The High Calling in their Vocation

"Training in the habits of attentiveness, respect, and responsibility is consistently encouraged across the grades.  Teachers themselves are inculcating these habits both personally and professionally so that students will witness important modeling. As well, teachers and caregivers should develop in themselves and the child a sense of 'ought' and responsibility in life and learning. It is wrong to make children fall under the rule of law while adults are not bound by law as well.  How often do teachers lower student grades for late assignments while they themselves are often tardy to school?  Or do they require orderly desks while their own is a disaster?  Teachers ought to be about the business of doing themselves what is required of the students.  As well, all schoolwork should be done in such a manner that children are aware of their own responsibility in learning; "it is their business to know that which has been taught" with no repetition.

"This sense of responsibility might be better framed in light of the teacher's and child's high calling in their vocation.  If they view themselves as coworkers in the kingdom of God, performing tasks that are worthy in His sight and expressing godly dominion over their work, life, and leisure, then responsibility takes on higher meaning and worth." 

         ---Jack Beckman's essay "The Child is a Person" from When Children Love to Learn

Not Narrow in Vision

"She was broadminded in a good sense.  While never wavering on the infrastructure of truth--our relationship with God through Jesus as set forth in His Word--she was not narrow in vision.  She was magnanimous and cultured.  To her the mind of a miner's child was just as hungry for the best educational nourishment as a child of the royal family.  In the same way, she did not differentiate between the minds or persons of boys and girls.  All were to be given the tools of literacy so they could be nourished at the foundation of the greatest minds--right across all disciplines.  Not for her the nonsense of girls being deprived of the classical world, literature, history, the great art, music, scientific thought, or languages.  In her view of childhood, girls climbed trees, learned to swim, and ice-skated just as boys did.  Girls were to enjoy unfettered freedoms and challenges in the great outdoors.  All were to notice and appreciate nature."

            --Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, on Charlotte Mason, in When Children Love to Learn

Snowy Day Reading

We were cozy inside today with 19.5 inches of snow on our deck!  So I pulled out some favorite wintry reads.

*The Snowy Day (Ezra Jack Keats)--a classic snowy day picture book!



*Flower Fairies of the Winter, (Cicely Mary Barker)--We LOVE the enchanting illustrations and poems!)



*Apple Tree Christmas (Trinka Hakes Noble)--sweet story about a family living in a barn and what happens to their apple tree after a bad blizzard



*Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening (Robert Frost, illustrated by Susan Jeffers)--a beautifully illustrated rendering of the classic Robert Frost poem. I found it at Goodwill and couldn't believe anyone else would give it away--but I'm sure glad they did.



*I am a Bunny (ill. by Richard Scarry)--not overtly wintry, but a darling book I kept from my childhood.  At the end he curls up and sleeps, dreaming of spring....cozy indeed.



*Lemonade in Winter (Emily Jenkins)--a cute story about siblings who set up a lemonade stand on their street in the middle of a snowstorm



*Snowflake Bentley (Jacqueline Briggs Martin) --we love this inspiring story of the man who first photographed snowflakes.  His passion for photographing something so common and yet so intricately beautiful is inspiring.  And his perseverance was admirable!



*The Hat (Jan Brett)--my children love the hilarious climax of this story of a curious hedgehog who got stuck with a woolen stocking on his head!



*The Bravest Dog Ever: The True Story of Balto (Natalie Standiford)--this is a simple reader, but we enjoy it for the bravery and gumption of Gunnar and his lead sled dog Balto as they work to get medicine to Nome, Alaska during an outbreak of diptheria in the 1920s



If anyone has any favorite snowy day stories to add, please do--we are always on the lookout for good winter reading!

Shinichi Suzuki, Meet Charlotte Mason

I have finished reading Shinichi Suzuki's Nurtured by Love and enjoying seeing how this 20th-Century Japanese music teacher's philosophy dovetails so beautifully with the educational methods of 19th-Century British educator Charlotte Mason.  Both Mason and Suzuki believed in the inherent dignity of the child, in the pursuit of beauty and truth, and in habit formation!

Here are a few tidbits from Suzuki that I copied in my notebook because they rang true, inspired me and also 'clicked' with the educational philosophy that makes so much sense to me.

"Every single human being's personality--his ability, his way of thinking and feeling--is carved and chiseled by training and environment. It shows in each person's face and eyes.  His whole character becomes visible."

