I've been davening about Elazar's chinuch and one thing is becoming clear to me. When my fears and hopes are clarified via my prayers, I'm not hoping for things to get done on a deadline (ie bar mitzva). I do want to learn his parsha with him. It has a lot of topics. Long topics. Tough topics. And it's hard for him to sit.
But when I daven that I hope my learning with Elazar will be good, what ends up is that I hope he will love Torah. That he will find it exciting. Enlightening. Guiding.
NOT that he will finish a certain amount by bar mitzva.
I've paused in learning his parsha with him and have been studying Shemona Esrei with him, since his chiyuv to daven will kick in at age 13. I think davening is going to be very difficult for him, and the thought of him mumbling words or even reading English without really understanding it seems pointless and agonizing for any kid, but strikes me as especially pointless and agonizing to someone of E's nature. In theory he is amiable and willing to study and understand Shemona Esrei. In practice, it is difficult for him to focus for more than 5 minutes, as it always has been.
However, our five minutes of study time are something I am treasuring. I always feel this way when I learn Torah with my children. I love seeing how they think about things, how they approach the text, the questions they ask, the connections they make. This morning we reviewed the main points of the first 3 brachos, noted they were "praise" and then next section is "requests" and did the first request. I asked him what he would have designed the first request to be. He said knowledge (which it is). I said, "Don't you think it would have been something like food?"
"Oh, yeah," he said.
"So why do you think the Rabbis made it knowledge, understanding, and wisdom?" I asked.
And we had a nice little conversation about that.
Showing posts with label schedule. Show all posts
Showing posts with label schedule. Show all posts
Friday, November 29, 2019
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
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.
Friday, April 1, 2016
On disengaging and Un-enmeshing
About a month ago I was beginning to get annoyed with how work was going with Chana. In theory, Chana is unschooled, which means she learns what she wants when she wants. In reality, I was feeling like I wanted to be available to Chana for a chunk of time every day, so that I can sit down with her and work on whatever subjects she wants to be taught by me. But between my own activities and the boys, I was beginning to get stressed about having time to give her. For example, if I didn't ask her when to do work, then the day would drift by, and then be over, and Chana would be willing to do work at 9:30pm but I was completely zonked from a full day plus bedtime. Then I would get annoyed at Chana.
On the other hand, when I wanted to figure out when we could do work together so that I could plan my free time, Chana was feeling that I only spoke to her in order to schedule work time, or that I pounced on her as soon as I saw her or as soon as I picked her up from her class, and that she was trying to relax and I was annoying her. (We joked that I was like the seagulls from Finding Nemo but instead of saying "Mine?" I would say "Work?") Our personal preferences of how to schedule time to work together were diametrically opposed to each other, and if we did one person's way, it severely annoyed the other person.
Plus I was sick and tired of feeling naggy. I like to get things done quickly and know when they are done. And I felt like it is on my daily "to do list" to give her about 1.5 hours. This is not a small block of time (even though I imagine it's a small amount of time to spend in frontal teaching for a high schooler).
Chana and I tried various approaches to work out our opposing preferences. And although I really enjoy teaching Chana and learning with her, I was finding myself feeling pretty unhappy about figuring out when to learn with her and I felt like I was taking too much responsibility for it. I felt like I was overfunctioning. I was fantasizing about not bringing it up and seeing how many days went by without me teaching her.
To me, that was a little bit of a red flag to myself. It felt like a petty mindset where I wouldn't communicate with her, I would ostensibly be butting out, but really, in my own mind, I'd be simmering with resentment that she wasn't being on top of her learning.
So I wasn't so happy with that approach, either.
This month I tried to give Chana some more space to be in charge of approaching me when she wants to learn. I let her know that 8-8:30pm and 9-9:30pm I wasn't available because I was doing bedtime. I tried not to sweat it on days when I was feeling like I had a lot on my plate. It's not my problem if she doesn't get to learn with me today. (I didn't really feel like that. But I also felt like I was creating a dynamic I didn't like even more than I didn't like her missing some days of formal learning.)
