Sibling Christmas gifts

We are in the era of building meaningful family traditions around what is significant for our family. Commercial Christmas is not special to us, but Jesus is. We're convinced we've got more reason to celebrate, and more reason to ditch the excesses, than people who don't yet see what a big deal Jesus is. So, we love a simple but substantial Christmas. In our tradition building, I am often stealing other people's ideas.

A new friend inspired me with her own family's gift giving tradition. She is now in her twenties. Since childhood, her parents have given each child in the family 1 pound to spend on each family member for Christmas. (My friend is from the UK and my Aussie keyboard won't let me access the 'pound' symbol easily). The siblings would then go hunting through second hand stores for a gift for each of the other members of the family. Sometimes treasure would be found; sometimes just a laugh. Since I am quite attached to Op-shops (that's what we call charity stores here), I thought this was a fabulous idea worthy of adoption.

We have allowed our kids to spend $1-2 on each member of our household, meaning each child gets around $6 to spend in total. They get to enjoy the relational value of giving gifts, without unnecessary expense. They are (slowly) learning to think about the personality, tastes, needs and joy of others. They have to be creative problem solvers and pace their own spending. It is also pretty fun, apart from when the two year old has trouble with delayed gratification. It's all part of the memory making.

If you are looking for some substance for the Christmas season, you can find all sorts of things on Harrysdesk and 168hrs.

Internet safety

image from here

Our laptop stays on the kitchen bench. Using the computer is a collaborative activity in our family. The ipad is similar. Even still, we're conscious that we need to think much more carefully about internet safety as our family grows rapidly around us. Please share anything useful!

This confronting article was circulating a while back. It is well worth the read. It is easy to underestimate the dehumanising effects of  pornography and its impact on person-hood and relationships. Protecting the vulnerable is getting harder as we walk and eat and breathe and sleep in the digital cloud.

I am seeing the need, in our family, to feed non-screen interests. Sitting down with the internet is not a healthy way to deal with boredom. Idle, purposeless roaming is a habit us grown ups need to master every so often. Wouldn't it be better to help our kids master that habit early?

Research by the Oxford University neuroscientist and former director of the Royal Institution, psychologist Susan Greenfield, has found that intense internet use alters brain chemistry, encouraging instant gratification and making young people more self-centred.(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135203/Jamie-13-kissed-girl-But-hes-Sex-Offender-Register-online-porn-warped-mind-.html) 

If this is true, then parents are going to have to be tougher and more stubborn than their child's habit. And if this research is reliable, then the greater the intensity of internet use, the harder it will be to change. Acting in love is going to mean some conflict and our kids won't like us all the time. But we love them more than we need them to like us, right?

1981 The same but different

This is an episode of The Phil Donahue Show from 1981, complete with ads. A friend shared a link to this on facebook recently. It is fascinating, amusing and at times, a little disturbing. The discussion about home education; the objections, the responses, the methods, the misunderstandings are all so familiar. I appreciated reading some of John Holt's work a couple of years ago, so it was interesting to see him participate as a guest on this episode. This clip is from the John Holt Growing Without Schooling site.

The kids' studio

Inspired by Project Based Homeschool; Mentoring your Self-Directed Learner, by Lori Pickert. I've been brave. I'm learning to say "yes" to my kids' creative projects. My reason for saying "no" was usually because the materials were packed away in a cupboard. I am mostly doing fifteen things at a time and didn't want to multiply my work. I didn't want to deal with what might happen when five children and new media find each other in a confined space. If I'm going to be a "yes" mum and stay sane, then our set up needed to change. Our dining room is now a studio.

The floor is tiled. It is next to the kitchen, so I am able to work and be near the action. The materials are all visible and reasonably easy for the biggest kids to reach. The floodgates of inspiration can open as we gaze on those jars of paint and brushes and wax and paste and buttons and markers and empty frames. 

The tv cabinet is now storage space. The four biggest kids have a desk each in this room. My old favourite lounge is there for when I want to read aloud, or nurse the baby, while they make. There is a series of boxes ready for collage and crafting. It is an easy way for the kids to sort and put away scraps. Everything is old, reclaimed, or from the charity shop (which is the case for most of our furniture). After using the space for a while we will add in any necessary shelving and hanging/drying/displaying racks. It's a living design project for the kids and us. 

The fun thing has been letting the kids take ownership of their own little studios within the studio. They have chosen what they want on their own desks. The label printer was discovered and most objects have been labelled. This was a good little self initiated exercise in writing for Miss 6. Mr 8 is keen to build a bit of a cage around his desk to keep toddler fingers out. We're still discussing the terms on that one!

It is so much easier to let the kids be creative when the space is committed to it. Once again, time is also the factor. Pulling out paints only works pleasantly when we are not going out soon after. An uncluttered schedule makes space for so many good things.

