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Elizabeth
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| Posted: Jan 02 2006 at 7:01am | IP Logged
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(Moderator's note: you can find the beginning of this conversation here. Please chime in and continue it right here!—Thanks, Lissa) (Now on to Elizabeth's post.)
juliecinci wrote:
Elizabeth wrote:
I'm going to give this one more try:
I absolutely think that what we need to do is to guide our teens and even younger towards always, always looking at education as preparation for vocation. |
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Just curious. Do you think that what I'm saying or some of the others are saying is not in line with this comment? I am devoted to preparing my kids for educational opportunities as well as being attentive to what their vocations may be.
Guidance implies giving them opinions and opportunities and support to get there. Right? |
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Of course it does. I'm all about opinions and opportunities and support.
Julie wrote:
| Are you also saying that guidance implies a requirement? |
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No, I'm saying that sharing wisdom might mean supporting a child as he fulfills a requirement which will ultimately help him accomplish his goals and fulfill his calling. And you might have to help him see that those pesky requirements will benefit him in the end--will actually bring him peace and joy.
Elizabeth wrote:
| To that end, I also think that we might need to be "the bad guy" who reminds the child occasionally that preparing oneself to answer God's call will inevitably require some sacrifice and obedience. |
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Julie wrote:
| How is it being the bad guy to remind people that vocational choices imply sacrifice? |
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I put bad guy in quotes. Our children might see us as adversaries when we break it to them that they have to do something they don't necessarily want to do.
Elizabeth wrote:
| We can't always do exactly what makes us happy or what we are passionate about and be faithful to our vocation. I don't think 18 is too young to learn that. |
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Julie wrote:
I don't think taking on a vocation you are not passionate about is much of a service. If we are to be mothers, for instance, we must want to have children, must be passionate about their growing up to be well-rounded people, we must be willing due to our devotion to get up in the middle of the night, give up great looking figures and more.
If a woman told me she wasn't passionate about mothering, I would not be too excited about her becoming a mother until she really got that passion/commitment inside of her. |
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I never meant to suggest that we should take up a vocation that isn't a passion. I beleive that our true vocations are God's calling. Certainly, God inpsires the passion. I simply meant that in answering the call, we will undoubtedly have to do some things we are not a passionate--or even happy--about.
Elizabeth wrote:
I took more than a handful of classes that neither enthused or inspired me in college. They were required courses. Was it the ideal educational experience? No. Did I learn somehting about the subject? Yes.Did I learn even more about diligence and discipline? Absolutely. |
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Julie wrote:
Certainly. These are all good. But you could have failed the courses and quit college. You could have said no. You could have dropped out and moved to Europe for a year of traveling.
Rather, you bought into the vision of getting a college degree and so you found within you resources to succeed in classes you didn't like.
What do you do with a child who refuses to find those resources within himself because he doesn't believe in the goal? At what age do we take seriously a child's unwillingness to accept the vision we offer and promote?
That's really the crux of this discussion. How far do you coerce an almost adult? What carrot or stick do you wave before him or behind him to make him do what he does not value, support or believe in? |
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I know well that you can't make a child learn in a particular setting if he doesn't want to.And I have a late bloomer in my home who might not see the big picture when he's 18. I think what I would do might differ from what you would do simply because we are in different households.
It's very possible that he would work for his father, pulling camera cable and learning television production--he loves to be on site with Mike and he could earn a decent wage. It's possible he'd go to work for our friend who heads the Transportation Safety Agency. He'd be an Air Marshall and hop on and off airplanes for a couple of years. Both those jobs would appeal to him and neither of them are longterm options because they're physically exhausting. To advance in either field, he'd need a degree.
But there is another talk we'd have--not because I'm not respectful of different rates of development, but because of who we are as a family and what we've experienced. I was engaged at 20, married (with a degree) at 21. I had a baby at 22. I had cancer at 24. Before I was 25, I understood very clearly how beautiful life can be, how full the vocation of marriage and parenthood, and how very short our time on earth can be. I don't think that our young people can look at their twenties and shrug their shoulders and say, "I have plenty of time to be responsible to answering my call; I'll just mess around a bit here and there right now and not do much of anything." I don't think this is a "Type-A" hyper-achievement philosophy coming out in me. I simply think it's the urgency with which I've approached all of life since being shown quite clearly how finite time is.
Elizabeth wrote:
Education isn't limited to school. I believe that with all my heart and I have lived that wholeheartedly in my adult life. But education isn't limited only to those things which make us happy, either. {snip} It's our job as parents to help them understand that the easy road, the one that makes them happy today, might not necessarily be the joyful road. I think we do them a disservice if we say that education is all about doing what you want. |
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Julie wrote:
| Elizabeth, do you see a difference between "doing what you want" and "doing what you believe in"? |
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Yes, I do. I believe in a God who has a plan for our lives. I believe that He places passions on our hearts. I believe He shares that plan with us if we ask Him and we sincerely listen. And I believe to do anything less than everything it takes to answer that call is a grave matter--a serious waste of precious time. And sometimes, in doing what we believe in, we have to do tasks we don't want to do.