"We don't have to look for specific innate abilities or talents.  It is a superior environment that has the greatest effect in creating superior abilities."  (This reminds me of Charlotte Mason's maxim that "education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life"--yes!)

"With the emphasis only put on informing and instructing, the actual growing life of the child is ignored." (Charlotte Mason to the core!)

"The habit of action...this, I think, is the most important thing we must acquire...it is an indispensible skill."

"If one just thinks about it, the chance slips by.  From the time they are children, people are ordered about by their parents to do this, to do that.  They develop resistance, and reluctantly do as they are told, or avoid doing it if possible.  The resistance habit becomes subconscious, until they are unable to perform immediately even those things they think of doing themselves.  They may think something is a good thing to do, but they have gotten so that they are unable to do it simply and naturally.  People lose a great deal this way."

Suzuki's response to a parent who asked if his violin-playing child would ever amount to anything: "The only concern for parents should be to bring up their children as noble human beings.  That is sufficient.  If this is not their greatest hope, in the end the child may take a road contrary to their expectations. Your son plays the violin very well.  We must try to make him splendid in mind and heart also."

Refreshing, visionary words to read.  How many people these days talk of raising a child to be noble? 

Thank you, Shinichi Suzuki, for inspiring me as a teacher and parent--and also as a pianist.  Since reading this book I have memorized one piece of music from start to finish, and now I'm working on playing it beautifully.  (Suzuki believed that the ability to play one piece of music beautifully was far more valuable than playing many pieces with mediocrity!  Mine is merely an extremely simplistic, shortened version of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring but it makes me happy--and maybe a little more noble.)

Year One

For my own record-keeping, I'd like to write what is up with us this year so far.

First half (fall through part of winter):

3Rs:
*Miquon Math (Orange book)
*READING: Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading (very slowly), portions of Explode the Code
*Handwriting pages (just copywork)

History & Geography:
*readings in Child's History of the World and Story of the World (Vol. 1)(CHOW and SOTW)
*Part of Paddle to the Sea (geography)

Literature:
*the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson
*Read-aloud: The Velveteen Rabbit
*Aesop's Fables (we use these for narration)
*some of James Herriott's stories

Art, Music, Handicrafts:
*art lesson once a week (outsourced)
*learning all of the verses of Jesus Loves Me
*soap-carving

Also:
*Classical Conversations once a week (CC; used as a supplement and social outlet)

Our before-bed reading has consisted of The Child's Storybook Bible (GREAT!), Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories (borrowed from a friend; needed some on-the-fly editing),The Advent book (during Advent!) and the Boxcar Children (the first four books were a Christmas gift; I have realized that I need to do a LOT of on-the-fly editing of these books, which have cute plots and certain charming details, but don't rise to my standards of literature!) 

My plans for the second half of Year One are along the same lines, with some tweaks and additions.  We will continue Miquon, selected pages of Explode the Code, copywork and the Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. I purchased the Activity Book for Story of the World, so I plan to continue our readings in CHOW and SOTW and add some (simple!) activities for my hands-on boy (and our 3 year old 'helper').  Aesop is what we're using to learn narration, so we will continue those tales--we love them! We love RLS' poems and will continue those. Art lessons continue, Paddle to the Sea continues, James Herriott continues, CC continues. The next hymn we will learn is one of my favorites, For the Beauty of the Earth.

I hope to add in a few more literature selections and science by way of nature study, a few experiments using our Elemental Science book and a Pop Bottle Science Kit that we received for Christmas--and adding in some living science books.  I'd like for us to buy a microscope sometime this year as well. We do a casual orchestra study (we listen to a lot of classical music just as a matter of course). I would also like to add in some picture study, but I'm not sure I'll actually do it this year.  I would also like to continue some soap-carving and do one or two more handicrafts this spring--possibly something related to beads and also flower-pressing...once spring finally arrives! We have started Davy Crockett.  I may add in a few stories from Fifty Famous Tales Retold as well.

Academics are not the only focus this year.  We're also learning to be diligent with chores and learning to hone certain character qualities like self-control, attentiveness, and thoughtful obedience.  And *I* am learning to truly get into the rhythm of homeschooling and managing a 3 year old and our household.  The teacher is a work in progress as well! I am trying to be consistent with a tiny, basic routine (math, reading, handwriting after breakfast, teeth, getting dressed and quick chores) and then I add in the other things as we can, depending on what is happening during the day or the week.  This means we go rather slowly through some texts (like history) but this is a good transition-year as we ease into more schooling and I learn the ropes.