I found that on days when Chana is out of the house (yeah, yeah, that introvert series I have yet to write) she holes up in her room and often doesn't want to do work until late at night. But otherwise she generally started coming to me at some point in the day and asking me when was a good time to do work.
And if I was sitting around with not much to do, I would chat Chana and let her know I was available and until what time. This has been working well. Instead of keeping track with whether or not Chana is on top of her work, I've been thinking more about my own wants and needs. And if it works out for me, I let her know. The result has been that I've been a lot more relaxed. And I don't think we've been working together less frequently, except on those days when we go to a concert or something. I, being a type A perfectionist, would prefer to do formal schoolwork on those days, too. But Chana wouldn't. And if I recall from Sarah's homeschool days, trying to cram work into days when we had trips often just made me tense and the kids miserable.
So now I don't think much about it. Chana recruits me probably about as frequently as I recruit her. And I'm not responsible for her time management. Which is a happier way for both of us.
On the other hand, when I wanted to figure out when we could do work together so that I could plan my free time, Chana was feeling that I only spoke to her in order to schedule work time, or that I pounced on her as soon as I saw her or as soon as I picked her up from her class, and that she was trying to relax and I was annoying her. (We joked that I was like the seagulls from Finding Nemo but instead of saying "Mine?" I would say "Work?") Our personal preferences of how to schedule time to work together were diametrically opposed to each other, and if we did one person's way, it severely annoyed the other person.
Plus I was sick and tired of feeling naggy. I like to get things done quickly and know when they are done. And I felt like it is on my daily "to do list" to give her about 1.5 hours. This is not a small block of time (even though I imagine it's a small amount of time to spend in frontal teaching for a high schooler).
Chana and I tried various approaches to work out our opposing preferences. And although I really enjoy teaching Chana and learning with her, I was finding myself feeling pretty unhappy about figuring out when to learn with her and I felt like I was taking too much responsibility for it. I felt like I was overfunctioning. I was fantasizing about not bringing it up and seeing how many days went by without me teaching her.
To me, that was a little bit of a red flag to myself. It felt like a petty mindset where I wouldn't communicate with her, I would ostensibly be butting out, but really, in my own mind, I'd be simmering with resentment that she wasn't being on top of her learning.
So I wasn't so happy with that approach, either.
This month I tried to give Chana some more space to be in charge of approaching me when she wants to learn. I let her know that 8-8:30pm and 9-9:30pm I wasn't available because I was doing bedtime. I tried not to sweat it on days when I was feeling like I had a lot on my plate. It's not my problem if she doesn't get to learn with me today. (I didn't really feel like that. But I also felt like I was creating a dynamic I didn't like even more than I didn't like her missing some days of formal learning.)
I found that on days when Chana is out of the house (yeah, yeah, that introvert series I have yet to write) she holes up in her room and often doesn't want to do work until late at night. But otherwise she generally started coming to me at some point in the day and asking me when was a good time to do work.
And if I was sitting around with not much to do, I would chat Chana and let her know I was available and until what time. This has been working well. Instead of keeping track with whether or not Chana is on top of her work, I've been thinking more about my own wants and needs. And if it works out for me, I let her know. The result has been that I've been a lot more relaxed. And I don't think we've been working together less frequently, except on those days when we go to a concert or something. I, being a type A perfectionist, would prefer to do formal schoolwork on those days, too. But Chana wouldn't. And if I recall from Sarah's homeschool days, trying to cram work into days when we had trips often just made me tense and the kids miserable.
