead in some areas and behind in others, in their new school?

What if a motivated post-high school student can start from scratch and learn to read and understand Hebrew and Aramaic in two to four years?  What if a motivated student can learn the entire 1-12 mathematics curriculum at college age in one semester--less than four months?

So what are you so worried about?  Relax.

today part I

at least i hope it's part one and i'll have the oomph to finish up later. today was one of those days where i woke up with a to do list that was too long to keep inside my head. it was also one of those days where we had absolutely nothing scheduled. which chana really loves, so she can spend the day pursuing her projects (currently making littlest pet shop films and uploading them to youtube) and playing in the playground. ah, childhood.

i probably had a to-do list because i'm thinking of it as a catch up day. this is a bad day to go into homeschooling all together, because as many homeschoolers know, one of the rules of homeschooling is that if you're trying to do something else other than "being" w/ the kids with full mental and emotional presence, you're going to end up snappish.

naturally, jack, who is teething, was grabbing at me. elazar was doing not too terribly with a spray bottle and the hose and his trains. he is thankfully in a phase where he has a lot of activities that he likes to do around the house. jack, otoh, gets bored easily. so i decided a trip to the playground was in order, even though i really didn't want to go. so we did that. then i wanted to do chumash but chana said later. then i ended up making dr appts to go to the dr that day. we had about 1/2 an hour and i asked chana to do some chumash. she said she wanted to do it when i got back. i said, chana, you know how i always want to do it earlier and you always want to do it later, and then oftentimes later is not a good time and i get frustrated. indeed, she knew. she still wanted it later. i said next time it will be my turn to do it earlier.

sure enough, later came, and chana asked for 10 more minutes to finish her tv show. then it was only about 10 minutes until the time she likes to meet some friends in the playground. talk about crunching in chumash.

i told her to do shishi and to do it to herself, even though i am not sure she has a good enough grasp on these pesukim to follow the flow in her head w/o doing it out loud. it was going ok (insofar as she was asking me for the words she didn't remember; i am not sure she actually knew what she was reading but that's ok, at worst it was a chazara of words and she'll do it out loud tomorrow and i'll get a sense of where she is). she was asking questions about if hashem would have given eisav a bracha of wealth if it actually was eisav instead of yaakov. so she's still processing the issue and thinking about it, which is great.

as the clock crept towards the time she wanted to go out, she began to get angrier and angrier and her tone towards me got louder and more belligerent. i began to feel angry being spoken to that way. among the things i said to her were: "would you like me to yell at you like you are yelling at me?" (i think i said that more than once in different ways) and "i don't think it's fair that you pushed off doing chumash and now you are frustrated and you are yelling at me."

anyway, we took a break for her to play outside. and we have 5 new pesukim and one small new rashi to do today.

the decision

i decided to start recording a (somewhat) daily log of mine and chana's chumash work. i have a 9th grader who is currently in "real" school after being homeschooled for all of elementary school, a 3rd grader who will be the main character of this blog (and myself, i suppose), and a toddler and an infant.

irritating things i do: 1) i do not capitalize. this drives some people nuts. it started with microsoft word, who capitalized for me and i then got out of the habit. happily, i noticed that my new cellphone does the same for texts. everything else stays lowercase. 2) i overuse the shortened version of because, "coz." it even irks me. but with gratitude to my toddler and infant, it's a shortcut i am very used to and it will be hard to kick the habit. i may not even try.

as i frequently say, "i can get dressed OR go out, but not both." (hence me and anyone i'm in charge of dressing often being seen outside in pajamas). the same may apply here. i can write well, or i can share my chumash learning experience.