The Dumbness of Robinson

Bear with me. This is homeschoolese. It may be so uninteresting to some of you that you should quit now and return another day. That being said...

I'd been investigating a curriculum and philosophy of education called "Robinson", as in The Swiss Family. Basically, it uses classical literature and Saxon Math to teach kids. A typical day of Robinson would be sans sugar, sans TV or screen based media. It would include liberal doses of park your butt and bust out some math. Approximately, 2 hours of that...plus 2 hours of reading..and some writing for good measure. Because, you know, most kids like to wake-up to a bowl of unsweetened oats, then sit down at a desk for 2 hours of uninterrupted math. Of course, parents shouldn't engage this process (except to be the enforcer) because doing 2 hours of excruciatingly boring math by oneself builds character.

HOLY CRAP. I was nearly snowed. I almost bought into thinking this is how school should happen. I was, however, saved by the director of a public school. I'm sure she is flagrantly pagan. Yet I had one of those moments (usually saved for church) when I felt that as she spoke God was speaking to me.

REPENT!

Turn. Run. Robinson, and his Swiss Family are not for you!

Lately, homeschool has SUCKED. It's no wonder really. I was sitting my kids down with a pile of worksheets and asking them to be self-motivated and disciplined and complete these worksheets in a timely manner, all with a good attitude. Robinson and his insipid philosophy and wheedled into my thinking and robbed my family of joy.

I am 34.

An adult, by every definition.
I would be grumpy about sitting down for 3 hours to complete a bunch of worksheets.
It would be like doing taxes everyday.
(Not that I would know, because I haven't done my own taxes in well over a decade
- but one could assume it would be similar.)

This Robinson stuff is crappy pedagogy. All the research in adult and childhood learning suggests this an exceptionally bad way to learn. Besides that, it's a joy killer. I got into homeschool because I was disenchanted with this type of "back to basics" education. I knew adults learn best when they:
-are ready to learn
-and can attach learning to their own life and interests
-are given opportunity engage and interact with others in the learning process

I figured that kids learn best that way too. And I was right. The research has my back.

So when we started this homeschool journey we played, and we read amazing literature, and we built, and painted and experimented. It was FUN. And I was a good teacher. Somewhere I got lost, though. Because my kids got older and their school got harder. It's easy to have fun learning to add. It's more difficult to create authentic, experiential learning around long division and multiplying fractions. Add in a regulating challenged baby and the whole thing goes to #$&%. So I started looking into things like Robinson (because if my kids were basically schooling themselves homeschool seemed doable).

But at what cost?

Back to that public school director I was talking about. She founded a charter for gifted and creative learners. Like I said, she's a pagan right out of the Republic of Boulder. Yet, her philosophy of education is far more biblical. Honor the child. Be humble. Smart is good. Kind is better. Allow for differences. Create safe places. Work together. Teach community. Strive for excellence. This world is a place of beauty; let children be in awe of it. Inspire. Encourage. Serve.
She said these thing, she and her Crunchy-Boulderite-Dansko-Wearing self, and I remembered. I remembered what makes me a good teacher, and what makes homeschooling beautiful. I remembered why I started.

Here's the thing: It is quite possible, probable even, that I cannot do home school like I believe homeschool should be done with my particular preschooler. Either she's going to school, or my "biggers" are. And if I'm lucky it's possible they all will. Because if I can get them in, they are gonna go to that school the Pagan started.

Enough with Swiss Family Robinson. We're done. God has spoken. Truly. And through a Boulderite, no less. So I went to the library this weekend. We're reading together again. And baking. And experimenting. It's messy. Not sure if its sustainable. But it IS better.

So you wanna adopt?

People have called me an advocate for orphan care. Maybe, I am. No. I am. Yet, sometimes I struggle to encourage people to adopt. Adoption is good; it can be God's amazing redemptive plan for a broken situation. But adoption is not easy. It is always, always, always a result of loss, trauma and brokenness. And the result of that brokenness doesn't go away when the adoption decree is finalized.

Best case scenario = birth mom relinquishes a baby she cannot parent to a loving family who raises that child well.

Sub-text = Somebody knocked that girl up, and didn't stick around to help her out. That girl will always wonder, and always have the scars of loss for a child she didn't raise. There is a reason that that mama couldn't parent...it's probably unjust. And that kid, that kid will wonder too. Even in open adoption.

More often than not adoption is far messier than the best case scenario.

Addiction
Abandonment
Poverty
Disease
Birth defects
Mental illness
Despair
Profit

These are woven into the stories of adoption.

Sometimes, love, and family and Jesus redeem the story in miraculous, and virtually painless ways. But sometimes, very often, the effects of a broken world (that made adoption necessary) do not quietly disappear. They linger. Sometimes they are inextricable from the stories of adoption. A lifetime cannot heal brain damage, and emotional damage, and physical damage. And sometimes adoptive parents spend their life trying to extract threads of despair, and addiction from their children's stories only to watch their own life unravel. It happens.

But God says he will place the lonely in families. He says he is the strong defender of the orphaned and widowed - a father to the fatherless. He is calling his church to embrace a culture of adoption. He is about adoption. Because he redeems. He restores. He makes beauty of ashes.

