Harsh, I know. But in all the talk about how important education is, what are we really talking about? Advanced degrees that we wield like a sword and lord over everyone else, or the refining and polishing of one’s innate skills and gifts?

Having grown up in the world of academe, I was sure I knew what education was. Then, becoming a homeschooler, I was positive.

But finding the definition of ‘educate’ and then implementing it? Completely different exercises.

And the concept of education that I grew up with is more interested in finding the definition and the word root, the history of the concept, and perhaps a cute anecdote here and there. But applying the definition and producing an outcome? Hush your mouth.

To educate is to draw out. To teach is to impart. Could these two activities be more different?

Here’s where the academic in me wants to stop and go research how education came to mean teaching. I will resist. That is irrelevant to this post.

No, this post is more interested in practicing the art of education.

When I talked about having finished reading The Art of Education with a friend, she started talking about unschooling. In unschooling, the child is encouraged to study what interests him, without parental or school interference. The parents’ job is to provide a rich environment for the child to draw from. The parent would be more curator than teacher in an unschooling scenario.

Patience and the environment are the key to unschooling success. What if the child doesn’t take an interest in anything? What if the child takes an interest in something dangerous or frivolous? Do you have the faith to let your child decide all by themselves what they will do with all their time?

Knowing that educating is drawing your child out, you don’t want to flip the script and swing to a complete external system, where you are choosing what the child will learn and how.

You know your children the best. Or if you don’t, you have the chance to get to know who they are. Observe them, make suggestions of possible fields of study, activities, and let them choose. It’s like training your toddler to pick out her clothes. Give her the choice between two or three different appropriate outfits, rather than give her free reign of her whole wardrobe. Sure, she could learn from her mistakes, but that could take a long time, and she could get sick in the process.

You as a parent can and should offer some guidance, while drawing wisdom and proficiency out of your children. Even as a piano teacher, I see my role more as pulling the skill out of my children, rather than opening up their heads and pouring fingerings and notes in.

This is a narrow path we walk as parents. That’s how you know you’re doing the right thing.

She pulls out a sheet of notebook paper and lists all the activities she’d like to do.

She casually asks her mother if she can make a snow globe.

She and her siblings gather the materials and make 4. By themselves.

Another project on the list is mystery soap. The children shave bars of soap, cook them, dye them, and hide army men inside each bar. The hardest part for them is waiting until the bars are hard enough to use as hand soap.

A few years ago, the same child had a science experiment where she checked the temperature of water in the sun and in the shade, using a large chemistry thermometer. Somewhere around the third reading, the thermometer breaks. The child can read and take temperatures, but does she remember anything else from this experiment? Will she ever forget how oil and water mix in her ocean/lava? That sugar may be a good substitute for glitter in a picture, but not in a snow globe?

These scenarios highlight the difference between education and schooling.

I just finished reading this book, The Art of Education. Author Linda Dobson, of Parent at the Helm and Home Education Magazine wrote this book in the 90s, and its message is just as potent today. She tackles weighty issues like cultivation, freedom, family, and society at large. Everything is filtered through the lens of education. What is education, really? Is it the political minefield that it has come to be known today? Is it the filling of empty heads with vital facts? Or is it the drawing out what is already there, to refine and polish until a whole person emerges? Not to try and lead you or anything…

I have read some interesting education books, not the least of which were written by James Herndon.

Rather than being narrative and anecdotal, or simply pointing out the problem and depressing you, The Art of Education paints a picture of what life could be. It is rather poetic. “Allow your children the freedom to handle responsibility, and the perfume of compassion fills the air,” Mrs. Dobson says.

You may read The Art of Education and not decide to homeschool your children. But you cannot read this book and come away thinking about education the same way. It is an empowering book. I highly recommend it.

Or say your child is the most demanding person. He greets you every morning with a list of what he expects from you all day. It’s downhill from there. When other children come around, the child flips on a dime and becomes indecisive, insecure, and meek.

Maybe your child is sweet, compliant, and shy. He doesn’t ask for anything you don’t already supply. He grabs your leg and hides behind you every time anyone new comes around.

Or you don’t have one of these extremes. Your child is moderate and well-adjusted. They watch the neighborhood children go off to school, and sigh. They run outside to meet the school bus after school.

All of these children want society. The word, society, originally meant partner, comrade. So I’m really talking about a group of friends for your children.

