Through this Lens

Tags

MCP-Proect52, photography, postaday2011, Slice of Life Tuesdays

Color Therapy

---

Illustrate a song

I took this photo and then decided on a song. It seemed like I was stepping out of the shadows so I chose. Shadow by Ashlee Simpson.

 

---

Bonus photo, just because I like it . . .

Genius Fish Swimming

Tags

Einstein, Jokes, Multiple Intelligences

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ~Albert Einstein

I’ve tried over and over to add more to this quote, to explain a bit why it is relevant to our decision to homeschool, to unschool. Maybe it is just late or maybe I know that I have other things to do tonight but the words will not come together well for me right now. That’s ok. I really don’t know that any elaboration is needed.

In a nutshell, we don’t judge our children and what they know by some arbitrary list that someone decided indicates a well educated person. We recognize that there are multiple intelligences not just the two most commonly rewarded in a school environment. (any guesses on which two those are?)   Our goal is to give them freedom to learn, to explore, to discover, to be who they are. Each day we are taking steps on that path.

Honestly, I am always hesitant to apply a label to our methods or methodology. Does unschooling fit us? Do we fit unschooling? I don’t know. It’s the closest, I think, to how we live our lives learning together. I’m not very concerned with measuring up to that standard either. I recognize that our family is our own, it is unique and we are just constantly trying to find what works well for us, what brings life to us, what motivates us. If that is unschooling, find, we will wear the label. If it is not, it is no matter to us either; we will keep on living, loving and learning.

And as always, laughing.

Speaking of which, I’ll leave you with the funniest joke in the world (at least, according to google)

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other man pulls out his cell phone and calls emergency services.

He gasps to the operator: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator in a calm, soothing voice replies: “Take it easy. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard.

Back on the phone, the hunter says, “OK, now what?”

Learning in all kinds of ways

Today was a work day for me but there were things on the calendar. We are blessed to live within a short drive of many cultural experiences.

The Brooks Center at Clemson University has a wonderful school performance program and today was on of the best.

I missed it but Chris and the kids went to see The African Children’s Choir. Everyone agrees that it was a wonderful performance.

AFRICAN CHILDREN’S CHOIR ON AMERICAN IDOL

When I got home, I found out that Chris had expanded our cable to include Halogen, Biography, Science, Discovery Health, and more. Yay!

I think I am going to let the kids check out the tv schedule and make a list of all of the great shows coming up. Right now we are watching Artland USA. What a great way to see all the creativity in our country!

It’s not enrichment, this IS the education

I keep forgetting to take my camera. We have been doing some really fun things lately and I keep forgetting to take my camera! It would be so much better to be able to share photos but a simple list will have to suffice for now:

• We are blessed with two performing arts centers within reasonable driving distance, The Peace Center in Greenville and The Brooks Center at Clemson University. So far this year we have attended a performance by the Clemson University Orchestra, A Juggling Play, Tales of Poe, The Mad Scientist, Peter and the Wolf and many more are scheduled through April of next year.
• Logan attends a class each month at The Greenville Zoo and the rest of us tag along for Tell me About it Tuesdays.
• Roper Mountain Science Center hosted Harry Potter Science last week. The most favorite activity was making snotty slime in the potions class. Noah and Logan got to play Muggle Quidditch though I think they have decided that their version is better.
• The Upcountry History Museum offers homeschooling Fridays and so far Noah and Logan have attended twice and all of them are scheduled to attend after the first of the year. The boys have enjoyed learning what people did for entertainment during the depression era, learning to make baseballs with twine and tape and learning how to swing dance. This last class was teaching them about World War 2 war propaganda, focusing on the cartoons produced by Disney during that time.
• In August we had the joy of seeing original Monet paintings as the High Museum in Atlanta and I just received notice that the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit just opened. Our own local art museum has just opened ther annual children’s book illustration exhibit featuring the work of William Steig, creator of Shrek.

These are the things, at least some of the things, that we do. I don’t consider them enrichment activities or extras. To think of them like that would consider them as something that could be skipped. These are the things that will not, cannot be missed. They are the education.

Lifelong Learning

I got an ipod for my birthday this year. Though I had scoffed at the idea a bit and had insisted it was just too small and I felt afraid that I would lose it, my ipod has become my constant companion. (Especially since we can’t circumvent the anti-theft device on the radio in our van … that’s another story though) I have loved listening to my favorite music as well as discovering new music via my children. Much of my favorite music now was recommended by my children.

But the best thing about my ipod is listening to podcasts. I’ve spent weeks listening to Mars Hill teaching from last year (an entire year in the book of Philippians!). This American Life is alway interesting and recently, I discovered a wonderful unschooling podcast, Humans Being. Host Sara Parent has given me just the booster shot of encouragement that I needed recently as my doubts grew large. I highly recommend her podcast and now I see that she is also working on a magazine. Wonderful!

One of my favorite episodes of Humans Being is from a year ago, Unschooling Yourself, when Sara talked about the concept of lifelong learning and modeling this for our chlidren. This is a guiding princple in our lives and we constantly refer to the things we have really only learned as adults, out of school. Each day brings new opportunities. Today was a great example.