Yet to paint a picture of adoption that looks something like Barbie's Dream House, all neat with a Ken Doll and brown skinned baby is dishonoring to the reality. For just as Jesus laid down his life to bring us into His family the adoptive family must be ready to lay down their life on behalf of a child. That's how it works. So you wanna adopt?

See this great link.

grateful list.

-stacks of laundry neatly folded.
-Cherry and Orange Jam smooshed over toast
-10 year old who still plays pretend
-giggles
-making music on an antique piano
-Motrin and decongestant
-Having a husband that I miss
-Puppy, freshly bathed
-girlish play
-imaginary friends
-little boys with messy hair

one thousand gifts

Google it.

Awesome book.

Read the first chapter free on Amazon.

Then buy it.

Trust me.

quotable

I let the kids buy candy with their own money when we went to the grocery store. Caleb picked some nasty spray candy that was super sour. Gross. No chocolate involved whatsoever.

The kids were having a ball spraying each other with the nasty candy and watching each others sour expressions. It was funny. What was funnier was Caleb's comments.

"This stuff is so sour it makes me want to cuss." he exclaimed to Emma. "I wish I knew some good cuss words."

We keep walking. I pretend I didn't hear. What? Am I going to reprimand him? I'd wanna cuss too. Then, 2 isles later, I hear my seven year old say, under his breathe, "I guess it's good I don't know any cuss words."

Ha!

final analysis

Final Analysis

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

~Mother Teresa

Robinson Curriculum

I sort of suck as a home schooler. I don't toe the party line very well.
And I flunked out of Campus Crusade in college.
I love Jesus; I love the church, but who are we kidding?
Christians can be so weird. Christian culture is even weirder. Can I get an "amen"?

That being said, I am considering employing some of the pedagogical practices of a dude that I probably wouldn't/couldn't be friends with. He is exactly the type of guy that helped to form the stereo types about Christian homeschooling. His life is Saturday Night Live sketch material.

But his kids rocked the SATs, and his system works. Now, to be honest, I think good genes had a lot to do with those kid's success. They were genetically predisposed to being smarter than your average bear. But the system has merit. It's sound.

It is based on self-teaching, with a strong focus on the 3 Rs. Robinson Curriculum employs a sound math curriculum, fabulous Literature and writing (as the means of learning to write). Parents facilitate a learning environment that is conducive to self-teaching; they set up accountability, then back off. I like that the curriculum teaches kids how to learn, and not only what to learn. I like that it is doable with multiple children. I like the good literature, and solid math. Those are the pros.

Here are the cons:

• The dude makes my husband (who is a right-wing conservative) look like a flaming liberal. In Art Robinson's reality all children in the public schools have been orphaned to a system hell bent on indoctrinating children with socialist bull crap and systematically eroding there sense of right and wrong. (Okay-He didn't say it in those words, particularly the "bull crap" part.)
• The dude suggests that nearly all intervention on a parent's part (as it relates to academics) is detrimental. That is not my experience, nor is it indicative of the best research on how people learn. I've found that sometimes just sitting next to a child who is tackling difficult math gives them the courage to press on. This is often my own experience. And I do not agree that we were meant to live independently; we're made to connect.
• The dude has totally legalistic views on sugar and TV. He probably doesn't dance, or drink, or think women should wear pants. I doubt he would approve of me being on staff at church in the role of director (which I am). He would likely pitch a fit that I wear jeans, to said church, and report to a woman in the role of a pastor. I also drink and dance, and hang with people who do. I've even been known to say "SEX" out loud and in mixed company. This has nothing to do with his curriculum per se ; it just annoys me.
  
• The dude puts high value on the sciences (which is good), but minimizes the language arts. As an English major (from a very liberal college) I kinda like the language arts. A lot.
  

But the curriculum.

It just might be good.

I'll probably use it, or steal from it liberally.

That is if I don't send my kids to public school.

Involuntary Cussing Face

My daughter is a genius at giving the stink eye. She was born with the ability to give nasty looks that make people want to shrink into the carpet. We've decided it's gotta stop; its a bad habit that reflects a bad attitude and disrespect. So we've named it. You've gotta name a thing before you can tackle it head on. We've called it her "involuntary cussing face" because she insists that she never MEANS to do it. (parental side note: "whatever"). Anyway, when that look crosses her face we reply with, "Oh look its the involuntary cussing face. I wonder what bad words she's using on the inside. She must be a good cusser because the look on her face is really disrespectful." Sometimes we even call it the ICF for short. My daughter HATES this. HATES. HATES. HATES. She also a master at being passive aggressive and when her ICF fails to get under our skin and hurt our feelings its annoys her. We render the ICF powerless. Then we make her practice responding respectfully with her words, her tone of voice and her body language (including the infamous ICF). I even have a little jingle or two I break into about ICF and disrespect. It is SOOO not appreciated by our little darling because it makes her laugh. She's trying to be pissy and mean; laughing ruins her shtick.

I was well and truly convicted that "anger does not bring about the righteousness of God". That wisdom applies to parenting. Anger might change a child's behavior while you're watching, but it cannot change a heart. Heart change is the only way to bring about right behavior when no one is looking. So instead of harsh words and stiff consequences (born of my own irritation) we're aiming for good acronyms, humor, melodic little ditties, and a chance to make it right.