I don’t know how we got them, growing up. Maybe we collected folks from school, or clubs, or teams, or orchestra other organizations. It didn’t seem as intentional as forming a society.

But when you homeschool, your kids don’t find themselves falling into groups. Everything you do is intentional.

So you advocate for your child. You find like-minded people at church, or co-op, or sports teams… Wait a minute! I just said your child doesn’t just fall into groups when you homeschool.

Let me back up a bit. You yourself are not isolated. You go to the store. You go to the post office. You go to church… you get the idea. So when you’re going where you go, you’re on the lookout for other people. You’re searching your mind for people who have children, you’re having conversations. You can figure out pretty quickly whether you’d be interested in getting to know someone better, and whether your children would hit it off.

Also, while where we live there is an active homeschool community that is growing. I know we are fortunate. I am sure we’re not alone. You could look at a support group or a co-op with a mind toward making connections. Of course, there’s also the academic component to the co-op, but keep your eyes open for connections while you’re volunteering or dropping your child off, or what have you. Ditto with sports are arts groups.

Before you know it, you will have connections coming out of your ears. You may have to use a (Microsoft) Excel program to manage all your contacts. You are on your way to building a community.

Next, you must have something to do with all your people.

This post is part of the carnival of homeschooling, this week hosted by smallworldathome.blogspot.com. I’m sorry, I can’t put links in my posts like I used to be able to do.

Like cooking children.

All most homeschool kids cook. There is too much time at home, way too many meals for them not to. But I used to think that was a wonder, and my children were so special.

Costume and make-up dramas. I used to joke that all child actors are homeschooled. Whether that’s true or not, homeschoolers don’t worry about sticking out when they dress differently from everyone else. Again, that time? Which seems so elusive when you’re the teacher/mother/wife/chauffeur? Is actually a real factor in your life. Your children can play dress up all day long, explore, play with face paint, etc., and videotape their stories, movies, animated fancies, whatever.

They can practice piano whenever they want to* are told to.
*I actually have 1/6 that want to.

We can encourage our children to develop their strengths, and devote more time to their weaknesses.

There’s that element of time again.

I just found a stack of family newsletters I wrote when my oldest was in school. The most striking element of the news I reported is how frenzied we were. There was so much going on all the time!

Don’t get me wrong. The last few years here have been very busy. I felt squeezed and pulled 7 different directions quite often. But I remember years when every day felt the same. One child would tell the same jokes over and over all day long. Another child would react negatively. Et cetera.

There is something so delicious and palpable about the monotony of the days. One thing my children will remember is my saying and preaching that ‘boring is good.’ I have a friend that puts it better. She taught her children to say, “I’m thinking of something to do,” rather than “I’m bored.”

Because, at the end of the day, the homeschool lifestyle encourages children to be the stewards of their own time.

What a precious gift that is!

Imani, who never had problems with spelling, spelled 19/20 words correctly today, including ‘absence,’ which she had practiced incorrectly: ‘absense.’ She added a ‘d’ to admission, or some such word, which was disappointing to us both.

Joyous, who usually struggles with spelling, initially misspelled 6 words out of 21, but was able to correct enough of them to have missed only 2.

Esteban, who has a strong ear, will likely be a strong speller. He misspelled a few words on his spelling test, but corrected his way to 15/16 properly spelled words.

I don’t know if the painting and ball bouncing, jumping rope had any effect on spelling scores or not! I want to try having Joy act out her spelling words, whatever that means on video next week. She was able to memorize Bible verses by acting them out, so maybe this will help.

As for math, Imani started her week with an 86 on her 100 multiplication fact sheet, but finished strong by scoring 100 on her next 100 multiplication fact sheet, her 90 division fact sheet, and her 100 addition fact sheet.

Joyous started out strong, scoring 100 on her first three fact sheets–100 addition facts, but she narrowly missed the standard today on her 100 subtraction fact sheet, by scoring a 95.

Esteban’s fact sheet performance actually declined over the course of the week. He scored 17/25 on his first fact sheet of the week/year, and 15 and 14 on his subsequent quizzes. This is Esteban’s first year of timed fact sheets, and we haven’t figured out what works best for him yet. I did notice that he got his top score on the fact sheet he took at the dining room table, instead of in the seclusion of the ‘testing center,’ aka the library.

We started our math drill last spring to pull up fact sheet scores, and it has worked well for the girls. Esteban’s routine may need to be tweaked before we have success.

I too was excited about pulling together text books, compiling reading lists, and getting lesson plans together.

Although we daily hear the cicadas and feel the sun on our faces, it’s beginning to smell a lot like pencils.

I know we try to do school through the summer, I decided to stop everything but writing this summer so I could give the children a break, and plan for the fall.

We did writing yesterday, and the assignment was a collage featuring various poetry forms. In true summer style, Esteban was exempt from the exercise because he was playing with his friend, Walter.
Before Walter was school-aged, he’d come over every day to play. That made homeschooling challenging, but Esteban was just a first grader last year. This year, Walter will be a first grader, and in school all day. Esteban is getting in his play days while he can.

He did his collage today, learning about syllables and haiku. These writing skills should serve him well in second grade.

This should be a good year.

The article suggests using mobile devices and apps to help students in low performing schools. I agree. I am sure I have mentioned the benefits of both games and apps in the education of children more than once here and other places.

I took issue with the condescension dripping from the article. The shock and surprise that black and Latino children have become so engaged with electronic devices. Was the author alive in the 80s? Has he heard nothing of Atari, hand-held football games, Nintendo, Walkman, (boom) boxes, Coleco, or gameboys? Hello?

And then there was another assumption. That teachers know anything at all about computers and mobile phones. While decrying the distrust and hostility between public school students and teachers, the author glibly suggest the use of mobile apps to break the ice between the two.

And when are the teachers going to overcome the ‘eye of the chicken’–that distrust and disdain for technology that seems to go hand in hand with a teacher’s certificate–long enough to find and share those apps with their students?

The implication that there is a difference between games and learning, or that of course minority groups are more into entertainment than anything else?

I won’t dignify that with a response.

This summer, I found this great writing class. The first assignment was to get each child a new notebook. I had them at the notebook. The children were so excited to get a notebook just for writing that they forgot that they ‘hate’ writing.

First we talked about words, and parts of speech. The children were eager to begin the writing assignments.

I apologized to them for adding to their school this summer. They happily informed me that “writing class is not school.”

Thank you, SmallWorld!

This post is part of the Carnival of Homeschooling. Check out what other homeschoolers are talking about this week!

The gist of the article is that we should stop feeling guilty for our missteps in raising and educating our children, and get on about the business of discipling them.

This is not news to me. I know that I am the problem and the solution in many ways with my children. But it is very difficult to disciple your children when you get stuck on being the problem!

How many times have I cried out to God that I have made a mistake, that I am failing, that I’ve done so many things wrong! And He whispers the same answer every time.

Disciple your children.

But, wouldn’t they be better off if I just went away and stopped ruining them?

Disciple your children.

And I better watch myself. Remember what happened to Moses when he protested too much. If Zipporah hadn’t quickly responded to God’s wrath by circumcising her son, the Exodus story would have been different.

So, tonight, while I was sweeping the floor, going over the idea that I am too imperfect to possibly disciple my children, something clicked. Phillipians 3:14 comes to mind: I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. So what I disciple my children in is not perfection, but in the pursuit of perfection!

Everything fell into place! The reason for discipline, order, standards. If we don’t press toward the mark, if we don’t model our pursuit of perfection for our children, they will be overtaken by the weeds of our culture.

Talk about a high calling! But talk about vision. This is a vision to get me up in the morning, to hold my head up, straighten my back a bit more. And to never give up. God is awesome!

I ‘got it’ this winter, when I decided to slow down in teaching the children. They didn’t need to cover 4 subjects a day. Two was sufficient, I was sure. With 3 children in 3 different grades, and 4 subjects a day, something had to give! I had found myself teaching all three simultaneously in order to get done. If I had one guiding principle in my head, it was GO! I had to GO! It didn’t matter if they children learned the material, just that we got through it…

Wait a minute? Did I even think that it didn’t matter whether the children learned the material? Really? And… what made my philosophy of education, (if I could call it that) so different from a government school philosophy? I was just as concerned with my job performance, ie., GETTING THROUGH THE CURRICULUM AT ANY COST as professional educators are with negotiating their contracts and jumping through administrative hoops.

So, I scaled back. I found room in the schedule for teaching piano, and needlepoint, and tangrams. I found creative ways to teach math, for goodness sake.
And here it is June, we’re not done with the curriculum, and I’m starting to feel that pressure to FINISH AT ALL COSTS creep up my spine again…
I think I’ll resist.