Unexpectedly, I have found that I am happier with a creative space nearby. It is less predictable, but I get to watch the kids do beautiful things. I'll keep you posted!
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Learning to empathise with new writers

I really want my kids to feel comfortable writing. There is something about writing which untangles thoughts. I can't think something through thoroughly without writing about it in some way. There is also the outwardness of writing. Words let us open our mind to others. Writing gives thoughts permanence.

But most of us don't start writing with ease. The more we write, the better writer we become. It takes practice and it takes time. Calm, unhurried time. Writing is driven along by purpose. None of these things can be fast tracked.

Writing is complex. Thoughts need to become words. Words need to be strung into sense. Sense needs to be knit into a sentence and another and another. The sentence needs to get through arms, hands and a pencil onto a page. The pencil needs to make marks on a page which make sense to someone else. There are a thousand rules, from the sounds which are formed when they combine in different ways, to the order which words ought to march in, to the punctuation which set the pace of those words.

And, when it is all new, it is hard to remember all the parts at once and by the time you get to the second word you have forgotten what you were trying to write in the first place and it is all very stressful and you know you have made a mistake so you will stop because this is not working and not fun and you are not sure why you have to write anyway when all you want to do is go and finish your cubby house in the lounge room.

Deep breath.

I had always assumed a child who is great with verbal language, and a ravenous reader, would love to write. At the same time, I imagined that a child who took more time to become a fluent speaker and reader would find writing more difficult. It's wonderful how often chlidren turn our assumptions upside down.

I have had to learn to slow down and study my kids when it comes to writing. I am learning where their writing stress points are. I am discovering which contexts and purposes generate a fruitful writing experience for each individual. When they are having a writing experience they feel good about, I need to make sure I don't fiddle with the delicate ecosystem the happily writing child is growing in.

It is precious to have a friendly relationship with writing. We're working on small goals so that it's not unnecessarily laborious. I would rather do a little bit of cheerful writing related work with children regularly, than a stressful slab. That way, it is more likely to become something they just do everyday, like reading and eating and brushing their teeth.

I have tried a few things which have been positive:

• Not tackling every aspect of writing at once. Treating skills separately. Handwriting. Typing. Composition.
• Choosing a favourite sentence from a favourite story and copying it.  While reading The Hobbit, riddles were favourite things to copy. We only did this once or twice a week for a couple of months. It was enough to help our son feel better about handwriting. It was a nice way to linger in well crafted phrases too.
• Sitting with a child as they narrated a story. I would write it down exactly as they spoke it, without corrections. This is good for children who are not yet reading or writing, but also for early writers. That way, hands don't have to keep pace with brain. Very fun for the scribe too!
• We would read back the narrated story on a different day. The child would notice irregular sentences. This introduced them to the concept of editing and drafting. It lets them approach their text as the author and the reader, scribbling all over a page as words are rearranged, removed and replaced. This is something Donald Graves was keen on.
• We have some story telling cards, which the kids would lay out (as many or as few as they wanted). They order the pictures to create their own plot. Then they would tell the story as they went.
• The three biggest kids began telling each other stories and recording them on video. This was fun. This allowed composition to happen away from the hand writing and conventions of written language. It also didn't require me to sit down and write.

Mostly, we are building our friendship with writing as we read a lot of great books. I'd love to hear writing experiences others have had!

The Barefoot College

This is a fascinating story of education being done differently for the good of some of India's rural poor. The Barefoot College was founded by Bunker Roy. You can listen to an interview with him here. 

Kids answering their own questions

I have really enjoyed reading, Project-Based Home Schooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners. Lori Pickert succinctly (and with much more experience than me) articulates the views I've been forming over the years. I won't summarise her work, since it is worth looking at her blog and the book itself.

As a result, I have a few new habits I am working on. I have already mentioned that I think it is important for children to learn to ask good questions. The complementary skill is to be able to pursue answers to their questions. I got to practice this with Mr 4 year old the other day.

Mr 4 loves belts. Belts make him happy because they allow him to carry swords and daggers. He recently lost his precious belt. There has been a time of grief. At a visit to the second hand store, he found a new (old) belt. We bought it. Outside the store, he tried it on and realised it was too big. He was a bit emotional. I almost stepped in and suggested we take it to the leather shop to get more holes punched in it. But I had just been reading this,

Remember to let your child's ideas take precedence. Try to maintain a calm, open attitude and allow him to own his own excitement and interest.
Don't take over. Don't flood him with your own ideas; write them in your journal and save them for later. You may not need them, or your child may come to them on his own. Or, your child may have better ideas – ones you never anticipated. He may take his learning in an entirely unexpected direction. Keeping track of your own ideas can help you stay alert to possibilities, but make sure your child is focused on his ideas, not yours. Let him make the discoveries, and let him chart his own course. Project-Based Home Schooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners pp.86-87

So, I shut my mouth and calmly asked for his ideas to solve the problem. There was no real hurry to find a solution. It was a great opportunity where his motivation was high and he could test all sorts of ideas until he found one which worked for him.

At home, Mr 4 raced to the stationery box and pulled out the hole punch. This did not work. Again, he was a bit emotional. As I fed the baby, Mr 4 talked through some other ideas he had to make holes. He tried (carefully?!) stabbing the belt with kitchen scissors. It did not work. He considered finding a needle from his sister's sewing bag, but it could not be found.

At this point, I asked if he could think of anyone else who might have suggestions. No ideas. So, I asked what the belt was made from. As he felt it, he realised it was the same as the stuff we got from the leather shop recently. Then, he put the information together and realised we could ask the people at the leather shop for information and help. But Mr 4 wanted holes in his belt immediately.

Next, I "wondered aloud" about how we get holes in other hard surfaces. He looked around the room and talked about how we make holes in timber. He suggested a "screwdriver". So, without saying what I thought of his suggestion, we decided to look at the tools in the garage.

And there it was. Mr 4 spotted the power drill. We worked out what we would need to put under the belt and took it inside to see if the power drill was our solution. I helped steady the drill while Mr 4 went to work. The drill worked wonderfully and Mr 4 was satisfied being able to lead himself through a complex problem to a solution.

The biggest challenge for me was to stop myself saying, "That won't work because...". The other challenge was saying, "yes" to the messy, unpredictable, meandering process. I'm glad I went with it. It was a buzz for both of us. Small steps to a new habit, I hope.

"Children want to write"

I can't remember hearing about the late Donald Graves before. I found an old book about his Australian tour in 1980. Published in 1981, it's as old as me.

I resisted the urge to dismiss what looks out of date and found wonderful guidance and reassurance. It is helping me to mentor my kids into written communication in a way which doesn't kill their confidence or love for communication. You can read an article by Graves here. I have found the following observation to be true in my older children,

Very young children, ages 5 through 7, have very little difficulty choosing topics, especially if they write every day. As children grow older and experience the early effects of audience, even under favorable learning conditions, they begin to doubt what they know. From that point on, all writers go through a kind of doubting game about the texts they produce. They learn to read better and are more aware of the discrepancy between their texts and their actual intentions. If, however, overly severe, doubting teachers are added to the internal doubts of the child, writing becomes still more difficult. From here.

We often panic about the mechanics of writing (handwriting, punctuation, spelling, grammar) and hurry children through what could be a really rich learning process if we gave them time, space, freedom and encouragement. I will post in the near future about what I am doing to develop writing with my kids.

I was reading an interview with Donald Graves and like his response to this question. It sums up my teaching and learning aspiration; learning alongside my children.

Q: If you had to choose one thing teachers should do when teaching writing, what would it be?

Donald: Write yourself. Invite children to do something you're already doing. If you're not doing it, Hey, the kids say, I can't wait to grow up and not have to write, like you. They know. And for the short term and the long term, you'll be doing yourself a favor by writing. All of us need it as a survival tool in a very complex world. The wonderful thing about writing is that it separates the meaningless and the trivial from what is really important. So we need it for ourselves and then we need to invite children to do what we're doing. You can't ask someone to sing a duet with you until you know the tune yourself.

So, my first step in helping my kids grow into writing is to slow down and write myself.

On my reading list

I have some reading to do. I thought I'd share it in case anyone wanted to join me. 

• A research paper about the academic and social effects of home schooling in Canada and the United States, downloaded from here.

• I linked to Project Based Homeschooling yesterday. I am looking forward to reading the book on Mentoring Self Directed Learners. It's on my Kindle ready to read.

• Reading Literacy, Families and Learning has motivated me to read, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, by Anthony Esolen. It is also on the Kindle.

Now, where are my glasses and where is my cup of tea?

An accidental curriculum

The other day, we wandered through our lovely, old, understated, unpretentious town centre. We stopped to chat with the lady who works at the leather shop. As we left, she kindly sent us away with a free bag of scrap leather. All sorts of hides from all sorts of creatures, in many colours and textures.

Since then, we have been plaiting whips, wearing leather head bands and collaging leather artworks. We now need to go back and ask a few technical questions about tanning and manufacturing.

This accidental experience has added another coat of mental paint to our understanding of things we've been reading lately. It's fun to stumble into learning and experiences we weren't expecting.

Similar, but different, is the "curriculum of curiosity" in this post. I would love for our learning life to be more like this. But my sanity is only welcoming so much curiosity at this stage. And that is fine. It's nice to have a picture of what we'd like to grow toward.