Julie wrote:
| I suppose where I lean is to the direction of Charlotte Mason's principle of excellence - that it is better to do less with commitment, full attention and excellence, than to slog through something without commitment or a desire to do it well. |
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There is a difference between commitment and desire. I have a commitment to keeping an orderly house--it's my duty and I like the order. I do not desire to clean toilets. In the beginning, I slogged through it because I knew I had to. Now, many years later, I see the value of the task itself in the overall picture of my vocation. No more slogging. I don't really like to think what would have happended if I had been unwilling to clean bathrooms because I had no desire to do so.
Julie wrote:
Willa (I believe) said that one of her kids got behind in math and was troubled by it. This happened with one of my kids too. But what a different way of thinking for the child! Usually they have no sense of needing to do math, but just that they must do it, with gritted teeth.
When they see that they need it and value being "caught up" they have shifted to the willingness to suffer to do what they perceive to be of value. Suffering through embracing the choice to suffer is very different than being made to suffer without understanding or consent. |
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We had this happen here with math and my eldest slogged through three years of high school math in a year when he realized he needed it for the SAT and he needed the SAT in order to go to the college of his choice.
Now, when any of his siblings complain about math, he reminds him of the pickle he was in and he suggests that in the end, it all would have been easier--happier--if he'd kept at it every day, little by little. One of his brothers (the 11yo) really appreicates learning from Michael's mistake and he applies himself to math diligently in order to avoid the pain. The 13yo doesn't want to do math, complains bitterly, and is made to slog through it under threat of losing basketball priveliges. Is it ideal? No. But I do think it's realistic to tell him that he has to accompish a certain amount of work before he can play. That's real life.
Elizabeth wrote:
| We need to equip them--by showing them when they are young--to be prudent and disciplined and sober and faithful good stewards of the talents and abilities bestowed on thm by their Creator. To expect any less of them would be to fail in our jobs as parents. |
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Julie wrote:
| We certainly as parents have the power to control how our kids spend their time and especially in service of goals we set for them. I'm just a bit more unwilling than some to play that card too often. |
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The only hard, fast goal I've set for my kids is heaven. They know that it is up to them to discern how God wants them to live here. But we'll be there for as long as we live to wonder aloud with them, to pray, and to ponder,just the way we do when they are tiny
Julie wrote:
| I rely more on dialog, shared vision, modeling, support, guidance, and creating opportunities to motivate taking on goals rather than requiring them to meet goals I set for them. |
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We talk plenty to with our children and our whole lifestyle is about modeling, support, guidance, and opportunities. The only goal is heaven. We are not perfect parents. I have much less confidence as my eldest apporaches young adulthood than I did when we didn't put him on the bus to kindergarten. I KNEW we were up to the task of educating a five-year-old. It's a little more disconcerting to navigate the big world out there with a young adult.
I think you misunderstand a great deal about how life works in this family.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Sarah
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| Posted: Jan 02 2006 at 2:31pm | IP Logged
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I think what Elizabeth might have meant about the passion and service thing was more detailed than the big picture. I am passionate about mothering, and motherhood is service. I am not passionate about thinking up a dinner menu each week. Or, about grabbing the puke bucket when someone is sick, but you just do it because it comes with the job. My husband is absolutely passionate as a Catholic doctor. He was not passionate about organic chemistry or physics he had to take to get there or the over 100 hours a week he had to work as a resident, etc.
I think, and correct me if I am wrong here that there are bad things that come with your good vocation. Johnny just can't sit around and paint, play with clay and chase butterflies if he's going to be a brain surgeon. In my house there are things you have to do. Period. I'm going to try to mix the less desirable tasks with the more enjoyable. A 2006 goal!
When the other doctors wives call to invite me for coffee some mornings, of course I would love that, but I can't go because I'm a mother of small children and I would have all 5 with me because I hs. I'm passionate about mothering, but that is a sacrifice.
I think that's what Elizabeth meant. Small hoops within the bigger picture, huh?
However, college doesn't have to be the goal for each kid, but either is lying around like a bum, avoiding hard work. I'm not there yet with teens so I have zero advice and am learning from you all--thanks so much for sharing.