Chris has been hanging drywall and doors in our masterbedroom, has plans to knock out another wall, shrink our too-big bathroom and create an artist studio for me. Prior to a couple of months ago, Chris had never done any of this. But thanks to books, google, youtube videos and hiring someone for one day, he has learned to do it himself. And speaking of that art studio. That’s for me, for my mixed media art that I have started creating in the last five years, utilizing online classes and lots of play and experimenting.

Chris is an avid birder and genealogist as well. My interest in cooking has been reignited recently after watching Julie and Julia and I started a book club to inspire me to read fiction again because most of the time, I am reading books about feminism and theology. We believe that one of the best things we can do is to model an active, interesting life for our children. They don’t think in terms of one being too old to learn anything because we don’t.

What about you? What are you learning lately?

It’s not about the labels … it’s about loving, living and learning!

Just discovered Eli Gerzon’s blog yesterday via his post that begins “Columbus helped inspire me to leave school and start unschooling.” (on that note Milva posted some great resources for learning the whole story of Christopher Columbus. I read from The Younger Person’s Guide to United States History by Howard Zinn to the children yesterday.)

This morning I spent some time reading through a few of Eli’s posts and discovered this comment. It was so good that I want to pull the first paragraph out to repost here.

Eli is correct on all accounts and has a well rounded flexible take on the Unschooling concept. I have but this to add. Unschooling is only a label. It is neither this or that. The words definition is your experience with it. it is guided by your child for your child. Do not get caught up in whether your a homeschooler, unschooler, world schooler, not back to schooler, the point is that your child is happy, enriched, informed, empowered and excited. Frankly if school is the antithesis of what we are doing, the word should not even be part of the terminology that we use to define ourselves. Glean all of the insights that you can from others, couple it with what you feel comfortable with and start there. It will evolve as both your child and yourself will.

This is beautiful advice and bears repeating over and over. Let go of the labels; they don’t matter that much.

Recently my daughter, Katie, wrote a post, I love my Family and said,

We don’t follow any of the rules (but in a good kind of way) Mommi and Daddy always taught us to ask questions, why do we do things the way we do? is it just because everyone says we should? Follow your heart, do what you love… it isn’t about money or “the American Dream” it is about loving people and living a full life. We have as many friends my parents age as we do our own… we are definitely NOT socially ackward. maybe a little slow… but that is just because we soak everything in.

I love that she targeted our first two values so clearly …loving and living. We rarely talk about learning because it is such an intrinsic part of our lives, so integrated that we don’t separate at something we do. We are just learners.

Technorati Tags: unschooling, Columbus day, labels

Off and Running

Off and running? Not quite. But we are up and walking.

This week is a week to get started.

I knew better than to set myself up for failure by dumping a full load on all of us the first week. Plus I am still tweaking some things and deciding exactly what we need to do in different subjects.

For now we are starting with math and science. I’ve added a list on my sidebar of the resources we are using right now. Teaching Textbooks is our choice for math. We are playing some catch up after not doing formal math for awhile. Unschooling math has been successful and there are elements of that thought process that I still cling to but as it is essentially about following their lead, it was time to become a little more focused.

I signed our youngest son up for an electronics course online with Quick Study Lab and we are all following along. Though this particular course is described for being for ages 8 and up, without my input, I think most of this would by beyond his comprehension. I find the explanations bounce between being very clear and somewhat jumbled so I am working to bring some clarity to it. Today I will visit my first choice of resources … the juvenile section at the library. I always say, if you want to learn something, start with a children’s book. Simple explanations and colorful illustrations go a long way in creating a foundation of understanding. All in all, building with the snap kit is fun for all of us and I enjoy being involved with them and learning as well.

We are also implementing a couple of new organizational ideas which I hesitate to talk about yet. Rule of thumb: If you haven’t used it and had good results for at least two months, don’t write about it.

Next week, we will add in all our language arts and co-op starts!

Keeping it Real

I have been busy cleaning off bookshelves, organizing supplies and taking inventory of what resources we have at our disposal to move forward with our school year.

Having just written that, I cringe. I really hate to use the word school. I am an unschooler at heart and thankfully so, as the last couple of years, I have been less engaged with the children’s education than I am comfortable admitting. I’ve watched them continue to learn, to grow, to think and in some ways, I wonder why I should mess with any success I have seen. On the other hand, this moving forward, changing directions is the very thing that they are asking for so in the spirit of unschooling and following their lead, a bit more structure is in our future.

Regarding uncomfortable admissions, I had this conversation with a friend last night about being honest on our homeschooling blogs, painting the real picture. I have fallen victim to discouragement after spending an afternoon reading homeschool blogs and the descriptions of nature walks, science experiments and living math. Those photos of organized school rooms, planners and file boxes, shiny, happy children do me in every time. Do we have moments like these? Yeah, I guess so but they are just moments of many moments and some of the others are just atrocious … like the time I threw a Saxon Math book across the room. Not proud of that and it was uncomfortable admitting that at a homeschool support group meeting, but I will say that when I did, there was a collective sigh of relief in the room. I think many other moms were wondering if they were the only ones who had less than perfect days.

