Things Worth Remembering The three habits that lead to success are: Patience, Application, and Vision.
It is always better to be underestimated.
There are three things that are better than riches: Health, Freedom, and Honor.
Think swiftly, speak softly, act wisely.
All from: The Book of Celtic Wisdom
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“For a mechanic, you seem to do an incessant amount of thinking.” – C-3PO, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
Padawan Learner wants to be an inventor. Maybe I should say PL is an inventor, because he’s been imagining improvements to just about everything that comes his way since he was old enough to declare something “to be when he grows up”. His inventions/improvements are often fantastic (lovely word, that – multiple meanings), frequently push the laws of physics, and sometimes lead to quite interesting discussions – occasionally heated discussions when he feels that Dad Windu and I are just not getting the point.
Once or twice a year, I hear this refrain, “Why am I learning about (insert annoying topic o’the week here)? I’m going to be an inventor.” My answers usually run along these lines:
- Who cares if my spelling isn’t right? Only the people reading your grant proposal.
- Why do I need to learn calculus? Do you think you’ll ever need to calculate things in motion?
- Do I have to learn the metric system? Only if you want people in the scientific community to take you seriously.
- Is good grammar really a big deal? It is only if you want patent clerks and investors to fully understand your invention.
- What’s the point of learning history? You might find a new solution by exploring an old problem.
One of the best things to help stem this tide has been talking about all the different shapes that ‘inventor’ can take. Is a chemist working on a new cholesterol-lowering drug an inventor? Is a biologist who designs a test for resistance to a new pathogen in trout an inventor? Is a writer an inventor? Where is inventing an important part of success in a person’s job – even if they don’t think of themselves as an ‘inventor’? Did you know that Uncle Owen has invented processes and contraptions to further his research? Does that make him an inventor of sorts? Would a person who creates a new computer language be an inventor, a linguist or ‘merely’ a computer programmer?
Yoda: “Powerful you have become Dooku, the Dark Side I sense in you.”
Count Dooku: ”I have become more powerful than any Jedi. Even you.”
[Dooku shoots Sith lighting at Yoda who effortlessly deflects it away]
Yoda: “Much to learn, you still have.”
Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
I wonder if Count Dooku relied a little too heavily on his Sith Lord’s praises while learning about the Dark Side of the Force, because in the end he got a little cocky. It’s a common enough danger, I suppose, when your entire feedback loop is a single person. You read the book, fill in the worksheets, write the paper, ace the exam. Ta-da! You’ve won a 4.0, an A+, a custom-made light-saber, or a smiley-faced sticker that says, “You’re a star.” If he never wandered off to find out more about the topic on his own, he’d never realize how much there was left to learn on the subject.
Teaching myself leaves me with a perpetual sense of wonder about how much I still have to learn about a topic. It’s one of the reasons that I love educating myself; I get to dive into something with both arms wide open to all the material I can find related to the subject matter (and then some). Books, videos, stories, textbooks, iTunesU audio/video/podcast materials, children’s books, newspapers, periodicals, music, cookbooks and foreign food wrappers. You name it and I’ve probably used it.
You wouldn’t believe my Dutch language bookshelf – it’s absolutely bursting at the seams. I’ve pulled so many things from the library in the Dutch language that my favorite librarian pulled me aside once to ask if I was planning to move to The Netherlands soon. I wish. Now that would really speed my process along!
Currently, I’m digging into adolescent development, American colonial history, astronomy, assorted memoirs, US geography, the ever present Dutch language, and spring cleaning. OK, I’m not exactly ‘learning’ about spring cleaning but I’m certainly digging into it. I’m considering having Padawan Learner teach me a little on the piano. I think he’d like doing that and I’d love to learn.
UPDATE: Doh! Dad Windu also wants to learn to play the piano and has beaten me to the piano and is now pecking out (in an increasingly quicker and more melodious manner) the song that Padawan Learner was just playing earlier. I guess I going to have to wait a bit longer.
“Dangerous and disturbing this puzzle is. Only a Jedi could have erased those files. But who, and why, harder to answer. Meditate on this I will.” – Yoda, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
Dangerous. Disturbing. Mind-numbingly confusing. That’s sudoku puzzles to me. I’m a fairly clever girl when it comes to puzzles and mind-twisters, but sudoku has me stumped. It’s so simple: put the numbers 1 through 9 in each column, row and 3×3 box. Yet simple only describes my brain cells when they’re around that type of puzzle. Dad Windu, on the other hand, is a sudoku junkie. He carries a little pad of them around the house, taking every free second he gets to pop another number into the grid. This morning he explained the process for completing a sudoku to me again. I understand the concept, I really do. What I don’t understand is why my brain can’t see the patterns that Dad Windu sees so easily. After about 8 minutes, I had to stop. My brain hurt, literally; I was getting a headache from staring so intently at the page. DW, on the other hand, runs through the Medium level ones (like I was working on) in two minutes or so…while holding a conversation nonetheless. ARGH! He completes the one in the Sunday paper every week; he even looks forward to it! I don’t get it.
And that’s probably a good thing. It’s good for me to remember that the things that come easily to me are not necessarily easy. And there are days that I forget that. Where’s my book of word searches? Now that’s a puzzle I can get into. (In fact, I’m a bit of a junkie about them.)
My Super Bowl commentary will be limited to the dumbest thing I heard during the pre-game show and the best use of air-time during the Half-Time Show.
- “F. Scotts Fitzgerald once wrote…” F. Scotts? I just couldn’t listen past that. She might have solved the problem of world hunger, but I’ll never know because I instinctively shut her out.
- Switching the channel over to the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. Mrs. Sunday Morning Doughnut Buddy announced that it was cute overload. Mr. Sunday Morning Doughnut Buddy said that it redefined pointless but acknowledged that the actual half-time show would have as well.
Qui-Gon Jinn: ”I have twenty thousand Republic dataries. ”
Watto: ”Republic credits? Republic credits are no good out here. I need something more real.”
Qui-Gon Jinn: ”I don’t have anything else [waves hand] but credits will do fine.”
Watto: ”No, they won’t-a.”
[Qui-Gon waves his hand more firmly]
Qui-Gon Jinn: ”Credits will do fine.”
Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace
Talk about needing something more real…
As a former substitute teacher (those few, short years Padawan Learner was in school), I remember all too well the experience that Chris shares in Education as the Emperor’s New Clothes.
It’s the sit down, shut up, can’t pee without a pass, worksheets in place of discussion, and grades instead of knowledge that really riles me up about so many classrooms today. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t think classrooms are necessarily bad. I did voluntarily go all the way through 18th grade, after all. Similarly, I don’t think they’re automatically good places, either. They are just places where learning can (and often does) happen and where learning can be (and very often is) pushed aside for paperwork’s sake. The same things can happen in homeschools, universities and laboratories.
Psst – Many, many thanks to The Real Mother Lode for the link.
Darth Sidious: ”Commander Cody, the time has come. Execute Order 66.”
Commander Cody: ”Yes, my Lord.” [gestures towards Obi-Wan] ”Blast him!”
Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
Just so you know, Order 66 was an order from Darth Sidious (Emporer Palpatine) to the clone army, an order to kill all the Jedi. It’s when all the wheels fall off the Republic wagon, when everyone has picked their path to follow. That’s how this week has felt. Padawan Learner is hell-bent on making himself a schedule to get everything that is piled on the living room’s coffee table done before June 30. Done has become a very.big.deal to him lately.
Hey, no problem. It’s good to make goals for yourself, push yourself, see what you can do. Except when you make everyone around you (and yourself) crazy in the process. Padawan Learner can be a bit, well, pig-headed about things sometimes. I don’t know where he gets that trait. Sigh. He’s been complaining all week about not being able to get everything he scheduled for this week, done.
Done. Done. Done.
The fact that he has included far more than anyone could ever finish is irrelevant. Dad Windu and I have said, time and again, that there is no “last day of school” at our house. That the puzzles, books and experiments have no ultimate deadline attached to them…or else. But, he is determined to get it done OR prepare for a life as a jobless, homeless uneducated vagrant. Because it has to be one of those two options. Black OR white. This way OR that. Curing cancer and a Nobel at 15 OR dumpster diving for moldy cheese. There is no gray, no middle ground, this week.
He’s eating my brain.
What is it that Chris Issak sings on the album ‘Speak of the Devil’? Oh, that’s right. “Please, you’re killing me.”
This is the hardest part of parenting for me, and of homeschooling – letting mistakes be made, letting him flounder and flop a bit. It would be so much simpler for him to take me at my word, to follow my suggestions like he did when he was little, to use my years of acquired wisdom. Easier now, but harder later when he’ll have to make bigger, tougher decisions on his own. Sometimes growing up is painful – to do and to watch. There’s just no way around that.
“Don’t worry. The Force will guide us.” - Qui-Gon Jinn, Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace
Bookkeeping would probably have been a perfect fit for me. I like column A and column B to line up in neat little rows, with matching totals at the end. I enjoy doing our taxes. Planning our annual budget is relaxing for me. Here’s the total minimum income. Here’s the annualized, regular expenses. Here’s what we can reasonably expect to spend in the following categories, based on the past several years’ average. Here’s what we must put away in various savings categories. And the rest is gravy (sometimes a pretty watery gravy, but still gravy). Ta Da. I stand with arms upraised in victory and all around me cheer.
Then again, when I travel or have time to just relax on a weekend, I like to go into things only minimally planned. I hope we do these things this weekend. We should try to see that while we’re here. There’s so many interesting things in this town, I wonder what’s close to our hotel?
Unfortunately, I sometimes try to force a bookkeeping mentality too firmly onto our homeschooling journey. Give me an annual planning book and a dozen, sharp No. 2 pencils and I become a methodical, planning machine. The Schedule, developed in late spring, decends into a mathematical formula. There are 129 lessons and 31 quizzes; that’s 3.7 math lessons and 1 quiz a week to finish on time. One group of vocab words a week to finish on time. Forty-five pages a day in Robinson Crusoe to finish on time. One drawing lesson, three times a week, to finish on time.
On time, on time, on time. It is a haunting refrain that begins to lull me to sleep each fall. I become the White Rabbit who appears muttering, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” The Schedule is in ever present danger of dominating our homeschool life. It’s written down on orderly blocks in My Planner. It’s The Schedule. Of course we must finish this lesson today, it’s on The Schedule!
Yes, I struggle with my natural planner personality and have to actively remember not to only have “output-focused” days. How many pages were written? How many problems worked out? How many minutes practiced? The Schedule gremlins whisper cloyingly.
Hurry up.
Get this done.
Move onto those.
Finish before lunch.
Don’t bother with that, it’ll take too much time.
Put it away.
Stand up.
Sit down.
Fight, fight, fight.
I’m making myself let go, albeit slowly, of the “and onto the next thing” mentality. I am striving to maintain the real goal of a few things done well each day, rather than several things marginally. What’s that line about “the sins of the fathers”? I’m sure any theologian worth his salt would say that it applies to mothers too. What’s a secular equivalent? Monkey see, monkey do? That sure is what it seems like right now. Padawan Learner has developed a real clock focus since we started back up this fall, to the detriment of his enjoyment and (sometimes) his actual learning of the material he’s using. Thankfully, I’m getting better at catching myself and at noticing when he starts to put The Schedule ahead of actually learning anything too.
Maybe, instead of playing music, my alarm clock should say, “Your planner is a great tool, but it’s only a tool.” No public or private school teacher, nor any homeschooling mom or dad, has ever stayed perfectly on schedule. Kids get sick. Adults get sick. Mishaps happen. Relatives arrive. Stuff comes up. Learning is slower than you thought it would be. Learning is faster than you ever thought possible. The materials you spent so much time researching are wholly over their heads, despised or woefully inadequate. The project you just knew was going to be hit holds less enthusiasm than a teenage girl’s, “What.ev.er.” Life happens whether we plan for it or not.
Ultimately, I believe that simply by lovingly and consistantly doing whatever I can to help Padawan Learner learn and love to learn, he will still learn more than if he was one of 25 kids in a classroom dictated by everyone else’s pace, a few kids needs and high-stakes testing. I believe that would be the case even if I chucked it all and returned to complete and total child-led unschooling. Play. Build. Read aloud as long as he’ll let us. He would still learn a ton, but probably not sentence diagramming or Latin.
Padme: ”You’re a funny little boy. How do you know so much?”
Anakin Skywalker: ”I listen to all the traders and star pilots who come through here. I’m a pilot, you know, and someday I’m going to fly away from this place.”
Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace
There’s so much to learn in the brief time that I have here on Earth. Even if I lived to be 120, 150, 200 years old, I would still run out of time for learning all about all that interests me. I remember being Padawan Learner’s age and thinking that I would probably be able to learn everything that I wanted and needed to learn by the time I got out of university. I didn’t understand why anyone would ever get a Master’s Degree or Ph.D. I mean, like, ohmygod , didn’t they totally have anything better to do with their time?
I must officially be getting old, because I’ve recently begun wishing that I had more time for learning about all the interesting things in the world. There are the things I must know more about: such as, running our household more efficiently and reducing unnecessary expenses; things I want to know more about: such as, astronomy, history, classical literature, a handful of languages and where to get a chocolate croissant in Paris; and things that I don’t even know that I’m going to want to know about someday.
So, I do what I can. Not having traders and star pilots to talk with, I read and read and read. I read for knowledge and I read for entertainment. And I hope that, when all is said and done, I have passed that love of reading on to Padawan Learner. You can see what I’ve read recently and what I’m reading now at the page titled The Holocron, up above. As you can see there, I read my first Agatha Christie novel this summer and I’m finding them quite entertaining.
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