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juliecinci
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| Posted: Jan 02 2006 at 3:23pm | IP Logged
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Elizabeth wrote:
I think you misunderstand a great deal about how life works in this family. |
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Oh my goodness. I hope not! I didn't think I implied that you weren't discussing or sharing or modeling. What I was trying to get at is how it happens that education and vocation are made the priority in such a way that our kids bought in.
Please forgive me if I've treaded on any toes. My intent was not to do that at all but to talk about the hows of preparation and what that might look like. I know from all you've shared that you are a highly engaged devoted mother with a real passion for learning. What I was hoping we could discuss is the various ways we go about "ensuring" that vocation and education are valued in our families and what to do when a child's vision differs from his parents'.
Anyway, mea culpa. 
From your post, I got the feeling that perhaps you understood me to be critical and I was not feeling that way at all at the time.
Julie
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Lissa
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| Posted: Jan 02 2006 at 5:37pm | IP Logged
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Hmm, I wasn't sure how far back in the discussion to go. I'm moving the last few posts here; to read the earlier part of the conversation, go here.
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Lissa
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| Posted: Jan 02 2006 at 5:45pm | IP Logged
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Argh, my post was supposed to be at the top of the thread! Well, I hope I haven't made things too confusing. Let's do please continue the conversation, all right?
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: Jan 02 2006 at 5:47pm | IP Logged
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The posts get moved and then ordered according to the original order so yours can't go first. But people can figure it all out.  .
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Lissa
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| Posted: Jan 02 2006 at 5:50pm | IP Logged
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LOL, thanks for putting up with my clumsiness! I added a link to the previous posts at the top of your post--hope you don't mind me piggybacking you that way!
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Lissa
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| Posted: Jan 02 2006 at 6:10pm | IP Logged
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Sarah wrote:
| I think, and correct me if I am wrong here that there are bad things that come with your good vocation. Johnny just can't sit around and paint, play with clay and chase butterflies if he's going to be a brain surgeon. |
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OK, but here's where I would interject that if Johnny really WANTS to be a brain surgeon—if brain surgery is his true vocation—he's probably (at some point in his childhood or youth) going to be poring over science and anatomy books rather than butterfly guides. He's going to be drawn to the microscope instead of the paint box. (Or in addition to the paint box.) And if he really, really wants to be a brain surgeon, he's going to be motivated to figure out what he needs to do to make that happen.
If "all" he wants to do—always, right up to age 18 or 22 or whenever—is paint and play with clay and chase butterflies, I'd guess his vocation lay elsewhere. I know a guy who makes a great living off his butterfly collection, which he began at age three. He travels all around the county giving talks at schools and nature centers.
I know quite a few guys who spent their youths drawing superheroes in the margins of their math notebooks. They're now drawing Batman and Superman for a living, and some of them earn as much money as my surgeon friend. Some of them don't.
Quote:
| However, college doesn't have to be the goal for each kid, but either is lying around like a bum, avoiding hard work. I'm not there yet with teens so I have zero advice and am learning from you all--thanks so much for sharing. |
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I think there's room for a lot of possibilities between that either/or. Just because you aren't on a college-prep track doesn't mean you're lying around like a bum. I know that isn't what you meant, but it does seem like the question often gets boiled down to those kinds of absolutes. If I'm understanding correctly (and please correct me if I'm not), the implication is that if kids aren't *made* to do certain things, they'll naturally opt for the lazy path and turn out to be slackers. I disagree. In my experience, everybody wants something. Everybody has some kind of goal, something they want to be or do or experience. Forgive my bluntness, but isn't the lazy bum on the couch a straw man?
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MacBeth
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Lissa wrote:
Forgive my bluntness, but isn't the lazy bum on the couch a straw man?
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Not in my extended family. He is real flesh-and-blood. If I am being the taskmaster-mom, it's because of that vision. Rather, though, I hope to recognize the flicker of genius where it lies and nurture it, rather than force something unwanted on a kid. I suspect that, given the right advice, guidance, etc., the bum would be doing what he wants, instead of rejecting all work as something he does not want.
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Lissa
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| Posted: Jan 02 2006 at 7:23pm | IP Logged
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MacBeth wrote:
Lissa wrote:
Forgive my bluntness, but isn't the lazy bum on the couch a straw man?
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Not in my extended family. He is real flesh-and-blood. If I am being the taskmaster-mom, it's because of that vision. Rather, though, I hope to recognize the flicker of genius where it lies and nurture it, rather than force something unwanted on a kid. I suspect that, given the right advice, guidance, etc., the bum would be doing what he wants, instead of rejecting all work as something he does not want. |
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Well, there you go. Your last sentence answers the question I was going to ask after your first sentence. Perhaps a better way to phrase my own question is "Is the *unschooled* lazy bum on the couch a straw man?"