So now I don't think much about it. Chana recruits me probably about as frequently as I recruit her. And I'm not responsible for her time management. Which is a happier way for both of us.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
sometimes i don't want to do it
yesterday we did toldos and i ended up reading and translating a lot of yitzchak's life with avimelech. chana remembered a lot of most of the stories otherwise.
today we did vayetze and chana said wistfully that yesterday when i read and translated most of it, it was so nice. we were back to me picking out a pasuk or so per page to get the main idea and her translating it. we also went through all the shevatim, which was nice because chana had them in context from the brachos, so as she read them, she remembered a lot of the brachos "yehuda was the best" "hey, levi is older than yehuda?" "dan is the snake" "naftali the poet" "zevulun lived by the sea."
she got a little cranky about the couple of rashis we did, confirming that incorporating rashi into chazara is going to have to be a separate session. i had her read a long rashi just in hebrew and see if she knew what it was about. she got all the way til the end and recognized the last word and then remembered which rashi it was. ("who would want to sleep on a rock, anyways?")
***
just an aside, i went out with the kids yesterday so we didn't do chumash in the morning. after i get home from going out, there is always about an hour of crying and screaming as all the various needs get juggled and taken care of (mostly feeding and naps and adjusting to being off schedule). that ran into witching hour (6-9) dinner/bedtime, and we still hadn't gotten to chumash. after the littles are in bed, i'd love to just sit and veg. but that's chana and sarah's time. time for me to hear what's going on in sarah's life, and time for me to work with chana a little more and then to see what projects she's working on. in the midst of this i ran out for a little walk in the drizzle. and i was thinking, "when i get back, i have to do chumash with chana." "i don't waaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i don't wanna i don't wanna i don't waaaaannnaa" "what if we just don't do chumash today?" "how is chana supposed to like chumash when i DREAD doing it"
***
by the way, chumash ended up being perfectly fine and lovely. and whenever i have those thoughts, i ALWAYS seriously entertain the possibility of just dropping it. just don't do it. don't do it today. don't do it now. don't do it at all. but definitely how about not doing it today.
just allowing myself that breathing room makes me feel better. after all, one of the loveliest things about homeschool is that i don't have to do anything. we can just take off whenever we want. we can play all day. we can relax. we can decide to let things go.
once i remember that, i always feel better. and sometimes i do it and sometimes i don't.
today we did vayetze and chana said wistfully that yesterday when i read and translated most of it, it was so nice. we were back to me picking out a pasuk or so per page to get the main idea and her translating it. we also went through all the shevatim, which was nice because chana had them in context from the brachos, so as she read them, she remembered a lot of the brachos "yehuda was the best" "hey, levi is older than yehuda?" "dan is the snake" "naftali the poet" "zevulun lived by the sea."
she got a little cranky about the couple of rashis we did, confirming that incorporating rashi into chazara is going to have to be a separate session. i had her read a long rashi just in hebrew and see if she knew what it was about. she got all the way til the end and recognized the last word and then remembered which rashi it was. ("who would want to sleep on a rock, anyways?")
***
just an aside, i went out with the kids yesterday so we didn't do chumash in the morning. after i get home from going out, there is always about an hour of crying and screaming as all the various needs get juggled and taken care of (mostly feeding and naps and adjusting to being off schedule). that ran into witching hour (6-9) dinner/bedtime, and we still hadn't gotten to chumash. after the littles are in bed, i'd love to just sit and veg. but that's chana and sarah's time. time for me to hear what's going on in sarah's life, and time for me to work with chana a little more and then to see what projects she's working on. in the midst of this i ran out for a little walk in the drizzle. and i was thinking, "when i get back, i have to do chumash with chana." "i don't waaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i don't wanna i don't wanna i don't waaaaannnaa" "what if we just don't do chumash today?" "how is chana supposed to like chumash when i DREAD doing it"
***
by the way, chumash ended up being perfectly fine and lovely. and whenever i have those thoughts, i ALWAYS seriously entertain the possibility of just dropping it. just don't do it. don't do it today. don't do it now. don't do it at all. but definitely how about not doing it today.
just allowing myself that breathing room makes me feel better. after all, one of the loveliest things about homeschool is that i don't have to do anything. we can just take off whenever we want. we can play all day. we can relax. we can decide to let things go.
once i remember that, i always feel better. and sometimes i do it and sometimes i don't.
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