Jul. 30, 2012

Are Others "Safe" to Talk with You?

By Luke
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She's considering homeschooling. She's attended a few convention sessions and has been encouraged. But she's also terrified.

"I didn't realize this was a religious thing," she confides to me. "I..." she hesitates, visibly distraught.

"It's okay," I reassure her. "I can handle it."

She falters again before the story spills out of her like an overturned glass of milk. She comes from a religious cult that tore her family apart. After that, she gave up on religion. She's beginning to consider it again, but is afraid that her curriculum options will be too ... aggressive for her and her son. She's a single mom. She doesn't know what to do.

I feel tears welling up behind my eyes. I want to sit down with her for hours and talk about everything: Religion, Jesus, homeschooling, the Bible, healing, philosophy, relationships. But there isn't time. She's been glancing at her watch, anxious not to miss the next convention speaker. I've got maybe three minutes to tell her everything she needs to know before she's gone.

"Sonlight is a Christian company," I tell her. "We schedule Bible reading and memorization." I point to the Instructor's Guide sample before her. "This could be an excellent way for you and your son to get started with religion again. The Bible's a great place to begin, and you're just reading. Plus, with Sonlight, we want to educate, not indoctrinate. We want you to learn and talk through with your son what you believe and why. We don't want to beat you over the head with what you 'have to believe or else.'"

She nods and cracks a half smile.

I continue. "And the great thing about homeschooling is that we get to learn along with our children. You can do this! We're here to help if you ever have any questions. Homeschooling is such a great option. May you and your son be blessed as you enjoy learning together this year."

Another glance at her watch and she thanks me before walking off.

I take a deep breath.

My heart is still trying to chase her down, to assure her, to share with her the love and grace of Christ, to extend to her the offer of redemption, to encourage her to walk the difficult road of homeschooling ahead of her. Instead, my eyes fill with tears again as a smile plays on my lips. There's something very bittersweet about the privilege of talking to homeschoolers. I pray that my few words were what she needed to hear.

Sonlight: A missions-minded, Christian curriculum that also happens to be, in my biased opinion, the best option for those who don't find themselves inside mainstream Evangelicalism. Why? Because we value being winsome ambassadors for Christ. We strive to educate, not indoctrinate. We seek to see the world through God's eyes: Individuals and communities, dearly loved, in desperate need of grace and good news. And, ironically, I think that sets us up to be the "safest" to talk with. That means we don't isolate ourselves even if that would be "safer" for us. Rather, like Christ, we seek to be friends with sinners and believers alike... even if the religious around us would balk at the idea.

Has Sonlight's emphasis on missions changed your view of the world?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester

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Jul. 26, 2012

A Public School Success Story: The 1,000 Books Project

By Sarita
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I read a stunning article last month. It begins:

"Melinda started 2nd grade with everything against her. She lives in poverty, her mom is not literate in English or Spanish, and she was severely abused at the age of 6. At the beginning of the year, she owned only one book."

How could Melinda's teacher best help her? He chose to focus on one thing he could change in her life. Considered the simple fact that most impoverished children own few (if any) books:

"A 2001 study… found that the ratio of books to children in middle-income neighborhoods is 13 books to one child, while in low-income neighborhoods the ratio is one book to 300 children."

How can kids treasure books when their culture at home doesn't? So Melinda's teacher, Justin Minkel helped change that culture.

He helped each of the 25 children in his class build a modest home library. Each child created a special space at home for books. Then over the course of two years, Minkel gave each of the 25 children in his class 40 books of their own.

The project worked. Melinda, for example, moved from a kindergarten reading level to a fourth-grade reading level … and realized that she could learn. As Minkel reports, "The total cost for each student's home library was less than $50 each year, a small investment to move a struggling reader from frustration to confidence."

I highly recommend you read the entire brief article, The Home Library Effect: Transforming At-Risk Readers.

How to motivate reading
I love Minkel's approach here. I too believe that reading intervention is less about fancy methods and expensive programs than it is simply fostering an intrinsic motivation to read.* In Minkel's words, "To help kids develop a love of reading, put great books in their hands. Then watch in amazement as their worlds change." That's the main "secret" to Sonlight's wildly successful approach to reading!

So let's chalk up another win to home libraries. Whether you live in a remote village overseas, a nice suburban neighborhood with high-ranked schools, a low-income area with poor schools and no books … you're doing your children a great service when you build a treasure of books at home.


Sonlight students Ruth and Rebekah H
of France enjoy their own home library.

As a special challenge today, I'm going to consider how I might help other impoverished children build a small treasure of books to call their own. Does that call grab your heart, too? What ideas, big or small, do you have for what you could do?