The lazy bum in your extended family, you suggest, was perhaps not given the best advice and guidance. Is it possible his laziness is an apathy born of despair? Or a sullen resentment after a youth of being forced into boxes that didn't fit? Or a chronically low opinion of his own abilities, borne of criticism for his failure to fit into the boxes during his youth?
I'm just speculating—obviously I don't know his circumstances. And I'm not excusing his behavior either. Depair and resentment are sins. He, whoever he is, could and should pray for the energy rise up from the couch and bravely pursue—something. Some deep-buried dream, perhaps.
I guess the straw man I perceive is the oft-mentioned portrait of the unschooled kid who will amount to nothing because he has never learned to buckle down to unpleasant work. And that's the vision I can't buy into. The guidance you mention seems to be the key: the kind of parenting I hear about from those who are passionate unschoolers (and indeed from you, too, MacBeth, and from Elizabeth, and Julie, and from other types of homeschooling parents as well) involves a deep commitment to involvement, connectedness, support, inspiration, guidance. And I don't think I'm being naive in believing that a child raised in such an atmosphere will never become the sullen, bitter, apathetic couch-bum. I don't believe that such an atmosphere breeds sullenness or bitterness.
So when I see an unschooling conversation head in that direction—when the lazy bum image is evoked—I react to it. Sarah, I hope you don't feel attacked here. I know I'm making a lot more out of your phrase than you intended. I guess I'm just saying that the phrase itself is a loaded one, and I think it's helpful to be as clear as possible about what we're really discussing.
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MacBeth
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Lissa wrote:
The lazy bum in your extended family, you suggest, was perhaps not given the best advice and guidance. Is it possible his laziness is an apathy born of despair? Or a sullen resentment after a youth of being forced into boxes that didn't fit? Or a chronically low opinion of his own abilities, borne of criticism for his failure to fit into the boxes during his youth?
I'm just speculating—obviously I don't know his circumstances. |
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Neither do I.... I wasn't there when he was a youth .
But under certain circumstances, I could see how unschooling a natural slacker could produce just such a bum. Hey, he could stay home with mom forever, drink beer and watch TV.
School could produce the same results, though. It's our job to figure out how not to let this happen. For some unschoolers, everything works out. For others, I suspect that the advice of some radical unschoolers--stay out of the way...don't interfere--might result in a permanent lodger in the basement. I hope that we can see the signs and remediate (is that a word?) as necessary without feeling like we have failed the "unschooling" test.
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Mary G
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MacBeth wrote:
[Hey, he could stay home with mom forever, drink beer and watch TV.
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Ah, but here's the rub -- he shouldn't be allowed to do that forever. At a certain point, our job as parents is to push the fledgling out of the nest and get him flying on his own....you can arbitrarily pick an age (maybe it's 18, maybe it's 30) but as a loving parent you sometimes need to give 'em a nudge.
I know a woman who is 34, has 4 kids and still continues to run to her grandparents (as her parents have stopped helping) for assistance. At some point, this young woman -- who says she's an adult and makes her own decisions -- has to live with those decisions and pay the consequences.
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Lissa
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Ooh, interesting point, Mary. Necessity is the mother of activity?
Our hypothetical beer-drinking, TV-watching guy: sounds like he was never expected to contribute to the running of the household, the stuff I'm always calling "the business of living" which I see as the natural preventative to the development of a freeloading personality. The nurturing, involved guidance we were talking about--seems to me that includes an expectation that as part of a household, you'll contribute to the daily chores. Either the beer-drinking, TV-watching dude is a help to his poor aging mother, in which case she's probably glad to have him around despite his unimpressive hobbies  , or else he's a total freeloader expecting to be served, never serving—in which case Mary's right, he needs to be shown the door.
An atmosphere of connectedness and trust means that a kid is going to grow up with an understanding of his role as a valuable and contributing member of the household. If the slacker unschooler exists, it seems to me the problem lies in how he was parented, not how he was educated.
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Sarah
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My father, a very successful jazz musician, is very thankful to this day that his dad did not let him get out of practicing the clarinet. He told his dad after a period of time that he was done with clarinet and he'd had enough. His dad wouldn't let him quit. He had to sit and practice and since he knew he couldn't get out of it, he figured out games to pass the time and learn different licks and tunes. He went on to college in music, made a career of it, and to this day tells this story of his father over and over again. How he didn't let him quit. He now has a line of saxophones made in Germany with his name on them and handmakes mouthpieces for instruments for a living now. Okay, perhaps his father saw something there, but he made him do it just the same. On the other hand, my husband is very heartbroken that he went to his parents in 6th grade and told him he was quitting piano, and they agreed. He says now that he didn't know better and he wishes they would have made him stick it out because he loves piano as a hobby now.
