Answers in Genesis

For the record, there is a 5 minute time warp between my front door and my car. Which explains why we were late for the evening session of the Answers in Genesis conference. Which explains why we couldn't find six seats together in this 2500 seat auditorium.

Ken Ham and his colleagues have put together some impressive materials detailing the truth and importance of Genesis 1-11. All their arguments, reasoning and logic boil down to this major take-away:

The Bible is True.

Unreasonable Goals

In my enthusiasm to finish my current project, I set myself a high goal. High but reachable, I thought. 2000 words a day times 42 days and I'd have a finished first draft. Thing is, I forgot to schedule in weekends. I don't know about you, but I find it hard to squeeze creativity out of myself day after day after day without giving the creative sap of my brain time to flow again.

So, I'll be a few days behind. It was imaginary deadline as it was. First draft by the end of June, final by the end of August. I think I can... I think I can.

I wonder, am I so used to setting the bar low that setting it a little higher stretches those muscles I didn't know I had?

I've been thinking about goal setting lately as I prepare to homeschool high schoolers for the first time. Do we need to set higher goals for them, give them something to reach for? Probably. Can we still make learning fun and interesting? I sure hope so.

I hope that as I push myself, expect more from myself, it will help me understand how to set goals for my kids and how to teach them to set goals for themselves. I also hope it will give me more grace as I come to understand that setting high goals and missing by a little is better than setting out to accomplish nothing and succeeding.

Living History

I have a theory that if you don't tell your kids something is boring, they won't know it is. It's worked for our history lessons over the years.

Learning about the Civil War? Go to a battle re-enactment.

Lewis and Clark? Stand on the places they stood on their trip West.

Visiting Nana in New Mexico for a month? Be sure to go fossil hunting, try on different outfits at the Indian Cultural Center, and visit as many pueblos as you can.

Can't make a trip? Read excellent books that relate history as a story, not just a series of facts.

We've reached the end of our history curriculum and I'm getting worried about what we'll do next. Now that the kids will be doing high school level work, does it have to be boring? One of them recently wrote a paper about Alexander Hamilton and, I'll tell you, there's not much information about him that's written in an interesting way. By the time I was done helping her with her paper, I remembered very clearly the glazed-eyes boredom that always used to come over me in history class.

In fact, that's ALL I remember from my history classes - how boring they were.

So, the challenge is, how do we take history to the next level without losing its story, the part that makes it live?

Suggestions?

Perfect Timing

More often than I expect, events in life fall together in a way that just makes sense. Take yesterday for example. We started a new history book which will finally, after 4 or 5 years of studying through history in chronological order, launch us into the colonization of America and its birth as a new nation.

Over a year ago, I put my name in the government's hat and asked them if I could receive a set of American art through the Picturing America Project. The set arrived today and it's a beautiful set of 40 pieces of American art that tell the story of our nation through photographs, paintings, sculpture and other art objects. I'm so excited about how it will dovetail with our history study over the next year or so. And I'm excited to share it with other educators who can also use it to expose their children and their students to the power of art to reveal stories.

Mother Birds

I took the kids on a field trip to the Water Resource Center yesterday for a class on where we get our drinking water. About a dozen other homeschool families attended, none of whom we'd ever met before.

The kids gathered in a semi circle in front of a row of tables. The mothers gathered behind. As the class started, I was able to witness an interesting dynamic at work.

The teacher would ask a question. The kids would stare at her. The teacher would rephrase the question. The kids would stare at her. Behind the kids, the mothers grew fidgety. At first, they swayed from foot to foot or crossed their arms. Pretty soon, though, the bolder moms were reaching out and poking their kids. Or if they couldn't reach them, they were waving to get their attention and mouthing the answers to them. The mom next to me wanted her son to answer every question.

My kids weren't answering questions either, which was a little discouraging since we recently finished a science chapter on the water cycle and they should have known all the answers. Nevertheless, I tried to restrain myself from prodding them during the class.

As I watched the other moms I wondered... were they so visibly flustered because they wanted their kids to participate, or to be the smartest, or to succeed? I can't say for sure, since I don't know them, but I got the feeling it was more about Mom wanting to feel like she had succeeded in producing brilliant, articulate, confident children.

Like a mother bird pushing her young out of the nest, not to let them fly, but to show the world... Look what I made!

Tools of the Trade

When you home school, you never know where you might end up. Today, it was to the Leatherman factory where they make the best multi-use tools in the world.

