Things Worth Remembering The three habits that lead to success are: Patience, Application, and Vision.
Take care: The person who will tell others' faults to you - will tell yours to others.
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.
"The world is neither Scottish, English, nor Irish, neither French, Dutch, nor Chinese, but human, and each nation is only the partial development of a universal humanity." - James Grant on founding the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights, 1862
All from: The Book of Celtic Wisdom
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“Anakin, escort the Senator back to her planet of Naboo. She’ll be safer there. And don’t use registered transport. Travel as refugees.” – Mace Windu, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
Sheesh. Travel. Don’t even get me started…
Well, you just had to get me going didn’t you. I hope you’re proud of yourself.
OK. This past Saturday, Dad Windu’s company had the annual charter bus trip to Chicago. The company pays for a charter bus and driver to show up in the company parking lot at 6:30 a.m., our cruise director loads it up with doughnuts, bagels, coffee, juice and water, and Mr. Bus Driver Man rolls out at 7 a.m.
For the first couple of hours, the bus is quiet as everyone sleeps or reads or listens to music or talks, but when we’re about an hour outside of Chicago two things happen. First, there’s a raffle. The pot begins at $60 and tickets are sold at $1 each or 6 for $5. The pot got up to over $300 and was split two ways. We, alas, did not win. Second, our cruise director begins the mettle-testing, present-stealing, White Elephant game. The week before, she hits the town looking for enough small gifts as there are seats on the bus. After handing out a playing card to each person (kids included), she begins to pull cards from another deck and when it’s your turn, you can either pick a wrapped present or steal someone else’s present (and then they get to pick which of the two options to do again). The hot items this year were gift cards to Victoria’s Secret and Starbucks. I got a box of Good and Plenty and a puzzle book. Dad Windu got a gift card to a pretzel place at the mall. Padawan Learner got a can of Monster energy drink. Seriously. I, being a BadMom made him wait to try it until the next day at home. Nothing like tempting a migraine when you’re hours and hours from home and have a several hour bus trip ahead of you. He tried just a little on Sunday and didn’t like the taste it – too intense. Can we all say, “Whew!”
We spent most of our afternoon at the Field Museum and spent a little bit of time walking the Magnificent Mile (yawn), ducking into stores when the cold, cold wind got to be too much. After dinner, we hustled back over to the bus stop where we waited for a while in the cold until the bus driver could muscle his way through traffic to pick us up.
Our poor Mr. Bus Driver Man earned his pay on this trip. Because of white-outs, snow-covered roads and black ice, the trip took 2.5 hours longer to get there than expected and 2.5 hours longer to get back. We slowly proceeded passed cars that had slid off the road and rolled over, semi-trucks that had skidded and jack-knifed, and were passed by people driving far.too.fast.for.the.conditions. The lights from assorted police cruisers, fire trucks and ambulances – especially on the dark return trip – made for a distorted carnival atmosphere.
Ooh, the pretties. Oh, I hope all those people are alright. Ah, the danger of travel in the Great Frozen Midwest.
[flying across the deserts of Tatooine]
Han Solo: “I think my eyes are getting better. Instead of a big dark blur, I see a big bright blur.”
Luke: ”There’s nothing to see. I used to live here, you know.”
Han Solo: “You’re gonna die here, you know. Convenient.”
Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi
I was listening to the songs on my computer this evening, letting them shuffle through the entire catalog and Sweet Home Alabama, by Lynyrd Skynyrd, came on. Frankly, even as a rather unemotional and detached mid-western woman, I must admit that I love that song and feel just a wee bit Southern (with a big S) whenever I hear this song. I have been known to belt it out with gusto when alone in the car or at home.
I wish I felt this way about my hometown. I try to make myself look past the the ugly bits – the monotony, the grime, the poverty, but that is all I come up with. I moved away the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school and, despite knowing these kids for 10+ years, couldn’t maintain those friendships. Those 35 miles seemed an impossible distance to we 15 year olds. It took less than 4 months before they and I had moved onto different tracks. One’s high school can seem so self-contained.
My mom also grew up there, even went to the same high school as me, and couldn’t wait to move back a few years ago. She loves the place, even while acknowledging the area’s rather severe socio-economic problems. But then, it’s still full of people that she grew up with and who have been her friends with for most of her life.
How do you feel about your hometown? or do you feel you moved too much to have one?
Han Solo: ”We don’t have time to discuss this as a committee.”
Princess Leia: ”I am not a committee.”
Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
Vander Kitten has shown two of my favorite traits, the courage to ask questions and the courtesy to do it well. She writes:
What about discussion with other learners? I tend to learn most when interacting with others, and hearing the questions they come up with.
I hope you don’t think I’m jumping on this because I disapprove. You of course don’t need or seek my approval. Instead, I’m in such awe of what you and PL are doing, that I just want to learn all I can about it.
Did you see how she did that? She asked her question, giving it a personal touch, and then followed the question up with a softening clarifier, which shows that she’s all too aware of the risk that someone might misinterpret her tone as judgmental. Now, I know for a fact that Vander Kitten isn’t like that in any way, but it was still a mighty kind thing to do regardless.
First, I’m really sorry, Vander Kitten. I have been meaning to answer this for the last week, but just haven’t taken the time to do so.
Second, I agree. Discussion – even a heated discussion – is one of the greatest ways to learn something. I really have to talk things out to make sense of complex ideas. Dad Windu might say I have to talk things to death, but that’s a different issue.
So yes, we do a lot of discussing between the three of us – as we read, watch or hear about things we discuss them in varying degrees of detail, sometimes once and sometimes again and again. Obviously, a fair share of the discussions between PL and I have to do with our formal learning, but we also do a lot of just talking about “stuff”. Stuff meaning things we see on the Discovery or History Channel, movies that we watch, Science Friday on NPR, books on tape, family/friend conversations, and the assorted things that we wonder about that are just rolling around in our brains. I know that you were probably thinking of other students his age, but remember that I’m doing a lot of learning right along side of him, so we’re often discussing and debating what we think something means or has meant. We had a great talk a couple of weeks ago about why the verbs “to be”, “to have” and “to eat” are irregular in languages that conjugate verbs (such as the English, Dutch and Latin languages that we’re studying).
PL and I were talking yesterday afternoon about the different “histories” you get from a variety of biographies of the same person. He had just finished reading a couple of biographies about Mozart and said, “I think it’s really interesting that each of these books is about Mozart, but each author picked a different thing to focus on. So even though they’re all about the same man, you only see the parts of his life that each author thought was most interesting or important. Why do you think people pick one thing over another? How do they decide what to include and to exclude? What makes someone decide that someone else’s life is worth writing about anyway?” Now that’s a discussion! (It was excellent, by the way, and although it pushed one of my planned lessons completely aside, I didn’t mind in the least.)
More to your intent, PL and his friends talk about what they’ve been learning frequently, asking questions and bringing up points from their own learning in the same subject or related topics. I’ve been really pleased to see how they are willing to challenge each other’s assumptions, while also letting someone have the time necessary to draw his thoughts out. From some other hs’d kids down the road, he’s also learning to hear someone else’s (crazy) ideas and decide when to push a point and when to let it go. That’s a lesson that’s best learned early, in my opinion. 
He also goes to a monthly book club at B&N, where he discusses books (and ideas and games and movie adaptations) with anyone else that shows up. Our librarian, one of the hippest male librarians ever, is always pulling him aside to talk about new books that are in, or “Does this book sound interesting?”, or about what we’re studying and what topics PL wishes there was more info about.
So discussion, it’s a really big part of our lives and our learning.
[Obi-Wan regains consciousness to find himself hanging precariously inside an elevator shaft]
Anakin Skywalker: “Easy. We’re in a bit of a situation.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi: “Did I miss something?”
Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
I love to travel. That’s nothing new to anyone that’s known me more than, oh, seventeen minutes or so, but sometimes new places can be a bit intimidating. There’s nothing like the romance of a foreign language, the beauty of foreign architecture, the thrill of standing at the entrance to a labyrinth of interwoven, narrow streets or the enchantment of bakeries, butcher shops, cafe’s and sweet shops selling all manner of unknown delicacies. Put them all together, however, and they can be downright overwhelming, leaving your feet frozen to the tried and true tourist track and your hands clutching a simplified sight-seeing map. Sometimes, the best method is a short, organized tour to get a feel for the place (and to learn about some of the unwritten rules of the area) followed by lots of time out exploring on your own.
Homeschoooling is certainly a journey and in the beginning a mentor can be invaluable. With that in mind, here’s a tour-guide offering an in-depth tour to Newbieland. Bring along some comfortable walking shoes and a bottle of water, because it’s going to be a marathon introduction.
Much thanks to Diane Flynn Keith, founder and moderator of the Homefires Yahoo! homeschooling group, for posting this link today.
“I’m going there to end this war. Wait for me until I return. Things will be different, I promise. Please wait for me.” – Anakin Skywalker, Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
I’ve been mulling over one of the questions from the 20 questions meme. It had to do with trust. “Do you trust easily?” I didn’t (and don’t) like admitting it, but I’m not trusting by nature. As a matter of fact, I’m rather distrustful by nature. Who knows why, but it’s probably as a result of trash from my childhood. Everything can be blamed on your childhood in the end, right? “Tell me avout your vader…” Seriously, Jung would rise from the grave if he could to have a go at my battered psyche.
Values = words = actions is the best way that I can define my sense of trust. And that generally takes time to figure out. Time to see, to notice, to incorporate. Because of the relationship between the three, it takes me a while, sometimes a looong while, to trust someone. I watch. I listen. I circle around conversations looking for those moments of duplicity. Probably most people don’t notice any change in how I perceive them, when I go from hmmm to trust because until that point I can be friendly, social, silly, outgoing and helpful, even flirty (if I’ve had perhaps a glass or two of something full-bodied with a cherry or plum overnote). But then again, sometimes I never do decide that I can trust someone and I keep a perpetually watchful eye open.
Then there are the few, the very few, people that I have trusted from the minute I met them. My buddy Ed is one; VanderKitten is another. I don’t know why, I just did. I trusted them in the very core of my being from day one. What is it about them? I don’t know. I haven’t a clue. A few more people fall into this category, but I won’t mention the rest. Keep ‘em guessing. ;-) And then there’s people, most of my people, that I learned to trust over days and weeks and months and years of knowing them. People that grow.on.me like English ivy grows on a brick house, deep and strong and intertwining. While it takes a bit of its nutrients from the very bricks it feeds on, making the building a little more open and susceptible to harm, it is beautiful in its own right. I feel like that about trust. It leaves us open and exposed a little bit, but is so lovely to have in our lives. Until the trust is gone and a little chunk of me is tore away too. The loss of trust is devastating. Heart-punishingly painful. Can you really learn to trust someone again like you once did?
“Things will be different, I promise.”
“Your father… was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true… from a certain point of view.” Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi
Warning. The rare rant follows.
OK, I generally have a self-imposed rule of not discussing national politics or religion on my blog partly because they are things that a) I do not find terribly interesting on a general basis; b) cannot be quickly summed up in 900 words or less; and c) rarely bring much pleasantness from discussions about them with people who don’t see eye to eye - and I have more than enough political and religious unpleasantness in my life as it is, thankyouverymuch. However, I am going to break that rule right now and say that I find it absolutely rude, obnoxious and unbelievably loathsome when Christians call non-Christian people (like myself) ”lost.” It is just as boorish and repellent as when Muslims refer to non-Muslims as “infidels” and when skeptics speak of the religious as “mindless idiots.”
So.stop.it.
I swear it takes every bit of my personal strength and integrity not to spit in someone’s face, hack their blog full of Triple X Nastiness, and steal their dog when I am referred to as “lost.” I have been hearing this a fair amount again and have been seeing it on more and more homeschooling blogs lately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of homeschoolers are religious. Yippie ki aye. Go have an ice cream cone to celebrate. To equate my reasoned, read, and studied beliefs with some dolt who went hiking up a mountain-side without bothering to take a compass and topographical map is simply insulting.
For the record, I can easily equate “the Dark Side of the Force” with anyone’s irrational belief that their own special blend of dogma has all the answers, to everything, for everyone, everywhere, always. And just so we’re all on the same page: it appears to me that the universe, this planet and all its people are nothing more than a couple of fascinating, long-term science and social experiments. Disagree with me it you wish, just as I may disagree with you, but don’t insult me in the process.
Update: Dad Windu said after reading the above that he has always found it annoying when people say that he has “lost his faith”. Deciding that he doesn’t believe in a supernatural deity wasn’t like a twenty dollar bill that fell out of his pocket. It was was more like a favorite t-shirt that his parents bought for him when he was a kid. As the years went by, he grew out of it and, because it didn’t fit him anymore and had some pretty big holes and a couple of rather nasty mustard stains on it, he chose not to hand it down to his own son but rather threw it away. You see, he decided it wasn’t very useful anymore.
There, rant over.
“Not to worry, we’re still flying half a ship!” - Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
Boy, doesn’t it feel like that about 30 minutes before you head off on vacation! Hurry, rush, oh yeah, don’t forget…
We were gone to the Great White North (at least it is during the non-summer months) all last week, mooching on my friend’s generosity. Having a cabin, uhm cottage, well actually more of a pre-retirement home seven hours from where we live is a wonderful thing to have, in case you’re wondering. Because it’s so far from here and because she and her husband can’t be there all the time, she is kind enough to lend it out to friends and family whenever it’s sitting empty.
Four hours into the drive I remembered something vital. We never picked up the key. Oh crap. Oh no. Oh dear. Oh hell.
We stopped at a payphone and couldn’t get a hold of anyone. At all. Anywhere. So we continued driving. In silence. Thinking. Not speaking. Listening to our book on tape. Very. Very quietly. Ultimately, we stopped in at the nearest town and bought one of those pay-as-you-go mobile phones (yes, we are one of those families) and eventually (5.5 hours into the trip) reached our friend. There was a key hidden on the property. Oh, yes, yes, yes. That saved us from having to:
- a) break a window to get in (Hello, officer with a drawn gun on foreign island);
- b) having the key over-nighted to us on the weekend (Hello, frightfully expensive delivery man on a foreign island); and/or
- c) renting a room for an unknown number of nights (Hello, unbelievably expensive B&B operator on equally unbelievably expensive foreign island).
Danger averted, we were able to enjoy the fact that we had roped MT, their Mom and their Dad into sailing in to visit with us for a few days, which was so nice after two months of their absence. We watched silly movies, chatted, played outside, fished (the guys anyway), picked raspberries and blackberries, and finally got to see their boat. It’s pretty (and pretty cramped with 3 more people on it). Having a car that only seats 5, we were somewhat limited in what we could do, but it worked out in the end with a bit of ferrying back and forth.
After they started the sail back home, we visited a cool archaeological site, read, hung out in the village, paddled around the island, napped, went back into the village for ice cream, read some more, had breakfast at our favorite restaurant, went shopping in the village, slept in the hammock, watched a part of a local race, rode bikes, read even more, and just generally relaxed away from responsibilities and distractions of daily life. Padawan Learner even took a three hour nap one day. This does not happen. OK, he had a pretty good migraine going, but it was a nap none-the-less.
But… we’re back to the normal routine again. The contractor called today, they’re starting tomorrow on the home improvements. Time to get those plants cut back before they get destroyed. Padawan Learner’s trampoline class begins next week already. Hmm, how are we going to get out there without the car? Our normal homeschooling schedule starts up in three weeks (*cough* no progress on the timeline yet).
I hope we can get back again this fall. I miss our little island already.
“Padawan! Your skills have never been in question. It is your maturity. I’ve argued this before…” Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
Ah, how easy it is to blame someone’s maturity level for their lack of progress on a project, especially if they’re still a kid. I found myself doing just that this week.
Padawan Learner needs to make a timeline of the history we’ve covered from the Ancients to the beginning of the European Renaissance, and with appropriate space for the highlights (and disgraces) of world history to the present day. I noticed that he’s beginning to muddle up some dates and events, so a timeline seems – to me – like the best solution for sorting them all out. He has yet to even think about how he’s going to do that, let alone how he’s going to get it done before September. I have offered to help, but he has “other things to do right now, but thanks.” Therefore, ”that’s a YP not an MP”* so I’m keeping out of it.
I, traditionally the planner and plotter in the family, think that I would have begun in June doing a little bit each day and not having to rush through it at the end. I am also not actually having to make a timeline, so it is very easy for me to say that. It is also very easy for me to ignore the fact that I have been known, on occasion, to finish reading my very excellent book, call up a friend or continue knitting that very adorable whatever, rather than get an early start on a labor market survey that is due very, very soon and which I really don’t want to do – even though I know I must do it and that it will be very helpful once completed.
Sometimes it’s not so much a matter of maturity, but rather a matter of priorities. Sometimes, it’s both. But in the end, if the timeline gets done on time for us to use it come fall, that’s all that really matters so I’m going to keep my mouth shut about the how. Really, I am. I will, too. Stop saying that. OK, I’m going to try really, really hard to keep it to myself – even though it’s eating a hole inside my gut.
*This is a old saying of our Sunday Morning Doughnut Buddies: That’s a your problem not a my problem.
“Get to the command ship. Get the Chancellor! I’m running out of tricks here…” ―Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
People often ask why we homeschool our son. As homeschooling parents, this is one of the frequent questions* we get from friends, family members and complete strangers. I suppose it’s because it’s so different from the way that the majority of people grow up. I mean, there’s a free school in every community across the nation, right?. Why would anyone do it? The truth is, there’s probably a different reason for every family out there. Here’s how it started for us.
The Padawan Learner used to go to school. It’s what you do, right? Neither Dad Windu or I knew any other way for a kid to get an education. When Padawan Learner was just a wee little lad, he went to a private, Christian preschool for a year, all day, every day kindergarten and 1st grade at the same school and a few months of 2nd grade at another private, Christian school after the first one closed (after tutoring a kid for several years at the local, public elementary school, there was just no way I was sending my son there). Then we sprung ‘em.
Preschool was not so great. The teacher, after a whopping two weeks, suggested I have him tested for “attention issues”. I reminded her that he was 4. In fact, was just barely 4. I knew that what she was seeing wasn’t attention issue-specific because I compared what was going on in the classroom (I was frequently in there as a helper) with what went on at home and also in other kid-filled places. There was a bit of strange stuff going on, for sure, but the pieces weren’t making much sense. He did better outside and after extended breaks from school (such as long weekends or semester breaks). Picking where he could sit seemed to have an impact on whether he could focus or not. Eating certain foods seemed to have an impact (snacks such as hard cheeses or with lots of food additives were certain to spell disaster). He appeared to have a brief tense period before he “lashed out” at other kids. It was weird, but it wasn’t ADD or ADHD (at least as I had ever seen it in my practice). I declined to act on her suggestion, as I knew he was dealing with something else. We all tolerated the situation for 9 months and waited for summer.
Kindergarten was OK. Bad for the first couple of months and fine for the rest of the year. A trusting kid, he was the target for a couple of twin boys who figured out early that they could get him into trouble, while keeping out of it themselves. That was a sad couple of months. How do you explain to a 5 year old that not everyone is your friend and that some kids liketo see others get into trouble? After the sweet, grandmotherly teacher figured out what was going on, the bulk of the trouble came to a stop BUT the “testing” wheels had been set in motion.
Because of the reports of “impulsive behavior” early in the year, the school principal insisted that Padawan Learner be tested by the school psychologist. Although the school psychologist never actually met with Padawan Learner and based his finding soley from unnormed and, to be quite frank, idiotic “tests” with his aide, he decided that our son had a full-blown case of ADD. He actually said, at one point, ”I can give you the name of a doctor who will prescribe something for Padawan Learner if your pediatrician won’t.” Um, Hello! I don’t think so. In the end, I told him he was full of crap, in the nicest way possible of course. I noted that, as a fellow professional in the disability community, I found his lack of normed data highly suspect, his snide dismissal of my pediatrician’s opinion on the matter unprofessional, and his lack of any personal involvement in the matter absolutely unethical. Did you know that private schools are eligible to receive a federally funded stipend for each and every elementary student diagnosed labeled as having a disability? Now what’s a cash-strapped private school to do with such a golden egg placed in front of them? Crack it open and lap it up. By the way, did you catch the part earlier about this being a private, Christian school?
First grade was really good. Really, really good. His teacher was wonderful. She had a double classroom and if she saw someone getting antsy or looking bored, she’d say, “Why don’t you go do 25 jumping jacks in the other room and come back when you’re feeling ready to sit down.” She worked with each child on their own level, shaping her lessons to include activities for all abilities (from early, fluent readers like Padawan Learner to kids still trying to sound out 2 & 3 letter words) while making it seem like everyone was doing the same activity. She paired kids beautifully. I don’t know how she did it. I really don’t. She was truly amazing. While the occasional lashing out and impulsive behavior was seen, this was a pretty smooth ride academically.
The summer between 1st and 2nd grade, the school closed its doors and Padawan Learner had a seizure that landed us in a multi-month tour of the emergency room, the pediatrician’s office and a pediatric neurology center. It’s never a good thing when the nurses know you by name. By early October, we learned that Padawan Learner was suffering from pediatric migraines, nearly constant migraines — all while trying to function in a classroom setting. No wonder the kid was having trouble staying focused, would get agitated and lash out over seemingly small things sometimes! We first heard about homeschooling between 1st & 2nd grade as the first school closed, but a) um, hello, I was a career woman; b) I didn’t know anything it on a practical basis; c) had only met the more extreme, religious brand of homeschoolers; and d) I was quite sure that “I could never do that.” Ah, the Universe certainly has a wicked sense of humor.
Second grade was an absolute disaster. Absolute. Disaster. A small, echoing, classroom with 28 kids. Blinking florescent lighting. A very early start time (which equaled missed REM sleep). Only 35 minutes of recess for the whole day. And the most horrid teacher. Truly an evil, hate-filled woman. She actively despised children, was “quite sure” that the pediatric neurologist’s diagnosis was wrong and “just knew” that what we were really dealing with ADD. She was quite fond of telling me that she thought Padawan Learner was “faking” his migraines. Yeah. I taught him that skill set, right around the time that I taught him how to fake a seizure.
When, in our February parent/teacher conference, I told both her and the school social worker (again) that we would not be consulting the quack the psychologist for any services now or in the future, she threw up her hands and announced, “Well I’ve used up my bag of tricks.” After waiting for Dad Windu’s head to spin around, we thanked them for their time and left. Once again, did you catch the part earlier about this also being a private, Christian school? (It is also, now, out of business.) Going for a quick cup of coffee afterwards, Dad Windu sat down and asked, “So when do we start homeschooling?” I started researching that afternoon. We pulled him out of school two days later.
At first, we planned to just complete the school year. But we enjoyed it so much. Watching him turn back into my funny, smart, sweet boy convinced me that we’d keep it up as long as he wanted to.
* A few of the other high frequency questions being: What about socialization? Is it legal? Do you have get a teaching certificate? What are the legal requirements? Are you going to homeschool high school?
Answers to above questions: Oh, give me a break. Have you met my kid? Yes, in all 50 states. Nope. They vary by state, but are generally easy to meet. You bet, if he wants to.
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Secular Homeschoolers Unite!
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