Lissa wrote:
If "all" he wants to do—always, right up to age 18 or 22 or whenever—is paint and play with clay and chase butterflies, I'd guess his vocation lay elsewhere. . .
the implication is that if kids aren't *made* to do certain things, they'll naturally opt for the lazy path and turn out to be slackers. I disagree. In my experience, everybody wants something. |
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I guess I was talking about the extremes-from college to the park bench. I think there is so much value in trades like plumbing, carpentry, electricians, etc. I don't think college is for everyone. But, I do think there are people who if not *made* to do something are lazyish, or maybe unmotivated is more what I mean, maybe "lazy" is not the right word. I think I have one of those kids who would come to nearly no conclusions unless I *require* it (maybe "made" isn't the right word either). My ds9 watches me like a hawk to see what I'm going to ask of him and loves the structure of a timetable with required things to do. He might complain, but many, many times he's come to me and said, "I thought that was going to be boring, but I ended up loving it." His brother, on the other hand couldn't be further than the opposite (both the same parents and upbringing, mind you), but an extremely exploratory, creative child, who can do a million great things without me ever finding something for him to do-unschooler extraordinaire!! Same family, only two years apart. Here's another example, when ds9 was given a day here over Christmas break where I didn't intervene at all, he watched 6 1/2 hours of Andy Griffith!! 6 1/2 hours!!! He came to me later feeling bad about that. He said he felt like he'd wasted the day and indeed he had, but I kept my mouth shut because sometimes he needs to figure that stuff out! This same child told me he hated piano more than anything and now that he has a good teacher who is firm but fun, he plays constantly. My mom, also a musician, heard him over the phone the other day and couldn't believe it was the same kid. On the other hand, if one of my kids just can't complete something, I mean really can't bring themselves to finish it, we ditch it or change courses. So, in our house there has to be a little requiring of things. Life isn't all comfy and this is that sacrificing Elizabeth was referring to, I think. I do like following the "rabbit trails" and becoming more relaxed in schooling as you all have taught me though. And as always, I'm grateful to hear from everyone. Such good food for thought!
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MacBeth
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Lissa wrote:
| If the slacker unschooler exists, it seems to me the problem lies in how he was parented, not how he was educated. |
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Where, oh where, do we draw that line? I have heard ultra-mega-radical unschoolers suggest that a child should never be coerced into doing anything.
So, is sitting in a shrub sipping sarsaparilla a valid unschooling experience? This is no straw-man...at least, I don't think it is. When I began looking into homeschooling so many years ago, an article in Growing Without Schooling described a mother defending her son's curriculum which consisted of "daydreaming under a tree" to a local educrat. I'd love to hear a follow-up on that family!
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I've got tons to say and little time to say it.
Know that these are random thoughts, beaten out on the run, in no rational order, and I haven't been able to do more than skim the posts already here. I just know if I don't say something, the weeks will slip by and my thoughts will be for nought.
But maybe that would be a good thing.
Anyhoo...
My dad tells people he was a Depression Baby and he says it with a hint of pride. He was born in 1931 (he's 13 years older than my mother). Seems that older people are more capable of taking lemons and turning it into lemonade. There is little complaining, little expectations regarding a materialistic lifestyle. Why? Because they started out with less and now have more. Our teens are starting out having more (generally) and not wanting to settle for less.
The younger generation seems to expect a lot for little and complain with their bellies full. Why is that? Perhaps because they have not had to sacrifice and do without. Perhaps they don't know how to do without?
Seems too many teenagers believe that work is strictly for buying their wants and their entertainment. If they can't have the extra, they don't believe it's worth their time and effort. Adam and Eve certainly mudded the waters for us when they goofed up. We have to work by the blood and sweat of our brow. But God has redeemed our work. We really aren't here to work for our excesses. We are here to work as an offering up to God. Everything we do should be done as an offering to God and for His greater glory.
But we have advanced and become a more civilized society. We are not cavemen who merely eat and sleep. The fruits of labor, besides glorifying God, are to benefit others. So work---in today's world---does offer us more than it did to our grandparents and parents in the early 1900's.
Steve Maxwell from the MOTH website believes in teaching our children that there is satisfaction in a job well done and we should not teach them to work merely to have money for pleasure and entertainment. Though I think he takes an overly stoic, puritan version of this attitude (more so than I would want for my children), I see the wisdom. I'm willing to take a sip of the lemonade and see that we have taught our children to love entertainment more than getting out there, rolling up their sleeves, and getting their hands dirty (my household included). The work ethic in many households needs to be changed for the betterment of our future grandchildren.
One thought is to look at our own children through the lens of our future grandchildren. What will they see in this future parent? Is this young adolescent standing in front of us becoming (in slow extremes perhaps) the parent we want to raise our precious grandchildren. And I'm not talking about soul-training here. That's a given. All of us are seeking to guide our children in character-training and spiritual matters. What we're discussing here is the dilemma of feeling our future grandchildren will have the security of food on the table, medical care when necessary, a warm house in winter and a cool house in summer? I'm not talking about vacations every year, the newest version of Xbox/Playstation/whatever, the ultimate Walt Disney World trip, etc. I'm talking about the 3 "material" necessities in life: food, shelter, clothing.
What will our grandchildren think of how we prepared their parents to support them? If our dc turn out lazy and shiftless and do not provide well for our grandchildren, the burden will fall on us to care for our grandchildren in our old age instead of the other way around. It makes it hard on the whole family when one member is lazy and shiftless.
I am as much at fault as the next hsers allowing my dc to have Playstations and what have you; and I've heard unschoolers defend the option of allowing their dc to play away all hours of the day on these contraptions.
They didn't have these gimmicks when my father was a boy in the Great Depression. And, if they had, I doubt he would have been allowed to play on one. His father was a barbar and he was lucky to make a dollar a day (or was it a week???  , I forget). That was to put food on the table and little else.
I'm sure you have all heard (and have) the "two-miles-in-the-snow stories of your own. Here is one my father has often shared with us:
Grandpa gave my father a quarter once to go to the picture show. My dad got mad because he wanted another quarter to get popcorn and a coke; he was so angry, he threw the quarter in a ditch. His daddy found out about it, whipped him, and made him go search that ditch until my father found that quarter. Grandpa never gave him money again for a movie show and dad didn't see a movie show until he was working and had his own money to pay for it.
Go check out the local movie theatre and count the teens going through the door. Better yet, look at the high $$$ clothing they're all wearing. 
I remember visiting my grandfather in that barbar shop. He spent most of his life in that shop. By going to work day after day after day, he taught his son, my father, how to provide for a family and keep keeping on...without saying a word. Marie Bellet's song "One Heroic Moment" has a beautiful way of relaying the power of this example.
So, perhaps the long and short of it is this...we don't need to lecture, preach, motivate, bribe, pile more school work on our dc, etc. We must simply show them by example and expect nothing less from them.
The whole work ethic needs to be rethought, retaught, and retargeted at our youth.
And, in saying this, I must admit (as a side note) that my dh does a better job of this than I do. I'm the one who has the ideal and writes about it; he's the one who enforces it.
I tend to overlook chores not done (until nighttime when I get in high-cleaning mode simply because I can't stand going to bed with a dirty house and waking up to a messy house), and then I stress everyone (and myself) out by trying to get it all done at one time. When Daddy's home, the dc are expected to get it done. There are no excuses, no lectures, no complaining, etc. Daddy expects it and the dc respond in kind.
But that's why the dear Lord instituted marriage and man and woman would cling to each other. We make the whole picture and our children learn from our example.
__________________
Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
wife to Mark '86
mom to 5
Cajun Cottage Under the Oaks
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mrsgranola
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| Posted: Jan 02 2006 at 10:57pm | IP Logged
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You all have brought up so many thought-provoking points... where to begin? I guess the question for me would be what do you do if you have a housefull of kids and some are the type you have to help structure their day and nudge to do stuff and you have others who will be productive and explorative on their own? I mean I can't have 2 who are allowed to do their own thing and 2 who must have their lesson plans out and working! I'd have a mutiny on my hands! But that's the way it's starting to pan out here... I spend most of my "free" time trying to get my oldest to do something semi-productive while the next one down is either helping me with the little ones or doing something creatively on her own.
Now, lest you feel sorry for poor Jacob... he spent most of his days up until about 2.5 years ago very relaxed homeschooled. I've always been an unschooler at heart but I draw the line at the "non-coercive parenting" junk that MacBeth referred to. We've seen that camp of parents with the attachment parenting stuff, too. Extremes abound in everything, I suppose.
Okay, off to read more and catch up...
JoAnna
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Parente Adventures
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Mary G
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| Posted: Jan 03 2006 at 5:00am | IP Logged
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Here's a quote from St. Vincent dePaul that sums up what I was trying to say (unsuccessfully) earlier:
Human nature grows tired of always doing the same thing, and it is God's will that this should be because of the opportunity of practicing two great virtues. The first is perseverance, which will bring us to our goal. The other is steadfastness, which overcomes the difficulties on the way.
– St. Vincent de Paul
Also, to put it in an unschooling perspective -- unschooling is NOT unparenting
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MaryG
3 boys (22, 12, 8)2 girls (20, 11)
my website that combines my schooling, hand-knits work, writing and everything else in one spot!
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juliecinci
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| Posted: Jan 03 2006 at 8:06am | IP Logged
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I would love to reply to some of these but don't know if I can do them justice.
Macbeth, I spent three years on the unschooling list (the radical one) and from what I've seen of those who consider themselves models of unschooling is that neglect is not unschooling. Deep, attentive involvement is. I don't know what sasparilla in the scrub was about so it would be hard to comment.
I remember reading an article about a mom whose son learned a whole bunch of valuable lessons digging a hole in the backyard. I was skeptical, until the next morning for some odd reason my two boys (who were 10 and 8 at the time) started digging in our very small courtyard that had literally two feet by four feet of soil. They dug most of the day, and by the end of the afternoon had created a little world of alleys and bridges for their matchbox cars. This digging project lasted the better part of two weeks.
Now digging is not a part of any curricula that I know of. But what this mom shared in her article and what I witnessed firsthand was that the digging merely offered them a way to discover how to execute a vision and how to persevere in that vision even when they were physically tired, when they made mistakes or flubbed up. There was something about this physical act that required a vision and they were persistent to get it done.
Digging ditches is probably not the calling on any of their lives either. Had I looked at the dirt digging as a vision for their future, I would have dismissed it and asked them to come inside and do math. Instead, I watched them. Here is some of what digging in dirt did for my boys those two weeks:
they worked hard physically
they shared one shovel
they learned how to make a bridge out of dirt (not easy, I tell you! Lots of physics involved in that task)
they learned to resolve their differences of vision
they started out without a vision and wound up with one
they moved from just throwing dirt around to more and more sophisticated uses for that dirt
they involved other kids
they kept at it or got help when they were stuck or frustrated
These are meta messages that might be dismissed if we are looking at the content of the project rather than what is being achieved through living it.
I remember on the unschooling list that a mom shared about how her son was wasting so much time playing computer games. She was stressed about it and felt that he would never learn limits.
So one of the moms asked what else he does besides computer games. She proudly announced that he has an interest in science--he likes to freeze water into various shapes. How could she expand this interest in science?
I'll never forget the reply from one of the list moderators: do you honestly think he is learning more from freezing water than beating levels on a computer game? The mom was taken aback. She had not thought about it before.
What I think happens so often is that we are still "recovering" from our own childhood lived experiences of learning - in school and out of it, and we are both adjusting our homes to be different but are also responding to underlying messages about children that we internalized from parents, teachers, the culture.
Unschooling asks us to shift how we see children (even more than how we see education).
So we can talk all we want about the isolated cases of kids who are "lazy" or the adult who is glad his father pushed him to play clarinet against his will because these fit with a view of children that our culture supports.
While you have the view that children can't be trusted to work on behalf of their own self-interests, unschooling doesn't make sense. It seems to aid and abet weaknesses and immaturity - a profile of children that says they are not likely to work hard or achieve things without adult supervision and coercion.
Unschoolers resist this view. They say that children are like adults in that they want to live lives of value, that challenge and stimulate them, that offer them a sense of competence and contribution to the world around them. What they lack that adults have in abundance are resources.
They need help, tutors, classes, money, ideas, materials, time, encouragement, enthusiasm and a yellow pages.
These parents can give.
I'm going to start a new thread about the nature of children because this is getting too long. And I will address in another post Sarah's comments about the clarinet. 
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Julie
Homeschooling five for fourteen years
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juliecinci
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| Posted: Jan 03 2006 at 8:36am | IP Logged
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Sarah wrote:
| My father, a very successful jazz musician, is very thankful to this day that his dad did not let him get out of practicing the clarinet. He told his dad after a period of time that he was done with clarinet and he'd had enough. His dad wouldn't let him quit. He had to sit and practice and since he knew he couldn't get out of it, he figured out games to pass the time and learn different licks and tunes. |
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It is common for people (adults and children alike) to want to quit things when they get difficult. Think about all of the new year's resolutions to go on diets or to exercise that adults make that they drop within a month. Personal Trainers are hired because we don't trust ourselves to follow through without the carrot and stick of accountability.
Our culture has taught us that we can't achieve without rewards or punishments... even adults believe this.
Sarah wrote:
| He went on to college in music, made a career of it, and to this day tells this story of his father over and over again. How he didn't let him quit. He now has a line of saxophones made in Germany with his name on them and handmakes mouthpieces for instruments for a living now. Okay, perhaps his father saw something there, but he made him do it just the same. |
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Most kids whose parents made them practice don't have saxophones with their names on them. Most kids who were made to practice musical instruments don't play them today. Ask around.
What happened for your father is that he did find the spark - he did discover the joy of music in his own playing!
It would be interesting to look at the totality of his life. Is it possible that had he been unschooled, he might never have needed the requirement to keep playing the clarinet? School takes so much energy from all of us. I quit flute because I didn't like carrying the case to all my classes. I lost it twice a month and the stress overwhelmed my enjoyment of playing.