Blessings,
Sarita

*Of course, when specific learning challenges such as dyslexia are involved, a certain amount of skilled intervention can be quite helpful.

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Jul. 23, 2012

Stop Provoking Your Children to Anger

By Luke
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I've been thinking about Ephesians 6:4 lately. I poked around for a few commentaries and found this page to have some interesting stuff. It looks like Paul uses the present imperative, so the passage could be rendered "stop provoking your children to anger."

Way back in the day as a surrogate father, I found I focused heavily on the "children obey your parents" verse. But I skipped the one about not exasperating my children.

Now that school is gearing up again, many of my college-aged friends are more acutely experiencing the pain and frustration of this time of transition. So are their parents, it seems. The transition toward independence in college was a rough stretch for me, even with my great parents. And some of my friends are entering this period without the close bond I had as a homeschooled kid. While I do encourage these kids to honor their parents, their parents are absolutely exasperating!

So, question: Do you think it's easier for you not to exasperate your children because you know them so well as a homeschool parent? How do you apply this verse and take it to heart?

Come to think of it, I've been around church long enough to hear a few sermons and lessons about obeying/honoring parents. I haven't heard as many on not provoking children to anger and discouragement. In my observation, it isn't that hard to say or do something that causes your kid to lose heart. I'm not even a parent and I've said things that discouraged kids around me. This, like the verses before it, is probably something I need to meditate on more than I do...

Do you have any insights into the admonition to not exasperate but rather instruct in the Lord?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester

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Jul. 20, 2012

Why You Are an Expert by Kindergarten

By Luke
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Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers makes a strong case for needing 10,000 hours of practice before you become great at anything. That's a lot of time, but not that much. A prominent educator recently shared that it took him about five years to really become a fantastic teacher. My mother-in-law saw the connection first; that's 10,000 hours!

If you ever had a substitute/part time/volunteer teacher, you may relate to the frustration of this fictional kid (thanks, Mrs. C). There's something about experts that make them more effective. Gladwell argues that it's, in large part, the 10,000 hours--or five years of full-time practice--they have under their belt.

Five years?

What struck me is that five years is about when kids enter Kindergarten (some of us start a bit later, other children get going earlier). So that means that right around the time you're becoming an expert in your kid, many families farm them out to another institution where the "real experts" can take over. And there absolutely are some phenomenal teachers out there. But as my little sister recently pointed out: When you choose to keep kids around, they aren't an inconvenience. And though there's always more to learn, you've invested far more than 10,000 hours in your child.

You're an expert.

"But I haven't been teaching for fives years," you may counter.

That's not entirely true. Your children can probably do a great many things you taught them to do: Eat with utensils, tie shoes, walk, talk, enjoy picture books, recognize a few colors (I still have trouble with some of these... chartreuse?), and more. So, sure, you may not have 10,000 hours teaching math yet, but that's coming.

You are an expert. And the more you do this, the better you'll get.

So... get to it! Still considering your homeschooling curriculum options?

Check out Sonlight. <smile>

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester

P.S. Reminder: The Rosetta Stone sale ends tomorrow.

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Jul. 19, 2012

Learning by Copying . . .

By Judy
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I recently read a fascinating article in World Magazine's June 2nd publication (ok, so I'm a little behind on my reading). Titled the same as my blog entry, it talks about how professional artists gain valuable training by minicking the masters at the National Gallery of Art. Called "copyists", these artists regularly visit the gallery to study the great masters, and to learn their style and technique ... through *IMITATION*. One artist is quoted as saying, the key to becoming a great artist is learning great technique. What better way to learn than by imitating those who have mastered the technique.

Just as artists have been learning their craft in this fashion for many, many years ... so do young students learn to write well through the practice of "dictation". Dictation is simply the practice of imitating fine writing by copying passages from award-winning literature.

As simplistic as dictation might seem, it truly does improve a student's writing skills. Dictation also provides opportunity for a student to practice and improve their handwriting skills, as well as practicing proper grammar and good sentence structure. So much packed into the simple task of copywork and/or dictation!

Instead of producing writing "clones", or students who merely mimic the style of other authors, dictation gives students the foundation to launch from in creating their own style.  It makes them so familiar with the fundamental building blocks of writing, that they are then free to focus wherever their creativity takes them.

As quoted in the World article I referenced above, By copying you will eventually acquire a style individual to yourself, and it cannot help being good because your hand and mind, being always accustomed to gather flowers, would ill know how to pick thorns.