From spooled stainless steel to finished product, we got to watch the whole process.  I'm sure we'll extrapolate lessons about the industrial revolution, labor and safety standards, robotics and immigration.

Really, though, the coolest thing I took away from the tour was the handy little gizmo pictured here, the Juice Cs4.

Thanks, Dad!

Read Aloud

One of the coolest things about my kids is that they love to be read to. Out loud. Every day. Even the teenagers.

Of course, their tastes have changed and they beg their dad to read fantasy fiction to them at night while they draw pictures of dragons. But mornings are my time to read aloud and I get to choose the books.

We recently started reading THE TREES by Conrad Richter. This classic first book in THE AWAKENING LAND trilogy was first published in 1940, but reads like a much older story. It's one of those books that, if you were assigned to read it in English class, you would have complained and skimmed through it for answers, not because it's not a terrific book, but because you were assigned to read it in English class.

Don't tell my kids that it's classic American literature. Don't tell them they're learning from it. Because they love it. They're engaged in the story. They're learning the vocabulary. They care about Sayward and Sulie and Genny. Just like earlier this year they grew to love Scout and Jem and Atticus Finch.

What do you think we should read next?

The Price of Parenthood

You makes your choices, you pays your prices.

And one of the prices of having children, even homeschooled children, is attending their recitals, open houses, and various other performances.

It can be painful. Not to watch your own children, of course, who are the most talented, the most brilliant, the most beautiful and amazing kids on the planet (after mine). But you know your child's performance will take 17.3 seconds of the evening. And then there are the other 14 hours.

So, last night we went to a showcase of what the kids have done in our homeschool co-op for the past semester. And you know, it wasn't bad.

Bonjour and all That

This morning we launched a new experiment. The older kids have finished their history and math for the year and have only 3 chapters left in science, so I decided it was time to learn a foreign language. Only instead of an hour a day for eternity, we're going to approach language in the most natural way I know how...

...immersion.

The language of choice is French since that's the language I and my husband speak that is spoken in more than one country.

The plan is to do 3 hours of French immersion a day for the week, then increase that amount of time each week through the month.

The first reaction to the plan was from the 6-year old who sat through about 20 seconds of French before announcing, "I don't know ANY of those words. STOP IT!" She settled into the routine with her sisters, though, as we had Bible time, grammar, reading, vocabulary. To celebrate making it through our first morning, we had crepes and played Monopoly, all in French. I'm surprised at how much the kids have learned and retained over the years. Their pronunciation is good and they understand a lot of basic commands.

So we build on a foundation already laid. I wonder if they'll be speaking in complete sentences by the end of the month. I wonder if I'm ruining their ears for true French with my less-than-perfect French/American/African accent.

I wonder if this will be the most brilliant use of homeschooling time we've ever conceived.

It Ain't Over til It's Over

Special Bulletin: Homeschool Ruling Vacated; Court Will Reconsider

Pacific Justice Institute reports that the California ruling that outlawed homeschooling in California has been vacated. The case will be reheard beginning in late April.

If this is an issue that concerns you, it is not yet the time to cry victory. Vigilance and perserverance and prayer will help preserve our liberties.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled blog...

Magna Carta and the First Amendment

For those of you who would like to follow along in your history texts, we talked about the Magna Carta yesterday. For those of you who don't remember why this document was so important, here's a quick review and a current event that brings its importance to the forefront again.

The Magna Carta was put into effect in 1212 by a very reluctant King John (the bad guy of Robin Hood fame). It limited the power of king and offered rights to citizens, including the famous "no taxation without representation" law that was so important in our own revolution.

Fast forward 550 years.

Our founding fathers borrowed the ideas of the Magna Carta while drafting the Constitution and, especially, the Bill of Rights.

Pop quiz time.

Q: What rights are granted by the First Amendment?

A: Freedom of religion, speech and the press.

An e-acquaintance shared a struggle with me this week that hit on all three of these rights. She's marketing a book on homeschooling by offering a free seminar at her county library.

"FOUL!" cried the mayor of her town. "You can't host a homeschooling event at a public library because homeschooling takes monies from the public school system."

He cancelled the event.

A city mayor cancelled a homeschool event at a county library, reportedly because it stepped on the government's toes.

The event has since been "uncancelled" and the mayor has backed down from his alleged strong wording, but it gives me pause.

Freedom of speech, religion, and the press are messy things. But they were worth fighting for in 1212, in 1776, and they're still worth fighting for in 2007.