What if your dad or I had been home all day with time to really dig into the musical instruments rather than having to tack on practice after an already exhausting day of lessons unrelated to music?
I remember when I quit piano after five years, it was because I didn't like the teacher. What I wish is that my mother and father had asked me why I wanted to quit. Had they asked and opened a dialog, had cast a vision of how piano might have served me or been a part of my future, had found me a new teacher, I might have stuck with it.
Still, requiring me to continue at the time wouldn't necessarily have led me to a career in piano.
My son quit piano after taking two years of lessons because he kept forgetting to go to them and didn't practice. Once he quit, he started playing daily. He plays all the time now and has gotten really good! I've never asked him to play once. He's also taught himself electric guitar without a single lesson.
The whole context is different for him than it ever was for me.
Sarah wrote:
| On the other hand, my husband is very heartbroken that he went to his parents in 6th grade and told him he was quitting piano, and they agreed. He says now that he didn't know better and he wishes they would have made him stick it out because he loves piano as a hobby now. |
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Why is this sad? If he loves piano now, then he has come back to it for himself. Why is it the parents' fault?
And really - perhaps his quitting is what has made piano delightful to him now. Perhaps had he been "forced" to continue, he might have grown to hate it.
That most certainly happened to me with math...
Sarah wrote:
| I think there is so much value in trades like plumbing, carpentry, electricians, etc. I don't think college is for everyone. But, I do think there are people who if not *made* to do something are lazyish, or maybe unmotivated is more what I mean, maybe "lazy" is not the right word. |
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Now we're at the crux of the discussion.
How does anyone make anyone else do anything?
So you require them to do piano practice every day.... until when? Do you call them each day of adulthood to be sure that they are still playing?
When does it become a person's right to be the kind of person he or she is?
Laziness is a label assigned from an outsider - someone who is evaluating what productivity looks like in another person.
Some people who we deem lazy as adults are simply managing a level of personal pain and disillusionment that we know nothing about. My brother spent ten years doing dope before he finally created a business (without college) in his thirties. He is now forty and earns a heck of a lot more than I do and is a passionate, active entrepreneur.
His "laziness" was a coping mechamism for my parents' divorce that landed him without a home or family at age 18.
Our kids show an amazing amount of commitment to tasks they care about... whether it's beating computer levels or X Box games, stacking blocks to knock them over, braiding the hair of an American Girl doll over and over again. The issue is that we have a heirarchy of what we consider worthwhile investments of time.... And we judge some to be "worth-less."
If a child is persistently bored and looks lazy, that's the time to find out what is happening inside that is contributing to the child's listlessness. Sometimes there is a cause, and sometimes that cause is as simple as needing a pair of glasses or wishing you'd sit by him while he builds his Legos.
Sarah wrote:
| He might complain, but many, many times he's come to me and said, "I thought that was going to be boring, but I ended up loving it." |
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We have this experience too but without requirement. I suggest we try something new and they jump up to the table to try it out. They trust that what I offer is going to be interesting even if at first glance it looks boring. Also, sometimes what I suggest turns out to BE boring and so we ditch it.
Sarah wrote:
| Here's another example, when ds9 was given a day here over Christmas break where I didn't intervene at all, he watched 6 1/2 hours of Andy Griffith!! 6 1/2 hours!!! |
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I watched all six hours of the Pride and Prejudice series in one sitting. I remember watching an entire day of game shows as a kid.
We watched a ton of TV as kids and I have turned out not to be a TV watcher as an adult.
Otoh, I have noticed that my nine year old daughter has this amazing vocabulary that I attribute to hours of Disney sit coms. Actors who speak lines use vocabulary in the most effective ways - which translates to increased vocab for the viewers. And Andy Griffith couldn't be more wholesome. Seems like it would have been fun for a day to do that.
Sarah wrote:
| He came to me later feeling bad about that. He said he felt like he'd wasted the day and indeed he had, |
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Maybe you can point out how it wasn't a waste. Ask him if he laughed, if he got the jokes! Ask him which character he liked best. Which scenario was the most believable or the silliest or the most surprising?
These are all ways that TV is a great tool for teaching. Sit Coms have a very specific format that can be understood and discussed. It's great to compare writing genres.
Sarah wrote:
| This same child told me he hated piano more than anything and now that he has a good teacher who is firm but fun, he plays constantly. |
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That's so great that you got him a new teacher! What a difference that makes.
Well, I'm out of words, amazingly. Hope you don't mind that I used your post to get at some of the thoughts rolling around in my head.
__________________
Julie
Homeschooling five for fourteen years
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Unschooling: the Tough Questions