Still on the journey . . .
~Judy Wnuk
Sonlight Customer Champion

 

 

 

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Jul. 17, 2012

School Question

By Jonelle
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Natalia went to a backyard Bible club hosted by a family in our church. She wanted to try out a group with older children and I figured, why not? She loves people and easily makes friends. Although she's not quite 4 she speaks very clearly and understands almost everything (often more than I realize!) going on around her.

The group ended up being much older. As I had guessed, Natalia wasn't fazed and she participated well, answered questions, asked questions, raised her hand and commented on the stories. She had a great time. But I didn't. I saw several instances of just mean from the older kids. From laughing at a little boy, to scoffing at Natalia when she would ask her questions. My hackles raised. It brought back my main memory from high school: people being mean when they don't even know you. They have no reason to be mean. They just are.

I went home disturbed. I didn't want Natalia to return. I really want to keep the day when she discovers mean people a long way down the line. I told Dave about it, and the question just popped out, "Why would any Christian parent not homeschool their kids? Why would they expose them to this?"

I'm not trying to sound condescending at all. I just really don't understand.*

A few thoughts to counteract things I've heard in the past:


Natalia in the Sand

I need a break from my kids.
Something I realized while on vacation with Dave's family, having a Gramby, a Pap pap, a Granny, two aunts and an uncle around to hold the girls (at this point the only grandchildren), play with them, feed them, etc. really changed my attitude. For the worse. When I have a lot of time for me, when I'm able to just do my own thing, and then am suddenly called back to motherhood, I feel like I'm being inconvenienced. "Argh, really, you need something? I was just about to..."

Normally, I'm used to having two additional shadows. When we are at home, or with just Dave and I caring for them, it's no inconvenience. They are no inconvenience. It's life. It's what I chose and I love it. I love helping and caring and being needed. It's interesting how a week can change that. I wonder if moms would like their kids more if they were around them more?

I'm afraid my kid won't know how to interact and be socialized.
Natalia loves people. She is obviously an extrovert. But after church and lunch with people on Sunday, maybe the pool or the park on Monday, ballet on Tuesday, Bible study Wednesday, another pool or park day on Thursday, grocery shopping Friday, and then time with dad on Saturday and maybe more errands, she really has had an awful lot of interactions with people throughout the course of the week. Sometimes she just wants to stay home but I want to go to the park or the pool this mamma (and extrovert) guiltily admits. She is learning how to interact with people. She sees a lot of people. She also enjoys downtime.

I'm afraid my kid won't learn well at home.
With this one, I just look at myself and say, I'm of a pretty normal intelligence and I did great. If you look at test scores homeschoolers come out just fine on all counts...so, if we can just get past our insecurities we'll be okay, right?

What are your thoughts? What, for you, is the reason you say, I won't send me kids to school? What would change your mind? What reason might you say, I really think they'd be better elsewhere?

Until next time,
Jonelle

*I get that there are always reasons for people to be outside the sweeping generality I just made. Please know that I recognize that it's a sweeping generality, but that I still am curious to know the answer. I do understand that some people have to work, others might be too ill or their children are, and that it is additional money out of pocket...I still wonder though...

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Jul. 16, 2012

When Not to Socialize Your Kids

By Luke
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She's in college now. An art major with a solidifying style and a keen wit. She's getting better, she tells me, at speaking her mind. In high school, she was a coward who kept her mouth shut to stay in proximity to the popular kids.

For more than twenty minutes, she recounts tales of woe and despicable behavior that played out around her as a teen in school. At the center of this imploding mess was an Alpha girl and a wannabe. Those two, it seems, were the catalyst and trigger for a swath of atrocities. But she was too insecure to do anything. She didn't even dare leave the circle of dysfunction.

"I envy you your homeschooling," she announces. "I wouldn't have thought I was stupid." A moment. Then, "I'm not stupid."

Each time she is reminded of this fact, the opposite message she learned in school fades just a little bit. A self-proclaimed nerd, she finds much comfort in the words of Paul Graham. She's not stupid. The kids were simply mean and the system so inflexible that it couldn't accommodate her strengths and help her overcome her weaknesses.

People critical of homeschooling tend to talk of socialization in the teen years as if it is something homeschoolers lack. The more I talk with kids who survived this period of time, the more I'm prone to think the opposite is true. Skipping this "cruel and stupid world" may actually be a very good thing. This young lady didn't learn how to deal with bullies. She's learned--and is learning--since high school ... not because of it.

So when should you not socialize your kids? When you'd rather lay a foundation and spare them from the nastiness of a society run by insecure children who have little purpose in the world they are forced to inhabit.

What other reasons have you discovered that keep you from "socializing" your kids?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Empty Nester

P.S. The irony, of course, is that those of us who stayed home for some of these years were likely far better socialized for it because we were in a real world with adults.

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