I want to be honest here. It pains me to have to admit that I really unplugged from my kids for awhile, in some ways. In others, I have stayed very close to them. But as someone who has taken on the responsibility of facilitating my children’s education at home, I need to stay focused on what my priorities are. I lost that vision for awhile.

Thankfully, the spark has been reignited and in part, I owe that to my above mentioned friend. She started the ball rolling for herself and I quickly got caught up in the inspiration. Speaking of her, she has written an excellent post, giving one of the most important pieces of advice for your homeschooling success. Hint: It’s not about the curriculum.

In coming days, I will post more specifics about what we are doing, how we are doing, when and where. Maybe I will become better at taking photos and quicker at uploading them so that you can see my shiny, happy children eagerly learning all that they can. Can’t promise that but what I can promise is reality. There will be much wonderful to share and some not-so-wonderful as well. I hope you will be inspired by what could be and encouraged that what is is probably normal and common to us all.

Loving, Living, Learning … and Laughing

Let’s talk about the blog title.

Sometime ago, Tammy at Just Enough and Nothing More issued a challenge to describe your homeschooling philosophy in just 30 seconds. My answer to that was and still is loving, living and learning.

It’s quite simple really. Nothing I can teach my children will be more important than raising them to be loving, kind individuals. So our primary focus is love and what that really means toward how we live our lives. It’s not something we approach academically or even philosophically. Rather it is OJT … on the job training. Or more accurately, TDT … through the day training. It’s not about what we do but how we do it.

Living isn’t really second as it isn’t a linear list. Living is just what we do. Again, focusing on doing that well. Living in balance. Taking care of our bodies, our minds, our spirits. Practical skills will come from the chore lists, the errands we run, the projects we tackle together.

Learning is inevitable. In fact, unschoolers have an official Learn Nothing Day to illustrate and emphasize that very point. Learning is inevitable. At least, I hope that we are living our lives so that is a true statement in our home. Stirring our curiosity, increasing our skill levels so that we can pursue whatever knowledge lures us, challenging ourselves to be aware of all there is to learn.

Notice that I speak of us. This isn’t just a philosophy that is applied to our children but to us, as parents, as well. It’s a good rule of life, I think. Love. Live. Learn. Hmmm, I think I just thought of another one. Laugh. Yeah, there should definitely be a lot of laughter. Maybe I will add that to my title as well.

Yesterday, I added the subtitle “this is how we live our life” Immediately I thought that doesn’t agree. Speaking of we, I should have said “how we live our lives” There are individual lives being led but at the same time, there is this entity that is us, that is family. The individual lives are part of making up that one life. That one life is the subject of this blog.

But you’ve still yet to meet the individuals. Be patient, be patient, introductions are still to come.

Moodling

Last week, I left a conversation with a friend feeling anxious about my parenting and homeschooling style.  We have been very intentional about giving our children room and time.  Their days have not been crammed with things to do, rushing from this to that all week.  Our educational philosophy is relaxed and trusting.  Most of the time, I am sure of those choices.

But last week, I questioned.  There is no denying that this culture, this society is fast paced.  It seems to be all about what you accomplish and how quickly you do that.  Goodness, the comparison race begins when our children are babies.  How many times have I been with a group of women bragging about how early their child crawled, walked, talked?  It was a competition to one up the next person.  It carries over into the early childhood as education becomes the focus.  My child was reading by four … My son knew his multiplication tables at six … My child could name all the presidents of the United States at two.  Enrichment activities such as sports, dance and music are pushed early and hard.  The popular thought is that to be good at something you have to start and excel at a young age.

I worried that our emphasis on being instead of doing may not have prepared my children well for this 100-mile-per-hour world.  Maybe I haven’t set the standard high enough.  What, if any, changes need to be made?  Is it too late for the older ones?  The questions were churning in my mind.  My peace was wavering.

Off and on, for the past week, I have talked to God about all of this, trying to renew my mind.  Slowly, I have moved back to the center of being confident in our loving, living and learning.  This morning was the sure shot of encouragement I needed when  I read this quote:

By Brenda Ueland

The imagination needs moodling–long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, staccato ideas, such as: “I see where I can make an annual cut of $3.47 in my meat budget.” But they have no slow, big ideas. And the fewer consoling, noble, shining, free, jovial, magnanimous ideas that come, the more nervously and desperately they rush and run from office to office and up and down stairs, thinking by action at last to make life have some warmth and meaning.

Source: If You Want to Write

HT: Inward/Outward

I want my children to have big ideas …  big ideas about God, about life, about peace, about social justice, about priorities, about love, about marriage and family.  I am confident that our choices have nurtured their moodling process.  Moodling increases creative thought and I am convinced that in this ever changing world, creativity is a priceless resource.

Sometime ago, Tammy asked us describe our homeschool philosophy in 30 seconds.  My reply was “loving, living and learning”.  I thought that was very succinct.   Now I may be able to trim that down even more and just say, “Moodling”