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April 30, 2008
This Made My Day
Q: “How do you keep from getting overwhelmed and frustrated?”A:
Well, I get up pretty early and get started. So by 9:30 or 10:00 when we’re working on math — which is the subject we have the most trouble with — I’m already pretty drunk.
I so wish I'd written that.
The entire list can be found here.
Posted by lynx at 6:52 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
April 29, 2008
Is There Something You Want to Tell Me?
Lachlan (6): "Daddy that big freezer can hold ice cream."
Jeff: "Yes, yes it can."
Lachlan: "And a dead bunny."
...?
Posted by lynx at 4:42 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
April 10, 2008
On Book Lists
I look forward to homeschooling high school. We plan to do a Great Books program, and I'm excited about reading classics I've never read, such as Paradise Lost.
A few months ago I was rummaging through boxes in our basement, and I came across the box that holds all my college papers. Imagine my surprise when I came across a paper on Paradise Lost. A paper that I had written. A paper that meant that I had read Paradise Lost. Read it, wrote about it, and, apparently, wiped it from my memory. It left no impact whatsoever.
The other day, a somewhat distraught woman posted on the Well-Trained Mind board. Homeschooling was stressing her out; she was unhappy. She found no fun or joy in educating her children, only stress and pressure. Instead of being able to enjoy the process and the journey, she could only see what she hadn't gotten done: What books her children hadn't read, what assignments they hadn't done, what educational markers they hadn't checked off. One specific thing that caused her stress was book lists. She said that whenever she saw a book list, she felt that her children had to read all the books on the list, in order to be well-educated. She did not feel that she was well-educated, and did not want to risk that for her kids.
I can relate. Although I'm generally pretty relaxed about what we do, I've fallen prey to the stress of book lists. I'm a type-A overachiever, at least when it comes to academics (not, unfortunately, when it comes to housework). (Or is that fortunately?) However, I've been saved by two things:
1) Connor is a slow reader, when it is not a book of his choosing; and
2) I refuse to have a stressful homeschool. If he's a slow reader, I absolutely will not allow putting pressure on him to read faster to result in stress or guilt.
Long book lists are great. There are so many, many wonderful books to read that we can't read them all in 12 short years. And that's the point ... we can't read them all. We can't. And what a shame if we could! It's only high school. That's the longest we will homeschool. High school. It's not college. It's not life. We do not have to cram the collective wisdom of the ages down the throats of our children by the end of 12th grade.
Reading five Great Books, by the end of high school, is immesurably better than reading none. Reading ten is even better, and is more than I read in high school, certainly. How many are being read in your local high school?
It's got to be better to read what you can, at the speed you can, with depth and understanding. I'm certain the reason I've forgotten reading Paradise Lost is that I read it in a survey class, as part of a huge reading list. What is the point of plowing through a long list, without depth and retention? What is the benefit of having read a book you go on to forget, except to check off a box that says you did? In a homeschool, doing so does nothing but put band-aids on your insecurities. I'm not saying that we don't sometimes need those band-aids, but let's call them by their name.
So don't let the long readings lists haunt you. Don't let them be a source of stress, or guilt. Do what you can, and do it well. You will be a thousand times better off than the student who reads quickly, without depth; checks the box, and dumps it all right out of her brain.
For more on this idea, see "Multum non Multa."
Posted by lynx at 8:47 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
April 6, 2008
My Kids Crack Me Up
As we pulled into the parking lot of the Palace of Auburn Hills today, we passed the handicapped parking section. At the Palace, however, they call it "disabled" parking.
In a mock sad voice, Connor called out "Oh, noes!* Someone disabled the parking!"
Maybe you had to be there. It made us laugh.
We were at the Palace to see the Harlem Globetrotters. There's four hours of my life I will never get back.
* For effect, my children speak in LOLspeak. It's a phase. That's what I tell myself. Every day.
Posted by lynx at 9:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack