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.

It’s not like I don’t knit. I just got into a crocheting binge, and explored it to its natural conclusion. I haven’t listed all the crocheted items I created for the shop; I’d hoped to move those I did list, first.

But it was nagging me that I hadn’t knit anything for the shop. I’m sure there’s some mystical social media explanation for poor sales, but, hey! Knitting! Such a cozy activity for this time of year.

No matter that I still didn’t feel like putting up the crochet hook just yet.

I started with what I had in my hand. There was some leftover yarn from my mother. It’s the kind of three color blend that I would never pick out myself. I much prefer solid colors. There was also some leftover pink eyelash yarn from Yanni’s crafting days.

So I tested the knitting water with a scarf combining these two yarns. I chose the basket-weave stitch, because I prefer to knit in texture than just plain stockinette .

I liked the project enough to invest in more yarn after my existing stores started to dwindle. I couldn’t find an exact color match, though–a danger of using old yarn.

But the colors are close, certainly complimentary. I don’t know if I’ll sell the scarf. But it was a fun dive back into knitting.

Meanwhile, I started a hat for….one of my girls. I knew Chanya needed a hat, but it turned out, Joy really wanted one. So I used the same yarn and stitch to create a Joy-sized hat. It’s been a minute since I knit a hat, and I couldn’t find the round needles, so I wasn’t sure how the hat would turn out.

I finished Joy’s hat today. She loves it, so that’s important. I have yarn leftover, so I’ve started a hat for Chanya, too, this time in a different stitch. More on her hat later. Here’s Joy modeling the hat and scarf:

Can you even see a pattern in the stiches? Or is that multi-colored yarn too distracting? I don’t know. Maybe I should have put ‘crochet’ in the title of my etsy shop?

I posted last week’s best picture on Facebook, and I got good feedback on it.

This week, I’ve drawn everyone except Chanya, the subject of last week’s best portrait. I am torn between Joy and Esteban’s portraits. Which do you think is better?

But we got into some new territory, like the mathematical term for a corner in a shape–an angle.

It went something like this:

“Blah, blah, blah, mathematicians call corners in shapes angles. How many angles are in a triangle?”

“3.”

“Hence the name, triangle.”

The children are giggling.

“Does rectangle mean four angles?”

“I’m not sure about that. I’ll have to look that up. But what about a square? Or a trapezoid, or a rhombus…or a parallelogram? How many sides do all these shapes have?”

“4.”
Esteban stretches a ‘geoband’ (sturdy, colorful rubber band) on his board into the shape of a square.

“How do you know it’s a square?” I ask.

“Because it looks like one.”

“What makes it look like a square?”

Imani and Joy know the answer. They are bursting at the seams.

I make a rectangle on the geoboard. “How are rectangles and squares different?”

“Their sides are longer.”

I change the rectangle so that the sides are narrower but taller.

“What makes a rectangle different from a square?”

Esteban tries to gesture shapes with his fingers. “Use words,” I tell him.

I make a trapezoid. “How is the trapezoid different from the square?”

“The sides are different.”

“How? How do you know a rectangle and a square?”

“Because 2 of the sides of the rectangle are the same, and the square has all 4 sides the same.”

The room let out a collective sigh.

It was, ‘Dr. Huxtable took Rudy and her friends to watch this kind of show.’

She had no idea. I think Imani tried to fit the word, ‘placenta’ into the ‘vaudeville’ slot.

So that time spent watching Cosby was absolutely unredeemable. Good to know. I was like, “you act just like those kids on the Cosby show! When the parents ask them what they learned from this, they were like, ‘what?’” So that was awesome.

But after we got over that hump, I was able to get in there with Imani and talk about word roots and word meanings. She is good at spelling, but lacks understanding of word origins and definitions.

I have figured out how to give Joy and Esteban clues for their spelling crossword puzzles. They are able to solve their puzzles without much help. Focusing on the task at hand? Not so much. So there was that.

And then Xavier and I went to community college to take his entrance exams for summer semester. We were there for an hour, applying to the school, and decided to return later with a calculator to actually take the tests.

And then there was kitchen chores, dinner prep, helping Yanni with her laundry, working out, dinner, etc., all while dragging children through the paces of chores, helping with dinner, working out…
The little kids were more interested in playing today.

Wait, I guess that’s everyday.

I could tell Zumba was fun just from watching the infomercials. But zumba is much better when you participate.

The zumba party? Brilliant.

I wondered about those jingly skirts the first time I saw them.

This was Latin dance, right? Not belly dancing. But, there are a few belly dancing moves, and Bollywood, and hip hop, disco, you name it, zumba had some of it. There were even a couple show tunes thrown in the mix.

And we loved every minute of it.

Ok. the commercial is over. Go back to your lives. And attend every zumba party you can!

Then I wouldn’t get to it. I We took a few walks, drew and painted some pictures of the changing landscape, but I never made the time to pull out the science experiment books.

But last week we made dish soap. The children had been collecting old broken bars of soap for months, and finally we’d filled the empty truvia jar I’d been using to collect it.

I googled the recipe, and the children cheerfully grated the soap with cheese graters. We poured hot water over it and the children could hardly contain themselves until the next day when they could stir it. Imani chose the yellow food coloring gel for our goopy mixture, and I added lemon juice to cut grease. We use the soap, but don’t like it as well as our homemade laundry detergent from this summer.

Friday night, Imani made caramel. First she tried to make sponge candy again, ala this fall, but she learned something about sugar’s burn rate when she looked away for just a second. She decided caramel was easier and tastier, and she made that instead.

Today Esteban learned about lines of symmetry in math by folding a piece of paper in half and spreading a drop of paint from the middle outward. Chanya and Imani and Joy joined in, and soon we had pictures drying on most surfaces in the kitchen.

It’s a shame about not getting around to science…

So after two weeks of vacation, we started back to shool yesterday.

We know the drill, but need new music for the practicing part, and people have misplaced the Suzuki CDs, etc., etc.

The handwritten wordsearch experience today showed me that Esteban can’t really read my handwriting.

But Imani knew an example of an epic Greek poem. If you had any idea of the disinterest and disdain with which Imani has looked at history, you would leap for joy at this little milestone.

And Esteban got 100% on both his tests and fact sheet today, so that’s good.

Meanwhile, people are busy setting up stores, tents, and begging to make the classroom into a rocket ship. They went outside and shaved their snowman to such proportions that Imani thought it better to just destroy the poor guy.

Welcome back, shool!

Yanni branched off on her own. She won the Michigan’s Perfect Teen pageant. She finished 7th out of 40 in her first national pageant. It was a big year for Yanni.

It was big for Xay, too. He learned programming and worked with his dad. Xay helped develop an iphone app during his internship. He also stepped up and became a leader in his volunteer groups.

Imani and Esteban sold baked goods and lemonade, respectively, for their birthdays in June. It was hot enough that they could have earned more if they’d just teamed up. Maybe next year they’ll figure that out.

Imani also earned her second 100 percent week in school–ever. She is now the most consistent to earn lunch out with Mom.

Joyous improved her spelling and has earned some 100 percent weeks this year as well. She also learned to knit and embroider. She is 1/2 a piece away from finishing Suzuki piano school book 1.

(Imani finished Suzuki piano school book 2 this year).

Esteban improved his piano this year, and is 2/3rds finished with Suzuki book 1.

Chanya was potty trained this year! I have no one left in diapers. I’m ok with that. She also gave up naps, and has really become one of the big kids. Next up: (gulp) reading.

May the new year bring you much joy, happiness, and freedom. May you attain your resolution goals.

Happy New Year!